Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 264

“The discovery of this tragic predicament is a most painful blow to man’s sense of spiritual security. What lesson is to be drawn from it if not the advice that suspicion is the shortest way to the understanding of human nature. This it seems is the modern version of the Golden Rule: Suspect thy neighbor as thyself.”(God in Search of Man pg. 389)

Rabbi Heschel’s assessment of the state of humanity is as true if not more true today than when he wrote it some 68 years ago. We are desperately in need of more trustworthiness and more honesty/truth today with the advent of “alternative facts”. We are in a time where everyone suspects the words, the motives, the actions of another person. Because of the belief that everyone acts only in their self-interest, even actions which are good, holy, kind, generous, etc. are suspect to people. We are living in a world where trust is on the wane and suspicion is the norm.

This experience has exacerbated not just because of the lies of people in power, it is exacerbated by the lies we tell ourselves. As Rabbi Heschel teaches, human beings are aware of the intrusion of “instinctual desires” and “vested interests of the ego” in our motivations and our thinking. Because we suspect ourselves, because we know, at some level conscious or unconscious, that our actions are tainted, we believe everyone else’s are also! We are in this “tragic predicament” because we grow up afraid to be who we are, afraid to admit our ‘missing the mark’, afraid of our imperfections, and taught to ‘hide our dirty laundry’ lest the neighbors find out. “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is not just a folktale from Hans Christian Anderson, it is a real state of being for individuals, be they power brokers, elected officials, despots, royalty, and/or ‘normal’ folk.

We hide our mistakes from our parents for fear of punishment, for fear of rejection. We witness and experience the betrayal of their ‘unconditional love’ for us when they get angry at our mistakes, we are afraid of their disappointment and their wrath so we lie, we hide, we meld ourselves into being what they want us to be and we carry this on throughout life. We watch the anguish of our parents at the compromises they have to make to ‘put food on the table’ and we accept this way of being as ‘normal’, as ‘this is the way life is’, etc. It skews our vision how to be, it implants in us an erroneous belief that we have “to go along to get along”. It also gives our “evil drive” much more energy, power to assert itself and strengthens “the vested interests of the ego” so we come to believe we have to ‘get ours’ because everyone else is ‘getting theirs’. We learn to make contracts that we can break, take the risk of being sued for our breaking a contract and have lawyers who find the loopholes so we can betray our word, our signatures. “A man’s word is his bond” is an antiquated phrase that is laughed at, talking smack about everyone else is de rigueur, a ‘normal’ way of being.

Because we learn suspicion from a young age, because we learn that trustworthiness is for fools, we betray and get betrayed daily. The biggest betrayal that we engage in is the betrayal of our self, our authentic self, our fulfillment of the divine need we are created for. We know this to be true and we run from this truth, we, like Jonah, try to hide from God, attempt to go in the opposite direction of God’s will and call, and while we think we have succeeded, we are distraught, unhappy, depressed, etc. We put thieves in jail as an attempt to distance ourselves from the thievery we participate in each day: running from the truth and stealing from God, from our true self, from humanity.

In recovery, we realize that our escape into the addiction of our choice was an attempt to hide from ourselves the “exact nature of our wrongs”. Whether it was the facade, the mask we wore, the drug, the booze, the gambling, the co-dependency, etc, we were consciously and subconsciously hiding from and running from authenticity. We come to realize our actions were driven from a deep belief of our unacceptability by people when we were authentically our self. In recovery, we know we may be unacceptable to people and accepting our self, our truth becomes our North Star!

My daily writings give me new spiritual awakenings and I accept that my authentic self is not acceptable to many, that I have mistaken acceptance of my gifts, acceptance of my help as acceptance of me. They are not the same and I became too attached to being accepted to realize this. My gifts, my assistance comes from God and they are not mine to keep and I know this and live this more today than yesterday. I have to accept me, I have to be acceptable to God, and I have to never be a victim to anyone’s betrayal, anyone’s non-acceptance of me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 263

“The discovery of this tragic predicament is a most painful blow to man’s sense of spiritual security. What lesson is to be drawn from it if not the advice that suspicion is the shortest way to the understanding of human nature. This it seems is the modern version of the Golden Rule: Suspect thy neighbor as thyself.”(God in Search of Man pg. 389)

Immersing oneself in the wisdom above, in the wisdom and teachings of Rabbi Heschel from Friday, we can easily fall into the pit of despair, the sense of ‘why bother’, a state of silent acquiescence, a state of going with the flow of suspicion that is so prevalent now as it has been throughout the ages. Yet, this is the very reason immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, immersing ourselves in the spiritual discipline that speaks to our souls is so crucial. Through living Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, through being an active member of a spiritual discipline, we become aware of the pitfalls we are subject to, we are able to experience “a most painful blow to man’s sense of spiritual security” and return home to our souls, to our connection with the Ineffable One, the spirit of the universe and not be defeated by “this tragic predicament”. It takes a powerful spiritual discipline, a commitment to engage in our particular spiritual discipline “in all our affairs”, and a respect for, a learning from, and a connection to one another’s souls.

Allowing Rabbi Heschel’s words to wash over me, I find that “spiritual security” could be an elusive goal. Security comes from the Latin meaning “free from care” and the English definition is: “the state of being free from danger or threat”. When we couple these definitions with spirituality, I remember the wisdom of Rabbi Abraham Twerski, who taught me that as soon as I think I have achieved being spiritual, I have lost it!. It is difficult to hold onto “spiritual security” for any length of time for most of us, certainly for me. In fact, as I reflect, whenever I or anyone claims to have ‘the one right answer’ to our spiritual predicaments, to our worldly predicaments, we can rest assured that I/we have fallen into “this tragic predicament” of our ego’s vested interests and our instinctual desires penetrating our motivations and our rational mind, our rationalizations have disguised themselves as spiritual knowing. The beauty of a spiritual practice is just that, we continue to practice, we are always learning, growing, aware and present in as many moments as possible in order to have the humility to know we will never be perfect, we can never ‘rest on our laurels’, we will constantly be seeking and doing the best we can, ever on alert for our false egos, our “sense of superiority” to rise up within us.

The realization of this “tragic predicament” has had me reflecting on the world crisis we are facing as well as alerting me to the spiritual crisis I have always and continue to face. It is so difficult for me/for us to unentangle our false ego’s vested interests, our instinctual desires from our motivations and actions. This is not to say the good we do is not good, on the contrary, the good we do is heroic because inspire of our egotistical desires, we are able to rise above them to do the next right thing, to go against self-interest at times to aid another, to serve a higher purpose than self-satisfaction. Yet, in looking back upon my life, I also realize the moments when I lost the ability to discern between the “vested interests of the ego” and how even doing the ‘right thing’ can be skewed because the false ego and my instinctual desires, especially to be right, overrode what my soul knew and how to achieve a goal respecting the dignity of another(s). I/we fall into “the tragic predicament” whenever we ‘need to be right’, need to prove we are the smartest in the room, when we are so power-hungry, so narcissistic, so authoritarian, we need to win at any and all costs. It is apparent in our current political crisis’ across the globe and, I believe, we have to be aware of our spiritual insecurity, our spiritual uncertainty so we continue to be aware of the myriad of paths our false egos, our “evil drives” disguise themselves and send us into despair, silent acquiescence, ‘why bother’ as we witness in our individual and communal lives.

Surrender is the first step in recovery, it is not a surrender that is defeatist, rather we surrender to truth, to a power greater than ourselves. We live the Serenity Prayer throughout our day and we take our spiritual temperature often during the day so we catch ourselves early when we drift into “the tragic predicament” Rabbi Heschel is warning us of. This surrender is a gift, it is an awareness of our spiritual uncertainty, our spiritual insecurity so we can constantly be teachable, always learning and discerning, our inner life becomes the determining factor in our actions rather than the rationalizations, the mendacity that used to dominate our thinking. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 262

“Psychological (and sociological) research has disclosed not only how the motivations of our conduct are entangled in the functions of instinctual desires, but also how the vested interests of the ego penetrate not only moral motivations but also acts of cognition.”(God in Search of Man pg. 389)

On this day after Tisha B’Av, after commemorating the destructions we have wrought through giving into to “the vested interests of the ego”, it is crucial for us to “make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God” as the third step of Alcoholics Anonymous suggests to us. If yesterday was meaningful rather than perfunctory,  if we immersed ourselves in the evening and morning of mourning and being accountable and then made this decision in the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, then today marks a new beginning, a new way of dealing with the wisdom above.

We have to acknowledge our “instinctual desires” in order to deal with them, we have to examine our inner lives and see what our instinctual desires are and how we can transform them to serve God, to serve another(s), to serve our higher self rather than just satisfy some craving of self-interest. This teaching of Rabbi Heschel gives us the opportunity to examine the motivations behind our actions, to examine our selves in a mature manner and stop making the excuses we normally do to prove the ‘rightness’ of our decisions and actions.

Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to let go of our ‘need to be right’, to stop validating our selfish motivations, to be aware of the instinctual desires that are motivating us morally and spiritually. Living into his wisdom allows us to see ourselves and our actions truthfully, without the defenses of our ego, of our rational minds. Living into this teachings gives us the opportunity to go through the pain of the examined life, as Malcom X teaches. It also gives us the joy of knowing we can and are serving our higher self, our “good drive”, our neighbor, the stranger, and God. Living an examined life gives us the gift of questioning our motivations, the ability to mature our instinctual desires, and be aware of “the vested interests of the ego”. While difficult to do, while painful to experience, it is the only path to ending our propensity “clothe” ourselves in selfish interests rather than wear the garments of God as Adam and Eve did when they left the Garden of Eden.

We are living in a dangerous era, we are living in a time where, as in the Civil War, as in the times of the destruction of the 2nd Temple, brother is hating brother, senseless hatred abounds, mendacity is the “normal path”, leaders are unable to rise above “the vested interests of the ego” in order to ‘do the next right thing’, everything is tainted with ‘what’s in it for me’, ‘how will this affect me’, etc. Whether it is the current iteration of the Republican Party, the denial of fair and impartial justice in Israel, the bluster of Trump, et al, the refusal of many to hold him accountable, the machinations of Netanyahu, the lies of Putin, the arrogance of Musk, the power of employers, the need of shareholders to put money over people, we are in a deep state of what Rabbi Heschel is describing above.

Yet, we can rise above it!  The 11th step of Alcoholics Anonymous teaches us “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out.” We have the power through prayer, meditation, study, immersing ourselves in the wisdom of teachers like Rabbi Heschel, to transform our “instinctual desires” to serve God, to serve one another. We have paths to separate “the vested interests of the ego” from our thinking and our spiritual life. We have the inner strength to constantly examine our lives, to make our amends, to admit our missing the marks, to accept and admit what we do well. We have the wherewithal to change, to let go of our “stiff-neck” way of being. We can all be  in recovery. Isn’t this what praying is all about for all faiths, isn’t this what meditation does in all spiritual disciplines?

I know that I am guilty of entangling my lower “instinctual desires” with the motivations of my conduct at times, I am aware of how “the vested interests” of my ego have penetrated my moral and cognitive life. I am sorry for those times and the harm they may have brought. I am also aware that I will never be totally free of either experience. I do know and believe the more aware I stay through study, prayer, meditation, the more I will be able to recognize these conditions and rise above them, as my history attests to as well. I also know living an examined life is not easy, it is painful and it is joyous. Knowing what and when I miss the mark, gives me the opportunity to ‘fail forward’, repair harms and move forward. It also allows me to not wallow in shame nor self-pity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom - A Daily path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 261

“In addition to our being uncertain of whether our motivation prior to the act is pure, and to our being embarrassed during the act by “alien thoughts,” one is not even safe after the act. We are urged by Jewish tradition to conceal from others our acts of charity;(Mishnah Shekalim 5,6) but are we able to conceal them from ourselves? Are we able to overcome the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity, and the sense of superiority, derived from what are supposed to be acts of dedication to God?”(God in Search of Man pg.388)

Today is Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. This is the day we commemorate the destruction of both Temples, the loss of our sovereignty, and other destructive experiences in Jewish history. The caveat being, according to the Rabbis, that these are destructions that could have been avoided had we just be truthful in our “acts of dedication to God”. Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings above speak directly to us as a warning to look inside our selves, to take a deep dive into our rationalizations, the lies we tell ourselves, our egotistical need and drive to be the smartest person in the room, our ability to be unkind for the ‘right’ reasons.

Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to be in awareness of our motives, awareness of our “pride, self-righteousness, vanity, and sense of superiority” that we defend as “acts of dedication to God”. Today, in the Jewish world, most people are not willing to look inside themselves and see the destruction that have wrought because of their false pride, because of some inflated sense of knowing better, their inability to acknowledge their own missing the marks, their need to be perfect and to blame someone else when things go wrong. Yet, these same people will go to temple and synagogue and pray for the reconstruction of the Temple, going back to sacrifices they don’t believe in, all the while unwilling, unable to do their own T’Shuvah, their own inventory, make their amends, cause restoration of the dignity of another human being and find ways to overrule their self-righteous urges.

In Florida, saying slavery helped slaves learn trades and use of tools that helped them later on is an example of vapid, “sense of superiority”  thinking. In Israel, Netanyahu and his cronies have decided they do not need any checks and balances, whatever they decide is good, right and lawful-a la Richard Nixon and Donald J Trump. The cry of so-called religious people that abortion is prohibited in the Bible is not a universal truth, in Judaism, life begins when the fetus takes its first breath, i.e. when it is born. Yet, over and over again-in business, in government, in so-called religious institutions, in any type of ‘guru’ worship, in all types of fascism, communism (as it is practiced), in our families, in our streets we are encountering people who fall prey to the “alien thoughts”, before, during and after what could be a “good deed”.

Without heeding Rabbi Heschel’s warning and wisdom, without doing “T’Shuvah one day before we die”, hence everyday, we fall into these soul-sucking traps. We find reasons to hold grudges, we hold onto resentments, we forget the people who have helped us and are angry that we needed their help so we ‘get even’, rejoice, even cause, their loss of dignity, using their mistakes against them, using their vulnerabilities against them, which M.Scott Peck calls the definition of evil. How does this happen, we wonder. It happens because of our vanity, our emptiness, as the Latin defines vanity. We have become so empty inside, we have neglected our spiritual life, we have stayed infantile in our conception of God, in the ways of religious living, we have either bought in completely to the mendacity of religious leaders who only seek power or we have rejected the truth and wisdom and instruction of our Holy Books completely. This keeps us empty, angry, subject to our rationalizations, our whims, our self-deceptions, and the deception of another(s).

Today, this Tisha B’Av, we can choose to be in recovery from “pride, self-righteousness, vanity, and a sense of superiority”. We can do our own inventories and make our amends as a way of connecting to one another, as a way of accepting one another, as a path to wholeness in our inner life. We can let go of our false egos, we can fill the emptiness we experience inside with spiritual connection to the Ineffable One, to the spirit of the universe, to God and join with others in a truthful, other-serving seeking of how to live well, how to live together, how to honor the dignity of every human being. I am guilty of falling into the dangers Rabbi Heschel speaks of, I am also in recovery from them. I accept my imperfections, I am sad when I see what is going on, I do the best I can to keep my side of the street clean, and I apologize to anyone I harmed because of falling into the dangers mentioned above. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living rabbi heschel’s wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 260

“In addition to our being uncertain of whether our motivation prior to the act is pure, and to our being embarrassed during the act by “alien thoughts,” one is not even safe after the act. We are urged by Jewish tradition to conceal from others our acts of charity;(Mishnah Shekalim 5,6) but are we able to conceal them from ourselves? Are we able to overcome the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity, and the sense of superiority, derived from what are supposed to be acts of dedication to God?”(God in Search of Man pg.388)

The more I/one immerses oneself/myself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above, the more questioning of oneself/myself we are called to engage in. He presents a deep conundrum for us: since one mitzvah leads to another, we have to be aware of what we are doing, take some note of what we are doing, allow the mitzvah to improve, enhance, and mature our inner lives AND, we have to be hyper-aware of “the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity and our sense of superiority” that is waiting in the wings to warp our thinking, our actions and our spirits.

It is important to have ‘pride’ in ones accomplishments, I believe. It is important to be able to see that we are one grain of sand better today than we were yesterday. Seeing our spiritual progress, recognizing the good we do, acknowledging our accomplishments, noting how often we say Hineni(here we are) when called upon to do Tzedakah(righteousness/charity), experiencing our connection with God, with another(s) human being, engaging in the good for its own sake at times and being aware of when we are, all help us to keep growing  and engaging our spiritual life “in all our affairs”.

Do we get benefits from this way of living, absolutely! Do we live this way for the benefits? This is where it gets dicey and tricky. In the paragraph above, we are living into these “acts of dedication to God” for the sake of dedicating ourselves to something greater than ourselves, for the sake of our spiritual connection, for the sake of answering God’s call of Ayecha, where are you. Yet, many people will deny these “acts of dedication to God” as self-serving and being a ‘show-off’, an “ass-kisser”, a “con man”, etc. Many people look to deride those whose very lives are “acts of dedication to God” in many areas, imperfectly, and these pious people are looked down upon as stupid, as easy to take advantage of, and with suspicion. Many of us keep questioning our goodness because of the pressure from outside, from other people’s derision of our way of being, from our own ‘evil drive’ within us trying to defeat us. We are driven to “pride, self-righteousness, vanity, and a sense of superiority” because of our lack of awareness of the good we can do, the good we are called to do, and the doing it for it’s own sake, living a life where most of our acts are  “acts of dedication to God”, rather than self-serving, reward seeking, power grabbing actions.

We are in a state of depression right now, democracy is under attack from the people who have used democratic norms to gain some modicum of power and need absolute power. These are the epitomes of “pride, self-righteousness, vanity and sense of superiority”, Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. McCarthy, Ms Taylor Greene, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner, Mr. Putin, Mr. Orban, and their ilk. This type of human being has been with us since our creation and, with the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel, Thomas Merton, the Dalai Lama, et al and the teachings of our spiritual and religious disciplines, we can change, we can live at least 51% in doing the good for the sake of the good, for the sake of our spiritual well-being. We can fill the vanity, ie emptiness, inside with love, with truth, with kindness, with a sense of fulfillment, for today! We, the People, have to hold ourselves accountable for the Good we do, for the righteous actions we take, without falling into “the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity and a sense of superiority”.

In recovery, we are aware of the pitfalls and dangers of pride, etc. We are also aware of growing along spiritual lines, we make it a point to look at where we have missed the mark each day AND, where we have done well each day. It is crucial for us to see our progress and not be defined by it, not fall in love with our new reflection, rather use our good deeds of today as ways of paying back God for our lives, for our recovery, and for the ability to change. It is not prideful to acknowledge who we are becoming and the good we do, it is not self-righteous to write books and teach spiritual wisdom without being perfect at it, it is not vanity to reach out and help another human being even when we are not “there” yet. It is crucial to do an “appreciative inquiry” of oneself, as I am just learning about. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 259

“In addition to our being uncertain of whether our motivation prior to the act is pure, and to our being embarrassed during the act by “alien thoughts,” one is not even safe after the act. We are urged by Jewish tradition to conceal from others our acts of charity;(Mishnah Shekalim 5,6) but are we able to conceal them from ourselves? Are we able to overcome the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity, and the sense of superiority, derived from what are supposed to be acts of dedication to God?”(God in Search of Man pg.388)

Rabbi Heschel is calling to our attention one of the greatest dangers we face each and every day. We all fall prey to “the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity and the sense of superiority” to a greater or lessor degree. When we do things that could warrant these dangers we have some safeguard for falling too far into them; namely, our sense of embarrassment from our “alien thoughts”, our memory of our motivation and a commitment to remember whom we are serving, another human being and God and trusted people to help keep us on the right path and get back on when we drift.

We are witnessing, participating in, and being subjected to “the danger of pride, self-righteousness, vanity and the sense of superiority” from people who continue to seek power for its own sake, act cruelly for the sake of cruelty, extol their evil acts as good ones, who constantly seek to publicize their greatness just to please themselves, rather than to motivate others to do the next right thing. We see this in Israel with the latest attack on democracy by Netanyahu and his far-right wing co-conspirators who want to have rule and dominion over everyone else and run rampant over freedom, even though they purport to be ‘religious’. Of course we have Jim (I never saw my friend molest those wrestlers nor heard about it) Jordan, Kevin (who’s tuchus do I have to kiss to keep my speakership) McCarthy, Marjorie (I never saw a truth I couldn’t manipulate) Taylor Greene, and so many of their cronies proclaim their heist of democratic values and principles, their bastardizing the very constitution our founding fathers fought and died for, with great zeal and pleasure. Like in Israel, the far-right has taken over the Supreme Court and expect “their judges” to shield them from any liability and allow them and their wealthy donors do as they please and say this is the way to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to” some “of its inhabitants thereof”.

How difficult is it to raise money for charity when you don’t publicize the donor? We use the names of people who are influential and important in our communities to influence people to give to the charity of our choice. Some donors have not learned from Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom; they believe their donations give them the right to tell the professionals how to do things, they believe their charity infuses them with even more pride than they had prior to giving and expect the charity to serve them instead of them serving it! So many people begin to believe they have something coming because of their charitable actions, some are so self-righteous they believe they are the experts as to how to run the charitable organization better than the founders and the people who are working to make their corner of the world a better place. They are so full of vanity (read emptiness) they need to exert power over people to do what they want instead of helping the institution further their mission to the most vulnerable. They are so full of a sense of superiority that when questioned or they experience pushback, they threaten to take their money away and, effectively, blackmail the institution into doing it ‘their way’.

While the Anonymous in AA was/is to shield the person seeking recovery from being identified so as to not cause shame, notoriety, etc; we also stay anonymous in our good deeds as much as possible. We know we should only publicize what we are doing when it will serve God and another(s) human being. We work hard to stay right-sized, “we are but trusted servants” “we do not govern” are watch phrases for us and embedded into every meeting and every bit of service we engage in. It is a task that none of us are perfect in and we do the best we can each day to lessen the pride, etc from our daily living.

I am guilty of failing to heed Rabbi Heschel’s warnings at times. I have been self-righteous and prideful, I have engaged in an inner sense of superiority, and each time, God sends me a reminder in the form of some awakening; usually a difficult one. While I have been vilified for so long for the past errors, I also know how often I have not engaged in these “alien thoughts” after the action. I am grateful that God, Rabbi Heschel, AA, my trusted advisors help me stay right-sized and tell me when I am not. I am sorry for the people harmed when I have been out of proper measure, not been right-sized, and, as we approach Tisha B’Av, I ask for forgiveness and mercy, as I forgive those who have harmed me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 258

“Consciousness abides in the company of self-consciousness. With any perception or apprehension comes the awareness of my possessing it, which is dangerously close to vanity. The ego, with its characteristic lack of reserve or discretion, is prone to interfere obtrusively even in acts which had been initiated behind its back. Such interference or “alien thoughts”—alien to the spirit of the act—which was absent from the original motive constitute a problem of its own.”(God in Search of Man pg. 387)

Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of an age-old problem that most people are not even aware of, actually two problems that most of us are willfully blind to: 1) vanity, 2) “alien thoughts” from our ego. I discussed vanity yesterday using the Latin root meaning “empty” and I believe our vanity/emptiness encourages “The ego, with its characteristic lack of reserve or discretion, is prone to interfere obtrusively…”. Obtrusive comes from the Latin meaning “thrust forward”, and as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning, he is reminding us, calling out to us, warning us of our tendency to believe we are acting with integrity, acting in the best interests of an ideal, a mission, another human being, a religion, a spiritual discipline, a democracy, and, if we dig deeper, we come to realize the “alien thoughts” that are problematic, the danger of vanity and emptiness we missed along the way, all because we ignored “the awareness of my possessing it” and/or we just didn’t care and believed we are the smartest in the room, upon discovery of our empty inner life, we choose to radiate power over another, we choose to hide behind the facade that our ego helps us develop, and we “thrust forward” without regard to the authentic needs of self, another, spirit, universe.

In his interview with Carl Stern, Rabbi Heschel speaks about the many problems we face, how it is good for us to have problems, and, as I am experiencing his words today, we are able to confront and solve today’s challenges and/or maybe yesterday’s, knowing tomorrow will bring another set of problems/challenges. We want to avoid problems, we want to evade problems, we want to find the “easier softer way” and since  most people are conflict averse, many of us just succumb to the loudest voice in the room, to the one with the power, to emptiness of our inner life and to the “alien thoughts” of our egos and/or the egos of ‘our leaders’. In a democracy, this is unacceptable! In a religious life, this is unacceptable! In God’s world of freedom for all: (Leviticus 25:10) “Proclaim Liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants thereof” this is unacceptable! Yet, to even some of the ‘most pious’ people, religiously, democratically, spiritually, ethically, these unacceptable ways have become commonplace and found acceptance. The desire to escape, to find God and the secrets of the Universe through psychedelics, through drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, Ayahuasca, and other ‘quick fixes’ that become compulsive habits is another example of a good motivation for an action that, because of an empty inner life and “alien thoughts” thrust forward upon us from our egos, addiction occurs and the opposite of the original motivation happens. Of course, at issue is that they work, and under the proper guidance, these ways of coping and of exploration can, and sometimes do, help people fill their emptiness with a spiritual connection, find a pathway to let go of “alien thoughts” quicker, and move forward using the ego to assist the good motivations and do the “next right thing”.

The same is true for our religious and spiritual paths of living. We can use them to fill “the hole in the soul” and, we can be willfully blind to our egos and our believing we possess ‘the truth, the only right way’ and bastardize the spiritual and religious tenets that have been passed down. We have witnessed this throughout our existence and we blame religion and spirituality rather than the people who have bastardized both. Religion, spirituality, meditation, prayer, are not for some deity to decide who is good and who is bad, who deserves love and who doesn’t, who is going to be rich and who is going to be poor! They are pathways for us to find our connection to the Ineffable One, they are here for us to use to find our connections to our inner spirit, to the Image of the Divine we are created in. They are not here for some Charlatan to deny the right of another person/woman to make their own choices and/or get the health care they need. They are not here for some health insurance bureaucrat, with no medical training, to decide ‘the numbers don’t warrant this test so we will turn it down” and then the person is found to have cancer that could have been dealt with much better upon early detection. Religion and Spirituality are here to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants thereof”, not to follow one person’s interpretation that is based on ‘alien thoughts”! We are all in need of checking our “alien thoughts” and our perceptions each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom - A Daily path to living well

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 257

“Consciousness abides in the company of self-consciousness. With any perception or apprehension comes the awareness of my possessing it, which is dangerously close to vanity. The ego, with its characteristic lack of reserve or discretion, is prone to interfere obtrusively even in acts which had been initiated behind its back. Such interference or “alien thoughts”—alien to the spirit of the act—which was absent from the original motive constitute a problem of its own.”(God in Search of Man pg. 387)

Rabbi Heschel is posing a challenge for us in his teaching above. Our need to possess our “perceptions and apprehensions” causes us to defend them, to proclaim them as absolute truths, to, at times, deny the perceptions and apprehensions of another(s) and lead us into the temptation of “rightness”. This experience separates us from one another, separates us from God, separates us from our souls/spirits. It also separates us from continuing to learn and seeking the whole picture, seeking truth. We separate into tribes of ‘like-minded’ people and easily follow and go along with a leader and/or lead people to a “my way or the highway” mentality. When we are “possessing it”, we claim ownership, we believe we hold onto the only truth, we guard it and we fiercely defend it. We no longer engage in conversations, we no longer engage in hearing and learning different ways of understanding our “perceptions and apprehensions” because our egos won’t allow doubt, won’t allow anyone else’s ideas and wisdom to intrude upon our beliefs, perceptions, etc.

This way of being is dangerous because vanity is not only close, it is knocking at the door and we are almost always going to open the door and let it in! Vanity comes from the Latin meaning “empty”. Which is a wonderful way to describe what happens when “the awareness of my possessing” any “perception and apprehension”! We become empty shells, we are devoid of empathy, we are unable to learn, to have a conversation, we are unable to acknowledge our own errors of thinking, of doing, we are unable to forgive another(s) for their foibles and we cannot recognize our own imperfections.

Religion and spirituality fall prey to becoming “dangerously close to vanity” as much as governments, nations, businesses, communities, groups, etc. Every entity seems to be vying to be #1 and to do this they believe their “perceptions and apprehensions” are the only ones that are true, correct and the only ones that should matter. We see this in every aspect of society and, as so often happens, we come to find out they are as empty as the “Wizard of Oz”. We come to find out that ‘the man behind the curtain’ is a charlatan, a con man, a grifter, who preys upon the uncertainty of another(s), of a group in order to have power, riches, etc. In religious life, this way of being is anathema to Torah, to the Bible, to the Koran, etc. The prophets spoke to the people for hundreds of years and speak to us every day in prayer and study about this danger, yet we continue to remain willfully blind and willfully deaf to their words, to our history, to truth.

Teaching that slavery was good for the slaves, denying women reproductive health care and endangering their lives, worshiping a grifter and criminal like Donald Trump, being fed a steady diet of lies and propaganda, rewriting history as Kevin McCarthy is doing, listening to Mitch McConnell rail against the Democrats “politicizing the Court” after his denying to consider Merritt Garland because it was an election year and promoting Amy Barrett 1 month prior to the 2020 election, all are examples of people who are possessing “perceptions and apprehensions” that come from vanity, that actually show the emptiness and vapidity of individuals.

In recovery, we are acutely aware of the pitfalls of possessing our “perceptions and apprehensions”, we know the emptiness of vanity and how dangerous it is. We are recovering our spiritual lives, we are recovering our ability to have an apprehensions without ‘owning it’, to have a perception without ‘owning it. In fact, we speak often of not being able to have what one doesn’t give away. We have a community of people who ‘keep us honest’, keep us aware of the lies we tell ourselves, we choose sponsors and spiritual guides to help us stay ‘right-sized’ and on a path of truth and learning, all in order to leave the “vanity/emptiness” that we suffered from prior to our recovery.

In looking back and forward, I am guilty of vanity at times and I shared my “perceptions and apprehensions” with the goal of having them changed, massaged, grown by another(s) because I am here to serve another, God and self. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 256

“Psychologically it seems inconceivable a person should be able to love God wholeheartedly, to do the good for its own sake, regardless of reward and expediency. We do not have to use a divining rod in order to come upon deep layers of vested interests beneath the surface of our immediate motivations. Anyone capable of self-examination knows that the regard for the self is present in every cell of our brain; that it is extremely hard to disentangle oneself from the intricate plexus of selfish interests.” (God in Search of Man pg. 387)

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above gives us pause, it gives us the opportunity to examine our motives and actions, it allows us to take a breath and realize the fallacy of our ‘self-righteousness’, and it causes us to know we have to always be questioning ourselves, our motives, our actions and surrender our egos to a power greater than ourselves. Rabbi Heschel is, as Socrates taught, calling out to us to live an examined life. It is difficult to engage in this teaching because it calls into question our “regard for the self”, what are our “vested interests” and how can we separate ourselves “from the intricate plexus of selfish interests”. Plexus comes from the Latin meaning “plait” which means “fold”, and is defined as an “network”.

When we clothe ourselves in our own self-importance we give power and strength to our ego, to our “selfish interests”. When we don’t see how important we are, we give power and strength to the evil drive. It is a conundrum for us and living in the space in between these two conflicting emotions takes a great deal of inner strength, inner wisdom and the ability to separate “the intricate” strands/folds “of selfish interests” which we have constructed within ourselves. Without regard for our self, we will engage in activities that are too dangerous, risky, inappropriate, being willfully blind to the needs of another(s), the authentic needs of our self. With too much regard for self, we put blinders on, engage in self-deception and mendacity, and weave a never-ending network on “selfish interests” that we convince ourselves is ‘for the greater good’. We give power to the latter through speaking only of “our immediate motivations” and give short shrift to the “deep layers of vested interests”. All of this so we can feel good about ourselves.

Spirituality and religion are paths to achieve this balancing act, they give us the steps with which to dance this seemingly tightrope between too much self-importance and too little self-importance. While the myriad of spiritual and religious paths have been bastardized by the ways humans have abused the eternal truths and the paths for their own sake, for their own power, for their own self-importance, for their own “vested interests”, we should not “throw the baby out with the bath water.” Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, his wisdom, the work of art he created by living an authentic, examined life give us the example of how to live in the both/and of being right-sized. Knowing we are fulfilling a divine need when we live our gifts/talents, when we are tilling, nurturing and growing our particular corner of the Garden that is this world, when we ‘carry’ ourselves as divine reminders and see one another as divine reminders for us, we find the path that is ‘right’ for us in our journey to the “promised land”, in our journey to “be free”, in our journey to leave the enslavements of false ego, the burdens of self-righteousness and having to have all the answers, be the smartest person in the room, etc.

Religious and spiritual paths are not a ‘one-size fits all’, they are given to us in terse, veiled ways that call upon us to find ‘our proper place’ and the path the is good and proper for us, individually. We do this in community because we need help to find our place of adding to the whole, we do this in community because we need the assistance of Chaverim, spiritual friends who speak truth to us, who help us stay on the path that is true for us, who will always let us know when we are straying and giving in to our self-importance in a dangerous manner. Religion is not what people say it is, it is not a narrow path that is the same for everyone, and spirituality is not either. Both are one-way streets that lead us home. Home, in this context, is where we are living authentically, imperfectly, with an inner safety and courage to continue growing and maturing, helping and serving, being aided by another(s) and belonging to a community of spiritual seekers. Spirituality and religion are the guiding lights in our journey from “the intricate plexus of selfish interests”(Egypt) to doing the next right thing for its own sake(Freedom). It is a difficult journey with many wrong steps and turns, we will never be perfect and we can learn from each experience. This, to me, is the definition of recovery. It is a life-long journey and it leads us to living into who we truly are, surrendering falseness, living nakedly authentic . God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 255

“Depth-psychology has made it clear to us that the springs of human action are complex, that the subrational either dominates or at least affects the conscious life, that the power and the drive of the ego penetrate all our attitudes and decisions. We may assume we love God, while in truth it is the ego we care for.”(God in Search of Man pg 387)

The title of this chapter is “the problem of Integrity” and this subchapter is called “vested interests.” The Latin word that integrity comes from means “intact” and the Hebrew word means “wholeness”, while the #2 definition is wholeness, the first definition is: “quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness”. The history of humankind, since Adam and Eve, has been one of incompleteness, ‘broken’, not intact. Our “subrational” keeps us off-balance and incomplete, “the power and drive of the ego” continues to help us lie to ourselves and believe we can be complete and/or we are complete. The deception of our selves because of the “subrational” and “the power and drive of the ego” has led us to war, famine, slavery, idolatry, authoritarianism, etc. Every time we ‘feel’ an ‘inner peace’, we are deceiving ourselves because to love God is to be challenged by God, Rabbi Heschel teaches. To love God is to be responsive to God’s calls, the demands of the prophets, the cries of the widows and orphan, the pleas of the needy, the poor, the stranger. It is not sitting back in comfort and thinking we have made it, we have reached the top of the mountain, it is not in believing we know what is best, it is not in the betrayals of and destruction of another(s) souls in order to feel good.

It is imperative, as I hear Rabbi Heschel today, to end our mendacity, understand that satisfaction is a momentary experience, not meant to last forever, and we cannot be whole without connection to, hearing, and responding to the call of the universe to us. As I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom today, we have to to beyond the realm of “depth-psychology” and delve into the realm of the spiritual. We keep seeking pills, mindfulness, eastern philosophies, etc as quick fixes rather than as help and pathways to our inner life, to the spirit within us which will lead us to connection to the spirit of the universe. We are trying to be whole and intact by “keeping it together” rather than realizing until we “let it all hang out” we are trapped in a prison of our own making. “Vested Interests” from the Latin means “clothed in importance”. Putting this definition together with integrity, we see how our minds, our egos lie to us and we, in turn, lie to everyone else. As Bill Wilson wrote: “the deception of others is rooted in the deception of ourselves”. Our “vested interests” and our need to be “intact” and project “wholeness”, as well as smartness, along with our need to be #1 or #2 cause us to feed “the power and drive” of our egos that welcome the lies of the “subrational”.

We are living a lie that society bought into since the beginning. We are so intent on ‘being whole’, on proving ourselves to be ‘intact’ along with our need to clothe ourselves in importance, we have engaged in the very mendacity and false ego-driven activities that make having integrity impossible, that make knowing the importance of self and every other self to make the world whole and complete. We are being tested and called, by Rabbi Heschel’s words and teachings, by the teachings of the Bibles, the Koran, Eastern Philosophies to leave the world of subterfuge, to let go of our old ideas, to be “maladjusted to conventional notions and cliches” so we can live in “radical amazement”, so we can stop serving the idols we have made of ourselves and another(s). We can end the endless wars in the world when we surrender our false egos and follow the call of our souls, the demands of our spiritual life, the love call of the Ineffable One. It is not an easy path, it is not a perfect path, we will continue to stumble and we will continue to right ourselves when we seek to be whole in our inner life rather than keep our facades intact.

Recovery is just such a movement, it is a spiritual discipline that demands, surrendering our mendacity, surrendering our false-egos, surrendering our need for comfort and complacency. It is a spiritual path that leads us to truth, to self-examination.

Socrates said: “the unexamined life is not worth living” and Malcolm X said: “the examined life is painful”-both of these statements are true and my recovery, my living Rabbi Heschel’s teaches helps me live an examined life and move through the pain of it into the light, the spirit, the joy of truth, connection and love. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 254

“Depth-psychology has made it clear to us that the springs of human action are complex, that the subrational either dominates or at least affects the conscious life, that the power and the drive of the ego penetrate all our attitudes and decisions. We may assume we love God, while in truth it is the ego we care for.”(God in Search of Man pg 387)

How to differentiate between loving God and loving self thinking it is loving God is a challenge for all of us. We say and hear often “this is for your own good”, “God will take care of you”, “God is punishing you”, “they are in a better place”, and other such inane sayings. My mother, z”l, used to look up to the heavens and ask: “Gott in Himmel, why do I deserve one like this?”, always in reference to me:) She was, as are most parents, worried about how she would be perceived because of my bad actions and believing she was more concerned about me. While she believed it was me she was concerned about, the “subrational” was affecting her without her knowledge. This is an example of how we lie to ourselves without realizing it, how we attribute good to our daily living without realizing “that the power and drive of the ego penetrate all our attitudes and decisions.” It is a challenge that most people are oblivious to which makes their self-deceptions, the believing the deceptions of another(s), and the mendacity penetrating our world so believable and so ‘true’.

We witness and participate in assuming “we love God, while in truth it is the ego we care for” on a daily basis. Religion has become anathema to many because it is not God that we are hearing from in our Churches, Synagogues, Temples, Mosques, it is the ego of the clergy and people spouting cliches and misinterpreting the word of God, the words of the prophets, the text of the Torah and the Bible(new and old testaments), the Koran, etc. Young people are staying away in droves, people who have grown children do not participate in worship because they know they are hearing ego instead of God. Religious membership has fallen to under 50% because “the power and the drive of the ego” has replaced God in our lives and most people are unaware of this fact. We live in a facade of righteousness and kindness, holiness and spirituality while we are actually, in many cases, worshiping our ego, satisfying our needs and desires, being nice and acting in ways that are in our best interests first, not necessarily caring for the poor and the needy, welcoming the stranger, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, acknowledging the infinite worth and dignity of every human being, etc.

There is a movement by the Heritage Foundation to upend our democracy, to give such power to the President (if it is a Republican) that autocracy will be supplant democracy in the USA! These Heritage Foundation people believe they are following Christ’s teachings, they fervently believe the lies they tell themselves and one another that Christ wants white Christian men to rule and have everyone else, white women, people of color, people of different religions, spiritual disciplines, etc, bow down to them and do their bidding. We are witnessing and, for some, participating in the deconstruction of democracy, following and/or doing nothing while Steve Bannon, the Heritage Foundation, the Christian Nation, America First, White Supremacy groups work hard to finish the work that was begun on Jan. 6, 2021. For many of us, we are afraid to confront, we are afraid to ‘risk’ our position, our wealth, for fear of retaliation. We say we love God, we say we are spiritual not religious, yet our actions don’t always mirror our words and we are too oblivious to notice.

The 12-step movement uses ego as an anacronym, “Easing God Out” which is what Rabbi Heschel is teaching us in his wisdom above. We are constantly on the lookout for the lies we tell ourselves in recovery, we are reviewing our actions to suss out the self-serving aspects we claim to be for God, the insidious ways our ego fools us and we learn how to transform “the power and the drive of the ego” to serve God and then as the ego “penetrate(s) all our attitudes and decisions” these attitudes and decisions are more in line with the Divine.

I continue to see the lies I tell myself and transform them into truths that serve God. It is hard, the obliviousness I experience in myself is painful and I keep opening my eyes, my soul, my beingness to truth more each day. I am also aware of the lies that run the lives of people around me and how they affect me and the myriad of people they come into contact with. More on this tomorrow. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 253

“The mitsvah, we have said, is our instrument in dealing with evil. But do we employ the instruments adequately? If kavanah is as intrinsic to the service of God as impartiality of judgment is to scientific investigation; if, in other words, it is not only essential what one does but also what one is motivated by, the possibility of true service, of genuine piety may be questioned.”(God in Search of Man pg. 387)

“The mitsvah, as we have said, is our instrument in dealing with evil” comes to remind us that we have to our deeds and actions have power. Yet, the “mitsvah” itself will not help us in “dealing with evil” unless and until our motivation, our kavanah, is pointed towards serving God. We are witnessing, once again, humanity’s use of the “mitsvah”, use of ‘the law’ to serve evil rather than deal with it. We are participating in this misuse as well. In yesterday’s LA Times, there was an op-ed describing “conspirituality”, a new concept to me, where yoga and conspiracy theories go together! Qanon and Yoga are being put together by some people. Deep and dark money is supporting the No Labels ‘party’ in a third party bid for the Presidency, Steve Bannon supports RFK Jr.’s ideas, Trump et al want to make the Presidency autocratic and usurp our Constitution by making the Executive Branch able to overrule the other supposedly co-equal branches of government. All of this in the name of religion, in the name of “love your country”, in the name of spirituality.

On a personal level, we witness and participate in the facade of ‘being on the right side of …” as a pedigree for a person’s ‘goodness’, a person’s service, a person’s piety. Are we forgetting the scandals that reveal the frailty of our clergy, our elected officials, our Universities? Are we forgetting the myriad of domestic violence perpetrated by “pious” people? Are we ignoring our own self-righteousness? We are suffering a loneliness, as the Surgeon General speaks about, precisely because, in my opinion, our institutions have engaged in false piety, they engage in service for their own sake, they ‘follow the rules’(which have become onerous and don’t necessarily serve anyone) and care about how it looks rather than how it is. We worship celebrities having no idea nor care about their inner lives, their issues, etc and are disappointed when they prove to be human. We have stopped saying hello and offering handshakes to everyone and have become suspicious and wary of one another. We are using ‘piety’ and ‘service’ for our own sake, not for the sake of another.

We are desperately in need of immersing ourselves in the teachings of Rabbi Heschel! We have the power and the path to return to the intent of the “mitsvah”, helping us to become more whole, more complete, more holy, more spiritually mature, more connected to our authentic self and more connected to people everywhere. The “mitsvah” with the proper kavanah, with the motivation of service to God, service to humanity, with the motivation of serving our authentic and ‘higher’ self is transformative. “It is not only essential what one does but also what one is motivated by” reminds us to be in truth with ourselves, to point our actions and motivations toward serving “a power greater than ourselves”, to have a routine of prayer, meditation, service that raises up our actions and motivations to the level of being human instead of being selfish. It is not an abnegation of our self, rather it is a raising of our authentic self, it is a connection to our self, to God, that helps to relieve/cure our loneliness. Rabbi Heschel was never alone because of his connection to God, to his soul, to his family, to his tradition. We have the same opportunity when we immerse not only our deeds but our motivation in using “the mitsvah” as “our instrument in dealing with evil” rather than using “the mitsvah” as an instrument to promote evil. It all depends on our motivation and our choice of whom to serve.

Each day, I take my own spiritual temperature through this blog, I am constantly doing my own inventory of these lessons and ways of being. As I write about this paragraph, I realize that my motivations were not always understood because of my ways, my loudness, my aggressiveness, my desperate need to prevent death and prison, sadness and evil. I am deeply sorry to the people who did not understand that my way was motivated by service to them, service to God, even when it seemed like it was service to me. I understand and apologize for my part in not making it clear and for my delivery which put some people off. I am also aware that I am not that pious as to say there was no motivation for self in my actions. Yet, my overriding “kavanah” was to serve, to save souls, to help another human being. I do my best to ensure that my heart is pointed in the direction of serving God and human beings first and I pray I continue to deepen this path . God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 252

“The mitsvah, we have said, is our instrument in dealing with evil. But do we employ the instruments adequately? If kavanah is as intrinsic to the service of God as impartiality of judgment is to scientific investigation; if, in other words, it is not only essential what one does but also what one is motivated by, the possibility of true service, of genuine piety may be questioned.”(God in Search of Man pg. 387)

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is questioning the cloak we wrap ourselves in when we proclaim the ‘rightness’ of what we do, the ‘rightness’ of our actions that cause pain to some and, in many cases, use the “mitsvah” to actually do evil. He is reminding us, as he does often, that the action and the intention/the motivation have to be congruent “in dealing with evil.” Questioning the motivation of “what one does” goes unnoticed by many of us, today and throughout history.

We hear many people proclaim the ‘rightness’ of what they are doing using misinterpretations of Biblical Texts and Spiritual Texts to validate their actions. We are witnessing this over and over again in our world today. People use the action, the deed of a “mitsvah” to declare their ‘rightness’ while forgetting to acknowledge the “kavanah”, their motivation, behind their deeds. One of the habits people have gotten into is to perform the “mitsvah” for the sake of themselves rather than for the sake of God, for the sake of their neighbor. While every “mitsvah” is important, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that the motivation, the “kavanah” behind each one is important as well. He is calling out to us to bring our motivation for actions to be congruent with “service to God”. “Service to God” implies serving one another, caring for the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, welcoming the stranger, honoring the infinite worth and dignity of every human being, embracing the uniqueness of each person, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, etc.

Some of the people who claim to be the most pious, who claim to be taking action “in the name of God”, are the greatest violators of truly serving God, of having “true service” as their motivation and, because of their phoniness, have perverted religious life, have made being part of a religion exclusive rather than inclusive. Upon being questioned as to their actions, they rise up in anger and proclaim the questioner to be ‘against God’, idolators, blasphemers, etc. This ‘religious fervor’ has caused many people to lose belief in Rabbi Heschel’s words above: “the mitsvah, as we have said, is our instrument in dealing with evil.” Rather, many people have come to believe “the mitsvah” is the instrument of separation and exclusion, the instrument of power and a bludgeon to crush those who have a different understanding, way and motivation to do the same “mitsvah” so as to be inclusive, caring, compassionate, loving and truthful.

People are using the Bible, the constitution, the ‘moral code’ in ways that defy “service to God”, they are using them in ways that serve themselves instead. The motivation for a mitsvah is to deal with evil, the evil around us and, more importantly I believe, to deal with the evil inside of each one of us. Upon rising Jews proclaim our gratitude for being alive, for having our souls returned to us with compassion, and proclaim God’s faithfulness towards us and in us. This “mitsvah” is to clear our minds, our hearts, our emotions of the self-serving, self-aggrandizing thoughts that come up, it is to clear our thoughts of dread and of false ego, it is to point our hearts (motivations) in the direction of service to God, to human beings outside of our self, and, in doing this, be of ultimate service to ourselves. We begin our days with the knowledge that we are alive through the “grace of God”, compassion and faithfulness is bestowed upon us, and we are given the gift of being able to spread grace, compassion, faithfulness in our every interaction and action(“mitsvah”). We are being challenged by Rabbi Heschel to examine our self, our actions, our motivations and to make sure we are being of “service to God” rather than serving our selfish and egotistical desires.

In recovery, “we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand God”. This decision is not a one and done action, we have to continue to check in with ourselves, with another human being, to ensure we have not made our egotistical wants God. We use this “decision” to guide and judge our actions before, during and after we take them. We are constantly checking our motivations and actions, which is why there are no ‘gurus’ in recovery, just people who are a little farther down the road, there is no perfection in recovery, just progress. We continue to judge our actions and motivations to ensure they are for “service to God” rather than service to self. Because this is our ‘north star’ we are constantly stopping the natural drift towards self and righting ourselves back into service to God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 251

“To have joy in an object is to respect its individuality. This is implied in the very idea of delighting in it for its own sake. To have joy in what is real is to subordinate individual opinion wholeheartedly to the truth of the matter; to have joy in what is beautiful is to trust to the inspiration of beauty and not to the contrivance of artifice. The interests of the object dictate at each step the line of advance.(W. R. Boyce Gibson, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. VIII, p. 152a) (God in Search of Man pg 385-86)

“To have joy in what is real is to subordinate individual opinion wholeheartedly to the truth of the matter;” gives us all a moment to stop and reflect on “what is real” and do we seek “the truth of the matter” rather than what we want the truth to be. “Subordinate individual opinion wholeheartedly” is a very difficult action for most of us, yet it is required if we are to recognize both “what is real” and what “the truth of the matter” is. It seems so difficult to do these days, as I am sure it has been throughout the history of humankind. Without God, without a recognition of a “power greater than ourselves”, without seeking a higher consciousness, we will sink into our individual opinions, we will miss the joy life gives us, we will wallow in self-righteousness, self-pity and self-destruction, I believe.

We are in a constant ‘political cycle’ it seems, with politicians telling us one thing and doing another, with a tribalism that denies what is real, engages in mendacity rather than truth, and is unwilling to “subordinate individual opinion” at all, much less “wholeheartedly”. Watching the same elected officials who voted against the Infrastructure Bill take credit for it when it comes to their state or district would be laughable if it were not such a display of deception and lies. Listening to the “law and order” party want to defund the FBI and the Justice Department is mind-boggling and their unabashed brazenness is frightful. Listening to Mitch McConnell proclaim the Supreme Court to not be political causes one to shake one’s head because he refused to even speak to the nominee for the Court in 2016, because he went against his own reasoning when RBG died less than a month prior to the 2020 election! The subterfuge that is being perpetrated upon us, whether from our own press, elected officials, Vladimir Putin, et al is scary and dangerous. What is more scary and dangerous is how many of us buy into their lies, their deceptions and our own self-deception; having no awareness of “what is real”, what is “truth”, and we seem to “subordinate our individual opinion” to the group think of the best deceiver/liar.

This phenomenon happens because we surrender our ability to engage in seeing the whole picture, our surrendering of our will to the loudest voice in the room, our fear of being on ‘the losing side’, etc. All of this at the cost of our souls, our individuality, our mental, spiritual and physical health. Like the German people of the last century, we teach our children obedience rather than following the saying from Proverbs: “teach each child according to their understanding”, we are no longer (if we ever did) growing the individual spirit and gifts of our children for their sake, we are training them for careers, for power, for hatred in some cases, for our sake and not for God’s sake. We have twisted “reality” to whatever cause we want to take up, to whatever ‘feels’ good to us rather than seek to understand “what is real” and go on the journey of finding “the truth of the matter”. We are in a state of chaos and have come to regard this chaos as normal, we are in a state of mendacity and have come to see these lies and deceptions as truth. We are incapable of living in a state of joy because of the ways we are living and lying to ourselves and everyone else. Gratitude, prayer, have become more rote than real, more of a feeling rather than an experience for most and our Religious Institutions seem to be following the lead of the deceivers rather than the words of the Prophets! We need a revolution and the recovery movement is just such a revolution.

Recovery begins with a “surrender of our individual opinion wholeheartedly”. We let go of our old idea that we can never change, we stop believing the lie “a leopard doesn’t change it’s spots”, acknowledge that our ways of being make our life unmanageable and we are powerless over our “stinking thinking”. This is the first step in recognizing “what is real” and “the truth of the matter”. We never leave this new way of being, we continue to learn how insidious “our individual opinion” permeates our living, we change from knowing everything, from believing “the lies we tell ourselves” to asking for help, taking direction and seeking God’s help to live in reality, to live in truth, to elevate our being to the paradigm of joy. It is a slow and steady elevation, it is a gift we receive from the hard work we do to seek truth and find “what is real”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 250

“To have joy in an object is to respect its individuality. This is implied in the very idea of delighting in it for its own sake. To have joy in what is real is to subordinate individual opinion wholeheartedly to the truth of the matter; to have joy in what is beautiful is to trust to the inspiration of beauty and not to the contrivance of artifice. The interests of the object dictate at each step the line of advance.(W. R. Boyce Gibson, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. VIII, p. 152a) (God in Search of Man pg 385-86)

Gibson’s definition of joy is a very important distinction from happiness/pleasure. Society has  mixed up these two emotions/traits/states of being to the point of not having any distinction between them. “To have joy in an object is to respect its individuality” is an outrageous statement for most people. We see joy as something for ourselves, something that makes us feel good, yet Gibson is teaching us to have joy is to respect the object, to delight in it “for its own sake”, not for ours! What a radical idea! Yet, it is the only way we can perpetuate the joy of life, no matter what is happening in the moment.

We are commanded to “Choose Life”, seeing this command through the lens of the teaching above give us the opportunity to respect the individuality of our particular living as well as the particular living of every human being. Viewing life as a joy allows us to delight in being alive no matter what is happening, good or not good. This calls for us to let go of our self-centered actions, to let go of our need to be happy, let go of our need to respect only our individuality.

This teaching is calling on us to experience life as the object “to respect”, life as the object to delight in “for its own sake”, not just our own life, rather life itself. This changes our outlook, our perspective, it prevents us from staying neutral, it calls us to be engaged in our own lives and in life itself. We are witnesses to and participants in a way of being that is very small by this definition, it is a way of being that seeks pleasure in the moment, rather than the joy of living. We are witnesses to and participants in ‘low-grade misery’ precisely because we seek pleasure rather than live in joy, we seek our own individuality rather than “have joy in life is to respect its individuality”. We are suffering from this ‘low-grade misery’ and forcing everyone around us to suffer as well. We are not even respecting the individuality of our souls because we are seeking pleasure and happiness as defined by societal norms rather than by the our own inner compass, our spirit, our souls. We are being bludgeoned by people who gain power in order to be pleased by their cruelty, by their whims, by their pleasure-seeking mendacity. Life itself should be the object of our joy, choosing life is to respect the individuality of each person remembering that we are all created in the Image of the Divine, we all are “divine reminders” we all fulfill a “divine need” so we all need to be individuals who come together for a common purpose, service and joy.

Delighting in life “for its own sake” changes our paradigm of being, I believe. Just the fact that we are alive, that there is life, gives us delight, gives us joy, gives us energy to move forward. No longer do we have to ‘feel good’ to be in joy, no longer do we have to ‘be number 1’, ‘feel fulfilled’ to be in joy, joy becomes a state of being, a way of being rather than a feeling as I am understanding Gibson and Rabbi Heschel today. What a freeing experience, this is radical amazement in action, I believe, joy of living no longer is dependent on how we feel, what we accomplish, how much money, power, prestige, how well we can rule over another, etc. The joy of living comes from delighting in being alive! No longer can we deny the freedoms, the rights, the individuality of another, no longer can we ‘rule with an iron fist’, no longer can we unilaterally impose our desires, our need for pleasure on another, no longer can we see anyone else as anything but an individual, a human being, an equal. Choose Life becomes a call to joy, a call to delight, a call to respect oneself and the selves of everyone else.

Recovery is joy. We speak about happy, joyous and free, in our meetings, in our text, we live into the joy of living each and every day, we crave being of service rather than being served, we crave loving rather than being loved, we truly live into St. Francis’ prayer and we practice the Serenity Prayer each day. We have left the “bondage of self” and joined with people to live in joy, to delight in life, to respect the individuality of everyone. In my recovery, I have been living more and more in the paradigm of joy, I have been able to walk through death, betrayal, my own errors and the arrows, lies, and bludgeoning by some because of experiencing life as the object of my joy, not making joy dependent on what happens in my life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 249

“The experience of bliss in doing the good is the greatest moment that mortals know. The discipline, sacrifice, self-denial, or even suffering which are often involved in doing the good do not vitiate the joy; they are its ingredients.” (God in Search of Man pg.385)

In Rabbi Heschel’s last interview, done with Carl Stern, he says: “The role of learning is decisive. First of all, the supreme value ascribed to learning and learning being a source of inspiration, learning being the greatest adventure, learning being a source of joy, and, in fact, learning for the purpose of discovering, of the importance of self-discipline; the realization, namely, that a life without discipline was not worth living.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Appendices). Incorporating this wisdom with the last sentence above gives us a path to indulging in and experiencing the truth of our need for “discipline, sacrifice, self-denial, or even suffering”. Without engaging in these, we will ruin the beauty of life, we will destroy the eco-system that keeps the world together, we will live in mendacity and self-deception, promote ways that keep one group in power to the detriment of everyone, we will fall prey to the lies of our “evil urges”.

“We are engaged in a great civil war”, these words of Abraham Lincoln not only described the situation during the Civil War, they describe our experience right now. This civil war is the war for civility, for decency, for freedom for all, for seeing everyone as a child of God, acknowledging our differences and welcoming everyone into our circle-erasing the margins, feeding the poor in material as well as the spiritual. We, the People, are being called upon by Rabbi Heschel, by our times, by the stranger, the poor, the needy to engage in “doing the good”. Through the ways enumerated above, we are able to fulfill our inner longing for joy, we are able to put together “its ingredients.” While it is an uphill battle, we have the power, the strength, the guidance of our Holy Texts as well as the examples of the prophets, Moses, the Judges, Jesus, Mohammed, and all of the spiritual leaders since antiquity to follow. Rabbi Heschel did not just write these words, he lived them. He rose above his sorrows, his sadness’, he reached out to everyone and stood against people like Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, et al who are willing to sell out to the highest bidder. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling and crying out to us to stand for the good, to learn, rise up to our status as holy souls, to deny our selfishness, and to bear witness to the joy that “doing the good” brings.

Rather than complain about what is, we have to accept our world and then go about the work of bringing “the good” to the forefront through our actions. Paraphrasing Rabbi Heschel’s words from his interview, a day without learning is not worth living. Getting up each morning and being grateful for the day, for our life, for the opportunity to change and make our corner a little better today, knowing we will learn something today that helps us “do the good” a little more and better is exhilarating! Reviewing what we learned yesterday, taking time for prayer and meditation to realize our inherent holiness, our basic goodness of being allows us to respond to the negative self-talk we all engage in with the ‘rest of the story’ and with truth. Making a commitment to rise above our self-serving false ego needs, denying our desires for indulgence and over-indulging so we can help another(s), as well as knowing we can bear the trials and tribulations of doing good, and we can bear the scorn and arrows that people will throw at us because they want to “rule with an iron fist”, and/or “keep white people in charge”. We take these ingredients of living well, of doing ‘the next right action’ and we put them together in joy, in gladness, in spirit, in connection and in love. These “ingredients” enhance the joy of life, they do not vitiate/impair it!

In my recovery, reading the Garden of Eden story in a prison cell taught me to say “hineni”, here I am, each and every day-many times a day. It is the response God seeks from  all of us each day to God’s question: “Where are you?” It is the response we give to signal we are ready, willing able to be of service, it is the response we give to ourselves to remind us we live in joy when we “do the good”. Since that experience, I have continued to respond “hineni” when called, I have continued to listen for people’s and God’s call of “Where are you?” I don’t always hear clearly what people need/want, I don’t always hear God clearly either; so I have people I go to for advice and guidance, I deny my own self-centered needs, I surrender to the wisdom of another(s), I bear the arrows, the ways I am misunderstood at times, I continue to learn and deny my ‘self-righteousness’ and I seek to grow and mature my inner holiness and be of service to God and to everyone who seeks me out. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 248

“The experience of bliss in doing the good is the greatest moment that mortals know. The discipline, sacrifice, self-denial, or even suffering which are often involved in doing the good do not vitiate the joy; they are its ingredients.” (God in Search of Man pg.385)

Immersing ourselves in the second sentence above can change our entire way of being, thinking and experiencing life. Discipline comes from the Latin meaning “knowledge, instruction”, sacrifice means “holy” from the Latin and “coming closer to oneself” in Hebrew, suffering means “to bear” from the Latin, while vitiate means “to impair” from the Latin. Putting these origins together allows us to experience Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom as: The instruction, holiness, self-denial or even the bearing “which are often involved in doing the good do not” impair “the joy. This is a radical way of understanding how to live life well, I believe.

We are so accustomed to not wanting to “bear” any discomfort, to believe we don’t need to keep receiving “instruction”, that we deny the myriad of opportunities each day to “come closer” to ourselves, to deny our pleasures, our desires of our hearts and eyes and engage in the self-deception that we are “doing the good”! We are afraid of truly “coming closer to ourselves” because of the changes we will have to make in our daily living. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to see the truth of our actions, the truth of our inauthentic way of being and to change our ways, to come closer to our soul’s desires, to approach each day, each experience in daily living with a desire to learn, to add to our knowledge, to bear the ‘distresses’ we think are involved in “doing the good”. Yet, we continue to resist this wisdom, we continue to seek an “alternative truth” that makes us ‘feel’ good, that we can deceive ourselves and one another with.

We are witnesses to this happening around us, some of us watch in horror at the ways our freedoms are being curtailed, the power of the few who are afraid of being irrelevant cause them to seek ways back to “the good old days” denying the necessary march towards growing our knowledge, maturing our spirits, bearing the discomfort of progress, feeding our souls with the holiness that “discipline, sacrifice, self-denial or even suffering” bring. Some of us watch in delight and joy at these very same happenings and herein lies the challenge. We can’t seem to agree on what “doing the good” actually entails. We are at odds with one another and within ourselves over what God’s discipline/instruction for us is, we argue about basic, foundational principles like: welcoming the stranger, caring for the poor, the needy, the widow and the orphan; responding to God’s question of Ayecha, where are you; choose life; love your neighbor as you love yourself; and so many others.

Paraphrasing what Rabbi Heschel, in his essay, “Religion in a Free Society” writes, we have come to regard any denial of a feeling, a desire to be the cause of present and/or future mental illness/distress. We are so obsessed and addicted to “self-care” that we are actually engaging in self-indulgence. We are so fixated on what we think is “doing the good” we have become unteachable, we are so afraid of being wrong, making a mistake that we live in denial of what is happening around us so we can bask in the splendor of “the good old days” some of us are trying so hard to bring back. Listening to Tommy Tuberville take months to acknowledge that being a White Nationalist means one is a racist is painful. Yet what is more painful is that his fellow Republican Senators stood by and did nothing, they are standing by as he puts our Armed Forces at risk by denying necessary promotions and these Republicans shout how they support our military! Some of us are in opposition to the teaching above, some us believe that any “discipline, sacrifice, self-denial, or even suffering” do “vitiate the joy” and deny “they are its ingredients”.

In recovery, we know we have to remain teachable, we have to learn each and every day, we have to grow our spiritual life at least one grain of sand each day. We have to grow our inner life each day, we have to learn from our mentors, sponsors, newcomers, we have to deny the lies we have been telling ourselves for so long, we have to leave the aura of those who desire to deceive us, we have to engage in “doing the good” a little more each day and we have to be grateful for life each and every day. In recovery, we know the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, we are aware of the demand to welcome all who have a desire to change the ways they have been living just as we were welcomed even though we might not have been fully committed at first. This is the way we practice “attraction not promotion”. I believe we all need a program of recovery from the self-deceptions and mendacity we live in. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 247

“The experience of bliss in doing the good is the greatest moment that mortals know. The discipline, sacrifice, self-denial, or even suffering which are often involved in doing the good do not vitiate the joy; they are its ingredients.” (God in Search of Man pg.385)

The word bliss comes from the Latin meaning “to praise”, as well as to translate the Hebrew word “Baruch”, which also connotes blessing. Rabbi Heschel’s words above come to remind us of the blessings we receive and experience “in doing the good”. Too often we ignore these moments of joy, satisfaction, answering the call of God and another(s), too often we are indifferent to the experience of bliss, the experience of being a blessing, the experience of joy; which denies the truth and wisdom of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above.

There is no moment that can reach the joy, blessing, praise, bliss we attain “in doing the good” because “in doing the good” we are at one with our authentic self, with the needs of the universe and the call of God. We are in complete attunement with self, another(s) and spirit of the universe which brings us to wholeness and covenantal relationship with self and the world. We are fulfilling a Divine need and being Divine reminder, which, according to Rabbi Heschel, is the actualization of “being human”.

Yet, unfortunately, too many of us ignore this experience in favor of another, the pleasure one receives from ‘winning’. In an op-ed in the New York Times, David French relates his experience of the ‘joy’ that MAGA Republicans have when they get together at a Trump Rally. This ‘joy’ is the communal feeling of being together and understood, having a common enemy, cheering their hero, feeling seen and heard, and a time to party. This ‘joy’, this ‘bliss’ they experience is not about being a blessing, it is about being seen, it is about getting together to rant and rave about ‘those people’ who are trying to steal our ‘way of life’ from us. It is not about serving God, higher self, it is about serving our false ego needs. While it is easy to condemn them for their thoughts and actions, it is more important to help people discern what is “doing the good” and what is serving their own  ‘ego’ needs rather than the authentic needs of God and another(s). This is the authoritarian way, this is the way many religions, countries, communities, families   have morphed into; making the needs of the leaders, clergy, wealthy more important than the needs of God, of human beings.

We can recapture “the experience of bliss” Rabbi Heschel is teaching us about. We have to rededicate ourselves to growing our inner life, we have to rededicate our selves to hearing our souls’ call, we have to rededicate our selves to responding to God’s call, we have to rededicate our selves to being immersed in the words of our Holy Texts, being immersed in the words of our prayers which will lead us to experience “the greatest moment that mortals know”! We are all capable of this rededication, whether it is through our practice of a spiritual discipline, our raising of our consciousness, our meditation, our study, our prayer, our acknowledging our gratitude, etc, we can have this “experience of bliss in doing the good”. Our challenge is to discern what is “the good” we can do in the moment we are in.

One way we discern the good in the moment is asking ourselves: what would God have us do; what is the next right action to take; what is hateful to us so we don’t do to another; do unto others as you would want them to do unto you; how does this action bring me closer to communion with my soul; etc. These questions lead us to knowing what is the good in the moment and give us the experience of being a blessing, of being blessed, of praising life, of being praised, of authentic awareness of what truly is as well as a comfort and joy in our inner life-the closest experience of inner peace I can imagine. We have the path to bliss, we have the path to being a blessing, we have the path to praise, we have the path to ‘inner peace’; it is “in doing the good”.

Recovering people seek and experience this “bliss” each day. We are constantly seeking out “doing the good” in all of our affairs. We know we are blessed by being in recovery and we have to put these blessings to work in the world because we “can’t keep what we don’t give away”. The experience of bliss, of living our praise of life, of being blessed beyond our deserving, gives us the fuel to continue “doing the good” and creates a new eco-system for us. We accept our foibles and we accentuate our goodness, we are responsible members of society and community, family and friendship, and we engage in “life on life’s terms” and rejoice in “being human”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 246

“Everyone knows that out of suffering goes a way that leads to Him. Judaism is a reminder that joy is a way to God. The mitsvah and the holy spirit are incompatible with grief or despair.” God in Search of Man (385).

Over the years I have witnessed an enormous amount of people who are addicted to and “suffer” low-grade misery. This “suffering” is apparent in the way people get stuck in believing “life is hard and then you die”, ‘what’s the point’, ‘why bother’, ‘life’s not fair’, etc. When asked “how are you”, so many people reply “not bad”, “okay” rather than ‘life is good’, ‘I am glad to be alive’, ‘I am excited for what the day brings’, etc.Psychologically we have pathologized low-grade misery as dysthymia and give out meds for this spiritual condition. Judaism along with all spiritual disciplines, I believe, is a path to lift us up out of the morass of low-grade misery.

As we pray in the morning upon waking our gratitude for being alive, gratitude for God’s compassion and faithfulness towards us as well as God’s faith in us, it is impossible in that moment to feel “suffering”. As we watch and immerse ourselves in the sunrise, sunset, see the grandeur of the universe and experience the awesomeness of nature, it is impossible to feel abject suffering and/or the low-grade misery so many live in. In order to live in this low-grade misery, we have to deny the awe and grandeur of our world, our lives, and God.

Immersing oneself in Rabbi Heschel’s words above, we have to deny the power of the mitsvah, the power of holy spirit in order to live in grief and despair. Many people who claim to be spiritual and/or religious live into their low-grade misery which is a denial of the goodness of God as well as a denial of gratitude for being alive, a denial of their infinite worth, a denial of their uniqueness. We see the effects of these denials in the ways people treat one another with disdain, anger, ignorance, hatred, prejudice, etc. It is totally incompatible for one to call themselves spiritual, religious and not love human beings, to not “welcome the stranger, the poor, the needy”, to not “do justly, love mercy and walk in the ways of God” as the prophets teach. In the Bible, we are told to “Choose Life!” We cannot be choosing life and be in low-grade misery, they are just incompatible, yet so many people do. Anne Frank wrote: “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death” This young girl, witnessing the horrors and trials of confinement, fear of being found out and persecuted for simply being Jewish could still lift herself out of this truth and speak truth to and for all of us. Her belief that “I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the day will come when I can carry them out” is a lesson for all of us.

We cannot call ourselves religious nor spiritual and deny the grandeur of life, deny the goodness of God/Higher Power, deny the awe of nature, walk around with a ‘chip on our shoulder, waiting for the shop to drop’. It is time for all of us to recognize the awesomeness of being alive today! Acknowledging the miracle of living, returning the compassion God shows us in returning our souls to us each morning, being grateful that God still has faith in us no matter how many times we ‘miss the mark’ is a pathway to living in joy, to raising ourselves out of low-grade misery and “suffering”. We are told to worship God with joy, with gladness, and doing a mitsvah, praying, meditating, connecting with the Spirit of the universe, the Ineffable One, is a pathway out of despair and grief. How can one thank God for the food we eat and be miserable-it is totally impossible and many people do this-living into Rabbi Heschel’s words can and will lift us up out of despair, grief, and honor life, God and one another.

In recovery, we write, say, meditate on our gratitude lists. We know that our spiritual condition is the key to our recovery and gratitude is one of the best ways of remembering how blessed we are. We engage in life-affirming activities, we know that whatever happens during our days, we can and will rise above the feelings of despair and grief because of our connection to a “power greater than ourselves”.

I have been criticized for answering ‘great’ when asked how I am. What people don’t realize is from the imprisonment of alcohol, low-grade misery, criminality that I was in to the freedom of joy, I know that life is great, being is amazing and no matter what trials and tribulations come along, I will be able to deal with them because of my connection to God, to people, to family, to friends. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 245

“Everyone knows that out of suffering goes a way that leads to Him. Judaism is a reminder that joy is a way to God. The mitsvah and the holy spirit are incompatible with grief or despair.” God in Search of Man (385).

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is so very important for all of us, especially in times of trouble, times of inequality, times of authoritarianism, etc. While “suffering goes a way that leads to Him” is accepted by all, it is also used as a weapon and way to deceive people into accepting ‘their lot in life’. Some religious leaders and followers use this truth to ‘keep people in their place’, maintain control, ‘keep the masses down’ and, even, convince people to accept their being controlled, used, abused as something good and ‘what God wants’. People in power have used this saying to remain indifferent to the suffering of another(s), make the ills and troubles the fault of the people who are suffering, even go as far as to say God must not love you and/or ‘you suffer here to enjoy the benefits in the afterlife’! What poppycock!!

It is true that for many of us, when suffering occurs we call out to God, asking: “God why is this happening to me?”. It is also true that suffering is a wake-up call to/for many of us to look inside of ourselves and see how we have accepted ‘the norm’ for far too long, how we have ‘been in the ether’ of societal mendacity and come to engage in self-deception to our detriment. Every life has suffering in it, the question is what we do with this suffering, are we going to be defeated by it, are we going to just accept it and live with it, or are we going to follow the pathway it opens to a higher consciousness, to God, to a better sense of self, to a growing of our inner life, to using the “evil drive” to endow the “good drive” with more power to change, to improve self, another(s), and the world around us? For far too long, we have allowed the essential sufferings of life to defeat us, to enslave us, to bring us under the thumb of mendacious people, to surrender our freedom, our will, our thoughts, and create false gods and worship idols instead of God.

We are witnessing this in today’s world as we have witnessed this phenomenon throughout history. Be it the authoritarian leader, the Clergy in our Houses of Worship, the parents, the teachers, we are being subjected to a bombardment of how “suffering” will make us stronger, how our “suffering” is for what we must have done, our “suffering” is God’s will, etc. These deceptions allow us to be lazy, they allow us to not seek the path to God that our “suffering” leads us to. We have become so accustomed to our “suffering” that we are not even aware of the harms they are causing, the ways they cut us off from God rather than lead us to God, and have enslaved us. We have become idolators at the altar of societal lies, societal power, believing that our shared “sufferings” create community, seeking a ‘bad guy’ as the source of our “sufferings”, and worshiping the ‘strongman/woman’ who will save us from ‘those bad people’ while seeing those of our community as ‘the good ones’, the ‘kind ones’, the ‘hospitable ones’ as David French writes in his Op-Ed piece in the NY Times on July 8, 2023.

What is the solution? We have to seek truth instead of settling for lies, we have to remember to learn each day, to grow our spiritual condition each day, to seek God rather than blame God for our plight, remember that “out of suffering goes a way that leads to Him”. As I write this, I am realizing that “suffering” could be another call from God to wake up, to hear God’s call to be human, to stop wallowing in despair and grief instead see the joy of living, honor the joy of living, attach ourselves to our inner life, our souls so we can be free and joyous no matter what the outer circumstances of our lives may be. Seek a different path of being present, a path that leads us to experience and rejoice in our being alive, being able to change, being able to resist, rising above the grief and despair that society and just living brings by connecting to the love, the friendship, of God and another(s).

I was freer in prison during the last prison term I ‘suffered’, than I had been in years. Many formerly incarcerated people find freedom from suffering, a path to God through their suffering and a new vision/way of living and being for themselves while they were incarcerated. People with life-threatening diseases, after they ask the “why me” questions, find a spiritual life that brings them peace and acceptance. Those of us in recovery find “a new freedom” through our surrender to God rather than the surrender to suffering we had done in the past. We are testaments to “out of suffering goes a way that leads to Him.” God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark