Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 66

“The prophet is a person who suffers the harm done to others. Whenever a crime is committed, it is as if the prophet were the victim and the prey. The prophet’s angry words cry. The wrath of God is a Lamentation. All prophecy is one great exclamation. God is not indifferent to evil!”(Essential Writings pg.86)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teaching above is crucial for our understanding and imbuing the Bible, the prophets, and God. Lament comes from the Latin meaning “weeping, wailing”. “The prophets angry words cry” gives us a new and different understanding of the importance of their words, the importance of their actions and a deeper understanding of what it means to witness the bastardization of God’s will, the unraveling of good in the world by twisting the words, the will and the intention of God’s direction, and the pain it causes one to see the destruction of spiritual norms, spiritual wisdom, and morality.

We are in need of more prophets, or descendants of the prophets as Rabbi Heschel defines us. We are in need of being a “reminder of God”, we need to dedicate ourselves this Hanukkah to fulfilling the “divine need” we are created for a little more. Yet, until we can have the angry “cry” of the prophets, we will continue to stand idly by while the charlatans, the terrorists debase the word of God, the teachings of Christ, the way of Mohammed, the spiritual program of Eastern Philosophies, etc. The prophets are wailing and weeping as they scream at us to stop being indifferent to the suffering of any and all people. Their cry is louder than the cry of those being harmed because their wailing is powered by a divine voice, their weeping comes from the “fire in the belly” that defines their compassion, their clear-sighted vision of what is right and good as well as their seeing the wrong and the evil.

This is the greatness of Rabbi Heschel, he is a descendant of the prophets, he is, in my estimation, a prophet himself. Just as he described Martin Luther King Jr. as proof that God had not abandoned the United States of America, Rabbi Heschel is proof that God has not abandoned the Jewish people. Along with so many people, Jewish and not Jewish, who claim Rabbi Heschel to be ‘their Rabbi’, he inspires us to raise our voices, pray with our feet, our actions, and cry as the prophets did. These cries, while they come from weeping and wailing, are not cries of helplessness. These are cries that call for action, that call for repentance, that call for change, for kindness, for truth, for love. Yet, we hear that the Old Testament is a book that depicts an “angry God” and “angry prophets”. How sad that people buy into these lies for the sake of being sheep that live in indifference.

Listening to the cries of the people of Gaza, listening to the cries of the people of Israel, listening to the cries of the families of the hostages, listening to the cries of Jewish students on Campus, listening the the cries of people who are constantly put down, used and abused, listening to the cries of farmworkers, should make us all respond with “the prophet’s angry words cry”. We need to seek solutions and, in reality, it is the same solution for all. Rather than criticize Joe Biden for vetoing the Ceasefire resolution in the UN, which is historically anti-semitic since 1967 like Ocasio-Cortez is doing, we should be calling on Qatar to stop funding the terrorists, to hand over the leaders of Hamas who live in luxury in their land. We should be demanding that Hamas leave Gaza, that they stop their torture of both the people of Gaza, the hostages, and the people of Israel. We should be crying angry words to Netanyahu for his betrayal of the Jewish people, the Israeli people. We should be crying angry words to the leaders of College campus’ across the nation who are not educating our young to see the whole picture, who are pushing an agenda (conservative/progressive) that is one-sided. We should be crying angry words to our Congress that seems incapable of finding solutions to the problems we face in America today-gun violence, anti-semitism, racism, voter suppression, mendacity in the highest echelons of government.

Listening to the cries of people who have been shunned for speaking truth, listening to the cries of people who stand up and speak truth to power and are ostracized for it, listening to the myriad of people who take up “the prophet’s angry words cry” way of being and being exiled for it, has to make the rest of us angry and cry out at the injustice we witness and participate in. When we have more people in jail and prison than any other nation, when our criminal justice system as well as our civil justice system is so heavily weighted by racism and money, we have to wail and weep over our betrayal of the Biblical dictate to judge each case on its own merits. We have to speak out and speak loudly because it is apparent the people in power have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the call of the prophets, to the will of God, no matter what Mike Johnson and his ilk proclaim. There is no honor in going along to get along, there is no trust in selling out like Kevin McCarthy.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith’s program of recovery is prophetic in spirit and nature, it is, like the Bible, like Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and writings, a program of action based on the wailing and weeping of marginalized people-addicts, alcoholics, gamblers, people who don’t ‘fit in’. Being responsible to God, being responsible to another human being, being responsible for our actions without a lot of lawyer talk, is what the prophets called for and what people in the Recovery Revolution live. We weep over our callousness, we wail about our acts of injustice and mendacity, we cry for the souls of those who are in need of recovery and cannot face the truth, be they alcoholics or just people with the “ism” of alcoholism! God Bless, Happy Hanukkah, stay safe, Rabbi Mark