IMMERSING OURSELVES IN RABBI HESCHEL'S WISDOM - A DAILY SPIRITUAL PATH FOR LIVING WELL

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 108

“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden on his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man, no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profound riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet’s words…” (Essential Writings pg. 62)

The last two sentences above say it all. We, the People, make a decision each day to hear God “raging in the prophet’s words” or not. We get to choose a “form of living” each day. We are at a crossroad, a fork in the road each day-do we choose to live in God’s words, in the ways the prophets teach us or not. This is our daily conundrum and, as we can see from current events, we often fail to heed the way of the prophets, we ignore the “terror” of “the silent agony”, we abuse “the plundered poor” and we bow down to “the profound riches” that the powerful have.

We have ignored the terrorism of Iran and its proxies for far too long. We have ignored the terrorism of the extremists in Israel, in America, in Russia, throughout the world, foolishly thinking they would go away, it seems. People of ‘faith’ have ignored and misused the words of the Bible, the teachings of the prophets, the “raging” of God for our own brand of terrorism-winning at any and all costs. There is no moral equivalent between Hamas and the war in Gaza-full stop! The loss of any life is tragic-full stop! The war in Gaza is not of Israel’s making, however-it is a response to the terrorism of Oct. 7th 2023! I do not know of anyone who would gleefully live next door to a group of people who want to annihilate them, yet many people in America think that this is a good idea! We are witnessing a grand failure of humanity to hear and follow the words and deeds of the prophets, we are witnessing a grand failure to act in accordance with God’s “form of living”. Yet, we continually deceive ourselves into proclaiming we are living, speaking, and acting in God’s name, in the name of Allah, in the name of Jesus, etc. These self-deceptions, this buying into the deceptions of another increases “the silent agony” of “the plundered poor”, it adds power to the misguided responses to the terror and it gives strength to the “fierce greed” of humankind.

There is a better way for humanity to live, a nobler way for society to attain; live into the “crossing point of God and man.” This is not as difficult as it seems at first blush. It begins with a deep reading of the prophets’ words and actions. We get to relive the ways the people in power abused their power. We, like the prophets, can be “stunned at man’s/our fierce greed” and make a decision to change. Instead of terrorizing one another more with our lies, with our false accusations, we have the wherewithal to turn to truth, we have a pathway to repentance and redemption. We are capable of meeting God “face to face” in our prayers, in our studies, in our actions when we no longer seek excuses for our bad behaviors through using God, using false interpretations of the Bible, by blaming the victims, etc.

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teaching above sends shivers up and down my spine, they pierce the armor that covers one’s soul and come as a welcome reminder of who we are as human beings. We can live in “a crossing point of God and man”, we are capable of hearing the rage in the prophets words as a rebuke, as a call to return to God and Godly ways. We can end the terrorism that we participate in and we can find refuge from the terrorism that is being perpetrated upon us. We can give voice to “the silent agony” and deal it rather than hide from it. We can be “stunned” into leaving our “fierce greed” and rejoice in what we have-God’s love, God’s belief in us, the care and concern of the prophets and our humanity, our dignity. The prophet came to us and “God is raging in the prophet’s words” not to terrorize us, rather to call us back. The prophets’ continually remind us that God wants our return, God accepts us back with love, God is willing to “heal our backsliding”, God knows our imperfections well and accepts us with them. The issue is our willingness to acknowledge our imperfections, our letting go of our “fierce greed”, our helping “the plundered poor”, no longer using “the profound riches of the world” for our selfish desires. Unfortunately, the way of the prophets, the “crossing point of God and man” is a “road less travelled” and we need to use the guidance of the prophets, of Rabbi Heschel, of Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Rev. King, Martin Buber, the Baal Shem Tov, the Bible itself to find it, of Rev. Barber, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, John Pavlovitz, Rev Cecil Murray, and all of their disciples to walk it and to be supported on this journey. The questions before us each and every day-which fork in the road are we going to take, what choices will we make at this “crossing point”?

Just as Jacob had a “dark night of the soul” as coined by St. John of the Cross, so too do each of us have at least one during our lifetime. It is a moment of surrender to the divine voice and a new awareness of purpose and passion. I had this for the first time in 1986 and have had many of these “nights” since then. Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom helps me navigate these blissful moments that allow me to live into the trembling awe of being human. I have failed to use the words of the prophets at times in these past 37+years and I have heeded them more often than not. I am unafraid to show my imperfections, I am willing to ‘be wrong’, I make my amends and I hear the prophets words pulsating within me. I have been accused of raging at times and some of these accusations are correct; what was unnoticed is that I did not rage for myself, rather I raged for people who were unable to hear the call of God, unwilling to face their own “dark night of the soul” and too terrified to let go of their acts of terrorism. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 107

“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden on his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man, no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profound riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man.” (Essential Writings pg. 62)

Rabbi Heschel published The Prophets in 1962 and the words above are as relevant today as they were 62 years ago, maybe even more relevant. “The voice of God” is calling out to all of us today regarding “the silent agony” we all experience. “The plundered poor” strain to hear “a voice” and the prophets’ words are ringing out throughout the world and we still fail to heed their words, hear “the voice” and ignore the call of God to us. It is infuriating, it is sad, it is criminal and it is devastating. Our inability to hear, heed, and act on “prophecy” our unwillingness to live into Rabbi Heschel’s teachings calling to us to change, to sharpen our hearing, to take different actions is a sign of our decay as a society.

We, human beings, seem to be incapable of realizing that each time we engage in plundering the poor, stealing from them their dignity, their work efforts, turning them into property rather than seeing their humanity, their worth, their divine image, we put ourselves deeper into “silent agony”, we demean our selves, tarnish our souls and imprison our humanity over and over again. Watching the movie, “Zone of Interest” about the Nazi commander of Aushwitz and his life outside the camp, the ‘normalcy’ his family experienced while smoke came out of the ovens, bullets were being fired, people were crying out just over the wall of their ‘home’ brings home to me the lunacy of hiding from and ignoring the words of the prophets, “the voice God has lent to the silent agony” of the human soul. It is infuriating and one can only imagine the experience of Rabbi Heschel, the prophets, Rev. King, Jesus, Moses, and all of the other prophetic voices throughout the millennia knowing and speaking the words of the prophets, teaching us all how to live these words, attempting to heal “the silent agony”, caring for “the plundered poor” and trying to minister to those who held/hold “the profound riches of the world”.

Throughout time immemorial there have been people, seemingly ‘good’ people, seemingly ‘religious’ people who have added to “the silent agony” rather than alleviated it through their bastardization of the prophetic tradition. While a Mike Johnson and his ilk may quote Isaiah to prove that Jesus was the messiah, they all fail to aid “the plundered poor”, in fact, they increase “the silent agony” of the “plundered poor” by continuing to ravage them, continuing to violently (physically and spiritually) abuse them, seek to ignore their humanity and turn them into chattel for their own use. Every time we think of, call, treat another human being as “vermin”, every time we engage in actions which will “purify the blood of our country”, separate ourselves from another group, see anyone who is different from us as “the other”, we are failing to heed “the voice God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor”. Yet, so many of the “spiritual leaders” of our time and throughout time have led the charge against God, against the words and meanings of prophecy. We are in desperate need of a renewal of studying, hearing, and acting on the words of the prophets, the call of God, and introspection into ourselves.

We have fallen into the same ways of being as Ancient Israel and Ancient Judea did. We are so enamored with “the profound riches of the world” and seek to “get our share” that we deny these riches to another(s) because of the color of their skin, the faith and/or non-faith they practice, because they ‘are not like us’. When Davos is hailed, when human rights is called for one people and ignored towards another, when terrorism is hailed as freedom fighting, when “from the river to the sea” calls for extermination of a group of people based on there religion, ethnicity, when Elon Musk is celebrated because he is rich and he spews hatred that people take as gospel truth, when women are denied the right to choose what happens to their bodies, when they are left to die rather than receive life-saving abortions, when the fetus is more important than the mother, when the borders are so porous as there is no control over who enters and so rigid as to deny any one of a ‘certain’ color entry, we are increasing “the silent agony” of another(s) and re-enforcing the agony of our own souls. We have the opportunity to “share the wealth”, to end our plundering of the poor, stop stealing the intellectual property of another(s), get a “new pair of glasses” so we can see the divinity in each and every person, live into the words of the prophets so we can heal our souls, help another human being to live better and repair the world.

In recovery, we hear “the silent agony” of another human being and we give voice to our own agony. We take action to help “the plundered poor” and we ned our need to ‘have it all’. We are students of spiritual growth and health, we are active participants in being of service, we pray: “My creator, I am now willing you should have all of me, good and bad which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows…”

I grew up in a family that helped “the plundered poor”, even in my alcoholism I found ways to help at times. In my recovery, I have railed against selfishness, pettiness, etc. I have given voice to “the silent agony” people in recovery experience and, to the best of my ability in the moment, I have lived into Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and the ways of the prophets. I continue to give voice to my “silent agony” and I use the richness of life to help another live well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 106

“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden on his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man, no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profound riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man.” (Essential Writings pg. 62)

In the third sentence above, Rabbi Heschel is using three words, “frightful”, “agony” and “terror” to convey the state of fear he witness’ human beings live in. It is also what most people run away from through a myriad of ways. We humans have developed a tremendous fear of facing the agony of being human, the terror of death, of life, and our fear is palpable, yet we continue to mire ourselves in thoughts and actions that belie this truth. Delving into Rabbi Heschel’s teaching can help us face what is and find the respites we need and the ways to deal with our situation through spiritual values and actions, rather than hide from them through seeking money, power, prestige, mendacity and self-deception.

One of the ways some people deal with Rabbi Heschel’s statements of truth is to cause fear, agony and terror to another human being, another group of human beings so they can feel superior and protected. We see this in our politics where what is good for the country, what is right for our allies, have no particular sway when our elected officials are more interested in their ‘special interest’ groups and in their own re-election. Public service is seen as foolish when you can make so much more in the private sector and you will be ‘insulated’ against the “agony” and the “terror” of living as a human being. Rather than secure our borders, rather than help our allies, rather than seek a solution to the terrorism of Iran and Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, rather than stand up to Putin and Erdogan, these political animals go along with the strongman Trump, cater to and celebrate Hamas’ terrorism, feed the anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, and racism that has been a part of this country since the beginning! These power grabs, these seemingly altruistic ends belie the fear and the terror that people of the lie experience.

The prophets railed against these behaviors not just because of the injustice of them, I realize from immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom. I believe they also were calling to the people to stop going along with the politics of the day, face their own fears and engage with the spiritual energy of the Universe, the gift of connection with God, the Ineffable One, a power greater than oneself. Donald Trump and the rest of the authoritarians are not the issue of our time, the issue is our unwillingness to deal with “frightful is the agony of man, no human voice can convey its full terror”. The prophets, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Eastern philosophies give us paths to dealing with our fears, using them to motivate us to see a path through our fears, yet like addicts and alcoholics, most people just want to escape from the agony and the terror of being human.

I believe the greatest terror and what causes most people the most agony is, at least, two-fold: uncertainty and death. Judaism gives us God as abstract, God is everywhere or nowhere, God is everything or nothing, there is nowhere where God doesn’t dwell. We are told to make ourselves holy so God can dwell among us, we are created in the image of God, etc. This leads many to question God’s existence, to blame God for the ills of the world. Rather than face our responsibility to make our corner of the world a little better than we found it, we seek to hide from the call to do this, we shirk our responsibilities in the name of faith, in the name of ‘conservative’, in the name of ‘progressive’ in the name of anything we can deceive ourselves into believing. It is time for us to face some of the truths of being human: we will all die, there is no certainty except that we will all die, what we do with our lives can be driven by the fear and terror at our backs to propel us to goodness or in our faces which serves to make hiding and deception the best choice. It is time for us, as a friend of mine once told me, to put the fear, the agony, the terror of our uncertainty and eventual death at our backs and use the energy to find solutions for what ails us as individuals, families, communities and the world. It is time for us to heed the words of the prophets and Rabbi Heschel to experience all human beings as divine reminders, not as punching bags or doormats.

Recovery is a pathway to facing our fears and reconnecting with our spiritual values and spiritual lives. We are constantly seeking to “grow along spiritual lines” and no longer hide in the bottle, the drug, the casino, the food, the power, the job, the sex, etc. We come face to face with our fears and, in doing so, we come face to face with the divine, we come face to face with our own goodness of being and engage in living the content of our character out loud and are constantly refining it each day. We know we will die, we live with the uncertainty of life with faith that whatever is happening, good or bad; “this too shall pass”.

I am aware of the “frightful” “agony” and “terror” that my voice cannot fully convey. I am also aware of using my voice to help hear my terror and acknowledge the agony and fear of people who have sought my assistance in dealing with their own uncertainty and fear of death. I loudly proclaim the terror and a myriad of solutions for dealing with this “frightful” “agony”. It is through spirit, through connection, through living in the both/and of faith and fear, surety of spirit and uncertainty of life, the joy of living well and the uncertainty of when I will die that gives me hope, motivation to continue and wonder at what is. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 105

“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden on his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man, no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profound riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man.” (Essential Writings pg. 62)

Juxtaposing Rabbi Heschel’s words above with the mendacity of ‘religious’ people today, all of whom claim to be ‘speaking in God’s name’ and spreading hatred and lies about those they consider “the other”, is maddening! As I think about Rabbi Heschel’s words in the first two sentences above, I am in more awe of his courage and strength to stand up to the falseness of hatred and bigotry, the jockeying of ‘religious’ people to prove their way is the only way, and the greed of people to steal from one another their identities, their thoughts, their money, their dignity. Rabbi Heschel gives us a legacy of action and ways of being to meet the lies and deceptions we face today.

While there are very few prophets today, unfortunately, we have the blessings of being able to learn from the prophets of Israel, from people like Rabbi Heschel, Rev King, Einstein, the Baal Shem Tov, Thomas Merton, St. Francis of Assisi, etc. We can hear in their words ways to overcome our own “fierce greed”, we can learn from their ways of being how to accept and deal with the “burden on his soul” that God and the prophets have “thrust” upon us. I hear the call of Rabbi Heschel to all of us to stand up for what is true and right, to let go of “fierce greed” that we believe will protect us, to “feel fiercely” the plight of every human being, rich and poor, exalted and bowed, free and not free. Yet, for all of the talk of humanism, of religious zeal, many of us watch in horror at the bastardization of the words and deeds of the prophets, of the Bible, wringing our hands instead of taking action.

When people call the horrific actions of Oct. 7, 2023, anything but terrorism and an act of war, when people decry Israel’s right and need to defend itself against the desires for its extermination, when the world, once again, believes Jews deserve to die, all in the name of Islam and freedom-we are witnessing “man’s fierce greed”! When Hamas is exalted for taking innocent hostages, when Hamas is pitied for the response they wanted, when Hamas is extolled for turning down Cease-Fire proposals, many of us watch in horror at the inhumane reactions to the plight of the hostages, the plight of the Israelis who were brutally murdered, at the mendacity and deception of Iran, Hamas, the Arab world and the progressive-far right coalition of anti-semitism. How can these people not hear the voice and call of the prophets?

Not everything Israel does is perfect or right! Immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words, I can safely say that Bibi and his ‘religious right’ coalition are not being “bowed and stunned” at their own “fierce greed”! They have much to be accountable for in this situation, they will have to answer to the people of Israel and to Jews around the globe. They too have been so involved in their ‘rightness’ they have not hear the call of the prophets, they have refused to accept the “burden” God has “thrust” upon them and upon all of us.

While Rabbi Heschel is speaking of the prophets in the teaching above, I also hear him reminding us that we have the benefit and responsibility of learning from their words, their actions and doing things differently than both the kingdoms of Israel and Judea did 2500+ years ago. We, the descendants of the prophets, have to also be “bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed”, acknowledging and repenting that we participate, initiate and luxuriate in our own greediness. We, the descendants of the prophets, have to end our need for a ‘savior’ like people who are bestowing that claim upon Donald Trump, Bibi Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, etc. Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is reminding us that we have to save ourselves, it is upon us to let go of our “fierce greed”, of our need to be ‘saved’ by authoritarians, by idolatrous people trying to deceive us into believing they are religious and people of God. We, the descendants of the prophets, have to respond to being “bowed and stunned” with action, with the ferocity that the prophets displayed at the injustices perpetrated by those who were so greedy as to forget the call of God, the words of the Bible, their vision so blurred they could not see the divine image in every human being they faced. We, the descendants of the prophets, have to stand up for the poor, the stranger, the needy, the powerless, the voiceless, women and children, all people who are not in the ‘ruling class’ with the strength and conviction the prophets taught us to.

It is called Alcoholics Anonymous because people had to hide from the stigma and the shame of being known as an alcoholic. We met in private places so as to not call attention to ourselves and to hide from the outside world. While the prophets called for the people to repent out loud and publicly, we alcoholics did this in private for fear of the repercussions of ‘those people’ who would use our alcoholism against us. Rather than support our recovery, we knew our recovery could and would be used against us. While there is still some stigma attached to recovery, it is more accepted and applauded, people in recovery are no longer held back by their past and, in some cases, elevated because of their psychic change because of their recovery.

I am grateful that I have been able to hear the call of the prophets, the call of Rabbi Heschel et al over these years of recovery. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 104

“The Bible does not deal with divinity but with humanity. Addressing human beings about human affairs, whose language who’d be employed if not man’s? And yet, it is as if God took these Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power and the words became a live wire charged with His spirit. To this very day they are hyphens between heaven and earth.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

The last sentence above is one of the best descriptions of how the words of the Bible can affect humanity as well as the effect of the words of the Bible on all of us. “Hyphens” comes from the Latin meaning “under one”and is used in grammar “to join words that have a combined meaning or that they are linked”. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that the Bible links humanity to God and God to humanity.

When we engage in and immerse ourselves in the words and thoughts of the Bible, we are linking ourselves to something greater than ourselves as well as linking ourselves to all human beings. This, I believe, is the goal, the power, the beauty and the call of the words of the Bible. We, human beings, are in desperate need of re-connecting ourselves to the “hyphens” so we can maintain, repair the connection “between heaven and earth.”

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching in the entire piece above calls us to account as well as gives us a path to filling the “hole in the soul” that human beings suffer from. We are all seeking connection, seeking an response to the uncertainty that is inherent in being human and Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above helps us address these needs. Every human being, I believe, at one time or another is aware of their impermanence and seeks to be seen, known, and feel important. When we experience the words of the Bible as God’s concern, love, and care for us, as God’s desire to help us be more human, to experience a connection “between heaven and earth”, we come to realize the esteem we are held in by a power greater than ourselves and the need God has for us, each of us. The four sentences above come to teach us, remind us, declare to us the power of the Bible to heal our spiritual maladies, to fill the void so many of us try to fill with power, mendacity, deceptions, self-deceptions, food, sex, alcohol, wealth, etc. The Bible helps us refine our character, let go of our image-seeking, know our true value, respect our own dignity and that of another(s).

The experience of the people who left Egypt, Israelites and other slaves, at the Red Sea was one of each person having their own experience of God, the experience at Sinai, where we received the Torah, was an individual experience as well. These two experiences along with Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above empower each of us to have our own connection with the words of the Bible and we each experience our own “live wire charged with His spirit” that we get to live into and share with humanity. The Bible is not to be used for power, for control, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel today, rather it is for us to connect to our higher self, to harmonize our opposing inclinations, to recognize and mature the unique gift and need that we are created for and with. We engage in the Bible not for validation of what we want to do, we engage with the Bible to grow our purpose and passion, our connection and our love for one another, for our self and for God.

The Bible is the marriage document, the spiritual covenant between humanity and God as well as the spiritual document that links one human being to another. When two people marry in the Jewish tradition, there is the marriage license issued by the State they live in and the Ketubah, the Jewish marriage document. What is created is a new entity, each partner is joined together with God so the marriage is actually a threesome; you, your partner, and God. Just as the words of the Bible are the “hyphens between heaven and earth” so too God is the “hyphens between heaven and earth” of a marriage ceremony. Isn’t it time for humanity to end its incessant need to bastardize the Bible and use it for its purpose of bringing us together individually, collectively, and with God? Isn’t it time for our spiritual leaders to actually attend to our spiritual well-being rather than try to get us to worship dogma? Isn’t it time for our Rabbis, Priests, Cantors, Imams, infuse worship with meaning and spirit, with passion and purpose, with truth and humility? Isn’t it time for all of us to re-connect to the “live wire charged with His spirit” that the Bible gives to us? Our world is falling apart, we have come to worship leaders who are authoritarians, religious leaders give cover to these idolators by saying “Jesus sent them”, “they are the ‘real’ Jews”, etc. giving cover to these people who only want to care for themselves and their gang of thugs, who want to disconnect the “live wire charged with His spirit” so we all follow along. WE, THE PEOPLE, have to shout NO from every town square, from every House of Worship, from every Pulpit, from every street corner and within every home. We, the People, have to end their bastardization of the Bible, we have to reconnect to the “live wire”, we have to reconnect to the “hyphens between heaven and earth” so we can save our souls and the soul of humanity.

This is the call of recovery. Just as the Bible helps us recover our connections to a power greater than ourselves, our connections to all human beings, so too does the recovery movement. In recovery, we see the similarities of every human being one to another, we seek to respect one another, to work together to re-sew the fabric of our character, to recognize the goodness of being within us and within everyone else. In recovery, I found my faith, my life, I found love and became able to receive love, I found my humanity and the humanity of all people. I, like so many others in recovery, am part of the “hyphens between heaven and earth” when I live the words of the Bible as God shows me to do. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 103

“The Bible does not deal with divinity but with humanity. Addressing human beings about human affairs, whose language who’d be employed if not man’s? And yet, it is as if God took these Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power and the words became a live wire charged with His spirit. To this very day they are hyphens between heaven and earth.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

Rabbi Heschel is teaching and reminding us of the Bible’s power to speak in our language and infuse us and the words of the Bible with “His power”. Just as God breathes the “spirit of life” into humans at birth, so too does the Bible breathe the “spirit of God” into the words of the Bible, setting them apart from our everyday language and giving to us the opportunity to raise up our discourse and our actions, as I experience Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom this morning. Since the Bible is dealing with humanity, speaking to us”about human affairs”, Rabbi Heschel’s third sentence above reminds us of God’s concern, God’s care, God’s love for humanity, breathing into the words of the Bible the force, spirit, power of God so we can raise our standard of living to the level of truly being human.

A “live wire” in physics is “the wire that is active for carrying current in the circuit”. Rabbi Heschel is calling upon us to be connected to this “live wire”, to allow the current of “His spirit” to run through the words of the Bible into us. We are the circuits of the world, we are the energy that controls and conducts the affairs of the world and of humanity, therefore needing a source of current and, as I hear Rabbi Heschel today, the source is the Bible that is infused with “His power” and “His spirit”. While much is made of the question: “who wrote the Bible”, Rabbi Heschel is telling us this question may be interesting yet what is more important is to connect to the current of God’s power and spirit that runs throughout the Bible.

This teaching also demands that we seek the truth of the Bible, that we end our incessant need to twist the Bible into a pretzel to validate our selfishness, our callousness, our violence, our prejudice, our need for power over another(s), our need to be right, etc. It also calls out to me to remember that all of us are created in the image of God and we are all unique so hearing the different ways the Bible speaks to each of us when we are infused with the “current in the circuit” that is God’s spirit and power is also necessary so we can get a more informed picture of the Bible’s teachings, of God’s calling, of the job only we can fulfill to make the ‘dream’ of the Bible a reality-“nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall men learn war anymore”.

At issue is whether we are going to turn the switch that allows the “live wire” to reach us or whether we are going to leave it in the off position. While we hear often of ‘what the Bible says’, many of these ‘experts’ are keeping the switch that allows the “live wire charged with His spirit” in the off position and are really speaking from their desire to have power, to rule over us, to be god themselves! Every fundamentalist, in my opinion, has the switch turned off, they are unable to open themselves up to the humanity of another who is different then they, they are unwilling to entertain any interpretation that is different from theirs, and they are so enamored with their ‘rightness’ and their deceptive belief that they alone know they become the very Pharaohs, the Amaleks, that the Bible cautions us against. The Bible calls for all of us to read and hear the words of the Torah, even the Kings have to have the Bible close at hand. The prophets were not killed, according to the Bible, even though they spoke truth to power, they called out the Priests, the wealthy, the royalty-even before Jesus did.

Rabbi Heschel’s writings and teachings are a consistent example of keep the switch in the on position. His words are filled with the “His spirit” and he is telling all of us of our ability to do the same. We can, and we need to, allow the current of “His power” and His spirit” to infuse not just our reading of the Bible, the teachings of the Bible, but also allow “His power” and “His spirit” to infuse our daily actions. Experiencing the Bible as the container of the current of God’s spirit, experiencing the Bible as being the arbiter of human affairs, living into the humanity of the Bible through God’s spirit raises our standard of living to the level of truly being human, of being worthy to be God’s partner, of living together in harmony, respect and non-judgmentally. God returns our soul to us each morning with compassion and faithfulness, according to the prayer Jews are to recite prior to getting out of bed, and keeping the switch that controls the “live wire” current in the on position is our best response to God’s compassion and faithfulness.

Having the ability to turn the switch back to the on position is what recovery does for us. We recover the power, the vision, the ability to find that we were in despair of never finding again, then relearn how to turn it on and how to keep it on. This happens as soon as we surrender our selfishness, our despair, our grandiosity, our belief that ‘we can do it differently’, and we become teachable again, we turn the switch back to the on position so we can be, once again, infused with the spirit of God, the power of God and be human once again.

I am blessed through the studies and actions that have shaped my recovery and to have teachers and guides like Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Feinstein, Rabbi Silverman as well as mentors like my brothers, sister, wife, daughter and parents and grandparents who, like their grandchildren and great-grandchildren keep the switch in the on position and have the “live wire” direct their actions and the kindness, their compassion and their faithfulness. This is the ‘secret sauce’ of my recovery. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 102

“The Bible does not deal with divinity but with humanity. Addressing human beings about human affairs, whose language who’d be employed if not man’s? And yet, it is as if God took thees Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power and the words became a life wire charged with His spirit. To this very day they are hypes between heaven and earth.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

Rabbi Heschel’s question in the second sentence above seems rhetorical, yet it is crucial to our being able to appreciate, apprehend and comprehend the power and the gift that the Bible is for all of humanity. Proverbs 22:6 tells us to “teach each child according to their understanding” so it is inconceivable that God would not speak to humans in ways and words we can understand. The truth that the Bible speaks in the language of humans is, I believe, further proof of its show of love for humans by God. Rather than speak above or down to us, the Bible speaks to us in ways we can understand and in the language we know.

“Addressing human beings about human affairs”, while the foundational principle of the Bible, seems to get lost in many commentaries, in many sermons, in the reading and studying of the Bible by many people. The Bible is a dynamic document, it is a roadmap to better living and a guide for all of us to live together will our similarities and differences. Most of all, it is God’s dream and will for us to appreciate, care for one another and work together to improve our world, leaving it a better place for the next generation than we inherited. It is not a weapon to be used to control, to bludgeon another person into submission of our will, it is not for one people to lord it over another, it is not about conversion. The Bible is for us to address our humanity, constantly seeking to be human in all of our affairs. It gives us principles, values, ‘laws’, to live by. It also gives us choice.

A friend of ours, Miss Kim, said to us the other day: “I don’t read the Bible, I live the Bible”. This is the essence of what God is seeking, I believe. The Bible is for us to live into rather than take apart with our critical thinking, with our desire to know ‘who wrote it’. It is here to help us address family issues, ways of legislating that gives dignity and worth to every human soul. It gives us the opportunity and ability to ‘get over ourselves’ and seek to serve something greater than our egotistical needs. The Bible addresses us in a language we can understand so we can live better and more in line with the divine energy that is inside of each of us, all of us. The Bible tells us how to fulfill Rodney King’s question: “Can’t we all just get along?” It reminds us that police officers and judges are here to improve our living, not take out their prejudices on the people they don’t like. The Bible implores us to adjudicate equal justice, no matter whether someone is rich or poor, whether we recognize them or not, it tells us to pursue justice with all of our being and energy.

The Bible tells us what happens when we corrupt our society, bastardize the principles and values it gives us; authoritarians come to power! Many people believe God is pernicious and vengeful in some passages in the Bible not realizing the Bible is merely speaking to us about our propensity to “scout after our heart and our eyes to whore ourselves after them”(Numbers 15:39). The Bible is addressing us for our own benefit, giving us prophecy, a glimpse into what happens when we run, drift away from the paths it gives us to address our humanity, to grow our humanity. It is not vengeful, it is not violent, it is not mean; it is a gift to us to show us our choices and what each choice brings.

The Bible uses stories, life experiences to address us in the ways we can understand-whether these experiences happened to the people mentioned is for our archeological experts to determine. For the rest of us, these stories depict real life situations we constantly find ourselves in: family issues, wage and hour issues, boundary issues, slavery, hatred of someone different from us, rape, murder, unchecked power, idolatry, etc. The Bible is giving us a look inside of ourselves, our egos, our brains, our emotions and our souls. It is a roadmap back to our spiritual selves each time we stray and “whore ourselves” for glory, riches, fame, power, etc. It is our responsibility to add to the Bible our experiences and our paths of straying and following it in our time. As I said before, it is a dynamic document and we have to be interpreting it anew each day, we have to be using it in our interactions with another(s), in our interactions with our selves. It is to be our handbook for all our affairs, it is not so much a ‘religious’ text it is the path to living a “richer and more meaningful life”.

In recovery, we are constantly seeking to “practice these principles in all our affairs”. We know from the stories in the Big Book of AA that we cannot be in recovery in a vacuum, our recovery has to be lived in every facet of our being. We pray each morning for the power to carry out God’s will, to live a little more decent each and every day.

My grandfather, Abe Borovitz, was not a wealthy man, he was not a learned man, yet he lived the Bible’s way in all of his affairs. He didn’t cheat anyone, his word was his bond, he would not let gossip about another person be spoken in his presence, he treated each person, regardless of the color of their skin or their bank account, with respect and dignity. When we closed his dry cleaning/tailoring store up-he insisted we return the clothes he had in the store that belonged to other people whether they could pay or not! He said, I won’t take what isn’t mine nor will I ever commit thievery. It took me many years to follow his example and I am blessed to have witnessed his living the Bible. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day101

“The Bible does not deal with divinity but with humanity. Addressing human beings about human affairs, whose language who’d be employed if not man’s? And yet, it is as if God took thees Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power and the words became a life wire charged with His spirit. To this very day they are hypes between heaven and earth.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

Rabbi Heschel’s words and teaching are to be experienced, I believe. The experience of the first sentence above is one of humility and grace, trembling awe and joy, revelation and T’Shuvah. Many people read the Bible, or parts of it and reject the claims it makes upon us as religious folly. Experiencing Rabbi Heschel’s first sentence is what has made the Bible the foundation for our morality and our ways of living. Even those who claim God doesn’t exist, that the Bible is a book of folly and control, upon experiencing the words of Rabbi Heschel’s are hard-pressed to deny their wisdom and truth.

There are ‘religious’ people who claim because it is written in the Bible, we have to do all the commandments and, I believe they are missing the brilliance of Rabbi Heschel’s words. That the Bible deals “with humanity” gives all of us a doorway to a “richer and more meaningful life” because we are able to see our lives through the stories and wisdom of our ancestors/archetypes of the Bible. All of us can understand the error of hiding from our mistakes and being found out causing us to experience shame and then blame someone else, as Adam did. We all are aware of sibling rivalry and denial as the story of Cain delineates. It is not about Godly, angelic thinking or acting that Genesis is about, it is about how to get along as a family. It is about how to be a better father, mother, son, daughter, brother and sister. It is about our need to be accepted and respected for who we are and not attempt to deceive or hid in order to be loved. It is about how we deal with our jealousies and our feelings of being left out. It is how we deal with our loved ones and being in truth, telling the whole story of family life without needing to ‘hide our dirty laundry’. Throughout the Bible we are made aware of our ‘dirty laundry’ and how it impacts us and everyone around us! While God ‘speaks’ to us throughout the Torah, God is speaking to us for our benefit, giving us ways to better connect with our own soul, with the souls of another(s), and with the spiritual energy of the universe; not how to be angelic. Rather we are given pathways to being holy; separating ourselves from our negative desires in the moment, and recognizing that our mundane actions have sparks of holiness, elevation in them, if we are willing to perform them for more than our selfish desires.

Being immersed in the experience of the first sentence above helps us find our path to our humanity; find our pathway to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”; reach out to welcome the stranger, lift up the needy and feed the poor; to search within ourselves what we do well and where we miss the mark each day, week, month, and year. We find ourselves on the road to wholeness as well as holiness. We understand the flaws of the people of the Bible, we marvel at their goodness, we are in trembling awe of how the same errors are committed over and over throughout the Bible and then face ourselves in the mirror and ask the questions: “where do I make these errors” and “when I am living my own goodness out loud”. Using the Bible as the measuring stick of our humanity gives us the opportunity to experience the humility of being right-sized, of living our unique gift and promise out loud and in the world. We can let go of our envies and jealousies, we can end our incessant need for ‘how we look’ , we can stop worrying about how many ‘likes’ we have on social media, and we no longer have to compromise our morals, our values, our truth to ‘make it’ because living into the Bible’s teachings of how to be human is what ‘making it’ is all about.

In recovery, this is our goal, to be human, to live up to the best of our ability and be seen rather than sink to our lowest common denominator and hide. The Big Book of AA is an offshoot, a commentary on the Bible, AA is an outgrowth of the Oxford Group, the steps of AA are filled with calls to live into God’s will, the words of the Bible and how to be human and deal with our addictions and our erroneous belief we are supposed to be perfect. In recovery, we are recovering our dignity, our integrity, our humanity and we use a myriad of spiritual texts to achieve this, be it the Big Book, the myriad of Daily Meditations, the Bible, Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, the Talmud, the writings of the Buddha, the teachings of the Dalai Lama, etc. “We are not saints”, “we seek spiritual progress not spiritual perfections” are key phrases we live into in our recovery and they are paths for us to be a little more human each day.

Since my last incarceration from1986-1989, I have used the Bible as my guidebook, roadmap to being more human each day. The Bible gives me the path to my imperfection, to my changing, growing, nurturing my own spirit. It has given me the Good Orderly Direction for living well and I never take it for granted, nor do I use it as an excuse for my inappropriate actions. Studying the Bible with people ensures that I don’t bastardize the teachings, the roadways to being human that it gives me. I study Rabbi Heschel daily along with others, I pray each morning and day so I can continue to improve my goal of being human and being a little better , a little stronger, a little more loving human being each day. I have learned and continue to learn from the wisdom of the Bible and the archetypes of the Bible to continue to evaluate my actions in light of the today’s growth, sometimes this means I have to make T’Shuvah for past actions that I hadn’t realized were harmful! It always means I can give myself a break for what I did not know and what I could not see, respiring the damage and not shaming myself! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 100

“How is it conceivable that the divine should be contained in such brittle vessels as consonants and vowels? This question betrays the sin of our age: to treat lightly the ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit. What else is the capable of bringing man and man together over the distances in space and in time? Of all things on earth, words alone never die. They have so little matter and so much meaning.” (God in Search of Man pg. 244)

“Words alone never die” is proven by the fact that the Bible is still studied, argued about, used as a path, a guide and a source of accountability. We still recite, learn from and engage in the words of Cicero, Greek and Roman Mythology, Confucius, Sun-Tzu, as well as the words of Jesus, Mohammed, and Moses. The words of the prophets still disturb many of us and we seek to understand and live into the meaning and wisdom of their words. Words are direct and vague in the same moment. While we used to have a shared understanding of what words meant, what meaning they conveyed, even then we were taught the study of the Bible meant understanding anew each year the words being read because their meanings would deepen the more we grew spiritually. The same is true today regarding the Bible and, unfortunately, there are many people who read the Bible to validate unholy actions, to hide their ‘crimes and misdemeanors’ by quoting Scriptures. Many people have surrendered to these ‘religious’ people who are actually the most irreligious people around!

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching in the last two sentences above call to us to account for the ways we use the words of the Bible, the ways we use the words of the US Constitution, the ways we use the words of the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, the ways we use the words of the Koran, as well as the New Testament. I hear Rabbi Heschel reminding us that these words that are written be they from 3000 years ago or today, have tremendous meaning and we can never kill them! We may take them back, we may apologize for them, we may exalt them and we may promote them AND, they will never die, we can and must be judged by the words we say and believe, the meanings we put to our words and the use, abuse, misuse, etc we create with our words, the words of another and the words of history.

Banning books, teaching that slaves learned skills from their enslavement which helped them later in life, calling Jews vermin, perpetrators of genocide, extolling Hamas and the slaughter they committed on Oct. 7th, mistreating the stranger, the poor, the needy, women, non-white people and using the words of the Bible to validate these lies, these horrors will not be forgotten. Just as Lincoln was wrong about his words at Gettysburg, so too will these “brittle vessels” be remembered for time immemorial. We have to hold ourselves accountable for our words, we have to hold ourselves accountable for the actions our words produce both by us and by another(s). Words have power as well as meaning. The words of the Bible and every spiritual discipline are to help us lean into their ways of “bringing man and man together over distances in space and in time”. By engaging in the words of the Bible, the Koran, the New Testament, the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, the Big Book of AA, etc we are able to effect time travel and hurl ourselves through space to their times and use their wisdom and experiences to enhance our ways of living today. We are able to use the words of the prophets as measuring sticks of our own being human. Yet, we have to engage in their words, the words of our spiritual disciplines truthfully, without seeking for their words to validate what we want to do, what we are doing, rather it is for us to learn from the words of our ancestors and from our Spiritual Disciplines what actions we are to take, what ways of being we are to adopt and live into. Danny Siegel wrote: A Rebbi’s Proverb (From the Yiddish) “If you always assume the person sitting next to you is the Messiah waiting for some simple human kindness —You will soon come to weigh your words and watch your hands. And if the person chooses Not to be revealed In your time —It will not matter.” This is crucial for us and is, I believe, an affirmation of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above, “to weigh your words” so our actions are in line with the divine call of the Bible and of every spiritual discipline.

In recovery, we are still reading and understanding the words of the Big Book of AA. We study it over and over again, seeking new meanings and new ways of being, engaging with the text to glean the wisdom and the eternal from it. We are constantly seeking the wisdom and guidance of the words of the people who began AA as well as from the stories of people who have been impacted by being in recovery. We come to practice “restraint of pen and tongue” and, as Harriet Rossetto(my wife and founder of Beit T’Shuvah) says: “a good relationship is measured by how many bite marks one has on their tongue”!

I am guilty of misusing words at times. I have allowed my passion to get the better of me and it has turned into what seems like anger. While it is really frustration, fear, it has come out as anger and I pray these are not the only words of mine that are remembered. I am deeply remorseful for the negative impact my words of anger have had on anyone and everyone. I pray the words of wisdom, the words of Torah that I have taught, spoken and live are remembered and used, and from Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom today-I know they will never die and this brings me comfort and respite. The words of Rabbi Heschel, that I am keeping alive and well within me, and hopefully, for you are words of hope and belief in the goodness of humanity, the power of the human spirit and our ability to grow and change. I am grateful for Rabbi Heschel’s faith in us, for God’s faith in us, for the people who uplift me and support me because their words of direction give me a path of return and a path of freedom. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 99

“How is it conceivable that the divine should be contained in such brittle vessels as consonants and vowels? This question betrays the sin of our age: to treat lightly the ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit. What else is the capable of bringing man and man together over the distances in space and in time? Of all things on earth, words alone never die. They have so little matter and so much meaning.” (God in Search of Man pg. 244)

Dwelling in Rabbi Heschel’s words above disturbs me greatly!! His description of “brittle vessels of consonants and vowels” is so in our faces, in our consciousness, through social media, the Cable News, Podcasts, etc as well as in the speeches and writings of people. The Bible is the foundation for democracy as well as theocracy, it is the home of peace and war, kindness and cruelty, justice, mercy and injustice.  All of the disparate and the myriad of emotions, rationalizations and wonder/awe/radical amazement that human beings encounter, discover, and experience are found in the Bible. Ergo: all of them have the ability to enhance our spirit, mature our souls and retrain our brains. Almost every experience we are able to put “consonants and vowels” to and learn from each experience and the ones that overwhelm us, that have no other words for than OMG, we also learn and grow from. The challenge that I hear from Rabbi Heschel this morning is to honor the “brittle vessels” rather than crack them open by misusing the “consonants and vowels” to promote a personal agenda rather than a holy agenda. Hence, my being disturbed by Rabbi Heschel’s teaching: Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Joy Reid, Fox News(?), Mike Johnson, Rashida Tliab, AOC, DJT, Clarence Thomas, Ginny Thomas, the rest of the ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’, Bibi and his gang of ‘religious’ thugs et al all are using “consonants and vowels” to lie, cheat, deceive, steal, and “treat lightly the ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit.”

We are being bombarded with mendacity and deception by people using the “consonants and vowels” of the Bible for their own sake. We are in a war for the soul of the Bible as well as the soul of democracy, we are in a war for the soul of humanity as well as the soul of freedom. While we all have the free-will to buy into the lies of another and the lies we tell ourselves, we also have the free-will to be in truth with ourselves and one another. We have, as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning, the free-will obligation to recapture the the “ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit”. Rabbi Abraham Twerski teaches us that what makes us human is our ability to make “free-will moral choices” and we find what is moral and what is immoral in the Bible; ergo: when these “brittle vessels” are violated, cracked, broken, it is easy for the liars and deceivers, charlatans and idolators, to convince people that what is immoral is moral, and what is moral is immoral-this is the soul sickness that Maimonidies speaks about in his writings called “Eight Chapters”.

Ether is not just a knock-out drug used in surgeries, it is also “the upper regions of air above the clouds” and “to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light”. Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us to end our incessant need to ‘see’ everything, our outlandish denial of the world of the spirit and the world we are unable to see with our narrow vision. Just as narrow-minded and narrow-visioned people once believed the earth was flat, just as people believed everything revolved around the earth, the idea that their is no medium for “light-waves of the spirit” is ridiculous also. I am thinking of love for which is transmitted through these same “light-waves” because love is a spiritual experience even though many people fake love for their own purpose. Authoritarians/Populists do this all the time, men have done this just to take a woman to bed to satisfy their selfish desires, women have done this faking so they can be protected, taken care of, etc as well. We have ‘religious’ people who claim God wants us to suffer so we can be pure, which is another bastardization of God’s love and God’s desires according the “brittle vessels” which contain the “consonants and vowels” of the Bible. When we “treat the ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit” with the respect and awe it calls for, when we allow these “light-waves of the spirit” to penetrate us, to change us, to redeem us, life changes and we become less self-deceptive and believe the lies and deceptions of another much less as well.

In recovery, we become aware of the “brittle vessels” that words are, we chose our words wiser than we had before our recovery. We are able to understand that our “illness” of the mind, body, spirit is not one that medicine can fix, cure and/or even alleviate completely. We know as Father Martin says that we suffer from a Soul-Sickness and only through engaging with and allowing in the “light-waves of the spirit”, only by connecting with the “ether which carries” these light waves can we find a reprieve, and it is only a daily one. The work of the spirit never ends, the careful caring for the “brittle vessels” of “consonants and vowels” that are contained in the Bible, in our spiritual texts of all spiritual disciplines need our heeding them as well as guarding against bastardizing them, against breaking the spirit and call of the divine they contain.

As always, I hear Rabbi Heschel reproving me and uplifting me. I have, at times, misused the “brittle vessels” with an individual and a group and I am sorry for this. I also am uplifted by the numerous times I have helped another human being let go of the lies they told themselves and felt/feel a little freer each day. I have experienced and continue to experience the “light-waves of the spirit” and become more and more connected to more people and to God, to justice and to mercy, to truth and to love, to kindness and compassion. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 98

“We all live in them, feel in them, think in them, but, failing to uphold their independent dignity, to respect their power and weight, they turn waif, elusive-a mouthful of dust(God’s Quest for Man pg.25). When placed before the Bible, the words of which are like dwellings made of rock, we do not know how to find the door.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

Continuing to learn from Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom about “holiness in words” that is the Bible, we get to look inside of ourselves and at our outer actions in order to judge ourselves, our world. The first sentence above is like a knife “circumcising the foreskin of our hearts” as Moses tells us in Deuteronomy. Rabbi Heschel is calling us all out, demanding we be accountable for our use of the words of the Bible. He is, like the prophets of Israel, railing against our misuse of Biblical words, beseeching us to end our abuse of the words of the Bible, offering us a path of return of using them to live by rather than living by the abhorrent ways we are want to bastardize them.

Rabbi Heschel is acknowledging our ability to use the words of the Bible to live, feel and think AND he is putting a mirror up to us all so we can see how we have failed to “uphold their independent dignity”. The words of the Bible are holy and they give us the path to living life at a higher level than our lowest common denominator. Rabbi Heschel is giving us the opportunity to re-tune our hearing, to get the correct pitch and melody of the words of the Bible so we can, once again, sing and live in harmony, in creativity for the sake of heaven and one another, and “make our lives a blessing”.

By failing “to respect their power and weight” we have live in selfish, self-centered ways; our ‘good acts’ are for our sake, not the sake of heaven, not for the sake of another. Our clergy who preach so wonderfully and eloquently are also guilty, rather than speak the words of the Bible with a fervor and passion for truth, for decency, for caring about tone another, we hear the political views, the lack of “independent dignity” and “respect for their power” as messages from God. We are being inundated with the words of the Bible spoken through false lips, we are being preached at by false witness’ and they have become so compelling, we hear these words used to validate authoritarianism and autocrats! These words written in 1955 are so prescient with how our world is bastardizing the words of the Bible today-we seem to have taken Rabbi Heschel’s warning and turned it into a way to power rather than a way to compassion, to holiness.

One could wonder and ponder how and why this has happened, one could debate the ‘rightness’ of today’s misuse, abuse, bastardization of the words of the Bible, and I choose not to. Suffice it to say, this has happened today as it has happened in every era-people looking for power, seeking to deceive and to be deceived. I am more interested in how we stop our efforts to “turn them waif, elusive-a mouthful of dust.”  This can only happen when we end our neglect of the Bible, when we stop making the words, the thoughts, the ideas, the ideals, the paths of the Bible orphans. When we end our incessant need to neglect, when we stop willfully making them difficult to achieve, we can regain the power, dignity, weight, and respect the words of the Bible deserve and, in the process, begin to repair our selves, repair our neighborhoods, repair our countries and our world.

We can change our trajectory, we can turn towards the “holiness in words” that the Bible both is and gives us, we can unclog our ears, “circumcise our the foreskins of our hearts”, allow our spirits to veto the ways in which we seek our desires over what is the next right action to take. We have the power to do this and it begins by being accountable to ourselves, to one another and to no longer seek to defend our bad actions by using the Bible to validate our flawed behaviors. We have to begin by demanding of our clergy to preach truth, to learn with their flock and let go of their dogmas, their political leanings-on both sides of the continuum- and learn anew each day, each year from the words of the Bible. We need to demand of clergy and layperson alike that the prayers we utter matter! No longer are we going to allow ourselves, our neighbors, our enemies, our clergy to pray by rote, be insincere in our communicating with God, with ourselves. We are going to demand rigorous honesty and introspection. We are going to work together, clergy, layperson, friend and foe to “uphold their independent dignity, to respect their power and weight”  through study, action and love. This is what is needed by all of us; we, the people, have to demand this of our clergy as well as of ourselves if we are to avoid turning the words of the Bible into “a mouthful of dust”!

This is one of the principles of recovery-recovering “the independent dignity” of the words of the Bible, the words we use in our everyday discourse, respecting truth, seeing the dignity of every soul, and of our selves. Recovery is based in words that come from the Bible, as Rabbi Heschel points out above, we “turn our will and our lives over to the care of God…” each day as a sign of our respect for the “power and weight” of the words of the Bible. We are engaged in a daily struggle to enhance our living, raise up the lives of another, keep our side of the street a little cleaner and be a little kinder today than we were yesterday.

I ma guilty of what Rabbi Heschel is calling out above and I spend my waking hours infusing the “holiness in words” of the Bible into my life a little more each day. I am humbled to have been able to help many people achieve “recovery through Torah” and I apologize to those for whom my Torah was not accessible. God Bless and stay safe, pray for the return of the hostages, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons From Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 97

“The Bible is holiness in words. To the man of our age nothing is as familiar and trite as words. Of all things they are the cheapest, most abused and least esteemed. They are the objects of perpetual defilement.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

We, the people, are being called upon by Rabbi Heschel to end our “perpetual defilement” of the words of the Bible! We, as a society, are in desperate need of using the words of the Bible as a call to action rather than using them as “trite”. We are witnessing and participating in the “perpetual defilement” when we use the words of the Bible as weapons of hatred, of serving our selfish desires, and to enslave people.

In Exodus, Moses asks Pharaoh: “Thus said the Lord, God of the Hebrews: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me.” The same question is being asked of all of us; how long will we refuse to humble ourselves before the “holiness in words” of the Bible? What is blocking us from ending our abuse of the words of the Bible? What is helping us follow the false prophets who are preaching hate using the words of the Bible to validate their ignorance, their power grab, their prejudices? How have we fallen so far down the rabbit hole that we adore the evil speech and bastardization of the words of the Bible?

In prayer we ask God to “guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking evil” three times a day; the acknowledgment that we are susceptible to making the words of the Bible a “perpetual defilement” and an awareness that this is not the path to take. Later in this prayer we pray “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing before you, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Here we are reminding ourselves that “the Bible is holiness in words” and we have to raise ourselves up to the task of not treating it/them as “trite”, to end our abuse of the Bible, raise up the esteem of these words, and stop cheapening them for our own gains.

This is the challenge of God, this is the demand of the prophets, this is the call of Rabbi Heschel and this is the work of our inner life. Being human means to struggle with our urges, ask for help to overcome the evil within us, do the next right thing no matter how we feel and we are given the tools to do this when we engage in the “holiness in words of the Bible. We are given a path when we allow the words of the prayer above to be our aid in our inner battle. We take advantage of the power of God when we heed Moses’ call to “humble” ourselves before God.

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is a reminder as well as a demand that we have within us the power to defile and exalt, to abuse and to aid, to cheapen and to raise up, to make trite and to keep fresh the words of the Bible. Living into his reminder and demand means we have to reject the lies and the misuse of the words of the Bible being perpetrated by some ‘religious leaders’. We have to call out the charlatans who are using the Bible to spew hatred, to exalt the liars and the idolators. We have to say NO to the ‘religious right’ and call them out for who and what they are: deceivers who spread mendacity. We have to take the “holiness in words” of the Bible and use them to spread truth, kindness, love, compassion, welcoming, concern, care, etc. We have to stop allowing these self-centered zealots from determining what is religious, what is holy and return to the words of the Bible for holiness and truth. We have to take our proper places as people of faith, as holy souls, and not be pushed aside anymore by the idolators and deceivers. We have to end our own self-deception and lies that we are not worthy, that these ‘priests’ have more knowledge and they speak with authority.

We all are worthy and have the authority of our souls to live and speak the “holiness in words” of the Bible. We all have within us the ability to discern truth and to end our “perpetual defilement” of the Bible. We all are capable of and necessary for God’s will to be lived in the world more and to be the divine needs we are created to be so we can end the reign of “perpetual defilement” that has taken over our religious institutions and our world. We, the people, are facing the same situation that Ancient Israel and Judea faced; the priests, the wealthy, and the royalty gave lip-service to the words of the Bible rather than living them truthfully. They abused the words, they cheapened the words, they defiled the words of God and made the people they were supposedly serving into 2nd class citizens and into pawns for their evil designs. The prophets came to get us to change our ways and they are speaking to us loudly today-be they the prophets of the Bible, Rev. King, Rabbi Heschel, Rev. Barber, and the myriad of spiritual giants who’s writings are easily accessible. We have to choose to hear and heed them.

In recovery, we “made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God…”. This is the decision that Rabbi Heschel is calling us to make. In recovery, we read the Bible, the Big Book, every spiritual text with the goal of changing our inner life so we can make our outer actions holiness in deeds. We “continue to improve our conscious contact with God” so we can better understand God’s will and align our will with God’s instead of trying to make God’s words and will align with ours. We are recovering our basic goodness of being, we are recovering our holy souls, we are helping another and being of service to God and to humans. This is our goal, this is our path and this is our success. I live this way to a greater and lessor degree-yet always at least one grain of sand more each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons From Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 96

“The Bible is holiness in words. To the man of our age nothing is as familiar and trite as words. Of all things they are the cheapest, most abused and least esteemed. They are the objects of perpetual defilement.”(God in Search of Man pg. 244)

Today is Martin Luther King Day and we celebrate this good friend of Rabbi Heschel’s spirit, deeds and words. Rev. King’s belief in the dignity of all people is essential for us to adopt/re-adopt as it is perfect harmony with Rabbi Heschel’s beliefs and actions, I believe. While his words and actions are being used by both sides in the war in the Middle East, it is important to heed the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel above: let us no longer make the words we use, “trite”, we need to stop making the words of the Bible  “the cheapest, most abused, and least esteemed.”

Both Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel marched for, worked for and lived the words of the Bible to have true meaning, to envelop us all in acts of holiness, in ways of peace, in actions of kindness and dignity. While the world rails against Israel and Jews for defending itself from Hamas’ attacks and hostage taking, while some in Israel call for destroying Gaza and pushing the people of Gaza out of their land, while some on both sides call for the destruction of Jews and Arabs living side by side, the words above and the actions of Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel demand we, the people, do the opposite.

It is high time for the leadership of America in the House of Representatives and the Senate, in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, for the leadership in Israel, in Russia, in the Arab world and in Ukraine to heed Rabbi Heschel’s words and the words of Rev. King. It is time for all of us to stop using words for our own agendas and use the worlds of the Bible for their original intent: to raise us all up to live into the the holiness in words that the Bible provides for us. Be it Bibi or Mike Johnson, MBS or Putin, Tliab or Haley, all of us have to end our “eye disease” of prejudice to the ‘rightness’ of our opinions. We have to end our ‘need to be right’ and our denigration of anyone who disagrees with us. Our world, our freedom, our souls are in desperate need of hearing and acting on Rev. King’s “dream speech” and Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and wisdom.

Advertising executives, spin doctors in the political world, salespeople and common folk like us have taken the Bible and turned the “holiness in words” into ways of idolatry. Rabbi Heschel, in his introduction of Rev. King to the Rabbinical Assembly in March of 1968, reminds us “Where does God dwell in America today?….Is He not rather with the poor and the contrite in the slums?…Where in America do we hear a voice like the prophets of Israel? Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America.”(Essential Writings, pg.84). Yet, we still fail to heed Dr. King’s words; both sides in any conflict misuse and abuse his words, his spirit to ‘prover’ their claims, to ‘validate’ their lies, to make “trite” the words of another and their own. Rather than raise our words and actions to the level of Biblical thought and direction, as Dr. King did and encouraged all of us to do, today people use his words and dreams, his aspirations and his prophecy to denigrate one another, to defile the dignity of one another, to bastardize the “holiness in words” that the Bible is.

Be it in the halls of Congress, on the campaign trail, in our cities and streets, in the Ukraine, in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, in Riyadh, in Qatar, in Tehran, in Moscow, wherever, it is time for all of us to demand a return to living into the “holiness in words” of the Bible. It is time to end our “perpetual defilement” of the Bible’s words and teachings. It is time to hearken to the voice, the words, the calls of Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King to see every human being as a divine image, to respect the dignity and worth of every human soul, to end our need to enslave another for our sense of worth, to let go of our unholy desires to abuse another human being for our ‘betterment’. It is time for us to end our incessant need to conquer another group of people so they can ‘serve’ us, it is high time for us to stop using “The Bible is holiness in words” for our selfish desires, and use the Bible to serve God, to serve “the poor and the contrite in the slums”. It is time for us to, paraphrasing President Kennedy; ask not what God can do for you, ask not what the Bible can do for you, ask what can you do for God, what can you do to live the “holiness in words” the Bible gives us.

Living into the words of the Bible, no longer making them “trite” no longer making them “the cheapest, most abused and least esteemed” of all things is the goal and the path of recovery. Whether one lives the words of the Big Book of AA, the Biggest Book called the Bible, the words, wisdom, ways of Buddhism, etc all of us in recovery are letting go of our need to bastardize words, concepts, old ideas and cheapen our ways of living any more. We believe not only in the holiness in words”, we know we have to take these words, make them our own and live them in all of our affairs. We no longer blame another, we take responsibility for our part, we no longer reject people on sight, we welcome all who have “a desire to stop” being indecent, unapproachable, disdaining, hating, stereotyping, prejudice. Everyone needs to be in recovery, everyone needs to heed the calls and demands of Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob.

I have been a fan of Dr. King’s since 1955 when my father introduced me to prejudice and how to combat it-through kindness and recognizing the value and dignity of all people, of looking at the soul, the heart of another not their skin color. Dr. King’s dream is still unrealized here and all over the world. Yet, I work to bring it to reality one grain of sand more each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 95

“Its aim is not to record history but rather to record the encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living. Incomparably more important than all the beauty or wisdom that is bestowed upon our lives is the way it opens to man an understanding of what God means, of attaining holiness through justice, through simplicity of soul, through choice. Above all, it never ceases to proclaim that worship of God without justice to man is an abomination; that while man’s problem is God, God’s problem is man.” (God in Search of Man pls 243-244)

Today is Day 100 since Oct. 7, 2023 and there are still 136 Hostages being held by Hamas and their allies in Gaza. The world is doing nothing to bring them home, the world condemns Israel and celebrates Hamas, terrorism, and hostage taking. The world is holding a trial accusing Israel of genocide-a false claim-while giving a wink, a nod, and silent acquiesce to hostage taking and terrorism! These ‘good christian’, ‘devout muslim’, conservatives and their close allies on the progressive left have failed to hear, heed, read, act on Rabbi Heschel’s teaching: “above all, it never ceases to proclaim that worship of God without justice to man is an abomination;”. The ‘religious zealots’ in the Jewish faith are guilty of ignoring this truth, this wisdom as well. In fact, most people in the world are guilty of this “abomination”!

We have laws and rules, we have customs and rituals that have their roots in the Bible and we pay lip service to them rather than truly engage with them. We have lost our spiritual and moral compass’ while proclaiming our self-righteousness by blaming another person, another group, another nation of the things we too are guilty of. The 136 hostages still in captivity are a stain on the souls of every human being. The hostages being held in Russia are a stain on the souls of every human being. The people being enslaved in Afghanistan, Iran, China, the United States, and every other country because of their gender, their sexual identity, the color of their skin, etc are a stain on the souls of every human being. When will we say enough is enough?

We, the people, have to stand up for what is right and true. We, the people, have to tell Rashida Tliab, Ro Khanna, Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, their allies, our neighbors, family, friends, communities that being a Zionist is not a crime, that standing for justice and truth, compassion and freedom, is true in each and every instance in life. We, people of faith, have to call ourselves out, the people who claim to be ‘Bible-thumpers’, and those of ‘no faith’ when we claim to be “people of God”, when we claim to be “humanists”, and we either turn a blind eye to injustice and/or participate in actions that are unjust. Rabbi Heschel’s words and teaching above are demanding a calling to account for each and every one of us-not to make ourselves feel bad-rather to make ourselves aware of the injustices that we turn a blind eye to, the injustices we have deceived ourselves into believing are just, the unjust actions we take in willful blindness.

I use the term willful blindness because we are all aware of what is justice and what isn’t. The Bible teaches us “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof” “Justice/Righteousness, Justice/Righteousness you shall pursue”. We have the Bible to point us in the direction of justice, to tell us what is both just and unjust, so we all know right from wrong, we are all able to discern what is true and just from what is false and unjust. Therefore, every human being who participates in, who is a silent witness to, injustice is turning a blind eye to the teachings of the Bible, purposely and willfully closing their eyes to the plight of another human being in favor of their own gain, their own fear, and the detriment of their own soul. Yet, we are all witnessing this willful blindness this “abomination” on a daily basis, some of us are defending it by saying Israel is bad, Joe Biden is wrong and bad for responding to attacks by the Houthis, Hamas, the terrorists, are good and right in their hostage taking, rocket firing, etc. All this while praying to Allah, praying to Jesus, praying to Buddha? This is not to whitewash the claims of injustice against the Israeli government, rather, this is to hold these officials, these ‘spiritual leaders’ to account along with the other charlatans and idolators in every other country. AND, Hamas and their allies, like Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran, need to be held accountable for the senseless taking of human life they do themselves and they have caused the people of Gaza. Had Hamas returned the hostages, we may not have seen the devastation that has taken place, had Hamas not used people as human shields, we may not have seen the same number of casualties. Had the world not turned a blind eye to all of this, had the world not openly and totally accepted the words of terrorists and their allies in the UN, their allies of UN workers, we might have a real accounting of what is happening in Gaza.

In recovery, we recover what is just, we end the abominations we have caused and take responsibility for them, repairing the damage as best as we can, vowing to not repeat these injustices and be of service to all who suffer from the injustices of another human being/group. We dedicate ourselves to pursuing justice, we let go of our judgmental thoughts and “we seek to understand”. We engage in our personal inventories each and every day so we can continue to grow in righteousness, and we end our relationships with “abominations” and people who seek to be willfully blind, who seek to abuse the Bible, the Truth, in order to satisfy their own egos, their own selfishness, their own grab for power. This is the call and the response of living a life of recovering our humanity! Pray for the return of the Hostages NOW. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 94

“Its aim is not to record history but rather to record the encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living. Incomparably more important than all the beauty or wisdom that is bestowed upon our lives is the way it opens to man an understanding of what God means, of attaining holiness through justice, through simplicity of soul, through choice. Above all, it never ceases to proclaim that worship of God without justice to man is an abomination; that while man’s problem is God, God’s problem is man.” (God in Search of Man pls 243-244)

Rabbi Heschel’s call to us in the second sentence above is the same call as the prophets demanded of the Israelite people and the people of Judea. It is the same demand as the prophets demanded of the priests, the wealthy, the powerful and the royalty of both kingdoms. This wisdom needs to be applied in every generation and within every human being. We are all guilty of separating holiness from justice, at times; blocking the simple call of our souls with the noise of our inner life and our minds; making choices that our hearts and eyes desire rather than the ones that increase our holiness. These issues are at the heart of being human, the wrestling of within ourselves to attain a level of holiness in all of our affairs and we have the practice of T’Shuvah-a daily inventory of our actions- to determine the paths we have taken to rise up to the holiness we are capable of and the paths we have taken where we have failed to rise up either through ignorance, willful blindness, and/or choice.

The separations of justice and holiness, the blockage of the soul all of us engage in to a greater or lessor degree, as well as the choices we make from self-deception, self-seeking, from societal norms harm us and everyone around us in overt and covert ways. We are witness’ to the practice of some ‘religious’ figures who defend injustice as ‘God’s will’, as in Israel right now where some of the ‘ultra-religious’ are proclaiming that Oct. 7th is a punishment for not taking all of the land; as in the Arab world and the world at large, the imams, ‘radical muslims’, ‘good christians’  who defend Hamas’ brutal attack against civilians, the rape and murder of women, children, men of all ages, the taking of hostages and the refusal to return them as just and right! We have seen ‘religious leaders’ defend the injustice towards immigrants, legal and illegal, in this country, laud and celebrate the domination of women’s bodies and the belief that women and minorities are not ‘capable’ of good decision making so white men should be in charge. This separation of holiness and justice is so insidious that even men who belong to minorities in this country are willing to ‘kiss the ring’ of the MAGA crowd!

We seem to be so narcissistic and in love with our minds we are unable to relate to nor hear the simple calls of our souls. Our souls are the essence of who we are as humans, I believe. Our souls are formed from the Ruach Elohim(the spirit of God) that is breathed into us at birth. In Hebrew as in most languages the word for soul is associated with the word for breath. In Latin, the word is spiritus meaning breath, also anima which is described in the dictionary as the “irrational part of the soul as distinguished from the rational mind”. This last definition is the root of the problem most people have with hearing and following the “simplicity of soul”. Because we are so enamored with “the rational mind”, we live at a lower level of being! Einstein’s quote: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift” is exactly where we are at today as we have been throughout history. Because of the emphasis society places on the ‘rational’, because we want to have power over people, because we are afraid of those ‘dreamers’, those ‘descendants of the prophets’ who can cause a rebellion of spirit, a freeing of the soul from the prisons we have forced them into, society shuns the words of the prophets and their simple meaning. Instead they use these words for their own twisted ends, society has bastardized the Bible, the prophetic voices of old and of today, worked hard to silence the words, teachings and actions of Rabbi Heschel’s, Rev. King’s, Rev. Niebuhr’s, Rev. Barber’s etc voices and/or twisted their words, taken them out of context and abused them for their own selfish and unjust ends.

Rabbi Heschel’s phrase “simplicity of soul” describes, as I hear him in my being in this moment, a way of being that follows the “sacred gift” Einstein speaks of, the will of God in this moment as the universe is speaking to us, a higher logic that needs no proof other than we ‘know the truth in our bones’, we know the ‘next right action to take’ without knowing how or why, we follow the wisdom and ‘third’ eye of being human and connected. We crave the holiness that “simplicity of soul” enjoins upon us. We celebrate the Sabbath, in every religion, as the day to connect, to look back and look forward, to allow the past week to catch up with us, to ‘rest’ from creative work, enjoy the creations we have made, see where we have been and where we are going, and at the end of the Sabbath, we distinguish between the Holy Day and the mundane days. Mundane is not bad, in fact it is on the ‘mundane days’ that God created the world! And, as Rabbi Heschel is demanding of us, we get to “understand what God means” more each week.

This is the work and the foundation of recovery. We are constantly seeking to “know God’s will and the power to carry it out” each and every day. We do our inventory(tshuvah) each day and we grow one grain of sand more holy, our choices are based in justice, decency, and the wisdom of the prophets, Bible, Big Book, Buddhism, etc a little more each day. This is how we grow the simplicity of soul within us. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 93

“Its aim is not to record history but rather to record the encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living. Incomparably more important than all the beauty or wisdom that is bestowed upon our lives is the way it opens to man an understanding of what God means, of attaining holiness through justice, through simplicity of soul, through choice. Above all, it never ceases to proclaim that worship of God without justice to man is an abomination; that while man’s problem is God, God’s problem is man.” (God in Search of Man pls 243-244)

Rabbi Heschel’s is calling us to account, he is reminding us what the “encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living” has to create within a human being, within a society, and within our world. The phrase “the way it opens to man an understanding of what God means” is what we all seek yet ignore the pathway to this understanding, the Bible. In Jewish prayer we repeat daily, in the Bible we read and study daily, what God means: Returner of our Soul; Truth teller; Compassionate One; Lover; Friend; Teacher; Infinite One; Ineffable One; Wholeness; the One who brings our disparate parts together; the Shielder of woman and children; the Protector of the stranger, the poor and the needy; Loyalty; Covenantal Partner; and so much more!

And, we have come to witness “what God means” to be bastardized and politicized for the selfish needs, the grab for power, the response to the truth of impermanence and uncertainty by idolators; by false prophets, by charlatans and idiots! God doesn’t mean anti-abortion - there is no prohibition of it in the Bible and the fetus is not a human being until birth; God doesn’t mean ‘white power/white rule/white supremacy’- as Rabbi Heschel states elsewhere “God is either the Father of all people or of no people” there is no mention of race in the Bible except to describe the (2nd?) marriage of Moses to the Cushite woman-who many translators believe was dark-skinned/of African descent- and we are all created in “the Image of God” so our skin color cannot be that important and is more a result of the area of the world we lived in than a ‘race’ we belong to. The Bible speaks to all of us as one race: Human!

Delving into the Bible, there are so many pathways to understand “what God means” and they all seem to lead to Rabbi Heschel’s teaching “of attaining holiness through justice”. People have forever attempted to separate these two attributes and meanings of God; holiness and justice. “Stay out of government you religious people”, “separation of church and state”, “Sharia Law/Talmud Law,/Christian Law should rule the people” and other such bullshit are popular phrases that have ruined the spirits, the minds and the physical safety of so many people throughout the millennia and to today. While I don’t want to be ruled by the right -wing or the left-wing religious zealots and pretenders, I do understand how the Bible teaches us of God’s input into the political life of a nation, into the policies of kindness, caring, compassion, welcoming. One can see how God tells Pharaoh to “let My people go”, reminding us that we are all God’s people-not just the ones proclaiming to ‘know God’, not just the ones who are practicing rituals and, as Deuteronomy 29:18 comes to remind us:”I shall have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart”. There are so many people who use the Bible as a weapon, as a cudgel rather than as the way to attain “an understanding of what God means”!

At the end of each week, we have a ritual called Havdalah-distinction between the Holiness of the Sabbath day and the mundane of the 6 days of creation. While we distinguish between Kodesh(holiness) and Chol(days of creation), we are acknowledging we need both. We also are committing to bringing more justice into our world and in our everyday living as part of this ritual. As I am understanding Rabbi Heschel this morning, without justice there can be no holiness. This is an outrageous statement that, hopefully, smacks all people across the face, splashes cold water upon all of us to wake up and smell the roses, “rise and shine and give out your glory glory” and to listen anew to the anti-war songs of every generation, especially the Vietnam War era with ears that hear the holiness in the call for justice. Taking Rabbi Heschel seriously, being a student of his, immersing ourselves in the thoughts of the Bible, expressing the “encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living” through our actions means we have to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan; we have to care about justice for all-not just the rich and famous; we are obligated to seek out truth and call out mendacity and deception; we are obligated to respond to the call of the downtrodden, the miseries of people near and far; we need to stand for what is right according to the Bible- not the false prophecies and interpretations of the Christian, Muslim, Jewish Idolators who seem to have the loudest voices. Rabbi Heschel’s stand against prejudice is legendary and a road map for the rest of us. We need to end the separation of Justice and Holiness, we need to remarry science and spirit, we need to speak truth to the liars and to the ones in power.

Each and every day, I bring holiness into being through being just, sometimes more and somedays less-yet I know it is the only way to live Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, the teachings of the Bible and to continue to deepen my connection with the Ineffable One. While I live in the same uncertainty as everyone, knowing that my time here is an instant in the grand scheme of things, I also realize that having an encounter with the divine-makes my “concrete living” important. I matter and so do you! Everyone matters-so ‘why bother’, ‘fuck-it’ are no longer options-we have to because we can, because I am needed and so are you. I have made this phrase the cornerstone of my life, my rabbinate, my soul I pray you do also! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 92

“Its aim is not to record history but rather to record the encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living. Incomparably more important than all the beauty or wisdom that is bestowed upon our lives is the way it opens to man an understanding of what God means, of attaining holiness through justice, through simplicity of soul, through choice. Above all, it never ceases to proclaim that worship of God without justice to man is an abomination; that while man’s problem is God, God’s problem is man.” (God in Search of Man pls 243-244)

Rabbi Heschel’s words in the first sentence above, I believe, is crucial to our understanding, engaging in, and immersing ourselves in the thoughts of the Bible. Whether one believes everything in the Bible actually happened in the exact ways the stories relate, everyone can, and I believe needs to, immerse ourselves in “the encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living”!

We live in a time where ‘alternative facts’, this “record of the encounter of the divine and the human” are being used by liars, are being used to promote mendacity and horror, indecency and injustice, degradation of the infinite value and dignity that every human being has. Be it the invasion of the Ukraine by Putin’s Russia, the terrorism of Hamas, especially since Oct. 7, 2023, the hatred and bastardization of Judaism by Netanyahu and his cronies, the lies of the MAGA crowd, the comparing of Trump to Jesus, the overturning of Roe and affirmative action as well as the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, all of these are examples of mendacity, injustice, and degradation of humanity. As soon as ‘those people’ are used in a sentence, as soon as language that denigrates any person, group, etc is used by anyone, we are either witnessing or engaging in denying the truth, wisdom, as well as the “encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living” the Bible gifts to us.

When we receive the Bible as a gift, when we seek to understand and use this “record”, we find ourselves living and taking actions we never thought possible. We become part of the solution rather than part of the problem presented to us in any given moment. This gift gives us the opportunity to mature, to grow our spiritual life which then gives us the opportunity to have an “encounter of the divine” in any and every aspect of our “concrete living”. Rabbi Heschel, as I hear him speaking to us today, is reminding us that it is truly our souls that need to be in charge rather than our desires, our minds, our emotions. This first sentence is reminding me that our souls have to be the arbiter of our actions, our minds and emotions have votes, yet they no longer can veto what the next right action is for us, when we live the “record of the encounter of the divine and the human”.

This “record” has to be experienced and engaged in on a personal level, in Judaism we never study alone because we can easily bastardize the words and the “encounter” when we study the Bible alone. Yet, together we can discern the words and actions of the prophets so we can use them in our day to day living. We can learn from Jacob how not to treat our children, we can learn from the Israelites how enslavement can become so mundane we don’t even realize we are enslaved. In Exodus 5:21, the people come to Moses and say: “you have made us loathsome in the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants and put a sword in their hands to kill us”. Imagine how insane this sentence is when they have been beaten, abused, killed, enslaved for years and, seemingly did not know it!!

Without the Bible, without immersing ourselves in the “record of the encounter of the divine and the human on the level of concrete living” we too can be enslaved and not know it. In fact, truth be told, we witness the enslavement of another on a daily basis because of the lack of engaging in this “encounter”. We sometimes get a glimpse of our own lack of freedom, our own enslavement to ideas, prejudices, the deception by another(s), our own self-deception and push these ‘awakenings’ off because they seem to painful to experience and impossible to change. Rabbi Heschel’s solution for all of us is to immerse ourselves in the “record of the encounter of the divine and the human” as the Israelites eventually did when they were in Egypt. His solution for all of us is to discover and recover this experience and use the wisdom of the Bible, the hope and the solution the Bible gifts to us and become free from the mendacity, the self-deception, the inhumanity and the degradation of our dignity and worth we have come to accept as ‘normal’.

This teaching of Rabbi Heschel, once again, is part of the Recovery Revolution! While not explicitly using the word recovery, I believe Rabbi Heschel’s teachings call for us to recover the questions that God asks everyday, to paraphrase Reb Zusya: “when they ask me why were you not more like Zusya, I will have no answer.” Recovery is a path to be able to be more like one’s true/authentic imperfect self. We have a spiritual awakening that, while painful, is too powerful to ignore. We “encounter the divine” and we begin a process of living this “encounter” on a “concrete level”. We find living our spiritual principles to be doable and powerful, to give us a sense of comfort and joy we never thought possible. We “practice these principles in all our affairs” so we can raise up our standard of living, so we can live into and act with love, justice, mercy, kindness and truth which allows us to be comfortable in our own skin which is the greatest gift of all. I am blessed to “encounter the divine” each day, many times a day and I keep learning and seeing this “encounter” more and more each day. My goal is to continue to grow the learning and experience of these encounters to make my life one grain of sand better each day! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom- A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 91

“The wisdom, teaching, and counsel of the Bible are not in conflict with the ultimate attainments of the human mind, but, rather, well ahead of our attitudes. The idea of the equality of man, for example, has become commonplace in our mouths, but how far is it from being an irresistible insight or an honest ineradicable conviction? The Bible is not behind the times, it is ages ahead of our aspirations.” (God in Search of Man pg. 243)

“The idea of the equality of man, for example, has become commonplace our mouths, but how far is it being an irresistible insight or an honest ineradicable conviction” has to penetrate our beingness, as I hear Rabbi Heschel’s call today. This is the great challenge for all people, to allow “the wisdom, teaching and counsel of the Bible” to penetrate our souls, our actions, our inner and outer ways of being. We, the people, are the ones who have made the Bible irrelevant through twisting it to suit our own desires rather than change ourselves to live up to and into the Bible’s path of wholeness and holiness. There is, always has been, a desire on the part of human beings to give lip-service to the Bible, to the ways of being human that the Bible teaches and commands us. The Bible is “ages ahead of our aspirations” by telling us how we can be human and the traps we can/will fall into that prevent us from attaining this goal. Many people complain, point out that the Bible is obsolete, it isn’t ‘scientific’, God in the Bible is vengeful, mean, capricious, etc, and there comments show a complete lack of understanding of and engagement with the spirituality of the Bible, an unwillingness to learn anew the ways of the Bible in order to enhance their lives and the lives of those around them.

A case in point is the quotation above: Racism, Slavery, Anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia are in direct contradiction with he “idea of the equality of man”, yet people will ‘use’ the Bible to engage in these despicable ideologies and actions. While there are some ‘religious’ Jews who think the Palestinians are ‘less human’ than they are-this is not what the Bible teaches. In the Bible we welcome the stranger, we have one law for citizen and stranger alike, we are constantly reminded that “we were slaves in Egypt” so we know what it is like to be treated as subhumans. Ergo, we are not to do the same to another human being. Rabbi Hillel the elder teaches: “What is hateful to you, do not do to another human being”! So, these so-called ‘religious’ people are actually idolators, bastardizers of the Bible, false prophets and we have to disregard what they are saying and live into the Bible, because “it is ages ahead of our aspirations.”

The same is true of the Hamas, the Palestinians, the Iranians and their proxies who consider Jews to be subhuman just as Hitler preached with the idea that the world would not go to war to save the Jews. Their inability to agree to a peace deal that would allow both peoples to live in peace, side by side, only seeks to perpetuate their propaganda to “blame the Jews” is not found in the Koran, it is not the way of peace, nor the path of Allah, yet the idolators of Islam, the charlatans, the liars, the deceivers all continue to deny “the equality of man”. The same is true of the people seeking to make America a “Christian Nation”, to join in an “America First” ideology, all seeking to make an hierarchy of human beings with White People at the top of the food chain. No where in the Bible does it proclaim the supremacy of white people, no where in the Bible does Jesus nor Moses call for a caste system with White People in charge. Yet, these idolators keep claiming white supremacy as a ‘christian value”, was Jesus white, was Paul white, we have no idea except they lived in Israel/Judea which is in the Middle East-just saying.

The issue for us today is whether we are willing to engage with the Bible for it’s “wisdom, teaching and counsel” or we are going to continue to have “contempt prior to investigation”. As the Big Book of AA says: “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” – HERBERT SPENCER. We are living “in everlasting ignorance” as long as we see the Bible as a weapon against our enemies, twisting it, turning it until we get the answer we want rather than being willing, in truth and open to the ideas, claims, paths to wholeness and holiness of the Bible.

We have the path to doing this, it is called recovery. We need to recover our desire to rise above “everlasting ignorance” by taking “the equality of man” from “our mouths” and put these words, this truth into action. In recovery, we stop seeing and classifying people by the jobs they have, the color of their skin, the religion they practice and instead see them as fellow travelers on a journey to wholeness and holiness, fellow companions who have made the same and different errors of judgement and action that we have. We discern the “content of their character” and pay no attention to “the color of their skin”. This is the path of T’Shuvah, the path of recovery, the path of the Bible. The prophets call us back to God, back to being open to the rituals changing us, not us using them to look good. We, the people, have to return to the roots of being, our souls and use the Bible to mature our spiritual life so we can all live well.

I have been using the Bible as my guide for the past 35+years. I have lived “the equality of man” most of the time in my recovery and I see where I haven’t. I also see how people have used the Bible against me, against so many others, how people have twisted the spiritual nature of our actions against us and I resolve to forgive them and to be more aware of when I do the same. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 90

“The wisdom, teaching, and counsel of the Bible are not in conflict with the ultimate attainments of the human mind, but, rather, well ahead of our attitudes. The idea of the equality of man, for example, has become commonplace in our mouths, but how far is it from being an irresistible insight or an honest ineradicable conviction? The Bible is not behind the times, it is ages ahead of our aspirations.” (God in Search of Man pg. 243)

As I read these words from Rabbi Heschel, I am in awe, wonder, consternation, embarrassment and disturbed. The people purporting to be ‘God’s messengers’ in our time, as in times past, do not adhere to what Rabbi Heschel is teaching, at least the ones who are the loudest do not seem to. The people for whom the Bible is nothing more than a myth to laugh at, to read as amusement, this teaching of Rabbi Heschel’s seems ridiculous. To the people of faith who wrestle each and every day with how to live in accordance with “the wisdom, teaching and counsel of the Bible”, these words are refreshing, confirming, daunting and true. While I do not believe that each and every story happened as it is written, I do know  “the wisdom, teaching and the counsel of the Bible” is true and valid. I am certain, in my uncertainty, of the depictions and conflicts that the Bible relates to  us as well as I know it is undeniably true the solutions the Bible gives us are right and good. Yet, I and most people, continually find ourselves in a quandary because we don’t mine the depths of the Bible’s “wisdom, teaching, and counsel” enough to be able to resolve many of our own inner conflicts, many of our ridiculous outer conflicts  with another human being, another group, another nation.

The stories in the Bible teach us what it is like to be human, what it is like to live within the duality of being “animal and angel” as Rabbi Abraham Twerski teaches. From Rabbi Twerski, in speaking about addiction, I understand him as saying  that spirituality is the vitamin C for our souls and all of us, addict and non-addict, have a spiritual disease that is in constant need of this vitamin C. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us where to find this cure for the scurvy of our souls, the Bible. We are not called upon to live the Bible as the commentators of it did, nor as the people who teach the Bible today do. Rather, I hear Rabbi Heschel calling each of us to engage with “the wisdom, teaching, and counsel of the Bible” and understand it personally, hear what it is saying to us, this day, week, year and how we are growing our spiritual life by gaining new insights into its “wisdom, teaching and counsel”.

While many of us believe our minds are our greatest gift, I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call to us and realize the Bible is “well ahead of our attitudes”. While we believe what we think we can do, we don’t always realize that, at one time or another, for a short or long period of time, we have stinking thinking! One of the ways to decipher when we are in stinking thinking is when we are focused on our false egos, on attaining power over another human being, another group, believing we are the only ones who know. When we are willing to vote for a man who summoned people to Washington DC to interrupt and, hopefully in his thinking, stop the peaceful transfer of power, we are in stinking thinking! When we are willing to engage in the “eye disease” of prejudice through racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, etc so we can ‘keep our nation white and christian’, we are in stinking thinking! When almost 1/2 of the people in our country are claiming God wants to keep the stranger out, exploit people who are different than we, criminalize the needy, we are witnessing stinking thinking! When the progressives engage in anti-semitism and don’t stand up for their supposed principles of caring about women who are raped, murdered, mutilated, babies killed in their beds, people taken hostage in Israel and Ukraine, this is also stinking thinking! Yet, many of the people in these groups see themselves as heroes of the ‘underdog’, claim that ‘white people’ are being discriminated against, think of Jews as ‘aggressors’, ‘deserving and causing these horrors that we committed by their heroes, Hamas-a terrorist organization that wants to annihilate Jews and Israel. Some of them clim to be “god-fearing” people who go to Church, Mosque, Temple, each week. Some of them are in Governments here in this country, in Israel, across the globe!

“The wisdom, teaching and counsel of the Bible” are the only true deterrents to stinking thinking! In recovery, the spirituality of the Big Book, the Bible, the Koran, Buddhism, Christianity, etc are the antidotes to the stinking thinking we engaged in prior to our recovery. We were lost until we began imbibing the ‘vitamin C’ of spirituality to heal our spiritual sickness, to heal our mental grandiosity, to heal our mendacious and deceptive ways of being. Recovery is all about growing our spiritual natures, our souls voice, soul’s knowledge to lead us out of the prison and slavery of self-deception, the prison and slavery of believing the lies we tell ourselves and the lies so many people spew upon us. We take “wisdom, teaching and counsel of the Bible” very seriously and we strive to live into the principles and paths of spirituality it gives to us.

In the past 35+ years I have been using “the wisdom, teaching, and counsel of the Bible” to the best of my ability. I am nowhere near perfect and each year I see progress. I continue to seek ways to serve God, to walk in God’s ways, to preach and teach a way of being that helps all of us out of our prejudices and bias’. I know I have cut down on my own stinking thinking over the years and I am grateful for the wisdom, the counsel that my spiritual guides have given me and continue to give me. Each of us needs a spiritual guide and I have been privileged to engage with some and be one to people God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 89

“Irrefutably, indestructibly, never wearied by time, the Bible wanders through the ages, giving itself with ease to all men, as if it belonged to every soul on earth. It speaks in every language and in every age. It benefits all the arts and does not compete with them. We all draw upon it, and it remains pure, inexhaustible and complete.” (God in Search of Man pg. 242)

Rabbi Heschel’s teaching in the last sentence above is crucial if we are to truly appreciate, learn and use the Bible as the road map to living well! While many people draw upon the Bible to validate their misuse of it, to abuse it, as Rabbi Heschel teaches us earlier in this section of God in Search of Man, the Bible remains “pure, inexhaustible and complete”. It is humanity that seems unable to immerse itself in the Bible to improve our ways of being, our actions towards one another and our covenantal relationship with God.

As we read the news, listen to the ‘religious’ people who spout hatred, destruction, demeaning of another group of people, it becomes more difficult for people to appreciate the truth, the wisdom and the guidance of the Bible. When Ben-Gvir in Israel speaks about the people of Gaza and his band of thugs who claim to be ‘religious’ Jews attack the people of the West Bank, using the Bible as their reference, it is hard for many to “draw upon it” for good, for decency, for truth, for connection to God. When the Ayatollah claims to kill and maim, to terrorize and brutalize in the name of Allah it is hard for many people to believe in and learn from the wisdom of the Koran. When Mike Johnson, Evangelical preachers claim that God doesn’t love LGBTQ+, the strangers trying to immigrate to the US, women who have abortions, when they engage in the practice of mendacity, racism, antisemitism, how can anyone have a desire to learn from the brilliance of Jesus?

Herein lies the challenge we face and, as Rabbi Heschel teaches us, “because man has problems. And the more complicated, the richer he is, the deeper are his problems. This is our distinction, to have problems, to face problems.”(Interview with Carl Stern, 1972). Our greatest problems today, I believe, lie in our inability to “draw upon it”, to allow the Bible to not only belong “to every soul on earth” to allow the Bible to penetrate “every soul on earth”. Hence Rabbi Herschel’s teaching that we should be “immersing ourselves in the thoughts of the Bible”. Yet, we continue to be lazy, to ignore “the thoughts of the Bible” and abuse these thoughts to validate our desires. We continue to use the ‘cliff notes’ of the Bible that someone else provides and we take these lies to be truth. For the people who want to believe the charlatans, this gives them the comfort to hold onto their prejudices, to allow the “cancer of the soul” that prejudice is to fester and spread throughout their mind and body. For the people who want to ‘be humanists’ and ‘don’t need God’, these ‘cliff notes’ allow them to be smug and self-satisfied with their ignoring of the brilliance, the “pure, inexhaustible” wisdom and guidance of the Bible.

Rather than use the Bible to face our problems, rather than adhere to the wisdom of the Book of Numbers, 15:39, part of the last prayer of the Shema that is said twice each day in Jewish prayers: “don’t scout out after your heart and your eyes because you will whore after them”, we do the exact opposite, whether we are ultra-religious, secular and anywhere in-between! We seem to be unable to meet the challenge of our times with the wisdom and the “inexhaustible” guidance of the Bible, yet, it is “this instruction I give you this day is not too baffling for you nor is it beyond your reach. It is not in the heavens… not beyond the sea… no it is close to you, in your mouth and in your heart”(Deut. 30:11-14). We need to face our greatest challenge: how to be human; with the guidance, the teachings, the wisdom of the Bible and the stories of how our archetypes met and didn’t meet the challenges of their day. We are in desperate need of ignoring the call of our egos to have power and dominion over another human being, to judge harshly the choices of another, and to look inside of ourselves, to become an active partner in our covenant with God and with one another.

This is the wonder and joy of recovery! In recovery, we return to the “pure, inexhaustible and complete” wisdom of the Bible and its commentaries-which I believe the Big Book of AA is one. Whatever text one uses in recovery, in our meetings we hear the stories and the testimonies of how drawing on them improves our life, guides our steps, and helps us see the ways our actions both ‘hit the mark’ and miss the mark’. In recovery, we draw upon the wisdom of our elders, the principles that the Bible first laid out for us and we use these principles and the wisdom to make better and more informed choices each day. We seek to do right rather than be right, we search for connections and similarities rather than building walls and seeing the differences. We are careful to not bastardize the gift of recovery God has given us by claiming to be the one and only arbiter of how to live. In recovery, we are know we are flawed and need to draw on the Bible, on the Big Book, on the wisdom and experiences of another and we know we have to continue to be teachable and to learn something new each and every day as well as being grateful for “this day”.

I continue to “draw upon it” and in doing so, I find new and deeper meanings and lessons from the Bible, from the wisdom of my teachers and friends, family and ancestors. The charlatans, the mendacious ones who spout the ‘politically correct’, ‘progressive’ ways still enrage me, especially those who use the Bible, Jewish teachings to validate their lies and deceptions, and I continue to draw on the words and ways of the prophets and teachers like Rabbi Heschel for better responses. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark