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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 301

“The mind is in search of rational coherence, the soul in quest for celebration. Knowledge is celebration. Truth is more than equation of thing and thought. Truth is transcendence, its comprehension is loyalty.” (Who is Man pg 117)

The Latin roots of “rational coherence” are ‘reckoning/reason sticking together’ and the Latin root of “celebration” is ‘frequented/honored’. Immersing ourselves in the first sentence using the roots could mean our minds are always seeking/in search of a reason that sticks together, a reckoning that sticks together. Yet, in spite of this truth, we are willing to believe the lies we tell ourselves and the lies another(s) tells us. In spite of our minds being in search of a reckoning that is truthful, that will last the test of time, we actively engage in self-deception and mendacity, we believe that there is the “one person” who will fix everything, who will take out vengeance on our ‘enemies’, who will ensure that we are not forgotten. History has taught us that these demagogues, these authoritarians care nothing for their followers, they care nothing for truth, they care nothing for anything but their lies, their grifts that they can hold together to deceive everyone for as long as their run can last.

On a more personal level, we have to look at the myriad of ways and situations where we allow our selves to believe our lies have “rational coherence”, that they are reasonable and this reason sticks together because we make up scenarios that allow us to believe our lies, to believe the deceptions of another(s). We do this because we are so afraid of the truth, we do this because we are so afraid to see what is, we do this so we don’t have to respond to the call of the poor, the needy, the stranger within us and outside of us, we do this so we can continue to live in willful blindness and not accept responsibility for our part in any situation. Making our lies seem logical, sensible, and clear is a major undertaking for most of us, we are so afraid to allow our minds to see and embrace truth. To find the reason that doesn’t fall apart from it being based in mendacity and deception means we will have to be more responsible to the demand of the Universe, to the call of the Ineffable One to tend our corner of this garden called earth. We are able to find the tools necessary to nourish the seed of life that has been planted in us, to live with our eyes wide open, finding joy in tragedy as well as success, accepting the bad with the good, sending tall against mendacity, deception by another and self-deception.

As I wrote yesterday, Rabbi Heschel is not asking us to abdicate our minds in order to live from our souls, our minds are not a bad place to live in and/or visit. It is when our minds have been poisoned by the lies of another, by the bastardization of principles, by the false stories we tell ourselves that they become the playground of self-deception, the tool of mendacity and the weapon of mental and spiritual destruction. We are facing such a time in the world, in this country, in our communities, families, in our very self. The fatigue that is being felt by the majority because the mendacious ones and their followers get energized by their lies, they plug into a power supply that is limitless with their deceptions, self and towards another(s). For the majority of us, the bombardment of these lies, the bastardization of the principles of the Bible, the Koran, the New Testament, democracy, decency, kindness, etc overwhelm us and we find ourselves powerless to change the minds of another(s) with facts, with “rational coherence” because the lies are stuck together with the same type of adhesive that barnacles use to stick to a boat!

And, we are able to reject this onslaught, begin to break down the framework of the lies and deceptions when we use truth as our guiding light. When we are able to acknowledge the lies we tell ourselves and see them for what they are, defenses against change; when we seek to connect with another(s) for the sake of learning and improving our corner of the world; when we are determined to stop blaming, be responsible for our actions and speak truth to power, even the power of our lies and self-deception; then we are beginning our recovery and building a way of living that we can live in always, not perfectly, and always searching and seeking a “rational coherence” that causes our soul to experience the joy of a true mind/spirit connection and celebrate the wins and losses of the day with equanimity and welcoming.

This “rational coherence” and “celebration” of our soul is what we are recovering in recovery. We work at this every day, we begin with gratitude upon awakening and end our day with gratitude for being aware, alive and in recovery, no matter what the ‘results’ of our day were, we know we have learned something, we lived our commitment to “rational coherence” and “celebration” a little more today than we did yesterday and this makes it a great day!

I will write more on this on Sunday. Shabbos is a time to reflect, it is a time to celebrate and I know if I don’t have some “rational coherence” based in truth, my soul cannot celebrate. I strive to find the truth, I seek it out from within me and from another(s). When there is not “rational coherence” I, today, am able to accept it and move on rather than fight the mendacity, the blame, the need for another(s) to make me wrong with anger, ferocity, and, at times, inappropriateness. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 300

“The mind is in search of rational coherence, the soul in quest for celebration. Knowledge is celebration. Truth is more than equation of thing and thought. Truth is transcendence, its comprehension is loyalty.” (Who is Man pg 117)

The challenge of being human is summed up in the first sentence above. This is the struggle, war, argument going on inside of us always and forever-between rational coherence and celebration, between mind and soul, between earthly and divine instincts, between comprehension and knowing, etc. All human beings experience this challenge, all human beings are engaged in this challenge, not all human beings are aware of this struggle, not all human beings face this challenge and many human beings decide to make sense, “rational coherence”, rather than engage in the struggle, rather than engage in celebration.

When we decline to engage in this ‘war’ within our self, the majority of people, in opting out, give too much energy to searching for “rational coherence”. We go overboard with “left brain” behavior, we believe we can think our way into good situations and out of bad ones, we believe that there is a logical reason for everything, everything can be discovered, if it isn’t logical, provable, evidence-based then it isn’t true! We develop our “left brain” to such a degree that we are able to deceive our self into believing our own lies, we are susceptible to the deceptions of another(s) and, I believe, we become enslaved to our mind and, in many cases, we descend Into a slavery that is as burdensome and onerous as the slavery in Egypt is described in the Bible. Some of us are Pharaoh, some of us taskmasters, and some of us the people building the pyramids. Because we have indulged in the false belief that our minds are everything, our minds are our greatest asset, we have fallen headfirst into this trap, we are being used as pawns by people who use their minds to enslave us, who use our vulnerabilities against us and we then engage in violence against our soul, we block our hearing the true call/demand of God, we stop maturing our souls in order to follow the leader.

We are in such a situation now, we have Putin and Orban in Europe; Xi in Asia;  Trump, Thiel, Masters, Oz, Lake, DiSantis, the Republican Party, White Christian Nationalists, the Squad, etc all using “rational coherence” to “rally the base”. “Rally the base” is the descriptor of what is happening and has been happening for millennia, leaders are appealing to the baser instincts of their followers and their enemies, they, at times, use soul language to sound good, yet they have a logic that puts them in a position to lead rebellion for the sake of their own power, begin wars, figuratively and literally, against outside enemies so their followers can have ‘them’ to focus their hatred, their frustrations and their anger. All the while making it seem logical and, in their amazingly deceptive manner, even spiritual. When the mind is what is understanding God’s words, they have to be bastardized and manipulated, which is exactly what is happening now and has happened throughout history.

Our minds are crucial to our existence and growth, they are necessary for our spiritual growth as our souls are crucial to our existence and growth and necessary for our minds’ growth. This is not a polemic for either one, I believe. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of our desperate need for both our soul and our mind. He is calling to us to develop and mature both, he is demanding we stop favoring one over the other, rather he is teaching us to use both in concert with each other and to use both in proper measure. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel exhort us to be more aware of how both mind and soul are part of every experience we have.

In recovery, we are seeking to put our living back into proper measure, or put our living into proper measure for the first time. We were so out of whack, so out of alignment that only a power greater than ourselves could do the chiropractic work on our minds and souls necessary for us be back into alignment with truth, with life on life’s terms, with our fellow human beings. We are learning how to access both mind and soul in their proper measure and allow the one most appropriate to lead in each experience we are in.

I am writing this with awe and reverence for Rabbi Heschel. I have a ‘math brain’ and a soul that is more developed and mature than it was when I was a con man, a drunk and a thief. Today, I realize that my need to put things into “rational coherence” is also a need of my soul as well as my mind. I have used the wrong language for quite a while, I am realizing. What has been described by me and another(s) as my need to know is really, my need to comprehend so I can have an appropriate response, without both my mind and soul understanding and comprehending, my response is almost always too little or too much, rejected or accepted, and I am either loved or betrayed. I am saddened that it has taken me so long to understand this truth of my self, my way of being, I could have found better ways to communicate and to connect with another(s) and within my self. I am elated that I am realizing this now, I am elated that I am able to let go of my need to comprehend reasons and deal with what is, accept that another(s) have their own war inside of them and, sometimes they victimize someone else to give themselves a measure of ‘peace’. I have done this before and regret this way of being greatly. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 299

“To celebrate is to share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Once we are able to let go of our self-centered need to please our selves only, once we are willing to surrender to the basic spiritual truths of being human, we are then ready and able to “extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing”. The basic spiritual truths of all humanity are: love, kindness, truth, justice, being needed, needing another, community, connection, compassion and service. Immersing oneself in the ending words of the last sentence above, understanding the word intention in the Latin meaning of the word; purpose, celebration takes on a new meaning as does consumption. Truthfully making the extolling of God; the love of mercy, justice, and walking in God’s ways, fulfilling our need to be in truth and to be needed, engaging in authentic connection and needing another(s), living with compassion towards self and another(s) as well as being of service to humanity, to nature, to God/Universe. We are learning/re-learning from Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above to stop these foolish flights of fantasy into consuming as much as we can, having as much as we can,  in order to ‘win’, in order to please our false self, in order to satisfy the urges and cravings of our authoritarian leader, because we have become a slave to our consumption urges and always need to be feeding it with more and more stuff.

Making service our purpose, making serving something greater than our self our purpose is the path back to our basic goodness of being, the path back to living the foundational spiritual values, principles and truth that live within us. Making truth our purpose and path, seeking justice as a matter of course, authentic connection seems to miraculously happen and we are more fulfilled because of connection, truth, and justice to the world around us, to the world that the Ineffable One inhabits as well. When seek to be kind rather than nice, when we seek to be compassionate rather than greedy, when we fulfill our calling to make our corner of the garden that we inhabit a little better than it was before we were here, then we live with an ease and a knowing that is indescribable. We are no longer looking over our shoulder and worried about who is trying to take something from us, we are looking forward and around us to see who we can share our bounty with. We bless God before and after we eat to remind us that all that we have is not of our own doing solely, we acknowledge that we have had so much help to be where we are, parents, friends, teachers, co-workers, the universe, etc and being able to sustain our bodies, minds and spirits is a gift.

Prayer is not to ask for something, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, it is to praise, to thank, it is a song and it comes from our souls, not our minds. We pray each morning, afternoon, evening as well as before and after every meal, ending with our bedtime prayers not as a chore, not as a petition, we pray as a song of gratitude and acknowledgement of the blessings and gifts we receive each and every day. Upon arising, being grateful to be alive and committing to be compassionate and faithful is our action of gratitude. Helping another human being just by saying hello and acknowledging their existence is an action of gratitude that we are awake, aware and alive.These suggestions are ways to make extolling of God, the spirit and the source of blessing our purpose. These are the ways we can allow ourselves to be confronted and defeated by a higher truth when consumption, self-deception and the deception by another(s) tries to overwhelm us.

In recovery, we reject our past ways of consumption for the sake of more, for the sake of escape, for the sake of faux protection. We are at least 51% committed to engage in acts of celebration rather than self-centeredness, rather than self-aggrandizement. We have a practice, unique to each of us, for praise, for gratitude, for blessing and to be of service, to be compassionate, to make truth, justice, kindness, mercy the address we now live at. In recovery, we surrender each day, sometimes many times a day, we set our purpose/intention on connection, service, and love.

My life in recovery has been about extolling God, the spirit and the source of blessing. I know that without God’s help, I never could have gone from being in prison 35 years ago to being in retirement after the humbling joyous experience of being of service to God, to humanity, to my family, community. I am acutely aware of my flaws, I am reviewing them as I write and I have made my amends and searching for ones I still need to make. I am content in ways I never understood before, I am not interested in licking old wounds, in dealing with people who have betrayed me, in trying to figure out what someone’s motive is. I am more interested in celebration, in taking actions that extol God, not me; extol the spirit within me, not my false ego and pride; the source of blessing, all the people who touch my life with love, with lessons, with guile and with truth. It is no longer about getting even, figuring out someone’s motives, it is about engaging in the connection, in the experience, learning from both and making this day one grain of sand better than the last day. My purpose is based in the spiritual truths above and I get to live them each day-how great is this! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi

Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 298

“To celebrate is too share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above is not a condemnation of consumption, I believe it is a deep regret that humanity has replaced celebration with consumption, confusing the two and missing out on the importance of extolling God, higher power, etc. He is, in my understanding today, lamenting the situation we find ourselves in-‘celebration of self’ rather than extolling the spirit and the source of blessing. Kosher living is what I hear Rabbi Heschel calling for, demanding of us. Living a life that is fitting and proper, living a life that has self, God, and another humans at the center and in our core is the challenge of these words above. Consuming enough food to live and enjoy is appropriate and necessary as is having friendships, sex, work, exercise, knowledge, excitement, loss and gain, love, truth, kindness and compassion. All of these and so much more are necessary to have a good life. Our challenge is to live our lives in proper measure, in ways that are fitting and proper for the experience we are in at this moment.

The reason that mendacity and deception of self and/or another is so devastating to us is that we are no longer able to discern what is truly fitting and proper, no longer capable to recognize truth, kindness, love, justice, mercy. We are no longer able to extol spirit, the source of blessing, God, higher power or anything except our self or the authoritarian self we have chosen as our idol. Consumption that is our of proper measure, that is no longer fitting for the moment in any area of life, is, as I experience the brilliance above, the symptom of a society that has gone away from God, that is desecrating God’s name, trying to crush knowledge and experience of the spirit and replace the source of blessing with itself!

This is where we find ourselves at this very moment, led there by the so-called ‘people of faith, good christian white men’, from the federalist society who want to install christian law in our country saying this is what the founders wanted. What BULLSHIT! The original English settlers ran away from religious intolerance of England and the King in order to not have what these liars, these deceivers, these con artists are promoting. So many have died to keep our democracy whole and holy they have not died for a plutocracy nor a theocracy to be established. What these grifters really want is power, they want to be adored as much as Trump wants to be adored, they want to remake Jesus to be a control freak and a lion, not a man of God/son of God. These charlatans give religion, Jesus, faith and God a bad name. They want to consume our democracy and replace it with a theocracy and a plutocracy, even though these are opposite forms of government usually, the grifters have gotten together to unite for power, for consumption, for being the masters while the rest of us are the slaves, for the ‘white race’.

Lindsey Graham, wonder what secrets he is afraid of being revealed, has spoken in ways that seem like a call to riot, inciting civil war, he is ducking a subpoena, all the while preaching law and order, all the while calling people of color, Jews, Asians, Muslims, John McCain his friends. He is a desperate white man trying to hold onto and be next to power, he is so self-seeking, he needs to consume more and more power and protection, he is willing to and has given up his principles. We see this so often, people who are bent on consumption and unwilling to be responsible for the damage they cause, unwilling to extol God because they are too busy pleasing themselves and/or pleasing the idol they have come to worship, like Lindsey Graham’s idol worship of Donald Trump and the lies he tells.

In recovery, we have a solution for this over consumption, it is called a searching and fearless inventory, a fourth step. We are constantly searching out the lies and deceptions, the resentments and angers we have held onto dearly and made consumption the only method of self-soothing. We are engaged each day in a way of living that is fitting and proper for the moment, knowing it is never a one size fits all, knowing it is never a one and done proposition. We review our year, our month, week, day to see where and how we have done well also. In recovery, we want to view the whole picture and not give in to our prejudices and self-pleasing ways.

Since this is the 3rd day of Elul, it seems fitting and proper to write about consumption and celebration in this way. I know most of my faults and flaws, I am aware of what people put on me also. I am saddened by the latest betrayals of people I once trusted and I see that my need to please my self with lies of connection have led me to experience betrayal while the other people knew we had a transactional relationship. I realize it was my neediness that allowed me to lie to myself and to protect and defend people rather than principles at times. I am elated to be able to realize more and more each day, I am ecstatic that I haven’t lost my desire and capacity to learn and grow. I am  committed to T’Shuvah, to my daily inventories, to continuing to “promptly admit what I was wrong” and “extol God, the spirit and the source of blessing” that keeps me on this wonderful path and this amazing life I am leading. 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 297

“To celebrate is too share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

In the Bible, we are taught that it is God that goes before the Israelites to ensure their victory over their enemies, reminding us it is not just about us, we are not the all-powerful Oz that we have come to believe we are. Yet, this gift from God, this going before us has been bastardized to mean that God is vengeful and unmerciful in the “Old Testament”. How absurd and sad! Yet, how powerful a method to hide the truth of these deceivers: we want to please our selves with power, we want you to serve us, we want to have it all, etc. This way of thinking and acting have been with us from the beginning of humankind and, at times, it has been overwhelmed by people walking in the ways of God instead of walking in the ways of power.

We are in a time right now that calls for us to distinguish what we need to consume to survive and thrive and what we are consuming just because we can. I am thinking about the laws of Kosher eating in the Hebrew Bible. My friend and teacher, Rabbi Edward Feinstein, taught me that the laws of Kosher eating come to remind us, just because we can doesn’t mean we should, doesn’t mean it is fitting and proper. Keeping Kosher is another way to be conscious and thoughtful as to our actions, as to our consumption. Can we say the same about all of the other things we are trying to consume, are our actions fitting and proper in all areas of our living? Probably not, because we are human, we are imperfect. Rather than turning our imperfection into neurosis’, let’s use them to help us make decisions regarding the paths we choose to make choices.

We are in a crisis right now, whether the mendacious ones, the deceivers will convince the majority, including people who will be harmed by their actions, that they are acting in God’s name, according to God’s Will, all the while pleasing only their selves, caring nothing about their fellow human beings. We are seeing this in business, in politics, in the breakdown of neighborhoods, in the increase of street crimes, in the increase of mass shootings, in the increase of racist, anti-semitic acts, anti-asian acts, etc. We are experiencing a time of great upheaval, of a desire to return to the ‘good old days’ of white supremacy, of pitting one group against another, of riling up the ‘troops’ to storm the Capital, to get ready for a civil war. All in the name of ‘celebrating of great history and the intent of the founding fathers’. We need to stand firm against the liars and cheats who are ruining democracy and trying to overtake freedom with authoritarianism.

We need to go on a new ‘food’ plan, a new/old way of being ! A way of being that allows us to surrender our need for control and certainty to God, a way of being that helps us lose the weight of false ego, pride, fear of missing out (fomo) and our insatiable hunger for power. This way of being is found in the Hebrew Bible, in the Gospels of the New Testament, in the Koran and in every spiritual discipline there is. It is a hard path to begin, it is a hard way of being to live every day and we will falter and we will err on this journey. Yet, we can begin this ‘consumption’ plan today by letting go of the irrational fear of Charlottesville, “Jews will not replace us” was the chant by these “good people” as the former President declared, or the lies of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of how only their form of White Christianity will save us. Of course we will have to take the deceptions of the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ promoters off our plates as well. We will have to limit our intake of bastardized teachings from our spiritual texts and close our mouths and minds to the mendacity of ‘strict constitutionalists’. Every day, we are served extreme ideologies on a platter and it is up to us to reject these seemingly sumptuous meals in favor of the middle path, in favor of a meal that is satisfying and not indulgent, providing nutrition and not too rich in carbs, in flour, in anything that gets us bloated and fat. We can have differing opinions and learn from one another without needing to consume another human being as our slave, our enemy. We can live in ways that are compatible with our being a partner of God!

In recovery, we are always adjusting our consumption. In fact, I would posit, that we are in recovery from our incessant need to consume. “One is too many and a 1000 is never enough” is a saying in recovery and this is the theme we are on a ‘diet’ from, the desires and needs we need a new way of being to handle appropriately. In recovery, we are acutely aware of our tendency to enslave, to give into our fears and our false egos and know that surrender is our only answer so we can once again gain control of our actions and life.

I am always battling my physical weight. I am aware of my ability to go on a diet and lose weight and sad at my inability to keep it off forever. I am elated with my lack of desire to consume everything in my orbit and all the oxygen in the room in most other areas of my life. I am grateful I have learned to listen enough to learn from so many and I am humbled by God’s faith and trust in me. I am also in awe of God’s mission for me and giving me the power to carry it out. I can’t rest on my laurels and I can’t worry about tomorrow. I can only be in today and I can only feel sad for those who want to control and consume me, want to enslave me and harm me. I resist and God helps me remember to stand for truth and walk in God’s ways and not need to ‘get even’ anymore.  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 295

“To celebrate is too share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Humanity has always mistaken consumption for celebration, I believe, because of our inability to get past our selves! We are so self-centered and self-seeking we confuse consumption with celebration. We seem to be hard-wired to consume everything we see and have the desire to conquer, rule and control everything around us. Doing this causes us to engage in the consumption Rabbi Heschel is speaking of above.

I believe the root cause of this out-sized need to consume everything, to have the biggest and the best, etc is fear. Many of us live with fears that we are not even aware of, fears that we can’t name consciously, fears of not enough, fears of being left out, fears of what happens when we die, fears of powerlessness and many more. Some people turn to religion to deal with their fears, some people turn to spirituality to deal with their fears, most people turn to power, control and mendacity/deception to deal with their fears, hence Rabbi Heschel’s observation above.

Fear and faith co-exist! The word for awe in Hebrew is the same word for fear because both awe and fear provoke reverence in us, when we engage the experience we are having, rather than trying to control it. I have heard many people ask “where is your faith” and I respond, “I have absolute faith in God, it is you and me that I have fears about”. Because of the need for certainty and our dependence on ‘knowing all’ we have forgotten that at Mount Sinai, at the Red Sea, at the Last Supper, at Mason Temple on April 3, 1968, Rev. King delivered his “Mountain Top” speech, and so many other events in the history of humankind that are moments of great trembling, great fear, great awe and absolute displays of the certainty of God, the certainty of prophecy and the uncertainty of life!

Turning to faith is not the same as the so-called ‘religious leadership’ of the National Prayer Breakfasts want us to believe. Turning to faith is not what the deceptive proponents of the ‘prosperity gospels’ would have us believe. Turning to faith is not what the White Christian Nationalists would have us believe either. Turning to faith is to turn inward and outward, to realize the similarities every human being share and the call/demand of God to care for our self, care for the all selves, care for all of God’s creations. Turning to faith is to be afraid to “see God face to face” because the radiance is too great for humans to handle. Turning to faith is adopting an attitude of gratitude for being alive. Turning to faith is to never take anything for granted, not even our breathing. Turning to faith is to mature and grow our inner life, to connect our souls and our minds, to ensure that we immerse ourselves in God’s words and seek to understand their meaning for us, seek to do God’s Will: “Love your Neighbor as You Love your Self” and “Love God with all your heart, soul, your everything”, “love mercy, do justly and walk in God’s ways”! These are not impossible tasks, these are all doable for each and every one of us once we surrender our need to control, our need to lie to another(s) and to our selves, once we allow ourselves to dream the dream of Godliness and holiness that are embedded in our natures.

We are in the midst of a crisis of faith, because we are being bombarded with bastardizations of what faith truly is. Any faith that is not inclusive, any faith that is discriminatory, any faith that is ‘holier than thou’, is not a true faith in God. Any faith that seeks to shut people out forever for their errors is not a true faith in God. Any faith that seeks to control everyone and make everyone bow down to it, is not a true faith in God. Faith in God, living a spiritual, principled life is never certain, we are told there are 70 ways to understand each verse in the Bible, the New Testament was written in Aramaic and translated into different languages and we all know how much is lost in translation. We are hearing the word of God through the voices, bias’, lies, and need to control of humans, so we must, in order to have a faith that guides us and helps us move through our fears, engage personally in the principles and teachings of our faiths and not let someone else’s opinions rule us.

In recovery, we find solutions to our various crises’ of faith, our various fears and uncertainties. This solution is to seek and relate to “God, as we understand God”. Not as idolatry or control, rather to engage in a relationship with God, to struggle and wrestle with God and our fears and uncertainties, to immerse ourselves in principles rather than in consumption and lies. It is a work in progress and this road is much better than the one we used to be on.

Awe and fear have always co-existed inside of me and for over 20 years, I thought that was a bad thing, a defect of character inside of me. I know now, that the path to a mature relationship with God has to have this both/and. I continue to cultivate the relationship and learn how to live with this both/and each and every day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 295

“To celebrate is too share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Someone asked me the purpose of this daily writing and blogging it and I thought about the question with consternation, inquisitiveness and joy. Consternation because I thought the title says it all, this is for everyone to learn and share in the wisdom, brilliance and teachings of Rabbi Heschel for our everyday living. My curiosity was peaked by being asked this question at all, wondering what this person was getting that made the question relevant for her. I am joyous that the question was asked so I could explain, it made me know this is being read and, whether I am clear on my intention or not, it has at least one person thinking about Rabbi Heschel, thinking about how to live well and reading this daily! I want to be clear about my intentions, much like the first sentence above; this blog is a celebration of Rabbi Heschel’s impact on my life, a sharing of the greater joy we, I and all of the people who have learned Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom with me over the years, have experienced and participated in and how this  joy helps us participate more fully “in an eternal drama”. It is to let you, the reader, know I am available to help you navigate with purpose and passion in all areas of your life and a snippet of how I help a person apply this type of wisdom to any and all parts of their life.

These past 295 days are my sharing in the “greater joy” of living life on its terms, not the ones I want, not the false narratives that so many people are spouting today. We all have an opportunity to share in the greater joy of living, to participate in an eternal drama if we are willing to follow a few simple paths that God/the Universe has set out for us, the first of which being to “Love God with all of our heart, soul, our everything”. To do this we have to love our self, love our neighbor, love our enemies with all of our heart, soul and everything. Each of us are created in the Image of God, each of us has within us the spirit of the Universe, each of us is endowed with the need for connection, love, service, community. Yet, in false narratives that we make up and/or adopt from another that is made up, we lose sight of these truths, we forget this simple path and we make war, false accusations and dangerous lies against another so we can be all powerful.

Our need to be God causes us to worship idols, to participate in an action that is the antithesis of the “eternal drama” Rabbi Heschel speaks of above. We cannot “share in the greater joy” Rabbi Heschel is speaking of when our joy is derived from mendacity, from ‘winning the war’, from ‘beating the competition’, from showing off how strong, smart, rich, famous, powerful we are. This is the reason so many ‘successful’ people have such utterly sad inner lives, why they are so envied for their outside achievements and in such terrible turmoil in their inner lives. Divorce, being mis-attuned with children and partners, being feared rather than loved, fearful their inner demons may ruin a carefully crafted outer image, etc are all. Writing this blog is a way for me to participate in the “eternal drama” of joy, of life, of love, of service to people who are in need and desire of a more mature and congruent inner life.

We forfeit our share when we indulge in idolatry in all of its forms. When we allow our selves to be ‘bought off’ by money, power, prestige we are engaging in idol worship. When we buy into the lies of Trump and his band of thieves, power-hungry mongers, sycophants, we are engaging in idol worship. When we buy into the lies of religious leaders, spiritual gurus that they have the answer and they alone are the truth, we are engaging in idolatry. When we buy into the lies we tell ourselves that we need to buy these lies, that these lies are actually the truth, we are so spiritually ill that we need a physician of the soul to help us be on the path of spiritual healing and psychological clarity.

In recovery, we are constantly searching for and living a path towards spiritual healing and psychological health. In the 3rd step we “made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understand God”. We are willing to surrender our fears and our self-centeredness, our self-pity and our need to be right, our false ego and our need to be the director of everything so we can “participate in the eternal drama” of living well, so we can “share in a greater joy” and rise above the misery we have been in and we have caused/shared with those around us.

I have to let go of the false narratives I still tell myself, I have to surrender the caricatures of me that I have created, I get to do this by sharing the joy of living that I experience, by not allowing the doings, defining, opinions of people who want to harm me infect me with doubt, despair and/or send me back to idolatry. I have been participating in the “eternal drama” more and more and staying out of the drama people create as well as creating personal drama less and less. 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 293

“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)

We have become consumers of junk science, alternative facts, false moral equivalency, deceptions and ‘celebrity’ status. Polio is showing up in waste water because people don’t want to be vaccinated nor do they want their children vaccinated because they are believing the junk science of the vaccine deniers. We have lost over a million people to Covid-19 because these same deniers convinced millions of Americans to not wear masks, to not be told what to do with their bodies while supporting people who want to decree what a woman can or cannot do with her own body! Because people are so willing to believe the lies of leaders, both religious and secular, they have betrayed their interests, betrayed the health and welfare of their children and families, they have betrayed the call of the universe to participate in the solution instead of becoming the problem. Yet, we are being bombarded by these deniers, these liars who are following the lead of the Tucker Carlson’s, the Sean Hannity’s, the Matt Gaetz’, et al and people are consuming these lies as if they were their mother’s milk. I believe they are caught in the confines of consuming the lies that appeal to their greatest fear, being left out/being out of the group. What Donald Trump was able to masterfully create was a narrative for people who felt left out and feared being displaced by “those people” that he was one of them, that he is their champion not because he is different, rather because he is like them, they are ‘his people’.

This consumption of lies and deceptions is so far reaching that it touches every part of our lives. Even with the documentation done by Eisenhower, even with the oral histories done by survivors of the Shoah, people are denying the Holocaust happened, they are denying the death of 6 million+Jews simply because of Hitler’s desire to scapegoat the Jews, simply because of the racial prejudice against Jews that was started by the Catholic Church a millennia ago. For so long, up until Vatican II and Rabbi Heschel’s efforts to get Jews killed Christ out of the Catechism, and mission to the Jews revoked, Catholics consumed these lies and, like Blacks, Hispanics and Asians as well as Jews today, this consumption confined the Jews to a certain status, engendering hatred and animosity. What makes these lies and deceptions so attractive and palatable to be so consumed?

I believe it is the same thing that Trump tapped into. People are so afraid of change, they need and crave certainty so badly that anyone who promises the status quo and guarantees the certainty people are wanting will be blindly followed. We are witnessing one of the most distressing times in our Nation’s history. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling us to task, calling us to speak out, calling us to reach out to everyone we can and stop the mendacity that will kill freedom, end the deception that is killing democracy, surrender our need to live in the past and welcome the changes that each new day brings. Stop trying to hold on to the heirlooms of the past and immerse ourselves in the beauty and challenge of here and now. We will always be consumers, the question that Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom brings up for us: what are we going to consume? Are we going to be confined by the consumption of lies and deceptions? Are we going to be confined by the consumption of power and prestige? Are we going to be consumers of true celebration, true inner appreciation and welcome “the sublime wonder of living”? Are we going to consume truth and solutions more than lies and problems?

In recovery, we seek to be in the solution and, at times, be the solution. The solution to all of our issues today, according to Dr. Paul, is acceptance. We have to accept what is, we have to be in truth and clarity about what is happening right now in front of us to be able to adapt, change, respond and be in the solution. Without acceptance of truth, of reality, we are not in recovery, we are in our addictive thinking-which is what is happening all over the world. We are in desperate need of recovery, recovery of truth, recovery of dignity, recovery of our ability to truly celebrate and recovery of real freedom.

I see the subtleties of my own consumptive behaviors in my recovery. I believed the lies and deceptions of another(s) without too much questioning because I believed it would serve the mission I was on. I consumed the ‘friendship’ of people who needed me and whom I needed (or thought I did) and I have been thrown out with the trash when I was not useful anymore. I am also sure that there are people who experienced me in the same light. I am sorry for their experience and my part in it. I am sorry that I was so deep in my own narrative that I could not see the deceptions and mendacities of another(s) and, in truth, did not realize my own lies I was telling myself. Writing this today has me realizing the myriad of ways consumption confines me, confines everyone unless we are first serving a higher purpose, unless we are first in inner appreciation of life and our place, unless we are, as Ben Zoma teaches, happy with our portion in life. Without appreciation for what we have we become consumer whores and this exacerbates our angst and does not allow for celebration. 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 293

“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)

Remembering these words were spoken in 1963 to a group of students and faculty at Stanford University and hearing them, reading them today is mind boggling and totally in keeping with the “good old days” and “old ways of being”. In the “good old days” of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judea, the Greeks, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Spanish, the Ottomans, the Germans, the British, and, now the Americans, people in power become more interested in consumption than in celebration, more interested in self than in living up to the threshold of God, more interested in consumption than in the plight of the poor, the needy, the stranger.

The prophets, whom some of us still study and learn from while many more of us read as an assignment to be forgotten immediately, foretold the dangers of this grave error and the people in power did not listen then nor have they since. The lure of consumption is as addictive as any drug, any drink, yet we congratulate consumers on their purchases, on their filling up with more and more, we are envious of the people who can suck all the oxygen out of the room, fly on their private jets, buy multiple homes, automobiles, jewelry, clothes, etc. We are in awe of the people who have forgotten that once they were poor, once they were on the outside and now, having a seat at the table, have forgotten, denied, their obligation to include everyone, to make a “bigger table”, as my friend John Pavlovitz teaches. This is how addictive and blinding our desire for consumption is, for us the onlookers and for the people consuming.

We see it in all the fad diets, all the get rich quick schemes, all the long cons/ponzi schemes, we see it in the ways people will ‘bet their rent money’ on the false hope of winning the lottery. We see this desire play out in our searching for mates, for friends, for likes on social media. We see evidence of our need to consume in our closets and in our refrigerators, in our offices and in our homes, we see it in our hoarding, in our clutter, in our envy and in our jealousy of another(s). Yet, we are still unwilling and/or unable to admit to ourselves how confining this consumption is, how confining our desire/addiction to consumption is and how it is threatening our very freedoms, both internally and externally. Consumption confines us through scarcity and deception. We have become believers that the consumers at the top of the pyramid know what they are doing so we try and copy them, we listen to them as if they are wise and caring, as if they have our best interests at heart and then we find ourselves enslaved to them, we find we “owe our soul to the company store”, we become encircled in the chains of consumption, in the chains of deception and in the chains of slavery.

We are witnessing the beginning of the ruination all of the civilizations mentioned above experienced, I believe. We are at the beginning of the lies from religious leaders who are bastardizing God’s words, God’s Will, our individual, personal connection and understanding of the Ineffable One’s call and demand for us. We hear them constantly tell us Christ was the Lion, Christ was the conqueror, while the words of Christ in the Gospels is about treating the poor, the needy, the stranger, the addicts, the whores, the thieves, etc with love and respect, with kindness and assistance. We hear them speak of how God wants perfection, how doing as many mitzvot as possible is all that matters, how making someone else wrap T’Fillin, is good whether they want to or not, whether they understand the meaning and the inner connection or not. We hear them tell us there are 70 ways to understand the Bible and only their way is the correct ONE WAY. We hear and take in their lies like dogs waiting for a treat, we let go of our ability to discern wheat from the chaff, lies from the truth, soul knowledge from our self-deception.

In recovery, we check in with our self each day to find the lies we are telling ourselves, to find the meaningless consumption we are engaging in, to find the unwitting ways we are still enslaving ourselves and another(s). We work hard each day to practice the principles of the prophets, the principles of spiritual connection and growth.

I am guilty of consumption and the slavery of same. I have been enslaved by my need for the latest and best in electronics, shoes, etc. I also have learned to wait and discern the differences between my wants and needs, I also make sure that I take care of God through my Tzedakah/tithing prior to taking care of me. I am grateful for what I have and want my life, my stuff, my friends, my enemies, my family, and my spirit. I know where consumption takes me and I have stayed out of the depths I went to prior to 1988 and continue to grow and learn. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom - A Daily Path to LIving Well

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 292

“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)

In looking up words Rabbi Heschel uses, I am always startled at my misconception of many of them as in today’s words, sublime and solemn. Sublime comes from the Latin meaning “up to the threshold” and solemn means “customary/celebrated at fixed times” according to the dictionary online. Reading the last sentence above with these meanings, using Rabbi Heschel’s foundation of radical amazement, gifts me with the understanding that celebration’s essence is to have my inner life, my soul call attention to the aspects of life that are customary, that are regular and be aware of them. Stop taking everything/anything for granted, I hear Rabbi Heschel telling me, start to and continue to allow our inner life, our spirit, make us aware of the celebration of each action that moves life forward, that serves a higher purpose, that promotes us “up to the threshold” of holiness, goodness, kindness, service, justice.

Looking at the news, reading the things we celebrate, worry about likes and clicks, are all ways to distract ourselves from these important, fundamental truths Rabbi Heschel is teaching us. We have lost, it seems, the ability to live sublimely, to live “up to the threshold” because nothing is ever “good enough”, nothing is perfect and we have come to use these two profanity’s against ourselves and against one another. How many of us truly see our daily actions as good, good enough, perfectly imperfect? How many of us complain about, admit to, proudly declare how not good enough we are? We are so fixated on ‘celebrating’ the wins, the likes, the clicks, the adoration, the approval of another that we are no longer paying attention to all the ways we are living “up to the threshold” and celebrating them and ourselves. We are so fixated on the outer shell, we come to define solemn as “not cheerful, serious, dignified” customarily celebrating waking up each morning as a miracle. We are so fixated on “getting it right” we are blind to the joy of connecting with our soul, our family, friends, partners, nature, God, another human being.

We can change the ways we are living once we surrender our need for certainty. Once we surrender our need to be defined by another’s standard, society’s standard. Using the word perfection is an example. Who defined perfection? Some man who wanted to control another, some man who wanted his wife to feel inferior, some man who wanted his children to fear and please him is probably who defined it and many other men went along with him. Perfection, not good enough, social media, are all levers of control that also are sold to us as certainty. A religion that offers certainty also is bastardizing God because God is so unknowable and so infinite that we can only experience and worship,  celebrate and be in partnership with God “up to the threshold” of our understanding and spiritual maturity. We celebrate God at fixed times and customarily throughout the day when we eat, when we pray, when we take the next right action. Yet, many of us are oblivious to this truth in favor of the the lie and deception of perfection, good enough, how many clicks/likes did I get this time!

We are in desperate need, as a society, of a new/renewed awareness of what it means to celebrate, what it means to immerse ourselves in the essence of living, in the essence of celebrating, in the essence of connection, in the essence of imperfection. We have the ability to accept and adapt to new/old concepts and ideas, we have the spiritual tools to “live up to the threshold” of our capabilities, yet we are constantly falling prey to the deception and the lies, to the control and the power of societal norms, of bullies and authoritarians, to the false needs of another and the facades we wish to show the world. Rather than be “dignified” lets be customarily celebrating our actions of kindness and love, rather than being “formal”, lets get to know the inner life of ourselves and another human being. Rather than experiencing something as unparalleled, lets enjoy and enhance our living “up to the threshold” of the moment. We have the ability, we have the spiritual nature, do we have the willingness?

In recovery, we celebrate each day of recovery with gratitude, with joy, and this is a “customary” action we take. We live “up to the threshold” of our ability in the moment with the knowledge that each moment is different, our best is forever changing and we can only do what is in front of us now and to the best of our ability today.

Sitting here writing this, in New York City, I am having an experience of joy and relief. I am always connected to Rabbi Heschel and being here in the City he called home for so many years, I feel the connection a little stronger. I also am aware of the ways/moments I don’t “live up to the threshold” of my abilities, when I give in to the baser desires of my humanity. I am also aware of how much, how often and how customary it is for me to celebrate life, actions, the people in my life and the heroes who have helped to shape me, mold me and bring me closer to God, to authenticity and transparency. I am uncontrollable to most people because I do have the desire to push myself and another(s) to the “threshold” of God, love, justice, kindness, compassion, truth, etc. 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 291

“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)

“Lending spiritual form to everyday acts” is, has been, and always will be a profoundly difficult and enriching endeavor. As we have learned in prior writings, spiritual comes from the root spirit, which in Latin means breathe, the Hebrew word is Ruach, wind. We can understand Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above to infer, at least for me, that whatever we breathe life into, whatever we take a breath before doing, we are able to approach true celebration, provided that the actions we are taking are for good, for God, for the sake of higher self. As with everything in life, we can use the same energy to promote principles of God, principles of holiness, principles of decency, justice, love, compassion and their opposites. Unfortunately, people who want to demean God, demean human beings, who believe they are to be served and power is theirs use the power of breath, the power of spirit to deny freedom to another(s), enrich themselves, obstruct justice, and are spiritually ill, as Maimonides teaches in his book The Eight Chapters.

For the majority of people, we seek to use our breath for good, we seek to breathe life into decency, kindness, love, compassion and are, unfortunately, easily misguided, deceived and lied to. It is a trait of humanity to want to believe so we can connect to one another, living in suspicion of our neighbor doesn’t promote “love thy neighbor” as we are commanded to do. Yet, many of us have come to suspect our neighbor because hatred and mistrust has been breathed into us from childhood, protecting ourselves from another human being has been fed us along with mother’s milk. Fear, mistrust, comparison, competition, power, all are the antonyms of what Rabbi Heschel is teaching us, in my opinion.

We need to return to the roots of religious and moral actions, not the interpretations of people with self-promoted agendas, rather the essence of the words of the Bible, the words and actions of the Prophets, of the Kings, of the writings, of the Psalmist, of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. We are not going to be able to breathe life into God’s teachings, we are not going to be able to use the wind of spirit to move our corner of the world to being a little better today than yesterday without the foundation of truth, love, compassion, justice, kindness, connection. Yet, many people, especially as we head into the midterm elections, are going to breathe hatred, lies, anger, promote connection through negativity, as well as extol injustice and non-freedom. They are doing this under the banner of religion, under the banner of god-all the while practicing the worst of idolatry, denying the truth of the first 3 Commandments!

We need to return, especially as we approach the Hebrew month of Elul when we are supposed to look back on the year past, make T’Shuvah (amends) for the wrongs we have not made yet and celebrate through inward appreciation the goodness we have breathed life into. We need to be thorough and fearless in seeing how we have lent spiritual form to our everyday actions, how we have breathed life into those nearest and dearest to us through love and kindness, how we have shared breath with people who needed a kind word, a word of encouragement, a word of rebuke in order to return to their rightful place. We get to revel in these actions and, I believe based on today’s reading of Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance, we need to gain more inward appreciation so we can gain strength from our prior good acts to do more of them today. We have to gain more appreciation for our self, for our ability to breath goodness, love, truth, justice, compassion into our daily actions so this way of being becomes more “normal” and, like physical exercise, we build our spiritual muscles and clear away the plaque that may be in our spiritual arteries.

In recovery, many of us awake with a gratitude for being alive. We take our first breath upon awakening and immediately realize we have this day to breathe more life into our newfound way of living, the opportunity to build up our spiritual muscles and clear out the junk that has blocked us from hearing our souls, for living from our spirit and from “doing the next right thing”. In recovery, we quickly learn to use the power of our decency to lift up and breathe life into the pitiful form we had become. In recovery, our inner appreciation meter grows each day and, like a Geiger counter, we are drawn to more and more ways to serve God, to serve another human being, to serve humanity, to serve all of God’s creations and, in doing so, are of maximum service to our self.

As I begin my inventory and review of the past year, I am struck with how much people have breathed life into me, have breathed life into the principles I hold dear and how much and often people have reached out to connect. Of course, I am painfully aware of the ones whom have cut off breath from our relationship and these relationships have died. Without blame, shame or fault finding, it is just the way it is and I have to see my part, accept it, try to repair it and allow for the ones who want to not reconnect and send love and blessings to them. It is sad to look back at the errors I have made based on putting too much breath into some places and not enough breath/spirit into other places. 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 290

“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)

“Lending spiritual form to everyday acts” is a challenging endeavor for all of us and it is the most worthwhile and invigorating endeavor we can engage in. Yet again, this is an internal experience, an individual experience and we are bombarded with all of the “experts”, “religious” leaders, “faith-based” groups who are trying to tell us there is only one way to achieve the experience of appreciation and spiritual form! It is so antithetical to Rabbi Heschel’s beliefs, his friendships and connections with people of faiths different from his, with people whose level of observance was different and these connections were deep, respectful, connected and open.

Today, we have Hillsdale College setting the tone for our public education in many states, they have as their goal to educate our children to revere “good Christian values” according to them, according to the conservatives like the Kochs, the DeVos’, the far right promoters like Tucker Carlson, et al. We are in danger of losing our freedom on all fronts and we are in danger of losing our ability to lend “spiritual form to everyday acts” unless it is the spiritual form that someone else, some human has decreed! Going against everything the Bible teaches us, going against the wisdom and teachings of Rabbi Heschel, yet they call themselves “godly people” all the while worshiping the idols of power, money and prestige. When religion and riches blend into one, when there is such a cozy relationship, we can, in my opinion and study of history, know that what is being promoted is not God’s Will, but the will of the rich and famous. When religion and government blend into one, when the laws have to be ‘in line with someone’s vision of the divine’, we know we are losing freedom, autonomy, and the few want to crush the spirit of the many. Yet, we sit back and watch as the few attempt to take over our lives, crush our freedom and use the tactics of Pharaoh against us again!

The Diary of Anne Frank is being banned in a Texas School District because it could be interpreted as and/or used as a teaching in Critical Race Theory, as a teaching in slavery, in Europe and a correlation can be made to our Country’s history. Can’t have this happen according to these Hillsdale-trained, Hillsdale-supporting conservatives. How are they “lending spiritual form to everyday acts”? THEY ARE NOT! These and so many more actions by the Plutocrats, the Religious Far Right, the Conservatives are not meant to lend “spiritual form to everyday acts”, they are meant to crush the spirit of anyone who is not like them, they are meant to co-opt the unwitting people who believe they are being saved while being used as slaves and pawns, they are meant to deny people of color, people of another faith than theirs, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press! Hillsdale, Peter Thiel, Donald Trump, Moscow Mitch McConnell, Conniving Kevin McCarthy, and their sycophants want power and control for 100 years, America has their own ‘visionaries’ of a 100-year rule; sound familiar?

“Lending spiritual form to everyday acts” calls us to live and act according to the lessons found in the Bible. It calls to us as individuals, just as everyone at the Red Sea and everyone at Mt. Sinai heard the words of God differently, had a different experience of being saved, of being connected to God, so too are each one of us having a different experience of being called, a different experience of understanding and following God’s Will. This is not to say that the values change, only the ways we each live them is different because we are all different. Rabbi Heschel is calling us out on our sameness, I believe. He is reminding us to not fall into the trap of religious behaviorism and spiritual plagiarism that Hillsdale, Koch’s, Carlson’s, Thiel’s et al’s ways are demanding. Don’t fall into the trap of fear, hatred, mendacity and deception they are setting and lets get the people who have fallen into these traps free. This is an everyday act that has to have a spiritual form to it.

In recovery, we are focused on our ability to live according to spiritual principles and each day we ask for guidance to see, hear and act on what “God would have me do”. We know that we are susceptible to the lies of our minds, the deceptions of our desires, and the mendacity of another. We are aware of our propensity to lean into the “easier and softer way”. So each day, we begin with awareness, prayer, meditation and continue to check in with ourselves and another(s) throughout the day to stay on track.

I have a deeper, richer and more meaningful life because I have been able to follow the teaching above. Spiritual forms are the pathways of my living and, sometimes I fall off the path. Yet, T’Shuvah, amends, are part of the pathway of life according to God so engaging in them is also “lending spiritual form to everyday events”. I am aware of my inner Pharaoh, my inner Egyptian, my inner Israelite in Egypt and in the Desert, my inner Moses and work hard to stay in the Desert and be more redeeming than enslaving. A new freedom has been thrust upon me and I am engaging with it and finding new ways to make my actions into spiritual forms, to celebrate the beauty and awesomeness of life, good and bad. 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 289

“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)

Rabbi Heschel is expanding both our definition of celebration and his and practical experience with the concept of celebrations I believe with his words above. We are so caught up with the outward ceremonies, the public demonstrations of another and/or ourselves that our celebrations are often acts of consumption, acts of entertainment, acts of diversion, acts of distractions. We see this happening when the protests overshadow the injustice being protested, when people are gawking instead of marching, when we deride the people who are demonstrating for justice, for kindness, for truth we are engaging in public demonstrations for the sake of our selves, for the amusement of the crowd, gang, boss, etc. While we are giving lip service to the protestors, while we shake our heads in sadness at the homeless tragedy in our country, most of us are not moved enough to do something about it other than blame the politicians, the homeless themselves, and whomever else we can.

While it is easy to point to the public demonstrations of the charlatans, the deceivers, Rabbi Heschel is speaking to all of us. When we pray in community, are we experiencing an inner appreciation for God, for community, for our soul, for the changes we are making daily to live a little better today than I did yesterday? Are we going to Temple, to Church, to the Mosque to pray for our selfish desires? Are we showing up to be seen and to see another(s)? Do we go to the demonstrations against injustice to be moved or to be seen? Are they performance art to/for us or are they meaningful?

These are the questions that immersing myself in this first sentence are bringing up. Just as with every other era in history, performance art is what is popular, pomp and ceremony is what is seen with reverence and/or derision. Yet, is the popular moving us to appreciation? What value are we putting on the performance art of public demonstrations and outward ceremonies? Do these demonstrations and ceremonies move our inner life, do they change our spiritual nature? Are they moving us closer to being merciful, loving justice, walking in God’s ways? Are we answering the demand and the call to join and make a difference because of these ceremonies, are we touched enough by the demonstrations to support the principles on which they are based?

We see the earnestness of many of the people performing these ceremonies and organizing these demonstrations and, unfortunately, we then see how they are co-opted by the mendacity of another, by the deceptions of the few and by the self-deception of the people themselves. Liz Cheney is an example of what happens when one person takes a stand for truth, for the constitution in today’s climate. Much like many times before, the lone voice of truth gets overwhelmed by the cacophony of the mendacious ones, this voice goes from being on the inside to being cast out and on the outside. Liz Cheney is a hero because she did not sell her soul to get back in. She has spoken truth, she has stood for her principles and beliefs and her outward ceremonies and public demonstrations have engendered appreciation, awe, and spiritual growth to so many of us who only saw her as one-dimensional, just a right-wing conservative, just Dick Cheney’s daughter. We have come to appreciate her strength, her stance for democracy, her belief in the Constitution. When everything was on the line, Liz Cheney’s public persona and her inner life came together to show all of us what lending spiritual form to everyday acts can lead to.

In recovery, we get to show up at meetings with our whole self. We no longer put on different faces, different incarnations of self depending on the situation. What you see is what you get and we are consistently showing up authentically and transparently. While this makes many people uncomfortable because authenticity and transparency is not always pretty, it is not always ‘nice’, it is always seeking truth, jettisoning mendacity and leaving our deceptive selves behind. Is self-deception still present, yes, just tamped down greatly and our transparency and authenticity allow us to be more aware of it rearing up and more open to hear someone else point it out to us.

I have led outward ceremonies that had a degree of performance art to them in order to move people to appreciation and move their inner lives towards “walking humbly with God”. For the most part these ceremonies were successful in helping both the congregation, the people participating and me grow our spiritual life, repair and heal our inner wounds and grow in our appreciation of what life is, what it has in store for us and excited to see what is going to happen next. I did not speak about politics per se, I spoke of the spiritual and moral principles that we, people of faith, have to uphold, stand for and fight for. The questions I ask above are the questions I have been asking myself for 33+ years. Prior to that, much of what I did was for show and I am repulsed by those memories, I hold on to them so I don’t repeat them. gislation, to see how I can help the individual, because we often get lost in the ‘them’. I look for the soul of another because this is the public demonstration that moves me to appreciation and spiritual growth the most. 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 288

“Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

To “climb above” our baser instincts is to get out of ourselves and get over ourselves. We are living in a time of great inner turmoil which is being played out in our outer living. We are sensitive to any and every slight, any and every word, any and every action that, without the context, we believe is against us. While not being a victim, many people claim to be victimized by ‘the system,’ ‘those people,’ perceived hurts and slights, and even their own guilt and shame. We see shrinks for this, we turn to addictive behaviors and substances to relieve ourselves of this angst, and many of us stay stuck and/or return to the comfort of this inner turmoil. I believe this to be the true issue we are facing in our inner turmoil between entertainment and celebration.

We are entertained by standing up to ‘the man’ and we are distracted by people reminding us of how ‘those people’ are ruining our lives, how they are the ‘enemy’ and the cause of the current state of affairs we find ourselves in. We are entertained with ‘bread and circus’ of politics, of institutions, of religious ceremonies even. This happens because even religious ceremonies have become irrelevant and oppressive through their lack of spontaneity, their lack of depth, their lack of meaning and their lack of impact on our inner life. There is, however, a solution!

We have within us the capability to change, the motivation to look inside and transcend our old behaviors, our old beliefs and the lies we have been telling ourselves. We have the power to move forward and block out the deceptions and mendacities we are hearing all around us. We have the gift of spirit and community to no longer need the same things we did before, to no longer twist lies into truth, to no longer need to make good guys and bad guys, to no longer be victims of our own making nor of anyone else’s making. We have the power, the capability and the path out of these slaveries and break out into the light of freedom, the power of spirit, the joy of celebration.

This path begins with us, it begins with shifting from believing we can think our way out of any and every situation into believing in radical amazement. Going from our belief in conventional notions to a belief that everything is new and fresh. Using eternal wisdom in a fresh and new way to see today’s living and today’s challenges in the present, in the moment and not try to use old solutions to solve them. While old solutions may have great wisdom and use, we have to make them new and fresh because this moment has never happened before, we can’t use cookie cutter solutions to solve new and different challenges. We “climb above” our need for certainty by living in radical amazement, by being “maladjusted to” our old ideas, our old glasses. Only by seeing today fresh and new, only by seeing yesterday in today’s light can we move forward. Radical amazement means we can never be ‘pigeonholed’ and never stop learning. To understand and experience the Torah in each of the Torah’s 70 faces one has to be in radical amazement and the same is true for everyday living.

Transcending our usual and common ways of being allows us to pay attention to the long term effects of our actions, to see our actions in the light of our current situation and to make our amends, change and grow from each and every daily activity. While we probably will never achieve this level of mindfulness, we can work on this way of being every day. Each day, when we review our day, we can write down the ways and events when we were in radical amazement and what we learned from these experiences. We can see where we kept using old solutions to respond to today’s issues and how our old ways of being adapted to today’s challenges. We begin to live in the nuances of life, we let go of our old visions of our self, we let go of our need to make allies and enemies and we accept people for who they are, not who we want them to be. We are gifted with the freedom and the spiritual uplift to “love our neighbor” whether we like them or not.

In recovery, this is the path of joy, love, kindness we follow so we can leave our old ways in the past where they belong. We embrace new and different ways of facing and transcending old issues. “We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us” is one of the promises of recovery and it is promise that comes true more and more often than many of us realize. In recovery, we are constantly in a state of transcendence, not always achieving it and always striving for it. We have “climbed above” our old ways and we live freely and spiritual one day at a time to the best of our ability in the moment.

I still have some of the old ways of seeing life and they serve me when I keep them fresh and they don’t serve me when I am stuck in tunnel vision. I have “climbed above” many old ideas and ways, I have used radical amazement to use my strengths in new and different ways and I have an attitude and practice of gratitude each day. I am grateful for life, for learning and even for the hurts and injuries because they help me learn and grown. 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 287

“Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

As I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above, I am struck with the understanding that our confrontation with our actions is a gift from the Universe, from God to help us grow, learn, improve and deepen our connections to self, to another(s), to God/Universe. Whenever we take the time and put in the effort to confront our actions, to give attention to the “transcendent meaning” of what we are doing, we have reason to celebrate. Whenever we confront the demons we live with, the demons that entice us from outside of our selves, we have reason to celebrate. While confrontation is not the same as ‘winning’, Rabbi Heschel is affirming the power, the strength, the courage of our confronting these demons as reason for celebration. I watched with sadness Liz Cheney’s defeat in the Wyoming Primary. While we hold so many divergent views, I admire Ms. Cheney’s stance for democracy. Of course she voted with Trump most of the time he was in office, she is a Republican and he was promoting the conservative values she holds near and dear. Yet, when it came time to pay attention to the Constitution, to pay attention to the orderly transfer of power, Liz Cheney confronted Trump, his sycophants and the entire Republican power structure. Liz Cheney, in her concession speech, celebrated her confrontation, spoke of how she and we can “climb above” the lies and deceptions of Trump and his mendacious followers. Liz Cheney is a hero for taking the road less traveled by the Republican Party in the last 14 years, the road of celebration, the road of confrontation, the road of paying attention and giving serious consideration to the “transcendent meaning of one’s actions”.

Confronting oneself is also a cause of celebration. Yet, we are usually only seeing where we are falling short, or being told where and how we fall short. We see the world as a competition, as a battleground, etc and we are constantly measuring our insides by someone else’s outsides, we are constantly comparing our self to another self and this is how we come to isolate, to seek escapes, to engage in entertainment as “a diversion, a distraction” because it seems too painful to confront these demons that are attacking us from inside and out. It doesn’t seem to make sense that we can win any battle against them so we quit, we quietly go about our business, escaping whenever and wherever we can, through alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, work, mindless entertainment, our devices, etc. We are diagnosed with different “mental disorders” that are made up for the benefit of Big Pharma and the Psychiatric Community to validate their existence and charges, one sees the TV ads for better living through chemicals and there are very few visits to a Psychiatrist where medication is not prescribed! While in many cases these pills help lift a person out of the deep hole they are in, they are not magic bullets, they do not take the place of confronting our demons with the belief/hope that we can, like Jacob in Genesis, prevail against them. Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance above can strengthen our resolve to confront the demons, to realize and pay attention to our ability to climb above our current situation and make things better, brighter and stronger today, tomorrow and each day after.

We are able to climb above our current morass, our current situation, when we confront the lies, the indifference, the deceptions we have been telling ourselves and listening to in another(s). We are able to see the long-term effects of enjoying entertainment and jettisoning celebration. We need to choose to celebrate, we need to enjoy the long-term effects of our actions that promote goodness, kindness, truth, love, justice, dignity, compassion, and mercy. More tomorrow on this!

We begin our recovery journey precisely because we have been confronted with the long-term effects of our actions, either internally or externally. For some of us it took getting arrested by law enforcement to realize how arrested we have been by our indifference, our obliviousness, our choices to escape, our decision to engage in diversions and distractions. For some of us it took the call of family finally being heard to realize our imprisonment. For some of us it took a “dark night of the soul” to realize how our self-imprisonment has/had imprisoned so many of the people we said we loved. In recovery, we are confronting our demons of self-loathing, self-deception, and willful blindness each day.

Transcending my inner demons and inner crap is a daily, moment by moment experience for me. While I am much farther ahead in my celebrating as Rabbi Heschel defines it above, I know that I am not THERE yet. I am constantly engaged in “climbing above” my hurts, my sadness, my inner lies and inner demons to be able to have a positive impact on and with my family, friends, community, world. Truth is the greatest and most wonderful experience I celebrate. Unfortunately when confronted with lies and mendacity, indifference and betrayal, I still fail, at times, to “climb above” the traps these situations and people lay for me. I still react/respond with volcanic proportions and watch how these deceivers joyfully cheer my errors and use them against me and mine. I am a work in progress and celebrating the awareness while committing to use it better this week than I did last:) 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 286

“Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Confrontation comes from the Latin meaning “with face” and we have come to put a very negative connotation and denotation on this important word. Using this meaning in the last sentence above I hear Rabbi Heschel calling to us to face the truth that all of our actions have transcendent meanings. All of our actions have meanings that “climb above” what they may appear to be. In this way, celebration is not just about being happy, it is truly living in joy because we are able to “face” our self, we are able to “face” the truth of the ways our actions “climb above” the self deceptions we engage in to ‘make them okay’. We are able to pay attention to the larger context of the impact of our actions long term. When it is something positive, we are able to celebrate the long term effects of our actions, when it is not positive, we are able to be ‘honor’ the effect of our actions and change them through T’Shuvah, rather than continually denying our part in the negativity.

Herein lies the challenge, how do we confront the meaning of our actions that climb above the seemingly good intentions we think we are bringing? When we are in self-deception, when we live in a mendacious way of being because we truly are unaware, how can we realize the “transcendent meaning of one’s actions”? Rabbi Doctor Abraham Twerski, in his interpretation of Luzzatto’s Path of the Just, calls this being oblivious. Luzzatto in his preface reminds us of how “common for people to be oblivious to those ideas whose truth is unchallenged”. We cannot be in any meaningful, truthful celebration while in denial, obliviousness, deception, mendacity and we want to believe we are, we are desperate to make excuses for and defenses of our actions without looking at or for the long-term effects of our actions. By not delving deeply into how our actions impact the immediate moment, the immediate surroundings, the moments to follow and the universe in general, we are able to stay in denial, we are able to keep deceiving our self, we are able to confuse entertainment for celebration. This is the state of being we find ourselves in more and more in today’s world.

We entertain ourselves with out prejudices, with our lies, with the lies of another. We entertain ourselves with the obliviousness and denial of our actions and both their intent and impact. We are constantly being called to wake up by the universe and we have the uncanny ability to fool ourselves into believing we are woke, we are aware, we are concerned, we are respectful, we are celebrating, we are honoring God, flag, principles, etc. This is the danger of mendacity, this is the danger of indifference, this is the danger of self-deception, this is the danger of ‘needing to be right’, this is the danger of obliviousness. The only antidote to these dangers, to these terrible paths that lead to prejudice, hatred, enslavement, “eye disease” and a “cancer of the soul”, as Rabbi Heschel defines prejudice, is having a passion for truth, having a practice of T’Shuvah daily, having a practice of introspection, compassion for both self and another, confrontation with oneself, forgiveness for one’s self and another, etc. Engaging in these practices daily allows us the opportunity to see the “transcendent meaning of one’s actions” and celebrate our ability to confront our self, another human being, the universe with truth, with our whole being no matter when the actions occurred, today or years ago, the call of today’s learning is to continue to confront oneself, continue to make oneself aware of the far-reaching effects of one’s actions and to leave indifference, deception, etc for awareness, awakening and truth!

In recovery, we are so aware of our default of mendacity and self-deception that we constantly do “fearless and searching” inventories. We do this once a year in a long form and we do it each day, much like the Jewish practice of t’shuvah. This is how we “keep our side of the street clean” and continue to mine our past and present for the lessons and actions that will ensure a future with more love, compassion and less deception and indifference.

I realize the long-term effects of my actions in retrospect usually. I am sorry for the harm I have brought upon people from my actions, I am sorry for the self-centeredness I have practiced knowingly and unknowingly. I am sorry for the obliviousness I have been in that has impacted family, friends, co-workers negatively. I celebrate the ability to “climb above” the intentions I may have had and confront the reality of what is, what was. I am grateful for T’Shuvah with allows me to constantly see my actions, my being in new lights based on new awarenesses, leaving another state of obliviousness, and finding more truth inside of me. Today’s writing overwhelms me with joy at the realization of how much celebrating I have done, how much I have to celebrate for awareness, leaving obliviousness and self-deception and for the “transcendent meaning” of my actions that posit

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 285

“Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Being immersed in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings allows us to continually see new and nuanced understandings of both the wisdom itself and how to apply/live it each day. Staying in radical amazement, ie being maladjusted, gives us the opportunity to continually learn and grow. What are the preoccupations of daily living we are engaged in and what are the preoccupations of daily living we should be engaged in? These are the questions Rabbi Heschel is asking me today-this is how he is disturbing me today!

For many of us, making ends meet is the primary preoccupation of daily living. I understand this and am acutely aware of the pressure of this preoccupation and I am also aware, with the gift of age and perspective, how we make ends meet, what we do to make them meet and making sure the “ends” are more than financial are crucial to our long-term survival, physical health, emotional health and spiritual health. There are a lot of people for whom the Pandemic was a life saver! Many people left the jobs they hated, they felt stuck and trapped in, to go out and find a career that gives them work/life balance, a way of making a financial living that no longer sucks their spirit and impairs their spiritual and emotional health. Entertainment is now a welcome diversion as a breather rather than as a distraction for the mind “from the preoccupations of daily living”. Entertainment has it’s proper place in their lives whereas before it did not, it was out of proper measure which in turn threw everything else in their lives out of proper measure. Proper measure is different for each of us, so we have to find our unique proper measure of which preoccupations of daily living are for us to focus on each day, hour, week, month, etc. What we do need to understand, however, is that these preoccupations are the same for each and every one of us. They will differ in intensity, in ability, in focus, in timing, yet they are the same for all of us,I believe.

The first preoccupation, in my experience, is/needs to be with our spiritual life. Too many of us have neglected our inner life, our spiritual life out of a misguided belief that this is about religion and not science. As the Webb telescope has shown me/us, the universe(s) is so infinitely amazing and intricate and we/I am connected to every particle of matter, every atom in this vast expanse by a connection that is indescribable and unknowable and absolutely true. Yet, many of us are so preoccupied with other things, we ignore this primal need and component of what makes us human. As I tell many people who can not believe, God, spirit is the space between us and another human being that makes it possible to connect with one another. Another example of spiritual living is our connection with animals, while our dog, SweetPea, cannot speak-we communicate and live together in a non-verbal manner than transcends my rational mind. Our intuition is an example of inner life/spiritual life, yet so many of us pay little to no attention to it and/or do not grow it into maturity. Most of us do not see the need to mature, pay attention, grow our inner life, our spiritual life and wonder why we feel so disconnected and discontented with our daily living.

A rich spiritual/inner life begins with a connection to another human being, a connection to something greater than our self, a connection to nature, to our soul, to our ‘gut instinct’. This connection is one that doesn’t have to be ‘rational’ and it does have to have an ineffable quality to it, a quality that is too awesome to describe. In other words, we have to get out of the need for “evidence-based” practices that make us the same as everyone else and begin to explore the proper way for us to connect to our inner life, to the universe, to another(s) human being, to the animal kingdom, to nature. We do this through prayer, meditation, study, immersing ourselves in what is, acting in loving ways whether we feel like it or not, as Harriet Rossetto teaches and more. Love is not a rational experience, a biological connection is not the same as love, a co-dependent relationship is not the same as love. Love is, as M.Scott Peck defines it: “going beyond one’s own limitations and boundaries to nurture and enhance the spiritual growth of oneself and/or another.” This definition reminds us of the spiritual nature of love and our need for engaging in loving actions towards ourselves and towards another. I will write more on this tomorrow.

In recovery, our first few steps into a new/old way of being allows us/forces us to engage in spiritual practices. We seek to realize the myriad of ways we are powerless over so many things we thought we should have power over and learn to accept what truly is, become immersed and engaged in, as I said yesterday, “Life on life’s terms”. No longer needing to “be in control”, we are better able to navigate our actions and our inner thoughts, inner experiences and grow to be loving and kind to everyone.

Growing one’s spiritual life never ends, as I have taught, forgotten and am reminded of daily. I am constantly seeking to grow along spiritual lines and remembering, just as the Torah ends with the Israelites poised to go into the promised land, my life will end before I am totally spiritually fit. Each day, I grow my inner life/my spiritual life by one grain of sand and this preoccupation helps me deal with the rest of what life brings a whole lot 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 284

“Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” (Who is Man pg. 117)

Since time immemorial, we have sought to distract our selves, our souls, our minds from the preoccupations of daily living. In the time of the Greeks, it was the Olympic Games, in Roman times it was Chariot Races and Gladiators and Christians and Lions, we have sports, social media, games, etc to divert our attention away from the issues of our daily living. While it is not bad to engage in entertainment, it may be necessary to distract our minds for a minute so we don’t get so engrossed that we can’t see the forest for the trees, we are in danger today of only engaging in entertainment, only diverting our selves from what is true and good, true and dangerous. We are in danger of distracting our mind from the truth of daily living, from the path of decent, holy, fulfilling daily living. Herein lies the issue for us today. Are we willing to return to a confrontation of self, a confrontation of another, are we seeking to give attention to the “transcendent meaning” of our actions or are we too far down the rabbit hole of entertainment, distraction, diversion?

Our political system has become one distraction after another, one diversion after another until we are now seeing the fruits of the far right and the far left coming to bear fruit. The “political correctness and optics” of the far left make it impossible for a good person to make a mistake and move on-Al Franken had to resign his Senate seat because he did what men did back in the day, he apologized, he admitted his errors and he was ostracized and forced to resign by the “political correctness police”. There is no perfect person, we all make errors and if we are going to be defined by the errors we make rather than the good we do, when the good outweighs the errors, we are setting standards that are impossible to attain, giving our young people more reasons to engage in risky behaviors and push people farther and farther apart.

The false piety and rigidity of the far right has diverted our attention away from their desire to control women’s bodies, minds and souls, their desire to dictate who is allowed into their country so it stays pure for the White European ruling class, all the while quoting Scriptures in a way that bastardizes the meaning, the intent, the holiness of these words, ideas and pathways. Trump and his cronies stole millions from us, the taxpayers, while we were getting enraged by one thing or another that he was saying/doing. Moscow Mitch and Peter the Great Thiel are diverting attention away from the preoccupations of daily living like wages, freedoms, healthcare, climate, by focusing on the lies they are spreading about the needs of the ‘poor’ corporations, the desperate needs of the 1%, the goodness of Putin, Orban, MBS, and other dictators/authoritarians.

We are in a struggle for the soul of this country, for the soul of our fellow citizens, for our own soul. Because their entertainment techniques are so sophisticated, because their distractions are so blinding, we are all in danger of losing our ability to hear the demand, the call of God, of the universe, of our souls. We have to re-engage in daily living, re-engage in the activities that give meaning and purpose to our living, we have to discover/re-discover our passion for truth, our passion for learning, our passion for love, etc.

In recovery, we are acutely aware of our propensity to distract ourselves, to divert our attention from what is in front of us, to some sort of escape, to a denial of what is, etc. In fact, this is one of the many things we are recovering from. “Life on Life’s Terms” is a constant theme of our recovery, being engaged in what is, dealing with what should be, seeking truth and reality, facing life with the help of friends, people in recovery, and God/Higher Power is our solution to avoiding being distracted from our preoccupation with daily living. We have fun, we entertain ourselves in proper measure and in appropriate ways today in our recovery.

I distract myself to this day because I am fearful of being too intense with my self and with another. I know my desire to help/fix something is so great that I can be overbearing, seem arrogant, act in ways that are not politically correct, and this has harmed another(s) and harmed me. I still am diverting myself with games on my devices, I still watch mindless television to ‘zone out’, and I find myself doing it less, on most days. I am aware of not wanting to confront certain people, not wanting to speak truth to some people, not wanting to engage in a battle with the people who follow the extremes because when I see their phoniness, I want to scream and yell and say “the emperor has no clothes”. Yet, today, I am painfully aware of the phoniness I have been selling myself. I am painfully aware of my seeking entertainment to distract me away from the demand that daily living is putting on me. I believe in confrontation, I believe in truth, I believe in making errors, doing T’Shuvah, and forgiveness. The fact that people who have known me want to continue to put in a box, treat me with disdain while smiling at me is just sad, the reality that I made a mistake, have done T’Shuvah and they are unable to forgive is tragic. Especially because they are proponents of either the far left and/or the far right! 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 283

“The man of our time is losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating, he seeks to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state-it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or spectacle.” (Who is Man pg.117)

The last sentence above is the world we find ourselves in today. People go to concerts to be entertained, as well we should. We are aware of what the exchange is: we pay money for a ticket and the band, orchestra, comedian, actors perform. We are being entertained by someone else, we are receiving pleasure from the actions of another and we all agree this is cool. The issue today is that too many people are being entertained by their wealth, their power and their ability to make change through subterfuge. The issue today is that too many people are being amused and entertained by elected officials who could care less about the welfare of the people who are paying with donations, with volunteering, with their entire being to elect/re-elect them.

We are seeing this spectacle play out throughout the country, throughout the world. Putin, Orban, Trump, Thiel, McConnell, Koch, et all believe they can act with impunity, without any responsibility, without any repercussions to their actions. Remember Donald Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a singe vote. He was correct!! We are watching a new form of the ‘Christian’s and the Lions at the Coliseum’ from the Roman days. Today it is watch the Far Right and the Far Left attack everyone else and get paid to do it, we the People are the Christians in today’s assault on truth, in today’s power grab, in today’s mendacity.

We, the People, however, are the problem! We are sitting “idly by the blood of our brothers/sisters” by being amused by these rallies, these rants on Fox News, Breitbart, etc. We, the people are  participating in these amusing spectacles by cheering the liars on, by supporting them with donations and votes and we are unaware of the harm they are bringing, the ruining of our lives the lives of everyone “not like us”. We are so enamored with the spectacle, so believing in our own grievances, and so needing to “win at all costs” we are blind to our actions, to our participation in this passive state of being entertained. The people running this entertainment show are really good con-artists. They have us believing that we are celebrating truth, justice and the American Way while we are participating in the elevation of a plutocracy, the installation of authoritarianism, the election of people who will rape and plunder everyone, everything they can to consolidate power, to do what they want to enrich themselves, etc.

We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the entertaining aura of our times, we can no longer give in to the call to participate in the amusement of another, we can no longer turn a blind eye to all these and we can no longer call these demonstrations celebrations! Calling them celebrations is what keeps us in ‘the ether’, in willful blindness, in self-deception. It is time for all of us to wake up, to “circumcise the foreskin of our hearts”, to stop taking things and life for granted, to believe these assaults on celebration, assaults on freedom, assaults on humanity and assaults on the teachings of the Bible are no big deal. These assaults are killing us because we see them as entertainment, as amusing rather than the dangerous enslaving actions their perpetrators are using them for. Let us not be like the world was in the late 1930’s wondering how Hitler and the Nazi Party took over, let us not repeat the errors of the German people who laughed at Hitler and then were sent to the camps by his decree. Let us not be the like we were in 1968, so torn apart by Vietnam, so fearful of Freedom for All, that a liar like Richard Nixon and a “bagman” like Spiro Agnew were running the country!

In recovery, we guard the dignity of another and of ourselves zealously because we had trampled on it so often prior to our recovery. We are overly sensitive to never substitute entertainment for celebration. We are committed to not amuse ourselves at the expense of another, we are dedicated to helping everyone and anyone who desires recovery from all of the spiritual maladies that cause depression, anxiety, addiction, a general malaise. We celebrate the wonder and joy of life and we speak sincerely and truthfully to everyone we know.

I have been amusing to many people over my lifetime. I have made myself into a caricature at times and I regret this. I regret the times, prior to recovery, when I used people as entertainment by ‘celebrating’ with them while I was stealing from them at the same time. I regret the times I foolishly believed what I was doing was connecting and in reality the people were using me for their entertainment. I regret allowing myself to get ‘wound up’ without having all the facts and being the entertainment for these people as well as the harm to another that I brought.  I regret the ‘bullets’ I put in another(s) gun which enabled them to entertain themselves while I was semi-publicly flogged. I am grateful for my ability to celebrate the joy of life, the love of God,  the joy of Heather and Miles, the joy of friends, the joy of sharing life with a soulmate who gets me, loves me, and helps me grow. This is the celebration I believe Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. 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 282

“The man of our time is losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating, he seeks to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state-it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or spectacle.” (Who is Man pg.117)

Rabbi Heschel is so brilliant in his differentiation between celebration and entertainment/amusement. We have so totally confused the two that there seems to be no separation, no distinction between them. Which, of course in my opinion, is one of the roots of our problems. We need to have a dramatic shift forward in our actions, our thinking, in our living and it begins with basic principles and actually living them, not just giving lip service to them. It is truly time to declare a Moral Emergency again, as Rabbi Heschel suggested to President Kennedy in 1963, it is time to rise to the Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity we are created for and to be.

We begin with a basic principle that God is Truth, therefore we have to strive to seek truth, we have to have a Passion for Truth as Rabbi Heschel’s last book is titled. To seek truth means to take off the blinders, let go of the outcomes we want, see the things that could change our preconceived notions, and be maladjusted to the cliches we have long accepted. Since God is Truth and God is the entire picture, anything less than a rich and full vision of what is cannot be the whole story! When we are making decisions without being fully informed, by definition the decision has a better chance of being flawed than when we are fully informed and make a decision. Beginning with a desire to seek out the whole story, to make informed decisions, to revere Truth can lead us back to celebration.

The next principle is the recognition that we are all created in the Image of the Divine! Not some of us, not just white people, not just rich people, all human beings; male and female both! Knowing and accepting this Truth allows us to recognize the similarities in one another, it allows us to see partnerships and collaborations where we saw competitions and wars before. This principle helps us have appreciation for differing opinions and give us the strength to resolve differences through compromise, not quitting, not blocking, not filibustering, not overpowering. Rather we engage in a give and take of ideas, methods and respect. Combining these two principles allows us to have a different experience of living, of self and of every other self we encounter. These first two principles give us a foundation to ward off the onslaught of the mendacious ones, the people who relish in their Moral Ignominy!

The next principle is gratitude. Waking up each morning being grateful to be alive, grateful for what life has in store for us today, grateful to engage in and enjoy the entire day: good, not so good and everything in between. Another gratitude is for having the ability to navigate whatever comes our way, having the confidence that we(either solely or with the help of another(s)) will figure it out and deal with the consequences of our actions and/or the actions of another.

Another principle is learning: each day waking up with the excitement that we will learn something new today, see something we thought we knew from a new perspective, keep our eyes open, our minds alert and our souls engaged in our daily experiences so we can never see life the same from one day to the next, from one hour to the next. Learning is a discipline, as Rabbi Heschel says in his interview in 1972, and it will be good for us, for our family, for our community to become more intentional and disciplined in our learning.

Having reverence for truth, appreciating the God-Image in each one of us, experiencing learning and gratitude are crucial to our being able to celebrate, otherwise we are ‘celebrating’ falsehoods, mendacities, idols, authoritarians, liars. The choices are pretty clear, they were clear in the 1930’s and the America First’ers wanted to support Germany and Hitler-“when we ever learn, when will we ever learn”?

In recovery we know that reverence and appreciation are keys to our long-term living well. We are acutely aware that the opinions of another have to be heard, honored and, at times, argued with. We are dedicated to learning each day, peeling a layer of the onion off, and are grateful for this day, this moment.

Celebration brings about core contentment in me. It gives me the strength to move forward, living the principles above have navigated me through a myriad of challenges and gifts in my recovery. I am imperfect in living these principles and I do a little better each day. I relish in my reverence for learning, in my reverence of my teachers, my mentors, my entire family-cousins, uncles, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandson, daughter. I am so appreciative of the learning, doing, engaging and living that Harriet has helped me achieve and we have achieved together. As the song says: “they can’t take that away from me”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark