Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 45

“What is at stake in the life of man is not the fact of sin, of the wrong and corrupt, but the neutral acts, the needs. Our possessions pose no less a problem than our passions. Our task, therefore, is not how to deal with the evil, but how to deal with the neutral, how to deal with needs.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.12)

This paper was given at a seminar sponsored by the Fund for the Republic, part of the Ford Foundation. It was an ecumenical seminar and it seems the purpose was to find ways for “all of us to get along”, with a shared sense of faith and secularism, not trying to make the Government over into a specific ‘religious’ image, rather helping the secularism of government live up to the foundational freedoms, morals, truth, justice, mercy of all faiths.

Given this setting, given our current circumstances, we can experience the rumbling in our guts, the despair/anger rising up from our bellies, the pain and sorrow of our souls upon reflecting that 67 years ago Rabbi Heschel and others spoke to us of the dangers of neglecting “the neutral acts, the needs”. Neglecting meaning not paying attention to them, not keeping them in their proper places and controlling our appetites, rather than ‘I feel like I can’t live without___, get it for me/I will get it at any cost’ neglecting of needs. I do not believe he is also not speaking of authentic needs, as we covered earlier, I believe when discussing “the neutral acts, the needs” he is speaking of our coveting things we don’t truly “need”, taking actions that we convince ourselves (deceive ourselves/lie to ourselves) are “neutral”, they don’t hurt or help anyone. In all my reading, studying of Rabbi Heschel, of Jewish Texts, I have yet to find a “neutral act”! Everything we do has a consequence, good and not good, whether it is affecting another human being, the environment, God, the spiritual realm, our own bodies, souls. There is never an act that is “neutral”, just like there is no action that is ‘amoral’; people can be ‘amoral’-meaning “unprincipled, unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something”, however, I do not believe that our actions can be “neutral” nor amoral.

“What is at stake in the life of man” meaning: what is the risk, what is to be won or lost, in the way we live, in what meaning our lives have, what we do with our lives is all about the “neutral acts, the needs” precisely because as we learn in Numbers and throughout the Bible, humans put their “needs” before God, before what is right and good, before anything else and their “needs” come from scouting out after our hearts and eyes and we will whore after them, it is so important to realize this that we say this 3 times a day when we recite the Shema! It is so important for us to realize the error of seeking after our “needs” uber alles, that the Bible is ripe with the stories of the ‘good guys/gals’ who rise above their instincts to serve their own “needs” often and still succumb to the power of “needs” and, in their minds and the minds of the Rabbis of old, decide they are not ‘bad’, rather they are “neutral”-which is just a bunch of hogwash to overcome the guilt of doing the next wrong thing in service of “needs” instead of doing the next right thing in service of self, another, and the Universal Spirit.

I am still in awe that the Fund for the Republic put this seminar on at a time when everything was supposed to be ‘so good’. Ike was in the White House, baby boomers were doing well after WWII, religious institutions were seemingly flourishing, etc and Rabbi Heschel comes along, looks at the underbelly of what is happening in our country, in the world and uses his powers of insight, his experience of Nazi Germany and Poland, his inheritance as a descendant of the prophets to remind us “we got trouble” right here in America and it begins with a Capital N for “neutral acts, needs”.

“We Got Trouble” alright-not the kind from the Music Man about pool halls, “We Got Trouble” with our democracy precisely because we have spent these past 67 years worrying about inauthentic “needs”, we have spent these years not paying attention to “the neutral” and extolling the extremes on either end of the continuum. The result is Donald Trump, Project 2025, Elon Musk and “big balls” and his friends! We are witnessing the demolition of both religion and a free society while the ASSHOLE SENATORS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY just are BOBBLEHEADS for lawlessness, mendacity, anti-religious actions, and fulfilling the “Needs” of the Donald.

We, the People have to call a halt to labels like progressive, conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc. None of those labels mean what they used to, they are being bastardized and used to separate us rather than identify our leanings so we could have a discussion with those with whom we disagree and/or agree. Also, they were labels that belied the sense of freedom and faith where we could be liberal about one thing and conservative about another. We, the People have to say NO to the fulfilling of the selfish inauthentic needs of Trump, Musk, ‘Christian’ Nationalists, and the rest of the religious zealots, the rest of the power-hungry anarchists like Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, etc. We, the People are being called to account and being asked what are we staking our life on? What are we doing about the “neutral”, to “our passions” is what will determine our democracy surviving this current onslaught or losing to autocracy. We, the People are being called on today, as we were 67 years ago, 3500 years ago, 2000 years ago, to take a stand for what is good and right rather than standing for what we  have and don’t have. We, the People can no longer hide behind ‘I didn’t realize’ bullshit because the problem of “what is at stake in the life of man” has been written about and spoken about for over 3500 years when the Bible was begun and even before that when God spoke to Cain in the Garden of Eden! Isn’t it time for us to heed the words to Cain: “Sin couches at your door, it desires you much AND you can master it”?

I have been wrestling with “needs” forever. I do not believe there are “neutral acts”, I know that everything I do impacts someone, even if that someone is ‘only me’. I know that the ‘only me’ line is bullshit because whatever I do to myself leaks out and impacts another-be it good or not good. When I take care of me, I care for another better, when I am alert to what is going on in my inner life, I am more aware of the inner life of another, especially those around me. My trajectory was from learning about and taking moral actions to becoming immoral to regaining my morality, my ethics, my authentic self. I know what is important, I know what I do for my “needs” (like buy lottery tickets so I can win and donate more-for the good of people and my own ego). This awareness helps me stay away from “the neutral”, the false “needs” more often and not completely. I am a work in progress and I love to learn. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark