Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 49

“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)

WOW!! Reading the words above, watching what Trump and his Putin Puppets are doing to the United States of America, witnessing the absolute acquiescence of religions to political hacks, seeing the ways people are ignoring what is in their best interest, ie science, climate change, decent pay, etc; could drive someone to drink! I prefer not to go there as my history with alcoholism is tragic for all concerned:) “Inwardness is ignored. The spirit has become a myth” defines today at least as much as it defined 1958 and I keep asking myself over and over again-why did no one listen to Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, the Berrigan Brothers and other clergy across the Nation, across the globe when they were telling us this?

We are so obsessed with working out, what our body looks like, how many reps can we do, do we have 6-pack abs, is her ass shapely, etc. We look at one another as if we were assessing a car, a horse, an inanimate object, we are not looking at one another with the awe and reverence, with the radical amazement and wonder of seeing God face to face! We have lost our ability to do this because our “inwardness is ignored”, our “spirit has become a myth”. When many people talk about ‘their souls’, and ‘the spirit that moves them’ they are not speaking about the soul that “God placed in me”, they are speaking in ways they can con the people they are speaking to. Mike Johnson should be called out by his religious fellowship for lying when he says “read the Bible to know what I think” as he sells America to Putin and Xi, into slavery, into conquest, into an authoritarian state. God, calls out this kind of bullshit throughout the Bible; Jesus rails about the money-changers in the Temple-meaning the people who are bastardizing what God is demanding of us; the prophets called us WHORES because the people, the priests, the palace, the wealthy were all acting like Mike Johnson is now!

Are we really this obtuse? Have you never read the Bible, our history books? Do we really believe that our “needs are the prophets” for the image we are trying to create for ourselves? How do we go to our religious institutions, say the prayers of the prayerbook/hymnal, read the Bible portions, and then act in the ways Rabbi Heschel describes above and the ways we are acting in right now?? Where is our outrage against the idolators, the charlatans, the Pharaohs, the Hitlers, the Authoritarians, the Racists, the Anti-Semites, the Anti-Religionists running our country right now? IT IS NOT HERE because our “inwardness is ignored”, our “spirit has become a myth”! We worship our bodies, our money, our career or those of the image that is ‘in charge’, forgetting that God, our Higher Consciousness is in charge, unaware that we are refusing to reach for our higher consciousness, for God, into our inner life, to hear our spirit’s message.

Because we seem constitutionally incapable of seeing our own sacred image nor the sacred image of another human being, we are deaf to the cries of human beings to the torture they are undergoing, we are blind to the cruelties that are perpetrated in our names, we are numb to the attack on our freedoms and our way of being because ‘herr trump’, ‘herr musk’ have spoken and they are ‘giving it to the libs’. The same ‘libs’ that ensured multi-generations with money for their retirement years-social security; affordable healthcare in our “golden years”-medicare; help when we are down and out-welfare; assistance for the working poor-school lunches, snap programs. These are not a panacea, they are not a utopia, they are not even run that efficiently- they are, however, following the demands of God in Leviticus: Love your neighbor as you love yourself; Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein; when you are doing well-bring a wholeness offering and share it with the people around you. That the assholes in Washington like Trump, Musk, Johnson are looking to get paid on the backs of the poor, the needy, the stranger is disgusting, disastrous, and setting us up to be enslaved, just like the Kingdom of Israel was, the Kingdom of Judea was, just like so many kingdoms, countries have been throughout history.

STAND UP, DO SOMETHING before it is too late, it is late enough already and there is hope. We, the People are being called upon to put on a new pair of glasses and see our “sacred image” that we are created in once again. We, the People are being called to show up and stop shutting up! We, the People need to reclaim our birthright of freedom, our call to “learn war no more”, the cry of our spirit to be heard and heeded, our eyesight to see what truly is and how we can make it better. We, the People have been called to stand up for our “sacred image”, to end the lies about the spiritual nature of humanity and the spiritual energy in our world, to rejoice and celebrate the “inwardness” of each human being raising the voices of truth that they speak to the surface, heeding the wisdom of the ages they give out and celebrating the wonder, awe, love, justice and joy living our “sacred image” brings to us and to everyone around us.

I have wrestled with these issues all my life, I have seen the horrors that come from treating ourselves and one another as machines, as human doings instead of as human beings. I have been lost because my inwardness was ignored by people and then by me, I have lost the war of “the emperor has no clothes” as a youth and surrendered to ‘the dark side’ consciously and with forethought. I still recoil at these memories! I did hear the call 37 years ago, I hear it a little better now, I did have my eyes open and they are open even more now, I circumcised the foreskin of my heart back in 1986/87 and this aids me in bringing more light into me, it helps me hear the call of the Ineffable One more, it causes me great distress by making the words of the prophets ring louder and louder in my ears, it moves me to volcanic eruptions at the cruelty and stupidity that is all around us and it moves me to action when the freedoms of anyone are threatened and injustice is being handed out by the people who are the guardians of freedom and justice. I am a loudmouth who will not silence himself, I will not surrender my voice again. I pray you won’t either. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark