Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 22

“Religion is spiritual effrontery. Its root is in our bitter sense of inadequacy, in a thirst which can only be stilled by greater thirst, in the embarrassment that we really do not care for God, in the discovery that our religious need is utterly feeble, that we do not feel any need for God.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 8)

WOW! Religion comes from the Latin meaning “to bind oneself”, effrontery comes from the Latin meaning “barefaced, shameless”. Binding ourselves to something greater than ourselves can only be done barefaced and shamelessly! Thinking about this brings us back to the Cain and Abel story, Cain was embarrassed (“why is your face fallen?”) rather than barefaced by his comparing his offering to Abel’s. Because he could not live with being “uncovered”, according to the text, rather than mastering the “sin couching at his door”, he gave into it and killed his brother! How many people have ‘religious’ people killed because they were/are unable to be “barefaced and shameless” in front of another and in front of whatever ‘deity’ they worship? How many people have died because they steadfast in living their principles out loud? How many of us succumb to the ‘powers that be’ rather than stand in rebellion for what is true, what is right, for freedom itself?

These are all questions that come up for me in this first sentence. I hear Rabbi Heschel’s voice in my soul asking me when have I joined in the effrontery that is religion and when have I bastardized religion for ‘my own purposes’, because of my own fears of rejection! We all need to ask ourselves this question, no matter what “religion” and/or spiritual discipline we adhere to, even agnostic or atheistic.

Reading Rabbi Heschel’s ‘origin’ reasoning for religion is fascinating. He is throwing in our faces the “utterly” feebleness of our ‘holy than thou’ attitudes with which many people walk around, believing that their ‘religion’ is better than anyone else’s, that only they have the ‘one true way’ while they are actually deciding they know better than God, they have no interest in hearing the call and demand of God, and they only use ‘god’ when they want to validate their power grabs and their money-grubbing behaviors. We see this all the time, hence the amount of people who claim None, when asked what religious tradition they belong to, is growing in America and across the globe. We are in an era, once again, where the Church, the Synagogue, the Mosque are more concerned with currying favor and money from the people in power in government, on their boards, their donors than with “care for God”, than with “any need for God”. For those of us who are deeply committed to the inner life, who know the embarrassment of our “utterly feeble” attempts to repay our debt to God, to express gratitude to another(s), to live from our souls completely and wholly, we are aghast and dismayed by the charlatans and idolators who have taken over the Temple. It is ironic that the Money-Changers in the Temple that Jesus railed against are the very people who are raping, robbing, displacing people, disdaining the poor and the needy claim to be doing this in Jesus’ name!!! WTF???

Not to be outdone, of course, are the fundamentalists in other faiths who claim to ‘kill in the name of god, allah’ when Isaiah says the goal is peace, that “men shall not learn war anymore”. He reminds us there is and will always be different nations, different religions, different spiritual paths and we can, we must, learn to live with one another in peace, respect, etc. Look at the radical imams who claim to be speaking in the name of Islam or the fundamentalist Jews who claim to be living according to the Bible and the Torah while they are killing their neighbors, having one law for themselves and another for everyone else, who want to control the “eyes of the judges” so they can deliver injustice! All of this in God’s Name and in Allah’s name!! WTF???

Yet, until we realize our need to be “barefaced and shameless” in our “binding ourselves” to something greater than ourselves, to be “barefaced and shameless” in front of another human being, we will continue to hide and to stay disconnected, disconcerted and disregulated. This is the situation we find ourselves in right now. We, the People, are capable of hearing the message to Cain, that when we do right, we are okay-there is no shame, there is no blame, there is a moment of peace, of wholeness, of knowing all is right with our world when we do the “next right thing”. We the People, possess the ability and the tools to “bind ourselves” to our higher consciousness and live from there at least 51% of the time, we have the ability to rise above our “utterly feeble” ways of selfishness and narcissism, to “bind ourselves to something greater than ourselves-be it God, community, family, etc. What We, the People, seem to be lacking is the willingness to act on our ability and to use our tools. We, the People seem to be more willing to be conflict avoidant and ready to bow down before the leader/liar more than we want to stand for our religious principles, more than we want to stand for the people who have helped us and taught us how to be moral beings, more than we want to live authentically and wholly/holy. Now is the time for We, the People to return to the religious “effrontery” that is at the core of our spirituality, to return to the tenets upon which our inner lives demand of us and say NO to the liars and idolators that are selling us bullshit, that are bastardizing the very texts and people we revere. We, the People, are being given the gift of living our values out loud and very loudly!

As one who lives life loudly, I am acutely aware of the feeble attempts I have made/make to live totally congruent. I am getting better and I still have a way to go. What I do believe I do well and have continued to grow in is being shameless and barefaced in my ways, I have no shame for the things I have done to help people, I have regrets for my errors and I feel divine compassion for those who have been unable to accept my amends. I do not care what another thinks of me, I care what I think of me, I care whether or not I can face myself in the mirror, the people who love me with my bare face. This is what drives my actions all day, every day. I am blessed to have people who will call me out, lift me up, and pat me on the back. I believe that all religions give us the opportunity to face life with effrontery and it is time we all do! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark