Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 190

“Righteousness must dwell not only in the places where justice is judicially administered. There are many ways of evading the law and escaping the arm of justice.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

Thinking about these two sentences almost makes wish for a time when the first one was true! Even “in the places where justice is judicially administered”, righteousness does not necessarily prevail. We have lost our ability to “not accept bribes”, to not allow politics on either extreme of the spectrum not influence the righteousness that true justice calls for. We are living in times where it increasingly difficult to find righteousness in our daily affairs, in our judicial proceedings, in our political life and in our economic dealings.

The colleges who are negotiating with students to end investment in Israel are not acting from righteousness, they are acting from fear; fear of confronting the truth of the ways they have been educating students. They are willing to support a terrorist organization, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, to placate a minority of students and faculty. While we can debate the policies of Israel all day long, we cannot deny the fact that Hamas, the PLO, the PA have rejected every cease-fire, every offer of a two-state solution that has been presented to them. By doing this, the progressives have made them into ‘poor victims’ who rape, torture and murder innocent Israelis in the their beds, women, children, babies, men, young and old or at a music festival celebrating peace! This is whom the colleges are saying are the ‘righteous ones’ by their acquiescence to the ridiculous demands of so-called students and their outside agitators. Where is the justice for the people who were murdered, where is the justice for the women who were raped, where is the justice for those still held captive-against International Law and Hamas has never been brought up on charges, while Israel continues to be denigrated. A little double-standard maybe-oh no-we Jews are always the problem, we are always the scapegoats-for the far right and far left. Where is the justice here? Where is the righteousness in the world courts, in world opinion, on our college campus’??

On a more personal plane, the justice system has always been easy to manipulate if you are a person of wealth and, if you are a victim of a terrible childhood at times. Just as in Ancient Greece and Rome and in every country since antiquity, justice is about what can be proved and what can be evaded. In Ancient Israel, the purpose of justice was to find the truth without fear nor favor, without regard to the status of the people in front of the court. Today, we witness the specialization of lawyers in denying responsibility, in evading the letter and/or the spirit of the law, and their absolute conviction that people who have enough money to afford them are entitled to a different justice than people who can’t! The courts go along with this theory as well and righteousness is no longer the goal of justice, truth is no longer the goal of justice, only winning is the goal! Innocent people are wrongly convicted and guilty people are let free, Antonio Scalia in defending a decision to allow a patently innocent man be executed said: “due process had been followed-guilt or innocence is of no concern to me”. This Supreme Court Justice, some 20 years ago in a talk I attended, confirmed that righteousness and truth have no place in our judicial system anymore. Donald Trump’s constant assault on the rule of law, the Supreme Court’s enabling him to delay, delay, delay all show how far we have fallen since Biblical Days when Truth and Righteousness were the goals of every case before a court.

On an even more personal plane, many of us have relinquished doing what is righteous in favor of ‘getting ahead’. I have heard people brag often, and I have done the same, of how they ‘got over’ on someone. As a con-man, I celebrated every ‘score’ I made and never once considered the damage to righteousness and truth I was making. We are raising generations of people to believe they can be and do anything-rather than raise them with the obligation of “do justly”, the call of the Bible to “pursue righteousness”, knowing we will not achieve it totally and, as Rabbi Tarfon says: “we don’t have to finish the work and we are not free to invalidate it!” Each person is needed to do the inner inventory and see how each of us has evaded being righteous, evaded the law and escaped justice/accountability.

Earlier in this section of this book, Rabbi Heschel spoke of “extenuate personal responsibility”. I am disturbed because this is another subtle example and way we ‘thin out’ our personal responsibility. I have made things okay because I can find a validation in the law and, even in the Torah or Talmud. I have evaded being righteous through making excuses about ‘the greater good’ rather than the truth and what is just and righteous. While these have decreased to a minimal over the years of my recovery and my immersion into the Bible, I cannot deny them otherwise I will repeat them. I have looked at my evading justice and righteousness each year through my daily and yearly inventory, doing the necessary T’Shuvah/Amends and not worrying about what another has done to me. If they are unable to step up to their part, I feel sad for them-not resentful. This is one of the ways I continue to grow in “do justly” and pursuing righteousness. It isn’t always easy and it is always simple. I believe it is time for all of us to stop “extenuating personal responsibility” and take our proper place in our world. It is time for all of us to end our need for approval through manipulation, our incessant drive to ‘get over’ and ‘be #1”, to buy the deceptions of another so we can be accepted. It is time for us to leave the mendacity of the terrorists, the lies of their allies, the hatred of one another, the denigration of any and all people. This is America, This is Biblical life to me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark