Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 71
“Indeed the most horrible manifestation of evil is when it acts in the guise of good. “Such monstrous evil deeds could religion urge man to commit” (Lucretius)”. (God in Search of Man pg.370)
The words of Lucretius quoted here and Rabbi Heschel’s reminder of how easily evil is disguised as good, remind all of us of the teachings of all spiritual disciplines/religions to be very careful and scrutinize our thoughts and actions lest the evil inclination fool us as the serpent fooled Adam and Eve. Yet, we are not and herein lies the great enemy of freedom, of democracy, of goodness, of connection with God, truth, kindness, mercy. Our inability to heed the teachings above have given people the ‘right’ to wage war and say it is for the sake of God, when it is really for the sake of self. Our inability to heed Rabbi Heschel’s call to us have given the people the ‘right’ to go along with hatred, anti-semitism, racism under the guise of promoting a “Christian Nation”, which, of course is anything but Christian. The ignoring of the wisdom above has given people the ‘right’ to burn crosses, hang people and leave them overnight (against Biblical Law) and celebrate their cruelties as ‘god’s will’!
Yet, we continue to ignore this wisdom, we continue to use religion to cover up our “monstrous evil deeds” and revel in them. We see this in our politics today as we did during the period prior to, during and after World War II, with our politicians being on the payroll of the German Government and working to overthrow our Democracy and establish a Fascist regime here in the US and then using their political power to kill any prosecution. We are watching this as the Republican members of Congress who voted against the results of the free and fair elections of 2020 are still in Congress, still voting their hatred and their ‘christianity’, they are still trying to cover up their role in the insurrections of Jan 6, 2020 by minimizing the assault of the armed storm troopers who invaded the Capitol, the armed mob they ran away from and let the Capitol Police deal with and then disrespect these saviors and heroes by saying there was no insurrection, it was just a protest! We are watching as these deniers of our constitution take power and use their ability to filibuster to stop the business of our country, the business of our citizenry. They are intent on stopping truth, promoting lies all for their own sake, for their own power and are using Christ as their reason, calling Trump and Jordan, Meadows and Greene anointed ones by Christ to “save our country” from the Jews, the people of color, anyone who isn’t a White Christian Nationalist. Using religion in to cover up evil is monstrous enough in politics and we see the effects of this throughout history and in real time here.
And, it is even more monstrous in the ways we treat one another! We have all see how people don’t associate with ‘those people’ because they are different than us. They worship that vengeful Jewish God and they killed Christ, our Lord. This latent anti-Semitism is learned in the Church, not in the schoolyard, it is learned at the kitchen and dining room table, not in the restaurants and marketplace. We are watching, in ignorance and in compliance, the beginning of some of the same anti-Semitic, racist speech and actions as in the 30’s, 40’s in Germany, in America, that the Klan and the Birchers promoted. We are willing to call people who have been warning about these charlatans, these practitioners of evil under the “guise of good”, these promoters of “monstrous evil deeds” under the guise of religious adherence and fervor. We seem not to be able to call out the truth of what is happening, we seem not to be able to say NO to these racists, these anti-semites, these haters of everyone and everything that does not fit with their revisionist view of what it means to be Christian.
This was the power of Rabbi Heschel, Rev King and the Berrigans, and so many other people of faith who lived their faith in all their affairs. They called out the charlatans, they called out the evil that was being done under the guise of religion, the evil that was being done under the guise of good, of patriotism, of … It took a while for them to be heard, it took time for enough people to join and demand action by the Government on Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Vietnam Protests, etc and they stayed the course. It was not only the government they called out, however, they were especially critical of their fellow clergy and people in the pews over their mendacity, their evil actions they covered up by using God as their excuse, the Bible as their proof it this evil action was the right thing to do. Rabbi Heschel saw religious behaviorists as dangerous and people who were hiding their evil and trying to promote hatred and lies under the banner of religion-proof of Lucretius’ statement above. He railed against “spiritual plagiarism” because it is an easy doorway to self-deception which leads to the deception of another(s) which leads to “the most horrible manifestation of evil” because it is in the guise of the good!
In recovery we stop kidding ourselves as to what is real and what is true. I am not a saint, I just no longer excuse my errors in judgement and action as “for the sake of heaven”. Just as recovery keeps reminding all of us, just as T’Shuvah keeps showing us, we have to examine ourselves. Plato said an unexamined life is not worth living and Malcom X said, “the examined life is painful”. This is the paradox we in recovery live into and it is the one that guides my living. Happy Hanukkah to everyone-let us all rededicate our living to serving truth, goodness, mercy, justice, kindness as God would have us do. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark