Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 344
“Our tradition insists that we must neither defy desire nor vilify it. Far from defying legitimate needs, it regards authentic needs as spiritual opportunities. It tries to teach us not only to satisfy needs but to surpass them. The error or idolatry is to idolize needs, to convert them into ends.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 63)
Immersing ourselves in the words above, one can experience the radical revolution Judaism is! One can understand the desire of the followers of Moses to “spread the word”, be “a light unto the nations” because this way of being is inherent in our tradition and our nature. That followers of Jesus and Mohammed went in other directions using the Bible as their starting point is only further proof of the revolutionary nature of religion and spirituality.
When we “neither defy desire nor vilify it”, we have the possibility and opportunity to live in proper measure with our desires and to ascertain which desires are “authentic needs” and which ones are not. We have the choice to use our “authentic needs as spiritual opportunities” rather than have them define us or rule us. When our needs define and/or rule us we are either in or close to living in an addictive manner. When our needs overrule taking the next right action, when we make fulfilling them more important than anything else-we are in the throes of addictive behaviors, of possible narcissism, of being entitled, etc and herein lies the big problem. We are seeing more and more people fall into these addictive, hypnotic states and not realizing it because their ‘needs’ are for more money, more power, more recognition, more of the things society rewards us for and seems to value most. Hence we fall into the abyss of inauthentic needs, we “idolize needs, convert them into ends” and disregard the authentic needs we have and the ones people around us have.
Both the far left and the far right, the fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, the ‘christian nationalists’ and, I would add, even the humanists all dance on the edge of the abyss I mentioned above. All people who idolize needs, all people who convert their needs into ends are either about to or already have fallen into the abyss of idolatry and/or error. Rather than surpass their needs, to help another human being, rather than understand that each person has authentic needs that they need to fulfill, these groups of people and their leaders are only concerned with their need for power and control, their need to resist rather than co-exist, their need to have rule over everyone else and insist that everyone “bend the knee” and grovel in front of them. We see this with autocrats, with elected officials, we see this in America, in Israel, in Russia, in Hungary, in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea.
This is not a polemic against fulfilling needs-on the contrary as Rabbi Heschel states above, this is a call to action to discern what are our “authentic needs” and what are the inauthentic needs that we spend so much time seeking. The need of one party to claim a mandate to ‘rule’ over the country when the country is so almost evenly split is an example of an inauthentic need. Why does this happen? It is a “tell” that the party claiming the ‘mandate’ wants to use their power to enhance themselves, to feed their inauthentic needs of more money, lower taxes, bastardize the rule of law, spread more lies about our allies and extol our enemies, imprison people who are doing today what our ancestors did in the last century, come to America with no visa, some even snuck into the country because they were escaping persecution in Russia, in Poland, in Germany. Rather than seeing the “authentic needs” of women, the “authentic need” to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, people who come to “idolize needs, to convert them into ends” are blind to what is good for the country, what is good for another person, another group/tribe-they are only interested in making their “needs into ends”.
This is the challenge that spirituality and faith come to respond to. When we are living consciously, when we are living faithfully to our ethical and decent principles and values, when we are in tune with our higher consciousness, we can respond to the desire to “idolize needs, to convert them into ends” with a HELL NO! Through the practice of our faith, our spiritual discipline, we exercise our higher consciousness, we are better able to articulate to ourselves our “authentic needs” and discern the inauthentic ones. We gain the insight to express our spirituality through the fulfillment of our “authentic needs”. Instead of being either in or on the edge of the abyss mentioned above, we find ourselves enjoying the sunlight of spirit, the ease with which we encounter life, the strength of mind to challenge the lies of societal norms, the joy of living in radical amazement at how great life can be and is. We stay maladjusted to societal norms and cliches and continue to enlarge our vision, our hearing, our connection to another human being, another group, tribe; seeing them as partners rather than competitors, making them allies in promoting a world where love, joy, justice, mercy, compassion, truth reign supreme.
This way of being takes discipline, it takes practice. We have to adopt or adapt a spiritual practice that exercises our higher consciousness, our soul’s voice, and gives us free and constant access to our inner life. Rather than ignore our inner life, when we fulfill our “authentic needs” and regard them as “spiritual opportunities”, we welcome the diverse ‘voices’ in our inner life not as put downs or elevators, we welcome them as helping us see the whole picture and give us the information we need to make informed and good choices. Rather than need to have dominion over another human being, we seek collaboration, we seek engagement to find the next right action to take and we reject the idolatry practiced by so many. We light the candle of hope and we become a “light unto the nations”, “a nation of priests” in our group/tribe and as an example of “reaching across the aisle” and bringing humanity together to better serve one another and live our spiritual nature out loud.
I continue to discern “authentic needs” from the false ones, it is a hard job! I also have stopped worshipping the idols of my past and I seek to collaborate and cooperate, I always say-I’m like Tom Sawyer, I want everyone to help me paint the fence. I know I have mixed up the real and the false, I know I have and continue to fulfill needs that another may look down upon and I know that I can no longer give into the whims of society, the rule of societal norms because fulfilling the “authentic needs” of mine and God’s is what makes me a better human being. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.