Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 307
“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 117-18)
The greatest difficulty of humans is to “climb across” the abyss from mendacity to truth, this is from the days of Adam and Eve and ever since. Whichever creation story one adheres to, the pull towards mendacity and deception is always present in these stories. It seems as if Rabbi Heschel’s words another of God’s call to us to wake up, to do the hard work of this climb, to not fall into the abyss of mendacity, deception, self-deception. As we prepare for our Mid-Term elections, we are facing this abyss again, we are witnessing many people who have chosen to “climb across” the truth staring them in the face to jump into the abyss of mendacity and deception. This is scary, it is historical and we can break this cyclical way of living.
Thomas Cahill, in his book, The Gifts of the Jews, explains how the Jews gave us a way out of the cyclical nature of life that the world had accepted, adapted to. Judaism taught that life is on a continuum and we have choices, no matter what our situations are. The “negro spirituals” are an example of a people enslaved who chose to keep their spirits and hopes alive through song and prayer. What is happening in the world today is frightening because it is indicative and caused by the inner choice of individuals to follow grifters, liars, deceivers into the abyss of mendacity with a ferocity that is overwhelming their souls and their minds! Republicans are now claiming that they are for women’s rights, not mentioning their decades long attack on Abortion rights, the white supremacists of the far right now claiming to love people of color, Marco Rubio is spreading more and more lies of his love for all people while his words prove otherwise. In our political world, mendacity is the norm and it is causing the downfall of democracy, the downfall of the rule of law and the downfall of the freedoms so many brave young men have died for since 1776! Just as in the Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, the USSR, mendacity and deception work for a while and then it turns on itself and everything falls apart.
We can, however, change the course of our future by rejecting these deceivers, rejecting the judges that are more concerned with Donald Trump’s reputation than the crimes he has committed, more concerned with controlling everyone and putting our democracy under “Christian Law” like Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. We can reject the Marjorie Taylor Greenes who want to believe in the fascist way of being, who want to embrace the White Supremacists. We can reject Kevin McCarthy’s way of rejecting Liz Cheney who, even though I disagree with her politics strongly, wants to preserve democracy and calls out the mendacity of Trump and his cronies while embracing Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, et al. We can reject the lockstep way of the Republican Senators who have decided that Mitch McConnell is all-powerful and all-knowing and must be obeyed. Where is Daniel Webster when we need him?
Daniel Webster, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and so many other great revolutionary spirits like the Prophets, the Berrigan Brothers, Reinhold Niebuhr, Abraham Joshua Heschel, et al all live inside of us, their spirits are co-mingled with ours. Just as they rejected the ‘status quo’, the “conventional notions and mental cliches” of the ruling class and the people they were able to deceive, so can we. We do not have to keep climbing across truth to embrace lies, we do not have to climb across truth for optics, we do not have to climb across truth for political correctness, we do not have to climb across truth for power, we do not have to climb across truth for exclusion, for prejudice, for fear and for hatred. We can and must reject these lies that have seized our consciousness, these deceptions that we have grasped together in order to be accepted, in order to live our baser, most animal-like desires. We do this by engaging in daily prayer, writing, inventory, learning, growing and maturing our spirits and souls, being able to see where we miss the mark and where we hit the mark, make amends for our errors/mistakes and stop believing that truth and kindness are weakness.
In my recovery, I have had many “dark nights of the soul” which is attributed to St. John of the Cross and is described in the story of Jacob in the Bible. I was a deceiver and a follower of deceivers. I went against everything my faith, my father, my grandfather stood for and I regret this. I regret it because I love all three so much and I treated their principles with such disdain for a long time. My recovery, like the recovery of so many people, began when I had to face myself, when I had to wrestle with my inner self, my inner voices and I was blessed to hear the call and voice of my higher self, my divine image. I continue to wrestle, I continue to fight the mendacity and self-deception that is constantly calling to me, I continue to win the war while losing some of its’ battles. I find that I can lose a battle with mendacity today, I can fall into the abyss of deception today and pull myself, with the help of God and many people around me, out of this abyss today and/or tomorrow and/or eventually. I never stop my engagement with truth, I am married to my search for it and to people who also are engaged to truth. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark