Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 92
“At the ritual of the Day of Atonement the High Priest would cast lots upon two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other for Azazel The purpose of the ritual of the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel was to atone for the evil. The High Priest would lay both his hands upon the head of the goat “and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, all their transgressions, all their sins”” (God in Search of Man pg 371)
On this day, the 50th Yarzeit of Rabbi Heschel’s death, I am in absolute wonder and awe of how, for so many people of different faiths and of no faith, Rabbi Heschel was, is and always will be the Priest who helps so many of us to atone for the evil that we have committed, wittingly and unwittingly. While he probably did not get a goat to confess our sins on its head, he has drawn so many of us to T’Shuvah, to atonement, to spirituality and to God, higher power, higher consciousness with his teachings, his poetry, his prose and the spirit of love, calling, demanding and belief in our ability to change.
Our world is in desperate need to atone for the evil, instead of using scapegoats, instead of blaming another, instead of hijacking speech and using words and phrases that sound wonderful while using them for evil, we have to send the hijackers packing. We need to have a national day of atonement, a day where our entire country participates in the ritual initiated by the High Priest, we all need to lay our hands on the heads of one another “and confess over him/her all the iniquities” we have committed. From the mendacity of ‘stop the steal’ to the deception of ‘select committee to investigate the weaponization of Government’ by the very people who voted to overturn the free and fair election of 2020, to the self-deception that we all participate in of ‘being right and righteous’. The greatest iniquities we commit are those that are in the name of God, in the name of country, etc. Yet, we continue to watch in horror as the politicians, another name for liars, set out to destroy democracy so they can be authoritarians or we participate in this sham, this coup, this taking away our basic freedoms in favor of enslaving and controlling ‘those people’-anyone who doesn’t agree with us and/or subjugate themselves to our will.
On this 50th Yarzeit, I believe we must stand up against the tyranny of liars, the debasement caused by mendacious speech, the slavery caused by our own self-deception. Not just today, we have to be diligent in our daily living and each day, confess “all the iniquities” we have engaged in, all of our unwitting errors of judgement, of speech, of dismissal of another human being. We have to see each person’s divine image and respect the infinite dignity of another human being, especially the people we disagree with. We need to engage our souls and seek our spiritual guides who help us to see our authentic self as Rabbi Heschel does for so many of us.
This weekend is Martin Luther King Jr weekend and Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King were ‘kin under the skin’, as my friend Pastor Mark Whitlock likes to say. They joined together not just as members of a movement, they joined together because their reverence for God, for humanity, for individuals was so great and powerful, they knew together they could “declare liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants” as the Bible teaches and is inscribed on our Liberty Bell. They knew how to reach out and touch the souls, not just the minds, of all people without regard to race, color, creed, sexual orientation. They are the leaders we all need, they are the Priests who have confessed our iniquities and given us a pathway to being whole again, a pathway to understanding the road to freedom that the Bible, the Constitution, etc give to us. am calling for a Day of Atonement for our Country, our communities, our families to both confess our iniquities and find solutions to live the principles of the Bible, the Constitution. I am calling for this in the names of Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel-what better way to honor their lives than this?
In recovery, we put aside any and all differences to help one another maintain recovery. Color, religion, politics, sexual orientation, etc are left at the door so we can learn, mentor, guide and be guided by one another in our quest for redemption. We are engaging in a practice “to atone for the evil” we have committed and to “forgive those who have trespassed against us”. The more we are able to not focus on our differences and embrace our similarities for our recovery, the more we are able to live our recovery and practice these principles “in all our affairs”!
On Yom Kippur, I make it a practice to ask for forgiveness for my sins and for the sins of all clergy throughout history. I have learned from Rabbi Heschel of the dangers of being separate from community, to whitewash the actions of myself and all clergy, make scapegoats of another rather than confessing “all our iniquities”. I learn from Rabbi Heschel that this Day of Atonement can be a Day of At-One-Ment, we come together as a whole human being and a partner as well as servant of God and one another when we truly confess our iniquities, our transgressions and our sins. This “unnoticed miracle” of T’Shuvah as Rabbi Heschel describes it is one of the pillars of my living along with Radical Amazement and not giving in to despair. Distinguishing the good from the not good, the holy from the unholy only comes with the deep introspection that T’Shuvah brings and I need to continue to refine my ability to distinguish. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark