Have you forgotten or never knew the "fundamental, yet forgotten question, "what does God require of" you? Year 4 Day 2

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 2

“The Bible is an answer to the question, What does God require of man? But to modern man, this question is suppressed by another one, namely, What does man demand of God? Modern man continues to ponder: What will I get out of life? What escapes his attention is the fundamental, yet forgotten question, What will life get out of me?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 4-5)

In the 68 years since these words were written, in the almost 52 years since Rabbi Heschel’s death, rather than learn and use his wisdom, rather than ask ourselves the “fundamental, yet forgotten question(s), we have ignored him, the questions and engaged in narcissistic, self-centered quests for power, wealth and ‘getting ours’. It is more than sad, it is a sacrilege, it is one promoted by Clergy and laypeople alike, it is one that is taking us down the path to self-destruction through Sinat Hinam, senseless hatred of one another, the purported cause of the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70AD.

Notice that Rabbi Heschel is not saying the Bible, here he speaking about the Hebrew Bible, the ‘old testament’ to some, is the answer, just that it is “an answer”, there is nothing xenophobic about Rabbi Heschel’s writing above, he is speaking to all of us, find the texts that are “an answer to the question, What does God require of man” in you own spiritual discipline, but please find it! Rabbi Heschel’s use of “modern man” is not a pejorative, as I hear him today; he is not saying humanity was so much better before. I believe he is speaking to us, here and now, to the ways we have become ensconced in our journey away from this question, the ways technology, in 1958, was changing things, how quickly people forgot what happened when Hitler was in power and how McCarthy, the Blacklist, the murdering of Ethel Rosenberg, the treatment of Black people, etc. Hearing him call out to us and seeing how far down this self-centered road, how much time people spend trying to be social media stars, influencers, celebrities for doing nothing, hopefully, makes these words reverberate within us and move us to ask the “right questions”.

In the larger world, we see ‘leaders’ like Franklin Graham support people who only ask “what will I get out of life” who could care less about “what does God require of man” and only decide that they can “demand of God” whatever they want, use God’s name to support their hatred, their greed, their inhumanity towards humanity!! We see that a liar, grifter, convicted felon named Donald Trump is rewarded and admired for gaming the system, for going against the Constitution, for laughing at the principles of the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, and those ‘good christian folk’ in the Congress and the Supreme Court say: “yes master, yes anointed one,” and they bend their knees and kiss the ring-not of God, not at the throne of Heaven but at the throne of Trump, at the altars of mendacity, coveting, whoring themselves for power, stealing from the poor to enrich themselves and their benefactors, murdering the soul and spirit of people, of democracy. This is not “what God requires of man”, this is not the response God is looking for when asking the question: “what will life get out of me”. Yet, these “evangelicals”, these “Torah-living” Jews, and so many others shout the praises of the Mendacious One in Chief and watching these supposed ‘faithful’ bow down to a liar and cheat, a person who was corrupt and now has taken his corruption to the Nth degree because of the power he wields, is disgusting. It is, in my opinion, why people walk away from religion, why religion has such a bad name and taste in people’s mouth-the people in charge, the clergy and the boards of directors are charlatans.

No matter how much they say they are on the ‘right side’ of an issue-this is for both the ‘conservatives’  and the ‘progressives’-when push comes to shove, many of these people give into asking “what will I get out of” this decision, this experience, this moment. When we are willing to install election deniers to head the departments of Justice, Defense, Treasury, the FBI and say this is what the people want, we are well down the slippery slope to authoritarianism, we are heading into a world where God is no longer in charge, Trump and his gang of thugs are. We are on the roller coaster ride where Musk, an unelected person, will be controlling the Republican Party along with Trump for his own good, for his own greed-after all being the richest man in the world, having a net worth of over $400 Billion is never going to be enough and ‘god’ wants them to have more and more while the poor, the needy, the stranger suffer!! They must have some version of the New Testament to validate this, just like the Jews who called for the assassination of Yitzchok Rabin, who call for the annihilation of the Palestinians, who think they should rule over Gaza and the West Bank, who support and praise Donald Trump’s love of hatred,  have some version of the Bible that eludes me and most people. The one we have says “Love your Neighbor as yourself”, “Proclaim Freedom throughout the Land and to all its inhabitants therein”, “remember you were strangers in the Land of Egypt”, etc and teaches us the dangers of political power that is absolute, teaches us in black and white, in white and black the travails and errors of Kings Saul, David, Solomon, etc as well as the great things they did. In the Bible, there is no whitewashing, clean ups of the errors of human beings, rather the Bible tells us about us in all our glory and in all of our ugly!

It is time for all of us to Stand the Fuck Up and Shout NO to these people who want it only for themselves, who are refusing to ask themselves and all of us the real question that the Bible is an answer for, the authentic question that Jesus preached about, the deep question that moved Mohammed to found Islam. It is time for all of us to have the “dark night of the soul” that Jacob had when he had to confront his crimes against his brother. While Jacob could not take in the totality that moment, that experience could teach him, we can! I will write more on this tomorrow because this question has haunted me since Rabbi Silverman first presented it to me in Prison in 1987. I keep asking myself “what is life getting out of me” today, yesterday, etc and doing this inventory the first time made me cry and tremble, doing it today makes me cry and tremble because I see the nuances of life that I miss an opportunity to impact, I see the barriers I put up and the ones another(s) have put up to keep me out of the fray, thereby limiting my usefulness and I have let God down and myself down. It is hard to have these questions be the guiding light of my existence and using this lamp helps me help another and heal my errors. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Recovering the Questions we need to live well - Year 4 Day 1

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 1

“The most serious obstacle which modern men encounter in entering a discussion about the ideas of the Bible, is the absence from man’s consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers. This, indeed, is the status of the Bible in modern society: it is a sublime answer, but we no longer know the question to which it responds. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.4)

Here we are, 66 years after these words were written and delivered and we still face this “most serious obstacle” and what is worse, in my opinion, is that we have so many people who are only interested in what serves them, how to use the Bible to their advantage, rather than filling the void in our “consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers”. We are farther and farther away from Rabbi Heschel’s warnings above and throughout his writings, we keep getting farther and farther away from the “problems to which the Bible refers” because we seem to be unable to relate the wisdom, the pain, the joy, the struggles, the spiritual awakenings and the thickheadedness of the Bible to our own lives. It seems as if “that old time religion” that is sung about has lost its meaning, its purpose, and its shine because it is not dealing with the problems of today nor did it deal with the issues of humanity “in the good old days”.

Hawking the “USA TRUMP BIBLE” doesn’t address “the problems to which the Bible refers”, calling Trump ‘the anointed one’, giving his the status of a descendant of King David by doing this, is not going to whitewash the ethical, moral, spiritual flaws, missing the marks, and sins of the man. Selling the big and little lies of autocrats, setting up a kleptocracy, bending the knee and kissing the ring of the Grifter-In-Chief, will not bring us closer to filling the void in our “consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers.” I am positing that the very issues we face in our society today from the need of business to provide for its shareholders and not its customers, the need to deny, defend, depose by not only health insurance companies but by everyone who is called out for their crimes against the spirit of the law, the letter of the law and their inhumanity towards their fellow humans like racism, anti-semitism, hating the stranger, etc.

What happened, one might ask, how did this absence occur? The answer is a simple one, once the ‘people in the know’, once the ruling class got tired of hearing the words of the prophets because they did not want to change their ways and did not want to surrender to the wisdom and “sublime answer” of the Bible, the absence began followed by the need to spin the meaning, the words, the lessons, the warnings and the questions the Bible gives us and responds to. When one is not willing to change, one doesn’t want to hear about what they are doing wrong, what they need to do better at, what they need to change. Hence, a cottage industry has grown up around going back to “that old time religion”, back to the “good old days”, back to “Make America Great Again” times of slavery, of the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire era, back the union-busting days of Ford Motor Company, back to the days of “America First”, etc. “The absence from man’s consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers” is so great and dangerous, the idolators and charlatans at the core of these old/new ways have conned the very people they disdain, the people they are going to ruin and take unfair advantage of to vote for them and their sycophants while they steal their homes, their livelihoods, their meaning and purpose!

We, the People must change “the status of the Bible in modern society”! We are being given the opportunity, the task, the demand is upon us to “recover the questions” for which the Bible is the answer. We, the People are being presented with the joy of and the gift to bring to the world what the Bible stands for: Righteous Justice without taking bribes of any kind; Truth in all our affairs and the willingness to keep learning more and more, circumcising the foreskins of our hearts; Kindness and mercy towards all including ourselves, knowing we are imperfect and our goal is to grow one grain of sand better each day; Love our neighbor, ourselves, God, and the stranger, poor, widow, orphan, and needy as the Passover Haggadah tells us to; remembering the words of Rabbi Hillel, “in a place where there is no humanity, be human”! Because the Bible has these and more as responses, because the Bible helps us to stop committing adultery by worshiping the idols of the rich, powerful, like Trump, Bibi, Orban, Putin, MBS, etc; because the Bible helps us learn to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, because the Bible teaches to “righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue”, because the Bible reminds us to rebuke our neighbor when they are doing something wrong so we don’t bear any guilt by staying silent, because the Bible tells us to not run after the majority to do evil, We the People have to recover both the questions and the responses the Bible gives us. Unless and until we do, we are not engaging in the authentic work we are created for and we will always feel the nagging of not being right-sized nor in the right place, we will be constantly trying to fit in rather than belong.

Yesterday I celebrated 36 years of continuous recovery from alcohol and crime, double Chai-2 x life. I have had two lives, one as a son of Jerry Borovitz, z”l, learning the lessons of the Bible, learning the questions that the Bible has the responses to, then a break after Jerry died and a return to the earlier ways that Jerry, Abe, Harry, taught me. Of the two lives, I find this one, filling the “absence from my consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers” more fun, more fulfilling and richer than the other way. I know these guys who are grabbing power in all the ways the Constitution gave us the power to stop, they are liars and grifters-better ones than I was evidently-and they have no interest in finding the “sublime answer” nor “the questions to which it responds”. I am not one who “fits in”, I am not good at playing the ‘politics’ of a situation-, I am the guy who can’t control himself in the face of mendacity and bullshit, I am the guy who, in the woke climate, is considered a liability, no matter how much good I have done. I get it, I know it is a lonely existence at one level and I can attest to the warmth and belonging I experience knowing that: I am connected to the spirit of the universe, I am connected to the people whom I have helped and who have helped me, I am loved and loving, I am connected to so much greater things than just my selfishness and self-centered ways which, for the most part, I have left in my years of non-recovery, and much more. All because I listen each week, each day for the “sublime answer” to the questions that this experience is the answer for. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Using the "depths of reason" and wonder to reach "cognitive insight" into living better - Year 3 Day 366

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 366

“Religious thinking is an intellectual endeavor out of the depths of reason. It is a source of cognitive insight into the ultimate issues of human existence. Religion is more than a mood or a feeling. Judaism, for example, is a way of thinking and living.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 4)

Rabbi Heschel was a professor of Jewish Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary from 1946 till his death in 1972 which makes the first sentence very powerful as well as thought-provoking. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel remind us that we never have to give up our minds to engage in “religious thinking”, in fact, we have to go to “the depths of reason” to truly engage in it. WOW!

I have to be in two places at the same time, using the two faculties of reason and wonder to be in “radical amazement” in order to be both intellectual and mystical, to be both in and “out of the depths of reason.” Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that “religious thinking” does not mean ‘follow me and all your troubles will be gone”, it does not mean “only I can fix it for you”, it doesn’t mean one can jettison the very principles and teachings of the ‘founder’ of the religion and still be engaged in “religious thinking”. It doesn’t mean that one abdicates one’s mind for some greater good. Rather I hear Rabbi Heschel calling out to us to be free! To use the freedom we were gifted at Mount Sinai and have fought for ever since to engage with the values and principles of higher consciousness, “of the depths of reason” so we can live better than we are, in order to keep pushing ourselves to greater “cognitive insights” and wrestle with “the ultimate issues of human existence”.

We hear so often that “we are not feeling it in services”, “I am not in the mood to pray”, and other such poppycock from young and old alike. What they are missing is that “religious thinking” is not to make us “feel better”, it is to challenge us, it’s goal and purpose is to make us better human beings and we will never get there as long as both clergy and congregant, leader and citizen, stranger and neighbor, listen to the bullshit that passes for “religious thinking” today! The clergy who anointed Trump the messiah are not engaged in “religious thinking”, they are not having “an intellectual endeavor out of the depths of reason”, they have no “cognitive insight” nor do they care about the “ultimate issues of human existence”. NO, they only care about their particular agendas which, unfortunately, have been about power, control and wealth since time immemorial, whether it as Greek, Roman Mythology, Judaism once the Kingship became totally corrupt, Catholicism after the Pope took over. The beauty of “religious thinking” the care, the concern, the motivation to do the next right action has been jettisoned by these scam artists called priests, ministers, imams and rabbis in favor of currying favor with idolators, with people who despise “religious thinking” and want to keep the masses “in the ether” until it is too late for them to realize how their pockets have been picked, how their freedoms have been lost and how their “intellectual endeavors” have been bastardized and turned against them. We have been here before and we will recover, we will progress and then the backlash will raise its ugly head until society accepts “religious thinking” as an essential skill and delving into the “cognitive insight  into the ultimate issues of human existence” is the purpose and meaning of living.

We, the People are in desperate need of these skills, we are in desperate need of letting go of our need to ‘feel it’ or ‘to be in the mood for it’ when it comes to “religious thinking”, when we are being called to be both in and “out of the depths of reason”. Only by going to “the depth of reason” can we leave the shores of reason and connect to the greater “cognitive insights” that “religious thinking” can bring us to. Only by being both in and out of the depths can we connect with truth, wisdom and understanding how to be in the solution for the “ultimate issues of human existence”. “Religious thinking” requires us to not abdicate our minds and intellects, according to Rabbi Heschel’s words above, it does not ask us to have our head in the clouds or in the sand. Rather, “religious thinking” demands we end our mendacious ways of practicing ‘being religious’, we stop allowing ‘those people’ to define what religion is, we take back the wisdom, the truth, the “cognitive insight” that “religious thinking” affords us. We fire the liars and the progressives, the ‘magicians’ and the conservatives and take back the beauty, the insights, the thinking that religion gifts us with.

We, the People have to end our separation of religious adherence and our everyday lives. As said above, “religion” is “a way of thinking and a way of living”. We cannot pray once a week, three times a day, five times a day, go to confession often and then treat the stranger like a criminal! We cannot have a “spiritual life” and support the taking away of freedoms because we like this or that political candidate, this or that brand of politics. We cannot have a religious or spiritual community that stays silent in the face of Adolf Hitler like we did in the 1930’s and 40’s, we cannot call ourselves “religious” or “spiritual” and support mass deportations, the perversion of justice, the ‘kissing the ring, bending the knee’ to some political con artist and say “Jesus told me”, “it says in the Bible”, “the Koran teaches me”. We, the People have to educate ourselves and our children in the beauty of “religious thinking”, in the experience of being both in and “out of the depths of reason and being able to hear the “cognitive insight” of  our soul and the exquisite experience of being connected to the ultimate source of the universe for a few seconds, maybe a couple of minutes. Prayer, meditation, study will help us get here as long as we are free from being “adjusted to the conventional notions and mental cliches of societal thinking.

I have decided to continue writing each day on Rabbi Heschel’s thinking. I believe with what is happening in the world, it is being of service to delve into his insights and thoughts to help us navigate today’ backlash to progress, the rise of authoritarians so We, the People are able to withstand the onslaught, meet it and defeat it with “religious thinking”, with actively using it as “a way of living”, and using both “reason” and wonder to connect to the our higher selves and ‘see’ the solution. This is the work I have engaged in since 1987, I am a work in progress and I don’t act ‘holier than thou’ like some of the people on the ends of the continuum seem to do. Both conservatives and progressives that I know spout wonderful words and their “way of living” is antithetical to any and all of the “religious thinking” they espouse. So Sad. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What societal ideals are you still chasing even though you know they are false? Year 3 Day 365

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 365

“We define self-reliance and call it faith, shrewdness and call it wisdom, anthropology and call it ethics, literature and call it Bible, inner security and call it religion, conscience and call it God. However, nothing counterfeit can endure forever.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 3)

I wrote on the first two couplets yesterday and today I want to finish this crucial idea. “Anthropology” is “the study of human societies and cultures and their development” according to the Oxford online Dictionary. This is not the same as ethics, yet we give such enormous weight to the “societal norm”, we have put so much faith human development and our ‘humanistic’ values that we believe they are ethical, after all, as Richard Nixon said and Donald Trump has proven, “if the President does it, by definition it is legal.” In ethical living, one doesn’t worry about the society, one worries about what is the next right thing to do, one is concerned with being right-sized, serving something greater than oneself, not going along to get along, and no longer serving the “status quo”. In living an ethical life, one is no longer concerned with anthropology, because the society, the group, the culture has said it is okay to hate Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, Blacks, etc. It is very sad that we have grown in our anthropologic ways and not our ethical ways! Goebbels has had more of an influence than Ghandi, than Jesus, than Moses as evidenced by Trump, Musk and the parade of billionaires who are coming to them to ‘kiss the ring’.

As a teen-ager until my mid 30’s, “inner security” was the holy grail of psychology and, for many, spirituality and, in my years as a Rabbi, I have been asked more times than I can count for guidance on how to achieve this “inner security”. What the psychologists lied to us about, what the false prophets and false gurus sell to people is bullshit! One can never achieve “inner security” because life is always on the move, things are always changing and we can never be sure and secure that this action in this moment will be the best for us in the long run. We can be assured that we are doing the best we can in this moment and never secure, never sure because there is no certainty except that change is the constant. “Religion” is the very opposite of “inner security” because, as Rabbi Heschel says over and over, “religion” is a constant communication of demands upon us by the Ineffable One. We are constantly being called to serve and to constantly review and repair our errors, ‘religion” doesn’t belittle us because of our errors, it reminds us of our imperfections and humanity, it doesn’t promise us a rose garden, it gives us the tools and the path to tend God’s garden-the earth and one another.

While none of us can prove the existence of God, we also have to stop giving into the fallacy of our “conscience” being the same as God. While our “conscience” is a filter through which we hear God’s call, God’s demand, this hearing is specific for each individual and different for each of us, ergo-not the whole being, the entire entity that is God. In Judaism, we don’t know what God is, God is too large for our definitions and cannot be manipulated by our limiting definitions, so we ‘define’ God by what God isn’t.

The last sentence above is the one that we all need to immerse ourselves in.The Roman Empire did not last forever, the Greek Empire didn’t last forever, no civilization from antiquity that was built on falsehoods, on idolatry, on authoritarianism is with us today. The only one to survive intact is Judaism. It survived because there were leaders and prophets who brought the people back to “God”, back to “ethics”, back to “religion”, back to “faith” and back to the “Bible”. Each great civilization has fallen because they became so enamored with themselves that they became counterfeit, they discriminated against people, they made the ‘stranger’ unwelcome, they abused the poor and the needy, etc and they fell in battle, in economics; the people lost what little freedoms they had.

I read the last sentence above and I say “please God” because it will take an “act of God” to unmoor so many people from their “counterfeit” belief in a liar and a cheat, a grifter and an immoral leader, be it the one in Russia, in Hungary, in Saudi Arabia, in Turkey, in Israel, in the United States, wherever in the world the people buy into the lies of the leader, they believe them because these charlatans have used religious idolators to buffer their claims of being ‘anointed by Jesus’, ‘only they can fix it’ ‘lets rebuild the 3rd Temple, hate ‘those people’ make America great again’, etc. I believe what is counterfeit cannot last forever-the 100 years Reich lasted about 12 after all. It is imperative, however, for all of us who “know”, all of us who are unwilling to live “counterfeit” lives to stand up and say NO to the liars, say BULLSHIT to the grifters, call the ‘religious’ phonies IDOLATORS, and help people see truth once again. Rabbi Heschel’s demand, as I hear him loud and clear this morning is to live as “descendants of the prophets”, to “speak truth to power”, to respond to the demands of the moment, to live the most spoken commandment in the Bible-“love and care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, and the orphan because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. Rabbi Heschel’s voice is ringing in my ears, and I pray in yours, to remember how we were treated as slaves in Egypt and we brought out to be free. I hear the words of Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. None of us are exempt from this demand, command. None of us get to sit on the sidelines while the idolators, the grifters, the liars spread their poison and enslave so many. None of us get to fiddle while the world, while freedom burns, as the world did in the 1930’s with Nazi Germany.

I know the truth of the last sentence viscerally. I lived a “counterfeit” life prior to my recovery, I know the pain and the anguish it brought to the people around me, to myself as well. I know that it took an ecstatic event to wake me up and, thank God, once awoken I have not turned back to the lies I lived into while asleep. I lived a willful blindness because I knew better and made so many substitutions for truth that I cannot tolerate any bullshit now. I am unwilling to be politically correct and nice when I hear the words of lies and mendacity, of deception and self-deception from another person and from myself. I have many compatriots who are not as blunt, who couch a rebuke in better terms and I admire them-it just isn’t me. I am not perfect and not always correct, yet about 80-90% of the time my inner lie detector proves true and I have to say something because I cannot allow “counterfeit” ways to survive, I can’t be a party to lies. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What misplacements do you make to soothe yourself when you are doing the next wrong thing? Year 3 Day 364

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 364

“There is no substitute for faith, no alternatives for revelation, no surrogate for commitment…We are guilty of committing the fallacy of misplacement. We define self-reliance and call it faith, shrewdness and call it wisdom, anthropology and call it ethics, literature and call it Bible, inner security and call it religion, conscience and call it God. However, nothing counterfeit can ensure forever.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 3)

This paragraph follows the one I wrote on parts of on Friday. After calling it like it is about the institutionalization of religion, Rabbi Heschel calls out these “institutions” and all of the charlatans around in 1958, and we didn’t heed his call then and we are suffering the consequences of these charlatans and idolators, this “misplacement” makers today on steroids.

We are witnesses to and, in some cases, participants in “misplacement”. We keep hearing of and buying into the “alternative facts” theories and lies, we keep being told about the “revelations” of the ‘holy christian nationalists’ who tell us they want to take us back to a place of ‘godliness’, whose only “commitment” is to themselves and their almighty power and wealth. We are watching millions of people being led down the primrose path of lies and deceits who have substituted faith in a leader for faith in God, who are believing in the “revelation” of the ‘new messiah’, who have made autocrats the “surrogate” for God and their “commitment” to them is ironclad. We are in trouble and most people are willfully blind to the trouble we are in and will be in as we move backwards to the ways of discrimination, slavery, and robber barons.

“We are guilty of committing the fallacy of misplacement” causes me to experience “trembling awe”. I am trembling because I have to look at my life and see where I have committed this “fallacy” and when I have gone along with another who has, is, will commit this “fallacy”. We, the People have to look at ourselves individually, as a community, as a faith, as a country and be responsible for “committing the fallacy of misplacement”. We see this “fallacy” happening in our courts, all the way from the local courts to the Supreme Court who are being political and calling it ‘strict constitutionalists’. We see this “fallacy” happening in our Congress with Republican lawmakers favoring the wealthy, desiring to cut the programs that help the poor, the sick, what they call “entitlements” and calling it populism. We see this “fallacy” happening  with the ‘christian nationalists’ who do everything that Christ was against and calling it ‘christian’. Writing this, I wonder if we will ever learn, if we will ever rise above our baser desires and live into the spiritual heritage that has been passed down and within us for the millennia.

“Change is the only constant” is attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and nowhere is this more evident than in the Hebrew Bible, yet the ‘powers that be’ don’t want change unless they can control it and manage it-which is the opposite of the essence of this wisdom. Change happens and the more we try and control it, the more we find ourselves in the predicaments mentioned above. Self-reliance is not faith, it is the antithesis of faith. Faith entails a knowing that there is more than me in the world, there is more out of my control than in it, that I/we will be able to respond to the reality of any and all situations with wisdom and sustainability, among other things. Yet, people are under the illusion that the ‘self-made’ man who is a ‘strongman’ and “self-reliant” will have the power to bend change to his will and thereby help us. WRONG-this liar in chief that is about to become the President, who is the head of governments in Hungary, Russia, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, etc will only bend the laws and ways to their benefit and the benefit of their cronies while claiming complete immunity from the laws of humanity and the laws of God. Witnessing people’s faith in the “self-reliance” of the mendacious ones is sad, it is cruel and it is punishing.

Believing the lie that we can experience “shrewdness and call it wisdom” has been with us for so long and the Bible, etc are the antidotes to this particular lie as well. While very few like the phrase “eternal truth, eternal wisdom” this is exactly what the Bible is-which is why so many clergy over the 3000+ years of its existence have tried to shape it and bend it to their will, to fit their narratives, to defend their sins, their bastardizations of it’s laws and ways. We have seen so often the destruction and ruin that this belief causes and we continue to return to this same “fallacy of misplacement” without any recognition of where we will end up. This is a prime example of Einstein’s saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results”.

It is time for We, the People to say NO to these two misplacements, NO to the “substitutes for faith” we have bought into, NO to the “alternatives to revelation” we have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, NO to the “surrogates for commitment” that we have chosen instead of choosing God, Higher Consciousness, and we have to do it NOW. We all need to examine ourselves and root out the deceptions of self and the deceptions by another as well as the deceptions we are promoting in order to be able to save ourselves, to change the ruinous and destructive path we are heading down. We can do this by immersing ourselves in our Holy Texts, not the unholy ones being printed in China that says “God Bless the USA” on it and the profits are going to Trump.

I am yelling, I am screaming, I am uncontrollable about mendacity and lies because I know what it is to decimate people with them, because I lived 20+ years as a liar and a fraud; showing people what they wanted to see and not who I was nor what I truly wanted-their money and my sense of power. I believed in “self-reliance” because I couldn’t trust that people would stick around, having lost my father at 14 to another heart attack, so I could only count on me as no one else understood me-or so I believed. People tried- I couldn’t hear so I went with the societal norm of “self-reliance” and believed “shrewdness” was “wisdom” because I saw how the rich were worshiped and cowed to. In my recovery I am deeply sensitive the lies I tell myself and the lies I hear, the subtle meanings of people who are ‘the best’, ‘the kindest’, ‘the most spiritual’, ‘the wisest and most caring’ for those ‘poor downtrodden people’ who are actually just putting on an act and I call it out and experience the consequences for calling it out, which hurts and is a better hurt than staying quiet. I wrestle with the lies I tell myself and the things I am oblivious to daily and I pray more people will “do T’Shuvah every day” to find their ways of doing the same. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Is your Spiritual Life helping you get into "good trouble"? Year 3 Day 363

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 363

“Little does contemporary religion ask of man. It is ready to offer comfort; it has no courage to challenge.It is ready to offer edification; it has no courage to break the idols, to shatter callousness. The trouble is that religion has become “religion”-institution, dogma, ritual. It is no longer an event. Its acceptance involves neither risk nor strain.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 3)

I am into the last days of Year 3 of “Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel- I will be switching to the writings of Pirke Avot, Chapters of our Ancestors on Dec. 17.

It is hard to conceptualize that the words above were written and delivered in 1958, 76 years ago Rabbi Heschel saw what was happening and, OY, how it has gotten worse. “Come to me and Jesus/God/Allah/the Law will solve all of your problems” is an oft heard phrase. “Just pray harder, do better, and everything will work out as God has planned”, “What have you done to make God not love you” and other such bullshit is spewed about in Churches, Mosques, Synagogues, and it is disgusting, idolatrous, mendacious, and wrong. The “challenges” of “religion” today are about towing the party line, voting the ‘right’ way, hating those with whom we disagree, seeing anyone who is not like us as an enemy who has to be defeated, either vanquished or enslaved. These are not the “challenges” Rabbi Heschel deems to be the essence of “religion”, these are the ones that humans have bastardized for their own power. Just as the Rabbis were afraid of the prophets, afraid the people would actually imbue, embrace, and emulate the words and deeds of the prophets and get Rome upset, today’s religious leaders are afraid of the government, their Boards of Directors, their flock.

Instead of the “courage to break the idols”, today’s “religion” is in the idol manufacturing business. When we make our spiritual leaders into gurus, when we hold up political candidates as the one to vote for, when we speak politically rather than spiritually, when our political choices have to be in line with what the ‘religion’ wants rather than what God wants, rather than what the Bible teaches and preaches, rather than what Jesus spoke about, rather than helping the poor and the needy, welcoming and loving the stranger and our neighbor, it is all BULLSHIT- hence one of the reasons people are staying home rather than tend to their spiritual needs, hence one of the reasons people are going to therapists, to psychedelics for their spiritual problems and not going to their clergy. It is time for We, the People to demand our clergy tend to their own spiritual crisis’ and then help us with ours, it is time for us to demand of our seminaries that the people they ordain have a strong spiritual core and practice-“institution, dogma, ritual” are not enough because they do not lead us to “shatter callousness” as we witness in the history of the Church, in what is going on in the Churches, Temples, Mosques today, what is happening in countries across the globe who claim to be ‘guided by their “religion”, when in fact they are guided by their greed, their need for power, their desire to have dominion over everyone else, - in other words to practice more “callousness” in the name of God not shatter their own.

We are at a point in our existence as a nation, once again, where we have a battle to wage because “we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and dedicated can long endure”. These words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg ring in my ears and I am calling to account the Religious Leaders of all faiths to uphold what “religion” is: a revolution, a “breaking away”, an answer to the call/demand that each of us has within us, and so much more. We have to demand that our “institutions” stop trying to serve the egos and needs of the Board Members and they return/begin to serve the spiritual, moral, and physical needs of the people and return to a loyalty and practice of what our Bible teaches us-whether it is the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc- it is time for We, the People to demand our our Boards of Directors transparency, truth, compassion rather than hiding, ‘half-truths’, and callousness. The bottom line is not the profit/loss statement, yes it is important, the bottom line is the concern, care, compassion, the breaking of idols, the shattering of callousness, etc.

Rabbi Heschel is speaking directly to all of us, challenging all of us to engage in our “religion” in a serious manner, to immerse ourselves in the Books of the Bible so we can stop repeating the errors of our ancestors, including the Rabbis who try to make our heroes perfect rather than human. When our heroes, gurus, are perfect and we know we can’t be nor are it is easy to pray to them for compassion and forgiveness while not taking the steps necessary to improve, to do what they do, to not do what they don’t and to discern their errors so we don’t repeat them. We, the People have to return to the “risk and strain” that “religion” puts upon us. We have to risk the ridicule of so many when we demand to live the words of the prophets, when we point to the actions we are engaging in are reflective of the actions of previous eras that led to ruin, we have to stop trying to “make America great again” and instead make ourselves one grain of sand better today than yesterday. This is the “challenge” of “religion”, this is the pathway to “break the idols, to shatter callousness”, this is how we connect with another soul and see them as fellow travelers on the journey, rather than enemies we have to eradicate. It is the pathway for the law to enhance life, to live into “justice justice, righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue”, knowing we will never get it completely ‘right’ and we are on the path. These are some of the ways to return “religion” to its rightful and necessary place in our lives and the life of the world.

I believe these words, I smash idols when and where I see them, I am blunt and not political in my ways-more like a bull in a china shop. After being mendacious and a deceiver prior to my recovery, I have a bullshit detector that is around 80+% correct and when I detect it and my warnings are ignored and I see the danger, the disrespect, I am uncontrollable and this gets me a bad reputation, it gets me into ‘trouble’. Yet, it is “good trouble” to me by virtue of fulfilling the commandments to “rebuke your neighbor and don’t bear guilt because of him” and “don’t stand idly by the blood of your neighbors”. It is lonely and it is worth it. I beg of all of you to make your clergy and yourself responsible for “good trouble” in these times of religious mendacity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you rejecting what "Religion" is supposed to be or 'religion' as charlatans practice it? Year 3 Day 362

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 362

“Religion begins as a breaking off, as a going away. It continues in acts of nonconformity to idolatry.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 67)

Rabbi Heschel in the paragraph preceding these sentences speaks of Abraham’s being told to leave Haran, , his familiar surroundings, even his father’s house, and take with him his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the souls they had ‘made’ in Haran, “to a land I will show you”. He goes on to say: “This is how the religion of Abraham begins.” Reading these sentences gives me the shudders, it gives me trembling awe, a sense of hope and a questioning of how often we all forget what “religion” is and how badly it has been bastardized.

What passes for ‘religion’ today is “a breaking off, a going away” from the basic tenets we find in the Bible, in the New Testament, in the Koran which may explain why so many people no longer want to identify with any religion! We are witnesses and, in many cases, perpetrators of making “religion” into idolatry! Instead of “nonconformity to idolatry”, “religion” has made itself into idolatry and clergy have become the idol makers, much like Abraham’s father-according to the Midrash about him. The clergy who extol people who want to unwelcome the stranger, who want to strip citizenship from naturalized citizens, who want to subject any people to be 2nd class citizens/people, are idolators and idol makers. They have lost their calling and their compass. While Hebrew National products claim they “answer to a higher authority”, these clergy, of all faiths, who engage in being idol/king makers are answering to their lower authority, to their self-interest and power-hungry selves. The exact opposite of Rabbi Heschel’s definition of “religion’!

Christ taught about being humble and generous, not hoarding wealth or tooting one’s own horn, treating others, even enemies, with kindness and refusing to engage in conflict with others. When we look at the riches of the Catholic Church, which could feed the entire world on what it has in its vaults, when we hear and watch the evangelical preachers like Joel Osteen speak about wealth being so good, when we watch the kissing up of Jews to those who have wealth and power, we are seeing, hearing and watching the exact opposite of what “religion” is, as Rabbi Heschel’s words define it. Yet, people are like animals lapping up the lies and the bastardization of Christ’s words and teachings, Moses’ words and teachings, Mohammed’s words and teaching because we have raised people to be ignorant of the real teachings, unaware of how to immerse themselves in the texts of these great people and see how books of the Bible are relevant to our way of being in this moment, like the Book of Samuel on power, politics and corruption by both Saul and David. Yet, these False Prophets who call themselves ‘keepers of the faith’ extol the arrogance of David, the duplicity of both Saul and David, the lies that keep them in power and promote hatred against their ‘enemies’ who are anyone that challenges them with truth, faith, spiritual audacity. When will we end our “breaking off, going away” from what true “religion” is?

We cannot return to “religion” as long as we refuse to engage “in acts of nonconformity to idolatry”. We have become so accustomed to conformity that we are afraid, we ostracize, we decry, we deny, anyone who goes against conforming to ‘proper societal conduct’ be it in business, religious, sexual, governing realms. If we want to run a business with the consumer being more important than the shareholders, we will soon be out of a job. If we call out people for spouting beautiful Bible quotes and not living them, we will no longer be the spiritual leader of that community and get a reputation of someone that ‘no one can work with’. If people are in same-sex relationships, the ‘religious zealots’, who are actually bigots, want to imprison, deny and make illegal these relationships-although we are supposed to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves”. If someone wants government to be “of the people, by the people and for the people”, they are called subversive, they are called UnAmerican because we know America was founded by rich, religious people who wanted it to be a ‘christian nation’, although there is no basis for this lie, our current elected officials in office and about to take office spout this bullshit all the time. They want everyone to bow down to their Idols, assisted by some Clergy of all faiths they want conformity to idolatry and this is what they call “religion”!

We the People have to stand up! We are being called to end our own conformity to idolatry through our inaction all this time to the idolatry that has been taught for a long time. We have not arrived at the ‘christian nationalism’ of Project 2025 or the insanity of Ben G’vir, Smotrich, and Netanyahu overnight, these ways of being; their idolatry and those who worship them and their idols; have been brewing and incubating for a long time, they have worked the long con, they are grifters par excellence and using what they call ‘religion’ as cover has been successful and brilliant. Hence, We the People must take a stand against them and every form of “idolatry”. We, the People have to examine ourselves for any “idolatry” that we are engaged in, we have to call out the people around us who are practicing conformity to “idolatry”, we have to hold our Rabbis and Priests, Ministers and Imams accountable for their promotion of idolatry and we have to hold business leaders, government officials, and the Boards of our Institutions-academic, religious, non-profit- accountable for their need to be right, their need to be smarter than “religion” and their need to be worshipped by the people they are supposed to be serving. It is time for We, the People, to return to “nonconformity to idolatry” once and for all.

I am a believer and practitioner of “religion” as Rabbi Heschel defines it. I read these words with trembling awe. I tremble for the times I engaged in conformity to idolatry by not hearing the call of another, by being too stubborn to learn, consider a different way. For the times when I did not listen to the call of my soul and instead went along with what was expedient, which never worked out well for me and those around me. I am in awe of the multitude of experiences of “nonconformity to idolatry” that I engaged in with my people, my teachers, lighting this path for me. I find comfort in this “nonconformity” while also experiencing being on the outside, being a little lonely while never alone. As one who knows the cost of conformity on my soul, being on the outside and a little lonely at times, is worth the price of being at home and at one with my “nonconformity to idolatry”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you using Faith to have rule and dominion over another person or to satisfy a human need? Year 3 Day 361

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 361

“The purpose of faith is not to satisfy curiosity or to fulfill a human need, but to confront man with a sublime challenge, to satisfy a divine need.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 67)

“The purpose of faith” is delineated here in a way that seems totally out of step with most people’s understanding of it today, and probably for most of our existence. People use faith as a way of fulfilling the “human need” to understand something, to accept something as “God’s Will” and as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning I have become aware of my revulsion to this phrase. Most people use their ‘faith’ as a salve, as a comfort rather than as “a sublime challenge”. “Faith”, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel today, is defining it as the pathway to the test of our excellence, our ability to excel past our selfish desires and power grabs “to satisfy a divine need.”

When we look at our predicament today where people put party over the constitution, allegiance to people rather than standing firm in principles, when autocrats sound like ‘populists’ to the very people they have taken advantage of for years, and the Church and Clergy praise this type of living, the following of these undivine needs, we are truly in for a wild ride where the autocrat and his/her collaborators in the Churches, in the Temples, in the Mosques, along with their sycophants will support and fulfill the needs of the autocrat rather than the “divine need” that is “the purpose of faith”. This is the greatest challenge for humanity-end our incessant need to only fulfill the selfish ‘needs’ of the rich and powerful, the kings and queens, the leaders of governments, etc and begin again, begin anew “to satisfy a divine need.”

Think about all the times we have heard “it is God’s will, Inshallah, B’ezrat HaShem” and other such lines from the ‘religious’ of different faiths, rather than asking themselves: “how can I “satisfy a divine need?”, “how do I allow myself to be confronted “with a sublime challenge?” These questions fall by the wayside when I want to control people rather than help them find the “divine need” they were created to satisfy. When we hear that people who are rich are more loved by God than those who are poor- we should stand up and scream IDOLATOR to those mendacious autocrats. In the Bible, according to some commentaries on the flood-it was caused by the inability of “men of renown” to treat the poor well, to not rape the women, etc. 36 times in the first 5 Books of the Bible we are told to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow and the orphan, we are warned against false prophets, anyone who becomes King has to follow certain rules, etc. This is not the way of some of today’s clergy who see themselves as the true inheritors of Biblical traditions, who believe they can ignore the Books of the Bible like Samuel I &II, the different books of the Prophets, the stories of the destruction of the Temple, the rebuilding of the Temple and the subsequent destruction because of our actions, because we tried to use “faith..to fulfill a human need” rather than “to confront man with a sublime challenge, to satisfy a divine need.” As Pete Seeger wrote and sang: “When will they ever learn?”

We have to end our reliance on “God’s will” etc, we have to begin to hold our clergy, our religious institutions and ourselves accountable to fulfill “the purpose of faith” as Rabbi Heschel is defining it above. Beginning with the call of the Bible to “love your neighbor as yourself”, to remember that everyone “is created in the Image of God” and we all have within us “the spirit of God breathed into our nostrils”. There is no better than/less than in the world of faith and spirit, there is only those who accept the “sublime challenge to satisfy a divine need” and those who don’t. Those who seek to hear the call of their souls and those who seek to satisfy their more negative, selfish urges to have power and dominion over people they are afraid of so they deem them inferior. Anti-semitism is a way of people using Jews as scapegoats and prosecuting us for the very crimes they commit, from antiquity forward. In the Middle Ages, since Jews could only be merchants and money-lenders, the Princes and Kings forced us to take the heat and hatred that their policies, which we were powerless to go against if we wanted to survive, caused. It is true today as it was then and the defiance of Bibi and his right-wing sycophants don’t help the cause of the Bible, “the purpose of faith” at all-in fact they detract from it just like the mendacious clergy in America who extol the life-threatening policies of Trump and his band of oligarchs.

We, the People have to stand defiant, we have to break off, go away from these liars and deceivers. It is up to us to stand up and let our voices be heard-not for a special interest group, not for just one people, rather for all people including those who are in charge, We, the People have to call out idolatry just as our ancestors, the prophets, did. We, the People, are needed to stand up for the divine needs each of us represent, respond to the call of the poor and the weak, give aid and comfort to the stranger and the needy, surround the widow and the orphan with love, financial support and good counsel in navigating life without their father/husband. We, the People have to once again accept and live into “the purpose of faith”. We, the People, have to rise above our  self-deceptions and selfish desires to “satisfy a divine need”.  Only you can answer this call that has reverberated in the souls of humanity and the universe since the beginning, only you can decide to serve something greater than yourself. This is the real “Will of God” as the Bible teaches us.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude for my father and grandfathers, grandmothers and mother, aunts and uncles, who showed me with their actions how to go beyond my desires and help another human being, how “to satisfy a divine need”, how to face a “sublime challenge”. Even while I was ‘out there’ doing crime, indulging in my alcoholism, I still did some good, I knew better even when I ‘couldn’t’ do better. In the past 37 years, I have shown up to “satisfy a divine need” and risen above selfishness and power most of the time. The “sublime challenge” that I face each and every day is how do I be in truth with myself, how do I surrender to and fulfill the desires/calls that God and humans ask me to? I wrestle with taking care of me and not only me, I seek to fulfill the words of Rabbi Hillel; being for myself and not only for me and doing it NOW, in each moment, in every day, in every year a little more and a little better. It isn’t a perfect science, nor is it a linear progression, and I see the progress, little by little, one grain of sand at a time. I am grateful to all my teachers who help me on the journey of growing my faith and my purpose. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Allowing Faith to lead us to an understanding of how to live well. Year 3 Day 360

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 360

“He who seeks God to suit his astuteness, to appease his vanity, to satisfy his curiosity, will find at the end a figment of his imagination. He who goes out to seek God on a bridge of abstract demonstrations will arrive at a castle in the air. Only a bridge made of life itself, of deeds of compassion, of instants of wonder, of moments of reverence will lead us to an understanding of what faith has to say.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 67)

All people of faith need to take this litmus test given by Rabbi Heschel in the words above. All people need to ask themselves these questions, respond to these demands regarding their allegiance to their flag, to their Declaration of Independence, to their constitution, be they live in the USA and/or anywhere. All leaders need to be held accountable to these standards and every clergy needs to measure their search for truth and decency, their loyalty to the covenant with their faith that they proclaimed on the day of their ordination.

One of the issues facing us today is “he who seeks God to suit his astuteness” because so many people are so certain of what God wants us to do; just ask Jerry Falwell Jr., Joel Osteen, the people from the Federalist Society, Project 2025, Orthodox Jews, Baptists Ministers, Radical Muslim Imams, etc. All of them trying to show how smart and erudite they are with their machinations and twisting of the words of the Bible, the meaning of how to live well and together so they have the power-much like Samuel who was so distraught that his sons, who were totally inappropriate as his surrogates, were not wanted by the people to lead them after Samuel, he did everything he could to screw up King Saul psychologically. His lies, like the lies of “he who seeks God to suit his astuteness” lead to the theocracy that will destroy countries, turn people away from faith and cause the ruin of democracy and freedom. Theocracies have never wanted to “Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev.25:10)

We see the people who “seek God to appease his vanity” in our elected officials, in some of our Clergy, in people who want to be, or are, autocrats. These people will hold photo ops with a Bible(sometimes upside down) to show their faux allegiance to God when really they believe they themselves are better than God, know more and are better suited for the job of God, King, ruler, than God! This is how vain we humans can get. Seeking God “appease his vanity” is the search for proof that one doesn’t really need God, that one is able to know what is best just because they are so smart, so intuitive, etc and one wants to satisfy one’s beliefs in their own greatness. This person also is always surprised that people don’t recognize their superior talents, brilliance, abilities, etc and they become autocrats because their ‘brilliance’, their “superior talents’, etc were not recognized so they are going to “show everyone” who is really in charge, and it ain’t God.

“A figment of our imagination”, “a castle in the air” is what passes for faith these days for many people. It is what religious instruction has become not because of religion, but because of who is teaching it, who is practicing it and who has become its spokespeople. We are in a crisis of faith that is of our own making. We have had the opportunity for 3500+ years to immerse ourselves in the Bible, to see ourselves in every chapter, to understand ourselves by understanding the archetypes found in the Bible, to find better ways to govern ourselves through justice, mercy, truth, kindness, righteousness, charity and T’Shuvah, using the stories of the Kings of Israel and the Prophets as our guides. Yet, we have not, we have not heard nor taken to heart Rabbi Heschel’s words above, we have not responded to his call for us to be different which is what God asks of us in the Bible. Jews are not chosen because we are so special, we are chosen to be different than the nations at the time, different than the pagan religions at the time and we are still chosen to be different now, which is what Rabbi Heschel is calling us to do by building a different bridge.

“Only a bridge made of life itself, of deeds of compassion, of instants of wonder, of moments of reverence will lead us to an understanding of what faith has to say.” We, the People are being called to build the one bridge that will bring us to wholeness, bring us to tolerance, bring us to be just, bring us to be merciful, bring us to admit our own errors, bring us to be kind. This is the bridge of “deeds of compassion”-being able to not hate your neighbor in your heart, to feel sad for how stuck someone is in their own self-deception while also helping them see the truth, supporting causes that promote health and are seeking cures for diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, Diabetes, Addiction,-knowing that there is a spiritual component to the healing process that we have to address as well. This is the bridge “of instants of wonder”- wow I woke up this morning, the sun rises in the East and isn’t sunrise more amazing than anything I can create? Seeing the newness of the texts we read, the prayers we pray, the air we breathe in, knowing that nothing is the same as yesterday because we are in wonder. This is the bridge “of reverence”, a bridge that takes us out of our negativity, out of our “vanity”, out of our “astuteness”, a bridge that grounds us in what truly is, not what we have bastardized and sullied. We get to be on the bridge that takes us, one step at a time, to standing in truth, in joy, in the fullness of being who we are created to be. This is how we are led “to an understanding of what faith has to say.” Only by being on the bridge, walking away from the bullshit and self-deception can we gain glimpses of this understanding.

I have been able to gain glimpses because of the study, inner work and acceptance of what is that I have learned, through very difficult lessons sometimes. The joy of being in faith because of wonder, awe, reverence, compassion, truth, justice, righteousness, kindness is like being able to traverse a very bumpy, uphill climb like runners do, like mountain climbers do. I am wrapped in the warm blanket of knowing and understanding that this is the call I have to respond to in this moment and rejoice in my portion. “Understanding of what faith has to say” is exhilarating, exhausting, liberating and puts fences around what I can and can’t do. I find new ways to live in the ways Rabbi Heschel is calling us to and I am once again in awe of the power of forgiveness, the power of kindness, the power of compassion for another who is stuck and can’t seem to hear the call for compassion, etc towards another(s), who seeks revenge rather than rapprochement. Faith call us to pray for them not hate them-this is the challenge for all of us. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you aware of whether your faith is in God or Idols? Year 3 Day 359

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 359

“Jewish faith, I repeat, is not a formula. It is an attitude, the joy of living a life in which God has a stake, or being involved with God. Such faith is neither an easy nor secure attachment. Nor is it an attitude acquired all at once or once and for all. It takes an instant to trust an idol; it takes ages to achieve attachment to Him. It requires effort, stirring, strain, preparation…Faith implies striving for faith. It is never an arrival; it is always being on the way, man’s effort to come out of his callousness.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 66)

Faith, as Rabbi Heschel speaks about it above, is neither blind nor “easy”. It is not to be thought of as a ‘one and done’ experience, it is a constant striving and wrestling within oneself and with the creative force of the universe. It not being “an easy nor secure attachment” gives people the ‘permission’ to abuse it, make fun of it, to commit horrible actions in the name of ‘their faith’, which is actually idolatry in disguise.

We are in the throes of another backlash against what Rabbi Heschel is speaking about above. In fact, he foresaw this situation some 62 years ago, he was able to see the seeds of ‘mis-faith’ being sown then and this speech to the Rabbinical Assembly back in 1962 was his attempt to stem the tide of his vision of what was happening: “it takes an instant to trust an idol”. The people proclaiming faith to ‘christian values’ to ‘jewish law’, to ‘sharia law’ so loudly may be the ones that have fallen into idolatry because their leaders are taking them there. The people who are waving the flag of ‘Christian nationalism’ the strongest, speaking of the need for America to be a ‘christian nation’ are not engaged in faith as Rabbi Heschel is describing it; and while he has defined this as “Jewish faith”, we are well aware of his embracing of other faiths as valid and his friends numbered many Christian, Catholic and Muslim clergy and people.

How do we cultivate “the joy of living a life in which God as a stake, or being involved with God”? We have to first see the true nature of our self-we have to take a dive into our inner life, we have to leave the conscious, rational, defensive thought patterns of our minds and the irrational defense and victim mechanisms of our emotions and allow the “still small voice” inside of every human being speak and be heard. We get to acknowledge the good and not good, we get to learn from our past and our intuition. We get to strengthen our connection to truth and to the world outside of our selfishness and narcissism. It is a daily practice to ‘keep’ it and grow it. It is not automatic nor is it rote.

Faith, as described above, “requires effort, stirring, strain, preparation.” This is what most people miss-they believe they don’t have to work at it, they think they are protected by it, they are sure everything they do and/or their fellow cohorts do must be good and right because they are people of ‘such great faith’ and don’t have to question themselves because if they are doing it, it must be right and good in the eyes of their ‘god’-which in actuality is their “trust an idol” mentality, self-deception, mendacity sold to them by their ‘church’. “Faith” is sold as an easy thing, a “one and done” experience that stays with one forever and Rabbi Heschel is calling out these lies and demanding that we end our fascination with “easy” and get into the “strain, effort” of “faith”. By doing this the “stirring” of our inner life and our “knowing the next right action to take” comes alive and we find ourselves in “preparation” for the next miraculous experience of connection, of being in “the joy of living a life in which God as a stake, or being involved with God”. We do not get there by listening to Mike Johnson, Project 2025, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders or Ron Reagan, who isn’t afraid to “burn in hell”, et al. We do not get there by treating the stranger poorly, by making the poor into criminals, by turning away the needy and by lying to the people who depend upon us for love, truth, compassion, kindness.

The truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words:”It is never an arrival; it is always being on the way, cannot be overstated. They also give all of us an opportunity to realize all of life “is never an arrival; it is always being on the way”. Doing this allows us to be more truthful within ourselves, it means we don’t have to hide from our moments of ‘no’ faith. We don’t have to be ashamed of ‘not being in full and true faith’ like we are exhorted to be by the idolators who are in charge of our Temples, Churches, Mosques in many places around the globe. Each day, Jews recite a blessing before they even get out of bed: “I am grateful to You, God for restoring my soul to me with compassion, great is Your faithfulness”, acknowledging God’s faithfulness, not our own, putting upon ourselves the commitment, the obligation to grow our faith and to be on the road to faith. This is why we are so put off guard by “the faithful” by those who have “drunk the Kool-Aid”, they give off an air of certainty that we know is impossible and yet, many people are envious of the ‘certainty of faith’ of the people who follow their idols, their idolators and charlatans. This is the problem with idolatry-it gives us certainty in today’s uncertain world and idolatry’s promise of a ‘better life in the next world’ is so tantalizing for many people they are willing to crush the “still small voice” needed to exert the “effort to come out of his callousness”.

Idolatry, bastardization of Holy Texts, the Declaration of Independence here and in other countries that is happening now as it always has, is the pathway to defeat “man’s effort to come out of his callousness” and We, the People, Jews and non-Jews have to take back “faith”, we have to once again speak the words of the Prophets, we have to “Speak Truth to Power”, it is the only way out of our own callousness and mendacity, it is the only way to once again “to achieve an attachment to Him” and find the power to live in ways that make us worthy of being a partner with God. It is hard to do this, it takes effort to keep my attitude in line with my faith, it takes spiritual practice like this writing to help me let go of the calls of the idolator within me and those outside of me. I have given into them before, God knows, and I keep learning from those times to make this a better moment. It is hard, yes AND it is joyous to be able to know I don’t have to prove anything to anyone because I know myself, I hear the “Voice” inside of me and around me and take the next right action whether I want to or not. I am blessed by being “out of my callousness” and demanding others do the same-not for my sake but for theirs, God’s and the world’s! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

P.S. my latest podcast is up:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/74FzSVg8mJcyiUIB76qvHb?si=092b4b44c5f74430 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f-your-feelings-with-rabbi-mark/id1587525986

Are you aware when your actions make you seem as " a body without a heart" Year 3 Day 358

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 358

“Our error is in the failure to understand that creed without faith is like a body without a heart. Just as faith may become blind, cruel, and fierce, creed may become shoddy, sterile, and deaf. Let us insist that alienation from dogma does not necessarily mean the loss of faith.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 66)

“Dogma” and “creed” can be and are usually used as synonyms and, according to the Oxford Dictionary, they are supposed to include faith as an integral foundational ingredient. Yet, as Rabbi Heschel reminds us above and as we witness on a daily basis from the charlatans who proclaim their allegiance to some ‘god’ that is unknown to the words of the Bible. While it is good, right and easy to blame these charlatans, it is crucial for all of us to look inside and testify, be a witness to the moments when we live from a place of “a body without a heart”. When have we ignored another human being’s plight because we are so caught up in our own bullshit? When have we been “blind, cruel, and fierce” for our own sakes and not for the sake of the principles of morality, decency, kindness, truth, justice? When have our actions been “shoddy, sterile and deaf” to what is needed in the moment for the greater good because we are so intent on doing what is ‘good’ for ourselves?

Writing this today, the day after Pearl Harbor Day, the day after Bashar al Assad is deposed in Syria, throwing an already volatile region into more chaos, seems more than appropriate. On December 8, 1941, FDR called December 7, 1941, a “Day of Infamy” and war against Japan and then 3 days later, against Germany and Italy. 83 years ago the world was in chaos and war-today we are at war once again. This war is not just the war in Ukraine, where a country is fighting for its sovereignty against a much supposedly stronger opponent, they are fighting for their way of being, for their right to be free and make free-will moral choices instead of surrendering to a mean, ugly, cruel dictator. As the new administration gets ready to take  and Donald Trump meddles in the business that is Joe Biden’s to run, many are wondering if DJT and his gang of thugs, grifters, liars are going to embellish on their “cruel” behaviors, their being “deaf” to the cries for freedom and decency, their “fierce” loyalty to corruption and power!

The fact that so many so-called ‘religious’ leaders are falling at the feet of an idolator, so many ‘religious’ and ‘devout’ ‘christians, jews, muslims’ are kissing the ring of the ‘wanna be mafia don’ is disgusting and a true representation of the “error is in the failure to understand” that Rabbi Heschel is speaking about. It is true here in America, it is true in Israel, it is happening throughout the Middle East, it is happening in France, and it is up to We, the People to do something to restore true faith and make sure our credo doesn’t fall back into the unhealthy ways, the destruction ways it has in the past. It is time for We, the People to stop sitting on the sidelines and give silent acquiescence to the lies of the liars, to the worshiping of idols and autocrats, to the cruelty of Bannon, Miller, Vance, Musk, Bibi, Ben-G’vir, Smotrich, MBS, Putin, Hamas, etc. It is time for We, the People to educate people about what it means to be used by Saudi Arabia and Iran calling for “freedom from the river to the sea” and for going along with the puppets of Putin on Fox News, etc while proclaiming their ‘loyalty to America’. Speaking truth to the myriads of people who think MAGA is forward thinking and caring about the very people and ways that Jesus, Moses, Mohammed speak about and help them realize MAGA is going backwards to pre-1860 America, where slavery was good, righteous, and necessary, where immigration, poverty, etc were considered criminal unless it served the wealthy class and where the rich decided everything.

The “dogma” of Judaism is, according to Rabbi Akiva, a famous Talmudic Scholar and personality, summed up in “Love your Neighbor as you love yourself”(Lev. 19:18). With this as the “dogma”, the “creed”, a “body without a heart” can’t survive, it becomes almost impossible to be “blind, cruel, and fierce” to anyone, to anything that God has made! When the foundational principle is love, for all three major Western Religions, the actions of the charlatans, these idolators, these autocrats, the Bannons, Millers, Vances, Netanyahus Ayatollahs, etc just do not stand, they should be wilting and dying-yet, We, the People keep allowing them oxygen and water, we keep allowing them to nourish themselves so “the south will rise again”.

I hear Moses “call heaven and earth” to witness the criminal behavior and ways of We, the People in allowing this evil to flourish and allowing the love, we are commanded to live from, rot. The words above are both a warning, a teaching and an indictment. I am calling upon all of us to look deeply at our actions and inactions, to take an inventory of the ways we have ‘been on the right side’ of things and still acted with cruelty, been fierce in our blindness to our errors, to our failures, choosing instead to blame ‘those’ people. We see this with the autopsy on the election by some democrats, we witness the ‘pearl-clutching’ of the progressives about Joe Biden being a father and a leader by pardoning his son rather than having him face another onslaught from Trump et al. We see how the elite have fooled so many by getting them to believe they care about the poor people in our midst. We see how these ‘good christian’ and ‘frum jews’ ‘devout muslims’ promote the exact opposite of what Christianity, Islam, and Judaism stand for and there is little outcry! Where is a Rabbi Heschel, a Joachim Prinz, a Martin Luther King, a John Lewis; We, the People need to imitate them all NOW.

I am guilty of error and failure-full stop. I also do my T’Shuvah and make my amends. It is sad to me to be the one blamed for all the messes I have been involved in rather than just being accepted for my amends for my part. I know the people who refuse to make rapprochement are just too afraid to see their part, too insecure to make their own amends and I acknowledge that they don’t want me around because, as I was told, I cause chaos. Of course I do because I my living Jewishly is based on the fact: “alienation from dogma does not necessarily mean the loss of faith”. I have more faith, I am less cruel and blind, I am not shoddy nor sterile nor deaf in my part of every interaction, and I am fierce in my advocacy for the soul of every person I come into contact with. I will not apologize for who I am, I will always do T’Shuvah for the inappropriate ways I live out who I am. I believe that we all need to live more consciously and more in tune with the principles we proclaim we cling to.. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living without honestly hearing is a path away from Freedom Year 3 Day 357

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 357

“We are living through one of the great hours of history. The false gods are crumbling, and the hearts are hungry for the voice of God. But the voice has been stifled. To recapture the echo, we must be honest in our willingness to listen, unprejudiced in our readiness to understand.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 66)

At the end of Year 3 I am going to be writing daily on “Pirke Avot”, literally translated as “Chapters of the Fathers” and I am using the title, Wisdom of our Ancestors.This will coincide with launching my new adventure/venture: Conscious Living!

These last two sentences are crucial for our time, just as they are crucial for all times. “The voice has been stifled” is evident in the MAGA followers belief in Donald Trump being ‘the anointed one’, that he is the ‘messenger from Christ’, that he will bring the “Second Coming”! It is evident in the ‘good christians’ who want to enact Project 2025 harming all the people Christ hung out with and doing exactly what Christ accused the “money-changers in the Temple” of doing!

Yet, the solution seems so difficult to attain in today’s world, just as it has been throughout history. While it is a “simple solution”, it does very, very hard! “We must be honest in our willingness to listen” seems like a ridiculous phrase, both extremes say and believe they are honest and willing to listen to ‘the other side’ and they are both full of shit! People only want to listen if you agree with their point of view. Engaging in serious conversations with the people on the far right and far left is almost impossible when one begins to challenge their propositions, their foundational ‘truths’, their actions and their words. To “be honest” is a great challenge in itself, because we are so full of self-deceptions and bias’ that we are willfully blind to, too many of us  are unable to see, hear, experience honesty “in our willingness to listen”. “Listen” comes from the German meaning “pay attention to”. How often do we hear and not pay attention to what is being said? How often are we dishonest when we say “I really want to know your thoughts and consider them” when we already have made up our minds, when we are closed off to any other solution? Paying attention to what truly is takes a commitment to see what truly is, not what we want it to be. Paying attention means we have to see the whole story and the truth, as beautiful and ugly as it is. “Hones in our willingness to listen” means our governing bodies have to work out compromises because the ones yelling the loudest, the ones who showboat the most, are neither “honest” nor willing “to listen” to anyone other than their own echo chamber. Rabbi Heschel is crying out to us to “recapture the echo” of God’s voice at Mt. Sinai, to “recapture the echo” of God’s cry to SHEMA, hear, listen and understand!

While people give lip-service to the wisdom and ways in the quote above, we can see from the latest anti-semitic event in Melbourne, Australia, a synagogue being lit on fire, that without being  “unprejudiced in our readiness to understand” there can never be peace nor freedom. Democracy, freedom, die in dishonesty and in prejudice, there are so many examples throughout history and we are seeing this truth daily in America, Israel and across the globe. Russia, Iran, Hungary, China, the Middle East countries all engage in false flags on social media, they all engage in prejudicial language to promote hate, especially Jew-hatred masquerading as anti-Zionism, flooding social media with lies, distortions and hatred. There has always been dishonesty in politics in this nation, the prejudice and ‘alternative facts’ of the past 14+ years makes the earlier periods look like people like Gingrich were willing to listen and ready to understand!! The way things are, the lack of truth, the unwillingness to listen, the prejudices that abound against people of color, Jews, Muslims, poor, strangers, has to end NOW!

Yes, I am angry and passionate about this way of being. We are reborn each day, to a certain extent because we believe sleep is like a mini-experience of death so each day upon arising we say the Modeh Ani Prayer: Gratitude for having our souls returned to us with compassion and we proclaim God’s faithfulness. Each day, we have to tune our ears and our souls to the frequency that God’s voice, if one prefers the voice of our Higher Consciousness is broadcasting on. It is only when we “make a decision to turn our lives over to the care of God/Higher Consciousness” that we are able to be honest, willing and ready to not only listen but to understand as well. The voice that keeps urging us to end our hateful speech, to stop giving into our baser ideas and ways, to cease and desist in blaming anyone for our lack of listening and understanding-our parents are not at fault-we, as adults have the responsibility and the choice to learn how to listen, how to be honest with ourselves, to be unprejudiced so we can learn to understand the call within us, the call from another human being who is in need and the call of the universe so that we “Let Freedom Ring”. There is no 1-way to understand “the echo”, we are told there are 70 ways to understand the Bible so it is hard to believe the Evangelicals and the Orthodox who proclaim they know the “way” and it is even harder to buy into the bullshit and lies of the ‘christian nationalists’ who are actually nihilists seeking absolute power. “Unprejudiced in our readiness to understand” means we see the text, we hear the voices around us new each time, each day with new meanings and we can only do this when we “honest in our willingness to listen” rather than listening with the intention to argue for ‘our side’. When we “recapture the echo” there is only one side-what is right and good in this moment.

I wrestle each day to be fulfill these ways of being. I want to think what I think and be right, be certain and everything that spiritual learning teaches me is I can never be certain! There is no one way, there is no arrival, the Torah ends with the Israelites on the edge of the Promised Land and this is the story of my life and, I believe, everyone’s. We are always “on the road again” like Willie Nelson’s song says. I cannot stay in willingness and readiness all the time, I cannot always be honest because when I am in self-deception the blinders are too difficult to see through and I need help which I am blessed to receive from those closest to me. I cannot always be unprejudiced because I fall into fear, even though I am also in faith, I still want my team to win, I still want to ‘be right’, I still want to be forgiven, and, at times, I need you to be either the good one or the bad one. Whenever I am in either/or, I am prejudiced, dishonest, unwilling and not ready. Thankfully I experience either/or fewer and fewer times since my recovery began. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are your actions congruent with this being "one of the great hours in history"? Year 3 Day 356

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 356

“We are living through one of the great hours of history. The false gods are crumbling, and the hearts are hungry for the voice of God. But the voice has been stifled. To recapture the echo, we must be honest in our willingness to listen, unprejudiced in our readiness to understand.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 66)

I have read these words with both hope and sadness over these years. Hearing Rabbi Heschel call out to us to recognize that right now is “one of the great hours of history” is vital to living into the demand the universe puts upon us and the demand that our inner life is calling to us to fulfill. Yet, most people go through life with the “same shit, different day” attitude which does not give us a sense of “reverence for man” as I wrote about yesterday nor does it even give us reverence for ourselves. This is the reason, I believe, we don’t recognize right now is “one of the great hours of history.”

That this was written and spoken in 1962, at a time when the Civil Rights movement was gaining so much strength, when it looked like the promise of the Declaration of Independence for all people having the “unalienable rights” like “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” would come true with the Integration of the Ole Miss, fair housing order, etc so “the false gods are crumbling” was actually happening as many people were seeing segregation, racism in all of its forms-skin color, ethnicity, religious- was evil and it is an inner disease that is a “cancer of the soul” as Rabbi Heschel teaches us. It is the second half of the sentence that seemed to go unrealized, however, which is why we find ourselves, like Isaac in the Bible, having to re-dig the wells of our ancestors!

Our “hearts are hungry for the voice of God. But the voice has been stifled” is as true today as it was then. The deaths and the beatings that were endured and sanctioned between the enrollment of James Meredith in Ole Miss and the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the hatred and defiance of the racists ever since then is unimaginable if we hadn’t witnessed it. Just like people can believe Holocaust deniers because the enormity of the evil is so great, most people don’t want to consider it, don’t want to admit their own anti-semitism, racism, hatred and fear of another person who ‘looks, dresses, prays different’ from them. We are hearing of the ‘anointed one’ being elected because the charlatans are trying to use “the voice of God” that “our hearts are hungry for” to convince us to surrender to hatred, to being controlled and enslaved by the wealthy who want to be the ruling class, just ask Elon Musk. These charlatans have co-opted the Churches, especially the Evangelical ones, to promote ways that are antithetical to everything Christ talks about in his “Sermon on the Mount”, the ways he acted towards all of the people who were thought of as “vermin, poisoning the blood of the nation” in his time and instead of hanging out with them-these representatives of Christ are demonizing them along with their patrons, the new Republican establishment. Just like Bibi and the Far Right in Israel have portrayed all Palestinians as terrorists, as Hamas or Hezbollah so they can demonize them the way Jews have been demonized throughout history, so too is Trump, Musk, Project 2025 doing the same here. This is the worst case scenario of the bastardization of God’s voice! It is using the vulnerabilities of so many people, it is using the trust they have in Clergy and the Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple, etc and twisting it to the needs of the rich and powerful instead of using their trust to help them and another. This is the not just that “the voice has been stifled”, it is both “stifled” and, like AI, being used in ways never meant to be used so people can be conned and grifted for the benefit of the few, not for the sake of Heaven!

As I am writing this, I have decided to continue with these first two sentences because I need to delve into the ideas therein. How to recognize the “one of the great hours of history” is right now begins with staying fresh and alive, waking up each morning grateful to be alive, acknowledging our responsibility, individually and collectively, to be compassionate and faithful to ourselves, to our purpose, to bring a sense of meaning into our daily activities, to take actions of compassion and stay faithful to the call of another human being. This is the first thing we acknowledge when we awake, God’s compassion and faithfulness so, since we are “made in the likeness of God”, we have to do the same to another-it is called “pay it forward”. We ‘get’ to see life anew each day, each hour, we are not defined by our last mistake, we are defined by the enormity of goodness we put out each day unless we choose to be defined by the enormity of negativity, evil we put out each day. The greatness of “hours of history” is not known until we are past them and see them in the 20/20 vision of hindsight so we have the opportunity to make each and every hour “one of the great hours of history” if we so choose. It is up to We, the People!

It is past time for us to take back our faiths, to take back our Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and restore them to being “an elevated space where God dwells among us” as the original Tabernacle was described. We have the power, the desire and the pathway to elevate our ways of being to include everyone under our tents, not to convert someone to the faith we believe in nor in the politics we believe in-rather, like Liz Cheney shows us- to be willing to risk our own safety for the ideals, the principles and values we hold dear. When we make a decision that we are not for sale, that we will not sacrifice our principles for momentary gain, when we refuse to bow down to idols and we will not follow idolators because it is “a bridge too far”, because we have “reverence for God and reverence for humanity” we are on the road to hasten “the false gods are crumbling” and ensuring they remain dust rather than allow them to regain the strength that they have since Rabbi Heschel’s words above.

I continue to do angioplasty on my spiritual arteries, each and every day I look for how I can contribute to this hour, this day being know as “one the great hours of history” and I will be known by my family as a responder to the greatness. “What did you do” is a question my daughter has asked and, in the time of the Civil Rights Movement, I can say I stood up for the values and principles of decency and truth. I did the same in 1967 for Israel, in 1973, and I have given Tzedakah since I was a kid. What am I doing now is writing and speaking to those who will read and hear, discussing with the people I disagree with politically and religiously because they are also “made in the likeness of God. A tall order and one I have to fill. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Teach your children…” all men are poor” and we all need to have reverence for one another- Year 3 Day 355

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 355

“To keep our Abraham complex alive in our children remains our responsibility. The fear lest we fail to be sensitive to the situation of a poor man—and all men are poor—is the most important test of whether we have fear of God. Reverence for God involves reverence for man.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 66)

In the sentences prior to these, Rabbi Heschel posits that many of us have an Abraham complex along with a self-seeking complex. An “Abraham complex”, he explains as being like Abraham who is “doing what is just and right”. The idea that we can be and are more like Abraham than Narcissi suggests that we leave the tyranny of Greek Civilization’s belief we can be perfect and join the Biblical way of being just and following the moral and ethical paths that the Bible lays out for us. In the words above, in 1962, speaking to a group of Rabbis about religious education in general and Jewish education in particular, these words are ringing in my ears and, hopefully, yours as well.

Listening to the pronouncements of the President-Elect, hearing the ‘rest of the story’ about his ‘candidates’ to fill cabinet positions that keep our country safe, secure, a leader and power in the world, one could wonder how poorly his father taught his about the “Abraham complex” that resides in all human beings, along with the selfish and self-seeking complex. The question, as always, is which one is going to be subservient to the other-is our sense of doing what is just and true, right and righteous going to use the selfish and self-seeking part of us to serve the greater good or vice versa?

“To keep our Abraham complex alive in our children remains our responsibility” has given way to the standard we have adopted for ‘success’.  No longer do we send the best and brightest to seminary, to public service, we send our best and brightest to learn a trade; economics, banking, consulting, stock market, CEO, CFO, etc. Human Resources is does not have anything to do with being human and humane to employees, what is just and right takes no higher than second place to ‘getting ahead’, to ‘getting mine’, etc. We, the People, either re-think what a successful life looks like or risk getting more and more enslaved by the autocrats, the grifters, our own self-deceptions and then we are truly lost. The enslavement in Egypt wasn’t ‘caused’ by God, it was only foretold by God, according to the Bible. The enslavement in Egypt was caused by us, by buying into this Narcissi complex we have, because we allowed ourselves to buy into the lies and deceptions that Pharaoh was selling, because we let our “Abraham complex” wither and die within us and, therefore, did not keep it “alive in our children”. We shirked our responsibility, we let go of the moral, the ethical, legacy of doing the “next right thing” and went with what we thought expedient- sound familiar??

Rabbi Heschel’s fears above have been realized in our time, as it has in every age. It seems as if we are well on our way of perfecting our insensitivity to the poor man, to the poor parts inside of us, to the ways we suffer in “inner intelligence”. We have failed to see the plight of the poor, I believe, because we have failed to see the plight of our own poverty. We are afraid to look in the mirror and see where we have “missed the mark”, we are afraid to apologize to another human being, instead just deny, deny, deny, as our President-Elect does, as Bibi does, as Orban does, as Putin does. Some of us have watched in horror as people continue to spout their love of God and treat their fellow human beings with such disdain and cruelty. When the teachings and ways of Josef Goebbels’ become common place in a democracy, we know that the “Abraham complex” has stopped being taught to our children by their parents and this does not bode well for them or us-we have watched this movie many times throughout history and the destruction of human beings, the horror that is felt for generations, never seems to leave us and we keep coming back to these ways just like an addict comes back to drugs, like an alcoholic keeps drinking.

“Reverence for God involves reverence for man” is the key to what We, the People have to return to! It is incumbent upon us to teach our children how to revere another human being, how to see each and every person as our equal, treat and acknowledge their infinite dignity and value, treat each person with the love we have for ourselves which means we have to let go of our narcissistic love and learn to love ourselves as imperfect, flawed people. We, the People have to teach our children how to have reverence for people through our actions, as the saying goes, “actions talk, bullshit walks”. We, the People, have to stop hiding behind our ‘labels’ of being a good party line person, a true progressive, etc  thinking the outer trappings will hide the inner narcissist, however, the inner narcissist always leaks out. The progressive that wants to control and tell everyone else how to live has no more reverence for the poor, for another human being than the autocrat who thinks Hitler didn’t kill enough Jews - which their are people on the far right (and unfortunately on the far left) who spout this hatred.

Each day I marvel at how my ancestors taught me, grew in me and my siblings and cousins, the “Abraham complex”.  I am in awe of my daughter, nephews, nieces, cousins how have learned to be “just and right” in the ways they live. “Reverence for man” has been a guiding light for me over the past 37 years and I have returned to what my father, uncles, aunts, grandparents taught me-be decent, be truthful, be unafraid to fail and learn from your failures, rejoice in your ‘victories’. Caring for the poor and the stranger are second nature to me, even when I was in my addictions. I realize from today’s writing, that I was in my addictions because I forgot that “all men are poor” and thought I had to cover up my poverty with ill-gotten gains. We have raised our children to be of service to another human being either as a profession or an avocation. I have been privileged to witness the transformation of so many people that were thought of as hopeless addicts/alcoholics. I continue to speak out to the myriad of people who want to turn a blind eye to the cruelty of Trump, Bibi, Orban, etc because they ‘do so many good things’. I continue to rail against the unconscious way most people live, how many people purposely live willfully blind and uncaring lives. I can’t do this, I have to live with and on purpose and my purpose is guided by the “Abraham complex” that lives within me and seeks to do what is right and just in each moment-knowing I will fail, do T’Shuvah and move forward, always caring for the poor and having reverence for humanity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living into our authentic self, letting go of the need for perfection and certainty- Year 3 Day 354

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 354

“The truth is to cultivate intellectual piety as well as ritual observance, stillness as well as discipline, the importance of patience as a way of listening, rejection of complacency and conceit, the vital necessity of inner growth, the building of responsibility, the active involvement in aiding our fellow men, as well as a sense of authenticity.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 65)

“Intellectual piety” can be defined as worship of God with mind and heart. It is not so much purity, as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning, as it is about not being a human doing that is devoid of thought during our ritual observance-whatever that may be from our morning coffee to meditation, to prayer, etc. Listening to Rabbi Heschel’s words and his desire to help us grow our learning, to learn about the whole person we are, our children are, every human being is, and this is not an easy task since most people shy away from doing this and find the ‘easier softer way of willful blindness’.

“To cultivate” comes from the Latin words which could mean “inhabit’, and Rabbi Heschel is telling us that it is not enough to stand on the sidelines, it is not okay to speak of them and make them intellectual exercises alone, we have to “inhabit” “intellectual piety” and “ritual observance” in the same moment, in the same time, otherwise we can never find the “sense of authenticity” we all crave and search for. The greatest problem facing humanity is the problem of authentically inhabiting our whole being as well as inhabiting our connection with God and one another. Without doing this, we will continue to live in the “half truths” spoken about yesterday, which are, in essence, lies!

We, the People, in this time and in all times, have to “inhabit”, have “to cultivate”, to grow our inner life in order to achieve any form of “intellectual piety” and to live into our ritual observances not as check lists but as growth spurts for our minds and spirits. Denying the needs of our inner life because it is not ‘intellectual enough’, because “religion is the opiate of the masses” is as ridiculous as denying the needs of our intellects because “all we have to do is give it up to Jesus” when Jesus as cajoling his followers to care for one another, to not favor the rich, to speak truth to power, etc. The Ultra-Orthodox Jews use their “ritual observance” especially since Oct. 7, 2023, much like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell did after 9/11; blaming the non-observant, the people who follow the spirit of the Torah and the Bible for the massacre and saying God wants ‘our enemies’ to be totally destroyed and Gaza, the West Bank be part of Israel, so they can build the 3rd Temple. Be it the Far right Christians who want Armageddon, the Christian Nationalists who want power and control over everyone who is not white, christian male smart enough to be part of the power structure, or the Orthodoxy of some Jews to believe they are “chosen” to have dominion and rule over people-all of them are in denial of the message of Rabbi Heschel above. This is why We, the People have to “inhabit” and grow our inner life and have a response that stands up to the withering lies and onslaught of anger, denial and cult-like behaviors of those few who are seeking power and destruction of freedom for all.

We, the People, get to learn how to engage in “patience as a way of listening”, we can use “stillness as well as discipline” so we are better grounded in our self, in our truths, in our ways of being at one with the universe, at one with nature, at one with each other. This is the goal of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the teachings of Buddha, et al-to be at one with self, universe, nature and one another. We cannot get there unless we are “listening” to one another with an open heart and mind-hence the need for “intellectual piety”.

We the People, also need to “reject complacency and conceit”, we have to end our need to keep the status quo because the world is always moving, the earth keeps spinning whether we feel it or not, we keep changing whether we are aware of it or not, the expansion of freedom and holiness is an onward march that some humans keep trying to retard with the status quo and it only works for a moment until there is another revolution and then another pushback. We, the people, in rejecting our “complacency and conceit” are making the statement that learning is the goal, learning from what we do well and what we don’t do well, learning from the wisdom of antiquity and the wisdom of today, engaging with the texts that have survived the test of time and action not to do the same as ‘they did’, rather to see how the wisdom applies to our lives, in the moment, in ways that we uniquely see and can engage with-the world doesn’t need another Moses, it needs each of us to be uniquely our authentic self.

“Building responsibility”, engaging in “the active involvement in aiding our fellow men, as well as a sense of authenticity” is the goal I set for myself long ago. I know without ‘intellectual piety”, “ritual observance”, “stillness”, “listening” “rejection of complacency and conceit” it is impossible for me to get near, much less reach this goal. I have been engaged in all of these behaviors for the past 38 years and it was a return for me to the days of learning from my father, grandfathers, relatives of blessed memory. I have built a life of being responsible for my errors and my good deeds, knowing they don’t cancel one another out and I have to acknowledge the good which is harder than beating myself up for the errors. I have built up inner responsibility with the many actions and ways I have been actively involved in “aiding” any and all human beings I can. I live authentically and it isn’t always pretty, in fact it is usually messy. Yet, I have no regrets for my life and I am remorseful for the actions that harmed people, especially those closest to me. I am not perfect nor is anyone, including God, asking me or you to be. We are “to cultivate”, to grow and live into our inner life, our responsibility, our caring for one another, and our authentic selves. We are not expected to be ‘there’! Yet, in the need for certainty and perfection, people have put this onus upon me and I have put this yoke on myself. “Inhabiting” the words and teachings of today renews my commitment to leave “certainty and perfection” so I can better live into what is right here, right now. I am asking you to join me in cultivating a way of being that rejects the lies of our conceited ego, that rejects the mendacity and deception of those trying to control us with falseness and deceptions of what freedom is. I am committed to living more consciously each day, to being a better version of myself each day, to forgiving those who harm me and discard me, to reaching out to people as a source of strength and wisdom, to wrestle with people over how to live the principles and values that inhabit our inner life and “to cultivate” a little more each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How do you cultivate your "Knowledge, Understanding"? Year 3 Day 353

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 353

“There is no knowledge without reverence. No understanding without love. Thought without a concern, an idea without the verification of living it is a half truth.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 65)

Rabbi Heschel believes: “The greatest hinderance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.”(Man is Not Alone pg. 11). “Reverence” is an essential part of the foundation for “radical amazement”, ergo: there can be “no knowledge without reverence”! Yet, too many of us think we know stuff and are so uninformed, so lacking in the historical and experiential wisdom of our ancestors and our own life experiences that we deceive ourselves into believing we are the smartest person in the room. We do this for many reasons, one of which is to hide from ourselves and another(s) our insecurities and fears, another of which is to gain and hold power through fear, lies, etc for our personal gain and the personal gain of our ‘friends’. We see this in business, in families, in politics, and in religious and other non-profit institutions. It is a great failure of society and of us as individuals. Blaming society for the ills of the world is a cop-out-we are society, we go along with the lies and deceptions because they help us hide from our lack of “reverence” and our lack of “knowledge”. We have become fat and lazy like Moses predicted in his last address in Parsha Hazzinu! Even though we read this every year, we are unable to see ourselves in the text so we keep repeating the same errors in new and different ways, much to our detriment. And, knowledge without understanding is also a waste of energy, a waste of time and a spiritual failing.

Understanding how to use our “knowledge” is a key ingredient of living well. It is the pathway to “radical amazement” and it truly takes us being “maladjusted” to what we think we know and how we have used our “knowledge” in the past. This moment is different than any other moment, I have to keep it fresh, I have to keep myself fresh otherwise I become stale and a stale human being is the greatest desecration of God’s name, of our dignity and value there can be because it leads to every other despicable action we take. The “love” of self, the “love” of another human being, the “love” of being called by God, Universe, Higher Consciousness to go above and beyond all of the limitations we have put on ourselves and allowed others to put upon us is the only path to true “understanding”. The “love” of learning, the “love” of connection, the “love” of service, the “love” of another human being are prerequisites for “understanding” the universe, our place in it as a species and as an individual. Without “love”, we would never care to “understand” the needs and desires of our partners, of our children, of the stranger, of the needy, etc. Without “love” we would never be able to “understand” the incongruences of ourselves and another(s), we would not care enough to speak to and deal with people we want to look down upon, with people out of our ‘class’, we would continue to segregate ourselves according to the myriad of ways society has devised.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” could be a proof text of the words above-when we “love” another and see our similarities, we can “understand” this person better.

The last sentence can, and hopefully does, shake us to our core. How often have we had thoughts only about ourselves, without a “concern” for another, without a “concern” for the aftershocks of our actions? How any “ideas” do we have “without the verification of living it”? Far too many I would posit. In her poem, “Judge Softly” from 1895, Mary T. Lathrap calls for us to “walk a mile in his moccasins” challenging  all of us to see things from the perspective of another. It also calls for us to “walk a mile” in our shoes, to stop pontificating as if we know something without ever living it. This is one of the problems with some of our Higher Education-great theories and the ones spouting them have no actual experience putting them into action-be it in business, religious education, secular education, the humanities, etc. When students call for the annihilation of Israel, when they see terrorists as freedom fighters, when they deny basic human rights to Jews and Israelis, and say they are ‘for the people’, their argument is pretty shallow and hollow because they are not “living it”! When we hear the lies of our politicians, of the leaders of institutions, who claim to care for the people they are supposed to be serving, while actually serving their own egos and bank accounts, this is another example of a “thought without a concern”, a “half truth”.

Herein lies the rub: there is no such thing as a “half truth”, it is like being “a little pregnant”, one is either in truth or not, one is either pregnant or not. We have used this phrase to cover our lies and to hide from our lack of “reverence” and our lack of “love”. It is time for We, the People to say NO to these false ways of being-to both ourselves and the people around us. We, the People have to say YES to “reverence” so we can obtain and retain our “knowledge”, YES to “love” so we can better “understand” how to use our “knowledge” better and differently each day, YES to ensuring that we our “thoughts” have “concerns” attached to them and our “ideas” are valid because we our “living” them. This is our challenge and this is our gift, we have the spiritual resources to make these ways of being a part of our daily living. We have to allow our inner life to override our rational minds because our rational minds have been overtaken by greed, by false egotistical ruminating, by our self-deception and by the “conventional notions and mental cliches” of society. We, the People are being called to step up, to stand up, to speak truth to power, to have the necessary “reverence”, “love”, “thought” and “ideas” to change what is into what should be. Through our “knowledge” and “understanding”, we can live the vision of the Bible, the hopes of our ancestors who came to America seeking a better life for them and their descendants, and the promise of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution “to form a more perfect union”.

I can only “know what I know” because I developed a sense of “reverence” in prison from 1986-1989 and have kept growing it ever since. There are times when I have retarded it as well and there are many times when I have not communicated my “knowledge” of the mendacity of another in ways people could hear. My “love” for people and God has led me to “understand” much more than I ever have, it gives use the strength to “take the blows and do it my way”. I live my thoughts and ideas-sometimes to my detriment and the detriment of another, especially family, and I work very hard to stay in truth, even when it ‘hurts’, when the truth indicts me, I plead guilty and repair the damage, change my ways to the best of my ability. This is what “verification of living it” means to me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you living into the "dialectic of a human situation" or choosing to ignore a part of yourself? Year 3 Day 352

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 352

“Personal meaning is meaningless, unless it is related to a trans-personal meaning…Religious education must recognize the dialectic of a human situation, pay attention to both the individual and the people, to discipline and spontaneity, to principle and example, to the pattern and the poetry, to inwardness and outwardness, to events and ideas.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 65)

One of the many gifts of the Bible is acknowledging the “dialectic” that every human being experiences. One of the tragedies of religious education and, I believe, the major reason people are not affiliating with religious institutions, is we have stopped recognizing “the dialectic of a human situation” and instead focused on dogma, on “personal meaning” and forgotten about the “trans-personal meaning”, on “trans-personal meaning” while telling some that their situation, their “personal meaning” is unimportant because god doesn’t love them as much-hence they are poor and here to serve the rich and the ones “god loves”.

What gives our lives meaning and purpose, as I hear Rabbi Heschel demands in my ears and my inner life is that is “related to”, and I would add, connected to a “trans-personal meaning”. We see this in the ways people feel when they post a Birthday fundraiser on social media-they are doing something that recognizes their birth, their life, and helping another human being, institution that is doing good beyond their own ability to help. Hence a joining together of “personal meaning” and “a trans-personal meaning”. We cannot do this without some type of religious education that does “recognize the dialectic of a human situation”. Dialectic meaning dealing with our contradictory natures to help and be selfish, to hunt and gather and to care for the animals and the stranger, to be greedy and want it all vis a vis the call to redeem the captive, help the poor and the needy. Rabbi Hillel says in the Talmud: “If I am not for myself who will be for me, if I am only for myself what am I, if not now, when?” Living in the tension of this quote, of the words in the first sentence above can bring us joy and despair, hope and cynicism, love and loneliness, community and isolation, etc. Finding the proper measure of being “for myself” and not being “only for myself” is a daily challenge. We are not being told to bow down to some authoritarian, some king, some wannabe god, we are being told to stand for our self, to stay rooted in the spiritual truths that we know and not be a doormat, not go along to get along, not give into the our selfish needs to the point we believe the lies of liars, the bullshit of grifters and empty our pockets of money, our spiritual muscles of the strength to stand up for what is good and right, what is true and holy. When we give into our “personal meaning” alone, we are truly lost and so susceptible to the deceptions of another(s), we often find things being done in our name that are anathema to our soul’s calling. The last phrase of Rabbi Hillel is crucial-there is no time to waste, there is no time to contemplate, to give moral equivalence to evil, to lies, to mendacity because we will find ourselves like Martin Niemoller who lamented his not standing up sooner because there was no one left to stand for him in Nazi Germany!

To a great degree the situation we find ourselves in is not the fault of the people, much of the problem lies in our religious education system. When it doesn’t engage in the both/and of a human being, when it believes and teaches the “fire and brimstone” approach, when it neglects the spontaneous discipline and control, when it forgoes the “poetry” and the 70 faces/meanings of each verse of the Bible for the “pattern” it wants people to follow like ‘good nazis’, when dogma is more important than “ideas and events”, when these “ideas and events” are twisted and bastardized to fit a certain ideology and agenda that the ‘preacher’, the ‘leader’ is pushing, we are in deep trouble. We then either turn people away who are seeking some responses to the challenges of living in this “dialectic” or we make them into robots who become immune to the troubles and fears of another person and believe in the “god punishing” bullshit, that has been fed to us forever, and ignore the cries of the oppressed and the call of the suffering-exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches, what Jesus taught/said, etc.

We, the People have to stand up for ourselves, we have to live into the teachings of Rabbi Hillel: be for our self and demand of our spiritual leaders to learn what the Bible says and then interpret these words for ourselves, learn from the stories what principles are at the foundation of living well and how to practice them in all our affairs, use the examples of the ‘people’ in the Bible as the how to and how not to be human. We can read the poetry of the Moses, the beauty of the words of Psalms and find the patterns we can all follow to help another and ourselves at the same time, we can find the ways to incorporate our opposing inclinations to serve both our need for “personal meaning” and our need for “trans-personal meaning”. We, the People have to learn anew how to read and understand the Bible and the wisdom of the Greeks, Romans, etc from antiquity not as ‘history’ nor as ‘battle cries’ rather as eternal wisdom and truth about the “human situation”; the ways to be and not to be, the maturing of our souls and intuition so we can handle situations that used to baffle us differently, engaging in our inner dialogue rather than escaping it so we can become more integrated and congruent. Living in this way, finding meaning and purpose for us personally and being engaged in serving something greater than ourselves brings us to an inner breath that is deep, relaxing and we feel from our toes to our head-to me this is the greatest meditation technique.

In the second paragraph of my writing today I speak of Rabbi Heschel’s demands, the truth is I hear him cajoling me, encouraging me and helping me rise above my current spiritual status each day. The ‘dance’ of living for me and not only for me is fraught with imbalance and staying on this “narrow bridge” as Reb Nachman says, takes awareness and determination, grit and resilience, the desire to be free and the need to stand with the prophets and rail against injustice. It takes the constant exercise of my spiritual muscles, it means getting off my ass and doing something each day to learn and grow, to take inventory, make amends and change. Having Rabbi Heschel in my soul gives me no rest and I know I don’t need the ‘rest’ I thought I was entitled to prior to recovery and to ‘meeting’ Rabbi Heschel. I know the difficulty in being human and I know the excruciating pain of not being human. I choose the difficulty over the pain each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Is your Personality fully developed? Should it be? Year 3 Day 351

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 351

“It remains a question whether the full development of the personality is either desirable or possible. There may be aspects of one’s personality which do not deserve to be fully developed… To help an individual to satisfy the urge and compulsion of personal development is to act according to the law of life. Yet such help must not be given blindly, but rather in full consideration of a direction and greater meaning. (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 65)

Today is the day after Thanksgiving in 2024. As my friend and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein says: “The day after a holiday is the most important day. How are you changed because of the celebration/observance?” How are you changed by your experience yesterday, are you more aware of the things you have to be grateful for? Rabbi Heschel’s provocative words above point out a flaw in both religious and secular education as well as the hubris found in human beings, especially in America where ‘you can be anything you want to be’ is such a common refrain. While many psychologists and therapists seem to say that “full development of the personality” is possible and desirable, I think Rabbi Heschel’s first two sentences above merit great consideration and, possibly be grateful that not all “aspects of one’s personality” are “fully developed”!

Diving into these thoughts above causes us to look at and in our own beings. What is the personality we have, what aspects have we developed, are they the ones that need/needed developing, etc. We have become identified and pigeon-holed by the labels we put on ourselves, the descriptors of our personality by another, the ethos of the group(s) we join and or belong to, the faith we adhere to, etc. We are witnessing today a truth that has been with us through time immemorial; the development of one’s personality is stunted by the group-think of the ‘tribe’ they belong to. In some ‘tribes’ it is good to hate, it is powerful to put down another, it is a show of strength to not be held responsible, a man who is a bully, sexually assaults women, thinks of everyone else as dumber and less than they are, etc is worshipped as a god, as an anointed one of Christ, etc. In some ‘tribes’, the literal words of the Bible are used out of context and as a club to keep everyone in line-not with the divine but with the particular religious charlatan in charge. These ‘false prophets’ promote hatred, xenophobia, better than and the lie that they know what God wants and their congregants, the members of their ‘tribe’ have to vote and act in lockstep with the wishes of the Priest, Minister, Rabbi, Imam, etc. Neither of these tribes nor most of the other ones “help an individual to satisfy the urge and compulsion of personal development.” They help a person develop a personality that could be anathema to their authentic self, they help a person develop a ‘false self’ that haunts the individual while serving the ‘group-think’ of the ‘tribe’ and tribal leader.

Which “aspects of your personality” “do not deserve to be fully developed”? All of us have within us greed, hatred, love, generosity, sloth and carefulness, meanness/self-centeredness and kindness and helpfulness, etc. The question that each of us has to answer for ourselves of which aspects “do not deserve to be fully developed” is a difficult one because all of the so-called negative aspects serve a purpose and can help us navigate life’s challenges better than if we did not have them. The phrase “fully developed” is, to me, the key to discerning how to grow and develop into the human being we are meant to be. We have to have a sense of danger and developing it so we detect danger with enough time to protect ourselves, run away, hide, etc is very important and, if it is fully developed, we can become paranoid about everything and everyone, we can lock ourselves up in our homes, we can accost people and harm/attack innocent people for no real reason. We have to develop a sense of self and if we develop this sense of self too much it is very likely we will look down upon another person as not ‘measuring up to the standards we hold dear’, we will see another human being as less than and buy into the bullshit that we are the smartest person in the room. We need to have a sense of ourselves as smart enough to learn and contribute and not so smart that we stop learning and don’t allow another to contribute.

As M.Scott Peck says in the opening words of his book:The Road Less Traveled, “life is difficult”! We are living in “interesting times” as the Chinese proverb teaches, and we have to decide if we truly want our elected officials to be people who have developed the tribal traits I mentioned above to be in charge of our government. We have to decide if we are going to continue to be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people” or if the end of the Civil War will be that a few white men will use their power to enslave and control the rest of us. We have to make a decision to ensure that We, the  People give “help” to these people, who have developed the less kinder and truthful aspects of their personalities fully, not “blindly, but rather in full consideration of a direction and greater meaning” We, the People, have to help them return to living life with a greater meaning and purpose than self-satisfaction, live in ways that rise above deception and mendacity, stand for the real principles of spiritual living rather than the phony ones that return their followers to being pagan idol worshippers. This is happening in our religious communities as well as our secular ones, it is making autocracy more appealing because of the blinders people put on by not “fully developing” their personality traits of “love thy neighbor, care for the stranger, don’t stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, do justly, love mercy, etc”. Rather they are “fully developing” their personality traits of greed, lust, hatred, meanness, etc!!

I know the difference because for a while I “fully developed” the personality trait of ‘victim’ because of my father’s early death and being left feeling alone-no one else understood me, etc. I was angry and thought I deserved whatever I could take because I had been fucked by society, etc. UGH, just writing this and remembering this way of being makes me shudder. Returning the the ways my father taught me to be, the paths he showed me to take, I have let go of this old identity, I have been a victim, at times and this is not my identity. I have made mistakes and I am not a mistake. I have done things that have been inappropriate and I am not inappropriate. Making these distinctions illumine for me that I am not my worst actions, my definition as a human being is made up of the total sum of me, my personality, my way of being and I use my teachers, family, Rabbi Heschel, to help me develop my personality appropriately, to help me develop it “in full consideration of a direction and greater meaning.” God Bless and stay safe-enjoy your leftovers:) Rabbi Mark

Living in the worlds of the imminent and the transcendent - Year 3 Day 350

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 350

“We maintain that just as it its important for a person to select a particular objective for his own life, such as a career, it is important for him to live in the awareness of a meaning which transcends all particular objectives, the loyalty to which is ultimately even more important than the success and failure in the pursuit of his particular objective.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.64)

The beauty of Judaism is that it doesn’t deny our personal objectives, it doesn’t say wanting sex is bad, wanting to succeed is bad, pleasing one’s personal desires is bad, it does say that our pleasures have to coincide with an “awareness of a meaning which transcends all particular objectives”. We are being called upon to live in two worlds, the world of physical satisfaction and spiritual sustenance and joy.

In our pursuit of our “particular objective”, we have to remember the commentary of the Ramban-Moses Nachmanides-saying that a person could “be a scoundrel within the bounds of Torah”. We have to satisfy our “particular objective” and our physical desires and never be a “scoundrel” in doing so. We cannot take unfair advantage of another person in our pursuit of our “particular objective” because doing so would deny our “loyalty” to “a meaning which transcends all particular objectives”. We are called to live our lives being loyal to both our authentic self, desires and needs as well as a calling that is higher than the one for self. What an order! And, without doing both, we are just shells of human beings-by only concerning ourselves with the transcendent, we neglect the personal for ourselves and miss opportunities to help another-by only concerning ourselves with the personal, we neglect the higher calling which is constantly nagging us in our inner life, in our soul. By living in only one realm, we are constantly being pulled in the other direction and without living in proper measure, we find ourselves living on the edges of the extremes, being less than human.

Today is Thanksgiving in America, a day fraught with good and not good memories. The story of the Pilgrims is a nice one and makes us feel good yet, the ways we treated Native Americans then and how we treat them now is disgusting and degrading. Rather than have an “awareness of a meaning which transcends all particular objectives” the Pilgrims and their descendants only cared for their “particular objective” and killed, massacred tens of thousands of Native Americans in their thirst for land, control and power. While the Native Americans lived into their “loyalty” of their “awareness”, these fine “christian” folk did not. They were not loyal in their dealings with Native Americans, nor did they fulfill their duty to have “the loyalty to which is ultimately more important that the success and failure in the pursuit of his particular objective.” We are still unable to learn and live into the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words above, we are still unable to live into the words, actions and deeds called for by the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Buddha. We are still unable to let go of our need to satisfy our “particular objective” even when doing so goes against the call for loyalty to something greater than ourselves. We are still unable to let go of our rationalizing being “a scoundrel”, whoring ourselves while wrapping ourselves in the Holy Bible, like Trump, the Republican Party, the MAGA crowd do.

We, the People have to stand up for what is right and good. We have to call out the lies and mendacity that is constantly spread. We have to see and amend the bullshit and self-deceptions we have been promoting as well. It is time for us to take a real inventory, truly take stock of our lives and see where we have wrapped ourselves in the flag, in the Torah, in the Bible, etc to validate doing the next wrong thing. It is imperative that we recognize these moments and the paths we take to do this otherwise we cannot change and we are the same as the people point our fingers at!

We, the People have to find ways to live in both the immanent and transcendent worlds in the same moment, at the same time. This is the life-long struggle and challenge of what it means to be human. We need to remember, at all times, that we get to be grateful for what we have and, as I learned from a member of my former congregation, be grateful for what we don’t have! The wisdom above is calling upon us to live and care for our authentic self and the authentic self of another person, another group. We are being called to live loyally to the words of God to Adam and Eve; take care of my garden which you call earth and all the creations I have created. We are still hearing this call each day, it is the call of HEAR, you who wrestle with one another and with God, God is Oneness, part of you and your are part of me-ACT LIKE IT!! We have both a lower consciousness-the one that has the physical needs to be satisfied-and we have a higher consciousness-the one that is loyal to that which is transcendent. Both have to be tended to, both are necessary to fulfill the obligation to care for the earth and all its inhabitants therein. We are called to proclaim freedom, to love our neighbor, to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, to violate the Sabbath to save a life, etc. We are called to live justly, to pursue righteousness and to combine righteousness and justice so we are not blinded by the bribe of another person nor by the bribery of our desires that are out of proper measure. We have the path to live in both worlds, we need leaders to help us and the will to go against the call of the narcissist, the call of the liar, the call of the autocrat, the oversized call of our lower self.

This is an area where I have fallen down numerous times and each time I get back up and learn how to not give into the subtleties of my lower self, the disguises of my Yetzer Hara. I am also guilty of not being aware of the loneliness of staying loyal to a transcendent meaning and purpose when the people around you say one thing and do another. I have a few priors in doing this as well. In fact, this is what my recovery has been centered on-alcohol and crime were merely symptoms of this underlying dis-ease of my higher consciousness arguing with my lower desires and not knowing how to integrate them. This has been the story of my recovery and I am not totally there yet and I no longer have to deny the truth of my errors, my getting it right, my hurts and my joys. No longer living as “a scoundrel within the bounds of Torah” has given me a freedom I thought impossible. My learning since 1987 continues to “set me free” with truth and joy, justice and redemption, unafraid to speak truth to power and willing to suffer the consequences. God Bless, stay safe, Happy Thanksgiving, Rabbi Mark

Developing your highest possible self-spiritually and ethically! Year 3 Day 350

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 350

“What is the ideal of religious education? One of its goals is to give norm, purpose, meaning, direction, and depth to what may be regarded as one of the ideals of general education, namely, the fullest possible development of the individual…The individual is not seen in isolation but in relation to God and is subject to the norms which such a relation implies.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.64)

Immersing myself in these words causes me to take pause at how I have engaged in “religious education” both as a student and a co-learner, a teacher and a Rabbi. As I look at my life of religious education, beginning when I was a child, I realize how many times I sought meaning and was told to learn my alphabet (aleph-bet) and the prayers. Meaning came to me through my father’s guidance and patience to teach me, while not a religious man according to following dogma, etc; my father and grandfather were deeply religious men when seen through the lens of the words above. The failure of religious and general education “to give norm, purpose, meaning, direction, and depth” to each individual is, in my estimation, a crime!

We hear about the Fentanyl crisis, which there certainly is one, and the blame put on China, Mexico, and now Canada by the incoming President. We are not hearing about the responsibility of the people using, the responsibility of the people who have beaten down the poor, the stranger, the needy in both material and spiritual ways rendering them hopeless and despairing. We are not speaking about the unbelievably disgusting ways we treated our people returning from Military Service who became homeless as well as addicted because of the moral injuries suffered during their war years. We are not speaking of the broken promises of our Declaration of Independence and our religious traditions that have given false hope to the spiritual, moral principles that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were founded on as well as the democratic promise to do better than King George in knowing that all people are created equal and with certain unalienable rights! We are not speaking about the lack of treatment facilities that help people addicted to Fentanyl, other drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc that are treating this “Spiritual Malady”-only the ones using “evidence-based” practices. This is one example of the hubris of the ‘elites’ who make decisions in every administration-Republican and Democratic, the only exception being President George W. Bush.

We, the People have to demand from our religious institutions, from our Clergy an education that serves the goals listed above. We have to end our mindless “Tikkun Olam” repairing of the world and “Prosperity Gospels”, we have to end the bastardization of the Islam being used as a reason to kill and terrorize when the root of it is to “submit to Allah/God”. We, the People have to also be responsible for educating ourselves if there is no one else. In the Talmud it says if we are not taught by our parents we have to learn on our own-it goes so far as to say if one’s parents did not circumcise him, he has to circumcise himself! There is no way to ‘get out of it’ by blaming parents, teachers, Rabbis, Priests, etc. we are all responsible!

This is the rub of our times, we no longer care about our relationship to God/Higher Consciousness when it comes to being responsible for the “fullest possible development of the individual”. We only care for how to ‘get ahead’, how to ‘win’. Kids in college don’t go there for personal development, to find out who they are away from their parents; they go to get the education they need for the job/career that will pay them enough money to afford the luxuries they desire. They are in constant competition and comparison: grades, job offers, which college they go to are sources of tension and despair. Is it any wonder that our children are seeking escape from these burdens and pressures? Is it any wonder that they go along with a liar and a cheat, a criminal and a grifter believing at least he ‘tells it like it is’? They will find out that their ‘champion’ is going to screw them over the minute he has an opportunity, they will come to believe their ‘anointed one’ only wants communion for himself and his cronies and then they will seek escape once again. Without developing “norm, purpose, meaning, direction and depth” within oneself, we are always at the mercy and whim of someone else.

We, the People, have to change the educational system in both our religious systems and our general educational system. Mandating Bible studies using the Trump Bible-made in China by the way- is not the solution. We, the People have to commit to a rigorous course of study of our inner life to develop our “relation to God” and ensure the ways in which we live are “subject to the norms such relation implies”. Whether it is God, or whatever one feels about being in relationship to the universe, nature is immaterial-what is important is our realization that we have a spiritual life that needs to be nurtured and grown, that we have deep and serious spiritual maladies that affect our lives and the lives of another(s) as well as knowing the spiritual maladies of another has grave effects on our lives! We all have to demand better care from the Physicians of the Soul that our Clergy are supposed to be. They are called Spiritual Leaders-isn’t it time for them to do their job???

I am guilty of not providing these goals to people in my career-not because I didn’t make the attempt, rather because I could not speak in ways some people could hear and, for others, I speak eloquently when we learn Torah together as “street Torah”. My second career, after being a drunk and thief, has been to heal the spiritual malady I experience and the ones experienced by another(s). I have been unafraid to speak truth to power, I have been inappropriate and politically incorrect in my speech, actions and, when I am overwhelmed by mendacity and lies, I erupt like a volcano. I have paid a price for all of these ways and I know my life is enriched by both the errors that I made, (the ones I have done my own inventory of and made my amends) the times I hit the mark, and I am not bound by the ones people accuse me of, necessarily. My development as a spiritual being in a physical body continues to move forward, I don’t need outside validation to know when I am doing the next right thing and I call my colleagues in the Rabbinate, the clergy of other faiths to be accountable, to hold themselves and their leaders in the their faiths, in their countries accountable to and for “the fullest possible development of the individual” otherwise resign from your position and apologize to God! We, the People deserve nothing less. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark