Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 161
“There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God. The fear lest we hurt a poor man must be as deep as the fear of God, for He that oppresses the poor blasphemes his maker, but he who is gracious unto the needy honors Him (Proverbs 14:31).”(God in Search of Man pg.375)
Rabbi Heschel’s use of Proverbs here is so timely for us, even though these words were published in 1955! Here again, Rabbi Heschel is using the teachings, the truth of antiquity to help us learn/relearn how to live in this world being human. Here again, Rabbi Heschel is quoting Scriptures to remind us of our obligation to help one another rather than take advantage of one another.
This Tuesday will mark 55 years since the tragic despicable assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and while our former President will be in court the same day, I pray we pay more attention to Dr. King’s words, teachings, activism than to the lies, the spectacle that Trump is hoping for. Dr. King, Rabbi Heschel, both knew that quoting the Bible to sound good was vapid and empty, they both railed against the clergy who sat on the sidelines at best and preached in favor of oppressing “the poor” who “blasphemes his maker”. They both knew that we have to be gracious and helpful, honest and freeing, caring and engaging the poor in order to honor God. As Rabbi Hillel says: “what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; this is the whole Torah, all the rest is interpretation, go study”.
Yet, we are pursing the hurt of the poor, the stranger, the needy under so many guises, wrapping ourselves in ‘safety’, ‘charity begins at home’, ‘they don’t know enough to vote’, and/or antisemitism, racism, fear of being ‘displaced/losing power’, etc. We are watching the Republican Party ban books and sell guns, defend Donald Trump and spew racist, anti-semitic tweets, extol hatred towards immigrants and love towards insurrectionists. We are living in a world that is so upside down that Christ has become the avenger instead of the healer, God of the Hebrews is a vengeful God so we can be vengeful towards one another, Allah wants us to kill the infidel, etc. We have confused good and evil so much we are unable to tell the difference of truth from lies, fact from fiction, kindness from cruelty, love from hate, etc. Rather than judging a person because of the content of their character, we are judging people by the color of their skin, the religion they follow, the outside trappings they wear, the facades and masks they put up. Rather than moving forward towards the Promised Land, we are continually trying to return to Egypt because some White People want to continue to be Pharaoh!
As we enter into the celebration of Passover on Wednesday Evening and with Easter being a week from today, along with marking April 4th as a day of tragedy, it seems fitting for us to revisit Rabbi Heschel’s words from January 1963 which are found in his book The Insecurity of Freedom: “At the first summit meeting on race and religion, the participants were Moses and Pharaoh…The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate.”
These words, spoken 60+years ago are as true today as they were then, we keep forgetting the words of Proverbs, we keep forgetting the call of God, we keep rejecting the demand to “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”. We keep forgetting we are called to help our enemy, to return lost objects, to “not hate your brother/sister in your heart”. We all have both Pharaoh and Moses inside of us, we have both energies and we decide which one to use for what. We, the People, are allowing gun-toting bigots to ruin our future as well as our present, just as the majority of Egyptians, after seeing the truth of Moses’ words and God’s deeds knew Egypt was heading for a fall and pleaded with Pharaoh to “let the people go” watched in dismay and horror as their husbands, fathers, sons were swallowed up in the Red Sea. Will we heed Proverbs, Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, etc or will we repeat the way of Pharaoh and Egypt believing doing the same thing over and over will bring different results?
My recovery and recovery in general begins when we admit that we have to honor the needy and see the neediness of ourselves. Once I looked in the mirror, once I was told by Rabbi Mel Silverman that he could never let me go because I was a Jew, I belonged to him, I could begin to deal with healing my neediness and reach out to honor my fellow inmates. This began my journey in recovery and led me to where I am now. In recovery, we “love you until you can love yourself” which is the groups actions of being gracious to the poor in spirit and honoring our Higher Power/God as well as honoring our self. We are gracious towards ourselves as well rather than oppress our self as we once did. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.