Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 167
“To act in the spirit of race is to sunder, to slash, to dismember the flesh of living humanity. Is this the way to honor a father: to torture his child?” (Essential Writings pg. 65)
Following Friday’s quote that “the spirit of religion is to unite what lies apart” and reading today’s quote is like whiplash. We have reduced religion, spirituality, and connection to something greater than our selves to “race”? Hitler used the word “race” to claim superiority, white supremacists use “race” to distinguish between ‘us and ‘them’, Muslims use the word as do Jews, Christians and Catholics as well - all in order to separate rather than distinguish, all use it to demonize rather than embrace. As Rabbi Heschel says above, “to sunder, to slash, to dismember the flesh of living humanity”.
Each of these descriptors cause chills to run up my spine, especially the last one, “dismember”, which comes from the Latin meaning “limb apart”. When we reduce our conversations, our way of thinking and living to “not being with those people” we are tearing apart our humanity and our society, limb by limb. Yet, the thoughts being bantered about and propagated are: ‘we are saving our race, we are keeping our kind pure, etc’. When people say “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our people” and other such bullshit, when ‘religious leaders’ are supporting people who spout these lies, we are a witness “to dismember the flesh of living humanity”. We are engaging in tearing apart of human connectedness, of human decency, of the intrinsic worth and dignity of every human being.
We have been watching this phenomena “to act in the spirit of race” forever, throughout the history of humankind we can see how race was used to split us apart, to slash our ability to “welcome the stranger”, to deny ourselves the joy of “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. We are students who have failed to learn the horror of the death and destruction that “slashing, sundering, and dismembering” have caused to our ancestors as well as the ancestors of everyone else. We have failed to agree to end this horror, to stop our reliance on race as a reason to rape, rob, pillage, plunder those we call “the other”. I believe our reliance on “race” to separate us is the cause of unhappiness and anger, resentment and jealousy, fear and holding onto our prejudices so tightly.
The most ignominious aspect, the most shameful portrayal of this way of being is how the so-called ‘pious’, ‘religious’ people are the most ardent supporters and perpetrators of using race to separate, to “dismember” to “slash” and to “sunder”! The very people who claim to have a direct connection to ‘god’, who claim to know ‘god’s’ will, who set themselves above the rest of us, are the people who have, throughout history, promoted racism through their separating “those” people from their ‘flock of good Christian folk’, from their ‘congregation of orthodox jews’, from their ‘muslims who kill for allah’, etc. We see the Christian religious establishment supporting and/or not condemning Hitler in the 1930’s and beyond, we see Father Coughlin promoting anti-semitism and racism in America, we have seen white clergy refuse to support Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement in the 50’s and 60’s, we have watched in horror as they did and still support the KKK and their current descendants burn crosses, vilify Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and all immigrants who come through our Southern Border-ignoring the Northern Border because Canada isn’t a Hispanic Country!
This is, I believe, what Rabbi Heschel means in the last sentence above: Good “god-fearing people” who torture God’s children-as we are all created in the Image of God, believing they are the ‘chosen ones’, they are ‘living Christ’s words’, they are the last line of defense before the world falls into paganism and idolatry! They are so twisted, these ‘good god-fearing people’ they actually believe that killing innocent Palestinians is God’s will, that raping and sneak attacks on women, children, men, and villages that helped Palestinians traverse the border crossings to get health care their own leaders would not provide. That separating people who are seeking asylum because they are being tortured, battered, by their husbands, by their government for standing up for freedom,etc is ‘holy work’ and putting people in concentration camps is upholding ‘Christian values’ which our country needs to get back to as wanna be Dictator Donald Trump spouts surrounded by the ‘faithful Christian’s who believe Jesus sent him’. Where are the Christian Clergy who know better, why are they not joining together in a chorus that denounces the “torture his child” way of being that seems so popular today, as it always has been.
I am thinking about the divisiveness and the dismembering of my childhood over race, I am witnessing this same divisiveness about Israel, Jews today because we are not ‘people of color’ as well as the backlash against the “Black Lives Matter” movement. I read with horror the words of Clergy who demand a cease-fire without any hostage release, who fail to realize and acknowledge the cease-fire that was in effect on Oct. 6, 2024, that Hamas has decimated the Palestinians who live in Gaza, etc. Better to blame the Jews, because we are part of the ‘white power structure’, etc. I am thinking about and weeping about how far we have fallen since the days of Heschel, King, Prinz, the Berrigan Brothers. I am weeping over the “dismember” of humanity with these jealousies and divisions of race, religion, nationality, etc.
These two days speak to me because I have been guilty of dismembering and slashing the humanity of another human being-when I was in my addictive living, not caring for anyone and I live my recovery to repair that damage and build new bridges. I value the lives of everyone-I don’t separate someone nor refer to them by racial or religious derogatories. I see people’s uniqueness and honor their ancestral roots, I am interested in learning more about the inner life and the wonder of people who are not like me, rather than fear them and try to separate, incarcerate them. I seek to unite us in recovering our humanity, in seeing the similarities in another and welcoming the differences as gifts to us to help with the deficiencies we have. Using religion to unite us, to honor the father and mother of each human being, as the 10 sayings suggest we do, has been my mission for the past 35+ years. I am committed to living Rabbi Heschel’s words more each day- I am moved to “honor all mothers and fathers” by embracing all their children. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark