Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 240

“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)

“The realization of our ability to answer God’s question” occurs when we truly immerse ourselves in God’s words to us through our religious/spiritual texts and quests. Using the last three commandments, we find the questions and “our ability to answer” them.

The 8th commandment asks us to look at ourselves and find the areas of living where we steal. While most people see do not see themselves as thieves, it is essential to ask ourselves when do we steal from ourselves. We steal from ourselves through not giving ourselves credit for who we are, for not living our unique talents and gifts in everyday life. We steal from ourselves when we ‘settle’, when we go along to get along, when we deny our inner truths in favor of our rationalizations, when we continue to live in the mental cliches and notions that society, family, and ourselves find ‘easy’ and ‘normal’. We steal from ourselves when we are so immersed in our ideologies/‘clubs’ we are unable to see life from any other perspective, we are unable to learn new and different ways, we are afraid to be inclusive and we live in the physical, emotional, mental prisons of our own making.  We steal from another(s) in many of the same ways, we steal from another(s) by being lazy, by not sharing our truths, by not confronting evil and making evil seem good, by being exclusive and shutting people out, by forgetting the good another(s) has done and judging people by their last bad action.

The 9th commandment demands we stop “bearing false witness” against ourselves and another(s). It is a call to stop lying to ourselves, stop lying about ourselves, stop lying to and about another(s). We “bear false witness” when we deny our strengths and our weaknesses, when we blame another for our errors (as Adam did in the Garden of Eden story), when we refuse to admit our errors and call them good-using the “evil drive” to overpower our “good drive”. We “bear false witness” when we accuse another(s) of that which we are guilty of-the Goebbels style of living. We “bear false witness” whenever we are jealous of someone else and complain about our ‘bad luck’ or their ‘good luck’. We “bear false witness” when we engage in “senseless hatred” of one another and cause the destruction of freedom for someone ‘not like us’. While this term is usually used in racial/ethnic terms, we also participate in “senseless hatred” every time we ‘need a bad guy’ and when we practice exclusion of another(s) in our clubs, our identity politics, etc. We “bear false witness” when we bastardize the word of God for our own needs, desires, gains.

The 10th Commandment calls for us to remediate our errors of the previous commandments by acknowledging what we have and who we really are. It calls for us to stop coveting and start realizing, enjoying and living the life we have rather than the one we want. We respond to God’s call of this commandment when we lay down our defenses, when we join with one another to make our corner of the world better, when we no longer need to blame and shame another, when we are grateful in deed and word for the gifts we have received, when we bless rather than curse our neighbors and friends, when we make peace where there is strife, when we engage in conversation rather than warfare, when we stop “keeping those people out” and start inviting everyone in-when we acknowledge our “big table” as John Pavlovitz teaches, when we open our “big tent” as Craig Taubman does at Pico-Union Project, when we “erase the margins” as Father Greg Boyle has done at Homeboy Industries.

Ultimately, “the realization of our ability to answer God’s question” is what recovery is steeped in. We are recovering our realization and our ability to respond to what God wants rather than what we think we want/need. We “turn our lives over to the care of God” as an acknowledgement of our “realization of our ability” and we “practice these principles in all our affairs” is our action of responding rather than reacting. I, like everyone else, am imperfect in the actual responses and I, like so many of us in recovery, seek progress rather than perfection. It is painful when I am fail “to answer God’s question” because of my awareness of my ability and doing T’Shuvah-whether I am forgiven or not-allows me to grow and be one grain of sand better today than yesterday. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark