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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 9

“It is therefore of vital importance for religious people to voice and appreciate dissent. And dissent implies self-examination, critique, discontent.” (Essential Writings pg. 106)

“Critique, discontent” are part of our daily life. We hear them on the news, we listen to then over coffee with friends, we participate in them in our meetings, we engage in them in our inner life. Yet, these are not the same as the “critique, discontent” Rabbi Heschel is speaking about above. While we hear both from the pulpits in our Churches, Temples, Mosques, we do not put them together with “self-examination”, we do not “voice and appreciate dissent” when it comes to our own actions, when we are speaking of the challenges that are “of vital importance” to “walking with God”.

The more I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above, the more I realize society’s misuse of “dissent”, “critique, discontent”. We use these vitally important ways of being to tear down another human being, to reject the stranger, to overpower the poor and the needy, to serve our human masters, to puff up our chests in our ‘rightness’, to crash democracy. We use these ways of being to promote racism, to enhance our phobias regarding Muslims, Jews, people of color, progress, to impede our progress towards “a more perfect union”. These are not the paths that lead us to growth, these are not the ways of “self-examination”, these are not the roads that lead us “to love our neighbor as we love ourselves”, “to love God with all our heart, our soul, our everything”!

Yet, we continue to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to what we need to do, what is “of vital importance” as people of faith. We complain about the sermons of our clergy, we moan at the length of services, we opt out of engaging in human beings to find solutions to the challenges of today in order to relive the “splendors of the past” and live in the mendacity of believing in ‘the good old days’. We do not need to “make America great again”, we are in desperate need to make us better at being human right now. This is the call I hear from Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. This is the call we all need to hear from Mt. Sinai today and everyday. We are in the middle of the Holiday of Sukkot, reminding us of our action of “dissent” towards slavery, towards the depravity of following a Pharaoh, towards the “discontent” of being in narrow places-physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Only through self-examination can we achieve the “dissent” Rabbi Heschel is demanding of us, that God demands of us. Only through T’Shuvah, inventory, can we say NO to the selfishness, self-centeredness, obstinance that prevents us from growing into the “self we were created to be” as Thomas Merton writes. Only through acknowledging our foibles as well as our strengths, only by admitting our need for one another as well as what we bring to the table, only through taking the actions that validate our being a partner with the Creator, the Ineffable One, can we experience the “discontent” I understand Rabbi Heschel to be teaching us about. We have to live into the “discontent” with the status quo, we have to be willing to change our ways, to respond to the current situations with new and innovate ways of applying the wisdom of the ages and sages, to believe the words of the prophets: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely”(Hosea 14:4), “If you return to me, I will take you back”(Jeremiah 15:19). Rabbi Heschel is calling us to examine our selves, to take our inventories and be critical of our bad actions, to be “discontent” with the well-worn paths of our mendacity and self-deception.

In recovery, this is a daily routine that we never do routinely! We are constantly aware of the “vital importance… to voice and appreciate dissent”, to live into our “self-examination, critique, discontent”. We live the principles of decency, love, kindness, truth, justice, compassion in all of our affairs and we talk ourselves out of the selfishness, the meanness that we practiced before our recovering our moral compass and our spiritual path.

I am “discontent” with the ways of the world, with the chaos in Washington, with the bastardization of democracy and Judaism in Israel. I am “discontent” with the foibles and errors I see within myself from past years that I did not recognize before. I am “discontent” with the betrayals I have perpetrated and those perpetrated upon me. I am “discontent” with the lies I told myself and the lies people tell about me. I am glad to be “discontent” with the mendacity, deception of another(s) towards me and my self-deception in past years. I pray for truth, for awareness, for more “discontent” for me and for you! 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 3 Day 8

“It is therefore of vital importance for religious people to voice and appreciate dissent. And dissent implies self-examination, critique, discontent.” (Essential Writings pg. 106)

Fundamentalists find a loud voice to dissent with everyone who doesn’t think, act, and believe the way they do. Be they religious fundamentalists, political fundamentalists, fundamentalists of any kind. In the Torah, where one would think fundamentalism would reign, people “voice and appreciate dissent”. One of the most known stories about Abraham is that he dissented against God, calling God to examine God’s self and respond to the question: “shouldn’t the judge of all the world do justly?”

The offerings so we can draw near, (Korbanot/sacrifices) we find in Leviticus are examples of self-examination, they are examples of people calling out to one another regarding the errors one makes. The system of judges and courts found in Exodus are for people to “voice and appreciate dissent” rather than ‘take the law into their own hands’, rather than seek vengeance for some feeling of being ‘wronged’. The commandments found in the Holiness Code are examples of “self-examination, critique, discontent” such as the commandment to rebuke, the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself”, etc. In fact, as I am writing this, I realize to fulfill the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself”, we have to engage in dissent, dissent against societal norms and practices that have led us to “suspect your neighbor”, that have led us to unwelcome the stranger, to have one law for the wealthy/ruling class and one law for everyone else, to pervert justice rather than uphold it, etc. To “love your neighbor as yourself” is to engage in the “self-examination” of T’Shuvah, the “critique” of oneself and then of another, and the “discontent” with the status quo and with injustice, with hatred, with any two-tiered system, with caring more about one’s money, status than about another human being!

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above, as always, is disturbing, it’s giving us all a bad conscience, it is prophecy and it is crucial to the longevity of democracy, religion, freedom, etc. It is a teaching of “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”. He is calling us to action, he is calling us to stop being indifferent to the suffering of another, to the suffering of our self, and stand up and say NO to the injustices we witness, the hatred we engage in, the harshness we excuse. Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us to realize that “vital importance” means “being of consequence to our life” from the Latin. Without dissent, without “self-examination, critique, discontent” there is no consequence to our living, we are living without purpose, without meaning, without passion, without any life in our living. Rabbi Heschel, like the prophets, like Rev King, like all of the ‘rabble rousers’ throughout history (our founding fathers, Moses, etc), makes the placid, vanilla lives we try to lead unpalatable, they are critical, examining, discontent and they voice their dissent to us through their actions and words-will we answer their call?

In recovery, we answer the call for “self-examination, critique, discontent” every day with our 10th step-“continued to take personal inventory and promptly admitted when we were wrong”. This is one of the greatest acts of “dissent” we can take, saying NO to our errors in judgement and action, making restitution and amends for our errors and reconnecting to the humanity of another person and to our own humanity. Once we realize the ways we missed the mark, we are discontent until we make our amends and change our ways of being and thinking. We seek to live a meaningful life, we know that justice, love, kindness, reflection, “dissent”, “self-examination, critique, discontent” are part of being human and growing into a life of passion, purpose and meaning.

My siblings and I grew up knowing distinction (L’havdil) and not racism. We knew right from wrong and we learned dissent. Our father was discontent with racism, anti-semitism, hatred, he taught us to dissent from these as well. He taught us to look at ourselves, to make our own decisions and it was okay to go against the majority. He taught us to look at ourselves and examine our actions, to answer the question “is this the best I can do at this moment” for ourselves. He was loud and unsettled in the face of injustice, wrong doing, he stood up for people and said NO to his friends who would treat another person poorly. These were the lessons of my childhood and I continue to engage in dissent, I continue to critique me and you, I continue to live in discontent over the state of the world and my bad actions, I continue to believe I can do better and so can everyone. I continue to be loud, boisterous, and fearful of “going along to get along”. I continue to write my self-examination out and share it with all of you, I continue to grow into being more human each day. 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 3 Day 7

“It is therefore of vital importance for religious people to voice and appreciate dissent. And dissent implies self-examination, critique, discontent.” (Essential Writings pg. 106)

Rabbi Heschel’s daughter, Dr. Susannah Heschel, in her compiling different writings, most of which had been published by her father earlier, has given us some unpublished ones, “fragments” as she describes them in the acknowledgements in the beginning of this volume. Being part of the Orbis Books  “Modern Spiritual Masters Series”, this except from an unpublished manuscript gives us another insight into Rabbi Heschel’s spiritual beliefs, his spiritual foundation, his path of living spiritually, and spiritual, moral, as well as actions we need to adopt for ourselves to live one grain of sand better each day!

Of course, Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is counter-intuitive to the way most religious people think and act! Today, as has been true in the past, most religious people, especially religious leaders, want everyone to go along with their way of seeing religion, their way of ‘doing God’s will’, everyone following their lead and no arguments. Most religious as well as political leaders want a ‘groupthink’ that empowers them to dictate what the next right action is, what ‘god’ wants of the people who follow them, etc. Yet, Rabbi Heschel is telling us it is: “of vital importance for religious people to voice and appreciate dissent.” Dissent comes from the Latin meaning “differ in sentiment”, so Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that it is vital for us to differ if we want to be known as religious people, it is vital for us to voice our dissents with our religious leaders, with our fellow ‘parishioners’, with our students and teachers, with our political leaders, with everyone we are in contact with-otherwise we risk falling into to “peril of stagnation”, buying into tired old “cliches” and allowing a beautiful, meaningful relationship with God, with “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, with one another, with our very selves shrivel and die on the vine of boredom, taking something vibrant and allowing it to “easily turn foul”. Without this vital action of dissent, we lose the “life” of living.

We are in a battle for the soul of democracy, we are in a battle for the soul of religious living, we are in a battle for our own individual souls. This battle, like anti-semitism and racism, is being fought on two fronts, the far right and the far left, both poles are fighting against dissent towards them while they are voicing dissent towards anyone ‘not like them’. The dissent being voiced is not within these movements, not within these religions, within these ruling parties of government; the dissent is from ‘the other side’ and those of us who see the middle, who understand the need for compromise, for decency, for dissent within our own ranks, we are being shunted to the side, we are being called ‘too old’ to serve, etc. Because we are not as ‘showy’ as a Donald Trump or a Robert Kennedy Jr., because we are not trying to wield power as a meat cleaver like Matt Gaetz, we are seen as old, tired, while the charlatans, the Kardashian-like people, are seen as hip, slick, cool and worthy of being listened to.

Recovery is one of the battlegrounds for these battles, we are recovering our voices, we are recovering our foundational grounding in God, as we understand God, we are recovering our ability to live life based on principles, not personalities, we are “circumcising the foreskin of our heart” so we can let the light in, we are welcoming the cracks in our armor, the breaks of our heart so we can once again feel human, be alive, hear the dissent of those who loves us and appreciate the wisdom of their dissent, the care of their advice. In recovery, we know the battle for our souls that has been waged and lost in prior years, we are acutely aware of how we have to stay grounded and in the middle so we can hear all sides, we can voice and accept dissent, we can make decisions that honor our knowing, our intuitive mind and not get stuck in the morass of someone else’s rationalizations and lies.

I have voiced dissent for most of my life and most of the time it was against what is/was wrong, what was/is unjust, immoral, etc. Of course, there was that little period of 20 + years when I could not hear anyone else’s dissent towards me and my actions:)! In my recovery, I have voiced my dissent loudly, often, and powerfully-some say too loudly, too often and too powerfully and they may be right. I know that I can not stand idly by injustice, racism, unkindness, the stranger, the poor and the needy when they appear before me. I know my dissent got me in trouble at times because I was not ‘politically correct’ in my voicing of it and, at least once, I was inappropriate in both the manner and timing of it. Yet, I believe in dissent, I will not stop voicing it nor hearing it towards 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 3 Day 6

“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)

“Acts of dissent” are actions taken in service of God, of another(s), in truth and without guile. These “acts of dissent” can only become “acts of renewal” when we follow the path of Abraham; arguing with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, when we walk the in the footsteps of the prophets who brought to us new ways of understanding the words of Torah, the words of God, when we follow the example of Rabbi Heschel. When we immerse ourselves in life, when we immerse ourselves in the moment, when we immerse ourselves in the texts that are at the foundation of our faith, our country, then we are able to discern which “acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal” and which “acts of dissent” are for our own sake, for authoritarian rule, for destruction rather than building, to “easily turn foul” what has been/is holy.

“Acts of dissent” that Rabbi Heschel is teaching us about are not the “acts of dissent” that go against God’s will while wrapping oneself in the clothes of ‘religion’, they are not the spouting of the false prophets and idolators who are in some pulpits today as they always have been, they are not actions which enslave another person, promote one group/ethnicity over another, seek to take land, belongings, etc from the poor and the needy, seek to ignore and abuse the stranger, etc. The “acts of dissent” by some members of Congress over this weekend, on Jan. 6th by trying to decertify free and fair elections, by the ‘Maga’ crowd, are acts of defiance of God. The “acts of dissent” by the right-wing in Israel, Netanyahu, and his religious crazies are actions of Hillul HaShem, desecration of God’s name. We are easily deceived, confused and buy into the mendacity of those who are supposed to be trusted servants serving a higher purpose yet are but idolators, self-serving, mendacious phonies. We have to look at the truth of people’s actions rather than the BS that comes out of their mouths.

“Acts of dissent” have to be taken so we can say YES to a higher standard of living than we currently are. “Acts of dissent” are taken when our trusted servants, the people entrusted with promoting, teaching, legislating and serving the spirit of a particular religion, the spirit of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the spirit of freedom as inscribed on the Liberty Bell and in the Bible, “Proclaim Liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev. 25:10). Our world is in desperate need of us taking “acts of dissent”. When Elon Musk can talk to Putin and then decide to screw up Ukraine’s war effort and we give him the power of Tesla, Space X, etc-we have to take control of these companies for the good of our country, we have to engage in “acts of dissent” to protect our selves from being controlled by megalomaniacs like Musk, Trump, Putin, Orban, MBS, et al. It is time for us to stand up for God’s ways, to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” as the prophet Micah teaches us, rather than think we are God and demand that God walk humbly with us, as some religious, some ‘public servants’ who are using their power to enrich themselves and their cronies, are doing.

In recovery, when we “turn our lives and our will over to the care of God as we understand God” we are taking the “act of dissent” that leads to saying YES to decency, YES to living in accordance with God’s will, YES to serving for the sake of another and not for our self-serving ends, YES to seeking truth rather than deceiving another and ourselves. We are constantly engaging in “acts of dissent” so we can renew our spirits, we can renew our lives, we stay fresh and in the moment.

I have been proclaiming “liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” since my release from prison in late 1988. I am loud, boisterous, like a dog with a bone, argumentative, tenacious, difficult and to some, obnoxious, insane, etc, in my “acts of dissent”. I am so afraid of not saying NO to the lies, the BS, the deceptions, the injustices, the idolatry of people for fear of losing a soul, even my own, that I scream NO, I confront the liars, the deceivers, the idolators, the ‘half-truthers’, etc. I scream YES even louder and that makes me not so popular, makes me vulnerable to my imperfections being used against me and that is just the way it is. I know my “acts of dissent” are in service of truth, in service of God, which is all I need to know. I can look at the ‘man in the glass’ and not hide from me, hide from God, hide from you and it doesn’t get any better than that! 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 3 Day 5

“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)

The more I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words, wisdom and brilliance both above and for these past 36+ years, the more amazed and bewildered I am. I am amazed at Rabbi Heschel’s vision and understanding of what it means to truly be human, how we can grow into our own unique humanity, and what the stumbling blocks to being “the souls we were created to be” are! We are witnesses to another dark time in the history and we are witnessing the stagnation, the cliches, the habits that religion, politics, and humanity have fallen into. Rather than stay fresh and dynamic, the need to be right, the need for certainty keeps us stuck in old ways, victims of previous thoughts, ideas, successes. Whether it is the deception of MAGA, the self-deception of people all along the religious, political, social, economic spheres, we arrive at the same place-stagnation; ‘the good old days’, and other such mendacious ideas.

The last sentence above is a radical one, it is one that people in power and those who believe the lies of those in power or are great at oratory fear the most. This has been true throughout history and Jews have been discriminated against because of our refusal to accept the status quo, to do things as we always have done, to accept cliches, habits, stagnation in our service to God, to one another, to the stranger in our midst. While some Jews today want to go back in time, Judaism as a way of life is dynamic and marches forward, learning new ways to understand, to live into what is and how to navigate the world as our tradition teaches us: keeping the lights of our souls bright, seeking the truth of the moment and the eternal truth, and living ARTfully-authentically, responsibly, and truthfully.

Rabbi Heschel’s involvement in the movements of the 1960’s that brought about change in the Catholic Church, change in the rights of Black people, change in the ways we treated and saw both our soldiers who were sent to Vietnam as well as the Vietnam people, is the prooftext that “acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” Rabbi Heschel inspires generations of Christian and Catholic ministers, priests, thinkers; he inspires generations of Jewish thinkers, teachers, Rabbis, and Jews in the Pews; he inspires us in our acts of dissent be they in Israel, in the United States, anywhere in the world with his words and his deeds.

How are we participating in “acts of dissent” when we so many people still want to vote for Donald J Trump-no matter how much information is available that testifies to his unworthiness? How are we participating in “acts of dissent” when we continue to allow our Congress, our government be held hostage by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, et al? How are we participating in “acts of dissent” when we make it impossible for people seeking asylum receive it, when people who are fleeing totalitarian governments want to live in freedom like the Jews in the 1930’s and 40’s did and they are rebuffed, locked up and hated as was done to the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany? We are not! It is imperative that we begin again to initiate, participate and infiltrate our society, our daily living with “acts of dissent that prove to be acts of renewal” because we have become stuck in political gridlock, religious behaviorism, and societal decay.

Recovery is constantly fresh, each day we say NO to living as we have in the past, NO to the addictive thinking and actions that kept us stagnant, kept us locked in habits and slaves to old and outmoded cliches. In recovery, we “continue to seek God’s will for us” and we admit that knowing God’s will in this moment is not the final say, we have to be open to what is, living in today and always putting on “a new pair of glasses” as Chuck C reminds us.

I have said NO to many things and ways of being in my life-sometimes my “acts of dissent” were not renewals they were actions of going backwards, staying stagnant, enslaving myself to old habits. When I was young and participated in “acts of dissent”, my peers, my family discouraged me and I settled into the cliches and habits Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. I have, for the most part, in my recovery, initiated and participated in “acts of dissent” that “prove to be acts of renewal”. I stay fresh and open to this moment, I am open to seeing my own stagnations and prisons of habit. I am grateful for the myriad of people who join in my “acts of dissent” and “acts of renewal. 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 3 Day 4

“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)

We are taught that there are 70 ways to understand/interpret the Torah/Bible. We read both each year to continue our learning and our growth, to view today’s challenges and joys differently each year, meaning when we see a verse, a chapter, the same way this year as we have in past years, we are being obstinate and stale. The Constitution of the United States is a similar document, terse and expansive, we cannot try and live in 1789 nor can we live in 2500 years ago as life keeps changing, we keep growing and our freedom and our ability to meet life on life’s terms is determined by our “elasticity” and our “spontaneity”, not our “obstinacy” nor our being stuck in “habit”.

Yet, we find ourselves mired in both “obstinacy” and “habit” religiously and as a country which leads to “stagnation” and life “easily turn foul”! I have read “Enough” by Cassidy Hutchinson and I am struck by the myriad of ways she fell into both when she intuitively knew better. I am amazed at her poise and courage to leave her own “obstinacy” and “habit” once she realized her insight was more true and correct, that the betrayals she experienced by people she had trusted did not have to define her and being true to herself was more important. In the book, a friend asks her to look in the mirror and see if she liked the person looking back at her, if she wanted to be that person or her true self. This is an important and crucial action we all have to take. This one of the questions that Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is demanding a response to, as I understand his wisdom above.

Tonight begins the Holiday of Sukkot, when Jews remember the ways the Israelites lived in the desert and on their journey from slavery to freedom, from Egypt, a narrow place, to the expanse of the Promised Land. It is not just to remember where we came from, however, it is to look ourselves in the mirror and ask the question that Cassidy Hutchinson asked herself. It is to mark where our souls, our spirits are on our particular journey of living. Are we a living, walking cliche, are we so chained by our habits that we have forgotten, let go of our “elasticity” and have become obstinate in believing we know ‘the way’? Have we become so habituated that spontaneity is to be feared, that admitting we have made errors in judgement, missed the mark with our actions, continue to live in the past and by the ‘old’ ways we become enslaved and enslavers? We left Egypt a long time ago and our tradition teaches us to not turn back, not return to those narrow places, yet time and again, both as citizens of the USA and as redeemed people, we are both “obstinate” and stuck in the “habit” of old thinking, of stinking thinking, of egoism, of narcissism, of following the wrong leaders with erroneous interpretations of our founding texts, of our basic values, of the commitments of generations past to continue growing and searching for what is right and holy in this moment rather than living in “stagnation” and having our texts “easily turn foul”.

In recovery as in religion, we are constantly asking the question: “what does God want from me now, in this moment” so we stay spontaneous and we do not limit ourselves to our old ideas. We celebrate and are grateful for the courage of the people who have gone before us so we can have a program of recovery, so we can have a Torah to learn from, so we can each be our own person, as Thomas Merton teaches; we can become “the souls we were created to be”. In the Big Book of AA we learn “old ideas availed us nothing” which is referring to the ways we lived prior to recovery and, it also could mean to the ideas we had in previous years of our recovery. We seek to “grow along spiritual lines” which means we have to stay fresh, we have to stretch our boundaries and our selves to meet the moment rather than living in yesterday, we have to be spontaneous rather than habitual in all our affairs.

I have always been spontaneous, even in my criminality and alcoholism. The difference today is my spontaneity and my elasticity serve my higher self, serve God, serve another(s) human being rather than my selfish desires. I can no longer stand the “foul” smell that I used to exude, I no longer believe in one and done. My recovery, my rabbinate is based on learning new each day, living in radical amazement, not being stuck and smiling at the person in the mirror who looks back at me. I forgive the betrayals just as I forgive my own betrayals. I stay fresh and on the lookout for new ways to understand and respond to this moment. 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 3 Day 3

“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)

Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s words and wisdom and looking at our situation today causes many people to think about where we are, how we got here, and, most importantly, where do we go from here. Be it in religion, in business, in our personal lives and our political world, we can see how Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance captures the moment, when he wrote these words some 50+ years ago and today. We are in a war with stagnation, we can smell the “foul” smell of religion, government, business, and within our personal living that has arisen from the need to win, the need to feel/be powerful, the experience of selfishness and disdain for the Biblical verse: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants therein” (Leviticus 25:20). Religion is supposed to keep learning and seeing how to make this statement, this commandment ring true in all times, religion is called upon to make this statement happen in our time, yet, religion has fallen prey to “the peril of stagnation” with the more fundamentalist faction clamoring to return to living in 16th Century Eastern Europe, to the ways of the Ottoman Empire, to the time of the Holy Roman Empire. What was established in antiquity, what was established in the early years and centuries of our common era has, unfortunately, turned “foul”.

Whether there is a government shutdown or not, whether Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for President or not, whether the media and people continue to make a false equivalency between Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s corruption/mob boss mentality is not the issue as I imbue Rabbi Heschel’s words above. What is the issue is our willingness to live in a world where “insight is replaced by cliches”. “The peril of stagnation” is so powerful that we have come to believe the mendacious cliches of ‘this is the way we always did it”, “trickle down economics”, “slavery was good for Black people because it taught them a trade”, “Jews control the media, the banks and Jews will not replace us”, etc. The bastardization of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Eastern philosophies has become so widespread that Q-Anon and other conspiracies are being given the same credence as our Holy Texts! We hear about the ‘strict constitutionalists’ wanting to preserve our great nation by living in 1789 and denying the wisdom and learning we have gained since then. We hear from the idolators who wrap themselves in deception and lies speak about unwelcoming the stranger, taking advantage of the poor, abusing the needy as fulfilling Christ’s teachings! We are witnesses to Kevin McCarthy, Tommy Tupperville, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan et al promoting racism, anti-semitism, senseless hatred and lies for their own personal gain-not to uphold the constitution, not to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants therein”. We are hearing the same old tired cliches from the 1930’s and 40’s, from the 50’s and 60’s and watching power-hungry deceivers gobble up more and more power like a pac-man game.

We, the people, have to end this mendacity, we, the people, have to regain our insights and stand up to these lunatics seeking power as Cassidy Hutchinson is doing, as Liz Cheney is doing. We have to expel Robert Menendez from the U.S. Senate for his crimes, we have to send the Freedom Caucus packing for making our government smell so “foul”. We have to recommit to the spirit of our various religions: taking actions that make us worthy of being a partner with God. We have to join the recovery movement and recover the “souls we were meant to be” and act accordingly. We have to stop using tired and false cliches to replace our insights, we have to stop with ‘moral equivalence’ and see what truly is, we have to stop trying to live in yesterday and wake up to the wonder of today. We have to stop our self-deceptive ways and see the truth of where we are and what we need to do/change in order to live our faith, our democracy, our personal lives in a more dynamic fashion, to be more compatible with the eternal wisdom and truth that our Holy Texts give us and use our hard-gained knowledge in furtherance of these principles and values.

I wake up each morning grateful to be alive. I wake up each morning excited to learn something new, experience “the sublime wonder of living” as Rabbi Heschel teaches each day. I seek to stay fresh and I realize that I got stagnant, I got complacent, I fell into the trap of sadness and despair 3+ years ago and it took daily writing for me to put on a “new pair of glasses” to regain seeing the beauty, awe, joy of life each day, to appreciate what I have and want even my own troubles! 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 3 Day 2

“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)

We are in the midst of living these words in our country, in our communities, in our families, in our religions, etc. While it is important to have form and order, when we come to worship the past, when we close ourselves off to ‘the one right way’, we experience Rabbi Heschel’s words in the second sentence above and “what becomes settled and established may easily turn foul.” In Deuteronomy, we are told that each generation has to understand and interpret the Bible, the Jewish way of being for itself, each generation has its own priests and leaders and they have to live the commandments in a dynamic fashion. In the Talmud, there is a story about Moses going to sit in the back of a class given by Rabbi Akiva and as he listens to Rabbi Akiva expound on the Torah, he has no idea what he is talking about until he hears Rabbi Akiva say “it is a law derived from Moses, our teacher” and this is an example of how what is “settled and established” doesn’t turn foul, it stays dynamic.

Whether it is the Bible, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the New Testament, the Koran, the philosophies of Eastern traditions, all are susceptible to “easily turn foul.” The reason being, of course, is human beings who want to control, human beings who want to use dynamic documents, dynamic religions and religious thought to satisfy their personal cravings and narcissism, human beings who “easily turn foul”! We face this in our homes when we hear “because I said so” rather than a response that a child can understand or at least try and understand. This arbitrary way of being begins for a child when “because I said so” is said so often the child believes the parent, the adult wants to control them in all areas of their lives. This, of course, leads to rebellion and takes a myriad of forms; drugs, alcohol, depression, bed-wetting, overeating, anorexia, underachieving, overachieving, a lack of meaning and purpose in life, etc.

We hear about isolation and loneliness being at epidemic levels since the pandemic, what is true is these killers of spirit have been at epidemic levels for years, we just did not want to admit it, we needed to be able to blame this condition of “something outside of ourselves”, rather that see the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel’s words in 1971 about drug addiction being the result of our false search for celebration and his words about the ‘fall of religion’ in 1955 being due to its becoming “irrelevant, dull, oppressive, and insipid”! We have isolated ourselves from one another for a lot longer than the 3.5 years since the Pandemic began. This isolation begins in childhood when we begin to hide who we are, hide our selves in order to fit in. It is what we learn from being constantly told “because I said so” rather than having truthful talks with our children. It comes from “this is the way we have always done it” being told so often that our creative spirit gets pushed down and crushed. This is one of the reasons we see people come to Temple for the High Holy Days and at no other time unless there is a specific lifestyle event reason to show up. We have turned the beauty, the dynamic ways, the spiritual sustenance religion gives into a “foul” odor! We take the wonder and awe of childhood, adolescence, and turn it into a “foul” odor by instilling our needs, dreams, desires, fears, etc into our children from an early age.

In recovery, we are recovering our integrity, our sense of self, our individuality and our worth to a group, to God, to our corner of the world because of our dynamic way of living, because we refuse to keep ‘stinking’ the odor of stagnation, the “foul” smell of settled and established ‘ways we always have done it’. Recovery is a spiritual path that believes we must return to “the self we were created to be” as Thomas Merton teaches. Recovery is a spiritual path that sends us back to our religious path so we can rediscover the dynamism and the joy that we missed before.

In my life before recovery, I stank! In recovery, in my return to Judaism, I have lived dynamically, I have kept things fresh. I hear Rabbi Heschel, the wisdom of my ancestors, the fresh outlook of my siblings, my daughter, my wife, my nieces, nephews, teachers, friends, enemies anew and more each day. I continue to grow along spiritual lines and am unafraid to admit my errors because I learn from them, I realize many of them come about because I am stuck in my ways which can “easily turn foul”. 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 3 Day 1

“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)

As I begin my third year of daily writing on Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings on the day after Yom Kippur 5784, I want to acknowledge the depth of my gratitude to Rabbi Heschel and, by extension, his daughter, Dr. Susannah Heschel. Rabbi Heschel’s words and teachings, his calls and demands along with the devotion of his daughter to keep the flame and fire of his life alive have changed me through the past 35 years I have been learning from him. The wisdom above is from an unpublished manuscript found in Dr. Susannah Heschel’s editing of a book published by Orbis Books in their “Modern Spiritual Masters Series”.

Rabbi Heschel is stating a fact in the first sentence that many religions, many religious people do not want to face, do not want to acknowledge, deny and decry. Traditional religion, traditional people fail to realize the peril of stagnation that Rabbi Heschel is teaching us is inherent in each and every tradition, be it democracy, autocracy, religion, eastern philosophy, as well as in each and every human being. In his interview with Carl Stern, Rabbi Heschel changes the phrase: “There is nothing new under the sun” to: “there is nothing stale under the sun except human beings who become stale”, as I am understanding his teaching above, religion can suffer the same fate. The word stagnate comes from the Latin meaning “settled as a pool”, which means it is like standing water, never flowing, never letting new water in, everything is ‘settled’ which, of course,  gives people certainty which in turn keeps everyone in the dark, in the past, stuck in the deception of another(s) and their own self-deceptions in order to feed their need for certainty, for sameness.

We have just come from our places of worship after fasting the entire 25 hours of Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur, we beat our breasts calling out the sins of our individual and global communities, we asked for forgiveness, we made our amends, and we did it the same way this year as we did last year. We used the same melodies and the same rhythms as in years past, we spoke the same words with the same (in)sincerity as we have in the past. Rabbi Heschel’s first sentence above is calling to us to be aware of the stagnation we have succumbed to, he is demanding we stop our ‘sameness’ and our ‘adjustment’ to ‘the ways we have always done it” and be more involved, more aware of our self and the selves we are praying with, living with. We asked God for forgiveness, yet we haven’t asked those around us for forgiveness for our actions of stagnation, our ways of being that make us oblivious to the dynamic nature of life, the dynamic being we call God, the dynamic way of living we call Judaism. We haven’t asked for forgiveness for the harms our actions in service of certainty, in service of power, in service of our false egos, in service of our masks and mental make-ups have done.

“An examined life is painful” says Malcolm X, an examined religious tradition is painful also, because both entail truth about our ways of being, on a personal level and on a communal level. Both entail seeing where we have been stuck in old ways and ideas, how we have tried to recreate what was done 100-2000 years ago, rather than seeing what is needed right now. This is what the Recovery Movement is all about. A constant examination of our ways and actions, personally and communally. We call it “a group conscience” and we are open to hear and stay current with what is rather than hide behind “this is the way we have always done it”, Bill Wilson, a co-founder of AA, was tinkering with and learning more about his humanity and ours till he died. We know that stagnation will lead us to fall out of recovery!

Rabbi Heschel’s teachings have kept me from stagnating for too long. I have rarely, in my recovery, been “settled” and at times, overreacted to the stagnation of my self, of my work, of my workplace, of people around me. I am afraid of certainty, I am fearful of stagnation and I have to live in acceptance. I write each day in order to stay fresh, I study each day so I can continue to learn, I pray each day with different eyes, I ask for forgiveness for things that I did in the past because I see them in a different light. Staying stagnate leads to living in a rut, living in the past, living in denial, living in fear, seeking what isn’t available, certainty. I choose to be aware of “the peril of stagnation” and continue to grow and learn new ways to understand old ideas. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 312

“Each person must examine whether one is part of a movement forced upon us by the environment or whether one is personally motivated, whether one is responding to pressure from outside or to an internal sense of urgency. At stake is not the sincerity of the motivation but the earnestness and honesty of its expression. This considered reflection has to become a permanent part of our conscience.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 70)

As I finish my second year of writing on Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and today is Yom Kippur (I wrote this yesterday), Rabbi Heschel’s question above is crucial for us to answer. Are we coming to Temple/Synagogue today and any/every day because we are “responding to pressure from outside or to an internal sense of urgency”?  Are we examining our lives and determining “whether one is a part of a movement forced upon us by the environment or whether one is personally motivated?” 

While we all need teachers and guides, spiritual leaders and therapists, friends, family, and confidants, we have to determine the answers to the wisdom, the questions that Rabbi Heschel puts before us, and what better day to make these determinations that today, Yom Kippur? Many people have a hard time with the word “surrender” because it connotes bad things, that we are defeated, we are weak, we are subjugating ourselves to someone else’s power and whims. Yet, we seem to ignore the myriad of ways we surrender to our feelings, the too numerous to count instances of abandoning ourselves completely to our rationalizations, putting societal norms before our spiritual truths. We surrender to the “pressure from outside” in so many ways each and every day all the while telling ourselves we are in control. We need to understand how surrender is a good thing for us to engage in when we surrender to our inner need and outer call to repentance. 

Surrendering to our soul’s knowledge, to the higher logic of our spiritual life as opposed to the lower logic of our minds rationalizations, allows us to be “personally motivated” and responding “to an internal sense of urgency”. Our motivation and our urgency is to return to the soul, the person, the self, we are created to be! It is to repent for our errors, to acknowledge our goodness of being and actions, it is to repair the damage and learn “how to handle situations that used to baffle us.” Surrendering to God, to authenticity, to responsibility, to truthfulness is the path to making our changes permanent; not complete just a permanent way of being a “Baal T’Shuvah”, a master of repentance, return, and new responses. This surrender is how repentance, reflection, becomes “a permanent part of our conscience” and we continue to grow in our errors being less and our goodness being more apparent and more natural. 

This is what recovery is all about. We live in a state of personal motivation to be one grain of sand better each day. We live in a “sense of urgency” to do the next right thing, make our amends for our past mistakes, grow out of our need to rationalize, grow into trusting God, trusting our soul’s knowledge more and more each day. We continue to be more earnest and honest in our expression of our changes and our spiritual disciplines. We engage more and more in “practice these principles in all our affairs”, we deepen our service to God and to another(s).  We embed our new paths into our being so they “become a permanent part of our conscience”!

I am not perfect, nor is Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance above asking for perfection. In 1986, there was no outside pressure for me to repent-everyone had written me off as a lost cause-and the motivation to change, to learn, to re-learn, to return to a moral way of being, to return to being a pro-social member of society, to return to the family table and to return to being Heather’s father was personally motivated because of my encounter with God, because of my spiritual awakening/experience. In my sense of urgency to change and to help another(s) change, I made errors, I was too loud, abrasive, shocking, overbearing, difficult. I was deeply motivated by my need to express my earnestness and honesty to the people I was encountering, to the people from my past, because I heard God calling me to help, to serve, to be human. While it put some people off, it made many uncomfortable, I followed my path and continue to follow it today. I am sorry for the times when I confused my needs/ego with God’s call and the people impacted by these times. I am grateful for being able, with the help of God, Harriet, Heather, my sister and brothers, my family, my guides and friends, to help so many people recover their souls, recover their passion, and together, make repentance, make decency, make spiritual growth “a permanent part of our conscience.” God Bless, G’Mar Tov 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 311

“Repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility. If, to be sure—as is often the case among us—instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

Tonight is Kol Nidre, the beginning of the Day of Atonement. As I think about Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and the world we are living in today, the fact that these words were written in 1936 in Berlin, Germany, and the deceit and mendacity that so many of us engage in, I am saddened, scared and hopeful.

I am saddened by our lack of understanding our personal and communal need to take the next right action and ensure that our “repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility.” I am saddened by our engaging in denial of our errors in judgement and action, by our incessant need to blame, shame another for our misdeeds, to continue to hide from another(s) and ourselves “the exact nature of our wrongs”.

I am afraid for what our deceptions of self and another(s) will bring to our future, I am afraid for our children learning that repentance is just something we say and not live. I am afraid that our “coerced conversion” will cause us to hide more, to be more underhanded, to be more deceitful, to more engaging in our mendacity and turn more and more people away from a “deliberate decision” to engage in repentance, to change our past actions and set a new course for today and tomorrow.

Yet, as Rabbi Heschel was his entire life, I am hopeful. I have hope because as Reb Meir says: “for one person’s repentance, the entire world endures”(Yoma 86b). I know there are among us many people who are engaging in “a conscious truthfulness”. I have hope because of the  1000’s of people touched by and changed by their engagement in T’Shuvah over the years at Beit T’Shuvah continue to live their recovery, continue to have “remorse over the lost past”, and have taken on the responsibility to change, the honor of being the actualization of Reb Meir’s words.

We are in a state of decision-making today, globally, in our country, in our personal lives. This is the decision that Rabbi Heschel is so brilliantly putting forward to us: Are we going to return or are we going to continue our deception of self and another(s) and make our “so-called return…a retreat, a phase”? Each Elul, each Yom Kippur we are faced with this decision, each day of the year we are faced with the choice to make our return, our repentance a reality, a spiritual map we follow or “a retreat, a phase.”

In recovery, as in all faiths, we have to “make a decision” and choose “deliberate decision” making and “conscious truthfulness” in our daily living. People of faith, real faith, and people in recovery know we have to be vigilant and aware of our selves, our desires, our leanings, our actions. We know and practice a way of being that makes our decision to “turn our will and our lives over to the care of God” and our prayer to “nullify our will before God’s will so God’s will becomes our will” is not a one and done, rather this decision and this prayer is done numerous times each day, we are engaging in conscious living, we check with our souls before we act, and we are remorseful for the actions that we did not take and for those which were not serving God, another(s) and our souls. Living faithfully, to our religions, to our spirituality, to our recovery, entails living in repentance, living our T’Shuvah and “continue to take personal inventory”.

I am sorry for the wrongs I have done! I am sorry for the harms I have wrought. I am sorry for the ways my actions have been interpreted and that I could not/cannot speak to everyone in ways they can hear. I am sorry for the ways I have delineated during this month of Elul, I am sorry that I did not realize years ago what I can realize today. I am sorry to those who cannot/will not/have not accepted my T’Shuvah in the past. I know that I am more “deliberate” in my decision making, I live in more “conscious truthfulness” each and every day-continuing to grow in my shedding of self-deceptions and mendacity.  I know that my “remorse over the lost past” informs my actions and deeds today. I wish everyone an “easy fast” and a good ending to your Yom Kippur experience, a great experience with your engagement in repentance as “an absolute spiritual decision”! 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 310

“Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness. Its motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future. Only in this manner is it possible and valid.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

As we enter the last few days prior to Yom Kippur in the Jewish world many people will call, see, email people saying: “if there is anything I have done to harm you, please forgive me”. While this is a formula that the Rabbis created, Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above asks us for more. When we are repenting for our errors, it is imperative to know what we need to repent for and while the Rabbis formula is for the actions we have unwittingly done to another(s), we have to first search our souls and our minds for the actions we have done which we are aware of. Without remorse for the past, without seeking out our actions and motivations which have harmed another, as Rabbi Heschel teaches us, our repentance is not possible nor valid.

Immersing ourselves in the last two sentences above we come to a new realization of how important repentance is, how deeply we have to examine our actions in the past year(s), and how vital to our growth and the growth of another(s) our repentance is. Rabbi Heschel is demanding we go against the “conventional wisdom” of our time (and all eras) jettisoning our need to justify our actions, our blaming of another for our actionsand hiding from ourselves, another(s), and God. Repentance, as I hear Rabbi Heschel’s call to us, entails a complete and utter experience of standing naked before God, before ourselves, and before all of humanity. For repentance to be “possible and valid”, we have to end our need to wear our masks, take off the “mental make-up” of protection, be “maladjusted” to the societal norms of our day and stand up to our authentic selves and be responsible for our actions and ways of being that harm humanity, God and ourselves.

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is, in its own way, spiritually audacious! It goes against the way things are, it calls our politicians to task for their lies and inactions, it calls our business’ to account for their underhanded ways and false advertising, it calls out each of us for our hiding, defending, denying. Rabbi Heschel is demanding we see every human being as equal in dignity and worth and  every person as a partner with God. He is also reminding us of our need to show compassion and love to self and another(s) through being truthful, repentant, and forgiving. Audacity comes from the Latin meaning “dare to be bold” and repentance is a bold action in the life of a human being because it opens us up to be vulnerable, to have our vulnerabilities used against us, to be shunned, to be ostracized, to be ignored and to be reminded of our previous errors whenever someone wants to have control over us. Yet, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, as our sages in the Talmud teach, as Maimonidies teaches, without repentance we will stay in hiding, we will miss our opportunity to help the world endure as Reb Meir teaches “for one person’s repentance the entire world endures.”

In recovery as in Judaism, we know that our inventory, our admitting our errors as well as our ‘hitting the marks’ out loud to God and another person, and making our amends is the only path to freedom. Just as the Israelites were taught to bring offerings after their errors and their successes in order to reconnect with God, one another, and let go of their inner conflicts and hidings, we, in recovery, have steps 4-9 which are the essence of T’Shuvah, repentance. We have to have remorse for our past errors, we have to learn from them and search out the reasons we did them in order to not repeat them again because only in this way can we have “responsibility for the future”! Living repentance, continuing to do T’Shuvah, a 10th step each day gives us the path to experiencing this “most unnoticed miracle.”

I have been delineating my errors these past 36 days for me, for those I have harmed, and for God. I know where my heart is, I know the remorse I have for actions that I took for my sake and not for God’s sake, I also know that for those who want to hold a grudge, those who cannot forgive me, there is very little I can do except continue to live better. I have reached out to people I have realized I harmed in ways I did not realize before and, for the most part, been forgiven-6 out of 7- and I am committed to not repeat these harms and still be me. What I have learned is I have to announce my ways of being so another human being can decide if I am ‘their cup of tea’ or not and accept my imperfections as I accept theirs. “Remorse for the past and responsibility for the future” is living an examined life, a painful way to live and the only way to be free. 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 309

“Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness. Its motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future. Only in this manner is it possible and valid.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

We are in the middle of the 10 days of T’Shuvah, repentance and Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is crucial for our return to the souls we are meant to be. These words were written in Berlin, Germany in 1936 as Hitler was persecuting the Jews of Germany and using us as scapegoats for the ills of the German people. Rather than find some compromise, rather than hide and appease, Rabbi Heschel is telling us to stand firm in our faith, stand firm in our connection to God, hear the call and strength of our souls and live into the truth of our existence.

“I’m sorry” is used so often it has become trite because these words are used often as placating words, a phrase that has no meaning to it, and we continue to say them because this is what is expected of us. We learn this as children when we are forced to say these words without meaning them, without understanding the impact of our actions and we are forgiven too easily once we say them. Neither the repentance nor the forgiveness are truthful, neither of them are “an absolute spiritual decision” because most of us do not pay attention to our spiritual life, as children we are not aware of our spiritual life because we are not trained in spiritual living, only in material living and doing what ‘is best for us’. We continue this practice into our adulthood and make the same errors with our children, with our grandchildren so this cycle of ‘getting the heat off’ and thinking we will do the same things again and just not get caught this time has led us to the state of being we are in: Mendacity rules, deception is normal and self-deception is a constant.

We are witnesses to this in our family life, in our communal life, in our political world right here, right now. Our government is engaged in pointing fingers, using leverage of funding the government to satisfy the ravings of a lunatic fringe that knows no bounds in their march towards dismantling our democracy. We watch in horror as hearings in the House of Representatives continue to weaponize their positions in order to satisfy their cravings for ‘blood’, for ‘retribution’ because Donald J Trump was impeached twice and has been indicted in 4 jurisdictions. In the Senate, Tommy Tuberville is willing to endanger our National Security to promote his personal agenda. More importantly, the elected officials who are members of the same party are doing nothing to stop these lunatics, nothing to help We, the People! They seem to be incapable of engaging in “an absolute spiritual decision made in truthfulness.” These ‘good christians’ seem to be incapable of engaging in repentance, these ‘good jews’ in Israel and here seem to believe engaging in the formula of repentance rather than in the practice of repentance will suffice for them. MENDACITY rules and self-deception is their constant friend and ally.

In recovery, as in Judaism and all faiths, Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and demands are guiding lights for us to “trudge the road of happy destiny”, to be able to “intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us”, that we will “know a new freedom and happiness”, and our “feeling of usefulness and self-pity will disappear.” These promises found in the Big Book of AA have come true and continue to come true for those of us who continue to live “repentance is an absolute spiritual decision made in truthfulness.” We are constantly engaging in self-reflection and being aware of our power to harm and to heal, to push down and raise up, to act in the name of an idol and to act in the name of God. We are not perfect, we are human beings who have decided to live in truth, to live in repentance and growth, to live as spiritual beings in a material body/world.

I made the “absolute spiritual decision” in earnest in Dec. 1986 and since then I have grown in this way of being. I repent, I learn, I grow, I make similar errors each time raising the bar for myself. I live into truth and when I am living in mendacity and/or self-deception, I have people around me to “lift up my eyes and see” what is true and what is real. I have, as the Sufi Poet, Hafiz, writes: “Tired of speaking sweetly”. Just as God held/holds me “upside down” and shakes “all the nonsense out”, I have done the same with many other people. I know I have been wrong at times and I regret these errors, I know my intentions were to help and I accept my responsibility in not speaking in ways someone could hear. I have, at times, kicked and screamed when God, through my Angels “rip to shreds all my(your) erroneous notions of truth and, in the end been eternally grateful to drop my mendacious and self-deceptive ways. 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 308

“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth; it is transformation, creation. In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance causes time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place. Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

Rabbi Heschel is not saying the “harm and blemish” doesn’t exist, as I understand his wisdom, rather that “harm and blemish” can be “extinguished, transformed into salvation”.   Salvation comes from the Latin meaning “to save”, in Hebrew it denotes being saved and connotes redemption, which comes from the Latin meaning “to buy back” and extinguish comes from the Latin meaning “to quench”. Using these definitions, this part of the sentence can be understood as “harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be” quenched, changed into saving, buying back our dignity, our essence. This “miracle” occurs because of our willingness to engage in T’Shuvah, our returning to Authenticity, Responsibility, Truth, aka ART. Living our lives as works of ART is a path to “love God with all our heart, all our soul, with everything that is in us” even our negative inclinations.

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching and brilliance is calling for us to let go of our old ideas, to be “maladjusted” to the societal norms of ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’, to recognize and suspend our “inner suspicions”. He is demanding that we face “life on life’s terms” and come to grips with the beauty and the ugly within us, to wrestle with the “Jacob and Esau” within us, to “buy back” the ‘sin’ of Adam-hiding from God. To do this, we have to be in truth with ourselves, we need to see our flaws and our greatness and repair the former while enhancing the latter. It is not an easy engagement, it is, however, a simple one. Facing “the person in the mirror” takes courage, it takes serenity, aka clarity, it means taking off the masks we wear, removing the “mental make-up” that has covered up our inner life, our soul’s calling, and our connection to one another and to God. Seeing our senseless hatred of one another, acknowledging our need to blame another for our errors, how we are unwelcoming to the stranger, hard-hearted towards the poor and the needy, engaging in  ‘low self-esteem’ while being a partner of God, will allow us to repair these self-deceptions we have perpetrated upon ourselves. These insights, once we have admitted them to ourselves, will allow us to repair the “harms and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves”.

Once we have the clarity that taking off the myriad of masks we wear, we will be better able to testify to the good we have done, we will see the light of our soul and how it has guided us to ‘do the next right thing’. We will be able to fill the greatness column on our inventory sheet with all of the decent, kind, responsible ways we have connected with “the world” and with “ourselves”. This part of our inventory, our T’Shuvah, engages us in seeing the whole picture of our year, of our life, and put into proper perspective our goodness and our desire to love, connect and be a partner with God, with our family, our community, our world in making life “one grain of sand” better for everyone. This way of doing T’Shuvah gives us freedom to choose with clarity how we want to live and how we are going to live in this next year(s). It also guides us to “the unnoticed of all miracles, the miracle of repentance”.

I have experienced this “unnoticed miracle” often in my recovery! In fact, this “unnoticed miracle” has defined my recovery and my entire way of living these past 34+ years. It has not been a ‘one and done’, in fact I have put my own “mental make-up” at various times even though I had removed it before. Yet, engaging in T’Shuvah, being aware of the masks, living in truth and being responsible for the negativity and the goodness I have wrought, being authentic in my remorse and in my accomplishments, helps me throw away more and more of the “mental make-up” I have used in the past. My anger, bombastic ways of being were authentic in the moment and they were inappropriate some of the times as well. When my anger was personal from a place of hurt, my actions were wrong and inappropriate, when my anger was for the treatment of another, when it was the anger of the prophets, my actions were in service of something greater than myself-another human being and God. I continue to grow my ART of living, I continue to let go of the masks, the self-deceptions, and hold onto the goodness and the love I give and receive from “the forgiving hand of God” and bear witness to the “transformed into salvation” my life is becoming. 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 307

“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth; it is transformation, creation. In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance causes time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place. Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

The last sentence above is one that is debated, argued, and which many people disagree with. It is also one that I believe is misunderstood.God’s always seeking to forgive, God is always seeking for us to return, in the Talmud we learn that God cries because “My children are in Exile”, at the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea while the Angels were cheering, our sages teach that God says: “My children are dying”. Rather than accepting the “punishing God of the Old Testament”, God redeems the Israelites from Egypt, God continually accepts the T’Shuvah of the Israelites in the desert, God sends the Prophets to the kingdoms of Israel and Judea to call the people back to being the souls they were created to be. Jeremiah calls to us: “Return, you backsliding children, I will heal your backsliding”(Jeremiah 3:22), Hosea reminds us to “return Israel to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity”(Hosea 14:2). Our tradition reminds us that the Gates of T’Shuvah, the gates of return/forgiveness are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year! Yet, we continue to use God as punisher, as authoritarian because we are afraid to believe Rabbi Heschel’s words above and the words of the Bible. I think our fear is rooted in our lack of forgiving ourselves and another, our fear is rooted in our inability to accept our imperfections, our fear is rooted in the responsibility forgiveness/T’Shuvah brings to us.

In Numbers 14:20 God says: “I forgive as you have spoken” in response to Moses’ pleading for the people when they disbelieved God again in regards to entering the Promised Land early on in their journey from Egypt to Canaan. Each Erev Yom Kippur, aka Kol Nidre, after the Kol Nidre prayer, we recite these words to remind us of “the forgiving hand of God”, to remind us we are worthy of forgiveness, to call on us to forgive as easily as God does even though God knows we will need forgiveness again and again. Each time we screw up, we do it a little differently and we learn from our mistakes, each time we screw up we go to God and we are forgiven, we experience, as Hosea 14:5 teaches: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.” These are not the words of a punishing God, these are the words and actions of a loving God. God has kept the Jews alive and Judaism has stayed dynamic throughout antiquity up until now because of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s healing. Rather than stay stuck in the past, rather than live under a strictness, a perfection seeking path that is impossible to hold to, God calls for us to return, God sends us forgiveness, God is willing to begin anew, wiping away the memories of our iniquities, cleaning the slate of our errors and missteps.

Yet, the problem, as always, is with us. Many of us are not willing to accept God’s forgiveness for what it is, a responsibility, a clean slate, a new beginning, a re-covenanting. Rather, we find ways to bastardize the teachings of the Bible, the wisdom and brilliance of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above(and all of his others) so we can ‘get over’ on God, on another human being, on ourselves. We seem to be afraid to accept God’s forgiveness, we seem to be reluctant to allow our “backsliding” to be healed, we seem to disbelieve that we “I will love them freely” is the way of God. The problem, as always, begins and ends with us! We stay in our own denial and self-deception, we continue to be adjusted to the societal norms and cliches that once a ‘bad boy’, always a ‘bad boy’. We are shamed and blame from an early age and we shame and blame everyone else from an early age and this pattern disallows our belief in God’s “forgiving hand” and instead gives aid and comfort to the lie of “punishing God”, something invented by pagans and other faiths as a marketing tool for converts because Judaism had and has, at its core: “welcoming the stranger, caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, redeeming the captive and the one who had to sell themselves into slavery” and the responsibilities and inner work it takes to fulfill.

I have experienced the “forgiving hand of God” numerous times in my life, as I look back on my past. In recovery, I have been aware of these times and I am so grateful for “the forgiving hand of God”. I know I could not have achieved the spiritual clarity/serenity, the acceptance of “the things I cannot change” and “the courage to change the things I should” without “the forgiving hand of God”. The Serenity Prayer quoted here and T’Shuvah remind me daily of God’s love and forgiveness. 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 306

“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth; it is transformation, creation. In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance causes time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place. Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

One of the amazing aspects of T’Shuvah/amends is its ability to cause “time to be created backward”. While in the material world “there is no going back”, the spiritual world “allows re-creation of the past to take place.” This happens because T’Shuvah/amends allows us to undo the lies of the past, restore the dignity we have taken from a person by our harms, blemishes, lies, bad acts. This is the process where we take responsibility for our actions, we make restitution for the harms we caused, we affirm the truth of their experience, we repair the damage we have wrought, and we reconnect to their spirit and re-sew the fabric of our relationship with them and with God.

While not everyone we have harmed will want to reconnect, not everyone will want to trust us again, T’Shuvah/amends makes a lie of humanity’s belief that what one was is what they will always be. It makes mincemeat of the saying “a leopard doesn’t change its spots”. T’Shuvah/amends “allows the re-creation of the past to take place” by our being responsible for our actions without blame nor shame, by allowing another human being to see/experience the sincerity of our change, of our almost complete change of beingness, and our identity with the pain we caused them. We freely admit how we treated another person as an object of our need/desire, an object to be used and abused, our chameleon-like way of being at the time and our abject sorrow for our actions and the harms we did. This doesn’t change the action, what it does is put it into a different context, we affirm and re-affirm their goodness of being and our taking advantage of it, we thank them for trying to help us and regret the myriad of ways we hid from them, like Adam hid from God. Our T’Shuvah is also for the distrust we may have implanted in the people we have harmed and how that distrust might have changed them/prevented them from helping another human being who was sincere and needed their assistance. In this way, we don’t erase the harms of the past, we do put them in a context that allows another to know their actions were the correct ones and we took advantage of their kindness and love, it also allows them to leave the hurt in the past and not carry it as an anchor on their necks.

In recovery as in Judaism, amends/T’Shuvah are the responsibility actions of one who has changed because to do them we have to be Authentic, Responsible, and Transparent. We demonstrate our desire and ability to life our lives as works of ART, as Rabbi Heschel says in his interview with Carl Stern: “And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to build a life as if it were a work of art. You’re not a machine…Start working on this great work of art called your own existence.” As many artists will attest to, when one doesn’t like what one has painted, when one sees a blemish, a ‘mistake’ in the painting, they repaint the canvas in white and begin again. This is the power of T’Shuvah/amends, we ‘get’ to begin anew, begin again with a new canvas, we get to recreate/create anew “this great work of ART called” our life.

I know the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and wisdom as I experience the wonder, awe, re-connection with my family, with friends, with people I have encountered in my life in recovery and before. My brothers, my sister, my mother all accepted my T’Shuvah/amends and we reconnected in ways we did not even realize we needed to, we ‘wrote’ a new covenant and way of being so we would not hide from one another and we have a relationship today that is stronger, tighter, more loving each and every day. My daughter, Heather, and I work hard to not hide from one another, we exchange advice, thoughts, ways of being and she seeks my wisdom and experience as I seek hers. We know our love, our connection is strong, is based in respect and truth and love. My wife, Harriet, and I have had ups and downs in our relationship, duh!! Yet, because of T’Shuvah/amends, we have been able to come through each of the downs stronger, more committed and more willing to be seen by one another. Over the years, I have done T’Shuvah often, this year being no different, and this year I have also been able to see where my anger comes from and repair the damage the original betrayal caused me without needing to make the betrayer a “bad guy”, in fact I have compassion for the person. This has led me to change my reactions, to accept the people who don’t accept my amends and re-paint the canvas of my life with more ART. 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 305

“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth; it is transformation, creation. In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance causes time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place. Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

On this, the second day of the 10 days of Repentance, the brilliance of Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to end our fascination with perfection, decline to live in shame of our errors, and stop our needing to blame another(s) for the “missing the marks” we commit. T’Shuvah/repentance is, as Reb Meir states in the Talmud (Yoma 86b): “Great is repentance, because the entire world is forgiven on account of (one) individual who repents.” We all, according to Reb Meir, have the opportunity and responsibility to impact our world, individually, communally, and globally. All we have to do is be serious about our repentance, not use some formula to ‘get off the hook’ rather we need to own up to our errors, we are called upon by our tradition to end the blame and shame experience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and by our Biblical figures, and by all of our ancestors.

It is “the most unnoticed of all miracles” because we save ourselves from being stuck in the mud and mire of denial, we extricate ourselves from the mendacity of self-deception, we come face to face with our authentic self and learn from our errors and the errors of our ancestors, our parents, our siblings, our historical figures, etc. Coming face to face with our authentic self is the pathway to a new creation of our living. Coming face to face with our learning is the pathway to transforming our errors into merits, changing the course of our life and the lives of those around us and people we have never even met. It is an “unnoticed miracle” by virtue of the change that happens both within us and to the people we make our amends to. It is an “unnoticed miracle” because we suddenly find ourselves living in a deeper, more committed relationship with our self, with another(s) and with God. We no longer need to hide from anyone else, we no longer have to live in willful blindness of our impact on another(s) and on our corner of the world.

The transformation that occurs is “a miracle”! We find ourselves able to suspend our “alien thoughts” of hiding, let go of our “alien intentions” of denying our errors, make the “I”, that is our ego, stand in concert with God and humanity to improve the world and one another. This transformation leads us to living in harmony with God, with our self, rather than hiding, rather than living in mendacity and self-deception. It allows us to be free of shame and not need to blame, it gives us the gift of living in truth and being able to say: “Oops, I made a mistake”, the 5 hardest words for most people to put together in one sentence. Because of our willingness to be in truth about ourselves, because of our tenacity in doing our own inventory, because of our going to people we have harmed and asking for forgiveness, our lives and the life of the entire world is created anew, transformed. The proof text of this is found in the words of the prophet Hosea: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for My anger has turned away him”(Hosea 14:5).

In recovery the 8th and 9th steps are the culmination of the freedom we began to experience when we worked the 4th and 5th steps. Becoming “willing to make amends” and then “to make direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others” is what Judaism has called us to do forever, what the Bible has taught us since the Garden of Eden, what Jacob failed to do with his brother Esau and what Judah did do with his brother Joseph. Even King David could admit his errors, once they were pointed out to him, and rather than deny them, he repented for them.  The transformation, creation that Rabbi Heschel is talking about is delineated in the 9th Step promise: “we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us” and others.

Each year, since I began my personal journey of T’Shuvah, I have shed layers of self-deception and mendacity. I have been blessed to be able to see clearer and transform my ‘sins’ into merits. God has healed my backsliding and continues to do so, I experience God’s love through the myriad of people in my life who love me, care for me, rebuke me and strengthen me. The miracle of r

Livng rabbi heschel’s wisdom - A daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 304

“Moses’ saying to Israel, “I stand between God and you”(Deuteronomy 5:5), was allegorically interpreted by Rabbi Michael of Zlotshov to mean: The “I” stands between God and man.”(Quoted by Rabbi Kalonymus Salma Epstein, Maor Vashamesh, Lemberg, 1859 p.29b) (God in Search of Man pg. 394)

Tonight is the beginning of the year 5784 in the Hebrew Calendar. Whether the calculations are correct or not is immaterial, whether every incident in the Bible actually happened is immaterial, what is material are the myriad of ways Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc give us to celebrate new beginnings, to engage in the repair of our old beginnings that we had a part in causing to fail, to see ourselves in our proper image-neither too small nor too large, to live in proper measure for the moment we are in.

Tonight and every night, we are called to stand in front of our true self, our authentic being and commit to be a little more authentic, a little more in truth, a little better, l little kinder, a little more of a community member, tomorrow than we were today. Rosh HaShana, the head of the year, comes 6 months(approx.) after our exodus from Egypt, which is no coincidence to me. We are given this Holy Season to see how large the “I” has become since we left slavery, we are being called to account to and for ourselves-not to some ‘guy in the sky’- but rather to ourselves, to one another, to the Ineffable One, for the times we kept our “I” in check/proper measure and when we did not! While we are not really supposed to make New Year’s Resolutions, we are supposed to repair the damages done to our selves, to another self, to the world writ large and these repairs, aka T’Shuvah, include our plan not to do the same thing again. It is, our plan to stop the insanity of our ways of being, as defined by Einstein. It is, our deep desire to repair relationships, to expand relationships, to let go of the ones that are toxic and stop adding one’s own toxicity to new and old relationships.

Competition for a job, for an invention, for a way of doing something is understandable and good as long as the “I” doesn’t make us into ‘killers’, doesn’t prod us to ‘win at all costs’, doesn’t guide us to let go of our humanity while deceiving ourselves into thinking we are saving our humanity and honoring it. We all have witnessed people who have put their “I” between them and another human being, who have put their “I” between them and community (unless they are running the community), who have extolled God while worshiping the idolatry of the overgrown, outsized “I”! Yet, this time of year, in fact all year long, we are being called to witness how we are doing the same things with our “I”! 6 months ago we left Egypt, now we have to see how we have moved forward towards freedom and how we have turned back to serve our self-serving Pharaoh called the “I”!

Recovery is all about being “right-sized”, it is all about keeping our ego’s in check-not extinguishing them as they are God-given, and using our egos in proper measure to the moment we are in. Which, is the conundrum of the “I” for most of us. Each moment is different, there will never be this moment again, which means we have to face each moment and respond to each moment differently, hence the inability to follow some chart or game plan that is made up prior to this moment. Rather, we have to train our “I” to respond to the present appropriately so we don’t separate ourselves from the community, we don’t practice the idolatry of “know-it-all”, and don’t allow anything to come between our selves, our souls and the spirit of God that is always hovering above us and waiting for us to reach for and be open to receive.

I have put my “I” between me and God, between me and another person more times than I want to remember and, as painful as it is, I must. I have made amends and gotten better and I have continued to do this. In the past 34+ years, when I have done this it has been from a place of self-deception and blindness that is not/was not willful. Hindsight is 20/20 and I was reading a T’Shuvah I made to my community at the time in 2014. Many of the topics I have mentioned this Elul are in there and I know that I will never be perfect. I also know, as I prepare for Rosh HaShanah, that I have grown, I am a better human being, I can withstand the onslaught of hate, vitriol that some people need to spew, and I can look myself in the mirror, I can look anyone in the eyes, and I can connect and be in a covenantal relationship with God. Not as a perfect being, but as Mark Borovitz, fallible human being who continues to grow along spiritual lines and who doesn’t need to be right all the time and is willing to admit his own errors and flaws as well as what he does well. This is how my “I” stays right-sized and of service. Shana Tova, 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 303

“Moses’ saying to Israel, “I stand between God and you”(Deuteronomy 5:5), was allegorically interpreted by Rabbi Michael of Zlotshov to mean: The “I” stands between God and man.”(Quoted by Rabbi Kalonymus Salma Epstein, Maor Vashamesh, Lemberg, 1859 p.29b) (God in Search of Man pg. 394)

As we prepare to begin the year 5784 in the Hebrew Calendar tomorrow evening, this teaching by Rabbi Heschel is crucial to our understanding what the Jewish High Holy Days, the month of Elul, the entirety of the Bible and living Jewishly is about. Our mission, if we choose to take it on, is to keep our uniqueness and diminish the “I” that stands between us and God. Rabbi Michael of Zlotshov, a Hasidic master, is reminding us of our need to serve something greater than our “I” and that something greater is God/the Ineffable One/Power greater than ourselves/etc. All spiritual disciplines have the same goal: to keep our uniqueness, to live into our purpose and keep the “I” in its proper place, keep it right-sized. Our work of T’shuvah, our inventory of what we do well and where we miss the mark, is a path to making this goal a reality. We seem to naturally keep the “I” larger than life itself, we seem to go to the “I” like a moth to a flame, and this teaching by Rabbi Heschel is a great antidote to our natural/evil inclination to put the “I” before God, before another human being, even before our best interests.

This is the lure of authoritarianism, this is the lure of the bully, this is the lure of the deceiver, this is the lure of our own self-deception. By putting the “I” before everything and anything, we get a false sense of self, a false sense of our power, a false sense of faith and spirituality. Clergy fall into this trap when they pontificate and don’t admit their fallibility, when they don’t acknowledge their own “defects of character”, or their own actions that are out of proper measure. When clergy speak in the voice of authority, when they speak in the voice of surety, when they speak in the voice of “there is only one way”, when they speak in the voice of hatred, of unwelcoming the stranger. When they do not take this time to speak in the voice of contrition, of T’Shuvah, of asking for and granting forgiveness, they are speaking from the voice of the “I” and not God, they are standing between humankind and God, in other words, they are the idols that Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, the prophets, et al railed against.

Many of our elected officials, our politicians, speak in the voice of the “I” and want us to believe they are speaking in the voice of Godliness, in the voice of caring and compassion. When we cannot reach across the aisle for the good of the country, when we cannot find compromises that will uplift everyone, we are witnessing the power of the “I” and we are suffering the consequences of this way of being. The “I” is the driving force of “winning at all costs”, it’s the force that did not allow Pharaoh to realize that “Egypt is already lost” and unable to hear his advisors say to him: “Until when will you let Moses be a snare for you?” It is the force that brings the chaos we have been through for the last 12 years, the chaos of the Tea Party, the chaos of Trumpism, the chaos of McCarthy selling his soul for a piece of coal. Yet, at least 30% of our country wants this chaos, at least 50% of our country supports the “I” uber alles!

We are in the home stretch of our Elul work, we are 11 days from Kol Nidre when we ask God to forgive our sins, let us out of the vows we made last Yom Kippur that have gone unfulfilled. While we have the Kol Nidre prayer as the first prayer of the evening/day of Yom Kippur, we have to look inside of ourselves and see which vows we made under duress, ie to please someone else, which ones we made half-heartedly, which ones we made to look good, which ones we made from the “I”, and which ones we made from our souls, which ones we made in true desire to be a better human being. We are asking for all the vows we did not fulfill to be annulled and this is meaningful only when we can see the why’s of not fulfilling them, when we can be in truth with ourselves about where we made these vows from as I have written above.

I don’t have a lot of vows that I need annulled this year because I am in the process of T’Shuvah during Elul and throughout the year. I have kept the most important vow, to me, and that is to lessen the times I put the “I” between me and God, lessening the times I put the “I” between me and you/anyone, lessening the times I put the “I” between me and truth. While some people are unable to see me because of their “I” being so strong and refuse to accept a T’Shuvah from me, I feel sorry that they are so stuck in their “I”. I am grateful for everyone who has forgiven me, over the years, and look forward to 5784 with hope, passion, and purpose. Shana Tova and 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 302

“We do not know with what we must serve until we arrive there (Exodus 10:26). “All our service, all the good deeds we are doing in this world, we do not know whether they are of any value, whether they are really pure, honest or done for the sake of heaven, - until we arrive there-in the world to come, only there shall we learn what our service was here”(Rabbi Isaac Meir of Ger). (God in Search of Man pg. 394)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above reminds us to, as my friend and first sponsor Steve Abrams taught me early in my recovery, leave our minds open enough to have them changed. The human need for certainty is so strong that we believe we must always “have the right answer”, ‘know exactly what to do’ and defend our decisions, our actions to the death rather than admit we do not know. Our world is one in which ‘not knowing’ leaves one susceptible to being ridiculed, laughed at, scorned; so we continue to be afraid to say “we do not know”.

Living in uncertainty takes a strong spirit, it takes great ego strength, it takes a willingness to “not know” and to forge ahead anyway. While the commandments, the different faith traditions, the myriad of spiritual disciplines available to us all give us paths to travel, we cannot say with certainty: this is the path, this is the correct one way to understand. Yet, human beings have engaged in seeking ‘the one right way’ and the teaching above comes to remind us not to be so certain of the rightness of our choices, the correctness of our actions, the surety of our service.

We are taught that there are 70 ways to understand the Torah/Bible, there are a myriad of opinions in the Talmud as to how to fulfill a mitzvah, how to serve God, how to serve our neighbors, which leads to the uncertainty of the above verse from Exodus. Most human beings live in fear of being wrong, of not getting an “A” in life, so we impose our will, our need for certainty, our defending ourselves and our actions to the death, all of which go against the principle of T’Shuvah, go against the value of asking for and granting forgiveness to one another, and which cause us confer “cruel and unusual punishment” on people we can control and upon ourselves. In our “need to be right”, we ignore the teaching and wisdom of both Exodus and Rabbi Isaac Meir of Ger, the Gerer Rebbe. Not knowing causes such consternation that we have made up “alternative facts” to prove our point, we have followed ‘false messiahs” to our ruin, we have succumbed to authoritarian governments and been authoritarian bosses, parents, etc. We make up stories that we are being this way “for their own good” so we can fulfill the need inside of us to be certain, to put on the armor of power in order to not face our own fallibility, our own fear of uncertainty, our hiding.

Living in this moment, not being imprisoned by our past, learning from our past and from history, knowing we are doing the best we can right now are hallmarks of our recovery. Being in recovery is, to me, what all spiritual disciplines, all faiths come to help us with, mandate us to engage in. Religion and spirituality go hand in hand, as I understand Rabbi Heschel, the Gerer Rebbe, the different codified texts of both Eastern philosophies and Western Faith traditions. They all are written with eternal truths and wisdom, with terse language that is open to interpretation, and a myriad of stories that lend themselves to engaging our souls to be present, to live in the uncertainty of this moment and to learn/relearn how to live into “we do not know”. Every person needs to engage in T’Shuvah, inventory, amends, learning from our past, learning the lessons our personal and human history give us. This month of Elul and this Shabbat we celebrate the Jewish New Year are the Jewish tradition’s of acknowledging the “we do not know with what we must serve”, leading us to Yom Kippur where we will renew our relationship with God, we will ask for forgiveness for our “missing the mark” with God, with ourselves.

I have given the impression of ‘knowing what I am doing’ while acknowledging my uncertainty. The way I have answered people when they asked me: “what if this doesn’t work” is to say it all works because we will learn what we need to do to tweak our responses, tweak our ways of doing things. Yet, I did not always follow my own wisdom, I did not always acknowledge my own “we do not know”. In reflection, I recognize the way my being ‘a bull in a china shop’ harmed people, harmed my mission, harmed me. For this, I am deeply remorseful. I also know that this way of being in the work, being aware of where and when I missed the mark and hit the mark, allowed me and those around me to pivot when needed, to refine how to serve, when to serve, where to serve, whom to serve. “We do not know” keeps me humble and open to learning! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark