Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 30

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

Immersing ourselves in the first two sentences above allows us, calls for us to determine what is “sacred” and what is “evil”, as well as what is “blasphemy”. “Sacred” is explained in numerous areas in the Bible; human life is sacred, animal life is sacred, rebuking one’s neighbor is sacred, not hating one’s neighbor in one’s heart is sacred, caring for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy is sacred, having one law for the stranger and the citizen alike is sacred, “proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to all it’s inhabitants therein” is sacred, treating the captives in war with dignity and respect is sacred, standing up against Amalek/blotting out Amalek is sacred, redeeming the captive, doing T’Shuvah, our covenantal relationships with God and humanity is sacred, and so much more. Choose Life we are told by Moses, stop looking towards heaven for answers when the solutions to life’s challenges are “in our hearts, in our mouths”.

Nowhere is hunting for sport, senseless killing for our own power, denying the dignity of another human being, treating the poor as criminals, not redeeming our people from poverty, ill-health, etc, called sacred. There is no place in the Bible that extols humanity’s ability to proclaim one way as the only way, there is no place in the words of the prophets that extols killing for sport, be it killing animals or humans, there is no place where the prophets extol war for the sake of power and greed, there is no place where the prophets proclaim the right to subjugate the needs of the many for the needs of the few in power. Evil comes in so many disguises, it comes dressed as ‘sacred’ at times, it comes to us through mendacity and deception. It holds us captive, it makes slaves of us through our engagement in self-deception, our misreading of the text, our using what is holy and sacred for our selfish desires and drive for money, power, and prestige. We witness this “evil” daily, we are perpetrators of “evil” when we ignore it, when we explain it away, when we are indifferent to it! Rabbi Heschel, in this essay begun in 1938, is calling us out and some 85 years later we seem to continue to be deaf to his call, to this choice.

We participate in blasphemy by being indifferent to “evil” and to the “sacred”, by ignoring the call to be servants of “the sacred”, by bastardizing and blaspheming what is holy and good, what is true and right. We participate by not calling it out, by not standing up against this blasphemy, by electing authoritarians, by electing these ‘religious’ people who stand for themselves, not God; who bastardize the Bible, the New Testament, the prophets, the Koran, etc. When Mike Johnson extols the 2nd Amendment right to have AR-15’s, when he claims to be a follower of Jesus and works to gut programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare to the needy and poor, Child food programs, he is demonstrating what a blasphemer is, what being a “slave to evil” is and his faux sincerity is nauseating. When Hamas claims outrageous numbers of dead and wounded and the press/media blindly accept these liars words as truth, we are witnessing the lure of “the evil” and how easy it is to be captivated by it. When we hear the UN speak of humanitarian aid, which is sorely needed by the people of Gaza and not to be given to Hamas (which they have never distinguished), and do not think it is important to visit the hostages taken.on Oct. 7th, they are demonstrating their indifference to evil while wrapping themselves in some bullshit humanitarian cloak. The people who speak the loudest about their being “ministers of the sacred” are usually the ones who blaspheme the most and are willing “slaves of evil” carrying out the demands of evil with reckless abandon-be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Progressive, Far-Right, etc.

I have wrestled with people all my life, I have wrestled with my self all my life to overcome being a captive to evil, to stop my blasphemy and, in the last 35 years “the sacred” has won much more often than “evil”. I have been accused of blasphemy when I speak the truth, when I call out and question the Sages of old, when I refuse to go along with conventional ideas and ways and I am proud of it. I am not proud of the times I have gone against the principles of recovery, the principles of God and blasphemed. I don’t hide them and I am continue to seek “the sacred” and Choose Life! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark