Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 330
“Life must be seen not piecemeal but as a whole. To every individual his own life is unprecedented, incomparable, infinitely precious. Every life is pregnant with beauty, and in need of a form in which to be expressed.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 61)
This is the greatest challenge for all human beings! In speaking with Harriet Rossetto, my wife, we were discussing the difficulties human beings have had throughout the millennia with holding onto the “unprecedented, incomparable” experience each person’s life is and, instead, denigrating someone else’s life because they are ‘not like them’, ‘not a member of their tribe’, etc. We have seen hatred and strife, wars-both civil and between countries-throughout our history and, rather than learning from them, we seem to be growing in embracing these negative attitudes and enjoying the vitriols people spew, it even gets them elected to lead governments, like Netanyahu, Orban, etc.
While I have never been a Republican, I had respect for people who were because they were serious, they believed in the words above: “life must not be seen piecemeal but as a whole.” They were willing to argue the points upon which we differed and find common ground. They did not dismiss me out of hand because we believed in democracy, freedom, the preciousness of human life, etc. This is no longer the case and we all pray we can return to this arguing for the sake of what is best for the majority while taking care of the poor, the needy, and the stranger. Unfortunately, in America we have been subjected to an onslaught of hatred, a distorted picture of what is because of a “piecemeal” approach and description by Trump and the Republican Party. Just as we have been subjected to a distorted picture of what is happening in the Middle East by both Netanyahu, his cronies who love to steal along with him, Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, etc. We have been subjected to the hatred and vitriol as well as the lies and deceptions of Putin and his cronies as well-all because we opened the flood gates of denigration in 2016, because Hillary ran a terrible campaign, because the American people wanted a change and wanted a white man in the White House.
Rather than see that “every life is pregnant with beauty, in need of a form in which to be expressed”, it seems as if many people believe only their life is “pregnant with beauty”and if you are not part of their crowd, if one doesn’t subject themselves to the ‘group think’ of hatred and against ____(fill in the blank) then your life isn’t “pregnant with beauty”! We can see this on both the far right and the far left, we see how they can even agree to hate the same group-Jews- with equal fervor. This is the problem that faces every individual in every age. This is the problem that religion/spirituality is the response/answer to. We all come from the first human being-whether you believe in the Bible or evolution or both- and since we are all descended from the first, we all have equal infinite value, hence “life is unprecedented, incomparable, infinitely precious” to the individual and to all of us. We are in need of one another, “it is not good for human to be alone” we learn in the 2nd Chapter of Genesis, so each of us, with our unique “beauty… in need of a form in which to be expressed” needs human beings to help us develop, fill in and assist in life’s challenges that our “life is pregnant with beauty”, doesn’t know, can’t do, isn’t our job to do.
The reason we can’t seem to get beyond our selves, to live into this teaching, the other teachings of Rabbi Heschel, the Bible, Rev. King, St. Francis, the New Testament, Mohammed, the Koran, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, is because we don’t truly see our lives as “pregnant with beauty”, we don’t see the whole picture of our living, we don’t experience the “unprecedented, incomparable, infinitely preciousness” of our life nor of any other life. We give into the rational mind, our reptilian brain, our unawakened mind so we can ‘win at all costs”, not realizing the greatest cost is to our selves, to our being, to our essence. This is why all of these victories we notch on our belts seem so shallow, so vapid, so fleeting-they are actually losses and we are too much in the ether to realize it. This is why negativity feeds our minds, this is why we buy into evil logic, because it doesn’t tax us too much, it is easy to digest, and we can puff out our chests and declare victory over our ‘enemies’. How sad, how tragic, and, as I write this I realize, this is the very definition of slavery. This is the reason we were promised that we the inner slaveries would leave us and they do, when we do our part of the work.
This is the work of religion, the work of living a spiritual life. It is not ‘woo woo’ shit, it is the daily grind of being grateful to be alive and recognizing that life is a gift and we are responsible to use this gift, our life, wisely, kindly, compassionately. Because it is a gift, we have to continue to root our the lies and self-deceptions we tell ourselves, we have to be vigilant to not become oblivious to what is for the sake of seeing only what we want to see. We have to look inside, illumine the inner chaos, transforming our negative inclination to serve our next right action inclination, and find the “form in which (we) need to be expressed”. We do this by remembering that justice, mercy, truth, compassion, faithfulness, Tshuvah are bedrocks of our foundation for living well. We do this with a commitment to see everyone as precious, to know that every life is “unprecedented, incomparable” and we all need one another to help us see life “as a whole”. We can do this, it has happened before in history, it has happened before in Israel, in America, across the globe-we just have to relearn the lessons, live into the lessons and live our values and faith in real time and in all our affairs.
I wrestle with the preciousness of my life all the time. Immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words and my writing today has forced me to realize that I haven’t been engaged in seeing my life as “infinitely precious” for a bit now, I have retreated from the world in some ways and I can’t do this anymore. I know I have something to give, another act if you will, and I have been reticent to take my place on stage. I have been fearful of my past errors being brought up to shame me, to ‘put me in my place’ and I am guilty of seeing life as “piecemeal”. No one has said any of this to me, it is just where my rational mind, my negative inclination took me and I thought I was past it and today’s writing brought up the nuanced way I have been imprisoned by both of these inclinations. NOT NO MORE! I commit to see the preciousness of your life and mine, I commit to help you and me find “life is pregnant with beauty, and in need of a form in which to be expressed.” I am committed to serve and treat your life and mine as infinitely precious. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.
P.S. My latest Blog is out: Check out the episode here:
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