Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 5

“Oblivious to the fact of his receiving infinitely more than he is able to return, man began to consider his self as the only end. Caring only for his needs rather than for his being needed, he is hardly able to realize that rights are anything more than legalized interests.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 5)

Rabbi Heschel states “self-deception is a major disease” in his interview with Carl Stern, 10 days before he died in 1972, here he is also reminding us of another major disease of human beings: being oblivious. Oblivion is both a state we enter into willingly and unwillingly, I believe. For many people, they are unaware of their obliviousness and, unfortunately, become unwilling to see what is in front of them, see what is so clear to another, see what is healthy for their soul, for their body, for their minds because they want to live in the euphoria of obliviousness. In the writing above, a human being who wants to “consider his self as the only end” has to stay “oblivious to the fact of his receiving infinitely more than he is able to return”, otherwise he can’t ‘have it all’, she can’t ignore the poor, blame the stranger, they can’t lie to everyone, believing they are above the laws of the country and of the spiritual world.

This is the situation we find ourselves in today, the same as Rabbi Heschel wrote about in this essay on “Religion in a Free Society” back in 1958! The only difference is that being “oblivious” has reached new heights/depths and is being sold by the grifters and bought up by those wanting to ‘have a hero fight for them’ like hotcakes! It is so ridiculous that these grifters are being compared to King David, to Jesus, to the Apostles and people, in their oblivion are buying into the subterfuge and the deception by another(s) because it means they do not have to live with the realization of “the fact of his receiving infinitely more than he is able to return”. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 116:12-14: “How can I repay the Lord for all the benefits he put upon me. I will raise the cup of salvation and call the Lord by name. I will complete the vows I made to the Lord in front of the Lord’s people.” Living with this realization causes one to realize the debt one owes for their life and is more than most people want to live with, it ruins their self-image to be ‘dependent on’ someone else, on a power greater than themselves, because then they can’t claim to be ‘self-made’.

We are into this oblivion so deeply, some wonder what it will take for the masses to wake the fuck up! It seems only a cataclysmic event will shake people out of their oblivion, only something that is so personal, so painful will cause people to see what their obliviousness has wrought and, hopefully, it will not be too little too late. When people like Musk want to ‘cut the waste from Government spending’, which is a good idea by the way, while keeping the spigot that has fed them and made them rich and powerful open and not under any regulations nor scrutiny, we have a problem. When the people, in their obliviousness believe that this is a good thing, we have a disaster in the making. Rather than return to the people some of the profits that the Government grants, bailouts, subsidies have caused Musk to earn, he wants to cut his return for the “benefits” he has received even more! He believes in “caring only for his needs” and he believes that his “interests” should be considered “rights”. Forget the obligations that “rights” bring to us, forget that he has received far more than he can give back, he has believes he is entitled to what he has stolen, conned, been given from the Government and the suckers he has convinced to be with him. The same is true of Trump, Bannon, Miller, Patel, Putin, Orban, even Bibi. These people have sold their souls for the power to convince people to be “oblivious to the fact” that they have a debt for all they have received. Instead they have sold people, with the help of ‘christian’ nationalists, evangelical ministers, Rabbis of all denominations, etc that ‘god’ loves them more because they are rich, because they can sell ice to an eskimo in winter, they must be the anointed of God and they will be or bring the ‘messiah’ soon; just ask Mike Huckabee, Joel Osteen, et al.

We, the People, have to wake up! The Shofar blown at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is still sounding from Mount Sinai. Each day, 24 hours a day, the sounds of Shema Yisrael, Hear, Listen, Understand, everyone has to wrestle with their soul, with one another, with God to leave their oblivious nature and be engaged in the world, find ways to repay the debt of “receiving far more than he is able to return”, knowing we are not supposed to pay it back in full, just keep chipping away at it. We, the People, have to say NO to the lies of the charlatans and the grifters, NO to the false prophets and priests that seem to have sway over so many of ‘the faithful’, NO to the making of ones interests into legal rights. We, the People, have to say YES to living with our eyes open, have to say YES to the search for Truth, have to say YES to putting our obligations ahead of our rights and our desires, YES to living the principles of the Bible, YES to the vision of the prophets: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”(Isaiah 2:4). We, the People, can make this a reality once we swear off our own obliviousness, once we tune our hearing to the frequency of the spirit, once we wrestle with one another in a search for truth, for decency, for rising above “caring only for his needs”. It takes all of us to do this and we will never be 100% out of obliviousness, we need one another to help us uncover our eyes from our blindspots, see what is in front of us that we are willfully blind to and move forward in our quest to return to the world what we are so freely given; most of all: “Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev. 25:10)!

Having been a grifter and a thief, a liar and a cheat, I know viscerally what Rabbi Heschel is saying. I also know the power of T’Shuvah, the power and possibility of change. While we can never ‘go back’ I have found I can return to the soul I was created to be, to the divine need I was created to fill. I know the dangers and the draw of obliviousness, and while I pride myself on not fooling myself anymore, I also see how oblivious to some things I was. Be it because of hubris or blind trust, I was oblivious to the changes some people wanted to make, oblivious to the changes in society that I never believed would affect me because everyone knew me and where my heart lies. I am not a victim of anything or anyone because it was my obliviousness that caused me to suffer (meaning “to bear”) the experiences I have in the past years. “I, I did not know” what was happening below the surface and this obliviousness caused pain to some of the people I love the most. I wrestle with people to stay out of obliviousness each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark