Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 327
“Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these”(Isa. 40:26). There is a higher form of seeing. We must learn how to lift up our eyes on high in order to see that the world is more a question than an answer… The grandeur of nature is only the beginning. Beyond the grandeur is God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 63)
I am going to comment on this passage for two days. This passage from Isaiah is preceded by “comfort my people, comfort my them” (Isa. 40:1) which gives me the sense that to “lift up your eyes on high and see who created these” is to uplift the people, to lift us up and know that not only does God comfort us, God supports us when we do right, as we learn in the fourth chapter of Genesis, when God tells Cain that “negativity couches at your door, it desires you much and you can master it”. We the People can “master” the negativity that is within us, aka the evil inclination, and use it to attain “a higher form of seeing”. This is the GOOD NEWS of the Bible, the GOOD NEWS of the Torah, and the NEWS that is ignored, bastardized, abused, and misused by the charlatans, the idolators, the people in power both in Isaiah’s time, in the times of all the prophets, and in our time as well. Using the words of the Bible, the insights and teachings of the prophets for their own gain has been a theme of ‘religious’ people throughout the millennia and it is on the upswing right now!
We the people have become so small-minded, so small-seeing that we have fallen for the lies and the bullshit of the autocrat, the insanity of the judgmental, the cruelty of those in power, the horror of white supremacy in action. It is so antithetical to everything the Bible stands for and on, everything Jesus taught, everything the Constitution has within it to protect us from what is happening right now and we the, small-minded, afraid of our own shadows, people just wring our hands and/or even worse, cheer the hatred, the killing, the denial of humane treatment that is happening in America today. In our small-mindedness, we the people are unable to see the truth of pardoning the former president of Honduras who was responsible for 500 MILLION POUNDS OF COCAINE coming into this country and kidnap, arrest the president of Venezuela(a bad dude) and take the oil that belongs to the PEOPLE of Venezuela and call ourselves wonderful liberators!!??? WHAT THE FUCK?
Rather than leaning into the words of Isaiah, rather than hearing the words, the ways Rabbi Heschel lived his life, rather than living the words of Torah, of Hasidic teachings, of the Sermon on the Mount, we the people would rather kiss the ass of the rich and powerful, sit like trained seals waiting for some leftovers of their food, of their businesses, etc so we can eat! Rather than reaching for “a higher form of seeing”, we the, small-minded, stunted vision, bastardizers of faith, people like looking down, especially if we can look down on another human being. This is what brought about Donald Trump’s success at the ballot box, the ‘good progressives, those people who are always on the “right” side of the argument” looking down upon the “deplorable”, looking down on those of us who are not so erudite, so smart, lifting up their noses to avoid the ‘stench’ of those of us who are so impatient with bullshit, with pat answers, with being told ‘you just don’t understand, it is too above your ability to understand’ and instead respond/react with loudness, with truth, with rage at the injustices these so-called ‘nice people’, these progressives engage in and their inability to admit their own errors.
“Lift up your eyes on high” is the call to Abraham as well, it is the call to all of us each and every day-to “lift up your eyes” and open up our ears to the Voice that broadcasts from Mount Sinai on the Ultra High Frequency of our soul’s language, our soul’s knowing. This is the way We the People get right-sized! We the People are not meant to be small-minded, afraid of our own shadows, stunted vision, bastardizers of faith! We the People are created in the IMAGE OF THE DIVINE, We the People “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”! There is no place for autocracy in the American Constitution, in the American Revolution, in the Jewish world of Torah, of Bible. King David is held to account and can admit his guilt and the ASSHOLES in charge today cannot-this should tell us something! King David is willing to listen to women and follow their direction and the progressives can only wrap themselves in their platitudes and never surrender to the truth of the harms they have wrought upon us.
“Lift up your eyes on high” and engage in “a higher form of seeing” has been the mantra of my recovery, my ability to change, my eagerness to learn, my willingness to do T’Shuvah, my impatience with mendacity and need to rebuke those who are mean and cruel, those who are, wittingly and/or unwittingly, making errors in real time. It is the call of Isaiah and it is the call of God who gave Isaiah the words to speak, the spark of light to “see”, the opening of his soul, and ours, to hear. I am asking all of us to, once again, do a daily Chesbon HaNefesh and ‘see’ where we are keeping faith with this “higher form of seeing”, where we are acting with gratitude and humility when we “see who created these” and where/when we are not. This is the greatest call for and to We the People this call to “Lift up your eyes on high and see” because all of the ills we have experienced throughout history comes from looking down, not looking up, comes from looking in our pockets, our banks, for more, more, more and not looking up, gaining sight and vision to “SEE” the person next to us, in front of us, behind us who needs our help. This has been the true shift in my being in these 38+years of recovery, I continue to grow my practice of engaging in “a higher form of seeing” so I can continue to serve We the People, serve God, serve my better angels. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark