Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 227

“What we need is the involvement of every one of us as individuals. What we need is restlessness, a constant awareness of the monstrosity of injustice.” ( Insecurity of Freedom pg. 94)

The second sentence above is, I believe, at the core of all spiritual disciplines. I learned this from the Dalai Lama in a talk he had with about 100 clergy in Sun Valley Idaho about 20 years ago. He reminded us of the commonality of spiritual traditions of our search for and belief in Justice, Compassion, Love, Truth, Kindness, Forgiveness, Mercy. I believe without Justice, none of the rest of these principles, ways of being, can exist. Hence, when we are not in “restlessness” over “injustice”, when we are not aware that “injustice” anywhere, anyway is a “monstrosity”, no matter how much we proclaim our ‘love’ for God, our ‘compassion’ for our fellow human beings, we are FOS! We are living in some delusion and self-deception and/or trying to deceive another(s) to gain more and more power.

“Restlessness” is defined as: “the quality of being unwilling or unable to stay still or to be quiet and calm, because you are worried or bored”. The teaching above is calling out to us to not stay still in the face of the “monstrosity of injustice”. It is calling us to be more aware of and sensitive to the ‘small’ injustices which the prophets were so concerned with. To the prophets, any ‘small’ injustice was tragic and spelled the descent into doom for all. To the Rabbis, the destruction of the 2nd Temple was caused by our senseless hatred for one another, ie injustices towards one another.

Since we have the opportunity to either retard or move forward justice in our world, to either retard or move forward our traveling on the road to higher consciousness and holiness, we have to have “a constant awareness” of what is just and unjust, what is self-deception and what is truth, what is hearing a call from within our being and what is an egotistical thought we make into a ‘call from above’. We have to discern when our clergy, the ‘religious’ people on the right and left, the so-called progressives are using the Bible(s) as weapons of injustice rather than as calls to peace and justice, love and kindness. We have to be in a state of “constant awareness” to the deceptions of another(s) and our own self-deceptions so we can rise above them rather than believe we can live without them.

Reading the Torah over and over again is not an exercise in futility nor a path of memorization, rather it is to give us new and different insights into how to be more just, more loving, more truthful, more compassionate, more merciful, and kinder to ourselves and to everyone else. This is not about whitewashing the errors of another, as the Rabbis are wont to do, it is about admiring how flawed human beings can rise above their own flaws, their own ego-driven thoughts and fears and be just, be kind, etc. It is about how people ask for and receive forgiveness, how people realize their injustices and make amends as well as confessions for them. King David, a truly flawed heroic figure, says “I have sinned” and asks for forgiveness-the King of the land, the guy with all the power listens to the prophet Nathan, confesses and seeks forgiveness. Our re-reading of the Torah and the Bible reminds us to care for the widows , the orphans, the strangers, the poor and the needy. It reminds us that slavery will and must end, that we have the call to be either Moses or Pharaoh and we have to choose who’s example we will follow. It calls for us to “run after justice, righteousness” it calls for us to be aware of the judges who may take bribes because a “bribe blinds the eyes of the wise”. It calls on us to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The reason I picked these two sentences above is because of their timelessness and the importance of returning to these ways of being today, when we are facing another crisis of injustice, another crisis of faith, another time of self-deception and deception of another(s). We have to call out the “monstrosity of injustice” that we see no matter how big or small. We have to be in a state of “restlessness” so we are aware of and on the lookout for any and all injustices. We have to end the bribing of our Justices and the lies of Clergy who purposely “blind the eyes of the wise” and run after injustice instead of righteousness and justice. We have to rise up and march agains the lies of Trump, of populism, of authoritarianism on both the right and the left. We have to find the middle, which is anywhere that is at least 10% away from the extremes, so the 80% of living where we can have our minds changed. We have to see every human being as worthy of the air we all breathe and each of us entitled to our corner of the garden that God has placed us in.

I was brought up to be in “restlessness” and for many years I lost my moral compass of what to be restless about. Since 1987, when Rabbi Mel Silverman introduced me to Rabbi Heschel, to Jewish learning, to the Bible as personal guides to living well, I have been in a perpetual state of “restlessness”. I have been loud and, at times I am sure, obnoxious about injustice. I have called out people ‘on my side’ for it, I have called myself out for it, I have sought to get people to see the injustices they perpetrate that seem insignificant, which to me are monumental. I realize in writing this that I have ‘hurt’ my cause because I call the ‘little’ things out and can be marginalized for being ‘chicken little’ and to me, the slightest injustice perpetrated could cause the sky to fall! I am unwilling to change, unwilling to not be “restless” in the face of “the monstrosity of injustice” and I pray you will join me and so many others in “restlessness”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark