Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 87
“Good and evil have always had a tendency to live in promiscuity, but in more integrated societies man, it seems, found it easier to discriminate between the two, while in our turbulent times circumstances often stupefy our power of discernment; it is as if many of us have become value-blind in the epidemics of needs.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.17)
The language of the first phrase above sent me to the dictionary! “Promiscuity” comes from promiscuous which comes from the Latin meaning “to mix” and “indiscriminate”. Again, as he has in other writings, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of how easy it is to “mix” up what is good and what is evil. It also reminds to be aware of the “good” that can be found in “evil”, ie using a good thing to gain a foothold so one’s evil can prevail, as well as remembering to not fall in love with our ‘goodness’ because there is, many times, evil lurking under the surface. In other words, we have to always be aware that we are not 100% pure in our actions so we have to be careful with our ‘holier than thou’ attitudes and airs. Thinking about promiscuity as a sexual term, one can gain an image of how “good and evil” have an inclination to be mixed up, to look like one is being faithful to itself and find it morphs into something completely different, once it takes off its mask. This first phrase calls out to us to realize how quickly we confuse “good and evil”, how easy it is to whore ourselves to “evil” because we deceive ourselves and/or are deceived by another that truth is a lie and a lie is truth, evil is good rather than it being evil, everyone else is to blame for everything bad that happens, “those people” are the enemy, etc. Even though, these words were written 67 years ago, they are as relevant today as then and they come from a long look at the behaviors of humanity for the millennia.
It was in 1958 that the Berlin Crisis began, with Khrushchev demanding Western Allies leave West Berlin-that didn’t happen, Vietnam was in its early stages of becoming a problem, and the John Birch Society was founded. The Birchers eventually found a home in the Republican Party, which thought they could control radical hatred, only to find out that this radical hatred has taken over the “Grand Old Party” and produced the political climate of today and the “retribution”, “dictator” we see Trump, Musk, Vought, perpetrating on both their supporters and their ‘enemies’-which is anyone who doesn’t bend the knee, kiss the ring and allow themselves to be fucked over! From the Birchers to Gingrich to Tea Party, to Trump, Bannon, Miller, Musk, Thiel, Vance, et al we can see and experience the promiscuous tendencies of “good and evil”.
The next phrase, about “integrated societies” interests me greatly. I am thinking of the difficulty of creating and then maintaining an “integrated society”; we have had them for moments and then the “evil” creeps in, slowly infecting the wholeness of a people, a family, a community with rot and lies, with rationalities that defy our spiritual truth and, unfortunately the rot doesn’t go away, the spiritual truths aren’t loud enough for most people to hear, despair and fear set in and freedom is lost, meaning is lost, uniqueness is lost and slavery is the way of the world we live in. The challenge is to be an “integrated society” and this can only happen if and when We the People are integrated as individuals. To be an integrated human being, as I understand Rabbi Heschel, other spiritual teachers like the Dalai Lama, et al, takes time, it takes great effort, it takes not depending on oneself as the final arbiter of what is “good” and what is “evil’ regarding our own actions. It takes a clear vision that only comes about when we are aware and in truth with our own foibles, our own imperfections, our own basic goodness of being. It takes us to be willing to stand up to our rational mind that convinces us that down is up and up is down, sweet is sour, sour is sweet, etc. It takes us healing our unique spiritual malady and committing to a practice of spiritual discipline, being aware of when we ‘miss the mark’, acknowledging the “good’ we do, having a plan and accepting the myriad of nuances of the 10 Commandments/Sayings. Only when we as individuals become more integrated can we have an integrated society with our differences helping us to see the whole picture clearer, our vulnerabilities promoting our asking one another for help and giving us all the humility and grace to know we are not the smartest person in the room, we cannot fall asleep at the wheel of “same shit different day”, and our uniqueness using us to add our talents, our gifts to the corner of the world we live in-at every and any age. We are never too old nor too young to engage in being “integrated” and being part of the whole.
It takes a lot of ‘work’ to live an “integrated” life. It takes a deep commitment to truth and to spirit. This means one cannot fall asleep at the wheel of living and nod ones head when a liar and grifter is saying something that sounds good and right because the actions behind the words will be evil and wrong, the motivation behind the ‘right’ words will always be cruelty. Hitler was going to restore Germany to it’s ‘rightful’ place, a country that was the height of society with education, culture etc and it was brought to it’s knees by a lying megalomaniac who disguised his evil by saying “good”, like Make America Great Again means destroying freedom for all, only for some; destroying the promise of and the bank that people believed would fund their retirement, Social Security, etc. It is up to We The People to stand up against the indiscriminate ways of today’s society, it is up to We The People to stand up for what is true and good, for the moral and decent ways of treating one another, to stand for our inner truths and live our spiritual disciplines out loud and very loudly!
As one who mixed up “good and evil” purposefully and for my own gain, these words hit me in my core. It is 37 years since I ‘gave it up’, had my spiritual awakening and the reminder of how I was still haunts me. I work each day to be more integrated, more whole today than I was yesterday and, I believe, I have been successful in this endeavor-knowing there is a lot more work to be done. I have found, in turbulent times, people want a ‘quick-fix’ and fight against the need for spiritual maintenance. This blog is one of the bricks in my spiritual program each day, I continue to practice gratitude, I let more and more slights roll off of me, I am personally involved in everything I do and everyone I counsel, meet. I am more present each day and It is hard work, I am imperfect, and I resent myself less for falling short than I did before. I have no resentments and still anger at the lies, the evil being perpetrated on a global and personal level. I believe knowing what is evil, being angry about it spewing out is a good thing. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark