Daily Life Lessons From Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 97

“The Bible is holiness in words. To the man of our age nothing is as familiar and trite as words. Of all things they are the cheapest, most abused and least esteemed. They are the objects of perpetual defilement.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

We, the people, are being called upon by Rabbi Heschel to end our “perpetual defilement” of the words of the Bible! We, as a society, are in desperate need of using the words of the Bible as a call to action rather than using them as “trite”. We are witnessing and participating in the “perpetual defilement” when we use the words of the Bible as weapons of hatred, of serving our selfish desires, and to enslave people.

In Exodus, Moses asks Pharaoh: “Thus said the Lord, God of the Hebrews: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me.” The same question is being asked of all of us; how long will we refuse to humble ourselves before the “holiness in words” of the Bible? What is blocking us from ending our abuse of the words of the Bible? What is helping us follow the false prophets who are preaching hate using the words of the Bible to validate their ignorance, their power grab, their prejudices? How have we fallen so far down the rabbit hole that we adore the evil speech and bastardization of the words of the Bible?

In prayer we ask God to “guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking evil” three times a day; the acknowledgment that we are susceptible to making the words of the Bible a “perpetual defilement” and an awareness that this is not the path to take. Later in this prayer we pray “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing before you, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Here we are reminding ourselves that “the Bible is holiness in words” and we have to raise ourselves up to the task of not treating it/them as “trite”, to end our abuse of the Bible, raise up the esteem of these words, and stop cheapening them for our own gains.

This is the challenge of God, this is the demand of the prophets, this is the call of Rabbi Heschel and this is the work of our inner life. Being human means to struggle with our urges, ask for help to overcome the evil within us, do the next right thing no matter how we feel and we are given the tools to do this when we engage in the “holiness in words of the Bible. We are given a path when we allow the words of the prayer above to be our aid in our inner battle. We take advantage of the power of God when we heed Moses’ call to “humble” ourselves before God.

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is a reminder as well as a demand that we have within us the power to defile and exalt, to abuse and to aid, to cheapen and to raise up, to make trite and to keep fresh the words of the Bible. Living into his reminder and demand means we have to reject the lies and the misuse of the words of the Bible being perpetrated by some ‘religious leaders’. We have to call out the charlatans who are using the Bible to spew hatred, to exalt the liars and the idolators. We have to say NO to the ‘religious right’ and call them out for who and what they are: deceivers who spread mendacity. We have to take the “holiness in words” of the Bible and use them to spread truth, kindness, love, compassion, welcoming, concern, care, etc. We have to stop allowing these self-centered zealots from determining what is religious, what is holy and return to the words of the Bible for holiness and truth. We have to take our proper places as people of faith, as holy souls, and not be pushed aside anymore by the idolators and deceivers. We have to end our own self-deception and lies that we are not worthy, that these ‘priests’ have more knowledge and they speak with authority.

We all are worthy and have the authority of our souls to live and speak the “holiness in words” of the Bible. We all have within us the ability to discern truth and to end our “perpetual defilement” of the Bible. We all are capable of and necessary for God’s will to be lived in the world more and to be the divine needs we are created to be so we can end the reign of “perpetual defilement” that has taken over our religious institutions and our world. We, the people, are facing the same situation that Ancient Israel and Judea faced; the priests, the wealthy, and the royalty gave lip-service to the words of the Bible rather than living them truthfully. They abused the words, they cheapened the words, they defiled the words of God and made the people they were supposedly serving into 2nd class citizens and into pawns for their evil designs. The prophets came to get us to change our ways and they are speaking to us loudly today-be they the prophets of the Bible, Rev. King, Rabbi Heschel, Rev. Barber, and the myriad of spiritual giants who’s writings are easily accessible. We have to choose to hear and heed them.

In recovery, we “made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God…”. This is the decision that Rabbi Heschel is calling us to make. In recovery, we read the Bible, the Big Book, every spiritual text with the goal of changing our inner life so we can make our outer actions holiness in deeds. We “continue to improve our conscious contact with God” so we can better understand God’s will and align our will with God’s instead of trying to make God’s words and will align with ours. We are recovering our basic goodness of being, we are recovering our holy souls, we are helping another and being of service to God and to humans. This is our goal, this is our path and this is our success. I live this way to a greater and lessor degree-yet always at least one grain of sand more each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark