Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 239
“We believe that the ego can become converted to a friend of the spirit. “The evil drive” may become the helpmate of “the good drive.” But such conversion does not come about in moments of despair, or by accepting our moral bankruptcy, but rather through the realization of our ability to answer God’s question.”(God in Search of Man pg. 384/5)
Throughout history, humanity as denied it’s “moral bankruptcy” which makes Rabbi Heschel’s teachings so important. We are in the throes of “moral bankruptcy” today in our country and in the world. We are still suffering “moments of despair” from the pandemic, its aftereffects, because of our political turmoil, family turmoil, and our inability “to answer God’s question.”
“Where are you”, the first question God asks in the Bible, still resounds in the universe, is still being asked by God and we humans are still hiding! Like Adam and Eve, we use our knowledge of good and evil to shame another(s), blame another(s), unwelcome the stranger, ignore the poor and the needy, mistreat anyone who is ‘different’ than we are. Rather than realizing and accepting “our ability to answer God’s question”, we deceive ourselves and one another as to what God’s questions are!
Immersing ourselves in the last 5 of the 10 Commandments and taking/making them personal, we hear God’s call and questions to us: How are we murdering our souls and the souls of another(s)? What are we doing to uplift our spiritual life, how are we honoring our spiritual knowledge and the spiritual knowledge of those who we see as “not like us”? We have an opportunity to engage the energy of our “evil drive” in the pursuit of living well, of helping another(s), of mastering the negativity as God taught Cain. Rather than emulate Cain, isn’t it time for us to emulate Moses? Isn’t it time to accept our ability to rise above our pettiness and pride, our need to conquer and destroy the spirit, the ‘will’, the lives of those who are different than us by divine design? Isn’t it time to accept and live into our “ability to answer God’s question” by curing the “cancer of the soul” we suffer because of our prejudices, our fears, our need for certainty and our need to win?
The 6th Commandment tells us not to commit adultery, not to prostitute ourselves. Prostitute comes from the Latin meaning “offer up for sale”, in the Book of Numbers, we are told not to commit adultery/prostitute ourselves by “scouting out after our heart and our eyes which we will whore after.” God’s call question here, I believe, is to not “offer ourselves up for sale” anymore because of expediency, in order to “get ahead”, “be accepted”, gain power/gain access to powerful people, etc. Rather than act as the Priests of Israel and Judea did prior to their destruction, we have to ask ourselves how we are ‘selling out to the highest bidder’. We get to ask ourselves how we are so selfish and self-centered that we are willing to dig ourselves deeper into the well of despair, continue to engage in moral bankruptcy all the while deceiving ourselves and another(s) that we are answering God’s question, that our manipulation of spiritual truths is ‘for the greater good’ and ‘for god’. The small “g” I use here is to denote that selling of ourselves for some idolized version of God we have created to feel good about ourselves.
The 11th step of AA commits us to living a life of constant growth in our awareness of God’s question, consistently growing in “knowledge of God’s will”. God is not parochial, God is not the possession of any one spiritual discipline and/or religion. God cries when the Egyptians are drowning because, as the midrash teaches, God says: “My children are dying, my children are dying”! “Continued to seek through prayer and meditation” is the beginning of the 11th step and commits us to grow along spiritual lines, to increase our capacity to realize our “ability to answer God’s question” and stop our self-deception. Our recovery is steeped in “the realization of our ability to answer God’s question” and our need to continue our search for new ways to do this.
I have been guilty of almost murdering my soul and the souls of another(s). I have been cast as the “outsider”, “the other”, “the chaos maker”, etc. I have been vilified for being me so someone else can be their false self! I have also helped to save my soul, the souls of many, I have answered God’s question to me: “Where are you, by saying Hineni, here I am-and when I have been wrong, “promptly admitted it”. I have, for the most part, not sold out, not given in to despair, not manipulated the spiritual truths and wisdom nor deceived another(s) for my sake, in my recovery. I continue to grow my “ability to answer God’s question” through this blog, my prayers and my actions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark