Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 285

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)

Today is September 11, a day of tragedy and a day of mourning for every American. It is a day that shattered the myth of our safety and imperviousness to attack. It is a day when people died senselessly and for no reason other than a ‘religious’ leader believed it was right and good to “kill the Americans” because we support freedom and democracy across the globe. The 9/11 Victims Fund was set up to help people impacted by this attack and the aftermath from being in the vicinity and “working on the pile”. Yet, even this became a political football, Guiliani didn’t want to release the health problems reports of his administration, Trump withheld payments, etc. Even though we set up a type of “Marshall Plan” for the largest tragedy to happen on the Mainland of the United States, we became cowards when called upon to fulfill it. A Trump Judge, in 2023 denied the transfer of funds from the Taliban to the 9/11 fund!

Whether a “Marshall Plan” is for Black people, for the victims of 9/11, for the poor and the needy, all of the above, this idea is about our own humanity. I am thinking of the inhumanity of making it more difficult for the actual victims and survivors of 9/11 to get the funds necessary to help them, to receive the medical help they need to survive and thrive after this tragedy. I am thinking of the inhumanity of seeing Black people as slaves who, in the words of Ron DiSantis, “learned important skills while enslaved” and denying them the help they need to have a level playing field. I am thinking of the inhumanity of treating the poor and the needy as criminals, locking up the homeless and mentally ill in jails and prisons rather than helping them solve their problems with dignity and grace. I sit here this morning of 9/11 and I am horrified by our lack of humanity, by our believing it is good to use the tactics of Goebbels, accusing your enemy of that which you are guilty of, by one political party, Presidential candidate, while taking no responsibility for the chaos, destruction, inhumanity of his prior administration, like the Treasury Department withholding portions of reimbursement payments to the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program or the OMB under Trump and Mulvaney’s budget proposal in 2018 that would hav seriously harmed the program!

After World War II, as Secretary of State, General George Marshall, under the Presidency of Harry S. Truman, developed a plan for the resurgence of the European Economy and prevent the Soviet Union and Stalin from taking over the democratic governments of 17 European Countries. West Germany was included in this group, we helped to rebuild Japan as well so we assisted both allies and enemies to return to a way of living that was as good and even better than prior to the war. We helped them regain their dignity and a sense of worth and value-whether they were our friends before the war or our enemies! Yet, we can’t do the same for our own citizens, we can’t help the “tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? How sad, how inhumane, how antithetical to the spirit of the Bible, the Koran, the New Testament!

Now is the time to look inside of ourselves as individuals, as communities, as a country and re-evaluate both the humanity and inhumanity we have brought about in the past year and years. Now is the time for us to rejuvenate our “better angels” and rise above our nature of selfishness and greed and repay the victims of 9/11 with our own service to democracy, our own exercise in repentance and change, our own voting to ensure that our democratic way of life continue. Now is the time to take a page from Liz Cheney who said it was inhumane to not vote for impeachment of Donald Trump no matter the personal cost, to take a page from her father who is supporting Kamala Harris because she will keep democracy alive and thriving even though the policy differences are great. We have to take a page from George Marshall and Harry S. Truman as they are both doing-build a coalition that will help rebuild the destruction of humanity that we engaged in willingly and unwillingly. We had to repel the Axis in WWII and so many innocents died. We have to repel Hamas in 2024 and too many innocents are dying. We have to find ways to end the hatred and the inhumanity, just as we stopped the “Final Solution” of the Nazis, which some people associated with Vance and Trump are denying, we have to find ways to stop the senseless killing, the inhumanity of school shootings, mass shootings, wars in the Middle East and the invasion of Ukraine.

I participated in a “Marshall Plan” type of facility for over 30 years, Beit T’Shuvah. Harriet Rossetto taught us all how to help people rebuild their lives by letting go of the either/or thinking and adopting a way of seeing the both/and, the ‘bigger picture’ of our lives and the lives of another. We helped people repent for the ways they “missed the mark” and perpetrated inhumanity upon another(s). We practiced seeing everyone as a  creation of the divine and worthy of respect and dignity. I led study groups and Torah Studies to help all of us recognize the beauty of T’Shuvah and Beit T’Shuvah helped people regain a sense of themselves that is beautiful, meaningful so they could live with passion and purpose. We helped them find work that was meaningful and we hired some to work in recovery. We trained people and paid them to learn skills and business’ for themselves. We did this without regard to skin color, religious affiliation, ethnicity, etc. Our goal was to help people rebuild their lives, much like the original “Marshall Plan” was for Europe. We believe in the dignity and worth of every individual, we believe in the humanity of everyone and we believe in honoring and supporting the Repentance and Change that brings about kindness, truth, love, mercy and justice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark