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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 228

“Niebuhr reminds us that “there is a mystery of evil in human life to which modern culture has been completely oblivious”. (Insecurity of Freedom pg.128)

This quote above begins the body of Rabbi Heschel’s essay on “the confusion of good and evil”. He tells us that he is looking at the teachings of Reinhold Niebuhr and the quote above is from Niebuhr’s book: “An Interpretation of Christian Ethics” on page 119. This book was published in 1935 and, as we can see from history, there was not much attention paid to its themes and teachings.
Pastor Niebuhr’s statement above is as true today as it was in 1935, which is why, I believe, Rabbi Heschel included his thoughts and Rabbi Heschel’s commentary/praise in Insecurity of Freedom which was published in 1966.

“Mystery” comes from the Latin meaning “hidden presence”, culture comes from the Latin meaning “tend/cultivate”, and oblivious is defined as “unawareness”. Using these root meanings, I understand Pastor Niebuhr’s sentence as “there is a ‘hidden presence’ of evil in human life to which ‘modernity cultivates and’ has been completely oblivious ‘to’. WOW, what a chilling thought, what a bucket of reality thrown upon us as awakening as a bucket of cold water. Yet, there are those who believe that evil is being defeated, that ‘they are the good guys’, ‘their authoritarian leader is the savior’, etc. There are people who have named the new ‘messiah’ and blindly following him to their ruin without any awareness, who are oblivious to the evil in their ‘messiah’ and the evil in their own selves.

The left and the right, the ultra religious and the secular all believe their cultural ways, their progress and their adherence to “The Word” absolves them of having any evil within them because they are ‘fighting the good fight’ for ‘higher values’ to be ‘of service’ to another human being and to the creative force in the universe. Both ends of the spectrum believe their cultures, their ways, their mores, protect them from evil so whatever they are doing must be right and good. They are completely oblivious to the evil that is a hidden presence in their lives and the lives of their compatriots, denying this hidden presence to the ruination of freedom for themselves and everyone else.

The greatest gift and the most dubious gift humanity was gifted is: Free-Will Moral Choice. Because we can make choices we are told to be “deliberate in judgment” it is imperative for us to search within ourselves for the “hidden presence” of spiritual wisdom and the “hidden presence” of evil. We, the people, have to let go of the foolish ideas that culture, education, innovation, creativity will banish evil from our midst, that any one person can save us. We, the people, have to look at our history and see how often we have foolishly believed we had defeated evil only to perpetrate it on another group, on another country, etc.

Rather than realizing we have to be constantly on guard for the “hidden presence” of evil and opening our eyes to the truth that the very cultural norms we adhere to actually “cultivate” evil we continue to be “oblivious”! We practice willful and blind obedience to obliviousness with our inability to see what is beneath the surface of our culture, of our leaders, of the people who want to live at the extremes. These are not people of faith, these are not people of ‘good will’, these are people who seek power for their own sake, who claim to be ‘benevolent dictators’ and are in actuality, perpetrators of the evil that is a “hidden presence” in all of “human life”.

Immersing ourselves in Rev Niebuhr’s words above must cause us to stop and look within ourselves. They have to tear away the fabric we have been using to blind our eyes to what is in front of us and what is inside of us. These words need to pierce the armor we have put around our souls and “circumcise the foreskin of hearts” so we can let the goodness of life in and we can transform the evil within us to serve something greater than ourselves and our selfish ends. These words and thoughts have to destroy the myth of ‘high society’ of ‘higher education’ saving us as we have seen our colleges and universities taken over by the far right and far left, as we seen the graduates of the ‘elite’ universities proclaim lies and deceptions about the last election and bow down before an insurrectionist after he caused them to run for their lives, like Josh Hawley. Rev. Niebuhr’s passion for good, his prophetic voice against buying into the “hidden presence” of evil, his call for us to let go of seeking salvation through culture or through a ‘false messiah’ right here, right now.

I read these words and immediately defend my actions in the past:) Then, I let go of my need to be right and seek the “hidden presence” of evil in me and in life. I know the danger in bucking “modern culture” where optics are more important than real at times, where lies are more palpable than truth most of the time, where simplistic solutions are sought and ‘strongmen’ are extolled as saviors. Yet, for Christians and Jews, the heroes of their core stories/myths are Christ and Moses, King David and John the Baptist, etc. None of these men, and the few women mentioned, are ‘strongmen’, they are servants, they seek to root the “mystery of evil in human life” out and learn how to live in community, in covenant and in truth. We have a tradition that tells us to never forget what Amalek did, attack the weak and the infirm both in body and spirit and to blot out the memory of them so we don’t try to emulate them. I have done this loudly and boldly, brashly and, some say, uncouthly. I would rather rail against the “hidden presence” than conform with societal norms that promote it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 227

“What we need is the involvement of every one of us as individuals. What we need is restlessness, a constant awareness of the monstrosity of injustice.” ( Insecurity of Freedom pg. 94)

The second sentence above is, I believe, at the core of all spiritual disciplines. I learned this from the Dalai Lama in a talk he had with about 100 clergy in Sun Valley Idaho about 20 years ago. He reminded us of the commonality of spiritual traditions of our search for and belief in Justice, Compassion, Love, Truth, Kindness, Forgiveness, Mercy. I believe without Justice, none of the rest of these principles, ways of being, can exist. Hence, when we are not in “restlessness” over “injustice”, when we are not aware that “injustice” anywhere, anyway is a “monstrosity”, no matter how much we proclaim our ‘love’ for God, our ‘compassion’ for our fellow human beings, we are FOS! We are living in some delusion and self-deception and/or trying to deceive another(s) to gain more and more power.

“Restlessness” is defined as: “the quality of being unwilling or unable to stay still or to be quiet and calm, because you are worried or bored”. The teaching above is calling out to us to not stay still in the face of the “monstrosity of injustice”. It is calling us to be more aware of and sensitive to the ‘small’ injustices which the prophets were so concerned with. To the prophets, any ‘small’ injustice was tragic and spelled the descent into doom for all. To the Rabbis, the destruction of the 2nd Temple was caused by our senseless hatred for one another, ie injustices towards one another.

Since we have the opportunity to either retard or move forward justice in our world, to either retard or move forward our traveling on the road to higher consciousness and holiness, we have to have “a constant awareness” of what is just and unjust, what is self-deception and what is truth, what is hearing a call from within our being and what is an egotistical thought we make into a ‘call from above’. We have to discern when our clergy, the ‘religious’ people on the right and left, the so-called progressives are using the Bible(s) as weapons of injustice rather than as calls to peace and justice, love and kindness. We have to be in a state of “constant awareness” to the deceptions of another(s) and our own self-deceptions so we can rise above them rather than believe we can live without them.

Reading the Torah over and over again is not an exercise in futility nor a path of memorization, rather it is to give us new and different insights into how to be more just, more loving, more truthful, more compassionate, more merciful, and kinder to ourselves and to everyone else. This is not about whitewashing the errors of another, as the Rabbis are wont to do, it is about admiring how flawed human beings can rise above their own flaws, their own ego-driven thoughts and fears and be just, be kind, etc. It is about how people ask for and receive forgiveness, how people realize their injustices and make amends as well as confessions for them. King David, a truly flawed heroic figure, says “I have sinned” and asks for forgiveness-the King of the land, the guy with all the power listens to the prophet Nathan, confesses and seeks forgiveness. Our re-reading of the Torah and the Bible reminds us to care for the widows , the orphans, the strangers, the poor and the needy. It reminds us that slavery will and must end, that we have the call to be either Moses or Pharaoh and we have to choose who’s example we will follow. It calls for us to “run after justice, righteousness” it calls for us to be aware of the judges who may take bribes because a “bribe blinds the eyes of the wise”. It calls on us to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The reason I picked these two sentences above is because of their timelessness and the importance of returning to these ways of being today, when we are facing another crisis of injustice, another crisis of faith, another time of self-deception and deception of another(s). We have to call out the “monstrosity of injustice” that we see no matter how big or small. We have to be in a state of “restlessness” so we are aware of and on the lookout for any and all injustices. We have to end the bribing of our Justices and the lies of Clergy who purposely “blind the eyes of the wise” and run after injustice instead of righteousness and justice. We have to rise up and march agains the lies of Trump, of populism, of authoritarianism on both the right and the left. We have to find the middle, which is anywhere that is at least 10% away from the extremes, so the 80% of living where we can have our minds changed. We have to see every human being as worthy of the air we all breathe and each of us entitled to our corner of the garden that God has placed us in.

I was brought up to be in “restlessness” and for many years I lost my moral compass of what to be restless about. Since 1987, when Rabbi Mel Silverman introduced me to Rabbi Heschel, to Jewish learning, to the Bible as personal guides to living well, I have been in a perpetual state of “restlessness”. I have been loud and, at times I am sure, obnoxious about injustice. I have called out people ‘on my side’ for it, I have called myself out for it, I have sought to get people to see the injustices they perpetrate that seem insignificant, which to me are monumental. I realize in writing this that I have ‘hurt’ my cause because I call the ‘little’ things out and can be marginalized for being ‘chicken little’ and to me, the slightest injustice perpetrated could cause the sky to fall! I am unwilling to change, unwilling to not be “restless” in the face of “the monstrosity of injustice” and I pray you will join me and so many others in “restlessness”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 226

“What we need is the involvement of every one of us as individuals. What we need is restlessness, a constant awareness of the monstrosity of injustice.” ( Insecurity of Freedom pg. 94)

Following closely after the quotation I used on Friday, I am struck by the simplicity of Rabbi Heschel’s call and the difficulty so many people have in hearing it and responding to it. The quotation is from Rabbi Heschel’s speech on Race and Religion in 1963 yet it is as relevant now as it was then; we have so many examples of “the monstrosity of injustice” in the highest court in the land, in the halls of Congress, on the Campaign trail, in our religious communities, in our homes, in the hearts and minds of individuals. It is so prevalent that we have become oblivious to this “monstrosity” that has been growing since the dawn of human existence.

“The involvement of every one of us as individuals” is the only way for change. My friend, Harold Rothstein, z”l, who died on the first night of Passover this year, was an individual who came to believe in the importance of his involvement in life, involvement in the lives of another(s), and dedication to decency, obligation, responsibility, love. Harold was a recovering alcoholic who immersed himself in his recovery and stood with 1000’s of recovering people in and on their own journey. He did this from his sense of obligation, his way of being grateful for the life he had and to honor his family’s tradition of service. Harold was touched by Harriet Rossetto and Elaine Breslow, z”l, and in turn touched so many people in his work, which was a calling for Harold never a job, in his recovery life and, most importantly and especially in his family life. Harold’s commitment to his siblings, his mother, his uncles and aunts, his cousins and his niece Anna, and his Noah brought sparks up from the ground and down from the stars. In a time when the individual is being denigrated, Harold Rothstein’s life is a testament to the power of the individual to effect change now!

We all need to become involved in doing the next right thing instead of being involved in ‘what’s in it for me’. We all need to end our fixation of the lies we are telling ourselves and one another to feel good about  our support of injustices big and so small they don’t seem worth our time. We all need to let go of our erroneous belief that we don’t matter, ‘what can one person do’, etc. We need to be more “maladjusted” to conventional notions and mental cliches so we can discern how we can serve the call for justice, the call for kindness, the call for equality, the call for love, the call for compassion. The calls for injustice, harshness, special rules for ‘my kind’, promoting hatred to get votes, and piling on more lies and deceptions about ‘the other’ has become too strong today, as it was at the time Rabbi Heschel uttered these words.

We can do this through being involved. Today is Father’s Day and I think of my father, Jerry Borovitz, z”l, and his involvement in promoting justice and love, kindness and compassion. My dad not only believed in personal involvement, he took actions to promote the equality of everyone in all of his affairs, personal and business, even to his own detriment. When he died, we were told his debts could be discharged through bankruptcy, however, my father never wanted to cheat anyone and we paid them off to keep his name good. While it wasn’t the smartest financial move, it was one of the ways we honored my father’s life and his way of being. We have to be involved in doing the next right thing rather than being involved in hating and separating. We have to see ourselves as individuals rather than as part of a group so we don’t give into ‘group think’. We have to be involved in life as individuals so we don’t fall into ‘lock-step’ with those promoting all of the ways of acting that are antithetical to “being human” which is a call of Rabbi Heschel’s also.

Being involved means following examples of people who are or have been. It is sitting at a lunch counter demanding to be served even though it says ‘no blacks, no jews, no muslims, etc’. When one is being carried out by the ‘sheriff’, do not resist and make it difficult for them to remove you, as Black people did in the 60’s. Being involved means being one of the Freedom Riders who helped people register to vote, it means not allowing the Republican machine of hatred and unfairness to push people who have a right to vote off the voting rolls. It means standing up to the ideological right-wing, false religious rulings of Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, et al because they are being ‘paid’ off by the wealthy billionaires who want to influence the Supreme Court to do their bidding. Being involved as individuals means standing up to the people who are calling for a world-wide Intifada and marching, taking over buildings to show support for terrorists, rapists, murderers and a way of being that is antithetical to freedom.

I have been involved as an individual since my youth. I marched with Black people, I see everyone as created in the image of the divine, I have stood up for people seeking treatment rather than incarceration, I have helped people write appeals in prison, I have spent the last 35+ years seeing each person as they are, sometimes my eyesight has been off, and reaching out to them in ways I believe they could and can hear. I am responsible for all my actions, the not so good ones and the good ones, the not so good ones I make amends for and the good ones humble me and help me move life forward. Like my friend Harold, my father Jerry, my teachers, my family, I do the best I can to respond to Rabbi Heschel’s call each day. I am blessed beyond my deserving and I am grateful. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 225

“Daily we should take account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 94)

People who have left the world of faith, who have erroneously believed (because of poor educators and clergy) that God is almighty and can do anything, need to hear these words of Rabbi Heschel. People who are so-called ‘religious’ and act out on their erroneous interpretations of the Bible and cause “anguish”, humiliation” and perpetrate “evil” need to imbue Rabbi Heschel’s teaching into their souls, into their core.

I am hearing Rabbi Heschel reminding us that the Bible never says “anguish, evil, humiliation” will leave us. Au contraire, he is demanding we face the “anguish, evil, humiliation” and do what we can to “alleviate, mitigate, and prevent” these desecrations from happening! Nowhere is there to be found in these words the ridiculous idea that God will end all of this on God’s own. Maimonidies tells us that we have to bring about the messianic era by our deeds, not just sit around and wait for the Messiah, the second coming, the Rapture, and other myths. We have to be actively involved in the ‘coming of the Messiah’, the ‘second coming of Jesus’; not just wait, not just have faith. As Rabbi Heschel says elsewhere: “A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of faith.” Faith is important, it is not crucial, action is crucial as the words above import to us.

Taking a dive into what Rabbi Heschel is saying above, after experiencing the “dark night of the soul” I wrote about yesterday, we see that the questions are all in the positive. There is no mention of what we did wrong, how we may have caused “anguish, evil, humiliation”, only how we have “alleviate, mitigate, prevent” these horrific experiences when they happen. Which begs the question: are we aware of the “anguish, evil, humiliation” that is around us, are we mindful of our need to “lift up our eyes and see”(Gen.13:14)?

Herein lies the issue that many of us have with the so-called ‘religious’ groups who proclaim they know God’s Will and then proceed to cause “anguish,  and humiliation” rather than “alleviate or prevent” them from happening. Today, we are witnessing, once again, the blessings these religious charlatans, these idolators bestow upon the authoritarians in our midst or wanna be authoritarians who revel in the “anguish, evil, and humiliation” they can, do and will cause! We are, as the Catholic Church, as many Protestant Ministers did in Germany in the 1930’s going along with the power so they can ‘get theirs’, so their so-called ‘enemies’ will be defeated and destroyed and doing this in the name of God!! Where does it say that “Jews will not replace us” is said by “good people” as the ‘chosen one’ of these false religious leaders says? Where does it say ‘treat the poor and the needy with contempt’ as their false ‘messiah’ preaches? Where does Jesus say ‘throw rocks and keep throwing them at the people attempting to stop the Romans from crucifying their ‘enemies’? Yet, many of the masses believe these Idolators, these False Prophets because they wear the cloak of Clergy and spew our lies and deceptions in the name of a False god! How sad, how frightening and how this goes against the teaching above.

We, the people, however, have the obligation to refute these deceivers and these spreaders of mendacious thoughts, ideas, and actions. We have the joy of looking at ourselves each and every day through prayer, through study, through making an inventory and seeing how we have engaged in “alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation”. We have the honor and privilege of looking ourselves in the mirror, figuratively or literally, and realizing the power that is within us to do all this for another and for ourselves. We take the actions necessary to raise our souls and our standard of living to the level we are meant to each and every day. We “lift up our eyes and see” the Promised Land is right here if we are willing to make it so. We take seriously the call to “care for the needy, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger” knowing that without them, our society is incomplete. We realize the gift that those who need our help give us by allowing us to be of service to them, to promote our unique gift and talent in the world which leads us to “alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation”!!

As one who caused “anguish, evil, humiliation” during my years of being ‘out of this world’ through my self-exile from God, from Biblical teachings, from being a decent human being in all my affairs, I read the words above with trembling awe! I also know they have been the cornerstone of my recovery and my life’s work. While I am bombastic, loud, in your face and not everyone’s cup of tea, I have, each day since December of 1986 worked diligently to live into and up to Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. I did it directly through my work as a “Jewish Jail” worker, my work as one of Rabbis of the Community, my living my T’Shuvah each day, and I do it now through this blog and the people who carry on the teachings and actions the words above call for, of which there are many. I learn more and more each day how to fulfill Rabbi Heschel’s words without having to put myself down, without having to make someone else bad, to rejoice in the actions I take and the ones so many people I know take to “alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation” that is rampant in our world today. I am  proud to be a part of the Army of human beings who continue to bring kindness, love, compassion, truth and joy to our world. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 224

“Daily we should take account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 94)

On this day after of receiving the Torah, Rabbi Heschel’s words ring loudly in my ears, in my head, and in my soul. At a time when Torah, Bible, religion itself is being abused by ‘the real religious people’, when “religion speaks online the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion” as Rabbi Heschel teaches us in the opening paragraph of “God in Search of Man these words above are crucial for us to ask “daily” so we can preserve and grow democracy, freedom, kindness, compassion, love of God and all God’s creations, and be worthy of our status of being a “partner with God”.

What a different world we would have should all of us, Jews and non-Jews, people in recovery and those who need to be, take a daily account of our selves, our actions that day! The process of T’Shuvah, which calls for us to take a complete Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our soul, is such a call from the Jewish tradition, a daily 10th Step is de rigueuir in the recovery movement, confession is a practice of the Catholic Church-all spiritual disciplines have some form of practice of a daily accounting. Yet, many people who proclaim allegiance to a myriad of disciplines seem to be unable to do this daily accounting, many of us seem unable to ask ourselves these questions and face the answers, both good and not so good. Why do we insist on hiding from ourselves, why are we so intent on hiding from one another, why do we engage in the self-deception that we can hide from God?

Many of us today, as we have throughout the millennia, believe we can hide from and/or run away from what St. John of the Cross calls “The Dark Night of the Soul.” This is referred to today as a period of crisis when there one feels the loneliness of emptiness and bereft of hope, of connection, as well as loss of our moorings. Everything we have built up to protect us suddenly comes tumbling down, we find ourselves face to face with our self, seeing our flaws, our lies, our greatness and our light. We are reflecting ourselves back to ourselves and seeing the divine/higher self we possess. It is a time of choice, it is a time of fear and rejoicing. It is a place where we are alone with our authentic self, with the “life force of the universe”, and we repeat Jacob’s words from the Bible: “God was in this place and I, I did not know.”

The “dark night of the soul” usually occurs during a difficult time in our lives and when we embrace it, we realize “the life force of the universe” that dwells in us and we experience the both/and of our living-with an inclination for physical pleasures and needs and an inclination for connection of spirit and ideas-combining left and right brain, heart and mind, matter(body) and energy(soul). In the “dark night of the soul”, as we realize the truths about ourselves and the world, we come to know we may be alone and never lonely, we become so intertwined with the “life force of the universe” and we know we are connected to something greater than ourselves.

In this time of turmoil in the world, in this time of the world leaning towards Fascism, towards Authoritarianism, towards ‘Christian Nationalism’ that has nothing to do with Christianity, we are in desperate need of a “dark night of the soul” for all of us individually and nationally. We need to ask ourselves the questions Rabbi Heschel poses above or at least some variation of them. We need to running to the “dark night” instead of constantly running away from it. We need to seek our “physicians of the soul” as Maimonidies teaches to help us navigate through this journey of darkness to light, this journey of egotism, xenophobia to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. We have to regain the rebellious spirit of the prophets, from Moses till now, we have to regain the rebellious spirit of the Founding Fathers, of Lincoln and the Union, of Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Kennedy, Rabbi Heschel, the Berrigan Brothers, and rebel to something instead of just rebelling against ‘the man’. We have the opportunity to rebel to the vision of the Bible, rebel to the words and deeds of Jesus, of Mohammed, of St. John of the Cross, of St. Francis, of the Baal Shem Tov, and our situation is dire enough, it is difficult enough to warrant a national “dark night of the soul” here, and across the globe.

I have experienced the “dark night of the soul” more than once. Prior to 1986, I drank my way out of it, I stole my way out of it, I rebelled against it, because Jacob’s experience in the Bible was just a story. This all changed in December of 1986, when the “life force of the Universe” who I call God, entered my heart, touched my soul and I realize there is more to life than my selfish desires, there is more to life than my feelings of victimization, there is a world in need of my talents and gifts and I am in need of the gifts and talents of so many people. The first “dark night of the soul” that I chose to go through and not escape from nor hide from, taught me that love is the answer, truth is the path, compassion for self and another(s) frees me from resentments and ego anger. As President George  W. Bush said to me: “God opened my heart and I didn’t have to drink anymore.” The subsequent “dark night of soul” that I have experienced have come to re-enforce this truth, have come to show me new ways to serve, have helped m rise above my self-deceptions and live in acceptance of what is, and continue to use my prophetic spirit and energy to speak out about what is good and speak even louder about what is not right and good. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 223

“We are all Pharaoh’s or slaves of Pharaohs. It is sad to be a slave of Pharaoh. It is horrible to be a Pharaoh.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 98)

Tonight we begin the celebration of receiving the Torah, the Holy Day of Shavuot, with a Tikkun L’Eil Shavuot, a repair/fix to the night of Shavuot. As my friend and teacher, Hazzan Danny Maseng, asks: “what are we repairing?” It is 50 days since we left Egypt, ie celebrated Passover where we were supposed to look inside of ourselves and see what slavery we needed to leave, and now we prepare ourselves to receive the Torah, the guidebook for being human. To answer Hazzan Danny’s question, I believe the quote/teaching above is crucial for us to delve into. While I don’t believe Rabbi Heschel meant this to be an either/or, I do believe he wanted to throw cold water on our sense of self, on our sense of spiritual egotism, religious behaviorism, and moral superiority.

It is so subtle to live as a Pharaoh and it is even more subtler to slide into being a slave of Pharaoh. On this 49th day after leaving Egypt, this evening as we study and repair our inner lives so we can hear the words of Torah that we have missed, that we have bastardized, we have to look at how we have been, are Pharaohs in the ways we treat people, how we look down on ‘those people’, how we disdain and ignore ‘them’, and how we seek to rule over ‘those godless heathens’ who claim liberty, freedom, dignity, as unalienable rights from above!

“Who are these ne’er do wells who think they can sit at the table with us ‘fine god-fearing white/black people who believe that god gave power to the white people because no one else could handle it. Who do those Kikes, darkies, wetbacks, camel jockeys think they are to demand their ‘rights’?” These are the thoughts that go through the minds of the people who are both “slaves of Pharaohs and Pharaohs” themselves. People who continue to be oblivious to their own taskmaster ways, people who have succumbed to the lies and deceptions of themselves and of another(s), believe in the rightness of their Pharaoh-ness, believe ‘those’ people need to be enslaved, imprisoned, maybe even killed because we have the audacity to demand freedom, to have control over our bodies as women, to have the right to vote no matter the color of our skin nor the political party we belong to, and have freedom of religion as the Bill of Rights promises.

The Christian Nationalists, the far-right and the far-left, white supremacists, fundamentalists of all stripes all believe in being Pharaohs, even while celebrating the exodus from Egypt. Their followers are in rapture over being slaves of these Pharaohs because they, in my opinion, foolishly believe in their deliverance by their Pharaohs. It is amazing that these ‘god-fearing good christians, jews, and muslims’ all have forgotten that the people who followed Pharaoh to recapture the Israelites all drowned! Just as the people following their self-deceptions and the deceptions of their “pharaohs” will be defeated and I pray it is in our time.

Tonight, I believe, one of the repairs we have to make is letting go of our desire to be “Pharaoh or slaves of Pharaoh”. We have to re-read the texts we love and use them as roadmaps to leave the inner slavery of Egypt behind us again and find ways to build roadblocks to the on-ramps of becoming either “Pharaohs or slaves of Pharaohs.” We do this by admitting our desires rather than hiding them, by owning our entire agenda instead of presenting what ‘looks good’. We cease and desist from acting out on our eye disease of prejudice towards anyone and everyone. We seek to cure our “cancer of the soul” that prejudice causes by getting to know people and no longer stereotyping them. We admit our own fears and failings, we seek the guidance and assistance of those who ‘know’ and we find “physicians of the soul” and moral guides and teachers to help us grow and aid us in figuring out what is the next right action.

Tonight, we deepen our interest in hearing the call of the universe, of God, of a power greater than ourselves, prior to accepting the covenant once again tomorrow morning. We listen to the stories, we accept the truth and wisdom of our ancient texts and mine them for our betterment and the betterment of another(s). We sit and discuss our fears and our joys, our hopes and our sadnesses, our errors and our bullseyes, with one another. We hide less tonight and in the coming year from those around us, we invite those we know care about us to interfere when we are doing the next wrong thing and be our “ezer K’negdo”, our partner in helping to rise about our baser instincts-be it dominance or submission.

This is a difficult way of living, I know. Plato says:”an unexamined life is not worth living” and Malcolm X says:”the examined life is painful”-a true both/and. I have found they are both correct and the pain goes away quicker and quicker each year because I get into the action of repairing the damage I have caused and asking for forgiveness. I watch with compassionate pity the people who disbelieve Plato and think an unexamined life is worth living, that they can do whatever they want-having lived this way prior to 1987. I know I have been both Pharaoh and a slave of Pharaoh and I know tonight my repairing involves letting go of my fear of being irrelevant, my fear of being forgotten, my fear of, once again, not being heard nor seen. These are the ways that enslave me and paths I run from and become a Pharaoh because I am running so hard and fast from them. Tonight, I will once again repair my inner life so I can receive more truth, more wisdom, more strength and more connection in the year to come. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 222

“Equality is an interpersonal relationship, involving both a claim and a recognition. My claim to equality has its logical basis in the recognition of my fellow men’s identical claim. Do I not forfeit my own rights by denying to my fellow men the rights I claim for myself?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 94)

The logic of the highlighted sentences above seems beyond reproach. Both of these sentences have validity and truth attached to them. So, why is it so hard for most of us to adopt, adapt and live into them? What are the different falsehoods and subterfuges we use to deny “my fellow men’s identical claim” to equality, to dignity, to worth, to freedom??  What prevents us from understanding when we go along with the deceivers’/ authoritarians’ denial of rights for ‘those people’, we are forfeiting our own rights, that the authoritarians and deceivers will take these same rights from us?What prevents people from acknowledging and living into the wisdom of the Talmud that says we all have equal and infinite value and each of us is unique? FEAR and MENDACITY are what society promotes so we can keep denying another what we claim as an “unalienable right”. This fear and mendacity is embedded into the Constitution and Declaration of Independence which knows we all have “identical claims” to and for “equality”. Yet, the founding fathers were unable to take action on what they knew was right because of pressure, because of fear of losing the country before it began to coalesce. They could not ‘pull the trigger’ on “equality” for all because they bought into the lies that Blacks were inferior, that Jews killed Christ, that Chinese were the devil, etc. Unfortunately, there are too many of their descendants who have re-emerged in our time and follow the lies of the political party that wants to destroy democracy, that wants to give aid and comfort to Putin, that calls dictators and authoritarians ‘good people’ that extols haters of Jews as ‘very fine people’, that want to destroy “justice for all” and replace it with ‘punishing those against us’. All of these are the natural outgrowth when FEAR and MENDACITY are promoted for those who seek ill-gotten gains and when we, the people, are stupid enough, broken enough, spiritually sick enough to fall for these autocrats’ bullshit.

The moment we separate out one person as not being worthy of “equality”, not ‘up to our standards’, we are separating out everyone ‘not like me’ and we are denying the “identical claim” that we have and, now we are playing ‘god’ and deciding who is ‘good enough’ to be treated with humanity and who is not. Once we decide that a Black, Brown, Asian, Italian, Irish, Jew, Muslim person doesn’t have the same claim to and for “equality”, we “forfeit my own rights” according to Rabbi Heschel’s teaching. While most of us don’t readily see this truth, because we are so oblivious to what is in front of our faces and our self-deceptive nature is stronger than the call to “lift up our eyes and see”, our inability doesn’t negate the truth and validity of this teaching.

We watch daily how some people are so hellbent on denying the “rights I claim for myself” to another human being. We are witnesses and, sometimes, participants in the denial of decency, kindness, love, connection, loyalty, justice, to those who have been deemed by ‘someone’, by ‘society’ as less worthy. The most vociferous amongst us in these denials are ‘the good christian people of the conservative right, the ‘religious’ and the ‘pious’ of all religious and, in some cases, spiritual disciplines. Being against LGBTQ+ is a denial of their equal value, the control of women is a denial of their claim to equality direct conflict with the Bible that says: male and female God created them both”. Anti-Semitism is a denial of the rights of Jews to exist-to live in peace, to live freely and to contribute mightily. Yet, against all these factors, LGBTQ+ are thriving, women are succeeding and Jews continue to contribute.

It is all the more necessary for those of us who belong to the groups who have been denied to stand together and against the people who are denying our right to equal justice, denying our right to marry who we wish, denying our right to reproductive health care of our own choosing, denying the right for Jews to exist and protect themselves against terrorists, denying the right for Palestinians to have their own land, denying the right of people who don’t want to be politically correct and who care about truth, denying g the right of prophecy and truth to those who speak these. It is crucial for us all to end our need to ‘one-up’ the victimhood we feel and deny that the harms we have suffered are equally suffered by any one and every one who experiences the denial of their claim to the same rights someone else wants to claim.

What is most important about the teaching above is how I also do these same things. While it is much easier to look outside and see how we are falling down as a country, community, society-it is crucial that we look inside. I ache when I realize how I have, at times, denied someone else the same rights that I claim for myself. I am sorry for the times I have done this. I cry at the thought of how many times I misread a situation and people who I believed agreed with me and wanted to grant everyone the same equal status and worth as they wanted for themselves only to find out I was mistaken and these mistakes led me to erupt which only validated the people who didn’t want me nor anyone ‘like me’ to have the same rights they have a claim to. I know that ego gets in my way at times and I work each day to keep my ego in proper measure and speaking out when I should and, finally, shutting up when is necessary. I am sorry for my errors, both my misjudgments and my own denials. I work hard each day to repair the damage and to not repeat my missing the mark. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 221

“Equality is an interpersonal relationship, involving both a claim and a recognition. My claim to equality has its logical basis in the recognition of my fellow men’s identical claim. Do I not forfeit my own rights by denying to my fellow men the rights I claim for myself?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 94)

I am deeply immersed in the ideas of equality because of our current political and social climate. We are, once again, fighting the fight for equality for all rather than power for some and slavery for the rest of us. Slavery meaning being under the thumb of some faux ‘religious’ claim and/or an authoritarian who is only interested in his own power and prestige, her own vengeance and ‘getting even’.

Rabbi Heschel’s words above point out  crucial attributes of “equality”- it “is an interpersonal relationship” and it involves “both a claim and a recognition”. “Relationship” comes from the Latin meaning “bring back” and is defined in the dictionary as “the way in which two or more concepts/things are connected. “Claim” is defined as “to demand by or as by virtue of a right” and the Latin is “to cry out”. “Recognition” comes from the Latin meaning “know again, recall to mind” and the English is “acknowledgement of someone’s existence and validity”.

The practice of “equality” is, in essence, a “bringing back” of humanity to our primordial state-what the Bible says in Genesis 2:18-“It is not good from humans to be alone. I will make for human a helper”, ie to match him, to stand with him and against him, as I am understanding the verse today. We are being called to return to a basic teaching that we all come from Adam and Eve and no one’s family is ‘better than’ anyone else’s so this idea of ‘privilege’ is ridiculous. There is on mention of skin color, of religion, of any characteristics that would validate the claims of some that they are the superior beings, they are the ones who know ‘god’, it is ordained they should rule and other such bullshit! Being in relationship calls for a practice of recognizing the infinite worth of both self and the person one is in relationship with. It is not a top/down experience, as I hear Rabbi Heschel today-it is a face to face relationship, much like our relationship with the Ineffable One is!

We need to do more “crying out” to one another in “acknowledging the existence of another human being and the validity of their existing” rather than yelling at another human being and denying their right to exist, their right to the same ‘privileges’ we have and their right to being treated as equally important and valid as we want for ourselves. We are in a world that doesn’t value “equality” for all, it doesn’t believe in “one law for the citizen and stranger alike”, it denies “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” from Leviticus that are on the Liberty Bell.  There are many in America today who revere the Liberty Bell and deny the words on it! They are not even aware of their incongruence because they are under the spell of prejudice that is spun by the authoritarians who could care less about the people supporting them and only want them to hate the people who could stop their power grab. Rather than be in a relationship, rather than “bring back” a sense of community and connection, rather than “know again” the joys of togetherness and communal celebrations, we are constantly seeking to disrupt the fragile ‘ecosystem’ of being human, we seem to be constantly falling over the narrow bridge that connects us and unwinding the binds that hold us together as humanity in favor of power, prestige and hatred.

Each person is endowed with “certain unalienable rights” and yet, we forget that everyone has a valid right to be seen as equal in the eyes of all human beings. We are all sons and daughters of the Sovereign, according to a prayer we say on the High Holy Days, so we are all royalty-not just some of us! We are all related to one another by virtue of the first humans-be it by evolution or creation. We all have a need to be connected that seems to be buried in our denials, in our self-deceptions, in the lies we are believing from the Liars-In-Chief. Yet, we all “recall to mind”, we all “know again” and see the reflection of our selves in every human being we encounter, just as Jacob saw himself in Esau. We all know this truth and, yet, we constantly deny it in our actions and try to push these truths from our minds.

We have to end our self-deceptions, we have to stop believing the lies of another who only wants power, who doesn’t see us as anything but pawns for her/his own glory. It is time for us to reclaim our own humanity, to recognize the worth of another and the worth of ourself as infinite. It is time to demand our seat at the table and to demand that everyone takes their unique seat at the same table. It is time for us to end our false need to be in power and instead be humble servants who serve something greater than our own desires and wants.

I know what it is like to not recognize the “equality” of another human being as I did this for the time I was a thief and a drunk. I know what it is like to not be recognized as “equal” to another as I have experienced this my entire life. I have been told I have a “niche Rabbinate”, that I can only talk to “those people”, that I am not “dignified” enough for my role, etc. Yet, I know I have equal value and I know that even those who deny my “equality” deserve to be recognized as equal in worth by me. Even, maybe especially, those who have denied my claims have to have their claims recognized my me precisely to teach by my actions that “equality” is God-given to all of us. It is hard and I miss the mark sometimes and I keep improving and showing myself the same love I am working hard to give to another. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 220

“Equality is an obstacle to callousness, setting a limit to power. Indeed, the history of mankind may be descried as the history of the tension between power and equality.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.94)

Today is the day after the commemoration of D-Day, 80 years later. We honored those who lived through the invasion and those who died there-all of them being brave and courageous, no matter that Trump and his minions call them losers! Now what, how were we changed by remembering those who died and lived in service of “equality” and freedom? Are we a little more committed to ensuring “Freedom for all”, “equality” for everyone? Or, are we going to go back to sleep and pat ourselves on the back for honoring the dead and their sacrifice while not being willing to make our own sacrifice for the next generations to come as our ancestors did?

The ‘day after’ is, I was taught by my Rabbi, Ed Feinstein, to be the most important day- how are we changed by the ‘holy day’, the holiday, the commemoration, the celebration? If we are not willing to take the actions needed to ensure what the brave men and women throughout our history fought, died and lived for-then what are we? If we are not willing to engage in “setting a limit to power”, what do we expect to happen to us and our descendants? If we are not moved by the determination of people to give their all, “their last full measure” so we did not have to be ruled by Hitler and his thugs, then, who are we? We are not being human, we are not following the tenets of any spiritual discipline nor religion, we are selfish, power-hungry and callous homo-sapiens!

“Equality”, as I hear Rabbi Heschel today, is to ensure that all people have equal opportunity to be educated well, to have equal opportunity to be hired for jobs/careers they are qualified for, that race, color, religion, creed are not barriers nor blockades to being elected to office, to buying a house in any neighborhood, to entering any college, high school, etc. These are some of the ways “equality is an obstacle to callousness”.  Yet, we seem to have a default to callousness, we seem to relish our descent into inequality, we seem to believe if we practice callousness towards another group we will hold onto power and never be touched by callousness. The callousness of mendacity and deception seem to bring people to authoritarians like a moth to light, we seem to be unable to stand up and tell Fox News - stop lying, stop promoting inequality and callousness, stop trying to have ‘all power’. We seem to be unable to convince a larger majority of people that the callousness and inequality they are worshiping at rallies, at the actions of white supremacists, by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups will impact them negatively, will subject them to the same fate as others throughout history have suffered and experienced; spiritual, emotional and physical tragedies that are very difficult to return from.

We are witnessing the pendulum swing towards power in society right now-be it the power grab of the far-right or the power grab of the far-left, be it the power grab of the opportunists like Trump, Musk, Bannon, Miller, et al or the squad and those on the left who want the power because they will use it ‘for good’-of course it is the ‘good’ they decide on-not necessarily the good of all. The anti-semitism on the left is a good example of how they use power to shut down graduations, classes, intimidate Jews and seek the destruction of Israel as a State and homeland. For those of us in the middle, those of us who know the cruelty of limitless power, those of us who can and do see the nuances, the both/and of life, we are not welcome in either the far-right of the Republican Party nor the far-left of the Democratic Party. The “tension between power and equality” seems to be leaning to the “power” side by both ends of the continuum!

We, the people, need to root out the callousness that dwells within each of us before we can solve the problem of callousness in our communities and countries. We need to take this “day after” and examine how we fall into the self-deception of believing we are not callous and yet, we give unequal weight to ‘our story’, to people on ‘our side’ rather than see and promote truth, equality, kindness and freedom. We all have to admit our prejudices and then rise above them, engage with our lurch towards power and hold it at bay with hearing the call of our souls to be kind rather than callous, to be in full disclosure rather than hide any flaws, admit our agendas and bias in order to hear the ‘rest of the story’ and, possibly, change our thinking and actions. We, the people, at this time in the history of our world, have to bring the “tension” back into proper measure between “power and equality” and we have to say NO to the thugs and the criminals who seek limitless power for their own sake.

I have fought for equality forever, again something I learned from my ancestors. My father and uncles fought in WWII and my being callous during my years in active addiction was an affront to their service. In recovery, I have been a warrior for “equality”, I work hard to afford equality to all whom I meet and hear them out before deciding if I agree or disagree. “Equality” to me doesn’t mean total agreement nor does it mean liking everyone or being on everyone’s side. It means that I give people the benefit of the doubt and allow them to show me who they are and then decide if I want to hang with them or now. I have left callousness in my past and I am in awe of the power I have rather than use it limitlessly. I have done the best I can to use my power to promote “equality” and provide opportunities for people I have encountered. I do this without any promise of reward except the promise of being able to live with myself. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 219

“Inequality is the ideal setting for the abuse of power, a perfect justification for man’s cruelty to man.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 94)

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of France that turned the tide of World War II. It was a day on which over 4000 Allied Soldiers died and some estimate 9000 German Soldiers and personnel died. World War II was a war determining if freedom would win out in Europe and the U.S. Freedom is lost whenever “inequality” rules is what I am hearing Rabbi Heschel tell us. In the words above, given the time and setting in which they were spoken and given our current time and setting, Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to guard our freedom by ensuring equality is our way of being in the face of “inequality’s” tremendous pull for some, especially those in power or those wanting to be in power.

Looking across history and across the globe today, we witness the truth and validity of Rabbi Heschel’s words “inequality is the ideal setting for the abuse of power”. Whether it is Putin, Xi, Orban, Trump, Bannon, Thomas, Alito, Leo, Ben-G’vir, Smotrich, Netanyahu, Johnson, Taylor-Greene, and their co-conspirators, all of these ‘strongmen/women’ constantly seek to exploit people using lies about how the ‘other side’ is practicing “inequality”, how the ‘other side’ is denying freedoms, etc. They use the Goebbels playbook: “accuse others of that which you are guilty of” and many people believe their mendacious statements, go along with them and, when it is too late, find out they were duped and are now under the thumb of these dictators and authoritarians. Be it Hitler and Goring, Stalin and Lenin, King George, Trump and Miller, Gingrich and his cronies, Sinwar and Hamas, Qatar and MBS, all of these people in their own ways have pushed for “inequality’ to be “the ideal setting for the abuse of power” that they engage in. Isn’t it time for we, the people, to say STOP? Isn’t it time for we, the people to honor the sacrifice of the soldiers who died on D-Day so we could live in freedom?

“Inequality” has always been “a perfect justification for man’s cruelty to man”-full stop. The only way human beings have been able to perpetrate the evil and the cruelty we have upon one another is by ‘seeing’ another as unequal to us. Be it Jews since antiquity till now, Blacks in America, “heathens” in the countries that Britain and/or Spain conquered, the powerful have made a separation between the ‘us’ and ‘those people’. While the Bible proclaims “one law for the citizen and stranger alike”, the ‘good religious folk’ in power seem to have missed that commandment, just as they missed the verse that says we are all created in the image of the divine and have equal worth and dignity! We have witnessed throughout the millennia the truth of the second phrase above and we seem incapable or unwilling to end our cruelty towards one another, we seem to be incapable or unwilling to end our abuse of power once we have it, we seem to relish both our abuses and cruelty while decrying the same when aimed towards us!

How many people today learn about and remember James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner? It is almost 60 years since their murders by KKKlansman because they were “Freedom Riders”, registering Black people to vote in the Presidential Election that year. They were ‘riding’ for freedom and equality for all-and were murdered by those who believe in “inequality” as the only way to hold onto power, to abuse their power, and to justify their cruelty to ‘those people’. It is ironic to me that 20 years after D-Day, three young men seeking to bring freedom and justice, equality and dignity to all people were murdered in the fight for freedom and equality that their ancestors and the ancestors of those who murdered them fought in WWII. We seem to be unable to learn from our history, we seem to be unable to live into Lincoln’s words: “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead will not have died in vain”. Is it not time to honor those who died on D-Day, in the entirety of WWII, in the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, Vietnam, the “Freedom Riders” above and the myriad of Blacks and Jews who were targeted by the KKK? Isn’t it time for We, The People, to bring about “a new birth of freedom”, a rebirth of our pursuit of justice and equality?

I am overwhelmed by the quote, by D-Day, by my family’s service in WWII, by the deaths of family members whom I never met in the Shoah, by the people I knew who died in Vietnam, by the inequality that is so prevalent and subtle. People with wealth get better treatment, often, in the medical system, in restaurants, in everyday life. Elon Musk is a treacherous human being who cares only about how he can exploit and abuse his power as he is doing against Ukraine. Trump and the Republicans in Congress who are supporting him put treasonous people who participated in Jan 6 insurrection onto the Intelligence Committee, they invoke the filibuster when asked to vote for the right of women to take contraceptions, etc. I am enraged by the inequality we are seeing perpetrated by those were abused. I am so saddened by the lack of memory and our unwillingness to learn from our history, our stubbornness towards living into the spiritual texts we have been bequeathed. I am angry with myself and apologize for the abuses of power I committed and I am constantly on guard against committing any more. I am hearing the reverberation of Rabbi Heschel’s words above in my head and recommitting to justice and equality FOR ALL, not just ‘my people’. I am recommitting to seeing everyone as ‘my people’, knowing we all need one another to make our world better. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 218

“Seen from the perspective of prophetic faith, the predicament of justice is the predicament of God.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 93)

When one looks at “the monstrosity of inequality”, the way the Justice system seems to work differently based on the color of one’s skin, the religion one is a member of, the economic status one holds, Rabbi Heschel’s words above slap us in the face with their truthfulness and our obliviousness to this truth. What is all the more perplexing is the current “predicament” we are facing, has at its roots, the misguided and mendacious beliefs of ‘religious’ people!

“Predicament” comes from the Latin word ‘predicate’ meaning “making something known” and came to mean in English “a puzzling, difficult, embarrassing situation”. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that “justice” is a puzzling and difficult experience because we have to delve into the facts, the context and the veracity of the claimants. This is true whether we are seeking justice in a court of law, a religious court, the court of public opinion and/or within our own being. What is just and true is not always the same, in fact, we are taught that we are to judge each case on its own merits because there can never be two cases that are completely identical. Yet, we continue to stereotype people, situations and rather than delve into the puzzling nature of what is, rather than immerse ourselves in the difficult search for truth, we embarrass ourselves by taking the ‘easier softer way’ of going along to get along.

Our failure to realize that God and justice go together has been and continues to be devastating to the equilibrium needed to keep freedom alive and well. When we are engaged in the 2-3 tier system of justice, when ‘religious fanatics’ declare their ‘bible’ says God is against abortion, when they continue to deny the wisdom and the evolution of the relationship between the universe and the human being, we are in a desperate “predicament” The prophets spoke out loudly and forcefully, Hosea compared what the priests and the people were doing to God to what unfaithful wives do to their husbands and unfaithful husbands do to their wives-they abase them, they desecrate the vows they made and the covenant they agreed to. One of the lessons from Hosea’s words is that we have the choice to stay in these predicaments of our own making, we have the opportunity to continue to whore ourselves and deny our prostitution of God’s words, and we have the opportunity to turn back, to allow God to “heal our backsliding” because God “takes us back in love”- just as our covenantal partners will when we are sincere in our return, when we are serious about changing our ways.

None of this can happen when equal justice is denied. “One law for the stranger and the citizen alike” is not just a phrase, it is an obligation that each of us takes on when we proclaim our relationship with God, with one another. To have a tiered justice system is a denial of this obligation, it is a denial of God’s will, it is a desecration of our covenant and rips apart the fragile fabric of freedom that hovers above us like a Talit at a wedding ceremony. The predicament we find ourselves in today is the predicament that humanity has faced since we came into being: will we join with God and seek justice and truth or will we stay apart from our inner truth and spiritual knowing to seek gains instead of justice and promote mendacity and deception rather than truth?

The unholy thinking and speaking of the ‘religious right’ ‘conservative’ judges and clergy of all faiths is the “predicament of God” as well as the “predicament of justice”. We are engaged in an embarrassing situation, as we were when Rabbi Heschel wrote this sentence. Are we, the people, going to continue to put up with the lies and bastardizations of God, faith, that Trump and his allies are doing? Are we, the people, on this eve of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, going to ‘go along to get along’ with the power of the authoritarian? Are we, the people, going to allow the “bell of freedom” to be silenced after all these years? This is the predicament these ‘religious right’, ‘conservative’, ‘power-mongering bigots’ have placed us in because of our own inaction, because we have not stood up to say NO to the same forces that brought us the Civil War, WWI, WWII, etc-hatred and power-seeking monsters who disguise themselves as ‘good christian/jewish/muslim folk’!

As someone who sought justice for all in my teens while selling “hot” merchandise I got on consignment from my barber, I am well aware of the “predicament” we are facing today. I faced it often and in my younger years, selfishness and fear usually won the day, I am embarrassed to say. It was one of the ways I most disrespected the life and memory of my father and my biggest amends to him at his grave! My recovery and my return was and is motivated by my seeking of what is just and true in every situation, personally, communally, globally. It is a hard life and one that is misunderstood by many. II am never 100% sure that what I am doing is correct, I may be 80-90% sure and that has to be good enough and people have tried to get me to change what I know to be true and go along with their self-interests forever. I am NOT always right, I am NOT always just, I am NOT always in truth and my “predicament” is that I know this and continually seek to grow my spiritual life, continue to clean up my inner schmutz and grow in the conviction that my obligation to live a just, true life overrides my fears and my egotistical desires. It is a hard road, one that takes nurturing and growing, constant weeding out of the lies and deceptions I buy into and a road that I love taking and the only one that makes any sense for me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 217

“What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 93)

These words can help us realize that our “sense of monstrosity” is alive and well as we have seen throughout the ages. We see outrage in people all the time, in fact, the very people who perpetrate “inequality” have this sense of “monstrosity” in the fabric of their being. “Who do ‘they’ think they are to believe ‘they’ are equal to us?” Is a battle cry among those perpetrators of “inequality”. One can fill in who ‘they’ are based on their own prejudice and contempt for equality. We see this in the chants of “Jews will not replace us”, we see this in the clearing of the streets in Washington DC so the President can have a photo op with the Bible that he has upside down, that his ‘Jewish’ daughter gave him a King James Version of instead of the Hebrew Bible. We see the outrage of the MAGA crowd at being denied a dictator, so far. We see the outrage and anger of the progressives that Jews think they deserve anything but anti-semitic rhetoric from them. We see and hear the outrage, the “monstrosity” of people whenever a group seeks, demands equality, whenever a group that has been marginalized seeks  a seat at the table. This is true now as it has been throughout history.

It is true on a global level, it is true on pure ideological levels, it is true with some supposed ‘religious’ levels. It is also true on personal levels. Far too often we think of people who are in the “helping professions” as ‘the help’ and treat them as such. In today’s world teachers are supposed to pass their students with good grades no matter what their work has earned. In private schools headmasters have been known to change the grades of some students when their parents call to complain. Teachers in all schools, public and private, are treated with contempt and disrespect by the parents of the students and blamed when their children refuse to learn because after all ‘it is your job to teach them’. Just as clergy, especially Rabbis are blamed for kids dropping out of religious school after their Bar/Bat Mitzvah because ‘it won’t help them get into college’, or ‘they don’t see the point’, and, of course the old standby, ‘you don’t make it fun for them’. All the while these parents who don’t go to Temple, don’t practice their faith in their home, believe the Rabbi should be their hired help for lifecycle events because they are the donors, they are the members. This is a very personal way of practicing “the monstrosity of inequality” which then reenforces the same practice in the political, ideological, business, ‘religious’ levels of living.

We can end this way of being, however! We have the wherewithal inside of us to end our “lacking a sense of the monstrosity of inequality.” We can learn from our history, we can learn the lessons the Bible, the myriad of spiritual texts we have come to teach us. We can remember just as God came to redeem the Israelites from Egypt, so too can we redeem the people suffering from the inequality from another. Just as we are told to redeem our kinsman, we can redeem those who perpetrate inequality from their stinking thinking and addictive actions. Just as we traveled the wilderness to reach Mt. Sinai and ‘heard’ the ‘voice’ of a power greater than ourselves, we can rise to a higher consciousness and practice “radical kinship”. Just as all the slaves who wanted to left Egypt, so too can we “erase the margins” which are arbitrarily erected to keep ‘them’ out and ‘down’. The Declaration of Independence called upon King George and all of us to realize that “all men are created equal” that we all have “unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. This declaration, which was the basis on which this country was founded, repeats the call in Leviticus to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. This declaration, which under assault from the right and the left, gives us the antidote to “the monstrosity of inequality” that even our founding fathers could not get past.

The solution resides within us, as all solutions do. We, the people, have to stop seeing life through a lens of ‘where’s mine’, through the eyes of ‘they are trying to take it from me’, through the lie of ‘not enough/better than’. We, the people have to redirect our vision, put on a new pair of glasses and see our part in the troubles that plague our world, our communities, our personal lives and no longer seek to blame and keep ‘them’ down. We are responsible for what happens in our homes, in our countries and in the world. No one is blameless and no one is the only one to blame. When we are being responsible, we are acknowledging our ability to respond rather than have knee-jerk reactions, we are saying yea to the call for goodness and equality, we are judging each case on its own merits without fear nor favor, we are standing with people instead of above them. We, the people, have to resolve within ourselves that we are good enough, that everyone is good enough and we all have a call and a desire to rise above our baser instincts of competition and “inequality”. We, the people, have to be outraged at “inequality” rather than a passive or active participant in it.

I hear my father’s outrage when Black men were making less than White men for the same job and how his raising the wages of Black men working for him caused the White men to quit and us being called N…lovers! I hear my father’s outrage at the anti-semitism being practiced in Cleveland, Ohio and across America even though he, and many other Jews, fought in WWII. I hear my father’s voice telling all of us to always say hello to people because we are no better nor worse than anyone else. I hear my father’s voice scolding his brother and still helping him no matter what. I hear my father’s outrage when he saw injustice and I hear my father’s voice telling me what the next right action to take is. I hear it clearer and clearer in the past 35 years and one of my amends at his grave was for blocking his voice and teachings over the first 20 years after he died. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 216

“What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 93)

Equal comes from the Latin meaning “level, even”, monstrosity is defined as “something that is outrageously and offensively wrong”. Using these two definitions, we can hear Rabbi Heschel speaking about any and all discrimination as wrong and our ability to ignore this “outrageous”, “uneven” way of being is scary and dangerous. It has led to so many wars, so much hatred and destruction and we continue on “lacking” “a sense of the monstrosity of inequality”. How is this possible, one might ask and the answer may well be that we are so engaged in participating in and accepting this “monstrosity of inequality” that we are unable to recognize it.

Rabbi Heschel is not saying that everyone should have equal pay for different jobs, he is not saying, I believe, that socialism is the path. Rather, I hear him calling for a “level” playing field, that equal opportunity should be afforded to everyone, not just the rich and famous, not just white people, not just ‘good christian nationalists’, etc. 70 years ago the Supreme Court decided the case “Brown v Board of Education” and called for an end to the lies of “separate but equal” because there was no equal education for Black children and adolescents, there was only Jim Crow laws and ways in the South then, as there seems to be an upsurge in the same attitudes now. The people of the South had/have very little “sense of the monstrosity of inequality” by the way they perpetuate it. The “Red States”  seem to have little “sense of the monstrosity of inequality” by the ways they continue to punish women who need/want good reproductive health care and they continue to deny it to them-forcing them to be near death and/or die in order to satisfy the people in power’s “monstrosity of inequality” quotient.

Throughout history ‘we’ have witnessed this lack of care and concern over “inequality” and taken no action as long as it is not ‘we’ who are suffering from it. ‘We’ have seen how the ones who have been treated so badly by this “monstrosity”, once we get power do the same to another group. We are so spiritually and morally bankrupt that we seem to be unable to rise above our baser selves, our “outrageous and offensively wrong” paradigm to a higher standard. This is what made “Brown v Board of Education” so powerful-the Supreme Court said we have undo the “,monstrosity of inequality” that we had endorsed so many years ago! Remember the reason the Puritans and the Pilgrims came to the New World-to escape the religious persecution they were experiencing back home in England. Yet today, we have their descendants and many others who came to America because of the Freedoms enshrined in our Bill of Rights, exerting both religious and racist persecutions and policies so they can have a “christian nation”, so they can have their “project 2025” and decimate the democratic norms and ways that have kept us a free nation. Rather than have “a sense of the monstrosity of inequality”, these ‘fine christian folks’ engage in “inequality” with vigor and glee. The supporters of Trump, the attackers of our Justice System all are joyful about Trump’s lies, they believe he has the right to defile the good names of people who say NO to him, they attack the very systems that allowed their ancestors to immigrate, that allows them the freedom to say their lies and spread their deceptions. Some of these people are elected officials who have sworn to “uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic” and they themselves are the enemies of our Constitution-talk about letting the fox in the hen house!

Jews, Muslims, Italians, Irish, have experienced this “monstrosity of inequality” so often in this country and in the world, just for being who we are. The practice of this “outrageous and offensively wrong” behavior has been validated by the ‘white christian/catholic’ power structure for millennia. We have been in the throes of a spiritual and moral malady by the very people who claim to have been saved by Jesus Christ and follow nothing that he spoke about! Rather than hang with the lepers, embrace Jesus’ people, the Jews, rather than care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the women, the orphans, these ‘good white christian/catholic’ power brokers do the opposite and pretend to do it in Jesus’ name! How ridiculous, how monstrous! We, people who are healing from any “monstrosity of inequality” have to stand up and say NO at the ballot box, in the media, we have to defund the hate mongers on the left and the right, we have to say NO to the anti-semites, the anti-black, the anti-freedom of choice people who are demonizing us, demonizing freedom, and perpetuating this “lacking a sense of the monstrosity of inequality” in our schools, in our homes, in our houses of worship.

I have been blessed by a strong “sense of the monstrosity of inequality” from my families engagement in workers rights by my grandfathers to my father to my siblings and myself. I believe we have passed this sense down to our descendants as well as evidenced by the work they all engage in. I am thinking about how important this “sense” is to apply to all our affairs. Even though I marched for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War in the 1960’s-70’s because of the “sense of the monstrosity of inequality”, I perpetrated this same monstrosity onto others with my stealing, my alcoholism, my abandonment of so many principles that I learned from my father. I watched and validated my behavior with “everyone does this” excuse and the words above remind me that my job to fight against this “monstrosity” is always present no matter what and there are no excuses to validate participating in it. More tomorrow. 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 215

“That equality is a good thing, a fine goal, may be generally accepted. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality. (Insecurity of Freedom pr. 93)

Rabbi Heschel, in 1963, recognized the truth that “equality…may(bold is mine for emphasis) be generally accepted. We are still in this state of may some 61+ years later, as we have been since humankind was created. We have the call for equality in the Bible when we are told “there should be one law for the citizen and stranger alike”, yet even in Israel, the home of the Bible, this “fine goal” is one that “may be generally accepted.” It certainly is here in America, the “land of the free and home of the brave”. We are so free that we are willing to be ruled by despots, by people who are willing to tear down the rule of law, shred our constitution, etc. We are so brave that we have to bow down before a liar and a grifter, we watch in horror, some of us, while the people elected to do the “people’s business” instead do the ‘business’ of their party elite, the rich, etc.

What will it take for all people to adopt the belief and take the actions necessary to make the words of the Talmud alive and well in our everyday living? These words from Tractate Sanhedrin, page 37a tell us that every soul has infinite worth and dignity, every soul has equal worth and dignity and every soul has unique worth and dignity. Equality is not the same as socialism or communism as some have equated it with. I hear Rabbi Heschel’s use of the word above is that everyone has equal opportunities to learn, to grow, to live their talents in the world, to speak their truth and to be judged in a court of law, a court of public opinion based on the facts, the truth, etc without fear or favor. Equality, as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning, is a level playing field where race, religion, creed have no sway in being hired, in being heard, in being voted for, in being judged, that what matters is “the content of character” and the veracity and validity of what a person is saying. Equality doesn’t mean giving equal weight to the lies and deceptions that one should be giving to truth, it does not mean nepotism, it is not interested in legacy enrollments, it is about the merits (and demerits) of each individual and policy, each educational system and religious beliefs, respecting each soul as precious and a reflection of part of the image of the divine. Equality is not sameness!

I am stuck on this paper that Rabbi Heschel delivered at the White House Conference on Race and Religion because it is relevant to our lives in this moment. There is a proliferation of movies about survivors of the Shoah, we have watched the Tattooist of Aushwitz and We Were the Lucky Ones and both show the resilience of people yearning to be free. The power of family in the latter and the power of love in both. The yearning to be free is no less in the majority of the Palestinian people than in the majority of Israeli people. The yearning to live equally in the world is as strong in the Jewish people as it is in Christian people. The yearning to be free of Russia is as equal in the Ukrainian people as the yearning to be free of China by the Tibetan people. In our world today we see the power of love, the power of resilience in Israelis, in Ukrainians, in Tibetans and in Palestinians who could come together and solve the issues if their leaders would see the truth. There is certainly equal suffering-no matter what anyone says, suffering the loss of loved ones, the terrorizing of Oct 7th, the fear of reprisals and being used as puppets and shields - no one suffering more than another, all sides are equal in their suffering and their loss of humanity.

With equality, comes, I believe, freedom- freedom to be a slave if one wants, freedom to be deceived if one chooses. It also is the freedom to mature one’s spiritual beingness, the freedom to expand one’s mind and one’s emotions. The freedom to see oneself in the face and the world of another human being. The freedom and ability to serve something greater than one’s selfish needs and desires. Equality brings us to recognize our need for one another; we need the people to haul our garbage just as much as we are needed to do our work. No one is exempt from the Covenant with God, we are all equal as it says in Deuteronomy 29:9-11: “You are all standing here…tribal heads… your wives, your children, the stranger within your camp from woodchopper to water drawer to enter the covenant with your God..” There is no one who is more or less in the ‘eyes’ of God, in the words of the Bible. We are not all tribal leaders, we are not all kings and queens, priests and prophets and we are all equal in that who we are and our unique talents are equally valued and needed to make our world draw near to the vision the Bible has for us.

I am realizing that my actions have caused some people to feel that I did not treat them with equality. I know that I attempted to and I was not always good at explaining myself. What is good for one person is not necessarily good for another and, because we live in a comparative world, we think we should all be treated the same or at least if there is any deviation, it should only be for me. I have done the best I can in each experience to see the worth and dignity of another person, I have a manner that may be too loud and boisterous for some and my way should not be used as an indictment against me or a denigration of my gifts as it has been by some throughout my lifetime. I realize that my deficiency has been my sensitivity to what another thinks and my frustration at not being heard and not being understood. In a world that values “equality”, I pray that you hear the call of my soul as I hear the call of yours. It doesn’t happen 100% of the time and, I believe, I practice this at least 80% of the time:). God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 214

“In a community not indifferent to suffering, uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood, racial discrimination would be infrequent rather than common.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 93)

While we usually equate “racial discrimination” with the color of people’s skin, “racial” is defined as “groupings which humankind is divided on the basis of physical characteristics or shared ancestry”. The last phrase above is asking us and challenging us to end our “discrimination”, our “unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people.” Isn’t it ridiculous to separate people into different categories? We are all people, we are all created equal, we are all created in the image of the divine, we all bleed red, we are all kin under the skin. Given these truths, how can we categorize one another as less than or better than or in any other ways that could cause “unjust or prejudicial treatment”?

We are in the throes of a similar fear as took hold of the U.S. after the Civil War: equality for all, living up to and into the words of the Declaration of Independence, understanding and living with the nuances of the Bill of Rights, truly “proclaim Liberty throughout the Land and to all its inhabitants therein” as Lev. 25:10 calls on us to do. This fear is, once again, being led by white supremacists and white people who are afraid if people of color gain power they will do to them what the white people did to people of color! This fear is being used as a rallying point and with such deception that even people of color, even Jews and Muslims are going along with the goals of these white power people! It is completely baffling that the very people who suffer from the “cruelty and falsehood” of those who either are in power or are seeking power once again are supporting their oppressors!

In order to rise to a way of being where “racial discrimination” is “infrequent rather than common”, people have to rise up and live into their higher consciousness, their higher self, the true call of their souls. This is not to point fingers, this is to state a fact that we all need to do this, we all need to search our inner lives and root out the prejudices we still have, we have to end our seemingly endless need to blame someone else, to not take responsibility,. We have to live into Rabbi Heschel’s teaching “some are guilty and all are responsible”. We can do this, we have the power, we have the technology, we have the weaponry, do we have the will? The recovery movement is an example of the bolded phrase above, we don’t discriminate because we know and some of us have experienced the discriminatory practices because of our addictions, our crimes, etc. We welcome everyone who has “a desire to stop drinking” and we embrace all, one of our slogans is “let us love you until you can love yourself”.

One of the errors of the Rabbis was to make it hard for people to convert to Judaism, while the Bible teaches just a declaration of “your people will be my people” was enough for the ancestor of King David. Christianity, which welcomes converts and even forcibly converted people, still discriminates as does Islam. There are Jews, Muslims, Christians who have practiced “racial discrimination” against one another, against people within their own faith because of skin color, and been leaders of the myriad of groups seeking to discriminate. The current rise of antisemitism on the right and the left is an example of “racial discrimination”, there is a certain irony in the discrimination of the left towards Jewish women being raped and murdered, Hamas’ unprovoked attack on Oct. 7th, and their call for Black Lives Matter while saying Jewish Lives DON’T matter.

We are in a volatile state in the world and in this country and, as Lincoln says, “now we are engaged in a great civil war…that the dead shall not have died in vain”. We have a lot of people who died in our wars to provide the rest of us a place where “let freedom ring” is more than an empty call, it is the goal. We witnessed the conviction of an ex-President on May 30, 2024 and now we have to follow it up with ensuring that a convicted felon doesn’t become President again. We have to follow the courageous lead of the 12 person jury and the Judge and Court Officials and make sure that the lies and deceptions of Trump and his Republican ‘yes people’ as well as Alito and his allies on the Supreme Court do not pollute the Freedom that so many have died for, that we, the people, do not allow them to continue their “racial discrimination” and we take the necessary steps legally and spiritually to make “racial discrimination infrequent”.

We do this, as I have said, by looking inside of ourselves. We do this by cleaning our side of the street before pointing fingers. It is necessary for me to clean my inner life and clean up the chaos I have caused before rebuking another and it is important to point out to people when they are going astray, when they are taking actions that enhance discrimination of any kind, even discriminating against their best interests. I have learned the difference between discrimination and distinguishing, the former is about putting people ‘in their place’ and the latter is seeing each person for who they are and helping them be the best person they can be. I have spent years helping another person realize their dreams, discern the call of their souls and watch in awe as people soar. I don’t compare and I am happy for the success of everyone I know and suffer with those who fall, those who are the victims of discriminatory practices, those who are falsely accused, etc. I believe we can use our gifts to enhance the lives of those around us and not diminish our own, I believe we can live in the ‘both/and’ without needing to prove how ‘right’ we are. I believe we can created the community Rabbi Heschel is speaking about. I pray you will join me and so many others who are engaged in this work. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 213

“In a community not indifferent to suffering, uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood, racial discrimination would be infrequent rather than common.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 93)

This sentence above sits with us as a condemnation, a reminder and a call to action. Rabbi Heschel has a quote, “A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of faith. He is asked to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.” In the words I have put in bold letters above, Rabbi Heschel is asking/demanding us to take the action of being “uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood” rather than accept these ways of being as ‘normal’, as ‘societal norms that have been with us throughout the millennia’ and other such poppycock!

We are witnessing, some 90 years after the rise of Nazism, a resurgence of patience with cruelty and falsehood, in fact, it seems to be the very point of some politicians, some clergy, some people in the street to be more cruel, more mendacious than any of our ancestors and despots. When taking away a woman’s right to choose is more important than ensuring women have good reproductive health care, when denying InVitro to women who find themselves unable to get pregnant is celebrated, we are witnessing, and for some of us, participating in severe cruelty. This is not about being “pro-life” as these liars claim; it is about control of women, fear of being less than a woman, a need to exert power over someone one when we one feels powerless. Rather than being “uncompromisingly impatient” there are many people who have been patiently awaiting these days of cruelty and falsehood being the path to their power. Putin, Trump (they are good friends according to DJT), Orban, Netanyahu, Sinwar and the rest of the autocrats and despots all believe and practice the principle: the more cruel I can be, the more lies I can tell and get away with, the stronger I am, the more powerful I am and the greater my shadow is. This is an age-old way of gaining and holding onto power, it was perfected by Nazi Germany and today’s practitioners are improving on what Germany did in the 1930’s and 1940’s! And, many of us are fiddling while the world burns, literally and figuratively.

It all begins with the individual however. While blaming Trump, Hitler, Putin, Sinwar, Netanyahu is easy and feels good, it is we, the people, who have not made ourselves and our communities “uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood.” It is we, the people, who have refused to ‘take the cure’ for our spiritual maladies of jealousy, of being power-hungry, of self-deception, of believing the lies of another, of needing a scapegoat, of blaming and shaming another so we can shirk our responsibility. It is time for all of us to own up to our part in promoting, allowing, going along to get along with the cruelties and falsehoods that make us ‘feel good’. It is we, the people, who have given oxygen to the lies of the religious right, the falsehoods of the MAGA crowd, the mendacity of the authoritarians in our midst, the celebrations of cruelty towards anyone not like the White Male Christian Nationalists that are making so much noise and even the women who join them believe the men are in charge. It is we, the people, as individuals who are giving up our own dignity and infinite worth to serve and bow down before another Pharaoh, another false prophet, another Shabbatai Tzvi-false messiah.

We, the people as individuals and communities have to seek out our individual physicians of the soul. Each one of us is in desperate need of a spiritual renaissance, a spiritual uplift so we can once again be guided by our souls, not our desires, our egos, our self-deceptions. Each of us is being called to take the actions of kindness, compassion, love, decency, healing, building, etc before we are able to understand the ‘why’s and the wherefore’s’. Rabbi Heschel’s words are meant to disrupt our sleep, to wake us up to the truth rather than the “falsehoods” we have been sold and the ones we are peddling. He is disturbing our consciences, if we allow him to, just as the Bible does, just as the New Testament does, just as the Koran does when we immerse ourselves in them for the truth they speak rather than using them to justify our “cruelty and falsehoods”.

Once we are on our individual journeys of healing the spiritual maladies that are causing our acts of “cruelty and falsehoods”, we can then work together to heal the same maladies of our community. Then we can work together to heal the maladies that our countries and our world face as well. Taking the action will  give us the understanding and the vision to make “our communities…uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood.”

This is the journey I have been on for over 36 years. I am not 100% and I am more than 51% “uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood.” I have been loud, obnoxious, even mean-sounding in my condemnation of “cruelty and falsehood”, I have been accused of being cruel myself when I refuse to buy into the lies and deceptions of another. I know I still have my own self-deceptions, I also know they are fewer than before and I am hold onto them for less time than I ever have. I continue to take actions I don’t understand so I can understand more than my actions, I continue to increase my impatience with “cruelty and falsehood”, I continue to speak the truth I am given, I continue to stand for what is right and good, to understand the nuances of life rather than living in the ‘one way’ attitude. I have found myself less patient with the people who continue to live in the mendacity of blame and shame, with people who don’t want to ‘rock the boat’. I am not popular for this way of being, the phone isn’t ringing, I am not noticed much anymore and I am good with it because I know I am being true to me, my uncompromising impatience “with cruelty and falsehood” allows me to live a little better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 212

“In a community not indifferent to suffering, uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood, racial discrimination would be infrequent rather than common.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 93)

Unfortunately the community Rabbi Heschel is describing has not yet come into maturity in the history of humankind. I use the word maturity because this type of community has sprouted up here and there throughout history, in homes and towns, villages and cities where people believe in the dignity and worth of human beings without regard to color, religion, etc. We saw this in Nazi Germany and throughout Europe during the 2nd World War when people, at the risk of their own deaths, would hide Jews, Gypsy, etc from the horror of the camps and extermination. We see this in the Sanctuary Cities in America for people running from certain death, rape, etc in their home countries.

Rabbi Heschel’s words should be nagging at us, disturbing us and pushing us to put our souls together and find a way to create this community in our own homes and towns, in our states and country, in our global community. We can add all/any in the last phrase where “racial discrimination” is used. Any type of discrimination will be infrequent, any type of scapegoating and blaming, any type of finger pointing and shaming will be infrequent once we commit to being “not indifferent to suffering”. While this may seem a lofty goal, it is right at our fingertips, it is, as the Bible tells us, in our mouths and in our hearts. Letting go of blaming and scapegoating, shaming and finger pointing means being responsible for our own actions. It means making the statement, “I am my brother’s keeper” instead of doing as Cain did and making it a question. It is acknowledging the nearness of negativity and how much it desires us and our ability to rise above it. It is about mending our imperfections, repairing the damage we do to ourselves and another, it is about maturing our spiritual life and seeking the proper “physician of the soul” as Maimonidies teaches.

We all experience suffering at one time or another. Be it to “tolerate” the pain of loss, the pain of unrealized dreams, be it to “suffer doing the next right thing”, be it the recognition that we can bear these pains and disappointments because of the depth of our soul and our connection to family, friends, community, the universe. The call here is to not be “indifferent”, to stop our lies to ourselves that ‘we are men and should be able to handle this’, ‘we are women and we can bear the pain of childbirth so you should be able to go through this’, etc. Indifferent to suffering begins within ourselves, it is a deceptive technique to deflect our pain, and to, at the first opportunity, take our pain out on someone else, someone we consider beneath us-be it because of race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity. Hence Lyndon Johnson’s quote: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” Nowadays it is not just color, it is anyone who isn’t ‘white like me’ anyone who doesn’t want the US to be “a Christian Nation” are beneath the MAGA crowd, It is evident that the indifference to suffering that is the hallmark of Trump and his gang of thieves has filtered down to his supporters and the Republican Party, who promoted “compassionate conservatism” under George W. Bush, has rejected their old ways and signed on to being “indifferent to suffering”.

If we are to make the words of the Bible, the path of the Buddha, the way of Rumi, the philosophy of Gibran come alive, we have to reject these charlatans, we have to make good on the promise of America, the promise of the Exodus from Egypt. We have to follow through on the promises God delivers to us each day: slavery will end, we can leave our inner slaveries, we are redeemable, and we each have a unique place in this world and only we can bring our unique talents to relieve some of the suffering we encounter. We are the healers, we are the redeemers, we are the engines that drive us to freedom and out of slavery, to healing and out of suffering. We do this by seeking ways to heal our inner suffering, not by projecting it outward, rather by going through the pains we are experiencing and growing from them, gaining compassion from them for another human being who is going through their own pain. This is the path of the 12-step program; one alcoholic helping another. This is the path of all religious healing-one person helping another, each person being embraced by their community, not shamed or blamed. We can do this, we can create these types of communities across the globe. We can live into the promise of America, the reason the Puritans and the Pilgrims came to “the new world”. Are we courageous enough to fulfill their dream?

I come from a family who were “not indifferent to suffering” and, though I have cause suffering, especially when I was not in recovery, not living a spiritual life, I return to their examples time and time again. I am not quiet about it, I am not soft in my seeking consensus in alleviating suffering, I am not subtle in my raising the alarm about being “indifferent to suffering”. I am loud, obnoxious to some, disruptive to many and, some say, I cause chaos in my wake. All of these descriptions are true at one time or another. I am also deeply committed to being “not indifferent to suffering” of another human being. I am a passionate believer in the possibility that each and every person can do T’Shuvah, make amends, change their ‘spots’ and live well. I am a physician of the soul and I do not go along to get along, I have failed at times to get people to look at themselves and I have failed to look at me at times-this is the reason T’Shuvah is so important a practice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 211

“However, an honest estimation of the moral state of our society will disclose: Some are guilty, but all are responsible.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg.93)

While it is exceedingly popular to blame society for our current moral state, as has been the case forever, Rabbi Heschel’s words above, hopefully, disturb us greatly. They are meant, I believe, for us to stop the blame game and get into action, end our hand-wringing and bemoaning of the ills of society and do what is necessary to change, improve and cure our current moral and spiritual maladies. It begins with each of us in our inner life and then we can affect change in another and another, until we reach the “99th monkey”, the “tipping point” and we can heal as a society.

At issue is the lack of leadership for our moral maturity in our spiritual life; the loudest people are often the most guilty and responsible for the lack of morality and the spiritual maladies that promote racism, prejudice, anti-semitism, islamaphobia, anti-lgbtq+, etc. Our politicians who are claiming to be following the words and teaching of Jesus while doing the exact opposite of what his disciples said in his name are prime examples of how we move from a nation that believes in freedom and independence to one of authoritarianism and internment camps, as Trump and his ‘gang’ are promoting.

Jesus says, according to Mathew 23:25-26: “you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” Yet these supposed disciples of his today are the hypocrites he was speaking to! And, they walk around unaware of their guilt and their responsibility for the ills of society, for the moral injustices they perpetrate. AND, we must also take responsibility for what is happening. We, the people, have allowed the lies and the deceptions of another(s) and of self to override what is truth, what is moral, the illness of our inner life and promoted the decay of the societal norms the Bible gives us. We have to clean up our inner life, we have to end our “greed and self-indulgence” which brought about the destruction of the 2nd Temple and has been destroying society a little at a time ever since.

This talk, given at the Conference on Race and Religion some 61 years ago, is as relevant and important today as it was then, maybe more so. Rabbi Heschel was addressing racism in particular and prejudice in general. Today, the prejudices of so many are so blatant and being given cover by the Unrule of Law as the Supreme Court’s bias is so obvious. When Trump can delay his trials, when a Federal Judge can go against the spirit if not the letter of the law like Judge Cannon, when Congresspeople travel to New York to upend the rule of law instead of taking care of business is Washington DC, we are seeing the sad state of moral decay and spiritual illness that is rampant in our country and in the world.

AND, we are all responsible. We need to be speaking out more, we need to be voting more, we need to give the people who are fighting for real freedoms, for the principles the country was founded on courage and support. We need to tell the people on the extremes that living in the middle is the way of spiritual and moral health. We need to remember to judge each case on its own merits, not according to some ideology we purport to adhere to. We need to call our clergy and our lay leaders to task for not creating sanctuaries of truth, not creating houses of learning and welcoming the arguments that lead to compromises and solutions. We need to hold their feet to the fire until they admit their own guilt and responsibility for what is happening. We need to do the same ourselves.

It is amazing that people can pray with such fervor for the destruction of another human being, another group of people and claim this is what God wants using the words of the prophets, Jesus, etc as their proof-text. It is amazing that our political, our religious, our business leaders can ignore the constant call to redeem one another and care for the powerless and the voiceless that is in the Bible, that were the ways of Jesus. It is a sign of the moral decay of our society that people cheer when the Free Press is called “the enemy of the State”, when people of color are accused of not being hung, when people of different religions and ethnicities are not considered ‘equal’ to WASP’s, to Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. It is a sign of our indifference that we, the people put up with these lies, with this moral decay, all because we are still more interested

Cleaning our inner life is the key to healing the spiritual and moral maladies of our society. I know this from my own experience. Prior to my return, T’Shuvah, and my recovery of my authentic self, I hoped that my outside was good enough to fool everyone as to what was happening on my insides, this allowed me to deceive myself into believing I could do immoral acts and not have them infect my inner life. I was WRONG! Since I have been working on my inner life, my outer actions have been much healthier, even when not seen as such by society. I have lived into my authentic nature of being a disrupter, I admit my guilt and know I am co-responsible for what is happening in the world around me so I speak up, I reach out, I do what I can-knowing it is not all on me and I am not free to walk away from the situation. I work hard to let go of resentments as this keeps my inner life clean, I do not whitewash the wrongs done in my name, by me or to me by another(s). I just don’t need to hate them like I used to, I just need to rise above the pettiness and enmity to be the light I am created to be, that my Hebrew name calls me to be. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 210

“If we admit that the individual is in some measure conditioned or affected by the public climate of opinion, an individual’s crime discloses society’s corruption.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.93)

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, we remember all of those who have died in service of our country. We also remember every service member, man and woman, who has put their life on the line so freedom was secure for their generation and the next one. Looking at the sentence above gives one pause as to how incongruent we have become as a nation because of we, as individuals, have become so “conditioned and affected by the public climate of opinion” that seems to be mendacity, deception, and authoritarianism. The young men and women who served, who died and those who came back from every war changed morally and spiritually as well as emotionally are being degraded, disrespected and their “last measure of courage” is being seen as stupidity according to the grand poobah, Donald Trump! And, unfortunately, at least 1/3-1/2 of Americans go along with him, support his antics and praise him as the second coming of Jesus Christ-how ridiculous and how much more corrupt can we be, as individuals and as a society?

Rabbi Heschel spoke these words some 61+ years ago and we haven’t learned them, we haven’t taken them into our minds, our hearts, our souls and it is costing us our freedom, our country’s ideals, the principles of the Puritans and the other people who settled in this land/ They all came here seeking religious freedom, seeking to be taken out of the slavery of the King they were having to serve, seeking to have the inner burdens of slavery lifted from their souls. Yet, we continue to go backwards in our thinking, in our actions. When the public climate of opinion is to ‘put women in their place-barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen’, of 1/3-1/2 of the country and this becomes palatable to the individual, “society’s corruption” is being disclosed. When people are celebrated for their violence under the color of authority as in the numerous police brutality cases that either don’t get prosecuted and/or where the offenders get acquitted, “society’s corruption” is being disclosed. When a man who has been indicted in 4 different jurisdictions is allowed by the Supreme Court to delay, delay, delay rather than being held accountable while poor people, people who are not so favored are treated totally differently, “society’s corruption” is being disclosed.

Alito, Thomas, Bannon, Miller, et al are the co-conspirators and criminals along with Trump. While they will ‘fly the flag’ (probably upside down) and extol our veterans, their actions and their rhetoric decry the very freedoms our fallen heroes died for. Laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is political theater for these people, they have and continue to spit on the graves of our soldiers, our founding fathers, and spit in the faces of those of us who believe in freedom, who believe in the promise of America. Their “make America great again” bullshit is just another slogan-they do not care about the crimes committed by their followers, they encourage them to kill, harm, harass ‘the enemy’. ‘The enemy’ of course is anyone who disagrees with them, who calls them out on their lies and deceptions, who seeks to make a free society governed by the rule of law without fear or favor a healthy organism.

We see the “individual’s crimes” as a ‘crime wave’ when perpetrated by people of color and condemn a whole race for them, we see the “individual’s crimes” as a ‘way they are’ when perpetrated by Jews and their ‘money-grabbing’ ways. We see the “individual’s crimes” as the totality of their being and we define people as criminals forever, constantly using their foibles, their errors against them. We use the vulnerabilities of people and groups against them in order to have power, control and to continue to infect society with the deadly disease of prejudice, of indifference, of hatred. This way of living, this current grab for power by the ‘maga bullshit’ crowd is the very example of M. Scott Peck’s definition of evil! Yet, we, the rest of society, are allowing them to scream these lies, continue to defeat freedom rather than taking to the streets as we did in the ’60’s and ’70’s. Rather than have our faith communities take up the charge and the challenge to save our young people from death and moral as well as spiritual destruction in Vietnam as they did in those years, some of the faith communities are leading the charge and, at least, giving cover for the liars and the deceivers to spread their mendacity in the name of some ‘god’, some idol they call ‘Jesus’-this is how widespread “society’s corruption” is today.

I am responsible for all my crimes and misdemeanors-full stop! And, I see how I was influenced by the times as I was growing up. Money was everything in my youth and it is more so now-I saw people cheating another all the time and said, “why not get mine”. There were many people I knew and loved who did not do this and, I caught the “public climate of opinion” that people with money could get away with anything and very few people cared how they got their money-only that they had it. While people I loved tried to talk me out of it, I could not hear them because I had given into the self-deception and lies I told myself. This is part of what makes me so bombastic, so uncontrollable when I see lies and deceptions-by myself and by another(s). I have been accused of creating chaos and dissension by my mere presence because I speak my truth and, therefore, can’t really be in ‘polite society’. I am proud of this label-I am proud to be able to disrupt the status quo and give people qualms about their indifference and their self-deceptions. I pray I continue this, I am committed to healing my crimes and impacting society to heal it’s crimes so we can live the ideas of the Bible, the ideas of America, the ideas of freedom for all a little better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Immersing Ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s Teachings - A Daily Spiritual Path for Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 209

“That God may be more intimately present in the slums than in mansions, with those who are smarting under the abuse of the callous.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 93)

There are many tales about Elijah, the prophet who was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, being the one who comes before the Messiah in Jewish lore. Yet, each time we meet Elijah in our stories, he is sitting with the poor, he has scabs on him from being on the streets, he is welcoming the stranger to the city, the area and is ignored. Some say that the Messiah will not come until we welcome Elijah and his friends into our mansions, into our Temples, Churches, Mosques as people who have equal worth and honor their dignity and the image of the divine he and they are created in.

We have created a system of “beautifying the mitzvah”, adorning the Torah, being stricter and stricter as to how people are ‘supposed’ to live in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam falsely believing that the more we elevate our Houses of Worship, the more we adorn them, the more God wants to be with us. WRONG! The teaching above is telling us the exact opposite. God’s presence, while always with us, is known by those “in the slums” more intimately than by those “in mansions”. The people “in the slums” pray with more sincerity and more kavanah, they are acutely aware of their need for grace and compassion, they pray for an opportunity to serve the world in the best way they can and what they get from those “in mansions” is more put downs, more hurdles, more inequality. When one person, one vote is denied because of gerrymandering and the Supreme Court goes along with it, this is a hurdle. When there is one law for the stranger and another law for the ‘citizen’, this is inequality. When the religious right call for a Christian Nation, this is a put down of all other religions and a put down of God-who they claim to serve!

In the Bible and in the Midrash/Homilies we are told how God hears the cries of the poor and the stranger, the widow and the orphan-ie the powerless and voiceless. We are told that abuse of these people engenders God’s ‘wraith’. Yet, the pious ones who live “in mansions”, these prosperity gospel lying bastards, continue to remain “callous” and, as one can see in the eyes of the authoritarians and their advisors, they enjoy the “abuse” they give out, they relish in the “smarting of the abused” they engage in. We, the people, have to call an end to this way of being. We have to expose the lies of the religious zealots who bastardize the tenets of their religious orders, we have to say NO to those “in mansions” who either rejoice in the “smarting of the abused” they are giving out and/or are oblivious and indifferent to it.

The teaching above is crucial for us, it reminds me of Moses’ words at the end of Deuteronomy, where he tells the people that after they get into the land, after they enjoy the fruits of their labor and the land, they well “get fat” and forget their history, forget their obligation to serve something greater than themselves and they will fall into a state of entitlement and this will lead to their downfall. Yet, the people “in mansions” in every era have believed they are different and this will not happen to them-be it in Ancient Rome or Germany of the 1930’s/40’s. Be it Czarist Russia or Russia in the 1980’s we have seen this movie play out over and over again.

Netanyahu, Ben-G’Vir, and their band of thugs who live “in mansions” along with Sinwar and the leadership of Hamas who also live “in mansions” believe that “God is on their side” while they enjoy the “smarting of the abused” they and their cronies give out. As both Moses and the Egyptian advisors to Pharaoh said to him: “Until when will you refuse to surrender to a power greater than yourself”, what will it take for you to see how you have ruined Egypt, Gaza, Israel? I would say the same things to the Far Right and Far Left zealots in America as well. Most of all, I would ask the people who are center right, center left, center, why they are afraid to stand up and speak out while Rome, Gaza, America, so many places around the globe are on fire?

We, the people in the middle, the ones who live at least 20% away from each pole, have to get out of our mansions, our ornate Churches, Mosques, Temples and bring in those who have been abused and heal them. We have to go out and clean up the slums side by side with the people who are living in them. We have to bring spiritual truths and healing into our mansions, we have to have respect for the rule of law and remind ourselves of our obligations to redeem the captive, to love one another, to see the divine image we are all created in, to respect the dignity and worth of every one and to stop our erroneous belief that the gates to our mansions will save us. We have to fight against the arrogance of zealotry, the stupidity of ignorance, the pull of indifference and lethargy.

I have lived in the slums, I have been poor and I have been one of those who have abused the trust and love of people close to me and upon realizing where I was, I called out and the universe, the Ineffable One, responded to me. I have stayed true to that experience and since I began my journey of T’Shuvah, my return to decency and morality, obligation and joy, I have taken great care to lift another(s) out of the slums of addiction, to help people heal their spiritual maladies, to find the “middle ground” as Rambam says. It is a message that I have taken to people “in mansions” and, in many cases, found a welcoming ear to this message and a helpful hand in our mission. I am humbled and grateful for this experience. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark