Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 32
“Human life is a point where mind and mystery meet. This is why man cannot live by his reason alone, nor can he thrive on mystery alone. To surrender to the mystery is fatalism to withdraw into reason is solipsism. Man is driven to commune with that which is beyond the mystery.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92)
“Fatalism”, selfishness, why bother, what’s in it for me; all common modes of living for some of we the people in our smallness, in our pettiness, and so abhorrent to those of We the People who live with faith, with courage, with a sense of what is the next right action to take. The “mystic” who cannot live in the real world is not doing “God’s work” no matter what lies they tell themselves, the rationalist who says “prove it” all the time lives in such a tiny, narrow box, neither one are capable of BEING HUMAN! This is the great conundrum that We the People face: are we going to BE HUMAN or exist as homo-sapiens?
As I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning, after a day at the ER for my Afib, I know he is speaking to the necessity to live in BOTH mind and mystery, he is reaching out to us and reminding us that to “meet” God, to commune with the ineffable, We the People have to use both our capacity for rational thinking and our ability to go into and through the mystery. In reading about the mind in his writings, I understand him to be saying here and there; our reason will take us to the horizon of the mystery, it is our ability to go beyond the horizon that will bring us to wholeness, to understanding, to meeting the highest self we can be.
Yet, we the people continue to confound and disappoint the ineffable, confound and disappoint one another, confound and disappoint our self. We continue to put supreme importance on our rationalizations, on our selfishness, at the cost of seeking the mystery. Some of we the people continue to put supreme importance on the mystery at the cost of what is reasonable and rational. Once again, Rabbi Heschel is telling us what the Bible, what Jesus, what every spiritual discipline tells us: THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO BE! We the People are being called, once again, to live in the both/and. This passage comes from Rabbi Heschel’s book, God in Search of Man, which I infer to mean that without the both/and, God will never find us nor will we find God!
While every generation can point to a man-made catastrophe which it believes is the end of the world, there are some moments where humanity could be on the brink of bringing its own destruction. This feels like such a moment; the unnecessary war with Iran, the insanity of the oil crisis(was this war begun so Russia, Iran, Oil billionaires, Saudi Arabia could make more money?), the disdain for the poor and the stranger, the bastardization of Christ’s words and deeds, the disrespecting/threatening of Pope Leo, the drunkness of Hegseth, the power-hunger of Trump, the “get rich schemes” of Kushner, Wytkoff, Lutnick, the hatred of Miller, the Christian nationalism of Vought; all coming together in ways that I am not sure we the people have seen before. Todd Blanche saying the ‘duty’ of the Justice Department is to go after the enemies of Trump, the lies of the Republicans in Congress, the sycophantic behaviors of the Cabinet, the kissing of Russia’s ass, the support of Orban, the con job of Bibi Netanyahu, etc are all ingredients in a soup of disaster, if not for humanity, certainly for the freedoms We the People have cherished, for which our ancestors fought and died for. WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE!!
We the People are being called upon to STAND UP, to FIGHT ON, to SAY NO to the lies and deceptions we are being fed daily. We the People have to attune our “mystery” to the call from Sinai and our “mind” to the ways of the Bible to carry out this call. What is the call? Well, there are many-granted-yet the ones that stand out are: Be Holy, Proclaim Freedom to all, Love the Stranger, Love your neighbor, Don’t stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, CHOOSE LIFE! This is the call I heard over 39 years ago and I continue to live into this call, I continue to grow my mind and mystery and reach beyond the mystery to ‘meet’ the ineffable. It doesn’t always work and I am a better human being each day for the effort. This is the challenge for all of We the People and I pray you will take it up, do better than you did yesterday and, together, make this corner of the world a little better!
ACTION STEPS:
Indulge your “mystery” seeing where you can go, what you can see
Write down what you mind says is possible and how to reach the mystery you are seeing
Each day, write down how you lived in the both/and of life
Each day, make a note of the experiences with the ineffable that you had this day
Each day, write down how you stood for the Holy, for Freedom, for Love, for Life this day.
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark