Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 221

“What is decisive is not the climax we reach in rare moments, but how the achievements of rare moments affect the climate of the entire life. The goal of Jewish law is to be the grammar of living, dealing with all relations and functions of living. Its main theme is the person rather than an institution.”(God in Search of Man pg. 384)

Immersing ourselves in the words above, we can find the solution to the ills that we face on both our  personal and communal situations. We are constantly bombarded with the lies and the bastardizations of our faith traditions, of our spiritual traditions, of our history and without taking these teachings of Rabbi Heschel and implementing them into our daily living, without integrating “the achievements of rare moments” into our daily actions, we continue to suffer the consequences; misery, discontent, anger, being a slave to emotions, needing to blame, self-deception, etc.

Making the main theme of our faith traditions, of our spiritual traditions, of our constitution “the person rather than an institution” we change the course of our lives, we change the course of our country’s trajectory. Our constitution is a document that is all about the individual, all about people, all about enshrining freedom, even though our “founding fathers” could not implement the ideals they put into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. They knew what was right and they tell us of their own shortcomings in making what is right, what is spiritual while reminding us of the goal of democracy: “the person”, not the institution. The Bible tells us the stories of “the person”, the people, not the institution of a religion. Moses, Christ, Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha taught us how to live as people, not as cogs in institutions. They knew and imparted the wisdom of one person helping another in order for all to live well. Our faith traditions were not/are not about the power of “an institution”, they were and are about the power of “the person” to connect with the ineffable, to go beyond reason, experience the mystery and make space for all who wish to join in the journey to wholeness.

We are witnesses to the glory of democracy, the honoring of “the person” as well as to the rise, again, of authoritarianism, the debasing of ‘those’ people, the bastardization of spiritual truths and the glory of the institutions that empower some to have control over the many. We have forgotten both recent history and the historical lessons of what happens when institutions demand people serve them, rather than institutions serving people. We are continuing to deceive ourselves, deceive another(s), and profane what is holy. The responses by some people to the indictment of Donald J Trump with vitriol, with anger, with mendacity about this being a ‘witch hunt’, ‘ a ‘political tactic’, etc is ridiculous. Rather than practice the Biblical dictum “one law for the stranger and the citizen alike” rather than follow the actions of the prophets in speaking truth to power, these charlatans, some of whom are trying to be the next President, want to deceive, pander, uphold some ‘institutional norm’. They seem to care nothing for the danger to “the person” that Trump’s actions caused. They seem to care nothing for the harm that putting some people above the law while keeping groups of people from exercising their freedom to vote, to speak, to their bodies!

Living Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and all of his wisdom and teachings is difficult. None of us will do it perfectly, none of us will do it completely-we are human, after all. Yet, we can “take a leap of action” to improve our ways of using “Jewish Law”, Spiritual principles, Christian faith, etc as “the grammar of living” and put together lives that enrich each of us as people, that give us the syntax and structure to “be human” rather that wall ourselves off from the suffering we cause when we stop caring about the person. We have the blueprint, we have the path, we have the wisdom, do we have the will?

In recovery, the will to rise above the pull of the lies we tell ourselves, the deception of societal norms, the desire to have euphoric recall of “rare moments” is met with our surrender to needing assistance. We accept and acknowledge that we can’t be in recovery alone, we need the help of another(s) person, we need the help of a structure that helps us achieve rising above our reasoning and meeting the mystery, we need the help of “a power greater than ourselves”. We become willing to let go of our old ideas/deceptions and merge with the truth of our souls, our spirit and the age-old wisdom of our spiritual traditions. While we acknowledge our need for unity, we also know recovery takes a myriad of forms and we are always about “the person”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark