Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 168
“Living in “the light of the face of God” bestows upon man a power of love that enables him to overcome the powers of evil. The seductiveness of vice is excelled by the joys of the mitsvah. “Ye shall be men of holiness unto Me” (Exodus 22:30).”(God in Search of Man pg 376)
Rabbi Heschel does not diminish the “seductiveness of vice” in this piece of wisdom from him, rather he acknowledges it and gives us the antidote to it, “joys of mitsvah” and “power of love”. As I delve into these three sentences above, I am struck with the simplicity and difficulty contained therein.
We have to “make a decision” as the 12 Steps of AA suggest to us, to live in “the light of the face of God”! We have to make a decision to stop hiding from God, hiding from one another, we have to stop worshiping false gods of our own making. We need to see the world through God’s ‘eyes’ and remember the call of the prophet Micah, the charge of Moses: “walk in the ways of God, guard and do these mitzvot, do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” Throughout the Hebrew Bible we see our heroes “living in the light of the face of God” and then living according to the mask they put on. No biblical figure is perfect, no biblical figure ever gets it all right, yet they manage to live the power of love more often than not because they seek to live in “the light of the face of God.”
This first sentence also teaches us that God’s face is always showing, God is not some distant entity (or made up story as some would say), rather God is close, God’s light is here for us to live in. When we see another person, we can choose to see the “light of the face of God”, as Jacob did when he reunited with his brother Esau. When Moses ‘met’ God, people could see the light radiate off of his face. When we see another human being, we have the choice to see the “light of the face of God”, the particular divine image that human being represents or to see the enemy, to put on our mask, to see how we could use this human being to further our selfish gains.
We are faced with this choice each and every day. Rabbi Heschel published God in Search of Man in 1955, he had the gift of prophecy that we here in the United States were going to face this choice over and over. Yet, today’s emergencies regarding speaking truth, diminishing racism, antisemitism, all forms of hatred have been building for a long time, almost since the end of WWII. It was difficult for Jews to get into the US even after the war, it was difficult for Blacks to vote even after fighting for our country, the Rosenbergs were scapegoated, especially Ethel who was known to be innocent, and executed. The National Prayer Breakfast began as an instrument to woo lawmakers and foreign officials to a new way of emulating Christ, be the lion-not the lamb, the prosperity gospel, etc. Rabbi Heschel saw what was happening in the name of idolatry and being called ‘god’ so he wrote to warn, to teach, to help us overcome some natural tendencies by “living in the light of the face of God”!
We are being bombarded by the charlatans in Tennessee who are willing to mistreat people for their love of Guns and Power! We are watching Florida ban a picture novel of Anne Frank, we witness parents being able to ban teaching about the Civil Rights movement, which Rabbi Heschel was a part of, because it might offend a white person, it might traumatize a young white boy or girl. We need to traumatize people, we need to help people reach a bottom of their own evil so they can recover their humanity. People like DeSantis, Pence, Hutchinson, McCarthy, Greene, et al have to be shaken, traumatized, suffer in order to return to “live in the light of the face of God” and not in the darkness of the face in their mirror!
In recovery, turning our will over to the care of God, as we understand God, is a crucial point in our recovery. It is the time we embrace and commit to “the power of love” and to “living in the light of the face of God” to the best of our ability. Not perfectly and we seek to grow along these lines one day at a time and to seek spiritual progress.
I am blessed with the bounty that God has blessed me with, the power and strength to spread the “power of love” to another person. I am blessed to keep learning how to enlarge my life by learning new ways, new subtleties, as to “living in the light of the face of God”. I made the decision 34+ years ago and I make the decision each day I renew it, grow it, find new ways to understand my decision and realize how my actions of years ago were affected by my lack of understanding as I do today, yet not out of malice or ego. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark