Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 192

“Those who neither exploit nor are exploited are ready to fight when their own interests are harmed; they will not be involved when not personally affected. Who shall plead for the helpless? Who shall prevent the epidemic of injustice that no court of justice is capable of stopping?”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 91)

Immersing ourselves in the questions and statements above, hopefully, wakes us up to who we are and who we can/will become. Between yesterday’s quote and today’s, Rabbi Heschel is giving us four ways of being in the world: exploiter, exploited, one who only gets involved when personally affected, and, the unmentioned one, one who stands for what is right and just independent of courts, public opinion, etc., ie, the prophetic voice that will not be silenced.

I am seeing this as four parts of every person, just as we describe 4 children in the Haggadah, and we liken them to four aspects of ourselves, so too do we all have within us an exploiter, an exploited, an self-interest only, and a prophetic action part. Rabbi Heschel is asking us to see who we are in this moment, how to use our prophetic voice to help another, how to use our Moses to control our inner Pharaoh, how to stand for ourselves and not only for ourselves. As Rabbi Hillel said some 2000+ years ago: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

The events of the Civil Rights movement called upon us all to declare what ‘camp’ we were in-selfish, racist, victim, caring human being. We did this with our actions because we knew just words were not enough, words have been used to confuse, obfuscate, deceive for so long, they had to be put into action-much like prayer is not about the words we say, it is about the actions we are moved to take because of our prayers. Just as the events of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s were a continuation of the confrontation between Pharaoh and Moses back in Egypt, so too are today’s events a continuation of this confrontation. In every age, democracy and freedom are in peril, and exploitation and selfishness are in play as is the call to rise above our narcissistic tendencies and live into being descendants of the prophets.

We are engaged in this confrontation across the globe. There are no perfect heroes, there are some people who are very engaged in being as despicable and as enslaving as Pharaoh, however. Putin, Ayatollah, Orban, Sinwar, all are reaching out to take the crown of “hardest heart” away from Pharaoh and put in on their heads. Trump, the Republican Party, the christian nationalists, Netanyahu and his band of right-wing thugs all are vying to take the crown of control and personally enriching on the backs of everyone else from King George. All of these people are engaging in the ways of the exploiter, the controller, the authoritarian, the despot, and the ones standing up against them are being called all sorts of names and are having every weapon at the disposal of these exploiters used against them. They are cunning: they have engaged a whole lot of young people to do their bidding by chanting slogans to annihilate the Jews, wipe Israel off the face of the earth, deny the right to vote to the people who will vote against them, deny the control of their bodies to women so they can be ‘barefoot and pregnant’, deny the right of immigration to people who are in the same straits and have the same hopes and dreams that their ancestors had when they emigrated to the US!

Today is Yom HaShoah, the day of remembrance of the 6 million lives lost in the Holocaust, it falls in the middle of the dates of Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Many people are unaware of how many mini-uprisings there were, how many people had their own standing up for those who were being exploited, how many righteous gentiles there were. Today is a day of remembering what can happen, how cruel the exploiter can be to ‘their own people’ as well as to those they have chosen to exploit. Every KKK’er has infected their children and their neighbors with hatred and lies which continues to be passed on. Every Freedom Rider has infused their children and their neighbors with hope and commitment which continues to be passed on. Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King infused and continue to infuse many of us with the knowing of what can be when people work together for the common good, when we gather together in truth, with a desire to make the world better, to cure the cancer of the soul of prejudice, to clear up our eye disease of bigotry.

This is the inner work that I am many of us in recovery engage in every day. I have to look at my self and do my own inventory, my own daily T’Shvuah because I am aware of how my own inner exploiter creeps in, how my need to be relevant makes me ripe for being exploited, how I am sometimes afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals. Most of all, I need to be sure that my loud, at times obnoxious, prophetic voice guides me in all my affairs. I have to ensure that I am speaking for the exploited and “the helpless”. I have to stop believing that Justice for All is a value that our courts really believe in much less all of the people in this country or across the globe. I have to stand up for the spiritual truths, the values that ensure we will continue to “be human” as Rabbi Heschel demands. I have to join with the myriad of people all over the globe who want the Palestinians to live in peace and prosperity, who respect and understand that Israel cannot live with Hamas being next door to them, who see a person of a different color and embrace them as an image of the divine. I have to do my part and not let the other ‘parts’ of me interfere with doing the next right thing. I need to live into being a descendant of the prophets. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark