Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 159
“The sense for the realness of God will not be found in insipid concepts; in opinions that are astute, arid, timid; in love that is scant, erratic. Sensitivity to God is given to a broken heart, to a mind that rises above its own wisdom.” (God in Search of Man pg 159)
The word “insipid” comes from the Latin meaning “not savory” and in Late Latin it means “not prudent/not wise”. The English definition means “lacking flavor” and “lacking vigor”. The Hebrew word means “pointless”. The first phrase above can be understood as “the sense for the realness of God will not be found in pointless, unwise abstract ideas. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling out to us to discern the difference between knowing that God is the Infinite One and not making God some abstract idea, that “the realness of God” cannot be approached, comprehended, apprehended in pointless arguments nor in passive agreements. He is also teaching us that by engaging in “insipid concepts”, we are actually denying the realness of God! Rabbi Heschel is, once again, telling us that the fallacious arguments we use to ‘prove’ “the realness of God” or to disprove “the realness of God” are pointless and meaningless, they will always lack vigor and be unwise. Yet, we persist in approaching God with these “insipid concepts.” How sad and how destructive.
Society has, in its folly, continued to ‘make God real’ through vapid arguments, through dogmatic terms and ideas, through a strictness and fundamentalism that God neither asks for nor, as I read the Bible, wants. At the Red Sea every person who crossed had their own experience of God and they said “This is my God and I will exalt God”. Every person at Mount Sinai had their own experience of God giving us the 10 Sayings. The Bible is to be experienced rather than picked apart, it is to be immersed in, rather than studied from a distance. Yet, so many ‘religious people’ continue to use the Bible as a weapon, as a way of controlling ‘the masses’, rather than as the source of wisdom and truth that it is. Because of the ways of these ‘religious people’ the Bible has lost its hold on most of us and “the realness of God” has become an argument lost “in insipid concepts.”
Looking at the mendacity that rules the world, seeing the deceptions that are wrought upon all of us, hiding from the truth and wisdom of the Bible, hiding from “the realness of God” and God’s call to us through self-deception has brought all of us to our knees and we are so blind we cannot even see this truth. When Putin is extolled and celebrated by so-called conservatives, when Ukraine is left to be conquered in order to elect Donald Trump, when Israel is condemned for it’s war in Gaza while Hamas is celebrated for its terrorism and hostage-taking, when authoritarianism is thought to be better than democracy, when freedom for all is replaced by white people’s freedom alone, when we believe that “it won’t happen here”, “I won’t be affected”, “I am protected”, while we have historical proof that all of us are subjected to the whims of the ‘leader’, when religion speaks in “insipid concepts” when “the realness of God” is supplanted by false idols that give the ‘religious people’ and their proxies power, we are in deep trouble, we are lost, we are denying “the realness of God”.
In Jewish history, trying to use “insipid concepts” to ‘prove’ “the realness of God” has always resulted in disaster. This way of being is what brought us the prophets, they were sent by God to, once again, bring the people Israel out of bondage. This bondage was not the bondage of Egypt, it was/is the bondage of self, the bondage of fundamentalism, the bondage of mendacity and self-deception. In world history the same is also true, every great country has suffered defeat and destruction when they gave in to “insipid concepts” rather than experience “the realness of God” and follow the direction and ways of the Bible. Yet, we refuse to learn from history so today, Israel is once again hated, Anti-Semitism is on the rise, democracy is threatened from within and from external forces and people are “fiddling while Rome burns”. We have traded truth for lies, God for idols, wisdom for folly, meaningful ideas and ways of being for “insipid concepts”.
We can, however, turn back to “the realness of God”, we can let go of our pointless paths of deception and mendacity, we can once again “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. We can end our self-deceptions and come back to truth and wisdom, purpose and passion. We have to end our ‘rush to the top’, our ‘winner takes all’, our ‘the one with the most toys wins’, our erroneous belief that ‘enough money, the right connections, etc will save me’ ways of being. We have to learn from history and end our “it won’t happen here” arrogant beliefs. We have to, once again, “sense the realness of God” in ways that have weight and depth, meaning and purpose, joy and sadness, faithfulness and truth, kindness and compassion. We have to live into the prayers we say-prayers that won’t save us, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, prayers that will make us worthy of being saved because they will open our souls, silence our minds enough to hear the calls of our souls. We have to begin again to connect with one another, with “the realness of God” instead of connecting to the masks most of us wear, the false images of God we have created. We need to, like Abraham in the midrash, smash the idols we have created! We have the strength within us, we have the spiritual pathways to do this, we can surrender to the truth of “the realness of God” and be stronger, happier, more able to deal with “life on life’s terms” when we let go of our “insipid concepts” and engage with "the realness of God”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark