Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 327

“We must address ourselves, in education, to the fundamental problems of existence: How to illumine the inner chaos? How to simplify the self?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 60)

“I have the answer and give you inner peace” is the refrain of so many so-called religious people, cult leaders, etc. “I can take care of you and be your protector, your retribution” says political leaders, aka autocrats, and other charlatans. Yet, the words above show what true religious education is about, it speaks to the role spiritual growing has in our lives.

Because we are created, born with 2 opposing inclinations, because we have both a soul/gut intuition and a rational mind, because we like shiny things and gold attracts us, the “inner chaos” is built in! There is no getting rid of it, there is no great panacea or 1 thing that will solve this inner war no matter what the snake-oil salesman keeps trying to sell us. We are no different than our ancestors who bought into the ‘cures’ of the snake-oil salesman of the ‘wild west’, no different than the Israelites who had euphoric recall for the days “by the fleshpots in Egypt”, no different than the people who believed Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Caesar, Mao, King George. Yet, both ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ people seem incapable of accepting this truth! “To simply the self” is not to dumb down, it is not to become malleable like putty in someone’s hands, it is not to ‘kill’ the parts of self we don’t like, it is to “keep it simple stupid”! The way “to simplify the self”, I believe after being a student of life and Rabbi Heschel, is to remain authentic, not put on the myriad of masks we use to hide, not engage in mendacity and self-deception. Simple is not the same as stupid, “simplify” in this context is about dealing with the complexities of life, the prism of choices and knowing that doing the next right thing is the path to wholeness, authenticity, and quieting the “inner chaos”.

It is not easy to do this and our Clergy, our teachers often do not help us. Rather than “illumine the inner chaos”, they bring us pap to hide ourselves from it. Giving my troubles to Jesus, doing the Mitzvot, declaring the greatness of Allah will not solve my “inner chaos”, will not help me deal with my “inner chaos”; these can help me “illumine the inner chaos” I am experiencing so I can look at it, make better choices and determine the voice of negativity from the voice of positivity, the voice of spirit from the voice of rationality that wants me to hide, to ‘get ahead’ by any and all means. What we really need is to learn how the Holy Texts of each faith, of every spiritual discipline helps us “illumine the inner chaos”. In recovery, in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam we do this by taking stock of ourselves through an inventory of our past; seeing the good and the not good actions we have taken, putting ourselves back in the moment of choice and relate the voice that was so loud in our inner life and learn how to deal with it differently than just blindly following it, making our amends and having a plan not to repeat this way of being again. Otherwise, when we say “I’m sorry” we are just trying to get the heat off, trying to appease someone else and have no intention of changing, no intention of dealing with our “inner chaos” any differently. This is the tragedy of ‘quick fixes’, of ‘follow me and I will solve all your problems’, of buying into the lies of the snake-oil salespeople like Stefanik, Johnson, Cruz, Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Ben-G’Vir, the Ayatollah, etc. All of these wanna-be dictators and actual dictators all promise big and deliver little, they all sound so empathetic towards the ‘downtrodden’, the powerless and voiceless and their actions are to take advantage of the “inner chaos” in their people for their own power and glory. Rather than helping to “simplify the self” through authenticity and finding ways to harmonize the 2 inclinations within each human being, they treat the self of everyone else simple and stupid. How disgusting and despicable, yet throughout history these ways of being keep rearing their heads, keep winning over the very people whose self-interest is being violated. As Mark Twain said: “As lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its socks on.”

This is the challenge facing us right here, right now: are we going to engage in what religion is meant to do to help us “illumine the inner chaos” and “simplify the self” or are we going to continue to follow the leader/authoritarian/snake-oil salesman to our own ruin? We can “illumine the inner chaos” by using the Bible, the holy texts of other spiritualities to help us see ourselves in all of the characters, all of our archetypes, see our inner Pharaoh and our inner Moses, know they are carrying on the same argument as we read in Exodus. We get to see and hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and Moses’ farewell address and know that we can, and I might add should, Choose Life. We immerse ourselves in the text and have our own understanding of what these holy texts teach us, we are not bound by the words of ‘the sages’ or of the speakers themselves. Every holy text of every spiritual discipline is to be understood on so many levels and in different ways each time we read them, each time we immerse ourselves in them otherwise they cannot be dynamic, they cannot be viewed as eternal wisdom and eternal truth. We “simplify the self” by embracing our own unique spiritual type, we “illumine the inner chaos” through experiencing the confusion of Abraham when he is asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, when Esau doesn’t understand that his father doesn’t have a blessing for him, when we hear of the moaning and complaining of the Israelites in the desert, when we see the words of the prophets fall on deaf ears both in the Bible and NOW. We can do this as Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says: “For this commandment…is not hidden… it is in your mouth and your heart”.

I continue to have my “inner chaos” illumined and to “simplify the self” within me through this blog, through my studies, through my learnings, through my living an aware life. Socrates said: “An unexamined life is not worth living” and Malcom X said: “the examined life is painful”. Both are true and I have found the pain is worth the emptiness and vapidity of not examining my daily living. I am become aware of errors that I didn’t see at the time through this examination, I see my “inner chaos” better each day and deal with it better each day, I am more authentic through my “examined life” and strive to peel away the thin membrane of mendacity, self-deception, and vapidity that keeps trying to cover my heart and soul. It is hard, I am not perfect which is why this is a daily activity. I am enraged at the lies of the charlatans who profess to be ‘religious’ and the snake-oil salesman who claim to care about anyone but themselves. I pray I channel this rage into words and ways that “illumine the inner chaos” within you and help you be more authentically you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark