Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 188
“Most of us are content to delegate the problem to the courts, as if justice were a matter for professionals or specialists. But to do justice is what God demands of every man; it is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)
These words of Rabbi Heschel’s are speaking to the issue of Civil Rights and they are as true and pertinent today as they were some 61 years ago. We have seen a proliferation of court cases where people seeking to be unjust are using the ‘cover’ of the law, the political bent of the Supreme Court Justices to undo the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws of the 1960’s. We are witnesses to these “professionals and specialists” using the courts to fulfill their own unreligious and unjust desires, their desire for power and control. It is a great tragedy that our courts have taken away rights from the powerless and the voiceless, from women and LGBTQ+, from the stranger and the poor. Yet, this is the situation we find ourselves in today. Delegating “the problem to the courts” has led America to be unjust, according to “what God demands of every man.”
The courts have become a place where the alliances of minorities have been shattered, Blacks and Jews are no longer aligned to “do justice”. Between the courts and the urgings of people in both minorities, Jews and Blacks find themselves as opponents instead of allies. This is a great tragedy! Black Ministers are calling on President Biden and Israel for a Cease-Fire. Why are they and the protestors not calling on Hamas for a Cease-Fire? We are being assured this is not anti-semitism, yet, just as racism can be sniffed out by the victims of it, so too can anti-semitism be sniffed out by Jews.
We are told in Deuteronomy16:18 to engage in Mishpat Tzedek, righteous justice. This teaching by Moses calls our attention to the two aspects of justice: a law and what is morally right. In fact, according to the Oxford dictionary, both words, righteous and justice, mean doing what is morally right and fair. What was happening at the time Rabbi Heschel spoke these words was anything but what was morally right and fair, hence his railing about the injustice practiced by both the courts and people. What is happening right now is anything but what is morally fair and right, hence our need to stop delegating to the “professionals or specialists” the administration of righteous justice. I learned from one of my teachers, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man, to take this personally: be morally right in my words and my deeds, seek a spiritual guide to help me discern what is the righteous and just action to take in this moment, knowing the next moment will be different. Rather than delegate the responsibility of doing justice to the courts, to the “professionals or specialists”, it is to each of us that this ‘command’ is addressed. Every human being is responsible for the administering of justice, as Rev King said: “ Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” These words of Rev King were prophetic then and we are witnesses to the fulfillment of this prophecy in our own time.
While one can debate the situation in Gaza, everyone should be horrified by the devastation. At the same time, which seems to elude the protestors on campus’ around our country, the devastation is the direct result of the attack on Oct. 7th when Hamas broke the Cease-Fire and tortured, raped, murdered and took hostages. The devastation is the direct result of Hamas’ unwillingness to return the hostages and deny the different agreements for a Cease-Fire that have been presented by their allies in Egypt, Qatar, etc! In the news coverage on the left, this fact is left out! It is left out in the calls of the protestors who portray Hamas, a terrorizing force in Israel, in Gaza, who use the people of Gaza as their human shields, who claim it doesn’t matter how many are killed ‘for the cause’, as freedom fighters! They want to exterminate the Jews, kill all zionists, displace Israel from its land, etc. This is what they call Justice? This is what they call morally right and fair?
And the world says nothing except to condemn the Jews! I disagree with Netanyahu and his band of thugs on almost every issue, they have perverted what is in the Bible for their own purposes. They have sought to do the same with the Justice System in Israel as Leonard Leo and the Federalist society have done in the US. And, a two-state solution is the only just and fair way of dealing with the issues in the Middle East, which the world has conveniently forgotten about was the original idea of the UN in their Partition Agreement in 1947! It was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who killed that idea, it was the Arab Countries surrounding Israel who went to war in 1948-all of whom had supported Hitler in WWII!
I am, as you may have noticed, enraged by what is happening both in Gaza and in our country. I am saddened by the lack of participation and discussion of what is morally right and fair. I am looking at my own call to “do justice”, my own actions to be just and fair, moral and truthful. It begins within, I continue to put guardrails up to tamp down my unjust impulses, I continue to speak out, loudly and softly, whenever I witness injustice. I am overwrought at what I see happening in our country, how the Supreme Court has become so corrupt that, instead of being an instrument that “proclaims liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, it has become an instrument to deny freedom and liberty to the masses in favor of the few. I cannot stay silent while people “make thin” their personal responsibility to “do justice”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark