Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 102
“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)
The words above, the sentiment behind them are on full display in our world today. Gandhi, King, Patrick Henry, Lincoln, are laughed at by today’s administration as “suckers and losers”, Grant, Lee, Washington, Eisenhower are seen as fools for going to war by Trump and his gang of thugs. Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims are seen as pawns to be used for a minute to achieve an end and then discarded and thrown to the racist, antisemitic Klansmen/women who are the core of the MAGA gang. Truth is a useless attribute in today’s world both on the right and the left. Everything rides “on the highways of debunking”. There is nothing sacred, nothing holy in America to some people except cruelty, power, wealth, and lies. This is where we find ourselves today, where Rabbi Heschel saw us in 1958, we have been digging a deep foundation in these unholy, disrespectful ways of being and now we have built a Mega-Mansion out of “debunking”, an Eiffel Tower made from “no virtue” and without any “integrity”. Our building blocks are “selfishness” and “self-indulgence” which has led us to the brink of losing our democracy to an authoritarian asshole and his brain trust of charlatans and idolators.
Instead of debunking the false theories and misstatements of ‘alternative facts’, we have spent the past 67 years giving them more credence by ignoring them, by looking at the people spewing them as idiots and the ones who bought into these mendacities as lost sheep who weren’t worth talking to and educating. The far left have thought their shit doesn’t stink and anyone who is not in lock-step with them is just wrong the same as the far right does, the difference being the far right was catering their lies to the whims and prejudices of the masses while the far left couldn’t be bothered to lower themselves to speak to the people in ways the people could hear. They only wanted the people to come up to their level-what hubris and what a terrible way to treat a fellow human being and this is from ‘the good guys’! Both extremes have unclean hands in the “debunking” of democratic values, in the discarding of “integrity”, and until the rest of us take our own personal responsibility for helping to further this terrible way of being, nothing will change.
Law Firms that are bowing down to Trump, Universities that are, Business’ that are doing the same are all IDOLATORS! They are buying into the bullshit that Trump is ‘the anointed one’ that is being promoted by Paula Cain-White and other New Apostolic Reformation ideologies. They are acting from fear, not faith. They are being expedient not living with integrity. They are showing they have “no depth to virtue” and that whatever good they have done was done for their own “selfishness”. People who continue to support the way things are going are saying YES to “self-indulgence” as the primary “value” in their living. We are at a crossroads that, if We the People, make the wrong choice will be very hard to come back from in the near future. What has been done and is being done to “Truth” is the most devastating crime of all that is being perpetrated. The case of Mr. Abrego Garcia is the most obvious case in point. The administration admitted their error, they then said “so what”, then Stephen Miller said they did not make a mistake and they were not going to do anything to bring Mr. Abrego Garcia back home no matter what the court said. Trump has said out loud that he would send American Citizens to El Salvador prisons, he is going to set up Detention Camps and the IDIOTIC JEWS who still support him are in a drunken stupor if they think “Jews will not replace us” and “there are good people on both sides” is no longer valid to Trump, Vought, Vance, et al! Yet, this is where we find ourselves. The question is where do We the People go from here.
We the People need only to immerse ourselves in the ideas expressed above. End the “debunking” of ideas and truths, of past court rulings and amendments to the Constitution, of scientific facts and vaccines that have been life saving to so many of us who took the Polio, Measles and so many other vaccines. We the People have to demand of ourselves to live our “virtues” and our values as we go about our daily lives, remembering that “virtue” comes from the Latin meaning merit, valor. We the People are being called to live into our whole being, to living an “intact” life, not denying any of our parts and harnessing our “evil inclination” to do good. We the People will no longer “graft goodness upon selfishness”. We the People are being commanded to live in “truth” and not use it as a ‘spinning’ wheel to trot out when we can twist it to our advantage, “truth” has to be the basis of all decisions and judgements and we can only find “truth” when we listen to the inner voice of our “intuitive mind”. Facts can be interpreted and misinterpreted in many ways, “truth” is-full stop. Finally, the demand to We the People is to end our “self-indulgences” and stop making them our “values”! These ways of being only happen when we see that we are all part of the world, that each person is to be judged and embraced based on the “content of their character” and We the People have to be constantly reaching out and raising the “content of character” of the people who are still engaged in the idolatrous ways listed above. This is our calling, this is our destiny, this is a privilege for all of us to be of service.
I have lived both ways. I am an Aid, a witness here to testify that living in opposition to the current administration and in opposition to the idolatrous ways listed above is far, far superior than giving into the lure of selfishness, self-indulgence, no integrity, etc.. I am humbled by the grace I have been given to return from my own indulgence in the terrible ways of being listed above and honored to be one of the healers for people who seek healing. It is Passover and I am begging everyone to get the fuck up out of the slavery of complicit and fearful behavior with the liars and grifters. Let’s march to Sinai together and in 46 days receive Torah again and, this year, use it to fight the false witness’ and the Pharaoh’s within and outside of ourselves. Let’s use these 6+weeks to hone our inner voice so we are constantly hearing it instead of K-fuck radio which tells us to sell our souls. Let’s use this march towards Sinai, the receiving of Torah to strengthen our resolve to do right and embrace the wisdom, the paths so we CHOOSE LIFE! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark