Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 3
“Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by cliches, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.” ( Essential Writings pg.106)
Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s words and wisdom and looking at our situation today causes many people to think about where we are, how we got here, and, most importantly, where do we go from here. Be it in religion, in business, in our personal lives and our political world, we can see how Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance captures the moment, when he wrote these words some 50+ years ago and today. We are in a war with stagnation, we can smell the “foul” smell of religion, government, business, and within our personal living that has arisen from the need to win, the need to feel/be powerful, the experience of selfishness and disdain for the Biblical verse: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants therein” (Leviticus 25:20). Religion is supposed to keep learning and seeing how to make this statement, this commandment ring true in all times, religion is called upon to make this statement happen in our time, yet, religion has fallen prey to “the peril of stagnation” with the more fundamentalist faction clamoring to return to living in 16th Century Eastern Europe, to the ways of the Ottoman Empire, to the time of the Holy Roman Empire. What was established in antiquity, what was established in the early years and centuries of our common era has, unfortunately, turned “foul”.
Whether there is a government shutdown or not, whether Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for President or not, whether the media and people continue to make a false equivalency between Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s corruption/mob boss mentality is not the issue as I imbue Rabbi Heschel’s words above. What is the issue is our willingness to live in a world where “insight is replaced by cliches”. “The peril of stagnation” is so powerful that we have come to believe the mendacious cliches of ‘this is the way we always did it”, “trickle down economics”, “slavery was good for Black people because it taught them a trade”, “Jews control the media, the banks and Jews will not replace us”, etc. The bastardization of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Eastern philosophies has become so widespread that Q-Anon and other conspiracies are being given the same credence as our Holy Texts! We hear about the ‘strict constitutionalists’ wanting to preserve our great nation by living in 1789 and denying the wisdom and learning we have gained since then. We hear from the idolators who wrap themselves in deception and lies speak about unwelcoming the stranger, taking advantage of the poor, abusing the needy as fulfilling Christ’s teachings! We are witnesses to Kevin McCarthy, Tommy Tupperville, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan et al promoting racism, anti-semitism, senseless hatred and lies for their own personal gain-not to uphold the constitution, not to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants therein”. We are hearing the same old tired cliches from the 1930’s and 40’s, from the 50’s and 60’s and watching power-hungry deceivers gobble up more and more power like a pac-man game.
We, the people, have to end this mendacity, we, the people, have to regain our insights and stand up to these lunatics seeking power as Cassidy Hutchinson is doing, as Liz Cheney is doing. We have to expel Robert Menendez from the U.S. Senate for his crimes, we have to send the Freedom Caucus packing for making our government smell so “foul”. We have to recommit to the spirit of our various religions: taking actions that make us worthy of being a partner with God. We have to join the recovery movement and recover the “souls we were meant to be” and act accordingly. We have to stop using tired and false cliches to replace our insights, we have to stop with ‘moral equivalence’ and see what truly is, we have to stop trying to live in yesterday and wake up to the wonder of today. We have to stop our self-deceptive ways and see the truth of where we are and what we need to do/change in order to live our faith, our democracy, our personal lives in a more dynamic fashion, to be more compatible with the eternal wisdom and truth that our Holy Texts give us and use our hard-gained knowledge in furtherance of these principles and values.
I wake up each morning grateful to be alive. I wake up each morning excited to learn something new, experience “the sublime wonder of living” as Rabbi Heschel teaches each day. I seek to stay fresh and I realize that I got stagnant, I got complacent, I fell into the trap of sadness and despair 3+ years ago and it took daily writing for me to put on a “new pair of glasses” to regain seeing the beauty, awe, joy of life each day, to appreciate what I have and want even my own troubles! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark