Year 2 Day 143
“The fact that we were given knowledge of His will is a sign of some ability to cope with evil. The voice is more than a challenge. It is powerful enough to shake the wilderness of the soul, to strip the ego bare, to flash forth His will like fire.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374-375)
Rabbi Heschel’s teaching in the first sentence above is, in my experience, the foundation of our redemption. As we are moving forward toward’s Passover and Easter-both redemptive events-we need to engage in “the fact” that Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of. There are facts upon which we can all agree upon and we need to return to “the fact that we were given knowledge of His will”. At issue today is the ‘alternative fact’ that God’s will is punitive, exclusive, only for a select few, etc. God’s will, as Rabbi Heschel is teaching us is for all of us, for all people-believers and non-believers alike.
The prophets railed against the idea that God’s will could be carried out to favor the rich and powerful, that only the priests could interpret it for their benefit, that it could be bastardized to condone evil, and sacrifices/tshuvah/amends could be offered from our self-interest instead of from our souls. Yet, while their words are available, their pleas are still being heard through the Bible, we seem to still be incapable of overcoming the evil in our minds and hearts to actuate them. Rather than discriminate, rather than use the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, etc to validate our evil devising, Rabbi Heschel is exhorting us to use them to cope with this evil with the help, the adherence, the action of using knowledge of God’s will to overcome/cope with the evil inside of us.
While evil is confused with good since creation, since Adam, fulfilling God’s will in our daily living is the antidote to succumbing to it, the pathway of separation, the way we live into the commandment: “Thou shall be holy” from Leviticus 19. Being holy is not relegated to Priests, Rabbis, Imams, Pastors, Ministers, Gurus, etc-it is a demand of God for all of us. The prophet Micah reminds us of the knowledge of God’s will: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God”(Micah 6:8). This is not spoken just to the people in power, it is a message for all of us. We all know this challenge that Micah gives us is the true challenge of God, of living well, of serving something greater than our own self-interest.
We are living, once again, in a time where fascism is being confused with populism, where “the poor white man” is being discriminated against, where authoritarianism is looked up and supported as good, where the elite are convincing their ‘people’ to go against their own self-interests. We seem to forget how well that has worked for the average Russian, for the German people of the 30’s and 40’s. People are engaging in confusing God’s will to “do justly” with follow the leader who says they are for us while having no real relationship with us. The leaders of this ‘populist’ movement went to Harvard, Yale, and other top ranked colleges and law schools, they took advantage of scholarships, affirmative action, used their connections, family and others, to get where they are; yet they call everyone else ‘the elites’. Elitism has become synonymous with freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of ideas in their language. Showing mercy, according to these ‘populists’ is a sign of weakness, admitting their errors and being responsible for their crimes and misdemeanors against God and God’s creations is met with derision. Yet, they promote their surge for power, their takeover of the psyche of people a la Viktor Orban, who these ‘conservatives’ love, as God’s will!
In recovery, we commit to “turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him (Big Book of AA, 4th edition). We know the dangers of our will uber alles. We are suffering the aftershocks of the earthquakes we caused in our lives and the lives of those around us. We are face to face with the destruction we wrought and now, through our “knowledge of His will” we use it to change our ways, to cope with evil and no longer be defeated by evil and no longer defeat another with our own evil. We seek each day to be more just, more merciful and walk in God’s ways a little more, a little farther.
Only through “knowledge of His will” have I been able to serve God, serve people, serve the calling and craving of my own soul. Walking humbly with God allows me to cope with the evil thoughts, designs I had previously acted out. Loving mercy is the way I repay the debt of gratitude to God for being merciful with me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark