Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 210

“If we admit that the individual is in some measure conditioned or affected by the public climate of opinion, an individual’s crime discloses society’s corruption.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.93)

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, we remember all of those who have died in service of our country. We also remember every service member, man and woman, who has put their life on the line so freedom was secure for their generation and the next one. Looking at the sentence above gives one pause as to how incongruent we have become as a nation because of we, as individuals, have become so “conditioned and affected by the public climate of opinion” that seems to be mendacity, deception, and authoritarianism. The young men and women who served, who died and those who came back from every war changed morally and spiritually as well as emotionally are being degraded, disrespected and their “last measure of courage” is being seen as stupidity according to the grand poobah, Donald Trump! And, unfortunately, at least 1/3-1/2 of Americans go along with him, support his antics and praise him as the second coming of Jesus Christ-how ridiculous and how much more corrupt can we be, as individuals and as a society?

Rabbi Heschel spoke these words some 61+ years ago and we haven’t learned them, we haven’t taken them into our minds, our hearts, our souls and it is costing us our freedom, our country’s ideals, the principles of the Puritans and the other people who settled in this land/ They all came here seeking religious freedom, seeking to be taken out of the slavery of the King they were having to serve, seeking to have the inner burdens of slavery lifted from their souls. Yet, we continue to go backwards in our thinking, in our actions. When the public climate of opinion is to ‘put women in their place-barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen’, of 1/3-1/2 of the country and this becomes palatable to the individual, “society’s corruption” is being disclosed. When people are celebrated for their violence under the color of authority as in the numerous police brutality cases that either don’t get prosecuted and/or where the offenders get acquitted, “society’s corruption” is being disclosed. When a man who has been indicted in 4 different jurisdictions is allowed by the Supreme Court to delay, delay, delay rather than being held accountable while poor people, people who are not so favored are treated totally differently, “society’s corruption” is being disclosed.

Alito, Thomas, Bannon, Miller, et al are the co-conspirators and criminals along with Trump. While they will ‘fly the flag’ (probably upside down) and extol our veterans, their actions and their rhetoric decry the very freedoms our fallen heroes died for. Laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is political theater for these people, they have and continue to spit on the graves of our soldiers, our founding fathers, and spit in the faces of those of us who believe in freedom, who believe in the promise of America. Their “make America great again” bullshit is just another slogan-they do not care about the crimes committed by their followers, they encourage them to kill, harm, harass ‘the enemy’. ‘The enemy’ of course is anyone who disagrees with them, who calls them out on their lies and deceptions, who seeks to make a free society governed by the rule of law without fear or favor a healthy organism.

We see the “individual’s crimes” as a ‘crime wave’ when perpetrated by people of color and condemn a whole race for them, we see the “individual’s crimes” as a ‘way they are’ when perpetrated by Jews and their ‘money-grabbing’ ways. We see the “individual’s crimes” as the totality of their being and we define people as criminals forever, constantly using their foibles, their errors against them. We use the vulnerabilities of people and groups against them in order to have power, control and to continue to infect society with the deadly disease of prejudice, of indifference, of hatred. This way of living, this current grab for power by the ‘maga bullshit’ crowd is the very example of M. Scott Peck’s definition of evil! Yet, we, the rest of society, are allowing them to scream these lies, continue to defeat freedom rather than taking to the streets as we did in the ’60’s and ’70’s. Rather than have our faith communities take up the charge and the challenge to save our young people from death and moral as well as spiritual destruction in Vietnam as they did in those years, some of the faith communities are leading the charge and, at least, giving cover for the liars and the deceivers to spread their mendacity in the name of some ‘god’, some idol they call ‘Jesus’-this is how widespread “society’s corruption” is today.

I am responsible for all my crimes and misdemeanors-full stop! And, I see how I was influenced by the times as I was growing up. Money was everything in my youth and it is more so now-I saw people cheating another all the time and said, “why not get mine”. There were many people I knew and loved who did not do this and, I caught the “public climate of opinion” that people with money could get away with anything and very few people cared how they got their money-only that they had it. While people I loved tried to talk me out of it, I could not hear them because I had given into the self-deception and lies I told myself. This is part of what makes me so bombastic, so uncontrollable when I see lies and deceptions-by myself and by another(s). I have been accused of creating chaos and dissension by my mere presence because I speak my truth and, therefore, can’t really be in ‘polite society’. I am proud of this label-I am proud to be able to disrupt the status quo and give people qualms about their indifference and their self-deceptions. I pray I continue this, I am committed to healing my crimes and impacting society to heal it’s crimes so we can live the ideas of the Bible, the ideas of America, the ideas of freedom for all a little better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark