Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 220

“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)

The 12th step of Alcoholics Anonymous reminds us to “practice these principles in all our affairs” and Rabbi Heschel’s words above remind me of this most important aspect of our living. We have, as he teaches often, regulated our ‘religion’, our ‘spirituality’ to “the climax we reach in rare moments” and not live them in “all relations and functions of living.” This is a societal problem that has been with us since the beginning of humankind. We continually seek these ‘enlightened’ moments and do nothing with them after they have passed. We see this in our Churches, our Temples, our Synagogues, our Mosques, our recovery circles, our work life, our home life, our business’ and our institutions. We are witnesses to the siloing, the compartmentalizing of our ‘spiritual life/religious life’ and ‘the real world’. It is what is killing our humanity and makes our souls wither.

The main theme of the Torah, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Eastern Philosophies, etc is the human being, not the institutions. Yet, we see more and more the perpetuation of institutions rather than staying true to the foundational mission and principles these institutions were founded on/for. We are watching, in the for-profit and not-for profit worlds, boards of directors more concerned with the face of our institutions and business’, more concerned with the bottom line of our business’ and institutions than they are with the human beings being served, the human beings buying their products. As a society, we allow corporations to pay fines rather than hold them criminally responsible as in the case of the Sackler family and many other corporations who pay fines and don’t admit guilt. We allow politicians to take money from special interest groups and serve their mega donors rather than do the job they were elected for: care for their constituents, care for our country. We allow ourselves to practice expediency and mendacity so we can ‘succeed’!

All the while we are patting ourselves on the back for our ‘deep religious convictions’; calling ourselves ‘people of faith’ while we denigrate anyone who disagrees with us; we criminalize the poor, the needy, the stranger rather than welcoming them and caring for them; we wrap ourselves in our prayer shawls, our Bibles while we cheat, lie, deceive another(s) so we can have power, prestige and serve our selves and our ‘friends’ as we have seen with Clarence Thomas, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, et al. We are perpetuating a political party over our country’s foundation, some of us believe we care about the Constitution forgetting that upon it’s passing we passed the Bill of Rights because not everything could be foreseen and we have the amendment process so it stays a dynamic document. Some of us call ourselves people of faith and forget that the Torah, the Bible, et al are dynamic documents, we have to keep turning and returning to them to find new insights, new ways of immersing ourselves in them so we can be better human beings, they are not static, they are not clear, they are spiritual documents meant to help us live better, they deal “with all relations and functions of living” so we cannot interpret them literally once and for all. In Genesis Rabbah, we are taught that God makes new laws every day in the Heavenly Court, so how can we stay stuck and claim to care about our self and our fellow human beings?

Donald J Trump was indicted yesterday and his guilt will be decided by a jury of his peers. This is not a political issue, it is a legal issue and laws are here to serve people, here to help us tame our “evil inclinations”, and breaking them causes us to be responsible for the consequences of same. This isn’t a witch hunt, this isn’t a zealous prosecution, this is the law working to serve humanity, it its the law reminding us no one is above it nor below it, it tells us that we all have to be responsible for our actions, good and not so good.

In “practicing these principles in all our affairs” we lessen the negative effects of our actions, we are more careful to stay within the bounds of “do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God”. We are more likely to care for our neighbor and engage in mendacity less, we are more likely to use our spiritual/religious principles to care for our souls and the souls of those around us. We are more likely to seek solutions together than to hate one another and win at all costs.  This is what recovery is all about, the individual, not the institution, living one grain of sand better each day! We can’t do this unless “these principles” are in our mouths, in our hearts, in our souls and in our actions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark