Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 12
“What ought we to do? How ought we to conduct our lives? These are basic questions of ethics. They are also questions of religion…To ethics, these are man’s questions, necessitated by the nature of human existence. To religion, these are God’s questions, and our answer to them concerns not only man but God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.83)
“What ought we to do” is a much different question from “what can we do” and herein lies one of the major issues facing humanity. We the People have to demand of ourselves a higher standard of living than “what can I do” both as a light bulb for self-satisfaction and as a lament for doing nothing when there is stress, trouble, need, etc in our world, with our neighbor, when the powerless and voiceless, the stranger and the needy present themselves and we the people only shrug our shoulders and say “what can I do, I am only one person” and other such mendacious statements. I am, once again, sitting at my computer and shuddering at the elegant simplicity of these words and the depth of meaning they have for all of We the People and how many of we the people are too small-minded, too self-centered, too spiritually immature to engage in these “oughts”!
“What can I do” is a statement that comes from not having a connection to the “questions of religion” and a bastardization of the “questions of ethics”. It is a question that the narcissistic, self-centered individual asks both as to “how can I get mine, how can I win AND, I can’t make him/her do anything so why bother”. Yet, “what can I do” is asked much more often than “what ought I do”; “what can I do” is a societal norm and mental cliche that many of we the people use to abdicate responsibility, to validate our inaction, to allow our greed, our resentment, our retribution, our lust, our anger towards another human being(s), towards humanity as a whole AND gives many of we the people the impetus to lie, to deceive another(s) and self, to steal, to make war, to beat her/his chest like Tarzan, believing we are still IN THE JUNGLE instead of being a part of society, a responsible member of the human race, a being that can and must serve more than our basest thoughts, our lower angels.
Unfortunately, as history has proven over and over again, ethics will not save us from ourselves, it could and it hasn’t. By the same token, religion has not saved us from ourselves either. One reason is the same: the bastardization of both and the willingness of we the people to deceive and be deceived. As we know; Self-deception is a MAJOR PROBLEM! Another reason is very different: ethics can change depending on the time, the place, etc. What was ‘ethical’ by human standards in the 1700’s is not in the 2000’s-no matter what Trump and the MAGA crowd want to promote. The “oughts” of religion have not changed; the 248 ‘I should do” remain the same, with a deeper understanding of the subtleties, of course, and the 365 “I should not do” are better illuminated for us now AND still the same. Neither of these “oughts” are subject to the whim of the individual to change at will, no matter what the Rabbis, Priests, Pastors preach and teach! This is the difference between “ethics” and “religion” as I am experiencing this teaching this day-“ethics” is subject to “the nature of human existence” and “religion” knows these are “God’s questions” and they “concern” both “man and God”. Accountability is everything and when we are only accountable to ourselves, humanity has proven, ad nauseam, that self-deception, bastardization, etc prevail more that the Ethical Path of our ancestors. “Ethics” in the hands of the deceivers and mendacious bastardized and immunized our sense of good and evil so badly that there are those among we the people who are horrified by the attack on a Synagogue in Detroit where school children were sitting in their classrooms and say NOTHING about the horror of dropping a Tomahawk Missle on a School in Iran where children were murdered by it! WTF?!
I have found that the “oughts” of religion have freed me from the chains of self-deception, from the prison of societal norms and mental cliches. In fact, it is the only path upon which I found true freedom, the freedom to be who I am without needing to “please everyone else” and the freedom to speak the truth of my soul and to live with passion the purpose I have been gifted with.
ACTION STEPS:
Write out what your “oughts” are: “ought to do and ought not to do”
Ask yourself where these “oughts” come from: ethics, societal norms, religion
Make a daily list of the “oughts” you have fulfilled and the ones you have not
Write out, each day, what deeper truths you have learned from living your “oughts” and which ones need to change
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark