Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 22
“Judaism is averse to generalities, averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing, as if the meaning were a separate entity. Its tendency is to make ideas convertible into deeds, to interpret metaphysical insights as patterns for action, to endow the most sublime principles with bearing upon everyday conduct.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 87)
This is the great conundrum that has human beings run into all the time, do we live in the generalities, do we live in the societal norms, do we use “the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak” as a constant and consistent excuse for our not doing? “What’s it all about Alfie” is a title of a song from a 1966 movie about a London man who is a womanizer, a self-centered, entitled asshole who finally realizes the vapidness of his living. We the People are in the same situation right now, with white men trying to control women, people of color, gain more wealth through the ugliest of ways, killing innocents here and abroad, while having NO moral core, NO spiritual corpus colosseum that stops most of We the People in our tracks. Yet, when “meaning in life is detached from doing” this way of being gives rise to the ‘righteousness’ of the grifter, to the ‘justice’ by the criminal, to the ‘retribution’ by the idolator, all under the guise of serving god?! What is, of course, worse is that these behaviors, ONCE AGAIN, are being supported by clergy and ‘religious’ people of all stripes around the world, be it here in the U.S., in Israel, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, etc! And for Jews to behave in this manner, given what Rabbi Heschel writes above is a Desecration of God’s Name not seen since the time of the destruction of the two Temples! Lutnick, Kushner, Bessent, Miller, Netanyahu, et al are doing exactly what Rabbi Heschel is saying “Judaism is averse to” and NO ONE IS CALLING THEM OUT? WTF?!!
36+ years ago I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man, z”l, that a most appropriate response to each and every experience is: “what is the question this experience is the answer to”. What a mind-bending, counter-intuitive way of being and experiencing living and one that has brought me and many people to new ways of living. Asking ourselves this question is one of the best ways to NOT act “as if meaning were a separate entity”, to reject the need and societal norms that promote this mendacious way of being because it leads to being totally susceptible to the lies and deceptions of another(s), falling into the trap of autocracy because “I will be your retribution” feels so good, ie daddy is going to beat up my enemy; our own self-deception is triggered so we are unable to see that everything the false prophet is saying goes against the very principles that faith reveres, that morality demands. Yet, when we the people are not “averse to generalities”, not “averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing”, the autocrat makes sense, the trap looks like salvation, the mendacity sounds like truth. This is HOW FUCKED UP We the People are! This is how lost we the people have become, this is the spiritual malady we are suffering from now and one that has been with us forever.
Hence the need for the Bible, not as a history book, not as a book of historical facts, rather as a history of the human struggle to get out of our own way. The Bible is a book of eternal wisdom and knowing, a path of spiritual growing that serves each and every individual, each and every community, and God. The PERFECT TRIFECTA!! Yet, no one is betting on this outcome when it is possible to make obscene amounts of money by betting on actions that one has inside info on, like when is the price of oil going to go up, go down, based on what Trump says-someone makes billions of dollars by ‘a lucky guess’? PLEASE!!
As Passover approaches, I believe it is imperative for We the People to taste the bitterness, the Marror, of not being “averse to generalities, averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing,”. It is way past time for We the People to honor the commitment made so long ago at Mount Sinai, Na’Aseh V’Nishma, we will do and then we will understand. The doing has to come before the understanding, hence letting go of old ideas that have not served us and returning, as the prophets begged the people so long ago, to God, to the deed, to the authenticity of one’s soul, to the truthfulness of living the principles implanted within us and laid out in the Bible.
ACTION STEPS:
Make a list of the “generalities” you keep using to avoid engaging in the spiritual work you need to be doing
Make a list of the ways you have honored the commitment to “do and then understand”
Each evening, write down your responses to “what are the questions today’s experiences are the answers for”
Each morning, make a list of the mendacious traps and a plan to avoid them.
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark