Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 62
“We are taught to prefer truth to security, to maintain loyalty even at the price of being in the minority. It is inner freedom that gives man the strength to forgo security, the courage to remain lonely in the multitude.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.13-14)
Reading these words, thinking about a seminar being held about Religion in a Free Society, looking at the great people of history, and seeing what is happening today is truly a shock to one’s system and, for people of faith, a betrayal of everything that is holy and good!
The “conventional notion/wisdom” today is to lie and keep lying, to shout the lies from the rooftops, use one’s wits and deception to speak to the lowest common denominator to get ‘our people’ to join in the spreading of lies and misinformation. When the Tea Party was formed, it was because there was a Black man in the White House, not because they actually wanted to govern. The leaders of MAGA have no use for governing, only grifting and creating more wealth for themselves and their cronies. We are watching good people who know better twist themselves into pretzels to defend their wrong doings because rather than “prefer truth to security”, they are preferring security to truth-watch some of the town halls Republican House members are having. We are in grave danger of abdicating the examples, the lessons, the wisdom of the prophets, of Moses, of Jesus for “security” that will turn out to be our ruin.
This situation doesn’t happen just because there is a leader like Trump, Putin, Bibi, et al, it doesn’t happen because their lies are so wonderful and their ability to baffle us with bullshit is on such a great level. NO, the truth is that these grifters, these liars, these deceivers and dictators/mafia bosses only can flourish when We, the People allow them to, buy into their lies, seek to be deceived, and harbor resentments that get fed by the mendacity of a great deceiver. The real issue is our inability, our unwillingness “to maintain loyalty even at the price of being in the minority.” Our need to ‘fit in’ takes precedence over our call to “maintain loyalty” to something greater than ourselves. We are watching the same story over and over again, human beings sacrifice their loyalty to principles, to values, to the foundational wisdoms and freedoms that our ancestors had when they formed the ancient lands of Israel, Judea. The prophets railed against the deceivers of their times, they forfeited their own “security” to speak truth to power, they knew they were in the minority and they spoke out anyway. The examples of the prophets need to be spoken about and studied in all times and especially now: their is a call in everyone’s inner life to speak truth, to live in truth and this need is greater than our need for security, because without truth We, the People are never secure. Please allow this to sink in.
FOMO is a real thing today-fear of missing out- and this way of being gives us cover to deceive ourselves into going along to be with the ‘in-crowd’, with the ‘power-brokers’, to have ‘a seat at the table’. Yet, it also, usually, requires us to let go of our loyalty to spiritual truths, spiritual practices, the foundational principles of faith and the Bible. Trump, Putin, Bibi all are laughing up their sleeves at the ‘religious’ people who flock to them and call them ‘savior’, ‘precursor to the messiah’, ‘sent by god’, and other such bullshit. The MAGA masses are slowly learning the truth about the 2025 project that Trump denied knowing about on the Campaign trail and has implemented in these first 45 days with reckless abandon. When their Medicaid is cut, when their Social Security is raped, what will they say-these ‘loyalists’? Their votes come from feelings of betrayal because they believed that as white people(for the most part) they would always have privilege over ‘those people’ and the ‘jews’ in charge would be put in their place, etc. I tis because of the Religious Establishment who have engaged in deception and lies, in hatred and bigotry that these untruths have been allowed to flourish over the centuries, here and around the globe. The Religious Establishment of all faiths have twisted the Bible to their needs, they have bastardized the stories, made perfect heroes out of flawed people, taken phrases out of context and made religion a burden of bullshit rather than the beauty of truth, wisdom it is.
We, the People must return to the ways of the prophets, to the ways of Jesus, to the ways of Rev. King and Rabbi Heschel, the ways of the Hassidic masters, and all of the great spiritual leaders before and since. These entail speaking truth to oneself as well as to another(s), seeing what is true and right, what is really happening that is not true and right and speaking out about it. We, the People, have to do our own T’Shuvah, seeing where we have fallen out of truth, where and when we do not “maintain loyalty” and amend our ways, find the path to freedom through truth and loyalty to principles. We find our “inner freedom” by doing our own Chesbon HaNefesh-our accounting of our souls and this “inner freedom” leads to the outer freedom of speaking up and out, not falling for the deceptions of another(s), being more concerned about “truth” than “security” for without being true to oneself, there is never any security; we are always in fear of being found out! “Maintain loyalty” to the call of one’s inner life, to the call of our higher consciousness is the path of freedom, it is the path of our ancestors, it is the path laid out for us in the Bible and every time one of our ‘heroes’ forgets this-disaster happens. King David is a prime example of this as are the Kings that followed him leading to the ‘lost tribes’ and the destruction of the Temples. Is this really the stories We, the People want to keep engaging in over and over again? We, the People of this moment can change our narratives and the lies we tell ourselves, will you?
I live in truth and when I am not in truth, or I am not sure of being in truth, I feel it in my guts. I am troubled and loud, sometimes accusatory, and I have to do my own tshuvah to find out my part in whatever is happening. I still react and blame first at times and then come back to “maintain loyalty” with the principles I accepted and have helped me grow into being a better human being. It is difficult to not go along with the majority and I know I am in the minority and accept that living in truth is the only “security” that is truly available to me. All other “security” is smoke and mirrors. I am grateful for Governor Newsom granting me a Pardon on Wednesday evening and I am grateful to and for everyone who supported this pardon with letters and love. I am firm in holding onto truth, even when it proves me wrong and to maintaining loyalty to principles as the path to inner freedom. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.