Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 247
“The experience of bliss in doing the good is the greatest moment that mortals know. The discipline, sacrifice, self-denial, or even suffering which are often involved in doing the good do not vitiate the joy; they are its ingredients.” (God in Search of Man pg.385)
The word bliss comes from the Latin meaning “to praise”, as well as to translate the Hebrew word “Baruch”, which also connotes blessing. Rabbi Heschel’s words above come to remind us of the blessings we receive and experience “in doing the good”. Too often we ignore these moments of joy, satisfaction, answering the call of God and another(s), too often we are indifferent to the experience of bliss, the experience of being a blessing, the experience of joy; which denies the truth and wisdom of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above.
There is no moment that can reach the joy, blessing, praise, bliss we attain “in doing the good” because “in doing the good” we are at one with our authentic self, with the needs of the universe and the call of God. We are in complete attunement with self, another(s) and spirit of the universe which brings us to wholeness and covenantal relationship with self and the world. We are fulfilling a Divine need and being Divine reminder, which, according to Rabbi Heschel, is the actualization of “being human”.
Yet, unfortunately, too many of us ignore this experience in favor of another, the pleasure one receives from ‘winning’. In an op-ed in the New York Times, David French relates his experience of the ‘joy’ that MAGA Republicans have when they get together at a Trump Rally. This ‘joy’ is the communal feeling of being together and understood, having a common enemy, cheering their hero, feeling seen and heard, and a time to party. This ‘joy’, this ‘bliss’ they experience is not about being a blessing, it is about being seen, it is about getting together to rant and rave about ‘those people’ who are trying to steal our ‘way of life’ from us. It is not about serving God, higher self, it is about serving our false ego needs. While it is easy to condemn them for their thoughts and actions, it is more important to help people discern what is “doing the good” and what is serving their own ‘ego’ needs rather than the authentic needs of God and another(s). This is the authoritarian way, this is the way many religions, countries, communities, families have morphed into; making the needs of the leaders, clergy, wealthy more important than the needs of God, of human beings.
We can recapture “the experience of bliss” Rabbi Heschel is teaching us about. We have to rededicate ourselves to growing our inner life, we have to rededicate our selves to hearing our souls’ call, we have to rededicate our selves to responding to God’s call, we have to rededicate our selves to being immersed in the words of our Holy Texts, being immersed in the words of our prayers which will lead us to experience “the greatest moment that mortals know”! We are all capable of this rededication, whether it is through our practice of a spiritual discipline, our raising of our consciousness, our meditation, our study, our prayer, our acknowledging our gratitude, etc, we can have this “experience of bliss in doing the good”. Our challenge is to discern what is “the good” we can do in the moment we are in.
One way we discern the good in the moment is asking ourselves: what would God have us do; what is the next right action to take; what is hateful to us so we don’t do to another; do unto others as you would want them to do unto you; how does this action bring me closer to communion with my soul; etc. These questions lead us to knowing what is the good in the moment and give us the experience of being a blessing, of being blessed, of praising life, of being praised, of authentic awareness of what truly is as well as a comfort and joy in our inner life-the closest experience of inner peace I can imagine. We have the path to bliss, we have the path to being a blessing, we have the path to praise, we have the path to ‘inner peace’; it is “in doing the good”.
Recovering people seek and experience this “bliss” each day. We are constantly seeking out “doing the good” in all of our affairs. We know we are blessed by being in recovery and we have to put these blessings to work in the world because we “can’t keep what we don’t give away”. The experience of bliss, of living our praise of life, of being blessed beyond our deserving, gives us the fuel to continue “doing the good” and creates a new eco-system for us. We accept our foibles and we accentuate our goodness, we are responsible members of society and community, family and friendship, and we engage in “life on life’s terms” and rejoice in “being human”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.