Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 35
“We cannot dwell at ease under the sun of our civilization as our ancestors thought we could. What was in the minds of our martyred brothers in their last hours? They died with disdain and scorn for a civilization in which the killing of civilians could become a carnival of fun, for a civilization which gave us mastery over the forces of nature but lost control over the forces of our self.” (God’s Quest for Man pg. 150)
Rabbi Heschel’s description of our civilization is as powerful today as it was when he wrote this in 1938, updated it in 1943 and published it in 1954! Whether he was speaking of what was happening and what was going to come in Nazi Germany in 1938, he was speaking about the devastation the war was bringing to all of Europe in 1943 as well as the mass murdering of Jews by the Nazis, or he was speaking of the aftermath of death and destruction that happened in the Concentration Camps, all of these are proof texts of his writing above.
We keep trying to find ways to “dwell at ease under the sun of our civilization” all the while cheating, deceiving, “killing the competition”, authoritarianism, money, power, prestige, building walls for our borders and homes, racism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, etc run rampant and, in fact, are used for the benefit of those who are in power to make it possible for them to “dwell at ease”! We are witnesses to the ‘fun’ the powers in Government had when dropping Napalm on the innocent citizens of Vietnam and validating their actions with “the red scourge” of communism in Southeast Asia infecting America! We have seen the streets of our own country bleed the same red blood as all of us have when people are arrested and killed by police for “driving/walking while black”, when people are attacked for being a Jew, for being a Muslim/Arab, when people went to work on 9/11/2001 in the Twin Towers, so the perpetrators could “dwell at ease” having served the idolatry they claim is God/Allah/Jesus. We have witnessed the uproar of our College Campus’ over the racism during the 1960’s which led to, helped along, the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965, both of which have been denuded by subsequent bigots and racists. We are now witnessing the uproar of our College Campus by people praising the Terrorists of Hamas as being ‘freedom fighters’ and threatening Jews all over-calling for a Jihad in this country!
How can we “dwell at ease” when Israel, who was mercilessly attacked on Oct 7, has over 240 of its people held hostage with no contact by the International Red Cross nor the U.N. who, while ignoring the Jewish Hostages, are crying for the ‘poor people’ of Gaza who have accepted the rule of terrorists, who have hid terrorists in their homes, mosques, hospitals, etc either out of fear or out of solidarity. How can we “dwell at ease” when we witness the joy, “the carnival of fun” Hamas had while slaughtering young people at a concert about peace and love? How can we “dwell at ease” when listen as the world’s sympathies once again turn away from the Jewish People and actually turn against the Jews once again. How can we “dwell at ease” when leaders of governments on all sides are only concerned with their political lives, with their holding onto power rather than doing what is right and good for the people they are supposed to be serving?
How can we “dwell at ease” when we have been abandoned by the people we have fought side by side with? When the “left”, who so many Jews have joined in seeking their rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, immediately joined Hamas, joined the mendacity of proclaiming FREE PALESTINE, From Sea to the Ocean, saying the charter of Hamas to destroy Jews, to destroy Israel is a just cause, it is a freedom fighter’s cause! How sad and how disturbing to those of us who still believe in justice and liberty for all. How sad for so many Jews to realize how we have been used and abused, how our vulnerabilities, our principles have been bastardized, abused and how we have been abandoned and, in some cases, hunted by the very people we marched shoulder to shoulder with. How can we “dwell at ease” when the values of God, the principles of the Bible, the calls of the prophets are used against us, when we are subjected to the “evil of the heart” of our ‘friends’ and enemies?
How can we “dwell at ease”? We need a program of recovery, we need to be in acceptance and awareness of what is, not what we want reality to be. We need to live into God’s principles more and more each day, as we learn to in recovery. We need to not lose our dignity, our humanity, our spiritual principles in the face of the onslaught of despicable behaviors towards us. We need to know it is okay to kill the person coming to kill you first, that our lives are no less valuable and worthy as the people who are coming for us, who are trying to subjugate us, who are lying to us. We can “dwell at ease” when we “carry the message” to everyone who suffers from the delusions of power, of racism, of anti-semitism, to all people who are in the throes of the “cancer of the soul” we call prejudice. We can “dwell at ease” when we put “our own house in order” by growing our spiritual life into one of acceptance, love, truth, kindness which we practice in all of our affairs. We can “dwell at ease” when we get angry with a heart of peace, when we go to war with hearts of peace and knowing this is a last resort, when we govern with love, kindness, compromises, knowing we are not the smartest person in the room and another person has ideas that are as good, and could be better to implement-as in the “group conscience” we take in our recovery meetings.
I have been able to “dwell at ease” to a certain extent in my recovery. In fact, this gift from God has given me the strength to improve my decency, my spirituality little by little each day for these past 36 years since I started studying Rabbi Heschel with Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l, in prison. While I am agitated when I witness mendacity and lying, in myself, in those around me, in government, etc, I am “at ease” also because I know that I am following the call of the prophets, the demands of God and the teachings of Rabbi Heschel in my agitation and, only because I can “dwell at ease” with myself and with God’s will, can I be agitated for the sake of heaven-not for my own sake. My agitation, which is interpreted in a myriad of ways, comes from my knowing I cannot “dwell at ease” with the world, with myself, unless I agitate for truth, love, kindness, welcoming the stranger, caring for the poor and the needy, standing up for principles. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark