Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 174
“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)
Tonight begins Holocaust Remembrance Day, 80 years ago was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising where Jews took action against their oppressors. They waged “war with evil” in the name of God, not some “abstract concept of duty”, no matter what their religious level of observance was. They knew they were targeted because they were Jews and Hitler needed a scapegoat. Their actions showed they were not just going to do nothing, they were not going to be indifferent to the evil of the Nazis and the Poles who collaborated. Unfortunately, while we remember them tonight and tomorrow, we are not necessarily following their example!
We are living in a time where evil is disguising itself as good, where hatred and fear are running rampant, where Truth is being manipulated and facts are being discarded in favor of “alternative” ones. We are witnessing the proliferation of fascism once again here in our own country. We are hearing Netanyahu extolled for his authoritarian actions, we are being deceived by charlatans and liars, truth is being deflected through actions which will scare us into submission and some of our elected officials, some of our clergy, some of our lawyers, some of our educators, some of our media, some of us are surrendering to the evil being waged ‘in the name of good’.
We, the people, have to “wage war with evil” in the name of God, in the name of decency, in the name of humanity, in the name of justice, in the name of mercy, in the name love, in the name of freedom. We have to take back God’s Name from the liars and deceivers who use God’s Name as an abstract, who use God’s Name to promote evil as good. It is up to us to stop the mendacity being spewed in our streets, in our houses of worship, in our homes, in our halls of justice, in our halls of Congress. It is time for we, the people, to say NO to Marjorie Taylor Greene and her extolling of white supremacy, it is time to say NO to Ron DeSantis’ assault on freedom to choose and women’s rights, it is time to say NO to the lackeys who cozy up to the corrupt NRA and extoll a culture of guns and violence. It is time to say NO to criminals who hide behind their money, power, and lies. It is time to say NO to the authoritarians who are in power and those who back them, it is time to say NO to those for whom fascism holds such fascination and power. It is time to remember the stain on America prior to and during the Holocaust when our State Department and members of Congress were fans of Hitler and denied life-saving visas to Jews from Europe. It is time to say “Never Again” to allowing these fascist devotees to rule and ruin our freedoms and the Great Experiment called the United States.
Yet, saying NO is not enough. We, the people, have to say YES to a more just society. We have to say YES to ensuring that “ the moral arc of the universes bends towards justice”. We have to say YES to respecting the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. We have to say YES to the uniqueness of every human being, YES to their unique gifts and talents that were endowed to us all by God and are needed for everyone’s betterment. We have to say YES to growing our inner lives and living into our role as partners with God. We have to say YES to the good, YES to truth, YES to mercy, YES to lovingkindness, YES to walking in the ways of God, YES to paying back at least some of what we “owe to God.”
This is what recovery teaches and preaches. This is the only way to live in recovery is by saying NO to evil and YES to good, NO to mendacity and YES to truth. Our “searching and fearless inventory” comes after we “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God”. We are deeply aware of the debt of gratitude for our recovery, we are committed to paying it forward through actions of good and repairing the evil we have wrought.
I know that my NO is very loud, it is very brusque at times, it can even be seen as harsh and it is very strong. I have spent the last 34+ years saying NO in order to say YES. I am constantly looking inside to take note of the good and enhance it as well as find the evil and repair it. I will never vanquish evil from the world nor from me completely and, as Rabbi Tarfon teaches, it isn’t my job to finish the work and I am not free to engage in it. I believe when we “wage war with evil” so we pay down what we “owe to God”, our life and everyone else’s is a little better. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark