Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 343
“Intellectually, we know the universe is not here for our sake; it is not here to please our ego. Practically, however, we act as if the purpose of the universe were to satisfy our interests and needs. However, a life without demands on the mind, heart, body and soul, a life without constant intellectual effort, spells the doom of culture. We must not remain the errand-boys of yesteryears fashions; we must not embalm notorious cliches.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.62)
What does it mean to have “demands” put upon us? Do we listen to them, do we get angry about them? In today’s culture, we fight with one another when ‘one side’ puts “demands” on ‘another side’; like the current bathroom wars, the wars going on regarding who is in control of a woman’s body- her and her doctor or the government/‘religious christians’, etc. We don’t like it when the boss “demands” we work overtime when we are on salary and don’t get paid for it, we don’t like it when our spouse or children put “demands” on us when we just want to ‘relax’, etc. Yet, Rabbi Heschel is telling us, just as the Bible tells us that “a life without demands…spells the doom of culture and, I would add, the doom of the human being!
We are living in a time which is reflective of other times in history when the autocrat, the King, the dictator, et al, wants to tell people they don’t have to listen to the demands of the Bible like: “love your neighbor as yourself”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, “care for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy”, “choose life”, “do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God”, “one law for the citizen and the stranger alike”, etc. Trump, Putin, Orban, and their cronies do not want people to experience and respond to the “demands on the mind, hear, body and soul”. Responding to these “demands” enables us to make choices, to think for ourselves instead of ‘following the leader’, in essence these “demands” give us choice, they make us able to be free, they replicate the experience at Mount Sinai when the slaves redeemed from Egypt, the people who left the grasp of the dictator of the time, Pharaoh, said “we will do and then we will understand”. The acceptance of the “demands” as the pathway to wholeness, to growing intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, physically is mystical experience that can never be adequately described and cannot be replicated in a lab or by a drug.
The dumbing down of America, the dumbing down of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, are CRIMES! This is how great teachings and wisdom get bastardized and used against people instead of for people’s well being. It is not that autocrats don’t make demands, they just say they won’t, they just promise to ‘get even’, ‘be your retribution’, and then they demand you bend the knee, kiss the ring, line their coffers, and become subservient to their needs and “demands”! We are watching, some of us in horror and others with glee, as Putin’s useful idiots are being nominated to run essential departments in our government, a woman who praises Putin and Assad, a man who is a pervert, possibly had sex with an underage girl, a man who wants to bring back the crusades, people who worship Hitler, want their generals to be like “Hitler’s generals”, etc. Rather than teach our history in all its glory and gore, in all of the amazing things our democracy has accomplished along with the terrible actions we took under our flag, people want to deny truth today precisely because they want to live “a life without constant intellectual effort”. MAGA is the epitome of being “the errand-boys of yesteryears fashions” as well as the actions which “embalm notorious cliches”!!
We, the People have to stand up against this way of being-we have to end the “dumbing down” of Americans by both the far right and the far left. Our colleges and universities have to return to making “demands” upon our children to learn the whole story, let go of their need to present only one side, be it the ‘conservative side’ or the ‘progressive side’ because, in truth, both are regressive, both deny the truth of the ‘other side’ thereby lying to the people who are listening to them, stunting the “intellectual effort” that really living “demands” denying the “demands” of the soul, the mind, etc. We, the People have to stand up for our self, our authentic humanity and say NO to the autocrats on both ‘sides”, on both extremes of the continuum. We have to voice the “demands” of freedom for all, the “demands” of the poor, the needy, the stranger to be seen as human beings in need of kindness, the “demands” of one law for the king and the pauper, the citizen and the stranger, the “demands” of “righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue”, the “demands” of rebuking our neighbors to help them get back on a path of mercy, kindness, love, and truth, etc.
We, the People, do this by resisting the temptation to see the people who are sucked into the vortex of the extremists as our enemies. We have to see them as “pathetic” meaning we show them divine pathos, compassion that rises to the level of our best self, our “better angels” and reach out to find common ground and ‘argue’ out our differences so we can learn from one another, we can find compromises that respect the dignity of both people and open the eyes of those who are blind and help those who are deaf hear truth. We, the People do this by never giving up, not leaving our cities, our towns, our country. We stand with those who are in this fight and we demand our allies adhere to “freedom for all”, that we do not permit the backbiting and infighting that has split the coalitions of minorities that made the Civil Rights Act of 1964 happen. We, the People have to end the exclusiveness of ‘victimhood’ that has taken hold in the BLM, Women’s, and other movements, especially in the anti-semitism that is so rampant in the ‘progressive’ as well as the ‘conservative’ movements. We, the People, have to say NO to any type of prejudice against any group even those we are opposing, even those wanna-be Pharaohs.
It is not easy to “love your enemy”! I have had difficulty with this forever and I have learned that when I don’t, I become “my enemy”. I also know that I have fought for freedom for all and restraints on what people do to one another under the guise of ‘freedom’. I respond to the “demands” of my “mind, heart, body and soul” each day and I live in “constant intellectual effort” so I can keep sharpening my hearing of the “demands” that are being presented to me today. I am learning to be silent and take in the call before responding to what I think is the call. I am committed to never be the “errand-boy of yesteryears fashions” nor to “embalm notorious cliches”. I live in wonder and awe. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark