Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 202
“The problem of living does not begin with the question of how to take care of the rascals, of how to prevent delinquency or hideous crimes. The problem of living begins with the realization that all of us blunder in our dealings with our fellow man. The silent atrocities, the secret scandals, which no law can prevent, are the true seat of moral infection.” (God in Search of Man pg.383)
The prophets were railing against and warning us about “the silent atrocities, the secret scandals” and we ignored them when they lived and we ignore them now-at our own peril. Humanity is in distress, we have forgotten what it means to be human, as Rabbi Heschel says often. We are in the throes of a spiritual malady that has ebbed and flowed throughout the history of humankind. This spiritual malady is indifference to our own blunders “in our dealings with our fellow man”, willful blindness to our own blunders, and even, purposeful blunders/deceptions in dealing with one another. The root of this spiritual malady is our desire to be “masters of the universe”, our inability to acknowledge a power greater than ourselves, our belief that “God is on our side”. We see this in the political, the social, the religious, and even the spiritual realms of living today as we have throughout history.
It seems as if this spiritual malady is passed down, generation to generation and we applaud people like Michelangelo, Cicero, Jeremiah, Da Vinci, for their art and their words without ever truly taking in the meaning and the message of their words and their art. When the showing the statue of David from the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, gets a teacher fired, when speaking of the history of slavery and how the southern plantation owners used slave labor to line their pockets with profits is banned, when books on the Holocaust are banned, all in the name of God, of Christianity, of decency, we are deep in the throes of a spiritual malady. When truth is sacrificed for power and control, when decency is sacrificed for winning, when mercy is sacrificed for popularity, we are deep in the throes of a spiritual malady.
In our churches, our temples, our synagogues, our mosques we hear the lies of ‘come to us, we have all the answers’, ‘come to us and find inner peace’ and other such poppycock. When our clergy, our spiritual leaders are preaching and/or teaching the “one solution” run away from them. Life is complicated, life is messy, life is full of blunders “in dealing with our fellow man”. Yet, too many people want to reduce life to a series of equations. Some people can’t believe in a power greater than themselves because of the evil in the world, some people believe that success is God’s way of showing one is a favorite and failure is a sign God doesn’t love you as much as God loves the favorites! Being rich, poor, middle class is not a sign of God’s love or disdain. This is an example of the spiritual malady affecting all of us. Jews were called to spread the words of Torah so everyone would have a framework to live within and live by; so we all would be aware of “the silent atrocities, the secret scandals” humanity is capable of and prevent ourselves from pursuing them. Jews were called upon to hear the words of Moses, the teachings of the prophets, learn the stories of the Bible as real life experiences that are common to all humanity; jealousy, competition, comparison, theft, thirst for power, doing whatever one wants, going through the motions, etc, as well as mercy, kindness, connection, covenantal love, caring for one another, joy for the success of another human being, sharing the wealth, living justly and being in truth. We are called to do T’shuvah, inventory, each and every day so we can recognize the ways we drift from our path of living well, repair the damage and course correct our way of life. The sad news is most people do not do this. This spiritual malady is so strong, so overpowering, and so blinding that many people fail to allow their Rosarys, their Prayers, their Mitzvahs, their actions to change their inner life, like the Priests at the time of the Prophets and the destruction of the two Temples, many people go through the motions, go through the Bible and never have either go through them!
I am guilty of blunders “in dealing with” people, I am guilty of missing the mark, I am guilty of “silent atrocities and secret scandals”. I can take solace in my T’Shuvahs for these actions, I can take pride in the lessons I have learned from them, and I have much gratitude for the spiritual healing I have received from God and so many people through the years. I live out loud today, I live transparent today, as I have throughout my recovery. I practice a spiritual discipline so I don’t fall into the old patterns and I recognize when I drift from the path quicker each year. I am learning to live with sadness and pain without lashing out as I have in the past. I am grateful for everything I have, even my sadness and pain, my troubles and my wonderful life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark