Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 308
“To the sense of indebtedness, the meaning of existence lies in reciprocity. In receiving a pleasure, we must return a prayer; in attaining a success, we radiate compassion.” (Who is Man pg. 118)
I am experiencing the first phrase of the first sentence in a very different way today. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to first recognize we have spiritual senses and inner senses just like our 5 physical senses. We have within us a state of being/quality of being indebted, of owing. This is not a feeling, as I am reading Rabbi Heschel this morning, this is a state of being, this is a way of relating to the world and to our self. This is radical and important because most of us put these spiritual and inner life senses off, we ignore them as feelings that have to be medicated, go into therapy for, etc. We believe these spiritual and inner life senses as less important and, at times, meaningless in our daily lives than our 5 senses. Rabbi Heschel comes knocking on our doors, on our hearts, on our minds and our souls today and every day to remind us of the importance of our inner life senses, the necessity of our spiritual senses and the urgency to merge them with our 5 senses so we can live full and whole lives.
We humans are a very interesting lot, we have no problem being the holder of a lien, the person who wants another(s) feeling indebted to him, even being the person who borrows knowing she/he is not going to pay it back(think Donald Trump); yet we are very squeamish when we hear the call of our inner life saying that it is time to pay back the loan of oxygen in the world that allows us to breath with kindness and goodness, with truth and love, with compassion and service. We run from this calling of the debt, from this demand for payment because we don’t want to look at ourselves, we don’t want to live from our spiritual and inner life senses. Living from these senses along with our 5 physical senses means we cannot do the things we are used to; ‘killing the competition’, stepping on anyone so we can climb to the top of the ladder, being a taker and not a giver, using our intuitive mind to enslave another(s), to ‘beat’ another, to amass so much wealth we will never be able to spend it in 5 lifetimes, using our senses to ‘smell a rat’ rather than smell a partner, etc.
We also are a very interesting lot because we do know how to love and to appreciate, to embrace and give back, to welcome and be grateful. Watch most people around their newborns, parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, and one will see the gratitude and welcoming that comes from these spiritual and inner life senses. The miracle of life is so overwhelming at birth that we only know how to love and appreciate the forces in the Universe that make this happen, the strength and courage of a mother to give birth, the helplessness and support a spouse gives the mother during the birthing process and pregnancy, the first embrace of the baby by both parents and by the community. And, we begin a process of trying to kill the baby’s inner sense of indebtedness, the baby’s state of being so worthy that the Universe/Higher Power/God calls to them for help, assistance, and to repay their particular debt. Not entirely, not all at once, and to make payments in whatever form and amount each of us are able; rather than ignoring the debt as so many of us do.
We all suffer from ignoring our spiritual and inner senses at times. We are bombarded with all sorts of mindfulness practices and new age traditions which are fantastic. In reading Rabbi Heschel, this morning, I believe we are missing a tried and true method of mindfulness, our indebtedness, our spiritual senses, our inner life senses that remind us we owe. We are not alive just for our self, we are not here just for the pleasure of another, we are not living to be a slave to our frontal cortex nor to our immature emotions. We are alive because we owe, we are alive because we are indebted and we know it, we are alive because we realize we have the capacity and desire to repay our debt to the extent we are able and we are alive to celebrate our existence through acknowledging and embracing our indebtedness.
In recovery, everyday we seek to connect with our inner life senses, with our spiritual senses and, combined with our physical senses, respond to the call of the day, the call of another human being, respond appropriately to the calls of our being, wrestle with the false pride and selfish ego we have allowed to flourish and grow. We know we owe and we are grateful for each and every opportunity to repay our debt to our self, to our families, to our friends, community, world and Higher Power.
Being indebted has driven me most of my life. For a period of 20 years from 15-35, the knowledge of being indebted drove me to steal, lie, cheat and drink. I robbed myself of my spiritual and inner-life senses-only wanting to satisfy my urges, not my debt. In fact, I believed everyone owed me because I grew up without a father during my teen years. Since 35 and before 15, I knew that my spiritual senses, my inner-life senses were showing me a world and a path that was uniquely mine. I have lived this path in these past 36 years, I repay my debt by helping another in my own unique way, I stay loyal to truth, I stay loyal to people who have helped me and I have helped by staying loyal to principles we share. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark