Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 87
“Irrefutably, indestructibly, never wearied by time, the Bible wanders through the ages, giving itself with ease to all men, as if it belonged to every soul on earth. It speaks in every language and in every age. It benefits all the arts and does not compete with them. We all draw upon it, and it remains pure, inexhaustible and complete.” (God in Search of Man pg. 242)
Rabbi Heschel’s description of the power, the glory, the wisdom, the eternalness of the Bible above, hopefully stirs our souls and our minds to delve into it more. No matter how often it is bastardized, misused, abused, he is reminding us that the Bible never tires, it is indestructible and irrefutable. Yet, many of us watch in horror as some people use the Bible to deny Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and the truth of the Bible.
Rabbi Heschel’s words “the Bible wanders through the ages” gives me hope and sadness. Wander connotes aimlessness, it gives the impression that there is no destination, yet, the Bible does have a destination as I understand Rabbi Heschel-“every soul on earth”. Like the love of God, the Bible “gives itself with ease to all men(people) and it is up to each of us to embrace it, to hold onto it, to learn from and with it. Yet, we seem to be unable to do this.
For two millennia ‘religious’ people have tried to take ownership of the Bible for their group and only for their group. When these ‘religious’ people use the phrase “the Bible says” or “it is written” they are trying to particularize the Bible to their whims, their desires and their power urges. As I am hearing Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above, he is reminding us that the Bible belongs “to every soul on earth”, not just to some. It is not a message sent to one particular group or person, it is a way of being that is for all people, a spiritual path that speaks to all of us. As Proverbs teaches: “teach each child(person) according to their understanding” so the Bible does for all of us, which speaks to every individual in their own unique way of being and helps us fully develop into the soul we were created to be.
When a particular group wants to monopolize the Bible for their own purpose, they are denying the truth and wisdom of Rabbi Heschel above. Not only do different groups have different understandings and interpretations, different people within each group have different understands and interpretations. The Bible is not a monolith, it is a living breathing recording of God’s words and will for us, it is a dynamic path that is always changing based on our spiritual growth, hence the need to read it anew each and every year. Be it the 5 Books of Moses(Torah), the Prophets, the Writings, we continue to mine the Bible for new wisdom from ‘old’ teachings. This monopoly that some people, some religions want to claim is false and has made the Bible anathema to many people, young and old. The false interpretations have caused wars, death, destruction throughout the ages and, knowing this, these ‘religious’ people continue to promote false values and mendacious ideas they claim the Bible teaches. It is time to call out the idolators who support ideas and policies that denigrate the poor, impoverish the needy and imprison the stranger. It is time for us to reclaim the Bible for what it truly is: a guide to living well, a call from God to the soul of humanity and the soul of every individual.
As Rabbi Heschel says: “it speaks in every language and in every age”. The problem is not the words of the Bible, the problem is our resistance to hearing the call of the Bible, the problem is our inability to engage in the ideas and principles of the Bible, the problem is our closing our hearts, minds, ears to the Bibles incessant call to care, to love, to be in truth, to join with the eternal wisdom of the Bible. Modern human beings believe they are beyond the Bible, that the Bible is ‘crutch’, they are not ‘afraid to burn in hell’, they believe in ‘humanism’ forgetting that their ‘humanism’ comes from the Bible! While I understand the rejection of religion by some because it is promoted as a monopoly, the Bible has been weaponized by some ‘religious’ people and ‘faiths’ to seek power over anyone ‘not like them’; it is immature and foolish to have “contempt prior to investigation”, which is what so many people engage in. Rather than immerse themselves in the thoughts of the Bible, as Rabbi Heschel calls us to do, many people reject the Bible out of hand, they have contempt for something they do not know anything about from personal investigation. We are in desperate need of hearing Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, engaging with the Bible, seeing how it speaks to us in a language we can understand, argue with it, and learn how to be human from it.
In recovery, “contempt prior to investigation” is the one principle that will keep us ignorant and make recovery unavailable to us. As Father Martin says: “the deepest damage of the disease is to the “inner man”.” Our inability to experience recovery as a spiritual path to wholeness is the number one reason people go back to their old ways, people fail to grow and move forward, it is the essence of “contempt prior to investigation”. For many recovering people, the Big Book of AA is their ‘Bible’. All of the principles of AA come from the Bible, of course. The Big Book is one of the languages the Bible speaks in, just as the New Testament, the Koran, the texts of Eastern Philosophies are. In recovery, we are not in competition with the Bible, we are not in competition with religions, we are partners in claiming the Bible that speaks to us in our language and in this moment we are in. We have let go of the need to be right and seek to do right, we have let go of the need to be served and seek to serve, etc. The Bible speaks to me anew each day. I continue to accept it with the ease and love it offers and I pray each day for the willingness to carry out the message and principles it gives me today. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark