Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 8
“It is therefore of vital importance for religious people to voice and appreciate dissent. And dissent implies self-examination, critique, discontent.” (Essential Writings pg. 106)
Fundamentalists find a loud voice to dissent with everyone who doesn’t think, act, and believe the way they do. Be they religious fundamentalists, political fundamentalists, fundamentalists of any kind. In the Torah, where one would think fundamentalism would reign, people “voice and appreciate dissent”. One of the most known stories about Abraham is that he dissented against God, calling God to examine God’s self and respond to the question: “shouldn’t the judge of all the world do justly?”
The offerings so we can draw near, (Korbanot/sacrifices) we find in Leviticus are examples of self-examination, they are examples of people calling out to one another regarding the errors one makes. The system of judges and courts found in Exodus are for people to “voice and appreciate dissent” rather than ‘take the law into their own hands’, rather than seek vengeance for some feeling of being ‘wronged’. The commandments found in the Holiness Code are examples of “self-examination, critique, discontent” such as the commandment to rebuke, the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself”, etc. In fact, as I am writing this, I realize to fulfill the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself”, we have to engage in dissent, dissent against societal norms and practices that have led us to “suspect your neighbor”, that have led us to unwelcome the stranger, to have one law for the wealthy/ruling class and one law for everyone else, to pervert justice rather than uphold it, etc. To “love your neighbor as yourself” is to engage in the “self-examination” of T’Shuvah, the “critique” of oneself and then of another, and the “discontent” with the status quo and with injustice, with hatred, with any two-tiered system, with caring more about one’s money, status than about another human being!
Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above, as always, is disturbing, it’s giving us all a bad conscience, it is prophecy and it is crucial to the longevity of democracy, religion, freedom, etc. It is a teaching of “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”. He is calling us to action, he is calling us to stop being indifferent to the suffering of another, to the suffering of our self, and stand up and say NO to the injustices we witness, the hatred we engage in, the harshness we excuse. Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us to realize that “vital importance” means “being of consequence to our life” from the Latin. Without dissent, without “self-examination, critique, discontent” there is no consequence to our living, we are living without purpose, without meaning, without passion, without any life in our living. Rabbi Heschel, like the prophets, like Rev King, like all of the ‘rabble rousers’ throughout history (our founding fathers, Moses, etc), makes the placid, vanilla lives we try to lead unpalatable, they are critical, examining, discontent and they voice their dissent to us through their actions and words-will we answer their call?
In recovery, we answer the call for “self-examination, critique, discontent” every day with our 10th step-“continued to take personal inventory and promptly admitted when we were wrong”. This is one of the greatest acts of “dissent” we can take, saying NO to our errors in judgement and action, making restitution and amends for our errors and reconnecting to the humanity of another person and to our own humanity. Once we realize the ways we missed the mark, we are discontent until we make our amends and change our ways of being and thinking. We seek to live a meaningful life, we know that justice, love, kindness, reflection, “dissent”, “self-examination, critique, discontent” are part of being human and growing into a life of passion, purpose and meaning.
My siblings and I grew up knowing distinction (L’havdil) and not racism. We knew right from wrong and we learned dissent. Our father was discontent with racism, anti-semitism, hatred, he taught us to dissent from these as well. He taught us to look at ourselves, to make our own decisions and it was okay to go against the majority. He taught us to look at ourselves and examine our actions, to answer the question “is this the best I can do at this moment” for ourselves. He was loud and unsettled in the face of injustice, wrong doing, he stood up for people and said NO to his friends who would treat another person poorly. These were the lessons of my childhood and I continue to engage in dissent, I continue to critique me and you, I continue to live in discontent over the state of the world and my bad actions, I continue to believe I can do better and so can everyone. I continue to be loud, boisterous, and fearful of “going along to get along”. I continue to write my self-examination out and share it with all of you, I continue to grow into being more human each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark