Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 50

“Perhaps this is the most urgent task: to save the inner man from oblivion, to remind ourselves that we are a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust.Our future depends upon our appreciation of the reality of the inner life, of the splendor of thought, of the dignity of wonder and reverence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)

Like the prophets, like the Baal Shem Tov, like Maimonidies, etc, Rabbi Heschel is a disturbing presence for me, for all of us. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha were all disturbing presences and they have all left a legacy of “good trouble” as John Lewis says. The question that is before us: are we going to squander this legacy, are we noticing that our moral, spiritual, inner life bank accounts are either at zero or overdrawn? I check my bank accounts each day to detect fraud/theft as many people do, what prevents us from checking our moral, spiritual back accounts each day?

It is impossible to “save the inner man from oblivion” without an awareness of what is in our spiritual, moral bank accounts. We inherited a lot of merit and goodness, moral and spiritual uplift from our ancestors since Biblical days-we have had some major withdrawals by them as well. As Dr. Stephen Marmer said in 1990, “we have spent the moral capital of our ancestors and not put anything back” at a conference about hiding the scourge of addiction in the Jewish Community. We keep believing if we go to Church, Temple, Mosque and pray hard, if we support the ‘right’ causes (on either side of the political spectrum), if we do the mitzvot, we will be okay, we are adding to our spiritual back accounts. The problem with this theory is that it is a fallacy. When a mitzvah doesn’t change our inner life, when we keep doing things by rote, when we are too busy defending our next wrong action, when we are unable to admit our errors, when we refuse to see our part in every situation, we are living as a human doing, not a human being. We are running our spiritual, moral bank accounts dry and, like the emperor, we can’t see how bankrupt we are. Hence we keep committing more and more  moral atrocities, more and more spiritual rape and calling it ‘the greatest thing to happen to you’, ‘this is going to be better than the French Riviera’, ‘on day 1 your cost of groceries is going to go down’, etc.

Our religious institutions, in many cases and situations, have given up on this “most urgent task” by promoting the lies of ‘christian nationalism’, by engaging in senseless hatred and treating the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan as outcasts, as enemies instead of welcoming them and caring for them. Of course every house of worship should be a sanctuary-not for criminals rather for people seeking a better life who are desperate to “breathe free”. Emma Lazarus’ poem is more than what is found on the Statue of Liberty and reflects, I believe, what we should be teaching and living in order to add to our spiritual and moral bank accounts:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This is the responsibility of every religion, every spiritual discipline to help its members, adherents to stand like “a mighty woman with a torch” to “lift my lamp beside the golden door” and not just welcome “your tired, your poor, you huddled masses yearning to breath free” we have to engage with our brothers and sisters who are seeking the life that our ancestors sought when they came to America-there are no indigenous Americans except the Native Americans and we put them on reservations, in ‘detention camps’. Is it any wonder that those ‘good christian nationalists’ want to put everyone not like them either in work camps, detention camps or exile? They believe the words on the Statue Of Liberty are antithetical to what it means for White Supremacy and they are correct. Some of our religious institutions are fighting back by filing suits, by going to court as friends of those filing suits, and we need them to do more. We need our religious institutions to be preaching the words and actions of the “New Colossus” every week, we need our clergy to let go of their fears of kissing the ring of the Anti-Christs-Trump and Musk-, bowing down to these Nazi-lovers and backers of mendacious conspiracies, and STAND UP for the spiritual and moral deeds and actions of the foundational Holy Texts of their particular faith. Clergy stop being afraid, you have taken on the mantle of the prophets, you have volunteered to be spiritual leaders and keepers of the faith- STOP STEALING FUNDS FROM THE SPIRITUAL BANK ACCOUNTS AND START DEPOSITING THE ONES YOU HAVE STOLEN AND THE NEW ONES YOU ARE CREATING.

This is how America decided to remind ourselves of the need to add to our spiritual bank accounts even as we were excluding Chinese, even as the Klan was being resurrected, even as racism, anti-semitism, and other bigotries were on the rise. Just as America and every country has to deal with its duality, so too do we humans have to deal with ours. In beginning typing classes we had to type: “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”. While it was an exercise in typing, it is also a message to all of us. All good people have to come to the aid of our country as we “save the inner life” of our country from oblivion, as we “save the inner life” of friends and foe from oblivion, and as we “save the inner life” of our own from oblivion. It is up to us, our kids, grandkids, are depending on us-will you answer this clarion call?

I have been graced with the good fortune to “save the inner life of man from oblivion” for many people and I have been graced with the blessing of having my own “inner life” saved by so many. I believe in the words of Emma Lazarus, I work hard to live them each day, I don’t see enemies and allies, I see human beings who are lost and seeking to be found and those who don’t want to be found. For the latter, I have great empathy and pathos and for the former, I reach out my hand as the Lady Liberty lifts her lamp. I know what it is like to “yearn to breathe free” and because someone resuscitated me. Gratitude, joy, and love are the gifts of growing my inner life and it don’t get better than this. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark