Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 347

“All needs are one-sided. When hungry we are in need of food, yet food is not in need of being consumed…It is in such one-sidedness that most of life is imprisoned. Examine an average mind, and you will find it dominated by an effort to cut reality to the measure of the ego, as if the world existed for the sake of pleasing one’s ego.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 63)

While I am not sure I agree with the “all” because human beings have a reciprocal need to be loved and to love, as it says in Chapter 2 of Genesis: “It is not good for a human to be alone”, I do agree with the rest of the words above. Let us not get caught up on the word “all” as a way of ignoring what is being said here.

Throughout history, “an average mind” has made “an effort to cut reality to the measure of the ego”, ensuring everything they see and experience is filtered through the lens of how it affects one’s ego. If it enhances it the experience is deemed correct and good, it if detracts from it, if the experience points out any shortcomings, the experience is deemed wrong and bad. Despots, authoritarians, monarchies take advantage of the “average mind” and we have seen the results. It is not that a person with an “average mind” is a bad person, it is just that they see only a small slice of “reality”, they are not trained nor interested in growing their vision, they adhere to the adage: “it was good enough for my parents so it has to be good enough for me”. People who are stuck in the “reality” that promotes the idea that “the world existed for the sake of pleasing (my) ego” cannot see the forest for the trees, cannot discern truth from fiction, self-deception from reality.

Another issue I find in the words above is that in the state of “one-sidedness that most o life is imprisoned in”, distinctions are not used to learn, to edify, a subject; they are used to compare one person to another. The distinction of race, religion, creed, nationality, etc can be used to make America the melting pot once envisioned and, instead, it is being used to compare black and brown and white skinned people to one another with the white man believing in their own superiority. The distinction of religious groups are being used to promote a ‘christianity’ that is unknown to the truly faithful people who follow Christ’s words and deeds, who hang out with the lepers, the strangers, the gays, the criminals, the slaves, the women, the hookers like Christ did!

We have been through a political debacle that has ignored the good that President Biden has done, the loyalty to the constitution, the loyalty to our allies, the loyalty to the people who are in need with the different legislative victories he secured. The lies of Trump and the RINO’s he commands-the Republican Party of today does not have the moral, spiritual, ethical nor intellectual underpinnings that made Lincoln free the slaves and Ronald Reagan proclaim the “shiny city on the hill”, have made the good that has happened seem irrelevant, they have demonized the illegal immigrants, people seeking a better life than the rape, torture, violence they experienced in their own country and people bought it because they needed a “bad guy” to blame their troubles on. This is reflective of Germany in the 1930’s, Russia when Putin was angling to take over, Hungary as Orban switched from freedom fighter to authoritarian and many others. We have to stay vigilant and make the distinctions that edify and illuminate the truth, moving past the smallness of our egos and out of the small cell that “most of life is imprisoned” in.

We, the people have to rise above satisfying our self-serving needs and realized that our small mindedness is actually not in our best interests. That serving Elon Musk and Donald Trump will not result in prosperity for the average person. Tariffs will make our lives exponentially harder and cause us to, once again, be seen as not having the courage of our convictions nor the desire to follow the covenants we have made and instead are just a transactional country, group, individual with no loyalty to anything other than our ego’s small needs, like ‘getting even’ with those who have spoken truth to power-reflective of the prophetic eras. We, the people are capable of so much more, we can listen to the words of President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”, people who serve in our military are not “losers” as the soon to be Commander in Chief believes, they are patriots who embody President Kennedy’s words. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy SR. said: “Some men see things as they are and ask, “why?” “I dream things that never were and ask “Why not?”. This is the calling that the generation coming of age in the 1960’s were responding to and both of these heroes were senselessly assassinated along with Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcom X because they promoted a way of being that was threatening to the small minds and to the autocrats who felt threatened, to the white man who wanted to keep the “black man where he belonged-boy” not see everyone as human beings possessing infinite dignity and value. It is way past time for We, the People to stand up for the Constitution of the United States, to take back the promise of America, to tell the Supreme Court that justice cannot be pursued through a political agenda, that justice is not conservative nor liberal, it is meted out with righteousness and judges that take ‘bribes’ are blinded and cannot serve the truth nor be deliberate in their judgments. We, the People have to say NO to the dismantling of education and the promotion of one religion’s interpretation of the Bible, we have to say NO to any alliance with Putin and the other autocrats, we have to say NO to the lies of the far-right and far-left in our country and around the world. We, the People have to say YES to being redeemers of those whose “one-sidedness” has their “life imprisoned”, YES to being of service and caring for the stranger, the poor, etc. We the People have to say YES to helping the “average mind” expand it’s horizons and see the beauty of helping another person live well.

This has been my quest over the past 36+ years-both in my last prison term and since leaving prison. I have been saying YES to being of service, to helping another person expand their horizons. There have been times when I used distinctions to compare and feel superior and this was wrong and led to devastating consequences. I am sorry for this error! I have, overall, used distinctions to learn more, to increase my heart’s capacity for change and love, kindness and understanding. When I do this, I know I am doing my best, when I compare, I am a bull in a china shop as opposed to an advocate for the soul. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark