Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 302
“The mind is in search of rational coherence, the soul in quest for celebration. Knowledge is celebration. Truth is more than equation of thing and thought. Truth is transcendence, its comprehension is loyalty.” (Who is Man pg 117)
Combining the first two sentences above gives us an insight to Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance and his deep concern for all of humanity. He is addressing all of us, the over-thinkers, the under-thinkers, the feelers/intuitive, the non-feelers/non-intuitive parts that we all have. As we are in the beginning of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah and we are being called to do our own inventories, these words of Rabbi Heschel ring loudly in my soul and in my mind.
How are we putting together irrational thoughts, lies, false pride and ego, feelings of not belonging and making them ‘rationally coherent’ in our minds and then taking this false coherence and acting out towards our self, another(s) self, and God? All of our societal ills, I believe, can be traced to the irrational coherence humans have made the foundation of their quest for power. One reason is that celebrity, fame, wealth, comes with this power and, falsely, humans keep believing that rule and dominion, from the first chapter of the Bible, includes other humans and even God! While it is easy to point to the demagogues and authoritarians as evil, we have to remember that pointing a finger at one person results in three fingers being pointed towards our selves. What irrational ideas, alternative facts, feelings of hurt, anger, fear are we making into a seemingly rational and coherent belief and then acting on it.
One example may be the belief that if you are not LIKE ME, you are an enemy, a threat, and I have to overpower you, enslave you, despise you, kill you, etc. We see this in business all the time, how we are always trying to ‘kill’ off the competition, we will go to any lengths to ‘win’, we want the most likes on social media, we want to be the next BIG THING and we are willing to trample the rights, the reputation, the needs of anyone and everyone to win, to be the all-powerful, to be Pharaoh. While one may think that they are not doing this, we have to realize, in this month of Elul, of inventory, how we are the followers, how our irrational incoherence has fooled us, made us a pawn and tool of our desires, of the deceptions of another, of our neediness, of our fears, hurts and angers. The Pharaoh’s can’t win, they can’t survive without our buy-in and we buy into an irrational thought pattern, a mendacious belief system that we/another make into a seemingly rational coherence. This is the great challenge of our time, of all times. It began with Adam and Eve and has continued ever since.
Knowledge, as I understand Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom today, is an inner quality, it is the combination of wisdom(facts/truths) and the understanding of this wisdom-understanding the many facets of it and understanding how to use it-which come together in our souls, in our kishka’s/guts. This is my understanding of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above “knowledge is celebration”. We are able to put truth and understanding together only in our souls which leads us to action, service, kindness, compassion, justice, authenticity, transparency, and real “rational coherence”. Our souls are the bridge and the core of our knowledge, our souls are the entity which puts mind and spirit together, our souls are where God speaks to us, lives in us, and strengthens us. We are constantly running from our spiritual nature, from our souls knowing because we are afraid, because we can’t ‘prove’ the truth, etc and, ergo, we have lost the art, the joy and the engagement in true celebration and substituted celebrity instead.
In recovery, we speak about ODAAT, one day at a time living. We are constantly reviewing our days, weeks, months, years to mine them for the wisdom we are in need of, to grow from rather than defend, to have our eyes opened a little more each day to authentic celebration, to actual “rational coherence” rather than the ‘rational coherence’ we engaged in by twisting our lies and deceptions into something that made sense because our adeptness at mendacity and deception. In recovery, we are celebrating our similarities and our differences, our camaraderie and joining together to overcome the lies, deceptions, mendacities that took us away from spirit, from higher consciousness, from God.
I have wrestled with “rational coherence” forever. My mind always wants to make sense of things, my soul always wants to celebrate whatever is happening and for a long period of time this was the war I waged in my inner life. I surrendered my need to wage this war when I first read the Torah and Rabbi Heschel simultaneously in prison in 1987. Since then, I have wrestled to hear truth, to hear the knowledge that my soul speaks to me and to act on it, I have lessened my irrational thinking and my need to make it into a “rational coherence”, I do not celebrate the misfortune of another, I am at the ready to be of service, I am engaging in a constant inventory and repair/repentance as well as seeing what I do well and enhancing it. I am no longer driven by my false ego and by the deception of another(s). I realize my power, I realize my enemies, I realize my friends and allies, I embrace the truths shown to me by another(s) and by God. I celebrate each day for what it is, not what I want it to be. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark