Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 209
“The problem of living begins, in fact, in the way we deal with envy, greed, and pride. What is first at stake in the life of man is not the fact of sin, of the wrong and corrupt, but the neutral acts, the needs. Our possessions pose no less a problem than our passions. The primary task, therefore, is not how to deal with evil, but how to deal with the neutral, how to deal with needs.” (God in Search of Man pg. 383)
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. Immersing myself in the first two sentences above and thinking about the men and women who have given their lives so that all of us can enjoy freedom causes me to pause. These men and women were not neutral, they were not passive, they were not indifferent, they were not filled with “envy, greed, and pride”. They along with all of their comrades in arms, the men and women who went to war so there is an America for the rest of us did not engage in neutrality, they did not engage in mendacity. They served their families, their communities, their country; as do all of the current people in our armed services. We owe them our gratitude in our deeds as well as our words.
We often believe and preach about the neutral acts, actions which are neither good nor bad, we see our needs as paramount to our survival. However, every actions either moves us closer to God, to redemption, to the messianic period or retards us from these. Every action either improves our inner life or numbs us to our own inner and authentic needs. We have come, as Rabbi Heschel writes about in his book Insecurity of Freedom, to believe our needs are always authentic and the non-fulfillment of them results in mental and emotional upheaval. This is a lie, this is self-deception, this is diametrically opposed to the actions of the men and women who have given “the last full measure” to ensure our freedom, to save our democracy.
Neutral comes from the Latin meaning “neuter gender” which is defined as neither masculine nor feminine in speaking about words and other inanimate objects. People are not inanimate objects, authoritarianism is not an inanimate object, democracy is not an inanimate object. Today we will hear speeches by politicians who believe their need for power, their need for friendship with dictators, their need for control are authentic needs and in having this they are serving the greater good, they are protecting the democracy and freedom our brave men and women fought for and some died for! This is the height of mendacity to me. These same men and women who extol our fallen soldiers, our heroes, are willing to go to the brink of financial collapse rather than pass the debt ceiling bill. They are willing to deny the freedoms that our men and women fought for to ‘those people’ of whom they know don’t want to follow them blindly. Yet, they will lie with reckless abandon to their constituents, they will smile the false smiles of the charlatans.
We are witness’ to “what is first at stake”: the democracy that was founded and passed on to us, the inheritors of the American Revolution. We are witness’s to “what is at first at stake”: the continuation of the freedoms that the Union fought against the Confederacy for. We are witness’ to “what is at first at stake”: the cruelties and atrocities that Hitler and Nazi Germany committed and our response to defeat the Nazi’s and say NO to their cruel ways. Today, on this Memorial Day, we have to be witness’ to “what is first at stake”: justice and freedom for all; the rights enshrined in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights; the rights enshrined in all of the Amendments since; the dignity and value of every individual given to us by God; the call to fight against the mendacity and lies of the neutral, the call to fight against “moral equivalence”!
In recovery, we know that we are only one act away from losing our way, from retarding our progress and falling back into old ways. This is not to say we seek perfection, it is an acknowledgment of our awareness that no action is neutral, every deed has meaning and power, leads us towards ruin or sanctuary, as Rabbi Heschel teaches. We are engaged in a way of living that is responsible and progressive, we are engaged in a way of living that recognizes our foibles, our errors, makes amends, changes our ways. We are living a life of being open to forgiveness from another, forgiveness of another and forgiveness of self.
I learn anew each day of the neutral, I know I am responsible for all of my actions. I am fighting for “what is first at stake” and taking actions and do deeds that help the progression towards redemption. This is how I honor the sacrifice of those who have died so I can live freely. This is how I honor and celebrate Memorial Day each day! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark