Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 304
“Moses’ saying to Israel, “I stand between God and you”(Deuteronomy 5:5), was allegorically interpreted by Rabbi Michael of Zlotshov to mean: The “I” stands between God and man.”(Quoted by Rabbi Kalonymus Salma Epstein, Maor Vashamesh, Lemberg, 1859 p.29b) (God in Search of Man pg. 394)
Tonight is the beginning of the year 5784 in the Hebrew Calendar. Whether the calculations are correct or not is immaterial, whether every incident in the Bible actually happened is immaterial, what is material are the myriad of ways Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc give us to celebrate new beginnings, to engage in the repair of our old beginnings that we had a part in causing to fail, to see ourselves in our proper image-neither too small nor too large, to live in proper measure for the moment we are in.
Tonight and every night, we are called to stand in front of our true self, our authentic being and commit to be a little more authentic, a little more in truth, a little better, l little kinder, a little more of a community member, tomorrow than we were today. Rosh HaShana, the head of the year, comes 6 months(approx.) after our exodus from Egypt, which is no coincidence to me. We are given this Holy Season to see how large the “I” has become since we left slavery, we are being called to account to and for ourselves-not to some ‘guy in the sky’- but rather to ourselves, to one another, to the Ineffable One, for the times we kept our “I” in check/proper measure and when we did not! While we are not really supposed to make New Year’s Resolutions, we are supposed to repair the damages done to our selves, to another self, to the world writ large and these repairs, aka T’Shuvah, include our plan not to do the same thing again. It is, our plan to stop the insanity of our ways of being, as defined by Einstein. It is, our deep desire to repair relationships, to expand relationships, to let go of the ones that are toxic and stop adding one’s own toxicity to new and old relationships.
Competition for a job, for an invention, for a way of doing something is understandable and good as long as the “I” doesn’t make us into ‘killers’, doesn’t prod us to ‘win at all costs’, doesn’t guide us to let go of our humanity while deceiving ourselves into thinking we are saving our humanity and honoring it. We all have witnessed people who have put their “I” between them and another human being, who have put their “I” between them and community (unless they are running the community), who have extolled God while worshiping the idolatry of the overgrown, outsized “I”! Yet, this time of year, in fact all year long, we are being called to witness how we are doing the same things with our “I”! 6 months ago we left Egypt, now we have to see how we have moved forward towards freedom and how we have turned back to serve our self-serving Pharaoh called the “I”!
Recovery is all about being “right-sized”, it is all about keeping our ego’s in check-not extinguishing them as they are God-given, and using our egos in proper measure to the moment we are in. Which, is the conundrum of the “I” for most of us. Each moment is different, there will never be this moment again, which means we have to face each moment and respond to each moment differently, hence the inability to follow some chart or game plan that is made up prior to this moment. Rather, we have to train our “I” to respond to the present appropriately so we don’t separate ourselves from the community, we don’t practice the idolatry of “know-it-all”, and don’t allow anything to come between our selves, our souls and the spirit of God that is always hovering above us and waiting for us to reach for and be open to receive.
I have put my “I” between me and God, between me and another person more times than I want to remember and, as painful as it is, I must. I have made amends and gotten better and I have continued to do this. In the past 34+ years, when I have done this it has been from a place of self-deception and blindness that is not/was not willful. Hindsight is 20/20 and I was reading a T’Shuvah I made to my community at the time in 2014. Many of the topics I have mentioned this Elul are in there and I know that I will never be perfect. I also know, as I prepare for Rosh HaShanah, that I have grown, I am a better human being, I can withstand the onslaught of hate, vitriol that some people need to spew, and I can look myself in the mirror, I can look anyone in the eyes, and I can connect and be in a covenantal relationship with God. Not as a perfect being, but as Mark Borovitz, fallible human being who continues to grow along spiritual lines and who doesn’t need to be right all the time and is willing to admit his own errors and flaws as well as what he does well. This is how my “I” stays right-sized and of service. Shana Tova, God Bless, and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark