Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 173
“We do not wage war with evil in the name of an abstract concept of duty. We do the good not because it is a value or because of expediency, but because we owe it to God.”(God in Search of Man pg 376)
In light of history, in light of what is happening today, these words of Rabbi Heschel send chills throughout my being. The first sentence reminds us that we must “wage war with evil” and I am afraid we have fallen very short of this fact, this demand, this calling. We have confused evil with good for so long and with such intensity that many of us are unable to distinguish one from the other. Another challenge we face as human beings “yearning to breathe free” is our indifference to evil, our going along to get along, our fear of standing for what is right and good, our submission to ‘this is the way it is’ and our subservience to “on advice of legal counsel”.
To immerse ourselves in the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel above, we first have to immerse ourselves in our own actions and inactions. We listen to people extol guns and assault rifles in the name of freedom and liberty while these same people seek to kill women who, for their own reasons and in their own anguish, decide to seek an abortion! They have decided that a fetus is human upon conception, which is different than what Judaism says, and call abortion murder instead of a medical condition that a women has to decide about, much like a cancer patient deciding which treatment to seek or not seek.
“In the name of God” people extol evil and discard good, saying that Jesus tells them to abuse the ‘anti-christ’ which is anyone who doesn’t believe what they do, whether Christian or not. “In the name of Jesus” these people make immigrants devils, democrats pedophiles, Jews liberal, blacks the enemy, etc. They are passing anti-voting rights laws, denying medical treatments to women and the poor, etc. Yet, Jesus’ words, like those of the prophets were to rail against such actions, he and they stood with the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, and the orphan. Jesus, the prophets, Abraham, Moses all stood with and for the people who were enslaved to a life of misery because they were conquered, enslaved, shunned, powerless and voiceless. Yet, these people who excel in confusing evil with good, go against the very people in whose name they speak and act!
They are acting in “an abstract concept of duty” that is only to serve themselves and we, the people, must stand up to their evil, must not go along with their confusing evil and good, must no longer be silent and indifferent. We, the people, have to look inside of ourselves and heed the voice of duty to God, duty to what is right and good, duty to our fellow human beings, and stand for the good, for our moral values. We have to stand with the poor, the needy, the stranger, so no one ever feels left out. All spiritual disciplines teach us and remind us that every person matters, every person has infinite dignity, every person is in need of assistance, community and everyone belongs because we are all created in “the Image of God”. We have to speak, we have to vote, we have to stand up to these charlatans and bullies and we have to stand with one another in strength, support and loving kindness.
In recovery, we join in a very concrete sense of duty in order to “wage war with evil.” Our recovery is based on the fact that we were people who made evil good and good evil, we were the type of people who bastardized morality to serve our desires and selfishness, we were the type of people who sought money, power, prestige, and were obstinate and stubborn just because we could be. Now, we have a new sense of duty, a new way of living, a returning to our moral compass and a return to decency and service. We join with one another and are loyal to a power greater than ourselves, to a morality that sees every person as precious and to a way of being we can be proud of with all of our imperfections.
Because of my life prior to recovery, I am acutely aware of evil and I have waged war against it for these past 35 years, even while in prison. I do it loudly, I do it brashly, I do it with an urgency that comes from deep in my soul. This past Friday was the 100th birthday of my father, Jerry, and I know that I have his loudness and his loyalty. I know that people are put off by my intensity and passion, yet I can’t be any other way. When I see, smell, intuit evil, I go to war with all the weapons available because I used evil to harm people. Waging this war comes from the sense of duty I have to my father’s example and memory, from the sense of duty I have to God and the people who need to be uplifted from the slavery they are in. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark