Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 207

’We worry more about the purity of dogma than the integrity of love.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 93)

The more I have been sitting with this sentence, the more I have come to accept that love is either “unconditional” or it is not love. For us to not worry about “the integrity of love” more than “the purity of dogma” is, I have come to realize, at the root of all our problems today, yesterday and, without spiritual healing, tomorrow.

The call to “love your neighbor” has no conditions on it, the call to “honor your parents” has no conditions on it, the call to “love Adonai” includes every fiber of our being, so love, as defined in the Bible is unconditional and it should be in our lives also. As Ram Dass said at a lecture one time: “I can put someone out of my home, just not out of my heart”. We have confused desire with love, we have confused sexuality with love, yet, for love to be “intact”, to “love” with a wholeness of being, we have to accept that love and like are different, that acting loving no matter how one feels is the manifestation of the call of our souls to connect to and live into the command “to love your neighbor”.

Yet, we seem to subjugate our “integrity of love” for the “purity of dogma” that we have come to adhere to. The ‘good christian folk’ who tried to overthrow the 2020 election and their groupies that have signed on since then, aka the Republican Party, are more concerned with “dogma” than “love” even though Christ preached love and tolerance, cared for the stranger and the poor, the leper and the outcast. The ‘good jews of ultra orthodoxy’ while purporting to be ‘torah jews’, actually do the opposite of what is called for in the Bible, hating their neighbors, even Jewish ones if they don’t adhere to the “dogma” they have set down. The Ayatollah, MBS, et al are not interested in the “love” of the Holy Koran, they are interested in the power they can derive from it, the control over people they can use it for.

We are witnesses and participants in the triumph of “dogma” over love in our court system, in our halls of government, in our Temples, Mosques, Churches, in our homes and in our schools. Yet, we refuse to stand up for “the integrity of love”! This truth infuriates me today as I assume it did Rabbi Heschel some 61+ years ago. History is, it cannot be taught with a prejudicial viewpoint and truly be history, the Holocaust happened-period, full-stop. Yet, to keep “the purity of dogma” for some people/groups, we have Holocaust deniers! Slavery was rampant in America from before we became a nation until well into the 20th Century in a myriad of ways that continue up to today-no amount of denial by Desantis, Abbott, et al can change this fact-yet the “purity of dogma” for them crushes “the integrity of love” that their faith tradition teaches. Alito, Thomas et al being more worried about the donors who treat them to a great life-style than the law is another example of “dogma” over “love”.

The heart of this tragedy, I believe, is in the family. We are in danger of losing what makes humanity strong and great, the family, because we have put “dogma” over “love” even there. Herein is the place to practice unconditional love. No matter how often my family disagreed with one another, love prevailed. No matter how disparate we are in our political, religious views, love prevails. No matter how much we disagreed with another group, my father taught us to respect and treat those with whom we disagree with respect and love.

For love to prevail, we have to never shut off the possibility of connection returning between one another. For “the integrity of love” to be front and center for all of us, we have to know that our disagreements are for the sake of learning, they are to teach us to be open to new ideas. In their concern for “the purity of dogma”, even the great Rabbis of old caused hatred strife like Rabban Gamliel who excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yochanan who’s exiling of Reish LaKish sent him to an early grave and he was miserable the rest of his life. All this suffering, all of this loss of ideas, ways to live well, sacrificed for the sake of “the purity of dogma”. Interestingly, both of these sets of Rabbis were brothers-in-law, they were family-yet “dogma” overwhelmed “the integrity of love” they had for both their sisters and their in-laws. How often have families been torn apart by some argument that could have ended in “let’s agree to disagree” instead of walking out on one another? How often have families, communities, friends, countries been torn apart because of our inability to admit that “the integrity of love” is more important than “the purity of dogma” that we think is life or death.

In my recovery, I work tirelessly to not “put someone out of my heart”, even if I can’t associate with them anymore. I work very hard to wish my enemies well and pray for them as the Big Book of AA suggests. I know that I have to be open to the ideas and ways of another so I can learn. I know that I have to call out the immorality around me, the lies people tell to another(s) and to themselves, I have to search my self daily to root out my lies and self-deceptions. I am dedicated to raising up “the integrity of love” in all my affairs, to have “dogma” take a back seat because I am not sure that any particular “dogma” is correct and I know “the integrity of love” is always right and good. I uphold the wholeness of love by being whole inside, by living with integrity, wholeness, living a life that is line with the divine, not hiding from my inner demons and healing their need to defeat me and overtake me. I live into “the integrity of love” by giving people the benefit of the doubt, by being sad when another is so stuck they can’t see the harms, the betrayals they are committing and pray for their return. I have welcomed back many and been welcomed back by many over the years and this is how we live into “the integrity of love”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark