Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 288
“The divine commandments are not mere recommendations for man, but express divine concern, which, realized or repudiated, is of personal importance to Him. The reaction of the divine self, (Amos 6:8; Jer. 5:9; 51:14), its manifestations in the form of love, mercy, disappointment, or anger convey the profound intensity of the divine inwardness.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 36)
Continuing on the theme of GOD CARES, the words above are giving us another(s) example of “divine concern”. What I am hearing, however, is much more personal, much more inner driven. “The divine commandments” reminds us that the ways of treating the stranger, the ways of dealing with one another in truth and full transparency, the call to live authentically, the demand to “be holy”, and so many more of the ways to build free societies, to live into a democratic way of being, to have a separation of church and state because when there isn’t both become corrupted, all are not man-made! They are, instead, decreed from God, from higher consciousness, whatever word one uses to denote something greater than themselves. Living into this “divine concern” is an inside job and We the People are being called to account, called to engage in this word, not by God, not by an idol, rather we are being called to respond to them by our own inner voice, our own inner soul, our own inner desire to liberate our beingness from the petty and inane, from the blame and shame, from the either/or, from society’s bullshit and ‘rules’. This inner response is the proof-text for me that “the divine commandments are not mere recommendations for man”, they express not only God’s concern, they express our inner concerns, our inner need to connect and live in community, to see the worth and dignity of another in order to show the world our own dignity and worth.
We the People have allowed the P.T. Barnum’s of our time to tell us our inner voices are not good, they are just confused because Trump, Kushner, Wytkoff, dealing with the Russians, fucking over Ukraine, making a sham of NATO and screwing over our allies in Europe, is actually a good thing- they will make billions and, after all, when der fuhrer is happy, everyone should be happy. FUCK THIS SHIT!! Once again, the need for spiritual growth, the urgency for Spiritual Emergency Services is being shown to We the People and, it seems, we keep ignoring it. This is not a ‘socio-political’ issue, this is an issue of the soul, it is an issue of whether we are going to realize or repudiate “the divine commandments”, whether we are going to give air to our inner life and a megaphone to our inner dialogue. The great challenge as presented throughout the Bible is to listen to the voice that spoke after crossing the Red Sea-“this is my God” with everyone having a different and authentic experience of God; to listen to the voice that spoke after receiving the first “10 Sayings”, “Na’Aseh V’Nishmah” “We will DO and then Understand”.
Yet, We the People seem too afraid of being judged, being left out, being ‘out of the car’ to STAND UP and do the next right thing. We the People allow social media, our financial goals, etc to silence our inner voice, to block out the experiences of divine love, divine mercy because we are blocking out, walling off, trying to kill the divine voice, the divine call, the divine soul within us. We the People cannot live the life of a grifter, live the life of a hanger-on, live the life of a slave and hear the divine voice inside of us-we have to try and kill it in order to continue a life of crime-emotional, physical, spiritual-, to continue to do the next wrong things, to refuse to do TShuvah, to deny what is staring back at us in the mirror. We the People continue to invoke disappointment and anger within us because we refuse to hear our inner voice to do good, listen to the call of our souls to care for one another, understand the gift of living is to be able to serve, to help, to connect.
We the People have and know the solution-grow our inner lives, mature our souls, end our disdain and denial of what truly is, what is truly important, what is truly our proper place. When We the People live into the solution, then Putin is put in his place, Trump is put in jail for his grift along with his groupies like Kushner, decency, order, kindness, truth, love, compassion, become important again. Living into the solution gives every person “their fig leaf”, each person their “proper place”. Living into the solution is the path to leaving “the harsh labor of Egypt (the narrow places we have been living in), we are relieved of the heavy burdens of our inner slavery, we come to once again ‘know’ Godliness, and we no longer need to compare and compete because, as Ben Zoma says: we are rich because we rejoice in what we have instead of complaining about ‘those people’ or ‘what I want’.
This is very personal to me. I have been working to mature and grow my soul for the past 38+ years and I keep getting better-not perfect, not a linear progression- and I am closer to the goal this year than last. I know the anger and disappointment of my inner life, my soul when I fail, when I see someone else acting differently than we had agreed upon, when I see the mistreatment of the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan. This still makes me CRAZY and my reactions are still not appropriate in force. I am too afraid of breaking a deal because I can’t engage in the next wrong thing without dire consequences to my soul-and my overreaction also have dire consequences to my soul. It is a conundrum that I have yet to solve:)! I know that We have the awesome opportunity of beginning anew today and I am going to use today to live better, to live into the “divine commandments” a little more and better. I pray you will also so we can defeat the enslavers, the grifters. God Bless and stay safe Rabbi Mark