Living the wisdom of the Bible ushers us into "spiritual meaning", certainty "of the hereness of God" _Year 4 Day 363

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 363

“In carrying out the word of the Torah is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning. Through the ecstasy of deeds he learns to be certain of the hereness of God. Right living is a way to right thinking…” (Thunder in the Soul pg.80)

“Presence” comes from the Latin meaning “being at hand” and “ecstasy” comes from the Latin meaning “standing outside oneself”. An English definition for “ecstasy” is “an experience of mystic self-transcendence” and “an overwhelming experience of great joy. “Presence” is “the state of being present in a thing” and something that “exists and is not seen”. “Usher” means to “show or guide someone somewhere”.  Ergo, I understand Rabbi Heschel to be reminding us that “in carrying out the word of the Torah” we are “guided into being at hand of a spiritual meaning”. Through the overwhelming experience of joy that doing a deed brings, we both learn the certainty of the “hereness of God” and we experience a self-transcendence. WOW!! Being present in the “word of the Torah” can, and I believe does, give us the guidance and shows us the way for our own unique “spiritual meaning”. Unfortunately, Rabbi Heschel cannot give We the People “the spiritual meaning” because like it says in the Talmud, every soul is unique-no two people experience “the word of the Torah” in the same way NOR SHOULD WE! Just as after the crossing of the Red Sea, after the moment at Mount Sinai, each person had their own personal, unique spiritual experience by “being at hand” and had their own experience of “standing outside oneself”, so too do each and every one of We the People have to have our own unique experience of any and every “word of the Torah”.

At issue is our lack of understanding and our lack of skill to “be at hand”, to receive the “present” that the Torah is, to have a moment of “mystic self-transcendence” that is not induced by some drug, outside influence like “killing it in business” etc. This need to know the “ecstasy”, the “hereness of God” may be why so many Shamans are portrayed as “standing outside themselves”, why the mystics were always looked at with a greater or lesser amount of skepticism, like the prophets were, like the Torah is now. Developing the skill to KNOW something that cannot be seen is to experience the deepest connection with the authentic self. Only by learning to live in our authenticity rather than in societal norms, in ‘follow the leader’, the moments after the Red Sea, after Mount Sinai, after each and every spiritual experience come to remind us and give us the inner strength to tell everyone to Go to Hell when they want, demand, threaten We the People to go along to get along. When We the People “do the deed”, experience “the ecstasy”, become “certain of the hereness of God”, we catapult our authentic self through the shmutz, the barbed wire that have imprisoned what we have always known to be true and were too afraid to live it. We the People are now armed with the armor of God, with the nearness and “hereness of God” and there is no turning back, we are changed forever, we do “stand outside ourselves” more and more, we are being “guided” to our rightful place.

Of course, this is NOT a one and done! AND it is not a thoughtful path that gets us there, as the last sentence above reminds us. Of course reflection, meditation,   are important and crucial to our spiritual growing, they just come after the DOING!  “Right living is a way to right thinking” is another way of saying “Na’Aseh V’Nishmah” we will do and then understand. While the Rabbis wanted to give us the ‘right way’ to do, even they could not agree, hence the arguments in the Talmud, the saying two Jews, three (or more) opinions. We the People are taught to turn the Torah over and over, not just read it each year, experience anew “the word of the Torah”, the “word” that stands out to us this year and then LIVE IT each week. The day after is the most important day, as I have said in the name of my friend and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein. The day after we are “ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning” is the most important day, the day after we experience “the ecstasy of deeds” and learn “the hereness of God” is the most important day because what we do with the experience is crucial to our living well, to our society living well and to being more authentically our SELF.  It is not easy to continue to build on these experiences as any recovering addict will tell you and it is pretty simple. Using the KISS method (keep it simple stupid) I have each day for the past 39+ years put one foot in front of the other, taking two steps forward and one back, sometimes one forward and two back and I have never returned to the way I was because I made the commitment, followed thru on the commitment to “do the next right action” and I have acted my way into right thinking! It was a struggle for awhile, it is not anymore, I still screw up, and it is not hard to admit it, to acknowledge my frustrations, to rise above them. In my years of personal recovery and in helping addicts and non-addicts find their own authentic selves, doing before understanding is a difficult pill to swallow and when we/they have, the “presence”, the “ecstasy” abound.

Here are some ACTION STEPS:

1. Find a Guide to read the Torah with and begin to immerse yourself in “the word” and develop your own experience of “the word”

2. Engage in the actions of the characters, not as an actual happening, rather see how their struggles are, have been, could be yours

3. Accept the guidance of a force that IS and cannot be seen by you nor anyone

4. Do an inventory each night of the “right living” you did and you did not achieve that day-acknowledging when your thoughts overrode your authentic knowing.
   
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Limiting our "understanding" because we have to "think" about something first! - Year 4 Day 362

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 362

“A Jew is asked to take a leap of action, rather than a leap of thought. He is asked to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to understand more. In carrying out the word of Torah he is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.80)

Well, this about says it all! We, the modern day Hellenists, the people the Maccabees fought against, have forgotten the commitment we made at Sinai, or was made for us by our ancestors; N’Aseh V’Nishmah, We will do and understand. The doing comes first in the Torah, not the understanding. How arrogant are We the People to believe we can discern through thought, God’s reasoning, the question our current experience is the answer for? Yet, we continue to do this, we continue to take “a leap of thought” before we “take a leap of action” and, as we see from the current times, this way of being that the Democrats engaged with in 2024, led to the current crisis we are in right now.

Trump and his thugs are, and have been taking “a leap of action”, not the ones Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, not the ones found in the Torah, yet, his actions have worked, they paralyzed the Congress, they used the slowness of the Federal Judiciary, the lies of Bondi, Hegseth, Lutnick (that fine outstanding Jew who was honored by a few Jewish Organizations for being a liar, a cheat, etc), Stephen Miller and Scott Bessent (two more Jews who betray the oath we took at Sinai, Russell Vought (the implementer of his vision of Christ’s hatred of the poor, the stranger-huh), to implement some of the greatest cruelty, deconstruction of the Bill of Rights, the world has ever seen-not as bad as Nazi Germany-YET-and it is certainly reminiscent of those early times, just waiting for Trump’s version of the Reichstag Fire before the Mid-Term elections because he can’t allow them to go forward, cause he will lose his majorities.

Because of the incessant need of some on the left to have to “know” everything there is to no before taking actions, because of the insane way of repeating the same mistakes they did in the 80’s, we the people have made it more and more difficult to change on a dime, to respond to the current situation in the moment until Indivisible began the protests against Kings, against ICE and DHS, against the cruel and inhumane treatment of both American Citizens-resulting in death for a few- and people here legally and illegally-especially those here illegally who have NO CRIMINAL RECORD, who have paid taxes, helped the economy, etc. Trump doesn’t mind the people here illegally who take care of Mar-a-Lago, his golf courses-don’t forget.

The revolution that is needed in this moment is the Return to being We the People of ACTION!  Taking a “leap of action” is the only path to understanding so much more than our minds can ever comprehend, it is the way to apprehend truth, wisdom, mystery, and have the mystical, spiritual experience all of us crave and are ‘waiting for’. Well, as my father, z”l, used to tell me: “Get off your ass and DO something”! We the People have spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME and ENERGY on ‘figuring it out’ before we even truly know the situation, before we experience what is, before we take the “leap of action” so we can “lift up our eyes and see” what the picture truly is, what the obstacles are that are giving us the opportunity to succeed, to “leap” forward farther than our rational minds can take us. This is the way we respond to the “leap of action” that the charlatans are taking!

Rather than just see and think about: how does this situation fulfill my needs, how can I make it serve me- Rabbi Heschel is reminding us to, in my words, GET THE FUCK OVER OURSELVES! Surpassing our needs is a prerequisite of a spiritual experience, it is a prerequisite of “knowing” the truth, of having a connection that is soul to soul rather than role to role, as my wife, Harriet Rossetto, teaches, preaches and writes about in her book Lost Founder finds Herself”. What we the people call “a thirst for knowledge” is, in actuality, a thirst of things to think about, to ponder, to figure out how to use to our advantage, how to engage in the deception of another(s) and, of course, our own self-deception. One of the reasons Rabbi Heschel was/is considered such a radical, was not appreciated for his “knowing”, for his wisdom, his visions, in Academia and in many Pulpits around the nation in his time is because he demanded We Jews “surpass our needs”, he kept telling us that our understanding was lacking because we the people were too busy studying, amassing facts and figures, meeting the needs of our lower, in some cases lowest self; rather than seeking to find the “understanding” that comes with surpassing our needs and taking a “leap of action”.

Over the years, these are the ACTION STEPS that have led me to grow, learn, understand and be gifted with love, connection, wisdom, knowing:

1. Find a Rabbi, a Spiritual guide who you will take direction from, who “knows” you and helps you grow

2. As Pirke Avot says: Find for yourself a Spiritual Friend, a person to whom you reveal your soul and he/she reveals theirs back-who will help you realize the lies you tell yourself, the deceptions you spread, and when you’re DOING IT

3. Say NO to those who want to tell you why something won’t work-everything works because, when we are in a “leap of action”, our understanding grows and this is the best “working” we can receive.

4. Each day, write down what you understand a little better because of the actions you took , this day.
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

"Keep it Simple Stupid" was about making airplanes, then about sales, today, about how to live? Year 4 Day 361

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 361

“The world is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred. Our task is to cleanse, to illumine, to repair. Every deed is either a clash or an aid in the effort of redemption. Man is not one with God, not even with his true self. Our task is to bring eternity into time, to clear in the wilderness a way to make plain in the desert a highway for God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 80)

I ma taking my time with this thought, this teaching because it is, in my opinion, a crucial link in our progress or retardation of spiritual growth. Either everything matters or nothing matters, either “every deed is either a clash or an aid” or no deed is. While I usually disdain “either/or” comparisons, in this case, as our history and present day environments show, it is totally appropriate. We the People are being called in this moment, as Rabbi Heschel called us 70+ years ago, as the prophets called us 2500+ years ago, as God called to Abraham, as God called to Adam and Eve at the ‘beginning’ of human creation. The call is the same: “Ayecha, Where are YOU?” Given yesterday’s writing on the first two sentences above, this is the crucial question for us at this moment as it has been throughout the history of humanity.

Without asking ourselves this question, without asking one another this question, “every deed” will become, more often than not “a clash” “in the effort of redemption”. In fact, without having a response, a thoughtful response, redemption will not even be a factor in our decision making. All that will matter is: “where’s mine”. Nathan, the prophet to King David, had the strength of character and the devotion to God to confront David when he had sex with Bathsheba, had Uriah killed, and then moved her into the Palace. King David, unlike most powerful people, following in the example of his ancestor Judah, said “I have sinned”. This is the conundrum for we the people; will we begin the day by responding to this eternal question: Where am I?; will we follow it up with: Who am I?; and finish our morning wake-up routine with a prayer in gratitude for waking up, for the compassion of God returning, thereby cleaning our souls, and for God’s faith in each of us as individuals and as a human race or just ignore all of these pressing questions and live “same shit, different day”/“who can I screw over today to get mine”?

Be it Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Martin Buber, the Baal Shem Tov, Abraham Joshua Heschel, William Barber, John Pavlovitz, Shai Held, Sharon Brous, these modern day prophets and spiritual leaders all are conveying the importance of every one of We the People! They continue to give us strength, rebuke, pathways to serve, so that We the People do not retreat anymore, we stop buying the lie that we the people are too small to make a difference, We the People always remember our partnership with God, God’s dependence upon us to “aid in the effort of redemption”! We the People are able, capable, and never have to retreat, never have to surrender to being small, we the people again!

Beginning our day with the questions I outline above is the beginning. Engaging in the work of maturing our inner life, of hearing, listening, understanding (Shema) the call of our intuitive mind, our spiritual hunger, our deep knowing of the next right action to take, is the Number One ingredient in being able to answer the call of God, have a positive response to “Ayecha” with the phrase made famous by Abraham when called by God: Hineni-here I am. The exact opposite response of Adam who, when called by God responded with: “I’m hiding”. What is your response?; how do you still hide from the truth?; from the call?; from your soul’s purpose?; your inner passion? This is the power behind the second sentence that is in bold above. Without “every deed” being “an aid in the effort of redemption” there is no “one with God”, there is no “Ehad-oneness” in the world because we the people have split from our soul’s knowing , our spiritual craving, our deepest truth for fear of being ‘found out to be a fraud’. Rather than understand that “redemption” is always ongoing, that humanity was never intended to be perfect, we the people, in our smallest selves bought the Greek bullshit that we are supposed to be perfect; hence we continue to hide from our errors and point out yours so you won’t notice ours. No wonder, buying into the societal bullshit, We the People, created in the Image of God, have become we the people small, petty trained seals!

Each day, I become more and more “at one with God” and, most importantly, at one “with my true self”. More and more, because of the spiritual work I continue to engage in, I can be disappointed in people and not hate them, I can wonder at the responses of people to me and my way of being without feeling hurt, I can appreciate and see the “true self” of another and not need them to be perfect anymore, not need them to take care of me, feel divine pathos when another fails to live up to their higher self. The anger I experience is, almost 90% righteous indignation, the prophetic anger and not the personal one it used to be!

ACTION STEPS

1. Write down your response to Ayecha each morning upon rising, at lunchtime, at dinner time and then at bed time for at least one week

2. Make note of your growth or lack thereof in your responses

3. Do a daily inventory of when you “clash” with redemption and when you “aid in the effort of redemption”

4. Write a gratitude list and call one person a day to express gratitude for the gift they give you

5. Notice when you are one of we the people and when you We the People

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

How are you part of the problem and/or solution for the "conflicts, folly, hatred" that is so prevalent today? Year 4 Day 360

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 360

“The world is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred. Our task is to cleanse, to illumine, to repair. Every deed is either a clash or an aid in the effort of redemption. Man is not one with God, not even with his true self. Our task is to bring eternity into time, to clear in the wilderness a way to make plain the desert a highway for God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 80)

These words were written some 70+ years ago, during ‘the good old days’ as some people like to call the mid-1950’s. After Korea, after WWII, before Vietnam, Jim Crow laws still in effect, quotas on how many Jews could get into different colleges, grad schools, and this is what the “good christian nationalist folk” call ‘the good old days’?? Immersing ourselves in the words above, it is imperative for we the people to raise up our self-image to meet the world that is in this moment, not some utopian vision or euphoric recalling. Our world today “is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred” and We the People are being called by this moment, by today’s “folly”, by the senseless “hatred” being spewed by the top echelon of government, business people like Jeff Bezos, clergy like Doug Wilson, and supported actively and/or passively by the Republican Party, the Republican Congress, and Jews, Blacks, Latinos, among them! WTF PEOPLE??!!!

What is the call, one might ask; the call is, as Rabbi Heschel says: “to cleanse, to illumine, to repair”. And while there are many who proclaim this to be their passion, their mission, it seems as if We the People don’t believe them and I wonder what the reason is that Bishop Barber, John Pavlovitz, Josh Shapiro, Katherine Clark, haven’t gotten more support, there are not more demands for change, “to cleanse”, etc. Unlike the late 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s of last century when MLK was believed and followed, joined by Rabbi Heschel and so many clergy of different sects, by a groundswell of We the People, when Bobby Kennedy was seen as someone who would Keep Hope Alive, when Johnson, Nixon were held accountable for their misdeeds, their lies, We the People are not in the same space. I believe the reason is personal, spiritual, moral, societal. Before we the people can “cleanse, illumine, repair” the outside world, we have to do the same in our inner lives. Buying into societal lies, believing that “if only they would/wouldn’t do… and we would be happy”, rejecting the faith traditions of our parents, grandparents because they were not passed down with meaning and congruent behaviors, has led to the spiritual, moral, societal bankruptcy that Trump, Lutnick, Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, et al have capitalized upon. These grifters are not the problem!

It is We the People that is the problem, we elected them, we empower them.  we buy their lies or are so overwhelmed at the amount of lies and subterfuge we feel fatigued. Unlike the prophets whom we are descended from, unlike John Lewis who continued to get into “good trouble” until the day he died, unlike Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Prinz, the Berrigan Brothers, MLK, Bobby, who continued to fight for truth, for justice, who sought “to cleanse, to illumine, to repair” until their deaths, we the people have made ourselves so small, we have forgotten that we the people are all created in the image of God, all have infinite dignity, worth, unique gifts to bring and so we the people find ourselves in the predicaments listed above, some 70+ years after being warned, being educated, being cajoled, being cautioned. Whether it is the racist in the White House, the Goebbels devotee Stephen Miller, the lying money-grabbing Lutnick, the murdering settlers in the West Bank, the terrorist Hamas’ in Gaza, Putin in Moscow, Orban in Hungary, MBS in Riyadh, all of these bankrupt souls, these thieves do not have the power to resist when We the People “cleanse, illumine, repair” ourselves and then set out “to repair” the world through T’Shuvah, “to cleanse” the world through our amends and forgiveness, “to illumine” the world because we are to be “a light unto the nations” and, after repairing, cleaning up our shit and the pile of shit that another(s) have made, our vision gets clearer, our sight gets sharper, and We the People find our place, our passion, our purpose and our similarities which far outweigh our differences, in fact, our differences bring joy to another(s) for they make up for what is missing in their path and vice versa.

The more I write, the more I re-read Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, the more I experience, the more I am able “to cleanse” myself of the lies, the false ego that I have lived from at times in the past 38+ years, the more I am able “to illumine” for myself and another(s), the more I can “repair” and pay it forward. I also am acutely aware of the ways in which I operate which seem so foreign to another(s), the knowing I have which seems outlandish to many, the ‘seemingly inappropriate’ ways I have of expressing myself, ie I am politically incorrect:). I also have illumined a path for many and the reciprocity of generosity has not always come back from these people and I know that is okay-I do what I do because it is the next right thing and this is what the cleaning, the repairing of my inner life has illuminated for me.
ACTION STEPS:

1. Ask yourself what the balance in your spiritual, moral bank accounts are and if they need some deposits.

2. Make a list of the things you need “to cleanse” in order to begin to see what truly is and not the lies you tell yourself and/or the deceptions of another(s) you have bought into

3. Make TShuvah a daily practice so you can repair the damage you have caused and get clean enough “to illumine” the path of right living for you and those around you.
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

No separation between the happiness of human beings and the concerns of God - Year 4 Day 359

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 359

“There is no dichotomy between the happiness of man and the designs of God. To discover the absence of that dichotomy, to live that identity, is the true reward of religious living. God shares man’s joy, if man is open to God’s concern. The satisfaction of a human need is a dedication to a divine end.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 79-80)

“The happiness of man and the designs of God” are not separate, according to Rabbi Heschel. What a statement, what a denial of Greek Mythology, what a wonderful way to see humanity and the divine. Yet, there are many who would say that man’s happiness is irrelevant to God, that only by complete surrender to God’s will can mankind survive, only by forgoing the pleasures of the flesh, the arguments of the mind, the knowing of one’s inner life, by subduing my happiness for the sake of heaven can I be a ‘religious person’. Poppycock, Rabbi Heschel is saying and, surprise, surprise, I happen to agree with Rabbi Heschel.

Discovering “the absence of that dichotomy” is the challenge and the path of “religious living”. It is the goal, it is the way, it is the truth that seems to elude so many of us, especially the ‘most holy of holy rollers’. Rather than fire and brimstone, rather than abject fear of God’s punishing ways, rather than call God of ‘the old testament’ a vengeful God, Rabbi Heschel is pointing us to understand that what seems like vengeance is human based-not God based. God tells us to love the stranger, care for the poor and needy, love our neighbor, rebuke people who are going astray because they follow their hearts and their eyes, honor our parents, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet, proclaim freedom, redeem your kinsmen, erase the margins, BE HOLY!

We the People have bought into the societal bullshit and mendacity of “where’s mine”, of “the one with the gold rules”, of “money talks bullshit walks”, of “do to another before they do it to you”, and other such ridiculous aphorisms. Listening to some of the loudest clergy, the ones people swear by is dangerous because they are spouting a doctrine of “dichotomy”, they are telling their people that believing the lies of ‘their candidate’, their false image of God, of Jesus, is the only way to happiness and this takes the complete surrender of a human beings’ sense of rational thinking, of spiritual knowing, of believing what they hear instead of what they see. And, what is worse, too many of we the people have made ourselves so small as to buy the bullshit and follow their direction to HELL on Earth. Listening to that ‘fine christian, Donald Trump, sent here by god to save the United States, is about as holy as hating the stranger, as the actions of the Pharaoh, the sins of King David and too many of we the people buy this lie as well.

There is a partnership between God and man, human beings have to adopt Godly concerns and God rejoices in humanity’s joy, humanity’s satisfying of their authentic needs, including those of the flesh. There is no sin in sex, according to Jewish belief, there is sin in sexual assault, in forcing even one’s wife to have sex when she isn’t up to having it! There is no sin in making a living, in making a good living, there is sin in cheating to get ahead, to extorting money, to taking advantage of someone’s ignorance, innocence. There are over 100 laws re: money in Judaism and one of them is: The Seller has to disclose! Also, when one is fortunate enough to make a living, one is obligated to help the community chest, to give Tzedakah and the more one makes, the more Tzedakah one is blessed to give, not how little can I give, rather-how blessed am I to be able to give more because I have been blessed with such wealth. It is not for tax purposes, it is because the plight of the poor, the widow, the stranger, the needy is a MAJOR CONCERN OF GOD’s! Hence, when there is fulfillment of God’s designs as laid out in the Bible, as Jesus taught, the happiness of human beings is a DUH!

This is the challenge for We the People, to realize the our needs and God’s concerns coincide, they mirror one another and only when We the People live from scarcity, from egotistic lies, from willful blindness do We the People go astray, forget this truth, become self-centered, boorish, cruel, etc. Where the world is today is a prime example of the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words, because Trump, Bibi, et al bastardize what God’s concerns are, turning them into what they want/need, we the people are left out in the cold if/when We the People disagree with them. Putin puts his naysayers in prison and kills them, Trump sends his ICE storm troopers into cities to terrorize them, Bibi winks when the settlers raid Palestinian homes in the West Bank. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to Stand Up and take these
ACTION STEPS:

1. Immerse ourselves in the Bible and find the true concerns of God, those that are beyond our human selfishness

2. Make a list of the false needs we continue to fulfill because of societal norms

3. Find a path to live in Radical Amazement, the maladjustment to conventional notions and mental cliches

4. Shout down the LIARS and IDOLATORS who proclaim that God wants people to suffer, that God only wants White Christian Men to be in charge of everything

5. Make and live into your unique plan to be a Partner with God, joining needs and concerns, joy and satisfaction.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Standing firm in principles and values no matter what the provocation to abandon them rises - Year 4 Day 358

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 358

“It is constancy that sanctifies. Judaism is an attempt to place all of life under the glory of ultimate significance, to relate all scattered actions to the One. Through the constant rhythm of prayers, disciplines, reminders, joys, man is taught not too forfeit his grandeur.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 79)

As I wrote yesterday, “constancy” comes from the Latin root meaning “stand firm”, it doesn’t mean doing the same thing in the same way over and over again, I believe. “Standing firm”, means that I don’t wander too far off the path, that I am grounded and rooted in ways that enhance my living and the lives of those around me. Which leads to the question for all of us: What are we standing firm in?

The current leaders of government are “standing firm” in their incessant need for more, more, more-money, adoration, worshipers, and so many other not good traits. They are inviting Putin, Orban, et al into the US government, into the corporate structures of American Business all the while not caring when, not if, Putin decides to either extract extortion money from them or just take their business’ over! Yet, here is Trump caring more about Vladimir Putin that the United States, more about his money and fame that We the People he swore to serve and protect, more about his lies than the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

However, Trump is not the problem here, We the People are the problem! We have chosen to not “stand firm” in our beliefs, in the values that our parents, grandparents risked everything for so we could live free. Rather than honor those who gave “their last full measure” to protect and defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our way of life, we the people have made ourselves so small that we don’t believe we can “stand firm” in values, “stand firm” on our principles, “stand firm” with one another because ICE will ‘get’ us, because the DOJ will ‘come’ for us, because we know we are not perfect and this makes us feel weak, vulnerable, etc. I am saying BULLSHIT on these excuses, perfection is a myth, it is not real, it is not worth pursuing even-because we the people will never get there and our pursuit of it renders our attempts to “rend our callousness” futile.

Hence the gift that Judaism, Christianity, any and all authentic spiritual paths are because as written above, all spiritual disciplines “attempt to place all of life under the glory of ultimate significance, to relate al scattered actions to the One.” Our Bridge Teacher, (the best one in my opinion) Randy B, reminds us all the time that each card tells a story, it is part of the puzzle of the hand-so too is each action we take, each time we “stand firm” in principles and values that uplift and each time we “stand firm” in values and principles that demean another human being for our own self-aggrandizement, our own personal gain, our false ego’s desires, etc. Each action we take, every prayer we say either moves us closer to our “best self” in the moment or detracts us from same. How can it detract, you might ask, well I will tell you. When I am so absorbed in prayer that I don’t notice nor care about you, your needs, I am too busy praying to save you from an assault, the prayer detracts from us being our best self, when I am so busy studying in the Yeshiva that I don’t serve in the military, I don’t have a job, I am relying on welfare and for ‘those’ people who I have nothing but disdain for to support me, my studying, my praying, the reminders of you being a divine gift, made in the image of God just leaves me; ergo: they are worthless prayers, worthless studying, even to the point of being harmful.

However, when “the constant rhythm of prayers, disciplines, reminders, joys” are in service of something greater than ourselves, when they are in service to “the One” then the puzzle of our lives comes together in a beautiful picture, like the jigsaws people work on, so too do all of these ways of being put together the ‘jigsaw’ of our lives, giving us a glimpse of what we are capable of, and helping us “not to forfeit our grandeur”! And human beings, created in the image of God, We the People all possess an inherent grandeur,  a beauty, a necessary piece of the jigsaw puzzle called life. Yet, far too often, We the People allow another human being to demean us, to put us down, to con us into believing they know what they are talking about when it is all BULLSHIT-like Madoff, Epstein, PT Barnum, Donald Trump, et all.

As a person who forfeited my “grandeur” for 20 years, I know the enormous cost it takes out of one, the gigantic tornado I brought upon another(s) and I have dedicated these past 39+ years to doing T’Shuvah. I know without the “rhythm’ mentioned above, without the “constancy” of staying power, I would be lost and so would many people. I am grateful to my family, teachers, and friends for hanging in there with me and for helping me grow.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of principles and values you believe in and practice:

2. Write down how you “stood firm” in them today and how you didn’t for political expediency, for monetary gain

3. What is your spiritual practice, discipline and how often do you “stand firm” in it?

4. How does prayer, meditation, move you to action which honors your dignity and the dignity of another?

5. How do you celebrate your grandeur and the grandeur of another each day?

God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you being willfully blind/oblivious to the Callousness you practice, to the cruelty happening right now? Year 4 Day 357

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 357

“It is not by the rare act of greatness that character is determined, but by everyday actions, by a constant effort to rend our callousness. It is constancy that sanctifies.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.79)

Continuing on yesterday’s theme and, truthfully, the major theme I receive from Rabbi Heschel, stop looking for the HIGHS, the PEAKS and, as Deuteronomy teaches remember the mountains, the sea, the ‘over there’ is not where We the People are going to find Good Orderly Direction, as the program of Alcoholics Anonymous reminds as well. Looking at history, seeing the ‘growth’ of Western Civilization that Marco Rubio was so eloquent about while being part of a regime that wants to kill democracy, set up autocracy and have ‘whitey in charge’ just like it used to be and he is CUBAN!! It is so ridiculous because civilization has always been in a push/pull between autocracy and freedom, between Pharaoh and Moses, between profane and holy, these are all points on the continuum that we the People have to choose which way we are headed. Rather than understand our very survival depends on what we do with our inner lives, how we raise our spiritual health, how we know and understand what our “intuitive mind” is telling us, where our “knowing” is guiding us and LIVE these truths, We the People still believe “daddy will fix it”, “mommy will make the booboo go away”! PLEASE PEOPLE - get real, get right sized!

We the People are enamored with celebrity, with wealth, with “greatness” and far too many of we the people keep making ourselves into small caricatures of who we are in order to achieve these false idols. Erroneously believing that “greatness”, wealth, power, are protectors against uncertainty, even death is the bane of the human experience, it is the lie we continue to tell ourselves, it is the insanity we continue to grow. Rather than being enamored with “greatness”, with wealth, with power, the words above remind us of God’s calls to us: “Ayecha-where are you?”, “Shema-hear listen understand”, “Love the Stranger”, “Care for the Poor”, “Be Holy”, etc. It is not our ‘job’ to be great, according to the teaching above; it is our job to “rend our callousness”, ie to “tear our callousness” away from us, to let go of the mendacious belief that cruelty is good, it is necessary at times so we can deal with “those people”, you know “the vermin” that Trump et al speak about, like Hispanics, Democrats, and you better believe many of his cronies include Jews in  their definition of “vermin”. We the People have heard this rhetoric before, in the 1920’s-40’s in Germany by a small little group of people who called themselves NAZIS!! Wake up People, when something speaks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck- it is a duck! When people spout the rhetoric of Goebbels, the words of Hitler, erect and put people in Camps like the ones in WWII, have masked men plucking people off the streets, beating people in the streets-what do you think is happening??!!

It is in these actions that these LYING ASSHOLES proclaim their allegiance to “Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior” not caring one iota that everything they are doing is spitting in Jesus’ face, defying the “word of God” found in the Bible and, instead of “rend our callousness” they are boasting about callousness and cruelty and WHERE THE HELL ARE WE THE PEOPLE?? The Congress should be impeached, recalled in special elections across the country, the Republicans should be indicted and imprisoned for Lying under Oath when they swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic because they have allowed both Putin and Orban, Trump and Vance, Vought, Rubio, Miller to attack our foundational core values and “rend” them useless!

To “rend our callousness”, We the People have to stop “swinging for the fences”, end our insane ‘special interest’ modalities, stop living in the either/or of far right, far left. To “rend our callousness”, We the People  are being called upon to “do the next right thing”, not perfectly, not with flair nor need for accolades, just quietly, in our “everyday actions” make a difference, move the needle one grain of sand towards what God truly wants-freedom for all, loving the stranger, being holy, caring for the needy and poor, not stealing, murdering, coveting, bearing false witness, selling our souls, not following our hearts and eyes to whore after them, etc. It is only when we “stand firm” (live in “constancy”) that our inner lives transform, that our outer actions are more “in line with the divine”, that Ash Wednesday is the be the beginning of Repentance for both Christians AND Jews, that Passover be the beginning of Liberation from the inner lies, societal norms that are enslaving us and giving us a bad name, a bad conscience. We the People have the power, the skill, the guidance to “rend our callousness” and turn our cruelty into caring, our need for power, wealth, “greatness” into service and love.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Which will We choose today- “callousenss” or good “everyday actions”?

2. What “false god” are you worshiping that makes “cruelty” callousness seem logical and ‘holy’?

3. How are you so focused on “greatness” that you miss the simple acts of random kindness you can do, are done to and for you?

4. What will it take for you to listen better to your “intuitive voice” as an antidote to the rational/emotional voices that try to get you to go against what is right and good?

GOD BLESS AND STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Seeing the top of the mountain one step at a time, through the common deed - Year 4 Day 356

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 356

“The highest peak of spiritual living is not necessarily reached in rare moments of ecstasy; the highest peak lies wherever we are and may be ascended in a common deed. There can be as sublime a holiness in performing friendship, in observing dietary laws day by say, as in uttering a prayer on the Day of Atonement.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 79)

There is no “highest peak of spiritual living” unless it is happening in this moment, in this “common deed” that is right in front of us, in my humble opinion! Humankind seems to need these “highest peaks” to satisfy their thirst for ecstasy, their need to ‘get high’ and whether it is in climbing the highest mountain, swimming the widest sea, sitting under the Bodhi Tree, achieving the wealth, fame, fortune that is so sought after or just getting high on substances/process’. We the People are addicted to attaining “the highest peak” and seem to be willfully blind to the truth that the “highest peak” is always changing, just like no two moments are the same, so too, there is no one “highest peak” and there is no living at that level for more than a moment or two. Just like the drunk or the addict who eventually have to “come down”, wake up with a hangover, those who continue to seek “the highest peak of spiritual living” through any of the means I delineated above, will find themselves always hungry, always thirsty, and always ignoring the “common deed” for their erroneous belief that the “next high is just around the corner”!

I am overwhelmed with the thought/realization that the cruelty being practiced in this moment by Trump et al and by Bibi and his cohorts is truly their seeking of “the highest peak of spiritual living” for them; selfish, bastardizations of what “holiness” is and they are surrounded by such sycophants who validate their ‘holy actions’ in the churches, the synagogues around this country and in Israel!! The insanity of an clergy celebrating cruelty as “the highest peak of spiritual living” is anathema to the teachings of Moses, the words of Christ, the actions of the Prophets, and the experiences of the Christians being fed to the lions and the anti-semitism that Jews have experienced for the millennia! Yet, here we are, with Jews who laughed with and hung out with a known pedophile like Jeffrey Epstein, with Jews who relish the cruelty of ICE and the cruelty of the “big beautiful bill”, the insane hatred of the stranger forgetting that We the Jews were strangers in the land of Egypt! Here we are with Christians who celebrate the separation of families, the inhumane conditions in these ‘camps’ (ala Albrecht Macht Frie of the 1930-40’s), who extol the actions of cruelty as wanted by Christ?!!

The popularity of Social Media, the Smartphone (which is helping to dumb down our children) has contributed to the state of moral decay, spiritual bankruptcy we find ourselves in. Rather than study the Bible, rather than learn mathematics, rather than learn the grammar of any language much less the “grammar of living”, we the people feel so small and so large at the same time that we say ‘let AI do it’. Rather than seek to “enoble the common”, we the people are seeking to constantly ‘find the high’, ‘make a killing/score’, have an orgastic moment over a deal, sex, shopping, winning. Rather than see the “highest peak lies where we are” we the people continue to look either up at the sky or down on the ground, thereby missing the moment of connection with what is, the moment of connection with another human being, the moment of “holiness” that is ascended in common deed. We the People are so addicted to the “highest peak” we have failed miserably to experience/see the “holiness in performing friendship”. Friendship is NOT “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, it is NOT one bad action, one disagreement and we are quits, it is NOT fair weather, it is not kissing the ass of another, it is NOT being a sycophant. Friendship IS speaking truth to one another, friendship IS wrestling with one another to find truth, to help one another grow along spiritual lines, to live a moral life, an obligated life, friendship IS making mistakes and being forgiven, laughing and crying together, Friendship IS helping one another engage in “the common deed” and experience the spiritual ecstasy that comes with this sublime action.

I know this because I have lived in both realms, I have been the asshole seeking a ‘high’ through theft, through booze, and it never lasted too long. I have some stories that are ‘funny’ and I can TESTIFY to the TRUTH that the “peaks of spirituality” I have achieved in these past 39+ years are higher and still are with me, each one leaving an imprint on my soul. I have not needed to “be the man” for a long time, it was slow to give it up at first and I no longer need the acknowledgment of another to know my worth, to know the “high” of the common deed, to continue to do ‘the next right thing’ without recognition. This is a complete TShuvah for me, as a kid I always wanted to be recognized, even in my recovery at times I find this to be true and it is not anymore. Living in the “common deed” of this moment is the “high”, is the joy, is the goal.
ACTION STEPS:

1. What are the false peaks you are trying to climb to “reach the high”

2. How are you engaging in cruelty, mendacity, towards self and/or another to reach this false “peak”

3. How do you stay present and aware in the moment and experience the holiness of it

4. What “common deeds” raise you up to “the highest peak”?

GOD BLESS AND STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Every moment an occasion or taking things for granted - Year 4 Day 355

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 355

“Religion is not made for extraordinary occasions, such as birth, marriage, and death. Religion is trying to teach us that no act is trite, every moment is an extraordinary occasion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

OY VEY! What is Rabbi Heschel talking about? How can “every moment is an occasion” be true, it would be too hard otherwise not complain, to not bitch and moan, to not see how ‘the man is screwing us’, etc. Taking seriously what he is saying, teaching, means We the People have to stop compartmentalizing our “religious actions” from our “normal everyday actions”. As I wrote about yesterday, Judaism is a personal experience rather than an institutional brand and Rabbi Heschel’s words ring true, or “ping” as my wife Harriet Rossetto says, in our souls, no matter how much our minds, our egos, our ‘hearts’ desires’ want to deny this truth. In fact, in Judaism the Mohel who circumcises the newborn baby doesn’t have to be a Clergy person, the officiant for a marriage doesn’t have to be a Rabbi and the person who leads the funeral also is not required to have any kind of S’micha(ordination). The rituals surrounding these “extraordinary occasions” are helpful, spiritually uplifting and allowing for grief as well as joy, all need and welcome communal support and love; hence Judaism being “the grammar of living” as I wrote about yesterday. AND relegating these “occasions” to the “extraordinary” and not seeing the wonder and awe of this moment is a powerful blow, a tremendous wound to the spirit that lives within us and the spirit that surrounds us!

Od Matai, Until When will We the People refuse to honor our spiritual well-being, our spiritual knowledge, our soul’s knowing? It is the greatest desecration of God’s name, in my opinion, to NOT grab ahold of what “religion is trying to teach us”, to NOT “circumcise the foreskin of our hearts” so we can be open to immense gift this moment, this occasion is. Not only is “religion trying to teach us that no act is trite”, it reminds us that We the People are gifted each day with life and that We the People, as individuals, are a GIFT that has to be given to another human being. This is not a narcissistic attitude, this is a TRUTH that We the People have ignored for far too long. Because Judaism is a personal experience, each one of us has to take what God gives us and use it to better the moment we are currently in. Each of us is called upon to “reach out and touch somebody’s hand” to help them up, to lift them up, to care for one another as another way to serve the spiritual calling within us. Being the Unique GIFT that each one of us is makes us obligated to live it, to give it away as AA says: “you can’t keep it if you don’t give it away” and to RECEIVE THE GIFT THAT ANOTHER HAS FOR YOU! This receiving is not about lacking, it is not about weakness, no matter what the politicians, the false prophets tell us, receiving the GIFT that another has for we the people is our act of humility, our recognizing how INTERDEPENDENT we the people are on one another. No one can do it alone, as the Bible says: “It is not good for humanity to be alone”. Only in community can We the People become right-sized, only in community can We the People find our soulmates, our spiritual friends, our proper place, live our purpose with the passion that religion, that spirituality bestows upon us.

None of this can happen, however, without recognizing, without knowing, without accepting that THIS MOMENT IS AN OCCASION! It is an occasion for growth, for service, for love, for TShuvah, for forgiveness, for joy, for sadness, for holiness, for wholeness, etc. I first learned this in Prison in 1987 from Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l. He and I studied every day he was at the Prison where I was his clerk and I studied on my own when he wasn’t there. I learned how to stop the negative behaviors I had been engaging in for 20+years and begin each day with the Modeh Ani prayer, in which I thank God for “returning my soul to me with compassion, great is Your faithfulness” which obligates me to be compassionate with myself and with another(s), it obligates me to be faithful to my spiritual knowing, my soul’s intuition, to God, and to the people in my life. Being faithful means to celebrate this moment with you, to see your GIFT and accept it, to give you my GIFT without any quid pro quo, knowing there is a reciprocity of generosity in the universe. Be it at the bridge table or the dining table, be it on the golf course or the Ceramics studio, be it in the den or the bed with Harriet, each moment is cause for celebration, each moment is important and, We the People, including me, forgets this often. The challenge of “religion” is to not allow our devices, our negativity, our false egos to overpower what is true and right, good and holy: “no act is trite, every moment is an extraordinary occasion”. Living into this, knowing you are THE GIFT that keeps on giving, and “religion” is a personal experience is the GIFT we give ourselves!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of all the things you believe are “trite” and find the uplift in them

2. Find ways to acknowledge the “little things” you do each day which helps you, another, the community

3. See the ways you treat each moment as battleground, trying to make yourself good by spreading LaShon HaRa about another, by putting another down.

4. Do an inventory of your GIFT, and how often you “freely offer” it to another and how often the GIFT of another has been “freely offered to you

5. Live your religion as a personal experience, seeing where you have fucked off your GIFT, where you have abused the GIFT and generosity of another, etc.

GOD BLESS AND STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

What is the “grammar of living” you follow? Year 4 Day 354

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 354

“The goal of Jewish law is to be the grammar of living, dealing with all relations and functions of living. Its main theme is the person rather than an institution.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

What a wonderful phrase, “the grammar of living”! Sadly, history and present day seem to indicate “the goal” is yet to be reached! We know this from the Bible itself, Moses’s railing against the people in Deuteronomy, the books of Joshua and Ezra, the sex crimes of King David, the overreach of King Solomon, the need for the Prophets, etc. The Rabbis in their zeal to reach “the goal of Jewish law” made it so rigid, so inane in some cases, so restrictive in others, that We the People have never really engaged in it with the sense that it is “the grammar of living”, learning how to live into “Jewish law” not as a chore, not as a “have to”, rather as the way to make our unique life what it is meant to be, just as proper grammar is the way to make a sentence mean what it is meant to mean.

Unfortunately, just as English grammar seems to have taken a back seat to LOL’s, etc, “the goal of Jewish Law is to be the grammar of living” also seems to have done the same. Being more interested in the check list,  caring more about being “Shabbat Police”, sneaking around for gossip on one’s neighbor, spreading LaShon HaRa, bragging about how many mitzvahs one did today, not caring whether they impacted another human being or not-just doing the mitzvah and checking it off is more important, keeping kosher according to the law regarding food  and NOT in the over 100 laws of making, spending their money, has made “Jewish law” not important to too many of We the People. Instead of seeing “the goal of Jewish law is to be the grammar of living”, today’s orthodoxy is more interested in Jewish law being a weapon against ‘those people’ who are not even good enough to be called an apikoros, a sceptic!

Understanding, seeing, living “Jewish law”, means to deal with one another in truth, with dignity, with awe for the divine image and gift another human being brings. It is to “treat the stranger well because you were strangers in the Land of Egypt”! It is to not take what isn’t yours, to not treat another human being with malice, to not deny the dignity of anyone, including your enemies because We the People, all of us are created in the image of God, ergo: we all have infinite worth and dignity, equal worth and dignity and unique worth and dignity. No one can say: “my father is better than yours” according to the Talmud and the tragedy I see today is that the very people who proclaim to be ‘the real jews’ are constantly misusing “the grammar of living”, constantly bastardizing the “goal of Jewish law” and betraying our gift to the world; “be a light unto the nations”!

The reason this is all happening is found in the 2nd sentence above. Rather than keep the “main theme” of “Jewish law” “the person rather than an institution”, modernity has turned the tables on this idea, this way of being. We find that our religious “institutions” are more important than “the person”. Just as in business, keeping the business open is more important than how employers treat their employees, always complaining about paying them a livable wage, providing benefits, etc and, when a customer complains, when someone holds business’ accountable, there is howling like a dog at the moon! Well, the same is true with “religious institutions” these days. Hasidism began as a revolution to freedom of expression for the individual towards God and became a part of Orthodoxy, what the Baal Shem Tov did not want to happen, given his myriad of arguments with the Orthodoxy of the time.

Having run a Jewish Institution for over 20 years, I know the traps involved, I know how easy it is to make the institution more important than the people and, I say with humble pride, Beit T’Shuvah kept it’s commitment to “the goal of Jewish Law”, we kept the “person” front and center, often to the dismay of people who wanted “follow the rules”, “punish the people”, etc. Rather than just have a cookie cutter way of dealing with “all relations and functions of living”, the staff followed “the goal of Jewish law” and saw each case on its own merits, asked what was best for the individual AND the group, how do we treat the stranger with kindness and welcoming, how do we help people find the path of “Jewish law” that will give voice to the melody of their soul, etc . Rather than ‘follow the rules’, we, like Rabbi Harold Shulweis taught us, believed there were times to obey and times to disobey. This was the cause of many discussions, many anxious moments, there were times when we, the staff, brought issues to We the People and members of the community at that time helped in decision making. Putting the person first, allowed for the restoration of dignity and value, truth and justice, kindness and grace within the person themselves.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Ask yourself what is the goal of the “law” you live by-is it to raise your standard of living materially, socially AND spiritually or just the first two and forget the latter.

2. Write down how your “goal” has overtaken your decency, your morality, your intuitive mind.

3. How has the “institution” you run, be it family, business, religious group become more important than the individuals in the “institution”?

4. What of “Jewish law” (or any spiritual discipline) can/does/could help you to reach being “the self you were created to be”?

5. Write a T’Shuvah letter to your soul for ignoring it in the past and make the commitment to hear it more and louder in the present.

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How do you use/abuse your “rare moments” of insight? Year 4 Day 353

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 353

“Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days. The spirit withers when confined in splendid isolation. What is decisive is not the climax we reach in rare moments, but how the achievements of rare moments affect the climate of the entire life.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

Reading the emboldened words above makes me think of something else Rabbi Heschel wrote in God in Search of Man pg. 132: “The immediate certainty that we attain in moments of insight does not retain its intensity after the moments are gone…The remembrance of that experience and the loyalty to the response of that moment are the forces that sustain our faith. In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event, loyalty to our response”. We the People are spending much too much time seeking the “climax we reach in rare moments”, the ecstasy of the “high”, be it from substances, process’, ‘making a killing in the market’, ‘getting one over on _____(fill in the blank), etc. This is one of the issues We the People are facing re our devices-how we keep checking them, playing the games on them, using them for old fashion research, mathematics, etc.

“Loyalty” to something greater than ourselves that is part of us and NOT part of us, is an old-fashioned idea nowadays. Rather than appreciate the “climax we reach in rare moments”, rather than have “loyalty to our response” to these moments, too many of We the People have decided to ignore the responses and only seek the stimuli, be it by elected officials who are only interested in what they want rather than what is best for the people who elected them, business leaders who care only about “delivering for their shareholders” rather than what is best for their customers, clergy people who are willing to do what their boards/diocese says so they can ‘keep their job’ rather than live into the CALL from God that propelled them into the Rabbinate, Priesthood, Ministerial roles.

What passes for “loyalty” to an experience and “loyalty to our response” in all religious sects is, for the most part, BULLSHIT! We the People are mad at Clergy who remind us of our heritage, of our responsibility, of loving the stranger, helping our enemies’ asses, being rebuked for our own behavior, demanding that We the People do a daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our soul, and see where we have ignored people who have been kind to us cause we just don’t need them anymore, they are too “inconvenient”, too much of a reminder of when we the people were needy. The response in the “wilderness of Sinai” was “WE WILL DO and THEN we will understand”. There was a climactic experience upon crossing the Red Sea, upon receiving the 10 Sayings, and 45 days later, We the People built the Golden Calf! It ain’t easy to be “loyal to our response” after “the climax we reach in rare moments” AND We the People have to get better at it, we have to remember those who have helped us along the way, know we owe a debt to them, to God, to the people we have yet to meet. The importance of these ecstatic moments is to WAKE US THE FUCK UP! It is not a “nirvana” experience, it is not for us to ‘feel so uplifted”, “feel so peaceful”. These “rare moments” are to get us into action, to make us recognize the unique divine image we possess, the unique divine image that every other human being possess’ and stop our narcissistic, egotistical actions of “Only I can fix it”, “Only I am important”, Only I …

In December of 1986 I had a “rare moment” that changed me. It was a “rare moment” that changed everything for me, changed “the climate of my entire life”. I knew it then, I made a conscious decision to not blow this moment off, as I had so many other times. It is a terrible experience, excruciatingly painful when you are aware of the “climax we reach in rate moments” and then just blow them off, ignore them because of fears, because of greed, because of not wanting to see the harm caused by our ignorance of the truth shown to us in these “rare moments”. Every one of We the People have these “rare moments”, each of us are called by these moments, even the “dark night of the soul” moments to action and, as we see today and throughout history, the action most people take is to be more insular, to figure out the ‘angle I can use to get more, more, more’, to be a fascist, a dictator, an autocrat, an asshole! AND We the People keep electing these people to lead us!! WHAT THE FUCK??

My “rare moment” changed my life, the lives of my daughter, my wife, my ex-wife, my siblings and so many people, it got me to meet President George W. Bush with whom I disagreed politically and connected with his spirit and he with mine. I have met the finest of people who seek to improve their spiritual maturity and health and I have met the worst of people who keep using power and position as a cudgel against having their own “rare moments” change them. It is sad and joyous, exhilarating and depressing and, because of being loyal to my response: I never leave the playing field, I am always ready to pick up the bat and make a hit, score a run, make the catch. This is how my “rare moment” changed me!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of “rare moments” you have experienced

2. Next to each one, write your response to them in the moments after

3. Write how you have incorporated them into your daily living

4. Look at the ones you haven’t incorporated and ask yourself “why not”

5. Write a plan to incorporate and be aware of when/how these moments help you live better.   

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Do you confine your spirit and allow it to wither so it can't nag at you to do the Next Right Thing? Year 4 Day 352

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 352

“Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days. The spirit withers when confined in splendid isolation. What is decisive is not the climax we reach in rare moments, but how the achievements of rare moments affect the climate of the entire life.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

“Religion” gets a bad name, not from any particular “religion”, rather from the people who use “religion” to assert power, control and use ‘the name of god’, in that “GOD” voice to validate their bastardizations, their abuses, etc. “Religion” was never about the hierarchy that we see now, it was given in the desert, to a bunch of ragtag newly freed slaves as a way of integrating themselves into society with a new goal, a new purpose, a new way of living so they did not return to being a slave (do not return to Egypt) and they didn’t make anyone else a slave either (love the stranger, remember you were strangers in the land of Egypt). Yet, it has become so institutionalized, it has become a parasite upon which clergy find their power, many use their voice for good many times and, almost as many, for their own selfish desires, for the desires of the wealthy, for evil! We know this from the prophets, they did not come to tell the people to be more ‘observant’, they came to tell the We the People to stop deceiving ourselves, to stop believing the deception of the priests, the rulers, the wealthy and follow God’s commands as they were delivered in the Desert, as the Voice from on top of Mt. Sinai ‘spoke’ and We the People agreed with “we will DO and then we will understand”. The only way to see the nuances, the different ways to understand the mitzvah is by the DO-ing of it, then we can see the 70 ways to DO and understand instead of trying to understand before we DO. There is no checklist for fulfilling our religious obligations, there is only being decent, kind, truthful, caring, compassionate, loving, recognizing our imperfections, making our amends, and knowing the greatest ‘sin’ is to HIDE!

This is what I believe Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, at least today I hear him calling out to us to NOT HIDE! Hiding forces our being “confined” and when we buy the self-deception that hiding is really just isolating to ‘find our happy space’, or to ‘enjoy the spiritual experience we just had’ we tend to stay hidden. How many of We the People are truly transparent in our living, how many of us are willing to put our authentic self on display and be the messenger, the divine need we are created to be? How many of We the People are being guided by the inheritance of the prophets which we all have a share of? I am thinking of the wrapping ourselves in the various garments we do, Clergy wearing robes to hide what, exactly? We are NOT the High Priest, we are the Levites, caring for and tending to the needs of the people, we do not need to put on our ‘Sunday best, Shabbat finery’ to pray, to engage in our “religion”. As the prophets tell we the people God doesn’t want our sacrifices, God doesn’t want our “splendid isolation” of religion only in the Church, in the Synagogue, in the Mosque-God wants us to LIVE THE PATH in our everyday affairs, as the 12th Step of AA says: “Practice these principles in all our affairs(italics are mine). How often have We the People not waited even till after the service to critique it, the Priest, the Rabbi, the Imam? How often have We the People said AMEN to something, meaning “it is true, so be it” and then ignored the needy, the lame, the beggar, who according to Jewish lore might be Elijah waiting for some human kindness and then call the Messiah to show up, and/or hate the stranger and blame “those people” for our troubles? Not having a clue that we are negating the power of the AMEN we spoke at the end of the prayers, that we are denying the TRUTH we just agreed to during our prayer experience, We the People continue to “confine” the spirit to “splendid isolation”, with ‘that is just for church, it doesn’t play in the REAL world’-refusing to change this world of illusion and make it into the REAL world that is envisioned in the Bible, in the words of Jesus! How sad, how tragic, how CRIMINAL that this BULLSHIT passes for “religion” Mike Johnson, Erika Kirk, Bibi Netanyahu, and the “Believer in Chief” Donald Trump!

I am at a loss to understand the depths one has to go to in order to be a ‘religious’ person who goes against the tenets we find in the Bible, who knows right and does wrong, who values their dignity while demeaning and defiling the dignity of another(s). What is even harder to understand is how We the People act like guppies swallowing up the bullshit of the charlatans, the idolators, the autocrats and keep returning them to elected office! What is more and more difficult to understand is a Pam Bondi who knows right from wrong and rather deflect than seek truth, a Kash Patel who would rather go to the Rock Concert, find the ‘enemies’ than enforce the Constitution on the people in charge. The selling of the souls that Rubio, Lutnick, Bessent, Vought have done is, to me, surreal and inexplicable. I know the cost of doing this, I sold my soul for a pot of gold that turned out to be nothing but coal and everyone around me payed the price-this is the truth of what happens when one sells one’s soul-everyone pays. I am grateful for my spiritual awakening and more grateful that I allowed it to “affect the climate of my entire life”!

ACTION STEPS:

1. How do you compartmentalize your religious practice, your spiritual practice?

2. How are you buying your self-deception and the deception of another(s) as to what God wants us to do?

3. What are the ways you continue to ‘look good’ while doing wrong?

4. How do you engage in using what is Holy as cover for your UNHOLY actions?

5. How are you allowing a spiritual experience to “affect the climate of your entire life?
   God Bless and Stay Safe, Rabbi Mark

Living in a Binary World or an Integrated World- which do you choose? Year 4 Day 351

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 351

“Worship and living are not two separate realms. Unless living is a form of worship, our worship has no life. Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

These words, this thought is so obvious, so ridiculous to have to write, to say, yet 70 years ago when God in Search of Man was published, Rabbi Heschel found the need to say them! In a Binary world, in an either/or world everything is separate, physical and spiritual, “worship and living”, observance and actions, etc. Forever, it seems, humanity has needed a “scapegoat to put their sins on it’s head” just as described in Leviticus. Being able to make “them” the enemy, “them” the cause of all evil around us, “them” the reason you are unhappy, poor, etc has given power to the white man-in this country at least and to the far right throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia, etc. It hasn’t mattered who the “them” is, in fact throughout the history of America Black people are the “them”, Jews are the “them”, Italians, Irish, Chinese have also taken their turns in the bucket of “them”, and, of course, the Hispanics are the current and past “them” everyone seems to be fucking with. In this Binary way of being, it is WAY PAST REAL that white people are suing for discrimination!! They are the injured party-just ask Donald J. Trump how he has been persecuted by “them”. The ways in which he, Vance, Miller, Noem, et al speak about, treat people who look like Marco Rubio is abhorrent and they justify it by saying “we are saving America and Americans from the vermin who are infecting our country”. If this sounds familiar, it is the same rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf being the only book Trump has ever read, according to his late first wife, Ivana. Yet, they are all “good book” quoters!

Listening to Mike Johnson and other Republicans who proclaim their ‘love of Jesus’ while hating the stranger instead of loving her/him, while injuring the poor instead of helping them, hating “them” in their hearts instead of loving them, never admitting they make any errors-blaming “them” instead, throwing a lot of stones while they are NOT without SIN themselves! AND they say “if you want to know what I think, how I govern, just read the Bible”. WHAT BIBLE IS HE/THEY talking about? Not the Hebrew Bible, not the “Old Testament”, not the New Testament, not the Gospels, so what the fuck is going on? How do We the People buy into the bullshit and mendacity that is being heaped upon us?

The reason is We the People have adapted to and adopted the Binary world view and way of being also! Even though, in our guts, in our soul we know the world is “both/and”, even though we know that our “living” has to reflect, be impacted by, be improved by our “worship”, we seem to be able to deny and deflect the truth long enough to partake and ‘be a part of’ the people who are not “them” in this moment. Rather than living the Mitzvot; Miller, Lutnick, Bessent, and all the Jews who are supporting these Fascists, these autocrats want to “be in the IN Crowd”, have a “seat” at the “Power Table”. Rather than loving the stranger, they hate everyone who is not like the power people, these idiots are so far in the ether, they think they are white and will not be seen as “them Jews”! Rather than do T’Shuvah every day, they glorify their cruelty, they wear as a badge of honor their ability to hate their brother/their neighbor in their heart. They cover up their crimes, they make fun of their supporters who buy their bullshit, they are mendacious, they steal, they whore themselves, they murder the souls of another(s), they covet everything someone else has, believing no one but they are entitled to anything worthwhile that “them” has. AND they will tell you how much they love Judaism, how they go to Synagogue on the High Holy Days, celebrate Passover, etc.

My friend and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, teaches that the most important day is the “day after”, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shabbat, Shavuot, Passover, and, of course TODAY! Has going to Synagogue moved the needle inside of you enough to change your behaviors, change your actions, get you to honor the commitment of our ancestors at Sinai: Na’Aseh V’Nishmah- we will DO then we will understand? Has the prayer you said this morning moved you to be more kind, more compassionate, more truthful, more loving, more decent? Has the experience of Shabbat made you more open to immersing yourself in being one grain of sand better today than yesterday? Has your worship impacted your living  at all? This is the issue Rabbi Heschel saw 70 years ago and it is ON STEROIDS today. It is up to We the People to bring these “two separate realms” back together! This is the work I do to recover my integrity, my soul, my sense of true self, my purpose since prison and up to, including today and tomorrow. It is the work that has helped 1000’s of people recover their passion and discover their soul, it is the path Harriet Rossetto laid out for people to follow with founding Beit T’Shuvah and not going for the Binary thinking of her peers-being the outcast because she KNEW what would help, living her worship!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Find a prayer that helps you live better, read it each day aloud and see how you can live it.

2. Choose a Text you believe will help your spirit grow and read it each day/study it with another person maybe

3. Each day, at the end of the day, write down how you lived your prayer, your study that day

4. Create, join a community of people who “walk their talk” and share your experience, strength and hope and imbue theirs.

God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Conflicts and Contradictions lead to Unity! Year 4 Day 350

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 350

“Thus, the purpose seems to be to ennoble the common, to endow worldly things with hieratic beauty; to attune the comparative to the absolute, to associate the detail with the whole, to adapt our own being with its plurality, conflicts, and contradictions to the all-transcending unity, to the holy.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

I have spent three days on this sentence because it cuts to the core of the “Jewish pattern of life”, as Rabbi Heschel says earlier in this chapter. “Plurality” comes from the Latin meaning “more than one”. “Conflicts” from the Latin meaning “to strike together”, and “contradictions” meaning “things in opposition to one another”. “Transcend” comes from the Latin meaning “climb across” and “unity” meaning One. I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning reminding us that “our own being” is not just one thing, there are a “plurality” of parts to the human being; physicality, emotionality, spirituality; rational mind, intuitive mind, etc and these disparate parts are meant to “strike together”. What a concept!

Our “plurality” does not have to be in a fighting war with one another, just as We the People do not have to continue to compare ourselves with another(s) negatively, nor do we have to be rendered impotent by our inner “things in opposition with one another”. I believe Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us to end our inner war with ourselves! I believe the message of this first part of the phrase in bold above is to “adapt” (make it fit) our disparate parts so they can “strike together” and raise up our corner of the world, find more ways to work together within our self to grow along spiritual, emotional, and physical lines. We the People go to therapy to ‘make peace’ with our parts, which is not a bad thing necessarily, and I am suggesting from the way I am engaged with the words above that seeking spiritual wisdom, spiritual maturity, spiritual counseling leads us to utilize our disparate parts in ways they “strike together”, their “conflict” is no longer the source of anxiety, depression, etc it is the beginning of finding our ways to integration of our parts, seeing the usefulness of each individual part and the awesomeness of when our disparate parts are “striking together” to face the world, the day, the moment! In this way, “conflicts” are not ‘bad’ things, they are avenues and opportunities for growth.

Living this idea with another is described in the 2nd chapter of Genesis: “I will make him an “Ezer K’Negdo”. Human beings are in need of a “helpmeet”, as Rashi interprets this phrase. The words actually mean, “help and against” so our partner (this is the description of Eve before she was separated from Adam in the story), is the person we should be in “conflict” with. Our children, our work associates, our friends are all opportunities for “conflict” learning-hence the need for Jews to continually “argue” over what a verse from Scripture means, be in “conflict” over what to obey and what to disobey, what to reinterpret, what translations are commentaries that are, in fact, bastardizations, etc. Using our “conflicting” parts to “strike together” is a gift we receive for living into the “Jewish pattern of life” as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning!

Seeing the “contradictions”, “pluralities”, “conflicts” as the stepping stones to “the all-transcending unity, to the holy” is not a far stretch when we understand the root meaning of the words and what living a life of service, a life of spiritual growth, a discipline that gifts us with such opportunities does. Living into one’s spiritual discipline-be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Eastern Philosophy, 12-Steps, etc is the pathway to “climb above” the limitations, the jealousies, the resentments, the ‘where’s mine’ attitude and doings of the rational mind. They allow us to “Just kicking down the cobblestones, Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy” as the Paul Simon song says. “Climbing above” the limitations of the rational mind, the prejudices, the ‘rightness’, the narcissism of the rational mind takes us to the Oneness of the world, the Oneness with “nature and each other” as the people of Island of Moorea described themselves to me on a trip there. When we “climb above” our inner war, our war with another human being, we find ourselves in the light of the Holy Oneness, living a little more connected to people and the universe , a little more elevated towards our highest consciousness,  and a little more separated from the negativity, the resentment, the ‘poor me’, the ‘look at me’ of the rational mind. It is not a one and done journey, it is not a panacea, a utopia that we stay in, it is a way of being that takes work, takes nourishing, takes watering, maintenance, and staying power. So I ask: We the People: What are WE WAITING FOR?

Action Steps:

1. Make a list of 2 ways you will “adapt”, ie make you “fit” into the soul, divine need you are created to be each day

2. Engage with at least 1 of your disparate parts each day and bring them into the fold

3. When your inner contradictions arise, do not dismiss them, wrestle with them, ask yourself: how is this contradiction giving me the message I need right now

4. Find at least 2 ways you can bring your self to utilize your disparate parts, your contradictions, to “strike together” to grow spiritually, emotionally, and to make your corner of the world a little better

5. Engage with your “ezer K’Negdo” rather than be “conflict” avoidant, find the ways your closest friends, family, help your grow through “conflict” rather than be afraid of being left out because of it.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Seeing the detail as the whole, mis-attuned to the absolute by seeing only the comparative - Year 4 Day 349

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 349

“Thus, the purpose seems to be to ennoble the common, to endow worldly things with hieratic beauty; to attune the comparative to the absolute, to associate the detail with the whole, to adapt our own being with its plurality, conflicts, and contradictions to the all-transcending unity, to the holy.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

“Attune” is defined as “make receptive”, “comparative” comes from the Latin meaning “to pair, to match”, “absolute” comes from the Latin meaning “freed, unrestricted”. Remembering that Rabbi Heschel is still speaking about the “Jewish pattern of life”, he is reminding us that it is incumbent upon all of We the People to make our minds, bodies, eyes, ears, souls, inner life “receptive” to “pair/match” with the unrestricted, the ineffable one, the universe, however one wants to refer to the power greater than ourselves. This is an amazing idea, it is one of the ways of being that seems to be lacking from Jewish institutions, including the State of Israel, at times, lacking from our Jewish education, lacking from our own consciousness. I believe the reason is because it brings more uncertainty to our lives, it brings less assurance of “this is the one way”, “I have the answer”, “I am your retribution”, and other such mendacious ways of thinking, speaking and hearing. Admitting their is an “absolute”, an unrestricted source of energy, power, strength, wisdom, that is not us seems like a bridge to far for many human beings, especially the megalomaniacs who are the elected officials in Israel and the United States, ie running the government and fucking over everyone else because these find upstanding ‘good christian and jewish men “unrestrictedly” believe they are “the absolute”, there is no “match” for them so no need to deal with “the comparative”, and certainly the only thing that they need to “attune” to is the call of their desires, their hunger for power and their thirst for cruelty, as we see playing out here in the US with ICE, etc and in Israel with Netanyahu’s denials of responsibility for Oct. 7, his maniacal hatred of Arab people, his disgusting treatment of both Arabs in the West Bank and Israeli Arabs who chose to stay and be good citizens since 1948! Can these ‘good jews and christians, after all Trump is selling ‘the good book’ with his name on it, of course, be against what “the Jewish pattern of life” is?

“To associate the detail with the whole” is another wild idea in our world, imagine “associate” comes from the Latin meaning “to share, to be allied with” and “detail” comes from the Latin meaning “twig”, while “whole” means “something that is complete”. I am hearing very loudly in my soul, in my ears Rabbi Heschel reminding us to stop taking a twig and making it “complete within itself”. He is calling me/us to “heel”, the Dutch word that “whole” comes from, to the Truth that not to be allied with something greater than ourselves is to make ourselves smaller and smaller, more self-deceptive, more believing of our own bullshit, our own press that we are the whole enchilada, we are the end all/be all, we can take anything out of context, out of a paragraph, be it a word, a phrase, and do what is called “a midrashic move” as my teacher Rabbi Aryeh Cohen taught me. This is the way the Rabbis tried to legitimize their power grab, with the good intentions of keeping Judaism alive, keeping the Torah, the prophets, the writings alive, using the “Jewish pattern of life” to enhance the world around them. AND, as with any and every good idea, good motive;  the idolators, the charlatans, the mendacious narcissistic power grabbers use the same methods to spread cruelty, to enslave another(s), to enrich themselves and their cronies, to kill the spirit of the people like the Pharaoh did in Ancient Egypt. We are witnessing these lying assholes on steroids in today’s world and we cannot only point our fingers towards them.

The biggest culprit in bastardizing the words above, in not being able to “attune the comparative to the absolute” is We the People! It is our responsibility to live into “the Jewish pattern of life”, it is our responsibility to hold ourselves accountable to “ennoble the common”, to “attune the comparative to the absolute”, to “associate the detail with the whole” AND it is our responsibility to ensure that the people we choose to enforce our laws, improve our freedom, decide on how OUR money is spent, make the words in the Constitution more alive, bring the ideas of the Declaration Of Independence closer to fruition, and fulfill the promise we make to every immigrant that is written on the Statue of Liberty that greets every new person to our country, either literally or metaphorically. We the People have allowed, promoted, gone along with the bastards who have made the “detail the whole” rather than sharing all the details to make a whole picture, ie the TRUTH. We the People have supported the people who mis-attune the comparative to the absolute allowing them and US, to believe they are in line with the divine instead of seeing they are in line with the idea that government should be “for themselves, by themselves and of themselves” only! WHAT THE FUCK WE THE PEOPLE??!!

Action Steps:

1. What am I receptive to hearing, to seeing, to experiencing-only what supports my ideas or the whole picture?

2. What am I pairing my way of living with- my ego, my self-centeredness or with a power greater than myself, with God, with community?

3. How am I separating the “twig” from being the whole tree, ensuring that I don’t get stuck in the narrowness of the detail and miss the forest for the trees?

4. How do I use a small piece of something to validate my superiority, my lies, my false ego, and bastardize the “whole, the absolute”?

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Ennobling the Common- seeing nothing as without merit, without sacredness - Year 4 Day 348

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 348

“Thus, the purpose seems to be to ennoble the common, to endow worldly things with hieratic beauty; to attune the comparative to the absolute, to associate the detail with the whole, to adapt our own being with its plurality, conflicts, and contradictions to the all-transcending unity, to the holy.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

Full Disclosure: This is at least a two-day writing as this sentence is SO pregnant with meaning, with power, with passion, with purpose and with learning. Rabbi Heschel is offering the proposition that “the pattern of Jewish life”, the idea that “Judaism is a theology of the common deed” to mean it is incumbent on each and every one of us, Jew and non-Jew alike (after all Jesus’ teachings came from his understanding of the Hebrew Bible), to “ennoble the common”. I have read this so many times, I have taught this concept often, and to begin to unpack this idea I go to the dictionary and ennoble, from the French, means “lend greater dignity to something”, from the Latin means something is “noted”. Which as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning, in this moment of turmoil and chaos, of ICE thugs roaming the streets, of kidnappings, senseless murders, senseless hatred, lawlessness and bastardization of our core principles and doctrines by the “Grifter, Liar, Baby” in chief, is telling us that especially in this moment we the people need to “lend greater dignity” to the ‘simple’ actions we take, to the “common” deed of “love the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”, because all of us, either personally or in our ancestral history “were strangers in the land of” America.

Understanding the call from the universe to respect the dignity and the nobility of doing the next right action, one must first believe that “all (people) are created equal” that all people are “endowed with certain unalienable rights”, that ensuring every human being has the opportunity to pursue “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness” is one of the myriad of ways we “ennoble the common” and, very possibly, one of the most important ways we do this. The protests, the push-back we are witnessing is another way we “ennoble the common”, it is a “holy” action reminding us of our prophetic inheritance, suggesting strongly that we go back to the prophets, study them, emulate them and stop trying to ‘be fair to both sides’. It is also important to “ennoble the common” by staying in proper measure, by serving the middle, by not excluding anyone, even our enemies-whom we are told to care for, feed, give drink, help them if their ass falls under its burden, etc. Rabbi Heschel’s theology that this is “the purpose” of the pattern of Jewish life is/was revolutionary in his time and even today! In pursuit of ennobling the common, he was in the forefront of protests against the demeaning of the dignity of human beings-all human beings. He walked his talk and so must we.

“To endow worldly things with hieratic beauty” goes hand in hand with “ennoble the common” as “hieratic” comes from the Latin meaning “sacred”. Judaism, according to Rabbi Heschel, doesn’t disdain the “worldly things” all of us pursue, it is not against comfortable living, nor does it negate the physical pleasures, sex, etc. Rather, Judaism is a “pattern of living” that reminds us nothing is without inherent holiness, everything we do can be sacred-if it is the next right thing. Think about this, We the People, are given the opportunity to care for ourselves AND one another in ways that ‘holy rollers’ would say is evil, terrible, satanic and, in reality, we are continuing “to endow worldly things with hieratic beauty”. This is true with being wealthy and donating to charity, building hospitals, schools for underprivileged, for the ‘outcasts’, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to have a seat at the table, erasing the margins between human beings as Father Greg Boyle teaches and preaches, and “lend greater dignity to ourselves, to another(s), to the deed itself” -this is the path We the People are being called to follow, no matter what faith one adheres to, what spiritual discipline one follows.

This is the thrust of my living. I continue to seek ways to “ennoble the common”, I smile at people on the street, in my golf cart, when I “walk on the way”. The V’ahavta prayer is all about how to “endow worldly things with hieratic beauty” by reminding us to teach our children, to walk the path of living faithfully, honoring our dignity and the dignity of another(s). I live into this prayer, into the gratitude prayer in the morning, into taking an accounting of my soul each day, into standing for what is right and just, merciful, kind and loving. I continue to shout from the rooftops the inequities people do, including my own. Harriet is continually told “how honest you are” as if this is a remarkable phenomenon, which evidently it is, while to “ennoble the common”, to “endow worldly things with hieratic beauty” truth, honesty are the minimum requirements to live ״the pattern of Jewish life”! I am loud and abrasive, I am enraged at injustice, I yell and scream while Harriet is quiet and incisive, kind and cuts to the heart of the matter, and both of us despise mendacity, societal norms and the bullshit that passes as ‘religious’, ‘freedom’, as ‘caring’, as ‘good’.

Action Steps:

1. Be present in the “common” deeds that you do by rote

2. Write down the ways you “ennoble the common each day

3. See the world as a garden which is sacred, how do you add to the sacredness of the world each day

4. What are you doing to promote the needs of the poor, the needy, the stranger in your midst

5. Stop your need to validate the wrong doings of another because you are of the same party, tribe, etc.

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Common deeds, trivialities of life, BIG PICTURE, Extravagant lifestyle Year 4 Day 347

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 347

“Judaism is a theology of the common deed, of the trivialities of life, dealing not su much with the training for the exceptional as with the management of the trivial. The predominant feature in the Jewish pattern of life is unassuming, inconspicuous piety rather than extravagance, mortification, asceticism.” ( Thunder in the Soul pgs. 77-78)

Being immersed in “the Jewish pattern of life”, as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning is to immersed in “the common deed”, “the trivialities of life”! What a concept: kindness and mercy, love and justice, caring for the stranger and the needy, doing T’Shuvah and practicing forgiveness towards self and another for our imperfections, decency, ensuring freedom throughout the land, seeing and honoring the infinite dignity of ALL human beings as we are ALL created in the image of the divine, and so many more daily routines, like eating, bathing, working are all “the common deeds”, “the trivialities of life”?!?!? Some would, could, do say: why concern yourself with the poor, the widow, these trivial matters, “keep your eye on the big picture”, “see the goal line” etc. Judaism, as Rabbi Heschel is pounding in my ears, is “a pattern of life” that demands concern, exhorts its members to rise above their self-centered, can’t be bothered with ‘those trivial matters’ and Shema, hear the call of “the poor, the tired, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” as Emma Lazarus wrote so beautifully and with piety to welcome these ‘trivial’ people to our shores. We the People are being given a gift by Rabbi Heschel to remember that either everything matters or nothing matters, either we recognize that every human being is precious and ‘worth’ an entire world or none of us are and our lives mean nothing.

I am tired of people talking about “the big picture” all the time while ignoring the plight of the people they are ‘going to help’; example: trickle down economics, tax breaks for corporations, the ultra wealthy “will make the poor so rich they won’t be able to count it” according to Trump and his lying Commerce Secretary, Lutnick, and his mendacious Treasury Secretary, Bessent- both Jews who proclaim their loyalty to a “Jewish pattern of life”-BULLSHIT! Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME that We the People demand our government deal with these “trivialities” like feeding the poor, affordable medical insurance for those in need, living wages for the ‘working poor’, decency in our discourse, argue about issues not personalities, honor the spirit as well as the letter of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bible, the words and teachings of Christ, etc? Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME that We the People turn away from our hurts and angers, from our traumas and wounds to be of service, to be the GIFT we are created to be, giving out our gift of wisdom, knowledge, vision, insights, helping the wounded like us and receiving the gift of all these and more from another human being? Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME to engage with our soulmate, with our partner, with our Higher Power, higher consciousness, to both give and receive what we need, what they need so we both live one grain of sand better each day and we are stronger to go out and be the GIFT we are created to be to our corner of the world?

“Piety” is from the Latin meaning “dutifulness”. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that We the People are given the GIFT of duty, of serving, of doing the next right thing without fanfare, without needing acknowledgment, with the humility and gratitude of being able to serve not just God, not just another human being, rather we GET to serve the call of our soul, we GET to GIFT our wisdom, skill, wonder, awe, reverence, to another human being and RECEIVE the GIFT of same they GIFT to us. It is not an “even exchange”, it is not always a reciprocal exchange, sometimes the GIFT comes from another source altogether, what is called a reciprocity of generosity. AND, when we are in the “unassuming, inconspicuous piety” rather than the need to show off our piety, we receive some of the best GIFTs from those who can only receive our help, receive our kindness, receive our amends, and just can’t, for whatever reason, give anything back.

Living into “a Jewish pattern of life” has brought me joy, love, community, angst, righteous indignation, impatience, and I would not trade it for the world-having lived in the other world for far too many years. Living into the piety embedded in me, the piety that motivates me to BE ME, the piety that pushes me to do the next right thing, the piety that doesn’t allow me to “go along to get along”, the piety that forces me to live the inheritance WE ALL receive from the prophets to stand up and speak truth to power, to demand justice, mercy, and that they walk in God’s ways instead of the ways of idolatry they currently and always have to a greater or lesser degree. There is, actually, nothing trivial about the “common deed”, it is the path and pattern laid out in the Bible for us and We the People need to accept and live into it. “Piety”, “the common deed” are the “life and length of my days” as the prayer says.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the “common deeds” you usually ignore and add them to your “pattern of life”

2. Make a list of the “common deeds” people do you for you and be grateful in words and actions for their help

3. Make a list of what you are going to GIFT the world, individuals with today and notice what the universe GIFTs back to you

4. Live life as a duty to repay the GIFTs you are so freely given!
   God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

We will do and then understand or We will understand and then do-which is your way of living? Year 4 Day 346

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 346

“Only free men, those who are not prone to canonize every caprice, do not equate self-restraint with self-surrender, knowing that no man is free who is not a master of himself, that the more liberties we enjoy, the more discipline we need.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 76)

I have been contemplating this passage for days now, I keep thinking about what it means to be “a master of himself” and also know we serve or should serve God, something greater than ourselves. I hear Rabbi Heschel remind us of the truth that while “everything is in the hands of God except the awe of God”, as our commentators tell us, We the People have the choice to be the “master” of our passions and desires, as God says to Cain in Genesis 4:7 “sin desires you much and you can master it”. Without having some modicum of control over what thoughts, feelings, ideas, ways we ‘give in to’, follow, act/react to humanity is just like a pinball machine, bouncing from one cushion to the next, hitting into one obstacle after another, constantly trying to not go down the drain by using our flippers, like our tongues to lash out, our arms to push away, our legs to move, etc. This is NOT FREEDOM, folks! This is actually the most devious, subtlest, insidious form of slavery because it leads to us becoming the enslaver of another(s).

While many people lament their powerlessness, which is real and true, the words above give us agency to not be powerless over our choices, over which thoughts, emotions, desires We the People act on. This is the challenge every human being faces and, unfortunately, too many of We the People either refuse to meet this challenge by opting out and/or decide to NOT meet this challenge and seek ways to use another(s) to their advantage, deceive as many people as possible to ‘be on their side’, enslave the people they are most afraid of, entice people to believe all is lost so why bother rather than truly be in opposition to this rape of values, of the souls of people only for their own gain and enjoyment. The people like are currently running our government have studied Greek Mythology, evidently, and believe they are Zeus, Hera, etc and the rest of we the people are small play toys for them to fuck with-WRONG and We the People must gain mastery of ourselves so we can be smart, cunning, and kind in our defeat of today’s fascists, autocrats, dictators.

We the People do this by maturing our spirits because without a mature, strong spiritual core, an active and vibrant inner life, a higher consciousness that rejects the lies we tell ourselves, We the People can never be “free”! The Jewish way is to make good on the promise of our ancestors, and some say our own souls were at Sinai, Na’Aseh V’Nishma “we will do and then we will understand”. While the Greeks believed comprehension came before action, the Bible teaches us that without taking the action, there is no comprehension, there can be no opening of our eyes to the see what truly is, there can be no opening of the ears to hear the real meaning/words. We the People will be unable to take in the beauty of the teachings, the importance of taking the next right action because we will not have “circumcised the foreskin of our hearts” and be like Pharaoh who’s heart was strengthened, made heavy with honor and refused to see truth because all he saw was his need, his will be done was his code and we know how that turned out!

Judaism’s belief that we have to know what to do and what not to do is reflected in the 365 DON’T DO and the 248 DO DO! What I have come to understand, know is that the 365 don’ts are crucial because we would violate them and WE DO even in our erroneous belief that only ‘those people’ do. The 248 do’s keep getting violated every day by ‘those good religious christians, jews, muslims’ and We the People are called upon, demanded to STOP THE STEAL OF THE HUMAN SOULS that is happening in this moment across the globe. The only path to freedom is by combining the discipline of following what we should do and what we should not do with the liberties we have so we can be FREE!

I know the trap of liberty, I know the trap of not having GOOD discipline, I had bad discipline, I know the heartbreak of being a slave and the revulsion of realizing how I was a Pharaoh to my family. Finding myself without anything, I heard God in that jail cell and I keep improving on my discipline, limiting my ‘taking liberty for granted’, harnessing my desires and emotions a little more each day, finding new ways my fears, my impatience rear their ugly heads-especially with Harriet at the Bridge Table!! I also am painfully aware of the pain caused by the betrayal of the DO’s and DON’Ts by people who I believed were on the same page and who, because of politics, had to ‘do what was best’- no resentments, the pain is subsided, and the imprint lasts forever-the difference today is I don’t have to, nor do I, have it impact my daily living.

Action Steps:

1. Take an inventory of the paths that help you be free and those that keep you stuck

2. Ask yourself the reward you receive for staying in the ‘feelings, desires’ rather than in the discipline.

3. Make a list of the ways in which you deceive yourself into “thinking your way into right action”

4. Take an action each day to fight against your tendency and the people in power’s ways of DESECRATING THE DIVINE IMAGE BY DENYING THE WORTH AND DIGNITY OF ANOTHER(S) HUMAN BEING.

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Surrendering our SELF vis a vis exercising Self-Restraint - Year 4 Day 345

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 345

“Only free men, those who are not prone to canonize every caprice, do not equate self-restraint with self-surrender, knowing that no man is free who is not a master of himself, that the more liberties we enjoy, the more discipline we need.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 76)

“Do not equate self-restraint with self-surrender” is an interesting thought and can easily be misconstrued, I believe. Knowing Rabbi Heschel’s reverence for God, the ineffable One, some degree of surrender is necessary on the part of each of us. Be it the surrender of “Make His will as your will, so that He will make your will as His will” or the surrender of our rational minds to the truth that pours from our souls, or the surrender of his own ‘name’ for the sake of standing for and with another who is being persecuted, wronged, etc as Rabbi Heschel did by going to Rome to convince the Pope to take Jews killed Christ and mission to the Jews out of the Catechism, standing with Rev. King, joining with the Berrigan Brothers against the Vietnam War-all of these were a surrender to the call of his soul that could not be ignored by Rabbi Heschel no matter the consequences to his ‘reputation’- like, Jew and non-Jew alike,  not liking that a Jew was so in the forefront of these demonstrations. Immersing ourselves in this phrase, we can see what Rabbi Heschel is speaking about is the indulgence in the actions our feelings, our whims convince us to engage in he saw when his book Man is Not Alone was published in 1951!!

“Self-surrender” is the worst possible crime one can do towards oneself, God and humanity as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning. To surrender our SELF, is to surrender our souls, to surrender our connection to the ineffable One, to the Ehad-Oneness that all humanity is a part of, to the knowing that is only contained in our soul, to the connection to one another. Surrendering the SELF is what we see happen in all autocratic states, in all autocratic business, all throughout history. Reinhold Niebuhr, a mentor/friend of Rabbi Heschel’s was aghast when, in the early 1900’s he witnessed the dehumanization of men working at the Ford Motor Company and spoke about it, demonstrated against it, etc. The trade unions were established because the autocrats of industry worked so hard to get the workers to surrender their souls, their bodies, their minds for pennies while they sat back, ate steak, drank fine liquor and laughed at the plight of ‘those people’. Be it the Tsar of Russia or Henry Ford, eventually people regain their sense of SELF and revolt.

What we are living in today in America and in many parts of the world is a call from “der Fuhrer” to surrendering our SELF, body, mind, and spirit. Trumpism, like Stalinism, Putinism,  like all the other dictators, autocrats, cannot exist without the willingness of We the People to make this total surrender which is not the same as “self-restraint”. We the People are being called upon to end our surrender of SELF in order to curry favor with, kiss the ring (and other parts of the anatomy) of Trump, et al. We are being reminded of the difference between “self-restraint” and “self-surrender”. The former being using deliberate and righteous judgment as to when to speak up, when to indulge our ‘feelings’, when to stand for what is true, right, good, necessary. It is bering able to ‘pick our fights’ and not give into every slight, putdown, etc nor to every flattery, gift, etc. In other words, have enough self-restraint to discern what is true and what is smoke, what is mendacity and what is holy. This is the challenge I hear Rabbi Heschel presenting to us today!

Many years ago, Rabbi Harold Shulweis, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, and me had a rather heated discussion about surrender. I tried to explain surrender in the modality of AA, of accepting truth and Rabbi Shulweis, z”l, could not even hear the word without being violently opposed to it. I realize now, Rabbi Shulweis, like Rabbi Heschel was afraid people would surrender their SELF, not make wise discernments, judgements, fall into the trap of Germany in the 1930’s, etc. Hence the worry about America today, Israel today under the ‘rule’ of the cowardly Republicans in the Congress, the maniacal unrestrained people in the White House, the mendacity and non-responsibility taking of Bibi, Ben G’Vir, et al. Using “self-restraint” in proper ways/measure is crucial to our being able to honor the SELF we are. We the People are being called to BE THE SOUL WE ARE CREATED TO BE and stand for what is right and good, what is holy and reverent, not what is expedient and easy. I have done this, in not-so-pretty ways at times, and this is the defining characteristic of my recovery and my return to a Jewish Way of living. I have no regrets, I could not abide by the mendacity, the surrender of SELF that others were doing to ‘be a member of the club’-FULL STOP

Action Steps:

1. Write down where you use “self-restraint” properly and improperly

2. Write down the areas of your life where surrender of SELF happens most often

3. Look at the excuses you use to validate your “self-surrender” and not use “self-restraint” properly.

4. Make a plan for how to enhance your SELF a little more each day and use your “knowing” to override the actions your ‘feelings’ want you to take.

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Canonizing Capriciousness vis a vis being "FREE" - Year 4 Day 344

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 344

“Only free men, those who are not prone to canonize every caprice, do not equate self-restraint with self-surrender, knowing that no man is free who is not a master of himself, that the more liberties we enjoy, the more discipline we need.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 76)

Rabbi Heschel’s definition of “free men” is very interesting and informative. “Caprice” is defined as “a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior” and comes from the Italian word “capriccio” meaning “standing with your hair on fire”. “Canonize” comes from the Latin meaning “admit as authoritative”. Hence, as I read, listen, hear and understand Rabbi Heschel this morning, today, in the times we are living in; a free person is one who is not “prone”, meaning not likely or as the Latin definition means, not leaning forward  to make authoritative every sudden, unaccountable, “hair on fire” idea, mood that one experiences in a moment, in an hour, in a day. This is a fascinating concept when one thinks about the common usage, the common understanding of being free to mean “I can do what I want”, within boundaries, within the law and still, there is nothing holding me back from believing I am right, I am the end all/be all, I have the permission to ‘do as I choose’, and then, not pay the price for my behaviors.

We are in a moment in history where the rules have been trashed, where the Bible’s guidance, the WAY as Judaism believes in, the teachings of Christ, have been so discarded, so bastardized that to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to ALL it’s inhabitants therein” or “love the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”, and most of the rest of the path to choosing life, to being holy have become unrecognizable. Rather, the warning of the Ramban, Moses Nachmonidies, has been jettisoned and has come to fruition: one can be a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah, the law, the path”! This is his reasoning as to why we are commanded to BE HOLY! The easy way to continue to to vilify the far right for their contempt of the laws of the United States, their disdain for the Constitution, their breaking of faith with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, their total and complete turning the Bible against the very people God has promised to help, the very people Jesus hung out with and loved. The truth is much deeper than this, however.

Immersing oneself in the first phrase above, realizing in 1958 Rabbi Heschel said this: “needs are looked upon today as if they were holy,… suppression of a desire is considered a sacrilege that must inevitable avenge itself in the form of some mental disorder…(we) have come to look upon moral and spiritual norms as nothing but personal desires in disguise”. Ergo, the far left, the ‘good liberal folk’ are as guilty of being “prone to canonize every caprice” as the far right and those of We the People who can see and do the best we can to live in the    “both/and” that our faith traditions teach us to live in. We the People who have enough humility to know we are not the holders of the whole picture, the seers who see the whole picture, who do not have to have every desire fulfilled in the moment we think of them, who do not have to blame everyone else for our actions, who are not worshipping at the altar of capriciousness, are the “free men” Rabbi Heschel is talking about.

M.Scott Peck begins his seminal book The Road Less Travelled with the words “Life is difficult” and those of us who strive to be “free men” in the definition of Rabbi Heschel above, know this to be true and this truth makes our efforts all the more worthwhile, all the more holy, all the more desperately needed, especially in this moment. Looking at the different ‘cults’ that spring up in these United States is an interesting insight into the soul of Americans, there were the slave owners, there was Andrew Jackson who thought being President was the same as being king, there was the reconstruction era “carpetbaggers”, there was the “gilded age” of businessmen who believed they were above the law and the only thing to worship was money, there was the German Bund who wanted America to be fascist, there was/is the KKK, the radical left of SLA, the weathermen, etc, and, now we have MAGA. NO CULT SEEKS TRUTH, ALL CULTS ARE PRONE TO CANONIZE EVERY CAPRICE OF THE LEADER-FULL STOP!!!

I have watched this movie before, I have seen the opposite as well, where leaders of the revolution know it is NOT ABOUT THEM, it is about God, it is about the dignity of every human being. The whole point of T’Shuvah, of rebuking someone who is doing wrong, is to respect and honor the infinite dignity and worth of a human being, embrace their soul and unlock the prison it is being kept in. I know this because people did this for me, both in their rebukes and in accepting my T’Shuvah. I have done the same for many people and even though my words, my ways are not always accepted by ‘mainstreamer society’,  I am a “FREE MAN”!

Action Steps:

1. make a list of the capricious actions you take each day, how you arrive at it

2. Make a list of the lies you tell yourself each day so you are not responsible for the results of your capricious actions and the thought out ones

3. Look into your inner life and see whom you blame for your actions, who you are angry with for stopping you from enjoying ‘your heart’s desires’

4. Make a list of the ways you are being holy each day!

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark