Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 108
“Religion’s major effort must be to counteract the deflation of man, the trivialization of human existence. Our religious traditions claim that man is capable of sacrifice, discipline, of moral and spiritual exaltation, that every man is capable of an ultimate commitment.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 20)
Ruminating in the words above, as in all of the words of the giants of religious faith, asking the right questions of our religious leaders, delving into the words of the Bible, the New Testament individually and finding ourselves in the texts, as all the characters, all of the archetypes is the only way to utilize this wisdom and all wisdom. I would say, once again, Rabbi Heschel’s prescience is on display here. He saw the dumbing down of religion, especially Judaism in the 1950’s and looked upon it with horror! He missed the Judaism of his youth, maybe an idealized one maybe not, but a Judaism that was vibrant and true, one that was lived in all areas of life, wasn’t relegated to Services on Friday night and Saturday morning. In the words above, I hear his lament at the state of religion, all religions, in the late 1950’s and can hear him crying at the state of religion in 2025!
Be it the New Apostolic Reformation, the Prosperity Gospels, the ‘Orthodoxy’ of Ben G’Vir, Smotrich, the settlers, the radical Islamists, all of these movements have contributed to “the deflation of man” rather than “counteract” it. This is where we find ourselves today, in a world that is upside down, in a world where ‘religious fervor’ is contributing, aiding and abetting “the trivialization of human existence”, rather than reminding us that we are all created equal, all in the Image of God, all with “certain unalienable rights”… How is it possible that We the People could buy into the lies that ‘those’ people are less important, have less value than we do, therefore they should be our slaves, our lackeys, the focus of our anger and revenge? How is it possible that this fucked-up way of thinking and acting could be led by those ‘good christian folk’ who deny the essence and basics of Jesus’ teachings? It is a mystery to many of us who cannot comprehend this type of Idol Worship, this way of desecrating God’s Name. Yet, we are in such a state and without divine intervention through We the People this could be the death knell of truth, kindness, justice, mercy, and walking in the ways of God!
How is it possible? We are in the state we are in because We the People fell asleep, because instead of heeding the words of Rabbi Heschel, we allowed, helped to make a few generations of religious idiots, we are guilty of dumbing religion down so much that it became totally irrelevant to the everyday lives of most people except for the fanatics and the truly religious people-not the same person of course. Rather than see the importance of humanity, some ‘religious folk’ have created a hierarchy of human beings, be it the deplorable comment of Hillary Clinton, the terrible rhetoric of Trump(even in his Easter message), the demeaning of people by Mitt Romney, the hatred of Bannon, Miller, Rogan, et al towards anyone who is ‘not with us’ and, of course, we can’t leave out the ‘religious leadership’ who call for the deportations of people without due process, the formal naming of America as a ‘christian nation’, the support of marches like the one in Charlottesville where “Jews will not replace us” was chanted loudly and proudly. All of this and more is possible in a country founded as a refuge, a place to flee to, by those experiencing religious persecution, those unable to move up in the society they were living in, by those who believed every human was entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” when the foundational story is changed to make the Confederacy the martyrs, when the foundational story is to glorify the worst behavior, slavery, and yearn for ‘those good old days’. All of these terrible things are possible when religion is overtaken by idolators, charlatans, grifters and autocratic sociopaths, as we are experiencing today. One has to give the current ‘religious’ fakers credit as they have been at their destruction of the values of Christ, Moses, Buddha, et al, since the 1950’s and their efforts have borne fruit because the rest of us, the rest of the religious leadership allowed for pap to be given to our children and the dumbing down of religious ideas, of the tenets of faith to adults so people are not really interested in what the Bible has to say, what Judaism can teach us about living life in freedom, in obligation, in gratitude, in paying it forward, in vibrancy.
It is time, actually past time, for We the People to demand truth from our religious leadership, to take up the mantle they have abandoned and desecrated, the mantle of honoring ourselves and every other human being as being “created in the Image of the divine”, endowed with a higher consciousness and an intuitive mind, both gifts that are to be used for the betterment of everyone, not just the ‘privileged few’. We the People must inflate ourselves with the dignity and value we are born with, we must fill ourselves up the knowledge we are all created equal. We are being called by the words above, by our Bible to honor the uniqueness of each individual knowing that ‘sameness’ is not going to fix our broken world, rejoicing in the skills and talents of the people around us to care for their corner of the garden that is this world, while we tend to our unique plot in the garden we have been entrusted with. We the People have to say NO to Paula Cain-White and her bullshit ‘office of faith’, her constant ‘praying to Jesus’ for Trump to continue his uprooting of fundamental freedoms. We the People are being called to demand of the Congress they do their FUCKING JOB and stop living in fear of Trump and losing an election. It is time for We the People to get out the vote, to demonstrate even more, to make Tesla a bigger loser and stop the tariffs that are killing our economy, We the People have to demand a restoration of the importance of human existence with our actions, not our whining!
As one who deflated and trivialized my own life, the first sentence above overtook me in a way I was not prepared for. I have worked the past 38+years to pump up my spiritual life, to be a serious motherfucker when it comes to living life well. I know the pitfalls of my way of being, I know the ostracization associated with not going along since my youth. I have always voiced my opposition to the way things are supposed to go and the rejection of my words and knowing is what led me to give up and this is the path of deflation and trivialization that I have fought against in my recovery. I will not give up, I will continue to fight for what is holy and what is right, I will continue to fight for the dignity of every human being be it with the person themselves and/or another. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark