Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 233

“As said above, one of our problems is to endow virtue with vitality. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. But is virtue thrilling? Do passion and virtue go together?” (God in Search of Man pg. 384)

We are in the throes of the problem Rabbi Heschel describes above: how “to endow virtue with vitality.” So many people are tired of doing the next right thing, it seems. Many of us watch with indifference what the prophets called atrocities, the everyday ignoring of how to help one another, how to live in truth, love, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, compassion. We are witnesses and/or participants in “getting ours”, ‘sticking it to the other person’, ‘winning at all costs’, etc. What seem to fail to realize is the cost of these actions to our spiritual, moral and emotional living.

When people in power send immigrants to other States with false promises, when people in power defend the indefensible acts of ‘their leader’, when everyday people blindly follow and agree with the lies and deceptions of these ‘leaders’, falsely believing these mendacities, we are witnessing and/or participating in grave spiritual injuries. Racism, anti-semitism, promoting false claims of what the Bible says, scapegoating a group, blindly following people because they are appealing to our lowest selves, are all assaults on our spirits. When these assaults come from self-proclaimed ‘spiritual/religious’ leaders, from elected officials, they carry even more weight, they cause some of us to go against our best interests and the call of our souls and of God. Because so many people fail to “endow virtue with vitality”, it is easy to commit these spiritual and moral injuries and injustices upon another(s), upon a group who is not like us, upon a world desperate for relief. Watching in horror as people abuse their power, abuse their ‘followers’, deny freedom to another(s) because they are slaves to their emotions, Rabbi Heschel’s words above are a call to action, a call to change, a call to save our self, our souls, our neighbors!

“Sin is thrilling and full of excitement” is both true and false. Sin would not be so alluring if it wasn’t thrilling and full of excitement, of course, and there is a tremendous rush that comes from “getting over”, a false sense of power and control that comes with disobeying and causing spiritual, moral injuries to our ‘enemies’. There is also a great deal of worshiping of authoritarians who proclaim it is good to sin, a great deal of agreeing with clergy who promote “hate your neighbor”, “suspect your neighbor”, in the name of God, of Christ, of Mohammed. There is a ‘high’ that comes with spreading and believing these mendacious words, there is a ‘high’ that comes with acting on the bastardizations of spiritual and moral truths, while doing the next right thing seems boring, seems stupid to so many. Of course, the authoritarian Pharaoh’s people are following enslave their followers and cause them to build false altars, worship them instead of the Ineffable One, and lead them into an Egypt of their making and, by the time people are aware of their circumstances, they are so spiritually bankrupt and spiritually injured, they don’t realize how narrow their lives have become. This is the ‘playbook’ used by Pharaoh in the Bible and it is the ‘playbook’ these charlatans/power-hungry, self-centered ‘clergy’ and ‘leaders’ are using today. As Pete Seeger asks: “when will we ever learn?”

Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “It’s really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” As I immerse myself in her words and Rabbi Heschel’s words above, and in the ways I live my life since I began my recovery, I know them to be true, I use them as an antidote to the feelings and pull of “sin is thrilling and full of excitement.” I am a person who lived in the excitement of sin, the ‘joy’ of getting over, the ‘high’ of being the ‘smartest guy in the room’, the one who made fun of the people who lived virtuously and never ‘got ahead’. Of course my path led me to jail and prison, to alcoholism and loneliness, to spiritual injuries that I believed would never heal nor would I ever be welcomed back into ‘mainstream’ society. Yet, when I had my spiritual awakening, when I made the choice to turn back (do t’shuvah) to decency, to virtue, I found a drive and a thirst for doing the next right thing that equaled and has now surpassed the excitement and thrill of sin. I wake up each morning excited for what I will learn, how I can be of service, what virtue I can infuse with vitality for my self and for another(s). I am so anxious to live in virtue, I readily admit my errors, I heal the spiritual injuries I caused to myself and those that are perpetrated by another(s), I hear the mendacity of the Pharaoh’s of today, and I continue the slow journey to the Promised Land that was begun so long ago. It is a slog at times and healing my spiritual injuries is worth it! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark