Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 282

“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)

Suspicion comes from the Latin meaning “mistrust”, and Rabbi Heschel’s use of this word regarding ourselves, asks us to look inside and see how much we actually trust ourselves and how our trust in our inner life/in our soul impacts how we are living. The questions he is asking are to help us see how aware we are/are willing to be about our actions, our motives, the integration of our inner and outer lives. While it seems a negative viewpoint from Rabbi Heschel to some-as I was discussing with a couple of people last night- I find his words to be uplifting in helping us be more introspective and aware of the areas we are living with integrity and the areas of life in which we are not.

The last sentence above, hopefully, stops us in our tracks! Piety is associated with reverence, “a belief or point of view that is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence", and comes from the Latin meaning “dutifulness”. Expediency comes from the Latin meaning “putting in order” and is defined as “the quality of being convenient and practical despite possibly being improper or immoral". Given Rabbi Heschel’s belief in the words and ways of the Prophets, his deep religious fervor for God, for Truth, I hear him calling to us to examine our selves, especially during this month of Elul, and as ourselves how we can claim to be Hasids(pious) when we twist the words of Torah, the words of God, the examples of the prophets, the actions our ancestors took that were wrong and taught to us to show us what happens when we choose expediency, when we live in ways that are “unthinking, conventional” and we show “reverence” and deference to mendacity, self-deception, deception of another(s), etc.

On Yom Kippur Day, we read from the Book of Jonah, an interesting choice by the Rabbis. The people of Nineveh, the King of Nineveh, the most power-hungry city in its time, all hear the words of the prophet and they engage in T’Shuvah, they engage in self-examination, they engage in purposeful actions and change their thinking and future actions. We today seem incapable of following their lead. We hear of the perfections of Biblical Characters, we read in commentaries ‘clean-ups’ of their bad behaviors, we suspect their motives and we are told we are wrong, we just are spiritually elevated enough. We listen to the exhortations of religious/spiritual leaders that promote “conventional, unthinking” and demand “reverence” to what is “convenient and practical” and we either go along with them blindly, walk away because we don’t want anything to do with God, higher power,  and/or walk away because we know they are charlatans.

In recovery, we know that pointing the finger at someone is a sign to us, to look at the 3 fingers pointing back to us. While it is not wrong to point out to someone their veering off the path of their recovery, it is also important to look at the ways we are drifting off the path as well. We are aware that “piety” can never be “unthinking, conventional”, not as a spiritual discipline/practice. We know that we can no longer do things because they are “convenient and practical” they have to be deliberate and purposeful. Our recovery inventories continue to help us live into the maladjusted, impractical, deep thinking, and inconvenient ways of wonder and radical amazement!

Continuing my own examples of Elul, I am painfully aware of when expediency and piety were so attached I didn’t see them as separate. I am aware of the times, I went along with people and actions that we “improper and immoral” because it was “convenient” and self-serving. While this was more prevalent prior to my own recovery in 1988, it has happened in my recovery. While fighting the ways of the world, when I was confronted by people in these past 34+ years, at times I was unable to see their point of view, I was willfully blind and deaf to their calls and I am deeply remorseful for these times. Looking back, each time was a result of my own suspicions that needed to be an inner journey and inventory which I made an outer finger-pointing; always getting me in more spiritual distress and angst. I am also aware of the many times, I have chosen to be “maladjusted to notions and cliches” in order to “have an authentic awareness of that which is” and experienced the consequences of these actions as well. I am proud of being a Hasid, especially a Hasid of Rabbi Heschel’s and I pray I do his words, teachings, God’s words, teachings, justice each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark