Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 284

National Days of Repentance and Change

TO PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE WHITE HOUSE, JUNE 16, 1963

I LOOK FORWARD TO PRIVILEGE OF BEING PRESENT AT MEETING TOMORROW AT 4 P. M. LIKELIHOOD EXISTS THAT NEGRO PROBLEM WILL BE LIKE THE WEATHER. EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT IT BUT NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT. PLEASE DEMAND OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT NOT JUST SOLEMN DECLARATION. WE FORFEIT THE RIGHT TO WORSHIP GOD AS LONG AS WE CONTINUE TO HUMILIATE NEGROES. CHURCH SYNAGOGUES HAVE FAILED. THEY MUST REPENT. ASK OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS TO CALL FOR NATIONAL REPENTANCE AND PERSONAL SACRIFICE. LET RELIGIOUS LEADERS DONATE ONE MONTH’S SALARY “TOWARD FUND FOR NEGRO HOUSING AND EDUCATION. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MR. PRESIDENT DECLARE STATE OF MORAL EMERGENCY. A MARSHALL PLAN FOR AID TO NEGROES IS BECOMING A NECESSITY. THE HOUR CALLS FOR HIGH MORAL GRANDEUR AND SPIRITUAL AUDACITY. ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity)

I am continuing the theme from yesterday because I know in my soul that to “DECLARE A STATE OF MORAL EMERGENCY is crucial to our survival as a nation, as a Jew, as a person of faith, and for our ability to “be human”.

Our crisis of today is the crisis of history on steroids. While it is easy to list the litany of rights being violated, the identities being ostracized and marginalized, I believe the “state of moral emergency” begins with our inability to discern fact from fiction, truth from lies, deception from reality. We have been bombarded with lies from politicians and leaders forever, just not as much, as foundational, and as powerful as we are receiving them now with the Internet and the ‘bad actors’ trying to interfere in another country’s elections, ways of governing, foreign policies, etc. When dictators and autocrats are being extolled by one of the major political parties and their ‘fearful’ leader, the balance of democracy, as fragile as “a fiddler on the roof” is in grave danger. And, the same people causing the current “moral emergency” are trying to declare it and blame it on ‘the other side’, which is why ‘taking sides’ on a political issue is useless and living in an echo chamber.

I hear Rabbi Heschel calling out to President Kennedy to remind the faith leaders at this meeting on June 17, 1963 of our responsibility to grow the moral behavior of our flock through the teachings of the Bible, the Koran, the New Testament, etc. These Holy Texts are revolutionary in their message both when they were ‘written’ and now. Rather than denigrate the human spirit and make a caste system, a hierarchy of humanity, these Holy Texts come to remind us of our responsibility to and for one another, they call out to us to care for one another, even our enemies! The “Moral Emergency” of today is rooted in the LIES and MENDACITY of those seeking to have power over their fellow human beings, those who will let go of basic moral, spiritual principles for the ‘almighty dollar’, just ask Jared Kushner who’s father-in-law denigrates Jews and gives voice to the Holocaust deniers of today!

The “Moral Emergency” however, cannot be blamed on Trump and his minions, it is the fault of all of us for believing what we know in our bones is a lie, for buying into the bullshit that Trump is Christ’s messenger, that a ‘christian nation’ is what is needed rather than a democracy that my father and many fathers fought in World War II to defend and help flourish. The blame is with us who have become so dependent on the “dopamine rush” of lies and internet, of conspiracies and enemies, that we no longer have the ability to discern truth from fiction, deception from reality. The “Moral Emergency” is because our Faith Leaders are more interested in keeping their jobs than in promoting the Truth that is at the core of every faith. When the ‘religious’ can claim they are ‘following god’s will’, while desecrating God’s Name, we are in a grave “Moral Emergency”. When one takes the 10 Sayings/Commandments and bastardizes them to the extent that they no longer are about morality and connection, rather they are about power and  control, the Faith Leaders, the autocrats, the politicians have created a “moral emergency” for all of us and we must call it out. We need to repent for our part in fueling this “Moral Emergency”!

We, the people, have to be the ones to declare the “Moral Emergency” just as Rabbi Heschel did some 61 years ago. We, the people, have to demand of our Faith Leaders “personal involvement” in finding the solutions to today’s “Moral “Emergency”. We, the people, have to overrule the power structure of our Faith Institutions so Truth rather than ‘correctness’ is at the core of our institutions, so that wresting with the souls of the individuals and the entity is the work of our faith institutions, so that we welcome the stranger that is within us and the one who presents to us from outside of us. We, the people, have the opportunity to heed the call of Rabbi Heschel, to do the work that was started by some 276 attendees at this White House Meeting, attendees of all faiths, coming together to engage in solutions of a common problem: How to solve our moral emergency that took shape in the ways Black People were still being treated some 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. While it was about Black People then and now, it is about so much more-it is about how we treat one another, how we live the words of on the Statue of Liberty, how we live the words of the Declaration of Independence in our everyday lives!

I have been railing against the immorality in our world forever-for 20+years I succumbed to it and gave in, for the past 37 years I have returned to railing against the immorality we see around us and I have been so focused on it, continually seeking to sound the alarm of the “Moral Emergency” of the moment we are/were in, I often didn’t see how I also was undermining myself by making alliances that I believed were good and real with people that actually I made uncomfortable because I didn’t follow ‘the party line’, I got involved in things that ‘were not Rabbinic’, and I became outraged at the mendacity and deception I saw around me and I blew up-inappropriately and I have made amends for this more than once. I am bereft with what I am seeing, I am saddened by the deaf ears I am writing to and speaking with. I am enraged at what passes for Spiritual Leadership in so many communities! I commit to keep writing, I commit to creating a space for NON-BINARY THINKING and a space for personal Spiritual Growth online and in person. This is part of my Repentance and Change for 5785! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark