Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 296

“Disguised polytheism is also the religion of him who combines with the worship of God the devotion to his own gain, as it is said There shall be no strange god in thee(Psalms 81:10), on which our teachers remarked that it meant the strange god in the very self of man(Bahya Duties of the Heart Chapter 10)(God in Search of Man pg.392)

“In the beginning…the earth was empty and chaotic, darkness was over the deep and the spirit of God hovered over the waters. God said: “Let there be light and there was light”(Genesis: 1:1-3). These opening words of the Bible do not just describe the earth at it’s inception, they describe the human condition as well. Many of us have felt empty and chaotic inside, we have been overwhelmed with darkness in our minds and our inner lives, and God is always hovering within us and around us. God is calling to us to see the light, God is calling to us to connect to the source of the universe, the source of life and many of us are unable to hear the call. We stay stuck in the darkness, we continue to feel empty and chaotic and we project all three onto the people in our lives.

Emptiness, chaos, darkness are part of our internal make-up, we have a divine inclination and an earthly inclination. They are not something to ‘get rid of’, not something to ignore nor despise, these parts of our being are for us to transform to serve God, to serve one another, and in doing so, we grow in our humanity, we grow in our purpose, we tend our own particular corner of the world. When we engage in “disguised polytheism”, we are negating the call of God to the light, the call of God to connect, the agreement to be in a covenantal relationship with God and with human beings. Herein lies the great dilemma for us, how do we let go of our rational logic of ‘what’s best for me’ and lean into ‘how do I serve God and human beings in my unique way’. One of the ways we engage in “disguised polytheism”, I believe, is our insistence on following a dogma rather than worshiping God. Dogma, while it gives us certainty, leads us to staying stuck in either/or thinking, my way is the best/only true way, change is my enemy, mendacity is truth, up is down, and allows us to live in ‘blissful’ self-deception.

Immersing myself in the teaching above, the “strange god in thee” is our attachment to our rational thinking/our dogmas in the face of our spiritual logic and God’s call to us. We have become so rooted in our self-deceptions, in our “strange god in thee” as to be deaf to the call of one another, to be blind to what God is showing us, to use our deeds to serve ourselves while worshiping not God, but the idols we have created to be our god. Rather than being in competition with one another, rather than continuing to see the world as we always have, rather than pining for ‘the good old days’, I hear Rabbi Heschel, the Psalmist, Bahya, disturbing our blissful self-deceptions, our engagements in mendacity, our practice of worshiping “the strange god in thee”, by reminding us of the destruction these practices bring. We are destroying our democracy, we are destroying the spirit of our exodus from Egypt by continuing to engage in our “disguised polytheism”.

It is ironic that we speak about our exodus from Egypt twice each day in our prayers and we remind ourselves to not “scout out after our hearts and eyes because we will whore/prostitute ourselves after them” and then go into the world and do exactly that. Rather than continue the journey from slavery to freedom, we keep turning back to the inner slaveries of mendacity, self-deception, deception of another(s), believing “the strange god in thee” is what we need to worship and seeking our own gain rather than serving God in truth, rather than caring for one another as we are taught in the Bible. We are told there are 70 faces of Torah, 70 ways to understand each verse, chapter and yet, we stay stuck in our old interpretations because they suit our idol worship. We stay stuck in the judgmental beliefs of earlier selves, we fail to recognize that the Bible, that faith, that worship has to be dynamic, it is ever-changing within us if we are to be people of faith, if we are to worship God and not “the strange god in thee”.

I am guilty of worshiping “the strange god in thee” at times even in my recovery. I have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to my own rationalizations and called them Godly when they were actually godly. I have erred on the side of my ‘rightness’ and not heard nor seen truth when it was calling to me and in my face. I apologize to those who have been frustrated by calling to me in those moments and my ignoring their call, which I know was also God’s call. I have learned to hear the people around me more, I have learned to discern those who are calling to me from their God-Image and those who call from their own. I hear better, I see better and I am better each day, at least one grain of sand. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.