Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 17
“The cause of nearly all failures in human relations is this - that while we admire and extol the tasks, we fail to acquire the tools. Neither the naked hand nor the soul left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments that work is done…The meaningful of the mitzvoth(commandments) consists in their being vehicles by which we advance on the road to spiritual ends.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 86)
The purpose of immersing ourselves in Torah each year is not to memorize it, not to pick it apart in my humble (or not so humble) opinion. The purpose is to see anew what we thought we understood from past years and to understand old phrases, old paths, old ways in completely new ways. The same is true for me with Rabbi Heschel’s writings. Today’s opening sentence is a case in point. While I have read Chapter 29 of God in Search of Man, where this is taken from, this sentence in the context of today’s world, today’s “failures in human relations” takes on new, different meanings.
We the People find ourselves in a stranglehold of conflicting emotions, a yearning for ‘the good old days’ and an excitement for ‘what’s next’, wanting preserve what we have and roll the dice to ‘get more’. We are constantly speaking fondly of the words of Christ, the laws of the Torah, bastardizing both!! We quote the prophets and the psalmists, and neither DO nor UNDERSTAND EITHER! We seek holiness and wholeness while ‘suspecting our neighbor’ instead of “loving our neighbor”, rather than “BE HOLY”, we engage in optics and subterfuge. We praise the truth, while telling, believing, and retelling the LIES that suit our vision, our wants, our desires, our inauthenticity! I am a little riled up by this first sentence, for sure:)
How could this happen, we ask ourselves and one another. It happens for the exact reason given above-“we fail to acquire the tools”! Rather than learn from history, we the people in our hubris, in our outlandish egocentric way of being, ignore the lessons, the hints, the actions of what “the cause of nearly all failures in human relations” are! AND we the people are so arrogant as to think we are so much ahead of ‘those’ people from antiquity, from our parents, from past generations. WTF PEOPLE!!!
In his book, “Lonely Man of Faith”, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, reminds us of our duality as human beings-BY DESIGN! In Chapter 1 of Genesis, the utilitarian-Adam is created, “male and female God created them both” and in Chapter 2 of Genesis, the connected-Adam. One is outer centered/focused and the second is inner centered/focused. “Adam 1” as Rabbi Soloveitchik calls them, doesn’t need another, doesn’t really care about another, until they do for their utilitarian purpose, even helping another, coming up with cures for illnesses is done to satisfy the individual’s needs to have “dominion and rule” over … “Adam 2” is concerned with connection, hence the need to split the side of Adam so that male and female could come together face to face. Just as Jacob tells Esau that “seeing you is seeing the face of God”, so too when male Adam meets female Adam they see the “face of God” in one another and are connected.
We the People seem to have no desire to teach our children nor remember ourselves our need for connection, for caring about one another, for loving our neighbors and the stranger, for growing and maturing our inner life, for hearing and heeding the Voice on Sinai, for following our intuitive mind, our higher consciousness. It is as if we the people only care about our utilitarian self, only growing our wealth, our power, our prestige and/or be with the “in crowd” who have power, wealth, prestige and it is “the cause of nearly all failures in human relations”, with the weapons available to the “bad actors”, the egocentric autocrats, the wannabe Mafia Bosses running the world today, we the people find ourselves facing another Mid-East Crisis, a Global Energy crisis, a Global warming crisis, a Global economic crisis, AND we the STUPID people believe it won’t affect us- at least those with the money and at the helms of power know they won’t be affected so they don’t care and will use this and every other crisis to their benefit!
We the People who are aware, who are connected, who have brought together their “2 Adams”, need to say NO! We are being called to “Be In The Solution” and spread “the word” of hope, love, etc. More next time.
ACTION STEPS:
Do an inventory of the “failed” human relations in your life
Find your part in the failure and seek out the tools to both repair the damage and fix the ‘flaw’
Do an inventory of successful human relationships in your life.
Find your part in the success and seek to enhance these tools so you do less damage.
Find ways to bring your “2 Adams” together
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark