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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 17

“Human is he who is concerned with other selves. Man is a being that can never be self-sufficient, not only by what he must take in but also by what he must give out… Always in need of other beings to give himself to, man cannot even be in accord with his own self unless he serves something beyond himself.”(Man Is Not Alone pg.138). 

How appropriate to be reading these sentences at this time. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that being a Homo Sapien is not the same as being human. We confuse the two all the time. One is a scientific classification, the later being a spiritual experience, an experience of how we live, not the classification we are in compared to plants and other animals. 

In this first sentence, Rabbi Heschel is declaring a known fact that, as R. Moshe Luzzato taught, because it is so agreed upon and apparent we tend to forget it, become oblivious to it. We see this in life everyday, people who are forgetting how to be human, people who are oblivious to the need to be “concerned with other selves”.  The issue, to me, is that society is celebrating these people! Tik Tok is a concern with self, Facebook is to get other people to be concerned with us, Instagram, etc for a majority, not all, of their users/subscribers. Even the words we apply to ourselves and to another(s), users, subscribers, customers, etc, betray a distancing of ourselves from one another. Have you called a customer service lately? If we hear one more time “your call is important to us… your wait time is 2 hours, if you want faster service go to our website”, some of us might scream(I know Harriet Rossetto will)! Why do they want us to go to their website, so there is no human contact nor connection. So the company and their employees don’t have to be concerned with any of us. Is it any wonder why we are in the state we are in? 

Since we can’t be self-sufficient, even the ‘self-made man’ needed a lot of help to make it, what is the gain/reward from buying into the lie of we must be self-sufficient? What is the reward from being miserly in what we give out and gluttonous in what we take in? Do we really believe that everyone is here to serve us without any reciprocity? It seems this way, if we watch the news, the social media, etc. AND, we can change these behaviors by no longer giving them oxygen, no longer subscribing to anything that wants to turn us into users/objects for someone else’s wealth or power. We can choose to give to another what they need and receive from another what we need in partnership, with kindness and gratitude for receiving and gratitude that we can give out to another human being. We can make a profit and a living doing this, some of you will get rich doing this, and all of us will be given the full measure of our humanity! No one will be treated as “the other”. The “eye disease” of prejudice will be cleared up and the “cancer of the soul” that prejudice is will be cured. 

While the news, whether in the papers, online, radio an/or TV seems dire, while there are many people who want to tear everything our ancestors, my father and uncles fought for in wars against enemies foreign and domestic, while 68 million people want to buy into the deception that Trump won the election and it was stolen from him, we can stand up and call out to the spirit that drives all of us, that we can appeal to these 68 million to release their need to be angry, release their need to be right, release their need to live in mendacity. We can appeal to them to begin to be in accord with themselves, continue to grow and mature their inherent spirituality, have different opinions and be open to dialogue with another person, we can engage with them at the level of serving God together, differently maybe and together. We all need to realize that none of us has the corner on TRUTH, we all can contribute to one another’s lives when we agree to serve the Ineffable One/something beyond ourselves. We have to all stop lamenting about “the other side” and start reaching across all the divides - both ‘sides’ have to do this, otherwise we are in danger of losing what makes us human and from their we have destroyed God’s world, not served it. 

In recovery, we work each and every day to give out, to be grateful that we can and, we know, we must be service to another human being. We leave the self-centered path we had been following prior to our recovery and each day we affirm our need, God’s need and the needs of another to the gifts, the hand, the aid we can and do give out and the gifts, the hands and the aid we receive from so many. In recovery, we continue to carry a message of hope, willingness, joy, strength and possibility to everyone we meet. 

Reading the first sentence above gives me pause, gives me trembling, gives me a bad conscious (which Rabbi Heschel always does:)), and it gives me hope, joy, a path and reaffirms by basic beliefs, taught to me by my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and, which I pray, I have taught to my daughter, my nieces, nephews, and all the people I have connected to over the years. The pandemic and other events have been obstacles that I/we have overcome and, while many of the humans for whom I have had concern with don’t/haven’t had concern for me, I believe in Rabbi Heschel’s words and I continue to be concerned for them and everyone else I meet. I write everyday to remember how to be human and concerned with more than myself. I am in accord with myself today are you? 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 16

“A man entirely unconcerned with his self is dead; a man exclusively concerned with his self is a beast. The mark of distinction from the beast as well as the index of maturity is the tridimensionality of man’s concern. The child becomes human, not by discovering the environment which includes things and other selves, but by becoming sensitive to the interests of other selves.”(Man is Not Alone pg.137-138). 

In our constant search/study of humanity, these words of Rabbi Heschel should be ringing in our ears louder than the words of selfishness, desire and winning. Without these words becoming louder and louder in our ears, in our minds, in our souls our world could sink into disaster and ruin. 

We are witnessing humans being both dead and beasts, at the same time. When one blithely follows along because they have allowed themselves to be deceived, they are being unconcerned with themselves. It is a phenomena that we are witnessing today, all over the globe, and especially here in the US. People are going along with leaders who could care less about them in reality-none of them would have their followers over for dinner after all- yet their followers are loyal, rabid and true blue. 

At the same time that these people have given up their self, they have are only concerned with what they ‘want’/are told they ‘want’. They are so full of their self that they are willing to tear down the democratic principles this country was founded on so they can ‘win’ and go back to the authoritarian roots that caused the Revolutionary War in the first place!! Yet, the dead person nor the beast can see these truths. Both are wrapped in self-deception and the deception of another(s) and this is the path that people follow in order to deny their bestiality and their ‘walking deadness’.

What we see missing in many people is the “tridimensionality” of our concern. This three dimension, of course is explained somewhat in the next sentence. It involves concern for our self, concern for another(s) and concern for God. This, of course, is the key I believe to Rabbi Heschel. I cannot have concern for God, I cannot even truly worship God if I don’t have concern for another(s), for all humanity! God created all of us, not just some of us, ergo: to care for God is to care for all human beings. 

Unfortunately, the beasts seem to be running the show! Not just in government, in business where being a beast is rewarded with riches, celebrity, etc.; in religion where caring about ‘our own’ is seen as holy because we are making war against ‘those others/enemies of God’; in families where one person’s word is the law and strict obedience is seen as good. At the same time, we see what happens to the people in charge and to their ‘followers’. How often have we seen the beasts overcome their prey so much that the prey, while breathing, walk around with a dazed look. A look that belies their words of “fine” when asked how they are. A look that is vacant and distant. We see this is captives who are freed all the time. We see it in those we love, those we meet more often than we recognized because to do so would entail us being awake and human ourselves.

What Rabbi Heschel is teaching, reminding us of, calling us out on is to stop and look at our own selves. He is reminding us of our constant need to develop from the child who was traumatized into the adult who is human. He is coaxing us to stop being the beast who traumatizes and mature into the human who is sensitive to another self. Rabbi Heschel’s words are reaching deep into our souls and shaking us up, causing us to hear the call of our soul for sensitivity. They are waking us up from the deaden ways we have been existing. Rabbi Heschel’s words give a new inner meaning to the 2nd prayer of the Amidah(part of the Jewish Service) giving life to the dead for me! What if this prayer is also about reviving our deadness of spirit? This prayer is a call for us to enliven our spirit and our live well through our concern for our self, the self of another and God!

In recovery, we recognize how we were both dead and beasts at the same time. We are rather disgusted with these behaviors, while we realize the traumas that cause us to do them. We are also aware that there are reasons and not excuses. The reasons we uncover have to do with healing them and prior to recovery, we wore them as entitlements and ways to hide, do battle with them and make everyone else pay. In recovery, we are healing from our traumas, we are sharing them so another can hear that healing is possible and our being a little more human, a little more waken is crucial to growing our recovery. 

Rabbi Heschel’s words are screaming to me, they are making me cry with tears of remorse and tears of joy. Remorse over the times I have been the beast he describes and when I was a walking dead person. I have been both in my recovery as well as before. In my recovery, I don’t wallow in either state, rather I continue my journey in being “sensitive the interests of other selves”. These times, which are much more plentiful than the beastly/dead moments, bring me tears of joy. I realize “being sensitive to the interests of other selves”, doesn’t mean giving them what they want, rather giving them what they need. This also doesn’t win popularity contests and it allows me to be whole and live more truthfully each day. 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 15

“Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” (God In Search of Man pg. 43).

Today I am going to write using ‘not deferring’ as the definition of indifference. Rabbi Heschel’s quote haunts me daily. He is speaking to us not only about our inability/lack of showing deference to God, to life; he is speaking to us about our inability to revere as well, I believe. Deference to God entails more than fear of punishment which is what a lot of clergy and parents preach to us. God is not going to make me burn in hell, God is not going to send fire and brimstone because I made a mistake and missed the mark. God is giving us breath each and every day, we thank God for waking up each morning, for returning our soul to us, for being faithful, for the food we eat, for our bodies working correctly (or semi-correctly). Yet, do we continue to show reverence and deference to God during the rest of the day? Do our actions reflect the words we speak in prayer? Unfortunately not. God, life doesn’t need our lip-service anymore, God needs our action, life needs our action, and another human being needs our actions. 

It is part of our human condition, unfortunately, to think we are smarter than everyone else in the room and/or the most important person in the room. We defer to people who have ‘greater knowledge’ than us at the same time we try to be bigger than them. We have an emotional and intellectual bias towards ‘feeling less than’; which causes us to act ‘better than’. This back and forth is, in my experience, a root cause of our lack of reverence and deference. We are in a constant war with ourselves and with another human being, and, truth be told, with God. We are afraid to defer and revere God in the ways we are being called upon to because that would mean giving up some autonomy and putting our self-interests off in order to serve the greater good/God. There are many people who are deluding themselves into believing they are serving God through their hatred of the poor, the stranger, a person who worships differently, a person who votes differently, a person who is inclusive and a person who believes differently than they. What rubbish, what a lack of reverence and deference to God, to the radical amazement that we celebrate each time we pray, each time we wake, each time we breathe. Yet, these charlatans, these People of the Lie, as Dr. M. Scott Peck labeled them in his book of the same name, seem to have a hold on us all. 

When we immerse ourselves in this teaching of Rabbi Heschel, we can see how most of our troubles, personally and professionally, between groups, in our government, between nations comes from a lack of deference and reverence. Being unable to hear the words of another person because they are “different” is a lack of deference to God as well. While we don’t have to agree with everyone, we are called upon to listen to another(s) to learn, to debate, to argue, to agree, to find compromise, to seek the best solutions possible in the moment. We are also called upon to rebuke our neighbors, to not hate them in our hearts, to not bear guilt because of them and to find ways to love them as we love ourselves. These are the ways to defer to the grandeur, the beauty, the elegance, the radical amazement, the wonder and the joy of life. In the Torah, 36 times we are told to care for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the poor- this is the path to deferring to and revering God and another human being.

We are all created in the Image of God, not just the ‘chosen few’! When we dismiss another, we are practicing indifference, when we put people in ghettos, we are practicing indifference, when we regulate a person/people to a certain position based on the color of their skin, their religion, their country of birth, we are practicing indifference. We are being called out by Rabbi Heschel to take a stand, he was after all an activist, for the human spirit, for the soul of another, our faith, our country and ourselves. We are being called to stop with our pettiness and pride, envy and enmity and live a life of deference and reverence to God, to our fellow human beings and to our soul’s calling

In recovery, we have learned how to defer to people who have more experience than we, how to defer to God’s wisdom and how to defer to ourselves in the areas of living that we are experienced in. In recovery, we are constantly learning and growing and we are deferring to the wisdom of another without giving up our vision, our beliefs and our knowing. When we know something in our gut, we learn to trust it, defer to it and revere this knowledge. In recovery, we are constantly seeking to honor, revere and show deference to the “sublime wonder of living” so we can grow in wisdom, connection, and joy. 

All of my troubles have come from either deferring to the wrong people/message or not deferring to the correct people/message. This is crystal clear to me, I even know the reason for these actions: fear! I was afraid of being broke, of being laughed at, not seen, etc. I realize that when I didn’t defer to the wisdom God was giving me and sending me and I always ‘stepped in shit’. Yes, I also have deferred to and revered God, the grandeur of life and taken many good and holy actions and these far outweigh the negative ones. Each day, I defer to and revere the sublime wonder of living a little more. 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 14

“Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” (God In Search of Man pg. 43).

Indifference to most people is defined as apathetic, not caring, etc. The dictionary (according to Google) defines indifference as: lack of caring, concern, sympathy and unimportant. Yet, the origin of the word from the latin means: non-differing/non-deferring. If we use the Latin as the definition the sentence can be read in a few different ways: 

Not differentiating/ Not recognizing the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. OMG, how true this is for all of us! We go about our daily lives and we take so much for granted that we fail to recognize, to discern, to appreciate and to relish in the sublime wonder of living. We are so tied up in and of ourselves that we cannot see the unparalleled grandeur of life, of living. We are unable to raise our eyes, our ears, our minds and our thinking up to the threshold that wonder allows us to be when we do not recognize that there is even unparalleled grandeur right in front of us. We have stopped recognizing the wonder of science, the wonder of connection, the wonder of truth, kindness, love, mercy, compassion, justice. We have stopped all of this because we are only interested in amassing and gaining, winning and crushing, power and flexing our power. 

We have become so engaged with, married to and dependent upon power for its own sake, power for our own sake that we cannot recognize the enhanced gift that life is, the enhanced beauty that another human being is, the unparalleled nature of being alive and called upon by God to fulfill a mission, a mitzvah. We have forgotten this in our drive to be right all the time, to live the lie/myth of perfection. The sublime wonder of living has become unrecognizable because we can only see what is good for ourselves. Watching the war between the ‘right’ and the ‘left’; the ‘fundamentalists’ and the ‘liberals’ in religious life, the ‘democracies’ and the ‘authoritarians’ is a joke! They all say they are working to uphold and make transparent the sublime wonder of living and they all lie! They are no more interested in recognizing the elevated status of another human life if that human life disagrees with them, embarrasses them, etc than the man in the moon. This is true for all the extremes, progressive and conservative.

It is impossible to recognize the grandeur of another human life when one is so busy blaming them for the ills of their lives, the errors the other person has made, and unable to own one’s own part in the situation. It is impossible to recognize the grandeur of living when one thinks they are their own Higher Power, even though they give lip-service to God. 

Indifferent is not a passive state of being, either. It is an active state to me, as we have to purposely and thoughtfully put on the blinders, cover our eyes, fog up our glasses, keep the cataracts on our lens’ in order to not recognize the sublime wonder of living. From this active state, one can commit all sorts of crimes against humanity, against God, against themselves even. We all have witnessed people sue/take advantage of the very people who helped them when they were in need to get money/power. We all have witnessed what happens when there is a ‘new sheriff in town’ and how they tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We have all witnessed the rewriting of history and the present so one can justify their immorality and power grabbing. We all have witnessed the exiling of someone for an error because it is in vogue. We all have witnessed ourselves committing these same actions! This is the reason that Rabbi Heschel’s words resonate for so many of us, because we are guilty and yet, we refuse to be responsible for our guilt.

In recovery, we have not only recognized the grandeur of life, we celebrate it every day through our actions. Not that we are always right, we make many mistakes and we do our amends, our T’Shuvah for our error. We are constantly taking the time to be aware of our actions during a day/week/month/year. In recovery, we seek to improve our conscious contact with God so we can recognize the grandeur of our lives and honor the beautiful, unparalleled wonder of another(s) life. 

I have been guilty of being indifferent. There are instances where I did not recognize the grandeur of living, the grandeur and beauty of another human being. I have not recognized the negativity of some people as well which has led me astray and I am responsible for my inability to look, much less see. I am guilty of putting on blinders because it was expedient and served the purpose that I was aiming for. I know now that not seeing who is in front of me, leads to sin/destruction and great sadness. I am also aware of the many times when I have recognized/differentiated between the good and the not so good of another person and helped them and me to give more power to their goodness of being and help them recognize when they were putting on the blinders. I have taken responsibility for my errors and, as Rabbi Heschel is telling me, I can’t hold on to another person not being responsible for theirs as it hampers my ability to live in and recognize the sublime wonder of life. More tomorrow.  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 13

“Among the many things that religious tradition holds in store for us is a legacy of wonder. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. (God in Search of Man, pg.43).

Following up yesterday’s quote/lesson with these two sentences above makes perfect sense to me. Insights are expressions of our experiences of wonder, I believe. They ensure our continued search for, grasping of and acting on our insights as well as being open and excited about the insights of another(s). Legacy relates to our inheritance, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that wonder is an inheritance, a birthright, and, in being maladjusted to the ways I have understood these words before, a way of being that is imperative for us to adopt in order to have a true sense of God, of our world and of ourselves/our lives. 

Insights lead to wonder, wonder leads to insights. We have to keep alive this legacy, we have to keep growing our inheritance. We have spent so many years squandering it, we have stopped replenishing our storehouse, bank account, 401K, IRA, etc with wonder that it almost seems as if there is none left in us and for us. We are being bombarded with noise that is determined and destined to bankrupt our wonder account and leave us empty vessels that just robotically follow orders. Our insights are put down, our ears are growing deafer and deafer to the call of God, to the music of wonder. Our eyes are getting blinded by the prejudices of another(s), by the spectacles people are making of themselves that seem to engender power and prestige. Our tongues have forgotten what we pray 3 times a day: “God guard my tongue from evil, my lips from speaking guile”. We have come to worship these ways of being rather than living from wonder/radical amazement. 

31 years ago, to paraphrase what a psychiatrist by the name of Dr.Stephen Marmer said at a conference in Los Angeles on the subject of addiction in the Jewish Community: We have spent the moral capital of the past generations and not put anything back into the bank account. These words were wringing true then and even more now. People are not interested in truth, in wonder, in our inheritance, they are interested in their interests, their desires, their power. Power is wielded for the sake of the powerful, not for the sake of God. We have picked apart our religious traditions so much as to make the religious experience a mental exercise rather than an experience of wonder, of ecstasy. We have bankrupted our spiritual nature, we have walled off our souls and we are suffering a Spiritual Pandemic.

We take so many things for granted, we have forgotten how to be surprised. We are so interested in consuming, we have taken for granted our climate, our freedom, our friends and family. We are unaware of the grandeur of living a life compatible with being a partner of God. We have stopped believing in our insights, in our ability to wonder, in our being called to a higher purpose than our own self-interests. We have stopped being loyal to God, loyal to each other and we live in a constant state of being afraid of being betrayed and betraying another(s) for our own gain. We take people for granted, ideas for granted and ‘facts’ for granted. We take our selfishness and self-centeredness for granted and see the world through both of these states. We are suffering from the disease of prejudice, a prejudice of ‘what’s in it for me’, a cancer of winning is the only thing. We are at war with our own inherent nature and we are defeating our innate sense of wonder. Taking things for granted causes us to go to war everyday rather than seek the wonder and connection that is our legacy, our inheritance and our way of replenishing our moral and spiritual bank accounts. 

In recovery, we are amazed each and every day that we are able to put back the moral and spiritual capital we stole from ourselves and another(s). Prior to our recovery, we used up everything in sight, what was ours and what was yours. In recovery, we celebrate our spiritual nature, we know each day is a gift and we are careful not to squander this gift. We practice gratitude, not just say it, we know our strength comes from God/Higher Power and we seek to grow and improve our legacy of wonder daily. 

I continue to live in a state of wonder, I continue to be surprised and I continue to put back into the world wonder, gratitude and love. Living in wonder has brought me to, at times, put faith in the wrong people, not that they are bad/evil, just that I saw them for who they could be and not for who they are in the moment. I am been surprised both negatively and positively, I am surprised at waking up each day, I am guilty of taking things for granted as well. Each time I take something for granted, I make errors and find myself in messes of my own making and another(s) taking advantage of my miscues. Not taking things for granted is how I keep my love of my siblings, my nieces and nephews, Harriet, Heather, Miles Stuart, friends, communities fresh, alive and I stay aware of what is happening. Living in Wonder is not a protection against being hurt, disappointed, etc.; it is a path of responding to whatever the day brings with pathos, joy, excitement, love and truth. Taping into my inheritance of wonder allows me a safe, warm, kind and loving space to gain more insights, more creativity and more surety in the higher logic of spirit and God. 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 12

“Insights are the roots of art, philosophy and religion, and must be acknowledged as common and fundamental facts of mental life. The ways of creative thinking do not always coincide with those charted by traditional logicians; the realm where genius is at home, where insight is at work, logic can hardly find access to.” (Man is Not Alone pg.17).

Over 70 years ago, Rabbi Heschel was speaking to a generation that had just experienced man’s greatest inhumanity to man, World War II, and was trying to both forget what had happened and be suspicious of our former allies. We were already involved in the Korean War and the breakthroughs that scientists had brought were being hailed worldwide, nuclear energy that could be used for bombs, medical advances, etc. Here comes Rabbi Heschel to remind us what is at the root of all important discoveries, creations, and, I would add, mental health: Insights and the connection with the Ineffable because they come from this connection to the Ineffable, the universe, God, whatever descriptor one wants to use. 

What has happened in these 70 years, unfortunately, is we have become more polarized, the logicians seem to win more often that the people who relish their insights and work to bring them to fruition. Yes, of course, we see celebrity status given to some artists in music, some philosophers, some religious leaders, what we are not seeing is status and follow through from each and every one of us on our insights and our creativity. Every human being has insights, everyone of us is able to connect with the universe, the Ineffable One and see and hear our souls’ speaking to us and pointing us in the correct path for us, as individuals, families, communities, country. Yet, we have allowed the logicians to overrule what our insights are telling us. We see this in the ways the news is spun, we only listen to the people we want to believe, the people who use polls, etc to tell us what we want to hear with little regard to truth, the whole story and/or our own mental health. We see this in the way politicians speak to us, the lies they tell us and they are good because they use a perverted logic that we have come to believe in. The logicians want us to never activate our insights precisely because they would then lose their power and control over the masses. They would lose the power they wield so swiftly and discriminately, they would have to come face to face with their mendacity and the wreckage they have caused and they are unwilling to do this. It is too fearful so they continue to belittle the people who speak and share their insights, who speak and share the value, worth, dignity of our mental life and spiritual life. 

Rabbi Heschel is calling on us to break the yoke these logicians have put on us. I hear him calling us to tap into our insights, stop putting our inner dialogue down. I hear him telling us to end our mental illness of denial of the Ineffable’s voice and message to us, end our denial of longing to gain the strength from the universe to create, to worship, to live a life compatible with being in the realm of the Ineffable One. Rabbi Heschel is speaking to those of us who put down our own brilliance and cripple ourselves by trying hard to fit in, to explain the unexplainable and, unfortunately, join with the worshipers at the alter of ‘if its not logical, it isn’t real’. Rabbi Heschel is giving us the courage, the strength, and, most of all, the validity to develop and listen to our insights and to follow them to their ‘higher’ logical end. Rabbi Heschel is being our cheerleader, our guide, our coach, our teacher in pursuing our unique and individual creativity.

Living with a heightened sense of insight, a greater vision of the value and necessity of insight, and strengthening our ability to follow them through will change our life and the lives of so many others. Religious leaders, musicians and artists, movie makers and philosophers and authors and so many more, did and do follow through on their insights and teach all of us how to do this in the face of ridicule, scorn, fire hoses turned on them, jail and/or prison. We can and must take the time to explore our insights for the greater good of ourselves and another. We love to listen to music that is created and how do we use that music to gain our own insights? We need to ask ourselves the same question with any of the arts, philosophies/philosophers, religious/spiritual texts we read/study/listen to. When we don’t gain our own insights, when we don’t gather strength from the insights of another, we are creating an inner war, a mental health crisis for ourselves. God has implanted in us the gift of insight and we have the power to use our insights. Will we? 

In recovery, we are so aware of the need to be insightful, to honor our insights and to learn from the insights of another(s). This is why we are constantly seeking our spiritual texts and paths in order to find spiritual solutions, creative solutions, solutions that are uniquely ours to our daily challenges. We drank, used, gambled, gave into depression and/or anxiety before recovery because we were bombarded by logic and we knew that the logic just didn’t make it for us, so we used substances and behaviors to escape. In recovery, we are constantly and consistently seeking out the Ineffable One for insights on what the next right action is for us in this moment, in this day. 

I am overcome with so many insights and emotions right now. I know in my bones, in my soul the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching. I will write more on Sunday. 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 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