Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 48

“By religion is meant what is done publicly rather than that which comes about in privacy. The chief virtue is social affiliation rather than conviction. Inwardness is ignored. The spirit has become a myth. Man treats himself as if he were created in the likeness of a machine rather than in the likeness of God. The body is his god, and its needs are his prophets. Having lost his awareness of his sacred image, he became deaf to the meaning: to live in a way which is compatible with his image.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 12)

Listening and watching what is happening in the world because of the myriad of False Prophets all around us in this moment, whom so many people are willing to follow like human beings have followed them to their ruin over and over again throughout history, is excruciating more painful when seeing today through the lens of reflection of 1958 and Rabbi Heschel’s accurate description of what was and our knowing it still is! We are being led to the slaughter by charlatans and idolators posing as pious and religious. They go so far as to swear under oath to tell the truth and then lie through their teeth! Some go even farther by wearing the clothes of clergy, many by identifying themselves as ‘religious’ in dress, custom and ‘prayer’, while being hateful towards their fellow human beings, power-hungry, abusers of God’s Will and God’s Word!

These people pray “Holy, Holy, Holy is God” loudly and proudly in a prayer service, they will give “Praise the Lord” shouts throughout the sermons and hymns because they are so committed to their lies and their subterfuge, they need to “show off” their piety in public-because after all isn’t that all that matters? If I can convince you of my piety, you will believe in me, follow me, allow me to pick your pockets, put you into servitude, and gain more power, wealth, stature; which is all I am really after anyway-right?

Joel Osteen would not open his Church up in a disaster to the needy; Rick Warren gave 95% of the proceeds of his book to his Church to help others less fortunate-see the difference? Osteen preaches so well-he is so adored and his public persona is so refined and honed; yet privately he is selfish, he was uncaring in this instance, and would not live the public principles in his private/public life. How sad and devastating for ‘the faithful’. Rick Warren stands for and on the principles of his faith-he believes in equality, diversity, inclusion because he knows in his soul, he preaches in public that all of us are created in the Image of God, ergo his private actions match his public ones-this is a true person of faith! Donald Trump sells Bibles, his daughter is an Orthodox Jew, J.D. Vance is a Catholic, they are surrounded by “christians” and none of them follow the laws, principles, values of their respective religions-they sure enough spout the words of the ‘Pious’, they sing about ‘that old time religion’ and their actions are ones of meanness, misogyny, power-hungry, money grubbing ways, and cruelty. In fact, for these ‘good christians’, ‘devout catholics’, and ‘pious jews’ all that is important is their disguise in public while they flaunt their power, their wealth, and, most of all, outdo one another as to how cruel, mean, deceitful they can be! This is what is passing as ‘religious and god-fearing’ people like Russell Vought, Mike Johnson, etc.

“The chief virtue is a social affiliation rather than conviction” is true in our current state mostly. These idolators, these God-Hating individuals have a “conviction” it is just not a “conviction” of true faith, not a “conviction” of Biblical paths/ways. We are also aware that the “social affiliation” is based on shared greed, shared power-hunger, shared short-term goals and, as history reflects, those shared “goals” will not be strong enough for these narcissists to stay together, they will not be enough for their egos not to battle, they will find themselves at odds and then the real ‘big daddy’ (aka Putin, Orban, etc) will show up and all of us will be screwed! We have seen over and over again that “social affiliation” is not the same as nor as adhesive as conviction. This is not to say it isn’t powerful and alluring, it is to say it frays easier, comes unwound quicker than true conviction. Case in point: the Hebrew Bible is still read today,Jews/non-Jews refer to it, seek its wisdom and spirituality and adhere to the covenant that God made with humanity at the time of Noah, at Mount Sinai. We don’t follow it completely, we don’t live into it perfectly and we have never completely told God to fuck off-until now maybe.

“Social affiliation” is fickle, finite, and transactional. “Conviction” is ethical, moral, infinite and relational. “Religion” is the later not the former, no matter how often the former seems to win out in our religious institutions. We have witnessed the rich hanging together even when they know what they are doing is immoral, wrong, because they are more interested in holding onto their wealth, not being uncomfortable when seeing one another at the country club, the spa, the French Rivera, etc. God forbid the wealthy are made uncomfortable! What a ‘sin’ to make the powerful accountable! These are some of the ‘rules’ of “social affiliation” and they suck! We the People are being called upon and the demand is being put upon us to say NO to these liars. For the sake of our living well we have to “Throw the BUMS OUT” of the stadiums of power because they are violating the sacred trust we put in them, they are shredding the holy documents of our Constitution and our Bible, they are seeking to set up another “1000 year Reich” and believe White Supremacy is the only way for the country to survive! This is one of the qualifications to be hired in the government today, this is the belief of Elon Musk when he seeks only Afrikaners to allowed into the country! Stand Up, Stand Tall, Live Your Convictions!

The way of faith for me, the spiritual truth and life as I understand it and live it is to live with integrity. Maimonidies teaches: “what is on your heart should be on your lips”, there is a prayer at the end of the Amidah prayer which says: God, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile”, every time one of the characters of the Bible experiences heartache and hardship it is because of their incongruity, because of their lack of integrity-look at the ways of Jacob. I am a flawed human being, I wrestle each day to live one grain of sand better than the day before, I am not interested in “social affiliation”, nor in the public persona of people- I am concerned, invested in, and engaged with the “convictions” I have and living them in my daily affairs. I am excited to wake up each day because it means I can be of service a little more, I can love a little more, I can be me a little more this day. STANDING UP to the lies of religious institutions, STANDING TALL against the immoral actions by the “social affiliations” is my jam. I do LIVE MY CONVICTIONS each day. I pray you do too. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark