Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 355
“To keep our Abraham complex alive in our children remains our responsibility. The fear lest we fail to be sensitive to the situation of a poor man—and all men are poor—is the most important test of whether we have fear of God. Reverence for God involves reverence for man.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 66)
In the sentences prior to these, Rabbi Heschel posits that many of us have an Abraham complex along with a self-seeking complex. An “Abraham complex”, he explains as being like Abraham who is “doing what is just and right”. The idea that we can be and are more like Abraham than Narcissi suggests that we leave the tyranny of Greek Civilization’s belief we can be perfect and join the Biblical way of being just and following the moral and ethical paths that the Bible lays out for us. In the words above, in 1962, speaking to a group of Rabbis about religious education in general and Jewish education in particular, these words are ringing in my ears and, hopefully, yours as well.
Listening to the pronouncements of the President-Elect, hearing the ‘rest of the story’ about his ‘candidates’ to fill cabinet positions that keep our country safe, secure, a leader and power in the world, one could wonder how poorly his father taught his about the “Abraham complex” that resides in all human beings, along with the selfish and self-seeking complex. The question, as always, is which one is going to be subservient to the other-is our sense of doing what is just and true, right and righteous going to use the selfish and self-seeking part of us to serve the greater good or vice versa?
“To keep our Abraham complex alive in our children remains our responsibility” has given way to the standard we have adopted for ‘success’. No longer do we send the best and brightest to seminary, to public service, we send our best and brightest to learn a trade; economics, banking, consulting, stock market, CEO, CFO, etc. Human Resources is does not have anything to do with being human and humane to employees, what is just and right takes no higher than second place to ‘getting ahead’, to ‘getting mine’, etc. We, the People, either re-think what a successful life looks like or risk getting more and more enslaved by the autocrats, the grifters, our own self-deceptions and then we are truly lost. The enslavement in Egypt wasn’t ‘caused’ by God, it was only foretold by God, according to the Bible. The enslavement in Egypt was caused by us, by buying into this Narcissi complex we have, because we allowed ourselves to buy into the lies and deceptions that Pharaoh was selling, because we let our “Abraham complex” wither and die within us and, therefore, did not keep it “alive in our children”. We shirked our responsibility, we let go of the moral, the ethical, legacy of doing the “next right thing” and went with what we thought expedient- sound familiar??
Rabbi Heschel’s fears above have been realized in our time, as it has in every age. It seems as if we are well on our way of perfecting our insensitivity to the poor man, to the poor parts inside of us, to the ways we suffer in “inner intelligence”. We have failed to see the plight of the poor, I believe, because we have failed to see the plight of our own poverty. We are afraid to look in the mirror and see where we have “missed the mark”, we are afraid to apologize to another human being, instead just deny, deny, deny, as our President-Elect does, as Bibi does, as Orban does, as Putin does. Some of us have watched in horror as people continue to spout their love of God and treat their fellow human beings with such disdain and cruelty. When the teachings and ways of Josef Goebbels’ become common place in a democracy, we know that the “Abraham complex” has stopped being taught to our children by their parents and this does not bode well for them or us-we have watched this movie many times throughout history and the destruction of human beings, the horror that is felt for generations, never seems to leave us and we keep coming back to these ways just like an addict comes back to drugs, like an alcoholic keeps drinking.
“Reverence for God involves reverence for man” is the key to what We, the People have to return to! It is incumbent upon us to teach our children how to revere another human being, how to see each and every person as our equal, treat and acknowledge their infinite dignity and value, treat each person with the love we have for ourselves which means we have to let go of our narcissistic love and learn to love ourselves as imperfect, flawed people. We, the People have to teach our children how to have reverence for people through our actions, as the saying goes, “actions talk, bullshit walks”. We, the People, have to stop hiding behind our ‘labels’ of being a good party line person, a true progressive, etc thinking the outer trappings will hide the inner narcissist, however, the inner narcissist always leaks out. The progressive that wants to control and tell everyone else how to live has no more reverence for the poor, for another human being than the autocrat who thinks Hitler didn’t kill enough Jews - which their are people on the far right (and unfortunately on the far left) who spout this hatred.
Each day I marvel at how my ancestors taught me, grew in me and my siblings and cousins, the “Abraham complex”. I am in awe of my daughter, nephews, nieces, cousins how have learned to be “just and right” in the ways they live. “Reverence for man” has been a guiding light for me over the past 37 years and I have returned to what my father, uncles, aunts, grandparents taught me-be decent, be truthful, be unafraid to fail and learn from your failures, rejoice in your ‘victories’. Caring for the poor and the stranger are second nature to me, even when I was in my addictions. I realize from today’s writing, that I was in my addictions because I forgot that “all men are poor” and thought I had to cover up my poverty with ill-gotten gains. We have raised our children to be of service to another human being either as a profession or an avocation. I have been privileged to witness the transformation of so many people that were thought of as hopeless addicts/alcoholics. I continue to speak out to the myriad of people who want to turn a blind eye to the cruelty of Trump, Bibi, Orban, etc because they ‘do so many good things’. I continue to rail against the unconscious way most people live, how many people purposely live willfully blind and uncaring lives. I can’t do this, I have to live with and on purpose and my purpose is guided by the “Abraham complex” that lives within me and seeks to do what is right and just in each moment-knowing I will fail, do T’Shuvah and move forward, always caring for the poor and having reverence for humanity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark