Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 290

“One may observe all the laws and still be practicing a disguised polytheism. For if in performing a religious act one’s intention is to please a human being who he fears or from whom he hopes to receive benefits, then it is not God whom he worships but a human being.”(God in Search of Man pg. 392)

Re-reading this teaching of Rabbi Heschel makes me weep. Because “the heart is deceitful above all things, it is exceedingly weak, who can know it”(Jeremiah 17:9), I hear Rabbi Heschel reminding us to not be so sure of our motives, not be so sure we are serving God, remember how difficult it is to be wholehearted in our worship. This level of uncertainty and questioning of ourselves is what most people run from, what most of us are unwilling to examine and do T’Shuvah for. Yet, we continue to lie to ourselves, we continue to ‘wear’ the mask of piety, we continue to falsify our motives in order to wrap ourselves in the cloak of religiosity/spirituality!

As I re-read these words, I hear Rabbi Heschel calling all of us to task to examine our lives, to go through the pain of an examined life, to make our amends to God for trying to “please a human being” who we either “fear or from whom” we hope “to receive benefits.” Humankind has fallen into this trap over and over, we have served Kings out of fear, in order to be granted some kindness/benevolence, we have served bosses/employers in order to ‘get ahead’, to get a paycheck. We have served ‘our people’ in order to ‘be in the group’, we have served people out of fear of them leaving us. We have heard and been told that doing this will bring us a reward in the world to come, we have heard that ‘going along to get along’ will keep us safe, we have been told that “only I/he can save us” and return us to ‘the good old days’. Our desire to be deceived and the disease of self-deception are so powerful, we believe the lies that our weak heart tells us and we forfeit our souls, our strength, our connection to God, just as Samson did.

Our political crises’ here, in Israel, across the globe are proof of the teaching of Rabbi Heschel above. When the religious parties in Israel proclaim they are above the Arab population and ‘better than’ ‘those’ people, we are witnessing proof of Rabbi Heschel’s warning and teaching. When the religious people in America extol Donald Trump because he put enough judges on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, when they call him the ‘anointed one’ of Jesus, we are witnessing “a disguised polytheism” as Rabbi Heschel is calling this idolatrous way of being. When business do things to please their shareholders at the expense and harm to everyone else and claiming it is their ‘god-given’ right, we see Rabbi Heschel’s warning being ignored. When we are members of a club so we don’t say or do anything that would go against another member of our club, we are ignoring Rabbi Heschel’s words. When we worry more about “advice of counsel” than human decency, human connection, we are perpetuating the polytheism Rabbi Heschel is decrying. When we are willing to go to any lengths to not ‘rock the boat’ we are surrendering our spiritual values for our rationalizations, to our fears, we are guilty as charged by Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. When we are admonished for speaking truth about Israel’s current government and policies, when we are called traitors for calling out that “the emperor has no clothes” in regards to the Republican Party of today, we experience how strong the “disguised polytheism” of our world is. And, it all begins and ends with us, the individuals who make up governments, who are the electors, who are the people going along with the deceptions, the mendacities being perpetrated by the few. It is up to us, the individual, who are afraid to stand up to the ‘strongmen’ like Putin, Orban, MBS, Netanyahu, Trump, Jordan, et al. We ‘liberals’ deceive ourselves by being ‘on the right side’ of causes, by declaring our love of God, our adherence to ‘all the laws”, etc. all the while being unwilling to look at our own deceitful hearts, our own subtle ways of seeking benefits from our observances of whatever particular ‘code’ our ‘side’ calls for.

I am weeping because of my blindness, willful and unintentional, to the ways I have done ‘good’ actions out of both fear and wanting to reap benefits. In my recovery I have been more aware and I cannot claim anywhere near perfection. In looking back, I also see that every time I acted from fear and/or benefit, things never worked out so well, sometimes in the short term, sometimes in the long term. I am sorry to the people I harmed by serving people out of fear and/or benefit. I am sorry for the example I set when I did this. I am grateful that these times were fewer and farther in-between and I am grateful I have taken off my own blinders and don’t let fear nor benefit blur my vision nor feed my self-deception. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark