Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 252
“The mitsvah, we have said, is our instrument in dealing with evil. But do we employ the instruments adequately? If kavanah is as intrinsic to the service of God as impartiality of judgment is to scientific investigation; if, in other words, it is not only essential what one does but also what one is motivated by, the possibility of true service, of genuine piety may be questioned.”(God in Search of Man pg. 387)
Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is questioning the cloak we wrap ourselves in when we proclaim the ‘rightness’ of what we do, the ‘rightness’ of our actions that cause pain to some and, in many cases, use the “mitsvah” to actually do evil. He is reminding us, as he does often, that the action and the intention/the motivation have to be congruent “in dealing with evil.” Questioning the motivation of “what one does” goes unnoticed by many of us, today and throughout history.
We hear many people proclaim the ‘rightness’ of what they are doing using misinterpretations of Biblical Texts and Spiritual Texts to validate their actions. We are witnessing this over and over again in our world today. People use the action, the deed of a “mitsvah” to declare their ‘rightness’ while forgetting to acknowledge the “kavanah”, their motivation, behind their deeds. One of the habits people have gotten into is to perform the “mitsvah” for the sake of themselves rather than for the sake of God, for the sake of their neighbor. While every “mitsvah” is important, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that the motivation, the “kavanah” behind each one is important as well. He is calling out to us to bring our motivation for actions to be congruent with “service to God”. “Service to God” implies serving one another, caring for the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, welcoming the stranger, honoring the infinite worth and dignity of every human being, embracing the uniqueness of each person, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, etc.
Some of the people who claim to be the most pious, who claim to be taking action “in the name of God”, are the greatest violators of truly serving God, of having “true service” as their motivation and, because of their phoniness, have perverted religious life, have made being part of a religion exclusive rather than inclusive. Upon being questioned as to their actions, they rise up in anger and proclaim the questioner to be ‘against God’, idolators, blasphemers, etc. This ‘religious fervor’ has caused many people to lose belief in Rabbi Heschel’s words above: “the mitsvah, as we have said, is our instrument in dealing with evil.” Rather, many people have come to believe “the mitsvah” is the instrument of separation and exclusion, the instrument of power and a bludgeon to crush those who have a different understanding, way and motivation to do the same “mitsvah” so as to be inclusive, caring, compassionate, loving and truthful.
People are using the Bible, the constitution, the ‘moral code’ in ways that defy “service to God”, they are using them in ways that serve themselves instead. The motivation for a mitsvah is to deal with evil, the evil around us and, more importantly I believe, to deal with the evil inside of each one of us. Upon rising Jews proclaim our gratitude for being alive, for having our souls returned to us with compassion, and proclaim God’s faithfulness towards us and in us. This “mitsvah” is to clear our minds, our hearts, our emotions of the self-serving, self-aggrandizing thoughts that come up, it is to clear our thoughts of dread and of false ego, it is to point our hearts (motivations) in the direction of service to God, to human beings outside of our self, and, in doing this, be of ultimate service to ourselves. We begin our days with the knowledge that we are alive through the “grace of God”, compassion and faithfulness is bestowed upon us, and we are given the gift of being able to spread grace, compassion, faithfulness in our every interaction and action(“mitsvah”). We are being challenged by Rabbi Heschel to examine our self, our actions, our motivations and to make sure we are being of “service to God” rather than serving our selfish and egotistical desires.
In recovery, “we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand God”. This decision is not a one and done action, we have to continue to check in with ourselves, with another human being, to ensure we have not made our egotistical wants God. We use this “decision” to guide and judge our actions before, during and after we take them. We are constantly checking our motivations and actions, which is why there are no ‘gurus’ in recovery, just people who are a little farther down the road, there is no perfection in recovery, just progress. We continue to judge our actions and motivations to ensure they are for “service to God” rather than service to self. Because this is our ‘north star’ we are constantly stopping the natural drift towards self and righting ourselves back into service to God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark