Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 147

“Man was the first to hide himself from God (Genesis 3:8), after having eaten of the forbidden fruit, and is still hiding (Job 13;20-24). The will of God is to be here, manifest and near; but when the doors of this world are slammed on Him, His truth betrayed, His will defied, He withdraws, leaving man to himself. God did not depart of His own volition; he was expelled. God is in exile. (Essential Writings pg. 91)

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching in the last two sentences above are startling, provocative, and extremely disturbing, as is his nature. We have faced this dilemma for the millennia and we continue to live in a manner where God is “expelled”. We suffer from “God is in exile” and are willfully blind to this truth as well as continuing to deceive ourselves that it is ‘someone else’s fault’, we even blame God rather than take responsibility for our expelling God from our manner of living.

I am studying the Books of Samuel with Hazzan Danny Maseng, we have gotten through 4 chapters of 1 Samuel. In it one can discern the civil war between Samuel and the children of Eli, the priest. In it, we experience Samuel being able to hear God, do God’s bidding and become the leader of the people Israel because the people realize that God ‘speaks’ to Samuel and he listens, he obeys, he welcomes God in. Just as in Exodus, God desires to “dwell among” us and it is we, the people, who continue to expel God, to send God into exile by slamming the doors on God’s will, bastardizing God’s truth and defying God’s call with such strength and self-deception that most of us are unaware of our actions.

We hear talk by clergy and laypeople of wanting a Christian Nation, of the United States being a Christian Nation, even though our constitution states otherwise. While the founding fathers had a deep faith, while they knew and called upon God’s truth, guidance and wisdom; they also knew that nations that were ‘religious nations’ had not, throughout history, supported freedom. God wants us to be free, God wants us to surrender from strength and follow God’s laws, God’s truth, and engage with one another in love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness and truth. Yet, the ‘religious people’ decide over and over again that only they know the truth, they continue to limit God’s will and God’s truth to their needs and their desires. While they proclaim their allegiance to God, their devotion to God’s will and truth, their actions belie the truth of their hunger for power, their incessant need to have “rule and dominion” over people for their gain, for their prestige, not for the sake of heaven.

In his book, God in Search of Man, Rabbi Heschel begins the book: “Religion declined not because it was refuted, but, because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, and insipid…when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with compassion, its message becomes meaningless.” This is how we have “expelled” God. We have made God, religion, all irrelevant in the lives of most people because we have turned God into an authority figure that is distant, angry, oppressive, lacking any flavor or taste. While the words of God, the words of Torah and the Bible are actually sweet and tasty in the mouths of humanity, we have turned them into words that taste like dust, that are bitter in our mouths and minds. This was and is being done by Clergy and laity alike.

God is very concerned with politics, as Rabbi Heschel states in his interview with Carl Stern. We also see this throughout the Bible, the Books of Samuel, the stories of King David, and, of course, by immersing ourselves in the books of the prophets. Yet, God’s politics are about how we treat one another; “one law for the citizen and the stranger alike”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all it’s inhabitants therein”, the king should write the Torah himself and read it every day, care for the powerless and voiceless, redeem our kinsmen, etc. Not the politics of the religious right, not the politics of wielding power over our “enemies”, over anyone who doesn’t conform to our way of thinking, our one way should fit all of God’s will. Rather than have discourse and respect for another opinion, these idolators and charlatans have decided that women should be in the kitchen, as Katie Britt demonstrated, people of color should be subservient to white people, Jews are the cause of all the problems we have in the world, anti-semitism and mendacity about Jews is actually the way to be, Muslims are foreign and terrorists, etc.

It is time for us to recover the handles of the doors “of this world” that we have “slammed on Him” and open them up. We have to unlock the doors of our hearts, souls, and minds to the call of God that emanates each and every day throughout the world. We have to take the cotton out of our ears and hear the cry of the poor and the stranger, respond to the call of the needy and the captive. We have to, in other words, be In Recovery! Our individual souls are crying out in pain and we cover it with pills and psychiatry rather than seek a spiritual solution. We are being called to invite God into our being, into our decision making, into our relationships and we need to recover our strength to hear and act on these calls. We are desperate for connection to something greater than ourselves and we have lost the language and the belief that God wants us back, even though the prophets proclaim this truth. We need to recover our ability to surrender in truth, to accept God’s love and Good Orderly Direction and feel uplifted rather than beaten down. We do this when we invite God back in, when we open the doors of possibility and connection, when we respond to the calls of God and another(s) with compassion and caring. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark