Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 129

“There are no proofs for the existence of the God of Abraham. There are only witnesses. The greatness of the prophet lies not only in the ideas he expressed, but also in the moments he experienced. The prophet is a witness, and his words a testimony to His power and judgement, to His justice and mercy.”(Essential Writings pg. 64)

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching in the first two sentences above are a challenge to all of us. Since the time of the Greeks of antiquity humanity has adopted a belief of believing only what we can see and prove. Rather than accept the words of witnesses, we have come to demand proof “for the existence of the God of Abraham”. Rather than accept the wisdom of the Bible, rather than accept the Bible as testimony “for the existence of the God of Abraham”, we want to prove God’s existence. In our search for proof, we then twist ourselves into a pretzel to validate the testimony of the Bible, we seek to explain the Bible rather than accept the eternal truth and wisdom of it. Some of us seek to ignore it all together because we don’t believe the witnesses, we dismiss the testimony as hearsay and rely solely on scientific proofs.

We are so reliant on “proofs” that we come to question what we see with our own eyes at times, we challenge the people who “know in their bones” what is real and call out the deceivers. Yet, because the deceivers are so clever, they can offer false proofs of their claims, human beings are more willing to believe the proofs offered with the deceiver’s words than what they are actually seeing. We have come to disbelieve what we ourselves witness with our own eyes, what we experience with our souls to the ruination of our being human.

Whether it is in the political realm, the business realm, the social realm, the religious realm, we are more apt to believe the lies because they can be ‘proven’ by the liars than the truth that we know in our inner lives. We have become so spiritually bankrupt that we question what we know in our hearts because we our minds come to overrule what we know in our guts. This is the tragedy of human existence, in my opinion. When the founding fathers went along with the idea that Black men only counted as 3/5’s of a person even though they witnesses with their own eyes the human being in front of them, they denied their own truth. When they proclaimed to be “God-fearing” men and decided to go against the testimony of the Bible, that all human beings are created in the image of God, they decided to go against the truth of their own Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers gave into mendacity and made a political decision, going against their own eyes, uprooting the testimony of the Bible and their own experience.

When we allow corporations to be treated like individuals for the purpose of political contributions and not hold them responsible for their criminal acts, instead allowing them to pay fines without admitting guilt, we are denying the testimony of our experiences and our eyes. When we go along with the lunatics who proclaim that ‘the sky is falling’ when we are experiencing economic and societal conditions that honor the dignity of all people, we are denying what we see with our own eyes. When we denigrate people who have helped us, when we deny the truth of a situation because it doesn’t fit into our ‘plans’ or does not go along with what is expedient to and for us, we are denying what we witness.

When the tabloids, when the gossip, when the stories told deny what the whole picture of a situation, what the entirety of a person is, we are denying the truth of what is. Human beings have denied what they witness and the testimony of another(s) forever. We have a deep-seated tendency to want to have “rule” over one another rather than accept the proof of the Bible, the call of God to live together in harmony and peace. Rather than be grateful for what we have, rather than accept we owe a debt to God, we owe a debt to the myriad of people who help us on a daily basis, rather than surrender to the truth of “the existence of the God of Abraham” and all of the responsibilities this entails, we deny these responsibilities when they are inconvenient for us. We forget, denigrate those who have helped us because we don’t want to admit our debt, we don’t want to seem ‘weak’ for needing help, so we make those who helped us disappear.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as we say in recovery! Each day we remind ourselves not to whore after our heart and our eyes because we see something that is shinier and we want it. In recovery, we see the ‘proofs’ we used to continue to deny the truth of our existence. We commit to let go of these lies, to put on “a new pair of glasses” and see what is. We listen to the testimony of the another(s) who tell their stories of degradation and deception prior to their recovering the truth of their existence, prior to recovering their dignity, our humanity. We promote these stories to our children and their friends so they can hear the “proof for the existence of the God of Abraham” and how to live into God’s will, God’s ways and let go of the innate selfishness of human beings.

I give testimony of God’s existence daily-to myself, to another(s) in order to make life better for me and for them. Part of my testimony is what not to do, my actions teach me and another(s) how not to be because of false ego and false pride. Most of my testimony is how to take the next right action and no matter what ‘they’ say, I am proud of my growing my humanity. I know the truth of the existence of God because I am a recipient and witness to God’s grace and love. My T’Shuvah, my recovery, my learning and growing into being human are my testimony “for the existence of the God of Abraham”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark