Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 101
“Reverence for man has been strenuously refuted as sentimental eyewash. We all ride on the highways of debunking. There seems to be no question in our mind that there is no depth to virtue, no reality to integrity; that all we can do is to graft goodness upon selfishness, to use truth as a pragmatic pretext, and to relish self-indulgence in all values.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 19)
Waking up this morning after wrestling all night with my soul’s calling, my prophetic voice inside, and the goings on in the world and reading this first sentence, makes me want to cry, yell, scream and, like the youth I was in the 1960’s go march and change the world. “Reverence” comes from the Latin meaning: “to stand in awe of”. We no longer “stand in awe” of one another unless the person we revere has made a lot of money, done something extraordinary, or are told to my “der fuhrer”, Pharaoh’s courtiers, idolatrous clergy, etc. People “stand in awe” of grifters like Musk and Trump, liars like Bondi, Rubio, Graham, Miller, and people with a lot of money like Bezos, Zuckerberg, etc. The “awe” people have for the charlatans is not the same “reverence” Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, it is the “awe” of jealousy, of fear, of wanting something, etc.
We no longer see one another as “made in the Image of the Divine”. Be it the New Apostolic Reformation who call anyone who isn’t subservient to their views “unhuman” or the “prosperity gospel” people who tell you that god doesn’t love the poor so keep giving your money to your preacher so god will love him more and by extension you more, the Right-wing Jews who believe the enemy of my enemy is my friend and have bought into authoritarian concepts and governance, the Trumps, the Kushners, the billionaires like Musk et al, none of these entities have “reverence for man”, they only revere power, money, control so they do everything and anything to get these and maintain these positions. Lie, cheat, steal, bully, denigrate, go against the Constitution, bastardize the Bible, the New Testament, whatever it takes to grab and maintain power for the sake of self, not for the sake of heaven, not for the sake of making anything better. We are, once again, witnessing the denigration of the human spirit, the refutation of the words of the Bible in Genesis, the belief expressed in the Talmud of the preciousness, infinite worth of every human being, the equal dignity that is inherent in every human being, and the uniqueness of every human being so there is no comparison nor competition because each of us is worth the world.
We are three days out from our slavery in Egypt, we are wandering along, nor sure of our route, trusting in Moses because, even in our misery and despair, we were able to keep some “reverence for man” and this has grown since our release from captivity. Without “reverence for man” why would we believe in the possibility of becoming liberated from Pharaoh’s servitude, how could we believe in a man like Moses? Only “reverence for man” allows us to hear the truth spoken by another as well as the lies spoken by the same person. Only “reverence for man” obligates us to “welcome the stranger, take care of the poor, feed the hungry,” etc. Making “reverence for man” “sentimental eyewash” cheapens every human being, it is another way of telling one another “you don’t really matter”, it is the narcissists playbook, the authoritarian’s way to power and the grifter’s path to picking your pockets. And, it is being used like a Stradivarius Violin in this moment. We all suffer from this refutation of the dignity of the human being, and like justice, when “reverence for man” is denied for one person, it is denied to all people. This way of being can only lead to more devastation like the bombing of the Governor’s mansion in Harrisburg, Pa on the first night of Passover, no less. The lack of outcry from the White House, from the Republicans is astounding and predictable when “reverence for man has been strenuously refuted as sentimental eyewash”.
I did not plan to spend so much space on the first sentence above and I am enraged by the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words in 1958 and how We the People have allowed this truth to gain more and more power through the likes of Gingrich, Palin, Meadows, Jordan, Trump, Kushner, Miller, Bondi, Rubio, RFK Jr., etc. We the People need to stop our pussyfooting around, We the People have to demand the Chuck Schumer step down as he is ineffectual and flaccid as the leader of the minority. We the People have to call out the Supreme Court for their shirking their responsibility, their breaking of the oath to defend the Constitution and not bend it to Trump’s will. We the People are being called to put on “a new pair of glasses”, to recover our inner hearing of the “still, small voice” inside of each of us, and to take the next right action to ensure the dignity and worth of our self and every other self on this planet. We the People are obligated to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” meaning we can’t decide to send these American’s to El Salvador because they don’t agree with us as Trump alluded to wanting to do yesterday, it means we can’t deport people with valid visas and green cards without due process. It means We the People have to “stand up for God, with God” and use our prophetic voices, stand on the inheritance we have as descendants of the prophets to speak truth to these assholes in power. Pharaoh eventually heard, his courtiers knew way before he could admit his impotence, and we all have both the Pharaoh and Moses energy within us-which one we choose to use is up to us. “Now is the time for all people to come to the aid of their country” is the phrase We the People have to keep repeating and living into. Without “reverence for man”, we are nothing but human doings, we are easily led to slaughter like sheep and we become putty in the hands of the grifters-in-chief!
Having run cons and getting away with them, until I didn’t, I know the power of the con, the lie, the grift and one can only pull a good con off when there is no “reverence for man”. I have spent the last 37+ years doing a living T’Shuvah for all of the times I denigrated God by denigrating human beings. I have spent these years helping people learn how to express gratitude, responsibility for their errors, desire for reconnections, and love for humankind; which has helped me have deepen my own ways of living in these ways. I am unorthodox, I am loud and I care deeply for and believe in “reverence for man” as the only way to find wholeness. It is only through “reverence for man” that I can meet God in the throne room for 10 seconds each day and I am grateful for these 10 seconds and do my best to honor this experience with my actions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark