Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 3 Day 294
National Month of Repentance and Change
“The season of Rosh Hashanah is the “Day of Memory”, the “Day of Judgement”. Before the judgement and memory of God we stand. How can we prove ourselves? How can we persist How can we be steadfast? Through repentance.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)
The first two sentences, which I have bolded, are overwhelming in the power they have to penetrate the “foreskin of our heart”, the stubbornness of our minds and the urges of our desires. This is the season of Rosh Hashanah-the month of Elul until Yom Kippur (and some say till the 8th day of Sukkot)- and today is the 19th day of Elul, we have 20 days till Yom Kippur, the half-way mark. What does it mean to us that we are in the season of “Memory”, the season of “Judgement”? Most of us pay no attention to these descriptions of the spiritual calendar because we either don’t believe in God, believe that God is absent, and/or don’t believe that God cares about us as individuals. WRONG, in my humble opinion. If one believes that God is ‘the man in the sky’, if one has made a false/craven image of the source of energy that is in the universe, I can understand these falsehoods one tells oneself. Rather, understanding the one engaging in “memory”, in “judgment is us, many of us see this time as the cosmos giving us the compassion and vision to look at the tape of our actions from the past year and fix the ones we screwed up and enhance the ones we did well.
“Know before whom you stand”(Talmud, Berakhot 28b) comes to mind for me today as I dive into the words above. This phrase is before many Holy Arks in Temples and Synagogues across the world and, Reb Eliezer says it in the context of prayer, I think it is a piece of wisdom we should use in all of our affairs. Here again, we have a call for this moment and, we should not think that this call cannot apply in our ‘everyday living’ as well. To “know before whom you stand” we have to look in the mirror and, remembering the poem “The man in the glass” by Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr., during this time of year, the “man in the glass”, ie our reflection, that stares back at us does so with compassion and consternation, forgiveness and accountability, the power to wipe the slate clean/pardon us and the power to hold us to our commitment to change.
Many fundamentalists like to say “God is watching you”, “God will punish you”, some even are calling Oct.7th “God’s wake-up call”!! They do this so they can hold onto to power over their constituents, they do not want to lose their grip. They put so much weight on Torah Study that in the Talmud, Rabbi Nehunya Ben HaKana demeans the people who work for a living-of course these are the people that support the Orthodox students in Israel. Rather than living the Torah principles and precepts, rather than “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, rather than use this season as the month of repentance and change, the fundamentalists use it to give lip service to “know before whom you stand”, they seem unable to change and repent for the errors they have made, for the hatred between Jews, the hatred of non-Jews that they have sown during the past year. It is time for the rest of us to “do for them what they could not do for themselves”, it is time for us to be God’s messengers and hold them accountable-not for punishment, rather for them to see the error of their ways, to repent and to change. It is imperative to use this “season of Rosh Hashanah” to help another who is stuck because the forces of kindness and forgiveness, vision and truth are so powerful right now.
When the “judgement and memory” we stand before is ours, when we look at the “man in the glass”, knowing that we cannot “cheated the man in the glass” and have any inner peace, we can use this season to right our wrongs, repair our traits that have been out of proper measure, we can change the course of our lives by doing the next right thing instead of the next wrong thing. When we “know before whom we stand”, we live into a life of joy and the ability to no longer hide from “the man in the glass” nor anyone else. We know we are standing in front of our family and reconnecting, we are standing with our community and finding our proper place, we are standing as a partner in the fight for righteousness and justice, caring for the strange and the poor, choosing life!
These words above are so important for us, especially right now. When a candidate for President knowingly supports someone for Governor who calls himself “a Black Nazi”, when this same candidate for President, at a gathering about antisemitism, tells everyone that if he loses it will be the Jews’ fault and Jews, Christians still support him and praise his words, we are witnessing a group that has no sense of the meaning of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching, the teachings of the Talmud, of Jewish history. When this same candidate and his running mate admit to making up a story about Hatian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio and say they will not stop spreading lies and falsehoods and people (especially men) of color, people of a faith based in everyone being created in the Image of the divine, and people who claim to be citizens of this country who evidently don’t believe that everyone “has certain unalienable rights” support these liars and deceivers-they seem unable to “know before whom they stand” and must not “go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say.” How sad for them and how tragic for the rest of us.
While I have gone through this season all my life, it is only in the past 37 years that I have been serious about it. I always knew what “the man in the glass” had to say, which is probably the reason my “reward” was “heartache and tears” because I constantly tried to “cheat the man in the glass”. I couldn’t live with myself and I was powerless, in my mind, to change. In prison I learned a different way and since then, I no longer cheat “the man in the glass”, I no longer cheat my neighbor or anyone else. I am not perfect, I spend this “season of Rosh Hashanah” doing my inventory, crying over my errors, rejoicing in what I do well and saddened by lost connections, whether my doing or the other persons’. I miss the people whom have left-those who have died and those who have “moved on”. I practice a loyalty to God that has be standing in memory and judgement of myself all the time and I use this loyalty to stand with the people who have helped me and whom I have helped. I use this loyalty to be open to admit my errors and/or acknowledge them when they are pointed out to me. I use this loyalty to be open to forgive anyone and everyone who asks. I use this loyalty to let go of resentments and just be sad rather than mad which was my old way. This season, each year, helps me grow so I look forward to “the man in the glass”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.