Faith without works is DEAD! Are you one of the walking dead? Year 5 Day 34

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 34

“Indeed, the awareness of the weakness of the heart, the unreliability of human inwardness, may perhaps have been on the reasons that compleled Judaism to take recourse to actions instead of relying upon inward devotion. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of the Rabbis’ counsel: one should always do the good, even though it is not done for its own sake, It is the act that teaches us the meaning of the act.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92-93)

Having crossed the Red Sea and on this Day 10 of our counting of the Omer, the slaves who were liberated forgot their words, their commitments and were overcome with fear of ‘no water’. Rather than keep “their hearts in the right place”, we the people witness over and over again the “weakness of the heart” even though We the People had this amazing spiritual experience of God’s liberation! From the time of Adam and Eve, the human heart has proved over and over again to have “weakness”, that our “inwardness” is unreliable and everytime we pick ourselves up, we the people “scout after our heart and eyes to WHORE after them” even though the 3rd Prayer of the Shema tells us NOT to go after them! In Deuteronomy we find Moses telling the people to “love God with all your heart, your soul, your everything and walk in God’s ways, follow the commandments, Choose Life”. While loving God is a good thing, this alone will not lead to doing the next right action. In John 14:15 Jesus says: “If you love Me, keep my commandments” in 14:21: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me”, and in 14:24: “He who does not love Me does not keep My words: and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent me.” Once again we learn the TRUTH: Love is NOT A FEELING, it is AN ACTION! Hence, “one should always do the good, even though it is not done for its own sake”!

We the People are in another moment in time where Truth is being pummeled by deceivers and these grifters and liars, where even the White House had to issue a directive for its staffers to NOT bet on the Iran War in the polymarkets! This assualt is coming from Trump which is not new because Donald Trump never told the truth-in business, in personal, in political realms. He learned to lie at his father’s feet, he learned to hate from his father’s actions, he learned to be cruel as his father’s right-hand man. TRUMP IS NOT THE PROBLEM! The problem is the myriad of clergy, beginning with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, et al who have defied Christ’s words as related by John in the Gospel! The problem is all the Christian Nationalist Clergy who support the lies of Hegseth, the grift and graft of Rubio, the cruelty of Vought loudly and proudly while calling themselves followers of Christ! Can you imagine what Jesus is saying? Can you imagine how, Jesus the immigrant is experiencing the Detention Centers these ‘fine christian folk’ are setting up, running and supporting? Lest you think that Jews are so much better: Kushner, Lutnick, Bessent, Miller all proclaim loyalty to Judaism and love Israel, while going against the very commandments that Moses gave to us. Rather than believe that God is God, they and the right-wing in Israel believe they know what the Bible is ‘really saying’ and the rest of We the People ‘just don’t understand’. While they peddle these lies, the text says: LOVE THE STRANGER- NOT BE CRUEL TO THE STRANGER, the text says: ONE LAW FOR THE CITIZEN AND STRANGER ALIKE-NOT ONE LAW FOR THE RICH AND ANOTHER FOR THE REST OF WE THE PEOPLE! So, to these ‘good jews’ I say BULLSHIT- READ THE BIBLE, HEAR, LISTEN UNDERSTAND AND DO the words of Moses, the words of the Prophets-not the bastardizations of people throughout the millennia.

At Mount Sinai, We the People committed to DO and THEN UNDERSTAND! No mention is made of our motivation, no mention is made of how we ‘feel’ about it- the only two emotions that are prevelant in the Bible are loving God, the strangter, our neighbor, ourselves, and hating evil, cruelty, lying, greed, murder, coveting! Ergo: It is imperative for We the People to TAKE THE NEXT RIGHT ACTION, to “always do the good”, no matter how we think or feel. More on this tomorrow

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the good you could have done in the past and didn’t because you didn’t “feel like it”

2. Read Numbers 15:38-40 each morning and evening; in the am make a list of the traps of your heart and your eyes and in the evening-which ones did you fall into, which ones you did not and what new ones did you fall into

3. List the Loving Actions you took today and the non-loving ones as well

4. Write down your plan to repair the non-loving ones and enhance the loving one

5. Live life congruent with the principles you hold dear and in concert with the Biblical mandates

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Going beyond the mind, going beyond the mystery.... Year 5 Day 33

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 33

“Israel was taught how to accost Him who is beyond the mystery. Beyond the mind is the mystery, but beyond the mystery is mercy. Out of the darkness comes a voice disclosing that the ultimate mystery is not an enigma but the God of mercy; that the Creator of all is teh “Father in Heaven.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92)

We the People have lost our ability “to accost Him who is beyond mystery” because we have to solve any and every mystery. In our hubris, we the people have decided that we are god, no matter how much we pray to Jesus, Allah, Adonai-our actions disprove our words, we the people, or at least a plurality of us cannot conceive that anything is “beyond the mind”, if we only apply ourselves enough! Not only is this hubris, it is STUPID! I have yet to meet a human being who can make the sky turn its myriad of colors, I have yet to meet a human being who can make mountains grow, who can create ex nihlo fruit bearing trees, etc. While one of the new ‘frontiers’ is creating life by cloning, making Robots have human emotions, no one that I have heard of has created a human being ex-nihlo. Sure, it may happen, and it will not be the same!

“but beyond the mystery is mercy” is the issue. No matter how often we the people create something wonderful, meaningful, helpful, there are always those who seek to exploit these creations for their power and wealth, who seek to destroy these creations for the sake of cruelty. We are in the throes of these power-hungry, never enough money grubbing, cruelty-loving assholes right now and they have the unmitigating GALL to proclaim they are doing all of this in the NAME OF JESUS, because it is what ADONAI WANTS! And do not refute them with the facts of what Jesus says nor with the 36 times the Torah demands we love the stranger, etc; because they will tell their sycophantic followers, their cult members and we who confront them that ‘you don’t understand what it is REALLY saying’. HOW INFURIATING!!

That Good Christian Men and Women, Good Jewish Men and Women in the Republican Party do not STAND THE FUCK UP and say NO, that they do not DEFEND the TRUTH, DEFEND these wanton attacks on ADONAI, on JESUS is beyond me! That We the People have not thrown these idolators, these despots, these lying BASTARDS out of office is also beyond me. It is beyond me to understand how any of the people who have the power to go “beyond the mind” and “beyond the mystery” and be “mercy”.

I do understand living in the darkness, as anyone and everyone who has had a “dark night of the soul”, a spiritual awakening, a crisis of conscience, an experience with one’s own higher consciousness can also understand. This, however, is the key. All of these sycophants KNOW better, they have done the next right action before, they know of Goldwater telling Nixon to leave, they know of booting Gingrich out of power, they know what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, and they ignore the TRUTH! When one ignores the truth, the darkness completely enwraps one. Truth is the light at the end of the tunnel and the refusal to engage in it is the downfall of every society. It is Biblical; both Temples were destroyed, the kingdom of Israel was scattered about by the Assyrians, because we the people in our hubris, in our stupidity, in our ignorance, in our self-importance believed we were ‘safe’, ‘it couldn’t happen here’, etc. WRONG!!

And We the People who are sounding the Alarm, We the People who continue to speak out, We the People who keep protesting and voting against these liars, who are cheering Pope Leo, who are resisting the societal pull to “go along to get along”, who are risking being ostracized because we won’t say ‘Israel is right’, ‘America is right’ no matter what are living the certainty that “out of the darkeness comes a voice disclosing that the ultimate mystery is not an enigma, but the God of mercy”. My constant and consistent ranting and raving about Truth, about the need to STOP THE CRUELTY is because I experience the “God of mercy” every day and I need to spread the truth that this is the “ultimate mystery”!

ACTION STEPS:
1) Write about your experiences when you “accost Him who is beyond the mystery”.

2) Do an inventory of how you stopped yourself from going “beyond your mind” because of the lie that there is nothing you can’t figure out

3) Do an inventory of how you went “beyond the mind” and experienced “the mystery”

4) What have you learned from your “dark night of the soul”, from your spirirtual awakening

5) How has the “God of mercy” changed you and how have you been more merciful in your living

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living in the Both/And or living in Either/Or - what do your actions testify to? Year 5 Day 32

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 32

“Human life is a point where mind and mystery meet. This is why man cannot live by his reason alone, nor can he thrive on mystery alone. To surrender to the mystery is fatalism to withdraw into reason is solipsism. Man is driven to commune with that which is beyond the mystery.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92)

“Fatalism”, selfishness, why bother, what’s in it for me; all common modes of living for some of we the people in our smallness, in our pettiness, and so abhorrent to those of We the People who live with faith, with courage, with a sense of what is the next right action to take. The “mystic” who cannot live in the real world is not doing “God’s work” no matter what lies they tell themselves, the rationalist who says “prove it” all the time lives in such a tiny, narrow box, neither one are capable of BEING HUMAN! This is the great conundrum that We the People face: are we going to BE HUMAN or exist as homo-sapiens?

As I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning, after a day at the ER for my Afib, I know he is speaking to the necessity to live in BOTH mind and mystery, he is reaching out to us and reminding us that to “meet” God, to commune with the ineffable, We the People have to use both our capacity for rational thinking and our ability to go into and through the mystery. In reading about the mind in his writings, I understand him to be saying here and there; our reason will take us to the horizon of the mystery, it is our ability to go beyond the horizon that will bring us to wholeness, to understanding, to meeting the highest self we can be.

Yet, we the people continue to confound and disappoint the ineffable, confound and disappoint one another, confound and disappoint our self. We continue to put  supreme importance on our rationalizations, on our selfishness, at the cost of seeking the mystery. Some of we the people continue to put supreme importance on the mystery at the cost of what is reasonable and rational. Once again, Rabbi Heschel is telling us what the Bible, what Jesus, what every spiritual discipline tells us: THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO BE! We the People are being called, once again, to live in the both/and. This passage comes from Rabbi Heschel’s book, God in Search of Man, which I infer to mean that without the both/and, God will never find us nor will we find God!

While every generation can point to a man-made catastrophe which it believes is the end of the world, there are some moments where humanity could be on the brink of bringing its own destruction. This feels like such a moment; the unnecessary war with Iran, the insanity of the oil crisis(was this war begun so Russia, Iran, Oil billionaires, Saudi Arabia could make more money?), the disdain for the poor and the stranger, the bastardization of Christ’s words and deeds, the disrespecting/threatening of Pope Leo, the drunkness of Hegseth, the power-hunger of Trump, the “get rich schemes” of Kushner, Wytkoff, Lutnick, the hatred of Miller, the Christian nationalism of Vought; all coming together in ways that I am not sure we the people have seen before. Todd Blanche saying the ‘duty’ of the Justice Department is to go after the enemies of Trump, the lies of the Republicans in Congress, the sycophantic behaviors of the Cabinet, the kissing of Russia’s ass, the support of Orban, the con job of Bibi Netanyahu, etc are all ingredients in a soup of disaster, if not for humanity, certainly for the freedoms We the People have cherished, for which our ancestors fought and died for. WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE!!

We the People are being called upon to STAND UP, to FIGHT ON, to SAY NO to the lies and deceptions we are being fed daily. We the People have to attune our “mystery” to the call from Sinai and our “mind” to the ways of the Bible to carry out this call. What is the call? Well, there are many-granted-yet the ones that stand out are: Be Holy, Proclaim Freedom to all, Love the Stranger, Love your neighbor, Don’t stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, CHOOSE LIFE! This is the call I heard over 39 years ago and I continue to live into this call, I continue to grow my mind and mystery and reach beyond the mystery to ‘meet’ the ineffable. It doesn’t always work and I am a better human being each day for the effort. This is the challenge for all of We the People and I pray you will take it up, do better than you did yesterday and, together, make this corner of the world a little better!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Indulge your “mystery” seeing where you can go, what you can see

2. Write down what you mind says is possible and how to reach the mystery you are seeing

3. Each day, write down how you lived in the both/and of life

4. Each day, make a note of the experiences with the ineffable that you had this day

5. Each day, write down how you stood for the Holy, for Freedom, for Love, for Life this day.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Repaying God for the gifts you receive or repaying the idol you have made into God? Year 5 Day 31

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 31

““How can I repay unto the Lord all His bountiful dealings with me?”(Ps. 116.12) How to answer the mystery that surrounds us, the ineffable that calls on our souls? This is, indeed, the universal theme of religion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 91)

I am a loud, outspoken brash, audacious human being. I say what is in my soul, on my heart and, usually, completely unfiltered. This has gotten me to live well, to reach people thought unreachable and caused great angst, anger, and retribution on the part of many people. I am called ‘not a real rabbi’, a ‘niche rabbi’, a ‘rabbi for those people’ and it is ALL GOOD! While I have regrets for some of my outbursts, reading the words above, I know that the outbursts that have been hurtful to my family, my friends, my colleagues, my community are NOT GOOD, I also know stifling them is part of what led me to my addictions to crime, to booze, to mendacity, to self-deception. In answering “the ineffable that calls on our souls”, I and We the People have to learn to monitor and discern time, way and place to be loud, to be silent, to be persuasive, and to be prophetic.

“Repay unto the Lord” being “the universal theme of religion” is exactly what is NOT HAPPENING right now in the circles of power in America nor in Israel! What IS HAPPENING is people calling themselves ‘religious’ are bastardizing the very tenets, ways, morals, deeds that Christ called upon us to do, that the Bible exhorts us to live, and calling it Judaism, Christianity! IT IS INFURIATING, thank God for Pope Leo! He is speaking the truth to power, he is following in the footsteps of Christ, of the prophets and We the People have to listen to him, follow his lead and TAKE BACK WHAT RELIGION STANDS FOR!!  I know I am yelling, I know how indignant I am being, I know that it is not always easy to hear me, to experience this type of anger, AND I know that this is the way of the prophets, this is my inheritance from them, my inheritance from my father, z”l.

The ways Donny boy and Bibi man believe “to answer the mystery that surrounds us” is to exploit the fears, the inner need to ‘beat the bastards’, the spiritual void that allows us to hate our neighbors in our hearts rather than love them, that allows us to have one law for the citizen and another for the stranger, that gives us permission to practice racism, anti-semitism, islamaphobia, with reckless abandon and call it “white pride”, call it discrimination against white men, etc. Backed by their gangs of THUG FALSE PROPHETS, these two men have caused chaos, taken no responsibility for their failures, their fuck-ups, their lies and their cruelty and there are still parts of we the people who clap for them like trained seals! WTF???

We the People are being called upon during this season of the counting of the Omer, on this 6th day of Passover when the liberated slaves were at the edge of the Red Sea, trying to choose certain death by the advancing Egyptians or repaying “Lord for His bountiful dealings” by liberating us from the physical slavery of Egypt. It is a moment, a “dark night of the soul”, as St. John of the Cross wrote about; it is a moment We the People all experience and the question is: will we face it, will we go through it, will we realize the message and the deed that “the ineffable” is calling upon us to perform? In this “Season of Freedom” as We the People count the days until the Holy Day of Shavuot, when We the People remember and engage in once again, receiving the Torah, the Bible, the “universal theme of religion” our response to the “the mystery that surrounds us, the ineffable that callus on our souls” has to be TRUTH! We the People are being called upon to RISE UP, to exercise our PROPHETIC VOICES, to go through our fears and trepidations and VOTE the assholes, the IDOLATORS, the MENDACIOUS IDIOTS OUT OF OFFICE and IMPEACH TRUMP, VANCE, and the rest of their ilk, their sycophants, their enablers. In Israel, it is time to try Bibi for the HIGH CRIMES he as committed as a THIEF, as ASLEEP at the WHEEL on OCTOBER 7, and as a LIAR IN CHIEF! This moment is calling upon We the People to take these

ACTION STEPS:

1. Each morning make a list of “all His bountiful dealings toward me” acknowledging the truth, kindness, goodness, charity extended to us by another(s)

2. Each evening make a list of all the kindness, truth, goodness, charity, we extended to another(s) during the day

3. Each day stand for the principles that present themselves and do not waver, do not allow the deceivers to convince you that you do not know what you know

4. Each evening review your day, making note of when you “repay unto the Lord” and when you STEAL from God.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Sacred Moments, Sacred Deeds, Sacrificial Deeds are all around us! Year 5 Day 30

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 30

“God is One, and His glory is One. And oneness means wholeness, indivisibility. His glory is not partly here and partly there; it is all here and all there But here and now, in this world, the glory is concealed. It becomes revealed in a sacred deed, in a sacred moment, in a sacrificial deed.” ( Thunder in the Soul pg. 91)

Continuing from yesterday, given this is the 5th day of Passover, the slaves leaving Egypt are at the edge of the Red Sea, according to some, or just about there as tomorrow night, the crossing of the Red Sea begins. This is the first “sacred deed” the people who left Egypt partake in. While many were afraid, while many complained, while Moses promised God would do for them and all they had to do is watch, the “sacred deed” in this “sacred moment” was “go forward” as God told Moses and the people. There is a midrash/parable that speaks of Nachshon Ben Amidav, who jumped into the Red Sea(or the Sea of Reeds depending on who is telling the story) and kept going until it covered his nose and then the Sea split so the former slaves could pass on dry land. This is an example of a “sacrificial deed” and, God knows, we the people need to create more of these. We the People have to notice and engage in the “sacred deed” which is always present and available much more often. We the People are being called upon to “lift up our eyes” and see this moment as “a sacred moment”, accepting the truth that each and every moment presents We the People for opportunities to “declare God’s glory” through our “deeds”!

Yet, we the people continually miss the moment, pass on the opportunity, are more interested in serving our selfish desires that we have lied to ourselves about, telling ourselves and everyone else that these narcissistic desires are actually NEEDS, authentic needs, which then we foolishly believe, absolve us of any responsibility to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors. It is especially present for those of We the People who are commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, acknowledging the resurrection of Jesus, to take off our blinders, to uncover our eyes, to open our ears, to smell the Red Sea and know the crossing of it is a “sacred moment” and it is a gift that we have to cherish and We the People are obliged to honor this “sacred moment” with a “sacrificial deed”. In Hebrew the word for “sacrificial” has the same root as “to draw near”, ergo: “a sacrificial deed” is a gift that allows We the People to “draw near” to our authentic self, to the neighbor next door, to the enemy across town. In the “drawing near”, in this and every “sacred moment”, We the People GET the opportunity to engage with our higher consciousness, with our souls and wrestle with our inclinations so that the Good Inclination transforms the energy of the “evil” one to do more “sacred deeds”, reveal more “sacred moments” and rejoice in our “sacrificial deeds”.

This is the goal, this is the message I am hearing this morning from Rabbi Heschel, and it is the goal, message and marching orders from God for this moment of chaos, of potential slavery, the killing of innocent people who’s only crime is they live in a certain area, they are part of an ethnic group which is being targeted, just like we Jews have been for centuries. When Hegseth prays to Jesus for victory, when Hegseth declares the Iran war is a “holy war” that Christ will deliver our enemies to us, We the People  have to stand the fuck up and join with Pope Leo and say NO to this charlatan, NO to this liar. We the People are being called upon to say NO to Trump and his lies, his need for dominance, his desire to be King/Pharaoh. We the People are being given a “sacred moment” to “draw near” to God, to one another by rejecting the lies, the subterfuge, the hatred, the cruelty that is running rampant in both Israel and the United States! Whereas Trump had dinner with Kanye West, the Prime Minister of England has rejected a concert’s desire to feature him for 3 days and Pepsi, the major sponsor of the event has pulled out. This is a prime example of “a sacred deed”. While politics right now is in the forefront, We the People cannot forget about the personal, the local. I have been engaging in “sacred moments” with intention since 1987, I have been engaging in “sacrificial deeds” since then as well-not perfectly and “declare God’s glory” in this moment, in this deed; making them both sacred is my goal and hitting this mark is pure JOY

ACTION STEPS:

1. Ask yourself if you have left this year’s slavery behind or are still carrying it

2. What are you willing to do to cross the Red Sea and get “cleansed” of the shit that is sticking to you from your being a slave, spiritually, mentally

3. “Lift up your eyes and SEE” this moment as an opportunity to perform a “sacred deed”

4. Accept that each moment is precious and different, an opportunity to “draw near” to your self, another human being, the Ineffable One through “sacrificial deeds”.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Concealing or revealing God's Glory: what is the story you ACTIONS tell? Year 5 Day 29

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 29

“God is One, and His glory is One. And oneness means wholeness, indivisibility. His glory is not partly here and partly there; it is all here and all there But here and now, in this world, the glory is concealed. It becomes revealed in a sacred deed, in a sacred moment, in a sacrificial deed.” ( Thunder in the Soul pg. 91)

This is the 4th day of Passover, it is Easter Sunday and we the people are still unable to notice, recognize, reveal “God’s glory” because of our misguided belief that “God is on our Side” as Bob Dylan sings about, because in our hubris, we the people believe that there is “my god” and “your god” and “your god” is not as good, strong, real, etc as mine, ergo: I have to kill you and “your god” to prove it! Hegseth not allowing Catholic Mass at the Pentagon and JD Vance, that “good Catholic convert”-just ask him and his new book- saying NOTHING!! Jews like Kushner who think they and their Rabbis know it all and there is no other interpretation than theirs which could be correct because “only I know what god wants”. I am putting God in small letters because, as we can see from the quote above, anyone who bifurcates God, anyone who claims “only I know” cannot be correct because God is “all here and all there”, God is “unknowable” and therefore any claim to pigeonhole God, any lie that says “Christ/God wants us to kill”, any claim of “those people deserve death” has to be A LIE! Being a person of faith, being connected to something greater than oneself and listening to the rhetoric, the bullshit, the deception of these ‘good religious folk’ like Kushner, Vance, Hegseth, Ben G’Vir, et al makes We the People of faith, We the People who are searching for Truth, We the People who want God to find us and continue to, in our imperfect ways, try to reveal “God’s Glory”, WANT TO PUKE!

When cruelty is celebrated, when war is waged for the particular good of Oil Companies, of politicians, to deflect from the truth, to conceal the rot at the top, how far has our society progressed from the time of Jesus, from the times of the Prophets, from the destruction of the 2 Temples??!! NOT MUCH! Yet, we the people in our idiocy, in our willful blindness, in our desire to be fit in, to ‘get ours’, go along with this cruelty; “stand idly by the blood of our neighbor; make “one law for the citizen” and another for the stranger; “hate our brother, our enemy in our heart”, “scout after our heart and eyes whoring after them”. All of this in direct opposition to the commandments of the Bible, to the words and deeds of Christ and we the people then try and proclaim our allegiance to a god that is not in the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran. So, we the people who is Full of Shit? Not We the People that are calling out this bullshit like Pope Leo, not those of We the People that are proclaiming NO KINGS, not those of We the People who can hold that Iran is a bad actor and Trump, Hegseth, Rubio went to war to get Epstein files off the front page, Bibi went to war to get away from being held responsible for Oct. 7th and the aftermath. Yet, these are the people who declare they are doing this for “the Glory of God” when in reality, they are doing what they do for the Glory of SELF! This is the worst idolatry of all: making oneself synonymous with God, selling the LIE that, with their ‘spiritual advisors like Paula Cain White, compares Trump’s trials and tribulations to Jesus’!! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

How can God’s glory be revealed when only god, the idol, is being revealed and God stays concealed, irrelevant, and wholly bastardized? It can’t until We the People stand up and engage in teaching our children that God is everywhere, “all here and all there”, the immanence and transcendence of God is as real as the nose on one’s face. Teaching our children so We the People re-learn the truth of God’s “glory” that is revealed every time We engage in a sacred action-like welcoming and loving the stranger, because as Passover teaches, “we were strangers in a strange land” and Egypt-at least at first-took us in. The “all here” of God is revealed every time we “love our neighbor as we love our self”, every time we “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”! The call for Freedom was known so long ago by Moses, by the prophets, by Jesus, and we the people still buy the LIES of the autocrat, the dictator,’ like the people of prejudice have done throughout the millennia to Jews, to Christians, to Muslims, to anyone they thought they could overpower and be lord and master to? WHEN WILL WE THE PEOPLE stop this way of being?

ACTION STEPS:
1) During your morning meditation, make a plan of the “sacred deeds” you will carry out this day

2) Seek out ways to draw near to another human being and God through an act of service(aka sacrificial deed)

3) Make a list of the ways you desecrate God’s Name by separating ‘your god’ from God

4) Make a list of the ways you brought Oneness into your life and the life of another(s)

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living nobly in an animal environment or living like an animal in a noble environment? Year 5 Day 28

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 28

“The problem of the soul is how to live nobly in an animal environment; how to persuade and train the tongue and the sense to behave in agreement with the insights of the soul.” (Thunder of the Soul pg. 89)

Happy First Day of the Omer, the first day of the countdown to Shavuot, where according to Jewish lore, the 10 Sayings were delivered to the People and the Tablets of Torah were delivered to Moses. I pray we all engage in our own personal liberation from the slavery we are in, the Egypt/narrow place we find ourselves stuck in -either a new one or an old one that keeps revisiting, trapping us anew.

Passover is the action step We the People are blessed to participate in as the solution to the “problem” stated above. Leaving the narrow place of EGO, of SELF-DECEPTION, of GREED, of … allows us to realize that We the People are more than our animal environment, our animal instinct, our animal urges. This is not a judgement on the part of us that is ‘earthly, animal’, it is a statement of fact. We the People need our “animal instinct” to get along in the world, to be safe from the dangers of nature, of another animal, from the dangers another human being can present to we the people. The proper use of our “animal instinct” is what can and will allow us “to live nobly in an animal environment” and, please God, teach another person, another group of people how to do the same. This is, after all, what the journey to and the experience of Sinai is all about. The Bible from the crossing of the Red Sea/Sea of Reeds till now is about this very topic-“how to live nobly in an animal environment”.

Today is Good Friday and I wish peace and love to the Christian Communities who celebrate it, who are readying themselves for Easter Sunday. I also know the words above are in line with the thoughts and actions of Christ. It is very important, in my opinion, for Christians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims to find the common ground of the finding the solution to “the problem of the soul is how to live nobly in an animal environment”. While the different spiritual traditions including the Eastern Ones, have different paths, different languages, all of them are in search for the solution to this ‘sticky wicket’. All spiritual disciplines are engaged in living “nobly in an animal environment” and it is time for us to join together, to acknowledge our common goal, respect our different pathways, and bring about the renaissance, the promises of God, of Jesus, of Islam, etc: living “nobly in an animal environment” and, going beyond this to change the “animal environment” to an “elevated environment”, from ‘dog eat dog’ to feed the hungry, help the poor, love the stranger, have one law for citizen and stranger alike, proclaim FREEDOM throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein, love our self so we can truly love our neighbor, etc.

IT AIN’T EASY!! And it is possible and doable to “live nobly in an animal environment” as millions of recovering people attest to each and every day through our actions. It is possible and doable as tens of millions of unsung heroes attest to each day by the kindness’ they show, the truth they speak, and their reaching out to those less fortunate. It takes a willingness to learn, a leaving of the EGYPT we find ourselves in by taking one small wrong turn and not self-correcting quick enough. Redemption is, unfortunately, not a one and done, it is something we have to be hyper-aware of and avoid the traps that our “animal instinct” and “animal environment” lay out for us. Their disguise, their being “societal norms” only help to fill us and lull we the people into a false sense of security. Hence the need to review where we are  and what we are doing at Passover and 6 months later at Yom Kippur. This is a time for elation at being liberated and acceptance of the hard work to stay out “going back to Egypt” and/or finding a new Egypt. I know the difficulty, I fall back, get out, fall back, and get out again-which is the ‘victory’-never staying in the Egypt of our choosing, our being trapped in and continuing to find ways to “live nobly in an animal environment”.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Identify the Egypt you are going to leave this year, not the ones you would like to, the ONE you will, the ONE you are capable of leaving

2. Make a plan to “get out”, taking with you your bare essentials, your authentic self, which includes your “animal instincts”.

3. Make a path to follow that helps you use your “animal instinct” in the most positive of ways, helping you navigate the insanity of the world, the cruelty of another(s) and redeeming the souls you can.

4. Tell the story of your ‘slavery’ and your ‘liberation’ to another(s) and ask for their help in staying out of your Egypt, their help in seeing the traps that you are still blind to.

5. Count the days of the Omer and see how you ready for the surrender of Sinai, the acceptance of the authority of God, you have become!

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

"Perfect Purity" is a LIE and paves the way to cruelty - Year 5 Day 27

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 27

“Perfect purity is something we rarely know how to obtain or how to retain. No one can claim to have purged all the dross even from his finest desire. The self is finite, but selfishness is infinite.”

These words, this teaching stirs up my entire being. It is so infuriating to listen to the myriad of people who claim to have “purity” of thought, of heart, of faith, ad nauseam! The truth is those who proclaim their “purity” are usually the MOST impure, they do have “infinite” “selfishness” and their claims of purity are the proof of this. No one who has attained “perfect purity” in anything has to brag about it, they are in awe of those moments and continue to seek out ways to have more of them. Those who brag about it, like Hegseth, usually have ONLY “selfishness” and Pope Leo is a hero for smacking his lies down and speaking the Truth of Christ’s teachings, actions, and beliefs.

All of We the People have “dross” that is never going to be “purged” completely and acceptance of this truth is one of the keys to making progress, to making a change in our ways of living, to lessening the “selfishness” that is “couching at our door, it desires us much”, as God speaks to Cain in the Bible. Immersing ourselves in the words above can help us to appreciate, to apprehend God’s next words: “You can control/rule over it”.

When We the People apprehend, comprehend, and appreciate the truth of the words above; there is no “perfect purity” nor can we the people as human beings expect to be perfect; We the People can begin to see one another as the flawed human beings we are, seeking some kindness, some support, some love in order to know that we are accepted as we are, not for some facade we put up, that our flaws do not make us unloveable, that our “dross” is not a reason to be rejected. Rather, when we live into the words above, the teachings of the Bible, We the People accept our limitations as growth opportunities, become aware of the talents and gifts of another human being that wants to and does help us with the task they are gifted and talented to perform, asking them to be of service which is also, according to some in the Jewish Faith, a mitzvah, a good deed, in and of itself.

The current situation we find ourselves in, the war in Iran, the insanity of Trump, the degrading by Hegseth, the cruelty by Miller, the lies of Wytkoff, the greed of Kushner, the arrogance of Lutnick, the ass-kissing of Graham and the cowardice of the Republicans in Congress are prime examples of “selfishness is infinite” and their claims for “perfect purity” and proclamations of same want most of We the People to VOMIT! This is whom we the people, in a moment that we thought ‘he is selfish like me and he will take care of me’ elected and put into office to FUCK US, to TAKE FREEDOMS guaranteed by the Constitution, defended by the military often, and agreed by the majority are important, away from all of us dumb schmucks whom they despise! The same, however, is true for the far left, they demand a “perfect purity” and their insistence on “identity politics” helped to get Trumpism to have the plurality to get elected!! The far left also wanted to TAKE FREEDOMS away from people who didn’t think they way they did; who didn’t want to serve people whose lifestyles they disagreed with-SO WHAT! It is a free country, supposedly, and to not want to do business with someone is NOT A CRIME! To accuse one of racism, etc because they don’t want to make a wedding cake for a gay couple because their Christian faith has told them same-sex marriage is an abomination, is also ridiculous. They have a belief based on their faith-as misguided as it may seem to some of us, is our “purity” so “perfect” that we should deny their right to their beliefs?

What is so infuriating is watching people pontificate and preach the ‘gospel according to Trump’ and call it CHRISTIANITY! To listen to the spokespeople for my country, who are supposed to represent ALL the PEOPLE, speak lies, talk about ballrooms, brag about their deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize for starting a war in Iran, abducting the head of state of Venezuela, abandoning Ukraine, screwing over the allies we have depended on for 80+years is FUCKING NUTS!! We the People have to get our selfishness under control, it will always be with us, and STOP THE STEAL OF the values and principles of freedom, of the Bible, of the USA!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the selfish actions you took today

2. Make a list of the acts of kindness you took today

3) Examine both and discern the kindness in the selfish and the selfish in the kindness, making a plan for lessening the selfishness that is harmful to another and increase the selfishness and kindness that helps another.

4) Let go of your need for purity of anything, in anything and BE HUMAN

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE

Fooling oneself into self-righteousness by giving God your 'heart' and not your actions? Year 5 Day 26

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 26

“Man’s power of action is less vague than his power of intention. And an action has intrinsic meaning; its value to the world is independent of what it means to the person performing it. The act of giving food to a helpless child is meaningful regardless of whether or not the moral intention is present. God asks for the heart, and we must spell our answer in terms of deeds” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 88)

These sentences lay out a great conundrum humanity has wrestled with forever. What one does says much more than what one intends, what one says, what one believes. Yet, society continues to want to listen to what they say and be surprised by their actions. Case in point: Trump was a liar, a cheat, a thief, a grifter his ENTIRE LIFE, yet, a majority of we the people believed his words, his bullshit, over what they saw with their own eyes; CRUELTY, HATRED, PREJUDICE, GREED, LUST, etc. Hence, we are in a war of Trump’s choice, a war that is dangerous for the American Soldiers, a war that is costing We the People over a billion dollars a day, a war depleting our weaponry, a war that 62% of America DOES NOT WANT, a war that is costing all of us our savings, our affordability,… Yet, Trump keeps saying his lies, his cabinet keeps Kissing His Ass, and many of the people who voted for him are suffering and/or going to suffer the most! WTF People??

I begin with this diatribe because while Rabbi Heschel gives an example of something good, feeding “a helpless child”, I believe We the People have to see, hear, understand what our negative actions do as well. When people with disabilities are mocked and derided, the cruelty shown affects the person being made fun of, it also affects the people witnessing this spiritual crime, it affects the family members of the person with the disability, it affects all the families of people with challenges, as well as the people themselves. YET, good old boy, Lindsey Graham don’t care, that paragon of virtue, Tom Holman don’t care, Kristi Noem don’t care, Howard Lutnick don’t care, their motto, like Trump’s, is FUCK EVERYONE YOU CAN as often as you can.

The intrinsic meaning of the actions taken by Gingrich, the Tea Party, Trump and his MAGA crowd is to deny the foundation of what America was created to be: a democratic state where people argued, people fought, and, with the exception of the Civil War, it was, is, and, please God, will be: We the People, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.!

THIS HAS TO BE STOPPED BY WE THE PEOPLE! We did it with King George, with England when they were so powerful and We the People can certainly do it with Trump and his buffoons-as powerful as they are, We the People Shall Overcome!

“God asks for the heart, and we must spell our answer in terms of deeds” is crucial for change, for T’Shuvah which is what We the People of America and Israel must engage in RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Bibi and Donny do not represent what God asks for nor what God wants, Iranian leadership and Hamas do not represent what God asks for nor what God wants, Putin and Orban, et al do not represent what God asks for nor what God wants! We the People have to rise above our pettiness, pride, fear and self-deception to BE LIBERATED this Passover. We the People are being called to account for what our “deeds” say, for the ramifications of our negative, indifferent actions and the ledger is NOT in the BLACK!! We the People can change the accounting right now, using this Passover to, like the Rabbis in B’nei Brak, plot our liberation from the negativity that has poisoned our souls, overtaken our minds and closed our hearts. We the People are in need of circumcising our hearts once again and continue to monitor the openness and welcoming of the stranger, of God into our hearts. This is the path I have been on for the past 39+ years and while it gets narrower, it also gets bigger, more rewarding and joyous.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Separate your intentions from your actions

2. End your incessant need to explain your bad actions away because of intentions, thinking, etc

3. Stand up and fight for the hard-fought liberation our ancestors provided us with

4. DO NOT SURRENDER to the self-deception and the lies of another.

5. Be part of a group that plots ACTION STEPS for liberation from indifference, etc

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

the Lies of Good Intentions, the Truth of our Deeds - Year 5 Day 25

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 25

“The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual inwardness. It needs more than sacred sentiments and good intentions. God asks for the heart because He needs the lives. It is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity of the human heart.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 88)

In a country that seems dominated by SELF-SEEKING by the “rugged individual” myth, by the bastardization of Jesus’ words, the ways of the Jewish Tradition, these words are a not-so-gentle rebuke of Pete Hegseth’s prayer for war, prayer for cruelty, belief in some radicalized re-interpretation of the New Testament and the forgetfulness by all ‘religious zealots’ of the words and deeds of the prophets! Yet, We the People are not doing enough to effect change, we the people are continuing to live in our “secret holiness”, our “good intentions” while the country and the world spirals deeper and deeper into chaos, authoritarianism, hatred and war.

Abusing Christ’s ways and words as we are in the season of Lent, praying for Jesus to help kill more innocent people in Iran by the mendacious Hegseth, was totally rebuked by Pope Leo at his Palm Sunday Service, but then again, as JD Vance has said before, what does Pope Leo really know about Jesus!! Forgetting, rejecting the words and deeds of the prophets by the ‘religious Jews’, believing all is good if it is in the name of Israel, engenders many to leave the faith. Yet, these ‘good religious folk’ keep proclaiming, like Mike Johnson: “I live by what God tells me”. I am sure he and his cronies believe this-the question is: What god are they listening to? It sure is not  God of the Bible,  God of the New Testament. In both Sacred Texts, what is asked for is “the heart”. Since the beating heart is what keeps us living, since “the heart” is so crucial in our actions that in Numbers we are reminded to “not scout out after your heart and eyes because you whore after them”, which we recite 3 times a day when we say the Shema prayer, morning, evening, at bedtime. These ASSHOLES like Johnson, Hegseth, Vance, using Jesus to justify the cruelty and violence they are perpetrating in Iran, in Venezuela, in Cuba, on the streets of America is SO INFURIATING to those of We the People who believe in God, who respond to the Voice on Sinai’s call of “Where are You” with the only proper response: Hineni-Here I am.

This is the key for We the People, to keep responding Hineni, to keep finding new and deeper ways to live our lives “in concordance with God”, to ensure that our “deeds exceed our wisdom” as we learn in Pirke Avot. It takes great humility to live “lives that beat in concordance with God”, it takes a more that “good intentions”, because as one of the “good books” says: the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak(Matthew 26:41). What We the People are being called upon to DO, is to live into the divine image we are created in, to rise above the selfishness, the mendacious attitude of our own ‘smartness’ and live into the intuitive mind that KNOWS what it KNOWS and KNOWS what it DOESN’T KNOW! This is a crucial aspect of how to BE HUMAN, how to live a life compatible with being a partner of God in making the world a one grain of sand better each day.

When We the People rise above our base instincts, when we end our ridiculous belief that our rational mind knows all, we begin to use our intuitive mind to SEE what truly is, to HEAR the lies of those around us, to SMELL the shit these idolators are trying to sell us and to FEEL the pain and the cruelty being done to another(s). Using our intuitive minds allows We the People to know and understand the “deed” that is necessary to be performed in this moment, reminds us of “the finite charity of the human heart”. It is not that we the people are not charitable, at least most of we the people, it is that without the intuitive mind running the show, without hearing the call of the Voice on Sinai through our souls, without making real the stirrings of our hearts, “charity” remains finite. Only through “lives” will “the world be redeemed”, only  through our actions that are in “concordance with God” can we “live” and not merely exist as selfish, stupid individuals. Only through “concordance with God” and our “deeds” can we create the communities that promote Exodus from Egypt(narrow places) and the trek to Sinai and the Promised Land-aka FREEDOM!
ACTION STEPS:

1. write down the self-seeking in your actions today-knowing that purity of heart is not the goal

2. Estimate if your self-seeking is more than 50% of you taking any particular action

3. Meditate, pray, engage in ways to access your higher consciousness to rise above the self-seeking that is more than 50%

4. DO T’SHUVAH to God, self and those you harmed by your self-seeking, making a plan to avoid the  over 50%self-seeking part of a good deed

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

How will this Passover be DIFFERENT than the "usual" Ones? Year 5 Day 24

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 24

“Judaism is averse to generalities, averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing, as if the meaning were a separate entity. Its tendency is to make ideas convertible into deeds, to interpret metaphysical insights as patterns for action, to endow the most sublime principles with bearing upon everyday conduct.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 87)

I am writing on these ways of being that, Rabbi Heschel anyway believes, Judaism is based on again. When we the people are afraid to stand up for the principles that all religious life, all spiritual disciplines call for, are based on, it is imperative that We return to the foundational text of all major Western religions, the Bible. Without this return, without our T’Shuvah, we the people are stuck in a body and mind that is so much less than who we are, such a ridiculous caricature of whom we are created to be, an inauthentic replica of the soul, the heart, the wisdom, the knowing that is within each and every one of us.

As the HolyDay of Passover approaches, rather than prepare by asking our neighbors to join us, asking ourselves the question: “what am I a slave to”, preparing our souls, our minds, our hearts for liberation-which the slaves in Egypt also did not do, we the people are worried about the second set of dishes, which ‘normal’ products have become “kosher for Passover”, and the Rabbis make a fortune for their ‘supervision’ of the “kashering” of the companies that make the food, the homes of their congregants, and “how long can I make the Seder last so I can say how much I added to it”. Rather than use this moment to truly prepare our selves for this moment of liberation, this small taste of freedom, making the “idea” of liberation/freedom “convertible into deeds” that will impact our willingness to be in truth about our slavery, that will improve our ability to see the inner slavery of societal norms that has kept us from being who we truly are, we the people continue to stay small, continue to believe in ‘der fuhrer’, continue to seek an outside enemy so we never have to look within and the ‘fuhrer’ doesn’t have to worry about being seen as a liar, a cheat, a fraud, a grifter, etc.

While many of the people will give lavish interpretations of the Haggadah, expound on the different commentaries that the Sages have written, what seems to escape We the People is these ‘insights’, these beautiful mystical insights, have not been accepted in our hearts, even though they are in our mouths! Rather than “interpret metaphysical insights as patterns of action”, we the people are content and thrilled to expound on them and NEVER TAKE THE ACTION they DEMAND OF US!

This is what infuriates me, makes me shake with righteous indignation, makes we want to scream and yell until the whole world hears the CALL OF THE PROPHETS! It is not my insights, it is not my words nor deeds, that are not being heard, it is the words of the prophets, the deeds of our ancestors that we can learn from, both what to do and what not to do, the call of the Voice on Sinai, the Declaration of Responsibility the Rabbis put into the Haggadah: “Every person is obligated to see her/himself as if he/she was brought out of Egypt! This “most sublime principle” must have “bearing upon (our) everyday conduct” or we the people have to admit how FULL OF SHIT we are; once again saying one thing and doing another-just like the grifter, just like Levi and Simeon when they murdered the people of Shechem using guile and false promises! “Ideas”, “metaphysical insights”, “sublime principles” are at the foundation of the Bible’s way of living, at the very core of our beingness and we the people continue to deny this truth so we “get ours”, “be in control”, and, deny one of the messages of Passover: Slavery will (must) end. Instead, we the people (some of the white christian people, jewish people, muslim people)  have decided to make slavery popular again, railing against DEI while promoting white men in our military, denying the right to vote for women who changed their name when they got married, denying the equality of people of color, and promoting anti-semitism while decrying it, islamaphobia while ‘promoting’ religious freedom while demonizing Islam. WHAT THE FUCK?

ACTION STEPS:
1) What ideas are you holding onto that are worthy of becoming deeds according to human decency and the call of your higher consciousness

2) How are you making your personal return to the ways of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, as they LIVED THEM, not the ways their words and deeds have been bastardized

3) Are you willing to “circumcise the foreskin of your heart” so you can hear and know the ways to BE HUMAN

4) When will you ask yourself the question: What am I a slave to?

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Letting God in, keeping God out-how do principles, ideas, insights help you be a better human, a worse human? - Year 5 Day 23

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 23

“Judaism is averse to generalities, averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing, as if the meaning were a separate entity. Its tendency is to make ideas convertible into deeds, to interpret metaphysical insights as patterns for action, to endow the most sublime principles with bearing upon everyday conduct.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 87)

The first thought I have upon reading these words is of the Kotzker Rebbe who asked his disciples: “Where do you find God” and he answered his own question with: “Wherever/whenever you let God in”. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call out to us, once again, to “let God in”! That the essence of Judaism, the way of Yiddishkeit is to “let God in”. And, as it says in Parasha Nitzavim, “it is not far off from you, it is in your mouth, in your heart”. Immersing ourselves in this idea to “let God in” brings up the brilliance of the title of the book this comes from: God in Search of Man. God keeps searching for we the people and knocks on the doors of our souls, our intuitive minds and, in our hubris, we the people keep rejecting the call, keep shutting the doors of our hearts, of our souls, of our minds. What a Desecration of God’s Name being perpetrated by Jews in all sects denominations, from the secular to the ultra-religious. WAKE UP PEOPLE- LET GOD IN!!

Kushner, Wytkoff, Lutnick, Netanyahu, et al keep listening and giving homage to the lying Trump and call themselves “the keepers of Jewish living”. They believe the lies they have been telling themselves and care nothing for how they debase themselves, desecrate God’s name, make a mockery of what Judaism truly is! They are making their “ideas convertible into deeds” that are self-centered, egotistical, power-grabbing-not the ideas that Rabbi Heschel is speaking about above. No matter what anyone wants to say-the Prophets come to teach us what God desires, what God wants and it is not to kill the Palestinians in the West Bank, it is not to decimate Gaza so it is uninhabitable, it is not to send ICE and HATE THE STRANGER, it is not to Falsely accuse your neighbor, your enemy, it is not to kill citizens for exercising their right to assembly and our right to protest!! So, as all of these ‘good jews’ extol the cruelty, the breaking of another country’s sovereignty, while decrying the consequences they face for their actions as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to STAND THE FUCK UP AND DEMAND JUSTICE, DEMAND KINDNESS, DEMAND TRUTH!

As we enter the final few days prior to Passover, I believe We the People have to rise above our pettiness and pride, envy and enmity, to leave the prisons these ways of being have put us into, to remove the shackles of resentments, willful blindness, greed, and fear that continue to silence we the people and to “see” this Passover as a “metaphysical insights as patterns for action”. At the Seder tables, rather than wonder ‘when do we eat’, rather than go on and on with all of the flourishes of what this Rabbi says about that and that Rabbi says about this; let us “add to the story” by talking about the “sublime principles” that we commit to have “bearing upon everyday actions”?

Each Passover I take the idea of liberation from slavery and make a vow to help myself out of the slavery I am currently in AND to help another human being out of the slavery they are in. Each year, each day, I work very diligently and deliberately to convert the ideas of Judaism into deeds, making sure to “BE HOLY”, to “CHOOSE LIFE”, to “Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein”! This year, it is all about the inner life and the outer life being more congruent, holding myself and people in general to account for the deeds we all do, for the good and for the lies, for the not good and for the truths we speak and KNOW. This is the challenge of Passover, this is the challenge of the words above-“Shvr Tzu Tzin a Yid”- it is hard to be a Jew because of the obligation to turn “ideas into deeds”, “metaphysical insights into patterns of living”, and “sublime principles bear upon our everyday conduct”! And, it is doable, it is joyous, it is FREEDOM!

ACTION STEPS:

1. The ideas you “convert into deeds” are they helping you be a better human being or just more ”successful”?

2. The “metaphysical insights" you receive: are you using them to better your corner of the world or just your pocketbook and status?

3. How are you using the “sublime principles” in your daily living to enhance the goodness, the holiness of your life?

4. How are you making sure to “let God in” and allow God to find you?
   

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Aversion to Generalities, aversion to making meaning separate from doing - Year 5 Day 22

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 22

“Judaism is averse to generalities, averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing, as if the meaning were a separate entity. Its tendency is to make ideas convertible into deeds, to interpret metaphysical insights as patterns for action, to endow the most sublime principles with bearing upon everyday conduct.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 87)

This is the great conundrum that has human beings run into all the time, do we live in the generalities, do we live in the societal norms, do we use “the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak” as a constant and consistent excuse for our not doing? “What’s it all about Alfie” is a title of a song from a 1966 movie about a London man who is a womanizer, a self-centered, entitled asshole who finally realizes the vapidness of his living. We the People are in the same situation right now, with white men trying to control women, people of color, gain more wealth through the ugliest of ways, killing innocents here and abroad, while having NO moral core, NO spiritual corpus colosseum that stops most of We the People in our tracks. Yet, when “meaning in life is detached from doing” this way of being gives rise to the ‘righteousness’ of the grifter, to the ‘justice’ by the criminal, to the ‘retribution’ by the idolator, all under the guise of serving god?! What is, of course, worse is that these behaviors, ONCE AGAIN, are being supported by clergy and ‘religious’ people of all stripes around the world, be it here in the U.S., in Israel, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, etc! And for Jews to behave in this manner, given what Rabbi Heschel writes above is a Desecration of God’s Name not seen since the time of the destruction of the two Temples! Lutnick, Kushner, Bessent, Miller, Netanyahu, et al are doing exactly what Rabbi Heschel is saying “Judaism is averse to” and NO ONE IS CALLING THEM OUT? WTF?!!

36+ years ago I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man, z”l, that a most appropriate response to each and every experience is: “what is the question this experience is the answer to”. What a mind-bending, counter-intuitive way of being and experiencing living and one that has brought me and many people to new ways of living. Asking ourselves this question is one of the best ways to NOT act “as if meaning were a separate entity”, to reject the need and societal norms that promote this mendacious way of being because it leads to being totally susceptible to the lies and deceptions of another(s), falling into the trap of autocracy because “I will be your retribution” feels so good, ie daddy is going to beat up my enemy; our own self-deception is triggered so we are unable to see that everything the false prophet is saying goes against the very principles that faith reveres, that morality demands. Yet, when we the people are not “averse to generalities”, not “averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing”, the autocrat makes sense, the trap looks like salvation, the mendacity sounds like truth. This is HOW FUCKED UP We the People are! This is how lost we the people have become, this is the spiritual malady we are suffering from now and one that has been with us forever.

Hence the need for the Bible, not as a history book, not as a book of historical facts, rather as a history of the human struggle to get out of our own way. The Bible is a book of eternal wisdom and knowing, a path of spiritual growing that serves each and every individual, each and every community, and God. The PERFECT TRIFECTA!! Yet, no one is betting on this outcome when it is possible to make obscene amounts of money by betting on actions that one has inside info on, like when is the price of oil going to go up, go down, based on what Trump says-someone makes billions of dollars by ‘a lucky guess’? PLEASE!!

As Passover approaches, I believe it is imperative for We the People to taste the bitterness, the Marror, of not being “averse to generalities, averse to looking for meaning in life detached from doing,”. It is way past time for We the People to honor the commitment made so long ago at Mount Sinai, Na’Aseh V’Nishma, we will do and then we will understand. The doing has to come before the understanding, hence letting go of old ideas that have not served us and returning, as the prophets begged the people so long ago, to God, to the deed, to the authenticity of one’s soul, to the truthfulness of living the principles implanted within us and laid out in the Bible.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the “generalities” you keep using to avoid engaging in the spiritual work you need to be doing

2. Make a list of the ways you have honored the commitment to “do and then understand”

3. Each evening, write down your responses to “what are the questions today’s experiences are the answers for”

4. Each morning, make a list of the mendacious traps and a plan to avoid them.

5. GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Finding the "work of Art" that is within you- Year 5 Day 21

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 21

“Right living is like a work of art, the product of a vision and of wrestling with concrete situations.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 87)

I am thinking of Michelangelo’s statement: “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” Since it is true for the greatest sculpture we have known, since most artists will tell you similar stories, it is probably true that We the People have a vision that is compatible with our higher angels, our higher consciousness, aka intuitive mind, as well as the vision most of we the people are very familiar with, from our lower, baser, consciousness,  aka rational mind.

Hence our daily dilemma: which mind, which consciousness is going to prevail in any given situation. While the intuitive mind has vision, brilliance, and, in the best of times in any individual’s life, sets the course; it is the rational mind that has to carry out the duties to move closer to the vision, to ‘do the dirty work’ and to live into the “concrete situations” Rabbi Heschel is speaking about.

Just like the David was already in the Marble, Moses’ rays of light from God, were in the Marble, the Virgin Mary holding her son, Jesus, after his crucifixion, with the love and pain was already in the Marble, so too is our purpose and passion already within We the People! Our job is to chisel away the bullshit and the schmutz that keeps covering up our essence and our connection, our wisdom and the brilliance of the light within us that is “yearning to breathe free”!

Yet, we the people continually miss our opportunity to chisel away at the lies we tell ourselves, the armor we believe is necessary to ‘meet the day’, and, our deep-seated belief that when the truth is inconvenient, don’t say it! The degree of self-deception that we the people engage in to avoid truth, freedom, finding the authentic human being we are beneath the trappings of poverty, of wealth, of egomania, of low self-esteem, of power, of powerlessness, is stunning when we consider and immerse ourselves in the sentence above! Yet, we the people continue to engage in our self-deceptive ways so we do not ever have to come “face to face” with our true self and this is the reason we are in the situation we are in right now!

Donald Trump is not the problem, even though he is a BIG FUCKING PROBLEM, the real problem is that we the people refuse to leave the warmth and comfort of the Marble that surrounds us, eschewing each and every opportunity to chisel away at what hides us, not picking up the hacksaw to saw our way out of the prison bars we have erected, and absolutely refusing to allow anyone else to be our Michelangelo, our sculpture. Being seen for who we truly are is just too frightening and too many of we the people continue to go to great lengths to avoid this. The reason being, of course, that too many of we the people do not want to be held accountable, do not want to be obligated, do not believe in the Bible’s they read, the tenets of the faith they proclaim to love and the way of being that is in the Bible, in Jesus’ words, in Mohammed’s way, in the Buddha’s vision. It is not only sad, I would posit it leads to the greatest crime of all: spiritual rape of another, bastardization of the Truth, the Word, the Voice on Sinai.

We the People who have allowed someone else to wield the chisel, who have chipped away at the crap that keeps us hidden and inauthentic, are aghast at the level of hiding, the mendacity, the trained seal behavior of so many of we the people. Beit T’Shuvah’s tagline, thought up by Avi Reichental and Harriet Rossetto was/is: “Recover your passion, discover your purpose” . One cannot do either without “going under the knife” of a skilled spiritual surgeon, the Spiritual guide, the spiritual friend who will keep reflecting the authentic you back to you, giving suggestions as to how to let the marble that no longer serves you fall away, stop holding onto the ‘comfort’ of your prison, the ‘joy’ of your hiding. I know the difficulty of doing this, I know the blessing of having spiritual guides and friends to help remover the schmutz, and I know the joy of bursting out of prison, out from behind the ‘walls’ I cultivated for so long. There is nothing like it and wrestling with “concrete situations” is a privilege and an honor, because it leads to my “work of art” that I call life, being brighter, better and lovely.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Find a Spiritual guide, engage with a spiritual friend in a spiritual discipline that chisels away at the lies, the marble, the prison you have created/kept

2. See another person for who they truly are and tell them what you see

3. Continue to look in the mirror and search for the authentic you.

4. Each night write down what you did because your “intuitive mind” told you to and what you did to hide, to go along to get along, to have power.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Acknowledging the thought processes that move us to actions both good and not good - Year 5 Day 20

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 20

“And life is indivisible. The inner sphere is never isolated from outward activities. Deed and thought are bound into one. All a person thinks and feels enters everything he does, and all he does is involved in everything he thinks and feels.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.87)

The quest for “right living” begins and ends right here, I believe. That we the people in our ridiculous belief that someone can be a ‘ruthless business person’ and a ‘wonderful father and husband’ and other such split descriptions is insane, as I immerse myself both in these words and my own experience. When we the people elected Donald Trump and now say, “I didn’t think/want him to do this…” it is a complete denial of the truth of their ignorance, their stupidity, their willful blindness. Teach an animal to kill and then expect it not to kill you? DUH!!

When one wants to believe a liar, a grifter, an autocrat because they say some things that one was thinking, and don’t realize the rest of the story, it is not the liar who is at fault, it is we the people who are both GUILTY and RESPONSIBLE! What is happening in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, the Caribbean, in the USA is not being done by ‘those people’, it is being done because enough of we the people thought it was cool to use Nazi rhetoric about immigrants, because enough of we the people cheered on the cruelty towards people with disabilities, people of color, and because enough of we the people believed a ‘smart businessman’ would increase their 401k’s, their money. HA HA HA, the yolk is on we the people! All Trump is concerned about is Trump, all he cares about is his money and his power. He told everyone this in his first campaign, he said it in his second and third as well, yet, enough of we the people decided to jettison the cognitive dissonance we experienced and believe we could isolate “the inner sphere” from “outward activities”, how is Trump, how is Kushner, how is Lutnick, Bessent, et al doing? How are you doing in this separation?

The issue rising to the surface this morning is our denial of what is true and what the Bible, what the New Testament, what history has long ago proven. “What is on the heart should be on the lips” Maimonidies teaches and, we have seen over and over again, despots follow this teaching. They speak the rhetoric of the day and appeal to the “hate in our hearts” and our need for certainty, our need to ‘win’. Rather than “circumcise the foreskins of our hearts”, we the people relish in having our prejudices, our fears stoked and fed, erroneously believing the ‘hero’ of our story will not turn against us-HA HA!

Be it Kushner’s being bribed by the Saudis, by Qatar, Bessent getting whatever he gets, Lutnick practicing the same cruelty he showed at Cantor-Fitzgerald, Vought promoting Christian Nationalism, the priests the Bible, the prophets warned us about laying hands on Donald Trump, Vance being led by Peter Thiel, Stephen Miller living out his cruelest fantasy, Trump using his very own militia that is called ICE to spread fear, hatred, throughout the land, We the People are being called to RISE UP and say NO to these split personalities. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to let go of our prejudices, our inner hatreds, our hardened hearts, and remember we were strangers in the land of Egypt, we were strangers in the land of America, none of the people running shit are home grown because we are all immigrants except the Indigenous People who we the white people put onto ‘reservations’ and treated them a little better than Black people but not much. All the time extolling our “good christian values”!

The issue is for we the people to come to grips with our own ‘lower angels’. It is imperative if we are going to ‘make our corner of the world a little better’ for We the People to heal our inner splits, to heal the prejudices, the egocentric lies we continue to tell ourselves, the ways of being that belie what we know to be true, etc. It takes a lot of soul searching, it takes a lot of spiritual growth, it takes a commitment to something greater than oneself. I am bewildered at the ignorance, the willful blindness, the self-centeredness of we the people! I know it firsthand because I was lying to myself and giving excuses of the worst kind, I told myself that “I deserved it”, “if I could steal it then it was meant to be mine”, “I have to help my family”, and other such bullshit stories. Living in the cognitive dissonance drove me to drink, because that was the only way to calm the psychic pain I experienced both from the trauma of my childhood and the ugliness of my own actions. I knew right and did wrong, I loved being immersed in prayer and the Bible and went against so many of the ways I was learning. Hence when I had my spiritual awakening, I engaged in my spiritual growth with the same passion and intensity that I had in hiding from it! If we the people are going to become We the People it is necessary for us to take some:
ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a daily journal of the thoughts that went along with the deeds we performed this day-good and not good

2. Do a daily journal of the thoughts that opposed the deeds we performed this day-good and not good

3. Engage with a spiritual counselor, spiritual friend to discuss and discover the lies, the societal norms that are running your life, consciously and unconsciously

4. Begin to clear out the lies, the societal norms that impede your intuitive mind, your soul from being the arbiter of your actions.
   

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

"What is right living" according to your actions-does it align with the Biblical way? Year 5 Day 19

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 19

The dichotomy of faith and words which presented such an important problem in Christian theology was never a problem in Judaism. To us, the basic problem is neither what is the right action nor what is the right intention. The basic problem is: What is right living?” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 87)

Many of we the Jewish people have lost this truth! We have gotten so caught up in theology, philosophy, letter of the law, etc that too many of We the Jewish People have lost our way, straying from the path that “What is right living” keeps us on. It is, as I have experienced personally and in my work, “the basic problem is: What is right living” that keeps We the People striving to be one grain of sand better, never resting on our laurels, always ready to do battle with our inner demos as well as the outer ones. The trap here, of course, is to battle, make war with our outer demons, those who genuinely want to harm us, in order to ignore the battle within. Especially as we are 2+ weeks away from Passover and Jews around the world are cleaning out their Chametz from their homes, getting ready to cook lavish meals, prepare long explanations for the Haggadah, get down the Kosher for Passover Dishes, etc AND ignoring the war within, being oblivious and/or willfully blind to the inner battle and taking the frustrations of our inner conflicts out on our outer enemies.

We the People see this in our politics, in our workplace, in our families; one person, one group, one idea, one concept is singled out for ridicule and scorn so the masses don’t look at the people running shit, be it in a company, a family where the parents believe “do as I say, not as I do”, and in our government where the Prime Minister of Israel sends messages of support and his own son to a CPAC conference in Hungary for Viktor Orban and the far right, Anti-Semitic groups from Germany and Austria, both are fringe groups, yet Netanyahu just gave them legitimacy, while extolling his concern for the Jewish People, spouting and not believing: ‘only I can save the Jewish people from Anti-Semitism, from Iran, etc’! WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE?!?

In America, there are some of we the people who want to take the right to vote away from women, from people of color, from everyone EXCEPT White Males-whom they believe should run the world. Depicting Jesus as a white man when he was certainly the same skin color as Israelis and/or Arabs, is another way of obfuscating Truth, making outside enemies to ignore the internal battle white people have with their feelings of inferiority, with egos so small and fragile that only by having power, lording it over another, can they feel good. This is NOT RIGHT LIVING, Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner, Mr. Wytkoff, et al!

Another example of this obfuscation is the Iran war; by keeping this in the news, ICE can go along without as much scrutiny, the cruelty of higher prices, much limited health care, the Epstein scandal, the plight of the poor, the needy, the stranger is pushed aside, is less newsworthy, less important? WTF? The takeover of the media by Trump ‘friends’, the threat of the FCC pulling licenses, the capitulation of business leaders, the extolling of Putin and Russia while denigrating our friends and allies of over 75 years is FUCKED UP and only We the People can stop this WRONG LIVING!

“What is right living” is a very simple question that has a myriad of responses with, in my opinion all of them boiling down to the messages of the prophets: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God” Do T’Shuvah every day, “love the stranger”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein”, care for the poor, the needy among you, make a connection with your inner life, your soul you so God can dwell among each one of us, individually and collectively, BE HUMAN, disdain cruelty, jettison lying about another and/or self, don’t whore yourself, your principles for some temporal gain, want what you have and give your unique gifts and talents to the world. This is the path of “right living” as I have come to understand and experience life. As one who knowingly took the path of WRONG living, who relished in all the wrong ways of being, who was a drunk, a thief, a no-goodnik, I know the choices we face and the pressures we the people are under, all of which makes the self-deceptions we engage in more palatable, more powerful and more deadly. Having done all I could to kill the noise, ignore, deflect the inner battle for my soul, for my decency, for my humanity, I was Blessed with an awakening that I could not, would not ignore and I have been building on this awakening for 39+years. My ways are rough and tumble, my senses are keenly aware of bullshit and I, learning from the prophets, have no time for bullshit, and I am unafraid to be accountable nor hold another to account. I also know that my ways of being, my insistence on learning and truth, my uncompromising belief in justice, mercy, love, has pushed people away, losing connection with some people that I thought were ‘forever’ people and I am sad about it and in acceptance. I am not always in “right living” and I am always open to growing and changing.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the ways you ignore your inner battles, your soul’s calling

2. Write down the outer battles you fight with the intention of ignoring the inner ones

3. Each day make a plan to engage in “right living” a little more than the day before

4. Each night, do an inventory on how you were in “right living” and how you were not.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

How are you using the ways of God to promote goodness, kindness, cruelty and strife? Year 5 Day 18

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 18

“The cause of nearly all failures in human relations is this - that while we admire and extol the tasks, we fail to acquire the tools. Neither the naked hand nor the soul left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments that work is done…The meaningful of the mitzvoth(commandments) consists in their being vehicles by which we advance on the road to spiritual ends.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 86)

Continuing on from Friday’s writing about these sentences; the crucial insight, which while obvious to some of We the People, some of we the people stay willfully blind and oblivious to these truths. Without “instruments” we the people are left to our own devices, left to the banishment of our intuitive mind by the rational, reptilian mind. Our intuitive mind is NOT all good and our rational mind is NOT all bad-the issue is using both in proper measure, as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz teaches in his book Thirteen Petalled Rose. The only way to use both “sides” of our brain is by using the correct “instruments” properly. The intuitive mind doesn’t know that 2+2=4 and the rational mind cannot see the meaning, the power, the truth of; Choose Life!, Be a Blessing, etc.

Humanity will not fail itself nor God for want of more money, more power, more scientific breakthroughs, more buildings, more, more, more. Humanity will fail itself and God for want of “spiritual ends”. A case in point: when the President of the United States celebrates the death of a war hero, a trusted public servant who devoted everything to truth, dignity, honor, decency and NO REPUBLICAN CONGRESS PEOPLE condemn him, this is a failure of humanity! When money is the goal of the ‘negotiator’ in the Middle East conflict, when the prejudice is for the grift and the graft rather than being biased for what is good for the American People, the people of the world, this is a failure of humanity! When the sanctions are lifted on Russian oil, Iranian oil so Trump can get the gas prices down, which it probably won’t, and claims that “I thought it would be worse” and Rubio, Vance, Hegseth are like trained seals applauding him, when our allies are being asked to intervene without ever being briefed before this war began, this is a failure of humanity! When cruelty is the point, when prejudice is the path, when only “White Men” should have power, we have a failure of humanity! When the goal is power, prestige, saving face, hiding one’s “dirty laundry”, making “deals with the devil” and doing everything to protect image, facade, and falseness, we have a failure of humanity!

These failures and so many more occur because we the people have ourselves jettisoned learning how to use the “instruments” correctly and, instead, found the myriad ways to bastardize them while claiming, feigning innocence, all the while knowing what is right and good, what is holy and Godlike. Yet, we the people into our stupidity, our willful blindness, our fears, our ‘wanting in on the action’, allow these failures to continue, to tear at the fabric that is the Bible, that is the New Testament, that is the basis for living well. We the People are being called upon to, again, STAND UP and be counted among those of us who claim to be descendants of the prophets, who know we are to serve something greater than ourselves, who realize our lack of knowledge as to how to use the “instruments” at our disposal. This is a constant theme of Rabbi Heschel’s, a constant call of God’s in the Bible, a main thrust of Jesus’ teachings.

You Matter is not just a signature I end every email with, nor is it just a saying on a coin I give out, You Matter is a way for We the People to be responsible to learn how to be on the “road to spiritual ends”. It is a reminder of how meaningful each and every action we take is, how the “mitzvoth” are the navigators for living with passion and purpose, with finding our Ikigai, our unique talent and fulfilling a divine need that only each of us as individuals can fill. It is the essence, in my opinion, of what the Call from Sinai is, what the 10 sayings encapsulate. Why would God ‘waste God’s time’ with us if we are not important? This is not about oversized ego, this is not about undersized ego, You Matter reminds us to live right-sized, knowing what we do well and what we need help with, what is ours to do and what is not, reaching out to the stranger with LOVE, because we were strangers in Egypt. Caring for the poor in the material and the spiritual, relieving the unnecessary suffering that we the people fall into. You Matter is reminiscent of the prophets’ call for us to “return” and know that God “takes us back in love” and will “heal our backsliding”.

This is the ‘secret to my success’ as a human being these past 38+ years, growing one grain of sand a day:) I am not perfect, I keep learning more and realizing my errors more each day. I continue to engage with the “mitzvoth” in new ways, using my insight, combining my intuitive and rational minds in my actions and I know I have to “keep on keeping on” as my way of serving!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the many ways you are willfully blind to what your intuitive mind calls for

2. Write down the mendacious self-deceptions you use to continue to promote the “failure of humanity” that is so prevalent today

3. How did you engage in using the “instruments” wisely and well to be a better human being.

4. Take stock each day of your progression on the “road to spiritual ends”

5. Make YOU MATTER a way of being that impacts all of your actions.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Recognizing and preventing the Ego-maniac within from ruining your life - Year 5 Day 17

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 17

“The cause of nearly all failures in human relations is this - that while we admire and extol the tasks, we fail to acquire the tools. Neither the naked hand nor the soul left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments that work is done…The meaningful of the mitzvoth(commandments) consists in their being vehicles by which we advance on the road to spiritual ends.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 86)

The purpose of immersing ourselves in Torah each year is not to memorize it, not to pick it apart in my humble (or not so humble) opinion. The purpose is to see anew what we thought we understood from past years and to understand old phrases, old paths, old ways in completely new ways. The same is true for me with Rabbi Heschel’s writings. Today’s opening sentence is a case in point. While I have read Chapter 29 of God in Search of Man, where this is taken from, this sentence in the context of today’s world, today’s “failures in human relations” takes on new, different meanings.

We the People find ourselves in a stranglehold of conflicting emotions, a yearning for ‘the good old days’ and an excitement for ‘what’s next’, wanting preserve what we have and roll the dice to ‘get more’. We are constantly speaking fondly of the words of Christ, the laws of the Torah, bastardizing both!! We quote the prophets and the psalmists, and neither DO nor UNDERSTAND EITHER! We seek holiness and wholeness while ‘suspecting our neighbor’ instead of “loving our neighbor”, rather than “BE HOLY”, we engage in optics and subterfuge. We praise the truth, while telling, believing, and retelling the LIES that suit our vision, our wants, our desires, our inauthenticity! I am a little riled up by this first sentence, for sure:)

How could this happen, we ask ourselves and one another. It happens for the exact reason given above-“we fail to acquire the tools”! Rather than learn from history, we the people in our hubris, in our outlandish egocentric way of being, ignore the lessons, the hints, the actions of what “the cause of nearly all failures in human relations” are! AND we the people are so arrogant as to think we are so much ahead of ‘those’ people from antiquity, from our parents, from past generations. WTF PEOPLE!!!

In his book, “Lonely Man of Faith”, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, reminds us of our duality as human beings-BY DESIGN! In Chapter 1 of Genesis, the utilitarian-Adam is created, “male and female God created them both” and in Chapter 2 of Genesis, the connected-Adam. One is outer centered/focused and the second is inner centered/focused. “Adam 1” as Rabbi Soloveitchik calls them, doesn’t need another, doesn’t really care about another, until they do for their utilitarian purpose, even helping another, coming up with cures for illnesses is done to satisfy the individual’s needs to have “dominion and rule” over … “Adam 2” is concerned with connection, hence the need to split the side of Adam so that male and female could come together face to face. Just as Jacob tells Esau that “seeing you is seeing the face of God”, so too when male Adam meets female Adam they see the “face of God” in one another and are connected.

We the People seem to have no desire to teach our children nor remember ourselves our need for connection, for caring about one another, for loving our neighbors and the stranger, for growing and maturing our inner life, for hearing and heeding the Voice on Sinai, for following our intuitive mind, our higher consciousness. It is as if we the people only care about our utilitarian self, only growing our wealth, our power, our prestige and/or be with the “in crowd” who have power, wealth, prestige and it is “the cause of nearly all failures in human relations”, with the weapons available to the “bad actors”, the egocentric autocrats, the wannabe Mafia Bosses running the world today, we the people find ourselves facing another Mid-East Crisis, a Global Energy crisis, a Global warming crisis, a Global economic crisis, AND we the STUPID people believe it won’t affect us- at least those with the money and at the helms of power know they won’t be affected so they don’t care and will use this and every other crisis to their benefit!

We the People who are aware, who are connected, who have brought together their “2 Adams”, need to say NO! We are being called to “Be In The Solution” and spread “the word” of hope, love, etc. More next time.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Do an inventory of the “failed” human relations in your life

2. Find your part in the failure and seek out the tools to both repair the damage and fix the ‘flaw’

3. Do an inventory of successful human relationships in your life.

4. Find your part in the success and seek to enhance these tools so you do less damage.

5. Find ways to bring your “2 Adams” together

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

How have your skills supplanted your sense of mystery? Year 5 Day 16

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 16

“Giving birth to one chld is a mystery; bringing death to millions is but a skill. It is not quite within the power of the human will to generate life; it is quite wihtin the power of the will to destroy life.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 84)

This book, Thunder in the Soul is a compilation of Rabbi Heschel’s earlier books, ergo, there is no new writings, no ‘new’ information. The editor, Robert Erlewine, however, as compiled the disperate writings beautifully, in my opinion. He offers no commentary, just leaves the understanding to We the People.

Reading, understanding, hearing the words above gives me the shuddering awesomeness of responsibility and humility. Who the hell do we the people think we are? We hold ourselves in some lofty esteem, believing we are so hotsy-totsy, so brilliant, and it is impossible still for human beings to “generate life”, albeit we the people keep trying! Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME for we the people to rise above these baser instincts, to transform our “yetzer hara”, to serve something greater than ourselves? OH YEAH, I forgot; to far too many of we the people there is nothing greater than ourselves! Herein is the problem, the solution, the challenge and the response: The hubris of humanity is so powerful and strong that we the people forget who we truly are!

We, up till now, have been unable to create “complex life” from nothing as is possible because of how we are created. Yet, as history records and survivor records testify to, we the people are very adept at “bringing death to millions”. In fact, in this moment, as in every moment in the past, the chest-pounding by leaders of governments as to ‘my army is better than yours’ is once again crescendoing. Be it a drunken Pete Hegseth who whether he is actually drinking, his intoxication with himself, with his power, with his booze, is on full display, or be it Donald Trump, who is so drunk with his ability to manipulate, to deceive the public, to enrich himself, to be a bully and have so many people who shunned him bend their knee, kiss his ring, his ass, or any of the other maniacs running our government in this moment, We the People are being called by the words above, by historical experiences, by the Prophets, by Jesus to STAND THE FUCK UP AND SAY NO! NO! NO! Yet, we the people in our fear, in our self-deception, in our wanting to be part of the ‘in crowd’, DO NOT STAND UP! Susan Collins, John Thune, Mitch McConnell et al know the dangers of what is happening, know the incredible risk Trump is taking for democracy, are, seemingly, fine with allowing what has stood for 250 years crumble, what began as a revolution with the firing of a musket, is dying without even a whimper from these ‘fine upstanding christian LIARS, IDOLATORS!

The problem is our ability to destory life with such reckless abandon. The solution is to follow the words of the prophets, of Jesus: “return to God”, “God will heal us”, live life with a passion for our unique purpose, remember there is one law for the stranger and the citizen alike, “See yourself as if YOU had been brought out of Egypt”, etc. The challenge for We the People is to rise from the smallness, the arrogance, the hubris we the people seem to revel in, puff out our chests from, and become We the People by acknowledging a force, a higher consciousness, a spirit, an energy, that is beyond anyting we could imagine. It is this force that gave human beings the power to co-create a life, to save one soul, to live our unique path and purpose.

This challenge was brought to me some 41 years ago during my first stint in the State Prison system of California, and then again, 39 years ago during my 2nd stint in the joint. Needless to say, the 1st time I was blind, deaf and DUMB! Since the 2nd experience of hearing the challenge, being given the solution, I have stayed the course, finding out the nuances that work and don’t, the path that is right for me and not right for another(s), no longer needing to prove I am right, a surrender to God that reaches into the 90% percentile at times and hovers in the 80%’s. It is a life that brings joy and meaning, connection and love, sadness and disappointment, bewilderment and clarity of knowing what I know. Each day I am hurt by people who ghost me, overwhelmed by people who recognize me, and continue to live the next right action to the best of my ability!
ACTION STEPS:

1. How are you killing people by not recognizing their humanity, by shaming them for their foibles, by taking advantage of them just because you can

2. Until when, “Odd Matai”, will you stop refusing to acknowledge your hubris and inhumanity towards another(s) human

3. What will it take and/or how do/will you meet the challenge presented today?

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

How are you balancing the "razors edge" between using your power for good and using it to 'get yours'? - Year 5 Day 15

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 15

“By will alone man becomes the most destructive of all beings. This is our predicament: our power may become our undoing. We stand on a razors edge. It is to easy to hurt, to destroy, to insult, to kill.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 84)

The Latin root of the word “predicament” is “predicare”, in English, “predicate” and this means “make known beforehand”. I am experiencing this sentence as this is what we know beforehand and have ignored: “our power may become our undoing”! AIN’T THIS THE TRUTH! Isn’t this what we are going through right now? Isn’t this the issue that has faced human beings since the beginning of time, when Cavemen wanted to take from one another so they would just kill their neighbor to get what he had? I would posit this is precisely what the Bible comes to rectify, this is what God ‘saw’ happening with the ‘men of reknown’ taking any virgin they wanted to and treating them like whores, when God ‘saw’ the violence that was abounding on earth, when God ‘saw’ that Adam and Eve were hiding, when God ‘saw’ when Cain denied killing his brother, Abel, etc. The Bible comes to tell us: Yes, you have the power, yes, you have free will to make your own choices AND here is the path that will lead you to joy, to fulfilling your passion and completing your purpose, here are ‘the steps’ to take as we slog on this chaotically, joyous journey called our lives.

Throughout human history, these words have come to both light and fruition, almost. From the Assyrians, to the Egyptians, to the Greeks, to the Romans, to all of the rest of the countries of the world, their “power” did “become our undoing” and, I fear, we are beginning to see the same in the United States today. Rather than heed the prophets, rather than live Jesus’ teachings and ways, today’s ‘good christian nationalists, good christian prosperity gospel people, good ‘torah jews’ are doing the exact opposite and their mendacity, their abilty to deceive so many of we the people is undoing an experiment begun 250 years ago. Whether or not they will succeed is still unknown and the outcome will be decided by either we the people, in our smallness or by We the People by taking our rightful place as divine reminders, fulfilling the divine need we are created to fulfill, and living with the passion and purpose that resides in our souls. This is the challenge we the people, We the People face: are we living the LIE of smallness and powerlessness over self and caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow and orphan and being the poor small victims and crying about being we the people or are We going to say HELL NO to the ASSHOLES who are using their power to hurt, destroy, insult and kill We the People of this country and, evidently, other countries as well?

This is the choice and We the People are more than capable and have the power, the strength, the awareness, the spiritual maturity to make the choice that hears, understands and does: CHOOSE LIFE! We the People do not engage in hurting, destroying, insulting, killing the souls, the spirits, the bodies of another human being(s), it is only we the people the smallminded asshole we have the ability to fall back to. This is why Spiritual Counseling, a Spiritual discipline, immersing oneself in the REAL teachings of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran - not the lies we are being and have been fed for so long, is crucial for We the People and is the antidote to “our power may be our undoing”!

My divine image is in complete sympathy with God, I am experiencing the pain and sadness that is described in the Bible when we the people go away and whore ourselves, I am immersed in the cries God makes between the 2nd and 3rd watch at night as described in the Talmud because “My children are in exile”. I know the experience of exile, I know the experieince of being enslaved to my (ir)rational mind, my emotions, and they lead to jails, institutions, and death. I am beyond grateful that I heeded the call from God when I was in the jail cell in Van Nuys, Ca. in December of 1986! I have been dedicating myself to being the Change God wants to see, to being the best Mark Borovitz I can in this moment. I have made the mistakes Rabbi Heschel warns us of and I continue to do my T’Shuvah and improve at least one grain of sand each day. It is a hard way to live and the most joyous life experience-knowing God’s cries, hearing my own, hearing yours, makes me a better person in this moment.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Examine the ways you have used your power each day-letting go of the lie that you are powerless and a victim. While you may have been victimized, you don’t have to wear the label.

2. Make a list of the ways you engaged in the misuse of power

3. Do an inventory on how you found it “so easy to hurt, destroy, insult and kill” today, remembering the ease with which murdering a soul happens.

4. Write down the changes you are committed to so your power stays in check more and the negativity of it lessens

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark