Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 122
“Let us recall the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel. It is their voice we hear when a great injustice has been done and condoned. From the depths of the centuries they raise their protest.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)
Given the injustices we see each and every day, the mass shootings, the practice of privilege for and by the rich and powerful, the ignoring of the plight of human beings, the indifference to the suffering of people, the ‘dog eat dog’ way of business, the practice of “caveat emptor”, the wariness and fear of people who are different/not of our tribe, etc; we are turning a deaf ear to “the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” and this is, I believe, the root cause of our indifference to injustice.
We, the People, like the people of Ancient Israel and Ancient Judea, are willing, able and run to condone and revel in the injustices of today, we are proud of our “getting over” on the system, on another human being, while shutting off the call of another(s) and the call of our souls and, the call of the Prophets of Israel. It is too painful, it is too nagging, it is too much of a loss for most of us to “recall the tones and accents of the Prophets of Israel”. To hear them, to recall them would force us to change our ways, force us to see the dignity of another(s), to right the injustices that make up our daily living and to surrender to truth, justice, mercy, love, compassion, empathy, to Godliness as actions rather than emotions and we are still fighting these ways that are basic to and what make us human.
We, the people, become objects of our images instead of being and living as Images of the divine. We are driven to cruelty without knowing it, without realizing it, and we believe we are doing good, we are practicing justice, mercy, etc. We know that the Nazis loved their children, classical music, and could come home after a day of destroying human lives, of attempting to destroy the humanity of another(s) and laugh, love, extol their actions as good. While it is easy to point the fingers at ‘those people’, we are missing how we practice injustice and we are turning a deaf ear to “the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel”. When we do not stand up and with anyone who is treated poorly, we are practicing injustice. When we are silent and go along with the lies and bullying of the poor, the needy, the stranger, we are practicing injustice. When we make one law for ourselves and ‘our people’ and another law for ‘those people’ who we deem lower than ourselves, we are practicing injustice and being deaf to the call of the prophets. When we have one law for the rich and another for the poor we are practicing injustice, when we favor the poor over the rich, we are not hearing the call of the prophets nor the call of the Torah. When we forget to do T’Shuvah and not repair the damage we have caused through our practice of injustice, we are deaf to the prophets.
We are engaged in a war for the soul of America, a war for the soul of ourselves. We keep forgetting, it seems, that there is no soul of America unless and until we raise up our individual souls. Until we are willing to realize, accept, and surrender to the truth that any injustice is a great injustice, one injustice leads to another ad nauseam, we will not be able to be free. Until we are willing to look at our self, look at the injustices we wrought and repair them, respond to them and have a new way of being, we will suffer the same fate as the people of Ancient Israel and Ancient Judea: destruction of our country, destruction of our freedom, wounding our souls to their very core. It is up to us to do our own individual inventory on the injustices we have perpetrated and repair the ones we have not yet repaired and make a plan on how we are going to avoid doing the same things over and over again-believing we are being just. We have to make restitution to the people we have harmed and commit to not be indifferent to their call nor the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” any longer.
In recovery, one of the aspects of our humanity we are recovering is our sense of justice. Whether we hear the call of the prophets, the call of our higher power, the call of the person who still suffers that is sitting next to us, we hear the call to serve, we hear the call to be just, we hear the call to repair, restore and respond to the injustices we have committed and the ones committed in our name by society. Our principle of anonymity was to shield people from society’s inhuman and unjust way of ostracizing drunks from their midst and from employment and now, for me, it is a way of leveling the playing field, of not caring who someone is/was only caring for how I can be of service and how I can restore some justice back into their lives and into my own.
Since 1987 when Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l, introduced me to Rabbi Heschel, I have heard the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” each and every day. I have, at times, turned a deaf ear to them as I am not perfect in anything. Yet, the majority of time and energy that I have expended since my first encounter with Rabbi Heschel has been/is in being just, hear the call of the prophets, hearing the call of my father, Jerry, z”l, my grandfathers, David, z”l, and Abe, z”l who fought for the underdog even though they were underdogs themselves, who fought for what was right no matter the personal cost and who are role models for me, for my family and I work hard to live up to their examples and their teachings. They never saw color and/or religion as a barrier, rather they saw differences as opportunities to learn and to serve, they heard and heeded the call of the prophets throughout their lives. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark