Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 353

“There is no knowledge without reverence. No understanding without love. Thought without a concern, an idea without the verification of living it is a half truth.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 65)

Rabbi Heschel believes: “The greatest hinderance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.”(Man is Not Alone pg. 11). “Reverence” is an essential part of the foundation for “radical amazement”, ergo: there can be “no knowledge without reverence”! Yet, too many of us think we know stuff and are so uninformed, so lacking in the historical and experiential wisdom of our ancestors and our own life experiences that we deceive ourselves into believing we are the smartest person in the room. We do this for many reasons, one of which is to hide from ourselves and another(s) our insecurities and fears, another of which is to gain and hold power through fear, lies, etc for our personal gain and the personal gain of our ‘friends’. We see this in business, in families, in politics, and in religious and other non-profit institutions. It is a great failure of society and of us as individuals. Blaming society for the ills of the world is a cop-out-we are society, we go along with the lies and deceptions because they help us hide from our lack of “reverence” and our lack of “knowledge”. We have become fat and lazy like Moses predicted in his last address in Parsha Hazzinu! Even though we read this every year, we are unable to see ourselves in the text so we keep repeating the same errors in new and different ways, much to our detriment. And, knowledge without understanding is also a waste of energy, a waste of time and a spiritual failing.

Understanding how to use our “knowledge” is a key ingredient of living well. It is the pathway to “radical amazement” and it truly takes us being “maladjusted” to what we think we know and how we have used our “knowledge” in the past. This moment is different than any other moment, I have to keep it fresh, I have to keep myself fresh otherwise I become stale and a stale human being is the greatest desecration of God’s name, of our dignity and value there can be because it leads to every other despicable action we take. The “love” of self, the “love” of another human being, the “love” of being called by God, Universe, Higher Consciousness to go above and beyond all of the limitations we have put on ourselves and allowed others to put upon us is the only path to true “understanding”. The “love” of learning, the “love” of connection, the “love” of service, the “love” of another human being are prerequisites for “understanding” the universe, our place in it as a species and as an individual. Without “love”, we would never care to “understand” the needs and desires of our partners, of our children, of the stranger, of the needy, etc. Without “love” we would never be able to “understand” the incongruences of ourselves and another(s), we would not care enough to speak to and deal with people we want to look down upon, with people out of our ‘class’, we would continue to segregate ourselves according to the myriad of ways society has devised.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” could be a proof text of the words above-when we “love” another and see our similarities, we can “understand” this person better.

The last sentence can, and hopefully does, shake us to our core. How often have we had thoughts only about ourselves, without a “concern” for another, without a “concern” for the aftershocks of our actions? How any “ideas” do we have “without the verification of living it”? Far too many I would posit. In her poem, “Judge Softly” from 1895, Mary T. Lathrap calls for us to “walk a mile in his moccasins” challenging  all of us to see things from the perspective of another. It also calls for us to “walk a mile” in our shoes, to stop pontificating as if we know something without ever living it. This is one of the problems with some of our Higher Education-great theories and the ones spouting them have no actual experience putting them into action-be it in business, religious education, secular education, the humanities, etc. When students call for the annihilation of Israel, when they see terrorists as freedom fighters, when they deny basic human rights to Jews and Israelis, and say they are ‘for the people’, their argument is pretty shallow and hollow because they are not “living it”! When we hear the lies of our politicians, of the leaders of institutions, who claim to care for the people they are supposed to be serving, while actually serving their own egos and bank accounts, this is another example of a “thought without a concern”, a “half truth”.

Herein lies the rub: there is no such thing as a “half truth”, it is like being “a little pregnant”, one is either in truth or not, one is either pregnant or not. We have used this phrase to cover our lies and to hide from our lack of “reverence” and our lack of “love”. It is time for We, the People to say NO to these false ways of being-to both ourselves and the people around us. We, the People have to say YES to “reverence” so we can obtain and retain our “knowledge”, YES to “love” so we can better “understand” how to use our “knowledge” better and differently each day, YES to ensuring that we our “thoughts” have “concerns” attached to them and our “ideas” are valid because we our “living” them. This is our challenge and this is our gift, we have the spiritual resources to make these ways of being a part of our daily living. We have to allow our inner life to override our rational minds because our rational minds have been overtaken by greed, by false egotistical ruminating, by our self-deception and by the “conventional notions and mental cliches” of society. We, the People are being called to step up, to stand up, to speak truth to power, to have the necessary “reverence”, “love”, “thought” and “ideas” to change what is into what should be. Through our “knowledge” and “understanding”, we can live the vision of the Bible, the hopes of our ancestors who came to America seeking a better life for them and their descendants, and the promise of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution “to form a more perfect union”.

I can only “know what I know” because I developed a sense of “reverence” in prison from 1986-1989 and have kept growing it ever since. There are times when I have retarded it as well and there are many times when I have not communicated my “knowledge” of the mendacity of another in ways people could hear. My “love” for people and God has led me to “understand” much more than I ever have, it gives use the strength to “take the blows and do it my way”. I live my thoughts and ideas-sometimes to my detriment and the detriment of another, especially family, and I work very hard to stay in truth, even when it ‘hurts’, when the truth indicts me, I plead guilty and repair the damage, change my ways to the best of my ability. This is what “verification of living it” means to me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark