Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 23

“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)

Human beings have forgotten the words of Genesis 1:27: “And God created human beings in God’s Image, in the Image of God created God both, male and female.” Unless and until we live into our heritage, our history, our Godliness, there can be “no brotherhood” and “no humanity”. We are people who claim to love God, claim to follow God and we have destroyed one another in the name of God and we seem to be unable to truly have “attachment to God.” Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above has not been heeded, it is not lived in our daily actions, and we destroy “brotherhood” and “humanity” in the name of God-how much greater a bastardization of the Bible, of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching can we engage in?

Whether it is the denial of Hamas’ terrorist attacks, whether it is the denial of Iran’s influence, whether it is the ‘prosperity Gospel’, whether it is the lies of a theology that makes one people ‘better’ than another, whether it is the racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, anti-LGBTQ+ that is rampant in our world, whether it is the death threats to ‘go along’ with hatred and indecency, we are suffering from a lack of “brotherhood”, a lack of “humanity”. Yet, we claim our prejudices are done in the “name of God” while they are really done in the name of idolatry, they are done to make ourselves “god” instead of taking actions that make us God-Like! We have wrapped ourselves in misinterpretations of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc in order to validate what is invalid, in order to give cover to what is despicable, in order to “suspect your neighbor” and to “hate your brother in your heart”- all of which are against the teachings, wisdom, meaning and intentions of our HolyTexts and God’s will. What is happening in Israel and Gaza is horrific! War always is. There is enough blame about the ‘Palestinian situation’ to go around from the Palestinians to the Arab nations to Israel. Making Israel the enemy, blaming the victims of terrorism for the cruelty and evil that terrorists have done to them simply is ridiculous. It doesn’t promote “brotherhood, humanity”.

We have to return to our roots-we are all created in the Image of God, male and female God created us both. Any attempts to deny equal rights, equal dignity, equal worth to another human being is a denial of God being “father”. Any denial of the right to live in peace, denial of the need for “nation shall lift up sword against nation and humans will learn war no more”(Isaiah 2:4) is a denial of our claims of “attachment to God”! Yet, we have people on the left proclaiming the rape, torture, murder, kidnapping of people in their beds, in their homes as ‘freedom fighting’! We have these same people blaming the innocent Israelis for their own demise, calling for the end of the siege of Gaza, while not demanding the Red Cross see and care for the hostages, not demanding the release of the hostages, and they wrap themselves in the Palestinian Flag while burning the Israeli Flag, while denying the “brotherhood” of all of us and applauding the inhumanity of terrorism and evil. We have people denying the equal dignity, the brotherhood, and the humanity of people of color, of people who are needy in our own country and claiming to be ‘good christian people’. We have people calling for the destruction of Jews while claiming to be ‘good muslims’. We have people calling for the destruction of Arabs while claiming to be ‘good jews’. We have become People of the Lie rather than people trying to climb “out of the pit”.

Recovery is a spiritual path that recognizes and promotes “brotherhood”, “humanity”, “attachment to God” in all of our affairs. While many see recovery just about drugs and alcohol, process and/or substance addictions, recovery is actually about living a life that honors the dignity of all people, that reaches out to our ‘enemies’ in order to live beside one another, that acknowledges our foibles, forgives the errors and hurts another perpetrates, is responsible to ask forgiveness for our own errors, and commits to grow “along spiritual lines”. For it is only through spiritual growth that we can begin to fight the evil within and outside of us, it is only through spiritual growth that we can make the words of Isaiah come true, it is only through spiritual growth that we can cure the “cancer of the soul” that our prejudices produce. I have made curing the “cancer of the soul” my mission in life. I use daily spiritual growth to keep curing the cancer that wants to come back, I keep my own cancer in remission through spiritual practice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark