Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 326
“Modern man dwells upon the order and power of nature; the prophets dwell upon the grandeur and creation of nature. The former directs his attention to the manageable and intelligible aspect of the universe; the latter to its mystery and marvel.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 63)
“Modern man dwells upon the order and power of nature” because it gives one a sense of control, a sense of certainty that the sun will rise each morning, the moon will be able to be seen in the evening, snow in the winter, rain in the spring, etc. The need of human beings for order, power, certainty and control is so great in some of us that this need overshadows all other concerns, all other demands of God, even the belief in God gets overshadowed by our needs for these things. These needs place humans before God, as if God doesn’t really have a say in our lives, as if God is meaningless to us because satisfying our needs for control, order, power, and certainty are greater than anything else. We the People are addicted to these needs and will do anything and everything to have them fulfilled, just look at the ways in which so many people have given their vote, their power, their future over to the likes of Trump, Vance, Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, Putin et al!
History will record this time as a depression, as a retardation of God’s Will and ways. It will write chapter and verse on “man’s inhumanity to man” after only 90 years since the last experience of it. It will speak to future generations of the inhumanity done by the ‘bad’ people and by the ‘good’ people. When we the people are so small minded, so spiritually stunted that we need a ‘bad guy’ in order to feel good, we the people are engaging our evil inclination, and this happens on “both sides of the aisle! When we the people are so small in our own esteem that we need to deny the infinite worth and dignity of another human being so we can value our self, our narcissism is alive, well and running the show and, again, this happens on “both sides of the aisle”. When we the people cannot give one another our due, cannot be happy for the joys and success’ of another human being, when our agendas, our dogmas overshadow our kindness, our humanity, our call to be generous of spirit and loving, we are focusing on our need for “order”, “power”, certainty, and control. This is true of the progressive and the conservative, their surety in their own ‘rightness’ propels them to acting inhumane and their denial of their inhumanity only serves to make them more and more inhumane. The denial of the rights of a person because of their race, creed, religion is as abhorrent as the denial of the rights of a person who doesn’t want to do business with people of a ‘certain kind’ because in a free society if someone doesn’t want my business- I go someplace else. The same is true for places of worship; we have many synagogues, churches, temples, because we the people don’t like some and like another. Like we say in AA- all it take to start a new meeting is “a coffee pot and a good resentment”! Yet, the need for “order, power”, control and certainty causes the denial of rights, the theft of the dignity of an individual, and validates the inhumanity shown by one person to another in their minds.
The prophets, however, give us a different way to see “nature”, to live in the world: dwelling upon the mystery and marvel of life, of “nature”, of the awesomeness of being a partner with God in perfecting creation-knowing it will never happen in our lifetime and we engage in the work anyway, as Rabbi Tarfon teaches. The prophets left with us, as an inheritance, the ability to gaze upon the sunrise with awe and amazement, knowing the “Tifferet”; the beauty, the combination of all our needs and powers coming together in praise and joy, beauty and wonder! WE THE PEOPLE are being called by the Voice on Mount Sinai each and every day to use our inheritance to make the world better, to let go of our unrelenting needs for control, power, order, certainty and live into the power of the universe, live in the spirit of the world of nature and protect it, nourish it, grow it so the spirit within each one of us grows as well. Protecting, nourishing nature leads us to protecting and nourishing one another which leads to the uplift in our spirituality and our way of living life as a being that is compatible to be a partner with the Ineffable One! The prophets, with all their doom and gloom, had great belief and faith in We the People! Otherwise, why waste their breath and since they were ‘sent’ by God, God has great faith in We the People! ISN’T IT WAY PAST TIME FOR US TO HONOR THIS BELIEF AND FAITH? Isn’t it way past time for us to let go of our joy and rapture at the inhumanity we can do to one another? Isn’t it time for We the People to hold the people responsible for the deaths, the torture, the imprisonment of people that ICE is doing in our name?
Living the inheritance the prophets left for me is a difficult life! As both Socrates and Malcolm X said: “the unexamined life is not worth living” and “the examined life is painful”! 60 years ago today, I buried my father and listened to the asinine comments of people telling me “I know how you feel” when their fathers were still alive!! This is an example of inhumanity because by trying to feel better themselves, they lied, they took away my feelings, my experience, my dignity-isn’t this the definition of inhumanity? I engaged in being inhumane to another(s) and I still experience the regret and I shudder inside from it. Hence, my commitment to the legacy, the inheritance of my father, Jerry Borovitz, z”l, the legacy, the inheritance of the prophets and to being human in every situation-not always making it and sure as hell trying to. I bristle and speak out when someone is being inhumane to another and get in trouble for it sometimes, so what! Seeing what is ‘behind the curtain’ makes me dangerous and not wanted in some circles-oh well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark