Are you aware of the "burden upon your soul"? Year 4 Day 36

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 36

“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man; no human voice can convey its terror.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 10/11)

While the Rabbis claimed that the time of the prophets was over and prophecy no longer came to humans, I believe they were mistaken and biased. These sentences describe the prophet’s state of being very well; “a man who feels fiercely” tells us that there is no ‘political correctness’ in the prophet’s world. There is no ‘go along to get along’ way of being for the prophet, he cannot “sit idly by the blood of his brother/sister”, he has to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. He has no choice but to care for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the needy and the poor. He cannot abide with discrimination in any form. For the prophet love is the goal of life; love of God, love of one another, love of self;  living from one’s spiritual life not living to ‘get ahead’.  Because of this way of being, the prophet cannot keep his mouth shut when wrongdoing is in his face. When the people Israel were whoring themselves in the Sanctuaries, in the Palaces, in the Marketplace-the prophets spoke out and spoke loudly. “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” says Amos the prophet and all prophets were outraged, overwhelmed with incredulity because of the lack of justice and righteousness in the Temple, in the Palace, in the Marketplace while the people were mis-attuned to God’s call, to the ways we were taught in the Midbar/desert on the journey to the Promised Land. Feeling the betrayal of the people to God was just too much for the prophet to stay silent.

In the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, there were many who followed the example of Dr. King and spoke out mightily and constantly about the evil of racism, Rabbi Heschel being one of them. The great Rabbis of the past 100 years, the Priests and Ministers who have stood out over this time all had this gift of prophecy thrust upon them and they all felt the pain of the human being “fiercely” and spoke out against the power structure that was so cruel, that put taskmasters over the people to keep them down, marched for freedom without being bowed by the danger, rather being “bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed”. It is true that there is an ebb and flow to existence both within the human being and in the world itself. We have been through periods of autocrats before and what is happening right now is nothing new-the challenge for us, of course, is to not go to sleep, saying “This too shall pass” because there will be heartache, cruelty, and devastation of the human spirit and death of human lives. We are facing an autocrat who wants to install an oligarchy, a dictator that one of the influencers of JD Vance says we have to “get over our dictator phobia” and install one in America. We are facing people who will do and say anything knowing they have their own agenda, the Constitution they swore an oath to means nothing, their oaths are non-binding, and cruelty, chaos is the first goal with amassing all the wealth and power the ultimate goal.

We, the People need the words of the prophets to be ringing in our ears, day and night. We, the People need to wake the fuck up and “feel fiercely” the disconnection from our own decency, our own knowing what is right and what is wrong. We, the People need to stand up and say NO to autocracy, NO to a dictator, NO to oligarchs, NO to the lies of people in power, NO to our elected officials who are going along and/or being the architects of this cruelty. We, the People have to say NO to the idolators who say this cruelty is being done in the name of Jesus Christ our lord. We, the People have to reclaim our own prophetic voice. We, the People have to re-read the words and deeds of the prophets so we can improve our spiritual hearing to discern lies from truth, to hear the words spoken to us by these charlatans, these wannabe dictators and oligarchs, and realize if they ping like crystal(truth) or thud like lead(Lies). We, the People are being called upon to stop the cruelty, to stop the rape of the land and the people because of the greed of the wealthy, the ‘ruling class’.

The only way for We, the People to be able to respond is by staying aware, not giving into the fatigue of the lies and the onslaught of all the different actions being taken. Each of us has to focus on our corner, hearing what we can hear, seeing what is in front of us and take action; otherwise, our Constitution will fall as the Temple in Jerusalem fell. We, the People have to engage with spiritual guides so we can get our “spiritual house in order”, so we recover our basic goodness of being and stop being deceived by our selves and by another(s). People who buy into the MAGA bullshit are so far under the ether they no longer trust what their eyes see, they have followed Trump’s dictate to listen to what he says, not what he does, not what anyone else says, points out-just buy his bullshit and their lives will be GREAT AGAIN. While it is easy for us to be mad and sad for these people who “drank the juice” just like the Jonestown people, it is more important to not engage in endless arguments with ‘true believers’ and focus our energies on doing what is right and good-fighting the “fierce greed” of some with the love and strength of God, with the words of prophecy of the prophets, with the deeds the Bible tells us to do so we can understand the danger and the perils of buying the lies. God has sent the “waters” and the “mighty stream”, “righteousness and justice” are part of our DNA as humans and part of the DNA of the world: it takes We, the People to make the “waters” come down and the “mighty stream” to roll, it is our responsibility to live in “justice and righteousness” in all of our affairs, to live these principles especially when it is hard and makes us a spiritual nomad, a thorn in the side of power.

Know the fierceness of greed because I lived in it for 20 years. There was never enough, I guarded it with your life, I thought I could always get more and it did not matter that I was stealing, conning, lying to get the money-if I had money I was something, if I didn’t have any, I was nothing. Self-Worth=Net Worth when Greed is king in one’s life. Thank God I was arrested and heard the call of my inner prophet, exhorting me for the life of greed I was living, asking me the hard questions of where was justice, righteousness in my daily affairs. Who did I think I was to diss God, who did I think I was to dam up the “waters of justice” and the “mighty stream of righteousness”? I had no answer and I was bowed and stunned at how far from the moral compass I was born with and was nurtured by my father I was. Since that day, the prophets, Rabbi Heschel and my father speak to me, along with the Bible, family and friends, they are my daily companions and advisors-they make me a little crazy, force me to do the next right thing and we are in a covenantal relationship. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What is the state of your "moral comprehension"? How do you elude your moral failures? Year 4 Day 35

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 35

“The niggardliness of our moral comprehension, the incapacity to sense the depth of misery caused by our failures, is fact that no subterfuge can elude. Our eyes are witness to the callousness and cruelty of man but our heart tries to obliterate the memories, to calm the nerves, to silence our conscience.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 10)

“Niggardliness” can be understood to mean “small” which makes the opening sentence mean the smallness “of our moral comprehension” which speaks to the times we are in, the times we seem to always come back to. After each and every great era of morality, equality, freedom the pendulum seems to be swung back to this stinginess of moral comprehension, it seems that the people who want power because of who they think they are, in modernity because of the ‘whiteness’ of their skin, they wait for a lull in the progress towards freedom and pull the pendulum back to hatred, back to a niggardly “moral comprehension”. We have seen this throughout history-the people who built the golden calf, the Israelites who complained about Moses as he was on his mission of redemption, in the desert the Israelites who made a 2 week trip into a forty year journey, the fall of the Roman Empire, the myriad of nations who have ‘fallen’ from grace and never regained their stature again, the Nazis, Russia, and now the MAGA crowd.

While I get trolled some for my views, I refuse to buy into the “subterfuge” that allows my trolls to elude the truth of “the depth of misery caused by our failures” and to ignore “the niggardliness of our moral comprehension”. We are in a time of deep moral failures, of being co-responsible for the misery caused by them, and claiming to not see this truth, claiming that it is good for people to suffer with high prices, for billionaires to get more tax breaks, for corporations to continue to be treated like people for tax purposes and not held accountable for their “moral failures” is ridiculous and dangerous. We are watching the destruction of accountability in our country and across the globe. While the ICC is wrong to charge war crimes, the Israeli people have to hold Bibi and his gang accountable for their actions on Oct. 7th and before, for their not getting the hostages back immediately and for their complicity in funding Hamas! Trump has to be held accountable by the Senate and the House of Representatives to have good, honest, and capable people serving in the Cabinet Posts instead of drunks, liars, ass-kissers who are firing the people who have served our nation proudly, in truth, and without regard to the political system.

How did we get to this place at this time in history? The last sentence above speaks to the dilemma we face and the epidemic we are in; our eyes are witness to the callousness and cruelty of man but our heart tries to obliterate the memories, to calm the nerves, to silence our conscience.” We are in a time where people will believe the lies someone tells rather than what they witness with their own eyes! “Watch what they do, not what they say”. Trump et al have done nothing to help the price of eggs go down-there is no bird flu, the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America, Greenland should be part of the US, Pardon the January 6 Armed Rioters at our Nation’s Capitol, are more important than helping the average person and no one in government is holding him accountable-SHAME ON YOU SENATORS, CONGRESSPEOPLE. Rather than see what is, people who are ‘loyal to the DONald’ “calm the nerves and silence our conscience” by repeating the lies he keeps speaking. Project 2025 is the plan and the playbook and “callousness and cruelty” is the point-all in the ‘name of Jesus’ and they are aghast when someone like Bishop Budde quotes Jesus’ words and deeds back to them from Scriptures instead of some sham bible they claim to be holy. The people who will suffer the most are the people who are kissing his ass the most, the people who show up at his rallies and cheer Stewart Rhodes as he celebrates his not being held accountable along with the DONald who is not being help responsible nor accountable for his wrongdoings.

It is past time for all of us to look inside of our souls, to take an inventory of our inner life and our outer actions. Each person is to do T’Shuvah one day before we die and since none of us know the day of our death, do T’Shuvah every day, according to Rabbi Eliezer in the Talmud (Shabbat 153a). All of us are accountable and no amount of “subterfuge”, no amount of lying to oneself nor another human being can change this fact. We, the People have to take back our moral compass and learn to live by it. We, the People have to stop hiding behind lies and blinders denying our “failures”. We, the People have to see the cruelty and callousness that is in front of our eyes and put an end to the misery we cause by our willful blindness. We, the People are being given an opportunity to say NO to the hatred and cruelty being perpetrated upon all of us, We, the People need to hear the call of the prophets, the call of our inner life, the call of the poor, needy, stranger, and respond with HINENI, rather than, “not my problem”. We, the People have to be accountable for the misery and evil, cruelty and callousness perpetrated in our name by our leaders. We, the People are being called to duty in service of holy principles, in service of moral principles, in service of one another and in service of love, kindness, justice, mercy, truth-will you stand up and answer this call today and every day?

“What an order, I can’t go through with it” is a phrase in the Big Book of AA and it reminds us that we are not expected to be perfect and progress is always attainable. This is my story for the past 36+ years. I am acutely aware of my moral failures and my callousness, both of which I have done less and less since my recovery began long ago in a prison cell. Yet, I know I am still guilty and I make my T’Shuvah for my errors. I hold myself accountable and I depend on a few people to help me-the vast majority of people like to point fingers as ‘victims’ when finger-pointing is actually a “subterfuge” for them because if I can blame you-you will not see what I have done, am doing-like our current government, like Bibi and his government. Remembering my own foibles gives me compassionate pity for people and doesn’t absolve them, just as I am not absolved until I make my T’Shuvah. After doing this, I am clean and the person denying forgiveness and rapprochement is the guilty party. I refuse to be cruel and callous knowingly and on purpose, I also refuse to just go along, admit to something that isn’t true, silence my voice because another person doesn’t like it and ‘feels’ bad because I am loud, proud, and joyous about “Freedom for All” and I refuse to apologize for who I am. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Indifferent to Evil when it doesn't 'affect' you or sensitive to evil anywhere, anytime-Which are you? Year 4 Day 34

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 34

“They speak and act as if the sky were about to collapse because Israel had become unfaithful to God…The prophet’s words are outbursts of violent emotions. His rebuke is harsh and relentless. But if such deep sensitivity to evil is to be called hysterical, what name should be given to the deep callousness to evil which the prophet bewails? “They drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils; but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph”(Amos 6:6) (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 10)

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day and these words from Rabbi Heschel, the time we are in, are so cautionary for us and I know most people can’t/won’t hear the pleas of the prophets, Rabbi Heschel, and continue in “deep callousness to evil” that has been a hallmark of human beings since the beginning of humanity! One could ask oneself where have the prophets been in our life? Why are they not studied more, what is the problem they pose for the Rabbis who quote them, often out of context, yet don’t stand on the street corners, don’t raise their voices in the Temples and Synagogues to remind us how the words of the prophets, the “outbursts of violent emotions” are relevant and necessary for us right here, right now?

Holocaust Remembrance Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, citing the day of liberation of Aushwitz as the marker of this solemn occasion. The same United Nations that allowed hostages to be hidden/held in their buildings by Hamas and other Terrorist groups in Gaza, the same United Nations whose UNWRA employees participated in the Oct. 7th massacres! Talk about “deep callousness to evil which the prophet bewails”! Yet, governments, organizations, religious institutions, political parties, and individuals seem to be willfully blind to their incongruous behaviors, to their inability to face themselves, grow their spiritual maturity to a place of connection to the prophets, identification with the prophets and action along the lines  of the prophets’ words and deeds. Instead, we feel ‘judged’ by the “rebuke” which we ‘feel is “harsh and relentless” so we just ignore it, defend it, deny it, as the UN has done, as the world has done with regard to the latent, virulent anti-semitism that is once again rampant in the world. Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, white supremacists roam the US, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, praises the far-right party in Germany, putting his nose in the politics of another nation, using the Nazi Salute at a rally in America, being defended by Bibi Netanyahu, Donald Trump installing him in the White House, and we are shocked, dismayed, not understanding why the “prophet’s words are outbursts of violent emotions”?

What else can our words be in such a time as then, as now? How do we defend the “deep callousness to evil” which is being showcased in the White House of Donald Trump, the work of Elon Musk, the drunkenness of Pete Hegseth, the cowardice of the Republican Senators in Congress, the hateful idolatry of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, etc? What is it in the human psyche that is so enthralled with “evil” that we have become callous to it when we see it, when we perpetrate it, and are so aghast when it is perpetrated upon us? How have we failed to realize the words in Genesis:”Sin couches at your door, it desires you much and you can rule it”(Gen. 4:7) What is the problem with human beings following the Holiness Code as an antidote to our “deep callousness to evil” and participation in it? We have failed to immerse ourselves in the study of the prophet’s words and ways. We have failed to be cultivate a “deep sensitivity to evil” and the world is suffering because of it. There is poverty, gluttony, terrorism and displacement, treating the stranger as an enemy and hate your neighbor rather than cultivating the ‘laws’ of the holiness code on display today and we are all poorer because of it. Bibi, the UN, Trump, et al will all mark today with some wonderful words and continue the despicable actions we have come to accept.

We are being judged, we are being given strong rebukes by the words of the prophets and we need them! We the People have fallen asleep, fallen off the path of decency, loving our neighbor as ourselves, of building a space for God to dwell among us, within us, and it is time to WAKE UP! The prophets are not as hysterical as the people who were gassed in the Holocaust. The prophets were not as hysterical as the Rwandans massacred because of senseless hatred promoted by the Belgians, the prophets were not as hysterical as people in the United States are when women die because of insane reproductive constraints, the prophets were not as hysterical as the Israelis who suffered the terrorist attack of October 7th, nor the victims/survivors/first responders of 9/11, etc. We all have been hysterical in the face of sin/evil and we continue to turn a blind eye a blind eye to it when we are ‘not involved’ and/or ‘it isn’t being done to us’ forgetting that what someone will do to another, they will do to you. We, the People are given a new opportunity each and every day to hear the prophets words and take action on them. We are given the space to repent for our indifference to evil and repair the damage we have wrought because of it. We are graced with the kindness to see anew our actions and have more clarity as to what is the next right action to take. We, the People are being called today and every day to NEVER FORGET what “sin” does, NEVER FORGET what “callousness to evil” brings about, TAKE CONTRARY ACTION to what has become acceptable evil by society and stay “maladjusted to the conventional notions and mental cliches” of our time and our mendacious leaders of countries, institutions, and religious sects.

I am sitting here writing with such anger and rage over what is happening in my country and around the world. People who claim to be ‘christians, jews, muslims’ bastardizing the words of our holy texts make me volcanic. People like: Jonathan Greenblatt who, under pressure it seems, finally condemned Elon Musk for his Nazi Salute; Bibi Netanyahu who has kept the hostages from coming home sooner because of his arrogance, making excuses for Musk’s actions, Donald Trump who wants to displace the Palestinians from Gaza and disrupt the government’s of Egypt, Jordan-not Saudi Arabia nor Qatar who both do ‘business’ with his son-in-law Jerad Kushner. How can I not have “violent outbursts”, not be “hysterical” when such evil is being perpetrated and celebrated? I am not always right about my reactions, they are misconstrued often and written off as a personal agenda. I suffer the most frustration when this happens because my “outbursts”, my “hysterical” response is because of my “deep sensitivity to evil” because I was guilty of promoting it prior to my recovery. I may be harsh and I am loving, I am relentless and I am loyal. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you standing up to or being a whore to the people who are grabbing power and our freedoms? Year 4 Day 33

Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 33

“They speak and act as if the sky were about to collapse because Israel had become unfaithful to God…The prophet’s words are outbursts of violent emotions. His rebuke is harsh and relentless. But if such deep sensitivity to evil is to be called hysterical, what name should be given to the deep callousness to evil which the prophet bewails? “They drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils; but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph”(Amos 6:6) (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 10)

Rabbi Heschel is speaking about the prophets in the first sentence above, of course. He is also speaking to us, the descendants of both the prophets and the people who “had become unfaithful to God”. Immersing myself in this sentence, I find it very interesting to see how many more people claim and reflect/repeat/find new ways to emulate, copy, deepen, their paths to “become unfaithful to God”! And, as the progenitors of this way of being showed us, the most ‘holy’, the loudest prayers, the ‘best’ students, and those who proclaim to ‘know the word of god’ are the biggest whores! They are the ones for which Numbers 15:39 is speaking to-“Don’t scout out after your heart and your eyes  because you will whore after them!” Yet, Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tommy Tuberville, and so many of these ‘righteous christian nationalists declaimed the spiritual message of Bishop Budde, called her out, sent their minions to send threats and prayers for her demise, demanding apologies for the message of Jesus, the message of both the Bible and the New Testament give out often! How much more unfaithful can we be? Earlier in Numbers 15:15-16, we learn “there shall be one law for you and the stranger amongst you, one Torah, one judgement”. Twice in two verses we are told to not pervert justice for ‘our people’, we are not to have one law for democrats and another for republicans, Mr. Trump, North Carolina Legisture, Tennessee Legislature,- you boastful god/idol-fearing people!

How can we not think, feel, believe “the sky is about to collapse because Israel (we) had become unfaithful to God”? Because so many were not afraid of this happening, because so many people gave in to the machinations and lies of Trump, Musk, et al, because the Congress is full of isolators, liars, descendants of the people in power in ancient Israel, because so many people were uninformed, ill-informed, buying the lies and believing they would be ‘saved’ by their ‘messiah’, we are in the situation we find ourselves in: a drunk is the Secretary of Defense, Equal rights for LGBTQ have been suspended, strangers are subject to different rules and laws, strangers are unwelcome, the poor deserve to be poor and ‘tough luck sucker’ attitude seems to be in vogue, the rights of the people of California to FEMA money is being made conditional, possibly, and so many other perversions of justice, so many other desecrations of God’s name by Trump, Vance, Musk, Johnson, Ernst, et al-all ‘god/idol-fearing people’! Isn’t it time for us to face up to the truth of our ancestry, isn’t it time for us to face up to the “sins of our fathers” so we can not repeat them? Isn’t it time for all of us to stand up and be “Face to Face” with God as our ancestors were and re-affirm the words, “We will do and we will understand”, the emphasis being on doing to understand rather than lying to make you understand the ways ‘they’ want to cheat, lie, steal, have power over you?

Is it any wonder that the prophets “speak and act as if the sky were about to collapse”? The wonder, to many, is why more people are not engaged with, studying the words of the prophets, beginning with the prophet Nathan in the 2nd book of Samuel? Nathan stood up to King David and told him a story to find out if he had lost his sense of moral outrage or was the death of Uriah a lapse of morality- had he lost his way for a moment or forever was Nathan’s question to himself and God’s question to Nathan. King David was outraged on behalf of the poor and when Nathan said he was the sinner: King David admitted it, said “I have sinned”, asked for forgiveness. This is not what is happening in our time, just as this was not the example the kings and priests of Ancient Israel followed! We speak every day of the Exodus from Egypt in our prayers, yet we continue to enslave another and ourselves to the lie of “the good old days”, of “make America, Israel, Russia, Hungary, etc great again”. We were never “great”, we are never “there”, we are always on the journey and the prophets, seeing the whoring of the people, watching the Pimps in the Castles, Halls of Justice, Government, Houses of Worship, etc; were outraged on behalf of God, on behalf of the innocents, the strangers, the poor, the needy.

We, the People have to hear the prophets of today calling to us. We, the People have to re-read, re-learn the lessons of the prophets of Ancient Israel. We, the People have to stand up for our souls, for the souls of the people we care about and the souls of our enemies as well! It is up to We, the People to send clear, unequivocal messages to those in power who are trying to Pimp the rest of us out that we are NOT WHORES.  We, the People are NOT JOHNS who will sell our souls for their fake bullshit! We, the People have to stand up and tell Mike Johnson and those other idolaters in the Congress that we know the Scripture and we know the message of God through Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, because we are living it in our daily life. Caring for the marginalized, ransoming the captive, redeeming our brothers and sisters, rebuking our neighbors when they are doing wrong,  not standing idly by the blood of our neighbors, loving our neighbors as ourselves is our modus operandi-not the willful blindness, the bullshit buying crap they are trying to sell us. We, the People have to tell Johnson, Trump, Thune, Vance et al that we are servants of the Holy One, we answer to our the Higher Consciousness of the universe-not be lackeys, whores, johns for them!

I got stuck on the first sentence above as I am so enamored, engaged with and feel kinship with the prophets. I understand their fears, I understand their passion and their need to call bullshit on the lies and subterfuges of the ‘people in power’. I get why they are considered angry, cantankerous men because they went against the societal norms of the day, of today. When the Orthodox Jews bastardize the text, fail to heed the warnings of the Bible, believe they know God’s will better than what the Bible says, we are in trouble!! When the ADL gives cover to Musk using the Nazi signal, when Jews praise Trump letting white supremacists out of prison to be his ‘private militia’ we are in trouble!! I know the “fire in the belly” of the prophet because I have it, I know the outrage because I experience it, I know the need to speak it loudly because I do it. I know the trouble it can get one into because I experience it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Injustices, falsehoods, hypocrisies, miseries Oh, MY! Year 4 Day 32

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 32

“Their breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as hysteria. We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery, but we rarely get indignant or overly excited. To the prophets a minor, commonplace sort of injustice assumes almost cosmic proportions.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.10)

The truth of the words above is meant to have all of us take a breath, pause our usual way of being and look at the ways in which we betray our self, betray our moral compass, betray our spiritual health through our unwillingness to “get indignant or overly excited” over what the prophets had “breathless impatience”! What is it in our make-up that makes human beings either buy into or accept “acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery” when it is perpetrated by them, their ‘side’, and upon another human being they want to have power over, are afraid of, or because of their racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, anti-Muslim attitudes? Yet, when they think the same thing is happening to them, they cry and scream bloody murder! We humans are an interesting lot, aren't we?

Of course the prophets were hysterical about the idolatry, the mendacity, the injustices happening around them. They were people of faith, they heard the words of the universe/God in their souls and they were unable to constrain themselves. They did “not belong in polite society” because they are raucous, loud, unbending and in your face. Hence the hatred of them and their words both by the people in power and some of the populace as well. Sort of like someone purporting to be Jewish and hating the stranger, spitting on the poor and needy, forgetting to redeem the captive, enjoying the enslavement of another human being like Pharaoh did in Egypt. This way of being an anti-prophet is like calling yourself a Christian and having contempt for the downtrodden instead of mercy, lording one’s power over the populace and putting the ‘leper’ into camps along with the Jew, the Black, the Hispanic and letting them out only to serve the people in charge. Being silent instead of being outraged would be like calling oneself an American and denying freedom to all, changing the Constitution at the whim of the President, smashing the rule of law, calling domestic terrorists “good people”, calling Anti-Semites, “good people”, hanging with self-proclaimed Nazis and saying how much you love everyone.

The question posed by Rabbi Heschel’s writing above is: Why are we NOT outraged at these actions? What is our excuse for the denial of “unalienable rights” to “those people”? How do we reconcile a two-tiered justice system, one for the ultra-rich and one for the rest of us? How do we make it okay for our own hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of “our side” and falsely scream Hypocrite to people who are not “our people” when they do the next right thing? What is the mechanism by which we are in acceptance and promotion of the misery people feel today and throughout history-as long as it isn’t us feeling it? What stops us from realizing “a minor, commonplace sort of injustice assumes almost cosmic proportions” because of the ripple effect it has and how it reverberates throughout the land?

There is only one thing that stops us from realizing all these things, there is only one thing that prevents us from seeing our own hypocrisy, mendacity, willful blindness, indifference to evil; our spiritual immaturity! We have spent so much time and effort on the raising of our minds, bodies, reasoning and we have forgotten to raise up our spiritual health-this is true today and has been true throughout human history. Each time the Rabbis of old made the people of the Bible out to be right and perfect, ie King David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc they denied us the gift of seeing ourselves and growing our spirits- how can one compete with perfection? How can one strive to be perfect when one knows how imperfect one is? Hence the need for the Spirituality of Imperfection which is what the Hebrew Bible truly is. Yet, most human beings are woefully unaware and willfully blind to their need for spiritual growth, spiritual maturity. We watch people pray with fervor, speak in tongues, praise Jesus, study the Talmud, go to services, listen to the Preacher/Rabbi/Imam etc and not be moved to “hysteria” by our own perpetrating of “injustice”, “hypocrisy”, mendacity, etc. Our willful blindness, our indifference to the evil we perpetrate is the reason we find ourselves in the situation we are in: an Episcopal Bishop, praying for mercy, kindness, love in Jesus’ name is vilified, hated on, sent death threats/wishes, called “nasty” by the President of the United States, and at least one Congressman wants an American Citizen deported for repeating the requests, the teachings of Jesus! It would be like a Jew saying there should be one law for the citizen and stranger alike being called anti-American!

We, the People are being called upon to STAND THE FUCK UP! We have to become hysterical at the desecration of our Constitution, the bastardization of the Bibles of both Christianity and Judaism, the complete undermining of our spiritual traditions and our own spiritual health. “Righteousness, Righteousness you shall pursue” is a commandment found in Deuteronomy 16:20, we are not expected to obtain it, to ‘catch it’ rather we have to be on the path of righteousness. We are not expected to be perfect-this is a Greek/Roman/Christian/Rabbinic construct, not one of God’s commandments. We, the People have to learn to say NO to our lower angels that give us the ‘right’ to ignore the suffering, the hypocrisy, the injustices done to another by ‘our side’, by us. We can only do this through maturing our spirit, growing our inner life and being responsible for the inheritance that the prophets have given to us, be responsible to the words and deeds of our ancestors from Abraham to Moses, from Judah to King David, from the prophets to Jesus, from the Baal Shem Tov to Reverend King and everyone in-between. This is the call of today’s words, this is the call of the Ineffable One, this is the call of our inner life, our souls. Will you answer it today?

I have heard this call forever. My father taught me to hear it and I ran from it like Jonah and I fell into the ‘big fish’s belly’, also called prison/addiction. Responding to the call, being hysterical over injustices, not accepting ‘they were not ready’ as an excuse for someone’s overdose, very loudly calling out bullshit on myself and another, is the result of my own spiritual growth. It is a hard life, it is a lonely life, at times, and it is the only one worth living for me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Which Inner Wolf are you feeding? Year 4 Day 31

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 31

“Their breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as hysteria. We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery, but we rarely get indignant or overly excited. To the prophets a minor, commonplace sort of injustice assumes almost cosmic proportions.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.10)

We are all inheritors and descendants of the prophets, yet we continue to make hard right turns to our ancestors the Romans, Greeks, Israel that was lost to Assyria, Judea that was destroyed twice because of injustice and other acts which no one got “indignant” or had “impatience” with. It is fascinating to watch our consistent turning to the fascist tendencies that reside in all of us, the need for certainty, power, control, eternal life, etc that cause us to see another human being as either an object for our rise to power or an enemy, obstacle to our drive for wealth and power! At the same time, we are stunned when someone else sees us as their “enemy” or treats us as an “object” to get what they want. While it is easy to blame “those people”, it is more important to look inside of ourselves and see how we do this as well. Before we have the right to complain, to correct someone else, we have to do our own Chesbon HaNefesh, our own accounting of our soul and repair both the damages we have caused by our inner fascist tendency and have a plan to use the energy from this tendency for good and for freedom. This is true for the autocrat and the progressive, the Christian and the Jew, the Muslim and the Buddhist, it is true for all of us and very few of us are engaging in this work.

Bishop Mariann Budde is in the news for being a preacher! She is being skewered by people whose fascist tendencies are on full display just because she acted as a steward of Christ’s teachings, she acted in accordance with being a descendant and student of the prophets. Bishop Budde is the real deal, she stood up to the bully with love and kindness, with a plea for mercy and a call to their better angels and she has received death wishes, calls to be deported (although she is an American), and called “nasty, not smart” by the very man, DJT, whom she asked to display mercy!! She, like the prophets before her, like MLK, like Rabbi Heschel, like Rabbi Prinz, like the people who spoke out for justice in re: civil rights and Vietnam, is the “radical” according to the “fascist” within the individuals in the MAGA movement. While Bishop Budde does not see what she did as courageous because she was just being the steward of Christ’s words and deeds, teaching the Biblical commandments and tenets of her faith; yet in today’s world, once again, doing this is an act of heroism and act of treason to those who indulge their inner fascist.

As I said above, the far right and the far left, all people who live in the extremes, are indulging their ‘inner fascist’, their bully, their need to be right and to exclude which in itself is an injustice of major proportions! The ridiculousness of identity politics on both the right and the left is both extremes say they are “speaking for the people” and “in line with the democratic values of the United States” which is the farthest thing from the truth. They have to do this, however, because to see the reality of their words and deeds, to see how they are as exclusive as any Country Club, would shatter their ‘rightness’, crumble their ‘victimhood stance’, dissolve their ‘patriotism’ into what it all is; bullshit! The ego strength of both sides cannot withstand their being wrong, hence grudges, talking at or past one another, coming together only when they hate and blame  the same people/group. This is what happens when we, the inheritors of the prophets, the descendants of the prophets pay more attention to our “inner fascist” which we also inherited.

We, the People have a stark choice in front of us, one that Bishop Budde’s homily, prayer has brought us face to face with. Which wolf are we going to feed? Do we continue to give fuel to our ‘inner fascist’? Do we continue to associate with people who spew hatred, retribution, lies, racism, and be influenced by them or worse be silenced by our fear of them? Do we act like the Republicans in Congress seem to be acting-acquiescence because of fear of being pushed out of office, denying the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, to be loyal to their constituents needs, the needs of Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein? Or do we do something different? Do we feed the wolf that says: ‘I am a descendant and inheritor of the prophets of Israel, I am an inheritor of the law of Moses, the Teachings of Jesus, the brilliance of Mohammed, the higher consciousness of the Buddha. My inheritance has given me the strength and pathway to do what is right and good, not for any personal gain, rather because my soul is compelling me to’? Do we feed the wolf that embraces our ‘inner fascist’ and helps transform its energy to do more good, to feed more people, to welcome more strangers, to help more needy people, to be more just, to show more mercy, to walk more in the footsteps of our faith/moral principles? We, the People have to make these decisions each day, they are a daily commitment and we need to stay in the present so we don’t fall back into our old ‘bad habits’. We, the People are being given the light and the sign, the leadership and the path to stand with the divine in each individual, follow the call of our inner conscience/soul, and, as Rabbi Hillel says: “In a place where there are no humans, be human.” This is the example that Bishop Budde put in front of us and we all need to follow her-full stop!

I wrestle with my ‘inner fascist’ each day, for the past 37+ years, it hasn’t won the day-thank God, thank all of you! I believe we are descendants and inheritors of the prophets and it causes me great anxiety and pain when I act differently than they would/did. I feel the call and the pull of standing up for what is right and good, just and holy so strongly that I am dismissed as a ‘niche Rabbi’, a ‘lunatic who can only minister to addicts’, a ‘sideshow not to be taken seriously or called upon in polite society’. I fought against these labels for a long time and now I embrace them. I don’t want to be in ‘polite society’ where the ‘inner fascist’ of the ‘right people’ is ignored and/or celebrated-as Jonathan Greenblatt has done for Elon Musk. I am a ‘niche Rabbi’ because I don’t believe in ‘half-truths’, I hear the call of the Torah in my own way and am unafraid to say it. I don’t have a lot of friends nor am I in great demand; which is okay because I am my friend, I am in demand for my people and I want to be me. “God is my Shepherd and I lack nothing” (23rd Psalm). This is my truth-God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Cultivating the Prophetic Voice of our Inner Life- Year 4 Day 30

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 30

“The prophets make so much ado about paltry things, employing the most excessive language in speaking about flimsy subjects. So what if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich?… Why such immoderate excitement? Why such intense indignation?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 9-10)

A portion of the section of the Hebrew Bible, called “N’Veim”, meaning prophets that covers from the time of Joshua till through the Prophets, is read each week in Temples and Synagogues. Most people don’t care what the stories are attempting to teach us and of those who do follow along, don’t care about the lessons nor the unending “ado about paltry things”. Rather, we have inured ourselves to the calls of the prophets, to the political machinations of Saul, David, Solomon, and his heirs. We have come to ignore the evil around us as “normal”, to be upset with those who stand ready to call our bullshit, bullshit. We are aghast at the temerity of those who dare question us on our motives, on our actions-‘don’t you understand that “trickle down economics” has been what “makes America Great” since the days of the Robber Barons? What is wrong with you that you expect me to pay my fair share of taxes-I am above the rest of you and am not governed by the same rules’ and other such erroneous beliefs. Of course most people would think the prophets were just crazy people ranting and raving about “paltry things, employing the most excessive language in speaking about flimsy subjects”! In fact, throughout the millennium since their words have been codified, most people have ignored them, have written them off as raving lunatics, have doubted the veracity of their warnings, their pleadings, their messages. All of this ignoring to the detriment of our spiritual life, to putting us on a collision course with evil and no tools to defend goodness, truth, love, kindness, and compassion.

Rabbi Heschel’s words above are dripping with sarcasm and I hear them betray an intense passion for the prophets, an intense passion for putting a mirror up in front of all of us to see how far we have wandered off the path of faith, how far we have taken the detour from the road of spiritual growth so we can be on the road of financial and emotional success. Of course it matters “if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich”! Of course we should be indignant about these ‘minor’ issues! Of course we have to exhibit “such immoderate excitement” at the indifference to evil that we are witnessing in the world! As Rabbi Hillel says:”If not now, when?” How do we know that the Messiah is not in our midst, wasn’t in Nazi Germany, Putin’s Russia, in the United States, just waiting for acts of loving-kindness towards the “poor people” in our midst and witness them being “not treated properly by the rich” instead? How often is Elijah, the prophet, who Jews ask to come to at the end of each Sabbath, portrayed as living among the beggars in the city gates waiting for some random act of kindness so he can reveal himself and it hasn’t happened yet!

The arrogance and hubris of humanity to believe that we can do the same things over and over again expecting different results because we are so much better, smarter, devious than those ‘primitive’ people who lived during the times of the prophets is tremendous and knows no bounds. That Trump can claim that “God saved me so I can make America great again” is so outlandish as he pardons rioters, people who attacked police, people he sent to destroy the constitution and the peaceful transfer of power, is cause for “immoderate excitement”! The fact that the Defense Department may be run by an incompetent sexual abuser, wife-beating drunk because the Republican Senators care more about kissing the ass of the rich and Trump is cause for “intense indignation”! Yet, there are people in the Democratic Party who want to “work with the other side”-just as people wanted to “work with” Putin, Hitler, Stalin, Orban, Bibi, et al and we see where that got us and the world-into the mess we are in now. Over and above the arrogance and the hubris, however, is the abject fear people have in standing up for what they really believe in.

We are so used to cowering in the face of the rich and famous, bowing down before the king, queen, leader because not to do so could result in death. The problem is-we are already spiritually dead, we are already only existing when we bend down to kiss the ring, when we bend over and allow the rich to ‘stick it to us’, when we “stand idly by the blood of our neighbor” and decide we don’t want to suffer the same fate. The paradox is, of course, that doing nothing in the face of evil only kills our spirits, only makes us accomplices in the evil done in our name. It is time for all of us, especially people of faith, to STAND UP and follow the examples and the teachings of the prophets. To call out the bullshit and lies of Trump, et al and STAND UP as guardians of the Torah, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc. These Holy Texts are to be lived not just read, the people who say they should be exempted from service because they are studying the “holy books”, are liars and charlatans because we are supposed to live the principles in the real world not lock ourselves up and stay away from the temptations. We, the People are being called today, as we are everyday, to “Choose Life” and grow our spiritual health, raise up our care and concern for the evil being perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our society. Listening to our inner voices we hear the demand to stand up to evil, to walk with God, to love mercy and to do justly. We, the People are being given the opportunity to repair the damage done by our ancestors, to return our corner of the world to its rightful place of being kind, loving, truthful and compassionate. Will you make the most of this moment or let it pass as you/we have so many others.

I live in “immoderate excitement” and “intense indignation” and find myself in ‘trouble’ often. Prior to my recovery, these two ways of being pushed me to be indifferent to the evil around me and the evil I was promoting! Since my recovery, these ways of being have helped many and hurt some, gotten me to be written off and feared, opened me up to being manipulated and scorned. Some people are in awe of my ‘passion’ while others need to prove they are better because they are richer, smarter, etc. I don’t claim any of these attributes, I only know that the “fire in my belly” burns hot and I have to speak out loud and loudly otherwise I will be consumed from the inside out. I know I am not always right, I know my ways of expression are not ‘politically correct’ and I know I am not bowing down to kiss the ring or the ass of anyone who thinks they are better than I or in a position of power, no matter the cost because living my principles is more important than the number of 0’s in any bank account or any ‘position’ in ‘polite society’. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you listening to great orators who are full of shit or to the Spiritual truths of the Prophets? Year 4 Day 29

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 29

“Turning from the discourses of the great metaphysicians to the orations of the prophets, one may feel as if he were going down from the realm of the sublime to an area of trivialities. Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, one is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place. The prophets make so much ado about paltry things, employing the most excessive language in speaking about flimsy subjects.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 9)

Digesting and immersing myself in the wisdom above today, the day after so many norms have been broken, so much of the chaos sowed by Project 2025 is being reaped, people convicted of sedition are being released so the autocrat can have his “private militia”, many people are in spiritual turmoil over what is happening, and today is the 59th anniversary of my father’s death, according to the Jewish Calendar; I am overwhelmed, volcanic, awed, and determined.

Remembering that these words were delivered and written in 1958, which supposedly were “the good old days” and Rabbi Heschel is speaking at a conference on “Religion in a Free Society”, dealing with the problems of the moment like the execution of the Rosenbergs because they were Jewish, not because they were spies(we know Ethel was innocent and the government which fried her also knew). He had witnessed the House Un-American Activities Committee’s fascist ways, seeing the McCarthy Hearings and, I imagine, watching with horror the persecution of people with no real proof, just innuendo and made up stories by people who did not want to suffer the same fate, like Elia Kazan. At the same time as these horrific actions were happening, slums were being maintained as slums, people of color did not earn the same as white people, and the “great metaphysicians” were dealing with “timeless issues”, especially the white clergy in this country. By and large, Jews had become assimilated and, just having been relieved of the quotas put on them at universities but not for immigration nor medical schools, they were reluctant to “rock the boat”.

I hear Rabbi Heschel reminding us of our heritage, of our obligation to fulfill what we are “chosen” for-to promote the message of the prophets, to rail against the mistreatment of the widow and the orphan, to abhor and throw out the corrupt judges, to regulate and create a level playing field in the “affairs of the market place”. This is what we Jews are chosen for-not some bullshit that makes us any more special than anyone else, than any other group, it is for the promotion of the words and deeds of the prophets, it is to spread a way of living that honors the dignity of each and every human being without regard to race, color, religion, ethnicity. Our “chosenness” is to “make so much ado about paltry things” and to stop trying to curry favor with the Klan, the white supremacists, the power brokers. Our “chosenness” is to have a seat at the table, like the prophets did in order to call the government, the powerful, the wealthy, the clergy to task for their lying, mendacious ways. I hear Rabbi Heschel’s words about having reverence for life from his interview with Carl Stern and how that is at the core of his writing above. While the “metaphysicians” are important and their discussions are interesting, if they don’t lead to action-they are a waste of time and energy. The prophets did not engage in these types of pontifications because they were/are concerned about what is happening here and now, what person is being mistreated because doing this makes the abuser feel good? This is true with abuses of power, abuses of equality, sexual abuses, financial abuses, etc, this is the fear of being ruled by an autocrat and his/her oligarch friends-we will all get screwed over, especially the people who voted her/him into office.

In thinking of my father, z”l today, I think of the abuse he suffered because he was Jewish, both in the marketplace and in the Army. I think of the dignity that he showed to Black Men when he took over a business, where the white Jewish owner conveniently forgot to mention that he had taken a $20,000.00 loan out against it, he raised the pay of Black men to what white men were making for the same job-every white man quit and no white man would go to work for him because he was a N lover! I think of how he taught his sons, my sister wasn’t old enough to understand, to treat all people with respect and dignity, be it our aunts and uncles, cousins and neighbors, or a stranger on the street-all people had value and were important. He believed that you have to do 1.5 day’s work each day as a show of gratitude for having a job, for making a living. He taught us the importance of knowing our inner life, he knew mine and my brothers. He was a salesman, he had a smile for everyone, he was welcomed in the places where he did business and hardly anyone had a bad word to say about him. In his own way, while we did not have money, he taught us the importance of giving and standing up for principles and values-we gave Tzedakah every week and we helped anyone who needed it. My father has always been a giant figure for me, he had flaws, he was far from perfect and he knew how to and lived being human.

This brings me to today, Rabbi Heschel’s Yahrzeit was last Saturday, MLK day was yesterday and today is my father’s Yahrzeit-all observances of people who cared, who took action on their principles and values, even if it went against their own self-interests. Yesterday, the wanna-be autocrat decided he could change the Constitution he had just sworn to uphold, he proclaimed his love of ‘law and order’ and ‘police’ while pardoning and commuting the sentences of 1500+ people who attacked the Capital Police on Jan.6, 2020! He is doing everything he can to test the will of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and us. We the People must not falter, must not fail in our opposition to oligarchy, to kleptocracy, to autocracy. It is time for all of us, Jew and Christian, Muslim and Buddhist, to stand together to “care for the widow, the orphan, the poor, the needy” “to welcome the stranger because we were strangers in Egypt” and in America-Donald Trump-your grandfather was an immigrant, asshole. We, the People have to stand together to fulfill the words on the Liberty Bell, to make the intentions of our founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence come alive-“all people are created equal” and all of us have “certain unalienable rights…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I pledge allegiance to the constitution, to the Bible, to the words of the prophets and am asking you to as well. My father did, MLK did, Rabbi Heschel did- will you? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What immorality and injustices do you accept as "normal"? Year 4 Day 28

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 28

“The sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as a typical ingredient of social dynamics. A single act of injustice-to us it is slight, to the prophet it is a disaster.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.9)

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in America, celebrating his birth, and today is the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump as President-talk about cognitive dissonance! Rabbi Heschel’s words above describe the power of Dr. King because he preached and believed that the “ark of the moral universe is long and it bends towards justice”. Yet, we are impatient, we are easily distracted, we are easily deceived and we engage in self-deception on a daily basis! Hence we are willing to “regard as normal” “crimes” and “delinquency” to the utter ruin of our spiritual health, our mental health, and eventually our physical health.

Because of this “normalcy”, our young people are jaded, bored, uninvolved and easily distracted by their devices, older people are as well. This last election with the turn to the right, to the hardcore message of blame and hatred of someone different than you shows how our young people, especially, don’t tune in to find out what candidates stand for really, they listen to rhetoric and find the message that makes them feel good. This is true for older adults as well, I am focussing on the young because they are our future, they are the people we are handing over our mistakes, our victories, our examples of living well and living poorly to.

As I said yesterday, all of us have the prophetic voice within us, we may call it conscience, gut instinct, intuition, higher consciousness, and the issue for all of us is to access it and not silence it. This is where religion is failing us, rather than teach us the heroic measures the ‘people’ in the Bible went to in order to rise above the normalcy of crime and hatred, stealing and lying, we are told of the heroism of Moses, Miriam and Aaron, of Joshua and Caleb, of Judah and Joseph, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, of the Judges, the prophets, Kings Saul, David, and Solomon, etc. We are also taught of their moral failures. Yet, leaders of religious sects/groups today, and yesterday, have wanted to ignore both the rising above our baser instincts, our apathy, and the failure to do so, instead painting the heroes as perfect and the “other” as enemy. This way of thinking, teaching the Bible, teaching ethics, etc in many parts of the country, in many religious sects, has become the gold standard for gaining favor with ‘the powers that be’, for getting donations from the different special interest groups, for being “in”. This is the bane of our existence, as I am understanding and hearing Rabbi Heschel today.

What has come to be ‘the way’ is to ignore “a single act of injustice”, not just regard it as “slight”! We are inaugurating a man who is a convicted felon and who violated the Constitution of the United States and is committed to doing it again and people are cheering him on, the Senate and House of Representatives, each of whom have a Republican majority, are committed to upholding the destruction, the tearing up of the Constitution along with him and claim that their ‘religion’ is telling them to! Is it any wonder why young people are disillusioned? Is it any wonder that they stay away from religion in droves? Is it any wonder that they believe everyone is corrupt or at least corruptible? Again, it is not just young people, they learn this apathy, this indifference to evil from us, the “older generations”. When we tell them to “not rock the boat”, to “go along to get along”, to “do what it takes to be successful” we are not caring about their spiritual and moral health nor do we care about ours, until it is too late! Ask the righteous Germans and the Jews who thought ‘it will all blow over’! This attitude is what destroys civilizations, destroys freedom for all, destroys democracy and, once autocracy is the way of the land, causes us to be bewildered as to ‘how did we get here”.

We, the People are being called to account by the sentences above. We, the People are being called to respond to this day of celebrating not just Rev. King, rather an entire paradigm shift that happened in those years that has been receding ever since! From Nixon to Reagan, from George W. Bush to Trump, we have seen a concerted effort to repeal and replace the gains of moral accountability that became the “law of the land” during the 1960’s. From Clinton to Obama to Biden, we have witnessed the timidness to push further on moral choices, be too afraid to ‘go to far’, settle for “that which we regard as normal”! This has to end, We, the People have to reclaim the prophetic vision, we have to reclaim EMET/TRUTH and practice it in all our affairs. It is time for all of us to feel the pain of the lowest person on the totem pole, of the slave and indentured servant, of the one who has lost everything and do what we can to come to their aid. It is time for We, the People to hear the words of the prophets anew and heed them with renewed vigor and adherence. It is time for We, the People to demand of our religious leaders better examples of how to wrestle with our opposing inclinations, the one that wants to do the right thing and the one who wants to celebrate and join in doing the wrong thing in order to “get ahead”. We, the People are being called today to grab “the ark of the moral universe” and, using our inner strength of goodness and holiness, “bend it towards justice” and compassion, love, kindness and truth.

Prior to my spiritual awakening in 1986, I was able to ignore the criminal acts I was committing and the people around me were committing as “getting ours”. Once I began studying Rabbi Heschel, the Bible, learning with Rabbi Mel Silverman, it became impossible for me to ignore my actions and the criminal actions of those around me. It became impossible for me not to feel the pain I inflicted upon others with my immorality, with my ignorance of their experiences and the harms they were subjected to by me and by anyone. The past 38 years have been a honing of this sensitivity for me. I react in volcanic ways because I am afraid of the harm caused by the “indifference to evil” that people engage in by not being in “dismay” over the “typical ingredient of social dynamics”. I am volcanic because I believe immorality, injustice of any kind is a disaster. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How are you silencing your own prophetic voice so you can curry favor and wealth from people who hold power over you? Year 4 Day 27

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 27

“Yet the task of religion is to be a challenge to the stabilization of values…The mind of the prophets was not religion-centered. They dwelt more with the affairs of the royal palace, on the ways and views of the courts of justice than on the problems of the priestly rituals at the temple of Jerusalem.” ( Insecurity of Freedom pg. 9)

Religion is being used by the grifters and charlatans to be a cover for their irreligious actions. Some of us watch in horror the ways clergy of all faiths hail the idolators, the liars as ‘the anointed one’ and do whatever it takes to find and stay in the autocrats ‘good graces’. Whether it is Mark Zuckerberg, Rabbi Ari Berman, the myriad of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Catholics, who bend the knee and kiss the ring (and ass) of people like Putin, Orban, Trump, Bannon, Musk, Bibi, we are all “missing the mark” of our religious heritage! When our values become enshrined in stone, when the words of the Bible, the Declaration of Independence of the U.S., of Israel, the Constitution, become so accepted as true that people ignore the words and the spirit, we are no longer living up to “the task of religion”. This is the challenge and the tragedy of modernity. We have come to use and abuse religious life to be a salve for our wrong-doings, for our greed, our self-centeredness, our abuse of people and our grab for ultimate power. Instead of acknowledging our powerlessness, instead of embracing our imperfections, we see too many ‘religious’ people doing exactly what the Bible tells us not to; whore ourselves, murder our souls and the souls of another(s), steal from anyone and everyone we can, lie with reckless abandon, covet everything our neighbor has that is good, valuable and then take it from them. While this is not a new phenomenon in the history of the world, it seems to be on steroids in this century and, to people who know better, to people who have sight, we ask in the words of Pete Seeger: “When will they(we) ever learn?”

It is exactly this “task of religion” that the prophets were responding to-not the “priestly rituals”, not “religion-centered”, rather they railed agains the “stabilization of values” that was taking place both in the “royal palace” and the ‘cover’ the priests were giving to the rich and powerful. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel remind us there is no “religion” without the principles being lived out in all of our affairs, by all the people. King David was held responsible for the death of Uriah by God and Nathan, the prophet in his court; to his credit he did not deny it, he did not use his power to jail Nathan, he admitted his sin and was remorseful. The same is true when Judah admits that Tamar is “more righteous than I”. Yet, today, we find the same conditions as the time of the prophets Elijah, Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah, Ezekiel, et al and the people dealing with “the affairs of the royal palace, on the ways and views of the courts of justice” are being fed excuses and encouragement by the ‘religious’ establishments, by the ‘religious leaders/clergy’ of all faiths. This is allowed to happen because We, the People have gone along with ‘those people’ taking care of the ‘religious’ tasks and not bothering us with the morality of our actions, not railing against our imprisoning of the poor, the needy, the stranger. We, the People have turned a blind eye to the values and principles of our faith traditions in favor of seeking wealth and power. We, the People have gone along with the people in power scapegoating the Jews, the Muslims, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Asians, etc rather than be responsible for our actions, our perversion of the “courts of justice”. We have turned a blind eye to the “affairs of the royal palace” by electing and being ruled by the mendacious people who call themselves ‘christian nationalists’ and purport to follow the Bible while doing everything that Christ railed against, everything that Christ stood in opposition to!

Where are the prophets when we need them, some people ask. This, of course, is the wrong question. Where is the prophetic voice within each of us? We are descendants of the prophets, we are the ones being called “to be a challenge to the stabilization of values”. We are the people who have to focus on the perversion of justice, we are the people who have to stand up and say NO to the lies that we have been buying, we are the people who have to clean out the schmutz that is clogging our spiritual arteries and perverting the morality, the justice, the truth upon which every religion and spiritual discipline are founded upon. We the People have to engage in our own “dark night of the soul” so we can engage in T’Shuvah/amends and repair the damage both to our own souls, to our own minds and the souls, minds, etc of the people around us whom we have harmed. We, the People have to deal with the affairs that impact the voiceless and the powerless just as the Bible, New Testament, etc teach us. All these spiritual texts, which have within them eternal truth and wisdom and the most horrendous ‘sin’ that has been done throughout the millennium is the power-brokers use of the very spiritual texts that deny and denounce the actions they take in ‘god’s’ name. Is it any wonder young people want nothing to do with religion? Is it any wonder they are willing to go along with the autocrat because at least they know and the autocrat knows he is lying and will say and do anything for power, is shameless about it and the young people have exempted themselves from the mendacity of religion so the fact that someone is shameless in lying, knows they are lying becomes refreshing! HOW SICK IS THIS!!

This soul-sickness is something I suffered from the age of  15 till 35. It is the same soul-sickness that all addicted people suffer from, not just people addicted to drugs, gambling, sex, etc; also those of us addicted to the “big lie”, the “adjustment to societal norms and mental cliches”, those of us who are addicted to our apathy and have become “indifference to evil”. Those of us who are providing cover for the “royal palace” and “the courts of justice” are also suffering a soul-sickness. It was only after immersing myself in the words of the Bible have I been able to recover my authentic self, to find my voice and way so I am worthy of being “a descendant of the prophets”. Through the wrestling with the text, through the battle between my rationalizations and my “knowing in my bones”, I have been able to scream from the rooftops about the doings of the “royal palace” in my own home, in my own work, in my country and in other countries. I am at the most peace and serenity when I am living the words, the deeds, the actions of the prophetic message, when I am willing to be Nathan and not Rabbi Ari Berman. It is not pretty, I am a bull in the china shop, at times ‘politically incorrect’, and I stand for and with truth no matter who is in front of me nor the political and social cost. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How do Power, Prejudice, Need for Control influence your daily behaviors? Year 4 Day 26

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 26

“As if the task (of religion) were not to ennoble human nature but to enhance the power and beauty of its institutions or to enlarge body of doctrines. It has often done more to canonize prejudices than to wrestle for truth; to petrify the sacred than to sanctify the secular. Yet the task of religion is to be a challenge to the stabilization of values.” ( Insecurity of Freedom pls. 8,9) (I added (of religion) to the quote because I am continuing yesterday’s paragraph and did not want to write the entire paragraph again.)

THANK GOD THERE IS A DEAL FOR THE RETURN OF THE HOSTAGES!!!

This is an indictment of the dark path that many ‘religious’ leaders have taken their religious institutions. The Catholic Church in their desire to ‘save the heathen’; has killed so many people, they have taken so much land, they have amassed so much wealth, they have taken so many of Christ’s values and bastardized them, all for the ‘glory of the Church’, not for the good of their congregations. In Orthodox Judaism the ‘spiritual’ leaders are interested in control, their actions “to enlarge the body of doctrines” is not for the good of the people they are supposed to be serving, rather it is for their hold onto power-they do things because they can, because their people invest them with so much power because they supposedly ‘know’ what ‘god’ wants. In the more liberal branches of Judaism, the Rabbis have to answer to their boards of directors and the board sets the parameters for what the Rabbi can do and not do, they are interested in enhancing their power as board members, in most cases, rather than to “enoble human nature”. They are on the ‘right’ side of issues (according to them) and they denigrate “human nature” by their insistence on ‘being right’, their inability to admit their own errors, their demands that the Rabbi, Cantor be ‘perfect’, rather than “enoble human nature” by embracing their imperfections and those of everyone else.

Leaders of the Catholic Church, of the Christian Church have made anti-semitism a prime tenet of their faith! I know how many ‘good christians’ profess their love of Israel and at the same time, hate Jews. Yes, the far right is rallying to the side of the Jews being targeted on College Campuses and they also have dinner, joke with, pal around with self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi’s! They have a vested interest in Israel being a nation/state so they can cause Armageddon to happen, the Rapture to take place and they will be ‘saved’-while all the Jews and Muslims will not be! This is so loving isn't it???

The Jews and Muslims are not any better. Rather than taking to heart what the Bible says: “One law for the stranger and the citizen alike”, many Jews have decided it is okay to “cheat the goyim(non-Jew)”, it is okay to have different laws for some Jews(Orthodox not serving in the Military, Bibi can take bribes and is above the law) because they are so ‘holy’! They have gone so far as to bastardize the raison d’être of Judaism, “to be a light to the nations”(Isaiah 42:6) by acting in dark ways. Today, there are many Rabbis calling the Palestinians “not human”, there are many right-wing Jews calling those in the middle or on the left: traitors, uncaring Jews, self-loathing Jews, etc. The Muslim Imams calling for Intifadas, calling for the destruction of Israel, the United States, etc are radicalizing young men and women to take their own lives as well as so many innocents listening to concerts, shopping for food, etc.

The amount of hatred and prejudice spewed from the pulpits of our ‘religious’ institutions is reaching new heights, even as we speak! Rather than “wrestle with the truth” clergy of every stripe would rather “canonize prejudice” because this will ‘keep the people coming back’ because our “indifference to evil” is as prevalent as ever, if not more so. Our need to feel “better than”, our need to have ‘someone to blame for our situation’, our immense desire to, as Lyndon Johnson said: “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.” This is what ‘religious’ institutions have been doing for a long time and it keeps working!

We, the People, have to take back our religious institutions! We, the People have to demand that we return to learning how to “enoble human nature” rather than help it sink lower and lower, “enoble human nature” rather than codify evil as good. We, the People have to return to our Holy Texts for guidance and pathways to “enoble human nature”! We, the People have to say NO to the ‘religious’ establishment’s enlarging of doctrines which petrify truth and Protest for Truth! We, the People have to end the spreading of hatred, lies, grifts, mendacity, cruelty that is so prevalent in our society today. We, the People have to stand up for the poor, the stranger, the needy, the widow, the orphan, we have to welcome the stranger, not stand idly by while someone hurts themselves or another(s), rebuke someone when they are going down the path of hating, blaming, shaming, Love thy neighbor rather than suspect them. This is the calling of the words above today, this is the demand that has been upon humanity for all time and we have ignored it for too long. To the ‘haters’, to the charlatans leading ‘religious’ institutions, to the lying politicians and their grifting minions, WE, THE PEOPLE have to stand in opposition to them so we can STAND WITH TRUTH!  This is the job, this is our mission, this is what we “get” to do with our lives-please God, let’s do the work and be successful in stemming the tide of hatred and prejudice that some ‘religious’ folk have been pushing.

I have been engaged in the path “to enoble human nature” in my own particular way-never nice and usually kind, never mealy-mouthed and always passionately. I am spending my second career doing this as my first was the exact opposite-I played on the prejudices and the desire to get ‘something for nothing’ of most people and was a liar and cheat, a con and a thief. I believe in TRUTH and I know it is something that I have to keep seeking and growing because, as we say, God is truth and God is everything/the whole picture and I only have a small view of the whole. I work daily to let go of my bias’ and prejudices, I am more interested in helping you than in enriching myself beyond what I need. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Rabbi Heschel’s death in 1972, and Tuesday is the anniversary of my father’s death in 1966, according to the Jewish Calendar. Both of these men have been guiding lights in my recovery and my world since my spiritual awakening in 1986 and I am forever grateful to them for my life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Weakness that Practitioners have implanted in "religion"! - Year 4 Day 25

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 25

“It is an inherent weakness of religion not to take offense at the segregation of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. Religion has suffered from the tendency to become an end in itself, to secure the holy, to become parochial, self-indulgent, self-seeking;” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 8)

I would adjust Rabbi Heschel’s words above by not saying that “religion” has “an inherent weakness”, rather it is the people who purport to represent “religion” that have an inherent weakness and here is where most of us get stuck. We conflate what religious teachings are with the messenger, we believe that these imperfect human beings, these incongruent human beings represent “religion” when in actuality, most of us clergy are wrestling with our incongruence and imperfections to a greater or lessor degree. What I realize as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel in my ears is: the more one is unable to engage with one’s incongruence and imperfection, the more one is apt “to not take offense at the segregation of God”. Engaging in this “segregation”, allows us to practice our prejudices out loud, to do all the unholy things we desire and the negativity that our hearts scout out after, and come to the “religion” of our choice and hear how we are holy, make confession, seem contrite, and do it all over again the following week. This is a pattern seen over and over again and promoted, tolerated, even at times encouraged by the clergy so that clergy don’t have to look at their imperfections and incongruence and wrestle with God, themselves and another(s) human  beings, as Jacob did in Genesis. While Jacob’s wrestling and awareness’ did not last long, they were ecstatic moments that evaporated, he had them and teaches us all that the “dark night of the soul” is not to be feared, it is to be welcomed because in this experience, we ‘hear’ the words of the divine and know in our souls, that God is everywhere.

The original Tabernacle was a “Tent of Meeting” and the words of the 10 sayings were not stored there in order to segregate them, they were stored there so the Priests could teach them to us and us to our children, etc. Being a repository is not the same as walling something off, it is not the same as being “self-indulgent, self-seeking”. The “segregation of God” is not only “self-indulgent, self-seeking” it is also parochial and has led to wars, famine, the stealing of land, the desecration of God’s Name by treating another human being, made in the Image of God, as if they are not human. This is a historical fact that has been continued since the beginning of time and we are seeing the latest manifestation of this truism on steroids today in America, Hungary, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, to name a few places. Just as in Germany in the 1930’s all of the autocrats leading these countries and their sycophants are being aided by those ‘good religious clergy and boards of elders, directors, etc’ who segregate God so badly that they pray with these grifters, liars, autocrats and call them ‘messiahs’, pretend like they are ‘the anointed ones’ sent to save us and other bullshit, while they all go against basic tenets of each and every “religion” and spiritual discipline. When we put up “walls” to make a “sanctuary” we are defying the Will of God, the job Jews were chosen for: to spread the ways of living together in harmony and peace, respect and kindness according to the ways of higher consciousness and/or God. And, who is doing this bastardization, the clergy, the powerful, the wealthy, and those of us who know are shunted off to the corner, called crazy, impatient, not ‘team players’ because the ‘team’ we are on is God’s and not the idolators, not the charlatans, not the despots and autocrats.

As with everything throughout history, nothing will change until We, the People stand up and demand change. It is not just “be the change you want to see in the worlds” as Ghandhi says, it is to demand from our ‘religious leaders’ the change that God tells us to make in the Bible, the Koran, the New Testament, in all Spiritual Texts! As long as We, the People refuse to take a stand, as long as we wring our hands and bemoan what is happening, “religion” will remain “parochial”, it will grow in becoming “an end in itself” because this is how the clergy, the lay leaders grab and hold onto power. When people are willing to fill the Mega-Churches and Synagogues and listen to Prosperity Gospels and then be told to and go out and vote for people who denigrate the stranger, make women less than men, believe and act out their prejudices for Jews, People of Color, while praising Israel so armageddon can happen, nothing will change and “religion will (not) take offense to the segregation of God, they will promote it and enhance it, they will continue to “secure the holy” because they are unwilling to live it and the deception of their “flock’ is sacrilegious, soul-sucking, and unGodly!

Yet, We, the People, in our self-deception, in our unwillingness to ensure “that the true sanctuary has no walls” keep forgetting, willfully or unwittingly, to “practice these principles in all our affairs”. GOOD NEWS!! We, the People can CHANGE!! We can begin to ensure that the principles of “religion” can be lived in our daily lives, we can begin to look and acknowledge what we are grateful for, what errors we have made, we can begin again to see our imperfections as the beginning of, the core of our spirituality. We, the People can come to see our incongruences as God-given and our imperfections as opportunities to grow and fulfill the divine need we are created for. We, the People can demand from our clergy and the leaders of our Temples, Churches, Mosques, TRUTH, LOVE, KINDNESS, etc and we can demand they FOLLOW THE TENETS of the “religion” they purport to represent and demand they live into the values instead of bastardizing them. Without We, the People doing this nothing will change , because the people who live the change they want to see, are in the minority and it will take all of us to put pressure on one another to help people effect the changes that are in their best interests.

I have been living the example of Jacob wrestling during his “dark night of the soul” since December of 1986, I have been living the example of Judah’s T’Shuvah and standing up for his principles and the father who did not like that much, since November of 1988, both with my imperfections and incongruence on full display. Yet, I know the truth of the words above, my “religion” doesn’t have walls, God is everywhere or nowhere as I understand the Bible, it is humans who have made God a target, a reason, for the outcomes rather than knowing ‘shit happens’ and it is us who decide how we respond to what is in front of us. I have been helping people effect change in their lives since 1987, even in Prison, because I hear the call each and every day to add one grand of sand to  make my corner better. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you satisfying authentic needs or your desires and interests each day? Year 4 Day 24

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 24

“Religion is not a way of satisfying needs. It is an answer to the question: Who needs man? It is an awareness of being needed, of man being a need of God.It is a way of sanctifying the satisfaction of authentic needs.” ( Insecurity of Man pg 8)

Religion is not our salvation, it is not our salve, it is not a warm blanket. Religion, as Rabbi Heschel says, “is an answer to the question: Who needs man? This question has led so many ‘good Christians, Jews, Muslims’ to bastardize the very core of their faiths, twist the stories to fit their narrative, their particular political, power-hungry, misogynist bent. The question is too overwhelming for most people to even contemplate, what does it mean to be “needed”?

For most of us, we want our needs to be satisfied without considering the needs we are here to fill, without any reciprocity of generosity on our part. So many people are too concerned with their own well-being that the idea of caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy is unfathomable. We are watching this in real time with the Speaker of the House denying immediate and automatic FEMA aid to the victims of the fires in Los Angeles, because in California it is the fault of the Democrats, while in Florida, North Carolina, the hurricanes are a natural disaster. This man who says “look at the Bible” if you want to know my thoughts, denies help to the very people Jesus hung out with and calls himself a Christian??? The soon-to-be President and his bromance partner, Elon Musk have been speaking out against the victims, they have been promoting the Alt-right party in Germany, a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi party, and elsewhere, they are sowing more disinformation and chaos over Panama, Canada, Greenland, etc, while selling Trump Bibles, collecting big money at the Government Trough, while wanting to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, etc. And these are the ‘good Christian folk’ who ‘love Jesus’ and hate following his directives and despise imitating Jesus’ actions!!

The Rabbi who is going to speak at the Inaugural, Rabbi Ari Berman, is an enigma to many people. How can an Orthodox Rabbi, President of Yeshiva University in New York, speak at the Inaugural of a man who embraces Nazis? How can a man who claims to be a “Torah Jew” praise the work of a man who surrounds himself with haters of Jews, the poor, the stranger, the needy? How can a man who claims to be “a man of deep faith”, bless a man who is a racist, who has made caricatures out of fellow Jews (remember Rabbi Berman, Hitler and the Nazis never asked anyone’s level of observance), who supports autocrats, dictators, who will not even talk to someone unless they kiss his ass first or ….? Rabbi Berman, how can you pray when you are putting the deaths, spiritual and/or literal, of innocent people from deportation, support of regimes that use killing as a way of getting rid of opposition (like Putin), over your religious values in order to curry favor with power? Isn’t there something in Pirke Avot about the error of this path?? The Republican Senators who are going to vote Hegseth into Secretary of the Pentagon, are also cowards and examples of people who shirk their duties, who bastardize their “being a need of God” while proclaiming their undying faith and fealty to God, who has ‘come back to earth in the form of Donald J Trump’ according to Tommy Tuberville and his cronies. Rather than see the truth of Hegseth’s incompetency, the depth of his depravity towards women, the problem his drunkenness causes, Joni Ernst, a woman vet, is going to vote against her conscience and in favor of the political pressure. She is going to put party over Country, she is willing to endanger the millions of Military service people and Vets so she will not be primaried! This is what is passing for “being a need of God” in some Christian, Jewish, Muslim circles these days!

We, the People are being called upon to say NO to these charlatans, to stand up against the lies and mendacity of these power-hungry, wealth-seeking idolators. Yet, when people like Mark Zuckerberg, who has all the money anyone would need, and Jeff Bezos, who has tarnished the Washington Post-the newspaper who took down Richard Nixon, go and bend down so Donald Trump, et al can put it in their ass, many of us are bewildered, angry and lost. Hearing the words above ring in our ears, penetrate to our souls and going against the “need of God” to satisfy the needs of a pagan, the needs of Trump/Musk, is the most disgusting action one can take and, unfortunately, when people who have money and power bow down, kiss the rings and lower parts of Trump/ have to go beyond the cowardice of these rapists and cowering sycophants, we have to remember that every great rebellion for the sake of God’s name, every great orator that “proclaims liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, who takes the actions that teach all of us how to “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”. With the examples found in the Bible which sanctifies “the satisfaction of authentic needs” and those that do the opposite, We, the People have the blueprint, the game plan, the road map to making our lives “richer and more meaningful” and doing the same for our neighbor!

I am still enraged about the destruction of everything that Democracy promised, of the dismantling of the Declaration of Independence, the bastardization of the Constitution, the disobeying of the Rule of Law by people who are assuming power next week and those in power in our Congress. I am still enraged at the myriad of ways Jews here and in Israel have bastardized the answer Rabbi Heschel speaks about above. Bibi, et al, Berman and his cronies are not concerned with “being a need of God” nor are they caring about “sanctifying the satisfaction of authentic needs”; they care only about satisfying their desires and interests. This makes me volcanic! It makes me so volcanic and enraged because I lived for over 20 years as a charlatan, as a liar, as a thief, as a drunk who terrorized so many people, who committed the same “spiritual rape” of trust that these ‘good christian, jews, muslims’ are doing and I have witnessed the results of my pillaging and robbing. This is what I turned from 37+ years ago, this is what I have fought against for all these years of recovery both in myself and in another(s). The path of faith, the path of recovery is too precious not to fight for, the path of mendacity is too powerful not to fight against both inside of me and inside of you. While I am powerless to change anyone else, I can have an impact. I know my loud, volcanic, enraged way is not ‘politically correct’, not ‘woke enough’ for many and I know it is my particular way of “being a need of God”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Being Aware of the difference between ends and needs! Year 4 Day 23

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 23

“We must beware of converting needs into ends, interests into norms. The task is precisely the opposite: it is to convert ends into needs, to convert the divine commandment into a human concern.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.8)

Some philosophers and historians say history doesn’t repeat itself, it just reflects upon future generations. In reading the words above, I would say there seems to be no repeating nor reflecting, just a continuation that hides sometimes, that lies dormant at others, and disguises itself at still other times. How else can we explain the consistency with which human beings continue “converting needs into ends, interests into norms”?

There is no greater example of this continuation of the history of humanity’s worst actions than Trump and the MAGA crowd. Not all of the people who voted for them are bad people, not all of them are “converting needs into ends, interests into norms”. Yet everyone who elected him and them to powerful positions, every Senator who will approve his ridiculous Cabinet choices like Hegseth, Gabbard, Oz, etc. are all responsible for buying the lie, ignoring what “the task is” and helping to kill democracy as we know it, substituting autocracy instead.

We are watching in real time how Musk and his billionaire friends are taking control of spending and taxes-these greedy bastards can never have enough. We are watching in real time how Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al are kissing Trump’s ass and maybe giving him a blow job as well in order to curry favor with the ‘boss’. We are witnesses to the decimation of the Justice Department, the Rule of Law, and the wiping away of the Truth by Bannon, Trump, Bondi, et al. The abandonment of the principles that Robert F. Kennedy believed in and died for by his son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is almost too much for those of us who did and still revere Bobby Kennedy to bear. Yet, here it is-all because We, the People have been asleep at the wheel while the kleptocrats, the autocrats, the billionaire class were “converting needs into ends, interests into norms” right in front of us and we were listening to their words instead of watching their actions.

It is antithetical for a Jew to not pay attention to their own actions nor to not pay attention to the actions of another(s). Yet, many Jews have ‘gone over to the dark side’ and engaged, much less not beware of, “converting needs into ends, interests into norms.” Listening to people speak of Joe Biden being anti-Israel is so ridiculous given what he has done for his entire public service career in support of Israel and especially since Oct. 7th, 2023-yet in a world where Truth, EMET, has no meaning nor bearing on what We, the People believe-Trump, MAGA, Bibi, et al can tell the lies they want to and people have been like guppies swallowing the lies and the mendacities up; hook, line and sinker. To be a Christian and ignore the words and deeds of Christ in favor of buying a Trump Bible is another example of buying the bullshit and ignoring the Truth.

What makes us do this? It is more than identity politics, I believe. The fires in Los Angeles are teaching us a lot about humanity, the immense outpouring of aid, donations to the people and institutions that need and offer help makes one’s heart swell with joy; we really do know how to help the needy, take care of the poor and the stranger. Yet, at the same time, there are people who are only interested in blaming the victims, blaming the politicians of ‘the other party’, there are those, like Mike Johnson-that good ‘christian fellow’- who are talking of withholding FEMA money for the victims, while during and since the Hurricanes that struck Republican States, there was no victim shaming nor victim harassment by the Biden Administration-yet Joe is the bad guy???

The state of our democracy right now is tilting towards autocracy and the people who support this are unaware that they have been “converting needs into ends, interests into norms” for some time, in fact it is generational. How many of us have heard, ‘that’s just the way it is, deal with it’? Yet, as Rabbi Heschel says above, “the task is precisely the opposite; to convert ends into needs, to convert the divine commandment into a human concern.” It is way past time for We, the People to heed the call of these words, the call of the Bible, New Testament, Koran, all Spiritual Texts: “in a place where there are no humans BE HUMAN!”(Pirke Avot 2:5). This is the task that has been handed down to us, and while no generation has done this perfectly, it is at least been the goal-even when men let their egos’ blind them to how to be human. It is not okay to accept “what is and deal with it”, it never has been and it never will be. It is time for We, the People to heed the call of the universe, open our eyes and our ears up to the call of the Bible, to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, to “love your neighbor as your love yourself”, to see the reflection of the divine in the eyes of every human being. These are the “divine commandments” that religion comes to teach and model-yet some/many of today’s Preachers and Teachers, Rabbis and Ministers, Imams and Priests either are “covering needs into ends, interests into norms” and leading their flocks to bow down to the autocrat, similar to the ways the clergy in Germany did in the 1930’s (again-not repeating, just rising up again), or they are too afraid to stand up to their Boards of Directors, their Elders, the Powers that Be in the Church/Temple, or the ones outside. When American Jews say “Trump is good for Israel” and this is the issue they care about, it is a travesty because if they are so concerned about Israel-why are they not there, fighting for the ‘homeland’?? Because they are full of shit, they have turned their back on the ethics found in Torah and the gifts of America while proclaiming they are ‘Torah Jews’-another example of words and actions not matching.

I am enraged, as you can probably tell, and I am volcanic inside. I am watching on a global stage and a micro stage the lies and the foolishness people buy into in the name of ‘community’, in the name of ‘safety’. I know one cannot be safe when one is lying and/or buying into the lies of another. I made the world unsafe for those around me when I was stealing, drinking, lying and hiding-just ask any family member-and I have spent the last 36+ years making living amends. I have bought into the last sentence above, I convert the “divine commandment into a human concern” each day, which in my case makes me volcanic, unable to buy into the ‘half-truths’ of the mendacious ones. There is no ‘half-truth’-something is either true or a lie-not discerning between the two kept my ‘life of crime’ alive long after it had stopped serving me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Awareness of our need for Spiritual and Religious Effrontery- Year 4 Day 22

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 22

“Religion is spiritual effrontery. Its root is in our bitter sense of inadequacy, in a thirst which can only be stilled by greater thirst, in the embarrassment that we really do not care for God, in the discovery that our religious need is utterly feeble, that we do not feel any need for God.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 8)

WOW! Religion comes from the Latin meaning “to bind oneself”, effrontery comes from the Latin meaning “barefaced, shameless”. Binding ourselves to something greater than ourselves can only be done barefaced and shamelessly! Thinking about this brings us back to the Cain and Abel story, Cain was embarrassed (“why is your face fallen?”) rather than barefaced by his comparing his offering to Abel’s. Because he could not live with being “uncovered”, according to the text, rather than mastering the “sin couching at his door”, he gave into it and killed his brother! How many people have ‘religious’ people killed because they were/are unable to be “barefaced and shameless” in front of another and in front of whatever ‘deity’ they worship? How many people have died because they steadfast in living their principles out loud? How many of us succumb to the ‘powers that be’ rather than stand in rebellion for what is true, what is right, for freedom itself?

These are all questions that come up for me in this first sentence. I hear Rabbi Heschel’s voice in my soul asking me when have I joined in the effrontery that is religion and when have I bastardized religion for ‘my own purposes’, because of my own fears of rejection! We all need to ask ourselves this question, no matter what “religion” and/or spiritual discipline we adhere to, even agnostic or atheistic.

Reading Rabbi Heschel’s ‘origin’ reasoning for religion is fascinating. He is throwing in our faces the “utterly” feebleness of our ‘holy than thou’ attitudes with which many people walk around, believing that their ‘religion’ is better than anyone else’s, that only they have the ‘one true way’ while they are actually deciding they know better than God, they have no interest in hearing the call and demand of God, and they only use ‘god’ when they want to validate their power grabs and their money-grubbing behaviors. We see this all the time, hence the amount of people who claim None, when asked what religious tradition they belong to, is growing in America and across the globe. We are in an era, once again, where the Church, the Synagogue, the Mosque are more concerned with currying favor and money from the people in power in government, on their boards, their donors than with “care for God”, than with “any need for God”. For those of us who are deeply committed to the inner life, who know the embarrassment of our “utterly feeble” attempts to repay our debt to God, to express gratitude to another(s), to live from our souls completely and wholly, we are aghast and dismayed by the charlatans and idolators who have taken over the Temple. It is ironic that the Money-Changers in the Temple that Jesus railed against are the very people who are raping, robbing, displacing people, disdaining the poor and the needy claim to be doing this in Jesus’ name!!! WTF???

Not to be outdone, of course, are the fundamentalists in other faiths who claim to ‘kill in the name of god, allah’ when Isaiah says the goal is peace, that “men shall not learn war anymore”. He reminds us there is and will always be different nations, different religions, different spiritual paths and we can, we must, learn to live with one another in peace, respect, etc. Look at the radical imams who claim to be speaking in the name of Islam or the fundamentalist Jews who claim to be living according to the Bible and the Torah while they are killing their neighbors, having one law for themselves and another for everyone else, who want to control the “eyes of the judges” so they can deliver injustice! All of this in God’s Name and in Allah’s name!! WTF???

Yet, until we realize our need to be “barefaced and shameless” in our “binding ourselves” to something greater than ourselves, to be “barefaced and shameless” in front of another human being, we will continue to hide and to stay disconnected, disconcerted and disregulated. This is the situation we find ourselves in right now. We, the People, are capable of hearing the message to Cain, that when we do right, we are okay-there is no shame, there is no blame, there is a moment of peace, of wholeness, of knowing all is right with our world when we do the “next right thing”. We the People, possess the ability and the tools to “bind ourselves” to our higher consciousness and live from there at least 51% of the time, we have the ability to rise above our “utterly feeble” ways of selfishness and narcissism, to “bind ourselves to something greater than ourselves-be it God, community, family, etc. What We, the People, seem to be lacking is the willingness to act on our ability and to use our tools. We, the People seem to be more willing to be conflict avoidant and ready to bow down before the leader/liar more than we want to stand for our religious principles, more than we want to stand for the people who have helped us and taught us how to be moral beings, more than we want to live authentically and wholly/holy. Now is the time for We, the People to return to the religious “effrontery” that is at the core of our spirituality, to return to the tenets upon which our inner lives demand of us and say NO to the liars and idolators that are selling us bullshit, that are bastardizing the very texts and people we revere. We, the People, are being given the gift of living our values out loud and very loudly!

As one who lives life loudly, I am acutely aware of the feeble attempts I have made/make to live totally congruent. I am getting better and I still have a way to go. What I do believe I do well and have continued to grow in is being shameless and barefaced in my ways, I have no shame for the things I have done to help people, I have regrets for my errors and I feel divine compassion for those who have been unable to accept my amends. I do not care what another thinks of me, I care what I think of me, I care whether or not I can face myself in the mirror, the people who love me with my bare face. This is what drives my actions all day, every day. I am blessed to have people who will call me out, lift me up, and pat me on the back. I believe that all religions give us the opportunity to face life with effrontery and it is time we all do! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Seeking magic/satisfaction or seeking meaning/being of service-which defines your way of living? Year 4 Day 21

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 21

“To define religion primarily as a quest for personal satisfaction, as the satisfaction of a human need is to make of it a refined sort of magic. Did the thunderous voice at Sinai proclaim the 10 words in order to satisfy a need? The people felt a need for a graven image, but that need was condemned. The people were homesick for the fleshpots of Egypt. The said:: “Give us flesh”. And the Lord gave them spirit, not only flesh.”

We seem to have it backwards these days, and maybe this has been true throughout the ages, religion/spiritual disciplines does not need humanity, humanity needs religion/spiritual disciplines! While many churches and synagogues, mosques and temples work hard to ‘sell’ themselves as having the answer, the truth is that we keep asking the wrong questions, as I wrote about earlier (see Year 4 Day 2). In today’s quotation, I hear Rabbi Heschel reminding us not only about the wrong questions, he is demanding that religious institutions not supply the wrong responses to inane questions. I hear his calling out to us to stop with our incessant pursuit of satisfying all of our ‘needs’, especially those that are desires in disguise. I hear him also reminding us that satisfaction is not a long-term solution. As it says in Deuteronomy 8:10: “Eat, be satisfied, bless”-telling us that just as we will get hungry again during a day, satisfaction is a fleeting experience and not to be pursued. What is to be pursued is responding the demand of another, responding to the demand of one’s own soul, responding the demand of the universe. Humanity needs religion, spiritual disciplines precisely because we have a propensity to lie to ourselves, engage in both self-deception and the deception of another(s). Listening to the hack politicians blame ‘the other party’ for the wildfires in Los Angeles and the responses to them is an example of people using their religion, their power to satisfy their personal need for power and meanness rather than satisfying the needs of the people who have been indelibly harmed and scarred.

Listening to these ‘good christian folk’ is what has made religion so irrelevant for so many, because they are using it to satisfy their personal need for power, certainty, and ‘rightness’. “The thunderous voice at Sinai” did not “proclaim the 10 words to satisfy a need” is true in the context of defining need as an inauthentic desire. “The voice” did not have to satisfy a need of its own, rather they “10 words” came forth to help humanity learn to live better with itself as a single entity and as a collective, with one another. “The 10 words” begin with and end with a call to seek truth, to not lie to oneself about one’s desires being needs, to realize there is more to living than satisfaction, there is service to something greater than oneself-whether one is religious, spiritual or neither! Helping one another is a basic need that resides within each of us, in our core being, and the denial of this need is what leads to the seeking of satisfaction of desires at the wreck and ruin of another soul and of the individual’s own soul. This is the tragedy that happens when we engage in “to define religion primarily as a quest for personal satisfaction”. Religion, a spiritual discipline is a quest for finding purpose and meaning in our lives and help another(s) find the same for themselves.

Yet, over and over again throughout history and in this moment, we find people who claim to be ‘religious’ making “a graven image” of God, a false image so they can have power and control, so they can gain wealth and fame, so they can rule their corner of the world rather than seek to improve it. When anyone claims that a politician is “the anointed one of Christ”, when anyone in power says if you want to know what I believe and how I live read the Bible and then does everything he can to demonize the poor, withhold aid to those in need and lock up/deport the stranger as well as deny his obligation to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its people therein” by denying the right to vote to so many, by practicing racism in the most subtle of forms, by leading people who proclaim “Jews will not replace us” and calling them ‘good people’, we can see how they are using “religion as the satisfaction of a human need”, which is to use as “refined sort of magic”.

And they have been successful which makes the words above all the more important to heed and to live into. We, the People are being called to hear the condemnation of our feelings that we “need a graven image”. We, the People are being called to remember our response to “the 10 words”: “We will do and then we will understand/listen”. We, the People are being given the gift of practicing the principles of our religion, of all religious life, in real time, right now. Whether one is religious, spiritual, agnostic, atheistic, doesn’t matter, what matters is our determination to live into the spirit that is within us. It is imperative to acknowledge our spiritual and intuitional wisdom that resides and calls out to us from our inner life, from our ‘guts’, from our divine image, higher consciousness. These words above are a calling to all of us to stop making a mockery of religious life, either by the ways we bastardize religion in our search for “personal satisfaction” and making religion nothing more than “ a refined sort of magic”, and by the ways we ignore the principles and demands of religion through our denial of it as a valid way of being. By responding to “the 10 words” in any way other than to wrestle with how to live into them is why we are so dissatisfied, why the rich keep needing to get richer and more powerful, why they are willing to bow down to Trump and kiss his ring-because they have no moral compass, they seek to protect themselves from facing themselves in the mirror by surrounding themselves with sycophants and by being close to power. Jews who do this betray a core teaching of the Talmud: “Be careful [in your dealings] with the ruling authorities for they do not befriend a person except for their own needs; they seem like friends when it is to their own interest, but they do not stand by a man in the hour of his distress.” Yet, these ‘Torah Jews’ keep ignoring historical proofs of these words.

In my recovery, I have sought to learn and study, teach and exchange words of the Bible, the core principles of my religion and recovery in order to be a better human being. In making this my goal, any and all success’ are the result of improving my inner life’s confusion, hearing the call of my soul and my intuition, following the path I hear and see to take. This means I have to own up to my own errors and not own up to yours, I have to be responsible and not blaming nor do I accept your shaming of me. By remembering religion is not magic, it is a pathway to a richer and more meaningful life, I get to love my life, live my life and love my neighbor as I love myself. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What are you going to a Religious and/or Spiritual institution/community for? Year 4 Day 20

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 20

“Religion has adjusted itself to the modern temper by proclaiming that it too is the satisfaction of a need. This conception, which is surely diametrically opposed to the prophetic attitude, has richly contributed to the misunderstanding and sterilization of religious thinking.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 8)

All prayers and thoughts go to the residents of Los Angeles in this time of dire uncertainty and destruction. Please pray with me for their safety.

The prescience of Rabbi Heschel (and others) is astounding to me. “Come to (my) church and you will be happy”, “the prosperity gospels”, “only strict adherence to dogma will save the Jewish People”, “Kill the Infidel and you will be rewarded” and other such bullshit slogans have permeated religious thinking and acting in order to ‘get more members and raise more money’! So many fundamentalist religious people and groups lure unsuspecting people, people who are seeking to belong, seeking to be accepted for who they are, into their ‘flock’ by promising the moon and delivering dogma. They continue to promote their ‘acceptance’ and ‘caring’ as long as the unsuspecting seeker keeps moving their observances, their donations, towards the goals of the clergy, the goals of the boards of directors, etc.

We have seen the uptick in religious institutions which claim to be speaking to a certain group. Just as we have “identity politics” , we have developed “identity religion” as well. If you are LGBTQ, come to our Church, if you are Black, come to AME, if you are an Interfaith Couple, come to our Synagogue, if you believe in being a martyr, come to this Mosque, ad nauseam. Rather than every Church, Mosque, Synagogue being a place for anyone and everyone to come, to belong, we are witnessing the growth of these “identity religious groups” and how they claim to envelope people and, many times, seek to change them. Rather than accept people for who they are and where they are at, rather than be a place for spiritual growth to take place in the seeker’s time, many of these so-called “identity-welcoming” institutions seek to change people so they “fit in” rather than belong.

This is not to say that many of the spiritual centers that ‘cater’ to one group or another don’t do amazing service-many of them do-the problem is with the many that do not! While it makes sense for people of the same mindset to worship together, it prevents the free exchange of ideas and ways to fulfill the demands of the Bible, the call of the divine presence(whatever you call it for yourself), and the responsibility of each individual human being. Dr. M Scott Peck, in the opening sentence of his book, The Road Less Traveled, says: “Life is difficult”. It is and our religious institutions are here to make life more navigable. Religion should be calling us to live into our higher consciousness, to live up to the level of being human that all of us are capable of and born with. Religious institutions are not here to perpetuate themselves, they are here to help their congregants, give safety and security to the poor and the needy, give comfort to the stranger in their midst. Religious institutions are here to welcome us with open arms and be very clear of their goals-the spiritual growth of the individual and the spiritual growth of the community. This means they are not here to satisfy the whims of an individual or even the ‘desires’ of a group. Religious institutions are here to move the ball forward, to help people move closer to their unique purpose, to fulfill the need they are uniquely able to, to grow and mature their inner life and to live from their soul’s knowing rather than from their ‘heart’s desire’ or ‘rationalizations’.

In order for this to happen, the extremes have to be more tolerant and welcoming of opposing thoughts, remember there are 70 (at least) faces to the Bible, 70 (at least) ways to understand the words, the thoughts, the walk the paths of the Bible and the subsequent literature is not prescriptive, it is just one person’s thoughts. The religious institutions ‘in the middle’ have to be less afraid of ‘what if they are right’ because no one knows! We have become so misunderstanding of the Bible, of the spiritual path, we are lost and don’t even know it. We have sterilized the beauty of the debate, the power of the dissent, the importance of knowing one’s soul and living from it and we are suffering because of it. There is no way that any religious institution would go along with any authoritarian, much less promote authoritarianism in the name of Jesus Christ. There is no way any religious institution would go along with and promote the total destruction of a people who are your neighbors and, possibly, relatives and call it ‘god’s will’. In each and every faith, every spiritual discipline, there are those who want to promote “satisfaction” as a means of drawing people in and catering to their desires rather than their souls. In all faiths and spiritual disciplines there are those who want to sterilize and sanitize the messiness of faith and walking the path so they can control people for their own sake, not for the sake of heaven.

We, the People have to say NO to this way of being. We, the People have to return to the core of religious thinking-figuring out how best to serve. Each morning we wake up, remember to be grateful to be alive. Each morning we ask ourselves: “what am I going to learn today” rather than ‘who can I screw over to get ahead today’. Each afternoon we check in with ourselves and ask how we are doing with living gratitude, learning and being of service. Each evening, we ask ourselves how we did, what we need to repair and what we need to enhance tomorrow. We, the People need to demand of our religious leadership and institutions that they do the same! It is time for We, the People to call out the bullshit and the mendacity of religious institutions so they can return to their core purpose-helping all people live into the prophetic attitude: “Turn your swords into plowshares, your spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not life up sword unto nation, neither shall men learn war anymore”(Isaiah 2:4). Since our religious institutions are more interested in the dogma of their own making, it is up to We, the People to change our religious institutions so none of us “Learn war anymore”.

I have fought this fight to return to the “prophetic attitude” for myself and for the people I serve. While many of the seekers bought in, what I found out, in a rudely shocking way, is that the board did not! I became a liability rather than an asset and, truth be told, in the “identity politics”, “identity religion”, “political correctness” atmosphere: I am. I understand the need to jettison me, I gave ample reason and I am still in the “prophetic attitude. Which one are you in? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

What is the call your "religious tradition" demands of you? Are your religious leaders true to this call or bastardizing it? Year 4 Day 19

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 19

“This, indeed, is the purpose of our religious traditions: to keep alive the higher Yes as well as the power of man to say, “Here I am”; to teach our minds to understand the true demand and to teach our conscience to be present.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 7)

My thoughts, prayers and wishes for safety and the control of the fires in and around Los Angeles are foremost in my mind. I am praying and asking for everyone to pray for the victims of these horrific fires and not make this about politics, no matter what Drumpf says or his mindless minions do. The response from the President-elect and his ‘good christian nationalists’ have nothing to do with compassion, with spirit, with wholeness, only the ugliness that has become de rigueur for Republican politicians and elected officials. They show every day how their non-religious leaders have bastardized the “purpose of our religious traditions”!

While I know that Rabbi Heschel’s words will not change the minds of the mindless, nor give people who are indifferent to evil a sense of purpose and energy to fight with their own evil inclination, I believe that for the majority of the people who are actually “on the fence” of believing they can effect change within themselves, they do want to stand up to evil, they are desperate to make a difference in their world, these words and the thoughts can help these people move forward. To do this, of course, we need true practitioners of “our religious traditions” to step up, to push the idolators and charlatans out of their comfy lies, out of their joyful hatreds, like the prophets of the Bible begged us to back in the day and call out to us even today to “throw the bums out”!!

Until this happens, which it never has throughout the history of humankind, We, the People, have to stand up for the truth and “purpose of our religious traditions”. We, the People, have to delve into our foundational spiritual texts to find the myriad of ways they give us to “keep alive a higher Yes”. We, the People, are being called to stand up to the mendacious idolators and take back our Temples, Churches, Mosques and return them to being the places of worship for all people, ‘saints and sinners’ alike. We, the People get to cleanse the altars that the liars sacrificed the truth upon, we get to do our own T’Shuvah for allowing these bastards in our holy places in the first place, we, get to clean our ears of the wax that has prevented us from hearing our souls’ desire “to say, Here I am”. We may not be heard in the halls of power, we rarely have been, and we may get spit upon by the ‘faithful’ and ‘useful idiots’ of the politicians and leaders who thrive on lies, the so-called religious leaders who thrive on bastardizing scriptures, and, like Don Quixote, we have to “dream the impossible dream”, “right the unrightable wrong”, “run where the brave do not go”. “This is (our) quest” because only by engaging in the things we feel are not winnable, only by staying loyal, faithful and true to our own particular “religious tradition”, will we be able to change the world, like Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King, the Berrigan brothers did in the 60’s. It is true that the “higher Yes” is always under attack, the Trumps et al of the world will always lay siege to it, it is the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Tibetan book of the Dead, etc that have survived longer than any of the Imperialists that tried to keep their hateful dynasties going.

We, the People, have “the power…to say, “Here I am” in response to the call: “Ayecha, where are you?” This is one of the calls that continues to reverberate throughout history and, for people of any and all faiths, is the call that nags at us, bothers us, gives us a bad conscience. When the poor come calling, the “higher Yes” is to respond in any way we can, the highest being helping them become self-sufficient so they can help the next person. We don’t have to make the poor into criminals, we don’t have to look down upon them and say, ‘God doesn’t love you and that is why you are poor, so just shut up and serve me’, which seems to be the way some people have turned the Gospels into ‘prosperity gospel’ and these ‘preachers’ are flying around in private jets, etc.-this is not the idea we get from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount or his feeding people, nor the way he hung out with the very people these ‘prosperity gospel’ people reject! The Bible teaches us to forgive the debts of another every 7 years, it teaches us to care for the poor and the needy, welcome the stranger and RANSOM THE CAPTIVE, no matter what it costs. Do you hear this Bibi, Ben-G’Vir, Smotrich, et al? Here in the United States, the world is asking us if we are still dedicated, after all these 248.5 years since the American revolution, to the principles of our founding document, The Declaration of Independence. We, the People, are being asked to respond, “Here I am” to the call to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” and, each night we have to look in the mirror and, as the poem says, “the fellow whose verdict counts most in life, is the man staring back from the glass.” What is your “man in the glass” saying to you this morning, last evening?

“To understand the true demand”, we have to “teach our conscience to be present”, and it is so hard to do. It has been and is the greatest challenge of my daily living. I wake up each morning ready to “take care of business” knowing that it is God’s business I have to be engaged in only to get sidetracked by false ego, by fear of financial insecurity, by inauthentic desires and for over 20 years, I never even fought with what was sidetracking me, my own evil inclination. The people, ways of being that I rail about used to be my modus operandi, believing that the conning you, stealing from the banks, etc was righteous because you were ‘my enemy’ and I believed that ‘with money you are something and without it you are nothing’. While many people still live this way, I no longer choose to. It is a choice that each human being makes, whether to hear and “understand (Shema) the true demand” as we committed to do at Mount Sinai or not. It is a choice to feed the poor, ransom the captive, “rebuke your neighbor and not bear guilt” because you “stood idly by the blood of your neighbor”. These are the choices I make each and every day, whether I fulfill them each day is a different story. For the past 36+ years, I have been able to face the “man in the glass” and abide by his verdict, change what I need to, repair damages I have wrought, and enhance the good I do. I have returned to the boy my father, z”l, raised- the one who fights at windmills because truth and “a higher Yes” are more important than praise and false friendships. I know the scorn of Don Quixote, just as every one who does the next right thing does and I am joyful that my “conscience is present” even when I act in ways others deem inappropriate because I am standing up for and firm in what my “religious tradition” teaches us all what is mandatory: justice, mercy, truth, kindness, love. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you aware of "the demand", the call? Year 4 Day 18

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 18

“Too often we misunderstand the demand; too often the call goes forth, and history records our conscience as absent.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 7-8)

Reading this over and over again, looking at the world we have created, the question we have to ask ourselves: is our misunderstanding of the “the demand” willful or unwitting, is our conscience absent on purpose or because it has not been developed.?

I know that what is written above is truthful and wise, yet, it seems as if the people ‘running’ our “religious traditions” have forgotten “the purpose”! Be it clergy who preach it is okay to hate the gay, trans, bi-sexual person, or the clergy who preach it is okay to hate the Jew, the Black because they are the ‘anti-christ’ or they ‘killed christ’ in regards to the Jew, or the clergy preach it is okay to hate the Arab because ‘god wants the jews to have all the land’, it is okay to cheat people other than jews because they persecuted us, or the clergy who proclaim ‘whitey is our enemy’, our ‘religious’ leadership has lost their way and are abusing their positions, taking the name of God in vain (desecrating the 2nd Commandment), being shepherds for the rich, famous, ruling class. This is the greatest betrayal we can experience.

We have witnessed the inability of “religious” institutions to live up to the values and principles of their own “religious traditions”, watching as ‘White Churches’ decry the black people, hearing the ‘new’ preachers proclaim that if one has money it is because ‘god’ loves them, speaking the lies of ‘love Israel’ while truly wanting Armageddon to happen which is the only reason for supporting the right-wing crazies there. Closer to home, we have watched how pastors, ministers, Rabbis have been eaten up by their congregations and boards of directors-with the flock believing they should be able to tell their Spiritual leader how to be, rather than having the “religious tradition” dictate the values and mores of the congregation.

While it is right and important to see what our “religious institutions” are doing, it is more important for each of us as individuals to see what we are doing. No Board of Directors, No clergy, can get away with their purposeful misunderstanding of “the demand” unless we, the congregation, allow it. No one can change the principles that a congregation is founded on unless, we, the congregation, goes along with the changes. There is no such thing as a separation of ‘white and black’ churches in the Christian “religious tradition” as I have read it and heard about it from learned scholars of Christianity. There is no separation of Judaism according to someone’s belief that ‘this is the only way’ or ‘only we are Torah Jews’, because the Bible has 70 faces, 70 ways to be understood, so while “the demand” is always the same-truth, justice, mercy, kindness, love, care and compassion for the stranger, the poor, the needy-there are a myriad of ways to fulfill the demand and each of us has our own unique way to fulfill the demand in this moment.

We, the People have to take responsibility for “too often we misunderstand the demand”. It is important for us to end our blame and shame game of another(s) so we can hide and cover up our own greed, our own desire to change the demand from the one God gives us, the one our “religious institutions” are built on, to the demand of our desires and inauthentic needs. Our constant “misunderstand the demand” is a cover-up for the need of some people to have power over another(s), much like Pharaoh in the first chapter of Exodus, “Let us deal slyly/wisely with them…so they set taskmasters over them to afflict them…” The Israelites were considered more numerous and mightier than the Egyptians and they allowed themselves to become slaves. This is an example of “misunderstand the demand” on the part of Pharaoh and the Israelites and this “misunderstand the demand” is alive and well today, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, in Russia, in Hungary, in Israel, in the United States, etc. While it is easy to blame ‘those people’ it is more important and truer to look at ourselves, see how we also “misunderstand the demand” and what we need to do to “get a new pair of glasses” and see what really we are being demanded to do and be, not the lies we have told ourselves and that we have bought from whatever Pharaoh we want to follow today, ie Trump, Musk, Putin, Bibi, etc.

We, the People have to re-engage our “conscience” as well. We have allowed them to be silenced by our greed, our fears, our need to be right, etc. How many times have any of us shut the fuck up because we didn’t want to be ridiculed for standing up for what is right and good? How many times have we allowed our “conscience” to be cowed and we be cowered by our fear of ‘not fitting in’? How often have we watched the people running companies we work for, religious institutions we are members of, families we belong to do the next wrong thing and shut up for fear of retribution and/or, even worse, because of our own “indifference to evil”. Thinking about Rabbi Heschel’s words above, I would say that the only way “history records our conscience as silent” is because we have become “indifferent to evil”! We have been so beat down by our fears, shame, being blamed, our lack of belief in our purpose, our goodness because of the myriad of ways we “misunderstand the demand” and because of the ways “the demand” has been bastardized by those we thought we could trust; family, friends, clergy, religious institutions. It is time for We, the People to take back our power to understand and recover our “conscience” so we can respond.

As one who misunderstood “the demand” willfully for over 20 years, reading the words above cause me regret, give me the opportunity to go back and learn/relearn the lessons of ruin and destruction that purposely misunderstanding the demand brings. Knowing that my “conscience is absent” when I was constantly shut down as an adolescent, when I spoke up and was shut down, only makes me more determined to never allow this to happen again. I hear the demand daily in all of what I read, hear, see: take a stand for what is right, speak truth and call out the lies and mendacities of another(s), stop the willful blindness and indifference to evil that is prevalent in our country, our Temples, Churches, Mosques, to the best of my ability. Reach out and continue to “carry the message” of recovery from indifference, from a silent “conscience” and “misunderstand the demand”. This is the call I hear everyday and, with the words above, even more so today. I can’t do it alone and I can’t change anyone, I can only keep doing my best, being available to those who want what I have and standing up to those ‘leaders’ who continue to denigrate “the demand”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Are you aware of when you are engaging in Spiritual Fallacies, False Ideals, Inattentiveness? Year 4 Day 17

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 17

“To be an iconoclast of idolized needs, to defy our own immoral interests, though they seem to be vital and have long been cherished, we must be able to say No to ourselves in the name of a higher Yes. Yet, our minds are late, slow, and erratic. What can give us the power to curb the deference to wrong needs, to detect spiritual fallacies, to ward off false ideals, and to wrestle with inattentiveness to the unseemly and holy?” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 7)

Continuing on from yesterday, the words in bold describe our situation, what we need from within ourselves and from our spiritual disciplines and clergy, and our need to be aware of both “the unseemly and holy”. The first sentence in bold above is so descriptive and obvious that too many of us do not pay attention to the truth of it and become enamored with “our minds”. Some people believe they are “stable genius’”, others believe they are the smartest people in the room because they are so rich,  still many others sit idly by not caring about and holding dear to their “idolized needs” and “immoral interests”. By the time these idlers finally recognize the scope of ruin and destruction of their freedoms that the “stable genius” and ‘smartest guy in the room’ have wrought, it is too late and they become even more locked up in their own prisons because they are more erratic, they are slower because they can’t fathom the betrayal by their ‘savior’, by ‘the anointed one’, their clergy, by their misplaced faith in the grifter and con artist. This is true in politics, it is true in financial matters, (think Bernie Madoff), it is true in our family units when parents betray their children by trying to make them into their image and children betray parents by trying to make them into the images they want rather than the ones they are.

Writing in 1958, the questions Rabbi Heschel ask give rise to the question how good were the “good old days”? What are we trying to go back to with the MAGA movement? Do we really want quotas on Jews entering colleges and grad schools again, do we really want different bathrooms and drinking fountains for people of color? Do we really want to promote hatred and support dictators? Do we really want to continue to defer to the “wrong needs” just because someone else does? Do we really want to believe the lies of the ‘christian nationalists’? Do we really want to bow down to the authoritarian/populist in front of us? Do we really want to go along with what our parents say ‘just because I said so’? Do we really want to be denied the right to read the books we need to and want to? Do we really want to ignore the injustices in front of us and the ones that have perpetrated before, in our name? Do we really want to bow down to the Pharaohs and keep making bricks for their Towers, for their Spaceships, for their Electric cars? Do we really want to just give up and be overwhelmed by “the unseemly” and be inattentive to what is truly “holy”? These questions asked some 67 years ago are in need of our responses right here, right now. The issue is whether we are aware of these questions, whether we are willing to respond to them and what are our responses. Looking at what is happening, it seems people are, once again, giving the ‘right’ responses to the ‘wrong’ questions!

There is only one source that “can give us the power to curb…detect,,,ward off… and wrestle… This source is us, it is within each and every one of us. The source is our soul, our higher consciousness, whatever one calls the part of us that sees through our ‘third eye’, that knows in our guts, through our gut instinct, what is true and real and what is false and phony. The source is always with us, the issue is whether we are going to stay lazy and be “late, slow and erratic” in our use of our “knowing” what is right and what is wrong.  The issues in front of us call for “moral grandeur and spiritual audacity” as Rabbi Heschel wrote in his famous telegram to President John F. Kennedy in 1963. This call is been reverberating throughout the universe since the first human was created/evolved and continues to echo to this day. Yet, too many people ignore the call, refuse to hear or understand the echo, believe it is too difficult to go against the grain of societal norms, believe the spiritual fallacies their ‘idolators/clergy’ tell them (as happened before and during the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem), and come to worship “the unseemly” and ignore the “holy”. Rabbi Heschel is describing the spiritually ill human being that we have become, just as Maimonidies did in his treatise: The Eight Chapters where he describes a spiritually ill person and the spiritual healing needed for that individual.

At issue for We, the People, is our inability to experience our spiritual maladies, our inability to see the three fingers pointing back at us when we point out someone else’s ‘errors’ which often are just someone speaking truth when we don’t want to hear it. We, the People, are in desperate need of spiritual healing so we can let go our “false ideals”, stand up to Pharaoh and his/her “wrong needs” like Moses and Aaron did, reject the “spiritual fallacies” of our priests, rabbis, imams, ministers like the Prophets did in the Bible, and, like Jacob, wrestle with our evil inclinations so we can see that “God is in this place and I, I did not know it”. We, the People, can do this, it will take work, hard work because we will have to reject the societal norms, we will be standing out on a limb and, not have a lot of allies and fewer friends because people hate being told the truth, they would rather hear ‘white lies’, ‘half-truths’(whatever these are), actual bullshit that makes them feel good. Rather that “not stand idly by the blood of your brother/sister/neighbor”, most people are content and happy to be lied to-as Rabbi Heschel says which he learned from the Kotzker Rebbe, self-deception is a major disease! We can recover our hearing so we can respond to the echo of Ayecha-where are you, we can engage in spiritual healing by visiting a TRUE physician of the soul, not the charlatans that are advertising bullshit and promising roses. The question is are you willing?

I have been accused of being a bully, an “iconoclast”, an asshole, not politically correct, etc. I am relentless in the search for truth-no ‘half-truths’ for me. I am a breaker of old ideas and societal norms when they are built on lies and subterfuge. I am an asshole because I don’t let people “off the hook” when their spiritual health is at stake, I do not follow the ‘proper rules of decorum’ in the way I am. All of this has left me more on the outside and it is okay because what it would take to be part of the “country club” crowd(besides a lot more money than I have) is not worth it. What it takes to be part of any group that is more concerned with how it looks than what are they doing, is not my jam nor my crowd. I am not willing to pay the price of admission to be ‘like the Ben-G’Virs’. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark