Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 123
“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)
Rabbi Heschel teaches us that any injustice is a grave injustice to the Prophets of Israel and should be to us as well, yet we seem to be hardened to the daily injustices that happen all around us and the ones we commit. We are so used to “that’s the way of the world” and “this is how it has always been” that we are deaf to the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” and herein is the heart of our current situation.
When a former Vice-President fights a legitimate subpoena because of politics, when he hides behind some false image of himself, his former office, he is committing an injustice and everyone is affected. The injustice that stands out most, to me, is his unwillingness to engage in truth, to speak truth and to end the mendacity that he was a part of for the past 6 years. While he paints himself as a ‘good christian’, he is not a patriot nor a good American due to his desire to lie and deceive under the guise of standing for something noble. He has shown that he stands for himself, for what he can gain, and will use mendacity and self-deception in the furtherance of these gains.
When we see an unhoused person on the street and we ignore their plight, their request for change, for a cigarette, to be recognized as a human being, we are committing an injustice. When we kiss up and sh^&t down, we are committing an injustice. When we ignore the poor and the stranger, when we criminalize being needy, when we imprison all of the Jean Valjeans’ of our communities and world, we are committing an injustice. When we go along to get along, when we care only about “getting mine”, we are committing an injustice.
When we fail to see the whole situation and put our spin on a part of the whole, when we take things out of context in order to be right and vindicate our unjust behaviors, we are guilty of injustice. When we do things in the “name of God” and they are unjust, we are not only unjust, we are taking God’s Name in vain, we are creating False Images of God, we are creating false images of our self, and we murdering the souls/spirits of another(s). When we are more concerned with status than justice, what is right, we are committing an injustice.
Unfortunately, these few examples don’t take in the breathe of injustices, there is Putin invading Ukraine, there is Netanyahu trying to take control of the courts, there is the US Supreme Court who are more interested in a political agenda than the rule of law. We have a House of Representative majority who are more interested in chaos and ‘gotcha’ than in legislating and helping our citizens. We have White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis all over the world who want to seize power and ‘kill the Jews’ and everyone else who are a threat to their power, their dominance. We have everyday people who ignore one another because of fear, of self-absorption, of self-centeredness, of wanting to make a name for themselves.
We are as deaf to the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” as we have ever been and it is leading to the degradation of our humanity. The prophets voices, no matter how loud they call to us “from the depths of centuries” are being ignored and bastardized. When an injustice is perpetrated God cries, God protests, God cares about the widow and the orphan, the poor and the stranger, the needy in material and spiritual matters and we, who ignore all of this, we who commit these ‘little’ injustices claim to be God-fearing? Actually, we are god-fearing because we have created idols, we worship at the feet of power, prestige and wealth rather than acting in concert with our status as a partner of God.
In recovery, we hear the call of the prophets all the time. In fact, we change our old ways and begin our recovery because we finally hear/heard the call to justice, the call to change from someplace other than our own ‘stinking thinking’. We “practice these principles in all our affairs” in order to be more mindful and aware of the injustices we commit and the one that are committed in around us. We know that our minds, our lower consciousness will lie to us and from there it is all downhill!
I am plagued by “the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” and I hear their protest “from the depths of centuries” through my own sense of justice and because Rabbi Heschel, like the prophets are disturbing my inner peace. I am acutely aware of injustice and I am, at times, very reactive and loud. I am not politically correct in these moments because I am so afraid of buying into the deception of another and my own self-deception. I must continually speak up because Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, etc are within me and Rabbi Heschel’s words and teaching torture me when I am unjust and when I witness injustice and say/do nothing. It is not a life that’s fun and it is a life of meaning and purpose. I believe the words of the Prophets of Israel were given to us so we can stay a little disturbed and not be too sure of ourselves and our actions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark