Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 37
“Prophecy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophets’ words.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 11)
Why are we not more informed about the prophets? Why does Jewish education stress either the Halacha (law) or “Tikkun Olam”(repair of the world), what has happened that so many Jews have left the Synagogue and sought out Yoga, Buddhism, etc? I believe because when Halacha alone is stressed, when ‘repairing the world’ is pushed, most people are confused about themselves and their own inner life. The words of the prophets speak to the wrestling in our inner lives between our desire to ‘get ahead’, to not be “the plundered poor”, and to climb out of our own “silent agony”. Rather than be stuck in the middle, rather than ignore the problems of the inner life which then influence and create more problems in our outer living, the words of the prophets give us a path forward, they give us “a crossing point of God” and us. This gift of the prophets is little used because of the terrible education we receive. We, the People have to demand of our Rabbis and Ministers, our Educators and Nuns to be taught the words of the prophets and delve into their meaning in the world writ large and in the inner world of each one of us!
What is “the silent agony” Rabbi Heschel is speaking of? I believe it is the recognition of the cruelty and callousness of the world, of societal norms, it is the sudden awareness of our participation in same and, to us, our inability to stop it. “The silent agony” is our powerlessness over evil and our refusal to deal with the evils within us and the ones we see happening before our eyes. “The silent agony” is also, I believe, the realization of betrayal by the very people who promised to ‘clean the swamp’ and are, instead, putting more crocodiles and alligators in it for their own benefit. “The silent agony” is seeing what the prophets saw in the Temple and the marketplace, in the Royal Palace and in the homes of the people-prostitution! The prophets were enraged, they were aghast, they were crazed that people could bastardize The Word, that people could whore themselves for money and prestige, and they were out of control over the people’s putting up with this bullshit and even joining in! Yet, we see the same thing being reflected over and over again throughout history and we do nothing until it gets so bad that war breaks out or civil rebellion happens. How sad is this? Again, what is the reason the prophets are not studied, emulated and followed more in our Jewish Education?
The reason, maybe, is the Rabbis are afraid of being seen as not living in the prophetic tradition. Yet, the voice of the prophets is “the voice God has lent” to them so the Rabbis, the Priests, the Kings and Queens, the Rich and Powerful, the people themselves could hear “the silent agony” of God over what has happened to God’s people! The Rabbis, educators, Ministers, Priests have forgotten that “prophecy” “is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man”, and because they don’t accept this “form of living”, teaching it may be too scary, too painful a mirror for them to see their own silent acquiescence of the evils, the idolatry, the whoring being done by those in power and by themselves. The time has come for us to regain the passion of the prophets, to shout their words and ours-all given to us by higher consciousness/God-, and to stand firm in our condemnation of the dehumanizing of those in power. Be it DJT, BN, VP, JDV, et al -no one has the right to deny our humanity, no one has the right to “plunder the poor”, no one has the right to “profaned riches”, no one has the right to deny freedom to their neighbor, no one has the right to “stand idly by the blood of one’s neighbor”… We know this because the Bible tells us so, because we do not want to have any of these horrors happen to us, and because we know “God is raging in the prophets’ words” and we have to respond differently than we have before.
We, the People have to make a decision to turn our living around, to begin living in the ways the prophets tell us to, to end our: incessant forays into idolatry; into whoring ourselves (as Hosea points out); our perversion of Justice and mercy; our callousness and cruelty towards one another; our bowing down at the altars of the rich and famous; our refusal to immerse ourselves in prophetic living in order to end these vicious cycles of hate, evil, perversion of holy texts, profaning Moses’, Christ’s, Mohammed’s, Buddha’s teachings and thoughts. We, the People are being called upon, very loudly in today’s world, to STAND UP for God, for decency. We are being given the power to rage in God’s name, being God’s voice as the prophets were in their time. We, the People are being called to remind people that “prophecy” did not end-no matter what the Rabbis say- because there have been prophets throughout the millennia in all faiths, in our times Rev. King spoke in the way, name, rage, passion of the prophets, as did Rabbi Heschel, as did many other Rabbis, Ministers and Priests. Yet, because We, the People did not ensure that everyone learned how to hear the prophets’ words and ways correctly, because We, the People did not ensure that the color of one’s skin, the faith one follows is not important and the character of human beings is what we are measured by. When we ensure that “Justice rolls down like water and Righteousness a mighty stream”(Amos 5:24), when we make happen the words of Isaiah(2:4): “men shall learn war no more”; then we will be able to live with a more peaceful inner life, then we will be able to come “face to face” with God and have no fear, just trembling awe. We, the People are being called once again and We, the People have the power to say Hineni-Here I am; will you?
There is no way to ignore the truth of the words of Rabbi Heschel and I am bewildered when people are turned off by the ways and words of the prophets, when they want to deny people their prophetic voices and deride people who do believe “it is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man” and act accordingly in ‘polite society’. This is the problem I have encountered for my entire life-when we should get outraged, when the Bible tells us to be uncompromising in our pursuit of justice and righteousness, mercy and kindness, people laughed at me, told me I was idealistic, told me I didn’t know how the world worked so ‘I showed them’ I chose alcoholism and criminality as my ‘get back’. Now I choose the way of the prophets, I am still not accepted, I am still not welcomed so much in ‘polite society’ and I am welcomed in my home, in my soul, and I live with God, with imperfections, with passion, with purpose and with love. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark