Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 116
“Education for reverence, the development of a sense of awe and mystery, is a prerequisite for the preservation of freedom. We must learn how to bridle the outrageous presumption of modern man, to cultivate a sense of wonder and reverence, to develop an awareness that something is asked of man.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg21)
The first sentence above is a radical statement that would not come to most people’s consciousness without Rabbi Heschel’s teaching, I believe. “Education for reverence” is a phrase not heard too often and, because we are lacking in this education, our freedom is being threatened, abused, and, possibly destroyed. One of the definitions of “education” is: “an enlightening experience” and “reverence” comes from the Latin meaning: “to stand in awe of” and “awe” is defined as “standing in wonder”. So the first phrase above is calling all of us to have, to learn to see and acknowledge the “enlightening experience” of “standing in wonder” in our daily living rather than believe same shit different day. This is a very difficult way of being for most of us and yet, it is not impossible. It takes a shift to making our intuitive mind the gift we need to use daily and our rational mind to serve our intuitive one rather than, as Einstein says, forgetting the “gift” of our intuitive mind and worshiping our rational one!
Saying that “education for reverence,…is a prerequisite for the preservation of freedom” is, to some, an outrageous statement. Especially for ‘non-believers’ who are desperate to refute the existence of any power greater than themselves, including We the People, our constitution, our laws, etc. Yet, as we can see in our world today and throughout history, no autocrat has ever allowed “a sense of awe and mystery” to become the way of their land. They do everything they can to stamp out our “sense of awe and mystery” because when we are living into these two “senses”, it is impossible to overrun us, it is impossible for We the People to buy into the bullshit and nonsense that ‘only I can fix it’ or “I will be your retribution”, “I will make Germany/America/Russia/Israel/Hungary… great again”. And, without an education for reverence, without “a sense of awe and mystery” we are susceptible to the lies of the oligarchs, of the autocrats who make promises they are never going to keep, who say and do anything to gain power and then refuse to relinquish it. Sound familiar? We have never experienced what Trump and his Project 2025 cronies are subjecting us to. Yesterday on May Day, a worker’s day of remembering the victory of an 8 hour work day, there were protests large and small all across the nation, we are not comparing “red/blue” states anymore, we are talking about We the People who value, cherish our “freedom” and whose “sense of awe and mystery” have been awakened, jettisoning them to stand up and make their voices heard!
Immersing ourselves in the first sentence above helps us realize the subtlety and fragility of “the preservation of freedom” entails. Elsewhere Rabbi Heschel calls “freedom” an event, and for us to preserve the event called “freedom”, we have to have a commitment to our “sense of awe and mystery”, a continuous “education for reverence” that keeps growing both our “reverence” and our “awe” and “mystery”. We the People are being called to see the truth of our inner life and the truth of our rational mind, the truth of our commitment to freedom for ourselves and to freedom for everyone. We are being held accountable for our freedom and, as in the Bible, being warned of what happens when we lose our “sense of mystery and awe” thereby losing our freedom and we are, once again, in Egypt, in narrow places where we are at the mercy of a human master and it has never been good for Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, any minority, any ‘conquered people’. Yet, in 1958, Rabbi Heschel warned us about the very thing that we are experiencing, he gave us the cure for it, the prevention techniques for where we are now and, once again, We the People did not listen, did not heed, refused the gift of prophecy!
WTF!! How have We the People once again relinquished our “freedom” to an autocrat? How have We the People once again succumbed to the lies of the wealthy and the idolators like Paula Cain-White and Joel Osteen who are more interested in their personal wealth than they are in developing “a sense of awe and mystery” in themselves and helping another do the same for themself! How have We the People once again repeated the errors of the Israelites when, being more numerous and mighty than the Egyptians, succumbed to the deceptions of Pharaoh and their own self-deceptions and became enslaved? How have We the People bought the bullshit of Trump, Netanyahu, Orban, Putin at the cost of our “sense of awe and mystery”? How have We the People allowed ourselves to become whores and prostitutes for the rich, famous, powerful? These are the questions that haunt us, these are the questions we all need to respond to. These are the questions that will point us in the direction so we can, once again, engage in “education for reverence”, recover, develop and maintain “a sense of awe and mystery”, learn/relearn the lessons of our ancestors and the wisdom of the Bible, and STAND UP for our FREEDOM and the FREEDOM of every human being. This is the path for We the People to preserve our “freedom” and send the autocrats away.
I am deeply moved by this first sentence and, in a quick examination of myself, realize that there have been times when I took my. “Freedom” for granted and each time it has landed me in an Egypt of my own making under the thumb of a Pharaoh I never want to serve again. Yet, because of my fears in the moment, which vary depending on the situation, I forget to engage in education for reverence, I miss the mark in the “development of a sense of awe and mystery”, finding myself in similar situations to the ones I have left before. I did do 2 terms in the California State Penitentiary system before I found truth and acknowledged who I had become and who the authentic me is. Even in my recovery, I have fallen prey to the seduction of various Pharaohs, each time leading me to a narrow space that tried to constrict me, define me, and isolate me. By the grace of God, I remembered the path out, I crossed my own Red Sea, and I have not fallen prey to this terrible experience for about 5 years. The names of the Pharaohs change, the narrowness never does and I am grateful for a daily discipline that develops within me “a sense of awe and mystery” which keeps me grounded in freedom and love, justice and mercy, kindness and forgiveness. Rather than harbor resentment, I release compassion and pity. Living with “reverence” gives me the freedom we were bestowed with in the Garden. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark