Living Rabbi Heschel's wisdom - a Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 97

“Some of us blush, others wear a mask which veils spontaneous sensitivity to the holy ineffable dimension of reality. We all wear so much mental make-up, we have almost forfeited our face. But faith only comes when we stand face to face-the ineffable in us with the ineffable beyond us-suffer ourselves to be seen, to commune, to receive a ray and reflect. But to do that the soul must be alive in the mind.” (Man is Not Alone pg 91).

“Spontaneous sensitivity to the holy ineffable dimension of reality” is a truth that goes unnoticed by and denied by so many people. If we can’t feel it, touch it, taste it, see it; many people don’t think it is real, or so they say. Some of us are unable to believe what we see when someone else’s voice is in our ears-we deny what is happening in front of us. We hear the words and don’t register the actions so we are continually deceived and deceiving ourselves. The words spontaneous and sensitive come from the Latin roots “of one’s own accord” and “feel”, having nothing to do with our tactile senses, rather with our spiritual beingness. I am using holy to mean, “elevated and connected”. Ineffable means “not able to express in words”. 

Rabbi Heschel, some 70 years ago, warned us and is warning us about a human trait that is within our nature and that we need to transform, our need to deny our desire, pull towards answering and connecting with something greater than ourselves that we don’t understand, can’t comprehend, and is always calling out to us. This is true for some ‘people of faith’ and their leaders as well as everyone else. I believe most people at one time or another have experienced a ‘call’, a ‘pull’ a ‘eureka’ moment and either ignored it, dismissed it, or answered it. This ‘call, pull, eureka’ comes from either deep within us and/or our connection to a dimension of reality that we are unable to express. Yet, it is totally real, it is absolutely valid and it occurs daily, if we attune our hearing to this elevated dimension of reality. 

Our problem, of course, is that we are afraid to attune our ears to this elevated dimension of reality because we are afraid of being ridiculed. Look at the people who are being ridiculed and disowned by their own people for standing up for truth that we can actually document, much less standing up for one’s inner experience that is almost impossible to describe, what I call: “knowing something in my bones”. Many people are afraid to follow this call for fear of being wrong, being shunned, being exiled, being not seen nor heard, being laughed at, etc. We have seen throughout history how often the people who are the most connected, the people who speak the truth of their experiences with the “holy ineffable dimension of reality” are shunted to the side, not given their due, and ignored. Rabbi Heschel had this experience and, unlike many of us, he kept writing, he kept speaking, he kept protesting, he kept standing up for God’s principles no matter what. Rabbi Heschel never stopped responding to God’s call, continuing on his own accord to connect to the indescribable dimension of reality and, by doing so, changed our world for the better. 

We have the same opportunity, to hear and respond to the call of a higher reality, our souls, God, a higher truth. Our challenge is to respond no matter what someone else thinks. It is to, in a way, be like Don Quijote and fight the windmills of mendacity. Stand up for what we “know in our bones” instead of what someone else wants to prove with their sleight of hand tricks. Life is not a three-card Monte game, life is serious and joyous. True living is when we, on our own accord act on the feeling/vibration/call we receive that is from an inexplicable source and experience the connection with the higher dimension of reality. This is not a one and done proposition, this takes a spiritual practice that is constant, consistent, always changing and growing, and trust in one’s own ability to connect with, hear, decipher, and act on the call of this higher dimension of reality. It also takes spiritual counseling with a physician of the soul. 

In recovery, we begin by scraping off the barnacles that have grown on our soul and the armor, the walls we have built up in our inner life that has made it impossible for us to hear any voice except the voices of deception, ours and the ones’ of people with whom we have called ‘our friends’. This scrapping begins with admitting that we need to live differently than we have been. It is the process of having our inner and outer ears cleaned of all the wax that has built up over the years which blocks our hearing the call of the higher dimension of reality. 

I began to hear the Ineffable call in jail in 1986 and, with the help of my Rabbis, my teachers, my friends, my siblings, my daughter and wife, I hear this call more and more often and I respond with, at times, reckless abandon. I see and hear things in texts, in living that many people don’t, so I am ignored, tolerated and used when convenient by some. By many others, this connection to the Ineffable dimension of reality is sought out, appreciated and used to help them. I want to be liked and appreciated and I know that it is impossible for everyone to understand me and join me. For those who hear the call of the Ineffable and don’t want to follow it or want me to not confront them with it, they need to silence me, marginalize me and I understand and forgive them. I also know that my delivery isn’t for everyone and I am more committed to speak to people in ways they can understand, not just the ways I like to talk. 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 96

“Some of us blush, others wear a mask which veils spontaneous sensitivity to the holy ineffable dimension of reality. We all wear so much mental make-up, we have almost forfeited our face. But faith only comes when we stand face to face-the ineffable in us with the ineffable beyond us-suffer ourselves to be seen, to commune, to receive a ray and reflect. But to do that the soul must be alive in the mind.” (Man is Not Alone pg 91).

Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that only some of us blush, only some of us are willing to be seen in our entirety by another person, by God, even by our own self. What does this say for the majority of people? The majority are not willing to blush, the majority wear a mask to veil themselves and the harm this does is immeasurable. Looking into a mirror, how often are we blind to what is in front of us, how often do we hide from the true reflection in the mirror? There is a famous poem titled: “The Man in the  Glass” that speaks to our attempts to hide from our self and we can’t hide from the reflection in the mirror. The final stanza reminds us that heartache will be our true reward if we “cheat the man in the glass”. 

This sad truth that the majority of people wear a mask to veil themselves is what causes the chasm in our society, what causes pain and war, depression and addiction, racism and anti-semitism, anxiety and hopelessness, senseless hatred and polarization. Wearing of a mask is to hide from another, to change our appearance so we can either “fit in” or not. We wear a mask to hide our faces from another because we know what we are doing is not the next right action to take. The terrorists who behead people on video never show their faces, supposedly so they don’t get identified and hunted and arrested. Yet, taking Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above to heart, immersing ourselves in it, it seems to me that these terrorists know taking another life goes against God’s will and their supposed allegiance to their god, is actually idolatry and self-serving. If they believed they were serving Allah, as they claim, why would they hide their faces? They don’t want to face themselves in the camera as they commit such heinous acts as well as not facing anyone else.

People veil themselves to cover, conceal and/or disguise themselves according to the dictionary definition of the word from the Latin word; vela-curtain covering. We are told as boys to ‘shake it off’ when we get hurt in a game or in life and ‘get back in the game, give them what they have coming’ etc, which only teaches us to make someone pay for our pain, physical, emotional and/or spiritual. This is the cause of most wars, hurt feelings, a poke in the eye, a denial of the spirituality of another human being. We engage in these behaviors not because God wants us to, not because our Higher Consciousness tells us to, because our veils force us to. If we don’t exact payback, we have to see ourselves and another can see us as ‘weak’ and vulnerable and we can’t have that happen because the veil would fall away and we would see our true self. 

This veil that most people walk around with tries to cover up, conceal and disguise personal agendas that they have when talking about larger topics. Examples are the ‘quick fix’ pharmaceutical companies that got our nation addicted to pain killers and, even worse, believing that pain is not a prerequisite of living authentically. Their motive was not the welfare of people, it was to line their pockets with money and power. The leaders of January 6th, 2021 who knew/know the election was not stolen, who know that allowing all Americans the right to vote is what is right, who know that the vaccines work(and take them themselves) and they continue to hide these truths from the people who listen to them, not to serve the people, but to serve their hold on power, to serve their hatred of ‘the opposition’, to serve their self-aggrandizing view of themselves, to serve their idol worship.

In recovery, we are continuing to remove the layers of the veil we wore/wear. We call it ‘peeling the onion’, because these layers are so thin like the membrane of an onion skin and as strong as this membrane. We are so used to the veil, we are so accustom to our masks and to our myopic sight, it is with great determination we remove one layer after another, not all at once, slowly and steadily so we can adjust our sight to what is and remove these layers/blinders completely. These membranes are on our eyes, our hearts and cover our souls/spirits as well and our removal of each layer brings a new sense of living, a new vision of life on life’s terms and a deep appreciation of being alive and connected. 

I realize the veils get thinner and thinner as we grow in wisdom, age, spirit and love. Being able to blush doesn’t mean I don’t still have veils, I do. The veil that I am peeling off is the veil of seeing another person as I need/want them to be rather than see them for who they truly are. It is how I changed according to what the other person needed me to be prior to my recovery and I realize today that I would change who another person was in my vision according to what I needed/wanted them to be and this was hurtful and harmful to the person, to me and to those around me. I reversed my conman way of viewing a situation to harm me, to serve me and it always blew up in my face. This is not the same as giving a person the benefit of the doubt, it is not seeing them for who and where they are in the moment and this is not serving God, them or myself. 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 95

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

Continuing to look at the last sentence above, we realize how often we “people of faith” are unfaithful as Rabbi Heschel is describing being faithful above. Immersing oneself in these words leads to one to the very core of the problem of faith and the reason so many people are turning away from faith. The leaders of faith organizations are not being faithful to God, to another human being to their core reason for being alive. They are too busy hiding, wearing the masks of perfection, the mask of authority, the mask of mendacity, the mask of fear, the mask of bigotry, the mask of Pharaoh. 3300+ years after being redeemed from slavery by God and Moses, our faith leadership and their flock, have put on the mask of Pharaoh, to rule people in the most ungodly manner. Fear and punishment, ie eternal damnation, is not God’s way. God’s way is truth, transparency, love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, etc. We do not see this in many of today’s faith leaders, they are autocratic, absolutely sure they are ‘right’ and act imperially and become authoritarians. Instead of blaming the ills of the world on “those” people, for our faith leadership to truly “blush in the presence of God”, they would do their own inner work, their own T’Shuvah and help the rest of us do the same. 

Authenticity and transparency are not values that are rewarded in today’s world, nor in any world, when it comes to standing “in front of” and/or “with” God. Authenticity is not acting out our inner negativity, I believe. Authenticity, as I’m understanding and using the word is when we act from our higher consciousness, our spirit, our concern for another as well as concern for our self. One cannot be a hater, a bigot, a deceiver, a cheat, a con, a liar and a gangster and be authentic! One can only live authentically when they live in ways that are congruent with making their corner of the world a little better each day, when they see themselves as different and unique and see everyone else as different and unique so we can all respect, need and rejoice in the ways we all make this tapestry called our world, a rich, vibrant, truthful, loving experience. These are some of the ways we are able to “blush in the presence of God” by living authentically. Transparency is taking off the masks so someone else and God can see us without the bluster, the costume and the carnival paint we put on each day. Living transparently occurs when we are more afraid of hiding than we are of being seen, by another and by God. The world we live in does not reward this type of transparency, not in our schools, not in many homes, not in the workplace, not even in many houses of worship. Look at how the Prophets were treated! When we tell you who we are, when we act in the ways we act and, as long as it serving those in power, it is good and, when they get a little scared of optics and lawsuits, you are thrown away/sacrificed, these great faithful leaders, parents, employers are telling us that we love you as long as you act in the manner we want you to and that manner has nothing to do with your soul, spirit, gift-it has to do with our wants and desires in the moment. Rather than rewarding one’s “blush in the presence of God”, most people become afraid of it, overwhelmed by it, hide from it, and ignore/remove the messenger of God for their transparency and authenticity and their indictment of those ‘good faith leaders, good political leaders, good parents’ et al. 

In recovery, a “blush in the presence of God” is our daily goal. We are constantly seeking to “improve our conscious contact with God…” and seek to reach our higher consciousness and live better each and every day. We know we have to live our lives out loud, we have suffered the pain of and the pain caused by our hiding and our mendacious ways of living prior to our recovery. In fact, we are recovering our integrity, our authentic self a little more each day in recovery. 

I have fought this battle to “blush in the presence of God” every day for the past 35+ years. I fight with my false ego who wants to ‘look good’ as opposed to my soul who wants to do good, who wants to join in partnership with God to propel me and those around me to new heights of living. I win the war each day in that at least 51% of me is transparent and authentic in my living each day and some days it is just barely 51%! I strive each day to raise  the percentage and most days I live at 85+% authentic and transparent. Some of the masks I wear are for my own good as well as the good of another, ie, I wear the mask of confidence that I will not die today so I can never be hopeless-of course I know I will die, I just deny it will be today and I am better able to be of service, to be “seen by the unseen” and seen by those around me. I also know that there are people who have used my authenticity and transparency against me, those who have decided I am too much of a liability, and a few, who I thought truly got me, who deserted me in my times of most need. I have not hidden the pain that the first two groups brought me nor the “Et tu Brute” moment of the later group. I have no resentments, no anger, just sadness and this is a new mark of authenticity and transparency for me-usually I would just go to the mask of anger to hide the sadness. I have decided that to be “seen by the unseen”, allow another(s) to see me “blush in the presence of God” is more authentic, more transparent and more healing. 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 94

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

The last sentence in this group has overwhelmed me ever since I first read it 30+ years ago, sitting here this morning, I am aware of what it is saying with trembling awe. I tremble at what Rabbi Heschel is teaching us with this simple sentence, we have faith, we demonstrate our faith only when we are willing to be seen and make ourselves available to be seen by God and, I would add, another(s) person since we are all Divine Reminders. 

Since we are always in God’s presence, as the Mezuzah reminds us, our faith is shown through our openness to be seen, and I believe, to see another(s). Using this teaching as the measuring stick for living faithfully or not, gives us a clue into God’s desire and search for human connection, to me. So many of the “faithful” continue to wear masks and hide from God and from another human being. Many Spiritual Leaders forget to blush in the presence of God, of humanity which is why they can be so mendacious and deceptive. Choose Life is a commandment in Deuteronomy and so many of our leaders choose hiding instead, they choose to wear a mask of ‘righteousness’, ‘humility’, ‘caring’, etc. Yet, what they are actually doing is being self-righteous bigots, ostentatiously humble and caring about their power and their proximity to power. Any Spiritual Leader who promotes politics and political views over the life-saving, soul-saving teachings and ways of God, however you experience God/higher consciousness, etc, is a self-righteous bigot. Their bigotry is their disdain for God’s words, for morality, for saving a life in favor of their search for power, money and prestige. I call upon all spiritual leaders to show themselves, to be seen and to blush in the presence of their flock, in the presence of people and in the presence of God/their higher self/their soul. Meeting this challenge will allow them to look at themselves in the mirror of God’s reflection, in the mirror of human reflection and we all can then decide to follow their deceptive ways or not, help them move from mendacity to truth or not, choose life through connection to God and human beings or existence through deception and ‘getting theirs’. 

I cannot contain myself this morning as I realize how much we all hide, how unfaithful we all become at different times in our daily living. As a child, denying what we have done wrong when accused by a parent is done from fear, cheating on an exam/test so we can get a good grade is done from fear of not being ‘good enough’. The ‘celebrity fad’ such as the Kardashians, reality TV ‘stars’ are more examples of mask wearing since the shows are all scripted and people’s fear of not being like them has turned into multi-million dollar industries. We are the causes and makers of the masks that we wear, that our children wear, our friends wear, humanity wears, as I am experiencing Rabbi Heschel’s teaching this morning. 

The Hebrew Bible is an unmasking of human behavior, an unmasking of what happens when we hide from God and when we seek God. Adam hides from God, is sent out of the Garden of Eden because he can’t be responsible and, according to a Kabbalistic interpretation, Adam divorces God! We screw up and we want to blame anyone and everyone, even God. It is not God’s will that innocent children, innocent people die as collateral damage in wars, conflicts, robberies, gang initiations, etc. It is not God’s will that people are lied to and lie to another regarding life-saving medicines and vaccines all the while promoting drugs to help addicts that create their own dependency, drugs that do not allow people to experience grief and loss, anxiety and depression over experiences that naturally cause these experiences, blaming people ‘not like us’ for all the ills of our world rather than being responsible for our part. We teach and learn these ways of hiding, of wearing masks in infancy/early childhood and, our spiritual education is not sufficient enough to teach both parents and children: “faith is blush in the presence of God”, being seen is how we blush, and the presence of God is everywhere. When will we ever learn? 

In recovery, we “continue to take daily inventory and promptly admit when we are wrong”. This 10th step is our way of checking in to see how we have hidden and how we have blushed throughout our day. We need to keep on top of our both our hiding and our blushing so we make certain that we stay in recovery by being at least 51% in blushing. In recovery, we know the lure of self-deception and the subtlety of mask wearing, so we are constantly aware and on guard against falling into old traps and behaviors. 

I am overwhelmed with sadness at how I have worn a mask at times and how people who I thought I knew were wearing masks that I could not perceive nor break through. I hear people differently because of being able to blush and seek to blush one grain of sand more each and every 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 93

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

The wearing of a mask is not only to hide from God and another human being, it is to hide from oneself. Many years ago someone asked me and Harriet: “If I keep living my false persona, doesn’t it become real?” We were taken aback by this question and, ultimately, responded with a NO. While many of us want to believe that if we are false long enough, if we wear a mask and work to be someone/something other than our authentic self, the mask will actually become our face/our truth. The error of this type of thinking is enormous. 

The Torah, the Commandments, common decency, and morality allow us to transform the negative impulses we all have into doing something positive and right, sometimes called ‘acting our way into right thinking’. These guides, standards are here to help us discover our authentic self and the best way for each of us as an individual to serve our souls, our community, higher consciousness, God, etc. The purpose of every spiritual tradition and discipline, of the psychoanalytic methods are to help an individual find their authentic self and learn to live from it. 

The wearing of a mask, to hide an erroneous belief that there is something wrong with us, is a practice of mendacity and self-deception. First, believing there is something inherently wrong with one’s soul, one’s core being is a lie we tell ourselves and/or a lie someone else has perpetrated upon us and we have bought into. Each of us are created in the Divine Image, we are not defective nor do we have any defective character defects at birth. Yes, there are, unfortunately and tragically, human beings born with defects of the physical and emotional nature, however this is not the rule nor does it stop someone from living authentically. A child with Downs Syndrome lives more authentically, I think, than the rest of us-they live a life of love and joy, they are only sad when someone else is and/or when someone is mean to them. A Downs Syndrome person is a person who can teach the rest of us to be fearless in living authentically with whatever ‘imperfections’ we may seem to have and rejoice in our unique purpose and gifts. If only we as individuals and as a society would take our masks off and learn from them and embrace them, life would be elevated, holier, kinder and we all would stop being afraid of being seen for who we truly are. 

Human beings wear a mask out of fear, fear of not being “enough” mostly. While no one can define what “enough” is and/or when they achieve it, some of us know we are “enough" and have no need for masks. People who keep trying to achieve being “enough” in different areas of living; money, property, recognition, sports, accomplishments, beauty, etc are really trying to be perfect so no one will be able to touch them. They have bought into the myth of perfection and the belief they can shield themselves from harsh critiques both from self-examination and the judgement of another if they are “enough”. There is no “enough” that is permanent, we are constantly growing and changing, what was “enough” yesterday, can’t be “enough” today because today is a different day, needing different solutions and nuanced skills and tools to navigate and grow. A mask to show we are “enough” denies the truth that we are doing the best we can and that is enough, it is all we are asked to do and anyone who asks us to do more is stuck in their inauthentic, mask wearing mendacity!

In recovery, we remove our masks when we acknowledge everything we cannot change and the things we should change, as the original Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr teaches us. We are able to continue to learn how we fall back into old habits that don’t serve us and another(s) well along with the old habits and new ones/new way to employ them that do serve us and another well. This learning comes from a daily inventory, a constant inner check-in and taking of our spiritual temperature. We know we are removing our masks when we make an amend and admit we are wrong, when we don’t need to be the smartest person in the room and when we speak to and with someone else rather than at them, when we embrace rather than push away, when we see the humanity of another person and allow them to see ours. 

The mask I have worn the most in my recovery is the mask of strength. Not that I am not strong, I just have worn this mask to never show the hurt that people have perpetrated upon me. I may get mad, I may ‘fight back’, I just have not shown the pain and the hurt I experience when someone I work with ‘goes out’, when someone I have a connection with (or thought I did) just drops me without explaining why, when I am exiled because of being me, being authentic; this pain is so excruciating and I never wanted anyone to know how badly I was wounded, mistakenly thinking that I would get over it and move on. Writing this shows me how much I need to remove this mask so I can be healed by the universe, by the people I know I can count on and by my own soul. 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 92

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

Rabbi Heschel is calling us to decide, would we rather be in “the sight of the unseen” and be seen, warts and all, or would we rather hide from God, most, if not all, people, and ourselves? This is the question each one of us has to come face to face with and make our own individual decision about. Of course, the decision is revocable, we can put masks on, take them off, experience the blush of being seen and known, hide behind the curtain often and at will depending on situations and on our fears/desires. 

Wearing a mask is a statement of disbelief in oneself! It is a statement of disbelief in the basic goodness of human beings and a disbelief in the power of healing and love of the Ineffable One. Disbelief in the power of healing and love of the Ineffable One is a common and, in some ways, makes sense. We cannot see, feel tactilely, touch, readily hear, or smell the Ineffable One. We attribute so much of healing and love to either humanity and/or nature forgetting how we came to be created, the One who created nature and put love into the world. We are willing to give credit to a doctor, to a lover, to a kind person, to the natural healing ability of the body, etc rather than realize the Source to Whom all credit can and needs to be shown. Not that the other entities mentioned are not part of the process of healing and love; rather they get their abilities, their sensitivities and their inner attributes originally from the Ineffable One. We know this because so often, healers come up with solutions that are not in text books, are not taught in schools, they are solutions to situations that used to baffle us and our predecessors. Yet, having a Eureka moment, we discover a new solution. We have witnessed this so often in life; Polio Vaccine, wearing Gloves when performing surgery, Transplant surgery, Vaccines for Malaria, Measles, Flu, Covid-19, technological advances etc. Wearing a mask and hiding/being impervious to the Ineffable One causes us to disbelieve in the root structure and nature of our world and a way of living that honors our humanness. 

Wearing a mask is one’s way of saying they do not trust their being with another. We put on facades and show another person what we think they want to see and/or only what we want to show them. Showing another person what we think they want to see is for our personal gain. It is the way of the “con” and the “grifter”. Many people cannot understand why someone would be a “con/grifter” all the while hiding from most people/everyone behind their facade/mask. People create false selves to gain power, to make money, to join the ‘in’ crowd and/or the ‘out’ crowd. We wear a mask to pretend we are someone/something we are not for our gain and, often, a loss for someone else. When our mask is only what we want to show someone it is a statement of our disbelief in another person. We do not believe we can trust them to be honest and real, we believe they are ‘out to get us’ and will take what we have from us, and we don’t trust them with our truth and our vulnerabilities; fearing they will use them against us. We wear a mask to protect ourselves against losing what we have and being used by another. The masks and facades we wear in our person interactions continue to deny us the connection we crave and the opportunity to love another human being with our authentic self and to be loved by another human being for who we really are. Masks and facades promote the “imposter” syndrome so many people have; “if you really knew who I was, you would run away from me’ is a constant inner dialogue for many people and they believe this lie so much, they continue to hide.

In recovery, our mask is the first thing that has to be removed by us. We cannot be in recovery without dropping the facade and the mask. Many people do not remain in recovery because they cannot drop the mask for any length of time, they put the mask back on, they rebuild or build anew a facade they think works and return to the ways of living that brought the pain of their past back and these ways of living were the reasons for seeking out recovery in the first place. The lure of the mask and the fear of the blush are too strong for some and it is sad to see the pain, the death and the devastation these masks bring to all involved. 

Prior to recovery, I was mostly masked. I put up a facade that fooled people for a while and fooled me for longer. One of the masks that I wore was ‘better than’ mask to hide the ‘not good enough’ dialogue in my inner life. In my recovery, I realize I put that mask on at times and it harmed me and the people around me. Letting go of the ‘not good enough’ dialogue has been difficult when my past is used against me, when I not seen for who I am and spoken of in a negative manner; ‘he’s not a real Rabbi, he can only deal with ‘those people’. In writing this, I realize my putting the mask on to hide my inner dialogue was my believing their lies and hiding from God and not trusting in God which brought me deep pain and anguish. Only by being seen by the Ineffable One have I been able to heal. Putting on the masks prevented me from hearing truth and receiving the love that truth, rebuke, connection bring. I am sad and apologize for any harm my masks have brought and I commit to keeping them off. 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 91

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

Continuing to experience Rabbi Heschel’s words and teachings above causes one to think deeply about the word “blush”. The most common usage of the word is to “show shyness, embarrassment, or shame by becoming red in the face” according to an online dictionary. Using this definition in reading the penultimate sentence above would hint at us being embarrassed by God’s rays, our being shy to approach God and experience God’s light, and/or feel shame at being in God’s presence. While all three of these experiences are good descriptors, I believe Rabbi Heschel is also teaching us something more. 

Being one of the “some of us blush” group I believe is a description of the redness/glow we experience after being seen by God and/or by another human being. This blush is the blush of connection, not disconnection; it is the blush of color that comes from being seen and welcomed, not the color that comes from fear of being seen; it is the blush that comes from joy of acceptance, not the color from the despair of being cast out. We are so afraid to “blush” because we do not realize the power and the beauty of our “blush”, we do not understand our “blush” as joy of being known rather than the embarrassment of being caught. We have been conditioned to accept the conventional notions of the word blush and this causes us to ‘shy’ away from blushing.

Moses had this blush after his encounter with God on Mount Sinai and it stayed with him so he had to wear a veil in public. Rabbi Heschel had this “blush” about him and he radiated the rays he acquired with each encounter with “the unseen” he experienced, which were many. This “blush” these “rays” do not come from the mendacity of the “false prophet” or ‘self-serving charismatic leader’, they come from an authentic encounter with the “unseen” and the commitment to keep the “blush”, aka “fresh color” alive inside of us as well as reflect it in our work life, our family life, in our entire life. 

Love is an example of a “blush” of connection and being seen and being accepted. Yet, think about how often we hide when first meeting people. “Put your best foot forward” and other cliches have become normal thinking and advice for most people yet couldn’t that prevent us from an authentic connection, for a joyous “blush”? Rabbi Heschel, I think, is telling us that with every encounter, we get to be seen by the “unseen”, the Tzelem/God Image of another human being, the Ineffable One of the Universe, and the inner parts of ourselves that we hide from. If we don’t allow ourselves to be seen by our lover, is it really love? I am thinking that the hiding, the refusal to accept our being good enough to be seen and accepted, our refusal to “blush” is the root cause of divorces. Keeping our “blush”/color fresh each day is also a critical way to grow our love for another human being, for humanity in general, for our self, for God, for the universe. How often do we express gratitude to our spouse, lover, children, parents, siblings, co-workers, employees, supporters, friends, strangers, for their being in our world? 

“Some of us blush” is a call to action; experience the glow and warmth of this “blush” as an experience of being known and accepted, of being seen and loved, of being admired for our radiating rays from our soul/inner life. Using the word “blush” teaches us the impossibility of faking this experience. It is impossible, I believe, to fake a blush that comes up from one’s heart and soul. This “blush” needs no words, it needs no explanations, actions on our part, it just needs to be shown and seen, felt and embraced. As I write this, this morning, I feel the “blush” and pray I never lose this “fresh color”; another definition of blush. 

In recovery, we are constantly seeking to be seen and to blush. We know our blushes come from our core and, usually, we see this as being seen for our flaws. As we progress in our recovery, we blush when a compliment is issued, not from shame nor false humility, rather from being seen and acknowledged. We also see the glow of another human being and appreciate, share and bask in the glow of their blush instead of being jealous, hiding and/or trying to imitate another person. 

I have been red in the face over the years for many reasons and not all of them good/holy! Yet, in reflecting back, I realize how often the redness, the bluster, the loudness came from so deep in my core, my soul and it was my way of expressing the different experiences I had/have in those/these moments with “the unseen”, with God. I also know the inner glow of being seen by both “the unseen” and by the person in front of me. The “blush” happened whether people accepted and embraced me or rejected and exiled me, as I reflect back on my past. Either way, accepting or rejecting, embracing or exiling, came from people seeing the result of my experience of being “seen by the unseen” and some people wanted to join this experience and some didn’t, some people accept the authentic me and some people don’t. The “blush”, however, keeps me real and living authentically. Happy 2022 and 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 90

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

For “those of us who cannot keep their striving back” we can be joyous and proud at our path of choosing spiritual bypass surgery and allowing a physician of the soul and/or our own self to perform this life-saving deed. Rabbi Heschel’s words above are a warning as well as a call to action. I think sometimes we miss the warning by diving into the action too quickly. Not keeping our striving back is a very important action, not blocking our soul, our being from connecting to something greater than ourselves, is an important way to live a life of purpose and meaning, be it through connection with the Creative Force of the Universe, our higher consciousness, God, friendships, etc.

Many people are very desperate to “find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen” because they experience life with such despair, depression, emptiness and need to know more. Those who feel empty, depressed, and despairing are seeking a way out of their current experience and a way out of their mental state. Many are unaware of their need for spiritual bypass because they do not understand their situation as a spiritual malady. While medication and therapy are important tools, at times, for this condition, I believe when people “find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays” depression, despair and emptiness fall away and people see hope, possibilities and connection. When we are willing to open up our hearts, allow our souls to come out of the prison we have placed them in, we can become “aglow with its rays” and light a path of meaning, purpose and service for ourselves and for humanity. However, to do this, we have to let go of our old ideas, see today as a new day, not take for granted what life has in store for us and be open to the awe and wonder God has provided for us today. 

For the people who need to know more, this “striving” can become a way of boosting their self0serving ego. Many people, in their self-deceptive and mendacious ways, put up a front of serving the greater good, all the while lining their pockets and caring only about themselves. Case in point, Jared Kushner did a good thing with the Abraham Accords and he got rewarded by getting the money to bail out his poor investment in 666 5th Avenue purchase. We see this happen all the time in politics, in the way some investment firms care only about the commissions they can make, not the safeguarding of the assets people have entrusted them with and they do make the assets grow. We see this with people who are donors and board members of non-profits and, instead of supporting the non-profit, believe they know what is best for it and how to run it. In these cases, the CEO, the founder has to either bow down to these people or be fired, retired, etc. While there is a lot of good that happens from these types of donors, they do it for their sake, for their power, to prove ‘the one with the gold rules’.

Still others are seeking a short-cut to “find themselves within sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays”, through drugs, alcohol, etc. So many people who have used hallucinogens speak about their trips and how they ‘saw’ God and the universe, etc. LSD, Ayahuasca, Mushrooms, PCP, Peyote, Ketamine to name a few are being used as Clinical Interventions for some medical conditions and they are shortcuts to the Divine. Does this make them less legitimate, who knows? I do know that artificial shortcuts to connection to spirit have led many people to “jails, institutions and death” as well as living an addicted life-style that harms them and their families, friends and community. Spiritual connection, spiritual bypass surgery has been around for the millennia and is authentic, soul-empowering and mind-altering as well as heart opening. It allows us to see the humanity in another and in our self.  

In recovery, our striving is greater and greater each and every day. We have a formula of prayer, meditation, service and connection through phone calls, meetings and fellowship. We become intoxicated with God, continually seeking knowledge of God’s will and how to carry it out. We “come to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity” as the 2nd Step of AA teaches. That power is the unseen and our connection to it makes us “aglow with its rays” that we can share with another and use in our daily living. 

I am constantly aware of my/the human tendency to see God’s work as my own. I am also blessed to spend much of my time being “aglow with its rays” after connecting to God, to another human being, to my own soul. I have acted in self-interest in my striving because without my striving, I would be lost in the darkness of my negativity, the pain of the betrayals, and the sadness of aloneness. I have acted in self-interest in my striving to gain things for myself as well and I have done my t’shuvah with the people and with God for these actions. T’Shuvah is an act of striving to find ourselves within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. May we all do T’Shuvah for our missing the marks and hitting the marks in 2021. 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 89

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

Rabbi Heschel’s words are so important for us to immerse ourselves in so we can let go of the armor and impervious way we have chosen to live. Impervious comes from the Latin meaning “not having a way/passage through”. This is a very positive and Holy statement by Rabbi Heschel, it shows his absolute faith in both God and humanity. He is speaking to us that we cannot, will not remain “not having a passage way through” for God and what God wants us to see. How exciting and how nerve-racking! 

Rabbi Heschel is calling us all out to do a Spiritual Bypass surgery on ourselves in order to open up a passage way through to our souls, to our hearts, to our minds and emotions. We are in the midst of a pandemic of Covid-19 and a pandemic of remaining impervious to what God wants to show us, one another. We can do this Bypass surgery in so many ways and it all begins with the second sentence above; we have to allow our striving to go forward, find ourselves in the sight of the unseen and allow the rays of this experience to radiate out. Much like Moses when he came down from Mt. Sinai the second time and he was aglow with the rays of God, so too can this happen to all of us. We need to do Spiritual Bypass to make this happen, however. We can do this bypass for each person, the making of a “passage through” from God to our souls will by nature and need be different, there is no “One-Size Fits All”.

We begin this Bypass surgery by, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, immersing ourselves in text, whichever Spiritual text speaks to you, for me it is Torah and Rabbi Heschel as well as other Jewish texts. Immersing oneself, to me, entails letting go of the old ideas and thoughts I have about something, the old prejudices and sureties I have held are left in the past and I am open for a new experience of something that I have seen, studied, read, experienced before. Rabbi Heschel defines prejudice as an “eye disease” and “a cancer of the soul” in his book Insecurity of Freedom. Most of us need Spiritual Bypass surgery because of the prejudices we hold onto, the “eye disease” of seeing something the same way, having a repeat experience of text, wisdom, another person, job, family, etc rather than a new experience with life and living. Continuing to see text, wisdom, life as ‘same shit different day’ is a sign of a cancer of our soul, our Spiritual pathways are blocked and getting more and more diseased each day, yet we do nothing. We need this Spiritual Bypass to save our souls, to save the souls of another(s) human being, to see life with new and fresh eyes each day and to connect with God and one another. 

Besides ‘same shit different day’ there are many more signs of our diseased spiritual arteries, of our need for Spiritual Bypass, of our blocked spiritual passageways. Waking up and being sad that one woke up and/or afraid of what is in store for us today is a sign. When we are not grateful for the opportunity a new day brings to us and we are unable to see the opportunity of this day is a sign that a Bypass surgery is needed. Taking the day, the job, the home, the people in our lives, the stranger we pass, our health and our tsuris for granted is a sign of a blocked Spiritual artery or 2,3,4. Greed is another sign, forgetting to give our 10% to help the poor, the needy and the stranger, our inability to do T’Shuvah, take stock of ourselves and see what we did well and not so well each day, is a sign that we are seeking to remain impervious, we are seeking to “keep their striving back”. Our preoccupation with self-deception, being deceived and deceiving another(s) is a sign, our engagement in mendacity regarding facts and another group(s) so we can feel superior and ‘right’ is a sign we are stuck being impervious, that we are unwilling to strive towards what God “longs to show”. More on this theme tomorrow.

In recovery, Spiritual Bypass is one of the first experiences we have in order to be in recovery. In fact, we are recovering from the Spiritual Bypass surgery we, another person, an experience, God has performed upon us. We may or may not be willing participants, we may or may not even know we are ‘going under the knife’, we do know when the Bypass is finished and our experience of the “usual thing” is different and new, fresh and exciting. Spiritual Bypass surgery is, of course only the beginning. We have to continue to “grow along spiritual lines” in order to keep our arteries clear and the spirit we are blessed with continue to flow throughout us. 

I had this Spiritual Bypass some 35 years ago and I need to continue to keep my Spiritual Arteries clean and clear. Writing this today, I realize that my outbursts are at times, my way of doing a Spiritual Angioplasty on myself. They come, usually, from a place of having gone along to get along, seeing something that I thought was okay and finding out it isn’t, having faith and belief in another person to find out I was just being used and my outburst is so I don’t allow the plaque of mendacity and fear, material needs and desire to be liked block my connection to and need for God. I also know that my outbursts at times have caused more plaque to form. Writing, praying, connecting, are ways that keep my spiritual arteries open and widen my passageway to the Divine. 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 88

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

When Rabbi Heschel wrote this, it was in the shadow of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and, it seems like it was his belief that no matter how impervious a person, group, nation is to  what God wants to show us, eventually we succumb to God’s consistent call to us, them, it. Yet, along the path to eventually succumbing, we cause much damage, much hurt, much tears to another human being, another group, another nation, to God as well as to ourselves. 

Remaining impervious to our treatment of people ‘other than us’ is a way of being that probably goes back to the beginning of our existence, yet we seem to perfect this mode of being more and more in each generation. We have become more and more in love with both being deceived and deceiving another(s) and ourselves. As we approach the anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, we find more and more people openly celebrating and making heroes of people who broke the law, tried to tear down our democratic society and are still trying to, and are calling these criminals, these white supremacists (because they are afraid of losing ‘whiteness control’) patriots! The people engaging in these behaviors are remaining impervious to what God is trying to show us-community, truth, kindness, care for the stranger… yet, these ‘god-fearing’ idol worshiping people remain impervious to God’s ways, teachings and reflection in another human being. 

Celebration of the Confederacy and the Confederate leaders through monuments and treatment of blacks is another example of our remaining impervious to “what He longs to show”. The exodus from Egypt is the first story in the Bible of God’s desire that slavery will end, of God’s creating each of us in God’s Image, therefore no one is more valuable or less valuable than another person. Yet, even though our Declaration of Independence declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, there are those among us who remain impervious to the principle that this country was founded on, to the principle that God showed to the founding fathers. The hope and desire of some people to go back to the days of slavery, of minorities bowing down to the White Taskmaster is so embedded we are again facing a civil war, a spiritual war in this country because of the imperviousness of people who are more interested in being god than serving God, more interested in self-deception and the deception of another, than in being open to God’s truth, God’s help and loving God’s ways! 

While these may seem like large scale issues, this way of remaining impervious to “what He longs to show us” is practiced by people every single day and applauded as well. We see this in the way we are unable to speak to people with whom we have differences of opinions, we can and do speak at each other, we fight each other, we ignore each other-we just don’t speak with one another. We get hurt by a person and we make them an enemy, never believing their sincere apology, waiting to ‘catch’ them in a lie, etc. We are unable to accept their apology because we remain impervious to our part, our error, our hurting of this person and/or another person, because we want to whitewash our behaviors as justified and right. We betray another person and blame them because we are impervious to hearing God calling us to do T’Shuvah, to acknowledge our errors and stop blaming the other person; “they had it coming”, “isn’t Karma a bitch” are a couple of the phrases we use to justify our behavior while God tells us not to hate our kinfolk in our heart, to not hate/abhor the Egyptians because they took us in and yet we continue to remain impervious to what God has shown us and is showing us. 

In recovery, we take off the armor that has kept us impervious, we let down our guard and begin to “circumcise the foreskin of our heart” as we are told to do in the Bible. We realize that after the flood, the rest of God’s words to us are how to return from the evil thoughts that are with us in our youth, the negative, deceptive ways of humankind can be overcome, can be transformed into ways to hear, connect and be open to “what He longs to show us”. In recovery, we are continually seeking to improve our “God Consciousness” and not worry about the definition of God, rather be concerned with our mental, emotional and spiritual progress. 

Realizing the armor I have worn and how imperviousness I have been to “what He longs to show” is wonderfully sad and hopeful. In these years of recovery, I have worn the armor, I have been impervious and, while the pain of realizing these states of being is always great, the amount of time it takes God to get my attention has lessened. Writing this today, I realize that the hurts and the betrayals I felt, the grief I went through for 8 months or so, these were all ways for God to get my attention and I am joyous at realizing that God, once again, has done for me what I could not do for myself; help me realize the next chapter in my journey of serving God and human beings. It has been painful and joyous-a true both/and. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

My years of living with Rabbi Heschel's wisdom

My years of Living with Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom

Day 87

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

The opening phrase is, in a way, an outrageous statement that could only be delivered by a prophet/prophetic voice. God is supposed to be above everything, self contained, impervious, etc and Rabbi Heschel is saying that God needs us just as we need God. As I consider the implications of this statement, I realize that this is the covenant, it is why and how the covenant is never broken by God and the basis of God’s always being willing to accept our return, calls for us to return and forgives us unconditionally. 

Consider our need to hold on to resentments and blame, shame another person, another group. This type of behavior is how we humans remain impervious to what God “longs to show”, love, connection, commitment and unity. God is the Oneness as we say in the Shema prayer and we separate our self from the Oneness when we hold onto resentments, blame and shame another person(s), group, etc. While it feels good to do this, we are remaining and engaging in behaviors that strengthen our imperviousness to what God “longs to show”. Holding resentments, blaming and shaming groups of people, individuals is humans way of controlling, ostracizing, one-upmanship, another person(s) and/or groups. It comes from a lack of self worth, a poverty of spirit and a disconnection from God. 

We humans blame and shame another person/group in order to show our power and our need to control and be separate. Yet, if we are all part of the Oneness and “God is unwilling to be alone” then how could separation be good? Yet, we want to distinguish ourselves from another person(s), group so we have to show how we are different, rather than see our similarities, rather than connect with one another-not agreeing necessarily and not hating/needing to be right either. We remain “impervious to what He longs to show” whenever we separate from another human being through resentment, anger, blaming and shaming. 

Engaging in this behavior is a denial of the God-Image another human being and we are created in. How can we denigrate one of God’s creations, a human being, just for our own aggrandizement? How can we critique another person’s interpretation of text for our own gain, engaging in our critique as a blood sport? How can we engage in senseless hatred and call ourselves ‘the faithful ones’? Yet we do all of these things and more. We are constantly coming up with new and different variations of ways to remain “impervious” to God! We keep trying to climb the ladder of ‘success’ at the expense of another, we continue to step on another human being(s) and/or groups of human beings to put them down and raise ourselves up. From the treatment of indigenous people to the treatment of immigrants, to the treatment of the poor and the needy right here at home and across the globe, we have proven our imperviousness and our separation from God. 

Yet, our fine ‘people of faith’, good white supremacists, great conspiracy theorists, amazing deceivers and grifters have convinced 10’s of millions of people that their way is the way to God. Separation and shame, blame and hatred are all pathways to God and to a better life. Denial of science, denial of the death caused by the pandemic, denial of the validity of vaccines, denial of what God speaks into our ears, into our souls, what is in our Holy Texts of all faiths, are the weapons these mendacious people use and they are still human beings. Lost, pathetic, dangerous, powerful, frightening, and human. We can’t deny their humanness, we cannot deny that they have a soul, we can only experience sadness regarding how lost they are, protect ourselves and people around us from their lies and deceptions, and reach out and speak directly into their ears as Judah did with Joseph and pray one of these times, they will drop their guard, stop being impervious and truly join with God in the covenantal love God gives us all! 

In recovery, we know that resentments, blame and shame will kill us. These three modes of being are the root causes of a person leaving recovery and returning to their imperviousness and denial of God’s call to connect. In recovery, we take responsibility for what our actions have created, both positive and negative, repair any damage from the negative and seek ways to enhance the positive, continue to “grow along spiritual lines” and stop playing God.

I have engaged in resentments, blame and shame of another and towards my self. It has gotten me momentary relief and long-term sadness. I engage in these behaviors less and less each day/week/month/year and I have found clarity between blaming and being sad, between shaming and being responsible for my part and holding another person(s) responsible for theirs, and resentments actually poison my spirit and keep me enslaved so I release them as soon as them bubble up in my mind. Over these 35+ years of studying and immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance, I have become less and less impervious to “what He longs to show” and life becomes better and better. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

My years of Living with Rabbi Heschel's wisdom - a daily path to living well

My years of Living with Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom

Day 86

“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)

This is the beginning of the 15th week of living with Rabbi Heschel every morning and I have renamed this blog to: My years of Living with Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom to more accurately express how my life changed and continues to change as a result of living with Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, teachings, kindness, love and insights. He is a prophet and I choose to hear him louder, clearer and with more dedication each year, month, day, hour and I hope these blogs help you do the same. 

Today’s quote is so overwhelming that most of us shy away from it, run from it and work hard to stay “impervious” to it! “God is unwilling to be alone” is a statement that seems so incongruous with a distant, transcendent entity. The Ineffable One is a descriptor of God and this being that is ‘too great to be expressed or described in words’ is unwilling to be alone? What is Rabbi Heschel saying to us, teaching us, calling for us to do? 

While none of us can see God’s face and survive according to the Bible and God is beyond all human needs/attributes, I am hearing Rabbi Heschel remind us that: “let us make man” was as much for God’s sake as it was for the sake of the world and for our sake. We were supposed to be partners with God in completing creation, in caring for the physical world, all the animals, plants, nature, etc as well as each other. Our ancestors found in the Bible taught us how to respond to God’s call either by doing what God was calling on them to do or by not doing what God was calling on them to do. The Bible is a book replete with humanity’s errors and God’s calling, our hiding and God’s tears. 

What could be a better example of God’s desire to connect with humanity than the Ineffable One’s call to Adam and Eve: “Ayecha- where are you” and/or the conversation with Abraham regarding Sodom and Gomorrah: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing”. Throughout the Bible, God is sending people to speak to all of us out of a deep desire to connect, to partner with humanity and for humanity to fulfill the promise and the ‘deal’ that was made at our creation. God keeps redeeming us, sending the brothers to Egypt to save the family, sending Moses to the Pharaoh to redeem the slaves, sending the Prophets to us to remind us of our commitment and of God’s need for us, etc. 

Yet, we have forgotten this truth. We say God is hiding yet, as I am reading Rabbi Heschel this morning, I believe he is calling all of us out for our hiding from God. Yes, God is transcendent, “beyond the ordinary physical experience” as the latin and English definition explains, and God is also immanent, “remaining within” each of us. “God is unwilling to be alone” is to disturb our willful ignorance of connection, to disrupt our false belief that God doesn’t care, to smash the idolatry of our belief that God has left the room. Rabbi Heschel is not accepting the ‘conventional norms’ of people’s beliefs and definitions, he is calling to us to be in Radical Amazement, maladjusted to conventional norms, beliefs, notions and mental cliches, and respond to God’s call for connection and partnership.

We are afraid to hear God’s call and/or Rabbi Heschel’s call because of our inadequacies which we try and hide from each and every day. Perfectionism is one path to hide from God, from God’s call to us and for us. It allows us to think we can/must be God in order to connect. Another idolatrous thought. Perfectionism is a path to ruin and to loneliness, to disconnection and extreme narcissism, it does not allow for us to call to God and/or another person for help, for instruction, for connection. It mirrors our way of defining God as not needing anything, anyone. Rabbi Heschel is smashing these deceptions and mendacious thoughts, notions, words, teachings by the charlatans of the world. 

We do not find recovery until we acknowledge “God is unwilling to be alone” and is calling to us. We can be sober, abstinent, dry without this acknowledgement, we just can’t be in recovery. Recovery is not just for ‘addicts/alcoholics/gamblers/etc, it is for every person who wants to stop being separate from their souls, stop being separate from their higher consciousness, their Higher Power, God, etc. In recovery, we know God is calling and we keep tuning our hearing, our souls to God’s frequency instead of trying to have everyone, including God, tune into our frequency. 

Only when I hear God calling do I feel comfortable and at ‘ease’. Only through hearing God’s message for today for me can I have accept the clarity I experience to take the next right action. It is my job to keep clearing out the schmutz and junk that blocks my ears and my soul from tuning into God’s frequency instead of my own and this is a daily practice of Sacred Housekeeping as Harriet Rossetto teaches in her book of the same name. More tomorrow and stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path of living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 85

“When the soul of man is asked: What is God to you?  there is only one answer that survives all theories which we carry to the grave: He is full of compassion. The Tetragrammaton, the great Name, we do not know how to pronounce, but we are taught to know what it stands for: “compassion”” (Man is Not Alone pg 148)

Earlier on this page Rabbi Heschel teaches: “His compassion is not mere emotion; it is blazing with the power of which only He is capable.” Being “full of compassion” the Ineffable One continually ‘suffers with’ us human beings, continually sends messengers and messages to us with a power and force that is so overwhelming we usually hide from them, get angry with them, reject them and find ourselves deeper and deeper in our victimhood, our rightness/righteous indignation, fear of change, protective shell, prejudice, etc. This, of course, sets us apart from authentic self, covenantal community, I/Thou connections, ability to live in the both/and, the ability to see another person with whom we disagree as a human being, etc. 

People are always trying to prove “With God on our side”, as Bob Dylan sang about in 1964, we can do anything and it is ‘right’! Slavery was/is okay because “God is on our side”, it was okay to kill the early Christians by the Romans because the ‘gods were on their side’, anti-semitism flourishes because these same early Christians believed “God is on our side”, mistreatment of Native Americans was/is defended because “God is on our side”, Christians killing indigenous populations if they did not accept Christ was congruent with their belief that “God was on our side”, racism is never far from the surface because some white people believe “God is on our side”, some authoritarians are saying that “God is on our side” too! Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is the prooftext of the fallacy, narcissistic, male-dominated, power-grabbing, people hating lies that have been passed down for generations. 

God suffers with all of us! Beggar and thief, Clergy and non-believer, rich and poor, boss and employee, taskmaster and slave, men and women regardless of sexual orientation and/or gender identification, etc all are worthy and can experience God suffering with us. The problem is that we are not aware of our own inner suffering, our own need for compassion. Self-compassion, I believe, is to be able to sit with one’s self and allow our souls to suffer with our inner feelings, suffer with our thoughts and emotions that always seem to ‘get us’. We do not ask for these thoughts, feelings and emotions-many are from earlier traumas-and we try so hard to rid ourselves of them rather than allowing God, through our souls, ‘suffers with’ these experiences and lead us to healing, to a path out of living in these past feelings and emotions, to seeing ourselves as worthy of God’s compassion, worthy of  allowing our soul to ‘suffer with’ our self, and knowing we are worthy of authentic connection. 

God cares about the widows, the orphans, the poor, the needy and the stranger, according to the first 5 Books of the Bible. God tells us to ‘suffer with’ these people and, I would add, see ourselves in all of these categories as well. We get to ‘suffer with’, be compassionate with, another human being when we are able to see our own needs for compassion and receive it from another person and from God and our soul. I use ‘get to’ because living in compassion and love for another is, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel today, the highest form of Imitatio Dei, being Godly, Godlike. 

The charlatans that promote hatred, fear, prejudice, towards anyone that isn’t them are NOT people of faith even though they wrap themselves in the Bible. These ‘religious conservatives are trying to co-opt God for their own power, money, narcissistic goals, not for God, not for compassion and love! 

In recovery, we seek to recover our ability to be compassionate and to ‘suffer with’ our selves and another(s) self. The difference being that to ‘suffer with’ is not the same as being in suffering. The later is a state of being that traps us into isolation, negativity, self-loathing, anger, etc. ‘Suffer with’ is a state that allows us to heal, to connect, to receive love and to give healing, connection and love to another(s) soul/self. 

I am more aware of the ways I have fallen into ‘suffering’ as opposed to allow myself to open to another person and God to ‘suffer with’ me. Tonight is the 56th Yahrzeit (anniversary) of my father’s death according to the Jewish Calendar and my ‘suffering’ led to over 20 years of denying almost everything my father believed in and stood for. My suffering kept me in a prison that made the jails and prisons I did visit/live in seem easy and comfortable. My suffering led me deeper and deeper into anger at my self, the world, even my father for abandoning me. It was in a jail cell where I heard God calling to me to ‘suffer with’ me and help lead me out of my ‘suffering’. Many people conflate these two ways of being and I have learned the difference through Rabbi Heschel, Torah, my spiritual guides and teachers, my wife and daughter, siblings and extended family. I am also celebrating 1 year of coming out of another ‘suffering’ experience which lasted “only” 8 months instead of 20+ years-progress not perfection! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 84

“When the soul of man is asked: What is God to you?  there is only one answer that survives all theories which we carry to the grave: He is full of compassion. The Tetragrammaton, the great Name, we do not know how to pronounce, but we are taught to know what it stands for: “compassion”” (Man is Not Alone pg 148)

This teaching makes us realize all the foolishness we engage in each and every day with our callousness, our ‘knowing God’ controlling of people, places and things, etc. Of course it assumes we are interested in hearing, learning from and engaging with our soul and with the compassion of God, the compassion of the universe as well as being willing to show compassion to another human being as well as to ourselves. 

At the bottom of page 148, Rabbi Heschel adds a footnote, quoting Sifre Deuteronomy and Pesikta,  explaining the “rabbinic doctrine that the Tetragrammaton(the name of God the priests would use in prayer that has been lost), usually rendered the Lord, expresses the divine attribute of love, while the name of Elohim that of judgement”. We can infer the correlation between love and compassion from this footnote, I believe, which leads us to take a deep dive into our souls and into our ways of thinking and being. I believe Rabbi Heschel is giving us the cause of the angst, despair, mental/psychological issues and spiritual wasteland we humans suffer from. While we try to answer the problem with drugs(legal and non-legal), power and prestige, facades of wealth and smiles, exerting power over another person, etc we are missing the response that we need to be engaged in: listening to the call of our soul, listening to the compassion and love of God, accepting this love and compassion as well as giving this love and compassion to another person.

Compassion comes from the latin “suffer with” not to feel bad for, not to ignore, not to have a false sense of superiority, not to be ‘bountiful’ towards ‘those poor people’, to suffer with each and every person including oneself. Most of us are unwilling to suffer with ourselves, to see where we are need of compassion and love from a source greater than ourselves, be this source our higher consciousness, our higher power, our friends, our significant other, our children, our parents, God is of no consequence. What matters is our acknowledgement of our need for compassion so we allow our soul to fill us with love. 

Most people who are in need of compassion reject it because it makes us feel weak and needy which are negative characteristics in a Greek-dominated society. We are unwilling to go to the root cause of our angst, despair, psychological and spiritual maladies because covering them up is a more ‘accepted’ way of dealing with these realities. Yet we get angry with and treat addicts who are doing the same thing that most people do, seek  an escape from doing the soul work, silence the call of our soul/inner life, wear masks to hide from everyone else including ourselves. 

Our callousness, that Rabbi Heschel teaches about on the previous page of Man is Not Alone, is directly correlated to our lack of compassion for our self and for anyone else. We are not suffering with another person, we are trying to console them (maybe), we are trying to help them (maybe), we are trying to control them (most likely), and we are not seeing the torment of their soul, we are not seeing the need for true, authentic connection, hence we are not being authentically connected nor our we suffering with them. To suffer with entails us to look at our own needs, our own lacks, our own unmet authentic desires and touch another person from our soul to theirs. Then and only then can we truly show someone a path forward that is suitable for them, based on our experience of finding our own way forward through compassion and love for our self. This is the path out of callousness and the path of compassion and love.

In recovery, we are so desperate for a new solution as the old ones have not worked. We are desperate for love and compassion and, since we don’t have it for ourselves, we  can only receive it from a “power greater than ourselves”. In recovery, we know we have to ‘suffer with’ our deeds, the deeds of another and we are in need of someone to do this with. Sponsors, guides and/or mentors are gifts bestowed upon us and we learn to take advantage of this gifts and use them wisely. 

Being vulnerable and open, authentic and flawed, transparent and brazen, has caused me great pain many times in my life. Prior to my recovery, I soothed myself with crime, alcohol, women, action, etc. Really I was escaping and recovery put a stop to hiding and escaping and has brought me more pain and anguish at times. The difference now is that I know God is compassionate with me, I know that God is loving me and I know that with God’s compassion and love, I can survive and thrive. God’s compassion and love have helped me heal from most of the traumas and wounds of my past, they have helped me do T’Shuvah and restore the dignity of those I have harmed if they are willing to accept them. I know that I have ‘suffered with’ many people and helped them heal their wounds and learn to have self-compassion and self-love. More on this tomorrow, please know that I know I am blessed and pray that you realize the blessings in your life as well as the blessings you are to another(s)! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 83

“What is the hope of man with his faithfulness being so feeble, vague, unstable and confused? The world that we have long held in trust has exploded in our hands, and a stream of guilt and misery has been unloosed which leaves no man’s integrity unmixed. But man has become callous to catastrophes. What is our hope with our callousness standing like a wall between our conscience and God?”(Man is Not Alone pg.147)

Today, the 49th Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, I am going to immerse us in the last sentence of this paragraph. This is the question and the solution to our hopelessness and our callousness. As I am hearing Rabbi Heschel, he is teaching us that hopelessness is related to and informed by our callousness. Having never thought of this relationship, I am realizing how true Rabbi Heschel’s words are. We are told in the Torah to “circumsise the foreskin of our hearts” not just to let Torah in, as I am understanding it now, it is also to let hope in and cut away the callousness, aka, the hardened skin around our hearts, our minds, our souls.

Rabbi Heschel is correct, duh, in reminding us that our hardened skin, our hardened hearts, create a wall between what our souls are telling us and what God wants from us-which are the same messages. This wall has been lauded by many as the reason for great thoughts, etc and in reality, the wall has prevented people and humanity from learning from our past, seeing what is in front of us, looking ahead to the future with hope and a plan for growing rather then what we have now; a plan for going backwards, a vision of humanity as the end all/be all, a hope by some that climate change, war, etc will create Armageddon so they can go to heaven and be saved, a hatred and suspicion between people, judging people based on the color of their skin, their political leanings, their religion, etc instead of raising the content of everyone’s character to the level that Rabbi Heschel has set for us. 

This callousness prevents us from learning and seeking new ideas, new solutions, new experiences. We are stuck in one way of thinking, one way of acting and purity is the litmus test for answering the question “are you with us or against us”, calling for an either/or reaction leaving no room for grey, no room for having a both/and response. Our callousness has not only led to hardened skin and hardened hearts, it has led us to be hard-headed as well. We are not able to use our gift from God to reason and seek solutions when we are so hardened, so calloused that we continue to spout a party line that offers no real connection to what God wants, to what our souls are calling for and what another soul needs us to help them with. Our callousness leads to the hopelessness of ever believing anyone else truly cares, it leads us to the hopelessness of believing that nothing will ever change and nothing will ever get better, the hopelessness of ‘I have to protect mine because they are coming to take it away’, all the while the people we are following are lining their pockets, being mendacious with us and feeding our self-deceptions! 

We see this on a grand scale and we also experience it on a cellular level. Think about the times our callousness has used another person for our own gain, not for their best interests. Think about the times we have engaged in deceitful gossip just to feel better about ourselves. Think about the times we have put down the ideas of another, like Rabbi Heschel, underhandedly by agreeing with the concepts and never following through on their implementation. Think about how we have turned a deaf ear to the inner calls of our spouses, children, parents, siblings, etc and blaming them for our callousness. While we can see the callousness of another, Rabbi Heschel is calling on us to see how our individual callousness has created a wall between us and God and this wall creates the hopelessness we are experiencing. 

We begin our recovery by acknowledging our callousness towards another human being and towards God. We begin our recovery by turning towards God/Higher Power/Force of the Cosmos and acknowledging how we have used the gift of mind, intuition, spirit, to create walls between us and everyone else. We acknowledge how we have lost hope and faith in our own humanity and the humanity of another human being. We begin to chip away at the wall we have created through fellowship, service and introspection allowing us to see the light that glows within us and the light that glows within each and every human being.In recovery, we get to break down walls inside of us as well. 

I understand the words in Torah where God commands Moses to “Come to Pharaoh” in a different way using Rabbi Heschel’s teaching. Moses is God’s light and is to bring the light into Pharaoh’s darkness and try once more to light up his mind and his soul. It doesn’t work and that doesn’t mean we don’t keep trying. I have been engaged in bringing light for most of my life, my Hebrew name, Meir, can be translated as bringer/causer of light. The light I was growing was walled off by me as a response to life’s occurrences as a young teen and the walls came down in 35 years ago in a jail cell and learning Rabbi Heschel in the prison yard. Callousness still rises up in me, it is a fleeting experience rather than a way of being. I am hopeful all the time because of the teachers who continue to open my heart and show me my light and the way to light up the path of another. It just doesn’t get any better than this. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 82

“What is the hope of man with his faithfulness being so feeble, vague, unstable and confused? The world that we have long held in trust has exploded in our hands, and a stream of guilt and misery has been unloosed which leaves no man’s integrity unmixed. But man has become callous to catastrophes. What is our hope with our callousness standing like a wall between our conscience and God?”(Man is Not Alone pg.147)

I have been thinking about all the seemingly ‘small’ things that we do as humans and think nothing of that God, the Prophets and Rabbi Heschel would consider catastrophes! Whenever the Jewish tradition speaks of the prophet Elijah, he is almost always portrayed as a beggar, an invalid, a person in need of shelter and/or food; never as the one in charge, the smartest person in the room, etc. In pondering this choice Jewish tradition as made, I understand better the small catastrophes we engage in all the time. Elijah is looking to see where our morals are at, he is watching in real time our spiritual condition, maturity, love for God, love for our fellow and how willing are we to do the next right thing when it doesn’t serve us.

The callousness shown to Elijah reminds me of the Hasidic saying which talks about treating the person next to us as if they were the Messiah and if she/he chooses to not reveal him/herself it will not matter. We are guilty of these ‘small’ catastrophes each and every day. When we walk by someone and do not acknowledge them it is our callousness that prevents us. I know many people will speak about their fears, that they are introverts, etc. yet all of us want to be noticed, all of us want to be acknowledged, all of us want to be seen and all of us want to be valued, not only for what we do, just for being human! Yet, we are too busy, too callous to say hello to the people we pass on the street, the people who work for us, the people we work for, the people who serve us, the people who we serve(have you ever dealt with customer service that is based overseas), and, at times, the people closest to us.

Our callousness comes out in the ‘small’ things that we do also. Making business a contact sport/war is a way of being callous and causing catastrophes while patting ourselves on the back for a good job of ‘destroying’ the competition. Think of all the exploitation that occurs in the making of many of the products we use every single day. Think of the exploitation of people’s pain/fear that happens everyday by big Pharma, doctors, pharmacists, big supply chains, etc through the ads they run on TV to get people to demand their products so their bottom line gets bigger. Not too many people see this as a catastrophe, yet it is!

The daily catastrophe of not seeing the people we work with, live with through their eyes, their experiences. We are so afraid of not being able to fix someone else, we are so in need of the ‘perfect’ family, life, friends, that we do not see the emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual suffering of our loved ones because we can’t fix it so we ignore them. We even get angry at them for ‘not snapping out of it’ in the time we think they should. We are callous and cause catastrophes because we are afraid to see the pain and suffering, the neediness and poverty of another human being. We are afraid to see all of this because 1) it would make us more responsible and force us to serve their interests and make them our concern and 2) it would be a mirror to our own pain, loneliness, sufferings, neediness and poverty and both of these outcomes are too much for many people to bear. 

Ignoring the immigrants at the border, not finding a path for the immigrants who live here without papers, ignoring the unhoused people and getting angry at them, not noticing the person walking next to you and/or at you with a hello, engaging in ‘alternative facts’ and mendacity to attain power and using the vulnerabilities of another against them, feeling helpless and powerless which leads to frustration, etc with those closest to us because we can’t fix them, all of these ways of being callous and causing catastrophes. 

In recovery, we are constantly working to improve our spiritual condition and one of the ways we do this is through service. We know we need to see another person for who they are and serve their needs not our own. We know that engaging in truth rather than mendacity is a cornerstone of our recovery and we seek to heal old wounds are create fewer and fewer catastrophes every day. 

In my recovery, I have caused fewer and fewer catastrophes and the ones I have caused have been big ones, for the people impacted by them-I am sorry and have made amends, for the chaos created in God’s world, I have made t’shuvah with God. I also know that saying hello is a big part of my daily practice, noticing the pain of another is also something I am acutely aware of  and I am working hard at being less and less callous each day. I also know my life in recovery has been a testimony for the power of healing and helping the needy, the poor and those in need of spiritual and psychological healing. I am proud of being able to work alongside Harriet Rossetto these 30+ years to achieve this. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 81

“What is the hope of man with his faithfulness being so feeble, vague, unstable and confused? The world that we have long held in trust has exploded in our hands, and a stream of guilt and misery has been unloosed which leaves no man’s integrity unmixed. But man has become callous to catastrophes. What is our hope with our callousness standing like a wall between our conscience and God?”(Man is Not Alone pg.147)

We are engaged in a war for the soul of America, the soul of the world and the soul of each and every human being. The problem is that we have become callous and unaware of these forces that are attacking our very humanity. Rabbi Heschel is demanding we see the ways in which our integrity has become mixed up and our responsibility for the streams of guilt and misery that have become commonplace as well as engaging in the solution to these problems we, humans, have brought upon us. 

How many catastrophes have we become callous to and what is the reason? We see unhoused people and get angry at them. Some, if not a majority, suffer from a mental illness and/or an addiction and we are calling the police to arrest these human beings who are suffering rather than find solutions to ease their suffering. It is a catastrophe that another human being suffers, suffers in silence and we get angry and afraid rather than helpful and compassionate. How low can we go? This is a catastrophe

We are angry at the Veterans who camp out near VA buildings/property while not being responsible for their unhousedness, for the mental anguish they suffer, for the torture serving in the military causes. Most veterans do not want to talk about what happened ‘over there’ because of the unspeakable acts they witnessed and, in many cases, participated in. How many WWII vets speak freely about the ugly side of what they experienced and this was a legitimate war for the actual safety of our country and the world. Our fear of lower home values, our fear of seeing the pain we have brought to another usually overrides the compassion we are called upon to experience and this is a catastrophe!

We ignore climate change, social uplifting, etc because we are worried about taxing corporations and the top 1%? We are more concerned about an entity that only cares about its shareholders and top executives than with the plight of our world and the people who live next to us and may need the uplifting? We are more concerned with making sure that a builder gets the zoning and ease of building(not always up to standards) than the environmental impact and the social impact of gentrification, of pushing people out of the homes they have lived in for their entire lives? This is a catastrophe!

We are engaged in trying to continually live our facades, to make people believe the outside while the inside is falling apart. We do this with products that make people look good on the outside (Spanx) while being fat and unhealthy on the inside. We do this because image has become more important than reality. There is a cottage industry of ‘image makers’, ‘reputation fixers’, ‘crisis pr people’, etc to make the ‘bad’ aka truth go away or at least get buried deep in the internet. Companies, not-for-profits, individuals nor longer are as concerned with what they are doing as they are for ‘how it looks’, also known as ‘optics’. Principles, morals can be fudged when it is for the “good” of the image, the “good” of the company, the “good” of the charity. This is a catastrophe!

While it is easy to blame ‘those’ people, we are all responsible for these catastrophes. We participate in them, we stand by and watch them happen. We engage in trying to control a woman’s body and choices and never are around to help bring up the child nor make sure their pay is equal to a man’s doing the same job. We have witnessed and participated in prejudices, racism, anti-semitism, islamaphobia, hatred of immigrants, disdain for the poor and the needy and call ourselves a ‘christian’ country of ‘god-fearing men and women? I use the small g for God because these behaviors and belief that Jesus would want this is idol worship, not worship of God nor following the words of Jesus. This is the greatest catastrophe because it leads to all the rest! 

In recovery, we are constantly on guard for these catastrophes because we are constantly searching our self and our actions for the ways we did well today and the ways we missed the mark today. Our daily 10th step keeps us right-sized, caring and cleaning up the messes we created today much quicker than prior to our recovery. 

I have participated in and witnessed these catastrophes. I have spoken up and done my part to remedy these catastrophes. I am aware of the ways I have used my bluster to hide and used it to send a message of hope to another human being. I am also deeply aware of the catastrophic nature of ignoring another human being and being ignored, thrown away and I am guilty of these catastrophes as well. My imperfections stop me from hating myself for these acts and help me realize I can and do improve each day. They help me recognize how much less I engage in catastrophic actions and how painful it is that people I trusted engaged in them with me. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 80

“What is the hope of man with his faithfulness being so feeble, vague, unstable and confused? The world that we have long held in trust has exploded in our hands, and a stream of guilt and misery has been unloosed which leaves no man’s integrity unmixed. But man has become callous to catastrophes. What is our hope with our callousness standing like a wall between our conscience and God?”(Man is Not Alone pg.147)

This teaching, these words is/are distressing, disturbing and distasteful. It forces us to face our selves, to do a true Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our souls/our ways of being in the world. This accounting is for us to see what we have done well-as all accountings have to include assets and liabilities-and understand that what we have done well does not ‘take care of’ nor wipe out the negative ways we have done. This teaching is pointing out, to me, one of the most negative ways we behave, actions we take against self and another human being(s): callousness. 

Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that there are more catastrophes than the ones we call catastrophes. Each time we ignore the plight of the poor and the needy, this is a catastrophe. While many people just shrug their shoulders at such events and see them as ‘just the way life is’ and/or ‘they get what they deserve/work for’ and/or, the new Prosperity Gospel lie, ‘God doesn’t love them as much as God loves the rich/me’. What we are seeing as ‘business as usual’ and/or ‘get real Rabbi, this is the way of the world’; Rabbi Heschel, the Prophets and God see as catastrophes! Yet, we have become so callous, hard-skinned that we are not aware of the catastrophes we are creating each and every day. We are so stuck, so unstable, so mixed up and so lacking of integrity we are blind to these truths, we are blind and unmoved by the calls of the poor and the needy. We have come to blame them for their problems and for the issues that face many of us! We are so callous, so hard-skinned that some people rejoice in their sorrow and misery. How sad, how sick, how unGodly! 

Each time we deny righteous justice, as the Torah calls for, it is a catastrophe. Each time we engage in jury nullification we are creating a catastrophe. Each time we find a cop not guilty for the murder of another human being because she/he is a cop, the victim is black, white, asian, hispanic, and ‘had it coming to them’ we create a catastrophe. Different states favor either the employer or the employee in labor disputes and this prejudice creates catastrophes. Each time an innocent person is convicted is a catastrophe we are creating through our need to win and the deceit of the prosecution. Righteous justice means no bribes, no prejudice, can enter into our search for truth. Righteous justice is the search for compassionate and understanding and to be a person of truth seeking means to seek compassion, understanding as part of the whole story. Callousness to this is a catastrophe beyond measure that we are engaging in each and every day. 

It is a catastrophe to categorize another human being(s) according to any measure. We are all human beings-no one has more dignity and value than any one else. We are all unique human beings so no one is the same as any one else. These two seemingly contradictory statements combine to remind us of the catastrophic nature of our categorizing people, comparing people, trying to get everyone to be the same, and/or ostracizing people who are ‘not like us’ from our midst and from the same opportunities we have. Be this because of the color of their skin, the religion they practice, the sexual orientation, the creed they live by, because they are male, female, and/or other, and because of their ethnicity; hispanic, African, Middle Eastern, Jewish, Irish, Italian, etc. who have all been, at one time and, in some cases, for all time seen as less than, people to be feared, etc. This catastrophic behavior is commonplace for many people and they proclaim the right to revere the leaders of the Confederacy for their prejudicial, pro-white stance and willingness to blow up the Union to keep another human beings down! We have seen this throughout history, read up on how the Jews were expelled from almost every country, and we are continuing it today in our ‘enlightened United States’ in our ‘God-fearing Christian country’. There are people who have become so hard-skinned as to believe causing these catastrophes and more, are their ways of serving God! More on this tomorrow

In recovery, we have to cut away the callousness of our past and keep ourselves fresh and alert to not allowing the callouses to grow back even stronger and harder. We do this by making sure we continue to do our amends, we continue to grow along spiritual lines and we continue to be grateful for what we have, share with another human being the bounty God has given us and work hard to not turn errors, missing the marks into catastrophes. 

I am trembling over the ways I have been callous and the catastrophes I have caused. In looking at my recovery, I am aware of how many people have perceived me as callous and I know I am not as callous as some make me out to be. I also know that my actions have cause catastrophes that I was not aware of in the moment, I have caused heartache and hardship for another(s) without realizing it and this is another definition of callousness for me. I do T’Shuvah and change each day and learn from my errors as well. More tomorrow on this, God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - a daily path for living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 79

“What is the hope of man with his faithfulness being so feeble, vague, unstable and confused? The world that we have long held in trust has exploded in our hands, and a stream of guilt and misery has been unloosed which leaves no man’s integrity unmixed. But man has become callous to catastrophes. What is our hope with our callousness standing like a wall between our conscience and God?”(Man is Not Alone pg.147)

Continuing to immerse ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s words and teachings forces us to look at how “the world we have long held in trust…” and not hide from what reality truly is. We are living in a time where some people both in and out of powerful positions are trying to hide the truth of this teaching and Rabbi Heschel said it 70 years ago; when everyone thought things were so wonderful! To see what “has exploded in our hands” we have to ponder and realize what we had/have and what happened to it. 

We had/have a promise; from the time of the Exodus from Egypt to the American Revolution to the Emancipation Proclamation the promise from God and/or the universe is that slavery is not forever and slavery will end for every group at some point. It has been a difficult promise to make into a reality from the time of Pharaoh till now, yet we in America kept our Declaration of Independence near and dear as the Spiritual goal of our revolution and the underpinnings of our nation. We have fallen short forever and, until recently, we were making progress towards seeing each human being as a worthy, dignified and important. Under our former administration, we joined with the likes of Putin, Orban, MBS, etc to move to an inauthentic, mendacious authoritarian way of living-celebrating hatred and prejudice rather than healing it, promoting the Big Lie rather than refuting it, and using the poor and needy as pawns rather than helping them as the Bible calls for us to do. 

70 years ago Rabbi Heschel told us this was happening and we did not listen, we laughed at these words and ignored his prophecy because we did not want to face ourselves in the mirror. We humans are constantly afraid to see what is and our part in it because we want to hide our imperfections and guilty actions, we want to explain them away and/or blame another. We have believed we can hide our heads in the sand and be okay, forgetting that the world which has been entrusted to us needs to be nurtured and grown in order to become the world God and we believe it can be and have envisioned it to be. We have been asleep at the wheel of this vision, this trust account that God/universe gave us to manage and now it has exploded and continues to explode “in our hands”. 

This experience that Rabbi Heschel describes 70 years ago was never taken seriously by enough people to make the necessary changes, hence, the “stream of guilt and misery” which has been unloosed has overwhelmed us to the point where we believe the lies, the deceptions of these charlatans, these authoritarians who keep saying they are fighting for American ideals and our willingness to be deceived causes people to go along with this subterfuge. 

We are suffering from a loss of integrity on the world stage as well as on the personal stage. “A man’s word is his bond” no longer applies we say one thing and do another all the time. We say what someone wants to hear to get what we want/need. We see business as war, we profess covenantal relationships with another while using them as transactional ones to get over/look good. We are willing to sell another person ‘down the river’ and/or enslave them/abuse them to attain our personal goals and perceived needs. We continue to impugn our integrity while living in denial of this truth believing we are living lives congruent with our faith, our higher thoughts, our higher consciousness, etc. We are continuing to deceive ourselves into believing it is ‘the other’ person who is in denial, who has no integrity, so we don’t have to look at ourselves. Our loss of integrity and our denial of this loss has caused us to see the world and another person as dangerous because we don’t want to be found out for our guilt, misery and shame over our current situation. More on Sunday!

In recovery, we are slowly working on recovering our integrity as every person in recovery knows. We do this “one day at a time” knowing it takes much longer to rebuild integrity than it did to tear it down. We are continuing to look ourselves in the mirror and face our guilt and misery with the commitment to use them to move forward instead of staying stuck and enslaved. In recovery, we know our forward motion is based on our daily spiritual condition and without growing our integrity one grain of sand each day, our spiritual condition suffers instead of grows. 

On my 33rd Recovery birthday, I see the times/experiences where I missed the mark in growing the world God entrusted to me. I see where my guilt and misery maimed my integrity and that of the people around me. I also see where my need to connect and believe maimed my integrity because I mistook transactional experiences for covenantal ones and the hurt upon realizing my error was/is tremendous. I also know and am grateful for the overwhelming number of times and experiences when I honored God’s trust in me and kept my covenant with another person and never hid from being me, my not so greatness and my greatness is always transparent. This is integrity for me-insides and outsides matching. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel- a daily path for living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 78

“What is the hope of man with his faithfulness being so feeble, vague, unstable and confused? The world that we have long held in trust has exploded in our hands, and a stream of guilt and misery has been unloosed which leaves no man’s integrity unmixed. But man has become callous to catastrophes. What is our hope with our callousness standing like a wall between our conscience and God?”(Man is Not Alone pg.147)

Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above allows us to truly see ourselves and our current life situations, personal, communal and worldly, in a different light. While yesterday I wrote about the economic despair, the split between groups of people, today I am struck with both the inner and outer faithfulness that is “feeble, vague, unstable and confused”. 

Our faith in our self is called into question each and every day. We face a crisis of faithfulness every time we make a decision during the day. Yes, we have the science, the history, the facts, and we have to make an inner decision to follow what we ‘know in our kishkas/guts” is the best choice to make. We are being confronted with the lies, the deceptions of ‘alternative facts’, prejudice and hatred, while always under the surface, has erupted and becoming accepted as okay by police, Governors, state legislators, even a former president and his cronies/stooges! I am not going to delve into the psyches of these UnGodly people, I am struck by the feeble and confused faithfulness of their followers, their defenders, their soldiers who carry out their commands to hate, to enslave, to see the color of someone’s skin, the religion someone practices rather than the content of their character.

The people who follow these authoritarian hate-peddlers are the ones who’s faith is feeble and confused and have become an unstable source of good for God. There is no way they can be confronting their inner self, their soul, their higher consciousness and continue to proclaim that God wants them to control another person’s body (which is a lie-Scriptures doesn’t mention this), discriminate according to a persons skin color (God brought the Jews out of Egypt as a statement that slavery is inhumane), make excuses for inhumane treatment of another human being because ‘my friend’ did it; MBS killing Jamal Khashoggi (God tells us: “Do not murder). Because we do not exercise our inner life and continue to grow it by following blindly along with whatever our ‘leader’ tells us, our faithfulness has to be “vague and unstable”. People go to fundamentalist thinking because they are unwilling to engage in the inner wrestling, inner conflict that mature faith, stable faith, strong faith calls for. 

I hold the spiritual and political leaders responsible as well. We are not educating our children to ask questions and challenge ideas and events anymore. We are giving them the facts to memorize, be it in secular or spiritual classes, and reward them for regurgitating these ‘facts’ back to us. Jewish Education is meant to engage in the questions our ancestors encountered and yet, our kids are not given the proper tools nor the permission to disagree with “our sages” in some cases and in others to only disagree with them. We are not giving our children nor our adults the proper tools with which to confront the Spiritual texts that should be and need to be the foundation of our faithfulness and wonder why faithfulness is so “feeble, vague, unstable and confused”! 

We need a renaissance of learning, wrestling and engaging. We need to strengthen our faithfulness with dialogue not diatribe. We need to learn about our own faith traditions  (religious and/or secular) and how to find the path to our souls, our inner wisdom, our inner conflicts. We need to follow these paths and engage in the battle for our souls, the battle for our ability to take the next right action and go beyond our lower logic, our fundamentalist thinking, our narcissistic concerns. We have to begin to engage with people who are not like us so we can build better bridges, build smarter and more robust solutions and see the humanity, the faithfulness and the strength of another human being. It is time to stop isolating, it is time to stop killing our own souls/selves, it is time to stop going backwards to ‘the good old days’ that were actually demeaning, enslaving and hate-filled. It is time to be faithful to the principles that have sustained the world’s existence, that are responsible for the founding of the US and have continued the spiritual quest for freedom begun so long ago in Egypt by the Israelites, Moses and God. 

In recovery, we are constantly studying the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and other spiritual texts to learn more about our own self, our way of being and a new way to be in the world. We know we have to work everyday to strengthen our inner voices, to engage with life in ways that honor the faithfulness God has in us and the trust we need to reciprocate to God and to another person. We do this because it is a living amend to all the people we were unfaithful towards. 

My education and pathways to my inner life have not stopped nor can they. Rabbi Heschel keeps me on my toes as do the people around me, the news I encounter, the texts I read and the prayers I engage in. I am constantly seeking more and more education to better understand and respond to the call of my inner life and the call of another human being as well as the call of God. Without a stable, strong, clear and purposeful faithfulness we can’t do this.  Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark