Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 114
“The grandeur and mystery of the world that surrounds us is not something which is perceptible only to the elect. All men are endowed with a sense of wonder, with a sense of mystery. But our system of education fails to develop it and the anti-intellectual climate of our civilization does much to suppress it. Mankind will not perish for lack of information; it may collapse for want of appreciation.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 21)
Each morning, I pick up this book and read these excerpts I am moved beyond description by all and I choose the ones that speak to me about myself, humanity and our current situation. Hence, at a time when the “elect” have taken over our way of life, when the “elect” have decided to bring down our democratic norms, when the “elite” have sold enough people the bullshit that they care in order to get elected, we find ourselves walking around in a daze, in anger, and, to our benefit and credit, in protest. Our current experience is the proof-text of the first sentence above. While the current “elect” still believe they can con and hoodwink the populace, while they are still certain that they can continue to sell the lie that only they know what ‘Christ’, ‘Moses’ were saying while bastardizing almost all their principles, while these “elect” believe they can pull off the scam of scams by making Trump ‘the anointed one’, we are witnessing more and more people raise up their perception, open their ‘eyes’ and use their intuitive mind to see what is real and what is their mendacity. In the program of Alcoholics Anonymous we speak of a “spiritual awakening” which is our waking up to “the grandeur and mystery of the world” that we did not perceive, that wasn’t perceptible to us because we shut our eyes, our souls, our minds to it. This is what must have happened in America and in Israel in order for Bibi and Trump to gain such power.
What We the People have to continue to develop and spread the word about is that “all men are endowed with a sense of wonder” and because we are endowed with it, it is incumbent upon us to use it, to live into it and to not let the “elect” tell us our “sense of mystery” is ‘wrong’. From our “sense of wonder, sense of mystery” comes our ability to see what could be, as Bobby Kennedy did and wanted to make happen before he was assassinated by people who were afraid of him. We the People are being called to speak the validity of each person’s “sense of wonder” and how to use it to benefit everyone around them as well as themselves, how to live into it so they can be free and joyous even when feeling constrained and unhappy. Freedom comes from our willingness to use our “sense of wonder, sense of mystery” for the benefit of humanity, not for selfish gains as the “elect” are doing today. What Lutnick, a Jew, gets from the tariffs that are crippling the small businessperson, going to cause much pain to we the consumers, is a mystery to me. That he enjoys his power, his anti-Jewish, anti-religious, behaviors and believes that he and his other “elect” are able to manipulate the “grandeur and mystery of the world” to their liking, to their benefit and screw everyone else is the greatest Anti-Semitic, Anti-Christian way of being that one can imagine! Yet, Lutnick, that great funder of ‘Jewish’ causes refuses to live as a Jew!
The department of Education has failed us in many ways, most of all in the area of developing our “sense of grandeur and mystery”, in shutting down our “sense of wonder” by making students learn the formulas, learn the facts and learn the rules and then stop. Of course we need to know REAL, TRUE facts (not the alternative ones of Lutnick, Trump, Rubio, Bondi, Hegseth, et al), of course we need to learn the formulas and the rules, the issue is we are committing a spiritual and intellectual Felony by not using them then to spark new ideas, to engage in difficult discussions about moral and immoral actions, to learn how to trust our “sense of wonder, sense of mystery” to be in awe and reverence at the simple day to day happenings of the natural world, to know that something other than us causes the world to keep going. The department of Education has stopped the free-flow of ideas and cut out so many creative parts of education that we are raising idiots, automatons, kids are going to college to get jobs, not life skills, to increase their money-making opportunities, not to learn how to discover the joys of life, how to navigate through the negativity and keep one’s perspective and grow ones intuitive mind. Because of this, less people go into public service, less people are going into the Clergy, less people are going into social work, humanities all because our education system belittles these important careers, pushes our best and brightest to Wall Street, to Meta, etc. Hence the people in our Clergy are, many times, the most mediocre, the ones who couldn’t make it anywhere else and took the path of clergy as a job not as a calling. Some, like Joel Osteen, Paula Cain-White and their “elect” have taken the job to a whole new level of Mendacity by enriching themselves while bastardizing Christ and forgetting totally about God. Yes, the system of education has failed us both in the secular realm and the religious realm.
I am a survivor of these truths, when I was curious and wanted to engage in my “sense of wonder” about the things I was learning in elementary school and beyond, I was shut down by well-meaning teachers who had a lesson plan to follow. This is where my father, z”l, took up the mantle as my teacher. Upon his death, there was no one to talk to and my “sense of wonder” was actually ridiculed, I was told my intuitive mind was constantly wrong and I had no one to hear me. I am realizing this truth from this writing. This was true in religious school as well as in secular school. It was so true that while reading Death of a Salesman in High School the teacher kept putting down the life of a salesman, the dreams and hopes of a salesman, the sense of wonder and joy of a salesman-to me putting down everything my father was and stood for. I got thrown out of her class, needless to say. I am embarrassed by my lack of stubbornness to stay the course of “wonder”, by my willingness to give up my sense of “grandeur and mystery” because they were not validated by the “elect” of the moment. Had I read Rabbi Heschel then, my choices might have been different. I continue to encourage the people in my orbit to grow their “sense of mystery, sense of wonder” so they can embrace the “grandeur” of their surroundings and the “grandeur” of their intuitive minds. I am no longer waiting for anyone’s validation, I make mistakes, I am still loud and abrasive, and I don’t need someone’s permission to see the world through my own eyes, I certainly don’t and won’t go along with the “elect” lock, stock and barrel because then I give up my self, my soul, my life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.