Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 62
“A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepting. The knowledge of evil is something which the first man acquired; it was not something that the prophets had to discover. Their great contribution to humanity was the discovery of the evil of indifference. One may be decent and sinister, pious and sinful. I am my brother’s keeper.”(Essential Writings pg.86)
Continuing his thoughts and fears regarding “indifference to evil”, Rabbi Heschel, as I hear him this morning, is a prophet and a historian, a teacher and a guardian for all of us. These words from an unpublished manuscript describe what is happening right now as they described what was happening in his time and in every generation. We make “a silent justification” for our “indifference to evil”, we go along with the media, we go along with the ‘leader’, we go along with our immature inner voices and we stay silent and indifferent in the face of evil.
Listening to Liz Cheney these past few days has brought home Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above in a very dramatic and profound manner. While I disagree with many of her policies, while I disagreed with many of her father’s policies, I see her stubbornness and her determination to not be indifferent to evil. She was/is willing to be an outcast from the Republican Party, she was willing to lose her seat in Congress, she was willing to work in a bi-partisan manner to root out and make public the evil of January 6th 2021 and accuse the perpetrator(s) of this assault on our democracy. She is a hero and an anomaly in that she went against Trump, went against her party, went against her colleagues and stood for democracy and truth.
Her colleagues did the opposite, they are still doing the opposite, and we are in danger of losing the democratic way of life so many have died for. The “silent justification” of Kevin McCarthy, Ronna McDaniel, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, et al, is making “possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted.” These people have a lot of help from Fox, from other media giants, from the people who have drunk the Kool-Aid and, like the people of Jonestown, are willing to be led by a lunatic who is so narcissistic he will harm the people who have been loyal to him for his own gain. Many people have come to accept the evil of Trump and his cronies, the evil of hating the stranger, taking advantage of the poor, shunning the needy, scapegoating the Jews, the Muslims, the LGBTQ+, the person of color, etc to feel better about themselves. The “indifference to evil” is justified because it is allowed to grow and fester in silence, which is why Liz Cheney is heroic in her public stance against both the evil and her condemnation of her former colleagues in staying indifferent to this evil.
In the reporting on the War in the Millde East, a war for the very survival of Israel, a war against a terrorist group who’s raison d’être is to annihilate the Jewish people, we hear little about the evils of Hamas, we hear much about the belief in the words of Hamas. Many of us Jews watch and listen in horror as the media, some commentators, even politicians rail against Israel (and by extension Jews) without ever condemning the evil of Oct 7, 2023 which caused this war. Watching the support of Hamas around the world, the love of Hamas and, by extension the hatred of Israel and Jews, in the UN, the words of Rabbi Heschel come alive in my mind, in my heart and in my conscience-this “silent justification” of the “indifference to evil” against Jews is not new, and it is exhausting, it is difficult to bear, it is fear-producing and it is a betrayal of the alliances, the values, the spiritual principles we say we share. Mike Johnson and his Republican cronies tying aid to Israel in this time of need to defunding the IRS, to his border craziness is another example of their “indifference to evil” and their “silent justification” of the evil they condone, spread and support.
The protests in Israel prior to Oct. 7th 2023 are examples of the opposite of “a silent justification”. They refuse to accept the evil of Netanyahu and his crazy compatriots in their evil ways of: demeaning Justice; of trying to colonize the West Bank; their bastardization of the Bible-instead of Justice Justice you shall pursue they pursue injustice, they give and take bribes which blinds the eyes of the righteous. The people of Israel stood up to their evil, they did not stay silent, they did not stay indifferent! There are continued protests regarding the hostages, regarding what is happening in the West Bank. We hear nothing of any protests in Gaza against Hamas, we hear of no protests of what Hamas did to the people of Gaza in any Arab city in the Middle East, in any city around the world, especially in the United States. Unlike the Civil Rights era of the 60’s, unlike the Anti-Vietnam era of the 60’s-70’s, unlike the myriad of times we have had to ‘take to the streets’ to defend, support, rally for the human dignity and rights of any and all people, be it LGBTQ+, George Floyd, etc our ‘partners’ have fallen into “a silent justification” for their “indifference to evil”; how sad!
I pray each and every day for the Recovery Revolution to permeate people as it has permeated so many of us in recovery. The spiritual values and principles are guiding lights on the path to no longer being silent, no longer being indifferent. Our recovery is rooted in our need and our awareness of the evil we perpetrated ourselves and the evil we were indifferent to, and the evil we stayed silent about. Rabbi Heschel’s words give me a new understanding of one cause of my addiction, my silence about the evils perpetrated upon me, upon my friends and family. While I was too young to know it at the time, as I grew-I kept the secrets, I stayed silent. In recovery, I knew I could not stay silent any longer and have been Very loud:)! We all need to take off the blinders, come out of the ether, and be in recovery! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark