Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 177
“Evil is not only a threat, it is a challenge… The mitsvah, the humble single act of serving God, of helping man, of cleansing the self, is our way of dealing with the problem. We do not know how to solve the problem of evil, but we are not exempt from dealing with evils.”(God in Search of Man pg. 377)
The more one immerses oneself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, the more one can enlarge one’s soul, I have found. The teaching above is causing me to tremble with awe and consternation. The second sentence above, reminding us and calling out to us the importance of the mitsvah for our inner life, for our outer life, and to answer the call of God and pay forward some of what we owe to God is a moment, opportunity for us to look inside of ourselves and at the outside world to take notice of where we are, what we are doing and who we are.
The consternation one can experience is to see the myriad of ways we do not use the mitsvah as “the humble single act of serving God, of helping man, of cleansing the self” and instead use it to bludgeon another person with our ‘holiness’; our need to have ‘christian law’ be the governing plan of our nation. The false belief that God wants us to kill innocent people because they are different than us, to kill people who make the mistake of getting in the wrong car, knocking at the wrong door, and saying we were afraid for our lives, that we were ‘standing our ground’? When local, state, and national judges and legislatures are deciding what is good medical care and calling this a ‘religious’ duty? When people are judged by the color of their skin, by the religion they practice, by the faith they profess, by the political party they are aligned with, by the zip code they live in, rather than the content of their character, than the service they provide, we should be in deep consternation over our state of being. When the lies that Christ/God cares for wealthy people more than poor people, that God wants whites rather than people of color to rule, that one group is inferior to another based on some ridiculous lies and deceptions, how can we not be in consternation and tremble?
Yet, we hear this type of mendacity every day from ‘good religious folk’, who have never used “the mitsvah” to truly serve God, to engage in “helping man” and do the work “of cleansing the self”. Rather they are bastardize the “humble single act of serving God, of helping man, of cleansing the self” to mean they should rule over another human being, groups of human beings, that they know what is best and everyone should be serving them and their leaders who are authoritarians and fascists. How can we not be in consternation and trembling fear over what is going on in our country and in our world today. When we are so stuck in some euphoric recall of the past, repeating the same errors that the prophets came to Israel and Judea about and believing we are exempt, when innocent children and young adults are killed, shot at because of a broken tail light, because they knocked at the wrong door, because they pulled into the wrong driveway, where is our outrage at our behaviors, where is the call for a new way of being that is in concert with the call of the prophets, that brings “the mitsvah, the humble single act of serving God, of helping man, of cleansing the self” into the forefront of how we live?
If this is not cause for concern and consternation, if this is not cause for cleansing our self of hatred, of our eye disease and cancer of the soul as Rabbi Heschel defines prejudice; what will be the catalyst? The followers of these liars and cheats, these scammers and cons will wake up one day to realize their pockets have been picked clean, their fate is no better than the people they hate, and be bewildered at the betrayal by ‘their fearless leaders’.
In recovery, we experience this consternation when we first begin to recover from the mendacity, the self-deception, the horrific actions we initiated and/or participated in that demand our self and every other self we came into contact with. Our recovery is based on letting go of our need to self-deceive, our rolling around in mendacity, repairing the damage from our horrific prior bad acts. We begin to live in awe of “serving God, of helping man and cleansing the self”. We have committed to a new set of principles to live by and “we practice these principles in all our affairs” and stay in awe of how well our lives work and how grateful we are for what we have.
I have been living in consternation over what is happening in our world and I see how it permeates the smallest corners of our lives. I listen to people speak about “those people” and see only differences that make “those people” less than they are. I point out errors in how people are treating one another and I am blamed for my anger, my abrasiveness. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark