Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 250

“The real bond between two generations is the insights they share, the appreciation they have in common, the moments of inner experience in which they meet. A parent is not only an economic provider, playmate, shelter, and affection. A human being is in need of security, he is also in need of inspiration, of exaltation and a transcendent meaning of existence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.83)

“The appreciation they have in common, the moments of inner experience in which they meet” are two experiences which seem to have lost the bonding effect Rabbi Heschel is assuming, declaring in our times. We have Facebook groups of children who have divorced their parents, parents and children who have forgotten to “set a price/appraise” the importance of the bond they have in common with one another. We, as a society, have come to no longer have a positive appraisal, an appreciation of and for the connection between one generation to another. In the Bible, in our prayers in Judaism, in our ritual at some Bar/Bat Mitzvah services, we see the passing down of wisdom and ways of being “from one generation to another”, yet, we are watching in our political, economic, faux religious arenas a passing down of hatred, of anger, of grievance. Have we, as human beings, fallen so far that we forget to appreciate the fact that our parents raised us to the best of their ability, that they had no manual for how to raise a child nor an adult? Have we fallen so far in our lack of humanity and compassion that we fail to appreciate the awesomeness of our children and how much better our lives because they are in it?

When we can get ‘over ourselves’ and our hurts, angers, our anguish over not having the “parents we wanted”, we can see the bond that an appreciation of what we have in common with one another, as a family, a community, a country, as human beings. We can laugh and cry together over our losses and our gains, tell the stories of how we missed an opportunity and how we seized them. We can hear the ethical wills of the ‘older’ generation and, rather than dismissing them as ‘old fogies who are not with it’, we can take their experiences, their errors and their victories and use them to enhance our lives. When we have the bonding experience of appreciating what we have in common with every generation and every human being, we realize  the truth of Ecclesiastes: “there is nothing new under the sun” and because of this each generation that appreciates what the previous one has done and connects to the wisdom and sees the commonalities, can move the gains of that generation forward. This is how the computer age came into being, it is how science has continued to make new discoveries, it is how religions can, if they are not mired in the past, continue to have new insights and appreciations of the wisdom of past Saints, Sinners, Teachers, Prophets, etc to see the “70 faces” of the Bible.

The bond that “moments of inner experience in which they meet” creates is forever. Even when we deny the connection because we are upset over something a person has done, we cannot deny the “moments of inner connection”. It is precisely these moments which allow us to not judge people by their worst acts because we know their worst acts do not make up all of their being. We share “moments of inner connection” when we name our children, when we help them grow, when we allow them to fail and go over what happened to make sure they fail forward. We share “moments of inner connection” when we pray together, when we learn one generation with another. We share them when we allow ourselves to learn from those “young whippersnappers” and from those “ancient fossils”. We share these “moments of inner connection” when we meet someone and care about how they truly are. When we recognize their dignity and worth, when we meet their uniqueness and join our uniqueness with theirs to create beauty and joy, harmony and a stronger foundation.

The world is facing a crisis of not being bonded, society has created situations where the bonding over “appreciation of what they have in common” and “moments of inner connection” is laughed at. The only bonding, according to the new societal norms, that is worth it to us is the bonding over money and power, control and kleptocracy. We see this in the rise of the ‘populist’ movement across the globe, by the very people who have the greatest disdain for the “ordinary people” they are appealing to. The attack on Donald J Trump is horrific and it speaks to what happens when violence is applauded, seen as a means to gaining power, when our democratic institutions are under attack from the far left and far right, when the extremists lie with reckless abandon and no consequences. When being a good, decent human being who is of service is seen as a “loser”, we have lost the “appreciation of what we have in common” and the “moments of inner connection” that we could be sharing as human beings. We, the people, have to recapture our humanness, our dignity and the dignity of everyone once again. We begin this recapturing by connecting to our families, our friends, and our communities based on our shared “moments of inner connection” which entails us dropping our armor, opening ourselves up and allowing people to see and share our inner life. It means that we see how much more in common we have with one another, how each generation thinks the older one is wrong and come to realize the wisdom of age and experience which we can use. We, the people, have to take back our lives through connection to one another, connection to being civil, remembering to “Love our neighbor as we love ourselves”.

I believe, hope that the wisdom of my families prior generations has been filtered through me, my siblings, cousins, so the next generations of our family has the bond of their insights, commonality, and shared inner experiences. I believe we have because the cousins are in touch with one another, my siblings and I continue to tell the stories of our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents; imparting the wisdom we learned from them and how we have and have not used this wisdom well. I have pictures of my parents and grandparents physically and imprinted on my soul. My life is so much better because of the family I came from and the family I have created. Heather, Harriet, my siblings, nieces and nephews make my life better as does the family, community that we have created through connection and service. I am unafraid to open myself up to inner connections even when I am rebuffed because hiding is not an option for me, it leads me back to the terrible loneliness and spiritual poverty of my teens through 37. I pray people remember the connections and the things we have in common more than my errors, of which there are many. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark