Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 160

“The sense for the realness of God will not be found in insipid concepts; in opinions that are astute, arid, timid; in love that is scant, erratic. Sensitivity to God is given to a broken heart, to a mind that rises above its own wisdom.” (God in Search of Man pg 159)

Rabbi Heschel’s choice of words amazes me always and especially in the bold phrase above. He covers many different ways we form opinions and ‘fall in love’, and, in my opinion, is calling us to reflect and account for the ways we form “opinions” and is asking us what constitutes our “love”.

In “the sense for the realness of God”, too many of us make judgements and have beliefs from being “shrewd”, thinking we are the smartest person in the room, and falling in love with our reasoning and intellect. People who form their “opinions” about God in this manner usually use their shrewdness in all their affairs, leading to a false belief that only their “opinions” are correct and they go through life feeling superior to everyone else, even to God-one of the traits of an authoritarian. For many of us, we form our “opinions” about God, about how to live, from a “dry, parched” base, not willing to nurture our spirits nor our minds with truth, nor with our experiential knowing or seeking to learn more. We are lazy and we are ripe to follow the lead of the “astute” “opinions” of another. For some of us, we are too “shy”, “lacking the courage” to form our own judgments for fear of offending someone else, from co-dependency, from our own laziness. These people, also, are ripe to follow the leader who is so certain and sure of their ‘rightness’ of “opinion”.

Be it making sure the trains run on time, re-building the Germany, taking control of Eastern Europe again, finding the lies and “opinions” that will cause people to follow, too many people are willing to relinquish their “opinions” to another, too many people lack the courage to “sense the realness of God” and respond to life accordingly. Rather than follow the precepts of the Bible, too many people are willing to follow the leader who is so “astute”, because our inner life is “parched”! This is the path of the authoritarian, who, while bears great responsibility for their bastardizing “the sense of the realness of God” would be nothing without their “arid, timid” followers! It is not the authoritarian, not the “astute” one, it is we, the people, who are most responsible for the loss of freedom, the loss of decency, the propagating of lies and deceptions. Rabbi Heschel is throwing cold water on us, he is shaking us awake so we can end our false “sense of the realness of God!

When he describes “love”, he uses words that mean “not enough” and “no regularity, not fixed”. What a terrible method in which to “sense the realness of God.” What a horrendous way to go through life, always ‘getting by’ with the least, never having a regular consistent way of being, blowing with the wind in our opinions and actions, ‘falling’ in and out of love with God, with another human being, with our own self! Yet, this is the way many people not only “sense the realness of God”, it is the way they go through the world, flitting from one fad to another, championing the ‘latest’ lost cause, not having a moral compass and loyalty to truth, finding the newest “Boogyman” and hating them.

Both our “opinions” and our “love” as well as our “concepts” have to be rooted in something other than the words and ways Rabbi Heschel describes above. We have to end our “insipid” ways, we have to let go our “astute, arid, timid” reasoning and decision making ways, we have to stop feeling “not enough” is good enough, stand up when we are called rather than shying away,  and let go of our insane way of bouncing all over the place, depending on how we feel that day or the way the wind is blowing.

Letting go of our need to be the “smartest person in the room”, watering our soul’s knowledge, having the courage to live what our spiritual life tells us is the next right thing, is the path to truly “sense the realness of God”, it is the path to experience a true “love” of God, of self, of one another. We love and form opinions that give us more freedom, rather than allow for another, an authoritarian, society to tell us what to do, how to do it, relinquishing our free will choices to another. We are in desperate need to grow our inner lives so we can exercise more of our free will and we are in desperate need to truly “sense the realness of God” so we can merge our will with God’s will. Doing this we come under the authority of our spirits, we use our minds and our emotions to serve something greater than ourselves, we no longer engage in mindless selfish actions, rather we treat each and every person as a partner of ours and a partner of God. Living from our spiritual knowledge uses our experiences and our learning in combination with our understanding to heal our inner soul sickness and spread this healing to anyone and everyone who is suffering, even the authoritarians, even their followers, even the “timid, arid, astute,” ones, even the “erratic and scant” ones!

I have lived the ways Rabbi Heschel describes above and I am living the ways of healing and truly have a “sense of the realness of God”, which causes me to have compassion, even when I want to ‘get even’, sadness when I want to be mad, the ability and thirst to learn from my teachers, a love that is steadfast and loyal, an ability to see the “both/and” of life and to choose to take actions that honor my role as a partner with God. It is not easy, I am not perfect, while at times I may seem to another as erratic, I know I am consistent and committed to God and I get to “sense the realness of God” in my daily living. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark