Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 269
“The hysteria of suspicion holds many of us in its spell. It has not only affected our understanding of others but also made us unreliable to ourselves, making it impossible to trust either our aspirations or convictions.” (God in Search of Man pg. 389)
The second sentence above is empirically true, we have seen it happen throughout history, we are witnessing it happen right now. We have become so suspicious of everyone else we are failing to realize the inner suspicion we carry, we act from and how suspiciousness of our self has impacted the entirety of our living. From our political realm to our spiritual realm to our personal realm, suspicion rules. We are suffering deeply from an inability “to trust either our aspirations or convictions.”
We have gotten to this point because we have relied too heavily on societal norms, we “stand idly by the blood of our neighbor” and we are so spiritually immature we have no true sense of our need for one another, our unique gifts that are to add to the world, nor how to be in truth with ourselves. We understand another(s) through the lens of suspicion, through the lens of ‘what do/can I get from this person’, ‘what’s in it for me’, etc. We are not seeking to give freely what we have, we are not willing to “judge each person with the scale weighted in their favor” as Pirke Avot 1:6 teaches us. Instead, we have come to, as Rabbi Heschel says, “suspect thy neighbor”.
In a strange way, we are fulfilling the commandment to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, however. Because of “the hysteria of suspicion” has “made us unreliable to ourselves”, our love for ourself is tainted with suspicion, it is overwhelmed and affected by our inner suspicion that we have forgotten how to love ourselves, how to “clean our side of the street”, how to admit our errors and our guilt, etc. We, instead, continually blame another(s) for our miscues, for our wrongdoings, we have come to internalize Goebbel’s teaching: “accuse others of that which you are guilty of”. We are seeing this and have seen this occurring forever and especially with Trump and his followers and his minions in the Republican Party. McCarthy, Jordan, Greene, Gaetz, et al keep accusing the Democrats, the Biden’s, Pelosi, even the Capital Police of wrongdoing rather than hold the rioters, the Trump Cabal accountable! We see this in families, as youngsters deny wrongdoing when caught and blame another person, another family member, because of their inner suspicion that if they admit to making an error, this means they are an error. We have come to confuse making a mistake with being a mistake. We confuse the good, innocent, helpful intentions of another person as a statement of our being incapable. We have adopted the erroneous thinking of society that we are supposed to be perfect and if we are found to have imperfections, we are bad, we will be rejected, we will be banished.
In our religious and spiritual realms as well as our political realm now, we either put our Clergy and gurus on a pedestal that they can never stand on or we tear them down, humiliate them, reject them for their errors. Our inner suspicion causes us to suspect the wisdom, the teachings, the assistance of our spiritual and religious leaders because we can point to their incongruences, so we ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’. For us clergy, spiritual guides, we are so aware of our inner battles, our imperfections and we know the expectation of those we serve, we continue to hide our flaws, we ‘go along to get along’, ie keep our jobs/income, we even abandon our friendships when they are no longer convenient and conducive to our goal of hiding. This is true not just for clergy and spiritual guides, it is true for all people. Our being “unreliable to ourselves” causes us to continually hide, lie, wear masks, put up facades and send people when they are real, imperfect, etc because of our fear of being found out and we send them away to wander in the wilderness of ignorance of their ‘crimes’. For most of us, our inner suspicions are buried so deeply, we are unaware of them and we continue to believe we are acting from our ‘higher place’ and we are ‘doing what is best’ for our country, our business, our family, our institutions, our selves.
“The deception of others is nearly always rooted in the deceptions of ourselves” is a quote from Bill W in AA literature. It serves as a constant reminder and guide for our daily “personal inventory” which, those of us in recovery, engage in daily. While it may take time to root out “the deceptions of ourselves” when we do, we promptly admit our wrongs, we do what we can to repair the damage, and, in my experience, we find ways to be forgiven, reconnect except with people who are still “rooted in the deceptions” of themselves. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark