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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 28

“Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service, that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

Rabbi Heschel’s is demanding we take a stand. While I am not prone to ‘either/or’s’, there are times when we have to choose. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us how to make this choice: “either we make it”(our life) “an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. Elie Wiesel teaches us: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.” To live a life of meaning, of purpose, of Godliness “we must take sides”.

Do not confuse “take sides” with choosing to support the demons that try to invade our lives constantly, do not confuse “make it an altar for God” with idolatry, with injustice, with hatred, with choosing to support terrorists and/or authoritarians. When we “make it an altar for God”, we are choosing to stand for and with the prophets and against the multitude of Pharaohs we encounter in our lives, against the terrorists who proclaim their terrorizing is in the name of God, against the different incarnations of Amalek, people who use the vulnerabilities and kindness of a person against them. Rabbi Heschel and Elie Wiesel are calling out to us to take the blinders off, to rid ourselves of the cancer of prejudice, and to discern and distinguish truth, to stand with and for what is right, what is just, what is Godly.

This is a difficult task for most of us. We have a multitude of bias’ and we have a need to ‘be right’. We are witnessing the practice of living prejudices and proclaiming they are Godly, we are watching, some of us in horror, leaders, elected officials, proclaim the ‘right’ to subjugate people they are afraid of, people who challenge the status quo, to be heretics, to be the cause of the ills of our world. This happens daily to Jews, to Muslims, to people of color, to the ‘rebels’ in dictatorships, and too many of us “stand idly by the bloods of our neighbor”. Whether it is in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in Washington DC, in our own neighborhoods, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of our duty as human beings to care for one another, to remember we are  all created from the “mold of Adam” and we all have infinite dignity and worth. We cannot, however, join with the terrorists, join with the idolators, join with the demons who invade our lives through treachery, through mendacity, through self-deception, etc. I am hearing and experiencing Rabbi Heschel’s call to ‘get our own house in order’, to let go of our need to calculate which side will be best for us and join the side of God, join the side of doing the next right thing-no matter the cost because the cost of joining the side of the demons, the side of the idolators, the side of the terrorists is destruction, is the killing of the Godliness that is within each of us. It is hard to discern at times and the noise from the demons seems to fill our heads with so much deception we want to equivocate, we want to make moral equivalency, we become paralyzed and/or we join with the idolators believing they are speaking the words of God. We see this with the Republican Party’s bowing down to Donald Trump/authoritarianism, we see this with the people who believe fight sensible gun control, we see this with the people who believe they should control a woman’s body, the rights of LGBTQ+, make this a ‘Christian Nation’ which is troubling for those of us who are not ‘Christian’, for those of us who don’t believe they are promoting Christ’s agenda nor God’s.

In recovery, we are blessed by putting on a “new pair of glasses” and we repent for our choosing to allow the demons to invade us, rule us, to change us, to lead us to ruination of our selves and so many other people. We “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God” so we can take a stand, so we no longer live in the neutrality of doing nothing, no longer live a life of taking a stand against God, no longer stand on the sidelines while our world burns.

T’Shuvah, recovery, studying Rabbi Heschel, have caused me to live differently than I did. There are times when the demons have invaded and I haven’t noticed, and I constantly am drawn back to serving God, to making my life and helping others make their lives “an altar to God”. I am not neutral, I take a stand for what is right and good, I am loud, abrasive, difficult in the face of mendacity and fight the demons that try to invade my life and the lives of other people. My ways may be politically incorrect, hard for people to hear, and standing with God is more important than being liked, famous, etc-this is how recovery, T’Shuvah, Torah, and Rabbi Heschel have changed me! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 27

“Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service, that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

“Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons.” This wisdom from Rabbi Heschel is so needed today, now and, if we are to last as a democracy, if we are to see freedom survive around the world, we have to engage in making our world “an altar for God” because we are witnessing how easy and how insidious the demons are! Last night there was another mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, number 565 this year. The war in Israel, where Israel is fighting for its very existence is ongoing, hostages seem to have become lost in the media coverage of the devastation in Gaza-not even the Red Cross has visited them- the Republicans in the House of Representatives have elected an election denier as the Speaker of the House, a man who doesn’t believe in freedom for all-only those who agree with his far-right views. So much of these incidents are done by ‘people of faith’ and for ‘religious reasons’ as have so many wars, conflicts, etc. So often, these horrors are the result of people who believe they are acting in God’s name and people who wrap themselves in some garment of ‘righteousness’ and validate evil, validate their prejudices, validate their oppressive actions.

It is important, as I wrote yesterday, to see the nuances, to not have myopic vision, AND it is just as important to call out evil, to be involved in the fight for freedom, not the fight to continue prejudice, hatred, racism, religious fanaticism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia. Since October 7, when Hamas murdered, tortured babies, elderly, and everyone in between in their homes and, for some, while sleeping, took over 200 hostages, paraglided into a music festival and mowed down young people having a good time celebrating peace and love, there have been 312 anti-semitic incidents in the United States and this increase is happening all around the globe. Yet, we are not paying attention to these facts, we continue to vilify Israel for its devastating bombing of Gaza with no mention of the hostages that Hamas refuses to release, with no mention of the fact that the people of Gaza have allowed Hamas to rule them, they have celebrated the rocket attacks, parents praised their children for the terrorism, the murders their children perpetrated. And, the media believes the ‘news’ coming out of Gaza as truth even though it comes through the terrorists of Hamas! We are being invaded by demons and, unfortunately, many of us ‘good people’ are succumbing to the demons inside of us, our prejudices, our inability to discern truth from fiction, our sympathy for ‘those poor victims’ who are actually perpetrators.

Of course the people of Gaza are suffering! Of course there upticks in Anti-Muslim actions, of course faith has a place in our society, and of course we have to see the whole picture of what our world has become, is becoming, and could become. There are no “good old days”, there is no “make America great again”, because these slogans keep a myth going that never was! We are told to read the Torah, the Bible each year and see new ways to live into the will of God in this moment, not living the same as we did last year. We have to take a stand, we have to stop using seeing both sides as a path of having our being, our world “invaded by demons”. Terrorism is demonic-full stop! We have allowed terrorists to hold us hostage for far too long! Be they Islamic terrorists, like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Iran, or domestic terrorists like the far-right MAGA crowd, or world terrorists like Orban, Putin, Xi, etc. As Charles E. Weller taught generations of typing students: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”

Recovery in general and in my personal recovery; our daily goal is to make this day “an altar to God”. I am aware of my imperfections, I am aware of my shortcomings, I know each morning I make commitments to God, to people, that I fall short of completing by nightfall. I also know I am progressing, I am on guard for the demons that invade me, the demons that live within me and I wrestle with them everyday as does everyone in recovery. We do not hide from ourselves nor anyone else. Prior to recovery, I terrorized my family, people around me and people who didn’t really know me, in my recovery, I make amends for those actions and I realize-sometimes sooner, sometimes later-how I have terrorized people in my recovery-there is no perfection. I have made my T’Shuvah, I have forgiven myself, I have changed. Each and every day, I know the demons, inner and outer, want to and do chip away at the altar to God that is my life and I know I add more than is chipped away with my dedication to Godliness, to truth, to awareness, to discernment, to forgiveness. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 26

“Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service, that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

The news is full of “war atrocities” committed by Israel in its war against Hamas, its war against terrorists who have committed unspeakable acts. There are, regrettably, many deaths in Gaza because of the actions of Hamas, not Israel. While Israel is being vilified for responding to the attack, the declaration of war by Hamas, the world has forgotten the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel above. While Israel has built up its troops at the border, they have not entered Gaza as they weigh the incalculable loss of life an invasion will bring. We are being subjected to the anti-semitic view that the war in Gaza is in a vacuum, that the perpetrators are the Israelis, that the ‘innocent’ civilians who cheer, who support the terrorists of Hamas are being crushed by Israel, not by their own people, that Hamas’ pleasure as related in the tapes and the instructions found is ‘a fight for freedom’. Yet, we seem to forget the Israeli and foreign hostages taken, raped, beaten that are still in Gaza, we seem to forget the babies that were killed mercilessly, we seem to forget that Hamas spent their money on building tunnels, building and buying rockets and other arms and ammunition to kill Israelis, to kill Jews as they happily proclaim. Israel drops leaflets, sends text messages to let people know before the bombs drop, Hamas fires rockets often into Israel and infiltrates/crosses the border in surprise attacks and slaughters.

Rabbi Heschel’s description of what a soldier goes through; “the horror of battle” is accurate as so many of the soldiers who were in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the two Gulf wars, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc attest to. No Israeli that I have ever spoken with nor heard has celebrated “the horror of battle”, they have been changed forever by this “horror”. War alters the lives of each and every soldier especially when they serve as “an engagement for service”, which is what the Israeli reservists are doing. Yet, as we can discern from one of the telephone conversations where a terrorist is proclaiming how many Israelis he killed on Oct. 7 and his parents and family are praising him and Allah for this slaughter of innocents, terrorists kill for pleasure, Hamas soldiers enjoy and celebrate every death they cause! This is whom is being praised by some of the world, who have used ‘innocent’ civilians as human shields, who have prevented people from leaving Northern Gaza to seek refuge! While they claim to be fighting for Allah, while their supporters in Qatar, Iran, and across the globe praise them and Allah for every Jew that is killed, murdered, slaughtered, raped, it is clear that they are not fighting for anything more valuable than life, it is clear that they are bastardizing the teachings of Islam, the war they are fighting is for self, not for God.

We, the rest of the world, have failed once again to understand and see the nuances of this war, we have, once again, reduced this war to “good guys and bad guys”, to Israel being bad and the ‘poor Palestinians, poor Hamas, poor terrorists’ being good. Israel has made many errors in its treatment of the territories-full stop! Arafat, Abbas, Hamas have rejected numerous overtures for a peaceful settlement-full stop! Instead of looking for how terrible the Jews are, instead of blaming all Palestinians, why not seek a solution that honors both the safety, security, dignity of the Jews and the safety, security, and dignity that every Palestinian deserves? Watching and hearing the people on the left celebrate Hamas’ gliding into a concert and killing innocent people, their denial of the murders of so many Israeli, American, and other nationalities is disgusting. It is a betrayal of humanity, it is a betrayal of God, it is a betrayal of Allah, it is a betrayal of principle, of decency, of truth.

We are in desperate need of recovering our sense of dignity, our knowing that living principles is more important than staying alive through betraying our inner knowing, our connection to God, to something greater than ourselves. For those of us in recovery, we make this commitment to serve, we make this commitment to value life’s principles every single day! We “practice these principles in all our affairs” because we know the slippery slope of not seeing nuance, not seeing the whole picture, because we are acutely aware of the danger of “just this one time”. Just as we say about a drink, drug, etc-“one is too many and 1000 is not enough”, we know this to be true about our commitment to service, to truth. Living in the “both/and”, leaning into the nuances of life is difficult and it is the only way to recover what is truly valuable in life-our dignity, our souls, our humanity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 25

“God will return to us when we shall be willing to let Him in-into our banks and factories, into our Congress and clubs, not our courts and investigating committees, not our homes and theaters. For God is everywhere or nowhere, the Father of all men or no man, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of man is not in his will to power but in his power of compassion. Man reflects either the image of His presence or that of a beast.” (Man’s Quest for God pg.150)

Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above, as with all of his wisdom, demands we look inside of ourselves and do our own Chesbon HaNefesh, our inner and outer accounting of our souls. We have Country Clubs that keep ‘the riffraff’ out, we have clubs that are exclusive, we have so many areas where ‘those’ people are not welcomed. We have nations that believe they are entitled to take the land of another country just because they can. We have a war in the Mideast where countries are negotiating with terrorists because of a hostage crisis, much like the Iran Hostage Crisis and with terrorists and countries that call for all Jews to die. We are in the midst of an internal war in our own country between forces that are for fascism and authoritarianism versus people who believe in democracy and want to grow the U.S. into “a more perfect union”.

Yet, we are confused because these forces of evil, these terrorists, these fascists are proclaiming they are doing evil in the name of God, when they are actually doing these despicable actions in the name of themselves, in the name of power, in the name of idolatry. Rabbi Heschel’s call to us is to say NO to the lies, the mendacity, the deceptions of the charlatans, and to our own self-deceptions. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to end our discriminatory ways of exclusivity, of blaming the poor, the needy for being poor and needy, to help the stranger who is homeless and stateless, to recognize and live into the will of God, not the will of our evil urges, not the will of our blood thirstiness.

I hear Rabbi Heschel reminding us that God doesn’t leave us, it is us who leaves God and God’s ways. His wisdom above refers to the ways we have left God, the ways we separate from one another, the ways we practice power and greed rather than compassion and kindness. We use the words of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc to validate our “will to power” rather than God’s will. We pick out phrases and sentences that are meant for prophecy and use them to call God “vengeful”, etc and we bastardize the words of the prophets to validate the very actions the prophets called out about the priests, the rulers, the wealthy! We keep trying to ‘put God in chains’, relegate the teachings and will of God to our desires and destructive natures and deeds. We are unwilling to accept Rabbi Heschel’s truthful reminders of the nature of God, the demands of God, the desires of God all the while wrapping ourselves in the garment of ‘religion and piety’.

We are in the midst of a crisis, globally, in our country, and in our homes and personal lives. The foundation of our inner and outer crisis’ is to be found in Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance above: “Only in His presence” will humanity find and live “the power of compassion”. We are not compassionate towards ourselves because we demand some straw man of perfection. We are not compassionate towards another because we see in them the weakness, errors, every human being possesses. We are not compassionate towards ourselves nor another because we are unwilling to “let Him in” to our lives, to our minds, to our spirits. Instead, we are worshiping at the altar of idolatry, the altar of mendacity and this is how we are reflecting the image “of a beast” rather than the “image of His presence.”

Recovering our faith, our being “willing to let Him in”, our basking in “His presence” is the essence of recovery. In our recovery movement we “came to believe a power greater than ourselves would restore us to sanity” is the second step in our path to freedom, just as “this is my God” was the second step in the Israelites path out of the grasp of the Egyptians after they crossed the Red Sea. In recovery, after we cross the threshold of truth and awareness-our powerlessness- we seek God because we know we are unable to move forward in freedom, compassion, kindness, truth without being in “His presence”.

I struggle with mendacity-my own and the worlds-knowing that any engagement in lying does not “let Him in” and I am alone and bereft. When I “let Him in”, I am not alone, I am not lost, I am not wandering, I am reflecting God’s image and overwhelming the “beast” inside of me with compassion, love, kindness and truth. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 24

“God will return to us when we shall be willing to let Him in-into our banks and factories, into our Congress and clubs, not our courts and investigating committees, not our homes and theaters. For God is everywhere or nowhere, the Father of all men or no man, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of man is not in his will to power but in his power of compassion. Man reflects either the image of His presence or that of a beast.” (Man’s Quest for God pg.150)

Rabbi Heschel is challenging us all to allow God, and I would add, Godliness, into every fabric of our beingness and into every corner of our living. Speaking to all of us of our very need to end our segregating, our separating of God to the realm of ‘religion’, to our Churches, Temples, Mosques, etc. In order for us to live into our humanity, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us, instructing us “to let Him in”!

Letting God “into our banks and factories” calls for us to treat people well, especially people we have ‘power’ over-our people who need loans and savings accounts and people who work for us. To “let Him in-into our banks and factories” means we have to make the choice Rabbi Heschel is giving us: “reflects either the image of His presence or that of a beast.” To “let Him in” to our banks and factories also gives us the opportunity to care for the needy and the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan. When my father died in 1966, my mother was told she could not have the credit my father had built up transferred to her name, she would have to build her credit anew and, as a woman in those years, most banks didn’t want to extend credit to a woman without a co-signer. Today, one has to meet a certain criteria to get a loan, and it is still harder for women, people of color to meet these criteria. God is still absent in our banks, I am afraid. In our factories, we have watched as factory owners still want to pay the workers as little as possible while paying CEO’s, management, themselves and the shareholders the maximum. Isn’t it time to “let Him in” and pay the people who are making us the money wages that give them the honor and respect due them for the work they do so we can enjoy our benefits? When we ship our factories and manufacturing off to a foreign country so we can get ‘cheap’ labor and make more money, are we fulfilling Rabbi Heschel’s demand to “let Him in”? Aren’t we reflecting the image “of a beast” rather than the “image of His presence”?

We hear much about prayer and religious groups in Congress, yet, as we can see now in the Chaos of the House of Representatives, we know these prayer groups and religious caucus members are more interested in their “will to power” than “in his power of compassion”! We are witnesses to the cruelty that they proclaim they are doing in God’s name, we are witnesses to the fidelity to their ideologies, their dogmas rather than fidelity to God’s will, fidelity to compassion, rather than be “willing to let Him in”. It is a sad state of affairs when cutting funds for the needy and poor, when keeping the stranger out, is more important that keeping the government open. When towing a ‘party line’ is more important than “the power of compassion”, when living in either/or, when blaming the victims, when accusing another of that which you are guilty of, etc keeps God out and the “will to power” front and center. When will We, the People, say enough, demand our elected officials “let Him in”? When will we stop our debate over who God loves better, when will we end our Cain/Abel fights/wars and accept that “God is the Father of all men” and we have to learn to get along, settle our differences through compromise and negotiations, and do what is best for humanity, not our selfish concerns?

“Let Him In” is the foundational principle of recovery, of T’Shuvah, of decency, of returning to “the self we were created to be”. In recovery, we become acutely aware that without either an educational or an ecstatic experience of God-consciousness, we will stay stuck. Without serving something greater than ourselves we will be mired in selfishness, ignorance and reflect the image “of a beast”, as we did prior to our recovery.

I “made a decision” in 1987 to “let Him in” and I have stayed true to that decision in all of my imperfect ways. I have let God into all areas of my living, and I have been blind, willfully at times and un-willfully most of the times, to what God has wanted from me. I repair the times of blindness with T’Shuvah, with amends, with changing my pathways, with allowing my soul to dictate the next right action. I cry out to God from the depths and, while not sure God hears me, I know I hear me. To “let Him in” I open my mind and allow my soul to speak to it and I don’t use rationalizations to override what my soul, my intuition knows is best. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 23

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that God is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Human beings have forgotten the words of Genesis 1:27: “And God created human beings in God’s Image, in the Image of God created God both, male and female.” Unless and until we live into our heritage, our history, our Godliness, there can be “no brotherhood” and “no humanity”. We are people who claim to love God, claim to follow God and we have destroyed one another in the name of God and we seem to be unable to truly have “attachment to God.” Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above has not been heeded, it is not lived in our daily actions, and we destroy “brotherhood” and “humanity” in the name of God-how much greater a bastardization of the Bible, of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching can we engage in?

Whether it is the denial of Hamas’ terrorist attacks, whether it is the denial of Iran’s influence, whether it is the ‘prosperity Gospel’, whether it is the lies of a theology that makes one people ‘better’ than another, whether it is the racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, anti-LGBTQ+ that is rampant in our world, whether it is the death threats to ‘go along’ with hatred and indecency, we are suffering from a lack of “brotherhood”, a lack of “humanity”. Yet, we claim our prejudices are done in the “name of God” while they are really done in the name of idolatry, they are done to make ourselves “god” instead of taking actions that make us God-Like! We have wrapped ourselves in misinterpretations of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc in order to validate what is invalid, in order to give cover to what is despicable, in order to “suspect your neighbor” and to “hate your brother in your heart”- all of which are against the teachings, wisdom, meaning and intentions of our HolyTexts and God’s will. What is happening in Israel and Gaza is horrific! War always is. There is enough blame about the ‘Palestinian situation’ to go around from the Palestinians to the Arab nations to Israel. Making Israel the enemy, blaming the victims of terrorism for the cruelty and evil that terrorists have done to them simply is ridiculous. It doesn’t promote “brotherhood, humanity”.

We have to return to our roots-we are all created in the Image of God, male and female God created us both. Any attempts to deny equal rights, equal dignity, equal worth to another human being is a denial of God being “father”. Any denial of the right to live in peace, denial of the need for “nation shall lift up sword against nation and humans will learn war no more”(Isaiah 2:4) is a denial of our claims of “attachment to God”! Yet, we have people on the left proclaiming the rape, torture, murder, kidnapping of people in their beds, in their homes as ‘freedom fighting’! We have these same people blaming the innocent Israelis for their own demise, calling for the end of the siege of Gaza, while not demanding the Red Cross see and care for the hostages, not demanding the release of the hostages, and they wrap themselves in the Palestinian Flag while burning the Israeli Flag, while denying the “brotherhood” of all of us and applauding the inhumanity of terrorism and evil. We have people denying the equal dignity, the brotherhood, and the humanity of people of color, of people who are needy in our own country and claiming to be ‘good christian people’. We have people calling for the destruction of Jews while claiming to be ‘good muslims’. We have people calling for the destruction of Arabs while claiming to be ‘good jews’. We have become People of the Lie rather than people trying to climb “out of the pit”.

Recovery is a spiritual path that recognizes and promotes “brotherhood”, “humanity”, “attachment to God” in all of our affairs. While many see recovery just about drugs and alcohol, process and/or substance addictions, recovery is actually about living a life that honors the dignity of all people, that reaches out to our ‘enemies’ in order to live beside one another, that acknowledges our foibles, forgives the errors and hurts another perpetrates, is responsible to ask forgiveness for our own errors, and commits to grow “along spiritual lines”. For it is only through spiritual growth that we can begin to fight the evil within and outside of us, it is only through spiritual growth that we can make the words of Isaiah come true, it is only through spiritual growth that we can cure the “cancer of the soul” that our prejudices produce. I have made curing the “cancer of the soul” my mission in life. I use daily spiritual growth to keep curing the cancer that wants to come back, I keep my own cancer in remission through spiritual practice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 22

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that God is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Rabbi Heschel is calling us to stop living in an “either/or” world, a way in which we see everything as separate and not connected, as I am understanding him this day. In fact, I am experiencing Rabbi Heschel more than understanding him, it is through my experiencing of Rabbi Heschel that I gain a better understanding of myself! Living a life of “nature without spirit” is what leads to Hamas’ terrorism and people condoning it, supporting it, releasing in it!

In order “to take the souls of men out of the pit”, we must no longer separate our human nature from our spirit. No longer can we use the excuse of ‘human nature’ for our bad behaviors because it is a choice for us to separate our spirit, our “breath of God” that is in us, from our nature, from the ways we act, from our thinking. This separation, that Rabbi Heschel spoke of in 1938 in Germany to a group of Quakers, is what has always led to the cruelties that we have done to one another. Our unwillingness to have our spirits lead our nature, overrule our nature when it gets cruel and inhumane, is the cause of wars, is the cause of terror.

While it is easy to see this truth when looking at the world, especially in Israel, Ukraine, Washington DC, across this country and throughout the world, it is also a call to all of us to look at ourselves, to see how we allow our ‘nature’ to override what our souls are telling us. We need to engage in the difficult task of freeing ourselves from the lies we have been telling ourselves, the blinders we have been wearing and the either/or path of separation we have been living. “There can be no nature without spirit” demands that we engage in our “Nishmat Hayim”, breath of life that God breathes into us in Chapter 2 of Genesis, that we honor and use the “Tzelem”, Image, we are created in according to Chapter 1 of Genesis. We are being called by Rabbi Heschel, and I would say as a prophet he is divinely inspired, to let go of our need to use our rational minds to rule over our intuitive ones, to heed Einstein’s quote: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds”, and end our war against the great spirits, end our inner war against our own spirits.

Doing this, engaging in this work means a truthful look in the mirror, a deep introspection of inner life, a commitment to grow and not accept the status quo. It means we have to release our inner prejudices against our self, against another, about a group, etc. We will have to “circumcise the foreskin of our heart”, we will have to truly live into the teachings of Moses that we are given a choice, life or death, blessing or curse. While I am, as a rule, against either/or, the truth of Moses’ words are the exception that proves the rule. When we choose to merge our nature and our spirit, when we choose to have our rational mind serve our intuitive mind, when we choose to take off whatever is blinding us from truth, we will be able to always know and live “the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun”.

In recovery, we engage in this difficult work each and every day. We are aware that our recovery, our spiritual life and lifestyle depends on “choose life”, we have to merge our spirit and our nature, we engage and enjoy our new way of having our spirit inform our nature, guide us to the next right action. In recovery we are recovering our authentic self, our inner core, our “Tzelem” and using the “Nishmat Hayim” in the ways God intended. We are not perfect, we live into the contradictions and the both/ands, we, as a rule, let go of “one-way” thinking and welcome the opinions and experiences of another.

I have wanted my nature and my spirit to be together since I was young. My father helped me get there at times, he showed me the pathway to achieving this. Yet, I forgot, I gave into societal norms, conventional notions, and I bastardized both my spirit and my nature to harm people I did not know and, of course, those nearest to me. In my life of T’Shuvah, I have brought them together most of the time, I filter my nature through my spirit more and more each day, I am a rabble-rouser, I do not cotton falseness, I do not pretend, I do not hide and I feel abject sorrow for the people who still separate, who still ‘love’ the people they stab in the back, who still believe Hamas and other subtler forms of terrorism are understandable and okay/necessary. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 21

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that God is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

While many people may agree with Rabbi Heschel’s words and wisdom above, these same people don’t realize that wrapping themselves in self-righteousness, believing the lies they tell themselves, seeing themselves as ‘all good’, misses the depth, truth, and demand of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. “The sense of the sacred” can only come to us, envelop us when we realize how we are stuck in the pit, when we come to grips with the myriad of ways we have neglected, missed “to take the souls of men out of the pit”, especially our own souls. While looking at root causes is the normal, rational, way of solving this problem, it is not going help us “take the souls of men out of the pit”! Rather, we need to “get into the solution”. We have to acknowledge our souls are in the pit, we have to end our self-deceptions and mendacities. We have to stop hearing and believing the rhetoric of lies and societal norms we have based our beings on. We have to begin our rise out the pits by letting go of our rationalizations, our blaming and shaming of another(s) and our selves. We are in desperate need of being responsible for our selves, our souls, for speaking the truth of our souls to our minds and be responsible to help another “out of the pit”.

Only when we develop our “sense of the sacred” in our inner lives, only when we realize this sense “is as vital to us as the light of the sun”, only when we then live into this truth, will we be able “to take the souls of men out of the pit.” This can only happen when we end our seeking to blame another, when we follow the wisdom of Portia Nelson’s “There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk:The Romance of Self-Discovery”, which reminds us of our willful blindness when there is a hole in the street we walk down and we fall into twice from willful blindness and denial of our responsibility. By taking responsiblity, we no longer need to find the cause, we no longer to find someone to blame, we no longer have to walk through life creating a deeper rut in our pits, we no longer have to keep repeating the same behaviors, the same evil, the same deceptions, etc.

Developing our “sense of the sacred” begins when we see the Tzelem, the Image of God, we are all created in. History has shown us the only way to deal with evil is living through our “sense of the sacred”; we dealt with Hitler’s Germany, our own evil path of slavery, our treatment of LGBTQ+, the myriad of examples of anti-semitism, anti-Italian, anti-Irish, anti-immigrant, the war in Vietnam, etc. Yet, we continue to fall back and constantly need “to take the souls of men out of the pit.” It is apparent that we need to keep developing our “sense of the sacred” and growing it each day because it; like positivity, like goodness dissipates quickly. The lure of evil, the warmth of the pit is constantly calling to us, as individuals, as communities, as nations, as humanity.

The recovery movement is a response and a path “to take the souls of men out of the pit”. We do this together, our goal is not a selfish goal, rather we are acutely aware of our need to help one another recover from our myriad of addictive behaviors; drugs, alcohol, blaming, mendacity, self-deception, ignoring the plight of another(s), etc. In recovery, we are made aware of our need for “a power greater than ourselves” to help us overcome the lies we have been telling ourselves, we need to live according to a higher standard of being than our rational minds tell us, we “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God”. While we are not promoting any  particular religious belief, in recovery we acknowledge early on that we need to recover “our sense of the sacred” and attach ourselves to a way of being that helps us out of the pit and we do it together. The recovery movement is an example of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above.

I was brought out of the pit through my willingness to learn, becoming aware of my need to learn and feed my soul instead of feeding my lies. Only with the help of God, Rabbi Silverman, the Jewish Community in Prison, my family, my daughter, my friends, family, Heather, Harriet, my teachers, the Beit T’Shuvah Alumni have I stayed out of the pit-most of the time. I follow Portia Nelson’s advice exploring new avenues to be able to living well, I no longer need to have enemies and allies, I only need to grow my “sense of the sacred” so I can experience the “light of the sun”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 20

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that God is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

It seems impossible for us “to take the souls of men out of the pit” without involving God, without involving “the sense of the sacred” in our daily affairs, in our daily dealings, in our daily prayers, in our daily living. Yesterday a great tragedy happened in Gaza and what was the response of people-blame Israel, cancel meetings to end the crisis, demonstrate against Israel and it’s allies, disrespect President Biden and the United States who they all get aid from, by cancelling a summit. Rather than waiting for proof, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Health Organization, a Hamas puppet in Gaza, blamed Israel because there was a beginning again of hope to end the Hostage’s plight, end the blockade of Gaza, end the atrocities of Hamas, end the support of terrorists by Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, etc. This is not to say that war is not hell, it is and much suffering has occurred and will occur while Hamas continues to occupy Gaza, while it continues to terrorize Israel as it did on October 7, which none of the Arab countries who are so self-righteous have acknowledged.

Herein lies the distinction that Rabbi Heschel has drawn before, “religious behaviorism” is not the same as “God is involved”, it is not the same as “the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun”. In many cases, on the contrary, “religious behaviorism” takes “the souls of men” into the pit! We are witnessing this in America, in Israel, throughout the Middle East, in India, etc. We are all in desperate need of remembering “the world has experienced God is involved”, Adonai Ehad, one God of all people, higher consciousness of humanity! While we fight wars, polarize nations and families over ‘whose god is God’, we fail our “greatest task to take the souls of men out of the pit”! And, it seems, we have become accustomed to this bullshit, this deflection, this hatred, this mendacity and the idolatry that is found in the pit! Rather than help one another out of the pit, we seem intent on proving the pit is not a pit, rather it is heaven, we are on the ‘right path’ in our pits. We seem intent on keeping anyone besides ourselves in the pit. As the Arab leaders have proven, as Hamas has proven, keeping the souls of their people in the pit allows them to have control, wealth, comfort and power over them and a ‘strike force’ willing to attack a straw enemy that ‘is the source of their problems, not us your faithful leaders’. Rather than do God’s work, rather than have “the sense of the sacred” for human life, the charlatans in all religions, the “religious behaviorists” in all faiths and spiritual practices have only the sense of self as they bastardize God’s name and “the sense of the sacred”.

We have to look inside of ourselves before we point the fingers at everyone else, blame and shame are the playgrounds of the pit, they are fertile soul of the spreading of lies to ourselves and to one another. Rather than wait for proof, rather than wait for more information, many have condemned Israel, even though everyone knows Israel warns before they drop bombs, even though everyone knows that Judaism values the human life above all. Rather than seek ways to help one another out of the pit, rather than go to the source of this war-Hamas, people are ready, able, and willing to blame the Jews and blame anyone else rather than be responsible. . The more Jews, Blacks, Asians, LGBTQ+ reach down into the pit to “take the souls of men out of the pit”, the more the charlatans want to pull us all into the pit, the more the deceivers seek to discredit, blame, shame people of truth. This is Hamas, this is their Arab supporters by giving them BILLIONS to build tunnels and buy/create weapons of destruction rather than build cities, resorts, business to help the people of Gaza.

In recovery, “the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun” describes our entire program of recovery-as we say at the end of the beginning of Chapter 5 in the Big Book, “God could and would if God was sought”. We know our recovery is dependent upon our spiritual condition, it is what allows people of varying backgrounds, disciplines, status, to join together and bring God back into our lives, to “experience God is involved”. Yes there are ‘behaviorists” in recovery as in all spiritual disciplines, and because of our involving God we can tolerate them and not have them pull us down into the pit of either/or. IN recovery, we don’t count good guys/bad guys, only human beings who are struggling to do the next right thing-this is what religion and God teach as well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 19

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that god is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Reading and re-reading the second sentence above causes me to shudder! As is stated in a footnote in the beginning of this chapter called: “The Meaning of This Hour”, “the essential part of this essay was originally delivered in March 1938(bold my addition) at a conference of Quaker leaders in Frankfort-am-Main, Germany. “Man’s Quest for God” was published in 1954 and we have continued to fail our “greatest task”! The Terrorist Attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023 that the world seems to forget about because Israel is made up of Jews and Jews are not supposed to retaliate, Jews are not supposed to defend themselves, their country, Jews are not supposed to have a country, etc, according to the will of Iran, of terrorists like Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad in Syria-all who help their people flourish, help them be innovative, help them build vibrant business’ and lives-NOT! These ‘leaders’ have taken their people deeper into the pits rather than “take the souls of men out of the pits” because it serves and satisfies their need for power. Yet, in the middle of the desert, with no oil, Israel has built a vibrant, raucous, society.

We are witnessing the depth of the pits “the souls of men” are in with the numerous reactions calling Hamas “freedom fighters”, “heroes”, celebrating the killing, hostage-taking of men, women, children, bullet holes in babies! This is FREEDOM FIGHTING according to many people, yet when Israel holds Gaza responsible for these atrocities, when Israel says return the hostages-not caring what their nationality is in exchange for power, etc as a bargaining chip, the world condemns the Jews. When Russia attacks Ukraine for the sole purpose of Putin’s savagery, the world responds with aid and comfort-when Israel fights a war for its very existence-it is attacked in the media, by the left and the right, because  it is Jews who need the aid and comfort and anti-semitism has been around since the Romans, aided and abetted by the Church. We continue to fail “to take the souls of men out of the pit” as Rabbi Heschel spoke to the Quakers about some 85 years ago because so many of those needed to lead the “souls of men” are themselves in the pit.

Why does it seem so impossible “to take the souls of men out of the pit”? I believe it is because we are afraid of our souls, because we “learn evil from our youth” because we have forgotten to “honor our father and mother” because we have forgotten and twisted the words of God in the Torah, in the Bible, in all Spiritual texts to fit our needs, our whims, our ‘evil urge’. We witness this in the ways workers are paid, those at the top make up to 200 times what the lowest worker in a company makes in some companies. We witness this in our Churches, Mosques and Temples/Synagogues when Clergy proclaim to be speaking for God, speaking in the name of the prophets and propagate injustice towards “those people”, speak in prejudicial terms of “those immigrants/strangers” causing a cancer to grow in the souls of their flock, promote the segregation of men and women, the segregation of people based on the color of their skin, the religion they practice forgetting the commandment to care for the stranger in your midst, there should be one law for stranger and citizen alike. Listening to charlatan fundamentalists wrap themselves in Mohammed, Christ, Moses is the same as Eve listening to the snake in the Garden of Eden story-calling us all into the pits to become a snake-against the nature of our souls.

In recovery, we are engaged in this, “the greatest task of our time” each and every day. We are so aware of what much of the world ignores, the myriad of ways we are lured back into the pit, the uncountable methods people, our own rational minds, and our emotions use to keep us ‘down in the pits’. We have been in the pits, we lured so many into the pit with us in the ways we held people hostage in our addictions to perfection, substances, mendacity, etc.  Today, we know we have to engage in the task Rabbi Heschel is demanding us to do else we will end up back in the pit, surrounded by snakes and being a snake again.

I have much more to write on this subject. I am looking at the ways I have allowed myself to stay in the pit, through self-pity, through ‘not fair’ through anger and frustration, etc. I know, with God’s help and the help of many, I have climbed out of the pit in many ways, I have helped others to climb out of the pit. More tomorrow, God Bless and stay safe, pray for Israel, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 18

“For evil is indivisible. It is the same in thought and speech, in private and in social life. The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit. The world has experienced that god is involved. Let us forever remember that the sense of the sacred is as vital to us as the light of the sun. There can be no nature without spirit, no world without the Torah, no brotherhood without a father, no humanity without attachment to God.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Immersing ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above gives us a path to changing the violence and the terror we are experiencing in the Middle East, in the Ukraine war against Russia, in the United States with the chaos and terror caused by racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, anti-LGBTQ, and all other forms of prejudice and hatred. We are witnessing evil in the responses by many ‘left/progressive’ groups as they hail the terrorists of Hamas, vilify Israel for defending itself and we are witnessing white power, white supremacists enjoy freedom to hate Jews and Muslims in speech and acts. We are witnessing the world call on Israel to show restraint, to not go into Gaza and no one is calling on Hamas to release the hostages, to turn themselves in for their evil actions. The evil we see happening is not political rhetoric, it is not ‘freedom fighting’, it is evil and “evil is indivisible”, no matter what people are saying about their private thoughts and feelings, when people are silent in the face of evil, when people do nothing to stop the evil, no matter how much hand-wringing people are doing, the inaction over the years, over the months, in this moment only prove the power of evil and the insidiousness of evil. In our country, we might have a man who voted against the free and fair election of 2020 become Speaker of the House! A man who tried to overturn the election of Joe Biden, who rejected a House subpoena become the Leader of the House, 2nd in line for the Presidency! He is a person who engages in evil “in private and in social life”, he has weaponized government as much if not more than anyone else, he gets his power from his association with Donald Trump.

In the Middle East, the Arab countries have supported Hamas with money, with arms, with moral support and then speak of their desire for peace, speak of the Israelis with disgust and accusations! Be it Qatar, Egypt, Iran, all are culpable, none of whom have cared about the Palestinians, all speak evil in private and all practice evil in their public square as well. In Israel, too many people have bought into the evil that is spewed by far-right and far left extremists, by people who claim to be ‘religious’ and ‘upholding the faith’ while they do nothing to contribute to the growth of peace, the welcoming of the stranger, caring for the needy and the poor unless these entities are ‘religious’ like them. The difference in the Middle East is Israel kills civilians and children by accident, they drop leaflets, send text messages of where they are going to bomb so people can seek shelter, leave the area; Hamas just terrorizes, Russia just targets a funeral! Yet we hear people unwilling to criticize Hamas, Russia and some go so far as to celebrate them for ‘liberating Palestine and/or Ukraine’!

Isn’t it time for good people to stand up? Isn’t it time for good people to acknowledge our need to distinguish the differences, engage in the nuances that the eradication of evil calls for? Isn’t it time for good people to look inside of ourselves and overcome our own evil urges that are out of control? Isn’t it time for good people to come to the aid of our fellowman? Isn’t it time for good people to speak truth to the deceivers and liars that are in Governments all over the world? Isn’t it time for good people to stand up for “the sacred”? Isn’t it time for good people to live the words and sentiments of our Declaration of Independence: “all people are created equal and endowed their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We are in desperate need of recovering our souls, recovering our spiritual cores/centers. We have to break down the evil inside of us, we have to break down the evil that is around us, we have to call it out, we have to shun the terrorists that are Hamas and Putin, Iran and MAGA, religious and secular. We have to look inside of ourselves and let go of our self-deceptions and our desire to believe the mendacities and deceptions of another(s). We are recovering our voices of Godliness, of Holiness, when we speak truth, when we do not ‘go along to get along’, when we do not buy into the “eye disease” and “cancer of the soul” that prejudice is. I have spent my recovery years fighting the evil within me and within people who, like me, made a decision to turn our lives over to God, to a higher power. Recovering people know the power of this action and praying that the world learns this lesson and joins us in recovering the soul of our individual and global humanity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 17

“Tanks and planes cannot redeem humanity, nor the discovery of guilt by association nor suspicion. A man with a gun is like a beast without a gun. The killing of snakes will save us for the moment, not forever. The war has outlasted the victory of arms as we failed to conquer the infamy of the soul: the indifference to crime, when committed against others. (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

Rabbi Heschel’s last sentence above demands all of us to look inside of ourselves as well as towards our enemies. The war against Hamas, the war against the evil, the war against the senseless hatred has to be fought on the ground, in the air, at sea AND inside of each of us. While we witness the myriad of nations and people criticizing Israel for bombing Gaza, for cutting off the supplies to Gaza, we are failing to hear the cry of the Israelis, the call for the return of the hostages, innocent adults of all ages and children, in return for power being restored. It is a simple request, it is not an unreasonable request, yet we are hearing about the barbarism of Israel and no condemnation of Hamas, no condemnation of the terrorism perpetrated upon Israel on October 7!

Israelis are not rejoicing at their need to harm the civilians of Gaza, they are not cheering for the bombs being dropped, the rockets being sent over, the people who are dying, maimed, emotionally scarred by this latest war. They are crying over their losses, they are scared for their hostages, they are bewildered by the brutality of the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yes, Israel has made many mistakes in its dealing with the Palestinians AND, when given different opportunities, Arafat and others have said no when they received offers of 95% of their demands! There have not been elections in Gaza nor in the West Bank as both the PA and Hamas are ‘making’ too much money for their leaders by staying in conflict. Both are true, there is plenty of fault to go around, starting in 1948 when the Arab Nations did not accept the UN Partition and declared war against Israel. Watching the demonstrations in support of Hamas, listening to Iran warn Israel about Hezbollah, listening to the joy Putin is experiencing, are all examples of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above: “the indifference to crime, when committed against others”. These ‘freedom fighters’ don’t consider Israel or Jews worthy of freedom, they don’t want true freedom for all, they want to control, maim, kill, anyone and everyone who stands in the way of their power, they want to decry crimes against them, ie cutting off power to Gaza to get the hostages back, while perpetrating whatever crimes they want; Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, Iran’s backing of terrorist organizations like Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, etc, Hamas’ terrorism on Oct. 7, etc.

The demonstrators are not looking inside of themselves, they are not working to cure the “infamy of the soul” that resides in each of us. Israelis, Jews have to do this as well-this is the foundational principle of T’Shuvah. We are all in need of seeing the evil which resides within us, not because we are evil people, not because we have to beat ourselves up, rather in order to see our whole selves, to distinguish the evil from the good inside of us, just as we learned in last week’s Torah portion, that God distinguishes between light and dark, good and not good, and everything that makes up the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis-distinguishing, not separating, nor killing, rather distinguishing so we can use our ‘evil’ inclination to do good, to be holy, to be aware and love mercy.

Rabbi Heschel’s words, spoken/written in 1938 Germany, are about recovering our goodness of being, recovering our ability to be responsible to and for our inner lives and outer actions. This is what the recovery movement is all about, it is to connect us to a “power greater than ourselves” which many people call God, and recover “the self we are created to be” rather than the self that lives in “the infamy of the soul”, we seek to “conquer” this infamy with introspection, by being responsible for our actions from before, make a plan to not repeat them, live our amends each day by growing our spiritual life, and practicing these spiritual principles in all our affairs. T’Shuvah, the recovery movement, true faith, Eastern practices, all lead us to “conquer the infamy of the soul” without demanding nor expecting perfection.

I find myself enraged at the inability of people to distinguish evil from good, distinguish the need to “conquer the infamy of the soul” of Hamas, of terrorists. I know that the world has a history of turning on the Jews, and I know I cannot hate anyone because they do not know better, because they are indifferent. I can only do my best to meet the evil I see with strength lest I get pulled down by it. I have conquered the “infamy of the soul” within me and I still make mistakes, hence my need to continue to do T’Shuvah every day. God Bless, pray for Israel and the innocents in Gaza and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 16

“Tanks and planes cannot redeem humanity, nor the discovery of guilt by association nor suspicion. A man with a gun is like a beast without a gun. The killing of snakes will save us for the moment, not forever. The war has outlasted the victory of arms as we failed to conquer the infamy of the soul: the indifference to crime, when committed against others. (Man’s Quest for God pg. 150)

I saw this posted by Dr. Susannah Heschel, Rabbi Heschel’s daughter, yesterday and was struck by how prescient this passage is, as it was originally delivered in Frankfort-am-Main, Germany in March 1938! These words are vitally important to us today as they were in 1938, they give us a moment to reflect on our actions, on our times, on this moment. Today, there is a call for a worldwide Jihad, attacks on Jews, Jewish Institutions all over the world, and there is no complete protection from terrorists who want to kill, maim, destroy. We have failed to heed Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and we have failed to live into his teachings and brilliance, instead we quote to prove our points instead of learning them to live God’s call to us.

While the war with Hamas rages, while planes are bombing, the IDF is massing at the border of Gaza and Israel, we all need to think about and take action on what will redeem humanity. Let’s stop lying to ourselves, let’s stop buying into the mendacity of some leaders that they are the only ‘strong person’ who can protect us. Last Saturday was another example of the power of evil, the resolve of evil, the degradation of the human soul by/thru evil. We have witnessed much of these ‘events’ in the past 100 years, be it Nazi Germany, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, the Saudi killers of 9/11, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Syria, Hamas, and we still erroneously believe that “tanks and planes” will redeem us, will stamp out evil. While I understand Israel’s desire/need for revenge, I agree that Hamas has to be destroyed, I know their destruction will not “redeem humanity”.

The “discovery of guilt by association” will not redeem us either. While it is important to find out all the allies of Hamas, all the enablers of evil, all the bankers of terrorist activities, it will not redeem us, we need to do our research, we need to hold these allies, enablers, and bankers responsible and this will not redeem us. There is no redemption for the evil that has been perpetrated by Hamas, by terrorists and their allies. AND, we have to not take joy in the destruction that “tanks and planes” will bring. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for ‘fighting evil’, for bringing terror to the people of Gaza, just as the people of Gaza cannot be considered completely innocent as they have allowed a small minority of people, Hamas, to be their government, they have cheered the kidnappings, the rockets shot into Israel, they have allowed Hamas to use the billions of dollars it receives every year to be spent on themselves, on weapons rather than on infrastructure, rather than on business and schools, hospitals and supplies, their own power plants, etc.

We all have to remember that the killing of snakes(Hamas) will save us for the moment, but not forever.” We have to move forward with a plan to recognize the good in our Arab neighbors, not just the evil of the few. We have to find ways to “conquer the infamy of the soul”. We have to stop our “indifference to crime, when committed against others”, we have to engage in and with the words of Rabbi Heschel, the words of the prophets, the words of our Bible, the will of God for another(s) as well as for our selfs. We have to end out reliance on power, on “tanks and planes”, we have to end our belief that we are better than a beast when we walk around with guns lying to ourselves that the gun protects us. It enhances the “infamy of the soul” and harms the people. Yes, it is necessary to defeat evil, yes it is necessary to have “tanks and planes” and “guns”; however it is also necessary to stop relying on these as our first line of defense, lest we destroy our souls, we subject our souls to “bad repute”, the Latin root of infamy.

Recovering our souls, recovering our decency, recovering our humanity is the goal of Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc. Our different paths are not at odds with one another, they are here to speak to us in ways we can understand, ways that help our souls grow and come out of the prison that “tanks and planes”, that “the killing of snakes” lock us in. Recovering our humanity is the only path to ending terrorism and it takes everyone to engage in their own recovery. Last night at an AA meeting, the question was: Why do you stay sober? My response was that before recovery I was a terrorist, I terrorized family, friends, people I did not know, everyone I came into contact with. Recovering my connection to God, my decency, my humanity, my soul has changed me from a terrorist to a partner with God, from a hater to a lover, from a ‘victim’ to a preacher of the word of God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 15

“The greatness of the prophets was in their ability to voice dissent and disagreements not only with the beliefs of their pagan neighbors, but also with the cherished values and habits of their own people.” (Essential Writings pg. 107)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom is teaching us about our need to constantly look inside of ourselves and wrestle with our own “cherished values and habits” as well as those of our neighbors. In this moment of turmoil in the world, in this moment of the war in Israel, in this moment of, “pure evil” as President Biden calls what Hamas did on October 7th, we need to hear the dissent of the prophets, we need to disagree with those who are using the cruelty, the evil perpetrated by Hamas as reasons to condemn Israel. This is not to say everything Israel has done is right, this is not “Israel, love it or leave it”, I am saying it is time to stand up against evil, to stand up against anti-semitism, to stand up for Israel’s right to exist which Hamas denies, to stand with Israel against senseless hatred, etc. The devastation in Gaza is terrible-full stop and no one is saying how to decimate Hamas without going into Gaza. Yet, when the U.S. went into Afghanistan, when we went into Iraq, after 9/11, everyone understood the need to root out the evil of Al Qaeda, the evil of ISIS. When it comes to the Jews, however, more people are willing to side with the evil of Hamas by giving them aid and comfort, by explaining their evil as ‘the logical consequences of Israel’s actions’! In the spirit of the prophets, in the teaching of Rabbi Heschel we all must stand up and say NO to the apologists of Hamas, the supporters of evil, the funders of terror, and the perpetrators of this evil that hasn’t been seen since the evil of the Nazis!

Israel, people say, was weakened by its internal strife, by the disagreements of Netanyahu’s far right government that has been so supported by the Republican Party and its current leader, Donald J Trump. I believe, in light of the brilliance above, Israel was living its heritage, the dissent is our continuing the spirit and ways of the prophets. The dissenters exercise “their ability to voice dissent and disagreements…with the cherished values and habits of their own people” just as the prophets did in their time, making Israel a more Jewish Nation, making Israel a stronger democracy, by keeping the Israeli Declaration of Independence alive.

The apologists for Hamas, the college-age students and groups that have arisen to decry Israel’s right to exist under the cover of the ‘poor Palestinian people’, fail to decry the suicide bombers, the numerous incursions of killing and kidnapping of Hamas, the PLO, the Munich Olympics, etc. They failed to dissent within their own ranks when the Palestinians were afforded 95% of what they asked for and refused to make a deal. They have failed to dissent “with their own people” and keep pointing their fingers at Israel, at Jews worldwide. How sad, how tragic, what an example of mendacity, self-deception, hatred.

The Jewish world is not monolithic, nor has it ever been. We have been arguing with one another since the beginning, we have used these arguments to learn how to live better with one another, with the world around us. Our Talmud is filled with the arguments and dissents of the Rabbis regarding the ‘best’ ways to serve God, we carry on this tradition today with the arguments we have internally within the different denominations of Judaism. We continue to wrestle with one another over ethics, over our actions, over service, over Israel. and over distinguishing light from dark. We have a tradition of arguing to learn rather than arguing to be right, even though we succumb to our egotistical need to be right at times. This is how we continue to honor the ways of the prophets.

We have never truly known acceptance by the world even though we have given the world the moral code that is universally accepted, the 10 Commandments. We have never truly known acceptance by the world even though we have made discoveries that have furthered the health of the world, the knowledge of the world, over 20% of Nobel Laureates are Jewish! We have fought for the rights of people no matter the color, the race, the creed. We respond to crisis’ across the globe with aid and comfort, money and support, according to the website Define Financial, Jews in America give the most individually and “Jews and Muslims give more to public society benefit organizations involved in civil rights and social inequalities”. We help our neighbors and one another as part of our ethic, as part of our DNA.

I recovered my voice when I began my journey of recovery. I speak loud, abrasive and loving as the prophets teach us. I stand with Israel, I stand against hatred, evil. I stand against the cruelty of Hamas and I stand against their supporters. Isn’t it time for all of us to stand against those who perpetrate evil and stand for good, for justice, for mercy and love? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 14

“Judaism in its very essence came into being as an act of dissent, dissent from paganism, as an act of nonconformity with the surrounding culture. And unless we continue to dissent, unless we continue to say NO to idol worship in the name of a higher YES, we will revert to paganism.” (Essential Writings pg. 106/107)

Our need to dissent, our strength to dissent comes from our ability to dissent stems from our ability and inner desire to say “YES”. We all have this ability, we all can summon the strength to say “YES”, we just need to be willing to. Our ability comes from our spirit, our soul’s knowledge and strength, yet we have to have our own house in order before we can use our ability and our strength to say “YES”. Putting our own house in order is the goal of the Bible, it is the path God gives us and the prophets demand of us. Yet, in our search for certainty, in our search for ‘the easy way’, in our search for the protection of wealth, power, we continually follow a path of inner chaos and outer destruction and ruin. Most human beings are unwilling to be Israel, to wrestle with our inner angst, our inner turmoil, our self-deceptions and mendacities and we surrender to the societal norms and conventional ideas, we seek medicines to quiet our minds, we engage in habits and ways that we believe will bring us ‘spiritual peace’ all the while seeking something that is unattainable. Our spirits can never be nor should be at peace when there are terrorists seeking to massacre innocent civilians. Our spirits can never nor should be at peace when there is poverty, homelessness, neediness, meanness towards one another. Our spirits can never be nor should be at peace while there is racism, anti-semitism, dictators, unlawful intrusions on a country’s borders. Our spirits can never be nor should be at peace when “there arose a new Pharaoh who knew not Joseph”(Exodus 1:8).

One of the major self-deceptions and mendacities that we promote and tell ourselves and everyone else is the concept of ‘spiritual peace’. Rabbi Heschel teaches: “In a free society, some are guilty and all are responsible”. He cries out his inability to pray when the death of thousands of innocent Vietnamese is on his conscience. Yet, we have charlatans who sell us on the idea of ‘spiritual peace’, we have despots who support Hamas and other Terrorists while condemning and warning Israel not to defend itself. While any death of innocent civilians is horrific, when terrorists like Hamas use their civilian population to shield themselves, when they care so little for the lives of another human being as to slaughter them, use them as pawns to save their own lying, evil selves, I ask Qatar, Egypt, et al-why don’t you, why didn’t you take these people into your countries after you told them to leave their homes, to kill Israelis ever since 1948? Why is it that only Jews are condemned for defending themselves? Since Qatar and other Arab countries give money to Hamas, why are they not demanding the release of the Hostages held, why are they not saying YES to a higher authority, to Allah’s call for decency, for Islam’s call for peace? Because, like their leaders, they are proponents of ‘spiritual peace’ so they don’t want to do anything that upsets their carefully made applecart!

All of us need to ask ourselves how is our misguided search for ‘spiritual peace’ bastardizing the very principles we claim to hold dear? How can any Jew hate all Arabs because of the evil of Hamas? How can any Jew rejoice at the death of innocent civilians in Gaza even though rooting our Hamas is necessary? How can anyone in our Congress not give aid and comfort to all people who fight for democracy, however imperfect their democracy may be? How can we not support Ukraine, Israel, and countries all over the world who are fighting for democratic values like the dignity of all people, the freedom of choice for all people? How can this happen?

It happens when we are so blind to truth through serving some self-deception and/or mendacity of another regarding the ‘rightness’ of our path to ‘spiritual peace’. It happens when we “revert to paganism” and, instead of emulating the Israelites at the Red Sea and at Mount Sinai, we try to dictate what God is and what God says in only one way. We end our dissent when we go along to get along, when we give up our own experience of our Biblical text, our own experience of the Ineffable One in favor of someone else’s interpretation and description.

I have wrestled with my soul for almost 72 years now. In 1987 I began to recover the tools to wrestle and I have used these tools to this day and I am not in ‘spiritual peace’. I have learned to hear my soul’s call clearer and better and I cannot stay silent in the face of mendacity. This gets me into trouble yet it is “good trouble”.  Rabbi Heschel disturbs me in the most wonderful of ways, he keeps me wrestling and growing. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 13

“Judaism in its very essence came into being as an act of dissent, dissent from paganism, as an act of nonconformity with the surrounding culture. And unless we continue to dissent, unless we continue to say NO to idol worship in the name of a higher YES, we will revert to paganism.” (Essential Writings pg. 106/107)

The last sentence above describes our choices today as they have been throughout human history. Hamas, their funders, their supporters are prime examples of people who do not dissent, who do engage in idol worship, who are engaged in paganism, all under the guise of ‘religion’. When we hear their propagandists blame Israel, blame the U.S., blame the Jews, declare their intention to rule the area “from river to sea, from sea to sea”, there can be no doubt of their desire to annihilate Jews and remove Israel as the only democratic state in the region. Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies claim to speak and act in the name Allah, while actually engaging in idolatry.

We are witnesses to “idol worship” often, we hear people speaking in the name of God while showing no mercy, no justice, no love for their fellow human beings they have deemed ‘different’. We are witnesses to people demonstrating in favor of Hamas, revering and celebrating the terrorists and the terror attacks in Israel, in the United States, and across the globe. In our own House of Representatives one party is unwilling and/or unable to come together with the rest of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the majority of people in the U.S. to support the democratic country of Ukraine, which is their way of supporting Vladimir Putin and the authoritarianism of Russia! There are people who believe banning books is the way to God, it is a ‘religious’ action-forgetting the actions of the Nazi’s in Germany who banned books, who denigrated Jews in order to appeal to latent anti-semitism, the inner fear of someone different than themselves aka ‘the other’, of the German people, of the Polish people, even of the American people who were not going to “fight a war to protect the Jews”. All in the name of being ‘good christians’!!

We see “idol worship” happening on College Campus’, in the streets of our cities and towns, we stay silent in the face of prejudice and hatred, we stood “idly by the blood of our brothers and sisters” when Black people were hung from trees in the South, we cheered when Billie Holiday was persecuted and banned from singing “Strange Fruit” for fear of her galvanizing white and black people to rebel against this paganism of killing our neighbors instead of loving them. We watch in horror, hopefully, we watch in support, some of us, we watch in silence as LGBTQ+ people are vilified, as the truth of our history as a nation regarding slavery is denied, as our Supreme Court, which is about justice and ensuring the constitutional freedoms embedded in our Declaration of Independence, our Bill of Rights and in our Constitution, becomes more and more politicized and engages in “idol worship” and “paganism” rather than justice and mercy.

There is no perfection, there is no one side of an argument nor disagreement that is 100% correct. We know this, in our Bible, we learn of the evolution of our relationship with God and God’s evolution of God’s relationship with humanity. We are taught to keep learning, to see each case on it’s own merits, to use precedents and not be bound by them, to live a dynamic, ever-changing life, to be moral, to be merciful, to “not hate our brothers and sisters in our hearts” and we are all brothers and sisters because we are all ‘children’ of God. We are taught to see the Divine Image of each human being, to see the infinite value and dignity of everyone, and to witness and honor the uniqueness of everyone!

We are in desperate need of recovering our voices of “dissent”, recovering our ability “to say NO to idol worship” to the myriad of ways we “revert to paganism”. We have the ability, we have to find the will and the strength-which is what Judaism, the Prophets, Christianity, Islam, Eastern Philosophies all give us. Rather than bastardize these teachings and ways of Truth and Holiness, we have to see ourselves in these teachings, in these ways. We are being called by Rabbi Heschel, by our Holy Texts, by God, to end our “idol worship”, we are being called to recover our Authenticity, to be Responsible, and to be Transparent, to live a life of ART so we can end the mendacity, the self-deceptions, the deceptions of another(s) that seems so alluring we are willing to be pagans, we are willing to support terrorists, at home and abroad, we are willing to go along with liars and thieves because we think it will enhance our bottom line. Our bottom line is not the number on our bank statement, it has to be the ways in which we live morally, decently and spiritually. God Bless and stay safe, please pray for Israel, the hostages, and a new beginning in the Middle East, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 12

“Judaism in its very essence came into being as an act of dissent, dissent from paganism, as an act of nonconformity with the surrounding culture. And unless we continue to dissent, unless we continue to say NO to idol worship in the name of a higher YES, we will revert to paganism.” (Essential Writings pg. 106/107)

Rabbi Heschel’s words and wisdom declare the reasons Jews have been hated, people have tried to destroy Jews and Judaism. Israel is, with all of its faults, “an act of nonconformity with the surrounding culture.” When they drop bombs, when they fight the terrorists Hamas, they drop leaflets, they give notice to civilians of what is to come. While people say:”where will the people of Gaza retreat to” Israel doesn’t capture innocent people, Israel and Judaism do not condone, celebrate the murder of innocent people, we don’t glide in to kill 260+ young people attending a concert in the desert.

While Hamas and other terrorists proclaim their fealty to some god, they are actually idolators, they are pagans who believe in murder, who behave in ways that denigrate the sanctity of life, they believe their martyrdom will bring them rewards in some false ‘next world’, they go against the Bible’s decree to “Choose Life”. Listening to the Palestinian propagandists on TV, I find myself yelling NO to their condoning the violence, the torture of innocents, the capturing of old and young, the raining down of rockets on Israel, etc. Where is the outcry for the Israeli towns, the Israeli cities that are being overwhelmed with rockets from these people? They are proclaiming the ‘rightness’ of violence, they are not engaging in any discussion of the terrorist activities of Hamas nor the celebration of murder, the celebration of taking hostages, the celebration of the violence, as we see from their own pictures, their own social media posts. We are witnessing Nihilism at its zenith, we are witnessing a group of terrorists that care nothing for human life, much like Al Queda, ISiS, Nazi Germany, Putin’s Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.

Where is the dissent when Hamas and other terrorist states and groups proclaim their goal of driving the Jews out of Israel? The banners pro Palestinian marchers carried in  New York City said “from the river to the sea” meaning no Jews allowed. We saw this in Nazi Europe in the 1930’s/1940’s and we know what happened then. We are being called “to dissent” against terrorists, we are being called to engage in an “act of dissent” against the paganism, the idolatry of terrorists, of terrorism. Judaism’s and Israel’s

And, we have to be careful to not fall into the same acts of terror as our enemies use. We have to, during and after this war is settled, look inside of ourselves, we have to see where, when and how we needed to engage in “an act of dissent” for our own ways of being. We have to do this every day, according to my understanding of the commandment to do T’Shuvah every day. We have to begin to make a plan for moving forward and not losing our morality, our souls in the anger and the revenge we want to extract from the terrorists. Judaism’s and Israel’s core belief in the sanctity of life, the dignity and worth of every soul has led us to make prisoner swaps that are so much more than one for one, because we do not leave anyone behind! We are being tested by these murderers, these terrorists and their supporters, ‘are we going to resort to their methods and lose our souls in the process?’ This is, again, where we can lean on Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and brilliance. He wrote this knowing the power of hatred, experiencing the ways people go along with violence against their neighbors and their ‘friends’ when confronted with terrorists, with evil.

We need to recover our dissenting voices, we need to engage in “acts of dissent” toward our surrounding culture of hatred, of violence, of terrorism. We need to support Ukraine, we need to support Israel, we need to find paths to peace, we need to stand up to the terror of Putin, of Hamas, of Hezbollah, of Iran, etc. We need to engage in “acts of dissent” whenever hatred, mendacity, deception raise their ugly heads. We need to stop ‘going along to get along’, we are being called upon by Rabbi Heschel to act in nonconformity with the ‘ways things always were, are, will be’. We need to stand up to the paganism of hatred wherever and whenever it is-in the Knesset, in the House of Representatives, in the Kremlin, in Teheran, in Gaza, in Southern Lebanon, in Syria, etc.

Prior to my recovery, I terrorized everyone who cared for me. I held my family hostage to keep supporting my alcoholism and I am so sorry. My T’Shuvah has been and is to help people choose life, help people recover from their myriad forms of soul sickness. I pray for Israel, I pray for peace, I pray for dissent. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 11

“Dissent is indigenous to Judaism. The prophets of ancient Israel who rebelled against a religion that would merely serve the self-interest or survival of the people continue to stand out as an inspiration and example of dissent to this very day.”(Essential Writings pg.106)

On this 2nd day of war in Israel, we see what happens when the world does not rebel against terrorism! All people of faith have to say NO to the terrorist activities, NO to the support of terrorism whether in Israel, in Ukraine, in the United States. We have the power to dissent, we have the power to stop the making these terrorists of Hamas into heroes, into ‘freedom fighters’. This is not about the causes of terrorism, this is not about who is right and who is wrong, this is not about the ‘poor Palestinians’, this is about saying NO to lawless ways of Amalek, attacking a people for being Jews in their weakest spots. While in Arabic the word could mean ‘zeal’, in Hebrew the word means violence and is one of the root causes of the Flood in Genesis.

It is time for the world to stand up and rebel against ‘moral equivalence’, it is time for the world to stop these terrorists from the plans to make peace in the Middle East, it is time for the world to punish the Iranians who support the terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. It is time for the world to come together and honor the pledge made in 1947 for the establishment of the State of Israel, it is time for the world to acknowledge we are in this situation because the Arab nations first made war against Israel in 1948. It is time for the world to use all of its resources to bring to heel these terrorist organizations who call for the destruction of Israel. In a democracy, like Israel and the United States, there is a necessity to dissent against ways that people believe the governments are straying from the path of the founding documents, it is called free and fair elections. Terrorists do not honor free and fair elections and use fear, hatred, weapons to upset them, to overturn them, to kill the very spirit of freedom and democracy that we all have fought so hard and so many times to preserve.

This is not to say that Israel, the United States and all democracies in the world cannot and should not do better, this is not a whitewash of Netanyahu and his policies, this is not extolling the far-right parties in the United States nor in Israel, France, England, etc.; I am rebelling against terrorist actives, I am saying we have to have a powerful dissent against kidnapping people, killing innocent civilians, attacking a country on their Holy Days, trying to annex property and land just because we want to like in Ukraine. There is plenty of dissent in Israel and always has been, there is dissent in America and always has been, our dissent cannot and should not turn into terrorist activities like what is happening in Israel right now. Terrorists make the mistake of believing the dissent of the prophets that we practice today makes a country, a people, a city, a state ripe for the pickings. They believe their own lies that they are ‘fighting for the people’ when they are really terrorizing for their own power, for their own wealth, for their own egos. What Israel and the world is saying to the terrorists of Hamas today and we need to say everyday is: You will not win, You will not kill our democracy, You will not split us as a nation, as a people. Just as with 9/11, Israel will defeat these enemies in this war and we, as a global community have to defeat terrorism as a way of life!

The worst result from terrorism is when we, good people, lose our resolve and our way of being is disrupted. We, the people, have to meet these terrorists with power, we have to show them that their nihilism is not going to overtake us, their death wishes will not cause us to lose our humanity. While we have not been able to follow the command to “blot out Amalek”, we need to stop Amalek in it’s tracks, we have to defeat Amalek and bring it to heel to decency, to being human. It is a difficult task, one we have been wrestling with for the ages, and we have to keep stopping terrorism in its tracks. Just as we did with Hitler, so too do we have to do with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with Iran, with Putin and every other terrorist organization whether government sponsored or just within a country, like the White Supremacist movement here in the US, like the chaos makers in our country and across the globe.

I am praying for Israel to wipe out the terrorists, I am praying for the myriad of people who will be killed and hurt because they follow the dictates of their oppressors, Hamas. I pray for the dead and the wounded in Israel, I pray for a world devoid of terror. While difficult, I try to see the Divine Image of the terrorists as well. “Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of” Israel, of  democracy, and freedom.  Stand with Israel, stand against terrorism, God Bless, Rabbi Mark

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Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 10

“Dissent is indigenous to Judaism. The prophets of ancient Israel who rebelled against a religion that would merely serve the self-interest or survival of the people continue to stand out as an inspiration and example of dissent to this very day.”(Essential Writings pg.106)

Rabbi Heschel’s use of the word “indigenous”, coming from the Latin meaning “native” and the English definition “originating or occurring naturally” is a powerful message to all of us. “Dissent” is an original part of Judaism, of all religious practices really, in fact, Judaism and all religious traditions, all spiritual disciplines that followed/came at the same time “dissent” from the status quo, idolatry, of the time. In a place where polytheism, mythology, statues prevailed as the ‘religious’ way; Judaism was a rebellion, is a rebellion and without “dissent”, we find ourselves in the same predicament as “ancient Israel” trying to “merely serve the self-interest or survival” rather than be alive, be dynamic, live into our “native” path of dissent.

The “inspiration and example of dissent” of the prophets has been lost to a great extent in the modern world. Many people quote the prophets, many people read the prophets, yet not too many take up the path of the prophet-dissent against ‘going along to get along’, dissent for one’s own self-interest, an either/or way of being, etc. What we have today are people who bastardize the prophets words and ways, they use the quotations to validate their self-interest, their survival. People today are using “dissent” for themselves, to serve themselves and their ‘masters’, we are witnessing “dissent” being used by charlatans, deceivers, by mendacious people who wrap themselves in the flag of the US, wrap themselves in some perverted version of Christianity, wrap themselves in some ‘literalist’ version of the Bible, the Constitution, which are dynamic documents, not meant to be static, not meant to be used as they were at the times of their writing.

We hear a lot about the disruptors in business, in tech, and most of them are self-serving, seeking their own fame, glory, prestige and safety. Rather than disrupt, dissent for the sake of heaven, for the good of all people, most disruptors, like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, are disrupting for their way of thinking to take hold, for their being able to have power over the masses, for their ideas and prejudices being spewed and spread across platforms to the world. Any benefit to another human being is incidental. Yet, we glorify these people, we emulate these disruptors, these people who are willing to suck the spirit out of their fellow human being for the sake of a dollar, for the sake of a prejudice, for the sake of ‘getting even’ for some hurt, slight they suffered in childhood. As Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries says: “hurt people hurt people”. Disruptors are not the same as dissenters.

Dissenters like Rev. King, like Rabbi Heschel, like Einstein, like Eleanor Roosevelt, like Rosa Parks are not disrupting the status quo for their own sake, they are saying NO for the sake of fulfilling God’s call for slavery to end, for ignorance to end, for injustice to end, for mendacity to end, for indifference to end, for self-centeredness to end, for isolation to end, for bastardization of God’s will, for desecration of God’s Name to end, for all of us to live the ways of the prophets, not just quote their words when convenient. We have the path to follow, we have the people to emulate, we have the lessons of our ancestors in our hearts, in our mouths, in our souls-we have to make the decision to return to our native state of dissent!

I use the phrase, in recovery, in each writing and quote from the Big Book of AA to speak to everyone about our need to recover our authenticity, recover our integrity, recover “the self we were created to be” as Thomas Merton says, for both people who are recovering alcoholics and people who are in need of recovering their true selves. The chaos in our Congress points to the need for recovery of our elected officials, they need to recover their reason for being trusted servants instead of the lies they tell themselves that they are deciders and dictators.

In this writing, I am acutely aware of the times when my dissent was self-serving and self-protective. In my daily review of how I lived/live Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and how I don’t, I know even in the past 35+ years I dissented out of fear of losing rather than from a rebellion against what was wrong, what was stale, what was unjust, etc. Most of my dissent was in the spirit of the prophets, in the spirit of Rabbi Heschel, to help people serve people, to help people recover their essence, to help me live into my unique purpose. I failed at times and I succeeded more often. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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