Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 6
“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)
The word “immanent” comes from the Latin meaning “in remain” or “remain in”, the word “suppressed” comes from the Latin meaning “to press down”, and the word “apprehend” comes from the Latin meaning “towards, to lay hold of”. I hear Rabbi Heschel warning us, cajoling us, demanding of us to “lift up our eyes and see!”, as Abraham was told, as Moses was told, as the Children of Israel did at both the shore of the Sea of Reeds after they crossed it and at Mount Sinai, when they heard God’s utterances. It is the same message that Jesus was preaching to the Priests and the people, the same that the prophets spoke to the power structure and the poor. Yet, even in this moment, we the people, in our smallness, seem unable to hear, listen, understand and DO this simple action. Rather, We the People, from our false egos, from our self-deceptions, believe We know what God wants, We put words in the mouths of Jesus, Moses, etc, and We ignore the call of the poor, the widow, the stranger, not believing the history of the destruction of the Temples, the promise of the Universe that these injustices will have consequences. “In his deeds man exposes his immanent/what remains inside of him, as well as his “pressed down” desires.” It certainly is being played out on the larger world stage just as it is in the personal, familiar, institutional stages.
While Rabbi Heschel was never afraid to speak truth to power, in fact as I understand him, as I hear him through his words, he was as compelled to doing this as the prophets of the Bible, he also cared deeply about the individual souls he encountered, the students he knew would impact generations of human beings, as he taught at Union Theological Seminary as well as at JTS. In this realm, I find his words even more haunting and daunting than in the worldly realm. Rabbinic Judaism follows the dictates of the Bible in promoting “the deed”, believing “deeds” can move us to right thinking and believing, and if the believing never comes, who cares! It is only through our “deeds” that we can meet ourselves, meet with another, and “expose our immanent as well as our suppressed desires”. Hence, we the people have to testify to the smallness we engage in, the pettiness and pride, envy and enmity we practice in our home life, our work life, our institutional life. When parents cajole a headmaster or principal for grades their children did not earn by threatening to withhold financial support, when donors make unreasonable asks because they feel entitled to them, when kids pay no attention to the teachings and morals of their parents, grandparents, teachers, We the People are engaging in our “remaining desires and our “pressed down” wishes. Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME for WE THE PEOPLE to be aware of what TRUTH is, of what SERVICE is, of what BEING HUMAN entails?
Because we seem unable to “apprehend, to lay hold of these inner desires of our “evil inclination”, we the people continue to believe we are right, believe we have ‘no choice’, believe this compulsion to ‘be known’, to ‘have the most likes’, to feed our false egos, to promote the lies we have told ourselves and society has fed us, to engage in cruelty and evil while calling these actions good and holy! Whether it is the government like Trump’s or Netanyahu’s, the institutions that have caved to the pressure like Columbia University, the law firms who decided to kiss his ass rather than stand up for what is right, or the businesses like Warner Bros who succumbed to the pressure, or the families who have stopped speaking to one another because of the actions that were “suppressed”, that were not “apprehended” by the actor, We the People are being called to be AWARE of WHAT THE FUCK WE ARE DOING!! I hear in these words, a call to STAND UP for what is right, to STOP HIDING from OURSELVES, to give voice to our “immanent”, “suppressed” desires and have a spiritual practice that guides us to what we “apprehend” so our unconscious rises to the level of our consciousness and we have the POWER OF CHOICE, once again. ALL OF WE THE PEOPLE are both guilty of these crimes and responsible for one another’s crimes as well.
ACTION STEPS:
Write down what we were oblivious to this day(a daily exercise)
Admit and address the pettiness and pride we engaged in today
Examine the smallness and the subtleties we used to screw someone else over and to harm our souls
Write down when you stood for what is right and your deeds exposed an immanent desire you had suppressed and now are addressing.
Make a list of how you hid today and how you did not-no matter what the action was, good or not good
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark