Living Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Path for Spiritual Growth

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 235

“Old age often is an age of anguish and boredom. The only answer to such anguish is a sense of significant being. The sense of significant being is a thing of the spirit. Stunts, buffers, games, hobbies, slogans -all are evasions.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 77)

Continuing to immerse ourselves in Rabbi Heschel’s paper given at the White House Conference on Aging in 1961, many people of ‘a certain age’ can relate to the teaching above. People who are in “old age” and those of us who remember how we ignored the anguish and boredom of our ‘older relatives’ including our parents! This was not a willful ignorance, it was an ignorance born out of being oblivious to the plight of people once they were no longer ‘productive’. Once we asked them to leave the workplace, stop adding to the society, because we wanted them to enjoy their “golden years” as Del Webb coined the phrase, we had no understanding of what a loss of dignity, a loss of purpose meant to people. “Anguish and boredom” have interesting definitions, anguish comes from the Latin meaning “narrow” and boredom is the state of “feeling weary because one is unoccupied”; bored also means “make a hole in something”. Using these definitions/roots we can hear Rabbi Heschel saying “old age often is an age” of narrowness and weariness from being unoccupied and a time of feeling like there is a hole in my soul. This experience is, unfortunately, happening at an alarming rate for ‘senior citizens’.

The “anguish and boredom” that often happens in “old age” is, as Rabbi Heschel says, from a loss of “a sense of significant being”. We strip people of their dignity and tell them in a myriad of ways they no longer are worth as much as they were to society and what else can happen except “anguish and boredom”? We have been seeing an uptick in addiction in older adults, more use of Marijuana and THC, we also see more illness, more falls, etc precisely because they are bored and alone-even if family is around, even with their spouses loving them, many people feel the loss of dignity and worth so acutely “anguish and boredom” are their daily spiritual temperatures.

Why do we have to define any person as young or old, why do we have to define “golden years”, “senior citizen”, etc? Because once we define someone, something, it gives us power over them, power to know how to ‘deal with’ them, power to demean or extol them, etc. Once we use any terms other than “human being” to describe someone we are making a judgment about them, we are categorizing them and we are revealing what we think they are ‘worth’. We steal the dignity of an individual by categorizing them, we rob people of their worth by saying: time’s up. While there are some people who need to take a rest from their work, this doesn’t mean “putting them out to pasture in an ‘old home’. It doesn’t mean that everyone should stop working at a certain age or everyone over a certain age doesn’t need this particular r medical test, or that the arm of an 80 year old is worth less than an arm of a 30 year old as actuary tables believe. Yet, society has narrowed the path for people ‘of a certain age’ and purposely tries to make a ‘hole in their soul’ by telling them they are not needed anymore.

How can we combat these lies, how can we change societal norms? I believe we can be serious about the term “senior citizen”. Instead of this term meaning “older person”, we can understand and use this term to mean: “holding an authoritative position”. When we turn the dial of our thinking and seeing, when we allow our higher consciousness and our ‘third eye’ as well as our inner knowing  to be our eyes, ears, and actor, we realize the infinite value of our elders to guide us, to relate their failures and their successes to us. The wealth of knowing that “older adults” have is unmeasurable. It is like the story of the man who wandered in the forest so lost he was sinking into  despair and then he saw another person and was overjoyed. When the lost man asked for the other person’s help in getting out of the forest, the second person said: ‘I don’t know the way out, I do know the ways that don’t work and between us we can figure the way out because of our knowledge of the ones that have proved futile”. Using the experience of “older adults” in navigating our way out of the forest is crucial for the next generations to improve our world and not spend too much time on old ideas that “result in nil” as it says in the Big Book of AA. Doing this allows us to relieve the “anguish and boredom” and honor the spirit, value and dignity of everyone!

These words, teachings of Rabbi Heschel are giving me more compassion for myself, my daughter, my siblings, my wife and everyone around me. I have a greater capacity to forgive people for not seeing “older adults”, for people believing someone is “past their prime”, that “they are the past”, and other defenses for the mistreatment of “people of a certain age”. I have more understanding of my mother’s plight when she would want everyone to call her and know everything about our lives along with always giving me, at least, her opinion of what I should and should not do. She was ‘lashing’ out in her “anguish and boredom”, in her seeing herself diminish in her own eyes and losing her dignity. This is why, after she had an accident at age 88, my siblings and I helped her lease a new car so she would not be trapped. It is also why, two years later, we helped her move into an “Independent Living” situation. I did not realize the “anguish” she was in at having lost her identity. I am sorry Mom! I also understand the “anguish” of people around me in the “Over 55” community I am living in-none of us want to experience being irrelevant, none of us want to lose our dignity, and all of us still believe we are valuable. I write, I pray, I study, I help those who want my help and I love-these are the ways I hold onto my dignity and worth. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Path for Spiritual Growth

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 234

“Human existence cannot derive its ultimate meaning from society because society itself is in need of meaning. It is as legitimate to ask: Is mankind needed” as it is to ask: Am I needed?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 76)

The words above seem prophetic to me, given at a White House Conference on Aging in 1961. There was a knowing of the issue of aging some 60+ years ago and, as so many revolutionary thoughts and actions of the 1960’s, it was put on a shelf to collect dust. Aging back then was thought of in terms of reaching one’s 70’s maybe 80, unlike today with the plethora of Centenarians, people living active and aware lives into their 90’s. The issue Rabbi Heschel is speaking about has only grown both deeper and wider.

“Society itself is in need of meaning” is an apt description of where we are today as it was then. In the 60’s, with the help of Religious leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, Rabbi Heschel, Rev Jim Lawson, et al, we had a group of people who sought to put meaning and purpose into society and they were fought at every attempt. Whether it was the draft, the war in Vietnam, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, white society was afraid of change and wanted to enshrine the status quo. Even the victories that were won, even the myriad of meaning and purpose the movements contributed to society have been undone in the name of progress(?).

We, older people, are the generation that directly benefited from the “greatest generation”, that heard the stories of survivors first hand, that saw the pain and anguish on the faces of our fathers when any son was drafted because they knew the horrors of war and could not even talk about it most of the time, must be the ones to stand up now and demand that society hears us, that society recognizes how much we are needed so that society can respond to the first question above in the affirmative.

We keep hearing about the newest and the fastest, the hippest and people have made fortunes from being ‘celebrities’, witness the Kardashians, Paris Hilton in her youth, etc. We assume from the stories they tell that what is important is being noticed, which speaks directly to their need to be needed. Celebrity status seeking is another attempt to be relevant, to let people know someone is available to fulfill your fantasies and dreams vicariously and this is the way the “celebrities” believe they are serving society and, of course, filling the hole in their soul of being needed. The problem, of course, is their hole is so large there is never enough from society for it ever to be satiated, never enough adoration to make their need to be needed subside, there is only more, more, more. The fact that we run to make these ‘celebrities’ feel important, follow their every move, and fulfill some fantasy while ignoring the “older” people who have wisdom and experience, lessons and failures to impart is ridiculous and proves the first sentence above.

We, older and younger people, need to let go of our need for societal recognition. We have to begin to recognize our self and the self next to us, in front of us, behind us, around us. We older adults need to impart the folly of trying to follow society, trying to lead society in its quest for vapidness, how having all the money and power in the world doesn’t lead to inner joy and happiness, rather it leads to paranoia and fear, that it could go away in a moment, it leads to authoritarianism and the worship of conspiracies, etc.

We, older adults, have an obligation to impart the knowledge we have gained through the myriad of failures and successes, lost connections and the ones made, through paying attention to our inner life and intuition. We are being called upon to demonstrate to ourselves and to the next generations that we are not just “Tik-Tok Grannies”, we are people who are still wrestling with the issues of how to live well, we are still wrestling with how to find an inner acceptance of life at our age, we are still seeking to be relevant not for egotistical reasons but for service reasons. Our being needed is not about what we can do, rather it is about what we can give. Because we did not know this earlier in life, we have to, are compelled to offer this truth, this way of being to the next generations so they don’t waste as much time as we did to find this out.

We Are Needed! Full Stop. The teaching above is important to me because it is so easy to fall into the lies and deceptions of ‘societal norms’ and to base my worth and existence on what another thinks. I am, and have been, seeking to find the place that I am needed in this era of my life. Hence, I keep writing every day, usually between 4 and 5am. I am compelled by a sense of purpose and meaning, I am compelled by knowing this is my platform and the numbers don’t matter-only if I can touch one person, even if that person is me. Writing has always been a good way for me to figure out what is needed, where I am needed and finding the meaning and purpose of this moment and this day. I continue to use Rabbi Heschel as my guide because he speaks to all of my parts, even the part that is hidden from most people, my inner sanctum where I and the Ineffable One are alone. My experiences over my lifetime so far have shown me the vapidness of society, they have shown me the pain and trauma I experience every time I believe ‘society’ has accepted me and is listening to me, every time I erroneously believe I am seen and then find myself rejected and exiled. One would think I would have seen the pattern years ago and ended my Quixotic quest. Today’s teaching has, I hope, finally opened my eyes completely and I know I am needed and I need individuals, not society. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Teachings- A Daily Path for Spiritual Growth

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 233

“In spite of the fact that our ideologies and institutions continue to imply that the worth of a person is equivalent to his usefulness to society, every one of us entertains the keen expectation that other people will not regard him merely because of what he is worth to them…but will regard his as a significant and valuable in himself.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 75)

This is the challenge of our time as, evidently, it has been the challenge in all times and throughout time. We are in a war with society’s conventional norms and cliches, values and principles that puts these norms and cliches, values and principles against what each human being knows in their guts, we are all valuable because we are born, each of us is enjoined upon by the universe to contribute from our inner talents and gifts, each of us is worthy of being human and each of us deserves the air we breathe because we are alive.

Society has, throughout history, made a person’s worth based on wealth, on status, on skin color, on religion, on success, etc, while at the same time, extolling the Biblical verses they can pervert for their use, to keep power and to enslave whole groups of people! People have, throughout history, given into these lies and deceptions as far back as the Israelites when Pharaoh “dealt slyly” with them in Egypt-after the death of Joseph. None of us are not susceptible to the ‘norms’ of society, none of us are not susceptible to the war of values and principles that exists between what we know to be true and what society wants us to believe.

We keep hearing the extremists work to convince us that what we see isn’t real, what we know is false, what we hear is ‘fake news’, what is getting destroyed is actually being built up, they are the true Messiahs and helpers, etc. We, the people, have to take back the reins of leadership, we have to remind ourselves to “Let Freedom Ring”,“throughout the land and to all it’s inhabitants therein”. It is incumbent upon us to stop buying into the “ideologies and institutions” that “continue to imply that the worth of a person is equivalent to his usefulness to society” It is essential that we proclaim the infinite worth and dignity of all people, even our enemies and honor their dignity even when they don’t!

This is true for everyone and for all of us. We honor the inherent dignity and worth of people, when we rebuke them because we know they are better than their worst actions. We honor the inherent worth and dignity of people when we argue with them for the sake of finding truth and opening our eyes more. We honor the dignity and worth of people when we continue to seek their counsel, stay connected long after their “usefulness” to us ends. We honor the dignity and worth of ourselves when we stop seeing everyone as a means to an end. We lift up creation itself when we end our incessant need to make everything transactional and we realize that covenantal relationships are the goal of life. While the words above apply to all of us, seeing “older adults” in these words is also critical. We are a society that values young and hip as opposed to old and wise; we are constantly seeking the ‘next new thing’ - to either create it or invest in it or use it. The iPhone, an amazing invention, has revolutionized our lives and it has enslaved us, the false claims of the Fascists and Authoritarians has enslaved large swaths of people and helped the few ‘trusted servants’/partners in the various ‘coups’ that happened by ‘democratic’ means.

For all of these to flourish in the ways they have, it takes the buy-in of human beings, we are willingly giving up the joy of celebrating the wisdom of our elders, we are willingly disrespecting the lessons that ‘older adults’ have to give us because we are drunk on the ideas such as ‘there is something new under the sun’, that “what the mind can conceive, man can achieve”, “I think, therefore I am”. For those of us who are older, wiser and more experienced because we thought the exact same ways, we know “I am therefore I can think/be”, everything the mind can conceive is not worthy of being achievable, and there are no new games, only variations-without mathematics we would not have the inventions we have now, without science, we would not have come out of the Pandemic so quickly, etc. We continue to rely on the wisdom of history, on the wisdom of previous generations to build upon their foundations and rise higher and higher, until we realize that building our inner life, finding a teacher and a friend to learn with and engage in a covenantal relationship with human beings and the world, nature and life is the greatest achievement we can obtain-hence the necessity to not be the “smartest person in the room” but rather be the excited learner in the room, continuing to learn with teachers and mentors, friends and even enemies so we come to see the worth of everyone just because they are alive.

I am guilty of not always doing this, I know and I am saddened by this type of missing the mark. I have always sought out mentors, just haven’t always followed the ones who truly cared for my soul, hence my previous life of crime and alcoholism! I have, however, always kept the lessons of my father, my relatives in mind, I have, in my recovery, sought people of wisdom-no matter what age they are- to learn with and from, to wrestle with life’s ups and downs, and I have found people who are older and more experienced than I usually give me the best advice and see things clearer because their agenda is to help me, not compete with me. I do the same with everyone who seeks me out and will continue to put their agenda ahead of mine-to the best of my ability in the moment. Watching everyone around me age, I have seen the light and the power of spirit in the communities I belong to and realize that, as my friend says, every room is better because you and I are in it-no matter our age:) God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living into Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Path for Spiritual Growing

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 232

“Is this the way and goal of existence: to study, grow, toil, mature, and to reach the age of retirement in order to live like a child? After all, to be retired does not mean to be retarded.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 74)

Continuing on in Rabbi Heschel’s essay “To Grow in Wisdom”, the question he poses is even more relevant than it was 63 years ago! Retirement is about “the golden years” as Del Webb coined this phrase in 1959 so he could sell his “Over 55” communities to people. He did a fantastic job! His properties sell out and because of all the amenities and clubs his “over 55” communities offer, people stay and love it-full disclosure, I am one of those who live and love a Del Webb community. There is a myriad of activities here, from astronomy to weaving, sports from golf to pickle ball and bocce ball, beautiful grounds to walk on and just sit and admire nature. Yet, there are few activities that engage the inner life. Yes, there are religious services and, as we all know, religion doesn’t always engage the inner life!

People talk louder to older adults, we get emails that are in size 15-16 font because it is assumed we can’t see nor hear. We are subjected to various other indignities like ‘oh you look so young for your age’, ‘do you mind if I go in front of you because you walk so slow’, etc. People speak of us in the third person like ‘how are we doing today’-as if we know how the other person is doing or that we have the temerity to speak for another person whom we may or may not know. We are given different speeches on how we have to stay active and don’t fall, how we have to keep our minds sharp and ‘don’t worry your pretty little head over this’.

People are used to treating older people as children, our children believe they should make decisions for us because, ‘well, you know, mom is getting up there in years and can’t think so well anymore’ and other such poppycock! Granted there are a million scammers who prey on older adults and some fall for these scams not because they are dumb, rather because they are in disbelief that someone would lie about their grandchildren, lie about being from medicare, etc. Young people get scammed also-as a former con man, I didn’t take advantage of older adults, it was the young ones who were/are more susceptible to ‘get rich quick’, ‘something for nothing’ deals than the older ones were.

As we age, we are not descending into childhood. Age is not a disease, it is not something we have to treat as an illness nor a burden. One of the issues is most of us are not prepared for old age, however one defines old age, because we have placed so much emphasis on being young, on plastic surgery to keep looking young, on trying to have the bodies of 20-year-old when we are 70, especially when we didn’t have that body when we were 20. We want to keep up with technology which changes so fast, we want to stay ‘hip’ for our grandchildren and other family members. Most of all, we don’t want to be seen as needing to be cared for. We are desperate to hold onto our dignity, which society and our children at times seem hellbent on taking away from us. We are no more or less worthy of respect, dignity, being seen as a human being than anyone who is younger than we. Many people are leaving “Ethical Wills” to their heirs along with the financial ones so their wisdom gets passed on.

The issue is, as Rabbi Heschel says above, we are not “retarded” because we age. We are, in most cases, more aware of the whole picture, we are aware of the errors we have made and uniquely able to spot trouble spots before they happen, we can track issues that can/will cause problems down the road because we have ‘been there, done that’ which means we are not only “not retarded” we are able to offer advice, wisdom, and insight that younger people just don’t have because they don’t have our experience. Aging gives us time to take a breath and realize the wisdom we have gained, it gives us the opportunity to develop a richer and more meaningful inner life and it allows us to deepen our connections to one another, to families, to the world. Because we have the time and are not caught up in ‘the rat race’ , we take a longer view of what is happening and what is in front of us because we have the experience. Yet, we are shunned to the ‘back of the bus’ with -‘thanks folks but you are not in it anymore, you don’t understand the way it is now’ going against the wisdom of the Bible that says “there is nothing new under the sun”.

The talk about Joe Biden being too old to be president while Donald Trump is only 3 years younger than him being ‘relevant and capable’ is another example of ageism, of prejudice and, of course political propaganda. Yet, older adults suffer from this same type of propaganda and prejudice all the time. I want to engage people in discussions about our inner life and, in my community, I am not seen as having any worth nor any wisdom about anything other than “addiction”, I was only good for helping “those people”. And, places here who help “those people” don’t think I have anything to offer after all my experiences. I am willing to help, I am wanting to learn with other people who seek a deeper connection to their inner life and I watch in horror as people believe talking down to a congregation with a smile and a ‘glad hand’ is what Judaism is about! It is hard to deal with a life without meaning-Plato taught us “an unexamined life is not worth living” and as I age, I am examining more and more. I want to share this wisdom with younger people, with older people, with everyone and, I am not always able to. This is another challenge to my inner life and it has given me the insight and wherewithal to write everyday, to find old writings, engage an editor and begin to put them together in book form. This is my legacy, this is my gift, this is my obligation. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Into Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Path for Spiritual Growth and Well-being

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 231

“The aged may be described as a person who does not dream anymore, devoid of ambition and living in fear of losing his status, Regarding himself as a person who has outlived his usefulness, he feels as if he has to apologize for being alive.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 73)

The more I read this essay from 1964 the more I am in awe of Rabbi Heschel’s insights, his vision of what was then and what is to come! The descriptions he gives above are real, they are true, and they are valid given society’s relegation of ‘old’ people to these narrow and untrue ways of being. People over a ‘certain age’ are seen as “burdens on the system”,, “drains on the financial health of the family, community, country, etc.”, and, they are seen as “living in the past” rather than the true experience of people who are still thinking about the next “galaxy” to conquer, considering how to fulfill their mission, their “ikigai” as the Japanese say it, in their current status-knowing their purpose and passion hasn’t died they are not in the same roles as they were before.

We are living in a time where ‘the date of birth’ is the first question asked in a medical setting, as my wife Harriet Rossetto writes about, people who “look” old are treated differently than those who don’t, where some Clergy write emails in “all caps” and “bigger fonts” as well as speaking to ‘older adults’ in a louder voice and speaking down to us even in “active retirement communities”. We are treated as if we are broken down and need to be put out to pasture as Race Horses are! We are NOT HORSES! We are living breathing human beings who have learned how to live well and live with joy and wisdom. We have acquired much knowledge and we are balancing our knowledge with the understanding that years of experience bring. We are living more and more in concert with the teachings of Maimonidies and the Kabbalah-in the middle between two opposing forces. This is seen as not dreaming, “devoid of ambition”, and therefore we live “in fear of losing our status” as being needed.

Society’s treatment of us ‘older adults’ as non-useful, as ‘past our prime’, as not being relevant has led many people to regard themselves as having “outlived our usefulness and makes us “apologize for being alive”. How many of us worry about being “a burden on our children” and “using our money for our care instead of leaving it all to our children”? We are very sensitive, probably over-sensitive, to the subliminal messages of our children: do they call us, do they answer when we call, do they return our messages, do they love us, will they honor us and our wishes, do they seek our advice and opinions or just want to argue and hold resentment and grudges for imperfect parenting? Do our children see us as people or as roles, do they understand our need to communicate soul to soul as we tried to raise their souls even in the face of societal norms that we ignored in order to speak to them in ways they could hear? Are they going to join the new order of ‘divorcing parents’ as discussed in a book titled “Rules of Estrangement”?

Now that we are ‘not working’ not being ‘productive’ in the ‘normal’ way of understanding, we are being seen as “outlived our usefulness” because we have become a society of human doings rather than one of being human. Society defines usefulness as it pleases and doesn’t usually see spiritual wisdom as useful, it doesn’t understand that when one’s eyesight may dim, one’s vision of what is, what was, and what can/will be is magnified and more in focus. We have decided what is useful and what isn’t based on utilitarian system, not on a scale of being human, and this is the system we need to return to/begin to use. ‘Old people’ have a wealth of knowledge on how to be humane and inhumane. We have been both and, in our ‘older’ years, we realize the errors of our ways and the many times we ‘hit the mark’. We have so much to impart to people and they seem incapable of hearing us because; you don’t understand the ways things are now”, “life is not the same as it was for you”, “you are not up on the latest”, etc. Yet, society seems to forget: “There is nothing new under the sun” and, as Rabbi Heschel says: “There is nothing stale under the sun except humans who become stale.” We have the wisdom of our errors and mistakes to offer to people, we have the history of how companies, institutions, got started and moved forward, we have no skin in the game except to help our successor and this is often interpreted as ‘not letting go’. Rather than take advantage of what ‘old people’ have learned we reject them as “the past” and we are ‘moving forward’. Yet, without a knowing of our past how can we move forward? We read the Bible every year even though the words don’t change, our understanding of them does, hopefully-knowing where we have been is essential to seeing where we can/need to go.

I have wrestled with being relevant when I am rejected or feel rejected. I know viscerally the teaching above, I know the moments of wondering why I am seen as an impediment rather than a help by the very people I have helped before. I am still dreaming and still relevant, at least in my own mind. I have begun to assert myself instead of accepting the rejections of some as a rejection by all. I am seeking to “spread the word” of Rabbi Heschel, spread the my words and insights over the years through books and speaking where and when I can, and sharing with everyone who wants me. I also am helping others realize dreams they had pushed aside, I am still available to ‘make shit happen’ for another and I continue to stay in touch with family and friends. I continue to support Harriet and Heather in their dreams and love watching my grandson Miles begin to have his own. I know I am relevant, I know I am not a drain, I know I am still useful-no matter what society thinks. “Old age” allows us to live more inside out and this is a true blessing. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Into Rabbi Heschel's Teachings - A Daily Path for Spiritual Growth

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 230

“Old age is a major challenge to the inner life; it takes both wisdom and strength to not succumb to it…In terms of manpower he is a liability, a burden, a drain on our resources.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.73)

This teaching by Rabbi Heschel is as true today as when they were written in 1961. While not being sure when one is considered to be in “old age”, as I am almost 73 and do not ‘feel’ old nor consider myself old, a cottage industry has grown up around “old age”. Be it the myriad of retirement communities, one of which I live in, or the assisted living, independent living homes that populate every medium and above city, or the different companies offering to be the companions for the ‘elderly’ so they can “stay in their home”, or the many scams perpetrated upon older adults, people see “old age” as an opportunity to take advantage of people, rather than honor them.

Given the situation we all face in “old age”, it “is a major challenge to the inner life” because we no longer have career to define us, our children no longer ‘need’ us as they did prior to adulthood and, in many cases, even though they love us, they have their own busy lives to attend to. We have to re-define our self-image because they image we had of busy, relevant, needed, fades for many people in “old age” and it is a startling discovery. We are transitioning to a new phase of living, we are being transplanted into a new life, new way of being, and we have to engage our inner life to not lose our sense of self, to not succumb to the societal notion of being a burden, a drain, and easily forgotten.

Our health system decides at some point in  “old age” it is not worth the cost of tests or the risks involved to check for colonoscopy, for different heart scans, for any costly testing to prolong wellness. Rather they rather get the money for the sicknesses that might have been prevented because that is more economically sound and helpful. Medicare deems some tests not necessary as well and even is unwilling to pay for interventions that will save millions of dollars that are needlessly spent on health issues that could have been prevented. It is insane and a waste-yet, when society sees “old age” as a liability and a burden, why not let them die?

Another issue is how “old age” is treated in the work force. Unless one is living in an areas that cater to ‘older adults’, most places are constantly seeking to replace people of age with younger people because the younger people are paid less money as a rule. With age and longevity, one has wisdom and a knowing of customers, of the company and of how to work smart, hard, and be of service. Today’s companies are seeking to fill a spot and believe workers are interchangeable, provided the skill set is similar, ignoring the fact that their older workers have a skill set that is far superior to the younger people by the mere fact of their experience and wisdom. Rather than have a younger person learn from an older worker, companies are putting younger people who know less in charge of the older workers in order to get them to quit. Some even have mandatory retirement ages so they can stop paying the older workers the higher salaries that longevity at a company brings! Another experience is when people who start companies, who have been integral in the expansion of a business, a service, are considered ‘behind the times’ or ‘the past’ and it is decided to take the business/service in a ‘new direction. The very people who helped the company grow are considered a “liability” and a “drain”!

These examples and so many more are reasons “old age is a major challenge to the inner life”. “It takes wisdom and strength to not succumb to it” because it is so easy to fall into the abyss when one sees oneself being treated as less than human, as a throw-away item, as ‘past their expiration date’ and are being treated as such by society, by family, etc. Much of this treatment is not overt, it is subtle, it is the phone not ringing, the advice not sought, the opinion tolerated, etc. We, ‘older adults’ have the luxury of time to engage more in our inner life and for those who have ignored it up until now, it is imperative to grow our spiritual living so we can cope with the indignities that “old age” brings both physically and emotionally. We are not going to ‘enjoy our golden years’ without some “wisdom and strength” in our “inner life”, we are going to sink into the morass of misery, of bewilderment, of loneliness, of feeling useless and unmoored unless we tether ourselves to a strong spiritual core and a spiritual community that sees our value and our worth. “Old age” doesn’t lesson our infinite value and dignity nor our uniqueness, I would suggest it heightens these and the sadness is society’s inability to engage with us.

I am thinking of the times when I did not call my mother because I did not want to hear her complaints and when she lectured me, how often I wanted to just hang up. I now see it was her way of seeking to stay relevant. While I wanted to ensure her dignity as she grew older, I didn’t always honor her cries and I am saddened by this truth. I know that I am dealing with ‘the phone not ringing’ and the lack of response to my offers to help, my ideas for making my new corner of the world a little better, and seeking new ways to use my creative energy. It is hard at times, especially since I believe I am still vibrant and relevant, since I believe I still have wisdom to impart and, no one to impart it to-hence I write this blog each day-to introduce everyone to Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and the ways I live into them and the ways in which many people in recovery and those not needing recovery from substances,  have been helped by them. I keep using wisdom and strength to not succumb to the challenge of “old age”. 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 229

“What we owe the old is reverence, but all they ask for is consideration, attention, not to be discarded and forgotten. What they deserve is preference, yet we do not even grant them equality.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 70)

The words above struck me upon reading them this morning. Maybe it is because I am ‘old’ and maybe because I am afraid of being irrelevant these words pierce through me. “Reverence” comes from the Latin meaning “to stand in awe of”, consideration comes from the Latin meaning “examine” and as I think about the words above, I hear Rabbi Heschel demanding we at least acknowledge what we “owe”, what our obligation is to those who go before us and blaze the trail, clear out the brush so we have a clearer path forward.

In today’s news is our disdain for those who some believe are “over the hill” who’s usefulness has an expiration date, as people are wont to say about President Biden while extolling the brilliance of a man a few years younger who talks like a madman and is proposing to end the democracy of the founding fathers. We are witnesses to and, in some cases, participants in “pushing out the old so the new can come in” not realizing that we have an obligation to those who have come before us instead of disdain for them. The Supreme Court has shown it’s lack of reverence for the first time by overturning precedence numerous times, by saying a corporation is the same as a person and then speaking of their ‘good christian values’-I don’t think that Christ would think a corporation and a person are the same!

We have become so enamored with ‘staying young’ that plastic surgeons have become super wealthy, we bow down to the idols of fashion and looks, Kim Kardashian and her family have become very famous and rich for their ‘beautiful bodies’ not for any action that causes the world to be better. Teen suicide rates are skyrocketing because of the belief that there is something wrong with them because they are not good looking, smart, etc enough. We see the need for ‘the newest, latest’ growing quicker that it can be supplied. Reading a newspaper, or a hardcover/paperback book is so ‘old fashioned’ most younger people don’t do it anymore. Sitting and listening to the stories of their elders seems like a drag to many young people today and their need to ‘prove’ themselves right by making the older generation wrong is rampant. Blaming their unresolved issues on parents, which may well be warranted, doesn’t help them solve what is happening right now in their lives, it doesn’t allow them to be responsible for themselves and have a discussion and hear where their perceptions are correct and where they might not be.

There is a phenomenon happening where adult children are ‘divorcing’ their parents when their parents need them most. Rather than continue to engage and wrestle through the difficulties of relationship, they are quitting, in many cases when their parents may need them most! This is so ‘they can take care of themselves’ forgetting how their parents did their best to take care of them during difficult times for their parents, without knowing how to parent, making mistakes without malice and intention in most cases. Yet, many younger people have not heard nor considered Rabbi Heschel’s words above.

On the other hand, many teen-agers go to retirement communities, to ‘old homes’ and meet people who can be their grandparents and listen to their stories, make connections and learn about how to live better. It is a wonder to watch how they care for people who have no familiar connection and the bond is pretty strong and sparks of light/holiness shoot out from these experiences. And, there are too many people who are put in these ‘old homes’ who are forgotten and discarded. We can and must do better.

How we treat our older generation is a barometer of the spiritual health of a society. As we experience, our society is spiritually ill! While many speak of the political, social, economic heath and in those terms, what most pundits and experts are missing is that we either retard or move forward our march towards justice, freedom, truth, love, kindness, compassion, etc based on our spiritual health. Not realizing that we have an obligation to parents, to our older generation that honors their service, honors their achievements, respects their wisdom, asks for their help because, as it says in the Bible, there ain’t nothing new under the sun. We can and must do better if we are to recover the sparks of decency and goodness, justice and kindness, righteousness and strength.

I think of my mother, z”l, and how she was ‘happy’ to retire and then felt useless when no one called for advice or help. I am thinking of how there were many times when I paid attention to my mother, I cared about her dignity and spoke with her regarding matters that were important to her and I can still here her voice “Mark, I am still your mother and I will always tell you what I think is right”. I knew I owed her respect and I failed at times, yet I never walked away nor did she. I am thinking of the generational difference- most in my generation honored our parents even if we were unhappy with the ways they interacted with us. I honor my mentors and continually seek wisdom and help from them because I know how much I don’t know and how easy it is to get tunnel vision. I pay attention to the needs of and the desires of people older than I because it is the right thing to do-none of us know what someone else went through to get to where they are at and respecting their journey is paying forward what we want for ourselves. 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 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