Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 5
“It is in the employment of his will, not in reflection, that he meets his own self as it is; not as he should like it to be. In his deeds man exposes his immanent as well as his suppressed desires, spelling even that which he cannot apprehend. What he may not dare to think, he often utters in deeds. The heart is revealed in deeds.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.82)
“But I’m a good person” was a refrain I both said while in my addiction and heard myriads of times as a Rabbi and Spiritual leader of a Recovery Center/Congregation! And, it was always said when confronted with my own or when another person was confronted with “the employment of his will”! When we listen to what they say and not what they do, We the People are making the pact to keep the secrets of another(s) so they will keep ours. We the People do not want to “meet his own self as it is” so we buy the bullshit and mendacity of another(s) in order for them to buy ours!! I keep shuddering and feeling the rage of the prophets when they would confront the powerful and the powerless and meet the heavy, almost impenetrable denial of BOTH groups!
Having been a “person of the lie” as M.Scott Peck named one of his seminal books, I know the power of the “but I’m a good person” lie, it makes another feel sorry for me, it was my way of trying to excuse the inexcusable! The worst attribute is that the people that actually cared for me, were the ones I hurt the most with this way of being. I kept trying to live a facade, paint a picture of fantasy for people to buy into and it took a while and then they stopped buying and I kept selling; resulting in being in a jail cell in Dec. 1986 and, finally, having to “meet my own self as it is; not as I should like it to be”! Possibly, that is the reason I am trembling and shuddering with the rage of the prophets, with the cry of Jacob’s descendants who were trapped in their narrow spaces that we call Egypt and forget that being trapped exists on at least two planes, physical, emotional, spiritual…
We the People are living in the worst of times, I believe, and the prophets of today and the prophets of the Bible have yet to “win the day” because of the idolators, the False Prophets like Vought, Trump, Vance, Lutnick, Miller, Bessent, Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, et al. These “People of the Lie” are not only sociopaths, they are cruel, mean, and full of shit. That We the People have not caught on to the lie, that We the People have not thrown them out of office, prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law, taken their cronies, their religious vindicators “out to the woodshed” is UNBELIEVABLE!!
There is only one reason these “People of the Lie” are still in power-we the people are afraid to “meet his(our) own self”! This is the problem the prophets faced, the problem Moses faced when he first came back to Egypt, the problem the people who travelled the desert faced each time hardship came about, the problem Joseph faced when first confronted by his brothers and then when Judah stood up to him. It is the problem We the People face each and every day and how we respond to this problem, this challenge will determine this day and influence the next day, the next… “People of the Lie” never “meet his own self” because they are too busy lying to everyone and, to become a person of the lie, one has to fully buy into the bullshit they have been selling so when they look into the mirror, they see him/herself “as he/she should like it to be”-which is the greatest con job a person can pull off and the worst effect it has on the people near and far from “People of the Lie” as we can see both in world events-think of Germany 1930’s, America since 2015, Israel lately under Bibi- and in our personal lives. Knowing what I know forces me to tighten the circle around me because when another person is hiding, I can no longer be connected and without connection, what is ‘friendship’? What is passing for friendship is, in many cases, an agreement to not uncover the Lie of another so they will not uncover the Lie of one. How sad, how enraging, and how horrific the consequences-I still am sad at the misery I caused for my family, especially Heather, my brother, my sister and the trashing of my father’s name.
ACTION STEPS:
Write down the Lies you tell yourself about who you are, ie “as you should like it to be”
Write out what your deeds today say about who you are
Do an inventory of your past deeds and write down what they say about who you are
Make a decision as to the person you are going to be going forward, the person of the lie, the imperfect individual who constantly confronts her/himself and makes the changes needed on a daily basis!
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark