The world is in need of redemption, but the redemption must not be expected to happen as an act of sheer grace. Man’s task is to make the world worthy of redemption. His faith and his works are preparations for ultimate redemption.” (God in Search of Man pg. 380)
On this day of Shavuot, on this day of revelation, it is important for us to open our hearts, our eyes, our spirits to the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. It is not only truth, it is also the call we have to pay attention to as well. We are being called to “make the world worthy of redemption” and we have the ability to do this, we have the paths to do this as laid out in our respective faiths, and we have the inner resources to do this-we just have to have the willingness to get beyond our selves, get over our need for control and certainty, let go of our individualism and fill one of our basic needs; to love and be loved, to be part of and to belong to another(s).
We can do this, we can use the works of our hands, our minds, our mouths, to serve the greater good while still taking care of ourselves. We can “choose life” as Moses exhorts us to in Deuteronomy by feeding our souls as well as our bodies and minds, by using our “rational mind” to serve our “intuitive mind”. We all do many things that “are preparations for ultimate redemption” without being aware of the. When we welcome the stranger as Abraham did, when we care for the needy and poor as we are told 36 times in the Torah to do, when we seek to be part of rather than apart from, when we join together to serve something greater, we are doing “preparations for ultimate redemption.”
When we are separating one another by racial, gender, sexual orientation we are not making “the world worthy of redemption”, when we seek to gain and hold power for our self-aggrandizement, we are not making “the world worthy of redemption.” When we have one law for the citizen and another for the stranger, when we exploit one another, take advantage of the vulnerabilities of another, we are not making “the world worthy of redemption.”
Today and every day, we can experience revelation and do our part to bring about redemption. Every day we get to look back on the day before, do our repairs for our ‘missing the marks’ and enhance the myriad of good we created. Each day is a new beginning, we don’t rest on yesterdays achievements nor do we engage in negative self-talk because of yesterday’s errors. We get a ‘do-over’ every day that we have breath within us. We get to grow one grain of sand more each day and we do not have to judge ourselves by our worst behaviors, our worst mistakes.
Accepting Torah, entering/re-entering a Covenant with God, as we do today, is a statement of hope as well as faith and commitment to action. Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance above calls to us, as the prophets call to us, to take off the blinders we have been wearing, to take the cotton out of our ears, to stop being in fear of being seen, to truly hear God, to see the whole picture that is being revealed and to get into the action of redemptive acts. Today, we take off the masks and facades we have been wearing and hiding behind, today we engage ourselves in the work in front of us, the work only we can do. Today, we start anew to “make the world worthy of redemption” by redeeming another human being with kindness, love, truth, justice and mercy.
Recovery is a path of redemption that everyone can take! We are recovering our true selves, we are letting go of the lie: “if we live a false self long enough doesn’t it become our true self?” We let go of our need to look good and feel good for the higher need to do good, to do right, to “practice these principles in all our affairs”. In recovery we are taking one day at a time and building a life that is worthy of being redeemed and taking actions that “make the world worthy of redemption.” We know our assent is not linear, it is an ebb and a flow existence, we are aware of our foibles and our strengths, we know we are both animal and angel, we also know we can keep our new commitment and our new vision ‘a day at a time’!
Since today is Shavuot, I am not writing this today, I am working on being worthy of redemption and helping bring redemption about sooner rather than later. I know i do my part to both retard and move redemption forward. My commitment is to do more of the latter than the former a little more this year. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark