Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom- a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 11

“It is a misconception to assume that there is nothing in our consciousness that was not previously in perception or analytical reason. Much of the wisdom inherent is our consciousness is the root, rather than the fruit, of reason. There are more songs in our souls than the tongue is able to utter. (Man is Not Alone pg.16-17)

Rabbi Heschel is in direct conflict with the people who believe we are born tabla rasa. He calls tabla rasa “a misconception”. Misconception is defined as ‘flawed or faulty thinking’. In our desire to be deceived, we have bought into the flawed thinking that we are born a blank slate and everything that we become is because of education, environment, etc. Rabbi Heschel is challenging this misconception and is saying in the first sentence above not everything that is in our consciousness comes from our analytical reasoning or perceptions previously held.

In the second sentence, Rabbi Heschel is turning modernity on its head. He is reminding us that our reason is in service of something greater rather than making reason something greater than anything else. We are a society that worships reason, that follows reason off a cliff, who has used reason to validate racism, anti-semitism, religious hatred, prejudices of all kinds, anti-LGBTQ, wars that kill millions of innocent people, etc. Worshiping reason leads to the rejection of so many truths that cannot be proven with empirical evidence and are true nonetheless. Worshiping reason allows one to buy the lies and deceptions of another who makes a “reasonable” case and pokes “reasonable doubt” in the vision, witnessing, truth of another, even science as we have learned from recent experience. We are being called back from the brink by Rabbi Heschel, the brink of self-destruction that comes from the self-deception of worshiping reason. He is reminding us, calling to us, giving us a bad conscious, so we will appreciate our consciousness and honor what we know in our consciousness without getting bogged down in proving it to ourselves first.

This is a major problem for many people. We give so much power to reason, we are unable to know what we know and follow our inner knowledge. We will buy into our negative self-talk, we will buy into the negative talk someone else says about us, yet we have great difficulty buying into and acting on what we know in our consciousness, our soul. Confusing the fruit with root will always lead us astray, will always enhance our self-deception and our ability to be deceived by another. In the last sentence, I am hearing echos of: don’t be fooled into taking things for granted, don’t be fooled by yesterdays news, actions, learning. Rabbi Heschel is imploring us to see ourselves fresh, to not be frustrated by our inability to articulate all the “songs in our souls” all at once. We have to sing them when they have the most meaning for us and at the time that is most appropriate for the world. We also have to understand that we do have more than one song to sing in our lifetime and when change comes, to welcome it, no matter how it arrives, as an opportunity to sing another song that is deep in our soul. 

These sentences bring us to a realization that our obsession with “empirical proof” is really a ruse by people in power to stop another from singing the songs in their soul. Billie Holiday was a junkie, a heroin addict, yet she was silenced because her song, “strange fruit” was a rallying point for black and white people together to do something about the racism in the south (and north). She was hunted and harassed by the Federal Gov’t. Rev. King, the Berrigan Brothers, people who start programs to help another human through actual human connection, all become subject to the Gov’t.’s scrutiny, the scrutiny of a board, the scrutiny of the “suits” in order to stop them from gaining a platform to sing the songs of their soul from. Why? Because it would bring the ‘masses’ to a place of putting more stock in the knowing in their souls, rebelling against the mendacity of the people in charge and create a cacophony of voices, each different, each respected and each heard to build the symphony called Living Well.

In recovery, we are able to tap into this inner wisdom that we had drowned out with substances, behaviors, anxiety, etc. In recovery, we walk away from reason when we admit we are powerless in order to gain control, when we realize there is something greater than our intellect at work in the world and we can use this power in our own lives. In recovery, we grow our awareness of the song that we need to sing in this moment, in this place.

I have always had an inner knowing, I have always been able to hear it, yet until I was sitting in a jail cell almost 35 years ago, I could never take action on what I was hearing and I could never sing the song that I needed to in the moment and place I was in. I have, with the help of God, family, friends and, even, enemies, been singing the different songs in my soul at different times, mostly appropriate songs and appropriate times, except for when they aren’t! Those times create big explosions that cause collateral damage and I am sorry to Harriet, Heather, and anyone else affected by them. I also know when people are being deceptive with me and, now, I don’t need to call them out on it, I just know who they are and deal with them detached from my need to believe them and/or show them the truth. Reading this reminds me that I have more songs to sing as do you. Are you singing the song you need to right now? God Bless and Stay Safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 10

“We must keep our own amazement, our own eagerness alive. And if we ever fail in our quest for insight, it is not because it cannot be found, but because we do not know to to live, or how to beware of the mind’s narcissistic tendency to fall in love with its own reflection, a tendency which cuts thought off its roots.”(Man is Not Alone pg.14). 

In Rabbi Heschel’s interview with Carl Stern in 1972, he speaks about how we humans get stale, we become static instead of dynamic. This passage reminds me of those words and I am inspired by it. Rabbi Heschel does not say we will gain the insight we seek, he doesn’t say we will have/get all the answers to the questions we raise, he is speaking about the quest for insight. Herein lies the crux of the issue for Rabbi Heschel and for all of us. In a world that seeks to have all the answers, in a world where some people are so sure they are right, in a world where some people have closed their minds to anything other than what they believe or the “canned theories” that I wrote about yesterday, there is no quest for insight, because they know it all already.

We have grown up in a world where “knowledge is power” and I hear Rabbi Heschel refuting this maxim. I know how often I/people/we have cut short our quest for insight because we get frustrated and this happens because we are seeking answers, not insight-I believe. When we have to be the ‘smartest person in the room’ there is no quest for insight, there is only power through fiat, the actuality of people falling in love with our own mind. We have already fallen prey to the narcissistic tendency that Rabbi Heschel is talking about. We see this is the adherence to a strict code of conduct displayed by people with fundamentalist ideas, ie people who have fossilized religious tenets, constitutional tenets, scientific tenets, etc. According to the Jewish tradition, there are 70 ways to interpret Torah, how can we not continue to be on a quest for insight? We are being overrun by this narcissistic tendency to fall in love with our own thinking/canned ideas and it is killing our spirits and our world. We are impeding the insights that the Ineffable One is showing us by blocking them from ourselves. It is too difficult to be on the quest for insight when you need to be sure and certain of every move you make. When fear of ‘being wrong’ overtakes our quest for insight, we are in love with our own mind’s reflection and we are in deep spiritual, emotional distress which leads to living life in a manner antithetical to the call of our soul and the call of the Ineffable One.

We continue to see and practice cutting “thought off at its roots” daily, it seems. We are afraid to speak up, we are afraid to go against the flow, we are afraid to find consensus and compromise because it would show weakness and/or disbelief in the rightness of our way! What a crock, as I am reading Rabbi Heschel today. We have to admit how we have failed in our quest for insight, how we have fallen in love with one idea above all others, how we have fallen in love with our mind’s reflection and the people who reflect the same small vision. We have to admit our failure to keep our own amazement and eagerness alive. 

How do we do this? It is a practice that begins, I believe with gratitude for waking up. Before we put our feet on the ground, before we get out of bed, we say a gratitude prayer for being alive. We then have to realize that being alive today is an opportunity to learn and learning keeps our quest for insight alive. Each morning we make a commitment to learn and grow. We approach life with a curious mind, rather than with a mind made up. We stay maladjusted to the conventional notions and mental cliches that will bombard us this day. We continue to pursue our passions and our purpose, we seek to connect rather than conquer, we seek to lift up rather than put down, we give out compassion rather than disdain, etc. 

In recovery, we are aware that staying stagnant is falling into old behaviors and will send us back to days of woe and dismay. In recovery, we are eager to share new insights with our fellow human beings, we seek to study and learn with a few other individuals and/or a group. We are constantly on a quest for new insights. In recovery, we are eager and amazed at what we learn, how we grow and how we are of service and how much we love and connect to the Ineffable One and each other. 

I have been guilty of falling “in love with” my mind’s reflection at times. I have been so stubborn and sure that I have been unable to hear another’s perspective and cut them off. How sorry I am for these times because: 1) I negated the wonder, quest for insight of another human being and cut them off at their roots. 2) I limited the options, solutions and insights that could have helped the organization. 3) I failed to keep my eagerness and amazement to learn and be in wonder front and center of my living. I, as Rabbi Heschel says, did not know how to live in those moments. And, I have continued to be on a quest for insight each and every day. I love to learn, I know a day without learning is not worth living and I learned from those days of stubbornness-not hearing, listening and being on the quest for insight, will surely lead to the right answers to the wrong questions. I can’t have the correct questions, if I am not on the quest for insight, if I am not in amazement and eagerness to learn, to explore and to connect to the Ineffable One, to my soul and to you. God Bless and Stay Safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 9

“It is impossible to be at ease and to repose on ideas which have turned into habits, on “canned” theories, in which our own or other people’s insights are preserved. We can never leave behind our concern in the safe-deposit of opinions, nor delegate its force to others and so attain vicarious insights.(Man is Not Alone pg. 14).

Rabbi Heschel’s book Man is Not Alone was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1951 and he was worried about what he was seeing already in America and, probably, across the globe. In the first sentence above, Rabbi Heschel is putting into words what many of us already know; namely, we cannot live with the ideas that have become habits and be at ease with ourselves. While we can anesthetize ourselves by becoming drunk and/or drugged by the routine of these habits, we can never be completely comfortable with our own lives nor with life in general when we allow our ideas to become habits. Even worse, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel, is when we allow/adopt the insights of another and turn them into our habits. We see this today from both the left and the right, each spouting their rhetoric and pithy sayings without any awareness of how both have become habitual to and for them. This habitual way of being has led to gridlock in our Congress, States, Cities, Communities. This way of being has prevented a genuine discussion of ideas and constant tweaking of these ideas to bring about the change everyone wants to see. The rich do not want a planet that is uninhabitable! The poor don’t want people to close their business and not have a job to go to. No one wants to be called a charity case, we all want a fair shake, an opportunity-we won’t get what we desire/need as a country to grow by petrifying our slogans and staying stuck in our “canned” theories or those of another. 

We see the destruction that becoming at ease with making ideas into habits and “canned” theories being preserved has wrought. People are dying because of their belief in the “canned” theories of idiots who are telling them that Covid-19 is a hoax and don’t get the vaccines. Don’t wear a mask to protect another, don’t believe what we are seeing before our very eyes, 688,000 people have died, many because one man, our ex-president, sold his “canned” theory to almost 1/2 the nation and these ideas are being preserved by the very people who are suffering sickness and death! Yet, because of the penchant to be deceived, because of our penchant to engage in self-deception, many people are unable to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from mendacity and their need for comfort and their abdication of their spirit, their wonder has led them to precipice of destroying their connection to the Ineffable One. We witness the destruction of families as a place of growth and freedom, they have become a place of investment and pride. Parents are measuring themselves and their self-worth by how well their children are doing, hence the College Entrance Scandals, the rise in teen-age suicide, the rise in addiction overdoses, the rise in deaths from alcohol and drugs, the rise in desire for gambling, pain pills, etc, the rise in the “failure to launch” numbers.

We have left our “concern behind in the safe-deposit box of opinions” and it is killing our spirit and our bodies as well as the way of life envisioned by Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, the Founding Fathers of the US, all leaders of rebellions to spiritual, emotional, and physical freedom. We cannot read Rabbi Heschel and not engage in these ideas, we cannot read Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the Constitution and not engage anew in the words, the ideas, the path these point to, as I am reading these words of Rabbi Heschel. We have committed a Cardinal Sin, as I am experiencing Rabbi Heschel today. We have, in the name of ease, repose, vicarious insights, abandoned our concern and become stuck in old ideas, new ideas, through our reason faculty without regard to how stale being stuck gets us. We have become mean and persecuting in living in these boxes and in the insights of another by forcing our way and not being open to another way, by making our relationships transactional, “what have you done for me lately” rather than covenantal. We have abandoned our connection with God in order to live with ‘surety’. The surety is that we will kill our inner lives, our brilliance and dim the light of our souls so we are anesthetized from our inner dialogue. 

In recovery, we have routines and, like the Talmud teaches us, we never do them routinely. We are aware that getting stuck anywhere is getting stuck everywhere in our living. In recovery we are constantly reading and re-reading sacred texts, including the big book of AA, in order to learn anew and stay fresh and connected.

When I have been stuck in old ideas, I am totally unbearable because I have a gnawing in the pit of my stomach and a dis-ease in my body. I have not fallen completely into this trap in my recovery, I have flirted on the edges of this deep dark pit and have not fallen in-hence my continuous recovery. I keep seeing things new and I am scared to death of delegating the force of my concerns to the vicarious insights of another because I am responsible to see the world in my own unique ways, to hear your unique ways/insights and work together to make our corner of the world better. I can’t do this if I abandon my insights nor if I ignore yours. This is the conundrum, the joy, the wrestling and the beauty of not living with “canned” theories and petrified ideas. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 8

“To live only on that which we can say is to wallow in the dust, instead of digging up the soil. How shall we ignore the mystery, in which we are involved, to which we are attached by our very existence?”(Man is Not Alone pg.16)

Oy! I am overcome with grief right now for all the times I have “wallowed in the dust”. Humankind spends so much time using language to sell one another on some idea, we don’t realize how much we are wallowing in the dust. 

Most of us spend our entire waking hours either using or searching for the right words to use to get a message across that will benefit ourselves and, possibly, another human being. We are bombarded with this dust each and every day from politicians, to news commentators; from parents, to children; from bosses, to employees; from our mouths to our ears. Words have become so plentiful and meaningless that we are in the midst of a dust storm of epic proportions. The dust bowl of the 1930’s pales in comparison as I am understanding these words of Rabbi Heschel. We spend so much time thinking of the ‘right’ words to say in order to get what we want that we have forgotten to even realize that which we need: to be rooted in reality and the Ineffable. We are so blinded by the dust storm we have created that we have forgotten where we are: involved in the mystery of life. Words are not all bad, however. We need words to point to the mystery, the abstract nature of being, the unique piece of land for us to begin our digging of the soil there. The issue that Rabbi Heschel is bringing up, I believe, is that we have become so reliant on words, so used to explaining everything, we have lost our way. We keep building more and heavier dust storms with our words rather than digging up the soil, quietly, nobly, courageously and in concert with the Ineffable. 

Digging up the soil entails a recognition that there is more to the world than what I can explain. Digging up the soil is the action of seeking to go beyond our poor attempts at explaining how the world works, how life is determined, etc. Digging up the soil is the work it takes to let go of our old ideas, our need to know, our ridiculous belief in “if you can’t explain it, if you can’t prove it, then you are wrong”. Digging up the soil is the releasing of the dumb maxims we have come up with; ‘if you do it for one you have to do it for all, on advice of counsel, having a uniform code and way to fulfill that code, etc’. All of these and so many more ‘rules to live’ hamper and cripple the truth of our being. 

We are hardwired for mystery. We are deeply involved in the mystery called life. None of us can explain fully and completely how the “black hole” came about. None of us can explain fully and completely how/why this sperm and this egg met at this time and formed a fetus, etc. None of us can fully and completely explain why this soil is better for this plant/tree and that soil is better for that vegetable. None of us can fully and completely explain love and what lights up the heart of one person and not another. None of us can fully and completely explain the reason we wake up in the morning and another doesn’t. We are hardwired for mystery, we are attached to the mystery of the universe and the mystery that is the Ineffable. We do ourselves a disservice by continuing to be blinded by the dust of our words/explanations and missing the beauty and wonder, awe and joy of the mystery we are attached to. 

In recovery, we are so aware of the mystery and the dust. We began our recovery by ‘taking the cotton out of our ears and putting it in our mouths’, as they like to say in AA. While I don’t fully subscribe to this theory, I believe what it is saying is: stop trying to explain, stop trying to use words that are inadequate to rationalize the irrational, our previous behaviors. Stop talking, start listening to the words and the pauses of another who understands your past and can point you to a future that you desire and never thought possible. In recovery, we have a “spiritual awakening” and begin to acknowledge that there is a power greater than me in the universe. Early on in our recovery, we let go of the lie that we are all-powerful and need to explain or have explained exactly how life works. Rather we come to understand that life is and our responsibility is to be involved in the mystery and dig up the soil of our corner of the world and allow the mystery, the Ineffable to water our roots and engage in the growing without needing to understand nor explain how we are growing. 

Early on in my life, I would say, “No, you don’t understand me”. I had a speech impediment and I always felt embarrassed and misunderstood. I used to go sit in the Chapel at my Temple and cry out to God without fear, with my messing up my ‘r’s’, etc. because I felt the warmth of being known, seen and accepted. As I grew up and my speech was corrected, I bought into the lie of society that everything could and should be explained, otherwise it was useless. I used words to explain lies, cons, schemes and scams. I still believed that people did not understand me. Reading these sentences again, I realize that I was/am asking the impossible. I am hoping that the people who create dust storms will see the roots of my being through the dust they and I have created. It is impossible. I realize I put my hope in people who just can’t accept the mystery we are involved in and attached to. My last 32+ years have been connecting to the mystery and helping another(s) attach to theirs. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom- a daily path to living well

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 7

“Inquire of your soul what does it know, what does it take for granted. It will tell you only no-thing is taken for granted; each thing is a surprise, being is unbelievable. (Man is Not Alone, pg.12).

Rabbi Heschel begins this thought with an assumption; namely that we all recognize, communicate and engage with our souls. I love his optimism and his believing we all are  interested in, capable of and desire to connect with our souls. I am reading this sentence today in conjunction with the earlier sentences about wonder/radical amazement, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us, reminding us, hoping for us, that wonder/radical amazement are the responses of our souls, never our minds.

Going on this journey that Rabbi Heschel is suggesting we first have to shut out the noise in our heads, we have to let go of/release all the yesterdays that are blocking our hearing and our seeing. When we inquire of our souls, we are moving past our history, we are leaving the comfortable shores of lower knowing and we are plunging into the sea of the unknown, the depths of our insecurities to hear the true voice of the universe, God, our authentic self. Some people take this journey by going down the path of  meditation, prayer, study, music, love, conversation, spiritual counseling, etc. Some people, unfortunately, never take this journey-to them plunging into the unknown, the depths of their insecurities is too scary a trip. They are comfortable taking things for granted, they ‘like’ that their lives are predictable and each day is the same as the last one. Even for those who say; ‘same shit, different day’, it is more comfortable and less fearful to stay on the comfortable shores of consistency and, what I call, low-grade misery. 

Responding to Rabbi Heschel’s question compels me/us to define what “take for granted” means. The root word, grant, means to entrust from the latin, used in this form, “take for granted” means the exact opposite: “a failure to appreciate”. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that our souls never fail to appreciate life, living, breathing, etc. In the Jewish tradition, we say a prayer each morning before we even get out of bed, thanking God for restoring our soul to us with compassion and acknowledge God’s faithfulness to us. Most of the people saying this prayer in the morning say it by rote, from their minds-not from their souls and now with the gratitude, fervor of joy that we are alive for another day. Looking at the world today, we see people’s failure to appreciate the gifts, the uniqueness of another(s) human being, instead being prejudiced, holding on tighter to what they have. We see the failure of people to appreciate the help they were given to achieve the goals, desires they seek. We see the failure of people to appreciate the wisdom of their spiritual traditions; the wisdom imparted to them by teachers; the life-saving work of doctors, nurses, therapists, counselors, Clergy, and the institutions they work at. In raising money for the Charity I used to run, the people we helped and their families would take for granted that they didn’t have to pay and would be upset when I asked them for a donation to “pay it forward”. 

Our souls, on the other hand, are constantly surprised! Nothing is a sure thing to our soul because we are beyond what we are so sure of and into the realm of connection with the mystery of life, the realm of connecting to the Universe at our core and it’s core. Living from the state of wonder, radical amazement is living from our souls. This way of being/living gives us a new and joyous appreciation for what is right now. We immerse ourselves in the moment we are in, without prejudice and with a discerning that goes way beyond the comfortable shores of lower knowing/living. We feel the trembling joy of vision, truth, authenticity and surprise all at once. This surprise is not always fun, it is not always happy, it sometimes is a surprise of sadness, of pain, of bewilderment at the way people we thought we knew act. Yet being surprised by the hurt is evidence that we are living at our soul’s level and not the suspicious level of our lower logic.

In recovery, we are constantly surprised. When we get into ‘same shit different day’ mode, we know we are flirting with lapse/relapse into old behaviors and old ways that did not serve us. We are aware of the myriad of ways we tried to kill our souls, kill ourselves, kill our emotions, etc. We are aware of how much we took for granted and how debilitating and soul-sucking doing this was. In recovery, we seek to root out the prejudices we have/had and open ourselves up to a new day with open-hearts and open minds. In recovery, we are aware of the wonder and grace we are granted each day. 

I have said the prayer of gratitude for being alive every day for over 34 years. Each time I get more and more surprised and grateful and committed. I realize what I take for granted still and how that does not serve me. I also am seeing the hurts and pains I have experienced in a new light today. I am grateful to be hurt and exiled, to have not “seen what was coming” because I was taking nothing for granted and believing that people know/knew me and I know/knew them on a soul to soul level. I was surprised by our relationships being role to role with many of the people who hurt me. Immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s teaching today, leads me out of despair, depression, debilitating hurt and pain. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom- a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 6

“Spiritually we cannot live by merely reiterating borrowed or inherited knowledge.”

In the depths of our being, in the root of our soul/spirit, we are starving ourselves and putting our being into a prison when we stunt our ability to learn and grow each day, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s sentence above. Rabbi Heschel is also making a bold statement/reiterating the human/divine need for radical amazement. He is, in my understanding, reminding us/telling us that we need to live at the level of spirit in order to learn, know and actualize our human/divine connection. He is asking us to look at our living right now: are we living with radical amazement as our foundation and/or are we living with doubt/adjustment to conventional notions, etc. as our foundation? It is a fearsome question, a bold request that we live our true nature, as spiritual beings, not just animals! We have to tremble with awe, excitement  at the prospect of living life as spiritual beings and immerse ourselves in the activities of a spiritual life. 

These activities begin with connection to the Ineffable One, connection to all of humanity, connection to our work, connection to our family, spouse, nature, etc. Once connected, I am able to see how and where my way of being, my unique gifts belong in the grand scheme of our world. Living from the foundation of spirit means that I live life on God’s terms, not mine or society’s. Rabbi Heschel’s life is testimony to this truth. He did not ‘go along to get along’, he was never recognized enough (in my opinion) for his brilliance, depth, commitment to his fellow humans, prophetic voice, etc. during his lifetime. Yet, he continued to pursue justice, righteousness, kindness, truth, and loving kindness no matter what anyone said to him in order to get him to stop. He was an activist for God, he teaches us all how to live life on God’s terms and in a manner that is “compatible with our sense of the Ineffable One” as he says in God in Search of Man. 

As Rabbi Heschel’s daughter has written and said; Rabbi Heschel had no time or patience for religious behaviorism and/or spiritual plagiarism. In the sentence above, we hear him call out to us to stop recycling old spiritual maxims, stop behaving in the same ways that people did 20, 50, hundreds of years ago. Grow our own spirits according to the needs of our spirits and the call of God today, not the needs of mendacity nor the false needs of our society today. When we reiterate knowledge it becomes dead, lifeless. We usually do this to use this inherited knowledge to gain and/or retain power. If it was true then, it must be true now thinking gets us stuck in old ways and patterns. Being stuck in old ways and patterns doesn’t allow for growth, new insights and growing our spiritual life! 

We are seeing this stunted way of living in our politics of “return to the good old days”, “return our country to its Christian Values”( that are not Christ’s values), “make America great again”, etc. We see this stunted ways of living in our religious institutions. These institutions have taken a dynamic experience, God’s speaking to us, calling to us in the here and now, and turned it into a static experience of 2000+ years ago. We see people using reiterated and/or borrowed knowledge in child rearing, marriage, business, etc. We see the ruin that has come from it. The rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, addiction are skyrocketing in our young people because they cannot live on this borrowed and inherited knowledge and we are stunting/killing their spirits by demanding they do. 

In recovery, we know that our recovery is dependent on our spiritual condition. When we ignore our spiritual condition, when we try and live someone else’s knowledge, we are heading for and/or are already in a lapse/relapse. In living there is no standing/running in place-we either move forward or backward. We are given the gift of understanding the texts we read in our own way, seeking guidance and input, yet not needing to adhere to the dogma of someone else. In recovery, we “trudge the road of happy destiny” through our spiritual living. 

I have used the learning, teaching of our tradition and my ancestors to enhance my knowledge and used my spirit to put my knowledge to work in my own unique way. I am guilty of many things and living on inherited or borrowed knowledge is not one of them! I am excited each day to learn, to explore and to explode my knowing from the days, weeks, years before. Not only do I freshen up my knowledge everyday, I also have my own unique delivery system that is not for everyone. I also know that being real, transparent, and loud gets me into trouble and sometimes I am definitely inappropriate. Yet, the cost of hiding, being “appropriate” and two-faced, like many people unfortunately, is spiritual death for me. I was saved from this death by Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Silverman, family, etc in 1987 and I am not going to flirt with spiritual death again. I have to keep it fresh so I honor my teachers, especially Rabbis Heschel, Shulweis, Silverman, Omer-man and Feinstein. They have given me/give me the key to my own new and fresh ways of interpreting texts, events, and this moment. I am grateful for these keys and grateful to God for giving me the gifts and the power to unlock the doors to my soul and enhance my soul’s knowing. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 5

“Wonder is a state of mind in which we do not look at reality through the latticework of our memorized knowledge; in which nothing is taken for granted.” (Man is Not Alone pg.12). 

There are moments, experiences, sentences, ideas that stay with us because of their armor crashing, inner reverberating, trembling awesomeness, etc. This sentence is one of these! Of course, anyone who knows me will say that I believe most of what Rabbi Heschel writes and teaches contain these attributes for me and they are correct. I believe all of us can have an AHA moment, an experience of being recognized, validation of what we know in our soul that we have denied with our intellect. 

Living in wonder, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us, means we cannot rely on our memorized knowledge to explain this moment. We can’t rely on our memorized knowledge to respond to this moment. OMG! We are living in a time, as in all times, where intellect is revered and spiritual knowledge and wonder are thought of as ‘willy-nilly’. Even our “spiritual leaders” are preaching and teaching memorized knowledge which leads to the stultifying of the Spiritual Values that God has given to us. When we hear about the “good old days” or “returning our country to our Christian Values”, we are hearing people who refuse to live in wonder and are using religion and spirituality as a vehicle for their own power. We, the people listening to these charlatans, have to not fall into the euphoric thinking that comes from seeing reality through the “latticework of memorized knowledge”. 

The use of the word, latticework, is interesting to me. I understand Rabbi Heschel’s use of it to remind us that memory is never clear and crisp, it can’t be because it is memory. Using the word latticework is a fantastic descriptor of how memory works. There are many open spaces in a latticework and there are many pieces of wood, etc. that block a clear and open view of what we are looking at. I am thinking of the Japanese movie, Rashamon. The film is known for a plot device that involves various characters providing subjective, alternative and contradictory versions of the same incident. This is what happens when we see reality, the here and now, through the latticework of memorized knowledge. We are providing to ourselves contradictory, alternative and subjective versions of what happened before and apply this narrow view to what is going on right now. We can never get a true vision of what is when we are seeing everything through old eyes, old visions and only  through partial visions. Using memorized knowledge leads to seeing things not as they are, rather as we think they were and having our vision partially obscured by the latticework that we see through.

When we take nothing for granted, we are no longer using memorized knowledge to see, experience and respond to reality, we are using wonder, awe, spirit to respond, experience and see what truly is. In his interview with Carl Stern, Rabbi Heschel explains “I’ve learned from the prophets that I have to be involved in the affairs of man, in the affairs of the suffering man.” I believe this is Rabbi Heschel’s teaching us how to respond to reality with and in the state of wonder. He did not use wonder to say everything is fine, his living in the state of wonder allowed/forced him to see what was good and not good about the reality of the world around him and to speak up, actively work to change things and spread the message of hope, love, kindness and strength to all who would listen. I think of Robert Kennedy’s statement: “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” We have the same call in our soul, the same opportunity to see new each and every day, hour, moment. We cannot do this when see through the latticework of memorized knowledge.

In recovery we are dedicated to letting go the euphoria of the latticework of memorized knowledge. Our addictions to substances and processes; our acceptance of the different labels that are put on us, ie depressive, anxious; using net worth to determine self-worth; living in the good old days of ___; all lead us astray because we never remember things clearly, we are always making past experiences better than they were or worse than they were. In recovery, we take down the latticework to see as clear a picture of the past as we can and “we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it” from the promises of AA. 

Every big error I have made in the past 34+ years has come from being in the latticework of memorized knowledge. Immersing myself in this sentence, I am aware that my recent experiences are the direct result of taking things for granted and seeing myself and reality through latticework which partially blinded me to what was happening and to my own willful blindness. Living in wonder is how I have attained all the good I have in my life: the love of my amazing wife, daughter, grandson, siblings, nieces, nephews, friends; the respect of some colleagues; the gratitude of some people I/we have helped along the way, etc. The realization of my being in memorized knowledge, of taking for granted that I belonged in my space was/is sad and it is no longer debilitating, it was hard to understand and I am moving forward instead of being stuck. Letting go of taking things for granted allows me to appreciate and respond to life so much more. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 4

“Standing eye to eye with being as being, we realize that we are able to look at the world with two faculties- with reason and with wonder. Through the first, we try to explain or to adapt the world to our concepts, through the second we seek to adapt our minds to the world.”(Man is Not Alone pg.11).

This is the great conundrum, which faculty to use when engaging the world, reason or wonder. While reason makes more ‘sense’ at a lower logic level, I want to look at how wonder changes everything we know and have learned. Without wonder, in my experience, we can’t “stand eye to eye with being as being” because we are blind to what truly makes us human-our soul and spirit. Being human means we can go above and beyond our animal instincts and help another human being, make the interests of another our concerns to paraphrase another Rabbi Heschel teaching.

When we are in wonder, the ‘person in the glass’ stares back at us with a smile, an encouragement, a bit of wisdom and hope. Living from wonder means we never see the same thing in the same way twice. We are, as Rabbi Heschel described himself, constantly surprised, not always pleasantly, and always surprised. Same s$%#*t different day never comes out of our mouths, we are constantly excited for what the day will bring, what we will learn today, what new experiences of people we will have today, and, most of all, we hear how good and needed we are from the ‘person in the glass’ upon arising! Living from and in wonder means we are constantly in search of new ways of experiencing each day, we are constantly searching for new ways to view the challenges we face and we use the creative energy of the universe, of the people around us and inside of us to solve the problems that used to baffle us. The state of wonder that Rabbi Heschel is teaching us about, I believe, is the state of being connected to, open to, a student of, and thoroughly immersed in the universe as it is, hearing the call of the Ineffable One and responding to this call. 

This state of wonder allows us to stop trying to exert the control that we think we have over the world. It reminds us that authoritarianism is not the path to follow, that our challenges make us human, again paraphrasing Rabbi Heschel, the greater our challenges, the deeper our humanity becomes. Living in wonder allows us to view the world as it is, right here, right now. Wonder pushes us to find solutions to challenges that are larger than a quick fix, these solutions are far-reaching and long lasting. Wonder forces us to live in a deep connection to the Ineffable One with all the joy and the angst that connection to God brings to us. 

How do we do this? Rabbi Heschel gives us the clue; adapting our mind/being to the universe rather than trying to bend the world to our reasoning, our ‘way it should be’. In the state of wonder, the conflicts we have (and we have them) are conflicts that we engage in for the sake of God, not our egos. We engage in battle to lift up the world and our fellow humans to be closer to God, to the principles that God has given to us and to make sure that no one is left behind because we did not reach out to them. Living in wonder means never taking anything for granted. We are never able to predict the outcome nor be in depression. We will be depressed at the state of affairs of the world and the people running the different countries, states, cities, communities, families and we will not fall into the hole of depression. Living in wonder is the state of being connected to and immersed in our lives, the lives of all humans and the life of the world itself. Living in wonder gives us the ability to not only appreciate art, beauty, etc, it gives us the ability to appreciate the love, the rebuke, the errors, the gains we experience on a daily basis. 

In recovery, we are in constant wonder and joy over our recovery, our experiencing ‘life on life’s terms’ and the clarity that wonder, sobriety, our regained morality and living our spiritual principles gives to us. That we are in recovery is a wondrous event and experience. It cannot be explained by reason/lower logic, it can only be understood in the greater context of the Universe and our connection to it, our connection to God, to another human being and our connection back to our soul/spirit/authentic self. In recovery, we are in awe of each day being new, each day having something to teach us and each day we are able to learn anew/renew. Wonder is the foundation of our recovery so we do not get stale. 

When I first read this in 1987, I was utterly confused. I kept reading it and I still read it almost daily. I have to be reminded of my commitment and need to live from wonder. Wonder has given me the courage, the push to be creative, to immerse myself in text, in life and see it differently than most. It gives me assurances that God is always with me, the universe is my friend and wonder teaches me how to greet the day and everyone I meet in that day. While I don’t always put into practice these lessons, they give me the strength and the vision forward. Seeing the world through wonder has given me the clarity and wisdom to love and appreciate family, friends, even enemies. Wonder allows me to respond “great’ when people ask me how I am because I realize I am blessed to be alive today. Wonder allows me to look you in the eyes and myself in the mirror. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- a daily path to living better each day

Living Well Guidance from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 3

“Standing eye to eye with being as being, we realize that we are able to look at the world with two faculties- with reason and with wonder. Through the first, we try to explain or to adapt the world to our concepts, thought the second we seek to adapt our minds to the world.”(Man is Not Alone pg.11).

OMG! I am trembling inside at the enormity of these two sentences. In the first phrase, Rabbi Heschel is asking, demanding, suggesting, pushing us to look at ourselves as beings, to see our being and the being of the world. Rabbi Heschel is calling on us to stop wearing blinders, to end our willful blindness to what truly is. We have to stand eye to eye with ourselves when we look in the mirror, which many of us do not do. We look in the mirror to make sure our make-up is on right, our beards are trimmed or our faces shaved. We look in the mirror to fix our hair to look good, yet we forget, most days, to stand eye to eye with our inner self, to stand eye to eye with the being that is who we truly are. Standing eye to eye with ourselves is a scary experience at first and then we get more and more comfortable with it, until we are scared not to stand eye to eye with our inner life, our spirit, God, the universe, another human being, etc. 

The realization that we have a choice as to how to look at the world is freeing and debilitating, a true both/and. Rabbi Heschel is not dismissing reason, he is not, in my understanding, saying reason is bad or should not be used. He is, as I immerse myself today, reminding us that we have a choice as to the foundational path of our relating to the world, to being, to seeing. We can use reason as our foundation and we can use wonder as our foundation to encounter life, the world, God, Spirituality, being, ethics, morality, love, kindness, even truth. This is the greatest challenge of our time, of all times- will we use reason as the end all/be all as the foundational principle of our decisions in life? Some scientists and others say that if it can’t be proven, it isn’t valid/true. Every scientific breakthrough has come about because people decided to go beyond the conventional reasoning of their time! When we have to have, what I call a ‘lower logic’ basis for our ways of being, we become trapped and debilitated in our ability to be human. We no longer can appreciate the sun for what it is, rather we appreciate it and all other things for what it does for us. We see the world as utilitarian means to our ends, whatever we decide our ends should be. When we are in our ‘lower logic’, we may feel love, yet not know love; we may feel connected, yet not trust the connection will continue, etc. Lower logic is a way of seeing the world through a selfish lens, trying always to adapt the world to our own concepts, explaining and complaining about the unfairness of life because we did not get our way. 

We are living in a world that values what we can see, feel, touch, reason, etc. ‘Lower logic’ tells us we can be/should be perfect and any flaws are signs of weakness. We are suffering because of this way of being. In ‘lower logic’, we are unable to stand eye to eye with anything other than the vision we have created. In ‘lower logic’ we stand at the mirror and check our reflection continually each and every day to ensure that our masks are in place, we look good, no one can see the real me/my inner being/my soul. We use the masks to attain and amass wealth, facts, charm, position, etc, all the while getting emptier and emptier inside. We then use these false measures of success to soothe ourselves, we use substances, behaviors, people to soothe ourselves. And, eventually, nothing works to soothe ourselves. It is at this point we move from the anxiety of being ‘found out’ to the depression of total inner unrest. In this depression, we again seek to use ‘lower logic’ to solve the problem, we use the chemicals/drugs that are being sold on TV, pushed by the Doctors, etc when our problems stem from our surrender to a false foundational way of being. Reason alone, ‘lower logic’ alone as the foundational source of our relating to the world brings about war, hatred, jealousy, prolong the traumatic events of our life, the wearing of masks and hiding, blinding ourselves to truth, love, kindness, etc.

In recovery, we surrender our need for reason as the foundational principle of living. We have used reason to hide, to steal, to lie, to get over, to keep the mask/front up and to take advantage of everyone and anyone who tries to relate to our inner being. In recovery, we know we have to use our reason/‘lower logic’ at times and to use it wisely, we are aware that it can no longer be the guiding principle. We are powerless over our intellectual need for reason/‘lower logic’ and it has made our life unmanageable, is another way to read the first step of AA. In recovery, we realize the fallacy and the debilitating effects of reason/‘lower logic’ being our foundational principle and commit to stop taking this path. 

I used reason/‘lower logic’ for my own gain, never to help another person, prior to my recovery. In these past 34+ years, I have seen over and over again the pain, loss, trap, enslavement using reason as my first line of defense or offense has caused. I also realize my buying into the reason/‘lower logic’ of another person has brought pain, loss, enslavement to both of us. I am aware, thru this writing today, of the destruction I experienced as well as the destruction I brought through using reason as the first line of defense/offense. I am realizing how hurtful it is to misread people and situations, when one party is using wonder and the other reason-how easy it is to manipulate, blame and take advantage of another in this experience. I also am realizing how much I did exactly this prior to my recovery.  Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - a daily path to growing our inner lives

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 2

“Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.”(Man Is Not Alone, pg.11).

Rabbi Heschel’s simple, beautiful, combination of prose and poetry appears again in this sentence. English was not Rabbi Heschel’s first, second, third or fourth language and he had really only learned it when he came to America after HUC got him a special visa as a teacher to get him out of Poland just prior to Hitler’s Invasion. The Shoah had a deep impact on Rabbi Heschel, he lost most of his family, a way of being in the world was destroyed which he wrote about in The Earth is the Lord’s, and he was thrust into a world that was very foreign to him. Wonder or radical amazement was a foundational state of being for Rabbi Heschel from what I have read and from what his daughter, Dr. Susannah Heschel, says. How fascinating, heroic, amazing and an example for all of us to stay true to our beingness no matter what life brings to us. 

Rabbi Heschel is giving us a nudge in the right direction for living well and living freely in this second sentence of the second chapter of Man is Not Alone, published in 1951. In order to be aware of what is, I have to stay maladjusted to words and notions. Otherwise, I fall into the trap of yesterday’s quote and hinder my search for and deepening of my knowledge. What does it mean to be maladjusted to words and notions? I believe Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that Hebrew words have more than one meaning and there are many forms of a word in Hebrew. I believe Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that the root of a word can point to different experiences and meanings and staying stuck in one definition always and forever is a sure way to stop our search for, experience of and immersion in wonder/radical amazement.

The phrase radical amazement, from the Hebrew, can be translated to mean “root of miracles”. Radical is comes from the Latin meaning root and we use it today as meaning altering the fundamental nature of something, or going to an extreme. I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s use of this phrase totally differently than I have before, which is why and how we learn to live in a constant state of maladjustment. By immersing myself in the text, searching for new meanings of words, I have come upon a new way of seeing, understanding and living radically amazed. Rather than having to change the ‘fundamental nature’ of Rabbi Heschel is reminding us to go back to the root of miracle, which can be God, life itself, our awakening and awareness of love, our immersion in Torah, in Bible, in truth, etc. When we go to the root of miracles we are traveling forward to new meanings, new visions, new understandings and new knowledge, new spiritual connections, new forms of love, service and kindness. We are able to move past yesterdays use of a word or a notion to be present in the miracle that is today. When we continue to be adjusted to the words and notions, there is no opportunity to be surprised nor in a state of learning. Wonder or radical amazement forces us to uncover new meanings, new ways to use the words and notions that we have become accustomed to, and see more of the whole spectrum of what a word and/or notion points to. Rabbi Heschel spoke often of his ability to be surprised, both positively and negatively, I am sure. We cannot be surprised without being in radical amazement, we can’t be surprised if we are stay unaware of the miracles that happen to us, because of us, around us all day and every day. 

Rabbi Heschel, in 1951 accused us, indicted us and, we pled and continue to plead guilty to living inauthentically and in a made-up world, as I am understanding the last phrase above. I am shuddering at this awareness. Staying stuck in the adjustment to notions and words, cliches and the past blinds me to what is currently happening in my inner world, in my community, family and the entire world as well as being unable to hear God’s call to and for me. In 1951, Rabbi Heschel warned us of the danger of living inauthentically, the pain, mental anguish, wars, depression, soul sucking and spirit killing experience that comes with living inauthentically. In the 70 years since, his prophecy has proven to be true. Without authenticity,  cases of addiction rises, suicide rises, depression/anxiety rises, divorce stats go up, a general malaise covers the world we are living in, authoritarianism rises and we put more and more blinders on to try and hide from our condition. Rabbi Heschel is giving us the key to living well, live authentically, live in and with radical amazement and wonder. Stop being so sure that yesterday’s vision and experience is the way to see life always. Engage in the wild ride that life is by being present in this moment with a new way of seeing this moment that changes with the next moment. Loving cannot be based on yesterday’s feelings, it has to be based in today’s actions, today’s understanding of what my spouse, child, lover, parents, siblings, friends, community, God needs now-so I have to encounter them all as they are, not as how I saw them yesterday! Because of inauthentic living, we are in the current state of hatred, strife, zero-sum, laws without spirit, etc. 

In recovery, we are recovering our integrity, our authenticity. We are going back to the root of miracle that is our life, our being of service, our ability to see things anew. To paraphrase one of the promises of the Big Book of AA, we will intuitively know the answer to situations that used to baffle us! In recovery, we return to a state of maladjustment and belief in the possibility of change and repair, the knowingness and acceptance of powerlessness. In recovery, we recover our authenticity by returning to, seeking guidance from and hearing the call of God-the root of all miracles, especially our recovery. 

I have lived maladjusted for most of my life:) When I read this sentence in 1987, I realized that I had defined maladjusted as a bad thing, I had gone along with society’s meaning and I could have another meaning to the world. I cried at how inauthentically I had lived my life up to that point and made a personal commitment to live authentically and my life out loud. I could no longer hide, I could no longer see things only one way and I had to be engaged in my life, no longer putting on blinders, etc. Fast forward 34 years and I am proud to say that living authentically has worked out well for me, because I can live with myself without needing to hide, steal, drink, etc. I can be of service to those I can help, I can see the parts of me that need some maturing and polishing, whenever I err and don’t hide I recognize these parts. I also keep returning to the root of the miracles of my life: learning, loving, family, Harriet, Heather, friends, community, God and Rabbi Heschel. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- a daily path of growing our inner life.

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Day 1

“The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches.”(Man is Not Alone, pg.11)

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is a gift that we all can receive, experience and grow from/with provided we are willing to immerse ourselves in his teachings, in sacred texts, in our own lives. He was, to me, one of the greatest Spiritual Leaders of the 20th Century and may be more influential now than when he was alive. Rabbi Heschel has, like his description of the Prophets of Ancient Israel, “a painful rebuke, a powerful dissent, a deep love and unwavering hope” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Appendix). Rabbi Heschel was friends with and a teacher for many of the Civil Rights leaders of the 60’s, Christian theologians and ministers, Catholic Priests, Rabbinical Students and Rabbis, etc. His writings have inspired and changed so many of us who were not fortunate enough to know him personally.

The first sentence above is a very radical one. Rabbi Heschel, in my understanding, is saying that as soon as we become adjusted to a conventional notion and/or a mental cliche, we are prevented from obtaining any more knowledge about that particular aspect of living. Be it our understanding of history, our understanding of life, our understanding of God, religion, another human being. The root of the word hindrance is, hinder. This means behind, at the rear of, so anything that hinders us puts us behind and prevents us from moving forward. I ask you to think of the ideas and notions that we have accepted that keeps preventing us from moving forward as a country, as a community, as a family, as individuals. The truth of this statement begins to reverberate within us and within our different affiliations when we immerse ourselves in what the words mean and Rabbi Heschel’s unique way of writing poetry and prose in the same sentence and with the same words. 

The word adjustment means to alter and/or adapt. We alter and adapt our thinking, our living according to some conventional notion that most people just accept as true and valid, some inner mental thought that we heard, imagined and are staying with. Rabbi Heschel is telling us that we cannot attain/grow our knowledge, a deep understanding and knowing of what is truthful, by adjusting to the what we knew yesterday. Rabbi Heschel believed, according to my reading of his interview with Carl Stern in 1972, that being stale was the worst “sin”/experience that could happen to a human being. Yet, we have become stale in so many ways. We long for the “good old days”, which allows us to stay stuck in the past. We say “here is the way we do this ____” not realizing that progress is made every moment. We are willing to buy the latest technology, yet we still believe having the newest, the shiniest, the best will tell people who we are, how smart, successful, etc we are. These are some of the conventional notions we have all accepted and this stops us from seeing past the surface of life. The mental cliches, the words we use to describe ourselves are stale as well. As soon as I say something, it has become obsolete, just like a new car loses value as soon as you drive it off the lot, so too do our descriptions of ourselves, our life, our surroundings, etc become stale once we think them. Yet, we hold on to these old ideas and they stunt our growth, they hinder our ability to deepen our knowing and, in many cases, become fertile ground for racism, hatred based on race, color, creed, religion, etc. 

These old ideas have become so insidious that we adorn our parks, state capitals, US Capital with statues of people who committed Treason! We get angry at US Flag burners and people who kneel at the National Anthem, yet we celebrate people who fly/wave the Confederate Flag which represents the attempted overthrow of our country! These old ideas have allowed the ‘persecuted white supremacist’ to recruit decent people, who are unaware of their being duped and deceived because of their adjustment to the altered “facts” of another. On a personal level, we have become so inured to these mental cliches that we believe the most negative things about ourselves and/or we run from the negative ones and become enamored with ourselves. We become stale and stuck because of our belief in these mental cliches in our inner lives and we become stale and stuck as individuals and family/community/country because of the conventional notions we hold onto.

In recovery, we are aware of how our old ideas “availed us nothing” as the Big Book of AA says. In fact, we because so stuck in our old ideas that we could not hear the call of the people around us, the people who loved us that we were ruining our lives and theirs. We were so stuck in the mental cliches that we held onto to we were unable to see the destruction we had caused, were causing and about to cause to ourselves and anyone who was around us. We took hostages and prisoners, all the while feeling that we were the ones being treated poorly, we were being misunderstood, we were the victims! In recovery, we become aware of these lies we have been telling ourselves and another(s), we tremble with tears and hope when we begin to recount for ourselves how powerless we are over the ideas and mental cliches that brought us to our knees and how grateful we are to finally begin, grow, enhance our live in recovery. In recovery, we are so aware of our ‘stinking thinking’ that these ideas and cliches will save us and realize they will kill us. 

I was always a smart kid and my ‘smarts’ led me to doing some of the stupidest things one could imagine. I read this sentence about 5 times a week, either in study with another person, in conversation with someone and/or just to remind myself to get out of being stuck and stale. I continue to read/study/meditate on this sentence so often because I am able to deceive myself into thinking I have let go of these cliches and ideas, yet, my yearly inventory has shown me how I hold on to old and new cliches and ideas for too long, accepting their truth once and for all. Every time I do this, I become a caricature of my true self and I am disappointed and disappointing. I am susceptible to the lies and mendacity of another(s) and I put my trust in people who have their own agenda’s without my realizing it. When I hold on to old ideas and cliches, I become spiritually, mentally vision-impaired and this has led to hurt, pain and loss for me and some of the people I love the most. I know that I have to see what I know new each day and not just accept something because it was true yesterday. This is my learning and doing in all my affairs, study, work and relationships. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets 

Day 217

“Then God said to Jonah, are you so deeply angry about the plant? Yes, Jonah replied, so deeply angry that I want to die. Then God said, you cared about the plant with you did not work for, which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and persisted overnight. And should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 human beings who do not know their right hand from their left and many beasts as well?”(Jonah4:9-11).

This is the end of the book of Jonah and we see that Jonah never became human. He doesn’t want to serve God, he is incapable of seeing past his own needs, his own judgmental ways, and his egotistical need to be right all the time.

Jonah is a representative of all the people who know better than God. Jonah is representative of all of the times we, each of us, has acted as if we know better than God. Jonah is representing the anger many of us experience when we don’t get our way. Jonah is representing the lack of personal insight many of us have when faced with Yom Kippur and At-One-Ment. Jonah represents the lack of personal responsibility many of us ignore when refusing to forgive and, rather, get the ‘pound of flesh’ we are able to because of  “the letter of the law” not the spirit. Jonah represents people who get angry when what they want doesn’t happen so they want to take their marbles and go home to sulk. Jonah represents the people who lack empathy, who lack the ability to let go, who are so small and think so little of themselves they have to beat up and take advantage of someone else to feel strong and big. Jonah represents the politicians and the lawyers, the CEO’s and the shareholders, the far right and the far left, who are only interested in winning, in profits, in ideology rather than being interested and concerned about 1 human being at a time. 

God’s words to Jonah are words to all of us. We get angry about our ego being bruised, being called out for our errors and our ways, being ‘found out’ after we put up false facades/masks and then blame and want to destroy those who see us because we care more about being seen in a good light than we care about truth and concern for another human being. God, on the other hand, reminds us that we have to care about our creations, ie children, families, business’, organizations, etc. as well as God’s creations, ie, earth, animals, plants, sea life, another human being, etc. God is saying that people who are so confused, so unknowing, as the people of Nineveh, who could ignore, not learn, go against God’s teachings of how to live; deserve our compassion, deserve another chance to change, deserve to be told and taught the ways of decency, kindness, truth, justice, mercy, forgiveness and love. God is telling all of us, through Jonah, that this is our mission. Vengeance, getting even, winning at all costs, using the vulnerabilities of someone against them, these are all animal instincts that we humans need to overcome in order to serve our higher instincts of Godliness. 

Rabbi Heschel writes: “God’s answer to Jonah, stressing the supremacy of compassion, upsets the possibility of look for a rational coherence of God’s ways with the world. History would be more intelligible if God’s word were the last word, final and unambiguous like a dogma or unconditional decree…Yet, beyond justice and anger lies the mystery of compassion.”(The Prophets pg. 287). So many of us are looking for surety and we find God instead. Those who wish for the rational coherence would be destroyed if it were so. Those who seek to call God’s anger and retribution upon another would perish if God were to respond to such a call. Yet we continue to bully people into believing that God will punish for the slightest errors, that we are doing God’s work when we serve ourselves and use and abuse a system meant for lifting up the dignity of all. Many people continue to revel and relish, roll around in and bathe themselves in mendacity and deception of self and another so they can have power and control. We read Jonah on Yom Kippur to remind us that this is not the way, resentments are not compassionate, Ego-anger is not appropriate. Will we all let these go in this Schmita year of 5782? 

In recovery, we are so aware of our powerless, our limits, our need to keep our ego right-sized and our gratitude for God’s mercy and grace. We know that Grace is not earned with one action, rather Grace comes from the latin meaning pleasing and thankful. God is pleased with our humanness, our imperfections and thankful that we have progressed one grain of sand each day in the past year. In recovery, we keep letting go of resentments, appreciate compassion and practice mercy with ourselves and everyone else. 

I have been Ego-angry even in my recovery and I am sorry for those times. I have thought about “getting even” and using vulnerabilities against another, and I haven’t very often if at all. God’s compassion is enough for me to leave sadness and hurt, betrayals by ‘friends’ and loss of community, for being the loud, brash, in-your-face, guy I have always been. It isn’t cool in Cancel Culture, etc. Yet the love, mercy and compassion of God and God’s Angels are enough. If I have harmed you, I am truly sorry and I ask for your forgiveness. If you have harmed me, please know you are forgiven. God Bless, Stay safe and 5782 is a year of release and renewal and I pray you immerse yourself in it.

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 216

“Jonah left the city and found a space east of the city, He made a Sukkah there, sat under it for shade to see what happened to the city. God provided a ricinus plant…to give shade for his head and save him from discomfort. Jonah was very happy. God provided a worm which attacked the plant and it withered…Jonah begged for death, saying I would rather die than live.”(Jonah 4:5-8). 

In the first verses above, Jonah is not interested in staying around, giving counsel to the people or the king, he just wants to stand apart and above the fray to watch the destruction. There is a term that Harriet and I use: Relationship Arsonist. This is the person who creates tension and hatred between two people and watches the relationship blow up. This is a person who revels in watching people destroy themselves by ensuring they are constantly and consistently afraid to trust, afraid to connect and afraid there is something inherently wrong with them. Jonah wanted to deliver God’s message and then sit away from the city and witness the destruction. As we get closer to Kol Nidre, instead of just reciting the annulment of vows, this year lets recite an annulment of our need to watch the destruction of another(s) with glee. As we recite the short and long confessionals on Kol Nidre, let's confess to the ways we have caused strife and fire between two people, the ways we have been relationship arsonists and reveled in the chaos, hurt and not cared about the collateral damage. 

On Yom Kippur during the morning confessionals, let's confess the myriad of ways we have been like Jonah, sitting in comfort, out of the hot sun, watching and waiting for the destruction of things we did not build, and were jealous of. In the morning confessionals, let’s confess to the ways we have destroyed our ability to have empathy, divine pathos/rachmones, compassion and pain at the destruction of relationships of  families, communities and, the world with one another and with God. On Yom Kippur morning, let’s confess to the negative speech/gossip we engage in to destroy another person’s character, goodness, helpfulness, accomplishments, etc. just to feel superior and better about ourselves. 

How often have we been happy when we have been provided what we need, like Jonah was provided with the plant by God. He never acknowledged God in his pleasure nor did he realize he was being an entitled person. On Yom Kippur morning, let’s confess to the ways we have acted entitled, been angry when our entitlement is not fulfilled, and set fire, or tried to set fire, to the goodness of another and the goodness of an institution. On Yom Kippur, let’s confess to the myriad of times we have spoken badly about the Rabbi’s sermon and/or the Cantor’s melodies or voice just to feel superior when we could do neither role, just to bond with another negative person, rather than being moved by both the liturgy and the messages of the Rabbi. 

Entitlement brings a lot of pain when it is suddenly taken away from us. Jonah is so angry, upset, grieved for the plant when it is taken away, he becomes faint and just wants to die, rather than ask for help from God, take shelter under the sukkah again, go to the town and seek shelter, etc. Isn’t this the way many of us are? To mitigate this pain, we get angry, lash out against someone, no matter whether they had a part in our entitlement not being fulfilled or not, and then we are so dramatic and taken with ourselves and our pain, we threaten to die or at least say we want to. This is a ploy people use to get what they want, when they want it, from the people most likely to give in. Many of us use this type of threat, the threat of litigation so they can get a payday, the threat of scandal/exposure of lies that are believable and/or the imperfections of another person/institution and/or government. On Yom Kippur morning, let’s confess to the ways our entitlement has caused us to be ungrateful and unmindful of the blessings God and another(s) have given us. On Yom Kippur morning, let’s confess to the ways we coerced another to fulfill our entitlement issues even when they didn’t want to/knew it was wrong to do. 

In recovery, after trying to kill ourselves for so long, we know we are not entitled to anything except the day we have and to do the most with it that we can. We wake up every morning grateful to be alive, thankful for what we have and seek to be of service to another(s) rather than seeking people to be of service to us. In recovery, we let go of our need to be relationship arsonists. We seek to help another and when they rebuff us, we pray for them and we welcome them back when they return. 

I have been Jonah prior to my recovery, I have released my need to see someone else fall a long time ago. When I see it and I reach out and am rebuffed, rather than “I told you so” my response has been and is: “I am so sorry, how can I help?” I have made the confessions I wrote about above and the one I still have to make for this year is: “I am sorry God that I did not hear your call and respond to it quicker. I am sorry God that I engaged in being willfully blind to what was going on around me. In this year and all coming years, my commitment to you, God, is to keep my eyes and ears open and see what is, not what I want to see. I am grateful for all You have provided me with and will use it better in this year and forward”. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark 

The Prophets- wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 215

“This displeased Jonah greatly and he was grieved. He prayed to God, saying, “God, isn’t this the outcome I spoke when I was still in my country? This is why I fled to Tarshish, because I know You are God of compassion, and grace, slow to anger and great in kindness and renouncing punishment upon the evil. Please, God, take my life for it is better for me to die than live. God said: are you that deeply grieved?”(Jonah 4:1-4).

This is the final chapter in the Jonah story that we find in our Bible. It begins with an example of what happens when we can’t “get even” and/or “people don’t get what they deserve” according to our opinions. Jonah is pissed off that people repent, people are saved from death and they have an opportunity to change their ways and live as decent human beings. Jonah is reminding us of the attitude that has been around forever, evidently, that not only doesn’t a leopard change its spots, humans don’t change either. Yet, Yom Kippur, T’Shuvah, growing our connection to God and another(s) human being says differently! The Jewish Tradition is all about change, growing in wisdom, learning new things and new depths from our sacred texts. And, there are many Jonah’s around today as there has always been. 

We read Jonah on Yom Kippur afternoon, I believe, to re-enforce God’s ways of kindness, compassion, forgiveness, grace, renouncing punishment, etc. We read it also, I believe, to make a decision as to the type of person we are going to be in the new year. Are we going to be like Jonah, who flees when he knows that the people of Nineveh might listen and they won’t “get theirs” from God? Are we going to be Jonah-like and displeased when people turn back to God, to decency, make their amends, forgive another(s), realize their errors and change? Are we going to be Jonah-like and be angry with God for being unreliable when it comes to destroying Nineveh-like cities and Nineveh-like people because they are made aware of their evil ways and repent? Are we going to be Jonah-like and believe that we, alone, are righteous and the unrighteous in our minds need to be punished, exterminated and wiped off the face of the earth? Are we going to be Jonah-like and be displeased and angry at God for being merciful? Are we going to be Jonah-like by being unmerciful, unkind, unforgiving, not compassionate and the grand enforcer of the justice we believe should happen? 

We read Jonah on Yom Kippur afternoon, I believe, to remind ourselves that we have to be moved and changed to act more humanly in this coming year. We get to choose to be the Anti-Jonah by, as Rabbi Harold Shulweis, z”l, taught, being Godly. We get to choose to be the Anti-Jonah by forgiving easily and completely, by letting old resentments leave us and appreciate and emulate God’s forgiveness of us towards another(s) in our lives. We can choose to be the Anti-Jonah by hearing God’s call to wade into the worst places and call for redemption, for changing the old ways and following a path of being human. We can choose to be the Anti-Jonah by being kind and truthful with all we meet, remembering to let go of our own self-deception and self-aggrandizement. We can choose to be the Anti-Jonah by taking the blinders off of our eyes, see the areas we need to change and see the ways another(s) has changed. We can be the Anti-Jonah by realizing we are never going to be perfect, we say the same confessionals each year and, improving one grain of sand every day in all areas of living is enough. We can be the Anti-Jonah by rejoicing at God’s Mercy, Kindness, Compassion, Forgiveness. We can be the Anti-Jonah by living a life of justice tempered with righteousness as we are taught. We can be the Anti-Jonah by remembering that one person’s T’Shuvah allows the entire world to endure, as Rabbi Meir says in the Talmud, Yoma86b. 

We get to choose between being like Jonah who wants to die because he did not get his way, because, as Rabbi Heschel says, he found “what transpired only proved the word of God was neither firm not reliable.” Because God can change God’s mind and decrees based on our actions, Jonah was displeased, grieved and bereft. Because God did not wipe our an entire city once they repented, unlike the Jews of Israel and Judah, Jonah wanted to die. We can choose to be angry and bereft because we did not get our way and someone wasn’t ‘punished enough’ and be like Jonah. We can also choose to be the Anti-Jonah be realizing that God forgives us and doesn’t carry out the decrees we deserve from our actions. We can be the Anti-Jonah by releasing our need to get even, our need to see the destruction of those we consider our enemies. We can be the Anti-Jonah by becoming one with God, with the prayer at the beginning of the bedtime Sh’ma, and forgiving another and wishing no harm on them!

I learned of T’Shuvah in prison in 1987 with Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l, and I have continued to do T’Shuvah-knowing I will not be perfect and I will make similar errors that I have in the past. In these 34 years of recovery, I have forgiven everyone who has asked and, in this year of Schmita, those who haven’t. Jonah teaches me who I don’t want to be and who I do want to be. I can’t have the same anger/resentment that I have held on to in the past, I have to forgive those who have harmed me and betrayed me (in my opinion) and I have to forgive myself. I pray you do the same. God Bless and Stay Safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 214

“When the news reached the king of Nineveh he rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. He had the word cried through Nineveh… Let everyone turn back from their  evil ways and from the injustice of which they are guilty. Who knows if God will be comforted and turn from his anger and not kill us. God saw what they did and God was comforted and did not do what God had said God would do.” (Jonah 3:6-10).

As we ponder the efficacy of doing T’Shuvah, as we are tired, hungry, excited, and in the home stretch of Yom Kippur, we read of the king of Nineveh hearing the call of God to repent, to change his ways and maybe, just maybe, God will not destroy the city, the people, the memory of Nineveh. In the waning hours of Yom Kippur, Jonah is reminding us to hear God’s call to repent; not to blame, not to make excuses for, not to rationalize through ‘on the advice of counsel’, ‘I admit no guilt and will pay a fine’, ‘it is not my fault’, etc. It is time to make sure that those in our community with whom we have had strife, we ask for forgiveness and we forgive them-it is a two way street. It is time to reach across the globe and ask for forgiveness to Jews we are not talking to and forgive them as well. It is time to reach out to the people of our community, who are not Jews and forgive them as well as ask them for forgiveness. In other words, reading Jonah at the Mincha Service of Yom Kippur is reminding us that our repentance, our deep dive into our inner life can’t be just for this day, it has to become an everyday occurrence. Who do you need to forgive/let go of resentment towards? Who do you need to ask forgiveness from? 

What is the king’s message from hearing God’s call? “Turn back from our evil ways and from the injustice we are guilty of”! The king of Nineveh had a spiritual awakening, realizing that his reign of terror was over, the power game was done and it was time to BE HUMAN, be a partner with God instead of an adversary of God. Commit to a way of living that is compatible with the Image of God we are created in and remember, like God told Cain, evil couches at our door, it desires us much and we can master it. The king intuitively knew all of this once he opened his ears, his heart, his mind and allowed his soul to be the arbiter of his actions and the people did the same. Like us on Yom Kippur, they fasted; like us on Yom Kippur, they prayed and did T’Shuvah; like us on Yom Kippur, they committed to a different way of living; like us on Yom Kippur, God forgave them; like us, on the day after Yom Kippur, they continued to follow a path away from evil and towards God-I hope and pray. The people of Nineveh were changed by the actions of their king, the actions of their neighbors and their own actions-everyone joined together to repent and as for forgiveness as well as changed the paths they were on from evil to good, from selfish to kindness, from harm to compassion, from mendacity to truth. We read Jonah at Mincha on Yom Kippur to remind ourselves that this is not just for a day, our repentance and forgiveness is for the rest of our lives and is a new way of living that we have to cultivate, grow, return to when we forget, and continue to serve God, community, family, and ourselves. 

We read Jonah at Mincha on Yom Kippur to remind us to learn from everyone. As I said yesterday, it is amazing that the people furthest from God and God’s ways could hear 6 words and change while the people supposedly closest to God, could hear 233 or so chapters of prophecy and be deaf! I understand this phenomena through the words of the Ramchal, in his introduction to The Path of the Just, “for you will find in most of my words only things most people already know and have no doubts about. But according to their familiarity and to the extent their truth is evident to all, so too is their neglect very prevalent and forgetfulness of them very great.” Because we get so haughty about our stature and nature, about our inheritance and lineage, we leave the truths, the paths and the spirit that brought us and/or our ancestors to live well. Jonah comes on the holiest day of the year in the Jewish Calendar, according to many, and reminds us to be more like the people of Nineveh than of Israel and Judah. Never be so sure your sh*^)t doesn’t stink just like everyone else’s. Find your part in every interaction, positive and negative, own it, repair the negative and enhance the positive so you/we don’t have to be destroyed and sent into exile again! God repented towards Nineveh, God accepted our request for forgiveness on Kol Nidre, now we have to God’s request that we change our ways-Nineveh say YES to God’s request, will you/me/we? 

In recovery we continue to do T’Shuvah and we see that we make the same errors  each year, a little differently, with less frequency and still make them. In reading the verses above, I realize that what we have changed is our path, we no longer seek to do evil, to get over, to blame, etc. In recovery we continue to do steps 4-9 and do a daily 10th step-all of which are T’Shuvah. 

These verses and the prophets in general have given me the path and the knowing that I have to release myself from old stories, from old hurts/wounds, from the betrayals, etc. I also have to ask for forgiveness from my enemies as well as my friends, I have to release them and myself from the hurt and anger I have carried. Releasing brings wholeness, clarity and love to the forefront of my living. I release people because the hurt and anger, the get even and fight is an impediment to me from being my whole self and being the self I want to be, need to be and God created me to be.

This is the path I am walking this year and beyond. I am already clearer and more joyous, I hope you do the same. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets 

Day 213

“The word of God came to Jonah a second time: “Go to Nineveh, that great city and call out what I tell you to.” Jonah went at once to Nineveh as God had spoken. Nineveh was a large city, a three day walk across. Jonah came to the city and walked for a day and proclaimed: “After 40 days, Nineveh will fall!”. The people of the city believed God.”  They called for a fast and put on sackcloth. (Jonah 3:1-5).

These verses above show the power of God’s love, God’s desire for connection and God’s strength of forgiveness. The first verse above, after Jonah had a spiritual awakening in the belly of the fish, is proof of God’s desire to connect and reconnect as well as God’s ability to forgive and move forward. I am writing this on Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Repentance, Return and new Response. In this first verse, God is having a new response to Jonah’s awakening. God doesn’t need to punish Jonah, at this point, he needed to get Jonah’s attention and assistance. God doesn’t take Jonah’s initial rejection of God’s call personally, God exhibits Divine Pathos towards Jonah. The same is true today, God grants us God’s mercy and kindness, compassion and caring every day and especially during these 10 days of T’Shuvah and on Shabbat Shuvah. Engaging in T’Shuvah allowed Jonah to be able to hear and respond to God’s call this time with energy and passion to serve God. There is a midrash that says God keeps calling ‘Shema’ and “Ayecha” throughout the world 24/7 and only through T’shuvah can we clean our ears, our hearts and our souls to hear this call and respond. 

God’s word is to “go to Nineveh” the city he did not want to go to before, and Jonah goes quickly. In a complete turn from his earlier encounter with God where he ran away quickly, Jonah goes quickly on his mission. He is fresh from his stay in the belly of the fish, the spiritual awakening he had weighs heavy in his being and he seems excited to go to Nineveh. One reason may be that Nineveh was the worst place on earth for decency, kindness, compassion, truth, justice, love, etc. Nineveh was a city of ‘dog eat dog’, ‘kindness is weakness’, ‘tell a lie long enough and loud enough and people will believe it’, ‘suspect thy neighbor’, objectifying each and every person. Jonah might have been excited to go because he thought “they will finally get their comeuppance! Rather than complain about the journey he seems energized by it.

Here is where we get to look at ourselves and those around us on Shabbat Shuvah and during the 10 days of T’Shuvah. How quick are we to rejoice over the demise of people we don’t like, we blame for our failures, who have harmed us, even whom we have harmed? How often do we “throw salt in the wounds” of another human being rather than attempt to heal their wounds. How often are we unwilling to hear and/or accept the T’Shuvah of another person? How often do we realize that we have a part in every interaction and no matter how small or large our part is, we have to do T’Shuvah, be responsible for and have a new response to the ways we acted badly, unGodly, hurtfully? Jonah may be excited that he gets to be the one to tell Nineveh of their fate. 

Yet, the unthinkable happens: the people of Nineveh believe God and believe Jonah is sent by God. Imagine this, as my friend and teacher Rabbi Edward Feinstein and I were discussing, 6 words and the people of Nineveh, the “worst” city ever believed! There are 233 chapters of Prophets and the Jews of Israel and Judah didn’t return, didn’t repent, didn’t have new responses. Yet, Nineveh heard 6 words and repented immediately, they believed immediately. How is this possible, you might ask? I am not sure and I understand what happened viscerally. When one is so far from God, so ‘out there’ it seems as if they can never return, we are also the closest to God we can be. The people of Nineveh were so bereft because their actions had cut them off from their spirit and from God and they were unable on their own to stop. Jonah’s call was their spiritual awakening and, instead of blowing this call off like they had before, they were touched to their core, to the depths of their souls and they could release themselves from the negativity, the isolation, the desperation they had been trapped in. Unfortunately, the Jews of Israel and Judah didn’t know how trapped they were until they were exiled. 

In recovery, we continue to maintain our spiritual connection through prayer, meditation and service. We know the ways of Nineveh well as we were part of that ‘great city’ of negativity and injustice. We also heard the call of our Higher Power/Universe/family/God and could change when all else had failed before. In recovery, we are quick to return, search for our part and continue to seek new responses to each and every situation. 

I am well aware of both the Jonah and the people of Nineveh that live in me. Jonah, who may want to “get even” is alive and dangerous in me. It takes a lot of effort to tame him when I have been betrayed, hurt, damaged and I must. Almost 36 years ago I heard the call from God that I was destroying my life and I had to make a choice. I did and I keep honoring that choice of doing T’Shuvah, as soon as I realize my part and I can tame my inner Jonah. Reading these verses give me hope, reassurance and the power to change my response, be responsible for my part only, not take on the shame of another and move forward spiritually, wholly and lovingly. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 212

“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered God and my prayer came before You into your Holy abode. They who cling to folly/mist forsake their own welfare. I with a loud gratitude will sacrifice to You; what I have vowed I will perform. God is my deliverance.”(Jonah 2:8-10).

What a few days in jail/whale/fish will do! Jonah’s prayer to God is a recognition, somewhat, that he missed the mark by running away from God. He realizes when his life is “ebbing away’ that he has erred, when the heat is on, when the chips are down, he remembers God. Sound familiar? So many people have these spontaneous conversions/returns to God when all else fails, when they are “in trouble”, when Yom Kippur is here/near, etc. I believe this may be another reason we read Jonah on Yom Kippur afternoon, to remind us that our connection to God, our dependence on God, our deliverance by God doesn’t end at Neilah on Yom Kippur, rather it has to continue, our return is a constant turning and deepening. 

On Yom Kippur, we believe that our prayers reach God in God’s Holy Abode and there are many Hasidic stories portraying God’s anticipation, the Tzadik’s arguing for the Jewish people, and God’s acceptance of our prayers. It is not the day of Yom Kippur as far as we know in the story of Jonah, which points out the truth that our dependence, connection and deliverance is a daily occurrence. Each day we must renew our connection to God, each day we must deepen our awareness of how God delivers us and each day, we proclaim our dependence on God through our prayers, especially the Modeh Ani we say upon awakening. Our gratitude and our recognition that God returns our soul with compassion and God stays faithful is a daily reminder and catalyst for our continued connection and engagement with God. It is also a call to ourselves to serve God with all of our heart, soul and everything that is in us. Reading Jonah in the afternoon of Yom Kippur is a call to all of us to commit to serve God, to stay connected to God and to live this way all the time, not just when we think and/or realize we are in trouble. 

The next verse above uses the word in Hebrew, Hevel. This is the name of the Cain’s brother whom he killed, it is a word that translates as mist, in Kohelet it translates as vanity. People who cling to air/mist, who believe so much in their own self that they are only interested in themself are the people who forsake their welfare, the kindness of God and another(s) human being, their best interests. In our vanity, we are willing to punish another person just for sport, in our vanity we think we are God, “the one with the gold rules” is how some people live the Golden Rule. In our vanity, we take kindness for weakness and, at some time, find ourselves bewildered by our loneliness, isolation and neediness. When we try and grab onto falseness, we find ourselves in the prison of our own making, in the belly of the fish with no way out, except to call to God. We have seen this so many times in history, in our own lives, yet we continue to forget and repeat the same basic error, reliance on self instead of reliance and connection to God. 

Jonah declares his gratitude, his sacrifice and his commitment to keep his word in the last verse above. Is this a jailhouse conversion? We are not sure at this moment. What we know is that the experience of living in the belly of the fish when he should have been dead has changed Jonah for this moment. He is aware of God’s deliverance of him from the moment of death, God’s deliverance of him from his selfish and self-centered ways. On Yom Kippur we ask annulment of our previous vows and, implicitly, make new ones. We have to ask ourselves if we are prepared to follow them through and adopt this new way of being. Will we, after our Yom Kippur experience of ecstasy, continue to connect, continue to honor our pledges to God and to another(s), continue to use our gifts to serve God, humanity as well as ourselves? How often do we say one thing and do another? This is a human trait and verifies our imperfections and our need to constantly review ourselves and our actions, making progress on our imperfections while never ridding ourselves of them completely.

In recovery we are very familiar with Jonah’s call to God because we made this same cry at the time we decided to stop running away from God, from connection and from authentic selves. We are constantly working to “improve our conscious contact with God” and continuing to “take personal inventory”. We know our recovery is based on our spiritual condition and that spiritual condition is based on our acceptance of, dependence on and connection to God. 

My life since the beginning of my recovery while in prison 33+ years ago has been about moving life forward for me, God and another(s). While some people claim it was a jailhouse conversion, I know how much God has taken hold of my life.  I am imperfect, I keep making the same error over and over, getting better each time, yet still howling at the betrayals that I experience which causes more damage to me, my people and allows another(s) to make deals they do not intend to keep. I am committed to seek and realize God’s deliverance, God’s message even in the betrayals more in 5782. I am committed to not holding onto mist and vanity in 5782. I am committed to releasing myself from the guilt of past errors. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 211

“Jonah remained in the fish’s belly 3 days and 3 nights. Jonah prayed to God from the belly of the fish. He said: In my trouble I called to God and God answered me. From the belly of Sheol I cried out and You heard my voice. I thought I was driven away out of your sight…the waters closed in over me…Yet You brought my life up from the pit, Adonai, my God.”(Jonah 2:1,2,5,6,7)

It took 3 days and 3 nights for Jonah to realize what was going on and to pray to God, one might say. Another way to read this is: it only took 3 days and 3 nights for Jonah to realize what he had done and to pray to God for redemption, salvation and release. Either reading works, depending on where one is at in their lives. I prefer to read it both ways at the same time. 

On the one hand, Jonah was a prophet who heard the call of God, who was given a task he ran away from, who cause pain and suffering for the crew who took him onboard ship and slept like a baby as the ship was falling apart from the tempest God sent. He wanted so badly to run away from God that he asked the crew to throw him overboard in the hopes he would be eaten by a fish and die. That it took him 3 days and 3 nights to realize what was happening seems incredulous given his ability to hear God’s words. On the other hand, Jonah was a person like all of us, he could hear the call of God, as we all can when we listen and are connected to our soul, and Jonah was afraid to follow the call of God for a myriad of reasons, which is true for so many of us. His reasons will become clearer later and, like all of us, he was unable to bring himself to listen to the call of God, the call of his soul to take the next right action. Yet, after he was left to himself inside the fish, in the prison of his own making, it only took 3 days and 3 nights to realize what he needed to do, pray to God, acknowledge that only with God could he find life, redemption, rescue. 

Oh, if it only took all of us 3 days and 3 nights to realize our predicaments, the outcome of our actions and the trouble we find ourselves in for running away from our true self, our true work, from running away from being transparent, from accepting what is rather than trying to make fantasy come true. If it only took 3 days and 3 nights to realize how our need for power and money, prestige and selfishness, mendacity and deception brings about destruction and negates the call of God and harms the soul of another(s). Of course, we don’t realize we are living in the belly of the fish most of the time, we don’t realize we have been swallowed up by our resentments, our self-deceptions, our negativity and so it only taking 3 days, as we enter the new year, would be fantastic and noble.

Yet, Jonah is not taking responsibility for his situation. He says he called out from his trouble without saying how he caused his trouble. He is grateful that he wasn’t driven out of God’s sight, that he was brought up from the pit, yet he cannot bring himself to admit that all of this was caused by his actions. How many times are we ready to blame God, another human being, etc for our troubles? I know of people who are constantly being the victim and, while praying and meditating on God’s goodness to and for them, try to be crafty, using the vulnerabilities of another(s) against them to get their way, to ‘win’ at any and all costs so they can claim their righteousness, just as Jonah seems to be doing with his inability to take his responsibility. So many people forget the people who God sends to help them, to save them, they forget the times God has sent them a ‘Eureka’ moment of insight and clarity and think they are entitled to their self-interests at any and all costs. Rabbi Heschel teaches us, to paraphrase him, the interests of another(s) have to be our concerns. We, like Jonah, have to realize our call from God to help not hinder another, to care about not destroy another, and to let go of our self-seeking, power-hungry, get even ways of leaving. 

In recovery, we acknowledge our part in every interaction, positive and/or negative. We are in recovery because we are aware of how our actions/inactions led us to a place where our only hope was to call out to God and hear God’s call back to us. We are living examples of the Jonah experience, we were in the pit, the depths of despair, loneliness and isolation and cried out to God and we were heard and saved. God brought us up out of the pit and restored us to life, to wholeness and to service. In recovery, we know our destiny is to serve and to redeem those who still suffer. 

I have taken longer that 3 days and 3 nights to see that I am in darkness, the pit, despair, anger and resentment as well as hurt and sadness and betrayal at times in my life. Yet, I am acutely aware of God hearing my call from the depths of all of these experiences. Because I am connected to God, self and another(s), these are not emotions, they are experiences in which I am immersed. I can only leave these negative experiences, be saved from their imprisonments by calling out to God and to the people with whom I have a covenantal relationship, not a transactional relationship with. Discerning the difference has been the teaching of 5781 and releasing myself from the mendacity is the plan of 5782. I cry out to God and God hears me, I am saved by God’s love and the love of family, covenantal friendship and truth. I pray the same for you in 5782! Stay Safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets 

Day 210

“And when the men learned that he was fleeing from serving God, for he told them, they said to him:”What must we do to calm the sea?” He answered, throw me overboard and the sea will calm down for you for I know this terrible storm is on my account. Then they cried out, Please God do not hold us guilty for this man’s life, for You, God have brought this about. And they threw Jonah overboard and the sea stopped raging.”

I am in awe of the sailors. They did not get crazy with Jonah for fleeing the service of God, they did not want to kill him for causing the storm, they just wanted to be in the solution. They are the Anti-Jonah, people who do not need to recriminate the guilty party, at least until they have a solution to the challenge. The Anti-Jonah are the people who ask “what do we need to do to calm the sea”, what do we need to do to bring resolution, harmony, respect, dignity, connection, service, justice, love, truth back into our world, our situation, our lives. The Anti-Jonah are the sailors who kept trying to row the boat back to shore rather than sacrifice Jonah, the trouble-maker. 

We can learn so much from the sailors! They are in fear of their lives and they show dignity, humanity and kindness to the source of their problems. We, today, are into the blame game so heavily and so intently that the actions of these sailors seems foolish to many. In fact, I am not sure how many people see them as the heroes of the story at all. Yet, they are. They are the people who go to work everyday in the hospitals and doctors’ offices to treat the unvaccinated people who have Covid-19. They are the people who stand on line to vote in spite of, or maybe because of, the asinine restrictions that fear-based authoritarians have imposed on us. They are the everyday people who show up for work in the retail stores, the restaurants, the airports, etc. Knowing the lack of care that some people have, knowing how some people run away from God’s service and God’s gifts to us these heroes, these Anti-Jonahs, show up to serve anyway. They are the real leaders, not the charlatans who go on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to spread lies about themselves and another(s) through innuendo as well as blatant lying. The Anti-Jonahs send us the truth while the Jonahs/charlatans preach the gospel of self-centeredness and mendacity. The sailors, the Anti-Jonahs take their responsibility and seek to prolong everyone’s life, not just their own. 

Jonah takes responsibility for what is happening and this seems like a good action. Yet even this seemingly responsible and introspective action is suspect. Jonah was afraid to kill himself, he still did not want to serve God, so he puts it on the sailors to kill him by throwing him overboard so he still doesn’t do God’s bidding. Jonah is so self-center that he is willing to force the sailors to send him to his death rather than serve God or kill himself. We see this today with the people who are unwilling to acknowledge their part in any interaction that goes bad, the ones that go good these people take most of the credit-deserved or not. The descendants of Jonah blame everyone else for the whole negative experience, never seeing their part, and wrap themselves in their ‘poor me’, victimhood and get others to try and save them, give them money they haven’t earned nor deserve and heap guilt and shame upon their ‘enemies’. Jonah and his descendants are always looking for someone else to do their bidding, to help them escape the service God has created them to do and, in this case, even get them to commit murder to satisfy himself/themselves. How sick is this??!

The last two verses above impact me so much. They realize they are going to have to go along with Jonah’s solution and throw him overboard. They realize that they are committing murder and they know it is the only way to save themselves. These brave Godly men are so distraught that they cry out to God to forgive them and to hold God accountable. They are aware that the choices are terrible and they want God and the rest of us to know there are times when the choices we face are the ‘lessor of two evils’ and, as Judaism teaches, save your life first then the life of another. These brave souls are deeply troubled and they are unafraid to call God to task in this case. Many times in life, we are faced with this type of choice, many times in life we have to confront the lies and the evil another human being perpetrates upon us. The sailors give us the path forward, cry out to God, realize what we are doing and save our own lives first as they say on the plane; put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping another.

In recovery, we are all about being the Anti-Jonahs! We move from self-centered to God-centered living. We move for serving ourselves to serving another(s). We move from blame to accepting responsibility for our part of every interaction, positive and negative. In recovery, we know we are imperfect, we know we make the same mistakes in different ways, we also know we are seeking to serve God and serve humanity more and more each day. 

I am so aware of the ways I have been Jonah and how, for the most part, in my recovery I have not asked anyone else to help me escape responsibility for my service nor my part in our dealings. I am in awe of the sailors and believe I have been an Anti-Jonah more often, following their lead of rowing against the current to save lives more often than I have been Jonah. As we enter 5782, I hope you look at this past year and say the same for yourself! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 209

“God cast a great wind and the sea became such a great tempest, the boat was in danger of breaking up…sailors cried out, each to their own god, they threw the cargo overboard…Jonah went down to the hold and fell asleep. The captain woke him, cried out to him, “how can you be sleeping so soundly?”. They said to him, what have you done to bring this misfortune upon us…”(Jonah1:4-6,7).

Immersing myself in Jonah this year, as part of my exploration of the prophets, I am amazed at the lessons left unlearned year after year. While I know “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” to be so very, very true, it is incredible to me that all of us have left so many lessons unlearned over the years, it is terrifying to me that I have left so many lessons unlearned from Jonah and the rest of the prophets. 

God sends a great wind to let Jonah know that he cannot escape his service to God. God is giving Jonah an opportunity to so the next right thing, return to his mission and stop trying to escape/hide. We are experiencing many climate changes, more hurricanes, heat, cold, rain in places that don’t need more and not in places that do need more, etc, yet we are unable to move the needle because, like Jonah, many people just want to run the other way. It is truly amazing to me how people are able to run away while the world is heating up, while the world is flooding, while the world is in a drought. Yet, as I think about it, I have only to look at how we try to escape the consequences of our behaviors all the time by blaming another human being for our choices. Whether it is our parents, ‘the man’, the government, our employer, our spouse, our children, we are always looking for a scapegoat so we can run away from our responsibilities and our mission. I am understanding why Jonah is read on Yom Kippur even more, Jonah is running away from the mission/service God has given/sent him on, just as we have run away from God, our mission/service that God gave to us and we committed to last year. 

The sailors, who were not Hebrews, decided to be in the solution, they are the Anti-Jonah. Despite their fear, despite the odds, despite their despair over what was about to kill them, they threw the cargo overboard-this was the purpose of their voyage, this was how they were getting paid and they said life was more important than money. Can you imagine that? Who says that anymore? Certainly not Big Pharma, not the Koch Bros, not Wall Streeters, not the elected officials who take the donations from people and due their bidding at the cost of the lives of their poorer constituents. Yet, these sailors, these pagans, are in the solution of throwing away their money and calling our to their gods. Sure, they may be idols, they may be false, and the sailors call out because they have faith and belief. They are not going to wring their hands and just worry, they are active in the solution of the problem/challenge. We spend too much time caring about the ‘bottom line’ and are willing to bend our knees and participate in the idolatry of money to be in the solution. It is time for us to think about the tempests, the strong winds that are blowing and come together to be in the solution. No one way solutions anymore, no discounting the humanity of another(s) because of the way they vote, their gender, their ethnicity, their religion, their race, color or creed. The sailors are teaching us we are all in this together and we must work together to solve our challenges, we must each do our part and call out to God as we understand God to gain the strength to overcome pettiness and pride, envy and enmity.

The captain is incredulous that Jonah can sleep during these great upheaval. The boat is thrashing about, the men are screaming out, the tumult is earsplitting, yet Jonah sleeps. This speaks to Jonah’s character more than most people realize. Jonah is an arsonist, he creates drama, he creates chaos and then stands back and watches as everyone else is affected by it and he just doesn’t care. Jonah is the person who can cheat you in business and sleep well at night because he believes in his smartness, his cleverness and his boldness. The Captain, however, is the man who cannot believe anyone would not be helping, he is unable to fathom the depths of Jonah’s coldness, narcissism, and inability to care about anyone else. The Captain is the Anti-Jonah, he is the person who cares deeply for the people in his care, he is concerned for his ship, his crew and his passenger. He is calling out to Jonah to do his part, to pray to his God and to help solve the challenge of surviving this terrible storm/seas. We need to see ourselves as the Captain instead of Jonah for us to survive the storm and the tempest we find ourselves in, personally, communally, and worldly. 

I have been Jonah, I was Jonah for the 20 years I was a drunk and a thief. I am remorseful for emulating him. In recovery, I and everyone else in recovery, strive to emulate and be like the sailors and the Captain. I am bothered by my errors, I am not able to sleep when there is a tempest/storm brewing around me, I am not running away from life, my soul’s calling, nor the cries of people in need, nor does anyone in recovery. In recovery, we seek out ways to be of service, we seek our part in activities, right and wrong, and we continue to grow. I/We don’t need to “get even” as we once did, I/we only need to find community, serenity, wholeness. I don’t have to take advantage of the vulnerabilities of another to feel strong, I don’t have to exploit the weakness/kindness of another to feel powerful. Today, I just have to continue to be the Anti-Jonah and serve God and the people I can. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark