Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 - Day 9
“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).
On this first day of 5783 do we ache? Do we see the myriad of ways we have abandoned and betrayed God? Do we see the paths we have taken that betray our soul’s calling? Do we ache for these choices? Do we take the time to pay attention to the harm we bring to our self, to another(s) self, to God from our inability to ache, our inability to take personal inventory? Do we bother to ask ourselves these questions during the year, at this time of year? These are the questions haunting most of us, now and always, whether we are consciously aware of them nagging at our inner life, bothering our conscience, niggling at our souls or not. This theme of aching, this wisdom as to our dullness and obstinacy, the truth of our standing in opposition to God always are in our minds, hearts, souls and our failure to recognize them is the root of our problems personally, communally, globally.
These next 10 days are for us to seek out and search out our betrayals of God, our betrayals of our authentic self, and our betrayals of all human beings around us. As one of the Confessionals teach us: I am guilty, I have betrayed, I have misappropriated, I have engaged in negative speech; and our work today, for the next 10 days and for every day after is to seek out the subtle and not-so-subtle ways we continue to betray. An example of being in opposition to God is ignoring the poor and the needy in our midst-the homeless/unhoused people around us whom we have helped to be in this situation through exorbitant rents/housing prices, through no safety network, ridiculous health care costs and so many other morally correct fixes. Yet, many of the ‘supposedly people of faith’ don’t care for them because they either don’t vote, don’t vote their way, and/or see them as unimportant; while espousing how much god rules their living. This god of theirs is an idol they have carved out of stone because their god doesn’t care for the poor, the needy, the stranger, the powerless, etc while God in the Bible, while Jesus in the Christian Bible care for these entities deeply and profoundly. Maybe these ‘people of no-real-faith’ can serve the rest of us as examples of betraying God and trying to stay oblivious to this truth, as an example of the subtle ways we have “fallen away from God”. How can they not ache, one would wonder!
While it is easy to point the finger outwards, we have to look inwards and see how our actions are as idolatrous as those above. What are the ways we have fallen away from God and stayed in denial of this truth? How have we rationalized our dullness and obstinacy? How have we ignored the nagging, the niggling, the bothering that is constantly happening in our subconscious, unconscious, conscience, soul? How do we ignore the person on the street walking past us? Do we say hello to everyone we encounter so we let them know they matter, they are seen? In these 10 days we acknowledge being seen by God, by self (hopefully), and we continue to ignore people we encounter every day. Taking a lesson from our father, my late brother Stuart who was in the old home because of his MS, would sit outside in his motorized wheel chair, smoke his cigarettes and say hello to everyone. Most people completely ignored him, and of the rest who at least looked up, less than 50% would respond. While he would never admit it, I saw the hurt in his soul that people could not acknowledge his presence, his kindness, his attempt to connect. I saw the ache in his soul and I knew the ache of God at that moment. Even with 2 brothers as Rabbis, Stuart wasn’t so religious and he was deeply connected to people and longed for connection like we long for air to breathe. Do you experience the ache inside of you when you ignore people? Do you experience the ache inside of you because of being dull and obstinate?
Most of us begin our recovery because we finally experience an ache and an insight as to how we have betrayed and abandoned God, higher self, our covenant with another(s), etc. We run out of rationalizations, we run into a wall of mirrors that cause us to face our self, our demons within and our heroes within. We engage in a searching and fearless moral inventory and find our moral compass again, restore our connection to our soul, to our inner life, to our Higher Consciousness, our subconsciousness, to our personal relationship with a power greater than ourselves.
I have ached each day of my life and prior to studying with Rabbi Heschel through his writings, I ached for what I did not have, for what I wanted, for my self-centered needs and my unnecessary suffering over what I believed were the injuries people inflicted on me. While I still experience injuries, I no longer ache over them, I don’t long for my self-centered needs and I want what I have rather than having what I want. I ache today for my betrayal of God, my abandonment of Godliness in all my affairs, my dullness and obstinacy to accept what is and to see the handwriting on the wall. I ache today for the ways I have not been an advocate for my soul, for the souls of another(s), not been an advocate of and for Godliness. I ache when I hear mendacity and deceptions, I ache when I realize my own and anothers’ self-deceptions. I pray our aches turn us into spiritual warriors a little more in 5783! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark