Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 16
“To be an iconoclast of idolized needs, to defy our own immoral interests, though they seem to be vital and have long been cherished, we must be able to say No to ourselves in the name of a higher Yes. Yet, our minds are late, slow, and erratic. What can give us the power to curb the deference to wrong needs, to detect spiritual fallacies, to ward off false ideals, and to wrestle with inattentiveness to the unseemly and holy?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 7)
“Iconoclast” comes from the Greek meaning “likeness to break” and its usual definition is “a person who attacks cherished ideas”, some synonyms are: heretic, nonconformist, dissident, critic, etc. Using this definition, the first sentence describes the difficulty in being “an iconoclast” because you can be shunned, excommunicated, exiled, put in Herem in the Jewish Tradition, need an exorcist in the Catholic tradition, be called a demon, etc when one defies the “idolized needs” that society has adopted and decreed are important. We can be put in prison in some countries for being “an iconoclast” like Alexi Navalny, we can be fired from our job because we don’t go along with the “idolized needs” of our employers, our bosses. We can be subjected to all sorts of degradation for standing up for what is right, for defying not only our own immoral interests but the immoral interests of society, of employers, etc, like Lilly Ledbetter suffered in her ‘crusade’ to gain equal pay for women who do the same job as a man, which even with legislation passed in her name, still hasn’t happened!
“To defy our own immoral interests” seems to be a herculean task throughout history. We have seen over and over again, the destruction of empires, countries, peoples because of our inability “to defy our own immoral interests”, our inability to say No to these seemingly “vital” interests, to let go of these “long cherished” beliefs. We have seen the destruction of the Greek and Roman empires, the destruction and exile of Jewish self-rule for almost 1900 years, the decline of the Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, China, etc all because their “immoral interests” and “idolized needs” overwhelmed the leadership and the people.
Whether one says “history repeats itself” or that “history reflects the present”, the fact is that we have seen the same disasters happen time and time again. While they are not always the exact same, as we have found faster, more lethal ways to create “idolized needs” and become experts at self-deception and the deception of another(s) so our “immoral interests” look holy, the end result is the same: a loss of freedom, an enslavement of the people who are ‘out of favor’, not part of the “kleptocracy", not an “oligarch”. It is too simplistic to blame the grifters and the liars, the deceivers and the wealthy, the power-mad and power-hungry; it is time for all of us to look inside ourselves and ask ourselves if we are “an iconoclast” or an witting and unwitting pawn. Are we aware of our own need to satisfy our “immoral interests” rather than to defy them? Are we aware and admitting to these “idolized needs” and “immoral interests” being vital to our egos, that they are “long cherished”? If not, one is truly lost, and so is the country, religion, group one belongs to because we have become deaf, dumb and blind.
As Rabbi Heschel says earlier in this essay, “suppression of a desire is a sacrilege that must inevitably avenge itself in the form of some mental disorder.” To “say No” to this cherished and vital “idolized need” of society seems impossible. When our children ask for the latest fashion to wear to school so they are not picked upon, when they have to have cell phones in elementary school so they will be like the other kids, when we have to have the latest and best in technology, homes, furnishings, or we will be embarrassed and feel shame, we all feel compelled to say “Yes” to these lower false needs. When we listen to and nod our heads in support of; the “big lie” about elections, about political rivals, when we decry the welcoming of strangers by threatening to deport them, when we blame the countries who are manufacturing goods at cheaper prices than the US can because they pay ‘slave wages’ and we don’t want to pay for the goods made in the USA and we threaten to impose tariffs which drive up the cost of these goods, we are saying “Yes” to falseness and turning a blind eye to truth, all in the name of getting ahead, keeping what we have and screw the rest of the people. When we are surprised that the party in power cuts social services to the people, when the people who need Social Security to survive, vaccines to prevent shingles, polio, measles, etc are denied because the oligarchs want to keep more money for themselves, this is another example of how we participate in the destruction of democracy, in the destruction of freedom, in the defiance of the Biblical call to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, and take no responsibility for our own demise!
We, the People, can and must say “No” to these “idolized needs”, to our “immoral interests”. We do this by remembering who we are-partners with the creator in making the world a better place to live in. We do this by remembering the people who either tried to destroy our ancestors (and/or us) or saved them/us by hiding us, by welcoming us, by ransoming us when we were captives, by freeing us from our slaveries. We, the People are needed to WAKE UP, to SEE what is rather than look at the world and our situation through the false glasses of society, through the “idolized needs” of the powerful, through the “immoral interests” of the kleptocracy. It is way past time for us, all of us, be it in the USA, Israel, Russia, Hungary, etc to stand up and say “Yes” to a higher standard of living. It is time for us to say “No” to “scouting after our heart and eyes because we whore ourselves after them” as we pray twice a day! We, the People must stand up for what is right and true, we must follow the path of justice, mercy, kindness, love, compassion that we have received! We, the People have to call out the bullshit of these Kleptocrats who decry government spending unless we are giving it to them, like Elon Musk who would have bankrupted Tesla without the government’s bailouts, who could never have made SpaceX viable without governmental money and he is the guy in charge of cutting social security, medicare, school lunches, food stamps!
Letting go of one’s “idolized needs” and “immoral interests” is a long and arduous journey, I have found. Because they are so ingrained and accepted, we have to keep “peeling the layers of the onion” that is the “foreskin of hearts” which need to be circumcised. It is a life-long job for me and, until 1987, I wasn’t even willing to take the task on. An examined life is painful, Malcom X said and this is the pain that brings me joy through my exodus from “idolized needs”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark