Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 150

“More grave than Adam’s eating the forbidden fruit was his hiding from God after he had eaten it. “Where art thou?” Where is man? is the first question that occurs in the Bible. It is man’s alibi that is our problem. It is man who hides, who flees, who has an alibi. God is less rare than we think; when we long for Him, His distance crumbles away.” (Essential Writings pg.91)

Rabbi Heschel’s last sentence above is one of the truths that seems to elude many people. The pattern of most psalms is to call out to God acknowledging the troubles we are facing, ask God for help and then thank God for the help we have received. In Psalm 145 we learn:”God is near to all who call upon God, to all who call in truth”. Throughout Psalm 145, we recite different truths like this one to remind us it is not God who is distant, it is us human beings who “flee”, who “hide” from God and then blame God for our faults, for our errors, for our egocentric self-deceptions.

In Psalm 145, we learn: “God is full of kindness, full of compassion, upholds all who fall, raises up the bowed down, etc.” yet, we human beings while reciting this Psalm and our prayers, while reading and studying the Torah, the Bible, we fail to grasp the truth of the words we say, the truth of the teaching of Rabbi Heschel above. We are so enamored with our selves, with our egos, with wrapping ourselves in what we think is right, good, so hopelessly in the disease of self-deception and believing the deceptions of another(s), we have sunk into a morass of mendacity. Rather than hear the words we speak, we twist the words of the Bible, the words of the Psalmist, the words of the prophets to our liking, to make us feel good rather than for their purpose: to make us reach towards God, to help us grow into the partners with God we are created to be.

Human beings have bought into the lie that we have to be self-actualizing, we have to make ourselves ‘the be all/end all’, we have to do whatever it takes to have power so we can fulfill the mandates of God, as we misunderstand God. Instead of allowing the words of the Psalmist to wash over us, to cleanse us of our selfish desires, of our egotistical beliefs, we twist them to our advantage by saying ‘my god says’ and ‘my god is love’ etc, etc. What Rabbi Heschel is calling us to, I believe, is to truth, to come out of our hiding, end our alibis, stop running away from God and respond to God’s “first question”.

While many think we are hard-wired to lie, to defend, to blame, I believe we are hard-wired for connection, I hear Rabbi Heschel telling us the same thing. It is not God who is hiding, it is us. It is not necessary for us to hide any longer, we are good enough to be accepted back by God, we are good enough to receive God’s “abundant kindness”, God’s compassion, to be lifted up by God every time we fail and fall, every time we are bowed. In Jewish prayer, we are always upright when we say the name God/Adonai, even if we were bent over prior to God’s name, we stand up and face God, we do not need to be begging God for kindness, we do not need to engage in false humility by staying bowed at our calling of God’s name. God wants us to face God so we can respond to the “first question”, so we can know we do not have to hide anymore, so we know we no longer need an alibi for our errors, for our mistakes, for our misdeeds. So, what is the problem that humankind can’t/won’t believe these truths and stay hidden from God, blame God, etc?

We are unwilling to admit our errors, we are unwilling to accept those who have made errors back into ‘normal society’. We are so deep in our own mendacity, we are so engrossed in our own fears of being found out for our own imperfections, we have to blame anyone else we can find. Our egos are so puffed up that denial is not just a river in Egypt, it is an everyday friend to many people. It is a way to forget the help we have received from God, from another human being, it is the way we can step on someone who is higher up on the ladder than we as we are climbing the ladder to ‘success’ and they reach out an helping hand. We step on them because we keep believing if we can’t ‘outperform’ them, we have to ‘kill’ them in order to hide what we are lacking. We are so concerned with how we look, we can’t ask for help from God, from anyone without seeming weak in our own eyes. Just as the spies in the Book of Numbers said: “we were grasshoppers in our own eyes and so to in theirs” as the reason not to go into the Promised Land, many people are afraid to be seen as “grasshoppers” so they hide from God, from all of us. And, we, the people, buy their lies because we have our own that we are afraid will be uncovered.

Our choice is simple, admit our need to be seen by God, by one another. Join with God, with people to raise our spiritual health, live the spiritual values God has given us to the best of our ability and end our incessant need to blame, shame, and be ‘perfect’ in the eyes of another. We have the inner strength to call out to God as Rebbe Nachman did: “God Help Me” and then be open to hear the response. We have within us the power and light of our souls to change the course of our life and the course of our world. We do not need to bow down to the rich and famous, to the authoritarian and the liar, to the false prophets and charlatans that abound in the world- we only need to “long for Him” and “His distance crumbles away” and our separation from our authentic self, our separation from one another also crumbles away. I know this to be true because it is the story of my recovery and the stories of recovery of so many people who have found their way back through the loving ‘hand’ of God, have felt God near because they “called upon God in truth”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark