Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 38

“The prophets had disdain for those to whom God was comfort and security; to them God was a challenge, an incessant demand. He is compassion, but not a compromise; justice, but not inclemency. Tranquility is unknown to the soul of a prophet.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 11)

Can you hear the thundering, the volcanic eruptions that must be taking place right now? Can you hear the rebukes that are resounding throughout the universe, throughout the spiritual world? Can you feel the tectonic shift in the ground from the disdain of the prophets because of the ways the ‘people of the cloth, the people of the book’ are saying “god’s will” to any and all things that are happening, that ‘people of the cloth, people of the book’ are telling the afflicted to find comfort in knowing that “god will make it right in the next world”? If not - you must be part of the people causing the earthquakes in the spiritual universe, you must be going along with the liars and idolators and take “comfort” in God, believe that God is your “security” blanket. Ignoring the call of God, the true Will of God, the ways of God so you can vilify people like Bishop Budde for quoting Christ and Scripture, people like Rabbi Heschel for living Torah and living a life of prophecy, people like Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy Sr. who were willing to die for their adherence to God’s will and to make people uncomfortable, challenge their “security”.

The experience of today, where people in their Churches and Temples, Mosques and Synagogues use God to comfort them in their blasphemy is outrageous and it is happening every day, every service, with every political, business, personal decision made by these ‘god-fearing folk’ like Mike Johnson, Ben-G’Vir, Donald Trump, etc. What is worse, the ‘people of faith’ in our Congress and in governments across the globe are going along with these idolators, with these blasphemers so they are ‘safe’-the exact opposite of the ways of the prophets, the exact same as the people who were destroyed in Ancient Israel, exactly the same behaviors as when both Temples were destroyed! Yet these ‘fine men and women of faith, these christian nationalists, these jewish experts’ believe they are exempt and that God will comfort them and keep them safe-sounds like those ‘good christians’ in Germany in the 1930’s-40’s.

God is a constant “challenge” to and for us. There is a constant demand that rings loud and clear in the spiritual world, in our souls, that incessantly asks us to be one grain of sand better today than yesterday. This “challenge” is to not compromise our values and have compassion for ourselves and for another(s) when we fall shore. Not compromising our values means we do not sell our souls to the highest bidder, we do not vote against what we know is right because of fear of retribution. It means that being ‘politically correct’ is not an excuse for “standing idly by the blood of our brothers and sisters”. The challenges all boil down to the same question, I believe: what is the next right thing for me to do in this situation. Knowing that the right thing in this moment will change in the next, that my best in this moment is different than my best in any given moment yesterday. Having compassion for our foibles is not the same as compromising our values and ethics because we are unable to fully live them. It is not the same as compromising what we know to be true to belong to the power club who believe in “alternative facts”! We are witnessing the rich and powerful compromise values and ethics, seek comfort in the pews of all faiths for their willful ignorance of God’s will and substituting the ‘leader’s’ will and calling it ‘god’s’! Rather than have compassion for their fears and seek to do the next right thing even though we are in fear, these ‘titans of tech and industry’ have groveled their way into HELL ON EARTH because they ignore the “challenge”, the “incessant demand” of God.

Rabbi Heschel’s use of the word “inclemency” is very interesting to me; this a word usually associated with the weather and he is using it in conjunction with justice?? Clemency is about forgiveness, reducing the sentence of a convicted person, so one could understand the use of “inclemency” as the opposite of this way of being. It also means “harshness, merciless” which speaks volumes of how the prophets experience God. God’s Justice is tempered with mercy and righteousness, never harsh or merciless, never without the possibly of being pardoned and forgiven-hence the reason T’Shuvah was put into the world before the world was created. Since we are supposed to do T’Shuvah one day before we die and we don’t know the day of our death, we do it every day-not as confession, although this is a part of it; not as being forgiven, although this is usually given; rather as a tool for repairing our brokenness, seeing how much we matter, how powerful we are because we have the power to help and to harm, to lift up and to push down another human being.

We, the People are being called today and every day to experience and respond to the “challenges” of God, to meet the “incessant demands” that are put upon us daily. We, the People have to stop seeking comfort from the thundering of the prophets, we have to respond by seeing how we are living in the ways they tell us to and how we are not-repairing the damage we have done through our compromises and injustice we commit in the name of ‘god’, to shield ourselves from the bullies. We, the People are in desperate need of discerning the truth from the onslaught of lies and deceptions the autocrats, the ‘christian nationalists’, the project 2025 people are slinging like cow shit!  We, the People are being called to STAND UP for what is right and good, to STAND AGAINST the societal norms and mental clichés that are mendacious. We, the People are capable to do this because we are created in “the Image of God” and are God’s representatives, messengers, reminders.

God was never comfort for me, God has always been an experience of trembling awe-usually because I was afraid of not measuring up to who I truly am. As I kid, a young adult, even today-I approach God as guide, as the demander, and I keep seeing that I fall short of who I can fully be, by design! God doesn’t challenge me to be perfect-just a little better each day, God doesn’t demand that I am just all the time, just that I don’t use my connection to God as an excuse or a bastardization to make what is wrong, right. The prophets stay with me and their arms  are raised in a gesture that says: NU, what good have you done today? I am grateful that each day I am in the plus column of more good than not good. I hear the thundering, I feel the shift of the tectonic plates and I respond in the best way I can in this moment. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark