Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 154
“We are never alone in our struggle with evil. A mitsvah, unlike the concept of duty, is not anonymous and impersonal. To do a mitsvah is to give an answer to His will, to respond to what He expects of us. This is why an act of mitsvah is preceded by a prayer: “Blessed be Thou …”(God in Search of Man pg 375)
“To respond to what He expects of us” is a phrase that should stop us in our tracks, it is a phrase which should inform our reading, doing, then understanding of the entire Torah, the entire Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, and all other basic texts of all spiritual disciplines. When we read and do, understand and guard the expectations of God, we make life better for ourselves and everyone around us. When we “give an answer”…to what He expects of us” we are living a life compatible with being a partner of God. Yet, often we seem to be incapable to doing this, even when we are fulfilling a mitzvah. We have witnessed throughout history the doing of a mitzvah without it changing our inner lives, we have watched as people of all faiths/spiritual disciplines follow the rules and use them to be exclusive, mean, even deceitful. We have watched in horror how often God’s name and commandments have been weaponized and used to harm people we fear, people we see as different than us, people who, often, “respond to what He expects of us.”
When there is divisiveness in our country about helping Ukraine in their war against aggression and against their democracy, we are not responding to “what He expects of us” because we are forgetting the lessons learned 85 years ago from Hitler-one can never appease the aggressors. When some people promote the lies about the election, when they believe that there is one justice system for the masses and another for their elite politicians, we are not responding “to what He expects of us.” In the Torah, we are taught there is one law for the citizen and stranger alike, not one law for the stranger, another law for the citizen, and a third law for the elite, rich, people in power. Yet, we are hearing this separation from some political leaders, some people who are desperate to believe the deception of others. We hear that the Russian aggression is a “territory dispute” from some people in power, we hear that LGBTQ+ and especially trans people are ruining our children, we hear that ‘woke’ people are ruining our democracy, we hear the anti-semitic and racist dog whistles to galvanize white people by white supremacists and the people who cater to them AND this is done by good ‘god-fearing’ people who claim to wrap themselves in the flag of our country and the Bible of Jesus! Bullshit! Yet many people believe in their mendacity.
In the Torah, there are 365 “thou shall not” mitzvot. While many people today think religion and mitzvahs are not necessary because we know right from wrong, these 365 mitzvahs go a long way in reminding, teaching, telling us “what He expects of us”. We were given these 365 because people were doing them instead of not doing them and ruining the lives of people around them, ruining their lives and believing in their own self-deceptions. While we think they are superfluous now, the reality and truth of our existence and actions now show we are in need of fulfilling these 365 now as much as, if not more than, ever. We find our judicial systems under attack across the globe, politicizing justice rather than pursuing it as “He expects”. Rather than ensuring that our judicial system doesn’t favor the rich nor the poor, we find ourselves in a situation where the rich and powerful believe they are above the law, get lighter sentences for the same offenses Judges ‘throw the book’ at the rest of us for. We are on edge in this country and in Israel because people in power have been called to, are being called to account for their actions, just as the prophets called the people in power to account prior to the destruction of the Temple. One of the ‘reasons’ given for the downfall of Israel, Judea(twice) is senseless hatred and injustice, we are witnessing the same today and the people perpetrating it, the people “idly standing by the bloods of their brothers” believe they are immune to the consequences. We, the People, are being called to return to responding “to what He expects”. As Rabbi Hillel says,”If not now, when?”
I have studied Rabbi Heschel for the past 34+ years and continually am disturbed and disrupted by him. Each time I read Rabbi Heschel, each time I read the Torah, I receive new understandings of how I have violated these 365 and how I have kept them. In seeing the nuances and interpretations/misinterpretations of my actions I experience a deeper and closer relationship with God, with the people around/close to me and with the humanity. I get righteously indignant with myself and with people upon realization of how I/we are practicing mendacity and self-deception because I know that these paths exile us from God and there is senseless hatred between people. Each day is one grain of sand better in my quest “to respond to what He expects.” God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark