Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 82

“The omnipotence of God is not always perceptible, but the omnipotence of the Bible is the great miracle of history. Like God, it is often misused and distorted by unclean minds, yet its capacity to withstand the most vicious attacks is boundless. (God in Search of Man pg.241)

In a weekly Shabbat morning study that has been ongoing for over 20 years, a few weeks ago we studied these words above. We were all struck by the power of them, the truth of them and they made/make us look within ourselves to experience this power, this “omnipotence of the Bible in the ways we are living today. Omnipotence comes from the Latin meaning “all-powerful” and while some human beings seem to believe they are omnipotent, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of the fallacy of such belief, the ridiculousness of such thinking and the danger of acting in such a manner. Yet, some people still do with their lies, their deceptions and their actions. It is a “great miracle” that the Bible has withstood the assault on it, the bastardization of its teachings that have been “the most vicious attacks” on it. We are witnessing today, as we have in every generation, these “vicious attacks” by those who proclaim to believe in it the most, by those who claim their indecent, unkind, criminal actions are in accordance with the teachings and values of the Bible!

Whether these so-called ‘adherents to the Bible’ are radical Muslims, Evangelical Christians, Catholics who don’t adhere to Vatican II, Jews who are right-wing fanatics, or the secular “nones”, all have the same thing in common: they assault the “omnipotence of the Bible” with everything they have, with a verve and a vigor that makes unsuspecting people, uncertain people believe them and allow themselves to think these storm troopers against the Bible may be correct. This belief, this wearing down of the spirit and the minds of ‘the masses’ has allowed these terrorists to capture the minds of so many who become willing to go along with these ‘people who have all the answers from the Bible’. The power of the Bible is so great that people can bastardize it and seem legitimate, seem ‘holy’, seem ‘to know’.

That Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above was published in 1955 is another sign of his prophetic nature and abilities. While he was describing what has occurred throughout the millennia, he also is describing what is happening today! The Bible “is often misused and distorted by unclean minds” today as much if not more than it was in the days of the prophets, in the days of Middle Ages, etc. Whether it is Ben-Gvir, the Rabbis in the West Bank who use the Bible to promote their desires for power and control by bastardizing the Biblical teachings or it is Mike Johnson, Mike Huckabee, Franklin Graham, et al who use the Bible to distort the clean minds of so many people, these vicious attacks will not change the Bible, will not change the teachings and the Biblical way of being, the truth of the Bible will win out as it has over the millennia.

While many people despair over these “vicious attacks”, while many people are convinced by these “vicious attacks”, Rabbi Heschel’s words come to comfort those of us who believe in the Truth of the Bible, who adhere to its “omnipotence”. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to not become impotent in the face of these vicious attacks, to not try and “fight fire with fire” because we cannot win in the direct confrontation with mendacity. What we can do is be assured that the Bible’s ability “to withstand the most vicious attacks is boundless”. While Mike Johnson may say the Bible wants white men to have power, while he may truly believe a woman has no agency in a man’s world, while his actions may reflect the opposite of welcoming the stranger, caring for the poor, helping the needy, the truth of the Bible will prevail, the “omnipotence of the Bible” will win out, it just may take a little longer than most of us want it to! No matter what the Rabbis of the West Bank and their colleagues may preach and distort, no matter how much Ben-Gvir and his band of thugs including Netanyahu attempt to ‘take control’ of Israel, Rabbi Heschel’s words bring us to the realization that these attempts are not new, they are not even better than the previous attempts by so-called religious people to make the Bible theirs, rather than making themselves more like the Bible calls us to be. Finally, for today, Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above calls to those of us who truly believe in “the omnipotence of the Bible” to stand up for it, to respond to those who’s “vicious attacks” on it are killing innocent people in Ukraine, in Russia, in Gaza, in Israel, in the United States, in Sudan, with truth, with power, with strength that just as the Bible has “withstood” the attacks on it, we can also withstand the attacks on decency, democracy, love, truth, kindness, justice and mercy.

Recovery is an essential path for us who believe in spirituality, who believe that there is a “power greater than us” in the world and who believe in the eternal wisdom, truth, love of the Bible, of the myriad of other spiritual texts that are at the foundation of every spiritual discipline. We have to recover the meaning of these words of wisdom and truth for ourselves in this moment, we get to discover the brilliance of the Bible, the awesomeness of other Holy Texts and how these timeless lessons help us to withstand the assault on our dignity from outsiders and from within our own being. In recovery, we surrender our need to be right at all costs and we learn, re-learn, how to do right, how to be teachable, how to admit our errors and not be won over by our desire for certainty, our insatiable thirst for ‘winning’ and how to withstand the assault of our negative impulses. This is how we continue to grow in recovery, this is how we continue to believe in the power of our souls to withstand the “vicious assaults”  of our “hearts and eyes” to “whore after them”, as we say each day after the Shema prayer. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark