Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 64

“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)

The last two sentences above is one of the hardest for most of us to take in, comprehend, and engage with. It is counter-intuitive for someone to “be decent and sinister, pious and sinful”, AND it happens all the time. Because of our “indifference to evil”, because of our “silent justification(s)”, we refuse to believe that someone can be both, we continue to live in a binary world of either/or. We refuse to see the humanity of anyone who disagrees with us, we all can and do become both decent and sinister, pious and sinful”. We have failed to look beyond the surface in seeing people, we make our decisions about another human being and that is it-nothing will change our minds. While we only have one opportunity to make a good impression, the realness of any human being comes out through getting to know them, to know their soul, to help them out of their willful blindness which also enables us to get out of our own willful blindness. Yet, we continue to engage in “a silent justification” of our own decisions, of our own ‘rightness’, of our own “evil of indifference”. When we get angry at the unhoused for being in ‘our neighborhood’, when we practice NIMBY against people who are ‘not like us’, when we only want to be with ‘our kind’, we are being both “decent and sinister, pious and sinful.”

In our political world, we go along with people who hide their “sinister” thoughts, intentions and actions because we deem them “decent”. We believe the words of those who portray themselves as “pious” while they practice “sinful” actions. We experience this phenomena with Mike Johnson, with the evangelicals who are supporting Donald Trump, with the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation who promote ‘christian’ values that are antithetical to the teachings of Christ and the prophets, etc. We witness this with the progressives who extol the words of the prophets and practice anti-semitism, hatred of anyone who disagrees with them and/or who question their incongruences. We watch in horror as extremist Muslims and Jews practice the same “sinful” actions, have the same “sinister” designs against one another and their ‘own kind’ who disagree with them in the name of Allah and/or Adonai!

In the Bible, we think Cain is asking a question: “Am I brother’s keeper” when it could also be that he is coming to the realization: “I am my brother’s keeper”. We all are “my brother’s keeper” and we keep denying this truth, we keep using “the evil of indifference” to stay willfully blind to this fact. We are living in a world that has always needed all of us to accept this truth that Cain learned so long ago and needs to now very badly. We listen to people talk about the stranger, the poor, the needy, in terms of harshness and hatred rather than in ways that honor the truth Rabbi Heschel articulates above:”I am my brother’s keeper”. Rather than do anything, including selling a Torah, to ransom the captives, we allow people to be held in captivity by terrorists, by Putin, for weeks, months, years on end. Some of the most “pious”(?) among us believe it is right to enslave people and then extol the benefits of slavery like Ron DeSantis and some of the people in Florida. Our partisanship, our belonging to the tribe, the gang, the group helps us to be both “decent and sinister, pious and sinful” and we stay blind to this truth.

The recovery revolution is the revolution of Judaism, of Islam, of Christianity, of all spiritual disciplines. It is a revolution for the truth of our humanness, it is a revolution for ending our participating in “the evil of indifference”. It is a revolution for holiness, for Godliness, for awareness of and avoiding the pitfalls of doing “sinister” acts while looking “decent”; for ending our justifications of being “sinful” by bastardizing what being “pious” is. Joining this revolution is imperative in our time and has been in every time, the Israelites joined at Sinai, the prophets reminded us of our commitment to recover our ability to be “decent” and “pious” while leaving the pull of “sinister” and “sinful”. Their raging against this is found throughout their words to the Priests and the Kings, the rich and the powerful and the people who followed them. In recovery, we are constantly aware of and act on: “I am my brother’s keeper”.

I am guilty of “silent justification”, of being both “decent and sinister, pious and sinful”. I have not practiced being “sinister” since my recovery began, I have been sinful, however. I also have sought to learn about another human being beyond the surface/facade they have shown. I have lived:”I am my brother’s keeper” in these past 35 years to the best of my ability in the moment and grown into living this way more and more. I am enraged at the injustice I witness and speak about it. I am upset with the people who openly practice being “decent and sinister” and I become bombastic about it. I confront this way of being in myself and in another human being which, at times, causes me great trouble and gets me exiled. Yet, I cannot live with myself if I don’t call it out, if I don’t get confrontational when I witness “the evil of indifference”. “I am my brother’s keeper” is more than a phrase, it is a way of being. When I witness the ways some of the ‘progressives’ have abandoned Israel, when I witness the ways some of the ‘conservatives’ abandon the stranger, the needy, I am enraged and wonder what it will take for all of us to adhere to God’s teaching: “I am my brother’s keeper” and end our “evil of indifference”! God Bless, Happy Hanukkah, stay safe, Rabbi Mark