Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel’s Writings
Year 5 Day 1
“How should man, a being created in the likeness of God, live? What way of living is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living? It is a problem which man has always been anxious to ignore. Upon the pavement of the Roman city of Timgat an inscription was found which reads: “To hunt, to bathe, to gamble, to laugh, that is to live”. Judaism is a reminder of the grandeur and earnestness of living.”
In beginning Year 5, I had to think: “whom am I doing this for?” I am certainly writing for my own spiritual growth, my own moral activism, as part of my getting centered each day and “lift up my eyes and see”. I also have thought long and hard as to whether anyone wants to hear, read, see what I am thinking and if it can help another human being in their own spiritual growth, their own return from spiritual bankruptcy, moral decay, idolatry. Since I have been told by some people, not an overwhelming amount, that what I write helps, I decided to “keep on keeping on”. I pray these words of Rabbi Heschel touch your soul as they do mine. I pray that my words touch you and give the knowing of how much YOU MATTER, the experience of hearing your inner voice and the joy that comes with each grain of sand you add to your spiritual back account.
All of the above is an example of how I have been engaged in a “way of living (that) is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living”. Rather than deny that each and every person is “a being created in the likeness of God”, rather than buy into the self-deception that “only my kind knows what God wants”, rather than continue to make another group, another person “the scapegoat”, the words above from Rabbi Heschel are calling us to Truth, calling us to what is Real, calling us to let go of our misconceptions, our need for perfection, our need for power, and focus, as Reinhold Niebuhr teaches; to ask God for the grace and clarity to “accept the things I cannot change, change the things I should and the wisdom to discern one from the other”. Upon asking for grace and clarity, aka serenity, we are acknowledging the “mystery of living”, we are admitting our limitations, we are asking for help to navigate the world, we are in awe of the grandeur and have no need to control it, capture it, just to bask in it. This is the challenge of finding a way “of living (that) is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living”. AND, We the People are up to the challenge, We the People have the way to meet this challenge. We the People are only lacking the willingness to ask for the grace and clarity we are in desperate need of and goes against societal norms and cliches.
The Romans had to hate the Jews, despise the Christians because both groups challenged every word of the inscription above, which challenges every way they, and the Greeks, lived! Hence, feeding the Christians to the lions was a way of preserving their lifestyle at any and all costs, it was a way to be despicable and hateful while validating the need to do this because of “them”, “those people” who wanted to instill morals and spirituality in we the people of Rome! How dare they!! In fact, how dare Rabbi Heschel, the Bible, the prophets, the Catholic Church, the Ministers tell some of we the people that grifting and stealing from the very people you are elected to serve and protect is WRONG? Telling these ‘fine upstanding gentlemen’, mostly, that the faiths they proclaim to affirm their living, affirm their actions says the exact opposite of what they are doing? This was true in Ancient Israel, Ancient Judea, as the prophets proclaim over and over again in the Bible, as We the People know in our souls, in our bones, in our guts that what is going on today, “to hunt, to bathe, to gamble, to laugh, that is to live” is WRONG! We the People know that we are so much more than our basest instincts, than our inauthentic desires, than our self-deceptions. The Bible, the prophets, the Catholic Church, the Ministers, the Rabbis dare to call all of We the People to account precisely because of the “grandeur and mystery” we represent, simply pointing out different ways that We the People, “created in the likeness of God”, divine reminders for one another, are able to LIVE!
ACTION STEPS:
Each morning look in the mirror and see what is reflected back to you from the inside out.
Each day notice the “likeness of God” that another human being represents and what your “likeness of God” can offer to him/her
Each day ask for the help you need to grow a part of you that is underdeveloped because it is not the dominant attribute of your “likeness of God”
Each day seek to grow into your acceptance of your powerlessness and commitment to “change the things you should”!
Each day, write in your journal the growth you have experienced, be it through positive actions/learnings or learnings from your mistakes-know it is all part of the “grandeur and mystery of living”
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark