Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 228
“It is not by the rare act of greatness that character is determined, but by everyday actions, by a constant effort to rend our callousness. It is constancy that sanctifies. Judaism is an attempt to place all of life under the glory of ultimate significance, to relate all scattered actions to the One. Through the constant rhythm of prayers, disciplines, reminders, joys, man is taught not to forfeit his grandeur.” (God in Search of Man pg. 384)
“To relate all scattered actions to the One” is the goal of all spiritual traditions. The issue for all of us is to acknowledge our “attempt to place all of life” and know that we have to keep checking in with our self, with another(s) to ensure that our attempts are truthful, they are not self-serving, they are not power grabs and they truly represent the call and demand of the Ineffable One. The realization and truth Rabbi Heschel is passing on to us is hard to digest for many of us; our actions are scattered, our lives are patchwork quilts of actions, reactions, truths and mendacities, deceptions and self-deceptions, radical amazement and rationalizations, wonder and taking things for granted. Judaism and all spiritual disciplines/traditions give us pathways to lesson the reactions, mendacities, deceptions, rationalizations and taking things for granted as well as paths to enhance and increase our actions for good, our truth seeking and living, our awe, wonder and radical amazement.
We are witnessing today what the prophets railed against at the time of the destruction of the first Temple and the decimation of the 10 tribes, which we say have been lost. We are experiencing the lies of people who proclaim to speak in the name of God, in the name of Jesus while actually speaking in their own name, in the name of power, greed, control. Many religious leaders are using their faith as clubs, as weapons of self-aggrandizement, power, control and fear. In Hebrew the word for fear also means awe! Fear is not about punishment, it is the precursor to awe, it is what can propel us to witness the awesomeness of life, it is also what can stop us from experiencing same. We have to choose to bring our “scattered actions to the One”, rather than trying to hide the ones we don’t like, rather than trying to hide/rationalize the ones we use for our greed, power, need to be right. This statement also points out our need to continue to take self-inventory, to continue to look at our actions daily, weekly, etc and see how they are serving our authentic self, our soul, the souls and authenticity of another(s), and the One. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling us to account to ourselves, to look at our attempts to “do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God” in all of our affairs.
To relate, from the Latin means “brought back” and in the Hebrew the word is the same word as to tell a story, to regard. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us we need a spiritual discipline (and there are many one can use) to bring ourselves back “to place all of life under the glory of ultimate significance” and to regard all of our “scattered actions” as impacting the One as well as ourselves and another(s). What a fearful thought, what an awesome idea, what a wondrous gift! We can and must use our spiritual traditions to be brought back to serving the One, to serving another(s), to serving our true selves, we must begin to relate and regard our actions as part of the patchwork that is our life. Rabbi Heschel teaches us that our lives are works of art, which I take to mean that we can repaint the canvas at any time, whenever we see our actions are not reflecting “the glory of ultimate significance”, whenever they are not regarding the guidance of the One, we can change, we can redo, we can be forgiven for our errors and forgive another(s) for theirs and forgive ourselves. This is in direct conflict with the ‘normal’ way of people including religious leaders and followers who insist they are doing the will of Christ, Adonai, Allah, etc when they are lying, cheating, enslaving, abusing truth, people, and the One.
I am guilty of trying to use self-will as God’s will. I am guilty of rationalizing behaviors of myself and another(s) because I did not want to face the errors of my actions. I have, however, in the past 35 years, been aware and make T’Shuvah for these actions, I have stopped denying the errors of my ways when I have realized them and/or they have been brought to my attention. While this way of being has been used against me, seen as a vulnerability, I have found it to be a strength that gives me the courage to face the fear of living and see the awe of it more and more often. I know my imperfections, I acknowledge them daily, especially as Rabbi Heschel provides a constant reflective mirror to me. I also know my actions are overwhelmingly geared to the “glory of ultimate significance” and they come together in my relating them “to the One.” This life is hard, it is not pretty all the time, it is a life of vulnerability and hurt, yet, it is joyous, glorious, satisfying, loving, fulfilling, full of wonder, awe and radical amazement. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark