Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 132
“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)
The second phrase of the second sentence is/should be humbling for us all! Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of the essence of religion and spirituality in this phrase, as I am understanding him today. While many people balk at the restraints and denials that religious life and spirituality put upon us, both are demanding and teaching us that true connection to higher consciousness, higher power, God, the Ineffable One, only comes from these self-restraining and self-denying actions. Religious and Spiritual living means, for our purposes, living in ways that are compatible with decency, truth, kindness, compassion, mercy, justice, etc. The problem for most people is that we no longer see the rewards from this path, we only see what we are losing by living with self-restraints and self-denials.
This inner war, this constant battle between our ‘good angels’ and ‘bad angels’ has been a part of humanity since the beginning, remember Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden where not only did they not practice self-restraint, they loved eating the fruit, they loved the knowledge they acquired and they used it to hide from their ‘boss’, God. There are so many examples of this war/battle throughout history they are too numerous to name. We are witnesses to our own inner war, our battle between our rationalizing bad behaviors and knowing, speaking truth. We are engaging in our desire to hide our crimes and misdemeanors, to turn them into virtues through our self-deception and our mendacity.
We are willing participants in denying and hiding from living spiritually and religiously. It has become usual and, in many cases, goes unnoticed for a person to lie, cheat, steal; for a company to engage in dishonest business practices; for a politician to proclaim ‘stolen election’ when they lose; for individuals to shame another(s), promote lies, puff themselves up on social media with joy and no repercussions. We are so against self-restraint and self-denial that we are willing to enslave another for our needs, we are willing to villify another for our aggrandizement, we are willing to keep people out of our group because they are not ‘woke’ enough, they are not discriminated against enough, they are of a different ethnicity, a different culture, an immigrant, an Arab, a Jew, a Hispanic, a Black, an Asian, a White person. People in power are not willing to practice self-restraint in ‘need’ to hold onto power, in their kissing up to the wealthy and the powerful, in their insatiable appetite to rule forever and become authoritarians. We are watching this in Russia with Putin unable to see he has lost his war in Ukraine, we are watching this in America with DeSantis, Trump, Pence, McCarthy, Greene, etc working with White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, to attempt to deny free and fair elections in a democracy. We are witnesses to the far-right in Israel unable, unwilling to practice self-restraint, self-denial in their dealings with the West Bank, Gaza, Israeli Arabs, Israelis who are on the other side of the political spectrum, religious spectrum than they. We are witnesses to the Monarchies in the Arab world who are so desperate to hold onto power, they gleefully hold oil hostage, imprison and kill dissidents, yet frolic at all of the world’s playgrounds and are welcome because of the money they spend. Self-restraint and self-denial have become like ‘four-letter’ words in our culture, as they have been throughout the millennia.
Recovery is based on these two actions. We deny ourselves our ‘drug of choice’ be it power, gambling, excessive eating, alcohol, drugs, abusive behaviors, etc. We restrain ourselves from saying what we are thinking until we can evaluate our thoughts and decide if they are in line with our newfound religious and spiritual path of life. We join a community of people who are wrestling with how to be a better person, how to feed our better angels instead of feeding our self-serving angels as we had in the past. It is a constant and daily struggle, yet each day we are one grain of sand better by engaging in our own inner war.
I am testifying to my struggle in this area, my defeats in this area, and my deep remorse for the times I needed to practice self-restraint and self-denial and did not. I am saddened at the times I harmed people by my lack of self-restraint and self-denial, I am sorry for this pain I caused. I am also not ashamed of my errors, I use them to ‘fail forward’ and grow both in my T’Shuvah and in my living better each day. More tomorrow, God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark