Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 326

“Religion in America is inclined to follow rather than to challenge the general trends of opinion, as if the task of religion were to serve as a handmaid to civilization. Religion begins where philosophy ends. Without religious education, general education may end in the trivialization of man himself.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 59/60)

Living into these words and immersing ourselves in the thought and spirit of them brings me to the realization that what we are facing today is long in the making. We are facing and experiencing religious life that “is inclined to follow rather than to challenge the general trends of opinion” especially when it comes to engaging with the power structure of countries and authoritarians. While the ‘religious people’ believe they are leading Bibi, Trump, et al-we know that is not the case. While these autocrats give lip service to the ‘religious, like Putin who gave ‘power’ to Chabad in Russia, they are doing what they want to stay in power for themselves and remove any and all challenges to them within the populace.

Just as the Catholic Church and the other denominations of Christianity were “inclined to follow rather than challenge” Hitler and the Nazis, we see the same in today’s politics. While it seems as if the “religious right” have sway over Trump and Bibi, they are only using them to get what they want-power and immunity while the Supreme Court here fiddles and Bibi and his thugs look to disempower the rule of law in Israel. They both have the same playbook and seem to be shredding all the defenses put in place to prevent this from happening.

I am being told how much of a fool I am by the people who believe that an authoritarian cares about freedom for Jews, freedom for Blacks, Latinos, etc. History says otherwise, history teaches us that the best philosophies have limitations and only when real religious education, actually following the wisdom of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha does civilization flourish. The people of the Renaissance were not non-religious, they had a belief in something greater than themselves, they painted and thought, built and discovered precisely because they could “transcend themselves” and “surpass their needs” to serve ends that went beyond their narrow world. Einstein, Pasteur, the scientists who came up with a covid vaccine in less than a year all challenged “the general trends of opinion” and have been rewarded with disdain by the autocrats and their useful idiots rather than with praise.

Religion is NOT a handmaid to civilization unless we allow it to be. I am not talking about fundamentalism that passes for religious life, I am speaking of the living, breathing power of Biblical teachings. Rabbi Heschel bemoans the lack of knowledge of the prophets by most people, I would add the lack of the real truth found in the books of Samuel and the truth of King David who continually reached out to something greater than himself for the strength to overcome his myriad of weaknesses and errors. Each time he did this, he catapulted himself to a higher level of living. He wrote the Psalms as praise for this power and gratitude for the opportunity to make mistakes, repair them and rise above them. When one cannot admit one’s errors, when one cannot take the text in context and has to bastardize the meaning by picking a word or phrase here and there, by bastardizing the intent of people like Rav Kook, by throwing away the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence of both the US and Israel in order to ‘be right’, in order to be the dictator they have always wanted to be, in order to turn one’s back on everything that allowed them to reach the position of power they hold - this is not religious living nor religious education. We find ourselves in this dilemma, how as a human being can we tolerate the “trivialization of man himself”? How can we be so blind as to not see where our actions are leading us? How can we go along with these autocrats knowing their propensity to shame and blame, enslave and fear-monger is their “religious life”? How can “we sit idly by the blood of our brothers” and call ourselves ‘religious’? WE CAN’T!

We, the People have to stand up for ourselves, we have to stop making excuses for making ourselves caricatures of being human. We have to retake the reins of religious as well as secular education, we have to teach citizenship and the fundamental principles of “care for the stranger, the poor, the needy” in our midst. We don’t have to go looking for them, they are right here in our midst and we have done a terrible job of caring for Americans who are needy, who are poor, who feel like strangers in their own land. We have seen the backlash to not caring for our own in the Black Lives Matter, the rise of the LGBTQ+ community, the demand of the various minorities for a seat at the table and then the backlash to this backlash by the White Supremacists and the autocrats. We, the People have to take back the reins of power and decency, we have to teach civics, the constitution, the declaration of independence not as some thing that is history rather as something that is alive and well because we keep living into them. The same is true for our religious education, we have to experience the Bible rather than read it and pick it apart. This is true for the ‘critical scholarship’ and for the fundamentalists-we have to experience the teachings, the law and the stories so we can sit around a table with one another and argue to learn the meanings and relevances of this text of eternal truth and wisdom for us right here and right now.

I am disappointed in my early religious education for not providing me the tools to explore the texts deeper and for not reading the texts with me as a living fountain of wisdom and spiritual sustenance. I am grateful that I learned enough Hebrew and text to whet my appetite, I am grateful to the ‘old men’ who taught me the beauty of davening/prayer when I was a teen. I am grateful to all the teachers who have helped me learn and use the wisdom of the Bible and its offshoots in my everyday living. I am grateful to the myriad of people I have studied these texts and argued with to make them come alive and find the relevance of them for the moment we were/are in. I am grateful that I have not stopped by religious education and I continue to fight against the “trivialization of man himself” each and every day. I am grateful that I continue to use prophetic wisdom and actions to guide my living. I am grateful to those who have disdain for me, who cannot accept my amends nor offer their own because they give me the experience of when I acted in this manner. I am grateful that the disciples I have raised and helped are living productive and meaningful lives. I am grateful that “religious living” has given me a life worth living. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark