Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 258
“Consciousness abides in the company of self-consciousness. With any perception or apprehension comes the awareness of my possessing it, which is dangerously close to vanity. The ego, with its characteristic lack of reserve or discretion, is prone to interfere obtrusively even in acts which had been initiated behind its back. Such interference or “alien thoughts”—alien to the spirit of the act—which was absent from the original motive constitute a problem of its own.”(God in Search of Man pg. 387)
Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of an age-old problem that most people are not even aware of, actually two problems that most of us are willfully blind to: 1) vanity, 2) “alien thoughts” from our ego. I discussed vanity yesterday using the Latin root meaning “empty” and I believe our vanity/emptiness encourages “The ego, with its characteristic lack of reserve or discretion, is prone to interfere obtrusively…”. Obtrusive comes from the Latin meaning “thrust forward”, and as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning, he is reminding us, calling out to us, warning us of our tendency to believe we are acting with integrity, acting in the best interests of an ideal, a mission, another human being, a religion, a spiritual discipline, a democracy, and, if we dig deeper, we come to realize the “alien thoughts” that are problematic, the danger of vanity and emptiness we missed along the way, all because we ignored “the awareness of my possessing it” and/or we just didn’t care and believed we are the smartest in the room, upon discovery of our empty inner life, we choose to radiate power over another, we choose to hide behind the facade that our ego helps us develop, and we “thrust forward” without regard to the authentic needs of self, another, spirit, universe.
In his interview with Carl Stern, Rabbi Heschel speaks about the many problems we face, how it is good for us to have problems, and, as I am experiencing his words today, we are able to confront and solve today’s challenges and/or maybe yesterday’s, knowing tomorrow will bring another set of problems/challenges. We want to avoid problems, we want to evade problems, we want to find the “easier softer way” and since most people are conflict averse, many of us just succumb to the loudest voice in the room, to the one with the power, to emptiness of our inner life and to the “alien thoughts” of our egos and/or the egos of ‘our leaders’. In a democracy, this is unacceptable! In a religious life, this is unacceptable! In God’s world of freedom for all: (Leviticus 25:10) “Proclaim Liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants thereof” this is unacceptable! Yet, to even some of the ‘most pious’ people, religiously, democratically, spiritually, ethically, these unacceptable ways have become commonplace and found acceptance. The desire to escape, to find God and the secrets of the Universe through psychedelics, through drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, Ayahuasca, and other ‘quick fixes’ that become compulsive habits is another example of a good motivation for an action that, because of an empty inner life and “alien thoughts” thrust forward upon us from our egos, addiction occurs and the opposite of the original motivation happens. Of course, at issue is that they work, and under the proper guidance, these ways of coping and of exploration can, and sometimes do, help people fill their emptiness with a spiritual connection, find a pathway to let go of “alien thoughts” quicker, and move forward using the ego to assist the good motivations and do the “next right thing”.
The same is true for our religious and spiritual paths of living. We can use them to fill “the hole in the soul” and, we can be willfully blind to our egos and our believing we possess ‘the truth, the only right way’ and bastardize the spiritual and religious tenets that have been passed down. We have witnessed this throughout our existence and we blame religion and spirituality rather than the people who have bastardized both. Religion, spirituality, meditation, prayer, are not for some deity to decide who is good and who is bad, who deserves love and who doesn’t, who is going to be rich and who is going to be poor! They are pathways for us to find our connection to the Ineffable One, they are here for us to use to find our connections to our inner spirit, to the Image of the Divine we are created in. They are not here for some Charlatan to deny the right of another person/woman to make their own choices and/or get the health care they need. They are not here for some health insurance bureaucrat, with no medical training, to decide ‘the numbers don’t warrant this test so we will turn it down” and then the person is found to have cancer that could have been dealt with much better upon early detection. Religion and Spirituality are here to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants thereof”, not to follow one person’s interpretation that is based on ‘alien thoughts”! We are all in need of checking our “alien thoughts” and our perceptions each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark