Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 50

“It was through our failure that people started to suspect science is a device for exploration; parliaments pulpits for hypocrisy, and religion a pretext for a bad conscience. In the tantalized souls of those who had faith in ideals, suspicion became a dogma and contempt the only solace. Mistaking the abortion of their conscience for intellectual heroism, many thinkers employ clever pens to scold and to scorn the reverence for life, the awe of truth, the loyalty to justice. Man, about to hang himself, discovers it is easier to hang others.”(Man’s Quest for God pgs. 149-150)

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, it is the day of the first day of any sign of real hope of getting all the Hostages out of the clutches of the terrorist Hamas group and out of Gaza. We need to stay engaged in the ideas and the principles President Kennedy charged us with, we need to re-energize the hope, the promise, the equality that President Kennedy, Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy, Rabbi Heschel and so many others brought to the world in the 60’s. “In the tantalized souls of those…” is as an apt phrase for our situation today as it was when Rabbi Heschel wrote it in 1943. To tantalize means to “torment”, ideals is from ideas, suspicion is distrust, dogma is “a set of principles laid down by an authority as inconvertibly true”, contempt is to believe everyone, something is beneath you, and solace means comfort. Using these definitions, this sentence above says: in the tormented souls of those who had faith in ideas, distrust became inconvertibly true and a supercilious attitude was the only comfort for them.

Just as it was the state of affairs of the world in the 1930/1940’s, it seems as if it is the state of our world as well. The myriad of people who claim to be people of faith, have faith in some ideal which is not Godliness, which is not the words of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, etc. They are “tantalized souls” and suspicion has become their dogma, they suspect everyone but “their people” and they hold “their people” to intense scrutiny. The level of distrust, mistrust in these so-called ‘people of faith’ is so high, there is no way to communicate with them, there is no chance of finding common ground, there is no compromise to be reached. This is also true of terrorists, they are so set in their “ideals” there is no compromise. Both groups, unbelievably, want to to dictate terms of our surrender, want us to know it is “my way or the highway” and it takes an act of war for us to wake up and fight for truth, for freedom, for democracy, to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”!

We have to realize and face the reality of the world we have created, we have been so enamored with ideals, with ideas, we have allowed the charlatans, the deceivers, the self-deceptions, and mendacity to creep into our understanding and reading of the US Constitution, US history, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, all to our ruin. “I think, therefore I am” by Descartes is the phrase of people who have “tantalized souls”, they are tormented by lies, by the deception of societal norms, because the Bible tells us ‘I am, therefore I can think’ and it then gives us the parameters within which to act so we can act our way into right thinking. The ‘people of faith’ who have been elected to serve in Congress have forgotten President Kennedy’s words promoting service, they have bastardized the words of the Bible to “care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor, the needy”. These people have made suspicion their dogma and take comfort in looking down at everyone else to such an extent they have anointed Donald Trump as their savior, they have signed on to the 2025 project, and they are attempting to end our democracy, end our freedoms, and rule forever. Sounds like the 1000 year Reich doesn’t it?

Today, we see the people with such ‘high ideals’, on our College Campus’, support terrorists as freedom fighters, believe the raping of women, the killing of children, the murdering of young people at a music festival, the taking of women, children, elderly, men are all good and righteous acts if done by ‘the oppressed Palestinians’. Yet, they don’t seem to realize they would not have the freedom to protest in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Egypt, in Qatar, etc. They seem to be willfully blind to the goal of the terrorists Hamas, exterminate Jews and disappear Israel. We have raised a generation of people to have distrust and mistrust in anyone and any idea that doesn’t go along with theirs. We have raised a generation(s) of people with the ideas of critical thinking gone completely haywire. They turn critical thinking into criticism of anyone who doesn’t agree with them, they have turned critical thinking into believing anyone who is ‘critical’ of ‘the ones in power.

The world needs recovery! We need to live by a set of spiritual principles because the world and all of us are suffering a “soul-sickness” as Father Martin teaches. We need to rededicate ourselves, as we gather around the Thanksgiving Table, to the spiritual principles of the Bible, to the actions God is demanding we take in order to save ourselves. As Father Martin says: “The result, then, of living these principles should be serenity, which is nothing more than Peace of conscience.” May we all find serenity(clarity) now! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark