Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 295
“To celebrate is too share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)
Humanity has always mistaken consumption for celebration, I believe, because of our inability to get past our selves! We are so self-centered and self-seeking we confuse consumption with celebration. We seem to be hard-wired to consume everything we see and have the desire to conquer, rule and control everything around us. Doing this causes us to engage in the consumption Rabbi Heschel is speaking of above.
I believe the root cause of this out-sized need to consume everything, to have the biggest and the best, etc is fear. Many of us live with fears that we are not even aware of, fears that we can’t name consciously, fears of not enough, fears of being left out, fears of what happens when we die, fears of powerlessness and many more. Some people turn to religion to deal with their fears, some people turn to spirituality to deal with their fears, most people turn to power, control and mendacity/deception to deal with their fears, hence Rabbi Heschel’s observation above.
Fear and faith co-exist! The word for awe in Hebrew is the same word for fear because both awe and fear provoke reverence in us, when we engage the experience we are having, rather than trying to control it. I have heard many people ask “where is your faith” and I respond, “I have absolute faith in God, it is you and me that I have fears about”. Because of the need for certainty and our dependence on ‘knowing all’ we have forgotten that at Mount Sinai, at the Red Sea, at the Last Supper, at Mason Temple on April 3, 1968, Rev. King delivered his “Mountain Top” speech, and so many other events in the history of humankind that are moments of great trembling, great fear, great awe and absolute displays of the certainty of God, the certainty of prophecy and the uncertainty of life!
Turning to faith is not the same as the so-called ‘religious leadership’ of the National Prayer Breakfasts want us to believe. Turning to faith is not what the deceptive proponents of the ‘prosperity gospels’ would have us believe. Turning to faith is not what the White Christian Nationalists would have us believe either. Turning to faith is to turn inward and outward, to realize the similarities every human being share and the call/demand of God to care for our self, care for the all selves, care for all of God’s creations. Turning to faith is to be afraid to “see God face to face” because the radiance is too great for humans to handle. Turning to faith is adopting an attitude of gratitude for being alive. Turning to faith is to never take anything for granted, not even our breathing. Turning to faith is to mature and grow our inner life, to connect our souls and our minds, to ensure that we immerse ourselves in God’s words and seek to understand their meaning for us, seek to do God’s Will: “Love your Neighbor as You Love your Self” and “Love God with all your heart, soul, your everything”, “love mercy, do justly and walk in God’s ways”! These are not impossible tasks, these are all doable for each and every one of us once we surrender our need to control, our need to lie to another(s) and to our selves, once we allow ourselves to dream the dream of Godliness and holiness that are embedded in our natures.
We are in the midst of a crisis of faith, because we are being bombarded with bastardizations of what faith truly is. Any faith that is not inclusive, any faith that is discriminatory, any faith that is ‘holier than thou’, is not a true faith in God. Any faith that seeks to shut people out forever for their errors is not a true faith in God. Any faith that seeks to control everyone and make everyone bow down to it, is not a true faith in God. Faith in God, living a spiritual, principled life is never certain, we are told there are 70 ways to understand each verse in the Bible, the New Testament was written in Aramaic and translated into different languages and we all know how much is lost in translation. We are hearing the word of God through the voices, bias’, lies, and need to control of humans, so we must, in order to have a faith that guides us and helps us move through our fears, engage personally in the principles and teachings of our faiths and not let someone else’s opinions rule us.
In recovery, we find solutions to our various crises’ of faith, our various fears and uncertainties. This solution is to seek and relate to “God, as we understand God”. Not as idolatry or control, rather to engage in a relationship with God, to struggle and wrestle with God and our fears and uncertainties, to immerse ourselves in principles rather than in consumption and lies. It is a work in progress and this road is much better than the one we used to be on.
Awe and fear have always co-existed inside of me and for over 20 years, I thought that was a bad thing, a defect of character inside of me. I know now, that the path to a mature relationship with God has to have this both/and. I continue to cultivate the relationship and learn how to live with this both/and each and every day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark