Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 350

“What is the ideal of religious education? One of its goals is to give norm, purpose, meaning, direction, and depth to what may be regarded as one of the ideals of general education, namely, the fullest possible development of the individual…The individual is not seen in isolation but in relation to God and is subject to the norms which such a relation implies.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.64)

Immersing myself in these words causes me to take pause at how I have engaged in “religious education” both as a student and a co-learner, a teacher and a Rabbi. As I look at my life of religious education, beginning when I was a child, I realize how many times I sought meaning and was told to learn my alphabet (aleph-bet) and the prayers. Meaning came to me through my father’s guidance and patience to teach me, while not a religious man according to following dogma, etc; my father and grandfather were deeply religious men when seen through the lens of the words above. The failure of religious and general education “to give norm, purpose, meaning, direction, and depth” to each individual is, in my estimation, a crime!

We hear about the Fentanyl crisis, which there certainly is one, and the blame put on China, Mexico, and now Canada by the incoming President. We are not hearing about the responsibility of the people using, the responsibility of the people who have beaten down the poor, the stranger, the needy in both material and spiritual ways rendering them hopeless and despairing. We are not speaking about the unbelievably disgusting ways we treated our people returning from Military Service who became homeless as well as addicted because of the moral injuries suffered during their war years. We are not speaking of the broken promises of our Declaration of Independence and our religious traditions that have given false hope to the spiritual, moral principles that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were founded on as well as the democratic promise to do better than King George in knowing that all people are created equal and with certain unalienable rights! We are not speaking about the lack of treatment facilities that help people addicted to Fentanyl, other drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc that are treating this “Spiritual Malady”-only the ones using “evidence-based” practices. This is one example of the hubris of the ‘elites’ who make decisions in every administration-Republican and Democratic, the only exception being President George W. Bush.

We, the People have to demand from our religious institutions, from our Clergy an education that serves the goals listed above. We have to end our mindless “Tikkun Olam” repairing of the world and “Prosperity Gospels”, we have to end the bastardization of the Islam being used as a reason to kill and terrorize when the root of it is to “submit to Allah/God”. We, the People have to also be responsible for educating ourselves if there is no one else. In the Talmud it says if we are not taught by our parents we have to learn on our own-it goes so far as to say if one’s parents did not circumcise him, he has to circumcise himself! There is no way to ‘get out of it’ by blaming parents, teachers, Rabbis, Priests, etc. we are all responsible!

This is the rub of our times, we no longer care about our relationship to God/Higher Consciousness when it comes to being responsible for the “fullest possible development of the individual”. We only care for how to ‘get ahead’, how to ‘win’. Kids in college don’t go there for personal development, to find out who they are away from their parents; they go to get the education they need for the job/career that will pay them enough money to afford the luxuries they desire. They are in constant competition and comparison: grades, job offers, which college they go to are sources of tension and despair. Is it any wonder that our children are seeking escape from these burdens and pressures? Is it any wonder that they go along with a liar and a cheat, a criminal and a grifter believing at least he ‘tells it like it is’? They will find out that their ‘champion’ is going to screw them over the minute he has an opportunity, they will come to believe their ‘anointed one’ only wants communion for himself and his cronies and then they will seek escape once again. Without developing “norm, purpose, meaning, direction and depth” within oneself, we are always at the mercy and whim of someone else.

We, the People, have to change the educational system in both our religious systems and our general educational system. Mandating Bible studies using the Trump Bible-made in China by the way- is not the solution. We, the People have to commit to a rigorous course of study of our inner life to develop our “relation to God” and ensure the ways in which we live are “subject to the norms such relation implies”. Whether it is God, or whatever one feels about being in relationship to the universe, nature is immaterial-what is important is our realization that we have a spiritual life that needs to be nurtured and grown, that we have deep and serious spiritual maladies that affect our lives and the lives of another(s) as well as knowing the spiritual maladies of another has grave effects on our lives! We all have to demand better care from the Physicians of the Soul that our Clergy are supposed to be. They are called Spiritual Leaders-isn’t it time for them to do their job???

I am guilty of not providing these goals to people in my career-not because I didn’t make the attempt, rather because I could not speak in ways some people could hear and, for others, I speak eloquently when we learn Torah together as “street Torah”. My second career, after being a drunk and thief, has been to heal the spiritual malady I experience and the ones experienced by another(s). I have been unafraid to speak truth to power, I have been inappropriate and politically incorrect in my speech, actions and, when I am overwhelmed by mendacity and lies, I erupt like a volcano. I have paid a price for all of these ways and I know my life is enriched by both the errors that I made, (the ones I have done my own inventory of and made my amends) the times I hit the mark, and I am not bound by the ones people accuse me of, necessarily. My development as a spiritual being in a physical body continues to move forward, I don’t need outside validation to know when I am doing the next right thing and I call my colleagues in the Rabbinate, the clergy of other faiths to be accountable, to hold themselves and their leaders in the their faiths, in their countries accountable to and for “the fullest possible development of the individual” otherwise resign from your position and apologize to God! We, the People deserve nothing less. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark