Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 263
“The discovery of this tragic predicament is a most painful blow to man’s sense of spiritual security. What lesson is to be drawn from it if not the advice that suspicion is the shortest way to the understanding of human nature. This it seems is the modern version of the Golden Rule: Suspect thy neighbor as thyself.”(God in Search of Man pg. 389)
Immersing oneself in the wisdom above, in the wisdom and teachings of Rabbi Heschel from Friday, we can easily fall into the pit of despair, the sense of ‘why bother’, a state of silent acquiescence, a state of going with the flow of suspicion that is so prevalent now as it has been throughout the ages. Yet, this is the very reason immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, immersing ourselves in the spiritual discipline that speaks to our souls is so crucial. Through living Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, through being an active member of a spiritual discipline, we become aware of the pitfalls we are subject to, we are able to experience “a most painful blow to man’s sense of spiritual security” and return home to our souls, to our connection with the Ineffable One, the spirit of the universe and not be defeated by “this tragic predicament”. It takes a powerful spiritual discipline, a commitment to engage in our particular spiritual discipline “in all our affairs”, and a respect for, a learning from, and a connection to one another’s souls.
Allowing Rabbi Heschel’s words to wash over me, I find that “spiritual security” could be an elusive goal. Security comes from the Latin meaning “free from care” and the English definition is: “the state of being free from danger or threat”. When we couple these definitions with spirituality, I remember the wisdom of Rabbi Abraham Twerski, who taught me that as soon as I think I have achieved being spiritual, I have lost it!. It is difficult to hold onto “spiritual security” for any length of time for most of us, certainly for me. In fact, as I reflect, whenever I or anyone claims to have ‘the one right answer’ to our spiritual predicaments, to our worldly predicaments, we can rest assured that I/we have fallen into “this tragic predicament” of our ego’s vested interests and our instinctual desires penetrating our motivations and our rational mind, our rationalizations have disguised themselves as spiritual knowing. The beauty of a spiritual practice is just that, we continue to practice, we are always learning, growing, aware and present in as many moments as possible in order to have the humility to know we will never be perfect, we can never ‘rest on our laurels’, we will constantly be seeking and doing the best we can, ever on alert for our false egos, our “sense of superiority” to rise up within us.
The realization of this “tragic predicament” has had me reflecting on the world crisis we are facing as well as alerting me to the spiritual crisis I have always and continue to face. It is so difficult for me/for us to unentangle our false ego’s vested interests, our instinctual desires from our motivations and actions. This is not to say the good we do is not good, on the contrary, the good we do is heroic because inspire of our egotistical desires, we are able to rise above them to do the next right thing, to go against self-interest at times to aid another, to serve a higher purpose than self-satisfaction. Yet, in looking back upon my life, I also realize the moments when I lost the ability to discern between the “vested interests of the ego” and how even doing the ‘right thing’ can be skewed because the false ego and my instinctual desires, especially to be right, overrode what my soul knew and how to achieve a goal respecting the dignity of another(s). I/we fall into “the tragic predicament” whenever we ‘need to be right’, need to prove we are the smartest in the room, when we are so power-hungry, so narcissistic, so authoritarian, we need to win at any and all costs. It is apparent in our current political crisis’ across the globe and, I believe, we have to be aware of our spiritual insecurity, our spiritual uncertainty so we continue to be aware of the myriad of paths our false egos, our “evil drives” disguise themselves and send us into despair, silent acquiescence, ‘why bother’ as we witness in our individual and communal lives.
Surrender is the first step in recovery, it is not a surrender that is defeatist, rather we surrender to truth, to a power greater than ourselves. We live the Serenity Prayer throughout our day and we take our spiritual temperature often during the day so we catch ourselves early when we drift into “the tragic predicament” Rabbi Heschel is warning us of. This surrender is a gift, it is an awareness of our spiritual uncertainty, our spiritual insecurity so we can constantly be teachable, always learning and discerning, our inner life becomes the determining factor in our actions rather than the rationalizations, the mendacity that used to dominate our thinking. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark