Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 273

“The self-suspicious man shrinks from the light. He is often afraid to think as he feels, afraid to admit what he believes, afraid to love what he admires. Going astray, he blames others for his failures and becomes more evasive, smooth-tongued, and deceitful. Living in fear, he thinks that ambush is the normal dwelling place of all men.”(God in Search of Man pg. 389)

The experience of self-suspicion, suspicion of another(s) is universal and historical. While it seems to be embedded in our DNA, it is a learned behavior. As I delve into my own suspicious nature and actions, I am understanding the phrase “the inclinations of humans are evil from their youth” found in Genesis 8:21 in a new context. Because we learn how to be “self-suspicious” and we learn ‘perfection’ is the goal/winning, when we go “astray” we have to “blame others for our failures.” There is just no other way to be able to live with ourselves, there is no societal norm that welcomes imperfection, that rewards truth telling, doing T’Shuvah, being responsible for our errors. While parents, teachers, political leaders, Rabbis, Priests, Nuns, Imams, Cantors, Monks, etc will tell us to be honest, to always tell the truth, their examples are less than exemplar in this area! They teach us with their actions how to hide, how to cover up, how to blame someone else, how to lie, how to deceive through omissions. Standing up for what is right, like the Prophets, like Rabbi Heschel, like Dr. King, like Dr. Barber, for no personal gain, doing the next right action purely for the sake of God, of humanity, of being able to live with oneself, seems to be a lost art for most of us. Yet, this way of being, the opposite of blaming, the opposite of evasiveness, the opposite of glib and smooth-talking and the opposite of deception are within our grasp. We can change, because unlike leopards, humans change ‘their spots’ all the time, this is called growing and maturing.

We have to begin by calling out what is not right in our world, what is anti-human, what goes against the teachings of Jesus, of Moses, of Mohammed, of God. One cannot “love thy neighbor like their self” without loving oneself! We stop blaming and take responsibility for our imperfections. Rather than try and kill our “other self”, we learn how to make friends with the parts of us we have denied, bringing together our divine and earthly inclinations, as Rabbi Harold Kushner, z”l, taught me and so many others. Once we stop blaming another(s) for whatever we are perceiving to be ‘wrong’ with us, we begin to understand and appreciate our progress rather than our failure, we do our inventory, our Chesbon HaNefesh, accounting of our soul, and see where we have done well in areas that we beat ourselves up for not ‘being perfect’ in prior years. We begin to realize our ability to learn from, repair and have new responses to situations and ways of being that used to be our Achilles heel. We realize we no longer have to be deceptive, we no longer have to ‘sell’ a false version of events, and we no longer have to evade truth, evade God’s call, evade faithfulness to principles, evade our command to “welcome the stranger, care for the poor and the needy”.

The news yesterday was distressing and joyous, the fires in Maui, destroying Lahina, are so sad and scary-so many lives lost, injured, and impacted in a myriad of ways we have yet to know and understand. Ron DiSantis ‘firing’ a duly elected prosecutor because he disagrees with her politics, her choices, so he doesn’t believe in an Independent Judiciary, which speaks volumes about what he would do as President-a very scary thought. DiSantis is a made up person who is the textbook example of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and how he can be considered for continuing and protecting our democracy, our constitution is beyond me. The Republican Party has decided that the Confederacy was right, we should make anyone not like us (white, male, Anglo-Saxon, protestant) slaves that serve us- “those people” being anyone who is Black, Asian, Jewish, Latino, Muslim, women, etc. Yet, my home State of Ohio came through- they stopped Republican attempts to hamper democratic methods of change, they repudiated a bill that would have made a ballot measure protecting Abortion and Women’s Reproductive Health Care impossible to pass. YAY Buckeyes!

My experiences in recovery help me to be less evasive, less blaming, and going astray less and less over the years. I am in sync with my imperfections, I don’t beat myself up for my errors in judgement and actions. I know that I am doing the best I can in any given moment and my practice of T’Shuvah, doing a 10th step daily (or so) and a Cheshbon HaNefesh(4th step) once a year, keeps me growing, learning and more accepting of my imperfections and those of everyone else. I no longer suspect myself of ill intent, I no longer suspect myself of hating someone in my heart, I no longer blame anyone else for my choices and actions. I continue to grow along spiritual lines, continue to practice God’s principles in all my affairs to the best I can in the moment. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark