Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 169
“Living in “the light of the face of God” bestows upon man a power of love that enables him to overcome the powers of evil. The seductiveness of vice is excelled by the joys of the mitsvah. “Ye shall be men of holiness unto Me” (Exodus 22:30).”(God in Search of Man pg 376)
I am not sure if the second sentence above was ever truly believed by human beings. It is, for sure, the teachings of Torah, Bible, New Testament, Koran, and all other spiritual disciplines, yet, it doesn’t seem to have been practiced by the “powers that be” very often! In his interview with Carl Stern, recorded 10 days before his sudden death, Rabbi Heschel says: “There was an old idea in America that virtue pays. And the idea was very helpful to many people, until some of us discovered that crime pays even more. And it does.” We have gone away from the idea that virtue, hard work, decency, truthfulness, kindness, compassion, etc. pays and believe that deception of self and/or another; stealing of souls, minds, identity, dignity; liberty to kill with guns so I can keep my assault weapon in case ‘they’ come for me; unwelcoming of the stranger, imprisoning the poor and needy; etc. We have become a society that rewards the thief if they can con and steal big enough, rewards the liar if they voice our ‘oppression’ loud enough, exalt the Pharaoh within and outside of us if they promise to cater to our fears of irrelevance and becoming ‘less than’ the ____(fill in the blank).
Whether it is in Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Florida, Sandy Hook, etc the gun violence doesn’t seem to matter to some people. Rather than seeking solutions to this uniquely American phenomena, some of the elected officials would rather take money from Gun Lobbyists and blame the individual. While it is true that the individual firing the assault weapons is responsible, in no way am I absolving them of guilt nor responsibility, it is also true as Rabbi Heschel says: “In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.” He goes on to say, in his interview with Carl Stern: “How can I pray when I have on my conscience the awareness that I am co-responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam?” Anyone who blames only the one who pulls the trigger is abdicating their responsibility as a human being, as a reminder of God, as a divine need, as a person of faith. These so-called ‘god-fearing’ idolators and charlatans believe in, practice and are overwhelmed with “the seductiveness of sin” and they find no “joys of the mitsvah”. We, the people, have to force the change; We, the people, have to stop these charlatans from making America small again, from re-creating the atmosphere that almost broke this country apart in the 1840’s on regarding slavery. Even after the defeat of the Confederacy, the emancipation of the Negroes, the charlatans in Government made the Jim Crow laws possible, still treated Black people as less than, still shunned the immigrant, etc, all in the name of the flag and patriotism. We, as a country, have practiced, been willfully blind and deeply committed to “the seductiveness of sin” over the “joys of the mitsvah” from our beginning and it is time to stop pretending, it is time to stop lying and it is time to stop bastardizing religion by saying this is what God wants when it is really what Pharaoh wants.
We have a choice that needs to be made: are we going to continue to give in to the “seductiveness of sin” or embrace the “joys of the mitsvah”? This is not an easy choice, it is not an apparent choice to most people. Many people see themselves as good people and they are willing to ignore the homeless, complain about what is not being done, ban the stranger from our doorsteps, not believe in redemption and rehabilitation, be unforgiving, be judgmental about another without ever looking at themselves, etc. While not overtly evil in their minds, their actions are always tinged with “the seductiveness of sin” by getting over when they can and ignoring the call of God to care for the needy, the poor, the stranger, and to defeat the inner Pharaoh as well as stand up to the Pharaohs in our midst.
In recovery, we find the joy of service, the joy of sobriety, the joy of a “new pair of glasses” and the joy of redemption. “We made a list of those we had harmed and became willing to make amends…” is the 8th Step of the Anonymous Programs and a crucial step because it moves us from shame about our errors into guilt for what we have done. This step moves us from “the seductiveness of sin” into the “joys of mitsvah” because we are now repairing the damage, asking for forgiveness, acknowledging the harm we brought to another human being, and having a plan to not repeat this bad behavior. Amends/Tshuvah is one of the greatest mitsvah and the joy of being free of shame and guilt, being reconnected to ones’ authentic self, and connected to people, soul to soul-not role to role.
God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark