Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 2
“The Bible is an answer to the question, What does God require of man? But to modern man, this question is suppressed by another one, namely, What does man demand of God? Modern man continues to ponder: What will I get out of life? What escapes his attention is the fundamental, yet forgotten question, What will life get out of me?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 4-5)
In the 68 years since these words were written, in the almost 52 years since Rabbi Heschel’s death, rather than learn and use his wisdom, rather than ask ourselves the “fundamental, yet forgotten question(s), we have ignored him, the questions and engaged in narcissistic, self-centered quests for power, wealth and ‘getting ours’. It is more than sad, it is a sacrilege, it is one promoted by Clergy and laypeople alike, it is one that is taking us down the path to self-destruction through Sinat Hinam, senseless hatred of one another, the purported cause of the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70AD.
Notice that Rabbi Heschel is not saying the Bible, here he speaking about the Hebrew Bible, the ‘old testament’ to some, is the answer, just that it is “an answer”, there is nothing xenophobic about Rabbi Heschel’s writing above, he is speaking to all of us, find the texts that are “an answer to the question, What does God require of man” in you own spiritual discipline, but please find it! Rabbi Heschel’s use of “modern man” is not a pejorative, as I hear him today; he is not saying humanity was so much better before. I believe he is speaking to us, here and now, to the ways we have become ensconced in our journey away from this question, the ways technology, in 1958, was changing things, how quickly people forgot what happened when Hitler was in power and how McCarthy, the Blacklist, the murdering of Ethel Rosenberg, the treatment of Black people, etc. Hearing him call out to us and seeing how far down this self-centered road, how much time people spend trying to be social media stars, influencers, celebrities for doing nothing, hopefully, makes these words reverberate within us and move us to ask the “right questions”.
In the larger world, we see ‘leaders’ like Franklin Graham support people who only ask “what will I get out of life” who could care less about “what does God require of man” and only decide that they can “demand of God” whatever they want, use God’s name to support their hatred, their greed, their inhumanity towards humanity!! We see that a liar, grifter, convicted felon named Donald Trump is rewarded and admired for gaming the system, for going against the Constitution, for laughing at the principles of the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, and those ‘good christian folk’ in the Congress and the Supreme Court say: “yes master, yes anointed one,” and they bend their knees and kiss the ring-not of God, not at the throne of Heaven but at the throne of Trump, at the altars of mendacity, coveting, whoring themselves for power, stealing from the poor to enrich themselves and their benefactors, murdering the soul and spirit of people, of democracy. This is not “what God requires of man”, this is not the response God is looking for when asking the question: “what will life get out of me”. Yet, these “evangelicals”, these “Torah-living” Jews, and so many others shout the praises of the Mendacious One in Chief and watching these supposed ‘faithful’ bow down to a liar and cheat, a person who was corrupt and now has taken his corruption to the Nth degree because of the power he wields, is disgusting. It is, in my opinion, why people walk away from religion, why religion has such a bad name and taste in people’s mouth-the people in charge, the clergy and the boards of directors are charlatans.
No matter how much they say they are on the ‘right side’ of an issue-this is for both the ‘conservatives’ and the ‘progressives’-when push comes to shove, many of these people give into asking “what will I get out of” this decision, this experience, this moment. When we are willing to install election deniers to head the departments of Justice, Defense, Treasury, the FBI and say this is what the people want, we are well down the slippery slope to authoritarianism, we are heading into a world where God is no longer in charge, Trump and his gang of thugs are. We are on the roller coaster ride where Musk, an unelected person, will be controlling the Republican Party along with Trump for his own good, for his own greed-after all being the richest man in the world, having a net worth of over $400 Billion is never going to be enough and ‘god’ wants them to have more and more while the poor, the needy, the stranger suffer!! They must have some version of the New Testament to validate this, just like the Jews who called for the assassination of Yitzchok Rabin, who call for the annihilation of the Palestinians, who think they should rule over Gaza and the West Bank, who support and praise Donald Trump’s love of hatred, have some version of the Bible that eludes me and most people. The one we have says “Love your Neighbor as yourself”, “Proclaim Freedom throughout the Land and to all its inhabitants therein”, “remember you were strangers in the Land of Egypt”, etc and teaches us the dangers of political power that is absolute, teaches us in black and white, in white and black the travails and errors of Kings Saul, David, Solomon, etc as well as the great things they did. In the Bible, there is no whitewashing, clean ups of the errors of human beings, rather the Bible tells us about us in all our glory and in all of our ugly!
It is time for all of us to Stand the Fuck Up and Shout NO to these people who want it only for themselves, who are refusing to ask themselves and all of us the real question that the Bible is an answer for, the authentic question that Jesus preached about, the deep question that moved Mohammed to found Islam. It is time for all of us to have the “dark night of the soul” that Jacob had when he had to confront his crimes against his brother. While Jacob could not take in the totality that moment, that experience could teach him, we can! I will write more on this tomorrow because this question has haunted me since Rabbi Silverman first presented it to me in Prison in 1987. I keep asking myself “what is life getting out of me” today, yesterday, etc and doing this inventory the first time made me cry and tremble, doing it today makes me cry and tremble because I see the nuances of life that I miss an opportunity to impact, I see the barriers I put up and the ones another(s) have put up to keep me out of the fray, thereby limiting my usefulness and I have let God down and myself down. It is hard to have these questions be the guiding light of my existence and using this lamp helps me help another and heal my errors. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark