Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 52

“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)

Rabbi Heschel’s last sentence above is haunting. It is disturbing in its truth and simplicity. We humans have grown in technology, in medicine, in factual wisdom and in our ability to kill our spiritual and mental health over the millennia. Whether it is Putin in the Ukraine, Hamas in Gaza, Assad in Syria, the Ayatollah in Iran, we are witnesses to people who push the limits so far that their own death, figuratively and literally, are in danger so they instead start wars with another country, within their own country, and seek to kill their ‘enemies’. While Rabbi Heschel was speaking of the Nazis, the Russians, the Japanese, the Italian dictators, we see this today both in the dictators, the terrorists and in the ‘populist’ authoritarians who are on the rise across the globe today.

Abraham Lincoln said: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure” and these words are as true today as they were in 1863. We witness the imprisonment of more people here in the US than in any other Western Country. We witness the senseless killing of people in mass shootings, in domestic violence, in police brutality, in everyday arguments and wring our hands, complaining about mental illness as the cause instead of looking to Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above! The problem is our gun laws, the problem is our our unwillingness to see “all men are created equal”, the problem is a deep need to blame another for our ills and issues rather than be responsible, the problem is we erroneously believe if we can have power over another, we will survive and thrive. The problem is we have come “to scold and scorn the reverence for life, the awe of truth, the loyalty to justice.”

We are witnessing this civil war in Israel right now both internally and externally. Netanyahu was asleep at the wheel because he was/is more concerned about his power, his staying out of court, his not being responsible for his actions, than about the safety and security of the people of Israel. He is/was more concerned about the unacceptable actions of the settler movement than he is/was about the dignity of both Israelis and Palestinians. And, Hamas is a terrorist organization that cares even less about the people of Gaza than Netanyahu! I wish there was a civil war in Gaza, where the people of Gaza would rise up against Hamas for their own dignity, for their own freedom. I pray the end of Hamas in Gaza will signal freedom and dignity for the people of Gaza and the safety, security for the people of Israel bringing a peace that both sides deserve.

In America, we are also engaged in a civil war. We are being pulled in two opposing directions by the MAGA crowd and by the ‘progressive’ crowd. Neither one actually respects the dignity of all, neither one is seeking a spiritual solution, neither one is following Ben Franklin’s advice: “we all either hang together or we hang separately”. Both extremes are more engaged in their false beliefs and their ‘rightness’ than in being responsible, finding solutions for all, and healing the attacks on the dignity and worth of the people they are ‘fighting’. Be it Donald Trump and the Heritage Foundation or “the Squad” and the progressive movement, both have decided who they accept and who they reject, both have steadfast rules for treating anyone who is not “them”. We, the People, who believe Lincoln’s words, who believe God’s words, who follow the examples of the Prophets and Jesus, have to stand up and say NO to these people who want to hang us!

There is a solution to these problems: spiritual health, spiritual values, curing our “eye disease” and “cancer of the soul” called prejudice, ie the recovery revolution. This solution begins with seeing every person as worthy, reflecting the Image of the Divine we are all created in back to one another. Doing this allows us to respond with a resounding YES, HERE I AM, to God’s question; “Ayecha, where are you?” When we say YES, we begin to stop our descent into hanging ourselves. We end the need to hang one another, we no longer need to perpetrate anti-semitism, racism, xenophobia, religious wars, power grabs. We no longer need a ‘bad guy’ to feel good about ourselves. We no longer need to terrorize our neighbors into submission to ‘our way’ of being. We no longer promote false interpretations of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc. We no longer seek to destroy ourselves with our addictions to power, to wealth, to drugs, to escapism, to mendacity and to deception of self and/or another.

Recovery for me has been to find the solution, to find the middle path, to stand up for all people, to stand with Godliness, with decency, and live the spiritual principles of recovery, of faith, of all religious and spiritual heritages. Love, mercy, kindness, compassion, justice, reverence, and, most of all, seeking truth are the principles I and everyone in recovery practice each day, practice meaning we don’t always get there and we never leave the path of these principles. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark