Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 269

“What young people need is not religious tranquilizers, religion as a diversion, religion as entertainment, but spiritual audacity, intellectual guts, power of defiance.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 53)

While Rabbi Heschel was very focused on the young, the same is true for all of us. We, the young he was talking about in 1962, have not changed the very things that turned us off on religion so long ago! We have continued in the tradition of “religious tranquilizers”, we go to Synagogue because we ‘have’ to - there are many “three-day a year Jews” in the world, showing up ‘late’ on Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur; sitting through absolutely boring services, standing and sitting on cue all because of some superstition we might get struck dead if we don’t, or some guilt that was put upon us by our parents, grandparents, etc. We are torturing our children and grandchildren in the same ways we were tortured and don’t even realize it or just say “we had to do it also”

We, the young he was speaking about are now the adults he was admonishing. We, the young he was talking about are now the Rabbis he was yelling at (figuratively yelling). Yet, we continue in the tradition of the people Rabbi Heschel was railing against, the tradition of “religious tranquilizers”. While Rabbis are trying to get more congregants, keep their jobs, by making their services hip and cool, whitewash the difficult parts of the Bible, ‘stand with Israel’, etc, doing whatever it takes to make the Board and the members happy, my colleagues have forgotten what their calling is! We seem to forget that our careers are not jobs, they are not 9-5 and get a paycheck, they are not to have “strict boundaries”, we have been called to serve-full stop! Our service is as physicians of the soul, our service is to elucidate and argue with people over how to clear away the superfluous from the texts and see the foundational principles of what it means to be human. Our service is to be husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, knowing that we will always be split and letting our loved ones know we love them and we are here for them AND we have to be here for the congregation as well. It is a tremendous balancing act and living in proper measure in the moment we are in is what we need to be trained in as well as learning the texts in our Rabbinical Schools.

Rabbis today are in desperate need of the “power of defiance”. This power is being used to make sure that we have ‘work/life balance’ and we take ‘self-care’ time- both of which have importance and, I believe not the power Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. The power he is speaking of is the “power of defiance” towards the Boards of Directors who want to dictate how we speak, what we say, who hold our contracts and renewals over our heads. The power to defy the ‘conventional wisdom’ in favor of wonder and awe, the power to defy the ‘norms of the congregation’ in favor of serving the souls of the congregants. The power to defy the lies and subterfuge of ‘optics’, and the self-deception of the congregation. The power to defy the lies people tell themselves and the lies we tell ourselves. We are the  spiritual leaders and we have to defy the limitations that lay leaders put on the spiritual growth of the individual and on us as Rabbis.

We have to have the “intellectual guts” to argue with the text, argue with the Rabbis, argue with the tradition. We have to see the texts as literature as well as Eternal Truth and Wisdom. We have to use our intellect to discern the ways the sages lied to us for their own power and their belief that the lies were the only way to perpetuate Judaism. We have to have the “intellectual guts” to acknowledge the flaws of our Biblical heroes and be in awe of the myriad of times and ways they went beyond their flaws and self-interests to help another, to build a community and to shape Judaism and Israel. We have to have the “intellectual guts” extol King David for his ability to change when someone tells him he is doing the wrong thing, to be responsible for his deeds and his misdeeds! We have to stop saying ‘it is written in the Torah’ and ‘the Rabbis said’ as excuses for ridiculous ‘mitzvot’. Hillel the Elder said in Shabbat 31a, “what is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor, the rest is commentary, now go study”. We have to have the guts to say this to our congregants and lead them in how to live this way!

“Spiritual Audacity”, is something that Rabbi Heschel had in abundance! The word’s origin from the Latin is “bold” and in English we often use it as a negative, as in describing “rude or disrespectful behaviors”. How sad that a word as important as “audacity” has been bastardized for the sake of control and power. We, the Rabbis, need to be “bold” in our sermons,, we need to be “bold” in our approach to our congregants, we have to follow the lead of Moses, our teacher, in speaking truth to the people, those in power and those not in power. We have to have the “spiritual audacity” of the prophets to call bullshit whenever and wherever it exists. We need to remember that keeping a job at the cost of our “spiritual audacity, intellectual guts and power of defiance” is a sign of a deeper spiritual malady within us. Better to be fired by a Board of Directors than face oneself in guilt and shame and not be able to look at “the man in the glass” nor come face to face with God. This is the challenge of being a Rabbi, being called and knowing who one’s employer truly is-the Ineffable One.

I had a great clergy team growing up, they related to us and they spoke to us rather than at us. I had great teachers and role models for my Rabbinic studies as well. What each of them told me was to be me in all my affairs, to speak to people in ways they could hear and not give into the wants of the people I was serving, rather give them what they needed spiritually, intellectually, and morally, Being a loud-mouth, an in-your-face kind of person, I brought my winning(?) Personality to the text and to the people. While people would object to me calling Abraham a pimp, calling Jacob a liar, cheat and thief, I was willing to defy the power structure of the Rabbis and the Board of Directors to speak truth, to use the good and the not-so-good actions of the Biblical figures to help each of us learn about our humanity and the struggles we face are timeless and are the ‘right’ ones because our earliest ancestors dealt with them-sometimes well and sometimes not so well. I would not nor can I now go along to get along. I am unable to keep my mouth shut in the face of mendacity and deception and I do my own inventory daily. I have the audacity, guts and power to defy norms, argue with the conventional wisdom and be bold in my insights for myself and another. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark