Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 333

“To foster depth of awareness, sheer openness of both mind and senses to what is given, is as vital to us as the training in the art of explanation and expression.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.61)

These words go right to the core of our very being. Either we “foster depth of awareness” or we live vapid, meaningless lives. Acknowledging that we will not always be able to have “sheer openness of both mind and senses to what is given” and that doesn’t mean we don’t strive to! The level of vapidity that many people live at is sad, distressing and dangerous. It is this very vapidity that has led people and nations to become overtaken by authoritarians disguising themselves as populists, puppets of other autocrats, people drunk on power who will hold it at the very ruin of their own country. America, in my opinion, is in this dangerous and precarious state-will Project 2025 make us a ‘christian nation’ without elections-as Lara Trump is saying-or will our democracy and constitution hold. This remains to be seen and We, the People need to “foster depth of awareness” and be awake, alert and ready to take action.

“Foster” means “encourage or promote the development of”, “depth” means “complexity  of thought”,  “awareness” means “knowledge or perception of a situation..” The first sentence above now can be read as: “To encourage and promote the development of complexity of thought for the knowledge and perception of this moment, of every moment… OY! What an order!! Yet it is also what makes us human that we can, I would add must, engage in developing our complexity of thinking, not complicating, not dumbing it down, not jumbling it all up. Complexity of thought is being able to hold two opposing opinions in our minds, in our souls at the same time, it is being able to discern the real from the fake, being able to think for ourselves rather than believe what people tell us to think, like the right-wing and left-wing media do. We don’t need to MAGA nor do we need to BLAME THE BILLIONAIRES for our current situation, we need to be able to hear the lies and the hatred, the ‘poor persecuted rich white guy’ and know they are lies and that spewing hatred is never the way to growing our democracy, our spirits. AND we have to also hear the cries of those who have been convinced of the lies, we have to talk to them, show them and have compassion for them-even though they may take our country down the path of ruin and autocracy. It is incumbent upon a person who wants to “foster depth” to develop these traits and practice them in all our affairs. We have to help another(s) “promote the development of complex thoughts” in order to grow their souls and their “knowledge and perception of their situation”. We are in a moment where we have to be sherpas to people who are unaware and who are in self-deception.

“Sheer openness of both mind and senses to what is given” its another conundrum for many people. We have already formed our opinions, we are unable, unwilling to engage in “depth of awareness” and we don’t truly see “what is given” because we are blind and deaf to anything other than the ‘radio station’, the ‘news station’ we have playing in our heads. Because we are blind to “what is given” we find ourselves ‘down the rabbit hole’ and unable to hold cogent and informed conversations with another person who has a different opinion, a different experience , a different vision, a different “depth of awareness” of “what is given”. We have become so tightly tied to ‘our corner’, ‘our side’, that we have stopped being able to have free and fair discussions, collaborative solutions, instead, it has to be ‘my way or the highway’. In Israel, Netanyahu has not taken responsibility for his lack of awareness on Oct. 7, 2023 and before-instead taking advantage of Joe Biden’s care and concern for the Jewish people. Bibi is willing to have the whole world hate him, roll the dice that Trump will not listen to Putin when Iran puts the pressure on Putin to make Trump abandon Israel-because autocrats have always been good to Jews and ‘Christian nations’ have always treated us so well! When one is unable to see “what is given” clearly and complexly, through the lens of personal as well as global history, when we decide to throw our lot in with the ‘strongman’, we set ourselves up for ruin.

There is a solution!! We have to “foster depth of awareness…of what is given” by maturing our spiritual nature. When we realize that “acceptance is the answer to all our problems today”(Dr. Paul in AA Big Book), that acceptance doesn’t mean approval, that we are Holy Human Beings, that we have “eyes to see, ears to hear” ever since we stood at Sinai and accepted the Covenant with God, one another, and with ourselves. The solution is to “grow along spiritual lines” and continue to “return to” our basic goodness of being, to allow the universe and one another to “heal our backsliding” and be welcomed back in love. We can change our minds based on what this situation is right here, right now. We can and must not allow our prejudices and biases to cloud our vision, to stop us from engaging “depth of awareness”, to go along to get along, to be overtaken by the liars and charlatans that are always at our door. In the Bible, Cain is told: “Negativity couches at your door, it desires you much AND you can master it”! We can master and transform the “negativity that couches” in our lives, soon to be in the White House, and within ourselves through the spiritual work of discernment and discovery, "openness of mind and senses”, and belief in something greater than ourselves, belief that there is more to living than our selfishness-we are called to go beyond our self to make life better for those around us.

I know the pull of negativity, I succumbed to it in my youth. I promoted it in my late teens through my late 30’s. Since 1987, I “foster depth of awareness” in myself and help those around me do the same. I find simplicity in the “complexity of thought” and continue to increase my knowledge so my perception of what is becomes more in line with what truly is rather than what I have seen before. There is no “same shit different day” in my world anymore, today is new, bright, pregnant with possibilities and I am excited each day when I awake to study, pray and write so I can be open for “what is given” to me today. Rather than bemoan everything, which I do also, I know that being in spiritual growing, taking action on reality rather than acting on the falseness my biases and prejudices bring is the only way to truly live into the Rabbi Heschel’s teaching today. I work hard each day to have compassion for people who are stuck and not get stuck with them. I am committed to “foster depth awareness” in myself and in another(s). God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark