Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 145

“It is a protection against the outburst of the inner evils, against arrogance, hybris, self-deification. The end of embarrassment would be the end of humanity.” (Who is Man pg 113)

As we watch in horror what is happening in Ukraine and immerse ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above, we realize the reason we need to be embarrassed more and more and we need to be aware of our actions, our way of living. Putin and his thugs are invading a free country just because they believe they can, their arrogance is so strong and their embarrassment so weak  they actually have deceived themselves into believing their lies, actually believe that this makes them stronger and tougher, etc. 

Arrogance is a major disease in our world, as it has been throughout the millennia. Embarrassment is a protection when we use it as a ‘halter’ around our rationalizations, around our self-deceptions, etc. We do this by remembering who is in our neighborhood, God! As Rabbi Heschel teaches us we “live in the shadow of greatness” and we are “ a contemporary of God”. God/Higher Power/Higher Consciousness/morality puts a ‘halter’ around us, to lead us towards finding ways to live together with our differences and our similarities. Yet, many of us throw off this ‘halter’ and we continue to defy a higher standard of living through our arrogance. This arrogance is that we can lie with impunity, cheat and get away with it, entitled and not be responsible, above the law and force you to follow my law, live the only true path to god and this makes me immune to criticism, the one with the gold rules and the rest serve, etc. 

We see this in our faith communities through their adherence to dogma rather than their response to human suffering. We see this arrogance in religious leaders who play politics rather than serve God. We see this arrogance in trying to control women’s right to choose while saying they have the right to choose to stay unvaccinated. We see this arrogance in their bastardization of Scriptures to make power more important than kindness, lies more important than truth, vilifying the pressing needs of the poor, the needy, the stranger rather than serving these needs and many more ways. We need to call our faith communities to account and demand they become embarrassed at their arrogance, demand they return to God and serve people in truth, let go of their own lies/self-deceptions, stand up for the needy, the stranger, the poor, promote freedom and understand that there are, at least, 70 ways to understand the Bible so no one way can be ‘the’ way. We need to demand our faith communities return to welcoming the stranger, the one who has strayed from God and is returning, the women who make their own choices, the people who have been assaulted by the money-hungry carpetbaggers of today, people of color who have been marginalized in subtler and subtler ways, people of different faith traditions so we can learn of our similarities and rejoice in our differences. We need to demand our faith communities let go of their arrogance, be embarrassed and rejoin God in promoting truth, love, justice, compassion, kindness, etc. 

We see this arrogance in our elected officials all the time, unfortunately. Both poles, far right and far left, accuse one another of being arrogant without looking in the mirror! The arrogance is the belief by some elected officials that they are above the law, they can do anything they want, they can live double lives without any consequences, condemning in another what they do on a daily basis. Yet, when they are ‘found out’, they deny, they declare their innocence, they rail against the unfairness of the situation and they accuse their accusers of lying. Rather than be embarrassed by their inability to control themselves, they are proud of their ‘above the law’ status. Rather than admit to the evils that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, they are proud of the ‘patriotism’ shown that day. Rather than censure and dismiss Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar for their attendance at, speaking at and agreement with a white nationalist group who chanted for Putin, applauded Hitler as a hero, Kevin McCarthy gave a weak statement, while censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their seeking of truth-can’t get much more arrogant than this, Kevin McCarthy!

In recovery, we have been shunned by so many for so long because of our past. Rabbi Heschel’s teaching is so powerful for us reminding us to not do what is hateful to us to another person. We cannot allow our hurt at being shunned by faith communities, employers, family members cause us to be arrogant towards anyone, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of believing we can be in recovery and live arrogantly.

I am arrogant at times and I am called arrogant more often than I actually am. I realize my visions, my insights and the ways I go about achieving them can be experienced as arrogant and I have to do a better job of explaining my path to another person. I have been arrogant and dismissive when I experience someone being deceptive with me and I have come across arrogant to those who do not want to be exposed. I have been arrogant in my thinking that I had earned some respect, some understanding from people because of the good deeds I had done, not realizing/accepting that 1 “Oh Shit” wipes our 100 “Atta Boys”. I am embarrassed by my awareness of my being blind to some truths and grateful that I can be embarrassed and use this ‘halter’ to lead me forward with strength, better vision, truth and love. 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 144

“It is a protection against the outburst of the inner evils, against arrogance, hybris, self-deification. The end of embarrassment would be the end of humanity.” (Who is Man pg 113)

Rabbi Heschel’s continuation of the importance of embarrassment chills me to the bone. As I immerse myself in his words, I am getting more and more embarrassed at my not being embarrassed and I fear for our future given some leaders do not have a sense of embarrassment as Rabbi Heschel teaches about it and they have Nuclear Weapons and/or bio-chemical weapons, etc.! I have great concerns for our future given people’s deep concern about optics without being concerned about their inner lives, truth, substance, etc. When one can become a celebrity; rich and famous; because of their outrageous behaviors and then have millions of people want to be like them, we are in trouble spiritually, morally and emotionally. When people are too ‘embarrassed’ to admit their errors, do T’Shuvah/make amends, have a plan to not repeat the behaviors again, we become a society that is based on power rather than mercy, greed rather than feeding the poor, the needy, the stranger, etc. 

The embarrassment Rabbi Heschel is speaking of is the awareness we get to live a life which can “replenish a wondrous expectation” as I wrote about a few days ago. It is also an awareness of how we have squandered the moral capital of our ancestors, how we have failed to learn the lessons of history and keep repeating the failures of our ancestors. It is an awareness of the well-worn paths we keep taking which lead us to a spiritual bankruptcy and our need to take the “Road Less Travelled”  as Dr. M. Scott Peck writes in his book of the same name. The path we need to take is found in our Holy Books, in the Hebrew Bible and its many commentaries of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Tibetan Book of Living and Dead, etc. It is not to be found in the latest fashion trend, nor is to be found in how many likes one has on TikTok, Instagram, etc. 

The path we need to take is one of awareness of our strengths and awareness of our foibles. It is a path filled with embarrassment, the need to have a halter on us because the inner evils work so hard to break out of us. They grow stronger each day unless we are aware of them, work to maintain the inner tension(balance) between our opposing inclinations and grow our spiritual life each and every day. We fall into the trap of our inner evils whenever we defend our actions, positions by blaming another without taking responsibility for our part. We fall into the trap of our inner evils whenever our ‘need to be right’ overtakes our need to be loving. We fall into the trap of our inner evils every time we are in comparison and competition with another person and stoop to our basest behaviors and thinking in order to “win at all costs”. We fall into the trap of our inner evils when we adopt the lie that life is a ‘zero-sum’ game. These traps are especially insidious because they are so ‘normal’ in our societal life and rules. 

To protect ourselves “against the outburst of the inner evils” we need to “lift up our eyes and see” as God told Abraham in the Hebrew Bible. We have to take off our blinders and leave our state of willful blindness. We can do this by growing our inner lives, maturing our soul and enhancing our spiritual life. We do this by reprioritizing our decision making process; our souls/inner knowledge/gut intuition become the arbiters of our actions with intellect/rationalization and emotions/desires having votes and they can no longer veto what we know to be the next right action. Fulfilling the Mitzvah of T’Shuvah each and every day allows us to see where we have “missed the mark” and where we have “hit the mark” so we can repair and grow our ‘misses’ and enhance and grow our ‘hits’. 

In recovery, we are aware of the myriad of ways our inner evils burst out and the damage they caused to the people around us, the people we love and to our self. We realize the danger of going down this path with a new ‘cover’ looking good in our recovery, still hiding from the work of walking the path less travelled. People with long-term recovery have see people ‘fake it till you make it’ and fall by the wayside because they did not take this new spiritual, moral, ethical path with all their being, it was more lip service than dedication. In recovery, we work hard to repair the damage from our outbursts and grow our inner life so we can manage these inner evils. 

One of the light bulbs that went off for me is Rabbi Heschel doesn’t say the inner evils will go away! I know this to be true and I am embarrassed that I let them burst out of me thinking they had disappeared and/or I had a handle on them. I am also embarrassed by my awareness of breaking the halter that God and other trusted guides put on me to help me with containing my inner evils and the damage I wrought because I would not let myself be led. I am grateful to be embarrassed by these awareness’ and many others. I am embarrassed by my awareness of the inner evil of self-deception and all the subtle ways it has/had a hold on me. I am embarrassed by the awareness that some of my awareness’ come after the fact and damage has been done. I am embarrassed at my awareness of how I deceived myself to ignore that the people I trusted and helped would ever me less than human when I made an error and did not believe in T’Shuvah nor in truth. 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 143

“It involves an awareness of the grandeur of existence that may be wasted, of a waiting ignored, of unique moments missed.” (Who is Man pg 113)

Continuing his teaching about embarrassment, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of the joy of embarrassment and the embracing of it rather than the hiding from and fear of embarrassment. At issue for all of us is whether we are aware of “the grandeur of existence” in the first place. Herein lies the greatest problem of humankind, I believe Rabbi Heschel is teaching us: our existence is grand, miraculous, a gift, and we need to stop taking it for granted. We waste our existence by not being aware of the grandeur of being alive, of the grandeur of being a divine reminder, the grandeur of being a divine need, the grandeur of being able to love, laugh, cry, mourn, connect, be kind, etc. 

Our generations, the 21st Century is not that different from other times in history; we are constantly hiding from “the grandeur of existence”, we are constantly staying unaware of the amazement of being alive, being able to think, speak, care for another, bring new life into the world, and if we are able to be aware, we seem to be unable to sustain this awareness and grow it. We are too caught up in our own self-centeredness to be aware and therefore incapable of being embarrassed. Yet, our unawareness could be the beginning of our embarrassment which would lead to becoming more aware of the grandeur of our existence, the grandeur of the existence of every human being, animal, nature, etc. This awareness along with the embarrassment would lead us to “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall men learn war anymore.”(Isaiah 2:4). 

God is waiting, Rabbi Heschel teaches us in his interview with Carl Stern and I have a new way of experiencing  this concept. How often have we left someone waiting for us, be it because we are ‘running late’, we forgot, we ignored their cry, we turned away from the misery of another human being, we stayed focused on our self, etc? Every time we keep someone waiting, we keep God waiting. Every time we ignore the call, the need, the cry of another human being, we keep God waiting. Each time we stay silent in the face of wrongdoing, evil, we keep God waiting. We deceive ourselves into believing that these calls from fellow humans should go unanswered because they have “to figure it out themselves”, they should “pull themselves up by the bootstraps, just like I did”, “my father beat me and it made a man out of me”, etc. While the immigrant makes good story is a true and wonderful one, it is the rare one today as we have made immigrants the enemy, people of another faith the enemy, people of a different color the enemy, etc. We ignore moments of waiting whenever we make separation rather than connection. We ignore moments of waiting whenever we make someone else bad/less than us so we can feel good about our self. We ignore moments of waiting when we need to conquer another rather than cooperate to build a better world. 

Many of us do get embarrassed by “unique moments missed” once we realize them, yet this embarrassment is not used to help us sharpen our senses to stop missing unique moments, most of us use it to put another person down and/or feel bad about ourselves. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that every moment is unique, every moment is pregnant with beauty, awe, amazement, grandeur, joy, aliveness and it is only us humans who dull our senses, being stale, blind, uncaring. We have the opportunity to end our willful blindness to the uniqueness of each moment. We have the power within us to appreciate that this moment will never be again and we can seize the power of it, the joy of it, the holy of it, the connection with another this moment brings, the connection with God, the connection with our inner life, our soul. We have this opportunity with each moment and, while none of us will ever be ‘perfect’ in this task, we can all improve our awareness of the grandeur, the waiting and the uniqueness of each day, week, month, etc. 

In recovery, we have a daily inventory to help us be more aware of the grandeur of existence, the waiting we have ignored and the waiting we have answered, and the unique moments of the day. We, who have been unaware for so long and delved so deeply into the morass of degradation and ignorance, know it is our life that is at stake if we do not stay aware of the grandeur of living, of hearing and responding to the waiting of another and God, and awaken to the uniqueness of moments in our day and our life. In recovery, we train ourselves to be embarrassed when we ignore this way of being. 

I am embarrassed for the times I took existence for granted and have not been aware of the grandeur of it, I am embarrassed for the times I thought; ’same shit, different day’ and I am so remorseful for the waiting I ignored, the unique moments I have missed. I also am grateful for the overwhelming moments of appreciation of the grandeur of existence, the relishing of it, the gratitude to God for my being able to live in this grandeur and the showering of love from my parents, siblings, wife, daughter, grandson, extended family, and friends. I am grateful for all the calls I have answered and the ones I will in the future of people who were waiting for a helping hand, a person who could meet their concerns. I am so grateful for recognizing the multitude of unique moments in my life and the lives of people around me. I am embarrassed by the joy of life I experience and the embarrassment helps me realize the many joys I have. 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 142

“Embarrassment is a response to the discovery that in living we either replenish or frustrate a wondrous expectation.”(Who is Man pg.113)

OMG, reading this sentence in light of what is happening in the world is, for me, proof of Rabbi Heschel’s prophetic vision, voice and teachings. The issue for all of us is to be embarrassed so we can make the necessary changes to the ways we live so we begin and/or continue to replenish this wondrous expectation called humankind, this wondrous expectation called service to something greater than ourselves, this wondrous expectation called peace and harmony. We all need to be embarrassed as a response to the newfound awareness we gain through Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. 

Yet, most of us are not embarrassed, most of us are not even discovering “that in living we either replenish or frustrate” the desires of God, of another human being, of life. Since we are not interested in this discovery, we can have no response and we will never be embarrassed. We have not progressed much from Adam and Eve hiding in the Garden of Eden, no matter how technologically skilled we may be. 

Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine is an example of someone who is not interested in a “wondrous expectation”, Putin is showing the world he is only interested in his desires and expectations, he is worried whether he will look weak or strong, whether he can pick up where the former Soviet Union under Stalin left off and fulfill his false, cruel expectation of Putin is King. Putin is unfazed by the truth that he is frustrating this “wondrous expectation”. The rest of the world, for the most part, however, is embarrassed and so they are responding mostly appropriately. We are coming to the aid of Ukraine, we see the heroism of the people, of the leadership and we are responding with support, with sanctions and with spirit. This is an example of helping to replenish a “wondrous expectation”.

Religious leadership speaks of the “wondrous expectation” and, unfortunately, has done so much to frustrate it rather than replenish it. We Rabbis, Ministers, Imams, Priests, have to own up to our errors and we have to be embarrassed more so we can truly lead our communities to replenish the “wondrous expectation” of God more and more. We need to stop the hatred, we need to stop the lies from our pulpits, we need to hold ourselves, political leaders and the Jew in the pew, the Catholic in the pew, the Muslim on the rug, the Christian in the pew, the Buddhist in the temple, etc accountable for replenishing the “wondrous expectation” their birth and life represent. We need to confess our acts of frustrating this expectation, we have to stop kissing up to power and, instead, follow the lead of Nathan the Prophet to King David, the lead of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. the actions of Rabbi Heschel, the path of John Lewis and speak truth to power, stay true to our unique mission and, as Father Greg Boyle says, practice “radical kinship”. 

Our political leadership is lacking in morality and spirituality. They are, for all their supposed religiosity, frustrating God’s “wondrous expectation” and are proud of it. When Marjorie Taylor Greene can speak at a rally of Neo-Nazi’s and it takes Kevin McCarthy 3 days to decide that this is not a good thing, they both are frustrating God’s “wondrous expectation”. The Senate could not pass a voting rights bill that ensures every American can vote, is treated with dignity and has the freedom to choose their own elected officials, these fine ‘church-going, god-fearing’ mendacious scoundrels. Governments are here to serve the people, Priests are to serve the people, communities are formed to serve its members, this is how we replenish the “wondrous expectation” of God, of our souls, of another human being-we are not here to serve our selfish self, we are not here to get what we can and screw anyone else, we are not here to frustrate “a wondrous expectation” through cruelty, war, mendacity, slavery, etc.

In recovery, we begin by acknowledging the paths that helped us frustrate this “wondrous expectation” that came into being when we were born. We opener eyes, our minds, to allow the truth of our souls to penetrate the emotional and intellectual ignorance we lived by. Upon our realization of our many paths of frustrating God’s “wondrous expectation” we are embarrassed and this embarrassment leads us to repair the damage we have done and change our paths so we will begin the process of replenishing. 

It is 2 years since I acted inappropriately and set off a chain of events that has led me to a new sense of appreciation of embarrassment and a new path of replenishing the “wondrous expectation” that I frustrated. I am embarrassed by the awareness of how one wrong action did frustrate the “wondrous expectation” of God and change so many lives and that I did not see this nor did I consider this outcome prior to my “missing the mark”. I also am sad that I wasn’t embarrassed nor aware of the depth of this teaching earlier in my life. I am grateful that I am not embarrassed at being embarrassed, I am grateful that I can face my embarrassment with joy and hope. I am elated to be able to grow in embarrassment and replenish the “wondrous expectation” I was born to fulfill. 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 141

“Embarrassment is the awareness of an incongruity of character and challenge, of perceptivity and reality, of knowledge and understanding, of mystery and comprehension.”(Who is Man pg.112)

Continuing to experience this teaching, I am embarrassed by the inability of so many of us to be embarrassed and/or aware of the incongruity of knowledge and understanding we display. This inability to be both aware and embarrassed has led to war, famine, rejection, slavery, racism, caste societies, bastardization of religious principles, idolatry, authoritarianism, etc. It is the root cause of the crash of 2008, our gridlock congress, the search for absolute power in government, the cruelty of authoritarianism, etc. 

The greatest problem, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s teaching is we are not embarrassed at our incongruities, not that we are unaware. In some cases, of course we are, and in the majority of times we live incongruity of knowledge and understanding it is with full awareness of this fact. There is no way the Republican Party did not know what they were unleashing when they continually called the election of 2020 “a stolen election” and called upon their supports to “stop the steal”! Not only were they aware of what they knew and how they were using their knowledge, they were the perpetrators of stolen elections for years by limiting the availability of voting places in minority neighborhoods, making it harder for people of color and older people to vote, etc. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell can stand up and straight-faced lie to the people and use their knowledge of truth to twist the facts, to denigrate the actions of their opponents and turn around and do the same action is disgraceful and they are not embarrassed by it! McConnell would not entertain talking to Merritt Garland during an election year, yet pushed through a Supreme Court Justice one month prior to the 2020 election! He is aware of his incongruence  he just doesn’t care nor is he embarrassed by them-he wears them as a badge of courage and honor! 

We see this in our religious institutions as well. When we are more concerned with cozying up to power than with the principles of our faith; we are in trouble. When we use the knowledge we have as religious leaders, scholars, to take advantage of our congregants and the people who trust us, we are aware and not embarrassed. When religious institutions are more concerned with optics and lawsuits that with staying true to the foundational principles of their faith, we are aware and not embarrassed. When we take the principles of our faith-decency, love, compassion, truth, justice, kindness-and use them for our benefit or the benefit of power, we are using our knowledge in an incongruent manner from our understanding of how to use it. In the Jewish tradition, there are 70 ways to understand Torah and some ardent fervent practitioners believe their way is the only “right” way-they are using their knowledge for power, control and self-aggrandizement, not for understanding God’s Will in the moment and how to use their knowledge for the sake of God and another(s) human being. Yet, they and others like them are not embarrassed at their awareness of their incongruities, they seem proud of them while denying they are being incongruent. What a conundrum! 

In our families, we see denial of incongruities all the time. Parents try to put up a facade of all knowing, my way or the highway, if you don’t like my rules…, don’t you question your father/mother in the home or in public, etc. Parents are constantly telling children how much they love them all the while being too busy to know their inner lives. Parents forget what it was like to be a child, adolescent and treat their own children like they were treated, which they hated! We see how parents ignore the spiritual health and growth of their children just as theirs was and only want them to be happy. We parents have to be more embarrassed so we can be more congruent with our children and teach them a different path than we were given. 

In recovery, we are absolutely embarrassed by our awareness of our incongruity of knowing and understanding. We realize early on how much we understood and knew and our myriad of ways to bastardize both knowledge and understanding. We come to the awareness of our incongruities through our inner work and spiritual growth. Then we are able to put our knowledge and understanding together to hear the call of our intuition, the call of our soul. 

I have come to realize how incongruent my knowing and my understanding of the best ways to use my knowing have been, at times. I am embarrassed as I write this at my unawareness of my incongruence. Immersing myself in this teaching is helping me rectify my incongruence and be more committed to ensuring my using my understanding of a situation is in concert with my knowing and my knowing, my skills, my talents are used in concert of my understanding of how to use them in the moment, making the necessary tweaks to meet the situation at hand and not rely on yesterday’s understanding or knowing. I am embarrassed that I was aware at times of my incongruence and I fell prey to it because of fear. I am embarrassed that I failed to speak and act from my knowledge and understanding of a situation and see that every time I failed, the situation got worse and more hurt was sustained by me and another person. 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 140

“Embarrassment is the awareness of an incongruity of character and challenge, of perceptivity and reality, of knowledge and understanding, of mystery and comprehension.”(Who is Man pg.112)

The news from the Ukraine is horrific and puts an exclamation point on how aware we should all be of the incongruity of our perceptions and reality! Yet, many of us are not embarrassed nor aware and this is the scariest, saddest truth we can face. Worrying about the people of Ukraine who participated in free and fair elections, who have been bullied by Putin, Trump, the Republican Party, etc makes our embarrassment even more poignant. We all need to write our leaders to step in more forcefully than they have, send troops, bomb Russia, etc. Putin is using Hitler’s playbook, he is using Goebbels’ belief that accusing someone else of what you are doing is a winning strategy. Chamberlain fiddled while Hitler took Europe, please God we have learned something since and from World War II!

Which brings me to wonder how the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln and Reagan, are either not embarrassed by the awareness of their incongruity of perceptivity and reality or, worse yet, not aware of their incongruities! Ted Cruz’ father fled Cuba, of course Trump told us that he was involved in Kennedy’s assassination, because of Fidel Castro and he is supported and has supported Putin and Russia. Yet he sees no incongruity here. Moscow Mitch McConnell is so reverent when talking about Ronald Reagan yet takes Russian money and supported Trump’s love for Putin. He also sees no incongruity here. I can’t even get into the incongruities of Trump, his family and his lackeys, like Steve Banyon, Mike Pence, et al.

The Republican Party is engaged in not allowing free and fair elections, making it harder for people of color to vote, and they see no incongruity in billing themselves as the Party of Lincoln and discriminating based on color of one’s skin. They see no incongruity here? The party that was so against vaccine mandates, describing them as Nazi-like cruelties, continues to negate the free choices of women about their bodies and the health. No incongruity is seen or acknowledged here by these liars. 

God put T’Shuvah into the world because God knew we would make mistakes. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling to us to stand up and stop being blind to our incongruities of perception and reality, to stop holding on to conventional notions and mental cliches, to stop worrying about how things look and see how things are. We are so worried about how we look, physically, politically, emotionally, spiritually that we are unaware of how we really are, the reality of this moment, the reality of our being needed to stand up for God, for the stranger, the poor and the needy as well as the widow and the orphan. It is time for all of us to do T’Shuvah, to take an inventory and see the truth of who we are, what we have done, make amends where necessary and take the actions that are needed whether they are convenient or not. It is time to stand up with and for God, it’s time to wear our embarrassment on our faces, our garments and change our ways of trying to make the world adapt to our concepts and take off the blinders we wear and put on the glasses God has given us at birth to see where and how we can be of service to another rather than enslave another to serve us. 

In recovery, we learn early on that one cannot save one’s ass and face at the same time. Prior to recovery, we only cared about how things looked and what reality we could create so we could get what we wanted-usually money, etc. We might have been aware of the incongruities of our lives, we just were not embarrassed by them enough to change. In recovery, we are constantly seeking to uncover our incongruities between our perceptions and reality. We know that reality begins and ends with a connection to a power greater than ourselves and without a commitment to something greater than ourselves we will continue to believe our own press, the lies we make up and the perceptions we want to hold onto. In recovery, we are committed to letting go of the lies, seeking truth, aligning ourselves with reality and being embarrassed. 

The more I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words, the more embarrassed and aware I become. I have perceptions that I have been afraid, loath to let go of for fear of being alone. I have been engaged in ways of being that have been, at their foundation, false because I started from a perceptive premise rather than a premise rooted in reality. I have been hurt emotionally because I chose to live in my perceptions rather than see what was truly happening. I also am realizing living in my perceptions is not only incongruent, it is arrogant. Staying willfully blind to the reality in front of me is also embarrassing and harmful to another human being. I realize that reality is wonderful, difficult, eye opening, painful, joyous and the only way to truly serve God, another human being and one’s self. I am embarrassed by my awareness of my incongruities of reality and perception and I am not humiliated by them, I am not humiliated by the lies, the betrayals, the public airing of my less than stellar behaviors. I am embarrassed for the people who betrayed me and Harriet, the people who have enjoyed the public flogging and humiliation they participated in as perpetrator and/or listener. I pray they get as embarrassed and aware of their incongruities as I am of mine. 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 139

“Embarrassment is the awareness of an incongruity of character and challenge, of perceptivity and reality, of knowledge and understanding, of mystery and comprehension.”(Who is Man pg.112)

Our challenge from Rabbi Heschel is to be embarrassed by our “awareness of an incongruity of perceptivity and reality”, yet so many people are unable to distinguish the difference so there is no difference! When we listen to the grifters, liars aka politicians, power-hungry despots, ‘experts’ on what God wants, racists, haters spin their false ideologies upon an unsuspecting group of people who drink it up like guppies, we are too unaware to even be embarrassed. 

Whether it is Trump, Cruz, McConnell, McCarthy, or their minions spreading these ‘alternate facts’, or Putin, Orban, MBS, Taliban, ISIS, etc spewing their self-serving deceptions, or ‘religious’ leaders telling people they know what God wants and only their way is the right way, we are bombarded by the perceptions of another(s) so much, so loudly, so powerfully, it is almost impossible to not believe them. We fall asleep at the wheel of life when we allow the perceptions of another(s) and/or our own perceptions to become a stand-in for reality. 

The difference between perception and reality has been with us from the beginning of our humankind. We perceive a threat so we go into fight or flight mode often when there is no threat. Just because a Black young man is walking along the street in Beverly Hills in the evening doesn’t mean there is a threat to anyone’s life, wallet, etc. Yet, I have seen police cars stop this young black man just for being black because his skin color is a perceived threat by a group of people who view racism as rational! Just because one person is a Jew and another person an Arab, doesn’t mean they are threats to one another, yet the perception is, in many people’s heads, that they hate one another and they will kill one another given the opportunity. Just because a Muslim is arguing about something happening in America doesn’t mean they are a threat to be a suicide bomber, yet the perception is, in some circles, they must be and every Muslim is here to impose Sharia law on America. Just because someone says something louder and louder and at every opportunity they have does not mean it is real, just because it is on the internet, on TV, Cable, Radio, Newspapers, etc doesn’t mean it is real. 

We see the results of our unawareness of reality, our not being in agreement with reality and believing our perceptions and/or the perceptions of another(s). Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Rwanda in the 1990’s, wars in the Middle East since 1948, Afghanistan in the 2000’s, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine today-all have their roots in buying the perceptions that another person(s) have conjured up because we are intellectually and spiritually lazy! We are afraid to be embarrassed so we go along with people who appeal to our baser desires; power, prestige, money. We stay unaware of our incongruities in order to not be embarrassed by them, we defend our lies and the lies we are being told in order to not be embarrassed and aware. We do this so we don’t have to change, we don’t have to stand up to our lying leaders, we don’t have to worry about ‘losing it all’, we do this because we are not willing to stand with God!

Not being embarrassed is so much worse than being embarrassed. The embarrassment  of our awareness of our incongruities between perceptivity and reality is much better than the embarrassment of believing the mendacity and engaging in the self-deception that our perceptions, the perceptions/pictures people are painting! 

In recovery, we are constantly seeking to distinguish between what is real and what is our perception. Immersing ourselves in recovery engages us in this search as we come to find out how our actions impact another, how are resentments kill us and spread poison throughout our system and the spiritual/emotional systems of another, and our need to engage in a daily practice of seeing the truth of our day, our living. 

As a former con man, I know painfully well the damage my selling another person on my perceptions and/or giving their perceptions support in the face of reality. I believed my own BS for a while and upon being arrested again in 1986, finally heard the voice of God, the voice of reality that had been speaking to me forever. I was embarrassed then and I am embarrassed now when I become aware of my own incongruities between what I perceive and what is real. I continue to study Rabbi Heschel so I stay grounded in reality. I continue to speak with Rabbi Ed Feinstein so I stay aware of reality. I continue to engage with my writing so I can compare my perceptions to what is real. I continue to argue with Harriet Rossetto so I do not become willfully blind to my incongruities. I continue to hear the voice of God, the voice of reality, the call of my own soul so I can be embarrassed. I welcome this embarrassment because it means I am aware and I can change. I have been unaware at times and it has cost me and some other people dearly and for this I am also embarrassed. I also forgive the people who sold me on their perceptions for their own needs and used me for their purposes. I also ask forgiveness from anyone who perceives that I have done this to them. 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 138

“Embarrassment is the awareness of an incongruity of character and challenge, of perceptivity and reality, of knowledge and understanding, of mystery and comprehension.”(Who is Man pg.112)

Our willful blindness to our not being in agreement with the challenge that living our Godly Image is astounding! It is the root cause of the hatred, power-hungry despicable actions by some, unfortunately no longer the few, and the root cause of our internal strife that we believe can be healed by having enough money, prestige, alcohol, sex, gambling, action, etc. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us with a painful rebuke, I believe, as well as a deep love for humanity and God in the same moment and in every moment. In other words, Rabbi Heschel is a prophet in our times and, unfortunately, like the prophets he is misunderstood, misread, etc, remember the core of his being is to take action, not just study him. While some of us have been liberated from Egypt, we are no longer in a physical prison/slave plantation, we are standing at the foot of Mount Sinai and building, worshiping and/or watching idolatry happen in real time and doing nothing! We are not embarrassed by our incongruity of character and challenge, in fact, some of us are proud of it-ask Fox News, OAN, etc. 

Our character as individuals, as a community, and as a country are being challenged by so many issues today and some of us are unaware of these challenges because we are afraid to be embarrassed, people on both sides of any issue fall into this trap. We are so engaged in proving ‘we are right’ and ‘we have the only right way’ to fix something that we fail to see the true challenge that these issues bring-are we going to be human, are we going to live life as partners of God, are we going to fulfill the divine need we were created for? These are not right/left challenges, these are not Republican/Democrat challenges, these are challenges we all face to be human, rather than just call ourselves human beings. Rabbi Heschel teaches us we are able to and need to “enoble the common” with each of our actions, a command from God is an opportunity to refine our inner life and, unfortunately, without being embarrassed, we are unable to achieve these goals. In fact, without our awareness and our embarrassment, we are unable to even realize that our #1 challenge is to be human towards one and all. 

We are constantly faced with the inner strife of doing what we want and what is good for our self and another self. We are constantly faced with the inner strife of living a life based in and of truth and/or living a life of self-deception, deception of another and mendacity. When we succumb to the mendacity and self-deception, as many people today are and many people always have, we put on dark glasses so we cannot see the reflection of divinity in the people we choose to scapegoat and treat another human being as less human, less worthy than we are. Our inability to stay loyal to God’s call of Ayecha, where are you, and our inability to stay loyal to the response of Abraham, Hineni, here I am, are the result of trying to relieve our inner strife through external means. 

Do we really need to support Putin in his dictatorship? Do we really need to support MBS in his killing of dissidents? Do we really need to stand idly by the bloods of our neighbors, brothers, etc? Do we really need to abandon the men and women who serve in our Armed Services when they return from combat? Do we really need to ignore the unhoused, the formerly incarcerated, the newly recovering person, the families who can’t afford food, clothing, and shelter as well as medical supplies and have to choose which to buy this week? Do we really need to blame another rather than help another? Do we really need to worship at the Golden Calf’s of the Confederate States of America, the authoritarian path of some so-called leaders, the sham of the so-called religious leaders who preach the opposite of God’s challenges to us, the self-deceptions we engage in, etc? The answer, evidently is a resounding YES from many people here in America and across the world. They need to in order to stay unaware, to not be red-faced and not have to change. The challenge they meet is not the challenge God has given to us, when we ever learn? 

In recovery, Chuck C wrote a book called A New Pair of Glasses in which he speaks about the changes in ‘eyesight’ that occurred to him and he adopted in order to cure the blindness that he had about his behaviors, his alcoholism, his philosophy of life and his inability to make agreement between his character and the challenges of being human while he was drinking. This is the challenge for all of us in recovery, to put on new glasses, to see the truth of the consequences of our actions and end our ‘but we meant well’ excuses. In recovery, our intentions take a back seat to our actions, one day at a time, we bring congruency to our character and challenge. 

I keep seeing how I hide from some of the challenges life gives me through food, through frustration and each day, I am lifting another membrane of the mask I wear to stay unaware and being more responsible to and for the challenges God gives me and bringing my character more and more into line with these challenges. I am embarrassed at the weight I have put on because of my hiding from some challenges, hiding from some truths and hiding from myself! I am committed to being more congruent in character and challenge. 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 137

“Embarrassment is the awareness of an incongruity of character and challenge, of perceptivity and reality, of knowledge and understanding, of mystery and comprehension.”(Who is Man pg.112)

The word incongruous comes from the Latin meaning ‘not suitable, not agreeing’. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us, training us and teaching us to allow our awareness of our character and challenge ‘not agreeing’ lead us to being embarrassed so we will change our current state of being. We have become so inured to our incongruous nature and so defensive of our ‘character defects’ we fight to the end not to change. Our character traits are neither good nor bad, according to Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, how we use them determines their worth as they have no intrinsic value. The challenge is God’s call to us, God’s demand upon us and the call of God’s creations for aid and assistance no matter the cause of their hardships. In the Bible, caring for the stranger, the poor and the needy, the powerless and voiceless has no explanation of how these situations occurred, only the command/demand of God to care for them. 

Our character is developed over time. We may have a certain natural bent towards good-naturedness, melancholy, glass half-empty/half-full, etc and this doesn’t determine our character. What determines our character, I believe, is how we learn to treat ourselves and human beings in general, how we treat animals and care for our planet, how we respond to God instead of hiding as Adam and Eve did. We develop our character through the actions we take and the beliefs we adopt. When we see every human being as having equally infinite worth and dignity, we will not treat them as objects for our desires and stepping stones to our wealth, fame, endgame, etc. Religion is the path of character development that is in accordance with being a “contemporary of God” as Rabbi Heschel taught us earlier, yet we have decided it is not a life-long pursuit for most of us. We go to religious school long enough to get confirmed, Bar/Bat Mitzvah and at the tender age of 13, we decide we don’t need any more character development nor refinement and parents agree! How ridiculous and doesn’t this explain the lack of good character development and refinement that we are experiencing some 59 years after Rabbi Heschel first pointed this ‘not-agreeing’ state of being for most of humanity. 

Taking Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above seriously causes us to walk around red-faced so we feel the heat of our incongruous behaviors, we feel the discomfort of our ignoring the challenge of God, we let everyone we meet know that we are at least aware of our incongruous behaviors and we are deciding whether to change our ways of being. We inform those around us that we are considering refining and developing our character to a state that is able, willing and desires to meet the challenges of God, the needs of human beings and the call of our own soul/inner life. Being embarrassed causes us to be better citizens and not engage in deception of another(s) nor self-deception. Being embarrassed causes us to be better parents as we teach our children that blushing is an acknowledgement of our awareness of our incongruities and the commitment to live a life that is ‘in agreement’ with God’s challenges, we teach our children that character development is as important, if not more important, than their intellectual development so they will continue to seek guidance from religion, spiritual guides, and learn to immerse themselves in the Bible for new and different ways to see the same situation. Being embarrassed connects us with God and causes us to turn towards God how is always searching and calling to and for us and this connection becomes the blueprint for connecting with another human(s); i.e. covenantal relationships. Being embarrassed is recognized as a gift rather than a burden/shame. 

In recovery we engage in character refinement and development from the time we choose to be in recovery and we are acutely aware that without engaging in this endeavor, we may say we are in recovery, we are not-we are just “dry drunks” as the program of AA speaks about. Recovery is a way of being in tune with God’s call and the call of our inner life, it is a path to connect with another human being and a group of humans on a real, unvarnished and truthful way. It is the path of embarrassment that causes growth, congruity and harmony-in other words a path of joy and fulfillment. 

My engagement in character development and refinement is unending. As I write these blogs, I am learning the subtle ways I have stayed willfully blind to some of my inappropriate character traits and the subtle ways I stayed willfully blind to the signs of betrayal by people I thought were of stellar character. Some of them are of good character and simply decided to serve themselves and not see me, and I have given people reasons to not see me with my ‘different’ way of relating and caring. I continue to refine my character so I can better meet the challenges God gives me, the call to action that my soul moves me to. I was embarrassed the other day when I realized how my ego got in the way of appreciating another person promoting some teachings that I imparted to them and not receiving credit from her/him. My red-face stopped me and I experienced the gift of having my words and thoughts, which come from God, promoted and taught in such a far-reaching manner as joy instead of ‘why not me’. 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 136

“Embarrassment is the awareness of an incongruity of character and challenge, of perceptivity and reality, of knowledge and understanding, of mystery and comprehension.”(Who is Man pg.112)

Immersing ourselves in the teaching above allows us to understand and acknowledge our lack of embarrassment and our lack of action when we are embarrassed. We are not aware of the incongruity of character and challenge within ourselves much less the incongruity of character and challenge of the people we follow, we align with, we ‘count’ on. We stay willfully blind to our incongruities so we can blame another person for our lot in life and/or as the prosperity gospel believers and the people who put on the National Prayer Breakfast preach; you are poor because god doesn’t love you and god loves the people who are rich and in power. I use the small ‘g’ because they are in fact idolators who preach these lies. There are religious leaders who tell us not to worry that our lot in life is so bad here, in the next world we will be rewarded, again a push for power and subservience. There are people who keep telling us to listen to what they say and ignore what they are doing like the wizard of Oz told Dorothy and company. Whenever we fail to be aware of our incongruities, calamity and evil come roaring to the front of the line and try to devour all of the struggle and good we have achieved.

What is the basis of our denial? Our need to look good, our need to be #1, our need to win, our belief in the Zero-Sum game of life, our hope that if we get _____(fill in the blank) we will be fine, etc. Rather than understanding and embracing the path of the Bible, rather than seeing ourselves in the struggles of our ancestors and the building of a relationship within our self and with God, we are embracing the Greek lie of perfection and the Greco-Roman path of conquer and destruction. It is apparent in so many of our enjoyments as well as in the way ‘business is done’. We see this in our political realm daily and no one is embarrassed at their incongruous way of speaking, voting, governing-especially Moscow Mitch McConnell and the lackeys in his party who follow in lockstep. We saw what happened when the German people were not embarrassed at the incongruity of Nazism and decency, when the Russian people are not embarrassed at the incongruity of Putin and the Oligarchs and the fall of communism in favor of democracy. We see what happens in our family structures when parents are not embarrassed nor acknowledge their incongruities, children come to believe everyone is false and there is no point to being honest-winning is the only thing that matters. 

God created us with incongruities, religion is the path to bringing our character and challenge closer together and our religious leaders have failed to meet the challenge God has given us and we are not embarrassed, we are also defending our ways. We see religious leaders preach dogma and behaviorism rather than connection with God and developing our inner life to find our way of serving God and humanity. We listen as they berate and try and control women’s choices about their own bodies rather than engage and help women find the ‘right’ spiritual decision for the individual woman with no other agenda that what is best for her. We watch in horror as religious leaders praise the powerful for their racism, their hateful ways, their attempt to destroy the democracy that was/is America! We are finding ourselves immune to the constant assault on Godliness and Holiness, on the infinite dignity and worthiness of every human being. In so many ways, some of our religious leaders and practitioners are failing us in the worst ways and driving droves of people from God, from a path towards wholeness and a path of healing our incongruities. 

We need to be aware of our incongruities, not as failures, so we can put a ‘halter’ on ourselves and allow ourselves to be lead by faith, by decency, by being more human than we have been, by recovering our integrity and living life by principles and not by mendacity. We have been imbued with the spiritual nature to do this. 

In recovery, we are constantly searching our inner life to find our incongruities and repair them. We live in this embarrassment that Rabbi Heschel is teaching us about so we can be aware of them. We do this by doing a daily inventory, repairing  the damage our incongruities cause and repairing our mental, emotional and spiritual incongruities within us. 

I am aware of my own incongruities each and every day. Immersing myself in this teaching today I am embarrassed by my own incongruities that I have indulged myself in and, even more, I am embarrassed by my own defense of them over the years. I am thinking of my father, Jerry, who tried to make me aware of them and how to heal them and how I have not listened to him, how I have ignored his wisdom and love. I am embarrassed by the many people who pointed them out to me and my anger at them for not loving me, when pointing them out to me is the greatest sign of love I can receive. I am embarrassed enough today to be aware of these incongruities and heal them, one day at time. 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 135

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg. 112)

A person asked me about the word embarrass last evening at dinner and I have been trying to explain the joy of being embarrassed. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call to our souls and engage with our inner life so deeply that our faces wear the glow of redness of being in contact, in awe and in radical amazement regarding our state of being both “a contemporary of God” and living “in the shadow of greatness”. The redness on our face is not shaming, rather it is freeing; the embarrassment our inner lives discover because of the state of being we finally recognize is joyous and freeing-not shaming and blaming! Rabbi Heschel is not using the word humiliation, he is not using the word shame/ashamed, he is using the word embarrass. 

Embarrass comes from the Portuguese meaning ‘halter’. Upon learning this, I understand Rabbi Heschel telling us to use our inner embarrassment to lead us to recognizing and using the fact that we live in the “shadow of greatness”, to relish the redness that comes from this discovery and allow ourselves to be a beacon for another person(s) to find their inner embarrassment and the truth of these experiences for themself. Rather than hide our blush, our redness, our glow we are being told to use it to light up and raise up our own living and the living of another(s). Moses’ face was aglow because he realized and experienced being both “a contemporary of God” and living “in the shadow of greatness”. The horns that Michelangelo put on the statue of Moses represented the light of God radiating from him caused by his ‘embarrassment’. 

The last sentence above takes on a new meaning this year: Religion comes from the latin meaning ‘to bind, to obligate and to revere” so the last sentence can be understood as Obligation, Reverence and Binding/adherence depends upon what we do with our highest level of being led, being contained. It is our responsibility to allow ourselves to use our free will and our rational minds to serve a higher and truer being/higher truth. Religion depends upon on much we revere, bind and obligate ourselves to the truth of; Rabbi Heschel’s previous sentence, how interested we are in seeking truth, deciding whom we are serving; self, another, or God. We have yet to have a definitive answer to these questions as evidenced by our desire to follow the latest fad, seek forgiveness from God without seeking forgiveness from the party we injured, seek to be deceived and engage in mendacity so we can have power, money, prestige, and/or be close to those in these positions. We have not answered Hineni, here I am, yet to Rabbi Heschel’s call for us to be embarrassed and use our embarrassment to grow and nurture our religious life, our life of reverence, binding and obligation. 

When we bind ourselves to a higher standard/level of living, when we have reverence for the teachings, ways and connection of the Bible and the people in it, when we take on the yoke of obliging ourselves to embrace God’s path for us through discovery first and then living this path, we are living our embarrassment in the holiest and highest form. We are able to impact how religion will help bring about the vision of God and the prophets that there will be a time when war will be abolished and there will be peace. While it may not happen in our lifetime, we have to allow our embarrassment shine outwardly so another can use our illumination to move this vision forward. Our embarrassment is a gift from God, it is a light for us and for another(s), lets stop hiding from it!

In recovery, we use the embarrassment we experience to move us deeper and deeper into our recovery and find new ways to make amends and do more good. We are aware that our recovery depends on our group of compatriots and their recovery depends on our cooperation and our shining the light our embarrassment onto them and the group. In recovery we embrace the warmth and the love that being embarrassed brings to our inner life, our soul and our minds. This is one of the paths to living in Rabbi Heschel’s radical amazement and connecting us to God more each day. 

I have bound myself to a way of living that I don’t always get ‘right’. I have reverence for the people I meet and fight for their souls, I am obligated to grow my inner life and my standard of living one grain of sand each day. I am embarrassed by my inabilities at times and these ‘failures’ teach me how to not do something so I continue to learn new ways to connect, to overcome my emotional dis-regulation at the betrayals of self and by another, the lunacy of the world, the mendacity of so many people, etc. I am using embarrassment as a path towards wholeness and holiness, it allows me to feel the warmth of connection to God, recognition of God’s call to me and my response of Hineni, here I am! Being obligated, bound, and revering God causes me to be obligated, bound and revere humanity-even the people that don’t like me and I don’t necessarily like. If we cannot do this, there is no hope for the vision of the prophets to become a reality. The joy and path of religion is to be obligated to living the life we were created for and let go of the comparing and competing, stop being ashamed by what we don’t have and rejoice in who we are and what we do have; contemporaries of God and life! 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 134

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg. 112)

The more I have lived with this sentence, the more embarrassed I become. Being “a contemporary of God” means to live in together in time, according to the Latin root of the word. How frightening to consider the ways we have not sensed God, we have ignored the greatness of God, not lived in a manner that recognizes and honors our living together with God in this moment, at all moments. I am also understanding the awe and reverence Rabbi Heschel had for the Prophets because they sensed, honored and lived their lives according to the demands of their relationship with God. 

I hear Rabbi Heschel telling us to stop trying to save our faces while our souls, our inner lives, the lives of people around us are being destroyed, harmed, demeaned, and imprisoned. We are in a great war within ourselves and with human beings right now and we are not realizing that the ways we are treating one another are in direct conflict to the teachings above. We cannot hate one another, we cannot judge people on the color of their skin or their religion, we cannot preach enslavement and revere the enslavers of the 16th, 17th, 18th Centuries, we cannot bow down before the deceivers and the grifters, we cannot take away the rights our country was founded on and proclaim we are doing it for and in the name of God. 

Living together in time with God is a haunting way of being. In a Yiddish Poem, Rabbi Heschel wrote: “God follows me everywhere” and I understand the above teachings in this light-God is with us all the time and we are too dull, too egotistical, too obsessed and self-centered to sense this truth and to act accordingly. It is time for us to stop our need to be right, our need to win at any and all costs and our need to crush another human being so we can feel good about ourselves. It is time we return, do T’Shuvah to the values America was founded upon and to return to living our lives as the Bible shows us. 

Living together with God is also the greatest joy we can experience. It allows us to know ourselves better, to appreciate one another a little more, to have the capacity to love another person and keep our covenants with one another, to own up to our errors and do T’Shuvah/amends so we can repair relationships we have harmed. Living together with God gives us a smile when we realize our errors and correct them, learn from them and restore the dignity of another human being that we tarnished so harshly. Living together with God reminds us of our responsibility to and for our personal relationships as well as our global relationships, it reminds us to stay “loyal to the event” of meeting God in our time and “loyal to the response” of this event. No longer are we able to just use people for what we selfishly need and throw them away when it isn’t convenient anymore when we know that we are “a contemporary of God”, we are people who hear the demands of God and serve these demands, no longer serve our self-serving desires. 

Living as “a contemporary of God” is the message of the Bible and yet, we get so engaged in picking apart the words of the Torah, we miss the message! We are so busy bastardizing the stories and the words so we can have control of another person, engage in self-aggrandizement because we are ‘so pious’ we have missed the compassion, the love, the different ways of living joyously together with God. In this way, God is no longer to be feared, no longer the punisher, the fire and brimstone thrower. God is our guide, our teacher, our lover, our friend, the entity that never leaves us alone and always welcomes us back when we go on trips and ‘leave’ God home. As Rabbi Heschel teaches, “God is pursuing man” and “God is in search of Man”(God in Search of Man pg. 136), and it is time, past time for us to sense it, stop running away from God and start living as “a contemporary of God”. 

In recovery, we know we need God, yet most people still don’t see themselves as contemporaries of God. In recovery, we do know that we are living in God’s world and, I realize, that we are forgetting that the world belongs to both humans and God, that our ability to grow in our recovery is dependent upon our ability to live inclusively, with God, self and humanity. As soon as we compartmentalize and separate, we are no longer sensing our living together with God in realtime! In recovery, we are growing along spiritual lines to the extent that we meld our spirits with God and with one another. 

I am seeing the areas of life where I have lived this teaching and when I have not, I am also saddened by the lack of sight/vision I had to see the people who had a transactional relationship with me while I thought it was more. I am saddened by my being hurt, angry and bitter at the betrayals of another person(s) when I have had God with me all the time and I didn’t realize it. I am acutely aware, because of this teaching today, that our co-dependency, our need to be liked, our need to be important and the behaviors that we exhibit to achieve these states are all because we have forgotten and do not sense we are “a contemporary of God” and this is enough! 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 133

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg. 112)

I am overwhelmingly embarrassed at our inability to experience our embarrassment at being a contemporary of God and our lack of acknowledging it through our actions and not sensing it within our self. While all faiths give credit to God, speak of the “image of the divine” we are all created in, few practitioners of these faith actually live this truth, act in these ways as opposed to the overwhelming majority who speak it. We are in a terrible spiritual condition as human beings right now, precisely because we are unable to be embarrassed at our inability to sense our being a contemporary of God, because we hide from our own embarrassment through prejudice, through lies, through self-deception and our ‘spiritual leaders’/idolators promote and enhance our hiding. Exactly the people who need to be leading us to experience this embarrassment as a joyous experience of growing our inner and outer life, are helping us hide, helping our inner lives grow darker and darker, helping our souls to wither. 

As I said before, Rabbi Heschel gave these lectures at Stanford in 1963, yet some 60 years later people are still lacking the proper measure of embarrassment at being “a contemporary of God” and not sensing it nor acting on it. What is wrong with the human race that we refuse to live this teaching. The use of the word embarrassment is not for shaming us, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s teaching. Rather embarrassment is the reflection of the inner glow we have when we realize that we are a “contemporary of God” and while we don’t live up to this truth all the time, we get closer with each decent act we engage in. It is the outer reflection of experiencing love from God, from another human being, from our own soul. The embarrassment of being a contemporary of God is the reflection our inner experience of being known and accepted. Embarrassment, as I am reading Rabbi Heschel is an experience that spurs us on to growing and living one grain of sand better each day. 

Yet, we are afraid of being embarrassed, we are afraid to own up to our errors and blame another person for what we are responsible for. We use Rabbi Heschel’s phrase “a contemporary of God” to grab power and to bastardize the words of the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the words of Jesus, the Koran and the words of Mohammed, the teachings of Buddha, etc. How often have punishment and fire been preached as a means of control and one-upmanship as opposed to seeing the words of God as a cautionary tale? We are living in a time where the people who run the National Prayer Breakfast believe Jesus is the Lion, they promote the right for a man to choose how a woman treats her body, how she looks, etc to ensure that she is subservient to the man, where they have decided to be the ‘power brokers’ and call this Jesus’ vision. We are living in a time where people who tried to overthrow our government, our constitution are being celebrated as patriots by the Hawley’s, McCarthy’s, Cruz’, Rubio’s, etc. All of this because they are afraid to be embarrassed by their inability to sense and embrace their being a contemporary of God. In Exodus Moses calls the people “who are for God” to join him in slaying the people who worshiped the Golden Calf and while it seems a little harsh to our ears, we are witnessing and participating in the erection of another Golden Calf - authoritarianism, mendacity, prejudice and anti-semitism, anti-muslim, behaviors practiced by these treasonous leaders and their followers. 

We are contemporaries of God, we are made in the Image of God, we are partners with God in perfecting and caring for the world. This is an embarrassing fact of existence and we don’t even realize how we ignore this truth. We don’t realize when we treat another human being as ‘beneath’ us, we are treating God in the same manner. We don’t realize how often our words and actions are in conflict with each other and we keep covering up and explaining how they ‘really, really’ are congruent. We don’t realize our explanations fall on deaf ears and God is crying because we have exiled ourselves. All this because we refuse to sense our being a “contemporary of God’ and living up to this truth. 

In recovery, we are aware of our need to connect with God and many of us are aware of being a servant of God as well as a contemporary. We are constantly embarrassed from our inner light when we know we are living up to being worthy of being a contemporary of God and we are embarrassed when we know we are not. In both cases the embarrassment is a reflection of our inner dialogue and awareness. 

I am always embarrassed by my ability to recognize my being a “contemporary of God” and my inability to recognize this truth. I am aware in this moment of the times I have been unable to see this truth are all caused by fear and inauthentic desires. I am committed to being more aware of these fears and phony desires so I can let them go quicker. More on Sunday! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 132

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg. 112)

Rabbi Heschel wrote this book Who is Man based on lectures he gave at Stanford University in 1963. Some 60 years later, these teachings are as meaningful as they were then, his words are prophetic and many people still ignore them-how sad, how serious, how dangerous to the human race ignoring them is. I believe part of the reason for people ignoring the wonder, awe, beauty, and call to action of Rabbi Heschel’s teachings is they are so profound, so foundational to being human people are unable to refute them and don’t want to live them so they ignore them, they choose not to sense them. It is easier to ignore and not sense truth, a call to action, a demand from God than to refute any of these experiences. It is less confrontational, it is more convenient, it is more emotional soothing and it is a path to silencing the spirit within us. Yet, Rabbi Heschel’s teachings in general and above shake us out of our willful blindness, as he has called our way of being, like the prophets of old Rabbi Heschel gives us a bad conscious, he disturbs us and he is a constant voice of judgement and mercy in our souls; when we accept his wisdom and his call to action. 

By ignoring the “shadow of greatness” we live in, we work hard to deny truth, deny God’s call, deny our own humanity, and deny our own basic goodness of being. As we see what is happening in the world today and we have a keen sense of history, we can hear God’s warning that the greatness that is God, the greatness that God’s shadow provides for us is being used against us by smooth talkers and grifters. We know this in our soul and we know this to be true “in our bones” yet, we are feel powerless to do anything about the Pandemic of Prejudice that keeps spreading and growing inside some people and infecting more and affecting every one. Rabbi Heschel calls prejudice “an eye disease, a cancer of the soul” and, as we learn from the teaching above, prejudice is incongruent with living “in the shadow of greatness” and being aware of this truth. Hence, the reason so many people ignore the “shadow of greatness” we live in each and every day. 

It is time for “all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country” a phrase used in typing books from Charles Weller, is especially pertinent right now. I would change it to: Now is the time for all People to come to the aid of God and Now is the time for all People to come to the awareness of the greatness we live in the shadow of.  When we come to the aid of God, when we become aware of the greatness we live in the shadow of, we are adopting this teaching of Rabbi Heschel and we are implementing God’s vision of us and for us. Coming to the aid of God, awareness of of the greatness we live in the shadow of is the carrot for our willful blindness, the orange juice for our scurvy of our souls, the vaccine for the pandemic of prejudice, hatred, bastardization and idolatry. We have had the solution to what ails humanity at our fingertips and we continue to ignore it and Rabbi Heschel’s words are like a hammer on the anvil trying desperately to break through the hard shell that we have encased our hearts, our souls and our connections to God and to fellow human beings. 

The so-called leaders of our country, secular and religious, who are exploiting the ignorance of ‘the masses’ and using people to further their interests, not the interests of God are the idolators and the modern day Pharaohs. We see this in the rise of authoritarianism and the unmasking of the prejudice, hatred and ill-will they and their followers are unleashing through mendacity, deception and fear-mongering. It is truly time for all GOOD PEOPLE to come to the aid of God, of our fellow human beings and of our own souls!

This is the foundational truth we who are in recovery live by: letting go of the lies and the prejudice, the anger and the hatred, the ill-will and fear-mongering that our former lives were built on. Leaving the narrowness (Egypt) of self-centeredness and journeying with the help of and guidance of God to our rightful home, our right actions and our the serenity/clarity of service to God and to humanity. In recovery, we learn to rejoice in each day, put on a new pair of glasses and hone our vision to see how to make our corner of the world a little better each day. 

As Socrates once said: “the unexamined life is not worth living” and Malcom X reminded us: “the examined life is painful” describes the both/and of Rabbi Heschel’s teachings for me. I have to examine my life, the ways I live each and every day for want of improving my actions and living the Mitzvah/demand of God to do T’Shuvah and return. I have to face myself and how I have honored the “shadow of greatness” I live in and how I have ignored it. Doing this is painful, disappointing God, neglecting the call of my own soul and the needs of another is the most excruciating pain I can experience and this daily action gives me more insight on how to live better the next day and how to serve God and humanity a little better the next day and I experience the embrace of spirit and the embrace of community, family, friends a little more each day. Taking the blinders off, seeing clearer and rejecting the idolatry of ignorance enhances me and my life each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 131

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg. 112)

In the aftermath of the Super Bowl and the football playoffs there is so much talk about GOAT, the greatest of all time. Tom Brady, Muhammed Ali, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and so many more are mentioned in their respective fields and the people who were/are around them tell the stories of what it was like to be in their shadows. People revel in being able to be around them, learn from them, be beneficiaries of their greatness, even if they were ‘just’ hanger-ons. Watching Dr. Dre perform with his friends and proteges was amazing given he had a near death experience a year ago and the whole world saw the joy, the greatness and the long shadow he has as well as the joy of the people performing with him. 

Rabbi Heschel is teaching us to bask “in the shadow of greatness” of God, of our self and of one another. He is imploring us to stop ignoring it through self-deprecation, through put downs and one-ups of another person/group and to rejoice in the greatness we are surrounded by. We cannot do this in our current climate, however. We are stuck in our own ignorance and this is very troubling and scary. As long as our politicians, our citizens are willing to tear down the very institutions that reflect the foundations of our greatness, as long as our clergy are willing to ignore the “shadow of greatness” of our Biblical and Holy texts and bastardize them for their own personal power and gain, as long as we are willing to live in a zero-sum world where our relationships are transactional, we will continue to ignore the “shadow of greatness” we live in. 

It seems so simple to follow Rabbi Heschel’s teaching and warning and yet, it is so difficult for us to live. So many people are so engaged in living in a prejudicial manner towards themselves as well as towards another(s), it seems impossible for them/us to not ignore the “shadow of greatness” that surrounds us. The Latin origin of prejudice is “judgement in advance”. People today have made these “judgements in advance” of seeking and finding truth and growth so they are putting themselves down for their foibles, imperfections and vulnerabilities and they are engaged in self-aggrandizement so they can hide from these same foibles, imperfections and vulnerabilities. Many people today are using these prejudices against themselves and then against another(s) so they can be subservient and/or in power-ignoring the greatness that is within them and the “shadow of greatness” of God that surrounds all of us. 

In the current climate of Cancel Culture and MAGA, we can see how the ignoring the “shadow of greatness” we live in leads to bastardization of holy principles and the enslavement of people. This belief that “only I have the Truth on my side” and/or as Bob Dylan sings “With God on my side” has led us to become so polarized that it could be as bad as it was in the 1850’s and 1860’s prior to and during the Civil War. We venerate the Civil War by studying it in our schools and the MAGA crowd consider the traitors of the Confederacy to be heroes! Rather than living in the “shadow of greatness” that  teaches us slavery must end, every human being has dignity and equal right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, these ‘god-fearing’ treasonous idolators are selling their lies to a great number of people so they can have power, they can be the GOAT’s! The Cancel Culture people want to “throw the baby out with the bath water”, not see the “shadow of greatness” that are the foundations of what has been built and bring more of the greatness out. They would rather keep blaming, pointing fingers and holding everyone responsible for their feelings of less than, etc. While it is true that we have been guilty of many injustices in the past, life is evolutionary as we see in the Bible-God learned that humanity takes time to adapt and adjust, to grow into their own greatness. We do this by being present and aware, learning and using the “shadow of greatness” we are living in!

In recovery we read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, we study it, we keep interpreting it and re-interpreting it because we know it is a path to being present and aware of “the shadow of greatness” that it gives off to us. We know that we have to live in our own way, we do not need to be Bill Wilson or Dr. Bob Smith, we just need to live our lives according to the principles of recovery, decency and connection-in our own manner. In recovery, we take actions each and every day-prayer, meditation, service-so we can continue to engage in the lessons from living in God’s “shadow of greatness”.

I get more embarrassed the more I read this phrase and the more I write on it! I have lived a life of judging myself in advance of doing something, I have engaged in ignoring the “shadow of greatness” that surrounds me, I have engaged in not hearing the Voice inside of me that tells me about the danger lurking nearby and the beauty that is in the other direction. I am embarrassed by this ignorance! I also am heartened by my appreciation for the success and the greatness of another person, my joy for the well-being of people, the covenantal relationships I have. I have learned to enjoy and relish the “shadow of greatness” that I have fall on my from my teachers, friends and loved ones. 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 130

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg. 112)

Immersing oneself in Rabbi Heschel’s teaching and finding oneself in his wisdom has been a journey of mine for the past 33 years and each time I do, I find new ways to apply his brilliance to living life well. Experiencing the beginning phrase today I find myself marveling even more at Rabbi Heschel’s courage and kindness, his bravery and humility. 

Rabbi Heschel lived in the “shadow of greatness”, his ancestry goes back to the luminaries of the Hasidic Movement, yet unlike many people today he did not take his lineage as something to use to do less, to be entitled; he saw it as a blessing and an obligation. Living in the “shadow of greatness” spurred Rabbi Heschel to stand on the shoulders of his ancestors and find a path that was truly his, a path and way of being that matched the melody of his soul and answered God’s call to him. 

How different it is today-people become celebrities instead of leaders, they cash in on the merits of their ancestors instead of growing the contribution their ancestors made. They believe they are entitled to the “best” and are insulted when they are not given the ‘respect’ they believe they have coming. We see this in our politics, we see this in business, we see this in all walks of life-whether rich or poor. While its easy to point out the spoiled rich, we see this also in young people who decide they don’t want an education and make it hard for someone else to get one with their antics and disruptions so they can ‘make a name for themselves’, etc. 

We all live in the “shadow of greatness” of our founding fathers, our ancestors who fought in the different wars to preserve this Union and, as we have seen recently, there are people ready to exploit the sacrifice and trauma our ancestors experienced for their own desire for power. We are watching charlatans, politicians, whom Rabbi Heschel did not have a lot of respect for, power brokers, etc take the sacrifices of people since the Revolutionary War till today and bastardize them to serve their selfish, ego-driven need for power and absolute power at that. Rather than live in “the shadow of greatness” and enhance it, these mendacious people are using the power of the lie to destroy the “greatness” that has been bequeathed to them/us by our ancestors. As we are all immigrants, as we are all beneficiaries of the heroism of someone who came to these shores against the odds, because of injustice and hatred, lack of opportunity and hope, it is time for all of these deceivers and liars to stop ignoring the “shadow of greatness” that has been provided for them/us and begin to honor it.

Every day we see examples of people bastardizing their inheritance of greatness and using the power to serve themselves rather than serve God, serve another human being, serve humanity as a whole. We are teetering as a country, trying to decide of we are going to be ruled by another incarnation of King George and the Church of England- also known as Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, the Religious Right leaders, etc. We all “live in the shadow of greatness” and we are all responsible to ensure this experiment called the USA continues to honor our revolution, not return to being ruled by Kings and Churches. Rather than create more devices and distractions, rather than appeal to the vulnerabilities of humanity, it is time for all of us to stop this bastardization, it is time for us to build on the greatness we have been blessed to inherit, to realize and relish in our uniqueness and stop comparing and competing with one another so we can join and build together. 

In recovery, we lived in the shadows and were afraid of greatness all the while falsely proclaiming how great we were/are. Living in these shadows rather than honoring the “shadow of greatness” Rabbi Heschel is teaching us about, allowed us to lie and hide, hurt and create fear for all who loved us. In recovery, we are more afraid of the hiding and lying, more afraid of harming a person and misusing the power we have than of being real, being vulnerable and being human. 

I do “live in the shadow of greatness” and no longer ignore it. My ancestors came here from Poland and the Ukraine, they were decent and honest people and created a family that lived these values. My ancestors crossed the Red Sea 3300+ years ago and 100+ years ago. I was blessed to learn from the how they tied their shoes and then I decided I was ‘entitled’ to more and this caused pain, suffering and fear to all of my family and friends. It also sullied the good name my ancestors built. These past 33+ years have been spent honoring the “shadow of greatness” that my ancestors from the Red Sea to today have cast over me and, I pray, I have enlarged this shadow to give my daughter and grandson, the people I have encountered and aided as well as the many friends and extended family something to stand on and under. 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 129

“How embarrassing for man to live in the shadow of greatness and to ignore it, to be a contemporary of God and not sense it. Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment.” (Who is Man pg 112)

Continuing on with Rabbi Heschel’s concepts of embarrassment and how to use it to live better, the first part of the first sentence is reverberating within me! We live in the shadow of greatness and we ignore it-how brilliant and how true. The reverberations we all could be experiencing as we immerse ourselves in this phrase could be the reverberations of a deep truth that we have been hiding from. 

There are many ways, I am sure, to understand “live in the shadow of greatness”.  I am going to write today on one that has struck me and stayed with me lately, a personal application of this concept. Carl Jung believes we all have a shadow self, one we hide from ourselves and we hide from another(s), sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I am proposing that we are living in the “shadow of greatness” and ignoring it precisely because it is the root of our shadow self! 

The shadow self, as with the Yetzer HaRa, is not evil in and of itself, it is how we bring it to light and transform/use the energy of the shadow to do good or evil that matters. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us, maybe the first teacher/person to do so, our shadow contains greatness and we are hiding from it. It contains greatness because it comes from God, just as our Yetzer HaRa and Yetzer Tov do, ergo it has to contain greatness. We are hiding from it and we are burying our greatness because we are unable to pay attention to it for all the distractions of our mind, our surroundings and our uneducated /immature spirit/soul.

Rabbi Heschel believes we are all divine needs and we all have a purpose to fulfill that no one else can, he believes we have to live our life like work of art, as he told Carl Stern in an Eternal Light television interview. Michelangelo said his art was based on “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work, it is already there. I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” I am hearing Rabbi Heschel remind us to stop ignoring the greatness that is within each and every human being. He is teaching us to chisel away the false sense of security and certainty we attain by hiding from our greatness and the greatness of one another through prejudice, racism, anti-semitism, anti-asian, anti-muslim, mistreatment of the poor, the needy, the stranger, seeking power for our own self importance, engaging in mendacity, self-deception and the deception of another(s), the bastardization of goodness and holiness through using the vulnerabilities within a system against, and the vulnerabilities of another human being against them. We are seeing this marble covering our greatness today as we have in the past. Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us, I hear him as I hear the prophets of old, to take the chisel and get rid of the superfluous material within us, each of us, so we can step out of the shadows and stop ignoring our greatness and the greatness of every human being.

Rabbi Heschel’s calling upon us so we can wake up, we can come out of the deep sleep we have been in for a while, for some us our entire lives, and begin to fulfill the greatness we have inside of us, offer our unique talents to another person, our community and the world to lift up our standards of living and the ways we live well. 

In recovery, we know this is not a new call. We ran away from it, like Jonah, our recovery is rooted in chiseling away the superfluous materials in our life, inner and outer. We write inventory, we work with other people in recovery, we have a guide and a community to help us with our chiseling. In recovery, our daily goal is to rid ourselves of one superfluous piece of material each day, at least, and we call this progress. 

I have been a chiseler for a long time-55+years. For the first 22, I was chiseling a person and/or people out of their greatness and their money. I was intent on “getting mine” and using you to do it. I had a great fear that I could not just make it on my own, I didn’t want to ‘work that hard’ and I had a talent for chiseling. Of course I knew it was wrong, yet I hid from that knowledge like I hid from my “shadow of greatness” for those 22 years. I am saddened by this fact, by all the opportunities I had to be better and all the people who were hurt by my chiseling and I apologize again for this embarrassment. I know in these past 33+ years I have been chiseling away the superfluous material within me and for another person/family for their gain, not mine. I chisel away this material, I have stepped into the greatness that was in the shadow, I have accepted the gifts God has given me and I am using them to the best of my ability and my life and the lives of countless people are better for this. I know I still have marble stuck in the wrong places, I know there are ways I stay in the shadows, I know there are ways I ignore my greatness and yours; this is why the chiseling never stops, this is how we continually meet our shadow and make friends with our greatness. 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 128

“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him who glories glory in this: that he has a sense of ultimate embarrassment. How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not understand it! (Who is Man pg 112)

Are we embarrassed by our lack of understanding of the miracle we are? Have we truly immersed ourselves in and delight in the miraculous nature of being human? It seems not, by all accounts, unfortunately. Engaging in mendacity and self-deception are embarrassments and degradations of our miraculous nature and being. We seem to constantly forget that all of us are created in the Image of God, not just some of us, and this deception allows us, gives us cover for, our prejudices, our exclusions, our disdain for another group of people, our judgmental behaviors towards groups of people we have never met, and our mistreatment of one another. The behavior of humankind towards one another is an embarrassment and a denial of the miracle we all are. 

We have bought the lies of the people who are the interpreters of the Bible, of Philosophers, of History, etc rather than immersing ourselves in the texts themselves. We deny our miraculous nature by being lazy, by reading the Cliff Notes on how to live and what is important. All of the Hebrew Bible delineates the miraculous experience of being connected to God, connected to community, connected to family and connected to the core of one’s self. Yet we are willing to buy the BS of some people who speak about the “Angry God” of the “Old Testament” and we are willing to use the Sages and Rashi as our interpreters of the Bible rather than understanding how it speaks to each of us. While it makes sense and is a good thing to use the wisdom of our ancestors, it is not okay just to accept their experiences as our own. We all have an inner life and we all need to do our own immersion in the texts and find our unique application of these Eternal Truths and Wisdom found therein. It is time for all human beings to see themselves in the text, stop believing and going along with the lies of the charlatans and the wisdom of our ancestors alone because we are not meant to live the lives of our ancestors, we are created to live the miracles we are as individuals, the unique word of God we bring that no one else can bring and the unique and miraculous healing we bring to the world, the divine need we were created to fill/repair.

Understanding the miraculous nature of being human is a journey to the core of our soul, to the relationship with God/Higher Power/Big Bang, and an adjustment to the interrelationship every human being has with another human being. We are blessed with a sense of embarrassment in order to return to our miraculous nature, to return to a new understanding of how to return the love God gives us to God through our loving one another. No other creature on earth has the ability, the direction and the joy of living a life of holiness, a life of creating, a life of worship, a life of joy, a life of fulfillment, and we are embarrassed when we are not living these gifts that we have been given. Our prayers are meant to help us look inside ourselves to see how miraculous our bodies are, how miraculous our minds our and the miracle of being connected soul to soul to one another and to God/Higher Power. 

Staying embarrassed is not a punishment, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel today, its a gift! It keeps us right sized, not too big and not too small. It gives us the strength to speak up and speak out for the sake of God, for the sake of another human being, for the sake of humanity. Staying embarrassed propels us to overthrow the injustices of our society, let go of the lies of the enslavers, remind ourselves that money, property, prestige does not make us more human, better humans, only in the use of our money, property and prestige can we improve our lives and the lives of another human being. We stay embarrassed in a healthy manner through service, through kindness, through acting justly, through love. 

In recovery, we are engaged in a battle within our self-one part wants to feed our egos and be ‘the most spiritual’ being possible or at least in the room-another part wants to live in harmony, right-sized, and accepting help and being of service when and where appropriate. In recovery, we are aware of the constant nature of this battle and we know our harmonious, right-sized, asking for help and helping another has to get stronger each and every day. This is one of the ways we stay embarrassed. 

Oy, while I know that I have and continue to live in the embarrassment Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, I am also aware the times I have fought this truth by overcompensating and being wrong-sized. I am aware of the times I have fought to be right rather than learn and I am embarrassed by these actions. I also know the majority of my past 33 years has been spent living an embarrassed life because of the ways I haven’t understood how to live the miraculous nature of being me. I also know I have helped many people find their own path to their own embarrassment which has propelled them to living one grain of sand better each day alongside of me. I am rejoicing in my embarrassment rather than hiding in shame, I use this experience to learn, to grow and to change. After all, isn’t the process of T’Shuvah an acknowledgement of our embarrassment and how to understand our miracle of being a little better? 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 127

“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him who glories glory in this: that he has a sense of ultimate embarrassment. How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not understand it! (Who is Man pg 112)

We live in a society that believes the opposite of this teaching and the more we rely on our wisdom and our might, the more we sink in our ability to be human. We are seeing this across the globe and, truthfully, this has always been the case. We marvel at the muscles on the statues of Michelangelo, the fleetness of Mercury, the power of Zeus, the cruelty of Caesar, the terror of the Hordes, the beauty of Venus, the pathology of dictators and tyrants, the imagination of inventors and we do not even acknowledge our embarrassment! We are too ashamed to acknowledge it, I believe Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom is teaching us.

We are so weak that we cannot be embarrassed by our lack of understanding, we cannot be embarrassed by our inability to live up to our calling, our need for one another and the reality of our imperfections. We are a society that is afraid of being embarrassed, it began in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve hid because they realized they were naked and covered themselves up rather than marveling at the wondrous bodies God had created and the connection they had to one another. They hid because they were embarrassed and we have been hiding ever since. Cain tried to hide from the fact that he killed his brother as well as trying to hide from God that he killed Abel, to no avail, yet we keep trying to hide and cover up our errors and the ways we kill the spirits on one another through “we do it for one, we have to do it for everyone”, “what will the neighbors think”, “why can’t you just fit in and do it like everyone else”, etc.  Abraham hid that Sarah was his wife for fear of being killed, after he was promised God’s protection. Noah got drunk after being saved by God from the flood, Jacob disguised himself as his brother in order to get the blessing, Joseph hid his true identity from his brothers so he could get even and so many more stories of not being embarrassed and God’s response of sadness, allowing the logical consequences of our behavior to happen are to be found throughout the Hebrew Bible. 

These experiences have been used to show how the Jews have lost favor with God, etc and, I believe, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us the reason for the stories and the examples are for us to relate to the embarrassment of our ancestors so we can “glory in this”, our “sense of ultimate embarrassment.” Yet, we continue to worship our might, our cleverness, our wisdom, our one-upmanship, etc. Our heroes are sports figures, celebrities, businesspeople, not statesmen/women, not the great thinkers, not the clergy who spur us to rise above our pettiness and pride, our foibles and our lies. When you can join the Center for Addiction and Faith and save lives, listen to the Rev. Mark Whitlock of Reid Temple or Rev Najuma Smith-Pollard, when you can read John Pavlovitz and Rabbis Ed Feinstein and Harold Shulweis, when you can learn from Rabbi Heschel and his daughter Dr. Susannah Heschel and you sit on your couch, you work your body out, you sit in the bar shooting the breeze with strangers, etc-you are not engaging in a “sense of ultimate embarrassment”.  

Rather than revel in our money and our might, living Rabbi Heschel’s teaching causes us to make sure we donate to the causes that are helping people on the ground, on the front lines. Causes like: The Center for Addiction and Faith, Beit T’Shuvah, T’Shuvah Center, Race to Erase MS, Juvenile Diabetes, the organizations helping Refugees settle in this country like HIAS. Rather than only sit on our couches and watch the Super Bowl, or partake in activities that serve our narcissistic needs, living Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom causes us to get out and support free and fair elections, one person-one vote, Voting Rights, Fair and equitable immigration policies, a pathway for the illegal immigrants here now to obtain citizenship, TRUTH in POLITICS-no more lying and ‘alternative facts’ like Hitler tried to and succeeded in promoting to the German, Austrian, Polish people. 

In recovery, we are embarrassed by our prior actions and we slowly learn to have a “sense of ultimate embarrassment”. We spend a lot of time on our actions, both prior to our recovery and in our recovery every day-examining them and this is a good thing. Yet, we also need to allow this “ultimate embarrassment” to overwhelm us and transform us and this is the challenge of being in recovery. 

I have been overwhelmed by this “sense of ultimate embarrassment” for my entire life. I didn’t realize it was a good thing until Rabbi Heschel taught me this lesson. I hid from it and I still hide from it occasionally even now. Yet, living with this sense has caused me to be more passionate for the causes I believe in, more serious in my teaching and understanding, more immersed in life, in text and in the brilliance of another human being. Living with this sense has given me the insight and vision to help many human beings find their light, their “sense of ultimate embarrassment” and live joyously. It is a joy and a relief to live this way! 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 126

“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him who glories glory in this: that he has a sense of ultimate embarrassment. How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not understand it! (Who is Man pg 112)

We are so far from Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above and we are in a frightening time for all of humanity. While we continue to exist as human beings, our glory/worship of wisdom, might, cleverness, money, celebrity, power has become a badge of honor, rather than an embarrassment and we are losing our humanity. We are desperately in need of a greater sense of embarrassment to offset/overcome our continued bigotry, prejudice and enslaving of another human being based on race, religion, sexual orientation, economic status, nationality. Because these bigotries, prejudices and enslaving have become the norm-from the person in the street to the person in Government, from the preacher to the person in the pew. No one is immune from living their prejudices, their hurts, their desire for power nor their desire to have someone else beneath them so they can feel better about themselves. The only ‘vaccine’ for these diseases of spirit, is staying embarrassed as I understand Rabbi Heschel teachings above. 

We are witnessing a depression in morality, a decay of ideals-religious and constitutional, and a deification of power and people that may be unlike any other time in history. I use the words ‘may be’ because I am sure philosophers and religious leaders in previous times also felt their eras were unprecedented. One of the problems of today’s world is that there are many religious leaders who are part of the glorifying, they seek to be glorified and they give cover, support and enthusiasm to the powerful and the clever who glory in their own cleverness and might. We are told we are seeing a religious revolution and I would submit some of the religious leaders of today are revolting against the tenets/spirit of the religion they are seeking to derive power from. I would submit some of the politicians and legal experts are revolting against the tenets/spirit of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence they are deriving power from. Herein lies our dilemma and the causes of our depression, our decay and our idolized deification of power, people, money, celebrity, cleverness, etc-everything but God! 

I remember in the 1960’s, being called names like N_____ Lover because my father paid Black men who worked for him the same hourly rate White men were being paid at the Barrel shop he thad bought in the late ’50's and every White man quite and no White man would work there because they believed it was insult to be paid the same as a Black man-even though they were doing the same job! I remember poor White people being proud that they were prejudiced because being White made them better than a Black person! I hear the same talk today about Black, Brown, Asian, Jew, Muslim, etc. The need to have someone beneath us, someone to lord over is a perfect example of glorying in might. 

Our fellow human beings who glory in their twisting and bastardizing our Holy Scriptures to use their wisdom to convince people of faith who come to their Churches, Mosques, Temples and Synagogues for spiritual sustenance have lost their sense of embarrassment. These arrogant human beings, who are so sure they are right, who are so insecure they need to be deified and followed without any questioning, who are dependent on being taskmasters and Pharaohs, need to gain some humility and we, the people, need to say NO to their arrogance, NO to their lies, NO to their prejudices! To do this, we first have to say NO to our own arrogance, mendacity, self-deception and prejudices. We have to cleanse our hearts, we have to open our souls to the light and healing of a power greater than ourselves, we have to see the infinite worth each and every human being possess and know that our worth is equal to theirs and their worth is equal to ours, and we have to appreciate the uniqueness of each and every human being including our own so we don’t compare, despair and hate. 

In recovery, we are constantly working to stay right sized. We are acutely aware of our propensity to make ourselves too big and/or too small. We know we are in constant danger of a “self will run riot” experience as we had before recovery. We pray each day for knowledge of God’s(Higher Power) will and the courage to carry it out. Staying embarrassed by our strengths and foibles keeps us in recovery. 

I have had this sense of embarrassment for as long as I can remember and, up until reading Rabbi Heschel, I believed this sense of embarrassment made me less than human and at the mercy of those who didn’t seem to portray any embarrassment nor indecisiveness. These people were friends, family members, clergy, teachers, strangers, politicians, etc. So for over 20 years I tried to be like them and it never worked. I could never shake my embarrassment, therapists called it ‘low self-esteem’ and I knew it was an anger at experiencing this inner embarrassment. Rabbi Heschel’s teaching unlocked a storehouse of tears, a warehouse of anguish and a pathway to inner freedom I never thought possible. I am still embarrassed by my inability at times to understand the miracle I am and the miracle every human being is. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark