Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 278

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 the first day of Elul, the month of preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah, we rejoice in meeting God for the celebration of the New Year and the anniversary of the day humankind was created. We recognize we are entering an Awe-Filled time, not that every day isn’t, it is during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that we go over our Elul introspection, make as sure as possible that we are up-to-date on our amends and our gratitudes, the changes we need to make and the goodness we bring. The sentence that is bolded above causes me to tremble with “terrible awe” as I think about the subtle and not-so subtle ways we “continue to humiliate Negroes” and so many people that are considered “other”. There is no “other” for a person of faith, for a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc-we know we are all created in the Image of the Ineffable One, we are all created with Higher Consciousness, we all have to ability and the obligation to rise up rather than sink down. Ergo=we are all equal in worth, dignity, and different in uniqueness and energy, which are not comparative categories. Yet, “we continue to humiliate” Black people as we are witnessing in our Presidential Campaign by Trump, “we continue to humiliate” Jews as proven by the great rise in anti-semitism that began at Charlottesville in 2017, “we continue to humiliate” Latinos and Muslims, Asians and Indians from India as well as Native Americans, in Israel “we continue to humiliate” Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, “we continue to humiliate” anyone who is different than us and who has different spiritual, moral, and political values that we do! And this is being done by Clergy, by the “faithful” ‘religious’ people in our midst! And this is who Rabbi Heschel is begging President Kennedy to rebuke! What Chutzpah, what faith, what morality and what courage. An immigrant calling upon the President of the United States to do what is right and good, holy and moral, a Rabbi castigating his fellow Clergy of all faiths including his own.

We Clergy, who will be leading the services on Shabbat, during the week, on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, etc need to look inside of ourselves and see how “we continue to humiliate” ourselves and people with our fearfulness to speak truth to power. We have to look inside of ourselves and do a deep dive into the ways we“forfeit the right to worship” by  humiliating ourselves at the altar of making a living, humiliating ourselves for fear of not working, forfeiting our truth and our souls for the sake of being liked. We have to come to grips with the truths of how we have neglected to stand for what is good and right, moral and holy for fear of being scolded by ‘our board’. We have to do a Chesbon HaNefesh, accounting of the soul, of the myriad of ways we have sent people who come seeking wisdom and guidance away to the ‘therapists’ rather than seeing and hearing the call of their souls; “Rabbi why is my life important” questions that no therapist can help them find. We, Clergy, have to look at the ways “we continue to humiliate” those who have different religious views, different moral views, how “we continue to humiliate” ourselves by failing to “rebuke, rebuke your neighbor and bear no guilt because of them”, by staying silent in the face of evil, in the face of imorality, in the face of lies and mendacity. We, Clergy, all clergy of all faiths and spiritual disciplines, are in need of heeding the words of Moses to Joshua: “be strong and courageous”. We, Clergy, need to take the moral and spiritual strength of Rabbi Heschel, of The Baal Shem Tov, of so many of our ancestors and end our tendency to “continue to humiliate”!

We, who are going to go to Temple on Shabbat, on Rosh Hashanah, on Yom Kippur need to look inside of ourselves to see how “we continue to humiliate” our children, our parents, our siblings, our friends, our neighbors, our enemies, our employees, our employers, the homeless on the street and the people who walk by us and we never acknowledge. It is imperative that we take note of how “we continue to humiliate” the clerk in a store, the barista are a coffee shop, the bak teller, the gardener, etc by failing to even say hello, by ignoring their plight and continue to try and “squeeze the last dime out of them”. We, the ‘faithful’ have to examine our grasping onto the deceptions of another and our own self-deceptions, admitting to the lies we tell ourselves and letting go of these lies and being responsible for the harms they have wrought. The spiritual energy of these next 40 days is compassion, forgiveness, reunification-will you join in?

I have engaged in humiliation of another and I have made amends for it, I have been misinterpreted as engaging in humiliation and I am sorry people have taken offense when they misinterpreted me and I am remorseful that I was not clearer in my words/deeds. I refuse “continue to humiliate Negroes” since I was a child as my family employed Blacks and we treated them as we would one another. Our family housekeeper called my Grandfather, Uncle and took care of all of us in one way or another for years. My father, being humiliated in the Army and when he looked for jobs as a Jew, was told to change his last name and he would not nor would he humiliate anyone else nor allow us to. I am loud and can blow up at the worst possible moments with no ‘apparent’ reason and I know that the fire in my belly at what is not right, what is not holy, what is not moral, what is not good, when lies and deceptions are being agreed to makes me crazy. I have never been able to tolerate it, even when I was perpetrating these ways in my actions prior to my recovery! I work hard to not “humiliate” anyone else and I also work hard to rebuke my neighbor so I don’t bear guilt and because I have faith we all can do better. More on that during the month. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark