Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 294
“Such a person is worse than an idol-worshiper … . The latter, paying homage to the stars, worships an object that does not rebel against God, whereas the former worships beings some of whom rebel against God. The former only worships one object, but there is no limit to the number of human beings whom the perverse in religion may worship. Finally the inner attitude of the idolator is apparent to everybody; people can guard themselves from him—his denial of God is public knowledge. The hypocrite’s denial, however, is unnoticed … . This makes him the worst of the universal evils(Bahya, Duties of the Heart, Chapter 4). (God in Search of Man pg. 392)
Our insatiable desire to fool ourselves and everyone else, our incessant need to be ‘perfect’, has caused us to become the very people Bahya is speaking about. We are so accustomed to hiding, to wearing masks that we have put on so much mental make-up that we have almost forfeited our faces. We hide our hypocrisies, our incongruences from everyone and tell ourselves a story so we can live with our self-deceptions and our mendacities towards everyone else.
This is the greatest spiritual, mental crisis we are facing today, as it has been throughout history: being authentic, being transparent, being real, living into our imperfections instead of hiding them, denying them and blaming others for them. We see this in politics all the time, Kevin McCarthy wants to move attention from Trump’s crimes and misdemeanors by impeaching Joe Biden for nothing other than he can and his power is dependent upon worshiping “beings some of whom rebel against God.” We hear of Hunter Biden’s crimes, which are serious and not “that” serious while Jared Kushner parlayed his father-in-law’s presidency into a cozy $2 Billion dollar gift from the Saudis and Kevin is mum on this! We watch as the ‘religious right’ do everything they can to demean, disgrace and disregard anyone that is “not with them” and doesn’t think like them, etc. Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, both Supreme Court Justices, believe they are beyond reproach, beyond questioning, behaving as Richard Nixon did, believing that if they do something, it must be ethical, it must be just, etc. The hubris of our politicians is enormous and deadly for us and our democracy because of the worship of humans instead of worshiping God.
In our living rooms, families hide from one another, we teach our children to “not air our dirty laundry”, “what would the neighbors think”, and other such lessons teaching our children to hide and to lie, to worship human beings out of fear of them finding out who ‘we really are’ and rejecting us and/or worshiping them so we can reap some benefits. These ways of being are learned in our home while also saying the ‘right’ things about “Love God with all of your heart, your soul, your everything”. We learn hypocrisy from an early age and it is so ingrained into our society, most people are totally unaware of their incongruences and point their fingers at everyone without looking inside themselves. This is the tragedy of our time, of all times.
Yet, the prophet Jeremiah reminds us: “Return you backsliding children, I will heal your backsliding(Jeremiah 3:22), the prophet Hosea calls out to us to:”Take with you words and return to God, Accept that which is good”. We can be true to ourselves and accepted back by God, we can be true to ourselves and accept our whole selves for maybe the first time since infancy. We need to live into Elul and the compassionate, considerate, loving forces that are so prevalent in the Cosmos at this time of year. God cries for us, our children cry out for us, our parents cry out for us, all of them echoing the first call to the first couple: “Ayecha, where are you?”
This call rings in my ears, in my mind, in my soul each day for the entirety of my life up till now. For many years, I hid from it, for the past 36, I have been responding with Hineni, no matter where I have been-even in hiding, even in denial, even in obliviousness. I am guilty of falling into the different traps that I mentioned above. I have falsely thought I was serving God when actually serving another human being out of fear/gain. I hid from people my insecurities, my fears that they would leave me if I didn’t do what they wanted rather than what God wanted at moments even in my recovery. I also was true to God and to myself during these times, a nuanced both/and. My fear of being abandoned, not ‘in the club’ drove these false moments, were the gasoline that fueled my incongruences, my hypocritical actions. I apologize to everyone harmed by these false moments and I apologize to God for my betrayal. These have lessened over the years and the fear of abandonment no longer drives me, as it has happened in some cases and I am sad, just not devastated. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark