Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 203

“Our tragedy begins with the segregation of God, with the bifurcation of the secular and the sacred.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.93)

I am writing about this for a second day because it has haunted me over Shabbat. Bifurcate comes from the Latin meaning “two-pronged” and segregate comes from the Latin meaning “apart from the flock”. What is happening today is an amazing phenomena, God has been segregated from the words of the Bible, from Jesus’ teachings, from the call of the prophets and set apart from God’s flock by using God to validate the very actions, policies, treatment of another human being that is called evil/wrong in our Holy Texts. The use of God to hate women and make them subservient to the whims of men, be it reproductive health care or working, goes against the ways of the Bible when God said the daughters of Zelophehad could inherit. The use of God to say that white people are favored by God is a bastardization of Moses’ race, Jesus’ race, the race of the people who left Egypt, etc.- since they were in the Middle East, we can safely assume they were not ‘white’ people. Calling immigrants, legal and/or illegal, vermin, blood poisoners while trying to sell “God Bless America Bibles” is one of the greatest examples of the ‘new christian ethos’-doing the exact opposite of what the Book you are selling is telling you to do.

We are seeing “the segregation of God” in this new way when Mike Johnson says “the Bible is my worldview” and then goes to New York to support Trump and castigate the rule of law, the Judge’s daughter, etc, this is an example of segregating God for his own purposes, not for God’s purpose. When he is described as “being comfortable with authoritarian social control and doing away with democratic values”, we are witnessing God being torn apart from God’s flock for the sake of ‘christian nationalism’. We are also witnessing the ‘progressives’ who segregate God away from the Jews, away from people of wealth, away from ‘those’ people, the ones who disagree with them. This phenomena of “the segregation of God” is happening on both ends of the political spectrum and in both right-wing and left-wing Churches, Temples, Mosques. What happened to understanding and living the principles of the Bible in all our affairs? This too has been segregated because we have taken God out of our everyday living, we have segregated God to validate what we want to be holy, our power grab and to validate our authoritarian desires and actions.

The prophets did not see, hear, nor understand a “two-pronged” approach to living. For them, what was done in the Temple was merely the physical manifestation for public consumption and learning of what human beings do in their everyday life. The fusing of the secular and the sacred is the foundational reason for the Mitzvot, for our moral codes. Caring for the stranger, the widow, the poor, the orphan; not standing idly by the blood of your brother/sister/neighbor; not taking bribes as judges; honoring parents; redeeming the captives; loving your neighbors; are not only for Temple worship, not only for how we act in Church, they are the epitome of fusing secular and sacred, they are the calls to end our “bifurcation” and “practice these principles in all our affairs”. Moses exhorts us to “Choose Life”, to not follow the majority to do evil, to not run after the false prophets, etc because the Bible knows how seductive “segregation” and “bifurcation” are, how easy it is to be deceived by the sowers of these ways of being and, when they use God and the Bible to validate themselves, how difficult it is to reject their claims-hence good people believing Trump’s authoritarianism will be good for them and the end of democracy as we know it will be good for the country!

We are in another deep spiritual decline-for all the talk of God by the charlatans and the deceivers, for all the religious cloaks Hamas and the ultra-orthodox Jews wrap themselves in, for all the pages of the Bible the Republicans are selling, for all the flags people are wrapping themselves in, for all the taking over of buildings the far left protesters are doing. From the time of Pharaoh and Moses, through the Judges, the Kings, the prophets, till today, people have tried to separate the secular and the sacred, they have practiced the “segregation of God” even in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim nations of antiquity, with the exception of King David. While David is an imperfect hero, he also wrote the psalms, he could admit his own wrongdoings, he could and did ask for forgiveness. While he was a tremendous warrior, the case can be made that his fighting was for the sake of heaven as well as for himself and his country. We are being called by this teaching to stand up and say NO to “the segregation of God”, NO to the “bifurcation of the secular and the sacred”. We are being asked to once again put them together, to merge secular and sacred, to bring Godliness into all our affairs and live the principles of Godliness, of decency, of compassion, truth, love.

My recovery is based in healing the split in my inner nature, the thief and the prophet, the drunk and the visionary. Bringing God into all my affairs, all my decisions has allowed me to have freedom of choice-I do not always choose the Godly way, I make mistakes- and without bringing Godliness into my way of thinking and being, I would still be stuck in some addictive way of being. I have engaged the secular and the sacred in every moment I can, whenever I am present in this moment, I am not bifurcating them. When I am able to see the Divine Image in another human being, I am not segregating God, when I am able to have pathos and compassion for the suffering of the people who hate me, I am not segregating God. When I choose to do the “next right thing” I am merging secular and sacred. I am grateful for my teachers, family, friends, fellow learners and even those who argue, exile, etc me for helping me heal my inner split. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark