Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 196

“A prudent man is he who minds his own business… particularly when not authorized to step in-and the prophets were given no mandate by the widows and orphans to plead their cause. The prophet is a person who is not tolerant of wrongs done to others, who resents other people’s injuries.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.92)

The last sentence above sends shock waves through the “prudent” person! It is disturbing to the status quo of both the days of the prophets as described in the Bible and to the status quo we are living in this moment. When so many wrongs are being committed in the name of ‘we, the people’, when the values upon which the United States was formed are being so maligned and misused, the actions and descriptions of the prophets can be our salvation. The challenge for ‘we, the people’ is to be disturbed enough and disrupted enough to take different actions.

We are in a time, again, where the “wrongs done to others” is commonplace. We see them and commit them daily. When we ignore people because we are ‘too busy’, we are so into our own thoughts and feelings, we can’t even say hello to people we walk by, we are ignoring the divine image of another human being. When we are so sure we are ‘right’ and ‘they’ are ‘wrong’ we can’t even carry on a conversation, we are so intolerant of another point of view, we are wronging both the other person and ourselves. We are guilty of the ‘sin’ of ignorance.

When people are discriminated against because of the color of their skin we are perpetuating “wrongs done to others” since before the founding of our country. We, the people, have the duty to grow beyond our prejudices and our narcissistic tendencies to live up to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence-“all men are created equal”. We have been “tolerant of the wrongs done to others” for far too long. This was the focal point of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. It needs to be the focal point of changing the ways we live today. When voting rights, civil rights, “love your neighbor as you love yourself” are trampled on for some, they are ruined for all. Yet, we seem to be incapable of grasping this truth, we seem to revert to being Pharaoh and his Egyptian followers towards anyone we think we can dominate. In our seeking of power and rule, we tolerate “wrongs done to others” as a right instead of a crime.

When we proclaim our nation should be a ‘Christian Nation’, we decimate one of the founding principles of our Bill of Rights-freedom of religion. When we make the press “the enemy of the people” we do the same with freedom of the press. When we spread lies about people because they are Jews, Muslims, etc we are denying our heritage and our lineage. Christianity and Islam are offshoots of Judaism, different and holy. To deny the need and the right of Jews, Muslims, Christians to believe and practice their spiritual paths is to deny history and to deny Godliness. In this denial, many have become “tolerant of the wrongs done to others” and revel in their intolerance!

The protests of today, unlike those in the 60’s are not in support of freedoms, they are in support of terrorists. There are many issues in the current conflict in the Middle East that have merit on both sides. One issue that has no merit is the rewriting of what happened to initiate the current conflict-Hamas’ terrorism, Hamas’ murdering of Jews in their beds, raping women, killing babies and taking hostages both alive and dead. The protestors against supporting Israel and proclaiming terrorists as ‘freedom fighters’, calling for the extermination of Jews and the end of the State of Israel are not engaging in the principles that were at the forefront of the Anti-Vietnam War nor the Civil Rights movements of the 1960’s. Our need to make moral equivalence is another way we “tolerate the wrongs done to others” and it needs to stop or else we will cause the collapse of freedom here and around the globe.

The problem is we have retarded rather than advanced the teachings and the spiritual principles of the Bible and the prophets. We have become adjusted to the conventional norms and mental cliches of society, of the strongman, of authoritarianism. We use ‘reasoning’ against ourselves and against people ‘not like us’. We have lost our ability to live in wonder and awe. We have become ignorant and revel in our ignorance. Rather than being “maladjusted to” the norms of society, rather than seeking to increase our individual and communal knowledge and wisdom, we are retarding them in the name of ‘country’, ‘religion’, etc. We are in desperate need of regaining our moral compass’, we are being called to live up to the best of Biblical wisdom and teachings, not bastardize them for our own benefit. Be it the far right in Israel, the terrorists and/or the far left progressives, all are seeking to use the Jews as scapegoats for their push for power, both use lies and deceit in their drive to have rule and dominion over human beings, and both are seeking to annihilate the dictate to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein.”

I am guilty of being “tolerant of wrongs done to others” and committing wrongs myself. I have made my amends and do a little better each day. I have also railed against the wrongs and found myself hated and loved, depending on the wrong I rail against and the people who hear me. I do not apologize for speaking out about these wrongs. I do have the sensitivity of the prophets and, as I grow along spiritual lines, I find myself more like the prophets in that I do “not tolerate wrongs done to others” by myself nor by another. It is not a popular way of being and I accept my loneliness as a good price to pay for being able to live with my self, with God, and with you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark