Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 18

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that god is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above gives us a path to changing the violence and the terror we are experiencing in the Middle East, in the Ukraine war against Russia, in the United States with the chaos and terror caused by racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, anti-LGBTQ, and all other forms of prejudice and hatred. We are witnessing evil in the responses by many ‘left/progressive’ groups as they hail the terrorists of Hamas, vilify Israel for defending itself and we are witnessing white power, white supremacists enjoy freedom to hate Jews and Muslims in speech and acts. We are witnessing the world call on Israel to show restraint, to not go into Gaza and no one is calling on Hamas to release the hostages, to turn themselves in for their evil actions. The evil we see happening is not political rhetoric, it is not ‘freedom fighting’, it is evil and “evil is indivisible”, no matter what people are saying about their private thoughts and feelings, when people are silent in the face of evil, when people do nothing to stop the evil, no matter how much hand-wringing people are doing, the inaction over the years, over the months, in this moment only prove the power of evil and the insidiousness of evil. In our country, we might have a man who voted against the free and fair election of 2020 become Speaker of the House! A man who tried to overturn the election of Joe Biden, who rejected a House subpoena become the Leader of the House, 2nd in line for the Presidency! He is a person who engages in evil “in private and in social life”, he has weaponized government as much if not more than anyone else, he gets his power from his association with Donald Trump.

In the Middle East, the Arab countries have supported Hamas with money, with arms, with moral support and then speak of their desire for peace, speak of the Israelis with disgust and accusations! Be it Qatar, Egypt, Iran, all are culpable, none of whom have cared about the Palestinians, all speak evil in private and all practice evil in their public square as well. In Israel, too many people have bought into the evil that is spewed by far-right and far left extremists, by people who claim to be ‘religious’ and ‘upholding the faith’ while they do nothing to contribute to the growth of peace, the welcoming of the stranger, caring for the needy and the poor unless these entities are ‘religious’ like them. The difference in the Middle East is Israel kills civilians and children by accident, they drop leaflets, send text messages of where they are going to bomb so people can seek shelter, leave the area; Hamas just terrorizes, Russia just targets a funeral! Yet we hear people unwilling to criticize Hamas, Russia and some go so far as to celebrate them for ‘liberating Palestine and/or Ukraine’!

Isn’t it time for good people to stand up? Isn’t it time for good people to acknowledge our need to distinguish the differences, engage in the nuances that the eradication of evil calls for? Isn’t it time for good people to look inside of ourselves and overcome our own evil urges that are out of control? Isn’t it time for good people to come to the aid of our fellowman? Isn’t it time for good people to speak truth to the deceivers and liars that are in Governments all over the world? Isn’t it time for good people to stand up for “the sacred”? Isn’t it time for good people to live the words and sentiments of our Declaration of Independence: “all people are created equal and endowed their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We are in desperate need of recovering our souls, recovering our spiritual cores/centers. We have to break down the evil inside of us, we have to break down the evil that is around us, we have to call it out, we have to shun the terrorists that are Hamas and Putin, Iran and MAGA, religious and secular. We have to look inside of ourselves and let go of our self-deceptions and our desire to believe the mendacities and deceptions of another(s). We are recovering our voices of Godliness, of Holiness, when we speak truth, when we do not ‘go along to get along’, when we do not buy into the “eye disease” and “cancer of the soul” that prejudice is. I have spent my recovery years fighting the evil within me and within people who, like me, made a decision to turn our lives over to God, to a higher power. Recovering people know the power of this action and praying that the world learns this lesson and joins us in recovering the soul of our individual and global humanity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark