Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 288

“The prophet complained, “They never put their heart into their prayers, but howl away for corn and wine beside their altars” (Hosea 7:14). According to the Book of Proverbs (11:20), “they that are perverse in the heart are an abomination to the Lord.” Yet the prophet seems to have realized how hard it is not to be perverse, not to be an abomination.The heart is deceitful above all things, It is exceedingly weak—who can know it?”(Jeremiah 17:9) (God in Search of Man pg 391)

Today, August 28, 2023, is the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. Rev. King, Rabbi Heschel, and so many others “put their heart into their prayers” and while we remember their words, it is more important, I believe, to remember their deeds. They stood up against those who “howl away for corn and wine beside their altars” and we have to today as well. Rabbi Heschel’s quoting of the prophets above is validation for the war within, it is an acknowledgment of how we have struggled to be “wholehearted” in our living with and our loving of God, human beings, and ourselves. It is a struggle that is, as I understand Rabbi Heschel and the prophets today, a daily one and the teachings above are a call to action, not a call to despair.

Immersing ourselves in the wisdom above, we can realize the words and deeds of Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King and so many others who ‘fought’ for civil rights, who fought against prejudice and hatred, who sought to lead us to live the call of our “better angels” are our north star. We are descendants of the prophets, we are the inheritors of their wisdom, their actions, their love, their struggle. Just as Rev. King spoke about America: “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” so too does the Bible remind us of the “promissory note” to which every person falls heir to; the 10 Commandments, the Holiness Code, T’Shuvah, Amends, etc. It is time for us to live up to and honor our inheritance and to do so means we have to struggle to overcome being “perverse in the heart”.

Rev. King went on to say: “In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred…Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” Rabbi Heschel’s writing above and Rev. King’s words are reminders that while it is difficult to “not be guilty of wrongful deeds” it is possible and it takes struggling against our inner perverseness, our inner deceits, our inner desires to win, our inner desires for power, our inner desire for self-deception.

We are witnessing a myriad of people who “howl away for corn and wine beside their altars” and call this wholeheartedly serving God. We watch people leave our places of worship because of the mendacity, the duplicity, the “abomination to the Lord” our preachers, our ‘spiritual leaders’ our houses of worship have become. We are witnessing, as we have throughout the history of humanity, the “pious ones” bastardize God’s words, bastardize the words of the prophets, continue to play ‘three-card monte’ with us, try to deceive us, for their own good, for their own power, to please the ones with the gold, so many have “thrown the baby out with the bathwater” and left themselves adrift in a sea that seems to be ‘spiritual’ and often is as deceitful, perverse, as the institutions they left. In every area of living and working, from the pulpit to government, from the supermarket to the stock market, we have to say NO to the perverseness, the deceitfulness, the mendacity we worship today. We have to leave “bitterness and hatred” and meet “physical force with spiritual force” and we have to engage in this work today!

After living in deceit for many years, after being perverse, an abomination to family, to God, to friends, I had a “spiritual awakening” and changed course. I am not free of deceit and I am much freer than I was. I know that there are days when my bank of justice is overdrawn, I know there are moments when I do not cash the “promissory note” our ancestors wrote for us at Mt. Sinai, and I am saddened by these moments and days. And, they are only moments, days now not a lifetime nor a lifestyle for me anymore. I have cashed most of the “promissory notes” people have presented while working these past 34+ years and I engage each day in my inner struggle. I am sad when people decide to not struggle with me and I am in acceptance, I am in awe of those who struggle so well against the “perverse” and refuse to be “abominations”. I am grateful to Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, my ancestors for showing me the way! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark