Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 48
“The outbreak of war was no surprise. It came as a long expected sequel to a spiritual disaster. Instilled with the gospel that truth is a mere advantage and reverence weakness, people succumbed to the bigger advantage of a lie-“the Jew is our misfortune”-and to the power of arrogance-“tomorrow the whole world shall be ours”, “the peoples’ democracies must depend upon force.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 149).
The last two phrases above, “tomorrow the world shall be ours”, “the peoples’ democracies must depend upon force” are so tantalizing to the ear and the hearts of racists and anti-semites, authoritarians and their followers. We hear echos of these themes, if not the same words, from people like Rick Santorum, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Elon Musk, and so many of both the ‘progressives’ on the left and the ‘conservatives’ on the right. Hamas and their partners, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, etc don’t have the pretense of democratic rule, they are just authoritarians and/or terrorists, so they believe and work towards the first goal: “tomorrow the whole world shall be ours”.
The issue here, as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel’s call from 85 years ago in today’s context, in today’s world, is to learn from our errors of the past. There is a saying: “when someone tells you who they are, believe them”, both the ‘progressives’ and the ‘conservatives’ are telling us who they are: anti-semitic and only interested in their own race, hence they are willing to sacrifice, denigrate, all other races. The authoritarians are telling us who they are: hateful, bullying, destructive, terrorists. Why is so hard for the rest of us to believe them, just as it was difficult for Europeans and Americans to believe Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito in the 1930’s?
Joe Biden has counseled Israel to learn from the errors of America following 9/11 and this is good advice. I would add the world should learn from the errors of the 1930’s and 40’s and not let the rampant anti-semitism and the lies, ‘half-truths’ of the media and the terrorists enhance what the goal of the potentially deadly for democracy coalition of ‘progressive’ anti-semites, ‘conservative’ anti-semites, and Hamas terrorists with the authoritarians thrown in-the end of democracy, the return of theocracy and authoritarianism to Europe, to America, to the world.
There are adherents to the last two phrases above in Israel, in Europe, in America, some of the names mentioned above and a vast army of other people joining them. We cannot let them worm their way into our hearts and minds, we have to heed the words of the Bible, “don’t scout out after our hearts and our eyes because we will whore after them”(Numbers 15:39). We seem to be incapable, as individuals and as groups of heeding this wisdom, this command. We are constantly in danger of believing our own lies, we are constantly wrestling with our own self-deception to seek and find truth, seek and find a path of living that connects us to God, to decency, to one another for the sake of uplifting our brothers and sisters, not denigrating them.
To do this, we have to see how our society has moved from a co-operative to a waring, win at all and any costs society. We are not meant to “kill the competition”, we are not meant to “get ahead at any and all costs” , we are not meant to “just win, baby”. We are created dependent, we are taught to grow into inter-dependence, to make coalitions so that everyone is welcome. In the same chapter of Numbers, we are commanded to have “one law for the citizen and the stranger alike” in a few different ways. We are not to discriminate as we have in this country since our founding, we are not to treat Arabs different than Jews has Israel has done since its founding, we are not to “hate our brothers in our hearts” as Christians have towards Jews for millennia and as Arabs have done for over a hundred years. We are not to use force to convince people “our way is the best way”, we are not to use subterfuge to disguise our authoritarian and terrorist goals in order to dupe people who are willfully blind to truth.
One of the foundational principles of the Recovery Revolution is T’Shuvah, Inventory. We have to look at our past to see how we missed the mark and how we hit the mark, we have to see our imperfections, improve upon them knowing we are imperfect beings, repair the damage we have done through missing the mark and being proud of the ways we have hit the mark. These yearly and daily inventories keep us in line with the command from Numbers above:”don’t follow your heart and your eyes because you will whore after them.” We stop being whores looking out for our selfish immediate desires and we become servants of the good, the holy, and of one another.
I have been guilty of using the power of persuasion and the vulnerabilities of another against them. I did this throughout my ‘career’ as a conman and a thief. I did not care about the effects of my actions on another human being and I was blind to the damage I was causing. Only through joining the Recovery Revolution have I been able to see the damages and repair them, only through joining and taking my place in the Recovery Revolution have I been able to help another(s) let go of the lies Rabbi Heschel tells us of above. While I have also experienced my vulnerabilities used against me, I have learned to feel sad for the people who have to do this-they are pathetic and in need of divine pathos, Godly compassion. I have learned, the hard way, that willful blindness, self-deception leads to destruction and a daily inventory of the lies I tell myself leads us to wholeness. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark