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Living rabbi heschel’s wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 35

“We cannot dwell at ease under the sun of our civilization as our ancestors thought we could. What was in the minds of our martyred brothers in their last hours? They died with disdain and scorn for a civilization in which the killing of civilians could become a carnival of fun, for a civilization which gave us mastery over the forces of nature but lost control over the forces of our self.” (God’s Quest for Man pg. 150)

Rabbi Heschel’s description of our civilization is as powerful today as it was when he wrote this in 1938, updated it in 1943 and published it in 1954! Whether he was speaking of what was happening and what was going to come in Nazi Germany in 1938, he was speaking about the devastation the war was bringing to all of Europe in 1943 as well as the mass murdering of Jews by the Nazis, or he was speaking of the aftermath of death and destruction that happened in the Concentration Camps, all of these are proof texts of his writing above.

We keep trying to find ways to “dwell at ease under the sun of our civilization” all the while cheating, deceiving, “killing the competition”, authoritarianism, money, power, prestige, building walls for our borders and homes, racism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, etc  run rampant and, in fact, are used for the benefit of those who are in power to make it possible for them to “dwell at ease”! We are witnesses to the ‘fun’ the powers in Government had when dropping Napalm on the innocent citizens of Vietnam and validating their actions with “the red scourge” of communism in Southeast Asia infecting America! We have seen the streets of our own country bleed the same red blood as all of us have when people are arrested and killed by police for “driving/walking while black”, when people are attacked for being a Jew, for being a Muslim/Arab, when people went to work on 9/11/2001 in the Twin Towers, so the perpetrators could “dwell at ease” having served the idolatry they claim is God/Allah/Jesus. We have witnessed the uproar of our College Campus’ over the racism during the 1960’s which led to, helped along, the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965, both of which have been denuded by subsequent bigots and racists. We are now witnessing the uproar of our College Campus by people praising the Terrorists of Hamas as being ‘freedom fighters’ and threatening Jews all over-calling for a Jihad in this country!

How can we “dwell at ease” when Israel, who was mercilessly attacked on Oct 7, has over 240 of its people held hostage with no contact by the International Red Cross nor the U.N. who, while ignoring the Jewish Hostages, are crying for the ‘poor people’ of Gaza who have accepted the rule of terrorists, who have hid terrorists in their homes, mosques, hospitals, etc either out of fear or out of solidarity. How can we “dwell at ease” when we witness the joy, “the carnival of fun” Hamas had while slaughtering young people at a concert about peace and love? How can we “dwell at ease” when listen as the world’s sympathies once again turn away from the Jewish People and actually turn against the Jews once again. How can we “dwell at ease” when leaders of governments on all sides are only concerned with their political lives, with their holding onto power rather than doing what is right and good for the people they are supposed to be serving?

How can we “dwell at ease” when we have been abandoned by the people we have fought side by side with? When the “left”, who so many Jews have joined in seeking their rights to  “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, immediately joined Hamas, joined the mendacity of proclaiming FREE PALESTINE, From Sea to the Ocean, saying the charter of Hamas to destroy Jews, to destroy Israel is a just cause, it is a freedom fighter’s cause! How sad and how disturbing to those of us who still believe in justice and liberty for all. How sad for so many Jews to realize how we have been used and abused, how our vulnerabilities, our principles have been bastardized, abused and how we have been abandoned and, in some cases, hunted by the very people we marched shoulder to shoulder with. How can we “dwell at ease” when the values of God, the principles of the Bible, the calls of the prophets are used against us, when we are subjected to the “evil of the heart” of our ‘friends’ and enemies?

How can we “dwell at ease”? We need a program of recovery, we need to be in acceptance and awareness of what is, not what we want reality to be. We need to live into God’s principles more and more each day, as we learn to in recovery. We need to not lose our dignity, our humanity, our spiritual principles in the face of the onslaught of despicable behaviors towards us. We need to know it is okay to kill the person coming to kill you first, that our lives are no less valuable and worthy as the people who are coming for us, who are trying to subjugate us, who are lying to us. We can “dwell at ease” when we “carry the message” to everyone who suffers from the delusions of power, of racism, of anti-semitism, to all people who are in the throes of the “cancer of the soul” we call prejudice. We can “dwell at ease” when we put “our own house in order” by growing our spiritual life into one of acceptance, love, truth, kindness which we practice in all of our affairs. We can “dwell at ease” when we get angry with a heart of peace, when we go to war with hearts of peace and knowing this is a last resort, when we govern with love, kindness, compromises, knowing we are not the smartest person in the room and another person has ideas that are as good, and could be better to implement-as in the “group conscience” we take in our recovery meetings.

I have been able to “dwell at ease” to a certain extent in my recovery. In fact, this gift from God has given me the strength to improve my decency, my spirituality little by little each day for these past 36 years since I started studying Rabbi Heschel with Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l, in prison. While I am agitated when I witness mendacity and lying, in myself, in those around me, in government, etc, I am “at ease” also because I know that I am following the call of the prophets, the demands of God and the teachings of Rabbi Heschel in my agitation and, only because I can “dwell at ease” with myself and with God’s will, can I be agitated for the sake of heaven-not for my own sake. My agitation, which is interpreted in a myriad of ways, comes from my knowing I cannot “dwell at ease” with the world, with myself, unless I agitate for truth, love, kindness, welcoming the stranger, caring for the poor and the needy, standing up for principles. 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 34

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

Rabbi Heschel’s comparison, call for us to “be as fine and sacrificial…as our soldiers on the fields of battle” is especially poignant in this moment. It gives me pause and has caused me to look at elected officials, dictators, authoritarians, and all of us in a different light. There are soldiers, citizens called upon to fight really, in Ukraine and in Israel/Gaza. Hamas is not an army, they are not soldiers nor are they ‘freedom fighters’; they are determined, as was Germany and so many other countries throughout history, to “kill all the Jews”, just as Putin is not a “freedom fighter” looking to ‘protect the Russian people of Ukraine”! Yet, they both are crying over the devastation of the people who are defending their land, their very existence, and parts of the world are buying their bullshit, forgetting that everything happening is because they started these wars! Why is it that world leaders cannot “be as fine and sacrificial…as our soldiers on the fields of battle”? Why is it we are more worried about our economic ties, we allow ourselves to be held hostage to the oil of the Middle East, the cheap factories of China, than we are about what is right, what is good, what is freedom? Are we aware of how we are “slaves of evil” because we are more worried about our wallets than our souls?

We are engaged in, witnesses to, participants of the Chaos Theory of life, as perpetrated by Trump, Gaetz, Tubervile, Johnson, Jordan, Hamas, Qatar, Putin, Orban, Xi, Bannon, Cruz, Netanyahu, et al. Matt Gaetz, because of a personal beef, help the entire US Government hostage for over 3 weeks-where was his sacrifice to meet the sacrifice “as our soldiers on the fields of battle”? Tuberville, who has finally been scorned by his own fellow Republicans in the Senate, has held up all promotions, necessary military promotions, because of his hatred of women being able to choose what they do with their bodies. Neither Gaetz nor Tuberville have ever served in the Military; neither one understands sacrifice, yet both believe in being “apostles of force”! In Israel, Netanyahu is unable to take responsibility for what happened, he is unable to remember what he learned in the Army as a Captain, he seems to be unable to be a leader who sacrifices himself for truth, rather than sacrifice another for his lies. Jordan, Trump, Mike Johnson, et al, never could imagine being “as fine and sacrificial… as our soldiers are on  the fields of battle”! They would rather be the bomb throwers, the ones who glide in and take advantage of innocent people who want to believe they are sincere, they want peace, they are capable of being decent, people; only to find out they are idolators, deceivers.

WE, THE PEOPLE, must end the reigns of terror! We must demand our leaders stop being “apostles of force” and making us into “slaves of evil”. It is time for Israel to accept the truth of a two-state solution. It is time for the Palestinians to accept the same truth and POLICE their own extremists as Israel must to with theirs. It is time for the Arab world to end their dance with Chaos and Iranian backed terrorists and recognize, partner with Israel-no longer believing they are capable to dictating terms to the world because of their oil reserves. The citizens of this country, the USA, have to demand our leaders stop enslaving us to chaos and lies, end their alliances with “apostles of evil” like Putin, Fascism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Anti-Asian, Racist actions, etc. WE, THE PEOPLE, have to stand up and be counted as “ministers of the sacred”, we have to be willing to “be as fine and sacrificial… as our soldiers are on the fields of battle”!!

We have to follow the examples of people in recovery and practice the principles of our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, the Bible, the Prophets, Jesus, Mohammed, in all our affairs. This is about how we live by the examples of “our soldiers on the fields of battle”, not any particular religion nor any particular bastardization of religion. It is following the example of millions of people who left a life of mendacity, self-deception, a life of being an “apostle of force” and a “slave to evil” so we can find our authenticity, be responsible and transparent in all our affairs! We are not perfect so we “continue to take personal inventory and promptly admit when we are wrong”, we do this so we never sink into being “slaves of evil” again. This is what is needed in each of us and in all of us! 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 33

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

The last sentence above is one we still have to learn, it seems. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel teach us the difference between existing and surviving. I believe he is speaking to us about our humanity surviving, our goodness surviving, the survival of God’s call to us to be “ministers of the sacred”. As the heart wrenching news of the destruction of human lives in Gaza is broadcast in the media, it is important to not forget the 240 Hostages that no agency, not the Red Cross, not the UN, has seen nor checked on. It is important to remember that Hamas is a Terrorist organization, funded and trained as well as directed by Iran and Hezbollah which uses their own citizens as human shields! It is important to ask the question of who broke the Cease-Fire that was in place on October 6, 2023. It is important to ask who benefits from the calls for “a pause”, not the people of Gaza who have been imprisoned by Hamas for years, who have never seen the Billions of dollars that has flowed into Hamas from Qatar and others, who have never had enough fuel, never had their cities and homes improved upon, have never had their coastline developed with the ‘aid’ that has flowed into Gaza. AND the devastation breaks our hearts, it is terrible to look upon, it is frightening to come to grips with the results of our inability, our unwillingness to “be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.”

It is time, right now, to call upon the Bibi to resign. It is time, right now, to call upon Qatar and the other funders of Hamas to stop sending their money to terrorize Israel. It is time, right now, for the citizens of Gaza and the Arab countries to throw Hamas out of Gaza, out of the West Bank. It is time, right now, for the UN to stop its Anti-Semitic rants and lies. It is time, right now, for the Arab Countries and the Palestinians to find leaders that are willing and can make peace with Israel and find a two-state solution that is just and right. It is time, right now, for the Republicans in Congress to stop their petty gamesmanship and approve the necessary aid for Israel, Ukraine, humanitarian efforts and rebuilding of Gaza, for the border security etc. It is time, right now, for the people in Congress to throw out Santos and Menendez. It is time, right now, for The Supreme Court to stop some members from receiving gifts as “bribes blind the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous”(Deuteronomy 16:19).

We begin all of these actions in our homes, in our offices, in our clubs. It is time, right now, for our homes to be places of learning and loving, of raising our children to be “the self they were created to be” as Thomas Merton teaches us. Our homes should be the places of wild and deep ‘arguments’ of truth seeking, understanding the nuances and complexities of history and the present. It is time, right now, for our offices to be places of service-not socialism-where we live not the finest of our Biblical dreams; no matter the different socio-economic status everyone respects the dignity and worth of every human being, that everyone is necessary and needed: “All of you stand here today your heads of your tribes…to the stranger …to the drawer of your water that you should enter the covenant”(Deuteronomy29:9-11). All of us are entered in the Covenant, no matter what faith or non-faith we practice, all of us need to serve the Covenant rather than the self-centered desires of power, greed, etc in our offices. It is time, right now, to return to service in our offices and business and leave the greed, the mendacity behind.

These are the sacrifices that we in recovery offer to God, to one another, to the people we have harmed. We are fighting a different battle than the soldiers on the field, we are fighting for our survival as human beings. We are engaged in the war for our humanity and turning to the example of “our soldiers on the fields of battle” helps us keep slogging away. We speak of “trudge the road of happy destiny” as an example of the soldiering it takes to recovery the very ways Rabbi Heschel is speaking about; being “ministers of the sacred” instead of “slaves of evil”. This choice is in front of us daily and we continue to choose the former over the latter. I make this choice each day and, for the past 35 years I have stayed away from criminal activities and chosen life. 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 32

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

“Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness” is the demand of God, it is the demand of humanity and it is the demand that humanity continues to ignore.

“The apostles of force” continue to flex their muscles, continue to be immune to the call to goodness, continue to wrap themselves in the ‘clothes of righteousness’ and continue to wage war with “goodness”. This has been true throughout the history of humankind and, while goodness prevails at moments, we have not found the strength to defeat “the apostles of force”. In this moment, when the terrorists of Hamas continue to have fuel and food, supplies and tunnels while denying the same to the people of Gaza, some of us watch in horror at the deaths of ‘civilians’ in Gaza, listen to the calls for a ceasefire while ignoring there was a ceasefire on October 6th and Hamas is the entity that broke it, and experience the hatred of Jews that has risen up to the surface after being ‘kept under wraps’ for a while. This is an example of one of the disguises that “the apostles of force” use-decrying the fight of Israel and Jews for our very existence. We have forgotten the 1930’s in Germany, Europe, the United States when Jews were vilified and our very existence was threatened and, “the apostles of force” almost won. We forget the history of Black people in America who to this day are discriminated against and the Jews stood with in the Civil Rights movement. We forget the discrimination of the Chinese, the Irish, the Italians, that was rampant and now is ‘under the surface’. We seem to be able to ignore the ways “the apostles of force” work hard to deny “that we can be as great in goodness.”

Even in Congress, Mike Johnson wants to help the rich avoid paying their fair share of taxes by tying the aid to Israel to defunding the IRS. He and his fellow Republicans, want to ignore the need of the Ukrainians in order to help Vladimir Putin and Russia! Yet, he says he is following the Bible while he seeks major cuts in funding for the poor, the needy, the children, the stranger. I am not sure what Bible he is reading and he does this with a smile, with ‘love in his heart’ portraying himself as a ‘good christian’ while denying “that we can be as great in goodness” as Christ calls us to be in the New Testament. Christ hung out with the poor, the leper, the hookers, the ne’er do well-not the rich, the famous, the powerful. This is an example of one of the disguises of “the apostles of force” take on.

We have “to reveal that we can be as great in goodness” as “the apostles of force are great in evil”. It is within us to do this, it is the call of our souls, of our inner lives, and it is the call of God to us. We do this by standing for what is right and good, by acknowledging our own errors, by repenting for our mistakes and changing our ways. We have to stop “hating our brother in our heart” as we learn in Leviticus, we have to stop turning to the “false gods” of power, lust, greed, force, which only empower the evil within us. We have to lessen the power of our self-deceptions and we have to be allies with one another in the fight for goodness, the war against “the apostles of force”. We can do this! We have the technology-prayer, T’Shuvah, introspection, meditation, study, engagement in and with our holy texts, letting go of our grudges, seeing the infinite dignity of every human being, etc. We have so many more similarities that differences, we do not have to fight one another ‘in the name of god’ because this is not what God wants! As the Torah teaches us: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”(Lev.19:18).

This is the goal of recovery! While most people go to and believe recovery is about an addiction to a substance or a process, the main thrust of recovery, as I experience it, is to “reveal that we can be as great in goodness”. Today, I celebrate 35 years since I left prison for a re-entry program. Torah, Judaism, Recovery have all led me away from being an “apostle of evil” and with the help of so many people, family, friends, strangers, I have been able to reveal I am capable of being “as great in goodness”. In our prayers when we return the Torah to the Ark, we say: “It is a tree of life.. all of its ways are ways of pleasantness and all of its paths are peace.” Let’s find our unique way to “reveal the we can be as great in goodness.” 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 31

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

We are witness’ to the loathing of “future generations” on our College Campus’, on Social Media, in the streets of our cities when we see the Anti-Semitism that is rampant and the glorification of terrorists. While “the apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil” we hear calls for a “cease-fire”, we hear calls for humanitarian aid, which is needed and Hamas will appropriate it as they have done with all of the other aid that has been given to Gaza over the years! Yet, we continue to hear how bad Israel and Jews in general are.

Each generation, since the Holocaust, has taken for granted “Never Again” and we have not taught the lessons of “the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created”. Rather we have taught the lessons of self-centeredness, of seeking power for its own sake. We have taught the lessons of the conquerors, the slave-masters, we have taught that some people are worth less than another, we have taught that we can shirk our responsibilities in favor of our false, inauthentic desires. We have taught scapegoating is legitimate, fearing the stranger is logical, ignoring the poor and the needy is expedient, taking God’s words and demand and turning them into what we want, validating our idolatries is good and holy! We have failed the future generations, we have taught them to loathe the truth of the Bible, the lessons and calls of the prophets, the foolishness of the martyrs and saints, and the scholars have promoted a disdain for what is right, what is truthful, what is holy, etc.

What is happening in the world today is an existential threat to freedom, to humanity, to the words and deeds of “what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created” and we have to take a stand, we have to re-energize their teachings and deeds with our deeds, our words, our teaching. We have to stop the bastardization of “the prophets and saints”, the deceptions and the mendacity of “the apostles of force”, and the glorification of terrorists. Israel is being vilified for standing up for itself, for doing what is, unfortunately, necessary to exist and there are many across the globe who decry ‘the atrocities of Israel’ while celebrating the invasion and murder, slaughter, beheading, of babies and elderly, young people attending a concert dedicated to peace, taking hostages and not allowing the Red Cross to visit them. These same people say nothing about Hamas’ treatment of the people they rule in Gaza; never building up Gaza with the billions of dollars they receive each year, nothing about Hamas’ use of their own citizens as human shields, nothing about the building of tunnels under hospitals, UN centers, schools etc. If this isn’t a loathing of what “the martyrs” fought and died for, what is?

People should not hold other people hostage for their own goals-full stop! Israel should not have ignored the plight of the people of Gaza nor the plight of the people in the West Bank-this was, is wrong. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority should not have ignored the plight of their own people by refusing to make peace-full stop! The Arab countries should not have ignored and fueled the hatred of Jews that is has-full stop! The Republicans in the House of Representatives should not hold the government and We, the people, hostage in not wanting to fund the government unless the myriad of social programs that help the needy, the poor, the elderly, the children are cut-full stop! They should not be bargaining with the aid that Israel needs to fight terrorism-full stop! Our college campus’ should be places of learning, of debate, of learning how to hold two things at one time in our heads, our hearts, our souls-full stop!

A program of recovery is what is needed, what I hear Rabbi Heschel calling for in his wisdom above. In recovery, we relearn the teachings and deeds of “the prophets and saints, the martyrs and scholars” through the Big Book of AA, through the stories we are told, through the deaths of those who could not grasp a spiritual way of living. We re-learn that the force of our will cannot bring us to wholeness and peace, will not allow us to live without fear of losing, and delivers us to become “slaves of evil” rather than “ministers of the sacred”. This is our challenge and our salvation. may we respond and live lives compatible with being a partner with God. 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 30

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

Immersing ourselves in the first two sentences above allows us, calls for us to determine what is “sacred” and what is “evil”, as well as what is “blasphemy”. “Sacred” is explained in numerous areas in the Bible; human life is sacred, animal life is sacred, rebuking one’s neighbor is sacred, not hating one’s neighbor in one’s heart is sacred, caring for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy is sacred, having one law for the stranger and the citizen alike is sacred, “proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to all it’s inhabitants therein” is sacred, treating the captives in war with dignity and respect is sacred, standing up against Amalek/blotting out Amalek is sacred, redeeming the captive, doing T’Shuvah, our covenantal relationships with God and humanity is sacred, and so much more. Choose Life we are told by Moses, stop looking towards heaven for answers when the solutions to life’s challenges are “in our hearts, in our mouths”.

Nowhere is hunting for sport, senseless killing for our own power, denying the dignity of another human being, treating the poor as criminals, not redeeming our people from poverty, ill-health, etc, called sacred. There is no place in the Bible that extols humanity’s ability to proclaim one way as the only way, there is no place in the words of the prophets that extols killing for sport, be it killing animals or humans, there is no place where the prophets extol war for the sake of power and greed, there is no place where the prophets proclaim the right to subjugate the needs of the many for the needs of the few in power. Evil comes in so many disguises, it comes dressed as ‘sacred’ at times, it comes to us through mendacity and deception. It holds us captive, it makes slaves of us through our engagement in self-deception, our misreading of the text, our using what is holy and sacred for our selfish desires and drive for money, power, and prestige. We witness this “evil” daily, we are perpetrators of “evil” when we ignore it, when we explain it away, when we are indifferent to it! Rabbi Heschel, in this essay begun in 1938, is calling us out and some 85 years later we seem to continue to be deaf to his call, to this choice.

We participate in blasphemy by being indifferent to “evil” and to the “sacred”, by ignoring the call to be servants of “the sacred”, by bastardizing and blaspheming what is holy and good, what is true and right. We participate by not calling it out, by not standing up against this blasphemy, by electing authoritarians, by electing these ‘religious’ people who stand for themselves, not God; who bastardize the Bible, the New Testament, the prophets, the Koran, etc. When Mike Johnson extols the 2nd Amendment right to have AR-15’s, when he claims to be a follower of Jesus and works to gut programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare to the needy and poor, Child food programs, he is demonstrating what a blasphemer is, what being a “slave to evil” is and his faux sincerity is nauseating. When Hamas claims outrageous numbers of dead and wounded and the press/media blindly accept these liars words as truth, we are witnessing the lure of “the evil” and how easy it is to be captivated by it. When we hear the UN speak of humanitarian aid, which is sorely needed by the people of Gaza and not to be given to Hamas (which they have never distinguished), and do not think it is important to visit the hostages taken.on Oct. 7th, they are demonstrating their indifference to evil while wrapping themselves in some bullshit humanitarian cloak. The people who speak the loudest about their being “ministers of the sacred” are usually the ones who blaspheme the most and are willing “slaves of evil” carrying out the demands of evil with reckless abandon-be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Progressive, Far-Right, etc.

I have wrestled with people all my life, I have wrestled with my self all my life to overcome being a captive to evil, to stop my blasphemy and, in the last 35 years “the sacred” has won much more often than “evil”. I have been accused of blasphemy when I speak the truth, when I call out and question the Sages of old, when I refuse to go along with conventional ideas and ways and I am proud of it. I am not proud of the times I have gone against the principles of recovery, the principles of God and blasphemed. I don’t hide them and I am continue to seek “the sacred” and Choose Life! 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 29

“Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what the prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years. The apostles of force have shown that they are great in evil. Let us reveal that we can be as great in goodness. We will survive if we shall be as fine and sacrificial in our homes and offices, in our Congress and clubs as our soldiers are on the fields of battle.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

Reading Rabbi Heschel is, at times, difficult! His wisdom, his teachings, his combining of prose and poetry make quoting him easy; living into his words takes an inner experience of his brilliance, a decision to imbibe his calls to us a little at a time. I have been experiencing Rabbi Heschel as a teacher, a master, a guide, a prophet, for almost 35 years, he continues to give me a “bad conscience”, a measuring stick of where I am at in my inner and outer life, a reality check on my incongruences and where I am walking my talk. My raison d’être in writing this blog is to share my experiences with Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, and provide a pathway for people to experience him for the first time and/or anew.

The first sentence above makes me shudder! I hear Rabbi Heschel calling us to account, to account to and for ourselves when we are “ministers of the sacred” and when we are “slaves of evil”. We do not live in one and not the other, only a slim minority of people are “slaves of evil” nor “ministers of the sacred” all the time. Most of us live in both realms and the challenge is to admit this to ourselves, to stop wrapping ourselves in the ‘cloaks of piety’, to stop believing the lies we tell ourselves and the judgmental ways of society that label us ‘bad seeds’ for our negative actions. Given history and our present, Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that we have a choice, a minute by minute choice, as to where we want to live; in the freedom of the sacred or in the slavery of evil. His choice of descriptors is very important to me: minister comes from the Latin meaning “servant” and slave meaning “captive” from Latin.

Rabbi Heschel’s use of these two words are apt descriptors of the choices we make each day, in each situation of living. Are we going to serve or are we going to stay captive is the question Rabbi Heschel is asking, it is the question God asks throughout the Bible/Holy Text of every spiritual discipline. Yet, it seems that most of us are unaware of this question, unaware of our own captivity, ignorant of our choices and adjusted to societal needs, conventional thinking, etc rather than the calls/demands of God from Sinai: “Hear, Choose Life, Let Freedom Ring throughout the Land and to all its inhabitants therein, Care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, Love Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself”, etc. We seem to be captives to our baser urges, we seem to be under the spell of the authoritarians, the deceivers, the power-hungry, wealth-driven minority that continue to promulgate the Big Lies, be it about elections, the stranger, people who are not male, people who don’t ‘fit the mold’, etc. We are “slaves of evil” when we go along to get along, when we stay silent in the face of injustice, when we are unwilling to stand up for and be “ministers of the sacred”! It is hard, it is lonely, it is walking on a narrow path, it is living into the nuances, it is being Godlike by distinguishing what is light, what is dark, what is chaos, what is wandering, etc, knowing we don’t have all the answers, listening to our souls knowledge rather than the rationalizations of our minds and the call of our captors.

In recovery, we find ourselves at the crossroads of being “ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil” every day. We know the slavery of evil, we have been captives of our old incongruent, evil ways. This knowing is ever-present in our decisions; are we moving one step closer to our ministry, our serving, or are we moving one step back into slavery, into our captivity. In recovery, we constantly seek ways to be of service; our work becomes not just a means to be self-supportive, it becomes an opportunity to serve another individual; our meetings are places to be of service, to welcome the newcomer(stranger), to “hear’ the call of God to be in recovery, to allow another to love us until we can love ourselves and then give the same love back to the people around us, and to, above all, “Choose Life”!

I wrestle with these choices each day, I know some have felt captive by my way of being and I am sorry. I have worked diligently to be a “minister of the sacred” and make amends when I am a “slave of evil”. I continue to “grow along spiritual lines” knowing I will never achieve perfection, nor do I need to; all the while seeking spiritual progress, living into God’s call and Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom a little more each day. 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 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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