Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 140

“We have trifled with the name of God. We have taken ideals in vain, preached and eluded Him, praised and defied Him. Now, we reap the fruits of failure. Through centuries His voice cried in the wilderness. How skillfully it was trapped and imprisoned in Temples! How thoroughly distorted!” (Essential Writings pg. 90)

Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s words above, knowing they are from 70+ years ago, looking at our world today, one can only wonder what has prevented humanity from hearing, heeding, engaging in his teachings. Considering Rabbi Heschel is calling out to our ancestors, our family trees, and they discarded his words, failed to take action on them, is there any wonder we find ourselves in the predicament both globally and individually that we are in?

The first sentence above describes the idolatry of many so-called ‘religious’ people who use “the name of God” to validate their selfishness, their drive for power, their desire to enslave everyone to bow down to them, not God. Whether it is legislating a women’s health care away from it being her decision, keeping ‘those people’ in their place, denying the freedom of whichever group they are afraid of, continuing to build gates and walls to keep the stranger far from our borders and homes, ignoring the plight of the homeless, blaming the victim, etc these ‘religious’ people invoke “the name of God” as their reasoning.

The word “trifle” means “a thing of little value or importance” in the Oxford Dictionary and comes from the French meaning “deceit, mock, deceive”. Rabbi Heschel’s first sentence above can be understood to be saying that We have mocked, deceived, engaged in deceit with the name of God! This is a frightening statement and one which would make everyone who engages in this deceit want to hide, deny and defame the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom. While he is writing in his time, he is also writing from a historical view as well as a prophetic view. What he claims is happening in the 1950’s is happening on steroids right now!

Be it politicians, Rabbis, Priests, Imams, Ministers, all have engaged in this deceit regarding what they say in “the name of God.” We have listened to these ‘spiritual leaders’ denigrate their neighbor instead of loving them, defile the words of Christ instead of feeding the poor, ignore the call of Moses to “choose life”, etc. We are witnesses to the mendacity of ‘being chosen’ as some privilege rather than an obligation. Any use of “the name of God” that is not accompanied with the laundry list of obligations that God demands of us, is by its very nature, deceitful. Any use of “the name of God” that doesn’t bind us to love, kindness, truth, compassion, rebuke, is, by its very nature a mockery of God’s name! Yet, we continue to use “the name of God” to deceive and to mock, to add followers to our folly, to create and propagate the myth of mist that says what is “in the name of God” according to our Holy Texts is false, only what they say is truly spoken “in the name of God.” This is the how and why of the disdain of religion is so prevalent in our society today-people are tired of mendacity, they are tired of hearing falseness and our spiritual homes very rarely truly teach the truthful words of God and our obligation to fulfill them.

We also see how “we have trifled with the name of God” in our homes and families. When parents teach their children that “god will punish you”, when Santa Clause doesn’t visit or give gifts to “the naughty”, when speaking of Jesus dying for their sins rather than living to teaching us to help one another, when Moses is seen as only angry rather than concerned, when rebuke is seen as a negative rather than an expression of deep faith in one’s ability to change, we are engaging in deceit, using “the name of God” to control our children, our neighbors, etc. We make a mockery of “the name of God” when we say ‘all you have to do is be reborn through a new baptism’, all you have to do is ‘convert to our way/sect/denomination and all your troubles will disappear’, and other such poppycock. We “trifle with the name of God” when we invoke God’s name to injure, diminish, harm, dismiss the image of God another person is created in, when we go along with the authoritarians who want to deny the Holocaust, who engage in anti-semitism, racism, islamaphobia, hatred of any kind. We “trifle with the name of God” when we attempt to define God, when we spout our understanding of God’s words and will as the only truth. When we define God, we are limiting God, thereby using “the name of God” to do our will instead of the other way around.

In recovery, we seek to reverse our trifling with “the name of God” and return to reverence for God, for “the name of God”. Yet, even in recovery, we deceive ourselves into believing that whatever is happening in our lives, in our world is God’s will- wrong! In my recovery, each and every day I seek to discern what is God’s will and what is my will; making sure I speak out and up(often too loudly for most) when evil/wrongdoing is happening; not letting the ‘little’ lies, deceits, happen because they are no big deal-they are a big deal. I commit each day since Dec.1986 to not make a mockery or “trifle with the name of God” ever again. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark