Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 274

“Our premise is the certainty of being able to educate the inner man; to form as well as to inform the personality; to develop not only memory but also the capacity for insight; not only information but also appreciation; not only proficiency but also reverence’ not only learning but also faith; not only skills but also inner attitudes.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.56)

I am highlighting the phrases I am talking about in this paragraph and I sit here wondering aloud “how did we get it so wrong?”. People on the extremes can and will claim “this is exactly what we are doing”, and they are-just not with the same understanding of the Bible that Rabbi Heschel, Hasidism, Kabbalists, and others understand/understood the Bible. The far right and far left ‘religious’ people believe they can and must “form as well as inform the personality” of another according to their will, not according to whom the person in front of them is. We are witnessing another instant in time where the extremes are seeing children/people as their tools, as serving the power structure and will of the ‘leader’ and we see this in the establishment Religions, not just in cults.

Serving the Pope, the Ayatollah, the Head Rabbi, the Evangelical Council, the Southern Baptist Conference, etc has become more important than serving the individual and God for many people. Serving the whims of the politicians to curry favor and get the Supreme Court Judges they want has been in the Christian Nationalists playbook for 40+ years and they got it. While there is no where in the Bible that forbids abortion, these ‘good christian folk’ have rewritten the Bible according to their whims and their desire to dominate women. They even go so far as to rewrite what happened in the past, their anti-semitic, anti-Islam behaviors, like the Crusades, to make themselves ‘right’ in their massacre of towns, innocent women, children elderly just so ‘their religion becomes the only one’. What bullshit and hiding behind the Bible, bastardizing Jesus’ words to do this to Jesus’ people, is about as shameful as one could get and the people promoting these lies, have no shame-just ask their ‘messiah. Donald J Trump!

The ‘religious’ left is not much better with the way they want to rewrite the Mitzvot, they have decided that “repair of the world” is the most important commandment, even though it is no where to be found in the Bible. Rather than take responsibility for the mundane, for the everyday, they continue to be flag bearers for the ‘rights of the poor’ while not wanting to hang out with the poor and help them form and inform their personality, they are not so interested in hearing their insights and/or being reminded of their bad acts nor the bad actions of their people. While they donate to the “right causes”, have the “right politics”, they hang out in their exclusive Country Clubs and behind their gated homes/communities.

What are we, the Rabbis, the Cantors, the Educators, and Clergy of all faiths doing?? Are we forming and informing the personality of the child who sits before us, in our classrooms, in our Sanctuaries using truth? Are we helping them develop and engage in the memories of our ancestors, using them to learn how to be and how not to be? Are we helping them develop the “capacity for insight” and allowing their insights to impact our thinking and being? NO! Hence the move away from religion by so many young people. We did not heed Rabbi Heschel’s words in 1962 and we have continued to bury his teachings above and his call/demand for action on our part ever since. Being a product of this educational system caused most of us to run away after Bar/Bat Mitzvah, age 13, with the approval and consent of our parents because they had done the same thing!

We have found ways to make the richness of our heritage, the important spiritual developments of our ancestors and, in turn, us boring, unimportant, and, ‘for those people’. Being religious has nothing to do with what sect one belongs to, it has nothing to do with the clothes one wears, nothing to do with the checklist of commandments one performs. Being religious has to do with the “inner life”, it has to do with how we continue to “form and inform the personality” of ourselves and those who are our students, congregants. It has to do with developing our memory of getting out of Egypt 3500 years ago and yesterday, it has to do with sharpening our memory so we can see what is right now better and honor our insights of what is possible tomorrow and the next days. We, the people who have been called to our careers of being Rabbis have to throw off the yoke of ‘keeping the job’ and reaccept the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. The arguments we have, which the people on the extremes claim to be for the sake of heaven while being actually for their own sake, have to include the call to serve, have to use our religious teachings in the way they are meant to be used and we have to continue to do our own personal inventory. It is not getting better and I am calling out my colleagues to stand up against their own lies and bullshit, stand up to the people telling them how to be Rabbis and serve the souls, the inner life of their people!

I am a product of the educational system Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. In my Temple, the teachers were boring and the Senior Rabbi and Cantor were electrifying. The “old men” who came for daily services in the morning and evening were from another world and were kind and of deep faith. They taught me how to ‘daven’ and not pray, the Clergy tried to instill in me the belief that doing the right thing is its own reward and the educational system was not so interested in the inner life! I went far away from the teachings and the love, the memories and insights I had and life was not too good. My return, my T’Shuvah, begun in prison in 1987, has brought me to a new understanding of memory and insight, the Rabbis I have called my teachers, including Rabbi Heschel, have helped me “form and inform” my “personality, “develop memory” and “have the capacity for insight” which I have used to help many other people recover their true personality and find their own insights into text, into how to live in this moment and how to face the future with joy, excitement, dread, and, most of acceptance and knowing they are not alone, we are all connected to one another and to our history/ancestors. This way of being is difficult and the educational system I used was not inline with the prevalent systems and it worked for many who had been turned off before. I am not a genius, my delivery is not for everyone and the teachings are eternal and necessary in order to live well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark