Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 51
“Perhaps this is the most urgent task: to save the inner man from oblivion, to remind ourselves that we are a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust. Our future depends upon our appreciation of the reality of the inner life, of the splendor of thought, of the dignity of wonder and reverence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)
The second phrase in the first sentence makes one, or should make one, tremble with trembling awe. It is one of the best descriptions of the inner life and experience of human beings that I have read in a long time. Our inner life is filled with contradictions, etc because of our humanity and not dealing with the “duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust”. In fact, we are witnesses to human beings believing their “pompous dust” is their “grandeur”!! This “pompous dust” wins elections, makes compromises and collaborative processes almost impossible because the “pompous dust” of one person clashes with the wisdom of another and the egomaniac who believes she/he is the smartest person in the room usually wins. The issue with our “pompous dust” is that it deceives us into believing we are ‘the greatest’ and we can “MAGA” or anything else one wants to substitute for the first A. Our pompous dust is so insidious it can, will and does make us believe the words of a clergy person rather than their actions or the actions of Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. Our “pompous dust” is so deceptive we allow ourselves and another(s) to twist the words of the Bible, to misuse the warnings and deeds of the prophets so we, the liars, can be cruel, be powerful, and be seen as Moses’ when we/they are really Pharaohs.
Our “pompous dust” disguises itself as “mysterious grandeur” at times and, with a human being’s mendacious power, convinces ourselves and another(s) that wrong is right, theft is giving, lies are truth, facts are irrelevant, injustice is justice and cruelty is merciful! This is how sick we have been, behaved throughout the millennia and we seem to be reaching new lows/heights in this type of living right now. When the VP of the United States, a lying, asshole punk, tries to lecture Europeans about embracing far-right parties who embrace Nazi slogans and tells them how wrong they are, we see an example of “pompous dust” on full display. When Trump and Musk, as Co-Presidents, they laugh and dance at the cruelty their chaos is causing and the people they are hurting as much as anyone else, if not more, are the very people who voted them into office, “pompous dust” easily becomes the law of the land, breaking down the very imperfect democracy that the United States has been fro 248 years! When the Senators know they are endangering the country, when they know they are violating their oath and go along with the Chief “Pompous Dust”er we see the wide-ranging affects of not dealing with our inner duality. We are witnesses to the history of living under a “Pompous Dust”er, from the days of Nimrod, Pharaoh, Hammurabi, Solomon, the Greek Emperors, the Roman Caesars, through old King George and up to today in some of the Royal Kingdoms in the Middle East. Yet, we continue to elect, follow and participate in the cruelty, injustice, mendacity, theft, etc, and these people continue to violate all of the second 5 of the 10 Commandments!
All of us ‘god-fearing’ faithful who go along with these “pompous dust”ers, are also full of shit and as guilty as the ones promoting and living diametrically opposed to the principles and values our religious life is based on, the principles and values upon which our secular life is based on, the principles and values our Constitution is based on! Yet, we are celebrating the murdering of souls that figuratively and literally that is happening right now. We embrace the whores who are cutting benefits for the needy and putting the money in their pockets, ensuring that Tesla, Space X, etc never suffer any cuts. We are watching Vought steal from the other departments money, power, while putting people out of work, thereby stealing their wages from them. The bearing of false witness that is happening in the Media-FOX BULLSHIT(not NEWS), in the White House, in the Congress, etc is beyond anything we have ever seen before-if Jesus was upset about how the poor were treated ‘back in the day’, can you imagine how distressed he would be now? The prophets thought it was bad 2500+ years ago-can you, the ‘faithful’ hear them now??
It is time for all of us to begin to deal with our “duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust” in earnest. We will never become perfect, we will never defeat our urge to lean into our “pompous dust” thinking and acting, AND we can, must, allow our “mysterious grandeur” to run the show, we can, must engage with and lean into the joys, wisdom, truth of the “mysterious grandeur” of being human, of living as a partner of the Ineffable One, of being given a mission to make our corner of the world a little better than when we found it. This is what it means to be a person of faith! We, the People are being given a clear explanation of what makes us tick-both parts of our duality. We, the People have been show the path of using our “pompous dust” to support the wisdom, dreams, visions of our “mysterious grandeur” through our religious traditions, through our spiritual disciplines, and we keep falling short which is why both Jeremiah and Hosea tell us that “God takes us back in love and heals our backsliding”. It is not that we will be perfect, it is to stop engaging in our worst imperfect ways of being. Make an end to our bullshit excuses and engage in the deeds which build up our strength to do “the next right thing” more often. This is the goal, the mission of religion, not the bullshit and pap we are being fed by Pharaoh’s courtiers! Now is the time for us to stand up and respond to the question: Who is for being human and who is for being Trump’s lackey?
Reading these words today makes me tremble because I know what it is to live as “pompous dust”, I have been a subject to it and I have lived it in different times throughout my life. My recovery and faith does not protect me nor you from my forays into this part of my duality-what they do is help me realize it quicker, make my amends, learn from it and move forward. I find it sad that people who have known me hold onto the moments of “pompous dust” so fiercely while forgetting the hours, days, of “mysterious grandeur”. I pray for them and I pray for all of us to wake up and see our “mysterious grandeur”, run after it more than our “pompous dust” each day. As Rabbi Heschel says: “we need more trembling awe” in our living. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark