Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 53
“What is sin? The abuse of freedom. A failure in depth, failure to respond to God’s challenge. The root of sin is callousness, hardness of heart, lack of understanding what is at stake in being alive.” (Essential Writings pg 85)
Immersing ourselves in these words of wisdom from Rabbi Heschel, looking at our world today, hopefully causes us great concern and a deeper look inside of our selves, a better connection with our souls’ calling. Rabbi Heschel’s definition is, for me, very timely as we face an election cycle, a war in the Middle East against terrorism that is funded and supported by Iran, a war in the Ukraine against abject aggression by Putin and his oligarchs, a call for the end of voting rights, civil rights, any and all rights of ‘the other’ by elected officials and those wanting to be elected/re-elected.
Rather than “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all it’s inhabitants thereof”(Leviticus 25:10), we seem to be promoting the “abuse of freedom” throughout the land, the world. When terrorists are proclaimed as ‘freedom fighters’, when Hamas is allowed to dictate the conditions upon which the hostages they took on October 7 will be freed, when the worlds kowtows to the whims and desires of the leaders of Hamas in their rich enclaves in Qatar, when the world fails to recognize the torture and disdain the terrorists have for the people they are ruling as ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas do, and we call them ‘freedom fighters, we are abusing freedom, we are abusing the very foundational tenets of freedom. When we are silent witnesses to the abuses of power of Putin, the senseless killing of children, the outrageous capture of women and children by the Russian forces in Ukraine, we are abusing our freedom also. When we go along with the hatred being spewed by either party of our democracy, when we point our fingers at another human being and/or group as the source of ‘the problem’ we are abusing freedom.
The “sin” we commit with our silence is overwhelming. The “sin” we commit with our support for “abuse of freedom” is devastating. The “sin” we commit with our hatred of Jews, Muslims, people of color, LGBTQ+, is painful. All “sin” comes from the “abuse of freedom” that we commit in our inner life, I believe. We have become so bereft in our inner life that we confuse the search for ‘inner peace’ with freedom, we are witnessing people who have come to believe in their own search for ‘inner peace’, their way, at all costs to another human being as right and good. These abuses of freedom, these sins will not stop until we acknowledge our “soul sickness” as the Big Book of AA calls alcoholism. This “, “soul sickness”, however, is not limited to alcoholics, it is rampant in every part of our society, it is infecting every human being in the world. It is the “sin” we have to deal with now or we will continue our “abuse of freedom” and our “sin” and pass it on to our children and to the “fourth and fifth” generations. We have failed to grow the spiritual resilience of our ancestors, the pioneers who braved much danger, elements, life itself, to give us the gift of freedom, the ability to be free and, instead, allowed this resilience to atrophy, repeated the same actions of the people our ancestors ran away from who were abusing them, who restricted them because of color, race, religion, creed, etc. How sad!
We do have a choice, even now, even after the generations of “sin” passed down to us, even after our own “abuse of freedom”. As long as there is breath within us, we can choose to see our errors, we can “take the cure” for our “soul sickness”, we can repent and return to our basic goodness of being. Just as the people of Nineveh did in the Book of Jonah in the Bible, we too can change the course of our future by learning from our history, by clearing away the prejudices of our minds so we can hear our souls. We can cure the eye disease which causes our judgmental attitudes towards another human being, another group based on their religion, their nationality, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, etc. We can and desperately need to end our “abuse of freedom” towards another, and, as importantly, end our “abuse of freedom” toward ourselves. We have to end our ‘need to be free’ at all costs, we need to end our belief that we can do whatever we want whenever we want. We are not free when we “do as we choose”, when we “do our own thing”, when we “go along to get along” when we adjust to “conventional norms and ideas”. We are not free when we do things just so we will be liked, because we are conflict avoidant. We are in desperate need of reclaiming the spiritual principles upon which freedom is based.
This is why we are so in need of joining the Recovery Revolution. Rabbi Heschel’s words, wisdom, teachings, brilliance are in sync with the principles of the recovery movement because both promote Spiritual Principles to live by. These are not platitudes, these are no esoteric ideas, these are real life solutions to the “sins” we commit daily, to the “abuse of freedom” we perpetrate upon our selves and another(s) each day. Living into the spiritual principles that are found in the Bible, in the Big Book, in the New Testament, in the Koran give us a freedom we have not known before. They give us the opportunity to fulfill the hopes and dreams of our ancestors who escaped terrorism, enslavement, authoritarianism, to come to America, to go to Israel, to change the ways of government throughout the world so people can live free.
I have abused my freedom at times, I am deeply remorseful for these abuses. I also know I confused my desires with the God’s call. I have, in my recovery, lived into the spiritual principles God gives all of us a little better each day and I live freer and spread more freedom. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark