Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 224
“Daily we should take account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 94)
On this day after of receiving the Torah, Rabbi Heschel’s words ring loudly in my ears, in my head, and in my soul. At a time when Torah, Bible, religion itself is being abused by ‘the real religious people’, when “religion speaks online the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion” as Rabbi Heschel teaches us in the opening paragraph of “God in Search of Man these words above are crucial for us to ask “daily” so we can preserve and grow democracy, freedom, kindness, compassion, love of God and all God’s creations, and be worthy of our status of being a “partner with God”.
What a different world we would have should all of us, Jews and non-Jews, people in recovery and those who need to be, take a daily account of our selves, our actions that day! The process of T’Shuvah, which calls for us to take a complete Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our soul, is such a call from the Jewish tradition, a daily 10th Step is de rigueuir in the recovery movement, confession is a practice of the Catholic Church-all spiritual disciplines have some form of practice of a daily accounting. Yet, many people who proclaim allegiance to a myriad of disciplines seem to be unable to do this daily accounting, many of us seem unable to ask ourselves these questions and face the answers, both good and not so good. Why do we insist on hiding from ourselves, why are we so intent on hiding from one another, why do we engage in the self-deception that we can hide from God?
Many of us today, as we have throughout the millennia, believe we can hide from and/or run away from what St. John of the Cross calls “The Dark Night of the Soul.” This is referred to today as a period of crisis when there one feels the loneliness of emptiness and bereft of hope, of connection, as well as loss of our moorings. Everything we have built up to protect us suddenly comes tumbling down, we find ourselves face to face with our self, seeing our flaws, our lies, our greatness and our light. We are reflecting ourselves back to ourselves and seeing the divine/higher self we possess. It is a time of choice, it is a time of fear and rejoicing. It is a place where we are alone with our authentic self, with the “life force of the universe”, and we repeat Jacob’s words from the Bible: “God was in this place and I, I did not know.”
The “dark night of the soul” usually occurs during a difficult time in our lives and when we embrace it, we realize “the life force of the universe” that dwells in us and we experience the both/and of our living-with an inclination for physical pleasures and needs and an inclination for connection of spirit and ideas-combining left and right brain, heart and mind, matter(body) and energy(soul). In the “dark night of the soul”, as we realize the truths about ourselves and the world, we come to know we may be alone and never lonely, we become so intertwined with the “life force of the universe” and we know we are connected to something greater than ourselves.
In this time of turmoil in the world, in this time of the world leaning towards Fascism, towards Authoritarianism, towards ‘Christian Nationalism’ that has nothing to do with Christianity, we are in desperate need of a “dark night of the soul” for all of us individually and nationally. We need to ask ourselves the questions Rabbi Heschel poses above or at least some variation of them. We need to running to the “dark night” instead of constantly running away from it. We need to seek our “physicians of the soul” as Maimonidies teaches to help us navigate through this journey of darkness to light, this journey of egotism, xenophobia to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. We have to regain the rebellious spirit of the prophets, from Moses till now, we have to regain the rebellious spirit of the Founding Fathers, of Lincoln and the Union, of Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Kennedy, Rabbi Heschel, the Berrigan Brothers, and rebel to something instead of just rebelling against ‘the man’. We have the opportunity to rebel to the vision of the Bible, rebel to the words and deeds of Jesus, of Mohammed, of St. John of the Cross, of St. Francis, of the Baal Shem Tov, and our situation is dire enough, it is difficult enough to warrant a national “dark night of the soul” here, and across the globe.
I have experienced the “dark night of the soul” more than once. Prior to 1986, I drank my way out of it, I stole my way out of it, I rebelled against it, because Jacob’s experience in the Bible was just a story. This all changed in December of 1986, when the “life force of the Universe” who I call God, entered my heart, touched my soul and I realize there is more to life than my selfish desires, there is more to life than my feelings of victimization, there is a world in need of my talents and gifts and I am in need of the gifts and talents of so many people. The first “dark night of the soul” that I chose to go through and not escape from nor hide from, taught me that love is the answer, truth is the path, compassion for self and another(s) frees me from resentments and ego anger. As President George W. Bush said to me: “God opened my heart and I didn’t have to drink anymore.” The subsequent “dark night of soul” that I have experienced have come to re-enforce this truth, have come to show me new ways to serve, have helped m rise above my self-deceptions and live in acceptance of what is, and continue to use my prophetic spirit and energy to speak out about what is good and speak even louder about what is not right and good. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark