Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 54
“Even more frustrating than the fact that evil is real, mighty and tempting is the fact that it thrives so well in the disguise of the good, that it can draw its nutriment from the life of the holy. In this world, it seems, the holy and the unholy do not exist apart, but are mixed, interrelated and confounded. It is a world where idols may be rich in beauty, and where the worship of God may be tinged with wickedness.”(God in Search of Man pg. 369)
Dr. M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist and author, defines evil as “using the vulnerabilities of another person against them”. Using this definition, it could be clearer and more pointed as to the “the fact that evil is real, mighty, and tempting” for each and every one of us. We live in a culture of ‘one up-man/women-ship’, where anything goes as long as you win, Goebbels’ belief that we should accuse another of that which we are guilty of is rampant, Roy Cohn’s belief to never admit anything, never be wrong is prominent in our political, business and personal lives. These ways of being are tearing the fabric of democracy, of humanity and of goodness apart. I believe one of Rabbi Heschel’s concern in writing this passage, as well as the rest of his teachings, is that we have, can, do, and will bastardize so many good things and turn them evil without even realizing it. We will fall prey to those who bastardize good for their own assent to power and their desire to hold onto it at any and all costs to another(s).
We see this daily in the political rhetoric and the pundits who cover them and give the bastardization of good, the real, mighty and tempting evil that people are putting out so much air time, the rest of us don’t know what is true and what isn’t true. Our vulnerabilities in wanting to believe another person, our need to be connected to people, our faith being true and real, also set us up for becoming part of the evil that is real, mighty and tempting. We have all ‘gone along to get along’, the people working for the Sackler Family, the administrators at the FDA, the doctors who accepted the lies of Big Pharma, all were/are part of the evil that is the Opioid Crisis! These good, outstanding citizens caved into the pressure, the money, the “offers they couldn’t refuse” and perpetrated a grave evil that has resulted in millions of people dead over the past 40+ years. Now, we are supposed to believe the same people who caused the problems, Big Pharma and Doctors, that with more pills, they can ‘cure’ a person. Lets use LSD, Ketamine, Suboxone, etc to cure the problems of addiction-and we are buying into it, we are jettisoning spiritual recovery for a quick-fix medical answer from the same people who caused the problem. I support harm reduction, I just don’t believe the panacea that the quick fixes in any area of living promise.
We see this using the vulnerabilities of a person against them when we listen to J.D. Vance, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, etc rail about those Elitists from the East, forgetting to mention they went to Yale, Harvard, etc. When the crowds are shouting LOCK THEM UP, not realizing the liars and cheats are the elitists, the rich, the powerful who are leading the chants. Donald Trump does not know what it is to watch one’s mother try and figure out how to put food on the table and pay the rent while taking home $55-60.00/week in 1966! The advertising business is built on finding a persons’ weakness/vulnerability and exploiting it in order to get us to buy ___. It works! While it doesn’t seem harmful, it is exactly this type of evil that is so “real, mighty and tempting” that “thrives so well in the disguise of the good”.
We all are guilty of participating, initiating, enhancing, engaging in evil. We are all part of the problem and until we admit this, there is no long-lasting solution. In viewing history, I believe our inability to come to terms with our participation and engagement in evil is how we keep finding new ways to hide from it, we are making new disguises and masks for evil in order to fool ourselves! This is, I believe, the reason we have never really had a solution to the evil of war, to the evil of ‘needing to be #1, of the evil to take advantage of another’s vulnerabilities, of the evil to wield power for our own sake rather than for the sake of another(s)/for the sake of God. We can and must change this is we are to evolve into the beings we are created to be, if we are going to stop learning “evil from our youth”.
Recovery is based in “acting our way into right thinking and feeling”. Recovery is a behavioral modification way of living. It is not perfect, it is a progressive path to living one day at a time a little better than the day before. It is a path of two steps forward and one step back, it is a path of plateaus and leaps, it is a path of constantly moving forward in our quest to live one grain of sand better each and every day. It is a way of being that helps us uncover our lies and self-deceptions, our going along with the crowd to do evil.
T’Shuvah is the basis of my path of recovery, along with the 12-steps. Each day is a challenge to uncover the evil that “thrives so well in the disguise of the good” in my thinking, acting and living. It is very challenging which is why a daily inventory is crucial for me and sometimes it takes me a while to realize the evil I did believing it was for the greater good! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark