Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 131
“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)
We are living in an era of identity politics, identity victimhood, and this has made us forget what it means to be free and live in “the land of liberty” rather than in “the home of the brave”. The second sentence above gives us an “eye chart” with which to see our behaviors, our actions as well as the actions and behaviors of another(s). In our misguided definition of freedom: doing anything we want to, spinning laws to our advantage, finding friendly courts to go along with mendacity, saying anything we want to whether true or not, winning at any and all costs, let the buyer beware, not taking responsibility for our actions if we have the power to hide, cover-up, and deny, etc. When the people in power, when White Power/White Supremacists claim they are being discriminated against because they are being called to account and being held responsible; when Black people forget that Jews have been oppressed, hated, discriminated against, and engage in anti-semitism; when Jews forget they were slaves in Egypt and we are commanded 36 times to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy not take advantage of another person, when we forget “the seller must disclose any flaws”, when we support any oppressive, authoritarian ways of being, we forget our experience throughout the millennia and especially in 1930’s Germany; when Muslims forget they were some of the most educated people in the world and they had a practice of welcoming, working with and engaging with people from different religions and cultures, when they forget that Islam means peace; when Christians bastardize the teachings of Christ, when they seek to oppress anyone and everyone who doesn’t follow their mendacious interpretation of Christ’s words, when they use their New Testament as a weapon rather than an outstretched hand; “crime, vice, sin” are being rewarded. Doing this under the guise of the Bill of Rights is UnAmerican, more like Joe McCarthy than Abraham Lincoln, more like Vladimir Putin than Vladimir Zelensky, more like the Confederacy than the Union Lincoln sought to preserve.
We, the People, have to look in the mirror, we have to look at the “eye chart”, as I call the second sentence above and, really, all of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings, and clear up our vision of what the “land of the free and home of the brave” truly means. It doesn’t mean any of the actions and/or behaviors listed above and so many other deceptions we perpetrate onto another(s) and it is trying to address our myriad of self-deceptions. Living in America is a responsibility, being Jewish is a responsibility, as is being a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, Hindu, etc. Being blessed to live in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” is not to be taken for granted, not to be bastardized to the point of discrimination, not to be denied to other immigrants seeking refuge as all of our ancestors were, except for the Native Americans whom we have shunted off to reservations and treated so poorly. We, the people, have to stand with the poor, the needy, the stranger, and raise them up as we/our ancestors were lifted up. None of us ‘made it on our own’, no matter what lies we continue to propagate, no matter how much we want to rewrite history!
We, the people, have to return to the spirit of our founding even though our founders could not completely act in the spirit they knew was needed. This is not a license to enslave people, to treat people badly, our history is one of knowing what is right and good, committing “crime, vice, sin” and still believing in virtue and goodness-just not able to fulfill it in all of our affairs. This is not a knock on our founding fathers, it is an acknowledgment of their humanness, their imperfections. We, the people, have to see the imperfections of our ancestors and improve upon them, we have to acknowledge our own inadequacies and ask for forgiveness and help, we have to stop using the worst acts of another(s) as the totality of them and stop using the worst acts of our ancestors as a cover for our own bad acts.
As an angry teen-ager who hated the world because of my father’s early death and being left adrift, I know how “crime, vice, sin” was soothing and rewarding. I know how enslaving they are for the person committing them and the people on the receiving end. I am a witness to both sides of this coin, I am not a victim of either and I am a giver and receiver of “crime, vice, sin”. My recovery is based on not promoting them anymore and having compassion for those who need to. I am not perfect and a whole lot better than I was-progress not perfection is my goal and one grain of sand better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark