Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 22

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that God is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Rabbi Heschel is calling us to stop living in an “either/or” world, a way in which we see everything as separate and not connected, as I am understanding him this day. In fact, I am experiencing Rabbi Heschel more than understanding him, it is through my experiencing of Rabbi Heschel that I gain a better understanding of myself! Living a life of “nature without spirit” is what leads to Hamas’ terrorism and people condoning it, supporting it, releasing in it!

In order “to take the souls of men out of the pit”, we must no longer separate our human nature from our spirit. No longer can we use the excuse of ‘human nature’ for our bad behaviors because it is a choice for us to separate our spirit, our “breath of God” that is in us, from our nature, from the ways we act, from our thinking. This separation, that Rabbi Heschel spoke of in 1938 in Germany to a group of Quakers, is what has always led to the cruelties that we have done to one another. Our unwillingness to have our spirits lead our nature, overrule our nature when it gets cruel and inhumane, is the cause of wars, is the cause of terror.

While it is easy to see this truth when looking at the world, especially in Israel, Ukraine, Washington DC, across this country and throughout the world, it is also a call to all of us to look at ourselves, to see how we allow our ‘nature’ to override what our souls are telling us. We need to engage in the difficult task of freeing ourselves from the lies we have been telling ourselves, the blinders we have been wearing and the either/or path of separation we have been living. “There can be no nature without spirit” demands that we engage in our “Nishmat Hayim”, breath of life that God breathes into us in Chapter 2 of Genesis, that we honor and use the “Tzelem”, Image, we are created in according to Chapter 1 of Genesis. We are being called by Rabbi Heschel, and I would say as a prophet he is divinely inspired, to let go of our need to use our rational minds to rule over our intuitive ones, to heed Einstein’s quote: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds”, and end our war against the great spirits, end our inner war against our own spirits.

Doing this, engaging in this work means a truthful look in the mirror, a deep introspection of inner life, a commitment to grow and not accept the status quo. It means we have to release our inner prejudices against our self, against another, about a group, etc. We will have to “circumcise the foreskin of our heart”, we will have to truly live into the teachings of Moses that we are given a choice, life or death, blessing or curse. While I am, as a rule, against either/or, the truth of Moses’ words are the exception that proves the rule. When we choose to merge our nature and our spirit, when we choose to have our rational mind serve our intuitive mind, when we choose to take off whatever is blinding us from truth, we will be able to always know and live “the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun”.

In recovery, we engage in this difficult work each and every day. We are aware that our recovery, our spiritual life and lifestyle depends on “choose life”, we have to merge our spirit and our nature, we engage and enjoy our new way of having our spirit inform our nature, guide us to the next right action. In recovery we are recovering our authentic self, our inner core, our “Tzelem” and using the “Nishmat Hayim” in the ways God intended. We are not perfect, we live into the contradictions and the both/ands, we, as a rule, let go of “one-way” thinking and welcome the opinions and experiences of another.

I have wanted my nature and my spirit to be together since I was young. My father helped me get there at times, he showed me the pathway to achieving this. Yet, I forgot, I gave into societal norms, conventional notions, and I bastardized both my spirit and my nature to harm people I did not know and, of course, those nearest to me. In my life of T’Shuvah, I have brought them together most of the time, I filter my nature through my spirit more and more each day, I am a rabble-rouser, I do not cotton falseness, I do not pretend, I do not hide and I feel abject sorrow for the people who still separate, who still ‘love’ the people they stab in the back, who still believe Hamas and other subtler forms of terrorism are understandable and okay/necessary. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark