Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 113

“The prophet hates the approximate; he shuns the middle of the road. Man must live on the summit to avoid the abyss. There is nothing to hold to except God. Carried away by the challenge, the demand to straighten out man’s ways, the prophet is strange, one-sided, an unbearable extremist.” (Essential Writings pg.62/63)

These words of Rabbi Heschel inspire me, many people. His love of the prophets, his being “disturbed” by the prophets, have changed many lives and was so important in his activism. This description of the prophet is the reason Rabbis have always been afraid of them. While Rabbinic Judaism seeks the middle often, except where some have decided the extreme is the ‘right’ way, they are afraid of the power of the prophets to lead people to an overthrow of their authority, I believe. The prophets railed against the priests and those in power, both royalty and wealthy. The prophets have the job of getting humanity to return to God’s ways, to seek forgiveness and change the paths we are following. The prophets are challenged over and over again by their sense of calling and knowing they have to answer to a power greater than themselves; God.

While people believe in ‘trying’, the prophets believe in doing-as I read them and Rabbi Heschel’s teachings on the prophets. While people look for ‘things to hold onto’, the prophets make a mockery of the power, prestige, material things that give people solace and they use for comfort. The misbelief that one can settle for status quo, ‘this is the way we have always done it’, etc is belied by the prophets’ words and actions. They are not willing to settle nor are they willing to let the people settle for anything other than doing the best they can to repent, to return, to have new responses to old issues and problems. For the prophets’, in my understanding of them and Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above, if one is not willing to attach oneself to God, one is attaching oneself to evil, there is no middle ground, there is no ‘trying’ there is a surrender to God’s will and doing God’s will or there is nothing.

The prophets are speaking to us today, right now. They are in the words and teachings of Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, Thomas Merton, Parker Palmer, Rabbi Schulweis, and so many others. We, the people, have to stand up to the charlatans that speak the words of the Priests of old, hear and pay heed to the desires of the powerful  and the wealthy, while abandoning God, God’s will and the people they are supposed to serve. The prophets call to speak truth to power is needed desperately right now, as it always is. It seems a little more necessary now with ‘alternative facts’, media lies, the fact that 68% of Republicans and up to 48% of Independents still believe the ‘stolen election’ lies of Trump world is a sign that the prophets are needed at least as much if not more than in Ancient Israel.

Yet, even those that quote the prophets do so for their own gain, they bastardize the prophets’ words just as the “prosperity gospel” bastardizes Jesus’ words and radical Islamists bastardize the teachings of Mohammed. This is why the prophets and their authentic descendants seem to strange to people, this is why Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and words were so unsettling to people, this is why the quotations of the prophets, the quotations of Rabbi Heschel go unheeded and used as subterfuge. Without marching  and doing everything one can for the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the voiceless and the powerless, we are just giving lip service not only to the prophets, but to God’s calls and God’s will. The worst actions taken by ‘people of faith’ are to abuse the trust of the people they are supposed to serve by committing the same acts as the priests of Ancient Israel at the time of the prophets.

When one is called by God, when one has a spiritual awakening, spiritual encounters one is changed forever. Even for the people who dismiss these experiences, they are changed. In recovery, we all have these experiences, be they ecstatic or “the educational variety”. This makes us, like the prophets, strange to people, we seem one-sided in our refusal to relapse into old behaviors of unkindness, of selfishness, of mendacity, of meanness, of needing to be right, etc. We seem like an “unbearable extremist” with our commitment to God and God’s ways, we are called a cult because we refuse to be seduced by power, prestige, fame to the ruin of our  spiritual connections. In recovery, we are hearing the prophets call as a Shofar that calls us back to Sinai, back to our covenant with God, and gives us the pathway to “a richer and more meaningful life.”

I am “strange, one-sided, an unbearable extremist” to many people. I am unable to tolerate hiding, by me and/or by you, by anyone. I cannot “go along to get along”, I am loud, abrasive, open to learning and doing life differently, being part of a team, and demanding 100% of whatever someone has to add to our effort to live well, to be in recovery from the lies and shading of the truth, the hiding and the bullshit of living a facade. I am strange in my ways, I believe if I see you standing on a cliff, yelling to get you to turn away is a sign of love and caring. I believe holding you and me to the loyalty we pledge upon entering into a relationship which entails helping and speaking truth is holy. I believe erasing someone from one’s life, especially those that have helped us, is insane and wrong. I believe forgiving someone who has harmed you and letting it as well as them go is holy. I believe in searching for God and Godliness, we have to open our eyes, our hearts and our souls to the words of the prophets and take actions on their teachings, on God’s will. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark