Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 106
“Religion, therefore, with its demands and vision is not a luxury but a matter of life and death. True, its message is often diluted and distorted by pedantry, externalization, ceremonialism, and superstition. But, this precisely is our task: to recall the urgencies, the perpetual emergencies of human existence, the rare cravings of the spirit, the eternal voice of God, to which the demands of religion are an answer.” (God in Search of Man pg. 372)
Answering “the eternal voice of God”, which is one of the two most important “cravings of the spirit”, is a hidden craving as well. Most of us are not able to put words to this craving and Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above not only puts words to this internal craving, he gives us a path to responding: “the demands of religion”. I am continuing from my blog from yesterday to use the “Holiness” code to show both the “eternal voice of God” and how we can answer by following “the demands of religion”/spirituality.
5) “Do not steal, deal falsely, not lie to one another”. While we are told in the 10 Sayings not to steal, it is repeated here again along with dealing falsely and lying. When we stop looking “for an angle/edge”, when we end our belief of caveat emptor, when we end out incessant need to be false, lie to another, we are able to stop stealing. Dealing falsely and lying to one another are the same as stealing; we are stealing the dignity, the trust, and seeing another as less than we in value and worth. Living in truth is the demand of religion/spirituality and the call of “the eternal voice of God”.
6) “You shall not defraud your neighbor, nor rob him, the wages of your workers shall not remain with you overnight”. Here again, we are being called to be honest in all of our affairs, we are being demanded to be a neighbor, not an adversary. This is another form of stealing that we are being told not to do-cheating our neighbor, being deceptive with the people around us, anyone we come into contact with. When we are stingy, when we refuse to given another person something that they need in order to survive (without putting ourselves in the same position) we are robbing them. When move the boundaries of our land markers, we are robbing our neighbor. When we refuse to help those who are helping people, we are robbing people.
The last phrase, regarding people who work for/with us is (or is supposed to be) the foundation of all labor laws. It is part of this demand, I believe, because to hold the wages of people who work for us is to cheat them, rob from them, treat them as our adversaries rather than as part of our team. Do we really need to hold their wages so we can get another day of interest, see the numbers of our bank accounts go up? Do we really need to hold their money so we can ‘show them who’s boss’? Do we really need to not pay our credit cards and bills when due? When we do this, we are running away from the demands religion (and spirituality) are the answer!
It is incumbent upon us to reach across the land boundaries to engage with our neighbor, to meet and greet them with smiles and recognize their worth, remember we live in the same neighborhood and we need one another to make our homes, our neighborhoods, more welcoming, more friendly. God dwells not only in our Houses of Worship, God dwells in our homes and neighborhoods. Being a good neighbor, a helpful neighbor is responding to “the eternal voice of God”. When we pay people a living wage, when we make sure our pay periods work for the people we hire, when we treat them as teammates, making sure we honor their work/service, their skills, we are responding to God’s voice, we are living a little more holy with each action.
In recovery, we are constantly seeking to improve our character traits and bring them back into proper measure. We stop being stingy and we don’t become spendthrifts. We let go of resentments and we don’t become doormats. We don’t steal nor deal falsely with anyone and we learn how to discern when someone is attempting to cheat us. We let go of our self-centeredness and experience the freedom that comes from being of service. We continue to clear out the schmutz that blocks our hearing “the eternal voice of God”. We are work hard to respect the dignity, the value, the worth of every individual and we no longer take people for granted, we no longer believe that anyone, even those who work for us, ‘owe us’ and we no longer treat our neighbors nor our workers with disdain. In recovery, we are recovering our holiness, we are recovering our hearing, we are heeding the demands that spirituality/religion are putting on us and experiencing these demands as gifts rather than burdens.
Stealing, defrauding, dealing falsely, not paying bills on time, lying were all part of my actions prior to my recovery, my T’Shuvah, my return to religion/spiritual principles. While I have not been perfect, I have made it a point to give more than I receive, not knowingly steal, defraud, hold someone’s payment, lie to another nor to myself. People may believe I have done these actions, I just did not do them willingly and/or with malice as I did prior to my return. In this writing, I realize my need to believe brought me pain and loss when the people I trusted lied to me, abandoned our friendship/agreement, defrauded me and robbed me of my dignity. The hurt is still here, and it does not prevent me from trusting, it doesn’t make me wary, it makes me aware and is my hearing aid so I know when truth is being spoken and when it isn’t. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.