Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 175

How many disasters do we have to go through in order to realize that all of humanity has a stake in the liberty of one person; whenever one person is offended, we are all hurt.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.87)

The question Rabbi Heschel asks above is as timely now as when he asked it in 1963. Some 61 years later the actions of humanity seem to be saying-we need more disasters in order to realize the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s question. This question, of course, has been asked by philosophers, people of faith throughout the millennia, it is asked many times in the Bible through the stories of humanity’s lack of awareness.

The question is not, in my understanding of it today, is not about offending another person’s ‘feelings’, nor is it about the way humanity has made their needs uber alles. The call of this question is what will it take for us to put into action the Biblical command to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” (Lev. 25:10). Each person has a right to be free, each of us has a stake in the freedom of one another. Yet, we seem to be unable to grasp this concept, we seem to be unable to get over our individual hurts and desires, our individual narcissism to make this Biblical command/dream a reality.

Passover is coming, we once again have to look inside of ourselves and determine the Egypt, the narrow places we are stuck in. While some people of faith will say the disasters are from God because we are not being fundamentalists, some people will say this is just the nature of things, others will point to ‘those’ people as the cause, the truth is most of the disasters are human-made. It is we, the people, causing these disasters and it is we, the people, who are too stubborn and/or thick-headed to realize this truth and repair the damage we have wrought. It is we, the people, who have grown so ‘fat’ we are unable to see the repairs we need to make to our souls so they can flourish and fix our corner of the world.

Humanity has been unable to stay loyal to the principle of seeing the divinity in each human being, in honoring the inherent dignity and value of each individual person. This is stage 3 of Kohlberg’s 6 stages of Moral Development which he determined happens between the ages of 8-13! We have not left adolescence in our treatment of one another, we have not left Egypt in our treatment of ourselves-how sad and how destructive for ourselves and for all of humanity.

Iran attacks Israel, Hamas terrorizes Israel and is still holding hostages both alive and dead, and Israel is called upon to exercise restraint. Is humanity still so blinded by their own self-interest, by their own blatant and latent anti-semitism that the ‘squad’ and their cohorts believe Israel should not exist? How many more times do Jews need to be threatened with extinction because of our faith? How many more Oct.7th’s does the world need to have happen before they realize the terrorist attacks by Hamas, Iran, their proxies deny the liberty and freedom of Jews which, in turn, denies the liberty and freedom of all? How many more condemnations does Israel need to realize this truth and help to bring about a 2-state solution?

How many more disasters do we here in the United States need to suffer before we realize that politics has no place in our legal system? Ideology, faith are not conducive to a just society, we are told in Deuteronomy that judges have to not take bribes, not allow their ideology to blind them to what is “righteous justice” which we all have to pursue. How many more disasters like the border crisis, the killing of people of color by Police, the calling for killing of political ‘enemies’, the demonstrations against Jews and the memes about George Soros and other Jews proclaiming our ‘control’ of the banking, entertainment, news organizations? How many more lies and deceptions do we have to perpetrate before we “realize that all humanity has a stake in the liberty of one person”?

In one week, people will be waking up from their Seders, some going to Temple, others going to work. The purpose of the Seder, of Passover is to “realize that all humanity has a stake in the liberty of one person”, that everyone who is gathered at Seders across the globe need one another to leave Egypt. The Seder gives us the opportunity to talk about our hungers and the hungers of people from all walks of life for freedom, it gives the opportunity to discuss how we can fulfill the needs of the needy. The Seder is a place to speak about our own needs to leave the Egypts we finally are able to admit to, the narrow places that family, friends, society has imposed upon us that are killing our spirits rather than uplifting them. It is the place to put on Orange on the Seder Plate, to discuss ways to help those who are still enslaved by power-mad authoritarians. It is the place to commit to being like Moses and tell Pharaoh-Let My People Go! It is the time for all of us to realize when one of us is offended, we are all hurt; when one person is enslaved, none of us are free.

Each year, at the Seders I led, we would write down the Egypt, the narrow place we committed to leave this Passover. Then I would collect these pieces of paper and burn them as our Passover Sacrifice, giving these enslavements wings to leave us and allowing all of us to see the burnt ashes these Egypts were reduced to. In this way, we were less afraid to leave them, because we ‘knew’ they were deceptions and lies we told ourselves we couldn’t leave, live without. I am aware that false ego is still a place I need to leave and, as I have in the past-I will leave it a little more this year. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark