Rejecting the lies of those who claim human beings don't change- Year 3 Day 315

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 315

“Supremely sensitive as the prophets are to the wickedness of man and deeply conscious of his stubbornness and callousness, they also insist upon the ability of man to change, to repent, to return to God and live by justice and compassion. Prophecy may be defined as a formidable effort to change any spiritual status quo, as an everlasting protest against any fatalistic conscription of life, against those who teach that human nature will never change.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

“Prophecy may be defined as a formidable effort to change any spiritual status quo” can change both the ways we understand the role of the prophet, the “vengefulness” of God that people speak about when Moses foretells what is going to happen to the people when they decide to worship false gods, and it could, possibly, stop us from scouting out “after our heart and eyes because we will whore after them”(Numbers 15:39) and in the 3rd paragraph of the Shema.

The prophets were speaking truth to power AND they were making “a formidable effort” to change the people as well. Unfortunately, not enough people took their words into their hearts and changed their “spiritual status quo” then and we still haven’t leaned into them today. I hear Rabbi Heschel demanding we engage with the prophets and with the prophetic vision they have left for us, I hear him calling out for us to end our spiritual stuntedness and allow ourselves to grow spiritually, morally, mentally. When wonder is the foundation of living, then we can never be stuck in a societal “spiritual status quo”, we have to keep growing and changing. Yet, we seem to be unable to throw the “Idols in the Temples” out, just as the Priests were unable to in the days of the prophets and since.

For many in the world the “spiritual status quo” is one of anger and rage, feeling like a victim and having to be part of an identity group that has been wronged. It is always being the underdog and “THEY” are out to get us. We see the progressives engaging in anti-semitism with no thought to how the Jews have supported the underdog, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the needy, and the stranger throughout history. We watch in horror as white supremacists claim they are the group being discriminated against while they spew lies, rage, rebellion against democratic norms and democracy itself. We are witnesses to the lies of the media along with the bias’ so it is almost impossible to get the facts. Be it Bibi or Trump the ‘poor me’ and ‘strongman’ themes that both of them perpetuate are false, they are dangerous, they are demeaning and they are not in keeping with the words of the prophets, they are not to be found in the Bibles they claim to revere, yet people believe them, people are worn out by them and people have forgotten the words of the prophets and the actions those words call for. We have to reclaim our heritage, we have to reclaim our calling, we have to reclaim our spiritual health. The time is now, the way is clear and the purpose is to “form a more perfect union”, to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” which is inscribed on the Liberty Bell and in the Bible, Lev. 25:10. When the far left and the far right attempt to pull us towards idolatry, we have to say NO, loudly and proudly declaring our spiritual growth and our loyalty to the principles of the Bible and to the words of the prophets.

We, the people, have to stop going along with the lies and worshiping the idols of power, authoritarianism, hatred, victimhood, mendacity, self-deception among others. We can do this by going the “protest agains any fatalistic conception of life”. “Thats the way it is and always will be” is a lie promoted by society to control the masses. “The Bible says….” Is usually an interpretation not the actual words and when the words are used out of context they create a false justification for bad actions. The call of the Rabbis to not hear the call of the prophets but to shift their words to make them more benign and not call the people to revolt was their way of holding power and, to be fair, to keep Judaism alive as well as changing it to fit their vision. The Rabbis and Priests, Ministers and Imams who preach hatred, who support the extremism of the far left and the far right are assisting “Idols in the Temple” to flourish. The worship of the moneyed class by elected officials and by staff at non-profits as well as in the boardrooms of for-profit companies is reminiscent of the same worship that caused the destruction of both Temples and the exile of Jews from Israel and from Judea. Because of the “idols in the Temple” that Israel had, they became the “lost tribes” which is an important lesson for us all. Keeping “Idols in the Temple” will always lead to our becoming lost and, if we don’t “protest…against those who teach human nature will never change”, we will not even leave a record for the next generations.

There is a solution! Recover our spiritual passions, uncover our true selves, discover our unique gifts and purpose and continue to engage in spiritual growth. We have to be forever unsatisfied with the “spiritual status quo” no matter how good we think it is. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski once told me: “As soon as you think you are spiritual, you aren’t!” While we have to be satisfied with our growth, with our portion, satisfaction doesn’t mean stopping nor settling. It means we accept that this is the best we could have achieved for today, knowing tomorrow will be one grain of sand better. All of us yearn to connect to another human being, all of us are haunted by hiding our true selves for fear of being made fun of, all of us know we have a purpose and gifts and our afraid society will not accept our gifts and deny us our purpose. We can do this when we decide to serve something greater than society. We can do this when we realize we have a seat at the table and nobody can stop us except us. We can do this when we know change is the only constant and our evolution is imperative for the world to evolve as well.

I rail against the “spiritual status quo” all the time and I keep growing myself. I call bullshit on the ideas that change is not possible and I believe in the wonder and possibility of life. I believe everyone can change and those who choose to be extremists have to be treated like the ones who have “Tzaarat” in the Bible-sent outside the camp to be ministered to and healed. I was the Rabbi of one such camp for many years and helped many people heal and return to their proper place. This is my unique gift and I rejoice in it. I continue to speak out against “a leopard doesn’t change its spots” when it comes to human beings, I am grateful to the myriad of teachers who helped me and I continue to put these vibes into the world. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Realizing our "ability to change, to repent, to return to God, and live by justice and compassion." Year 3 Day 314

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 314

“Supremely sensitive as the prophets are to the wickedness of man and deeply conscious of his stubbornness and callousness, they also insist upon the ability of man to change, to repent, to return to God and live by justice and compassion. Prophecy may be defined as a formidable effort to change any spiritual status quo, as an everlasting protest against any fatalistic conscription of life, against those who teach that human nature will never change.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

Rabbi Herschel’s dissertation for his Doctorate at the University of Berlin was on the prophets and his book The Prophets published in 1962. He speaks often in his writings about the prophets, the need to study them, learn from them, etc. In the first sentence above, he is using the experience of the prophets, their raison d’être to remind us of both our ability to be stubborn and callous as well as “the ability of man to change”. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to read the prophets, to imbibe the words, the experiences of the prophets, to learn what happens when we hold onto our “stubbornness and callousness”, destruction and exile, loss of self and purpose as we see from the 10 “lost” tribes and the exile of Jews from Judea for almost 1900 years! The “Idols in the Temple”, the title of this essay, are very clear to one in the writing above; they are the lack of true education, the lack of knowledge of the prophets, the insistence to ignore the truth and wisdom of the prophets, the digging in of human beings to ‘prove their rightness’, and the willingness of some to heed the call of the prophets “to change, to repent, to return to God and live by justice and compassion.”  Yesterday I wrote about our need for education of our inner life and the words are the beginning of our education, the truth that we can change, that we can repent, we can be forgiven, we can return to the person we believe we can be, that we are born to be, we can “live by justice and compassion” and thrive, not be weak.

I hear Rabbi Heschel call out to us to let go of the fallacious beliefs of ‘the rugged individual’, ‘the strongman is needed to protect me’, ‘it is my enemies fault I have to do this’, ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’, etc. Learning the prophets, hearing their innumerable calls “to return”, “to repent”, can give us both hope that God will truly “heal their backsliding, love them freely” as the prophet Hosea says. Educating our inner life through studying the prophets teaches us “Return, you backsliding children and I will heal your backslidings” as Jeremiah teaches. Throughout the Hebrew Bible we learn of God’s waiting for our “return”, we witness the changes of Joseph, of Judah, of the Israelites, we witness the return to God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and especially King David. We also are witnesses to the “stubbornness and callousness” of the Kings of Israel following King David, even his son Solomon! We learn from Elijah that the voice of God is not always so loud, is not always earthshaking, that most often it is the “still small voice” inside of us, in our inner life that without education we dismiss, silence, imprison.

We are witnessing today a phenomena that began with the Rabbis of old who were afraid of the prophets, a re-interpretation of the Biblical text to suit their needs, to give them power and to ignore the truth and the call of the prophets and the Torah, to take the text out of context to further their goals, not necessarily the goals of God, of higher consciousness, of the people we are supposed to be serving. We have so many False Witness’ in the clergy today in every faith it is stunning. When a group can call themselves “Rod of Iron Ministries” and glorify the AR-15, when a Pastor can preach hatred towards the stranger and the poor, when a Rabbi can call for the death of a prime minister of Israel (Yitzhak Rabin) and consider Palestinians not human, we are in deep shit! Not because the majority necessarily believes them, rather because a large minority does! We have become a world that has no relationship to truth, no desire to live with inconvenient facts, no willingness to leave the “stubbornness and callousness” of their need to be right-be it in governments, corporate offices, non-profit boardrooms, or family get-togethers. Rather than study the prophets, learn how “to change, to repent, to return”, we study the dictators, worship at the feet of the authoritarians, wring our hands at what is happening and lose our voice to say NO to falseness, to bastardizing Holy Texts, to “callousness”.

It is not ‘their fault’! Trump, Putin, Bibi, Omar, Tliab, are all characters we have created and nurtured, put up with and encouraged precisely because our inner lives are so chaotic, so immature. We, the people, have to return to living with compassion and justice in our daily lives. We, the people, have to learn from the prophets the way back to our true selves, the way to live authentically no matter what society is demanding and accepting. This is the life Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King, Einstein, Harriet Tubman, Theodore Herzl, Bobby Kennedy, and so many more lived and we can use them as guides. We, the people, need to repent for the injustices we have witnessed and not corrected, the compassion we have refused. We have to change our ways by seeking knowledge through “maladjustment to conventional notions and cliches”, by never seeing something the same way twice, by letting go of our need to be right. We do this by seeking our spiritual guidance, we do this by educating our inner life and taking the next right action, we do this by admitting our fallibility and our need for collaboration rather than ruling. We let go of our false need to dominate and we realize the truth of Genesis Chapter 2-“it is not good for humans to be alone”. We, the people, have to take back our world, our control and no longer seek to win, rather seek to be just, no longer seek to ‘get even’ seek to be compassionate, no longer speak lies, seek the truth.

I have studied the prophets, I wrote about them daily from Jan-Sept. In 2021, and they changed my life. I seek them out often for guidance because they speak to my inner life in a powerful manner. Knowing the scorn they felt, the impossibility of their task, the danger of speaking truth to power and to the people, I am in awe of their steadfastness to live their purpose and be the person they were born to be-no matter what. Being a truth teller is not a popular position and, truth be told, it gets one into trouble often-I know this from experience, it is why I went over to the dark side as a teenage because I was shunned when I spoke truth. In my recovery, I have taken the blows that my truth telling causes, I have admitted when what I thought was true wasn’t, I have changed, repented and returned over and over again-making me stronger not weaker. I hear the lies of people, the need to be callous and stubborn of former friends and I am sad. And, I keep the faith that change is possible. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Educating our Souls so we can refine our impulses and drives - Year 3 Day 313

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 313

“Judaism is committed to the notion that education can and must reach the inner man, that its goal is to refine and to exalt the nature of man.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

In 1635, 141 years before the American Revolution, public education began in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1642, 134 years before the American Revolution, Massachusetts Bay required parents to teach their children to read and write! In Deuteronomy, Chapter 6 verse 7 we are commanded to “teach them diligently to your children”, and in the Talmud we are told a father is “obligated to teach his son Torah” among other things pointing to the validity of what Rabbi Heschel is saying above and pointing to the importance of education for the soul of every human being, the soul of a nation dedicated to freedom, to growing a “more perfect union”, to being that “shining city on a hill”, to growing into the person we know we can be and want to be. Just as education has been crucial to Judaism and to the American experiment, it was also important to the Church, which St. Augustine began a school in the church he founded in Canterbury to study religious texts to improve and “exalt the nature of man.” Throughout the Arab world from 750 educating the young both in the Koran and other subjects was deemed important.

Education was always about the inner life of the child, the youth, the teen, the adult. Spiritual, religious education was never to be about the keeping of facts or the one-way to do something as evidenced by the myriad of arguments as to how to fulfill a commandment found in the Talmud. Education was/is to help us grow our inner life and change our outer actions. It is/was to “speak of them when sit in your house, you walk on the way, lie down, rise up” as Deuteronomy continues to teach us. We are told to keep them as “frontlets before our eyes” and “a sign upon our hand” so we are constantly available to learn, to implement, to change. Remembering what we said at Mount Sinai, “we will do and we will understand”. Unfortunately, education has been under attack for quite some time. In 2014, “only 23% of the 9100 eighth graders were at or above proficiency levels in civics” according to an article in the School Library Journal. In Judaism religious education is not much better as too many 13 year-olds are given the option of ending their religious and spiritual education once their B-Mitzvah is over. Prior to this, the state of education is always inspiring one to learn more. In all sects of Judaism, priority is given to teaching the dogma of the sect over the truth of the Bible, the “spin” of the Rabbi over the teaching students and their parents how to read the texts themselves, put themselves into the texts, learn the lessons and understand it uniquely for themselves and the moment. Hence, the problem of education is that neither public nor private, neither secular nor religious cares to “reach the inner man” nor “to exalt the nature of man”, rather it is to promote their agenda rather than truth, create cult followers rather than human beings with the power and the tools to change themselves and their world, to understand, interpret, and implement the ways of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the teachings of Buddha, etc in their own unique way, enhance their inner life and “exalt the nature” of themselves. Religious education is so awful, fallen so far that in 2023 Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, reported that “multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, in their preaching-‘turn the other cheek’-to have someone come up and say “where did you get these liberal talking points”!! The Rabbis of the West Bank and the Far-right in Israel and the world believe it is okay to kill Palestinians because they are “Amalek” without any remorse!!

We hear much about “Am Yisrael Chai”, the people of Israel lives! Yet, we have never been one people with one way of seeing things, we have never agreed with one interpretation nor one teaching except for the Shema as the ‘watchword of the Jewish people’ and even the Shema is open to many interpretations, that something happened at Sinai, that the Torah is at least 2500+ years old and not much more. This is because Jewish education is supposed to have us “argue for the sake of heaven” so we can keep learning, keep turning the texts that influence our daily living over and over again in order to grow internally, to mature our souls and educate our intuitions. We cannot continue to be Jews and love Judaism while going against the dictate of the commands of Deuteronomy 6:4-9! We cannot say we are living a Jewish/Christian/Muslim life while treating the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan badly! We cannot say we are the saviors while we use the rhetoric of the autocrats, while we support the degradation of any group of people no matter what some in that group have done to us.

Education is the key to understanding ourselves, to growing our inner core, to having the strength to say NO to the bullies. Refining and exalting the nature of human beings forces us to let go of our need to compare, our need to be in despair because of comparisons, to accept our gifts as enough, to know we matter, to know we are growing into a richer and more meaningful way of living. This is crucial for our children to grow up knowing and for us to keep remembering as adults.  Education is the key to growing our souls to know better than to follow the wrong path without any awareness, it is the key to “lift up our eyes” and see what is truly in front of us, what is behind us and how to make better decisions and take the next right actions. We have to re-invest in our own education, in the education of those around us, in our communal education so we achieve 80-90% proficiency in Civics, in following the teachings of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. Education is the only way to fulfill the commandment of Deuteronomy Chapter 30:19; CHOOSE LIFE.

Education is the only way I am able to exist in the world of spirit, to be a decent human being, to acknowledge my “miss the marks” as well as the “hit the marks’ I achieve. It is the path I began in 1987 when I asked my brother to send me a Prayer Book and a Bible when I was in prison. It is a path that I know is never done for me, I keep finding teachers and students, learning partners and guides to help me stay fresh and not get stale. I am amazed at how I, like many others, get pigeon-holed into one way of being seen. I have been told that my message and my delivery is not conducive to ‘regular congregations’ and, every time I have spoken places, I am pretty well received, the message is ignored usually after I leave and it is heard. I continue to learn and grow, I continue to see the past in new lights and learn new lessons, I continue to learn, I continue to grow, I continue to CHOOSE LIFE. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Staying awake, aware and teachable in dangerous times - Year 3 Day 312

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 312

“Constant danger requires constant vigilance, constant guidance. What is needed is defense in depth, in the depth of every person. But the tragedy of our civilization is the liquidation of the inner man. We are doing our utmost to flatten man. Spiritual resources are being depleted.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.56)

Each morning I am surprised at what Rabbi Heschel wrote 50-100 years ago, I do not think about nor prepare what I am going to write about before I sit down in the early morning. I do this so I encounter the teachings fresh and new without my preconceived notions nor my pondering how to be ‘smart’ about his words. Today is no different and I am realizing, again, how timely his words are, how eternal they are; there is always “constant danger” and most of us are oblivious to it! When we give everyone the “benefit of the doubt” many times we are being naive and allowing evil to flourish. When we don’t pay attention to what is around us, to what people are saying, what their actions tell us, we are being ostriches and hiding our heads in the sand. When we refuse to grow our inner life, when ‘way down deep we are shallow’, we are ripe and totally susceptible to the ravings of a lunatic and the ‘saving grace’ of the strongman. This is how dictators take over, this is how authoritarians win the day. This is how good people will do things that go against their best interests to serve ‘the man’.

We are in “constant danger” politically, morally, religiously and spiritually precisely because we have failed in our “constant vigilance, constant guidance.” “Vigilance” comes from the Latin meaning “keep awake” and “guidance” comes from the Latin meaning “to teach, instruct, point out”. Rabbi Heschel called out to all of us to be aware of our surroundings, not paranoid, just aware and stay awake! Rather than going to sleep and allowing people to “teach us the wrong ways of being, to instruct us in how to deceive ourselves and lie to ourselves, he is demanding we grow our inner lives so we can discern between the lies of society and the truth of our souls. I hear him wondering and crying out to all of us DANGER surrounds us when we fall asleep, when we do not “stay awake”, when we follow the teachings of the liar and the charlatan and not the teachings that raise our souls, educate our inner life. We have to return to this teaching over and over again because we keep forgetting about the “constant danger” that the “liquidation of the inner man” has brought about.

The only reason the far right gains traction across the globe is because we have failed to have a good “defense in depth, in the depth of every person.” We have failed in our schools- many of which no longer teach basic civics; in our religious organizations- many of which teach a false dogma that was never part of the original text of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc; and in many spiritual disciplines which are used by some practitioners as a salve for their conscience-‘see how spiritual I am, I practice Yoga and cheat my customers, but that is only business’. We have become pawns and willing participants in “the liquidation of the inner man” by deciding we don’t need any moral and spiritual training after we are 13, after our confirmation, because it won’t help us in our careers, it won’t make us any money. Even the fundamentalists stop growing their inner life at 13 because it doesn’t help their cause, it might make them rebel against the dogma that is designed to make them “excellent sheep” just as our universities and colleges, our businesses and politics are doing as well. We have to say NO to this way of being, we have to listen to our wise elders, to our ancestors, to the words of wisdom passed down through the ages. We have to stop the “liquidation” of our inner lives and souls.

Each of us needs a spiritual guide so we can receive “constant guidance” for the “constant danger” that awaits us. This “constant danger” is falling into a rut of being the smartest person in the room, believing the lies of our minds and the press we get, being empty inside because we have spent “the moral capital of our ancestors and not put any back into the moral/spiritual bank” as Dr. Stephen Marmer said at a conference in Los Angeles in 1990. We have failed to heed his words just as we have failed to heed Rabbi Heschel’s words. It is time for we, the people, to take back our birthright that we allowed the nephew of Laban the Aramean to steal from us. It is time for we, the people, to live into the blessings that Isaac gave us, to reject the “guidance” of Rebecca and the vanity of Rachel, the ‘where’s mine’ of Jacob. It is time for we, the people, to live into our birthright of being created in the image of the divine. It is time for we, the people, to return to the heritage we all share, leaving Egypt, letting go of the inner slavery as well as being saved from the harsh burdens of the taskmasters. It is time for we, the people, to once again say “We will do and we will understand” changing the ways of the Greek society we are in and returning to a ‘Jewish’ way of life, the way of Abraham, “go for yourself/go to yourself … to a land I will show you”, going forward even though we don’t know where because we will learn from our actions. It is time for we, the people, to care for the stranger within us, our inner life, and nourish our spirit, connect with a guide so we can “go for” our self to the place we belong, to fulfill the need we were created to fill.

I have had a spiritual guide since 1987 and while I have changed them, my current one I have had for the past 30+ years. I have not always listened to the guidance and I have paid a price for it, I have not heard clearly his advice and I regret that I didn’t get ‘hearing aids’ sooner. I have done the best I can to live in “constant vigilance” because I am aware of the “constant danger” around me and around the people I have served. Yet, as I look back, I see every time I forgot about the “constant danger”, I did not hear the “constant guidance” of my spiritual guides nor was I in “constant vigilance” and the situations always turned out badly. I know that it is so hard to be in “constant vigilance” from my own experience and I am understanding why “constant guidance” is part of the first sentence. I can’t do it on my own and the guide we choose is our partner in discerning the dangers ahead so we can avoid them, the guide we choose is our partner in growing our inner life rather than liquidating it. Having “constant guidance” allows us to replenish our spiritual and moral bank accounts rather than deplete them. “Guidance and Vigilance”, ‘staying awake and being teachable” is the secret to my success both in my rabbinate and in my daily living. I self-recriminate the times I fell asleep and I am so grateful for the guides and fellow spiritual travelers on my journey! To those who ‘won’ because I was asleep, I have no resentments and I say “God Speed”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How are you regaining your "independence, sensitivity, inner balance and freedom? Year 3 Day 311

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 311

“Abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes is an abdication of responsibility. It means turning over the child to other agencies of mass culture that powerfully affect attitudes and value judgments, such as television or comic books, Hollywood and Madison Avenue, the impact of which represents a major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

Rabbi Heschel wrote this in 1962, some 62 years ago! He was worried about “comic books, Hollywood, Madison Avenue” and while they all have contributed to our situation today, the internet has exploded as the “major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual”! And, like Nero, we sit and fiddle while democracy is burning from the inside in this country and across the globe. How sad and shortsighted, how devastating to the individual soul and spirit to be inundated with the lies and mendacity of “Madison Avenue”, “television” in the form of the bias of a network and the bending over backwards to achieve moral equivalence when there is none! Be in MSNBC’s very biased coverage of what is happening in the Middle East-it is horrific and there is blame on both sides yet they seem to only blame Israel when listening to Joy Reid and some others, or Fox News and the other right-wing news outlets who validate the lies of Trump and the Republicans knowingly and with no shame, even after losing a $700,000,000+ judgement to Dominion! CNN, in their desire to be ‘fair’ buys the lies of the ‘freedom fighters of Hamas’, JD Vance, et al and makes moral equivalency between the murder and massacre of Oct. 7, 2023 and the devastation in Gaza, between the raining down of missiles from Lebanon that drove 100,000 Israelis from the northern part of the country away from their homes and Israel’s targeted responses. We are in the throes of a “major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual.” This is not a new phenomenon, it is just being heightened each day by people like Elon Musk, the Murdocks, the 2025 project people, by Trump, et al; by AOC, by Rashida T’liab, by the movements that have disinvited Jews to the table because we are ‘whitey’, we are ‘oppressors’ and embrace the terrorists of Hamas and their supporters; and it is being heightened by the onslaught of lies and information coming over our smartphones, our tablets, our TV’s, our computers that bombard us with so many lies and misdirections, we no longer are able to discern truth and this is the greatest loss of all-our inability to discern truth which is the sum total of what happens when our “independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom” are threatened and under constant attack.

Mark Twain wrote: “A lie is halfway around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on.” Truth gets lost and hidden when we no longer are able to think independently because we have to ‘go along to get along’, when we are more afraid of upsetting the boss, going against the group, being alone, being laughed at for caring for ‘those people’ (fill in the blank), when we make allies of our enemies like the christian nationalists who some orthodox Jews embrace-when they hate Jews, Blacks, immigrants, people of color, etc, like the far left who embrace the Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah knowing they hate America, hate anyone who doesn’t bow down to Allah, and isn’t willing to submit themselves to the rule of the Imam/Ayatollah! How ridiculous and how seriously devastating are these ways of being? Yet, because we did not heed Rabbi Heschel’s words along with the words of many other people like Rev King, Rabbi Prinz, Bobby Kennedy, we find ourselves in a grave situation.

The 2024 Election will not be stolen by Kamala Harris-full stop. The ones trying to steal the elections, trying to rig the elections are the Republicans who are gerrymandering their states, putting ridiculous voting rules and restrictions in so blacks and other LEGAL immigrants/citizens are afraid to vote. Some of us have watched in horror people buy into the lies of Trump, willing to vote against their best interests and ignore the truth in order to buy into the lies of ‘the leader’. They are giving up their “independence” and buying into ‘group-think’. We are witnessing the diminishing of the “sensitivity” for the well-being of another human being and seeing it replaced with blaming the immigrant, using the same terminology used by Goebbels. We are witnessing the loss of “inner balance” through the denial of the Holocaust by so many ‘friends of Trump’, spewing of hatred and seeking ways to subvert the law to the whims of ‘the leader’, through the onslaught of mendacity to the point it is hard to discern the truth unless you have a very strong spiritual corpus colosseum. All of this adds up to the loss of “freedom” of each one of us. When I have to spend time railing against the lies and deceptions, it takes away from my own learning and teaching, nurturing and growing of my soul and yours. We are becoming so polarized, those of us in the middl, those of us seeking truth, are shunned, are overwhelmed at times with the push/pull of the ends of the continuum.

We have to reclaim our “freedom”- we cannot depend on Trump and his lies to help us. We cannot expect Kamala Harris to do it on her own. We have to demand of our clergy a new way of worship and learning- one that engages us in a robust argument for the ‘sake of heaven’ as we learn to do as Jews. We have to demand that politics is left at the door and we are here to learn how to make our political decisions based on principles, not likes, how to grow and nurture our spiritual health so we are not so susceptible to the lies of another and we are more aware of the moments we fall into self-deception. We have to learn how to stand with the prophets instead of the priests, stand with the prophets instead of going along with the power and the wealthy, stand with the prophets even when we are being scorned, laughed at, ignored. This is how we will keep our “independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom” as individuals and nations.

It is hard to live this way, I know. I am not perfect and have made my own errors and my own ‘slips’ into inappropriately railing against lies and mendacity. I know being ‘alone’ is better than being in a place that I know is false and full of vipers. I know that being me is more important to my soul and to my purpose than being ‘accepted in polite society’. I know my father’s legacy lives on in my siblings and myself and our children. I know speaking truth, not giving in, separates me at times and I am more okay with this than ever before. God Bless and stay safe, rabbi Mark

How are you still abdicating your responsibility to cultivate positive and truthful inner attitudes in yourself and the people around you? Year 3 Day 310

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 310

“Abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes is an abdication of responsibility. It means turning over the child to other agencies of mass culture that powerfully affect attitudes and value judgments, such as television or comic books, Hollywood and Madison Avenue, the impact of which represents a major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

Continuing where I left off prior to embarking on the 40 days of repentance, today being the day after Yom Kippur, I find Rabbi Heschel’s words, once again, disturbing and an apt description of what it was like, what it is like and what it will be like unless and until we heed his thoughts in whatever way we choose to.

Every word of the Bible, every Holy Day in Judaism and all other faiths I believe, point to and address “inner attitudes”. We are awash in ways to hear, grow, nurture our “inner attitudes” through religious education, prayer, meditation, developing our higher consciousness, with Rabbis, Priests, Ministers, Imams, Zen Masters, etc. Yet, we continue to be “abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes”! What is stopping us is the question that arises today, 41 days after beginning a deep dive of introspection of our inner life? I believe there are probably many reasons, I am going to focus on a few.

First of all, cultivate means “to prepare the land”, “to develop” , “to grow and nurture” so we can see Rabbi Heschel’s belief that we all need to prepare our inner life so we can develop, grow, and nurture a life worth living-which is at the core of every person’s raison d’être, everyone’s need to pursue a passion and live their unique purpose. This “cultivating” takes time and energy, it takes a commitment by the parents and the child, by the adult and the people around the adult-this cultivation can and must be happening at all times and when it doesn’t happen as a child, we the children are obligated to cultivate our inner attitudes ourselves. Just as if a parent doesn’t teach their child Torah the child is obligated to learn it when the child is old enough to find their own teacher. Herein lies the problem facing us today: The parent doesn’t see the benefit of “cultivating the inner attitudes” unless there is a ‘mental/psychological issue’. They will send their kids to shrinks at an early age, they will get them pills to help them ‘concentrate’ better, they will send them to Synagogue long enough to have a Bat/Bar Mitzvah, the party and the gifts AND not cultivate their “inner attitudes” because it doesn’t do them nor their children any economic nor social good. If we can’t ‘make money’, get more ‘likes’ achieve fame the attitude is “why bother”. Since there is no outward apparent advantage from “cultivating inner attitudes”, most people don’t. Another reason is that it is difficult and there is no ‘quick fix’. It takes time and work, there is no perfection nor ‘done’ to this endeavor. We are constantly in need of “cultivating inner attitudes” until we die. So, why bother if one can’t master it? What is the payoff for this work?

We have abdicated our responsibility and we are paying for it dearly and, once we realize the true cost of our abdication of “cultivating inner attitudes”, once we are presented with the bill for our “abdication of responsibility” we will cry out like the Israelites did in Egypt, we will realize as they did that we were, once, “more numerous and more mighty” than the Pharaohs and taskmasters and because we were “abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes” we find ourselves enslaved to the ‘strongman’, to the ‘dictator’, to the ‘christian nationalists’ , to the white supremacists, to the fascists, to the friends of Orban, Putin, etc.

Abdicating our responsibility to cultivate our “inner attitudes” causes us to lose our essence, to lose our inner compass, our ‘north star’ and this leaves us open to buy the lies and mendacities of those seeking power for their own sake. It allows us to accept their deceptions and revel in our own self-deceptions because they do not ask anything of us. These charlatans seeking power and their ‘friends’ in the religious communities tell us they will do it all for us, ‘god’ will do it all for us, believing they can sell us on these ideas because we are so gullible and infantile in our inner life. We see how this has happened in Russia with Putin, Hungary with Orban, Turkey with Erdogan, Israel with Bibi, Ben-G’Vir, Smotrich, etc. We watched in horror, all of us at the time and now only some of us, on Jan. 6th, 2021 as the Capital was breached and, even after being threatened and running to safety (like Josh Hawley did), some Republicans still tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power! Today, these same insurrectionists in the Congress claim Jan.6th was a ‘peaceful protest’ with people who were just tourists! These same people have spread the ‘big lie’ so often people don’t know what to believe precisely because of abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes.

We know how to cultivate our inner attitudes and it is not only therapy. Therapy will deal with depression and anxiety, it won’t deal with the matters of the soul-our reason for existing, our need to find the unique need we can fill, our relinquishing our power so we can be in a covenantal relationship with another human being. We are being called to stop the “abdication of our responsibility” to learn and grow our inner life, our spiritual life. We are both human and more than human, we are both matter and energy, we are both body and spirit, and without cultivating our spiritual life, without growing our connection to something greater than ourselves, we are not only abdicating our responsibility, we are becoming fertile ground for the next Pharaoh who appears, the next Trump, Netanyahu, Orban, Putin, who wants to rise from the ashes. The deceivers are never vanquished forever, we have to continue to learn and grow our inner lives so we can discern between falsehoods and truth, between deception and reality, between profane and Holy.

I ignored the inner attitudes when I was a teenager, I was too caught up in my own sorrow. In the past 37 years, I have spent a part of every day learning and growing my “inner attitudes”, I no longer abdicate my responsibility nor do I abstain from cultivating my soul’s knowing. I am dedicated to daily spiritual growth, to leaving the self-deceptions I have fallen prey to, to finding my new place to serve. I can’t do this without my inner life being clear-eyed, without hearing and following the call of my soul over the call of my mind and/or false ego. It is hard, it is a daily struggle and I fail at times and, I know, I keep coming back! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Engaging in the "urgency" of the moment and being "personally motivated" to engage in repentance, repair and change -Year 3 day 309

Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 309

9th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“Each person must examine whether one is part of a movement forced upon us by the environment or whether one is personally motivated, whether one is responding to pressure from outside or to an internal sense of urgency…Enlightenment about repentance is the central task of our time.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 70)

Today is the last day of the 10 days of Repentance, the 10 days of Awe prior to Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur. Today is the day people will feel the pressure to ask for forgiveness-maybe- and absolutely feel the communal pressure to go to Temple for services that they neither understand nor particularly like. They will go for the sermon, for the music, to see people and to be seen-how many of us go to meet God, meet our own souls “face to face”? How many of us are “part of a movement forced upon us” rather than being “personally motivated”? I fear most people attending services are part of the former group rather than the latter. We have been engaged and in the work of T’Shuvah, repentance, for the past 40 days  and have developed and or had “an internal sense of urgency” or we have been ignoring the work and only now feel the “pressure from outside” to do something. Which group do you belong to?

We are living in a moment, an era where “enlightenment about repentance” is not important to most and urgently needed. What is important is making apologies for everyone else’s feelings. It is amazing to me that the lies and the subterfuge of people both in power and next door, their feelings have more weight in our society than the truth, than the feelings of the ‘aggressor’ they have pointed out. Can one be sensitive to everyone and everything-of course not-hence the need for repentance/tshuvah. What we have going on, in some cases, is people who identify as minorities and have been wronged do not think they have any responsibility in wronging another because they are the victims. We have a victim mentality that precludes people being “enlightened about repentance” and engaging in it. This is true from Trump to the progressives who are complaining they don’t get their way-again the far right and the far left are closer to one another than to those of us in the ‘middle’ (10% off the ends of the continuum). Remembering Lyndon Johnson’s quote: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” People like Trump and the Christian Nationalists, Roger Stone, et al have made this an art form and they keep gaining supporters!! The far left is willing to abandon their allies, the Jews, rather than wrestle with the truth of the situation in Israel. They are calling murder and terror, hostage taking and using their citizens, schools, mosques, hospitals as human shields, Freedom Fighting! This is how badly we need “enlightenment about repentance”. This is how badly we need people to come “face to face” with their inner life and their inner voice of spirit, “face to face” with the creative energy of the universe, their higher consciousness, and gain an “internal sense of urgency” so they become “personally motivated to repent, return and change! It is time for all of us to do this work.

To this end I want to lead the way:

I, Mark Borovitz, have an internal sense of urgency to heal the wounds I have caused with another(s) through:

my inattentiveness;

My unawareness

My blindness

My insensitivity

My loudness

My overwhelming arguments

My anger

My inability to see what is

My need to get ‘my way’

My harsh opinions

For all of these I want to heal them. I ask for your forgiveness and reach out to heal our old wounds.

I, Mark Borovitz, have am personally motivated to continue and grow the good things I have caused through:

Fighting for the soul of the individual in front of me

Taking the risks necessary to help another human being flourish

Wrestling with the Yetzer HaRa of another (and myself) to help them and me be better human beings

Not accepting the status quo

Not going along to get along

Speaking truth to power no matter the consequences

Engaging in Text Study with people so we both can learn and grow

Fighting the system so people can get the health care they need in the moment

Staying loyal to the people who have helped me along the way.

Letting go of any resentments and just being sad, not mad at the ways things turn out

Reconnecting with people and laughing about ‘the good old days’.
Meeting new people and making new friends.

I, Mark Borovitz, am grateful beyond measure to those who have helped me through:

Learning with me

Rebuking me when necessary

Accepting my T’Shuvah

Helping me grow

Standing with me during the onslaughts of negativity

Calling for me to stay engaged even when I don’t have a spiritual place to call my own

Helping me be a better husband, sibling, uncle, father and grandfather

Giving me the encouragement to persevere and honoring my ‘prophetic voice’.

G’Mar Hatima Tova: Our “urgency” and “personal motivation” will turn the tide of darkness and hatred into light and rapprochement through the power of repentance and the love of one another. Let Freedom ring this year through repentance, return and change. God Bless, Easy fast, and stay safe,  Rabbi Mark

HOW LONG will it take you to "repent before God" in sincerity and HOW LONG will you buy the deceptions of TRUMP, BIBI, MAGA, the FAR LEFT? Year 3 Day 308

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 308

8th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“There is no return to Judaism without repentance before God…We must recognize that repentance has yet to begin!”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg.70)

Reading and immersing ourselves in these words at this time gives us the knowing that our struggle today is an age-old struggle that humankind keeps screwing up and, like Jacob, holding on for life itself. We keep wanting to return to ‘the good old days’ (ask any white supremacist-oops I mean Trump voter) of hating people not like us, of having all the power (even though the poor people who are supporting these MAGA liars never had any and still won’t), and we fail miserably to go back and to hold the line on the forward progress we do attain. The history of humanity is truly 3 steps forward and then 1-2 back. Sometimes, like the times Rabbi Heschel’s words are being written, we go way back, as it seems we are now.

I am studying the Book of Samuel with Rabbi Hazzan Danny Maseng and we continually find the parallels to today’s situations. Yesterday we read about Abner saying to Joab: “Shall the sword devour forever? You know it will be bitterness in the end. Until when…” Of course Abner had his own reasons for saying this, he was losing the battle badly and his words must be taken seriously today, especially by the Rabbis and leaders of the far right government currently in power in Israel. While Netanyahu quoted the first words not as a question rather as a statement, his chicanery, mendacity and deceptiveness comes out in his not finishing the quote! Also, the words “until when/how long” in Hebrew are “Aad Matai”, the same words Moses uses to speak to Pharaoh in Chapter 10 Verse 3 and then again these same words are used by Pharaoh’s Courtiers in verse 7 of the same chapter. These words, when written or spoken, are a wake-up call to let us know we are on the wrong path and we need to repent and return. Yet, some Rabbis and political leaders of all faiths and in all countries see and hear “Aad Matai” as a statement directed to their ‘enemies’. For this to be true in Israel is the “unkindest cut of all” to God and to Judaism.

The last sentence above is so important, it is crucial if live is to change, if this Yom Kippur will actually save us from ourselves, our egos and our hatreds. Rather than pat ourselves on the back with how the MAGA crowd and the Trump/Vance ticket has shredded truth, love, kindness, compassion, justice (all basic tenets of all faiths and freedoms) we have to recognize that this is not the Biblical way, this is not the way of Jesus, this is not Buddhism, nor Islam! We have to come face to face with our lies and our need to repent before God and before the people we have harmed. I think about the myriad of women who can’t get the reproductive health care they need as individuals, how the Supreme Court has decided to make all women into “Stepford Wives”. I think about the people coming over the border early in Trump’s first and, Please God, only term in office where parents were separated from their children, and put into barracks/cages while the children screamed-even infants were taken from their mother’s breasts! Sounds similar to what the SS did with the Jews, doesn’t it? Yet, Bibi, Viktor, Donny, Vlad, Kim, Xi, all believe they are above the law, they are the arbiters of what God wants and the Clergy of all faiths who give them permission to do this, who support and encourage the hatred, the anti-semitism, the hatred of anyone not like them, not white christians who want christian law are the same as the Clergy of Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s! Even Rabbis and Cantors are supporting these anti-semites and Jew-haters!! How sick is this? Are they unaware of how they are retarding our return to Jewish values and freedom by not repenting before God, by not seeing their culpability and support for the charlatans and liars, by being willfully blind to their own corruption and being Pharaoh-like??

UNTIL WHEN will they not see that the spirit of the Bible is being concealed and the teachings are being bastardized? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of our errors? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to understand our personal need to repent before God? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to end our lies and subterfuges? UNTIL WHEN will we stay willfully blind to the destruction and death, physically and spiritually, that we are participating in? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to take off the blinders that prevent us from seeing the whole picture, from wrestling with the not so nice parts of ourselves and another so we can rise above being either Pharaoh, his Taskmasters, or his Slaves? HOW LONG will we continue to lie to ourselves and believe we have nothing to repent for? HOW LONG will we continue to refuse to “recognize repentance has yet to begin!”

We, the people, have to STAND UP for America and for Israel against the MAGA, against the BIBI THUGS, against the Far Left who celebrate Oct.7th as a great day (Ilan Omar, Rashida Talib, et al). We, the people, have to demand our clergy repent and, unfortunately, we have to lead them and the leaders of corporations, the board members of not-for-profits, leaders of governments, to “repent before God” and to “recognize repentance has yet to begin!”. We, the people have to take hold of our freedoms and exercise our spiritual truths so everyone can live better, so that this Yom Kippur will have an impact on Nov. 5th and beyond.

I have wrestled with these questions of “HOW LONG and UNTIL WHEN” for a long time-most of my life as I look back. My family would ask me these questions about my criminal behavior and drinking, my ex-wife and my daughter, Heather, would ask me these questions about crime and Heather would ask me these questions about my commitment to really show up for her. In the past 35 years, I have answered these questions with Hineni-Here I AM. I no longer need to get even, I no longer have to celebrate the downfall of my ‘enemies’ (at least not for more than a minute or two), I no longer have to put myself down for my errors as well. I know that my repentance has begun and it is not over! I know that my return to Judaism is based on my repentance before God and has to be renewed and refreshed each day. I know I continue to repent, return and renew through my new way of seeing what I saw yesterday, yesteryear. I am grateful to live in the now, in the moment and with God because I repent before God each day, I am grateful before God each day. I return to Jewish living and loving people each day and I know repentance hasn’t ended and proud that I have begun it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Letting go of our pretenses, our selfishness, and our cleverness - Year 3 Day 307

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 307

7th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“It is deplorable when a spiritual movement deteriorates into bustling and pretense. It is unclean when a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg70)

Sitting here at my computer, reading these two sentences I am in bewilderment that we are in the same situation today, in America and in Israel-formerly two shining examples of democracy and freedom- as Rabbi Heschel is describing in Berlin, Germany in 1936! What is worse is that the “deplorable” is not limited to Jews, it has encompassed all western religions and the “clever” have taken over the pulpits and trying to take over the governments of so many countries. We are in a precarious state of affairs today and, while it is NOT the same as Nazi Germany, there are too many things happening in our world today to not take notice of the similarities and the subtleties, the differences and our defenses agains the “bustling and pretense” of our “spiritual movement” and the ways “a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever.”

I am hearing the call of the Shofar-WAKE UP, SEE WHAT IS, HEAR THE WAILING OF GOD/UNIVERSE over the actions and inactions we are engaged in once again. The sound of the Shofar, these days of awe and repentance are here for us to engage in the inner work to cleanse ourselves of our fallacies, of the lies we tell ourselves, to let go of the burdens that others have put upon us with the names they call us and the pigeon holes they put us in. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel’s call to the Jewish community of Berlin and America, Germany and Israel to stop being “deplorable” to let go of the ways our “spiritual movement deteriorates into bustling and pretense.” In the next few days, many people will say to their family, friends, co-workers, etc “if I have done anything to harm you in this past year, please forgive me” and not do their own inventory, not do their own Chesbon HaNefesh, their own accounting of their soul because they can just repeat a formula and be ‘okay’, be ‘clean’ of their wrongs. BULLSHIT, I say. This is exactly the “bustling and pretense” that I hear Rabbi Heschel speaking about, he is demanding, Jewish tradition demands, the prophets demand we end these pretty “pretenses” and this phony “bustling” to make everything perfect for the meal before Kol Nidre and the Break-Fast after Neilah.

The anointing of Donald Trump by the Dominonists, by the religious right including Chabad, is another example of the deterioration of “a spiritual movement”. It shows how desperate people are to live into “pretense" rather than living into truth. In so many facets of life people are so worried about “Optics” and “cancel culture” that living a “pretense” just seems normal-it isn’t! The “woke” agenda is as deteriorating  as the white supremacist agenda, the orthodoxy of the far right politically and religiously is as “deplorable” to the “spiritual movement” of Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, etc as the orthodoxy of the far left politically and religiously. We are living in a world where there is no middle ground that is safe to stand on. If one is not “with us” then they are “agin us” and seeking to live in a Non-Binary Thinking and Non-Binary Spirituality is anathema to both the far left and the far right. It is “deplorable” how much deterioration the “spiritual movement” of America and Israel have suffered at the hands of the “clever”. Their “selfishness” is so apparent in the myriad of times they have “misused” the “holy desire” of freedom, of caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan. The “holy desire” of childbearing has been corrupted by their selfish desires to control women. No where in the Bible does is say abortion is a sin, is murder-only in the minds of the “selfishness of the clever”. Isn’t it time for all of us to stand up and say NO?

Isn’t it time to remember the call of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah, during the month of Elul and in these past 7 days? Isn’t it time for all of us to hear the wailing cries of God calling us to return so our “backsliding” can be healed and we can experience the embrace of the Ineffable One? Isn’t it time for us to let go of our pretenses and stop our need to constantly be busy and moving around and just allow the forces of compassion, truth, forgiveness and repair that are so prevalent now to overwhelm us and move us to do the work we need to so we can be more authentic and less pretentious this year? Isn’t it time for us to let go of our haughtiness that makes us believe these things don’t apply to us, we can just blame someone else for our errors because ‘they made us do this’ or, one of my favorites, ‘it is the devils handiwork’. We are the ones who have been entrusted with different spiritual movements and the one we choose to belong in needs us to care for it and grow it, not “deteriorate” it. It needs us to immerse ourselves in it so we can find the message and the question that the particular text we are reading is the answer for. It needs us to meet ourselves, one another and the entire community in authenticity rather than in pretense. We are the ones who have to say NO “when a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever”. We have to be the guardians of our spiritual movements because “in every age” someone tries to co-opt the truth, tries to enslave and/or destroy us. These ‘enemies’ are often not outside of us, rather inside of us as individuals and inside of us are a spiritual movement. Remember the Temples were destroyed, according to the Rabbis, because of not caring for the poor and the stranger and senseless hatred and lying among the people as well as the corruption of the Priests, Kings, Wealthy. Sound familiar???

I have been guilt of being deplorable and unclean. In my recovery, my goal has been to not be pretentious and not be selfish. I have lived into this goal at least 80% of the past 35 years. I have railed against pretentiousness because I made amends for mine, I have railed when I see “a holy desire misused by the selfishness of the clever” because I was that person for many of the years between 17 and 37. I am a messenger of chaos to those who want to hide in their pretentiousness, to those who want to be “clever” and I do not apologize for this. I am also guilty of confusing my agenda and desires with the greater good at times in the past. I am proud of my ability to rise above the call of my mind to “get even” and accept the rejection and the pigeon holes people put me with a sense of sadness for them that they are so stuck they have to act in these ways. I am no longer accepting of the labels and the names others put upon me, rather I desire to be known by the actions I take, the souls I touch and the good I bring. My latest podcast is available now at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fyourfeelings/episodes/Im-Back-Lets-Wrestle-e2pdfqs God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you remorseful for a lost past or longing for "the good old days"? -Year 3 Day 306

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 306

6th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“If, to be sure-as is often the case among us-instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

In the world we are living in today, these words from 88 years ago are prescient and ones we did not hear then nor are we hearing now! Listening to one of the political parties here in the US, one or more of them in Israel, of course Putin reminds us of the truth of these words and the misuse of the word “return”. The MAGA crowd, the far-right religious parties here and in Israel, Putin, et al all want to ‘return’ to the glory days of slavery here in the US, the Stalin years in Russia with the countries he usurped being returned to Putin, and to some misbelief that during the reign of King David all the land “from the river to the sea” was under his control-not true! None of these lies are true nor is it true that Palestinians enjoyed freedom under the Muftis, under the Ottoman Empire, etc and they certainly are not free under Hamas nor the corrupt Palestinian Authority under Abbas. The “return” that people speak about is not the “return” of Yom Kippur, it is not the “return” that God is asking for. It is, as he says above, “a retreat, a phase”.

We are in desperate straits, we are at another precipice in world affairs and in our country’s future. The demonstrators who are in favor of Terrorists rights to murder, terrorists right to take hostages and keep them for a year, to hold dead bodies for ransom want to ‘go forward’ to where? They are supporting a group that wants to go backwards in terms of freedom and the dignity and humanity of people. They are supporting a group whose sole reason for existence is to annihilate the Jewish People. This is what the people in Michigan who came here to be free want? This is what the demonstrators around the world want for themselves-to be singled out because of their ethnicity, their religion, their skin-color?? I think not-yet these “fine people on both sides” as Trump says, want to “return” to a past that was in their favor, where they had all the power. They want to return to a way of being that was not free, that did not “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, that “proclaimed freedom throughout the land and to” only some “of its inhabitants therein.

This “so-called return” is anathema for Jews! In his book, Gift of the Jews, Thomas Cahill says one of the greatest gifts the Jews gave the world was to change the belief that life was a circle and instead teach life is a continuum, one where we grow from each action and inaction, each hitting the mark and each missing the mark. Our return is not to some way of being in power over another human being or a country, I believe. As I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words above, I know that the return is to our core being, our soul’s knowledge, to our connection to higher consciousness, our souls.  Yet even religionists are trying to promote their lies through Scriptures so they can bastardize the words of Jesus, Moses and the thoughts of divine revelation to serve them. They are trying to return to a world that was like the world the prophets encountered and we know their reaction to the “so-called return” of the priests, royalty, wealthy- it was a “phase” not a change in their ways of being.

On this 6th day of the 10 days of Repentance, 10 days of Awe, isn’t it time for all of us to look inside and see the ways we have been engaging in a “so-called return”, in “a longing for the past” instead of “remorse over the lost past”? As Rabbi Hillel says: “If not now, When”??? We have to come face to face with the person we see in the mirror, we have to cry with our self not tears of longing for the “good old days” rather tears of remorse for being stuck in the past, tears of sadness for the errors we have made in this past year and years, for being in “a retreat, a phase” rather than in “return” and authentic repentance. We have to shed tears so we can wash away the phoniness and the bullshit we have been buying and selling. We have to shed tears of relief because we are finally engaged in the work of repentance, finally willing to experience the “miracle of repentance”.

We are in the final days before we get cleaned of the errors we committed against the universe. We need to reach out to those we have harmed and to our inner life to bring together the inner and outer, to “return” and/or turn to a state of wholeness and integrity. We do this by seeing the deceptions we have bought into both from another and from our minds. We do this by remembering Einstein’s words: “the intuitive mind is a gift, the rational mind a servant. We have forgotten the gift and worship the servant”. Returning to appreciating the gift of our intuitive mind and using our rational mind as a servant is a key component to this return. Shunning the lies of these “so-called religious people” like Ben G’vir, Wilks in Texas, the people who believe in their dominion over everyone not a white christian male, the ‘christian’ nationalists who don’t live Christ’s teachings, the Jews who are willing to vote for Trump because he is ‘good for Israel’ which he isn’t and because he goes to the grave of the Rebbe all the while hanging out with Holocaust deniers, anti-semites, loving Putin who puts Jews in jail for being the ‘wrong kind of Jew’! Knowing he is a white supremacist, these Jews must believe, like the some Jews in Germany did, that he doesn’t really mean the shit he says, who cares if he abuses the rule of law, etc.

My return has never been “a retreat”, it has been, since the beginning, a move forward. I do not want to ‘go back to the good old days’, nor do I want to go backwards in time. I miss having a community and a pulpit-I just don’t need to go back to what was, rather I am intrigued and excited about what can be, what I can do in this moment, because living in the past is not living T’Shuvah, it is not living in repentance, return and new responses. I have new responses to the situations that keep repeating in my life and in the world. I support Freedom of Choice for everyone-even if I disagree with their choice. I have remorse for my past errors, I have made my amends, it pains me that some want to hold on to their anger and self-righteousness and I accept what is. Nothing is all good nor all bad, no one is devoid of the Tzelem even if they choose to bury it so deep it seems to have left them. I shed tears of remorse, of sadness, of forgiveness of another who is so stuck they are unable/unaware of their need to forgive and their need to return. I am returning to more of the primordial me so I can serve the real you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"Conscious Truthfulness" or "Self-Conscious Conformity" when/how do you choose one over the other? - Year 3 Day 305

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 305

5th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“If, to be sure-as is often the case among us-instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

Today is the anniversary of the murderous terroristic attack on innocent people on the border with Gaza, Oct. 7, 2023. This attack has changed everything in the Middle East, in the entire world and this was the goal of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia(who is a partner with Iran, North Korea, China). Thinking about this yahrzeit and the bolded words above, regrading Jews, “a self-conscious conformity” overtakes “a conscious truthfulness” all the time. In the past 9 years, Donald Trump has given this phrase more power in the United States and it dominates the Republican Party of today. When “a self-conscious conformity” overrides “a conscious truthfulness” there can be no repentance, no forgiveness, no adherence to the foundational tenets of religion I am using the ones I learned from the Dalai Lama: love, kindness, compassion, truth, and justice. We have only lies, subterfuge, deceptions and people wanting to have ‘dominion’ over another group, all groups.

Putting together the yahrtzeit of Oct. 7th, the fact there are still hostages in Gaza, Hezbollah rained rockets, Iran sent ballistic missiles, with the need for the Netanyahu Government to engage in “a self-conscious conformity” with the far-right ‘religious’ parties so he can stay in power and stay out of jail, is it any wonder so many hostages have been kept in captivity for a year? Is it any wonder so many (one is too many) have died? When “a self-conscious conformity” is the law of the land, when people hate their neighbors because of politics, when power is more important that human life, a democracy has descended into the depths of depravity that is rampant in Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, etc. They are in the depths of depravity because “a conscious truthfulness” has been replaced by “ a self-conscious conformity”.

Listening to the news, reading the papers, magazines one can wonder: “how did we get here?” We got here because “a self-conscious conformity” has been rampant in the US and in Israel as well as in the world writ large both the far right and the far left. . Since the beginning of our nation there was “a self-conscious conformity” in dealing with slavery, in dealing with Native Americans, etc. We went along to get along, to preserve our union, etc. We have a long history of exploiting Chinese and other minorities. We have been unwelcoming to the Irish, the Italians, the waves of Jews have been most problematic for many as the KKK hates Jews almost as much as they hate Blacks and since White Supremacy is on the ballot again this year in the form of Donald Trump and JD Vance, we are still dealing with this scourge. Allowing the progressives to deny the right of Jews to defend themselves and live in peace is not helping at all. Watching a political rally we are left wondering are they cheering for their ‘hero’ who tells them how to think, are they cheering for someone who wants to lead us into “a conscious truthfulness”? We have to decide, what realm do we choose to live in, which way of being are we willing to fight for? Many people have chosen, throughout history and today, to fight for a “self-conscious conformity” and they are willing to kill, to die for it. Are those of us who fight for “ a conscious truthfulness” willing to die for truth, to die for basic tenets of the Bible, truth, justice, caring for the stranger, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein, etc?

We can only make this decision if we root out the “self-conscious conformity” that is rampant in our midst and within us. It is hard to be a prophet, it is hard to be a descendant of the prophets, it is hard to go against the grain and call out lies, deceptions and mendacity. It is hard to be ostracized because we make mistakes as happens with people who encounter the criminal justice system, who are in recovery, who admit their errors and make amends. It is hard to grapple with what happens when we break out of the “self-conscious conformity” that engulfs neighbors, family, friends, country club members and we become the outcasts, our children suffer, our business could suffer, etc. This “self-conscious conformity” is so pervasive and strong, it is such an enormous part of society’s consciousness, there are consequences for breaking out of it that most people are not willing to pay. There are many spiritual leaders of all faiths who have led their congregants to recognize and become willing to pay the heavy cost of living in “a conscious truthfulness” through repentance, return and having new responses. These are the heroes to follow, not the charlatans who hate the people Jesus loved, who despise the people Joshua led into the Promised Land, who sh*t on the principles of the Bible, who are deaf to the call of the prophets, etc. We can only do this when we take the time to look inside of ourselves and see where and when we fall into “a self-conscious conformity”, we all do, and devise ways to rise above this state of being, ask for help from our spiritual guides, family, friends, to wake us up when we fall into the ether of “a self-conscious conformity” so we can return to “a conscious truthfulness”.

I have wrestled with these two ways of being for my entire life. I want to be liked, I want to be heard, I want to be respected and I want people to follow me. I also have to speak what my soul tells me, speak loudly and, at times, aggressively, I have to call out the lies and deceptions that I encounter, I have to do whatever I can to promote “a conscious truthfulness” knowing I don’t have all the answers, I am not aware of some of my blind spots at times. These two ‘wants’ have collided within me since I was a young child. The collision has gotten me into more trouble than my legal woes did because it led to them and it has led to my being considered “not right for polite society”, to me being told that  I bring “hysterical chaos” to some different situations. I am not a victim, I am not always right- FULL STOP. And, I have a fire in my belly that makes me erupt when I see the “self-conscious conformity” that leads a society to live in deception and mendacity, that allows a group/community to tear down the principles it was founded upon, when a Rabbi is afraid to use the Bible to call out inconvenient truths for fear of losing donors.I cannot “stand idly by the blood of my neighbor”. I have to bring truthfulness and I do my best to stay out of “self-conscious conformity”. It is through repentance that I continue to grow in “a conscious truthfulness”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you making a "Deliberate Decision" to repent of is your "I'm Sorry" coerced? Year 3 Day 304

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day304

4th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“If, to be sure-as is often the case among us-instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

Shana Tova! G’Mar Tov! A good year for us all, much better than this last one as a people and as individuals. A good seal, finish to the 10 Days of Awe, 10 Days of Repentance are the sayings and responses at this time of year among Jews. Yet, how can we say this when we are not living “repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility” as I wrote about on Wednesday of last week? How can we say these greetings, these wishes when we are not making a “deliberate decision” to engage in repentance and forgiveness? I submit that we can’t!

Rabbi Heschel’s words from 88 years ago haunt me and, hopefully, are haunting you. He calls out the Jewish community of Berlin at a time when being Jewish was an act of bravery and, he is not okay with “coerced conversion”. When we are Jewish because of the anti-semites, this is a “coerced conversion”. When we go to Temple on the High Holidays out of some superstition, we are being coerced. When we wave the Israeli Flag and say Am Yisroel Chai, the Jewish People Live as if we are one people with the same thinking and feelings because of Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, this is also a “coerced conversion”. Any display of Jewishness, any doing of ritual because ‘it is written’, because ‘they are coming to get us’, because ‘I am superstitious’, because ‘my mother would kill me if I don’t go to shul for the High Holy Days’(even though she has been dead for years), it is a “coerced conversion”.

When we say ‘I’m sorry’ without really having remorse, this is a “coerced conversion”. When we use the formula that the Rabbis provide for the days before Yom Kippur-“If I have done anything to harm you in this past year, please forgive me” without doing our own “accounting of our souls”, we are engaged in a “coerced conversion”. When we beat our chests on Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur without knowing and acknowledging in our inner life, in our minds the truthfulness of our transgressions, we are engaging in a “coerced conversion”. When we guilt people into giving to sustain the Temple community without knowing what the people need nor providing a space to learn and wrestle with the opposing viewpoints, without providing a space for people to argue with one another and within themselves to find the truth, we are leading a “coerced conversion”. When we promote a Temple for it’s being ‘the way’ we are promoting a “coerced conversion” atmosphere.

Be it MAGA, the Far Right in Israel, Bibi, Orban, Putin, Trump who all seem to get along and admire(?) one another; all of these movements and people are engaging in “coerced conversion” to a way of being that denies living into the promise of the Exodus from Egypt-Slavery will end!! All of these people and movements are coercing their followers into believing lies and deceptions, feeding their desire and hunger for self-deception because a “deliberate decision” to repent, to change, to live into the truth of one’s own life and the truth of Biblical teachings is so damn hard! It is easier to buy the lies of those who say ‘don’t worry, “I am your retribution”, who remind us that “you need me”, who soothe us with “I will take care of you”-all the time knowing they only care for the rich and powerful, are interested in their own power, and the power of their white supremacist partners who believe in a Christian Nation-which Jews have always done well under, which Blacks have flourished under, which Latinos have never been coerced into converting to Christianity under, etc. We are so afraid of a deliberate decision that we choose to a “coerced conversion” because someone else is doing the work for us, we foolishly believe we can just skate by, not realizing that every authoritarian has always made it difficult for those of us who are ‘different’ and for the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan.

Making a “deliberate decision” is hard, it means I have to look at what other people are saying, their feelings, their experiences of our interactions and find the truth for me in them. While none of us can control the outcomes, none of us can control the feelings of another, we do know what is in our hearts, what is in our souls, what is in our minds. In looking back over this past year, years, we have to opportunity to see what was in these entities at the times of our interactions. We have the gift of being able to empathize with the feelings of another and know they are their feelings and interpretations of events and, though I may have a different one, I have to make my amends for my part that caused the friction, the separation-without taking their part, without telling them how they could have interpreted the events, etc. In making a “deliberate decision” to repent “in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility”, I have to allow that I am not the arbiter of all the facts, I am not the responsible for the entire problem-only my part and I need to own, be remorseful for my part and seek forgiveness.

I made a “deliberate decision” in February/March of 1987 and have lived into it ever since. I still screw up-full stop! I still do a daily accounting of my soul-many times as I write this blog. One of the benefits of making this “deliberate decision” is that I no longer see myself as a VICTIM! I also no longer see myself as a victimizer! I see my humanity, my fragility, my errors and my victories. I also do not need to keep apologizing over and over again for the same error. A “deliberate decision” gives me and everyone the opportunity to make our amends, ask for forgiveness, and be done-no longer hanging on to the guilt, no longer needed to experience “coerced conversion” because I have made a “deliberate decision”, I/we have turned my/our lives over to a higher consciousness and a higher way of living, a higher logic and to my/our soul’s knowing rather than living in “coerced conversion”, in mendacity and self-deception the ways I/we have been. A friend asked me if I do this work myself and I said YES, every day. I have sent emails of repentance that are “deliberate decisions” I made to clean up the barnacles that were weighing me down which just came to light, with people whom hurt me and that is unimportant because I was also wrong and I have to be responsible for my part without needing confirmation by another person. I am clean, I am misunderstood by some and I am clean within myself and I know me better because of my “deliberate decision”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

L'Shana Tova- wishing everyone a Good Year of Repentance, Return and New Responses - Year 3 Day 303

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 302

National Month of Repentance and Change

“The apostasy of the past is matched by the superficiality of today. Is this disappointment surprising? Repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse and responsibility.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

L’Shana Tova- A good year! Today is the last day of the month of Elul, the last day of our National Month of Repentance and Change for this year. Tonight we begin the new year of 5785 and take the next 10 days to go over our accounting of our soul and ensure we have made our amends and plans to have new responses and commit to the changes we need to make so we live a little better in this new year. What Iran did in Israel yesterday is beyond the pale and a strong response is needed AND care not to start a major war in the Middle East is also important. I don’t know the right response, I just know that Bibi, since Oct.7th (and before) has had the wrong one most of the time.

I wrote yesterday about “the apostasy of the past” and not enough, in my opinion, on “the superficiality of today”. We are witnesses to this “superficiality” each and every day, yet we seem to have a difficult time calling it out, we seem to be unable to express both disappointment and truth. We seem to be afraid to confront the charlatans who purposely misread/misinterpret the Bible for their own power and control, we seem to be afraid to confront the false prophets who use lies, deceptions, fear-mongering to get us to heel at their feet and surrender our freedom to think, freedom to speak, freedom of spirit as well as so many other freedoms. We go along to get along and this is one of the worst of our behaviors of “superficiality”. I have been in Temples, Synagogues, Churches where business dealings are talked about more than prayers are said, where the prayers are said so quickly there is not even a hint of wanting the prayers to go through the person. I have been in these places where the Hazan, the Cantor, puts on an amazing performance and there is no soul, no conviction behind the performance. I have listened as Rabbis, Imams, Priests and Ministers have given wonderful sermons and never allow their own words to penetrate their own being, in fact they speak so well they don’t even notice how they are shaming another(s), speaking to separate rather than bringing people together, portraying themselves as holy while being “scoundrels” and using Holy Texts to live a lifestyle different than the one they preach. I am both disappointed and surprised. I am saddened and keep hoping that our politicians will have a spiritual awakening, that our clergy will have a spiritual awakening, that all of us become aware of both our “superficiality” and our “apostasy”.

We all matter and we all need to realize that no one else can do the work that is ours to do, there is no proxy we can appoint to do the work of repentance that is ours. We have to make “a decision in truthfulness, remorse and responsibility” to change, to make our amends, to restore the dignity that we trampled on to another human being. We have to look at our selves and restore the dignity we scorned that lives within us, we have to restore the connection from our soul’s knowledge to our brain. We are being given the opportunity to see ourselves in the light of our actions, in the light of forgiveness and change, in the light of disgusting “superficiality” and “apostasy” and do something different. It is as important to act on Rabbi Heschel’s words above today as it was in 1936, as important here in America and in Israel as it was in Nazi Germany and Europe. We need to remember a Rabbinic teaching that I am paraphrasing: every person should see themselves as if the world as balanced between good and not good and their next action will tip the scales one way or the other. Our actions of repentance changes the scales of the world. Our actions of repentance will give all of us a clean slate and make the world a safer place to live in for the people we have impacted negatively. Our repentance, when made in “truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility” changes the world around us and changes the world for those we have harmed. We become more human by engaging in repentance in this manner, not worrying about how we look. As we say in AA, you can’t save your face and your ass in the same moment. Repentance is the ass saver God put into the world before the world was created because God knew we would care more about how things look (OPTICS) that substance and how things really are.

I am remorseful to the people who I have impacted negatively with my brashness and loudness, with my language and my mannerisms. I am remorseful for the actions that people have been offended by that were done unwittingly by me. I am remorseful for the actions I took knowingly that were defensive and self-serving. I am remorseful for the abandonment of ways I knew to be right in order to “get mine”. I am remorseful for the actions I took that led to people being deprived of faith, of someone to help them. I am remorseful that my temper, my inability to live with the lies of another led me to explode and be inappropriate. I am remorseful for the actions that separated me from my community. I am remorseful for the ways I pushed people away with my inability to accept their foibles and felt hurt by them. I am remorseful for the missed opportunities to share laughs, thoughts, ideas and moments with people whom I have known for a long time and with people whom I never met. I am remorseful for the times I acted out of “superficiality” and “apostasy”. I am remorseful for the fallout from my wild response to the mendacity in front of me. I am remorseful for the loss of connection I have caused.

My remorse is my way of being responsible. I am deeply sorrowful for the losses I have caused, for the misunderstandings of my actions by some and for the desire to not find ways to repair the damages done by one and all. I am deeply saddened and responsible for the lies that have been believed because I did not stand up and speak my truth. I am deeply responsible for the ways I have not lived into the principles of the Bible. I hereby ask for forgiveness and I forgive everyone who I experienced as harming me. I commit to being in more “truthfulness” in this coming year. I commit to being in less “superficiality” in this coming year. I commit to not living in “apostasy” in this coming year. I commit to being more who I am in this coming year. I commit to be more loving and steadfast in this coming year. I commit to being more responsible by putting myself out there more in this coming year. I commit to staying in the solution more in this coming year and not being the cause of too many problems in this coming year. I commit to being more loving and kinder in this coming year. My repentance and my commitments are made in “truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility.” God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Buying the lies and deceptions that lead to apostasy and desertion of the soul's knowing - Year 3 Day 302

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 302

National Month of Repentance and Change

“…Enforced Jewishness still sits so uneasily in many of us that a new wave of desertions could occur at any moment. The apostasy of the past is matched by the superficiality of today. Is this disappointment surprising?” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

Remembering that these words were written in Berlin, Germany in 1936 published on the eve of Yom Kippur and as we head into a new year, 5785 in the Jewish Calendar, with antisemitism on the rise, Israel under attack from the inside and outside, America’s elections in November between an autocrat who hangs out with anti-semites, holocaust deniers, a guy who wants to follow a plan that makes us a ‘christian nation’ and rounds up immigrants, puts serial numbers on them, and, of course, proclaims the hierarchy of white people over everyone else. Oh yeah, he loves dictators and other autocrats who hate Jews, and everyone else not white and, on the other side, a woman of color married to a Jew, a woman who has made service her north star, fought for the rights of those marginalized and harmed by perpetrators of all stripes and types, who has a plan that builds up America and helps us let go of the racism America has held onto for so long. The “enforced Jewishness” that antisemitism brings has, in some cases, caused many Jews to desert our cultural heritage, the legacy of the Bible and the prophets in favor of the autocrat and his gang of thugs, in favor of Bibi who is responsible for Oct. 7th, has prosecuted a terrible war in Gaza, is doing the right thing-so far- in Lebanon, and is trying to make Israel a state without the rule of law and still convince people it is a democracy!

Leading up the destruction of both Temples “apostasy” was rampant among the priestly class, the ruling class, the wealthy class. The abandonment of “Jewishness” by abandoning basic foundational standards such as: caring for the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan; “love your neighbor as you love yourself”; “one law for the citizen and the stranger alike”; we are all created in the image of the divine with infinite, equal and unique dignity and worth; “choose life”; no lies, no stealing, no whoring oneself; in a place where there is no humanity, be human and so many others. Why are we repeating the same apostasy’s? What is the hubris that Jews who support an authoritarian believe they will not be rounded up? Do they believe like some Jews in Germany believed that ‘this too shall pass’, ‘he doesn’t really mean it’, that making up stories, as JD Vance has admitted to, like Hatians are eating animals in Springfield, Ohio is good for themselves, democacy, America? That following the talking points of far-right/alt-right to “get over your dictator-phobia” whom JD Vance claims to believe, listen to and quote is a good thing for being Jewish? These Jews are most responsible for the desertions of our young people-they see the hypocrisy of these ‘real Jews’ as they call themselves and want nothing to do with this bullshit! I don’t blame them. They also desert because the rest of us have not given them a compelling reason to be Jewish-not shown them how “Jewishness” gives us a life worth living and helps us navigate the ups and downs of life. We have given them superficiality and wonder why they ‘abandon’ their “Jewishness”.

We each have to look inside and see how we are living Jewishly at a superficial level. We are being called to account on Thursday (actually Wednesday evening) for the ways we have engaged in superficiality as well as the apostasies we have committed-wittingly  and unwittingly. We each have to look inside of ourselves and take note of the lies we have told ourselves, the deceptions we have bought into that has allowed us to be so devoid of meaning and purpose for something greater than ourselves. On these Holy Days we can go to God and seek forgiveness for these desertions and apostasies, we believe so many don’t even do their inventories well. Yet, nothing we have done to another is forgiven until we try to go to them, if they refuse our sincerity-then the universe forgives us. However, if we are not taking note, doing our accounting of our soul to find these apostasies and desertions we have committed, then we are submitting ourselves to the powers that be, to the authoritarians, to the leaders of deceptions, to the people who agree with, support, and encourage our lies and self-deceptions. We are at a turning point again-history has shown us that these points come to us often and we have the opportunity to do differently than the leaders, the wealthy, the priests and the people did in 586BCE, in 70AD, and throughout Jewish history when we deserted and practiced apostasy.

We do this by owning our shit, by standing up and saying: Hineni, here I am in all my guilt, clothed in errors and today I am bathing myself in repentance! We no longer hide our guilt with bluster and blame of another(s), we no longer go along with the lies and deceptions of autocrats, want to be autocrats. We not longer make alliances with people who hate another group, who scapegoat another group of people because we have been, are and will always be scapegoated by groups in power or seeking power. We end our desertions and our apostasies by turning back to our spiritual home, our soul’s calling. We return again to the place where we can breathe freely and where the wind brings the words: “Proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev.25:10) because we have been freed from our lies, from our deceptions, from our hatreds and from the fears that have distorted our vision. We will also return to these places for sure and the good news is that we will leave them so much quicker than we ever have because our repentance will propel us forward.

I am sorry for the ways I have deserted people, from deserting my father’s morals and teachings, to deserting my family, my daughter, people who trusted me, all of this prior to recovery. I am sorry to the people who have experienced me deserting them in these past 36 years, I am reaching out to the people I remember and I hope the rest can accept my amend here. I am sorry for abandoning my “Jewishness” prior to recovery and am committed to continue to speak out, loudly of course, to the crimes of apostasy that I see and experience. I know this doesn’t make me popular, as my friend Rabbi Ed Feinstein says, and I also know that not doing this is the worst desertion I can commit, the absolute height of apostasy for me. I beg of everyone to accept my amends and understand that my rejection of desertion and apostasy may make you uncomfortable and I have to live my soul’s calling. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How is "remorse for the past" helping you be more "responsible for the future"? Year 3 Day 301

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 301

National Month of Repentance and Change

“Its motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future. Only in this manner is it possible and valid.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

Because Rabbi Heschel is writing for a Jewish audience in Berlin in 1936, in speaking about repentance/T’Shuvah, he doesn’t have to explain what it means, he assumes that everyone reading it knows what repentance is, especially on the Eve of Yom Kippur when this was published, and how to engage in it. And yet, the sentences above are descriptors of what it means to engage in repentance, how to engage in it, and the validity of it depends upon the individual.

While we are “forgiven as we speak” on Kol Nidre, these are only for the ways we have missed the mark with our connection, obligation to the Ineffable One, not for the ways we have harmed one another. To be “forgiven as we speak” for the harms we have brought upon another human being, we have to go to that person, if possible, and engage in repentance with them. If it is not possible, we need to write the repentance down and share it with another person, a spiritual guide, at a gravesite, etc. And none of our words matter unless our “repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness” and “its motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future.”!  Rabbi Heschel is rebuking and reminding the Jews of Berlin in 1936 of the power of repentance and the enormity of it, the call for repentance and the need for it by every individual. He is calling out to us, Jews and non-Jews of today, to make this “absolute spiritual decision” so we can ensure a better today and tomorrow than yesterday was. There is no going back to ‘the good old days’ as some people are trying to make happen in repentance-only going forward and making today and tomorrow a little better than yesterday(s) were.

“Remorse for the past” means knowing that no matter how things turned out, there were errors I made, people whom I ignored, in our drive to ‘get things done’ we stepped on toes and feet, threw elbows and punches, sometimes unwittingly, unknowingly, and sometimes as motivational efforts. While we believe and can prove we did things for the greater good, while we can truthfully claim blindness to these effects, it doesn’t change the fact that we are guilty, we ignored the humanity of another, we missed the mark by failing to honor the divine in another human being. This doesn’t mean we have to buy into everyone’s victimhood, we don’t have to apologize for telling people the truth, getting them to do their part in helping to move a project forward (assuming the project is legitimate and not harmful to anyone), it means we have to look at ourselves, our motivations in the ways we acted. Ask ourselves were our actions in service, were they necessary and were they kind? We can convince ourselves of the first two usually, it is the third one where we usually miss the mark. Being remorseful for this type of missing the mark is crucial for our growth as a human being, it is necessary for our future actions and endeavors and it is a kindness we do for ourselves in becoming aware and accountable.

"Remorse for the past” also means to see where we knowingly and with malice missed the mark, where we did what we did for our own ‘benefit’ and to be self-serving and seek power, wealth, control, fame, etc. When politicians make statements like “Jews are poisoning the blood of our nations, they are vermin” etc and never repent for these horrific statements, there is no forgiveness-in fact letting them off the hook is in itself a missing the mark! When politicians and people blame and shame immigrants seeking a better life for themselves when their own ancestors did the same, we have to hold them accountable for more than ‘I’m sorry’ we have to demand their repentance and we have to demand their plan to not repeat their scapegoating in the future. We have to look inside of ourselves and see where we have engaged in behaviors that are the same and/or similar-where we have blamed and shamed another so we did not have to be ‘responsible’, where we have been ‘the victim’ and therefore ‘not my fault’. Yes we have suffered traumas, some much more severe than others AND this doesn’t give us the right nor the freedom to use these traumas as excuses for our own missing the mark. “Remorse for the past” allows us to see our part and make a valid repentance in order for the possibility of forgiveness by another human being to be in play.

All of this “remorse for the past” means nothing if it doesn’t change us, it doesn’t bring us back to the fold of being human, if we don’t have a plan on how not to repeat the same errors when we are in the same/similar situations again and we will be in them. “Responsibility for the future” is crucial in this process, it means we are committing to being more careful with our words and actions, it means we are going to consider if they are kind as well as being in truthful, in service of a goal/another human being, and if they are necessary. We are committing to be more aware and less oblivious to what is happening in front of us, behind us and around us. We are committing to be seek the truth more than the lies that can ‘serve us better’. We are committing to see our own self-deceptions and leave them, let them go as well as not buying into the deceptions of the idolators, the charlatans, the autocrats, the orange-monkey and their followers. “Responsibility for the future” means voting for democracy, for kindness, for truthfulness, with our ballots, with our feet, with our words. It means we are committed to leaving the world, country, community we live in a little better for the next generation. Only in this way can our repentance be “possible and valid”.

I was asked if I engage in this work every day of this month, every year. The answer is yes! I have reached out to people I realize I harmed that I had not reached out to before. I have reached out to people who I lost connection with to find out why, I am continuing this work and each day, I take Rabbi Heschel’s words in and they cause me to act. I have remorse for the past, for the ways I was a bull in the china shop and stepped on people’s feelings in order to ‘get something done’, even when it was a good thing. I know I serve three masters in my recovery, God, another human being, and myself. I am not a victim, no matter what people may say-I speak my truth when asked and if someone thinks I am complaining then I am either being misheard or I have used the wrong choice of words. I am not a ‘victim’ and I have been harmed. I am not a ‘victimizer’ and I have done wrong. I do have great remorse for the past and I am using this to make a better future. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What is the State of your Repentance? Is it "an absolute spiritual decision made in truthfulness"? Year 3 Day 300

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 300

National Month of Repentance and Change

“What is the state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”? Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

Every day, every year, Rabbi Heschel’s question above needs to be asked and responded to by each of us as individuals, in our local Jewish Communities and world Jewry needs to respond as well. Today, as I write this, I know Israel did the right thing to ‘take out’ Nasrallah, do what it can to stop the incessant bombing of the northern border which the UN has never enforced their own resolution there. I also know that Bibi and his gang of thugs who never believe they need to be in a state of repentance, are like a broken clock-right at least twice!

In our local and world Jewish Communities when we cheer the death of innocents, we are not in a state of repentance-full stop. When we refuse to see the humanity of the people in the West Bank, in Gaza, in Lebanon, we are not in a state of repentance-full stop. When we claim to do this in the name of Jewish teachings and the Bible, we are practicing Avodah Zarah, Idol Worship just like the “Christian” nationalists who claim that the poor, the stranger, the needy should be imprisoned, put in camps, have serial numbers on them, etc are idolators! “What is our state of repentance” when we claim to love Israel while hating the Israelis who are calling for accountability of Oct. 7th and reminding the ‘religious’ people in government that ransoming the captive is an act of holiness and demanded in the Bible? “What is the state of our repentance” when Jews are supporting an autocrat in Israel (Bibi) and in the United States (Trump)? “What is the state of our repentance” when Jews are praising Orban and Putin while decrying Soros and Emhoff? “What is the state of our repentance” when we cannot discern truth from lies, or even worse, know the difference and choose to be False Witnesses?

We are in the last 13 days of what I am calling a National Month of Repentance and Change plus the 10 days of T’Shuvah/repentance. What have we been doing about the “state of our repentance” in these past 26 days? What have we done to look at ourselves and see what we have done well-like taking out Hezbollah’s rocket launching capabilities, like Joe Biden supporting Israel’s right and need to exist. What have we done to see where we have missed the mark- like refusing the deal to release the hostages and instead have 6 young people killed, while Hamas is totally guilty, Bibi and his gang are responsible, like spitting in the face of Israel’s greatest defender and supporter, Joe Biden, to curry favor with another autocrat Trump and, of course his handlers Putin and Orban-whom Bibi also likes! Imagine Jews supporting autocrats who jail their opposition and send them to Siberia!!! What are we thinking? How are we going to Synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and hear the Sound of the Shofar heralding “the Day of Judgement” and not see the sorry state of repentance we are in Miriam Adelson, Republican Jewish Coalition??

We are in this sorry “state of repentance” just as the Jews Rabbi Heschel was speaking to in 1936 Berlin were, because of our lack of truthfulness within ourselves and with one another. We have not “made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of God”, rather we continue to worship the idolatry of mendacity, of taking the Bible out of context, of using the guidebook of how to live life well to instead gain power and dominion over another(s), to denigrate the stranger and the poor, to engage in false prophecy and trumpet their lies and their deceit ignoring the words of the prophets, not following the ways of King David whom they supposedly revere! We are in this sorry “state of repentance” because we are not engaged in a return to Judaism, we are engaged in a grab for power, we are engaged in denigration of women, of those who hear a different call from the Bible, of anyone who wants to build fences around our absolute authority. We are in this sorry “state of repentance” because we have allowed the worst thugs to gain power and our desire to be deceived, our addiction to self-deception is so great, we call them heroes!

We have to make “an absolute, spiritual decision” to repent, to find our ways back to the middle, find our ways back to living a life that honors the Bible, honors ethical and moral standards, grows our souls and helps another human being(s) live well also. It is a decision we make to be “truthful”, to end our addiction to self-deception and lies to another, to answer the call of the universe: “Where are you” with the response: “Hineni”, here I am. It is time for us to stop hiding behind the clean-ups of the sages about the behavior of our ancestors and see the greatness of their repentance and return. If King David can say “I am guilty”, “I have sinned” what is stopping Ben G’vir, Smotrich, Netanyahu from doing the same? What is stopping all of us from doing the same?? We are not holding our leaders accountable because we are not holding ourselves accountable. We are not holding ourselves accountable because we have not made our “repentance an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness”, we have not looked in the mirror and seen the tears of our souls, the hurts we have caused ourselves by our behaviors and we are unable to look into the hearts and souls of those we love because we refuse to see the truth of our actions. We, as individuals, are suffering from a sorry “state of repentance” that we can change. We have the power to face the truth of our existence, we have the power to be accountable and the forces of the cosmos are tilted towards forgiveness, love, and healing as the prophet Hosea says and Jeremiah reminds us We do not have to stay stuck, we do not have to live another moment, another year in our sorry “state of repentance”.

Each year, I am in trembling awe of facing myself as I do each day. I am sorry to those who have stopped talking to me, I don’t know the reason in some cases and I accept their decision. I am sorry to those who are holding onto resentments, hurts, angers towards me after I have offered my T’Shuvah. I am sorry for the unknowing harms I have brought onto people, I am sorry I have not been able to speak in ways someone can hear. I am grateful to the people who rebuke me, I am grateful to the people who engage with me, I am grateful to my teachers and my friends, my family and people from my old community and those in my new who embrace me. I am sorry for my actions which put people off and I am grateful for following the call of my soul and been able to help people find their unique ways back. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Repentance as the Spiritual Equivalent of the "Butterfly Effect"- Year 3 Day 299

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 299

National Month of Repentance and Change

“God brings about this creation for the sake of humanity when a human being repents for the sake of God.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

I was at a workshop last night with Rabbi Hazzan Danny Maseng and when he was talking about writing Liturgical music, he described his process as allowing the words to dictate the music to him, not wanting to fit the words to his melody, rather finding the melody of the words of the prayer. The same is true for me when I read and interpret Rabbi Heschel’s words and wisdom. I let them tell me what the meaning is in this moment and my lower self, my need to be smart is not present when I write.

Whatever word one wants to insert for “God”, depending on ones belief or non-belief system, some power that is much greater than ourselves, a higher consciousness that comes at mysterious moments, “brings about this creation” the creation of the miracle of repentance, the miracle of our “harms and blemishes” being ”extinguished”, being “transformed into” our being saved from our negativity and others being saved from our negativity as well. This is a mysterious occurrence, one that most of us know comes about as a surprise-both for the repentant who asks for forgiveness and the one who grants their forgiveness. Human nature is such that admitting we are ‘wrong’ is a weakness and letting go of a resentment, forgiving those who have hurt us is seen as stupidity.

Yet, as Rabbi Heschel describes above, some power greater than our feelings, higher than our usual consciousness, or, as I like to say, God is the “prime mover” in this occurrence. This “creation”, forgiveness, salvation, repentance and change, is like the butterfly effect, where one small occurrence can influence a larger system. This is what happens for humanity when one person repents, when one person asks for forgiveness, when one person forgives, when both people are changed and commit to this new way of being. Humanity is saved, as Rabbi Meir says in the Talmud, some 2000 years ago: “Great is repentance, because of one person’s repentance the entire world endures/stands” (Talmud Yoma: 86b) Most of us are so enthralled with ourselves, with our power or lack thereof, we either feel like we are not in need of repenting and/or what good would it do to repent and Rabbi Heschel’s words along with those in the Talmud teach us that we all have a part in this world, we all have an effect/influence in and on this world that goes beyond our status in life, beyond our emotional state, beyond our rational thinking and beyond our infantile understandings of God, of religion. Our repentance is for the sake of something so much greater than ourselves-another human being, the world itself!

The sentence above is pointing us in the direction of what true repentance entails as well, as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel speak to us this morning. Our repentance, unlike when we were kids and our parents told us to say ‘I’m sorry’ and not really mean it/understand why we were saying it, as adults is done for the sake of something greater than ourselves. When we are repenting so someone will like us, we are not transforming; when we are repenting so we can make more money and keep our jobs, we are not engaging in the “creation” Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. When we are repenting by saying ‘I’m sorry’ without any awareness of the change we need to make, the actual harms we have perpetrated upon another human being and the negativity we have put into the world, we are not participating in our own salvation.

We have 14 days until we gather for Kol Nidre, the evening Service that ushers in Yom Kippur, the day we are forgiven. We have 14 days to reach into our own higher selves, our higher consciousness and truly repent for the sake of doing the next right thing, without needing forgiveness from another, we only need to take this action of real repentance, repair and change so we can put hope, kindness, truth, love back into the world, so we can be save our better selves, transform our bitterness into kindness, fear into awe, worry into acceptance, etc. We have 14 days to open our souls up to the healing of forgiving the people who have harmed us, the ones we have sworn to never forgive nor forget because holding onto these resentments harm us, make us more bitter, less kind and more suspicious. We have 14 days to let go of these resentments with or without being asked to by the person, rather being repentant for the ways these resentments have impacted our living and our interacting with another human being. How many times have we hidden from another because we hold onto the resentment of old and project these resentments upon everyone else. This is not easy, especially when the first people to harm us were/are our family-parents, siblings, extended family. Yet, we don’t have to ‘let the bastards win’ and with the help of a power greater than ourselves, we can let go of these resentments and forgive ourselves for being powerless to stop the harms and for holding onto these harms for so long.

I am in the home stretch of my TShuvah, my repentance for this year. I have been the recipient of God’s grace and miracles for longer than I realize. I am repentant for and to the people I harmed in my youth with my stealing and hustling. I am repentant to the people I screwed over with my bad checks, frauds, scams. I am repentant to the people I disappointed and ignored throughout my life because I was focused on me and what I thought was important. I am repentant to the people for whom my way of being and speaking felt abusive and inappropriate. I am repentant to the people who worked at Beit T’Shuvah when I acted out inappropriately and did not know how to relate to me nor did they understand/know what was happening. I am repentant to the Board of Directors for putting them in a position of distress and disturbance. I am repentant to the people who feel as if I have abandoned them. I am repentant to my family for the moments when they thought I was too busy for them. I am repentant to my wife for all of my actions that distressed her and still do. I am repentant to myself for the actions that I took without thinking it through. I forgive the people who I believe have harmed me, I forgive the people I have resented who will never ask for forgiveness, I forgive myself for the errors I have made. I commit to being a better human being in 5785 and changing into being more of who I truly am. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Allowing "the forgiving hand of God" to heal you this year - Year 3 Day 298

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 298

National Month of Repentance and Change

“Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

This teaching by Rabbi Heschel is a way of encapsulating the Talmud’s discussion about “great is repentance”. It brings us comfort, truth and a new way of looking at ourselves, the universe, divine energy, higher consciousness-how ever you want to perceive the power of the cosmos that is greater than us.

Rather than seeing God as “punishing”, “vengeful”, etc Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of the prophets calling out to us to “return” to God, that God wants our return as we say 3 times a day except for Shabbat in our prayers. Each and every prophet calls out to us ,as they did to the people in their era and every ear since, “God wants to heal our backsliding”, God wants to take us back in love and with love. This period of repentance and change is not to be feared, rather it is to be welcomed back home, a return to the fold, a new response to the lies we have been telling ourselves. God forgives-full stop, are we ready to accept this forgiveness is the question facing us, are we willing to be in truth with ourselves so we can accept the forgiveness of the universe for the “harm and blemish we have committed against the world and against ourselves”?

This is the great challenge of the prophets, of these days of repentance and change, to be in truth with ourselves and with our spiritual guides, with the people who surround us and love us about the missing the marks we have committed, about the blemishes we have put upon them, upon the world, upon ourselves; the harms we done to our inner lives through self-deception and buying the deceptions of another(s). We get to look at our year through the refraction of God’s “forgiving hand”, through the whole story of good and not good that we have done in this past year. Being in truth with ourselves, with another human being is the greatest challenge we face and, as Rabbi Heschel, the Talmud, those of us who have engaged in this challenge will say-it works! Being in truth with those around us, with ourselves changes us, changes people. Giving someone the opportunity to hear our remorse over the harm we brought them, the blemish we put onto their dignity, is a gift that no one can adequately describe. This opportunity is a repayment, a restitution of what we stole from another person(s), and it also gives the person the opportunity to forgive, to let go of the hurt and blemish they have been carrying-whether they are aware of it or not. Whether there is a full reconciliation, whether the other person chooses to forgive us or not is immaterial to the spiritual healing we bring to them, to the world, and to ourselves. We are doing the next right thing and we have no control over the results-hence “through the forgiving hand of God” we are healed, and, hopefully, the other person has some healing whether they forgive or not. Our blemish and harm is “extinguished” from the world, from our inner life. What a gift repentance is, what a joy it is to be in truth with ourselves, do our inventory, repair, change and know that our errors are not forever!

The last phrase in the words above are the most difficult for many to apprehend, to appreciate, to take in. While the entire sentence is difficult for people who only want to “get even”, who believe repentance and the words above are “not fair” because there is no ‘punishment’, the last phrase makes no sense to most. Humanity has, forever, wanted to get even, wanted to punish, wanted their “pound of flesh”. We feel like without this we are never vindicated. While it is important and necessary for a society to have a justice system, many of the crimes we incarcerate people for today were torts in the Bible because theft is between people, not the ‘State’, etc. Yet, we want ‘the bad guys’ (whomever we believe harm us, hold us to a standard we don’t want, call upon us to do the next right thing, do bad things) to “get theirs”. We want to see a tit-for-tat and, in some cases, a death for an eye, instead of “an eye for an eye”. We have become a society that likes to be victims and/or victimizers. We blame our situation of upbringing, on societal norms, on ‘just business’, etc and those of us accusers fail in most circumstances to own our part so we can be forgiven and our seeking justice is the tempering of justice with righteousness, mercy as the Bible teaches us.

The last phrase allows us to become whole again! It is the unconditional love, the never breaking of the connection with higher consciousness, with higher power, with the Ineffable One, that allows us to be not only forgiven, not only to have the blemishes and harms we wrought healed, we get to take the energy and transform it into salvation. Our confession, spoken out loud, can help another person do their work of repentance, our confession can help another person heal from the blemishes we have caused and/or the ones caused by another. Our confession transforms our “less than” attitude about ourselves into a “can do” attitude, it allows us to see the infinite worth we carry and it transforms the shame and guilt we feel back into the dignity we were born with and have never lost. Our confessions and God’s “forgiving hand” opens our eyes, our hearts, our brains to hear, see and feel the call of our souls, it gives our spiritual life a stronger voice and we learn a little more each year how to listen for this voice, how to ‘go with our gut’ and how to use the energy we made blemishes and harms with to do good and be kind.

I have received the “forgiving hand of God” all my life and have been aware of it for the past 37 High Holiday Seasons. I am not free of blemishes and harms inside nor have I stopped causing them to another human being. I am deeply sorrowful for the people who have not been touched by “the forgiving hand of God” and I pray that those I have caused harms and blemishes to in this past year and before know that I am remorseful and I have used the energy to do more good. 37 years ago, I made a commitment to the universe, to my self that I would transform the energy that caused so much harm, with the help of God, of recovery, of living a Jewish life. I have lived into this commitment while not fulfilling it completely. Yet, I know I have been forgiven by the universe, I know I have transformed by “hustler mentality” to serving people rather than stealing from them. I know I have healed most of the “less than” lies I have told myself over the years and I know I have no power over what another thinks of me. I know that it is my responsibility to forgive another and I hereby forgive anyone and everyone who I believe has harmed me- I want no one to suffer on my account and I pray for their transformation. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"The power of repentance" causes "re-creation of the past" to happen - Year 3 Day 297

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 297

National Month of Repentance and Change

“In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance cause time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

We know we cannot “go back in time”, we know our fascination with the idea through all of the science fiction ‘time machine’ books, movies, etc. Many of us look back longingly and with regret over roads not taken and roads taken, loves not pursued, passions not followed, purposes ignored. Many of us also look at the ways we have treated people and the ways we have been treated, realizing the traumas we have caused and those that have been perpetrated upon us. When we are stuck in the past, we suffer anger, fear, feeling bad, depressed, etc and this leads us to find ways to relieve ourselves of this suffering. Some turn to work, to ‘making it’, to social media, to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, guns, anger, while others engage in fundamentalism in numerous fashions. Others, however, accept the past for what it was and seek to use the lessons of the past to promote a healthy today and tomorrow.

We do this through “the power of repentance”. In the Talmud, the Rabbis explain how “great is repentance” in numerous ways, Reish Lakish, who’s name is derived from the fact that prior to his becoming a Rabbi he was “head of the thieves”, knows full well what he is saying when he says: “Great is repentance because intentional missing the marks are counted as unwitting transgressions.” Since he went through the fire of repentance, since he became a scholar and teacher, his life is one of the proof texts for Rabbi Heschel’s words above, for me. “The power of repentance” is so amazing that on Yom Kippur, we are told we are forgiven! It is so transformative that our purposeful transgressions(big and small) are treated as if we did them not knowing any better!

While many people will argue with the words above, they do so from ignorance. The ignorance of not experiencing someone coming to them in repentance, the ignorance of not experiencing going themselves to repent to another human being, the ignorance of not engaging in the confessionals of Yom Kippur with all of themselves, the ignorance of not believing and engaging with the words of the prophets nor believing the messages, the truth and wisdom of the Bible. When the prophet Hosea comes to the people and says: “Return (repent) Israel to God/Goodness, because you have stumbled in your transgressions. Take words and return to God saying “forgive all our transgressions and take us back in goodness and wholeness. We offer words instead of animals…(God’s response) I will heal them in their repentance, I will love them freely, my anger is turned from them.”(Hosea 14:2-3, 5). The entire Bible is filled with screwing up and suffering then repenting and returning, a vicious cycle that humanity has not been able to break and God keeps taking us back, just as people in our lives keep taking us back after we screw up and truly repent. It is time for all of us to end our ignorance and learn of “the power of repentance” and engage in it so we can use this power to both re-create the past and set a different course for now and tomorrow.

What does it mean to “”allow re-creation of the past to take place”? If I can’t go back in time, if I can’t change the events that happened, how can “re-creation of the past” happen? This seems to be illogical and nonsensical. It is not! “Re-creation of the past”, like the teaching of Reish Lakish tells us happens in the here and now and in the past. “The power of repentance” is that  by acknowledging our errors, by restoring the dignity and the worth that we have taken from another human being by demeaning, hurting, ignoring, stealing, etc from them, we return to them what we have taken. We make our restitution of their spiritual as well as physical being in this process, we return to them the truth of their experience after denying for so long. We re-create the world they felt confident living in and that we hammered away at, chopped down, with our actions towards them. We do not qualify our errors, we do not mitigate the harms done, we acknowledge them, we commit to not do them again and we seek their forgiveness. What happens with the person we come to in repentance is they are vindicated, they are restored to sanity and their dignity, their experience is validated. Now when they revisit the past, as all of us are wont to do, they can breathe easier and freer, knowing they did not imagine the hurt and allow themselves to ‘be healed’, experience “my anger is turned from them”, and, hopefully, “love them freely”. While the last is not always the case, at least the healing and letting go of the anger helps to free the person harmed from the prison of bewilderment, anger, resentment they have been trapped in.

We all need to “allow re-creation to take place”. We are so stuck in our patterns, our paths, our thinking that we can’t see the forest for the trees, we can’t see our part, we live in our binary thinking which is what idolatry is all about. Be it on the left or the right, be it “free Palestine from the river to the sea”, “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country”, be it whitewash the terrorists by the left (Hamas and Hezbollah as well as Iran)  or the whitewash of terrorist by the right (Putin, Orban, Bibi,) both are in need of engaging in repentance. The right-wing Rabbis and left-wing Rabbis who are using the Bible to validate their positions need to repent for their bastardizations of the Word of God. The right-wing and left-wing Christian Clergy who are using Christ’s words against Christ’s principles need to repent for their bastardizations of the words of Christ. Both sides need to repent for their idolatry, for their denigration of human beings and “allow re-creation of the past to take place” so we can live together without anger, without war and in arguments for the sake of living better than we are now.

My past has been re-created because of my engaging in “the power of repentance”. I am not loved by all, I am not welcomed everywhere, and I know I have done what I could to be responsible for my actions, made my amends where possible, changed my ways of being where necessary and allow those who want to use my vulnerabilities against me to do so and be able to have sadness for their need to stay angry, to deny their part and to be so stuck that “the power of repentance” doesn’t touch them. I cannot do any more for them except pray for them. One of the divine needs I fulfill is “re-creation of the past” and each year, when I hear “I forgive you as you have said” I breathe a little freer and fuller, knowing I am being “loved freely” and my “anger is turned from them”, meaning I have no resentments towards anyone. This is “the power of repentance” and I am blessed to live in it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Do you live in the "miracle of Repentance" or still in the darkness of hiding and shame? Year 3 Day 296

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 296

National Month of Repentance and Change

“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. Its is not the same as rebirth, it is transformation, creation.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

We are at the halfway point between the 1st of Elul and Yom Kippur, a period of 40 days and today is the 21st day of Elul. I hope you have been doing your inventory and seeing where you have missed the mark and where you have hit the target, if not the bullseye:). As I think about the words above, I realize the truth of the first sentence is because we are not taught, as children, as teenagers, as young adults, etc that being ‘less than perfect’ is okay, natural, and human! We are not shown how to do repentance while we are taught to be repentant. We are not aware that repentance is a miracle, that it does happen when we engage in it with reckless abandon and give ourselves over to the power of repentance, the miracle of repentance and the healing of repentance.

We live in a world where Greek Philosophy of ‘perfection’ still rules. We live in a world where the societal norm is ‘being right’. Because of these two and other such idiotic norms and cliches we are unable to be in repentance, to do repentance and to be surrounded by the miraculous light of repentance, return and new responses. We are too afraid to admit our errors because we are ashamed of them. We are sure that being in repentance will lead to ridicule and shaming by another(s), by society, so we continue to hide from ourselves and hide from everyone else. Think of how often, when someone is found to be a serial killer, a sexual predator, a thief, a con, the people around him/her proclaim that they had no idea, she/he was such a nice person, a regular guy/gal.

This happens because we are so engrossed in being right, in the way things look, in getting ahead, we cover-up our flaws, we put them on another, we point the finger away from ourselves, we shrink our responsibility and we bury our truth deep within us. Yet, we are never free from our deceptions of another and/or our deceptions of ourselves. How many people think: “if they only knew who I really am, they wouldn’t have anything to do with me”? We are desperately in need of being In Repentance instead of being repentant. Being repentant in our society is to say “I’m sorry” whether we are or not, remember our parents telling us to say this to someone else without explaining why we should be nor listening to the whole story? Remember the shame we felt at being exposed without being heard? Remember our commitment to hide our “dirty laundry” because we don’t want the neighbors to think bad of us-forgetting they have their own “dirty laundry” they are hiding?

It is time to end this bullshit, this deception of another(s), this self-deception. It is time for us to end our wallowing in shame and fear of being ‘found out’ to be less than perfect, less than ideal. It is time for us to stop hating those who have it better and look better because their inner life is just as chaotic as ours. It is time to end our incessant need to ‘win at all costs’ because we always lose our truth, our ability to change and find wholeness and some peace. It is time to engage in and notice the “miracle of repentance”!

Being In Repentance is not self-flagellation, it is not denigrating ourselves. It is not poof, we are reborn. It is, as Rabbi Heschel says above, “transformation, creation”. Repentance is the process by which we transform the energy we have used to hide and deny to come out of our particular closets and admit to our imperfections. It is the process where we open our hearts to our truth, we “circumcise the foreskins of our hearts” and allow the light to flow into the darkest recesses of our inner life that we have been hiding in, we transform the energy we have used to stay silent and hidden into the energy to speak and open ourselves up to the healing of repairing the damage we have done to another human being as well as the damage we have done to ourselves. We transform the energy of negativity to do positive things in the world, beginning with restoring the dignity that every human being has and, in our hiding, blaming, lying we have taken, back to the people we have harmed and restore our own infinite dignity. We use the energy we have bastardized to ‘getting ahead at all costs’ to moving forward in ways that are congruent with our uniqueness and help us reach a state of integrity with people and within ourselves. This is a miracle that, prior to now, has gone unnoticed.

We then see a new creation of our self, a new way of living and being-we no longer hide our flaws and errors, we can own up to them. We are connected to people in the most authentic of ways because we have created a community where truth and authenticity, integrity and congruency are foundational values. We are in a way of living with people who want to rebuke us when we are going back into hiding and lying, who applaud us when we are doing the next right thing. We have created a world that mirrors the one we have dreamed of and never thought possible. This is a miracle that has also gone unnoticed!

I have been in this miracle for over 36 years. I was brought into this state by Rabbi Mel Silverman and his teaching me both Rabbi Heschel and the Rambam, the Torah and T’Shuvah. I have been a student of T’Shuvah and engaged in knowing I am not always right, knowing I have a nose for bullshit, knowing I am so impatient with mendacity and deception, knowing I am not ‘politically correct’ and knowing I am an acquired taste. It is hard to live in the miracle of repentance because the world doesn’t want to be reminded of its flaws, society doesn’t want to change, wonder is a feeling rather than an way to meet the day. Repentance has been and continues to be a miraculous state for me. I continue to repent and change, repair and find new ways to be, be rejected and embraced and, most of all, I continue to live in integrity and authenticity. I am in the miracle of transformation and creation each and every day-how wonderful it is! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark