Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 249
“The real bond between two generations is the insights they share, the appreciation they have in common, the moments of inner experience in which they meet. A parent is not only an economic provider, playmate, shelter, and affection. A human being is in need of security, he is also in need of inspiration, of exaltation and a transcendent meaning of existence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.83)
Sharing insights is a key part of connection between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, between friends, between study partners (call Chaver in Hebrew) and between elected officials and their constituents. This sharing of insights, unfortunately, cuts both ways-sharing positive ones to move the world, one’s life forward towards the being one’s soul calls it to be and sharing the negative ones that teach entitlement, authoritarianism, enslaving another, spreading calumny and deception. Throughout history we have seen both ways of being promoted by people in power and those who feel ‘left out’. In our time, we are watching the ‘poor white people’ especially in the South feeling ‘left out’ because they have been given insights by their ancestors that “the South will rise again”, ie slavery will once again be the way of the land, plantations and wealth will be in the hands of the few and only white people, the only true people fit for leadership, will be in charge. We are watching, some of us in horror, how these opportunists and liars are convincing truly poor people that they will benefit from these deceptions when we know it is all about the elites from the Ivy League Schools who are pushing these mendacious thoughts and ideas! And there is a bond between the generations going back to the Southern States who signed the Constitution with the power-hungry white supremacists of today, and these people are not limited to the South anymore!
There are, of course, the insights being shared by people who believe the words in the Bible: “Let freedom ring throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” (Lev. 25:10). These insights are ones where we wrestle with how best to serve humanity in general, family in particular and how to fulfill the call of our souls so we can be free from the lies we have been telling ourselves, so we can free from the inner and outer slavery that society wants to impose on us. We find this way of being in the Talmud, a compendium of 800 years of discussions on how to best fulfill the ways the Bible gives us to live well and to live together and/or side by side in harmony and in tolerance for the differences we all have. Those of us of a certain age remember the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s when our parents and their parents, friends and older siblings and cousins aunts and uncles joined in because of the persecution that our ancestors had faced in their countries of origin. We knew that everyone in America came here to escape some type of persecution; religious, class, slavery, sexual, etc. with the exception of the Black people who were brought here to be sold-an inhumane action by all accounts in every faith. We have to share these insights with our children and children’s children; we have to shout from the rooftops when any injustice is happening because “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as Rev. Martin Luther King said. We have to share our insights with the younger and older generations of anti-semitism and the reign of terror and murder that the Nazis brought upon our earth just 80-85 years ago. We have to share the insight s from the way ‘good’ ‘everyday’ people would turn in their neighbors and torture Jews, Gypsies, just to be in the good graces of the Nazis and the SS. We have to share the insights of what we have learned from these terrible times and we have to share the insights of the Heroes who stood up against these horrific ways of being: the Daniel Websters, the John Browns, the Abraham Lincolns, the Polish, Dutch French resistance fighters, the people who hid Jews, especially children, for the sake of decency and being human, the Freedom Riders who were willing to give their lives and three of them, Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman did, so Black people could register to vote, to Lyndon Johnson who pushed the voting rights act and the Civil Rights Act which was on JFK’s agenda, through Congress. It is time for all of us who remember what it was like when people were discriminated against, who remember being called derogatory names because we are Jewish, Black, Muslim, who remember being told to go back to where we came from because we weren’t really Americans, to share these insights of our direct experiences and/or the stories our ancestors passed down to us.
It is also time for us to listen to the younger generation. We have to continue to hear the insights they have otherwise it is not sharing, it is pontificating and no one who has a brain wants to hear empty pontifications. We need to answer the hard questions of what we did during the turbulent times, how we stood up and how we hid, how our people escaped and how they died because they wanted to be ‘home’. We have to hear their concern for Palestinians who are dying and give them the Israeli side of the story and hear what solutions they have for the issues of today. We have to understand that their experiences are different than ours, we gave them a better more informed world where it is easier to spread lies-as Mark Twain said: “a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on” and this was before the internet! We have to engage with our younger relations and younger people in general to share our wisdom and, as the Talmud did, allow them to share their wisdom without our disdain and with an eagerness to learn and engage with them.
One of my greatest regrets is I did not have enough time with my father to share and learn all of his insights. He was a person of faith and depth even though he was not considered religious. He believed in freedom and treated all people with respect and kindness-even those he disagreed with. He believed in honoring the dignity of all people, respecting women and hearing his children’s ideas and thoughts. My mother’s father, David Nagleberg, also died before I could even learn with and from him. I was blessed to learn from my father’s father, Abe and from my aunts and uncles. While I didn’t use their insights for good right away, they made my recovery, my return to decency and goodness a little easier and much simpler. My brothers, sister and I shared insights and continue to share insights, even when one of doesn’t want to hear them. The same is true of my experience with my daughter Heather and, of course, with Harriet. As Rabbi Chanina says in the Talmud (Tanit 7a): “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues and most from my students”. I am BLESSED beyond words for the years of sharing with students/people I learned with my insights and theirs. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark