Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 281
“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)
Both words, trust and faith, in Latin and Hebrew have similar meanings, leading me to understand Rabbi Heschel’s question in a new light. How does our “self-suspicion” make our faith/loyalty/fidelity untrustworthy? How does our “self-suspicion” lead us to suspect some people and believe some people? On the macro level, how does our “self-suspicion” lead us to not trust ourselves, to “trust our own faith” when we don’t trust ourselves fully nor most people? We are seeing this play out on our political scene. Bidenomics has helped the country come back, albeit not as quickly as some people would like, from the devastation of the pandemic. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has used their majority to attack specious rumors that they know are not true, rather than pass legislation that the majority of the people want. State Houses have tried to, and in many cases have, passed abortion bans that are draconian rather than seek to improve the lives of the poor, the stranger, the needy and both entities do this as ‘religious’ people. Even though they go against basic tenets of both Jesus and the Hebrew Bible, the “trust (their) own faith” as given to them by charlatans, idolators, false prophets and even proclaimed Trump a “messiah”! These actions and ways of being make it hard for anyone to trust faith, to engage in religious and spiritual disciplines with any fervor, with the desperation needed to change our evil/suspicious ways.
On a micro level, all of us are being enjoined, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel today, to see how our “self-suspicion” begs the question: “can we trust our own faith?” Beginning with the question what do we trust, what are ‘staying strong in, what lies that we tell ourselves are we staying so strong in that we cannot change, cannot have our minds changed, are unwilling to face truth because of our holding on to “alternative facts”? What causes our “self-suspicion” and how can we use faith to overcome our tendency to “suspect thy neighbor”? In evaluating our selves, in doing our inventory over the past year(s), looking at our suspicious natures and those we suspect of ‘wrong-doing’ it seems important to look at our own suspicions of ourselves, to see when we did things because we trusted in the wrong principles, when our “evil drive” was camouflaged and we believe we are/were acting from a Godly place when we were actually being idolatrous. At Mount Sinai, God asked for our pledge, our ancestors made this pledge for themselves and for all of us and it is up to us to stay “strong” in our “belief” and stay in fidelity to the original response: Na’aseh V’nishmah; we will do and then we will understand. Rather than following the call of our soul, we have been engaged, for millennia, in following the call of our rational minds, of our suspicious minds, which has led to wars, destruction, divorce of mates, of children, of parents, of commitments. Rather than making and honoring our covenants with God and one another as taught to us in the Bible, Koran, New Testament, etc, we fall into our suspicious rational minds and call it faith, call it fidelity, call it strength- how sad, how idolatrous, how crushing to our well-being.
How do we begin, you might ask, so I will begin with my own inventory on this topic: As a criminal I suspected myself so much, I couldn’t trust the people who had my best interests at heart and instead trusted people who had their own agendas seeking me to serve them. I was so “self-suspicious” that I didn’t recognize this truth and, in fact, I turned everything upside down. I stayed loyal, kept fidelity with and was strong in my conviction that people who wanted me to do things to serve them were actually the ones who ‘got me’ and I was so upside down because of my “self-suspicion” that I could tell truth from fiction, alternative facts from real ones. I have made amends to the myriad of family, friends who I could find and donated to Tzedakah for the ones I haven’t been able to find. I say here and now: I was wrong and I am sorry for any and all hurt I caused from my “self-suspicion” which led me to suspect the people I could have/should have trusted. In my recovery, I have found that my “self-suspicion” took the form of sadness and anger when people hid from me, when they came for my help and then tried to kill themselves. My passion for life, which is real, became mixed up in my suspicion of people who hid and this led to bad actions, mean actions on my part, I realize. I did not see this before and I am profoundly sorry for those whom I hurt and I know my intentions were good and they don’t matter when the actions are not good. Please accept my T’Shuvah, my amends and God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark