Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 267
“Thus the predicament of modern man may be characterized as an escape to suspicion. There is a tabu on the idea of objective validity, of sacredness or supremacy of a value. It is our implicit belief that there is a vicious underground beneath all action, that ulterior motives are the humus of all virtue, no reality to integrity.” (God in Search of Man pg. 389)
In the Book of Genesis we are told that God sees the inclinations of humans are “evil from their youth”. “Our implicit belief that there is a vicious underground beneath all action” could be the root cause of our being “evil from our youth”. We grow up learning to suspect everything and everyone. Humanity has the capacity and the need to question, to learn, to mine the depths of life and experiences which is necessary to grow, to improve, to learn. Yet, we have turned this foundational aspect of human living into suspicion, into believing “that ulterior motives are the humus of all virtue”.
Humus comes from the Latin meaning “soil” and Rabbi Heschel is calling to our attention how we have come to believe that the soil, the necessary ingredient of all growth, of all virtue is our ulterior motives. Rather than give each person “judge all people with the scale weighted in their merit” as we learn in Pirke Avot 1:7, we have come to judge all people with suspicion, believing people are always acting in their own interests, seeking out the ulterior motives in the good people do. We have come to believe in the meanness of people, in the selfishness of people, and we suspect the goodness of another as a cover-up for a scam someone else is trying to perpetrate upon us.
This, I believe, is the reason that Trump is able to keep so much support even though he has proven himself to be self-centered, authoritarian, a bully, etc. Populism is a label for suspicion, for hatred of another, for believing the goodness of another is a cover for their ‘ulterior” and selfish motives. We are in need of believing the worst of another so we can think better of ourselves. When we suspect someone else, we can feel good about ourselves. “Everyone cheats on their taxes”, “everyone else is doing this” are constant refrains that give our suspicious minds power and strength to point our fingers at another so we can feel good about ourselves and assuage our own inner suspicions.
Because of our ‘false’ ego needs, we come to believe there is “no reality to virtue”. I think of my grandfather, Abe Borovitz, who never said a bad word about another person, who lived the teaching from Pirke Avot above. He would not let anyone else speak suspiciously about another person in his company. He did not suspect people automatically, he did not point fingers at another while doing what he accused another of. Rather, he believed that people had integrity, he took a person at their word, he lived with integrity and a clean heart, a soul that radiated good, joy, and, at times, happiness. When he had to close his tailoring and dry cleaning store, he made us deliver all the clothes that had been left there to the people who owned them, when we said we would not give them without the people paying their bill, my grandfather said: “these are not our clothes, if they don’t pay, it doesn’t matter, we cannot steal from them.” Some people paid, others didn’t, yet everyone was amazed that a white person would give them , mostly black people, their property back anyway! Abe did not have a false bone in his body, he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t “successful” according to societal standards, and he was the most upstanding human being I have ever known!
We learn to leave our suspicions at the door when we enter recovery. Being accepted with all of our flaws, our past errors, even being ‘re-accepted’ after a relapse seems impossible to us. We have been rejected for being who we are so we find escape in our non-recovery patters, we have been suspicious of anyone and everyone who reached out to us thinking “if they only knew who we are, they would run away”. Yet, the people who reached out to us prior to our recovery,saw who we are and wanted to help us grow into our authentic self. Everyone in recovery sees who we really are and want to help us grow into our authentic self. “Let us love you until you can love yourself” is one of the mottos of recovery, it is the opposite of the suspicion Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us. Living a life of integrity may or may not make us rich materially, it will give us a life worth living, a life worthy of being a partner of God.
I am guilty of suspecting people when I perceive they are hiding. I have reacted with anger, with passion, with hurt and I have been wrong to do this. I commit to follow my grandfather’s example more each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark