Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 46
“The central commandment is in relation to the person. But religion today has lost sight of the person. Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment. It has fallen victim to the belief that the real is only that which is capable of being registered by fact-finding surveys.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)
WOW, what an indictment of religion in 1958 to a group of fellow clergy people and non-clergy people. Imagine the commitment, the power of passion and truth that drives a person to stand for what she/he believes in to the point of being more afraid of staying silent, more afraid of doing nothing than the fear of reprisals? This is the commitment of the prophets, of the myriad of descendants of the prophets (in all faiths) throughout history, and what we have today. This is our dilemma and our challenge: Hear the words of the prophets and their descendants throughout history from the Bible, from their writings, from the mouths of their descendants today and ACT UPON THEM!!
Of course, if one is waiting for a guy(the prophets of old were all men) or a gal to show up in long flowing robe with a beard or flowers in her hair like a halo-we will wait for a long time. If one is waiting for a sign to act upon the words, the deeds, the leadership of the prophets and their descendants-it is here already and has always been. “The central commandment is in relation to the person” is a clarion call to all of us to “love your neighbor as yourself”. This is, according to Rabbi Akiba, the most important principle of the Bible and everything else flows from this foundational idea/commandment. One way of understanding this is that we have to love our self, love our divine image, love the person we know we can be and strive to live into our uniqueness and the divine need we are. This is necessary because without self-love(not narcissistic love), we can’t love another human being-hence divorces, family estrangements, break-up of friendships, wars, not feeding the hungry, not caring for the needy, unwelcoming the stranger, etc.
Another way of understanding this foundational idea is to see in our neighbor the reflection of our soul, to see the infinite worth and dignity of our self and their self, to welcome their diversity, their equal worth, their uniqueness and, when making decisions, include their opinions, thoughts, needs, into our equations, into our responses to the challenges of life.
The human being is one of the two central entities in the Bible, the other being God. The entire Bible is about the evolving relationship between God and humanity, with both growing in knowledge of the will and need of the other. This evolution, at times, seems harsh both when God seems to be ‘punishing the human’ and when the human commits adultery against God. Yet, through it all, the relationship of God and human continues, the human being is important to God, God is important to the human and there are bumps in the road of this loving, covenantal relationship. “Religion has lost sight of the person” is probably the worst indictment against religion possible. The fact that Rabbi Heschel saw this some 67 years ago and we have only gotten worse is criminal. While many Rabbis and Priests, Ministers and Imams speak to people, counsel them at times, teach classes with morals and different viewpoints of what the Bible, New Testament, Koran is saying- the number of clergy that have “lost sight of the person” is evident in the ways they tell their congregants whom to vote for, in the ways they support cruel and inhumane actions against ‘those’ people(anyone not like us), in the ways they bastardize the words of our ancient texts, Moses, Mohamed, Jesus, etc. Other times we see the evidence of this truth in the ways our clergy kiss up and shit down-the wealthy donors are catered to and the poor are treated as a vehicle to ‘get to heaven’, ‘to check off a mitzvah on the list’ rather than to see both are in need of spiritual counseling, spiritual growth and are, like the messiah, just waiting for a word and deed of kindness and caring so they can blossom and emerge. In Jewish tradition, Elijah, the prophet, is always amongst the poor and the leper, the sick and the homeless never living in a castle or palatial home-so why are we so enamored with listening to the rich and famous rather than the ‘prophets in the streets’?
We, the People are being challenged by these words above to change our ways, to demand more from our religious leaders, to call them out on their bullshit and to castigate them for cozying up to power and ‘anointing’ Trump, Bibi, Orban, Putin as “messengers from Christ, from God in Bibi’s case”. We, the People have to stop buying the bullshit and lies of the “religious zealots” who have bastardized, trampled upon and desecrated the Name of God, a Hillul HaShem in Hebrew, with their mendacity, their twisting of Truth, Justice, Mercy, of their walking in their own path rather than God’s and creating an army of liars, deceivers, bastardizers ready to stone, kill, imprison those descendants of the prophets who rail on and on about Truth, Justice, Mercy. We, the People are being called upon in this hour, in this time to STAND FOR freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein. This verse doesn’t say a different law for strangers, it doesn’t say those who were not born in the land don’t deserve freedom nor should they get it, it doesn’t say a freed slave isn’t entitled to the same laws, respect, opportunities as a ‘citizen’. No matter what the “religious establishment” says, We the People have to reject these conventional notions and live in “wonder, radical amazement” that we get to stand with and for “the person”. We are needed today, so LETS GET GOING!!
I find these words to be so true, when I was young my shul was a place of coldness and warmth. The senior Rabbi was kind and patient, the Cantor was a perfectionist who let me be part of the Cantor’s Club even though I could not sing, the second Rabbi was colder to me. When my father died, the shul responded, the old men of the minyan took me in, I felt home. And, I did feel like I had to live a double life, not being able to speak to anyone about what was going on inside of me because I wasn’t sure they would understand nor care. My bad, their bad, probably both-yet the person was not as stressed as the rules which is still true today-be it the rules of the Bible, the rules of the institution, the rules of the Rabbi. We have not truly returned to teaching the “central commandment is in relation to the person” because we have not returned to loving ourselves and seeing our neighbor’s soul reflected in us and ours in them. This is what I have done for these past 37 years and what I continue to do today-keep the individual central to my actions, to my teachings, to my counseling. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark