Are you aware of God's and Humanity's NEED for "mercy, righteousness"? Year 4 Day 252

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 252

“The world is full of iniquity, injustice, idolatry. The people offer animals; the priests offer incense. But God needs mercy, righteousness; His needs cannot be satisfied in Temples, in space…” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 47)

THANK GOD ALL THE LIVING HOSTAGES ARE FREE!!

While some, maybe even many, people think Rabbi Heschel is railing against human beings, I believe, in the way of the prophet, Rabbi Heschel is demonstrating his deep belief in and love for human beings. Much like it says ‘in the good book’: “You shall rebuke your people(neighbor) and not put on yourself ‘missing the mark’”, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of what it is we are doing and how much we can rise above our worst impulses and actions, that we do not have to be defined by our greatest “iniquity”, there is more to us than our sin, our injustices, our practices of idolatry and he is trying, again in the way of the prophet, to wake We the People up.

Of course “the world is full of iniquity, injustice and idolatry”, we see it all around us, we engage in it ourselves-especially when we believe we can gain from these ways of being. We the People are born with two opposing forces; the ‘good’ inclination and the ‘evil’ inclination and our job for our entire time here is to transform the ‘evil’ inclination into a force for ‘good’, not annihilate it, not allow it to run rampant, to bring it to serve the ‘good’ inclination much like our rational mind is supposed to serve our intuitive one. Unfortunately, as Rabbi Heschel is pointing out, We the People have done a terrible job at raising our souls, at educating our children and ourselves of the ‘how to’ transform the ‘evil’ inclination’s energy to serve the good, to use our competitive nature to give us an edge and insight rather than the need to “win at any and all costs”. This way of being could be the root of our “idolatry”, our “injustice”, and the source of our greatest “iniquity”.

What are We the People doing? What is the need for the ‘good religious folk’, those ‘bible thumping’ ‘everything I do serves god/idol’ to continue to abuse their souls and the souls of so many of We the People with their lies, their deceptions, both of self and another(s)? How do we end our practice of offering animals-which today takes the form of AK-47’s as hunting rifles, using the vulnerabilities of another to make oneself look and feel better, stepping on the backs of people to ‘climb the ladder of success’, etc. How do we tell the priests to stop with their offerings of “incense” and admit their own foibles and iniquities, their own idolatry and practicing of injustices? Rather than just opt out, which is what many of We the People have done and, for many of those who haven’t opted out all together, we don’t pay attention and are there only for show or because we go on holy days. As I am immersing myself more and more in the words above, I am heartbroken at the numerous opportunities We the People have had to tell the priests to start living the principles of our faith(whatever one it is), to teach our children about how to grow and mature their souls, and to be the physician of the soul they are called to be.

We the People also have to speak to one another, We the People have to remind one another of our purpose, of our calling, of the demand put upon us: fulfilling  God’s need for mercy, for righteousness. These actions, ways of being, along with many others, cannot be fulfilled in the ‘sacred space’ of our Temples, our Churches, Mosques. They can only be fulfilled when We the People live the principles of “mercy, righteousness” in our daily actions, when We the People acknowledge our inner need to treat another with righteousness, to extend mercy to another who has fallen and engaged in “iniquity” even against us and has asked for forgiveness, has done TShuvah. We the People have to be merciful towards ourselves as well. We the People are being called to end our incessant need to rationalize our bad behaviors, make false accusations against ourselves and treat ourselves with righteousness also.

To combat “iniquity, injustice, idolatry”, We the People get to look at ourselves, look at the outside world and deny the lies we have been telling ourselves, call out the ridiculous “adjustment to societal norms and mental cliches” that have been ruling us and the world for far too long. To live into “mercy, righteousness” We the People have to stay “maladjusted” to these norms, to these cliches so we can be present in this moment. We the People can change the “iniquity, injustice, idolatry” into holiness, justice and service with a small almost unperceptive change of the way we live: do the next right thing, treat our selves and our neighbors with love, with rebuke, with kindness, with truth, with mercy and in righteousness. We the People do this at least once a day with at least one person in our lives-the call of the words above is to expand this action into more of our affairs with the goal of living these principles in all our affairs!

I have been combating these deadly sins for my entire life, taking a hiatus for about 20 years and even then I fought some injustice and had no use for Judaism because of the idolatry I saw from the so-called people in charge, the ‘pious ones’. I cannot stand to see injustice, idolatry, iniquity abound in the world and in our homes as it is happening today. I am at a loss and all I can do is look inside myself, see my frustrations and how I take them out on the wrong people, how I become obsessed with things I cannot control and have to win because I am so enraged in my inner life with the happenings of today, the loss of freedom, decency, the grift that is beyond the beyond, the lies and deceptions that are rampant and that the left and the right are both practitioners of these ways. It is sad and we will weather this storm, I pray. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How are you shaping the Clay that is your life, according to God's Will or your own? Year 4 Day 251

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 251

“Life is clay, and righteousness the mold in which God wants history to be shaped. But human beings, instead of fashioning the clay, deform the shape.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 47)

Please God, the Hostages are returned today! Please God both sides continue to talk and resolve this war! Please God, Qatar doesn’t have an Air Force Base in the United States! Please God the Jewish world realizes Bibi’s role in all of this destruction! Please God the world realizes Qatar, Saudi Arabia, et al role in funding Hamas and supporting them all these years!

Reading these words sends shivers up and down my spine, gives me a pain in my heart, causes me to deny this truth in my mind and causes my soul to cry. On Kol Nidre we read the prayer, Ki Hinei KaHomer, We are like Clay in Your hands and we keep asking God to heed the covenant, not give us the decree we have earned with our actions which “deform the shape”! We read this, there are beautiful melodies this prayer is sung to and We the People refuse to SHEMA, to hear, to listen, to understand the predicament We the People are  in!

We the People have the ability to make our lives whatever we want them to be, even though we may be limited by birth order, where and to whom we are born, how we are raised, socio-economic status, etc. Given all of these, We the People still have free-will choice, the predominant trait of what makes us human beings, as Rabbi Abraham Twerski teaches. We the People, for far too long, have used different factors to rationalize, normalize, and defend the fact that we “deform the shape”, that we refuse to be “clay” in the ‘hands’ of God, that We the People reject and continually try to break the “mold in which God wants history to be shaped”, that “righteousness” is not in vogue. This is true for all people, not just the ‘unchurched’, it is especially true for so many of the ‘good christians, good jews, good muslims’ who continue to preach hatred and xenophobia, continue to make someone else ‘the other’ and call them vermin, blame them for “poisoning the blood of the citizens”, and other such lies and vitriols.

“When will we ever learn” is a refrain from Pete Seeger’s “Where have all the flowers gone” and I find myself asking this question again and again. “When we ever learn” that “righteousness the mold in which God wants history to be shaped” is a gift to every human being, is the only way we will “long endure” as a species, as nations, as divine reminders and as instruments of Godliness. This is our inheritance and We the People continue to squander it, We continue to bankrupt our spiritual and moral bank accounts that have been left to us by our ancestors, the deposits of which have cost lives in wars to maintain freedom, which have cost headache and poverty when doing the next right thing is not only not rewarded, it is used as cudgel against those of We the People who believe that being molded by God to be righteous is the path to wholeness and a good life. We the People are not a monolith, of course, and what is constantly perplexing and not understandable to many of us is, how the loudest voices get the attention and, if the lies are spouted long enough and loud enough, even the people who believe in the Biblical Demand to: “Love the stranger”, to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, to “love your neighbor as yourself”, to “rebuke your neighbor and not bear guilt because of them” etc, fall for the loud consistent lies we are being fed!!

What are We the People to do? It seems just too much for us to overcome, to fight against, since there has never been a time when “human beings” have never stopped our pull/drive to “deform the clay”. There is a solution and it is to be found when We the People realize our spiritual bankruptcy AND our need to live from our values and morality, from the inside out, from our souls and not our rationalizations. As it states in Deuteronomy 30:14: “But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it!(bold is mine). We the People are being called each and every day to SHEMA, to hear, listen and understand that living into the “mold” of “righteousness” is not too hard, it is not going to deprive us, it is not going to make us a fool. Rather, living into the “mold” of “righteousness” is the path to living life to its fullest, being okay with our missing the marks, learning from our errors, finding ways to honor, if not love, the stranger, learning to love our true self and not the false one we/society has created, welcoming the rebuke of another(s) as a show of deep faith in us that we are not a ‘lost cause’ and we can grow, and replenish the withdrawals from our spiritual bank accounts with these deposits of morality, goodness, justice, love, and righteousness!  This is the way, this is the path and it is available to all of us, we have to allow ourselves to return to “righteousness” and the “mold in which God” wants us to live into.

I know this way of being, I know how badly I deformed the “clay” of my life and I know I had to reach a bottom in order to come face to face with righteousness and how far I had strayed from the “mold”, how distant I had become from the lessons of my father, grandfathers, relatives who believed in “righteousness” even when they missed the mark. Once this became so apparent I could no longer resist the truth, my recovery began. I didn’t stop drinking then and I began to recover my humanity, I came to realize that I had to fill up my spiritual bank account and have an inheritance for Heather to be able to draw on. I pray that there is enough for my grandson Miles to draw upon as well. It is simple and not easy to live in the “mold” of “righteousness” and each day I do the best I can knowing it is never perfect and being on the journey will just have to do for now.. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Rebelling against the societal norms of 'getting mine' no matter what I have to do - Year 4 Day 250

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 250

“People act as they please, doing what is vile, abusing the weak, not realizing they are fighting God, affronting the divine, or that the oppression of man is a humiliation of God. He who oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, He who is kind to the needy honors Him.(Psalms 14.31) (Thunder in the Soul pg. 46)

Yesterday I looked at these words from a global, national, communal level. Today, on this Shabbat of Sukkot, when a Hostage Deal and Ceasefire has been accomplished in the Middle East, I am delving into these ideas on a personal level.

It is a conundrum we face on a daily basis: on one hand we have individuals doing “as they please” in the name of freedom when in actuality they are living in the liberty stage of life. Just as we learn in Exodus, we go from under the thumb of Pharaoh to the liberty that happens after we cross the Red Sea to the freedom we attain when we accept the Torah from Sinai. Each of us has a Pharaoh, be it the voice inside that bedevils us, that lies to us, that controls our good urges and supplants them with the spiritual malady of thinking good is bad and bad is good; be it the taskmaster that is our parent who refuses to see who we are and speak to us in ways we can understand, who denies our uniqueness in an effort to ‘keep up with the Jones’ and ‘not be embarrassed by their children’; be it the boss who keeps us down, the ‘friends’ who indulge the darkness within both of us; be it the President of the country who is dismantling our freedoms, looting the national treasury and treasures, etc; we all have a Pharaoh that is inside and outside of us.

Our job, our call, the demand put upon us is to Shema, hear the words of King David, take in and allow these words of Psalm 14 above to penetrate “the foreskin of our hearts”, know that we are not alone in our fight against the inner Pharaoh nor are we the first to engage in this battle, this is the battle that has been raging inside every human being since Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden of Eden! After all, do we really gain a good life by “doing what is vile, “abusing the weak”, “fighting God”, doing what is “a humiliation of God” and a refutation of God’s will like these ‘good christian nationalists are doing? Yes, people gain money, power, prestige, fame, celebrity, etc from doing these actions, is this what a good life is? This is the most important distinction one can make-distinguishing between what is a good life and what isn’t. As King David says in his lament over the death of King Saul and his dear friend whom he loved, Jonathan: “Oh how the mighty have fallen” so too have all of these ‘mighty’ people who enjoy engaging in “the oppression of man” and “a humiliation of God” fall-maybe not in ways we can see and they fall into their self-deception, their hatred and these ways of being eat them up from the inside out. All of the great despots eventually go too far, they make themselves into caricatures and, either during their lives or after their deaths, they are seen for the small, cruel people they were/are.

We the People are being asked to look inside of ourselves and see how and when we revel in the misfortune of another, friend and foe alike. We the People are being called to be accountable and responsible for the abuses of “the weak” that we have and still are committing. We the People are being given the opportunity to see the vileness of our vindictive behaviors, the doing what we want when we want rather than serving the person in front of us. We the People get to see how we have fighting God, humiliating God and ignoring the God-Image of another human being in they myriad of ways we denigrate another human being a denigrate ourselves. We the People are given a choice to live into the holiness that is inherent in our being, live into the decency that the commandments bestow upon us, live into our authentic self, enjoying freedom rather than partaking in liberty, doing what is good, right, and needed in this moment rather than indulging in our whims and fantasies.

We the People live into the good, the right, the meaning and purpose of our life by letting go of our need to be vile, our need to forget the goodness and the assistance of those who have helped us in years prior and whom we no longer ‘have any use for’. We the People live into the connection we crave with God, Higher Consciousness by being “kind to the needy” which in turn “honors Him”. We the People live into the meaning and purpose of our life through spiritual growth, not material gain. We the People are getting the opportunity to stand with the poor, the needy, the stranger, and love them as the Bible teaches, appreciate the divine image in them and grow into sharing our talents, gifts, love, kindness to the 1000th generation, as the 13 Attributes teach us to do, it is one of the best ways to imitate God and truly be God’s voice, hands right here, right now.

I have, of course, acted in the ways listed above and I have been “kind to the needy” much more often in these past 38 years. Even when I was stealing and being a no-goodnik, I rarely took advantage of those who had less than me. I have spent my recovery repairing the damage from my past, I engage in living amends, I release the resentments I once carried, I don’t need anyone to thank me for the good I have done because I have the knowing my deeds bring me closer and closer to being the fully authentic Mark I was created to be. I am still bewildered by those who engage in cruelty and vileness for its own sake. I pray for the individuals who carry out these ICE raids, I pray for the military who are going against the Oath they took, I pray for the IDF soldiers who committed horrific deeds, I pray for all of us to live into the 2nd half of the quote from Psalms. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Until When will We The People continue to affront the divine within self and another? Year 4 Day 249

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 249

“People act as they please, doing what is vile, abusing the weak, not realizing they are fighting God, affronting the divine, or that the oppression of man is a humiliation of God. He who oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, He who is kind to the needy honors Him.(Psalms 14.31) (Thunder in the Soul pg. 46)

Please let the deal for the hostages go through!! Please let there be an end to the hatred and mistrust in the Middle East. Please let there be a functioning government in the United States. Please let these ‘god-fearing good christian nationalists’ end their reign of terror and slavery. This is the 1st of 2 on these words.

Reading the words above from Rabbi Heschel, I am struck by the inability of We the People to learn from our past mistakes, learn from our history, both personal and global, and continue to find new ways to do the same old shit- “doing what is vile, abusing the weak”, etc. It is an amazing fact that the same person who seems to be doing something good in the Middle East, Trump, can be so vile and abusive here at home and with our allies. He is bullying everyone in the Middle East not realizing they have long memories, they have been fighting the same war for a millennium, at least, and Trump touts his “eternal peace”. Yet, in the spirit of both/and, he is doing something no one else has been able to do-move Netanyahu to rescue the hostages! AND, this does not mean he isn’t vile and abusive, it doesn’t mean he is not “fighting God”, or “affronting the divine”! He is and so are his thugs like Russell Vought, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, Tom Holman, et al.

In fairness to all of these abusers and liars, these practitioners of vile and oppressive ways, they get support from some of the Churches and Synagogues, they are being fed bullshit from their clergy and, while one can find certain passages in the Bible to support vile, abusive actions, when anyone decides to ignore Yud Hey Vav Hey, God who is merciful, kind, truthful, forgiving and wiping the slate clean when we repent, We the People find ourselves in the midst of autocracy and hatred, abusive and vile actions which will not stop until We the People say ENOUGH! This is our challenge today, not just because of Trump and the rest of the assholes running the world today, it is our challenge because some 3000 years ago, when King David lived, the words from Psalms were written! This is not a new phenomenon, being vile and abusive, believing we can “act as they please” is as old as humanity and, I believe, God is in Search of Man who will end this madness that We the People keep engaging in. Society has not changed much, the norms of “doing what is vile, abusing the weak” still exist and are rewarded with money and power, just like Jesus saw in the Temple and, remember, he was killed for telling the truth, murdered for speaking truth to power-just like Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther Kings Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, etc.

What is truly mind-boggling to me and to many of the people I know is the level of self-deception that We the People sink into. Once we begin to deceive ourselves, it is like we have walked into quicksand and there is no way out except by asking for help. Writing this reminds me of the Psalm 121, “I lift my eyes to the mountains, where will my help come from? It will come from Adonai, maker of heaven and earth.”. Yet, when We the People continue to be “fighting with God, affronting the divine”, how can we seek the help the Psalmist is crying out for? The issue for We the People seems to be how to let go of the mendacity that has defined us since the Psalmist wrote the words about oppressing “a poor man” and before. It continue to seem out of the grasp of humanity to come to terms with their self-deception and the incessant, constant need to deceive another(s) so they end this madness, this “vile” and “abusive” behavior. Listening to Pam Bondi at the recent Senate hearing not answer the questions asked, treating the United States Senate as a fly to flick off her shoulders, lying and hiding while the Republican Senators stayed silent, allowed her (and supported her through their silence) to denigrate the Senate body and what it stands for, or used to stand for, in our progress towards “a more perfect union”.

In this moment, “oppress the poor” is seen as joyous and in service of the god of christian nationalism, Trumpism, Project 2025, and these priests and ministers who Christ railed against and Moses warned us about-false prophets. In this moment, these ‘good god-fearing christian nationalists’ are violating the first 3 commandments because they have made god in their image and the rest of We the People are suffering. It is WAY PAST TIME for those of us who believe in and know in our bones that God is waiting for us to redeem our world, that the “word is not far away… it is in our mouth and in our heart” as Deuteronomy teaches us. It is WAY PASt TIME for We the People to stop the abuse, the vileness, the cruelty, the fight with God, the affront to the divine.

I have been supporting Indivisible, John Pavlovitz, and others who are in the fight, who are leading some charges to stop the madness. I also know that the madness has to stop inside of me and this is the ‘flash of insight’ this week. I am not slowing down enough to do what is in front of me, take my time in Bridge, Golf, Ceramics, because I am in such turmoil inside from the vile, abusive ways of the world. I am saddened that my grandson, Miles Garrett, is being raised in a world that is so much angrier, sadder, scarier than I was raised in. I pray each day for the welfare of the stranger, the poor, the needy and that someone, somewhere will lead us out of this quicksand we are sinking further and further into. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Recognizing God's stake in human life, our life . Year 4 Day 248

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 248

“Righteousness is not just a value; it is God’s part of human life, God’s stake in human history. Perhaps it is because the suffering of man is a blot upon God’s conscience; because it is in relations between man and man that God is at stake.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 46)

What an outrageous statement: “righteousness is God’s part of human life, God’s stake in human history”! And how this changes what religion is really all about! Rather than God-centered, it is human-centered, rather than rituals to ‘please the gods’, religion, certainly Judaism according to the Bible, is about taking actions that honor the dignity and humanity of each individual, that recognizes the Tzelem, the divine image, in everyone, including oneself! Oh Shit! I can’t get away with just checking the Mitzvah Boxes? I can’t be considered good because I went to services today, I am sleeping in the Sukkah tonight? I have to be righteous?!?!!

This idea, this teaching gives, or should give, We the People pause, it stops, needs to stop, We the People from having allies and enemies, from seeking power for the sake of power, from lying about ‘being anointed’, from practicing cruelty just because we can and covering it up with subterfuge and mendacity, from hating another human being in our heart and using their vulnerabilities against them! YET IT DOESN’T!!

Because religion has been used and abused for xenophobic superiority, because it is used and abused by cruel autocrats and their servants-clergy who have no idea  of what a relationship with God is- religion has been rejected by so many people, almost 30% of Americans, and those who do identify, a majority have no idea what their Holy Texts actually say-they get their information from the ‘spiritual leader’ of their Church, Mosque, Synagogue; investing so much power and control into people who are spiritually and morally suspect in many cases, for whom power corrupts them, they are merely puppets of their teachers from their respective seminaries, etc. We the People have allowed ourselves to become dependent upon people who are doing a job rather than demand our clergy, our spiritual leaders and teachers know they are called to service, to serve the individual and the group as a way of serving God. Not the anthropomorphic vision that people use and believe that their is ‘a guy in the sky’ who decides stuff. Rather, as Judaism knows, God is incorporeal, no shape, no image and any reference to “hands, eyes” etc is used to speak to humanity in ways they can understand. The truth is God in the Hebrew Bible is more concerned with how we treat one another than how many times we stand up, sit down, how many times we pray each day, etc. These rituals are to bring us more in touch with “righteousness” so we honor and welcome “God’s stake in human life”, so we live Godliness in our everyday actions by being righteous, by being kind, by being truthful, by Choosing LIFE!

We the People are being reminded that the suffering of a human being causes God to suffer, the suffering of another person causes, or needs to cause, within each of us a nagging of our conscience and bring us to the God-consciousness/Higher consciousness called for by the Bible, by Jesus, by Mohammed, by the Eastern traditions. We the People are being called to account for the suffering we cause and proclaim this is what ‘god’ wants! When “righteousness” is “God’s part of human life” to say that God wants ‘those people’ who ‘are not like us’ to suffer is utter and complete BULLSHIT! Yet, We the People, at least some of us, almost 40%, believe/believed the mendacity of the Clergy who supported Trump and Project 2025, who supported Bibi and his inordinate bombing of Gaza, who want the US to own Greenland and Canada, who want Israel to own Gaza and the West Bank. We the People, rather than remember our humble beginnings, rather than use the Holy Days of Sukkot to get back in touch with the “righteousness” that is our birthright, renew the covenant with God by welcoming and caring for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy; seem to be heading for the crash of both the stock market and our morality!

Paraphrasing a thought of Rabbi Heschel’s regarding the Vietnam War; How can I pray being co-responsible for the death of 1000’s of innocent Vietnamese-is a question We the People need to be asking ourselves: How can any of us pray, live a conscious, authentic life when we are co-responsible for the suffering of so many innocent people around the globe? How can we sit on our hands while people are being kidnapped by masked ‘agents’ of the government, when “God’s stake in human history” is being abused and usurped by the liars and idolators in the White House, in our neighbors’ houses, in the streets and in our houses of worship? WE THE PEOPLE MUST STAND UP AGAINST THESE LIES!! We the People are being called to stand with God, to practice Godliness in all our affairs, to not cause more suffering and to heal/stop the suffering that is currently occurring. There is no freedom for all when the freedom of the stranger, the welfare of the poor and needy are being restricted and denied!!

I know the “blot upon God’s conscience” that suffering brings because I was a cause of suffering to many in the days prior to my recovery and even since-after all none of us are perfect. The difference is I know any suffering I cause restricts  me from prayer, from learning, from connecting and the suffering I cause rebounds back to me and I become bereft until I do my T’Shuvah and repair the damage. This is what I am hearing from Rabbi Heschel today-we will all cause suffering, it is a human trait, the difference between being a person of faith or not is whether one does T’Shuvah, takes responsibility, repairs the damage or not. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

When do you "mind your own business" and when do you get involved? Year 4 Day 247

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 247

“remonstrating about wrongs inflicted on other people, meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern nor responsibility…The prophet is a person who is not tolerant of the wrongs done to others, who resents other people’s injuries.” (Thunder in the Soul pgs.45-6)

Here we are on the first day of Sukkot, exactly two years since October 7th, the day of horror that Israel had never experienced, and rather than focus on the joy of Sukkot-we say “season of joy” as a greeting to one another, or focus on the tragedy, I am continuing yesterday’s theme about the prophets.

“Remonstrating about wrongs inflicted on other people, meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern nor responsibility” is at the core of what the prophets teach us about God, about spirit, about what is at the core of every human being-justice, righteousness, concern, love, kindness, dignity. Why else would our prophets go to such lengths, put their very lives on the line to speak truth to power, to teach the people what is already “very near to you, in your mouth, in your heart, that you may do it”(Deut.30:14)? The idea that one would/should be “meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern nor responsibility” seems ridiculous to so many people; “mind your own business” is a common refrain, “stay in your lane” is spoken about in AA, in recovery, and while both have their place and, in the right moments, are good advice-the prophets and, by extension, God are advising us to be citizens, to be involved, immersed in the happenings around us and “righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue(some say Justice, Justice)” from Deuteronomy 16:20. Yet, too many of us are still sitting on the sidelines, watching the world disintegrate, eyeing the doorway to ‘safety’, not realizing there is no safe haven when evil is reigning, there is no place to hide and bury one’s head in the sand when justice is being perverted ‘over there’ ‘to those people’! History has shown us this over and over again, yet, We the People continue to seek ‘our savior’, continue to buy the lies of the idolators, the charlatans who purport to speak in the name of Christ, in the name of Moses, in the name of Mohammed. We the People know, deep down in our beingness, that this avenue is wrong and we are afraid to exhibit the courage, the calling to stand with the oppressed, to scream from the rooftops about the “wrongs inflicted on other people”. This is what will be the end of freedom, the destruction of democracy; We the People being more afraid of living into our prophetic inheritance than into our descent to slavery; do we really have to repeat the experience in Egypt again?!?

We the People in this moment, with the weight of October 7th on us, with the weight of the response to it on us, with the holiday of Sukkot which demands we engage in joy on us, have a choice to make: do we fall, falter, give up under the weight of the tragedy, the horror of both the despicable attacks by Hamas and the inhumane response of Israel, do we stand tall, speak truth to power, tell Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, Orban, et al, to “Let My People Go”? Are we going to accept the inheritance the Bible gives us? Are we going to revel in the spiritual inheritance that Moses, Deborah, Ruth(the Moabite), King David, the prophets have passed down to us? YES WE ARE!!

We the People are not sitting idly by in many cases; we are fighting the wrongs in Court, we are fighting the power grabs in states where freedom is more important than legal fictions, we are screaming and demonstrating against the abuses of power by ICE, by the National Guard, by the Military who want to stage a coup in the streets of cities that Trump doesn’t like because We the People in these cities and states are not kissing the ring nor his ass like the Republicans in other states and in Congress are. We the People are not being ”tolerant of the wrongs done to others”, We the People are showing how much we “resent other people’s injuries” by our constant demonstrations, our calling Congress, our going to court! We the People are doing what we can to stop the tide of hate, the rushing rapids of autocracy, the avalanche of despicable actions by the government that has been entrusted to the worst of humankind-small people who seek big power. The prophet Amos teaches us: “hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate”(5:15) and goes on to demand of us: “justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream”. This is our inheritance, this is the call of AYECHA which God sends out 24/7 to us, the partners chosen to help make the world a little better each day, this is what We the People get to engage in, what We the People are called to  and what we GET to do.

This is the call I have heard forever and, as I said yesterday, got so jaded, so hurt, so distraught that I lost my way for a while.. The lack in my Jewish Education is tragic and, while I want to blame the teachers I had, the Rabbi, the truth is I don’t know if they tried to teach us and I just didn’t listen because the noise in my head, the psychic pain in my inner life was blocking it out. I do know that nothing is more important than justice to me in this moment and has been for a long time. Justice is not about the letter of the law to me, justice is about what is right, what is true, what is decent, what is loyal to values and oaths to God, what is the next right action… I don’t always get it right, I am still hard on myself, I still get upset when I do dumb mistakes at Bridge, at Ceramics, at Golf, at home and on the way. I continue to improve and take two steps forward and then one (or more) backwards. Yet, justice, truth, freedom, kindness, are first and foremost in my mind, heart, mouth. I speak a truth that many don’t want to hear, I speak of actions that many don’t want to take, and I won’t stop! This is the inheritance I get from the prophets-continue on no matter what anyone else thinks and this is my jam, my way. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Who are the advocates, the champions, the interferers, the remonstrators of today? Year 4 Day 246

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 246

“In a sense, the calling of the prophet may be described as that of an advocate or champion, speaking for those who are too weak to plead their own cause. Indeed, the major activity of the prophets was interference, remonstrating about wrongs inflicted on other people, meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern nor responsibility.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.45)

The prophets have captured my attention forever, when I was a youth, I believed we could ‘change the world’ once and for all, because of the words of the prophets, because in the Bible was the path to change, the path of justice, the path of mercy, etc. Yet, it was not to be and the more I was laughed at, the more jaded I became and I joined the wrong revolution, I joined the rebels who were also in it for themselves-what could I get from you and make it mine. This is the difference between a prophet, a person of the Bible, a person of real faith, person who believes being humane is the most important action one can take and everyone else: having “the calling of a prophet”, being “an advocate or champion”.

It is an interesting description: “the major activity of the prophets was interference” because the Rabbis have been afraid of the prophetic strain in our tradition, fearful that they would be the ones being interfered with, fearing the passion and the possible destruction of the Jewish people if the prophetic spirit moved them to stage another revolt like the Bar Kochba one, which was a dismal failure. While the Rabbis quote the prophets in the Talmud, they take the words out of context often, just as they do with the Torah and this leads to a bastardization of the prophets words, a weakening of their message and a lessening of their “interference”.

Here we are today, in 2025, and the questions some people are asking is: Where are the prophets today, who are the prophets of today? For some, they are the MAGA crowd of haters and bible-thumpers(Jewish and Christian) and this belief is bewildering because none of the ‘prophets’ of the MAGA crowd do anything for another human being that is not their concern and they take no responsibility in anything that doesn’t work, they take no responsibility for speaking truth to power, nor do they care about the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger. Yet, the clergy who promote a Christianity that has nothing to do with Christ, a Judaism that has nothing to do with Moses and the God of Abraham, fervently believe they are the true ‘prophets’ of today, and are doing what they can to promote the untruths of their ‘biblical’ message-which is really anti-biblical. I call them untruths because anytime something is ‘half-true’, it is all untrue. Truth is, there is no half, no quarter, this is a case of either/or-something is true or it is not true.

For the rest of We the People, we are left asking ourselves-who are the prophets of today as well. While there are some leaders like Bishop William Barber, some activists like Ezra Klein, no one has stepped forward to truly lead the resistance, no one is stepping up to be the “advocate or champion” that speaks to the souls of all of us, that speaks to the actions we must take in our own inner lives. Yes, there are many on the ‘progressive’ end of the spectrum like AOC and Bernie who advocate for the poor by denigrating the people who have money, and they are correct-it is just that their agenda is not favoring the middle of the road people, their agenda is as radical as the MAGA, so, there is no one speaking out for God except for people like Bishop Barber, Rabbi Sharon Brous, and others.

Hence, as We the People immerse ourselves in the words above, we, hopefully, come to realize the prophetic mantle has been given to us, we are all descendants of the prophets, we are all capable and being called to be “an advocate or champion”, we are being called to speak “for those who are too weak to plead their own cause”. We are being reminded that running “interference” against the status quo, “remonstrating about the wrongs inflicted on other people”, “meddling in affairs” which some believe are not our concerns is the only way to live in the world and be a person of faith, a person who lives as decent human beings-no matter what one is a person of faith or not. The words above remind us, cajole us, demand of us to get off our asses, stop worrying about what ‘the neighbors think’, end our incessant need to please everyone and be thought of as ‘a nice person’ and “remonstrate”, “champion”, “advocate” for what is right and true, what is just and loving, what is serving another and being more selfless than selfish. These words call us to stand up for our freedom and the freedom of another(s), knowing that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a prophet for his time and ours, taught. This way of being is one of the highest forms of serving the Ineffable One.

I know the life of the prophet is not easy, it is difficult because no one wants to hear, listen and understand (Shema) their errors, their wrongs, their injustices because most people enjoy the ill-gotten gains these errors, wrongs, injustices have brought them! I did in my days before recovery and I was jealous of those who had what I wanted. Recognizing my prophetic voice, eyesight has brought me to a place of loneliness and joy, truth and scorn, enveloped and exiled. I know that, as my friend and teacher Rabbi Ed Feinstein says, people do not want to hear what I have to say because it makes them uncomfortable, which is what I am trying to do. I am uncomfortable every time I see injustice and I am compelled to do something about it. It is what my Rabbinate was all about, it is what I am all about. God Bless and Stay safe, Happy Sukkot, Rabbi Mark

Truthfulness, remorse, responsibility: the pathway to being a citizen rather than a tourist! Year 4 Day 245

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 245

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

Since it is almost Sukkot, it begins Monday evening, I wanted to end our time writing about “repentance” with these sentences. While we are called to do TShuvah every day and I believe it is crucial for our spiritual, emotional and physical well-being to do so, I know that most people only think of this process during this time-which is a tragedy in my opinion. Think of the world we could have, think of the the world God imagined when he put TShuvah into the world before it was created because God knew/knows we will screw up and need a way back-even though humanity has adopted perfection as not only the goal but also the only way one can feel okay with oneself-HOW RIDICULOUS!!

Hence my choosing these sentences above. The only “motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future” tell us to embrace our imperfections, cherish our errors as learning lessons and be committed to being one grain of sand better today than we were yesterday. What is Rabbi Heschel saying, what is Judaism saying about the importance of “repentance”? WE NEED IT! We need to experience remorse for our errant actions, otherwise we are a narcissistic sociopath, we have to admit our errors in judgment that lead to our taking actions in error otherwise we are a psychopath, remorse says we are responsible for our past actions and this leads us to being more responsible for the actions we take from then on. In other words, one cannot say everything one does is right and beautiful, one cannot say their lies are the truth, one cannot say they are ‘god-fearing christians’ and hate the stranger, one cannot say they are ‘good jews’ and hate their enemies in their hearts, lie about what they are doing and deny responsibility for their actions. The elected officials and their advisors, cabinet members who take these abhorrent actions are representing We the People because We the People elected them!! It is way past time for We the People to ask ourselves if we feel remorse for the ways the U.S is attacking boats in the Caribbean, raiding businesses, schools, farms, courthouses, etc and arresting, manhandling people who have committed no crimes, who are hating the stranger in our midst-here legally or not, who have declared war on cities and people who don’t agree with their fascist, autocratic ways, who lie constantly and believe cruelty is the goal? We the People have to ask ourselves if we feel remorse for the way Israel has prosecuted the war with Hamas, if killing innocent Arab babies is any different than Hamas killing innocent Jewish babies, if leveling cities and areas with 2000lb bombs is so different from a suicide bomber leveling a bus full of people, whether the payments to Hamas for years was an act of betrayal to the people who live in Israel and to Jews across the globe, whether the denial of the government to conduct an inquiry into what happened on Oct. 7th, 2023 was preventable and who is responsible is another way of avoiding responsibility for their actions-these ‘orthodox’ Jews like Ben G’Vir, et al. Are We the People going to learn from our errors, have remorse for the mistakes and horrific ways we have treated our neighbors, the strangers and our enemies and be responsible going forward?

This is the question that these sentences bring up in me, as an individual, as a citizen of the United State, and as a Jew who has been and is a Zionist and supporter of the State of Israel. I pray they bring up the same question for you. That “repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility” calls all of us to account, asks all of us the question I ask above. I believe it is way past time for all of us to be accountable for our lack of “truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility”. I believe We the People have to face ourselves prior to Sukkot this year, see where we are still hiding and lacking these three ingredients that make us human and repair our inner life, reject the lies of our rational mind, stop whoring ourselves after what our heart and eyes desire and, as it intimates in the 3rd paragraph of the Shema: be a citizen, not a tourist!

I have been living as a citizen these past 38 years precisely because I lived as a tourist for the 20 years prior, because instead of being in truth, I lied to you and to me and when I couldn’t lie to myself-I drank. I have been living as a citizen for these past 38 years because once I read these words of Rabbi Heschel, once I learned what TShuvah means and its centrality in Judaism, I couldn’t live in my skin until I began this process and it is a process that never ends-hence the call to do TShuvah one day before you die, ie-every day. It is hard for me to sleep a full 7-8 hours most days because I am constantly bombarded with the knowing that I am co-responsible for the actions that Stephen Miller, Howard Lutnick, and the rest of the gang of grifters and thieves like Jared Kushner, are taking in the ‘name of freedom, of ridding us of weaponization of government’, etc. It was difficult to not hear a call from the Rabbi to mobilize against the evil of these people, to fight against the extremists on both ends of the spectrum, to stand up for the principles of “truthfulness, remorse, responsibility”  in our daily prayers, actions, etc. It is difficult to look at what is going on, know my limitations and still hear, follow and echo the ways and words of the prophets of old and not ‘take to the streets’ like I did as a child of the 60’s. I live as a citizen because my soul demands it of me, because I have done TShuvah long enough and seriously enough to never take life for granted, to never accept the wrong, to never allow the majority to corrupt me in their drive for evil. This is the challenge I and we face each day-how are you responding to it? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Knowing when a decision is made from spirit and when it is made from rational mind - Year 4 Day 244

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 244

“Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

Well, the BIG DAY is over- now what? We have Sukkot to look forward to, hopefully everyone had a moment like I did during the 25 hours of Kol Nidre/Yom Kippur and got close and personal with your soul, with your essence, with your higher consciousness. I am continuing with some of Rabbi Heschel’s thoughts on repentance because, according to the Rabbis, we have until Hoshana Rabbah, the 7th day of Sukkot, to take care of any lingering shit on our shoes that we may have missed. Another reason is because, according to Rabbi Eliezer in the Talmud, Shabbat 153a, “Do TShuvah one day before you die” and since we don’t know the day of our death, “do TShuvah every day”.

The sentence above is the essence of how to live well, I believe. We are continually called to “return again” as the song/prayer by Shlomo Carlbach, that reminds us to we have to keep returning “to the land of our soul”. Repentance is not something we do just on Yom Kippur, everyday we are reminded of the exodus from Egypt in our prayers and everyday we are reminded to “Return” by the 2nd prayer of the middle prayers of the Amidah. Right after we remind ourselves that we have wisdom, we remind ourselves to do TShuvah, repent, return, have a new response! In fact, we praise God in this pray as the “Desirer of our TShuvah”!

Rabbi Heschel’s statement above moves me so much because any rationale for doing Repentance that we may employ renders it false, makes it seem phony, and, usually, is not accepted! Repentance is an inside job-just as seeing the divine essence, the true, authentic nature of your self/essence yesterday cannot be done rationally, neither can repentance be achieved through rational thought nor expediency. It is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card, it is not an “I’m sorry” bullshit excuse. Repentance is a decision that has to be a spiritual one, it has to come from within us, as individuals and as a community. The confession of the High Priest on Yom Kippur begins with one for himself, then his household, then the Congregation of Israel. While the confessional prayer is in the plural, it is crucial that we know our part, our responsibility to say both the prayers of confession, the TShuvah itself, and our acceptance of forgiveness from “an absolute spiritual” place within us. We cannot phone in our TShuvah, we cannot phone in our repairing damage and harm we have wrought, we cannot phone in being responsible for our part in any and all ruptures of connection between an individual and myself, between a community and myself, between a people and myself. Only through “an absolute spiritual decision” can I make my amends, continue to improve on my path, and be connected once again and more fully, to self, to another(s), to community.

The last word of the sentence above is the killer: “truthfulness”! Without returning from the land of our inner self-deception and outer deception of another(s), there can be no TShuvah made, no repentance achieved, no return happening. Which, of course, leaves us wandering in the desert, not the Sinai desert, not the desert on the way to the ‘promised land’, We the People are wandering in the desert of waste, of ruin, of blame, shame, despair, anger, etc. This desert is the desert of death, of dryness, of hunger. While yesterday, Yom Kippur, was a day some describe as a day like death, which I choose to reject because those of us for whom our TShuvah is/was done in “truthfulness”, we weren’t all that thirsty nor hungry, we were not that tired as Ne’ilah began, we were excited to hear the Shofar not because it meant we could eat but because it meant a New Year with possibilities and opportunities was finally here, the old year is history and not a burden upon us, it is a beginning place from which to grow another grain of sand or two this year! When We the People are in “truthfulness”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants there in” is not just a phrase, it becomes reality. When We the People live in “truthfulness”, “choose Life” is not just something written in the Bible, it is the level of existence we function from. When We the People live in “truthfulness”, hatred goes away, idolatry is no longer the major religion(idolatry by both the ‘believers’ and non-believers), loving the stranger, our  neighbor, showing dignity to every soul we encounter and, most of all, ONE, BOTH/AND is the order of the day-we see distinctions, we distinguish one from another, and we do not separate ourselves nor anyone/anything else anymore. This is the power, the joy, the serenity that “repentance is an absolute spiritual decision made in truthfulness” brings to the individual and the communal-the micro and the macro.

I don’t hold myself out as having achieved total truthfulness, nor have I achieved a state of being where I make no errors! I have and continue to grow in my return because I am growing in my awareness of when I do the next right thing and when I do not do the next right thing. I have and continue to grown in truthfulness and this is leading me to realizations that are painful and joyous-a truth both/and. I have been waiting to be asked to do something and this is ridiculous-my path is to do and then figure it out, my path is to reach and then see who reaches back; not wait for the phone to ring! My awareness this High Holy Day season is that I have to be me-in all my messiness, all my warts, all my brilliance and all my fire. I just don’t know another way nor do I think there is one for me! I am not sure the form this takes shape as, I am not sure the method nor much except the promoting of our new books, the reaching out to speak anywhere that will have me, and move it forward. This is what “truthfulness” has revealed to me! God

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT- Will you celebrate, complain, be miserable, be joyous? Year 4 Day 243

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 243

“Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT!! At sundown we will begin the celebration of Kol Nidre leading into the most AWESOME day of the Jewish Calendar-Yom Kippur1 It is the last day(almost) to clean up the shit from last year, to rejoice in the good and figure out how to do more good in this new year-which has technically begun and not really begun. Until we deal with the past year, successes and failures, repairing and improving, we cannot begin anything new with much hope of success. This is the beauty of, and the wisdom of the Torah in telling us to take the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to finish up last year’s business. The Rabbis, in their wisdom, knew it would take more than 10 days for most of us so they declared the month of Elul, the one preceding Rosh Hashanah, to be a month of TShuvah, of introspection, repair and enhancement.

We have done the work, hopefully, and the BIG DAY has arrived. While many Jews see this day as awesome in the sense of fear and dread, some even believe the fate of the individual is decided by ‘the guy in the sky’, looking at the liturgy, having done the work of TShuvah, of introspection, of repairing and enhancing, tonight and tomorrow is a celebration of being clean of last year’s shmutz(aka shit), being clear-eyed as to what is necessary to live well in this year 5786, what we can do to make our corner of the world a little better, whom we have to stay connected to and whom we have to distance ourselves from, how we can “love the stranger” a little more and better, how we can “redeem our kinsmen” a little more, how we can “rebuke our neighbor and not bear guilt because of them”, how “we can NOT run after the majority to do evil”, and so many other ways of being. One of the benefits of doing the work we have been doing for the past 40 days (just like the 40 years in the desert) is we have “circumcised the foreskin of our heart” and we have followed the command: “Choose Life”.

After the chanting of the Kol Nidre Prayer, we are told: “You are forgiven according to your words”! We are forgiven because we have engaged in the work of TShuvah these past 40 days and, hopefully, every day at least from now on. So the rest of the 25 hours we will be in the awesomeness, holiness, and uplifting prayers is a gift to ourselves. It is a time for us to forgive ourselves, it is a time for us to come together as a community and give one another a break, see how we have committed the same, similar actions as the ones we abhor in another(s),  how we go to extremes and have not noticed the person next to us, in front of us, or behind us as anything but an impediment to getting what we want, or as a tool for getting what we want. It is a day to remind ourselves that God doesn’t forsake us, we forsake ourselves. It is a day to remember that We the People, as individuals have to “hear our voices” and the voices of the poor, the needy, the stranger with compassion and grace. We the People, as a community and as an individual have to accept our foibles and those of another(s) We the People as a community and as an individual are called up to receive the stranger, the poor, and the needy within ourselves with compassion and kindness. Recommitting to  “cause ourselves to return”, “not be distant from our souls, our inner life”, is the gift of this day!

How can tonight and tomorrow not be a celebration for us? It is the renewal of our marriage vows with God, with our souls, with community, with our enemies. It is an experience of oneness with everything-for 30 seconds at least. How can we not celebrate the gift of admitting to everyone in the community the “exact nature of our wrongs”? We no longer have to hide in shame nor embarrassment, we no longer have to “worry about what they will think of me” because ‘they’ are admitting to the same errors, the same missing the marks! We are all ‘sinners’ who commit to change, we are all penitents who are repairing our errors, improving our actions and committing to living better in this next year. WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF THE TRUTH COMING OUT!  If this isn’t a reason for celebration, I have no idea what could be.

I have treated Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur as a day like a wedding!  Rabbi Heschel’s idea is on Yom Kippur who would want to eat with so much connection to the universe and to our inner self, our higher consciousness, our spiritual selves? I have found this to be true for myself and a myriad of people who I have served as their spiritual leader. I am rejoicing in the moment, I will celebrate this day sitting next to my wife, imagining my daughter Heather and grandson Miles sitting next to me, seeing my ancestors standing with me during the Yizkor Service, knowing I have done the best I could this year to bring everyone into the gates of TShuvah before they ‘close’ on Ne’ilah. I do miss not leading Services, I do miss not having the joy of seeing the awe and the glory on the faces of people as they awaken to the celebration of freedom. Oh well-maybe next year:) I am so grateful to my friends and family for their love, I am so grateful to all of you for reading this blog over these past 4+ years. I am so grateful to my ancestors and teachers for nurturing the spiritual thirst that has propelled me these past 38 years to a life way beyond my deserving and a life of joy, celebration, love, kindness, meaning and purpose. I am grateful for finishing two books-which are available now: You Matter TOO and Daily Life Lessons of Rabbi Heschel. God Bless, G’Mar Tov, Easy fast, and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

3 days till Yom Kippur! - Do you believe in the power of TShuvah? Year 4 Day 242

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 242

“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth, it is transformation, creation…Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

We have 3 days till Yom Kippur! What is the state of our Repentance? While there was a wonderful press conference yesterday and many of my colleagues will be hailing the “eternal peace” that has been promised by Donald J. Trump, while many Jews around the globe will be celebrating this new era of cooperation and connection with the Arab and Muslim world, none of this must deter us in doing the work of TShuvah/repentance. Israel has not done it’s own TShuvah/Inquiry regarding Oct. 7, 2023, Bibi is loathe to take responsibility for his failures, for his funding of Hamas all these years, his desire to placate the radical messianic factions of his coalition, his desire to stay out of prison! Enough of holding Bibi and Donny to account-We the People must hold ourselves to account, We the People must allow the “transformation, creation” of ourselves to happen, we must do this work in order to shed the skin we have created, the facades we have adopted, the walls we have erected so we don’t face our authentic self, we don’t cry over the missed opportunities to serve our self and another(s) in the ways we are created to do.

It is imperative for We the People to look at our self, take inventory of our actions, ask for forgiveness from those whom we have harmed, and forgive another when they come to make amends, and let go of resentments so we don’t “drink the poison expecting another person to die”, as we say in AA. We the People are being called, cajoled, demanded to engage in repentance. In the Talmud, Reb Meir says: “for one person’s repentance, the entire world is forgiven”! WOW, what an outrageous statement and what a wonderful idea. Not that everything is dependent upon one person, rather the importance of one person, the power of one person, the redeeming aspect of every person! In times such as these, with the crazies on both ends of the spectrum bellowing so loudly that those of us who seek solutions and compromises, those of us who know we don’t know it all and are not always right, repentance and redemption are our saving graces, they are necessary to our spiritual and emotional health every bit as much as prayer, ritual, etc. I would suggest that repentance and redemption are built into every prayer, every ritual and the issue for We the People is most of us are just phoning it in, we hide in the rituals and in saying our prayers, we hide in the different idolatrous interpretations of the Bible, of the New Testament, of the Koran. Isn’t it time for We the People to face up to the truth of our existence, to come to grips with our errors and stop promoting the evil as good, the bitter as sweet? Isn’t it time for We the People to stop our incessant need to be right, our constant being the victim, our ridiculous belief that only we know and do what is right, that only by being progressive/conservative can anyone be politically correct, and other such bullshit? We the People have the power to change! We the People have the gift of forgiveness, of redemption, of salvation!

One of the questions we come face to face with is: Are we willing to change, to be forgiven, to be redeemed, to experience salvation? Are we still acting like the slaves in Egypt who could not believe that God heard their cries? Are we still stuck in our erroneous beliefs about what is right and good while the world burns because we are being perfect is more important than just taking an action, that perfection continues to hold us hostage, that our disbelief in our being forgiven, in our being redeemed, in our being saved, is so great, we are unable to suspend it? Rabbi Heschel’s teaching, delivered in the most dangerous of times and places; 1936 Berlin, Germany, comes to dispel our disbelief, comes to remind us that just as God took us out of Egypt, so too will God forgive us, redeem us and save us.

How can I make this outrageous statement? I have been redeemed, I have been forgiven, I have been saved because of Repentance, because of doing the work of TShuvah-repair, change, hope! I have been the recipient of much forgiveness and those who have been unable to forgive me, I feel bad for-their need to hold onto resentments and angers precludes their ability to experience redemption and salvation, it also precludes their ability to truly take in and revel in the forgiveness of another human being. I know this because I have, in the past, been stuck in the same place. I am living a life that is beyond my wildest dreams and certainly one that is beyond my deserving on my own. The life I live is directly linked to the repentance/TShuvah I have engaged in over these past 38 years. Each Yom Kippur, I have been blessed with being able to spend 30 seconds in the throne room with God. Each Yom Kippur, I am given the gifts of redemption, forgiveness, salvation AND the gift of seeing my pure soul, seeing me in my original shape and form, experiencing the reason I was created and this allows me to commit a little more to being the me I was created to be a little more in this coming year. This is the “unnoticed miracle” of repentance for me and for YOU!! I pray you take advantage of the gift, that you don’t take it for granted, you cherish it as I do! The forces of the Universe are open to TShuvah, to repentance, they are beaming out the light of forgiveness and redemption-will you use these lights to benefit you, to make someone else whole, to leave the Egypt you have lived in for so long? I hope so, freedom is an overwhelming gift and one we have to be responsible for and to-yet it is a helluva lot better than living in the narrow spaces of Egypt!! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Time is Short, are you going to be willing to do the work of Repentance this year? Year 4 Day 241

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 241

“Before the judgment and memory of God we stand. How can we prove ourselves? How can we persist? How can we be steadfast? Through repentance.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

We are truly in the Home Stretch! We have 3 full days to get our shit right, do our inventories, make our amends, have a plan to enhance the good and not repeat the not good and then be in Synagogue on Wednesday evening to hear/recite the Kol Nidre Prayer and be forgiven! OY, do I, do you have enough time, have we spent too much time in resentment and anger, too much time patting ourselves on the back for our brilliance, too much time ignoring the errors of our ways in the past year because we were too engaged in celebrating the cruelties we have inflicted upon another or have witnessed ‘our people’ doing to another? In other words: WTF?!?!

It is disheartening to witness the various so-called spiritual communities which preach belonging, we want you, you matter and other such platitudes disrespect, disregard and displace people based on their pettiness and pride, envy and enmity. It is disheartening to hear the clergy preach so passionately about ‘we are one’ and treat some people as ‘the other’. It is disheartening to have the stewards of these so-called spiritual communities shove people who are threatening, who are not guppies, blind followers out of the way, stabbing them in the back while smiling to their faces. These practices of the various so-called spiritual communities playing to the rich, extolling themselves for helping Israel while crying poor, are what We the People have to repent for. It is not the so-called spiritual communities fault; the errors lie with the people entrusted to steward the congregation, to lead the people out of the Egypts/narrow places we all find ourselves in, and these trusted servants have become the authorities, the know-whats-best, benevolent (or not) dictators. It is all about the people-the leadership and the members, it is all about us, as individuals making up communities and groups-do we stand in repentance/TShuvah or do we stand in being right, in being cruel to ourselves as well as to another(s)? These are some of the questions we have to face if we are to be forgiven, these are some of the introspections we have to engage in if we want to experience forgiveness.

After all, God is not the ‘guy in the sky with a long white robe, beard and staff sitting on a throne’, God is the energy that keeps the world and the planets in their proper place, God is the energy that lives in each of us, the Image we are created in, that connects with the greater spiritual power in the universe. It is, in my opinion, our souls, our knowing that we “stand” before in “judgment and memory”, that we are trying to “prove ourselves” to. It is “The Man in the Glass” to whom we are called to answer and far too many of us reject this command, this GIFT of spiritual housecleaning, the joy of experiencing forgiveness and a clean slate. Without facing ourselves in truth, without getting naked in front of ourselves-seeing our foibles as well as our greatness, We the People, especially the members of so-called spiritual communities, are no different than the current autocrats in charge in the U.S. and in Israel! We the People engage in our own unique cruelty while putting on the airs of being so welcoming and kind, so serious about our commitment to the poor, the needy, the stranger and in practice hold ourselves out as better than, act like the benevolent rich of olden times. I ask again: WTF?!?!??

“How can we prove ourselves? How can we persist? How can we be steadfast? Through repentance.” This is the challenge of this moment and every moment according to the Talmud and the Bible. Are we hearing the calls of the prophets, of Moses, of God, of the Rabbis to continually do TShuvah? Are we going to commit to living life as imperfect human beings striving to repair the harms, knowing our limitations, respecting the infinite value of every human being, honoring the infinite dignity of every human being, rejoicing in the uniqueness of every human being? Are We the People going to jettison our pettiness and pride, our envy and enmity so we can “beat our swords into plowshares…so nation does not lift up sword agains nation and neither shall men learn war anymore”? Are We the People engaging in “repentance” so deeply that, this year, we will truly change our ways, find new pairs of glasses with which to see the world, to see one another, to recognize and speak to the Image of God in everyone? We the People are more than capable of rising up, of being “steadfast”, of proving “ourselves” if and when we make the decision to “persist” in our repentance! As Hillel the Elder asks: “If not now, when?”

I have been doing this introspection for 38 years, I uncover new nuances to things I did years ago. I have been guilty of the ways I outline above and have/am in repentance over these errors. I am outraged at the lack of teaching about TShuvah/repentance in our Jewish Institutions, I am outraged at the two-faced ways of being that so many Jewish leaders, lay and professional, exhibit. I am outraged that, in this moment of chaos, in this moment of cruelty, We the Jewish People are NOT leading the path to wholeness and forgiveness, to repair and new responses by leading the world, leading the country in doing TShuvah, by being in “repentance” daily. We the Jewish People are NOT being the “Light unto the Nations” we are called to be by Isaiah. We the Jewish People includes me and you, as is said: every Jew is responsible for every other Jew-so we are all responsible for the errors of another and the community! OY!! I pray for the souls of the current leadership, I pray for the awareness of We the People that repentance will save us, will heal us. We need repentance this year so badly! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Day 6 of the 10 Days of Repentance - Developing personal motivation and "an internal sense of urgency" - Year 4 Day 240

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 240

“We must recognize that repentance has yet to begin! Each person must examine whether one is part of a movement forced upon us by the environment or whether one is personally motivated, whether one is responding to a pressure from outside or to an internal sense of urgency. At stake is not the sincerity of the motivation but the earnestness and honesty of its expression.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 70)

On Thursday and Friday I wrote about the communal responsibility for T’Shuvah and asked us to ask ourselves if we are holding our community responsible for the good and not good that it has perpetrated. Here is the bridge, I believe, from the communal to the personal. Because whatever the community does, it does in our name as well as the community’s name-so We the People are co-responsible as Rabbi Heschel teaches elsewhere: “In a free society some are guilty, all are responsible.”

The teaching above may sound harsh, it may sound scolding - I can understand this interpretation - yet, I hear it as pleading, as a cry, much like the cries of the prophets of Ancient Israel, much like the cries of the slaves in Egypt, much like the cries of the Negroes in America, much like the cries of decent people everywhere who are being persecuted and prosecuted based on the color of their skin, their country of origin, their religion, their sexual orientation, etc. Whenever we are not able to speak truth to power, whenever we go along with the bastardization of the Bible by idolators posing as priests (like in the times of the prophets) we can not claim on Kol Nidre nor on Yom Kippur: “Salachti Ki’Dvorecha, I have forgiven as you have spoken” because our words and our actions are still misaligned, still incongruent; our actions are cruel and unusual punishment of our supposed enemies, they go against the words of Proverbs: “If your enemy is thirsty, give them drink…”. Before we go to Synagogue on Kol Nidre, the teaching above forces us to look deep inside of ourselves and ask if we are sincere, if we are responding to the call of our souls, if we are so closed off from our inner life, we just are phoning it in with no resolve to actually change.

One of the reasons I never use “I’m Sorry” as a complete sentence is because I used it so much before my recovery, before my return that it had no meaning, nor effect on my future actions. Today, when I say I am sorry, I finish it with what I am sorry for, how I am going to repair the damage, and what changes I am going to make so I don’t repeat the same error. When one is “part of a movement forced upon us by the environment” then actual change rarely takes place, “I’m Sorry” is just a way to get the heat off and neither the offender nor the victim believes there is true repentance nor sorrow for the action. This is the reason “that repentance has yet to begin”, I believe.

We the People are being asked, called to change both ourselves and our community in this bridge from the communal to the personal. After all, who makes up a community if not various individuals? We are all guilty of making society an amorphous entity, not taking the responsibility that comes with acknowledging that We the People make up society hence whatever the societal pressures we feel, whichever societal lies we buy into are of our own making. This is what makes being “personally motivated” and “an internal sense of urgency” so crucial for “repentance to begin”. Without our “an internal sense of urgency” human beings will put off the undesirable action of being in truth with ourselves and another human being forever, we may say “I’m Sorry” without meaning and meaningful change, we just won’t be in truth nor in touch with our inner life.

What our community, especially our Jewish community, needs is the same as what our individual soul needs: TShuvah done in “earnestness and honesty”, TShuvah that is “personally motivated” and we need to do it NOW, we need to experience the “internal sense of urgency” that the Universe is showing us, we need to ‘see’ the spiritual push of the universe towards TShuvah, towards sincere forgiveness, sincere repentance, sincere return and demand this way of being for ourselves and for our neighbors, for our community, for our enemies. When we “love the stranger" because we were strangers in Egypt, in America, we are “personally motivated”. When we speak truth to power, when we say NO to the cruelties being perpetrated in our name by Jews, by Gentiles, we are responding to “an internal sense of urgency”. When we lead our community to TShuvah, to an introspective inventory of how We the People have acted we are moved to being earnest and honest.  This is the challenge of these next 4 days, this is the Great Challenge of Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur: being responsible, being moved to change by “an internal sense of urgency” and holding our Spiritual Leaders to account to “show us the way” to true repentance and then following their lead.

OY, what a challenge! Yet, it is the one I am responding to today with more fervor and gusto than I did 38 years ago. Today, I see the nuances and the hidden/oblivious nature of both my good and not good actions. I am able to discern the negative in my thinking quicker and not act on it as much. I am more able to keep my ego in proper measure, I am more able to know my truth and see more of the Truth that is in the world. It is a long, hard journey to where I am now and I am here because of being “personally motivated” and not ignoring the “internal sense of urgency” that has always nagged me. I pray that we all participate in this “repentance” of both community and our individual selves. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Day 4 of the 10 Days of Repentance- Selfishness, Cleverness, Pretense: the killers of truth - Year 4 Day 239

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 239

“It is also deplorable when a spiritual movement deteriorates into bustling and pretense. It is unclean when a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 70)

On this 4th day of Tishri, this 4th of the 10 days of TShuvah, the 10 days of Awe, I picked these sentences from Rabbi Heschel to follow up on yesterday’s writing. We the People have to be responsible as a community to do the next right action!  We the People are being called to account for ourselves, not to some punishing God, rather we are being called to account for ourselves to ourselves and to community. I am suggesting that in this moment, in this time, as we get ready to go to Synagogue, to shul, on the holiest day of the Jewish Year, this year we go prepared to meet ourselves in the Confessionals, we sit in the pews and, instead of being bored, we ask ourselves during the beautiful Kol Nidre Prayer, “which vows, oaths, promises, did I not fulfill this past year, which ones do I need to make amends for, to whom do I still need to repair damages with?” Then, when we hear “I forgive as you have spoken”, we no longer have to be in fear that someone will find out, that we have to keep a secret, and we can unburden ourselves of the deceptions and lies, the hiding and the fears that keep us stuck in “bustling and pretense”.

We the Jews have fallen into the “deplorable” situation described in the first sentence precisely because we are afraid to confront ourselves, individually and collectively. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current Matzav, situation, in Gaza, in Jerusalem, in Washington DC, in America in general. When so-called religious people can applaud the killing of people because of the color of their skin, because of the religion they practice, because-like the Israelite people who were stuck in Egypt-they “yearn to breathe free”, we are witnessing and experiencing “the selfishness of the clever”. Bibi, Donny, Howie, Stevie, Stevie, and the rest of their minions and thugs, all are “unclean”, all are practice “selfishness of the clever” and We the Jews go along with these lies and then we go to Kol Nidre and ask some Deity to forgive us? PLEASE!! I am ready to throw up at their gall and their “deplorable” ways of taking a beautiful “spiritual movement” and making it “deteriorate into bustling and pretense.”

What has happened since Rabbi Heschel wrote these words on Kol Nidre in 1936 is horrific! We the Jews have not only not heeded his words, we are in the process of denouncing them, of reviling them and of doing the exact opposite of what Repentance/TShuvah call for. Rather than hear the call of Rabbi Eliezer on Shabbat 153(a) of the Talmud, today’s so-called religious leaders are extolling a part of the Bible that Ezra added, that is not in keeping with Yud Hey Vav Hey that teaches us to “love the stranger, love your neighbor, rebuke your friend and bear no guilt because of them, remember you were strangers in the land of Egypt, if your enemy is thirsty-give them drink, etc” As my friend and teacher, Rabbi Danny Maseng has pointed out to me the additions and subtractions that are in the text and it is a fascinating way to read the Bible. Should you want to validate your cruelty-you can find it in the Bible, if you want to live into the laws of Moses, it is much harder to do this. I believe the Ramban’s commentary on Lev. 19:2-“one can be a scoundrel within the bounds of the Bible” is so appropriate for this moment, for all moments.

I suggest this is our challenge and the question we need to be asking ourselves as we continue to prepare for the great assembly, for the Day of At-One-Ment, where we come face to face with ourselves and one another, with no pretense, with no bullshit, and we cry, we laugh, we see one another in a new light with compassion and kindness, and we embrace the essence of who we are, who we are created to be and the unique talent we possess, making the commitment to live into who we are more, live into who we are created to be more, live into our unique talents more in the coming year, in 5786 so we can make our corner of the world more better!

I suggest this is our calling and the question we need to be asking our community. Isn’t it time for We the Jews to stop extolling the big donors, stop extolling the strong men in charge, stop extolling the “politically correct” and hear the call of the Prophets, hear Isaiah’s words, listen to Amos’ call for justice and righteousness, truly understand Hosea’s likening of us to whores? Isn’t it time for our Clergy to begin the Yom Kippur Services with Atonement for their sins, for their missing of the mark? Isn’t it time for all of us to as a community to participate with the Clergy in admitting our sins as a community such as xenophobia, unreasonable loathing of another human being, generalizing about an entire group based on the actions of a few? We have experienced this type of behavior for the millennia and We the Jews are prohibited to doing what is hateful to us to another human being! Yet, we are and we do-Will you hold your community responsible and call them to account? When the grandeur of forgiveness, the audacity of facing oneself is reduced to how much you give, We the Jews are truly lost.

I know how difficult it is to lead a community of Jews!! I know how hard it is to be accountable to oneself let alone to an entire community. I also know my confessions on Yom Kippur led another(s) to speak theirs and this took on a life of its own and people healed themselves by no longer hiding from themselves and the community grew stronger and stronger so it no longer needs me, it leads itself and I consider this to be among the best of my achievements! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Third Day of the 10 Days of Repentance- will you have a G'Mar Tov? Year 4 Day 238

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 238

“For many years we have experienced history as a judgement. What is the state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”? (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg.69)

G’Mar Hatima Tova is the usual greeting after Rosh Hashanah’s Shana Tova. The Rabbis, I believe, in an instant of inspirational brilliance (of which they had many and some not so much), are reminding us that to have a “good year”, we have to finish(G’Mar) up our repentance. This is true of individuals as well as communities, countries, etc. Rabbi Heschel in a piece published in Berlin, Germany on Yom Kippur Eve(Kol Nidre) asks the question above: “what is our state of repentance?” While I do not believe that “history as a judgement” is the way to look at our lives, I do believe looking at our history is a way to discern what is good and not good, what is the right way to live and what is not the right way to live, what we have to repent for as individuals, as members of a group, a country, a faith and what we have to be proud of and continue to grow as an individual, etc. One of the most powerful experiences many of us had at Beit T’Shuvah was when a Catholic Priest apologized for the Churches hatred of Jews, their antisemitism, their sexual scandals and for not hearing the women and children who came to them. People were crying along with the Priest.

Which brings me/us to the “state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”. This year, the first day of Sukkot falls on October 7th. October 7, 2023 was a horrific day for Jews, for people who believe in the sanctity of life throughout the world and we can never forget what happened. Hamas is a Terrorist Organization, it is EVIL-full stop! And, as I have heard in many sermons and online discussions, the deafness of Rabbis and congregants, of Jews and non-Jews to the destruction in Gaza is also horrific! It is also EVIL! There is no excuse for it and, if we are to have a G’Mar Hatima Tova, we have to be accountable for our excesses, our abuses, our evil actions-otherwise “our “return to Judaism” is false, it is bullshit, and it is an desecration of the Name of God and what the Bible truly stands for. No matter what the Orthodox, the war-mongers say, the overriding concern of the Bible is: LOVE the STRANGER, BE DECENT, CHOOSE LIFE, stop whoring yourself for gold, for power, for …. Yet, here we are-Rabbis are condemning the virulent anti-semitism that is rampant once again throughout the world without calling out the abuses of Netanyahu and his Idolatrous “religious” coalition.

I am a JEW, I am a ZIONIST, I am NOT a Netanyahu follower, I am not a  believer that Israel right or wrong is always right, I believe in Isaiah 49:6, that Israel (Jews) is to be given “for a light unto the nations that salvation may be…” We are not here to serve ourselves, to get rich, to take advantage of the poor, the needy, the stranger! We are not here to be all powerful and dictatorial, we are not here to violate the words of Moses, the promises to Abraham, the ways of King David who could admit his errors when pointed out to him and, at times, on his own. NO, Israel is here to be accountable, we are to show the world how to be accountable and how to do TSHUVAH, how to Repent, Repair, have a New Response to the triggers that caused us to forget our mission, our purpose. I am a Jew, I am a Zionist, I am a Baal T’Shuvah, a master of return precisely because I come back each day, each Elul and do my inventory, make my amends, plan on how to not make the same errors and enhance the good I do. I believe in “Never Again” and believe that the message of the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum: “Never again Can’t Only Mean Never Again for Jews” and continued with “Jews must not let the trauma of our past Silence our conscience…” and they were vilified for this truth, they deleted it 2 days later and issued an apology! APOLOGIZE for TELLING THE TRUTH!?!?!?

This, then, seems to be “the state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”-NOT! When we, as a Jewish People, cannot live in the both/and of the trauma of October 7, the horror of the evil of Hamas, AND be accountable for our part in what happened-which Netanyahu has not allowed a review of the days preceding 10/7, he has not allowed anyone to hold him accountable, he has not allowed anyone to criticize his keeping his son in Miami, Florida-safe and sound, not subject to serving as a reservist-, he is not caring about the Hostages-leaving Israelis to die and the ones who are dead, leaving their bodies to rot in Gaza-, and JEWS are APPLAUDING THIS?? “The state of repentance” is NILL, We the Jews have made null and void the words of Isaiah, the words of Hosea, Jeremiah, of all the prophets, of our teachers and spiritual guides of the past, by refusing to do a CHESBON HANEFESH on and for ourselves. We the Jews are called to be “a light unto the nations that salvation may be” and We the Jews are failing, We the Jews need to get our heads out of our asses and be JEWS, BE REPENTANCE, BE HUMAN.

The issue of Gaza, of Hamas, of what to do is complex and I am not trying to be stupid about the necessity of Israel to defend itself nor of the difficulties in living next to people who hate you! I am speaking only of the need for JEWS, like me and you, to take our own inventories, to see where we have been wrong, to not whitewash our inequities because of the EVIL that Hamas perpetrated upon Israel. I am saying that Netanyahu and the Israeli government has to look at the ways it supported Qatar giving BILLIONS to Hamas so the Palestinian Authority could be weakened and how Netanyahu and his gang did not heed warnings given to it about the possibility of Hamas breaking through. It isn’t easy, I don’t have the answers, I do have the solution- TSHUVAH, improve “our return to Judaism” by being human! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

FREEDOM - Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of a newfound path to achieve personal Freedom - Year 4 day 237

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 237

“To believe in freedom is to believe in events, namely to maintain that man is able to escape the bonds of the processes in which he is involved and to act in a way not necessitated by antecedent factors. Freedom is the state of going out of the self, an act of spiritual ecstasy, in the original sense of the term.” (God in Search of Man pg 410)

SHANA TOVA U’METUKAH!! A sweet and joyous year, a year of truth, of learning, of kindness and of compassion. A year where we put down our weapons and we hear, listen, and understand (SHEMA) the words of the Prophet Isaiah 5:20-21: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.” The times call for action on our part to make this prophecy real and true in our own time!

The way to make this happen, in my opinion, is to live into the last sentence above. I bolded it so you will know what this last blog of 5785 focuses on: FREEDOM and what better time to achieve it, what better place to engage in it than during the 10 days of Awe, the 10 Days of TShuvah? Whether you are going to services or not, whether they bore you or not, you can engage your soul in at least one of the prayers, one of the melodies, one word of the Torah reading, one word of the Haftorah reading. You can allow your heart to be opened by the sound of the Shofar, you can send your negativity away as you cast your bread/sin upon the waters, you can put yourself in “the state of going out of the self”.  We the People who have chosen to opt out of organized religion can take this moment to read something, to meditate, to listen to a different piece of music, any action that stirs your soul, that opens up your inner life to yourself and have the same experience of “going out of the self”.

This is the real goal of this period of time, “going out of the self” to have an authentic, truthful look at “self, another, and the world. To achieve “freedom” We the People have to first be in truth with who we are, with whom we are meant to be, and the incongruence between what we know and what actions we take, the incongruence between “the self” and the false “self” we wear for societal acceptance, gain, power, etc. We the People have shown to be less fearful of living inauthentically, incongruently and more fearful of being real, of not settling for crumbs from society, not standing with the minority to do good! We the People are being called by the Shofar’s blasts to WAKE UP and see what is good and no longer confuse, lie about it being evil, to see what is evil and no longer live into the mendacity of making evil good. We are called to be able to distinguish, L’Havdeel, between dark and light, between bitter and sweet, between what we want to see and say about ourselves and what is the real deal. This moment, for all times, is a moment of reckoning for us, not a punishing reckoning, a gifting of sight and a gifting of the ability to change, repair and have hope for living better, the world being a better place because of us contributing our unique gifts and talents to it and no longer being confined by society’s conventional notions, mental cliches, no longer does the one with the gold rule, etc. Will We the People seize the moment, Carpe Diem?

I write about this sentence today, this idea precisely because I had this experience of “spiritual ecstasy” in the jail cell in 1986, I had this experience when the judge sentenced me to prison, I had this experience when I began to study Torah and pray, I had this experience when I decided to serve another(s) instead of just myself. I had this experience when I realized how far apart my first wife and I were, I had this experience when I realized how much I loved Harriet, I had this experience and didn’t know it when my daughter Heather was born, I had this experience when I began working at Beit T’Shvuah, when I studied with Rabbi Omer-man, when I began what is a 30+ relationship with Rabbi Ed Feinstein. I had this experience when I entered Rabbinical School and, no matter how hard they tried to disabuse me of this way, I fought for my authenticity, my congruency.

I have continued to fight for authenticity, for truth, for kindness, for realness, for congruence, for the “spiritual ecstasy” Rabbi Heschel is speaking about. I am not always there and I continue to grow in “freedom”, I continue to create experiences of learning, creating in ceramics, playing bridge, writing that help me “going out of the self” and into the “self” I was created to be. Each time I have this experience, more and more of the falseness, of the bullshit, of the political me, of the caricature of me that I have lived falls away and this is the gift, the joy, the eye-opening experience that helps me live more and more into the words of Isaiah above. I don’t experience those “woes” so much anymore, I don’t need to be validated nor vindicated by anyone, I don’t have any resentments, nor any harsh feelings for anyone. I am sick at what is happening in the world, I am scared for my grandson and the world he is living in. As my brother, Neal, said: “we were born in a much better world than the ones we are giving to our grandchildren”! I have so much joy and faith, I live the best I can each day and I know 5786 will be a “Shana Tova” a year of good because I will bring more good, more light, more sweetness into it and I pray you will also. This is the ultimate in “spiritual ecstasy”, the greatest “freedom” one can experience and I pray we continue to grow in it and bring it more and more into our everyday living. I will write again on Thursday! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Rosh Hashanah is approaching- are you Freer this year than last? Year 4 Day 236

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 236

“To believe in freedom is to believe in events, namely to maintain that man is able to escape the bonds of the processes in which he is involved and to act in a way not necessitated by antecedent factors. Freedom is the state of going out of the self, an act of spiritual ecstasy, in the original sense of the term.” (God in Search of Man pg 410)

I picked this quote because today is the day before Erev Rosh Hashanah and, in my opinion, Rosh Hashanah is the 6th month mark since Passover-the season of our liberation and is the time to see how fat we have gotten since the lean days of being liberated with only Matzah to eat and then Manna. Now that we have the 10 sayings, now that we have experienced once again the miracle of Mount Sinai, the destruction that Tisha B’Av commemorates, it is time to stand in self-judgement and see where we are in our quest to make our corner of the world a little better. It is time for us to review and discern how we have helped to “bend the arc of the moral universe towards true justice” to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In order to do any of this, we have to be free, we have to be present “in events” and be “able to escape the bonds of the processes” that tend to make us robots, automatons, blind followers, and, eventually, slaves. Slavery is not just being under a taskmaster or a master, it is also the inability to make free-will moral choices, it is the abandoning of what one knows in one’s bones, in one’s guts and either choosing or feeling coerced/forced to choose to go along with the majority in order to make a living, to keep the money they have, the status, to keep from being isolated and lonely. It is such a time we are in right now, I believe, and these words above give me hope for our future, a future where “the Torah shall come from Zion and the word of God from Jerusalem…and they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor shall men learn war anymore.”(Isaiah 2:3-4). What a wonderful prophetic vision!!

I believe this vision is the guiding light We the People need to face the moment we are in, to “act in a way not necessitated by antecedent factors”, to see what is and not respond as humanity has forever; with fear of rocking the boat because it will get worse, with acceptance that ‘we have lived through this before and it will blow over, with resignation that we are too weak to win this war with the forces arrayed against us, to wait for a redeemer to come from God, for the second coming, or first depending upon one’s beliefs, to save us by destroying everything and other such “antecedent factors”. NO! NOT ANYMORE!!

This Rosh Hashanah, this day of Judgment and Celebration of the creation of the world and of humankind, is the moment to break out of the bonds of societal norms, the moment to end the reliance on the strongman, the worship of the money and class status that gives us closeness to power, the mealy-mouthed compliance of a slave class that believes their money will keep them free, etc. It is precisely this moment of Rosh Hashanah, this moment of judgment and mercy, of fear and awe, this moment where we realize the Judge is internal, it is our soul’s calling to us to SEE, to HEAR, and to UNDERSTAND,(SHEMA) what we have been doing, how it is helping to promote freedom and how it is helping to retard freedom for both ourselves and another(s). This is the experience that this Rosh Hashanah, and every Rosh Hashanah, gifts us with-will We the People avail ourselves of this gift and use it wisely? While we pray in community on Rosh Hashanah, the response to this question is personal and individual, it has to be made by a majority of the community one is in to make it a communal decision to BE FREE. If the majority of the community is not willing to “escape the bonds of processes” We the People need a new Rabbi, Clergy, Board of Directors who want to live into the prophecy of Isaiah, the words and actions the prophets scream, cry, whisper to us in a combination of horror and awe, in consternation and love. The haunting question that hangs over us, especially this year, is: Are We the People willing to do what it takes to be free, to honor the Torah “from Zion” and “God’s word from Jerusalem”?

It will take “the courage to change the things we should” as Reinhold Niebuhr teaches us in the Original Serenity prayer. We the People will gather in our Temples and Synagogues on Erev Rosh Hashanah and on Rosh Hashanah to be together, to begin the 10 days of Awe, the 10 days of TShuvah (repentance, return and response) and allow the prayers to fill us with trembling awe, the words of the Rabbis to fill us with the strength to be free in this moment and in many moments, to not “run after the majority to do evil” and to stand in truth and love to ensure that justice, mercy, kindness ‘win’ the day! This can only happen if and when We the People make a conscious decision to leave the Egypts we are currently in, when We the People be deliberate in our choosing to cross the Red Sea, when We the People believe the words of Isaiah quoted above more than the words of the autocrats, the idolators, the mendacious deceivers who are ‘in charge’ here in America and in Israel. We the People “should” change the ridiculous “anything Israel does is good and right”, the stupidity of “Trump loves the little guy and is our redeemer” and instead, on this day of Judgement and Celebration, look inside of ourselves, see the lies we tell ourselves, seek out truth, wisdom, love, kindness, mercy and justice and rejoice in our ability to rise above our “processes” and connect to the source of all and to our innermost self.

This is my practice each Rosh Hashanah and I find myself being free more and more each day and more days than ever before. Shana Tova U’Metuka, a Good, Sweet Year to all. God bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Forgetting everything including the self in order to find your authentic self- Year 4 Day 235

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 234

“It requires a great effort to realize before Whom we stand, for such realization is more than having a thought in one’s mind. It is a knowledge in which the whole person is involved; the mind, the heart, body, and soul. To know it is to forget everything else, including the self.” (God in Search of Man pg. 407)

I have been thinking about this piece of wisdom for a while and especially since I wrote about it yesterday. The last sentence is the key to living into “know before Whom you stand” and it is not easy to accomplish nor maintain, in fact, we will never be consistent in our maintenance and effort “to realize before Whom we stand.” Given this truth, I recall Rabbi Tarfon’s teaching: “we are not commanded to finish the task and we are not free to not engage”. We are 3 days until Erev Rosh Hashanah and 12 days till Kol Nidre and We the People will not finish the work of TShuvah, utilize the gift of Elul completely-we are not perfect and that is not the goal of this moment, it is not the goal of the TShuvah process.

The goal of this moment, this month, this period of “spiritual audacity” is to engage, to be in the work of looking at oneself, seeing what is true and what isn’t, letting go of the resentments that keep us enslaved to blame and shame, to forget the slights, the traumas, the dashed dreams, the grudges, the unfairness of life, the mental cliches and conventional notions, the societal pressure to measure up to some inane and insane standard of perfection that NO ONE ever measures up to. The goal of this period of time is to look as deeply inside ourselves as we possibly can, and then go a little deeper-one grain of sand- to see the beauty of our living, to realize the purpose we are created for, the divine need we fulfill, to hear the call of the stranger, the poor, the needy, the friend and the foe; responding to each in ways they can hear and “to forget everything else”, especially the lies we have told ourselves for years and the deceptions from another(s) that have chained us to mediocrity either emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually.

“To know it (before Whom we stand) is to forget everything else, including the self” is an outrageous statement, it is an audacious statement, it is a statement of great “moral grandeur” as well. It is almost too much to take in and yet, in the Bible, we see over and over again people doing this and then screwing up big time! These examples, hopefully, give us the strength to strive for the 30 seconds of seeing our own holiness on Yom Kippur. When We the People “forget everything else, including the self”, we rise to meet our authentic self, our vision is better than 20/20 because the universe shows itself to us and we are able to see what the next right action is, we are able to appreciate the path we have taken to get to this moment, and we let go of recriminations for not ‘seeing’ this sooner, for not ‘being better’, and we accept the words that are spoken on Kol Nidre: “I have forgiven as you have spoken”! Once we accept the forgiveness of another, the forgiveness of God, we can, finally, forgive ourselves. Upon reaching this level of forgiveness, we achieve “to forget everything else, including the self” for this moment and we will not stay in this state and we will lose it and keep returning to this place so we can improve our vision, lessen the harms, and live a little more authentically and joyfully.

The only path to achieving this is TShuvah, amends, confession, whatever the path to wholeness is your spiritual tradition. Facing oneself, without blame, without being judgmental, without needing to make excuses is  a terribly difficult journey. It is a journey that society has ignored and the powerful jettison immediately upon taking power-hence “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We see this with King Saul and with King David-both succumbed to the corruption that power brings; with King David doing his TShuvah so he could once again retake his moral high ground and spiritual place in the world. We are witnessing this with the people in power in the United States who are going against the 1st Amendment-Freedom of Speech! We see this in the abuse of power they are committing and the going along with this bullshit, with this destruction of the Constitution by the Supreme Court! This is an example of people who do not “realize before Whom they stand” no matter how much they brag about their ‘faith’, no matter how much they proclaim their loyalty to Jesus while doing everything that he railed against. We the People in doing our TShuvah, in knowing “before Whom we stand”, in staying loyal to the principles of the Bible, can stop these wannabe Pharaohs, these wannabe dictators, these idolators and liars. WE HAVE THE PATH, THE POWER, and THE WILL to do this once we take the dive into our inner life, into our spiritual powers.

I have been knowing “before Whom I stand” forever, actually. I ignored this knowing from ages 15-35, by ignoring what I knew to be true I sent myself into more and more internal anguish and confusion that took more and more booze to quiet and more crime to have ‘enough’ money to buy me peace. It DIDN’T WORK! It was in a jail cell, in a prison Rabbi’s office, Rabbi Mel Silverman, that I was turned on to the truth about me, the power of TShuvah and the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel among others. It was with my friend and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein that I learned the text, with my teacher Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man that I learned about my inner life through spiritual counseling. It is with great humility that I “realize before Whom I stand” and am able to forget everything else, including my self”, especially myself so I can serve another(s) in ways they need and know it is only through being mostly clean that I can hear another(s), love another(s) and be present with another(s). It ain’t easy and it is doable! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you truly aware of "Before Whom you stand" and do your actions reflect this awareness? Year 4 day 234

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 234

“It requires a great effort to realize before Whom we stand, for such realization is more than having a thought in one’s mind. It is a knowledge in which the whole person is involved; the mind, the heart, body, and soul. To know it is to forget everything else, including the self.” (God in Search of Man pg. 407)

On the walls of many sanctuaries in Synagogues, over the Ark and in other places, the phrase: “Know before Whom you stand” is on them. As We the People enter the home stretch of this season of High Holy Day Preparation, this phrase, this way of being, this overwhelming idea of the presence of “before Whom we stand” is most appropriate, I believe. I believe the job of a human being is to look at our experiences, our texts, and ask ourselves: “what is the question that this experience, text, etc is the answer for” as Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man taught me some 35 years ago. I have been seeking to find the right questions ever since!

I am asking myself and you all: what is the question that “realize before Whom we stand” is the answer for. I believe one of the questions is; are we seeing the Divine Image in the people in front of us, next to us, behind us? Are we able to see this divine image no matter their politics, their ways of being? Are we willing to seek out this divine image and speak to it, even though the person in front of us has no idea “before Whom they stand”? It is difficult to do this and this is some of the work of this month of preparation prior to Rosh Hashanah; cleaning out the schmutz that hardens our hearts, having cataract surgery for the blurring vision we have had during parts of this past year and beyond, letting go of what was, our past errors, not worrying about “what will the neighbors think”, societal norms and mental cliches that only hold us captive. To “realize before Whom we stand”, it is important, if not imperative, to let go needing our rational mind to make sense of this phrase, to make sense of the process of TShuvah, to make sense of being right-sized.

Only then is this phrase “more than having a thought in one’s mind”. It becomes  an integrated experience that transforms “our swords into plowshares”, it causes us to “make war no more”, it gives We the People the ability to rise above our desires and our pettiness and envy, our enmity and jealousy, to take our rightful place knowing before Whom we stand” and not feeling inadequate, a fraud, etc. We the People, when we “know before Whom we stand” no longer take a backseat to anyone, we are not expendable, we don’t have to prove we are right, we don’t have to deny our guilt, our culpability, our responsibility and, we don’t have to beat our chests either as Tarzan or as poor supplicant. Living into “know before Whom we stand” gives We the People a new sense of freedom, a new experience of joy, a life without the bounds of another human being, without needing to hold onto the past, no longer needing to have things our way, etc. “Know before Whom we stand” is the gateway to a richer and more meaningful life and the beginning of our recovery from our addiction to perfection, our search for certainty, and our “scouting out after our heart and our eyes to whore after them”.

When We the People “realize before Whom we stand”, with “the mind, the heart, body, and soul”, there is no more maudlin regret, no more mea culpa’s for the errors we have already done TShuvah for, no more puffed up ego and no more mealy-mouthed subservience. When We the People “realize before Whom we stand” our awareness of the gift of serving something greater than ourselves is huge, our joy at being able to see the divine image in another human being fills us with love and rebuke, kindness and truth, compassion and justice, mercy and responsibility. These ‘opposites’ are not opposites at all, they are complimentary to one another, and one without the other is a half-truth, ie a lie.

While I know that many of We the People only give lip-service to “know before Whom you stand”, many of We the People only see it, let it in and out in a nanosecond while we are at services 3 times a year, I also know that there is always hope for a spiritual awakening, there is always more I/we can learn and do from our ability to “realize before Whom we stand”! I have spent the past 38 years engaging in this “knowing” and it is a tug of war between my spiritual knowing and my ego/rational logic. Both are necessary for me to live, for me to be engaged and for me to move forward. What “know before Whom I stand” gives me, however, is the momentary pleasure to “forget everything else, including the self”, because at this moment, I see and relate to the divine image in you, in another human being and their politics, their mendacities, their obliviousness is the beginning of a conversation that informs me and another human being.

Are people like those who spout hatred and vitriol deserving of me/you seeing their divine image? Of course they are: “Come to Pharaoh” is God’s directive to Moses, I ache to be able to “come to” Stephen Miller, Howard Lutnick and search for their divine image and speak to it, not because I believe they will agree with me, rather to let them know their authentic self is seen, their soul is worth saving and help them “realize before Whom we stand”. I ache to do the same with many people and I am doing the best I can to practice this way of being in my everyday interactions with another(s) and with myself. When I “forget everything else” I am free to see truth, to see beauty, to hear the music of my soul, the niggun of your soul, to join together as human beings and work hard to not deny nor damage your dignity, your value and your uniqueness. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Crying out for help, believing the lie of self-sufficiency-which do you choose? Year 4 Day 233

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 233

“Out of the depth we cry for help. We believe that we are able to overcome ulterior motives, since otherwise no good would be done, and no love would be possible.” (God in Search of Man pg. 407)

What is the help We the People need? The first sentence above comes from Psalm 130 which is read every day in the morning service in Synagogues across the globe during the month of Elul. It is a supplication Psalm that also recognizes: “With You God, there is forgiveness and it is awesome”. We the People need to remember that “there is forgiveness” and we are not meant to be perfect, we are not bound by the conventional notions, the mental cliches, the social media mendacities that abound in our society. We the People need the help of one another, we need the help of the Ineffable One, we need the help of our inner life and we need to help another human being, we need to help ourselves, we need to help the Ineffable One. Rabbi Heschel states in his interview with Carl Stern, human beings are divine needs and reminders of God, and Jewish tradition calls us partners with God in completing creation, then we need to take our proper place in making the world a little better each day, just one grain of sand is enough. To do this, we need “help”. “Out of the depth we cry for help” reminds us that the help has to come from within as well. We the People have to let go of our need for being right, We have to let go of our perfection bullshit, we have to embrace our inner strength and live into our inner knowing rather than allowing our ego, our rational minds to overrule what our intuitive minds direct us to.

Of course “we believe that we are able to overcome ulterior motives”. And, belief is not enough! We the People are being called upon to show up and stand up, to speak truth to Trump and his thugs, Netanyahu and his gang, Putin, Xi and their kleptocrats. The moment is calling for the prophetic voice that has reverberated throughout the centuries, that has informed every major push from slavery to freedom, from the inner chains that have bound us to being healed from our inner slaveries. The only motive we have is to be free, and not just for ourselves, for everyone. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” so too is slavery anywhere a threat to freedom everywhere! We the People need to get our heads out of our asses, we have to take the blinders off and stand for the principles that our ancestors fought, suffered, overcame their fears for: Freedom, Truth, Love, Kindness, Compassion.

It is not enough to just “overcome ulterior motives”, in my opinion and as I understand Rabbi Heschel. We the People have to take the actions necessary to “blot out the memory of Amalek” from our minds so when the pendulum swings back our way, we do not do to another what is hateful to us-which is the way things seem to go. When there is repression on one side, the other side responds with “free speech” that is hateful, “tough on crime” that is criminal, etc. Then ‘the good people’ respond with “free speech” is what I tell you is acceptable language, “criminals” need to be coddled and allowed to roam the streets. Unfortunately, We the People seem to jettison the middle path, we are so caught up in ideologies that we miss the forest for the trees. Yet, the middle path is exactly what the Bible portrays, it is the foundation of the mitzvah system, and it has been bastardized as well. In this moment, it is so very important for We the People to stand together and recognize the dignity of every human being, friend and foe alike. It is crucial that We the People find ways to speak to one another from a place of learning, arguing for the sake of heaven, arguing to find the middle path rather than arguing to be right, to be certain, to make money, to have power.

It is a hard shift for most of We the People. Shifting from our need for certainty, our need to be right, our need to have power over another, our need to blame, etc. AND, this month of Elul is the time the Jewish tradition has gifted to us to make this shift. Looking at the connections we have made as well as those we have lost and seeing our part in making and losing them, looking at how our competitive nature has harmed our competitive edge, being responsible for the good and not good we have done, is all part of our growth. It is the fodder upon which We the People can chew and grow from, making a “more perfect union” of our inner and outer lives, our values and our actions, our love of justice, mercy, the stranger, and one another. We the People are more than capable, the world is more than ready, are We the People willing? Please God, these last two weeks till Yom Kippur will bring the readiness and the path to our beings and We the People will light the way for everyone.

My new book: You Matter Too is now available. The book tells the stories of a composite of people, how they had ‘hit bottom’ even though they were not all addicts, and the teachings we learned together to help them live well. Not all the stories have ‘happy endings’ and I hope the teachings help all who read it. This is one of the ways I am doing what I can to make the world a little better, it is how I keep shifting more and more into responsibility, justice, wisdom, love, truth, compassion. This year during this month of Elul, I have found I don’t need to be noticed, I don’t need to be right, I don’t need to blame, I see what is and I am responsible for my part only-be it good or not good. I am finding a new freedom and a sense of purpose and mission that is the same as it has been and in a different arena. I have been able to truly overcome my “ulterior motives” with the help of Harriet, Heather, my siblings and family, and my dear friends. It doesn’t get better than this! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark