Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 316

“The belief in the possibility to affect and enoble human beings is the rock upon which all of Judaism is built. Denial of this belief would render all of Torah innocuous.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56-7)

While these two sentences seem obvious given the commandments we learn in the Torah and that are lived into in the rest of the Bible, we seem to forget this truth, we seem to be able to ‘spin’ the Mitzvot to our liking, to serve us instead of serving something greater than us. Rabbi Heschel’s use of the words “possibility”, “enoble”, “affect” point us in the direction of inner exploration and discernment. The Hebrew word for prayer is reflexive, we are not asking God, some other entity for something, we are actually asking our self for something, be it healing old wounds, finding new paths for reconciliation and peace, to truly understand what we know in ways that serve us and more than us, etc.

Prayer, you should, you should not commandments are for the individual human being and for a sense of communal spirit. They give us a “rock” of commonality of values and principles, they give us the wherewithal to change when needed, to help another person change, to keep a community together in truthfulness, kindness, love and loyalty to shared principles. Judaism is not just a religious movement, it is a way of living movement and we, some of us Jews, believe the spiritual principles, the commandments, the communal structure gives us a way to live with our imperfections and the imperfections of another. It is the belief that we all change, we all grow and we all have to choose what change we are going to effect in ourselves and which way we are going to grow.

Adherence, study, immersing oneself in the Torah, in the Bible gives the individual a sense of belonging, of being known, of being loved because all of the heroes in the Bible are flawed, they make mistakes and the need for Rabbis to make them perfect bastardizes the text! Understanding sibling rivalry, understanding curiosity, especially when told “don’t eat from this tree and that tree only”, standing up for people one doesn’t even know and calling the Judge of Judges to be just takes a lot of chutzpah and is necessary if we are going to enoble our humanity, if we are going to affect the ways another person grows their own humanity. We have the opportunity to do this each and every day, we have the tools, as Deuteronomy 30:14 says: “The word is very near to you, in your mouth, in your heart”. We don’t have to search too far for what will/can “affect and enoble” us, we just have to begin to dig down through the shmutz that has blocked our spiritual arteries, that is imprisoning our soul, that is denying this “belief in the possibility to affect and enoble human beings”, that is working hard to bastardize and deny the “rock upon which all of Judaism is built”.

What is the plaque in our spiritual arteries? It is greed, believing I have to ‘get mine’ and no else matters. It is power, believing I can bastardize Holy Texts to serve my power grab, my hatred of another human being, even though we are not to hate our neighbors in our hearts according to the Holiness Code in Leviticus. It is lying and making truth indiscernible, treating fiction as fact and fact as fiction, accusing another person of that which we are guilty of. It is when we don’t see the infinite worth of another person so we can enslave them, not give them equal pay, not see them as equal to us because of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, etc. Laziness in not discovering what any spiritual tradition truly says and only going by what the ‘guru’ we have picked says it says tends to create a lot of plaque because we are not exercising our spiritual muscles, our spiritual flow, we are only taking in and not really giving out and this creates a blockage as well.

When we say, believe, practice the religion, the spiritual discipline of NONE, we have made the decision that the Torah, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Tibetan Book of the Living and Dead, etc are of no consequence for us. We have said they are not harmful nor helpful, they are not offensive nor defensive. How awful and foreboding is this! To say the Torah, etc are not offensive is like saying someone spitting in your face is love. To say the Torah is not helpful is like saying all of medicine is ridiculous because we don’t need any help from anyone nor anything. It is like saying the vaccinations developed are unnecessary, Pasteurization is too expensive and doesn’t do anything for us, the polio vaccine was a hoax, and other such stupid sayings. To “render all of Torah innocuous” is to tear down the foundation of democracy, of freedom, of Judaism and the structure of the world. We would be left with ‘survival of the cunningest’, we would see alliances no longer made for the greater good because there is no greater good than the survival of oneself, one’s community, one’s country, etc. We would see almost 50% of the people believing a convicted felon, a proven liar, a charlatan who is only out for him/herself selling a bunch of bullshit about caring for another and we would see so-called ‘religious’ people supporting him, we would see people who seem like decent people supporting the liar because s/he would be good for them. This person would be exalted because people have lost the foundational belief that Mitzvot, that faith and the actions that come out of one’s faith, can and must “affect and enoble human beings.

Sitting here this morning, getting ready to co-officiate at a wedding of two amazing young people, reading this makes me so grateful that I heard a call 38 years ago in a prison cell, that I responded to that call and began a way of being that begins each morning with prayer, study, gratitude, and writing. I am able to look back at old writings and see how faith has changed me, how AA has changed me, how Judaism has made me a better human being. I am in wonderment and disbelief that life could be so good for a guy who was not so good for much of the first half of his life. I know ‘in my bones’ that without Torah and the Bible telling me through the stories that change was possible, that Jacob could change and it was hard, that a King like David could screw up and admit his errors, do his T’Shuvah and be forgiven, that no one had to die for my sins to be forgiven, that speaking truth to power will not make you popular and is necessary as the prophets show us, that I do not have to add to the destructive forces in the universe in order to be successful. I know that money will not make me joyous, only living well will, only loving fiercely and being loyal will and I have come to realize the people I help do not always reciprocate and that is good also. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark