Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 80
“The dreadful confusion, the fact that there is nothing in this world that is not a mixture of good and evil, of holy and unholy, of silver and dross, is, according to Jewish mysticism, the central problem of history and the ultimate issue of redemption.”(God in Search of Man pg. 371)
It is time for We, the people, to discuss, plan, and activate our redemption from “the dreadful confusion, the fact that there is nothing in this world that is not a mixture of good and evil, of holy and unholy, of silver and dross”! The Latin root for redemption is “to buy back” and the Hebrew word for redemption is “Ga’al” and this is defined as “redeem and act as a kinsman”. As I understand Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom this morning, he is calling on us to engage in, plan and activate our “buying back” the souls of our loved ones and of ourselves. He is reminding us that We, the people, are responsible for one another. He is demanding we treat each other as kinsman, as kinfolk, as relatives because, I believe, we are all entrusted with our own, unique Image of the Divine. The Namaste greeting is a recognition of this truth, when we recognize someone as human, this is an act of redemption. People, of course, in our “dreadful confusion” have relegated this recognition only towards “our own people, our own kind”.
This is how, after being slaves in Egypt and telling the story of the Exodus from Slavery and our redemption by God, Moses, Aaron, etc, we can still exclude people who aren’t ‘our kind’. We Jews exclude one another from our country clubs, our boards, our homes, we have pity for ‘those people’ rather than “act as a kinsman” towards them. We are so adept at ignoring our “dreadful confusion”, believing that evil is actually good because it is to ‘help them be responsible’ and ‘suffer the consequences of their actions’. While both of these sayings are true and valid, when taken out of context, they become mean, enslaving, unholy, and evil. When we deal with addiction, the addict has, to a great extent, lost her/his ability to choose and other way, just as the Jews in Egypt who were mightier and more numerous than the Egyptians went along with the Pharaoh and, when it was too late, realized their enslavement. Yet, the Jews who exclude, blame, and give money to get the solicitors ‘off their back’ never seem to want to be held responsible for their actions, never want to experience the logical consequences of their actions, never do a real T’Shuvah because they are so buried in their own “dreadful confusion, they are unable to grasp, agree with nor do the inventory necessary to change, to redeem themselves, to ask for help to be redeemed, to act as a kinsman!
This way of being is not relegated to Jews in boardrooms and country clubs, it is true for all Jews regardless on socio-economic status because we have forgotten the wrestling that Jacob did with ___, and afterward he declared he saw God face to face. We can and must open up our eyes and see God in every person we see, we have to see God in nature, in the buildings and business’ we work at, create, otherwise we will never be able to ask for the help we all need to be redeemed, we will always be suspicious of one another rather than “act as a kinsman” toward one another.
For people who aren’t Jewish, this is way of being is also true. The Puritans came here looking for Religious Freedom for themselves which Roger Williams expanded to mean Religious Freedom for all. It is impossible to find salvation and redemption when we are told there is only one way to worship and serve God. Christian Nationalism, Anti-semitism, racism, are not actions of redemption, they are not ways to “buy back” our souls from this “dreadful confusion” we are in. While many people are able to say the words of Christ, it is much more difficult for these same people to live the words of Christ, who was all about redemption, all about seeing the ‘dregs of society as these ‘good christians’ would label us, as his kinfolk, as his friends, as his flock. We are watching these ‘good christians’ bastardize Christ’s teaching and reputation by calling their prejudices, their need for power, their unrelenting opposition to “buying back” the souls who are seeking asylum, etc, and still voting for them, still listening to them, just as people listened to Father Coughlin, just as people voted for Hamilton Fish even though he promoted Nazism and Jew-hatred. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, all spiritual disciplines are guilty of doing evil and calling it good, acting unholy and calling it holy, of selling/speaking dross and calling it silver. We, the people, have to stop deceiving ourselves into believing these liars, we have to reject the deceptions and mendacities they bombard us with.
The recovery movement is a Redemption movement. We have no interest in doing anything other than helping another lost soul find their way, we work hard to speak to each person in ways they can hear because we see them as kinsmen/kinswomen. We are acutely aware of how people redeemed us and we have to pay their kindness forward, we have to ‘buy back’ the souls of people who seek redemption and we have “love them until they can love themselves” and beyond.
Rabbi Heschel continues to redeem me/us, continues to “act as a kinsman” towards every human being, regardless of economic status, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. Rabbi Heschel continues to teach us how to lift the veil from our eyes so we can see truth and live with clarity rather than in the “dreadful confusion” we live in now. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark