Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 75
“The dreadful confusion, the fact that there is nothing in this world that is not a mixture of good and evil, of holy and unholy, of silver and dross, is, according to Jewish mysticism, the central problem of history and the ultimate issue of redemption.”(God in Search of Man pg. 371)
Rabbi Heschel’s use of the word “dreadful” conjures up many thoughts and meanings for each of us. Extreme fear, unhappiness, suffering are in the first definition of this word. In the third definition, however, the dictionary defines “dreadful” as “used to emphasize the degree to which something is the case, especially something regarded with sadness or disapproval”(the underlining comes from the dictionary). I want to use this definition today as Rabbi Heschel is speaking to us so we get the degree to which the confusion of good and evil, the hiding of evil in the good is true and how aware we have to be to this confusion in our own self as well as in another(s). This is not to point fingers as people do, rather it is to look inside of our self, to take our own inventory each time we pray, with each action we take, at least by the end of the day and see how we confused good with evil and evil with good, how we participated in confusing another(s) regarding what is “holy and unholy”, how we have passed off dross as silver and thrown away silver in lieu of choosing dross.
How sad and how fearful is Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom? Yet we continue to avoid it, disregard it and continue the confusion that began with Adam and Eve, with gaining too much too quickly and being unprepared to understand and respond to the challenges that eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil brings. We are in such a hurry to get ‘somewhere’, we are so intent on serving our inauthentic needs, our heart’s desires, we run to confuse our self more and to confuse another(s) more as well. In the last prayer of the Shema, we remind our self to: not scout out/run after our hearts and eyes because we will become a whore for them. We know “that there is noting in this world that is not a mixture…” and yet we continue to believe, to deceive our self that we know the difference and we are the ‘messengers of God and we are the anointed of God, we absolutely know what is right and good’. Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is to give us humility and humanity, yet it seems like a lot of people ignore Rabbi Heschel’s call to action and mirror of truth that he holds up to our faces and our souls.
We are witnessing, as we have witnessed throughout history, this confusion and the way people use deception and mendacity to their benefit, to make sense of their actions and to convince people of the ‘holiness’ of their ways. We see this in the Ukrainian War that was forced upon the people of Ukraine by Putin because of his ego, his convincing the Russian people of his lies and confusing them that this is a ‘holy war’ for Mother Russia when it is only for the benefit of him and his cronies, for the benefit of power and prestige. We are witnessing the mixture Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of in our own country where Jim Jordan, who was in on the planning of Jan.6, 2021 in some fashion, who was a bully and liar in the Benghazi hearings, is going to be head of the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives, is going to investigate his ‘enemies’ and hopes to get at least half of the people of the United States to go along with him! This is not about politics for me, for us, it is about truth, it is about leaving our individual self-deception to truly see how the deceptions others are perpetrating on us can only stop when we recognize this dreadful confusion that has caused wars, power struggles rather than using power for the greater good. We see that Congresspeople refused Subpoenas from one of the committees of the House, we watch in horror as 30+ people “took the 5th” as to their ages, names, etc in the Jan.6th hearings. Yet, these same people wrap themselves in “God, Country, Flag” to garner support for their mendacity. While they are not confused about the evil of their actions, they do work overtime to confuse ‘their people’ to believe that up is down, right is left, they care for the spirit of America, and other such hogwash! This is how dreadful, how much we have to emphasize this issue to our self and to another(s).
In recovery, we have PhD’s in sowing this confusion, knowingly and unknowingly. When we knew we were doing it, we were acting in a way that was evil incarnate. When it was unknowingly, we were blind to what was true, what was good, and we suffered from a disease/dis-ease that is “cunning and baffling”. We work hard every day to achieve “spiritual progress” and we do not deceive our self, nor anyone else, that we are prefect nor that perfection is even possible.
Immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above disturbs me greatly. I am not arguing with it, I know that I have purposely engaged in the confusion above. Prior to recovery, I helped to mix them up knowingly and for self-satisfaction and gain. This wisdom is causing a forward looking view and plan to ensure that I am not unwittingly adding to the confusion and the mixture that contributes to the ills of the world. I am searching backwards and seeing when I used confusion to help someone recover and when I used it for my own personal gain. While there is, of course, some of the later, I know the former, the helping of another by speaking in a way they could hear, was overwhelmingly the case. I also know that I bought into the deception/purposeful confusion of another to the detriment of self and everyone around me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark