Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 158

“Our task is to open our souls to Him, to let Him again enter our deeds. We have been taught the grammar of contact with God; we have been taught by the Baal Shem that His remoteness is an illusion capable of being dispelled by our faith. There are many doors through which we have to pass to enter the palace, and none of them are locked.” (Essential Writings pg. 92)

Rabbi Heschel is dispelling the myth of God’s remoteness as well as the truth of our ability to ‘reach’ God if and when we want to. The Baal Shem taught us the power of joy, he taught us the ability we all have to connect with God, whether through ‘traditional’ prayer, through our work, through playing a flute on Yom Kippur in Synagogue, he made it clear and ‘easy’ to see the “many doors through which we have to pass to enter the palace” and taught us no one is barred from entering.

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above, following the examples of the Baal Shem, contradicts the “conventional notions and mental cliches” that society, especially religious society, have promoted. It is not just the ‘holy ones’, the priests, the ‘pious’, the dogmatic, fundamentalists that enter the palace, it is all of us who are able to. In fact, immersing myself in this teaching, I would posit the problem we face is the societal norm of ‘only the righteous’ may enter. God’s palace is so open, so accessible and God wants our return, our connection as the prophets teach, that all of us have a place there, the welcome mat is laying at the doorstep of each door and the call of God is for us to enter.

It is we, the people, who have locked the doors to the palace, not God. It is we, the people, who have made God remote, it is we, the people, who have concealed the truths that God imparts to us, both through the Bible, the Holy Texts of every religion, and through God’s call to us each day. In Genesis Rabbah, an ancient commentary on the book of Genesis, we are told “every day God makes new Halacha (new paths) in the Heavenly Court”. In Proverbs we are taught to teach each child/person according to their understanding. Both of these pearls of wisdom are proof texts of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and open our eyes, open our hearts, and open our minds of our need to break down the walls, the barriers that society has constructed around “the palace”.

Religious hierarchy; be it Priests, Rabbis, Ministers, Imams, Levites, Elders, Deacons, Boards of Directors, have elevated themselves to be the guardians of “the palace” and put up the barriers that tells us who is ‘worthy’ to enter. They have made decorum more important than passion, they have made how we look, dress, the color of our skin, how and where we sit, how we comport ourselves, etc what is important in our being able to “enter the palace” rather than our yearning for connection to God, rather than our dedication to God’s will, rather than our desire to comfort the mourner, welcome the stranger, help the needy and raise up the poor.

These ‘guardians’ of “the palace” have locked the doors that God wants open, they have used deception and mendacity to puff themselves up, to set themselves up to be the ‘only true believers’, they have supported the charlatans and false prophets throughout the ages while banning and barring the people they judge as too pedestrian to “enter the palace”. We have watched these liars promote people and elevate people like Trump as ‘true believers’, going so far as to say Jesus sent us Donald Trump and supporting his grift by buying his “Make America Pray again” pitch to buy these ‘special’ Bibles, while he gets a royalty! These ‘guardians’ have locked the doors so tightly, made themselves the gatekeepers in order to have power, prestige, control- not to make it simple and easy “to enter the palace”.

It is time, it is well past time, for We, The People, to stand up to the religious hierarchy, to stand up the Boards, to the Clergy, to the Elders and Deacons, to follow the wisdom of the Sages who remind us of God’s constantly making new ways for us to walk the earth, each of us learns according to our understanding, the Torah is a Tree of Life, not control, not death, which means it is constantly growing and we must seek to understand “all of its ways” which have many “paths of peace” as we recite in our prayers when we return the Torah to the Ark. We, the People have to revolt against the ‘guardians’ of the “many doors through which we have to pass to enter the palace”. We, the People, have to remove the locks on the doors that these ‘guardians’, the religious hierarchy, have placed on “the palace”. We, the People, have to take a stand for ourselves, for God, for truth, for kindness. We, the people, have to make “the palace” once again a place where God dwells among us, not a remote castle that we are barred from. Moses, the prophets, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Baal Shem, Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, Father Greg Boyle, and all the other great spirits have given us wisdom and paths to “the palace” and we need to follow these paths and not let the liars, the deceivers, the religious hierarchy keep the doors locked anymore.

I have broken the locks, found ways for all to enter, and, as a Rabbi, I have to keep doing this. Instead of having a pulpit, a community now, I do this through this blog. I pray you will pound on the doors of “the palace” and throw out the charlatans that stand in our way, this is the revolution of the Baal Shem, Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, the Berrigan Brothers, Father Greg, Rabbi Shulweis, the founders of the state of Israel, etc. We must take back “the palace” and return it to God’s design, not the design of the ‘religious hierarchy. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark