Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 88

“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)

“It benefits all the arts and does not compete with them” teaches us that we do not have to give up our right-brain activities, it is not in conflict with our left-brain logical thinking as I hear Rabbi Heschel’s teaching. Immersing ourselves in this wisdom reminds us again, as Rabbi Heschel always does, to leave our either/or thinking and use the Bible to live in the “both/and” of living.

Be it Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and/or so many other artists of the Renaissance, the Bible is used as inspiration and to depict important stories in their art. The songs that have been written using the Bible’s words to teach us how to live better have been with us for over 2 millennia. Architecture, literature, music, along with sculpturing, painting, theater, ceramics, photography, poetry, dance, are all considered “the arts” and none of these are in competition with the wisdom, the teachings, the ways of the Bible-even though some ‘pious’ people have believed them to be during these 2 millennia! These ‘pious’ people are not interested in the breath of the Bible, they are only interested in using the Bible as a weapon of power and control.

The stories of the Bible inspire us to build buildings that reflect the inner inspiration of our understandings of the Bible. The Western Wall/Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is the last remnant of the Temple that the Romans and so many other conquering nations tried valiantly to destroy and, this remnant still stands as an example of art that benefited from the descriptions in the Bible. The Statue of Moses in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli is Michelangelo’s understanding of what happens when we are connected with God, rays of light from above come into our brain and we are transformed. The Psalms have inspired a plethora of music from the Middle Ages till now. The binding of Isaac, the crossing of the Red Sea, the experience at Mount Sinai, etc have been depicted brilliantly in paintings and are still being re-interpreted by artists today. We are finding ceramics from the time of antiquity in the archeological digs going on, we read Shakespeare and other playwrights who draw inspiration and new commentaries on Biblical themes. Chagall has so many Biblical themes in his paintings they are too numerous to recount. Rather than be in competition, rather than being against the arts, as many Jews believed for a long time, the Bible helps to inspire “the arts” and is explained, taught, interpreted and understood better through “the arts’.

Rabbi Heschel says our lives are like works of art and when lived in ways that are compatible with the Bible, our lives benefit as does the life of the world. We have the opportunity each and every day to connect with the wisdom and truth of the Bible and create our own masterpiece-living well, adding to our corner of the world, being caring, compassionate, free of resentments, practicing justice and mercy, living in truth and love. Everything the Bible teaches us, whether in ‘commandments’ or the stories, we can use to build a life that is a work of art. And, like the sculpture, the painter, the writer, the musician, we use the principle of T’Shuvah, of seeing what doesn’t fit, what doesn’t look right on this work of art called our life and repair the damage, change the coloring, fix the cracks in the way we live each and every day.

This is how we can live in both the right and left brains simultaneously, I believe. When we are analyzing what we are doing(inventory), looking at this work of art called our lives with the same critical eye that Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Chagall, Picasso, Van Gogh looked at their creations, paint and repaint what is in our souls, in our right brains, we are living in “both/and”. Living in “both/and” is our daily opportunity to use the Bible to benefit our artistry, living our spiritual life in all our affairs, no longer separating who we are in business from who we are in Church/Temple/Mosque. No longer separating our meditative practices from our daily actions, no longer excusing our bad behaviors through denial, blame, shame of another, defending, rather admitting our errors and, through the power of repentance, repainting the flaws in our living and fixing the cracks in our actions. Taking seriously that the Bible benefits our artistry of living well, we become the truly pious people that the charlatans and the deceivers purport to be.

The recovery revolution begins with the basics of spiritual living-all the principles of AA, meditation, prayer, are found in the Bible and the stories of redemption and change we hear about from people in recovery mirror the stories in the Bible. We seek to fulfill the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in which we ask to be of service rather than being served. We use the Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr to ask for clarity, for the power and courage to “change the things we should” and discern what is our business and what is God’s. We use words, music, art to depict the myriad of principles we seek to live with and by, we meet in spaces that have paintings of hope, statues of inspirations(people who are living their recovery) and we tell anew the stories of redemption, hope, grace and love we experience in our recovery. I have used the Bible to make my life a work of art and, as I get older, I see the chinks in the sculpture, the cracking of the paint and I continue to use the teachings, the stories, the wisdom to fix them and live one grain of sand better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark