Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 72
“Indeed the most horrible manifestation of evil is when it acts in the guise of good. “Such monstrous evil deeds could religion urge man to commit” (Lucretius)”. (God in Search of Man pg.370)
These words have to be brought inside of each one of us as well as pointing our fingers, speaking our experiences of religion and leadership. We also have to take our own inventory and see how, when and where we disguise evil in the good/as good. How, when and where our false faith, our negative inclination move us to commit the “monstrous evil deeds” that Lucretius is speaking of. We have to stop wrapping ourselves in white robes while acting with black heartedness. It is crucial for us to do this so we can “be the change we want to see in the world” as Ghandi taught.
Too many of us excuse away the evil we commit “in the guise of the good” through ignoring it, denying it, explaining it, rationalizing it, etc. We find our self unable to admit our actions because we do not want to change. We are committed to the subterfuge and the deceptions, we are so deep in our own self-deceptions that we deny, deny, deny to our dying breath unless there is an intervention! It is time for us to engage in these interventions for our self, for another, for our fellow human being. It is crucial for our continued spiritual, moral, and physical growth and that of our descendants for this intervention to take place soon, maybe even today.
This intervention begins with a deep study and discussion of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and an identification with the pain, sorrow, concern his brilliance and wisdom has for all of us. It can be any text that helps us see beneath the surface of our deceptions, it can be any therapy that helps us see beneath the lies we are telling our self and another(s). It can be any catalyst, any friend, family member that is so invested in truth, in our well-being that they risk our denial and anger to break through the shell of barnacles we have created so we can keep lying to our self and another about the exact nature of our ‘rights’. This intervention is to help us out of our denial, out of our obliviousness to what truly is happening, to what we are actually doing, to the harm we are bringing to the world.
It begins with each of us letting down our guard, letting go of our need to be right, seeing the when and where we engage in our oblivious evil behaviors that we are disguising as good. It is necessary to see whom we harm and how they are harmed by our actions and what we need to do to repair the damage. We have to look in the mirror and allow our souls to tell us the truth about our self, the good, the not so good and the evil we disguise as good so we can ‘get ahead’, ‘be in charge’, etc. We are engaging in a life-long journey of rooting our evil within us so we can root out evil in our daily life so we can begin to root out the evil disguised as good in the world.
Today is the first day of Hanukkah, the first day of rededication to God, to self, to another(s). While we can light the candles, sing the songs, say the prayers, have the public displays, we are not engaging in the rededication that the Maccabees fought for, the rededication to truth, to rooting out evil within each of us, within our tribes, that wraps itself in “the guise of the good” and is done in the name of God. We are facing another opportunity to wake up, to leave the oblivion we live in because it is warm and cozy. Each night we light a candle, each night we watch the Menorah until the candles are done burning, each night we think about the miracle of the Jews winning against the Greeks, we have to see how we have become the Greeks, how we have run away from rededicating our self to truth and good, how we have been seduced by evil and seduced another(s) to run after evil. Only then can we truly turn around, only then can we change our ways, only then can we leave oblivion and do what is good and right in ‘the eyes’ of God, decency, etc.
This is how each of us came to recovery, through the intervention of another(s), through the intervention of a higher power/higher consciousness. We stay and grow in recovery based on our spiritual condition and our acceptance of what is true, good and right. We stay and grow in our recovery when we deepen our understanding and the nuances of living a principled, examined life. We are acutely aware that we cannot cheat in business because everyone else does and say we are living the principles of recovery, we are acutely aware that when we do, we are sinking back into the oblivion we were in prior to our recovery.
I have had many interventions in my life, some I have denied and run away from and, since December 17, 1988, others I have embraced and, when I want to deny any intervention, I don’t reject them out of hand. I am aware of how even in my recovery, I have disguised evil as good and done this unwittingly. I am also aware of how I believed in people who were doing evil in the guise of good and my inability to tell the difference harmed me, harmed them, and harmed another(s). I am committed to constantly unearthed these hidden evils in me so I can live better, do more actual good and stay truly connected to people, to loved ones, to God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark