Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 338
“The language of Judaism is that of deeds. What cannot be uttered in words we try to utter in deeds. Extremely important in Jewish tradition is the spiritual centrality of the word… in the word where the insights and the spiritual power of more than thirty centuries is contained. These repositories will remain locked, the thoughts they contain will remain out of range, unless we approach them with heart and sou, with intelligence and imagination.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 62)
These words are essential for an understanding of both Judaism and humanity. While many people believe it is about our intentions, “the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak” is an excuse often used, “she/he means well” is another one we hear a lot. Yet, in Judaism, what is in our hearts are not as important as what we do. At Mount Sinai, the people said in “one voice”, “Na’aseh V’Nishmah”-“we will do and then we will understand”. Since there has been a Jewish people, deeds have been more important than feelings.
There are 365 “don’t do” deeds in the Torah, corresponding to the days in a Gregorian year. Why would we need to be told “don’t do” if these were so logical? Why, in the 10 sayings are we told: “Don’t murder, Don’t whore yourself, Don’t steal, Don’t bear false witness-aka lie, Don’t covet” if these are so logical? Why are we told: “Do not boil a mother in its kids milk, Do not worship idols, do not follow after your heart and your eyes because you will whore after them, etc”? Because we would, because at the time people were! We have 248 “do” deeds in the Torah as well, corresponding to the number of limbs in the body. Each “do” deed we engage in helps to heal and strengthen our spiritual limbs, according to Jewish lore. Why would we need to be told to “honor your father and mother”, “love your neighbor”, “leave the corners of your field for the poor and needy”, “care for the stranger”, “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” if these are so obvious? Our deeds speak more about us than our words and yet, most people will believe someone’s words, relish in the “retribution tour” of our ‘savior’, anoint the exact opposite of Christ, of King David to be the ‘messiah’, see the reflection of history in the words of someone else and, ignoring the lessons from history, support and pray that our ‘messiah’ will kill our ‘enemies’, care for us, etc- all the while this false ‘messiah’, along with her/his false prophets will care for themselves, their cronies and lead the rest of us to ruin and enslavement. “MAGA” stands for taking us back to the ‘good old days’ of hating the immigrant-legal and illegal, putting down anyone who is not a ‘good old white boy/women who follows their man’, and raping the treasury, the treasures of our country. We are witnessing throughout the world “what cannot be uttered in words we try to utter in deeds” we see it here in the U.S., in Israel, in Hungary, in Russia, in Turkey, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc. The leaders have done in deeds what was unspoken at the time of their ascension to power, it is only in their deeds that we see who they really are.
Only in our deeds do we see who we really are, according to the Jewish tradition. When we “stand idly by the blood of our neighbor”, we are showing ourselves to be cowards, to be ‘okay’ with the discrimination, the hatred, the abuse of another human being. When we cheer to demise of ‘our enemies’ we are going against the way of God when the Egyptians were drowning who, according to Jewish lore says:”My children are dying, My children are dying”. Cheering the degradation of ‘those people’, believing they ‘deserve it’ is another way of demeaning God’s creation since all of us are “created in the Image of God”. When we pervert the justice system for our own ends, when we jettison mercy, when we walk as if we are God, we are telling everyone that they are unimportant, they are only “useful idiots” in our march for superiority, in our drive to have “rule and dominion” over all of humanity. How much hubris can we stand in ourselves? How much self-deception can we build up in ourselves before we see the truth of whom we have become? As Moses asks Pharaoh: “Until when/How long” will you continue to defy God, be willfully blind to the truth? Our inner Moses has to ask our inner Pharaoh this question each and every day.
What passes for religious today is a sham in many cases; people making these spiritual infusion exercises into a ‘checklist’, bastardizing the words of Christ, the “laws of Moses”, to use them to have control and power over ‘the masses’. These charlatans who preach fire and brimstone, who separate themselves and their ‘true believers’ from the rest of those ‘sinners’ who are part of the same religious group, are the false prophets the Bible warns us of. The leaders they ‘pick’ are the same as the royal houses in Ancient Judea and Ancient Israel-corrupt, false, and antithetical to what our Holy Texts teach us.
We, the people, are called a “holy nation” and a “nation of priests” in order to let us know it isn’t good enough to confess to wrong doing without asking for forgiveness, without changing our ways, it is not okay to say “they deserved it”, “don’t get mad, get even” is not the way of the spiritual path, of the ethical and moral path. We, the people have to rise up once again, as we did in 1776, as the prophets did before, during and after the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, as the country did in the 1960’s to stand against an unjust war and for Civil Rights for all people. We, the people have to constantly look inside of ourselves and see what do our deeds say about the people we are? How does taking the next right action change our inner dialogue? Are we watching the deeds of another and are we okay with their dismantling of everything that we have held dear, everything that makes us all free? Have we stopped proclaiming “freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”? Have we let go of the command to “welcome the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt”?
Each day, I see what my deeds say about me and I am painfully aware of the times when inaction says I am not going to get involved, I am okay with what is. I feel inner disdain for these moments and they have become less and less as I grow older. I look back on my deeds and know I have made my share of mistakes AND I have done good as well. I am proud of the the ways I have served human beings, I am proud of the ways I have been a father, brother, husband, friend, Rabbi to people and I have regrets about the ways I fell short and my deeds spoke differently than my words. Most of all, I know I grow in congruency, my words and deeds match more often than not. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark