Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 52
“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)
Delving into the words in bold above, one can be and, frankly, should be struck on how the first phrase has been so under appreciated! Rather than deal with the issues of the inner life which, ultimately, lead to the issues of our outer lives, our religious institutions have been dealing with their own survival, their own power, their need to keep themselves in jobs, in power, etc. “Human beings are going to therapists for what they should be going to Clergy for” said my Rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man back in 1990. While there are many good reasons to see a therapist (my wife is a therapist), for the problems, the issues, “the reality of the inner life”, our clergy should be our main source of guidance and help-yet they are not! Saying more prayers, lighting more candles, doing more mitzvot will not make us appreciate “the reality of the inner life” more, in fact all of this may well cause more disturbance and distress in our inner lives and lead us farther from “appreciation” into depreciation and more into our rational minds-fulfilling Einstein’s quote about the intuitive mind and the rational mind-with the rational mind being the servant who has become our master and forgetting about the intuitive mind. This is the issue we have been facing for a long time and our current situation in this country and in the world is the result of our under “appreciation of the reality of the inner life”.
We got Trouble right here in America with a capital T and that stands for Trump-as the song goes. Yet, Trump is just the face of our troubles, they begin with our under “appreciation of the reality of the inner life” and then we become mired in the false belief that “I think, therefore I am” believing that my thoughts prove I exist rather than understanding that I exist ergo I can think. Yet, we have become so enamored with our ability to think, our ability to rationalize the worst behaviors, our ability to deny and defend, we have become drunk on serving the servant, denying truth, selling and believing bullshit and promoting conspiracy theories, lies and doing this and more under the guise of ‘religion’, under the facade of ‘christian nationalism’, ‘jewish law’, ‘shariah law’, etc. Why the religious communities are not standing up and shouting from the rooftops that these people are LIARS, they are twisting of Holy Books, foundational teachings from Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha. We should be hearing of the Rape of America, the Rape of Israel, the Rape of Hungary, the proposed Rape of Germany, etc by Vance, Musk, the “alt-right” haters and killers. Yet, our religious institutions listen to Netanyahu, to Trump and clap like trained seals-as do the Republican Party and some Israelis rather than shout and act like we have learned from history, we do believe the Biblical dictates to be human in every situation, even in war! Our rational minds allow us to make everything okay and, because the liars make so much sense, we find ourselves nodding our heads and going along to get along, not taking the time to engage in “the splendor of thought” nor the “dignity of wonder and reverence.”
Engaging in these three ways of living does not allow us to be cruel-full stop. Engaging our “inner life” so our thoughts are in line with the foundational ethics and ways that the Bible teaches us promotes physical, moral and spiritual health is crucial to a good life. We, the People are being called to account. What is the “reality of our inner life”? How are we dealing with the push/pull of our “mysterious grandeur and pompous dust”? Is our rational mind subservient to our intuitive mind? Do we live in the “dignity of wonder and reverence”? These questions and more come to us when delving into the words above and the crime against humanity is that we have not heard them before, we have not dealt with these issues in our youth, we have not had the spiritual education and counseling to wrestle with all of these ways of being! It is a religious tragedy and we keep perpetuating it. Some people think they have the answer, force Religion in the schools- have school prayers that coincide with the ‘christian nationalist’ mendacious falsification of Jesus’ words; that coincide with the Hillul HaShem (desecration of God’s Name) that the far-right Orthodoxy in Israel and the US engage in; that embolden the bastardization of Mohammed’s teachings by the ‘true believers’.
The only solution is for We, the People to find the spiritual teachers and paths that will help us deal with “the reality of the inner life”, finding ways for our intuitive mind to overcome the power of our rational one, strengthening our soul’s knowing so we can withstand the onslaught of lies and rationalizations from within us and from another(s). This is our work as human beings. We, the People have to take back our lives from the abyss of rationalizations, we have to rescue our lives from the pit of snake-oil we have been forced to drink as well as the snake-oil we have begged to drink, we have to “rebuke your neighbor and don’t put guilt upon him/her”. We, the People are being called to face our fears and, like David in the Bible- GO UP AGAINST GOLIATH. We, the People have to wrestle with our own inner life, we have to demand of our clergy their assistance and guidance of what is in our best interests, help us decode what our souls are calling out for us to do, and not allow the liars, the idolators, the ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ to prevail because they sound good.
This is going to take a new way of understanding, teaching, and learning the Bible and other Holy Texts. It means we, the Clergy, are going to get off our asses, deal with the Truth of the Bible, immerse ourselves in the texts and find the meaning and teaching for the particular individual we are with in the moment and how it applies to living in today’s world. The fallacy that the Bible is about the ‘law’ has to be buried and we stand in the texts seeking truth, justice, kindness and love in our own life. I have had the experience of people with a lot more money and fame than I ask me how I am and I say “great” and they go ballistic because they can’t understand, with all of my own tzuris(problems) how I can be great. Because I have “appreciation of the reality of the inner life”, I have learned how to tame and tamper my emotions and thoughts so I don’t allow them to control me-too often. Because my spiritual knowing leads me, most of the time, I can erupt like the prophets with just ‘knowing in my bones’ and this has led people to call me volatile and “a liability”. I accept this truth and I know that because God took me back, is healing my backsliding, today is great day. Having dignity for wonder and revering life gives me joy and makes me accountable. I pray everyone finds this way of being. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark