Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 279
“Self-suspicion looms as a more serious threat to faith than doubt, and “anthropodicy”, the justification of man is today as difficult a problem as theodicy, the justification of God. Is there anything pure and untinged with selfishness in the soul of man? Is integrity at all possible? Can we trust our own faith? Is piety ever detached from expediency.?” (God in search of Man pg. 390)
As we celebrate and acknowledge the new month of Elul in the Hebrew/lunar calendar, hearing Rabbi Heschel’s questions above give us a path to using this month as the Rabbis intended-look at ourselves without the usual filters of ego, self-centeredness, self-deception, self-suspicion, and be responsible to and for our actions, the false selves we portrayed and the authentic souls we are. Rabbi Heschel’s questions are calling to us to see reality, to understand, in my experience of his teaching today, that purity is not the goal, the souls of each us wrestling with our selfishness, our instinct to go with the rational mind over the intuitive one, our need to be right, our desire to deceive another(s) and ourselves, to live in suspicion of self and just about everyone else. This is the month to delve into our way of living a suspicious lifestyle. It is so important to acknowledge most of our suspicions are projections, we are going to get them before they get us. We project onto another what we would do and in those moments, we are not allowing our souls to override our rational, lower thinking and logic. In those moments we are fulfilling Einstein’s fear of worshiping the rational mind and forgetting the intuitive one(soul).
“Is there anything pure and untinged with selfishness in the soul of man”, I believe that we will never achieve this goal, I do believe we can work to lessen our selfishness and our self-centeredness, we can increase our “take the next right action for its own sake” mentality the more we allow our spiritual life, our inner life, our intuitive mind to ‘run the show’. Herein lies the challenge for all of us, allowing our souls, our intuitive minds, our connection to a power greater than ourselves be the guiding lights of our actions, of our living and of our loving one another. When we seek to lessen our selfishness, increase our desire to take the next right action and serve something larger than ourself, we are taking actions with a little more purity than we had before. Again, perfection is not the goal, as I hear Rabbi Heschel speaking to me. In Pirke Avot, Rabbi Tarfon says: “It is not our job to finish the work and we are not free from engaging in it.” Let’s take this month of Elul, when the cosmic forces of compassion, truth, kindness are so strong, as I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man, and do our inner work, our truth speaking to our self, allow our rational mind to hear and take in the truth that our intuitive/soul mind knows.
Our political world is in desperate need of this type of introspection, it is so far off the rails our democracy is still in danger of being taken over by authoritarians, not just Trump but McCarthy, Greene, Jordan, DeSantis, Pence, Christie, et al. We are witnessing selfishness, self-centeredness, suspicion of another, lack of integrity (as evidenced by the debt-ceiling deal and now the threats about the budget deal), and the practice of mendacity disguised as piety, the inability of people to keep their word because all they care about is what is expedient in the moment and call this faithfulness to principles-no matter how idolatrous those principles are! Will any of the people, the guilty and the responsible ones, aka enablers, ever stand up and admit their errors, ask for forgiveness, change their ways? Unfortunately, I think not and this is what is so sad about reading Rabbi Heschel’s call to us from almost 70 years ago!
In recovery, we do a complete inventory and then continue to “take personal inventory and promptly admit when we are wrong.” Beginning today, I would like to suggest we all do a Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our soul, using the questions that Rabbi Heschel’s writing brings up for me daily. Today’s writing is: 1)How have I been less selfish, lived with more integrity, and stayed faithful to spiritual principles, God’s will this year? 2)How have I been selfish (the same or more), been more split and less faithful to spiritual principles, God’s will this year? I have witnessed my split more this year than I have in the past. I have been selfish when I have felt bad because FOMO, I have been more split when I have shunned people who reached out to me, I have been less faithful to my spiritual principles when I have been suspicious of people because of their past actions and not giving them the benefit of the doubt, not looking for, and where appropriate, seeing the change in people. These ways have lessened, I am happy to say and I have been more open, more welcoming, less suspicious and more forgiving in this year. I pray the people who harmed me live well, I stay true to loving more and doing what I say, I am less self-deceptive and better able to see, experience, hear the light and truth. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark