Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2- Day 6
“The world has fallen away from God. The decision of each individual person and of the many stands in opposition to God. Through our dullness and obstinacy we, too, are antagonists. But still, sometimes we ache when we see God betrayed and abandoned.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity).
The word dull comes from the German meaning “crazy” and the word obstinate comes from the Latin meaning “persist”and antagonist comes from the Greek meaning “struggle against”. The third sentence above could be read as “through our insanity/craziness and our persistence (of this crazy/insane way of being) we, too are struggling against (God). Understanding Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom using the roots of the words gives us different ways to immerse ourselves in his teachings and immerse ourselves in being human a little more each day. I know I am more human from his words and brilliance and I pray that everyone would immerse themselves in his brilliance so we all can be human a little more each day.
What makes us continue to persist in our crazy thinking and acting in opposition to God? I have thought and pondered this question in many forms for a very long time and I realize one response is that we mistakenly think we are God! We continue to see ourselves as the supreme being of and in this world. We believe Napoleon Hill who said: “what the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” While many great things have been created by humans, it is not the mind that conceives the need for such things, it is the spirit, I believe. It is not the mind that came up with the need for penicillin, it was the deep pain and need that Alexander Fleming’s soul experienced that led to his mind understanding and discovering penicillin, I believe. Most scientists are driven by deep spiritual needs to find cures such as antiseptics, sterile conditions in surgery, etc. Yet, when we follow the words of Napoleon Hill too literally, we begin to believe the lies we tell ourselves, we begin to solidify the mendacious thought that there is nothing greater in the Universe than humankind, we begin to believe we are greater than God, greater than the creative force of the Universe!
We see this craziness and persistence in the words of politicians, rulers, despots, authoritarians, and our selves if we are willing to engage in the work of T’Shuvah, the work of personal inventory, the work of seeing the whole picture of our life and what is going on in our world. We are part of the persistent craziness that has haunted our world since forever! We buy into the Greek and Roman belief that we can be perfect or at least should be, we buy into the American belief of greatness and superiority, we buy into the America First idea of Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, Lindberg who were deeply anti-semitic and supported Hitler only today it is Putin, Orban, MBS who are being courted and loved for their ‘defense of white people’ and their stranglehold on the people they are supposed to be caring for. We see the persistent craziness of our personal lives in continuing to believe we should be “HAPPY” all the time, that we are only as happy as our unhappiest child, we compare and compete with ghosts of the past, people in the present and vie for some prize in the future. We continue to point fingers at another(s) and blame everyone for our ills rather than search out our inner persistent crazy beliefs and ideas.
Judaism in particular and religion in general call for us to do this inner inventory daily. We are called to account for our self once a year in a grand way, Yom Kippur, and are given the instruction to prepare for this day by engaging in a Soul Accounting for the 40 days prior, to see where we have done well/better than the year before and where we have missed the mark/made some of the same errors as the year before along with new ones. We are forced to see the ways our persistent craziness has harmed human beings around us and far away from us, harmed nature, harmed God and harmed our self. It is the time to continue/begin this work as Yom Kippur is 12 days from beginning. It is not just the awareness of our persistent craziness that matters, it is how we change our ‘stinking thinking’, how we make a plan to hear the call of our soul, how our spiritual growth becomes more important than our financial growth, our mind’s growth because our spiritual growth will lead all areas of our living to a new and mind-blowing growth.
Rabbi Heschel’s words have a profound impact on me each day, week, month, and year. This writing from 1936 is bone-chilling to me because I see the demagogues spouting their lies, I see the persistent craziness of their ‘followers’ and I experience an inner persistent craziness to what they are saying and doing. As a Jew, as a human being, I have to speak out, I have to do something, so I vote, I write, I say hello to everyone I meet, I continue to uncover and discover more hiding places and I am dedicated to let the persistent craziness of my negative thoughts, my less than/more than thinking, my need to prove my truth, my desire to ‘win’ leave me quickly when it comes up so I can stand with God, so I can surrender to God, so I can nullify my will before God’s will in order for God’s Will to become mine as Pirke Avot teaches. My dedication is paying dividends, I no longer resent the people who are unkind, who lie, who engage in their persistent craziness and I stand with God in opposition to them! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.