Weighing, Measuring, Wonder and Awe; ingredients for a healthy life - Year 4 Day 323

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 323

“We teach the children how to measure, how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 62)

I am not quite sure what happens when I read these words, and others of course, from Rabbi Heschel and from the Bible, from commentators, except to say I experience an inner body aliveness, an immediate response to the brilliance, or in some cases the stupidity, of the words and the multitude of meanings, ideas, etc they gift me to confront and consider. The words above, while simple and straightforward, are causing me to erupt in a technicolor shower of light, vision, ideas. Teaching our “children how to measure, how to weigh” is an essential part of their education, their upbringing. In the Bible we learn that we are not to use false weights or measures lest we cheat someone, take advantage of the uninformed, put a stumbling block before the blind, curse the deaf, etc. Ergo, learning “how to measure, how to weigh” is a core lesson for our children.

The issue that is confronting all of us in today’s world, as I am sure it happened in the past as well, is what we are weighing and measuring, for what purpose are we weighing and measuring, how are we weighing and measuring our actions, our goals, our ways of being, one another? Teaching pounds and ounces to our children is fine, teaching them to put their emphasis on what is in it for them is not so fine. Helping our children discern what is real and what is not is crucial, teaching them to put their emphasis on measuring the amount of shit they can get away with is not so crucial. Making weighing and measuring a purely mathematic equation steals an essential ingredient  that needs to be present in all decisions: being human, bringing our self, our soul, into the equation. When this happens, there is no “false weights” being used, there is no question as to the integrity of the measurements. There is ‘oh well, let's just jam this in to fit’. Without the soul, every measurement is void of at least some of its meaning, all of our measuring becomes so rote, an error is more likely to occur.

When teaching our children to weigh and measure, We the People must teach them differently that has been the custom and path for far too many. Rather than teaching them to measure the amount of money they will make by going along with the fascist, the autocrat, the thief, the grifter; rather than teach them how to weigh the chances of ‘getting caught’ doing the wrong thing, cheating on taxes, making the rich richer on the backs of the poor, shooting and killing people just because we can; We the People have to become the Adults in the Room, we are being called upon by the words above to “teach our children” as we are taught in Deuteronomy 6:7. Without the ability to “sense wonder and awe”, the human being loses one of our core features that makes us human, that gives us the ability to ‘have rule and dominion”, that is at the heart of our “God-Image” because God gifts us “wonder and awe” every day; looking at the sunrise, sunset, the mountains, the valleys, the sky, the oceans, etc show us what awe is and the idea of wonder being our ability to stay “maladjusted” to conventional notions and mental cliches keeps it fresh and new each day.

This is what we have failed to teach our children, this is the tragedy of humanity and, I believe, the main reason we are in the state of chaos, hatred, meanness, inhumanity towards one another in which we find ourselves. That Jews, Christians, Muslims who all proclaim their ‘undying loyalty’ to God, to Jesus, to Allah are leading the charge of this failure, that these ‘good folk’ are using false weights and measures and calling them true, that they are using the Name of God to lie, cheat, steal, is abominable, it is blasphemous, it is idolatry. Yet, there are people who claim to be Jewish who hate the stranger, want to deport the stranger even though their ancestors were allowed in as refugees from Hitler’s Germany or NOT, there are Christians who think that health care is a privilege and the poor don’t deserve it, even though Christ ministered to those who were sick and to the poor.

Religion has become a tool for power, for control rather than a place and way of sensing the “wonder and awe” of life. Rather than religious education focus on “how to sense wonder and awe”, how to acknowledge without worry of being laughed at, religious education is about dogma, about tribalism. If I hear one more time: Am Yisrael Chai-the people of Israel live- as a rallying cry that all of us should everything Israel does as right and good; I will become volcanic at the mendacity. If I hear one more time: “is it good for the Jews” as a way of weighing and measuring a decision, an ethical question, a spiritual concern; I will explode with righteous indignation. I am calling all of the people who go along with anyone and everyone who fosters hatred, who deny the individual dignity and worth of another, who ghost people just because, who put on the front of ‘being nice’ while actually being totally caught up in and with themselves. I am calling out the ‘good clergy folk’ who are afraid to speak truth to power, who believe what the powerful are doing to fuck over the rest of us, who are more concerned with their well-being than the proper weighing and measuring of ideas, of food, and the ability to “sense wonder and awe” in our waking up, our cup of coffee, our ability to think, to work, to care for one another, to be kind, to be loving, to be in truth or at least keep seeking truth, to reject mendacity, to stop only caring about “what’s in it for me” and to Teach Your Children Well, as the song goes! This is the challenge of the words above, this is the challenge We the People face each day; so far the Anti-God people, the ANTI DECENCY people seem to be winning and our job is to hold the line, fight for the change we know is needed, weigh and measure properly and “sense the wonder and awe” in living this way. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"Grandeur", "Sublime", "exploitation of the power aspect of reality"-the choice is yours. Year 4 Day 322

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 322

“The awareness of grandeur and the sublime is all but gone from the modern mind. Our systems of education stress the importance of enabling the student to exploit the power aspect of reality. To some degree, they try to develop his ability to appreciate beauty. But there is no education for the sublime.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 62)

“Grandeur” in Hebrew is the root of word “Tifferet” in Hebrew which denotes magnificence, glory, splendor, and is one of the ‘worlds’ on the chart of Kabbalah, often times associated with the heart. The Kabbalah believes that “grandeur” is in and at the heart of every human being and, as Rabbi Heschel says in the first sentence, “is all but gone from the modern mind”. Is it any wonder then how we have ended up in the state we are in today? Is it any wonder that a liar and cheat, a blamer and a fascist, an idolator and a blasphemer would be in charge of our Nation’s most important assets-FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY? Precisely because, We the People have abdicated our “awareness of grandeur and the sublime” do we find ourselves having to listen to the lies of Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller, Howard Lutnick, et al. Another person, this time a young woman, a mother of two, was killed by the GESTAPO called ICE agents and the people responsible shirk their responsibility, blame the victim (an old trick in the Goebbels book of tricks), and wrap themselves in some bullshit ‘save America from ‘those’ people. It is disgusting, it is despicable, it is illegal, it is enslaving, it is sacrilegious, it is against God, Jesus, and is being sold by the very people who claim to speak in the name of God and really use Jesus, God, Moses, to further their own agendas to “exploit the power aspect of reality”.

“The sublime”, in Hebrew, is the word “nisgav” -grand, heroic- and the word “na-aleh” -elevated, lofty. What passes for “heroic and grand” in America and in Israel right now is anything but “sublime”, it is the antithesis of “the sublime” it is bad, inferior and all together horrific what Netanyahu, Trump, their minions, their ‘families’ are doing to our respective countries and to the world. Yet, We the People are sitting around and, to quote that great humanitarian JD Vance (or whatever the hell his name is) we are “clutching our pearls” instead of, as many a Baseball fan has said and heard; “THROW THE BUMS OUT!!” The exploitation of both “sublime” and “grandeur” by the people listed above, by society in general in this moment rivals the worst of societal bastardization of these words, rivals the worst of idolatry and exploitation of God and Spirit throughout the history of the world and WE THE FUCKING PEOPLE are allowing it, some of us are supporting it actively, and we are not demanding our legislative branches, our judicial branch of government stand up and do their jobs, awaken their hearts to the need for their truthful, covenantal actions, do the heroic actions that we ask our people in our Armed Forces to do and rise up to the elevated, lofty place that we are told to live in by God in the first chapter of Genesis! The people who fought in Venezuela, whether they should have been put in harms way or not, are more heroic that the entire Republican Caucuses in the Senate and House! One of the people in the IDF are more elevated than the entire Netanyahu Coalition!

“THROW THE BUMS OUT” is an impossible ask when We the People keep believing the lies of societal norms, when we the people continue to become “adjusted” to the lies and bullshit of Trump, Netanyahu, et al. It is impossible for We the People to live into “the sublime” that our souls call us to rise up to, unrealistic to believe we have “the heart of a lion” when we are “adjusted” to the cliches and norms of exploitation of “the power aspect of reality”. Only through “RADICAL AMAZEMENT” can we hope to change the world, change our reality, change our ways. Only by being “maladjusted” to the lies and notions, cliches and usual ways of doing business, can we the People make any inroads against the cruelty, the dictatorial ways of the current people in charge, stand up and be heroic and elevated against the Idolatry of Bibi, Donny, the ‘christian nationalists’, the ‘good orthodox jews’ who support them. The biggest adversary is, of course, the people like Trump and Netanyahu-the opportunists who have no real beliefs, no sense of “grandeur”, no interest in “the sublime” and only care for getting whatever they can, from whomever they can, however they can. This is the enemy within, this is the definition of a Spiritual Malady and every human being has this piece within us! Hence, the need for a spiritual practice, the need for spiritual counseling, the need for a community of people who will reflect one’s soul back to her/him, who will “rebuke their neighbor” so they can improve, and engage in loving the stranger, the poor, the needy, the neighbor, God.

Tonight, in some 13 hours, will mark the exact time 60 years ago that my father died! With his death, I lost my sense of grandeur, I lost my interest in “the sublime” and, while I fought for a bit, lost my way in the world. I remember the moment of finding him dead on our couch, the scream of my mother, the calls to my family, to the Rabbi, the Cantor, meeting my aunt and uncle outside the door so I could prepare them for coming in when my father’s body was still on the floor from the paramedics trying to revive him, the Doctor saying he would sign the death certificate so no autopsy had to be performed, the family gathering. All these moments could have, should have enhanced my sense of “grandeur”, my appreciation for “the sublime” and instead I lost them, I rejected both ideas and adopted the ‘way of the world’, attempting to “exploit the power aspect” and, because I am the son of Jerry Borovitz, I could never commit fully to this way and, after the long journey of 20+ years, I found my way back to living from my “heart” (Tifferet) place and “elevating” my daily ways of living to meet “the sublime” in you and in the world. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Power, Greed, Grift, Graft, all are paths to worshipping a Golden Calf! Year 4 Day 321

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 321

“If the world is only power to us and we are all absorbed in a gold rush, then the only god we may come upon is the golden calf.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.61)

OMG! Here we are again!! These words written/spoken some 50-70 years ago are as true if not truer today than when Rabbi Heschel wrote/spoke them. We are witnessing, once again the belief that all that matters in this world is “power” and the way to “power” is through money, because of “gold” one possesses. The “Golden Rule” for these ‘good christian nationalist folk’ is “the one with the gold rules”. Because money is “power” and “power” is all that matters, how one gets one’s money is immaterial, how one screws people over to ‘get to the top’ is of no consequence, and holding a Trump, Trump-like, Trump loyalist to account is ridiculous!

And, this is so much bigger than Trump and his accolades, it is a way of being that has its roots in Ancient Egypt and a through-line from Alexander’s Greece to Trump’s America. That the Jan 6 rioters, those ‘fine patriots’ who attacked and tried to kill Capital Police and DC Metro Police were pardoned is a disgrace, that Trump arrests Maduro on Narco trafficking charges and pardons Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado, the ex-President of Honduras who was responsible for 500 MILLION POUNDS OF COCAINE entering the United Sates is BEYOND THE BEYOND! Yes, I am screaming, yes, I am enraged, yes, I am bereft and so should everyone else. We the People need some anger and disgust for the ways God’s Name is being desecrated by the people running the country. We the People need to hear the SHEMA being blasted from Mount Sinai as you read this and I write these words. We the People are being called to respond differently than we have been to what we see happening before our very eyes.

For far too long, we the people have gone along with the societal norms and mental cliches that money is power and power is what life is all about. Facing the truth of our powerlessness is too much for most people, knowing that uncertainty is one of the main facets of living, that we are dependent on another(s) from birth through death is an undeniable truth; all of these are too much for the Greeks to bear and Trump’s America is in strong denial of these basic truths from the Bible. “Until when” will We the People not bow down to the Truth of life? “Until when” will We the People not realize that democracy is hanging by a thread and the thread is being cut as we speak? “Until when” will We the People continue to put the cotton in our ears so we don’t hear the Call from Sinai? “Until when” will we the People not be like the Egyptians and not bow down to greed and grift, graft and bribery, Lutnick and Kushner, Trump and Miller, et al? “Until when” is the question Moses asked Pharaoh, and his courtiers asked him with no response. And we all know how that story ends!!

While it is easy to ‘blame’ Trump-the truth is much harder for most of us to bear. “In a free society some are guilty, all are responsible” is a major teaching of Rabbi Heschel and I say to We the People before you point your fingers, ms liberal, mr. Progressive, mrs conservative, pastor christian nationalist, rabbi xenophobic, imam radicalism, LOOK AT YOURSELF! How did the overstepping of ‘freedom’ lead to the backlash that brought Trump to office in the first place and returned him after his CRIMINAL ACTIONS? How have the “progressives”, the “good people on the right side of an issue” stifled any and all opposition to ‘their ways’ because ‘right is on their side’? If this is not worshiping “the golden calf” what is? These same progressives feel the same way about their money as the conservatives they rail against. From King Solomon till now the ruling class’ obsession with wealth and equating wealth with power has only grown! “The one with the most toys wins” is not just a vapid cliche, it is doctrine for many people, on both sides of the aisle. That the conservatives, far right promote the “prosperity gospels” is a wonderful example of worshipping at “the golden calf”, bastardizing Jesus’ words and deeds, not learning from the Israelites who were newly freed, and all together a horrific attitude towards their brothers and sisters, all of us “children of God”.

As I have stated many times, the only path forward, the only way to honor the truth of where we are going, the only road that takes us from where we are, slaves to the almighty dollar, servants of the quest for power, is the inner journey to our core, to our soul’s mission, to the connection and covenant with something greater than ourselves. Addiction is a Spiritual Malady! Extremism is a Spiritual Malady! Obsession with Money is a Spiritual Malady! Mendacity about whom/what we are worshipping is a Spiritual Malady! LETS GET OFF THE COUCHES and INTO THE PEWS! LETS GET THE CLERGY TO GET OUT OF THEIR DOGMAS AND PREJUDICES AND TEACH, PREACH the PROPHETS, JESUS, AND LOVE THE STRANGER, LOVE ADONAI, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR! This will only happen when the Clergy and We the People come together to seek relief from the lies we tell ourselves, when we become “maladjusted to notions and cliches” so we wake up every day grateful and dedicated to living in “radical amazement” as Rabbi Heschel did and teaches us to.

This is the journey I have been on for the past 39+years, no longer worshipping the Golden Calf and serving God. No longer denying the lies I tell myself, being aware of them so I don’t fall down the rabbit hole AGAIN, and speak truth to power-no matter the consequences. Sometimes I live in exile because of I won’t bow down to the Golden Calfs’ and that is okay because to bow down would mean I am in exile from myself. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What is the state of "wretchedness and monstrous conceit" in your actions? Year 4 Day 320

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 320

“The flood of wretchedness is sweeping away our monstrous conceit… Indeed, out of a system of ideas where knowledge is power, where values are a synonym for needs, where the pyramid of being is turned upside down - it is hard to find a way to an awareness of God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.61)

Unfortunately “the flood of wretchedness is sweeping away our monstrous conceit” has not happened yet! Rather, because of the system Rabbi Heschel describes above, “wretchedness” and “monstrous conceit” are on the rise and in power as we see across the globe, especially here in America and, to my great pain, in Israel. Reb Nachman is quoted as saying forgetfulness is a great gift and I understand the need to forget our errors that we have done Tshuvah for, that we have made our amends and emended our ways of living. It is not a gift to forget these errors and repeat the same harms that we have already done T’Shuvah for! What it means when this happens is that our T’Shuvah was more about saying ‘I’m sorry’ to get the heat off, to fool those around us into trusting us again so we can fuck them over once more. This is the way of the con, the way of the grifter, the way of the Republican Party leadership and Congressional people. The “flood of wretchedness” that comes out of the mouth of Mike Johnson is never ending and to use “god” as his motivator in being so wretched is abominable! Lindsey Graham, that ‘good old boy’ who has some dark secrets, who is a betrayer of his friend John McCain’s legacy, laughing at Trump telling us that he wants Greenland and it belongs to the United States is another example of “the flood of wretchedness”.

“Monstrous conceit” is on display each and every day from Trump, Miller, Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, Noem, Vought, Thune, et al. Their display of hatred towards we the people is atrocious, despicable, and demeaning. Is it not time for We the People to stand up and say NO to these conceited BASTARDS?? Isn’t it time for We the People to demand a reckoning with truth, a return to our constitutional order, a moving forward in the spirit of the Civil War to re-establish a “government of the people, by the people, for the people will not perish from this earth”! It is in danger of perishing, we are in danger of losing not just the soul of America as one of Jon Meacham’s books is titled, we are in danger of losing our own souls, our sense of kindness, love, concern, truth, mercy, compassion, is at stake right now and We the People are being called to respond to the cruelty and “wretchedness”, the “conceit” and enriching of the few with “a strong hand and an outstretched arm.” We the People are being called to smash the mendacious beliefs of those in power that their ‘knowing’ is their power and they can abuse anyone and everyone because they believe they ‘are the smartest person in the room’. Trump’s belief that he is a “stable genius” would be laughable if he wasn’t in power and wielding his power for his own gain, for the enrichment of his family, friends, and, of course, his pal Vladimir Putin!

That ‘good christian folk’ espouse his theories as gospel, speak of him and what is happening as ‘Jesus’ desire’, that ‘good jewish people’ can say he is following the Bible is RIDICULOUS! These idolators, these charlatans are proving “when’re values are a synonym for needs, where the pyramid of being is being turned upside down - it is hard to find a way to an awareness of God.” What is most difficult for many of us to understand is how We the People are going along with these lies, with these ruses, with this “flood of wretchedness” with this “monstrous conceit”!?!? Yet, it seems as if we are. Yes there are protests each day, yes there is organizing going on, yes there is hope in the midterms, AND the wretchedness that has become so ingrained in America is not going to be rooted out nor healed quickly, it is not just Trump who is the perpetrator, it is the system which allows the Republican lawmakers to go along while they hold their noses, which allows them to be puppets rather than human beings, which allows them to proclaim the “Oneness of God”, their loyalty to “Jesus Christ, my personal savior”, their adherence to “the laws of Moses and the Torah” while violating every sense of decency, morality, kindness, love, holiness found in the ways of Jesus, the words of Jesus and the Hebrew Bible! WTF!!!

I have been on both ends of “the flood of wretchedness”, being a perpetrator prior to my recovery-constantly saying “I’m Sorry” to get the heat off and continuing to lie, cheat, steal-it makes me shudder just writing these words. I have been on the receiving end of this “flood of wretchedness” as well, being betrayed by people I trusted, being shunned by people I have helped, being exiled for being who I am, granted not politically correct, not always appropriate, and always me. I have suffered from my own “monstrous conceit”, especially when I was ‘out there’. I truly believed I was invincible, even so far as to believe they would realize they made a mistake and let me out of prison upon my arrival the first time! Witnessing the “monstrous conceit” of another has forced me to look at my self and do my own inventory before just accusing another of that which I have been guilty of. In recovery, I still am guilty of conceit, just not as monstrous as before my TShuvah! I also have received the whipping of people who believe the lies they tell themselves about how smart, how progressive, how religious, how wonderful, how they are always on the ‘right side’ and it has shown me the damage “monstrous conceit” does. I have, to the best of my ability, tried to engage with another prior to making decisions and adjusted my beliefs upon being shown a better path. It is hard to look at ourselves this way and it is imperative if we are to end the reign of terror, the reign of “wretchedness” we are in. It is up to all of us to smash the “monstrous conceit” that is rampant within ourselves and within another(s). God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The ways in which we use our Power and our Powerlessness - Year 4 Day 319

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 319

“What have we done with our power? What have we done to the world? The flood of wretchedness is sweeping away our monstrous conceit. Who is the Lord?” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 61)

These words once again send shudders up my spine and, hopefully, yours as well. “What have we done with our power” is the question that hangs in the air in every moment, every experience. It seems, if the events of this moment are the barometer, that we are using our power to destroy another and build up our own wealth, power, our own Pharaoh-likeness, and make those whom we have designated as ‘enemies’, ie anyone who wants to stop us, anyone who still believes in freedom, government of the people, by the people, for the people, suffer as our slaves.

That this behavior, this abuse of power, this denigration of another human being, the need to make another group our ‘subjects’ is being done by and with the support of Jews is infuriating to me. It is antithetical to everything we know as Jews, everything our founding myth is based on - being brought out of Egypt by “a strong hand and an outstretched arm”! “Like the ways in Egypt where you dwelt, do not do”(Lev.18:3) seems to have escaped Bibi and his boys, Donny and his thugs like Lutnick, Kushner, Wytkoff, Miller, et al.

While I could go on and on for days about this question regarding these supposed pillars of democracy, of freedom for all, and other lies they tell themselves and too many of we the people still believe, I know it is more important to ask each individual “what have you done with your power”? The only reason a Hitler, a Stalin, a Putin, a Ghengis Khan, a Trump could come to power is because of the acquiescence of we the people. It is so hard for most people to realize and use properly our individual power, our ability to choose to do the next right action, to rise above dogma of any and all groups, faiths, politics. Instead, those who feel powerless and ‘go along to get along’, often use their power to abuse anyone and everyone they deem ‘lower’ than them-be it spouses, children,  underlings at work, the stranger, the resident alien, the poor, the needy, the blind, the deaf, etc. Hence we are told, in the Holiness Code: “don’t put a stumbling block before the blind”, “don’t curse the deaf” to remind us what it is like to be caught blindsided and fall into a hole that we can’t crawl out of, to be constantly told one thing and then find out something else was meant, all because we have become slaves to ‘the man’!

We the People don’t have to stand for this bullshit anymore! We the People need to do an inventory of our own based on how we have used, abused, forgotten: our personal power; our ability to discern fact from fiction; our enslaving and/or being slaves to mendacity and evil, our indifference/fight against being indifferent to evil; our desecration of and lifting up of God’s name with our actions/inactions; and our treatment of, caring for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the needy.

Doing our own Chesbon HaNefesh, accounting of our souls, allows us to see where we have hit the mark and where we have missed it, allowing us to build on our success and repair the damage so we can respond to the 2nd question above: “what have we done to the world”-we are fixing it, we are repairing it, we are honoring the dignity of every human being, we are NOT taking over lands and countries based on our whims, our desire for control and power, we are NOT trumping up charges against one dictator while pardoning another who was MUCH worse and truly added 500 million pounds of Cocaine to the US market.

What are we doing “with our power”? Are we the people taking it back from the Millers, the Voughts, the Trumps, the Kushners, the Lutnicks, the Noems, the Bondis, the Hegseths,  the Patels? Are we the people using our power to lift up our kids, our neighbors, our schools, our universities to being places of discord and debate, being places of ethics and obligations, are we championing rights and responsibilities as twins? Are we the people making sure the stranger is comforted, that we are NOT doing what was done in Egypt nor what was done in Canaan, as Leviticus tells us? These are some of the questions that these two sentences bring up for me. “WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO THE WORLD” is not just about politics, about nations, it is about how we the people treat another human being, as a likeness of Adonai, or do we not see the individual and only see either a helper in our climb to the top or a barrier to our climb to the top? When our vision is focused on the latter, we enslave, we become Pharaoh, when it is focused on the former, we rise up to our humanness and make the world a little better for having been here. YOUR CHOICE!

I made this choice some 39 years ago and have been recommitting to it each day. It has to be a conscious choice, I have learned because without consciousness of choosing to be committed to the covenant, being responsible for the mitzvot, live into the holiness code, etc, I found it too easy to fool myself, to fall backwards into either the slavery of another or being the Pharaoh to someone else. I am disgusted by these behaviors because I know the harms they bring and this is why I am committed to using my power for good. Each morning, I am grateful to be alive and know that I have to be compassionate and faithful to God, to my commitments. I also know that I have to help someone else ‘come back to life’ so I have dedicated myself to “restoring the lost souls” who come to me and I am grateful and honored to do so. For the people who need to use their power against me-God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"Cruelty and Crime" twin pillars of authoritarianism, control, Pharaoh, Egypt! Year 4 Day 318

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 318

“Our proud Western Civilization has not withstood the stream of cruelty and crime that burst forth out of the undercurrents in the human soul.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 61)

Rabbi Heschel is speaking in the shadows of the Second World War, in the memory of the Shoah, in the vision of Germanic cruelty, Russian Cruelty, Polish Cruelty, and American Cruelty. He is, in his own unique manner, issuing an indictment of “Western Civilization” that he is a part of and, at the same time, apart from. It must have been difficult for Rabbi Heschel, for Rev. King, and so many others who lived in the moment they were in, were a part of the civilization and era they were part of AND living in and being a part of Biblical civilization, living into and being immersed in the prophets, the words and deeds of our ancestors from Abraham through Jesus, the Buddha and Confucius.

Their ability to live in both worlds, to be a part of today and yesterday with an eye on tomorrow, is the path for we the people to rise above the “stream of cruelty and crime that burst forth” out of Putin’s takeover of Russia, the rise from the ashes of Netanyahu, the celebration, originally, of Orban’s takeover of Hungary, and, of course, the Trump takeover of our democracy. All of this done right in front of our eyes, all of these cruel criminals did it without firing a shot, without any blood because we the people allowed them to. Because, we the people have “not withstood the stream of cruelty and crime that burst forth out of the undercurrents in the human soul”!

This is, needs to be, the focus of our existence; how to deal with the “cruelty and crime” that is so ever-present, so just beneath the surface in people, waiting to come out, seeking a rationale for expressing itself by ‘the good people’ on both ends of the spectrum. I am realizing the issue for those of us in the middle, we are too afraid of the “cruelty and crime” in our souls to engage in the same practices; “fight fire with fire” doesn’t work out well because the one fighting the fire with fire cannot just turn off the “cruelty and crime” any more than the dictators, wannabe dictators, can-hence the German defeat that was so devastating and complete, the stain of shame heaped upon the U.S. after Vietnam, Afghanistan. We were not able to tame the “cruelty and crime” in the souls of our leaders so many of our young people were sent to their death with reckless abandon.

Today, in the wake of Trump’s takeover of Venezuela, it is for Trump and his oil buddies, his Wall Street buddies, that this happened-he could care less if people are dying from OD’s, we see the unleashing of “cruelty and crime” once again, actually continuing since 1/20/2025. What is the worst about this latest overreach, this latest breaking of our Constitutional law, is we the people seem to be celebrating a military state with joy and happiness, we the people seem to be incapable of realizing Trump PARDONED the former President of Honduras who was responsible for bringing 500 Million pounds of Cocaine into the United States-how much does he care about drug trafficking??!!

There is only one way for We the People to take back our power, to rise above this onslaught of “cruelty and crime”: A Spiritual Awakening and a Spiritual Revolution! It is time for all of us to “groan” as the Children of Israel did after the death of one Pharaoh and the rise of another one who was more cruel, more criminal, more despicable. Trump is crueler, more grifting, more despicable, more reckless, more criminal than in his first term, he and his gang are raping our country of resources, of our good name, of our leadership of the Free World and making us into another fascist country with a megalomaniac at the helm.

This is the moment we the people are most in need of a reconnection with the Ineffable One, a power greater than ourselves, our higher consciousness. Not only a reconnection, a rededication to the principles of the Bible, to the words from Mount Sinai, from the commands to love, to care for, to uphold, to be just, to   not take bribes because bribes blind the eyes of the righteous. “Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country” and themselves. Now is the moment for We the People to stop our erroneous belief we are powerless to effect change, to end our incessant lying to ourselves, to see the reflection of the divine in the mirror, in the face of another human being, to know the danger and face it with a plan, to be a witness to the “cruelty and crime” and not get seduced by it. This is the challenge of this moment, this is the challenge the prophets called out to us and their solution is still the best solution: “Do T’Shuvah, return to God” and our backsliding will be healed, we are loved, we can be and will be forgiven.

I am a product of this solution! I know how cruel I was to the people who loved me and I am forever regretful for this stain, this wound I inflicted. I also know no amount of money, things, therapy saved me from myself, because, like Western civilization, my immature soul could not “withstand the cruelty and crime”. Only with the ‘help’ of God, with the reconnection to the power within me, to my spirit and to the souls/spirits of so many people over these years have I been able to rise above the urge to “fight fire with fire”, the impulse to “get even and get mine”. I have made and continue to err in my quest from spiritual maturity and, as Harriet was relating to a couple yesterday: “we have never used the vulnerabilities of our partner against them.” This is the definition of evil, cruel by M.Scott Peck and it is what passes for using all the weapons at our disposal to “Win at all costs” in “Western civilization”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Awareness of what our "appetites" promote us to do - Year 4 Day 317

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 317

“Comfort, luxuries, success continually bait our appetite, impairing our vision of that which is required but now always desired. They make it easy for us to grow blind to values. Interest are the value-blind man’s dog, his pathfinder and his guide.”

These words, this sentiment, this prophecy is anywhere from 70-50 years old. Reading them in this moment, one needs to be wondering what reason society had/has for not hearing them, not wresting with them, not heeding them. The reason, of course is in the first phrase: “comfort, luxuries, success continually bait our appetite”. Rather than ‘put a lid’ on our desires, on our “appetites”, we seem to be ever-expanding our waistline and, for the rich, the famous, the people in power, ‘eating’ more and more money, resources, for the few and practicing more and more injustice here at home and in the world. What is also happening is the joining of a new “axis of power”, not Italy, Germany, Japan this time. Now we have three groups who are using one another to gain power, to feed their “appetites” making them more and more hungry for “comfort, luxuries, success”. The first group is horrific, to the hearts, minds, souls of Americans who still believe in a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people, and is made up of Putin, Xi and Trump with MBS, Netanyahu, Orban, Erdogan their understudies. They believe that taking anything, anyone’s sovereign nation for their own uses is right and good. They believe they are entitled to anything and everything that they can forcibly take, (Venezuela, Ukraine, Taiwan), they can con one out of with false promises (abuse of contractors, workers, gaining allies with false promises), and they can use Goebbels’ “accuse someone else of that which you are guilty of”! These traitors to God, to their constituents are the epitome of a Kakistocracy.

The second group is an even more insidious group, the billionaires, the wannabe billionaires, etc. These money-seeking, soul sucking individuals have convinced themselves of the lie of “trickle down economics” from the Reagan years when the only people they probably truly admire are those from the “Gilded Age”, the Robber Barons. They agree with J.D. Rockefeller when he was asked “how much money is enough” and he responded: “a little more than I have now” and he never had enough. These people have used and abused the people they are supposedly serving, the people who buy their products, use their services to “continually bait our appetites” and to bring to fruition their wet-dreams of more “comfort, luxuries, success” they are willing to set up a way of being that promotes the “most unscrupulous behaviors in government”, promotes, supports the Kakistocracy of Trump, Putin, Xi, and the rest of those mentioned above. There is no God here, only the ‘almighty dollar’, only the “top of the world ma” goals to worship.

The third group is, to me, the most disgusting. This is the group of ‘christian’ nationalists, ‘jewish’ nationalists, ‘muslim’ nationalists who continue to lie about what the Bible means and what it says, taking verses out of context to prove their xenophobic viewpoints, their need for power and control dating back to the early days of the Priests and Rabbis, of Paul, of Mohammed’s followers. Rather than immerse themselves in what Christ was doing and teaching these Anti-Christers are saying and doing the exact opposite! “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is bastardized to “I am throwing stones at anyone who can see, testify to my sins”; feeding the hungry as Christ did is ‘corrected’ to “feed me you poor people for I am your salvation, I am your retribution” and so many other holy teachings and actions of Christ are being bastardized. In case you are wondering the Desecrators of God’s name who call themselves ‘jews’ are experts at bastardizing the teaching of the Holiness Code-they don’t rebuke themselves nor one another because of the lies, the thefts, the murdering of souls they partake in. They have no desire to “welcome and love the stranger because they were strangers in the land of Egypt”, “do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor”, “if your enemy is hungry feed them”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants therein! Alas, these ‘good christian, good jewish’ folk are NOTHING BUT IDOLATORS! They desecrate God’s will, they rape the souls of people who are seeking a greater connection to the Ineffable One, they murder the souls of people who seek and speak Truth, Justice, Mercy, Love!

When will We the People say ENOUGH! DAYENU! Each year we gather at a Passover table and retell the story of the Exodus from the land of Egypt and each year this ritual is treated just like a ritual instead of as a call to action. Each year we read the Bible, Hebrew and New Testament, and this too is treated as a ritual and a way of checking another “have to” off the To-Do list. Each year we partake in the different Holy Days as obligatory events or as excuses to go to excess and extravagance. All of these ways of ignoring the Call of God, the Voice on Sinai that broadcasts each and every day, 24 hours a day, have promoted the belief that “comfort, luxuries, success” are the only things we need to satisfy and, if we give back to the unholy Temples, Synagogues, Churches, we have fulfilled our duty. BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT!

As a practitioner of “comfort, luxuries, success” as my god, I know the only solution is a spiritual awakening. The only path back to the Oneness of humanity, the Oneness of God is through our souls, through a spiritual revolution that discerns the words of Adonai and the words of the authors/editors who wanted power and used Elohim to enact justice they were incapable of living up to. I know living a double life, living into a double standard, I did it from age 15-35 and it was horrible and the ‘crimes’ I committed the most were the ones I committed against God, against people who trusted and loved me. We all have to stand up against the groups above! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Whose needs are you serving-your own, the needs of the 'leader', the needs of God? Year 4 Day 316

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 316

“Dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect in science and technique, we have not only become convinced that we are masters of the earth; we have become convinced that our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 59)

In his article in the January edition of The Atlantic, David Brooks writes about the NeoCons, the originals, not the ones that came later. They were a group who saw that moral and spiritual tenors were paramount for a free society, as I understand his article. They were thinkers and politicians, people of all faiths and their question of “how can we create a civilization to be proud of” should be ringing in our ears and shaking our souls! Yet, it doesn’t seem to be and this is the tragedy of our moment in time. How is it possible that this question, being spoken from Mt. Sinai to Jerusalem, from New York to the California Coast, not be heard? Because “we have..become convinced we are masters of the earth”! This idea, this belief is so ingrained in human beings that only a spiritual solution will help, which the original NeoCons knew and promoted. Granted, many of their ideas and policies wound up not working, not because they were bad rather because of implementation, because the spiritual immaturity of both government and the people did not rise to the level of going beyond one’s own interests and needs, as I am understanding Mr. Brooks’ article.

The challenge of living into the Biblical demand/command to “subdue the earth” and be the “master of it” while knowing that we are NOT “masters of the earth” is great and, unfortunately, human beings constantly fail to meet the challenge, we take the easy way out and live into being “masters of the earth”, creating wars, environmental damages, senseless hatred, mistreatment of the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy, being fearful towards the stranger and unwelcoming them, finding ‘those’ people whom we can blame for our woes, etc. What is Project 2025, MAGA, Trumpism if not the acting out of the false beliefs: “we are masters of the earth” and “our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong”. These ‘good christian folk’, these ‘real jews’, are going against what Christ taught and did and much of what the Hebrew Bible tells us to do. When treating the stranger well because you were strangers in the Land of Egypt is mentioned 36 times in the first 5 Books of the Bible, it must be an important concept! Duh!! Yet, both here and in Israel, both the MAGA’s and the Far Right here and in Israel turn away from the demands of how to live well and treat each person with dignity and value because, like themselves, another human being is created in the Image of God also!!

Instead, we have a society that is being led by the most outrageous, despicable human being ever to hold the office of the Presidency. Trump is making the Tea Pot Dome scandal seem like it was legal! Trump, his allies like Lutnick, Vought, Noem, Patel, Netanyahu and his thugs in Israel are only looking to get whatever they can steal from the American/Israeli Public, they truly believe that “our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong”. The clergy who are sucking up to them, who are kissing their asses, who are promoting their cruelty as Godly, who are calling for their followers to ‘rejoice’ in the screwing over they are getting from these ‘fine christian and jewish men’!

I say BULLSHIT! We the People have to continue the protests that began in Israel and in America in the past few years. We the People have to stand up to Trump, to Vance, to Vought, to Johnson, to Thune, to Jeffries, to Schumer and demand their doing T’Shuvah! We the People are being called upon by the words above to stand up for God, to stand up for what is right according to the Bible, to stand against the mendacity and spiritual immaturity being preached in the churches and synagogues, the mosques and the temples. The rot and the ugliness, the cruelty and the narcissism is on display daily in our government and when a young woman, Tatiana Schlossberg, JFK’s granddaughter dies and all Trump can do is repost negative comments about the Kennedys, about the Kennedy Center which ‘he is saving’ in a despicable, arrogant, cruel and inhumane response to a tragic death of a 35 year old mother of 2.

It is so crucial for all of us to stand up-this is not a political issue, this is an issue of freedom, of decency, of morality, of spirituality. The world we live in is in great disrepair and, as David Brooks writes: “if you want to improve the character of a nation, you have to change its culture so that it nurtures basic decency”. This is the challenge for us a community, as a country, in Israel, as families, as individuals.

This is how I lost my way, I convinced myself that because I did some good things, I could do bad things and have the best of both worlds-WRONG! The rot always takes over, the negativity overwhelms the good and “the still small voice” gets more still and smaller. Only upon the gift of imprisonment could I regain my hearing, recapture my sense of “basic dignity” and begin to grow and mature my spiritual health. I hear the call of the prophets so loudly right now, I hear them in the words of Rabbi Heschel and the words of David Brooks, I hear them in the street and in the Synagogues, Churches, etc-the issue is the Clergy, the “jew in the pew”, the people attending are NOT hearing them, so Trump gets elected with people knowing he is going to screw them and steal from them! I believe the Spiritual Revolution has begun, I pray people like Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg attract more people to join this revolution and restore decency and LET FREEDOM RING once more! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What dazzles you, what convinces you to go along to get along? Year 4 Day 315

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 315

“Dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect in science and technique, we have not only become convinced that we are masters of the earth; we have become convinced that our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 59)

Each new year, each new season, each renewed gathering of family and friends has within it a hope, a prayer, that this year, this season, this gathering will be a little better than the last, a little more productive than the last, a little friendlier, loving, joyous than the last. Except for the people who are stuck in the muck and mire of being “dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect”, which are not the end all/be all that We the People are led to believe they are. Today, the first day of 2026 is pregnant with promise, with hope, with fear, with danger, with joy, with sadness, with love, with hate, and the key to which way the pendulum swings is WE THE PEOPLE!

There is a television series we are streaming called “Burden of Truth”, it is an interesting show, at least to me, however what caught my interest is the tittle. WOW, I thought and still think: being in truth, telling the truth, living in truth is a burden, it is difficult, it is a responsibility, it is an obligation, it is the essence of living  a life of meaning, purpose, goodness, holiness, connection, justice, mercy, kindness, etc. AND humanity seems to delight in jettisoning this burden, this call to Truth, for the ‘joy’ of being “dazzled”. Society has placed supreme meaning and purpose on our “brilliant achievements” and this has distorted our standards of living, our ability to discern truth from lies, fact from fiction and, ultimately, has led to Trump’s ‘alternative facts’, his ‘retribution tour’, his hatred of anyone not white, his disdain for anyone not rich, his misogynistic treatment of women, and has led to him being surrounded by like-minded people, by people who are, in some cases and ways, worse than him. Putin, Netanyahu, Erdogan, MBS, Trump, Xi, Orban, Kushner, Ben G’Vir, Lutnick, Vought, are the symbols of success for our children. Of course there is Zuckerberg, Ellison, Cook, Musk, and the rest of the tech billionaires, there are the other “masters of the earth” in any particular field that are being worshipped in today’s society  to further erode the Truth, further the mendacious belief “that we are masters of the earth”!

Sitting here, on the first day of 2026, I am invigorated with hope, with passion, with the spiritual inheritance of the prophets, of the Bible, of the connection I have with something greater than the “I”. I invigorated with the “WE”. The “WE” that is me and God, the “WE” that is me and Harriet, the “WE” that is me and family, the “WE” that is me and community(especially the bridge club community here in the desert), the “WE” that is me and my colleagues in Clergy and Faith, the “WE” that is my AA family and friends, the “WE” that is me and the Jews who are still seeking Truth rather than those who think they know the truth, the “WE” that is me and We the People who believe in the Constitution, who are willing to protest, vote and fight for the “Unalienable Rights” of EVERY HUMAN BEING!

To make this hope, this passion, grow to more fruition than it is today, I am asking for your help; let go of the lies society has been telling us, jettison the belief of the Greeks that “everything is solvable”, stop buying the false flags of the haters, the fascists in charge of the US right now, demand the TRUTH rather than settle for the bullshit and pap. I am asking you to join me is enriching the spiritual life of oneself, one’s family, one’s neighbors, one’s country through engaging in raucous debate over what the Bible is teaching us, deep holy arguments over the contradictions in the text, and learning the holy texts of another’s faith to find the similarities and deepen our respect for the separate yet equal paths of one another as we travel the road to THE TRUTH. Knowing we will never get there completely, knowing we are flawed and will make errors by the dozens is not a reason to quit, it is the reason to keep going so we can learn from our successes and from our flaws, usually more from the flaws than the successes.

My passion and hope is also fueled by a sense, a belief, a hope that We the People are on the precipice of another SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION, like the one at Sinai, like the one that brought us out of our last “narrow place”, ie Egypt. How many times are we going to be free only to go back to a ‘new’ narrow place that is really the same as the old one: “we have become convinced that our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong”! This is the challenge for all good people, once we are out of Egypt, stop relapsing and going back. People ask why an addict can’t just make up their mind to stop using and that is that; I ask these same people why can’t they just accept that the Egypts they have been released from don’t need to be revisited, yet they do! WTF???

I am hopeful and passionate because of the people who fight the fight against mendacity, who read Rabbi Heschel, the Bible, the words of Jesus, the Koran, with the passion for TRUTH, with the spirit of the prophets, with the joy of the people who left Egypt and sang the “Song of the Sea” after coming through the Red Sea. I have not gone back to Egypt either in my alcoholism, my criminality, my greed. I have expanded my horizons to include the things I don’t know. I am passionate about truth and kindness and eschew, scream at the mendacity, cruelty, unkindness, injustice that is abounding, even by the ‘right’ people! None of us are exempt and I continue to look at me to see my flaws and errors, correct them and take my proper seat at the bridge table, the family table, the table of life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Decision making- is it based on a calculation, an inauthentic need or....? Year 4 Day 314

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 314

“He feels, acts, and thinks as if the sole purpose of the universe were to satisfy his needs. To the modern man everything seems calculable; everything reducible to a figure.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

In speaking about human beings some 50-70 years ago, Rabbi Heschel captures the issue we have faced from time immemorial; how to end our narcissistic beliefs that our needs come from first, last always! It seems as if our religious institutions have done a piss-poor job of helping us, our secular education institutions have seemed to promote our narcissism, and at the family dinner table(if there is family dinner time) these issues are, seemingly, not deeply discussed. Hence the proliferation of people and ways to get “the universe” to “satisfy his needs”. Nowhere is this on display more than here in the United States under Donald J. Trump and his ‘family’ of crooks and power-hungry fascists and in Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, Smotrich and the rest of their thugs. Both of these leaders who just met again, play the game of calculation, how much do I have to give to get what I want-Trump wants recognition, adoring fans, idolized behaviors, and Netanyahu gives it to him. He doesn’t contradict him in public, he breaks Israeli policy in giving Trump the Israel Prize so Trump feels important and wanted, loved. Trump, in return, gives Netanyahu wiggle room in dealing with Gaza, the West Bank, the Palestinian statehood question, etc.

To people of faith, like myself, these calculations, the satisfaction of needs uber alles is anathema and, that they are being fortified and supported by the phony clergy of christianity and judaism is infuriating! While these phony clergy have obtained ordination from mostly legitimate schools, people, I call them phony because they are not wrestling with the contradictions in the Bible, they are not listening to the Voice from Sinai who says DO JUSTLY, LOVE MERCY, WALK IN THE WAYS OF GOD-rather they have decided to PERVERT JUSTICE, BE UNMERCIFUL, WALK IN THE WAYS OF THEIR NEEDS, not God’s. And they call themselves and their followers “true christians”, “the only real Jews left”, “keepers of the flame” etc, when in reality they are putting out the light that was the first word of God, they are returning to the chaos and emptiness of the beginning of Genesis and all they want is to be Masters of their Universe.

Rather than learn that the “Elohim”, the giants, the “men of renown” shitted up the world so badly God sent the Flood, these Hookers, have become these same “men of renown” and unlike Nathan, Elijah, Amos, the rest of the prophets these idolators preach pap to the people in power, going along with their grifting, their treasuring needs over deeds, their satisfaction over God’s calling, and holding their hands out for their cut of the action. This is NOT the markings of truly religious people, this is NOT the path of the righteous, this is NOT the way to “BE HOLY”! This is the ROT we are facing and it ain’t getting any better, these people who are described in Deuteronomy as those who “say in their hearts” they can give lip service to the Bible and then go do what they want will bring the house down, as we have seen throughout history and throughout the Bible!

We the People need to examine, re-examine our “needs” and see which are authentic and which are false ego driven. Food, clothing, shelter are authentic needs; connection and covenantal love are authentic needs; transactional relationships are authentic needs as long as they are reciprocal. Billionaire status and no taxes are inauthentic needs; power over people, ie being Pharaoh or her taskmasters, is inauthentic; needing a bad guy to blame is one of the sins of Adam and Eve in the Garden- not authentic; hating/fearing the stranger is inauthentic; hiding from God, from another person(s) is inauthentic;

We the People are being given a new beginning both in terms of the calendar year changing and the fact that today is a new day, it is the “day God has made for us to rejoice in it” and rejoicing comes from doing the next right thing, rejoicing is synonymous with serving something greater than our inauthentic needs, our narcissistic wounds. Rejoicing comes about when we can look in the face of another and see our soul’s reflection, rejoicing happens when we can look in the mirror and not hide from ourselves. Rejoicing becomes the through line of our lives when we are dedicated to loving the stranger, loving God, loving our selves, loving our neighbors, engaging in righteous justice, eschewing slavery, hearing, listening and understanding the unique call of each of our soul’s and living into our call.

It is not easy to do this, I know. Yet, it is the most satisfying way to live. AS the Bible teaches not hiding, not living in secret, not living in the either/or of societal norms will bring us to joy. As Ben Zoma says in Pirke Avot 4:1: “who is rich”, one who wants what he has; not to say we don’t learn and grow into more-rather to say we have to want what we have, we have to experience the satisfaction of where we are and what is happening in our lives before we can grow, it is not about settling, it is about rejoicing.  I have to wrestle each day with this concept, I have to see the “question this experience is the answer for” and be joyous that I can see, I can hear, I can learn, I can grow, especially when it isn’t going my way.

Today is the last day of 2025 and marks the end of my 5th year of writing a daily blog, first using the prophets and now almost 4 years using Rabbi Heschel. I mention this to put into context the immense joy I receive from writing these blogs, the powerful learning/relearning I receive from the quotations I use, and the gratitude I have for all of you who read these missives daily, weekly, periodically. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Why do you learn, what does learning do for you? Year 4 Day 313

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 313

“The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use. To Bacon we owe the formulation, “Knowledge is power”…We do not know anymore how to justify any value except in terms of expediency.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

It is increasingly more difficult for me to contain the trembling I experience each day when hearing about the latest disregard of God’s ways and trampling on the rights, the freedoms of the ‘group of the moment to discriminate against’ that seems to be the way of our President and his thugs and he is, of course, joined by the Prime Minister of Israel in this endeavor. The way America is living at this moment, the popularity of Trumpism, of progressive left, of hatred, of prejudice, of racism, anti-semitism on both the right and the left leads me to know “the modern man learns in order to use” is alive, present, front and center in this moment!

What is happening on College Campuses is horrific, it is a denial of what learning, what ‘higher education’ is about. College has become, for some time, a place that is a trade school where people go to learn whatever so they can land the job that will make them rich, a place to espouse some extreme bullshit that is called ‘conservative’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’ principles and are really just an indoctrination into some radical form of lies and deceptions. Rather than being a safe place to find oneself, to learn about what it is that we are meant to be and do in the world, rather than learn for the sake of discovery, College has become another battlefield in the war to capture soldiers for ‘my side’, the ‘right side’ of the civil war that is quietly and not so quietly happening in America right now.

Trump is not the first or the worst example of “the modern man learns in order to use”, he is a master at the sleight of hand, he has turned a losing real estate business into a Presidency that is making him BILLIONS OF DOLLARS personally-so lets not call him stupid. He has people kissing his ring, he has become ‘the Don’ that he always wanted to be, he is doing his KKK-membership father proud in heaven!

Bibi Netanyahu is the epitome of Hillul HaShem, in my opinion. Rather than be a Hebrew, be an Israelite, be a Jew, he has chosen to be “the modern man” as described above. Caring nothing for reverence and everything for his own skin, craving money, power, fame rather than seeking to serve Adonai, Bibi shows us what it means to sell one’s soul to the modernity, to whore oneself out to anyone for the sake of power and wealth, to uphold lies and deceptions that you yourself don’t believe in-I doubt that Bibi studies Torah each day nor prays 3 times a day!

Listening to the two of them briefly before their meeting yesterday is an example of “expediency”. Joe Biden went to Israel and gave Israel the weaponry they needed and asked for right after Oct. 7th-Trump pulled the weaponry needed by Ukraine in their war against the AGGRESSOR RUSSIA! Trump wouldn’t go to an American Cemetery for WWII soldiers who died in battle, Biden went to Kyiv, to Jerusalem. Bibi praises Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had” forgetting that it was Harry Truman who supported Statehood for Israel!

When expediency, use are the guiding principles of living; deception, cruelty, graft, grift, unholy alliances, betrayals abound. What is so hard for We the People to have learned this TRUTH already? Even the Greeks would comprehend this truth, these lessons in the futility of following expediency, use to their logical ends-ruin, destruction, slavery, hatred. Yet, this way of being seems to be the way of the world. When “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the watchwords and belief system of people what is happening now is the logical result. Do we really want to live under this type of system again? Hasn’t history taught us the perils of succumbing to these lies and to the loss of freedoms?

Hence the importance of “the Hebrews learned in order to revere”. “Revere” comes from the Latin meaning “to stand in awe of”. It is hard to hate, to lie, to deceive, to enslave, to cheat, to admire liars, to worship power when one is “to stand in awe of” which is what makes the goings on of today so horrific! Be one a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a follower of Eastern philosophy, we are all called upon by God, by Adonai, by Allah, by Jesus, by higher consciousness “to stand in awe of” one another, of the beauty of the world, of love, of truth. We are called “to stand in awe of” with kindness, compassion, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, giving strength to the weary, visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved, administering righteous justice, proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to everyone in it, to “BE HOLY”!

This is the way of “the Hebrews” and this is the way of Jesus, Mohammed, so it is to be the way of We the People! Yet, it isn’t and hasn’t. King David could proclaim his guilt and Bibi, Donny, and so many of us are unable to. I am guilty of expediency and use, this was the main highway I travelled prior to my recovery. Since then I have certainly been on it at times and, upon realizing or being told I am, I take the 1st Exit to get off. I have been vilified by people for my loudness, my inability to accept “the way of the world” from right and left and I welcome it. I have also been praised for standing up to the bullies and giving voice to the voiceless. I know my deep reverence for human beings, I know I “stand in awe of” so many humane giants, I sit at before them through books, through encounters and learn their ways, their thoughts and then how to put them into action in my life and the lives of those who seek me out, the lives of family and friends. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Power, utilization of resources seems to "be the chief purpose" of human beings - Year 4 Day 312

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 312

“Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God’s creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal and the world is not a gigantic toolbox for the satisfaction of his needs.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

These words have so much to do with who we, as human beings, are that I am going to spend a few days taking my time with these thoughts. In the words bolded above, we find the truth of what is happening in our world today. It is not, as we can see, a new story and it is one that seems to be on steroids right now. “The attainment of power” being “the chief purpose of man in God’s creation” is on full display in the United States, in Russia, in Israel, in China and in other parts of the globe. Interestingly, Europe, which has been the scene of some of the greatest examples of this truth, is trying to bring us all back from the brink and, alas, Trump and his cronies in other countries just don’t want to hear it.

The smaller the person, the more immature the spiritual health of a person, the weaker the morality, the more fragile the ego of a human being seems to make “the attainment of power” necessary for one’s survival. As Lyndon Johnson said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Whether it is racism, xenophobia, religious dominance, just plain old greed, the need for a human being to be so caught up in “net worth = self worth” is devastating our country, our independence, our interdependence, our freedom.

This is not an issue that is a right-wing issue, this is a human condition that must be addressed before it  completely destroys us. Yet, we are reluctant to address the evil of this “chief purpose of man in God’s creation” as we saw with Merritt Garland not taking on the Trump crimes sooner, as we see with the Supreme Court not curbing the power grab of Trump, Vought, Miller, et al, as we see with the American People who are getting screwed by Trump’s grift and his getting into bed with anyone who says nice things to him and does business with him/his sons/Jared Kushner. It is an issue in Israel with the people who are protecting the fascist Prime Minister from any inquiry on QatarGate, on October 7, 2023 failure, on the devastation in Gaza, on the horrific ways of the settlers in the West Bank. AND We the People are standing idly by the blood of our neighbors, we are silent as the hatred of the stranger grows unabated and we call ourselves ‘religious people’ , ‘good christians, good jews’ who go against basic tenets found in the Bible, foundational principles found in the 10 Sayings at Sinai, not responding to the daily call of “where are you” by God.

It is so past time for WE THE PEOPLE to stand up and take back our freedoms, to sit down with the people we don’t know, ie the stranger, the poor, the rich, the person of color, the white person, the Jew, the Christian, the Muslim, the practitioners of Eastern philosophies, and find our commonality in being human. We are being called to end our assault on truth, on our environment, on our healthcare, on vaccines, on our children by their devices and ‘big brother’ listening to everything we are saying. It is way past time for us to say NO to the onslaught of technology that is killing our humanity, robbing us of our freedom to think, do, to be free rather than worry about what will be taken out of context and used against us. Now is the time for WE THE PEOPLE to stand up against the bullying of Trump and his thugs, the hatred of people towards Hispanics, Blacks, Jews, etc-you notice that no white people who are undocumented are being rounded up- and call this facade what it is-fascist racism. Hitler used the Jews, the ‘christian’ nationalists today use Hispanics, Blacks and Jews because they don’t want to be seen as prejudiced!!

America deserting our allies in favor of Putin, in favor of MBS, Qatar, etc is despicable and depressing. What is more despicable and depressing is that we are allowing it to happen. What is more depressing is that the ‘progressive’ left has their own prejudices and hatreds. All because of a spiritual immaturity, a denial of the Oneness of the Ineffable One, the idiotic bullshit that ‘god only loves my kind’, the lying and rabble-rousing of Clergy from all faiths. PEOPLE it is way past time for us to demand a spiritual renewal, a study of the prophets and a return to a path of being human and holy!

I am well aware of the ways of power-seekers, of making power “the chief purpose” of my life because I always felt so powerless. I was hellbent on proving my power, proving my worth, proving, proving and never realized that what I was trying to prove and to whom I was trying to prove it was bullshit and wrong. I came to this realization in prison the 2nd time. I have nurtured this truth and grown my joy at being powerless to do God’s job, to be God, to prove to someone who needs to be right at all costs, to make someone bend to my will. Instead, I have learned and keep learning how to speak to people in ways that God would have me speak, to use my voice to stand up for the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the needy. I have learned and keep learning how to make changes within me, to stand for truth, to stand for what is right, to stand against cruelty, to stand for decency, being one grain of sand more holy each day, to admit my errors, and to no longer be dictated to nor accept the judgmental nature of another. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Usefulness, power, winning are societal ploys to keep us from connecting with self and another - Year 4 Day 311

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 311

“Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God’s creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal and the world is not a gigantic toolbox for the satisfaction of his needs.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

These words, written over 50 years ago, are proof of Rabbi Heschel’s prophetic nature, to me. What is a prophet if not a person who has the ability to see what is, see the rot and ruin that is festering, growing with the human being and society and speak out about it with warnings, with solutions? Hence, one of the reasons I love Rabbi Heschel so much and one of the reasons I study him daily!

The idea of “usefulness” has only grown in “our age”, it is not just the world of nature where it has grown, “usefulness” is the “chief merit of human nature” is the end/all be/all of “our age”. I am overcome with a familiar realization that the “usefulness” which has “merit” is the antithesis to covenantal relationships. Humanity is not going to ever have a lack of “usefulness”, since the Caveman we have found the tools, the food, the ways to sustain our physical existence; humanity is, however, in a state of covenantal bankruptcy, our very existence is dependent on being needed and needing another human being for connection. We learn in the 2nd Chapter of Genesis that “it is not good that humans are alone” and ever since the first marriage, it seems as if humanity continues to ‘go it alone’. The war between societal bullshit and authentic human needs for connection is only growing greater and the chasm is getting larger and larger. With the advent of AI, who knows where we will be in another 50+ years.

There is nothing wrong with seeking out the “usefulness” of “nature”, the “usefulness” that a human being can provide as both help all of us live better. The “usefulness” of nature cannot be used at the expense of nature as humanity has done, putting holes in the Ozone is not “taking care of the earth” as we are commanded in Genesis Chapter 1. So too, the “usefulness” of a human being cannot kill the soul, the spirit of the person and this is the issue we face today, as we have in the past. Today, the issue seems to be on steroids and, maybe every generation felt that way-certainly the prophets did. Marriage is a covenantal relationship that seems to have lost its purpose, when one partner or the other is no longer “useful”, divorce happens (useful in the broadest sense of the word); when an employee no longer is “useful”, they get fired no matter their previous value, no matter that they are “useful” in another area-if they are no longer ‘serving the man’, fire them. When an employer, who has taught us our trade, given us numerous opportunities for growth, can’t/won’t pay us what we think we are worth, we go elsewhere because loyalty means nothing, previous assistance means even less, just look at the Free Agent markets in sports, the insanity in College Football today. In relationships, friendships, when it isn’t serving, it isn’t convenient to ‘be seen’ with this person-we lose them! This begins in grade school and begins to flourish in middle/high school.

We the People have lost our sense of covenantal relationships with one another, with truth, with justice, with God. This is the problem the prophets spoke about, it is the issue that Jesus railed about, this is the situation we find ourselves in throughout history bringing us to today. The MAGA movement, the far right ‘conservative’ movement does not want to ‘conserve’ anything except utilitarianism, they only want to ‘conserve’ the power of the white man, the only ‘right’ there is in their world is what their leader spouts (think Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany), and there are no rights for ‘those people’ like Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Catholics who don’t join them, Asians, Muslims, etc.

What is the solution? Rabbi Heschel would say to re-awaken, re-learn how to have a sense of wonder. I believe he is correct and I believe the solution begins with spiritual education from a young age-no longer is learning the Aleph-Bet (the Hebrew alphabet) enough when children are young-their spiritual education, maturity has to begin at that moment as well. Young people have a sense of something greater and it is we adults who tell them “that’s not the way the world works” and we systematically begin to kill the sense of wonder, of awe, of spiritual audacity and moral grandeur within our children, our teens and then we wonder why they are going more and more inward, spending more and more time on their ‘devices’, being lured by faux connections. Just as it is impossible to remove the “evil drive” from a human being, so too is it impossible to remove the “spiritual longing” within a human being. Unfortunately, when the “evil drive” is attacked it gets stronger, when the “spiritual longing” is attacked it gets smaller and smaller as an act of protection.

I have wrestled with the issue of transactional and covenantal relationships all my life, even when I didn’t know it. I realize this was what I lost when my father died and I did not regain a sense of covenant for over 20 years. I was certainly part of the problem re: “usefulness” as the “chief purpose”, so in my recovery, my being of service is what I lead with-to the best of my ability- and I search out covenantal relationships and, at times, fooled by another, fooled by my need to be in covenant with another. What I know, what I keep learning over and over again, the #1 covenantal relationship in my life is with God, with me, and only when I am true and loving, just and merciful in my relationship with self and God can I really have the same with my family, with Harriet, with you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Worshiping at "the fountain of profit" leads to brokenness of spirit and enslavement of people. Year 4 Day 310

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 310

“There is happiness in the love of labor; there is misery in the love of gain. Many hearts and pitchers are broken at the fountain of profit. Selling himself into slavery to things, man becomes a utensil that is broken at the fountain.”

(Thunder in the Soul pg. 57)

Many of We the People doubt God’s existence, the existence of some “force of the Universe”, the existence of a fountain of spiritual wisdom, education and sustenance. The doubt begins with “how could God have allowed the Holocaust(if one is Jewish) and other tragedies, horrors”. I believe this is the wrong question; I know that this Universe was not man-made, I know that Nature is not man-made, I know that everything evolved over time, I know there is a spiritual connection that makes love knowable, justice perceivable, mercy available, and T’Shuvah (return, change, hope) redeemable. I believe We the People have to stop asking this wrong question and ask ourselves and one another: where are We the People in allowing, participating in, ignoring the tragedies we blame God for?

One of the societal norms and cliches is: “the one with the most toys wins” and this idiotic belief, this drive to ‘win’, the belief of Tevye, the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof, that “when your rich, they think you really know”, the abuse of people by those who are drinking and being sustained “at the fountain of profit”, all have contributed to the erroneous belief that God is dead when in truth it is We the People who have forfeited our spiritual natures, forfeited our morality, our sense of dignity, who have knowingly engaged in injustice, enthusiastically kiss the asses of people like Trump, like Putin, like MBS so we can “get more”, Jared Kushner, Howard Lutnick, Steve Wytkoff are great examples of this way of being. Of course, this way of being has been with us since the days of the Bible. We know this because the central theme of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, is the Pharaoh and Egypt. Evidently, the Israelites thought they could drink at “the fountain of profit” along with the Pharaoh and the Egyptians because of what Joseph did and, for the first time in their history and certainly not the last, they “were broken at the fountain of profit”. This has been the theme of the Jewish people since then-every time Jews turn and worship at “the fountain of profit” We the Jewish People wind up “selling himself into slavery to things” and We the People “become a utensil that is broken at the fountain”. Not a “utensil” for God, not a “utensil” in making the world a better place, rather “utensil that is broken at the fountain” of profit and serves the Pharaoh, the Autocrat, the fuhrer, etc.

After all of these years of our history repeating itself, after all of the times We the Jewish People have suffered through and experienced the same experience as we did in Egypt oh so long ago, after all the times We the People (all people) have witnessed and experienced the myriad ways of seeking profits, seeking to be with the “in crowd”, the “rich crowd”, the “powerful people” only to find ourselves enslaved to our roles, our jobs, “the man”, one would think that We the People would end our going to the “fountain of profit” where our “hearts are broken” time and time again. BUT WE DO NOT! We the People, in our returning over and over again to this place of abject despair and slavery, are living Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results”. Knowing this doesn’t protect us, knowing this seems to make We the People more stubborn to prove Einstein, history, and our inner wisdom, our spiritual knowing wrong-in other words, We the People seem to be hellbent on denying Truth and welcoming mendacity.

We know this to be true because We the American People re-elected Trump, knowing his desire to enslave all of us-even and, in some cases, especially his MAGA crowd. What is really confusing to some of us is the conspiracy theories and the anti-semitism that is welcomed, embraced, and never denied by many in the MAGA camp. Kushner, Lutnick, Wytkoff seem to believe they are exempt, they believe their money, their ‘leadership’ at “the fountain of profit”, their connection to Trump will save them-HA HA. Ask any of the Jews of Egypt who were advisors to the Pharaoh, the Jews of Spain who were friends of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Jews of Germany who held governmental positions, who helped to build the economy, the culture prior to 1933! WTF WE THE PEOPLE? Isn’t it time to wake up, to take off the blinders that the “love of gain” shields our eyes from seeing truth, to cry out to God for help in being redeemed from the slavery We the People willingly walk into and in each day? Isn’t it time to ask ourselves the right questions, instead of blaming, denying, defying the Spiritual Truth of life?

I am so aware of the thread of outrage the prophets left us as an inheritance, I am sitting here, writing these words and want to scream, I want to be heard. Knowing the brokenness of worshiping at the “fountain of profit”, knowing the horrific(unjust, inhumane, me first, etc)  actions that are taken in order to keep the “fountain of profit” pumping, I experience outrage for God, for the poor, the needy, the stranger. I am angry at the Jews who support Netanyahu and Ben G’Vir in their hatred, I am embarrassed by the Jews who are still proclaiming their loyalty and fealty to Trump and this bullshit conservatism that is actually hatred for anyone not a white christian nationalist.  I believe We the People are better than this, I believe the founding fathers wanted “a more perfect union”, I believe my father, z”l, and all the others who fought against the Axis Powers in WWII, fought for the end to slavery, the end of racism, the end of power grabs, the end of senseless hatred and killing. I pray we will honor their sacrifice with our own by ending our thirst at “the fountain of profit”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you truly happy with your "love of gain", your need to "get mine"? Year 4 Day 309

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 309

“There is happiness in the love of labor; there is misery in the love of gain. Many hearts and pitchers are broken at the fountain of profit. Selling himself into slavery to things, man becomes a utensil that is broken at the fountain.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 57)

Each morning as I read the passage I am about to write on for this/that day, I am overcome with a spiritual upheaval, a tingling throughout my body that goes directly from my soul to my head and I am at once; excited, angry, bewildered and calm. I speak often of shuddering upon reading something and I wanted to give you my complete experience. I realize as I write these words that the anger and bewilderment is from the inability of We the People to learn from the prophets, learn from the Bible, learn from teachers like Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King, Pastor Niebuhr, Christ, etc and, instead, continue to do what caused, causes destruction and ruin to countries, to communities, to individuals, to self. The excitement and calm come from a ‘seeing’ what God is saying to me/to us about how to change, how to live better and the confidence, trust that God has in us that we can and will return!

The first sentence above is calling we the people to rise up and have “love of labor” in serving something greater than ourselves. To realize how much “love” the spiritual world has for us by giving us the opportunity to do the Mitzvot, to help another human being, to leave the narcissistic tendencies of our youth, to rise above the xenophobia of political discourse, to ‘see’ what is needed in the world and what part of us can fulfill the particular need we are created for. “Love of labor” has nothing to do with making money, it has everything to do with making a life. When we are miserable at our jobs, when we feel under appreciated and under valued, when we are seeing everything wrong with our lives, when it is all about the Benjamins, we have lost the spiritual connection to something greater than ourselves, we have lost the joy of service, we have lost the ability to love. I say this with the knowing of watching people claim they love their children, their spouses, etc and are unable/unwilling to speak truth to them, they believe they can ‘fix’ them and if they can’t-then it is the fault of the other person. So they bring them to the Doctor of the body, of the soul, they send them to rehab and get “fixed”. This is NOT love, this is self-centeredness, this is worry about optics, this is a denial of responsibility, this is using the vulnerability of another against them, this is, in fact, evil! Yet, be it to a doctor, a Rabbi, a Priest, a Minister, an Imam, God is blamed for the ills of the world by ‘non-believers’ and the representative of God, the clergy person, is the brunt of the wrath. In politics, people in power who are beleaguered usually blame ‘those people’, the ‘vermin infecting our country’, the ‘democrats’, the Jews, the Blacks, the Hispanics, etc. All of this because we the people, in our smallness, in our ugliness, in our wanting to be seen as ____(fill in the blank) because optics is important. When asked “what will the neighbors think” when my father was angry about some injustice, he said-“I don’t care, what is right is right!”.

Because “getting mine” has become so ingrained in people, we are witnessing the grift of a millennia, the theft of the centuries, by the people who are supposed to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States”. While there are many who envy the money, power and prestige of the rich and famous, We the People, when we are in our proper place/lane and not giving into the smallness of pettiness and pride, KNOW the misery the flaunters, the grifters experience. We can see it in their defensiveness, in their blaming, in their abuse of power and abuse of people. While we will probably never know the truth of what happens to people in the quiet of their homes, in the “dark night of the soul”, history has shown us the “misery in the love of gain” that other people have had and, in pursuing it, many of We the People experience! Trump, Kushner, Vought, Lutnick, Patel, et al may seem like they are ‘on top of the world’, and, as Jimmy Cagney found out in the movie White Heat and said before the tank he was standing on exploded. The issue for We the People is the collateral damage that happens when the lies, the falseness, the house of cards that so many of the MAGA followers are living in and standing on explodes and there is no one to lend a hand, no one to trust, no one to “fix Humpty Dumpty”.

Hence the importance of SEEING the Truth, of HEARING the Truth, of KNOWING the difference between fact and fiction, between reason and wonder, between Truth and Mendacity. We the People can only know, see, and hear what is true and good, what is real and kind, what is holy and necessary when our, like Joseph in the Torah Portion Vayigash, the one we read this week, We allow us and the Bible to “speak into our ears” and when, like Judah in the Torah Portion Miketz, we can say: “she is more right than I”, and when, like King David, we can hear the indictment against us and know we are wrong and have to do T’Shuvah for our wrongs. This takes Spiritual Maturity, this takes knowing our “Soul’s Code” the book by James Hillman, it takes We the People studying our holy texts, immersing ourselves in the words of the Bible, the commentators, the spiritual teachers from the prophets till now, both Jewish and non-Jewish. We the People are going to live in misery without growing our souls, without gaining Spiritual Maturity and we will continue to fuck up the Garden that God gave to us.

I know the truth of what I write because in my pursuit of “gain”, I was miserable, in the pursuit of gain of many people I have encountered, they are miserable. I know my inability to truly love came from my loving my misery so much, I would not change. This is one of the biggest amends I have made, disliking misery so much, I enlarge my capacity to love. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Power: using it for self; using it to help another human being? Year 4 Day 308

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 308

“Nothing is more useful than power, nothing more frightful. We have often suffered from degradation by poverty; now we are threatened with degradation through power.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 57)

Reading these words, some 50+ years after they were written, reading the Prophets, reading books that are works of ‘fiction’ that turn out to be prescient, I am left wondering what the issue is with humanity that we just don’t listen?! Society is constantly searching for an either/or solution, a right/wrong scenario, a good/bad conclusion and this is just not how the world works, not the spiritual world nor the material world. We see this in our courts, in our laws, in our governance, in our learning. When we learn more, when we re-learn what was thought to be known, when we are in “radical amazement”, we see the both/and that the Hebrew Bible speaks to, we experience the learning that the truth is wider and more complex, made up of more parts that any one human being can comprehend; hence our need to be in community, to be a community of learners rather than experts, a community of seekers rather than know it alls, a community of caring and compassion, mercy, justice, love and kindness.

Of course “nothing is more useful than power”, without it nothing gets done. However, what power are we speaking of when We the People use this word? Are we speaking of the power of the self to regulate our emotions, to manage our passions, to control, transform, and use wisely our “evil inclination”? Are we speaking of the power to dominate another human being, to degrade another person, group of people, to end learning more about self and the ways to be a better self? These are not the only choices, of course, yet they are two major rivers/oceans in which power resides and the rest are tributaries of these two, I believe. What we have seen throughout our history, in the 2 World Wars and all the other ones as well, is the use of power to dominate, to dehumanize a group, a country, a faith, a people and it is revolting, disgusting, and not based in the spirit of the Bible. Yet, so many ‘preachers, rabbis, imams’ spew this bullshit, these tired phrases cleaning up what is clearly the same language and actions of the Pharaoh in Egypt, it is the height of mendacity, similar to the priests in the Temple of old who sold out to the wealthy, the rulers, their own needs and greeds.

What are we to do? ACTION! We the People are being called to the carpet, we are being asked to stand up for what is right and good. There is a demand emanating from Mount Sinai to SHEMA, to hear, listen and understand the way power is being used is degrading to both the ones being degraded and to those of us who are watching the current horror show. To SHEMA implies a very close hearing, a hearing which includes listening for the ping or the thud in the words being spoken and written. It includes staying sharp and aware, awake and on guard for the slightest indication that all is not as is being spoken. It includes a commitment to understand the implications and ramifications of what the speaker is proposing on both we and the rest of we. Power is consolidated to ‘improve’ the life of those who wield it, those who are close to the ones who wield power and to screw over anyone and everyone else-not even intentionally at times, just that’s the way it works when the people in power are small, are spiritually stunted, are morally challenged. In other words when there are people like Trump, Putin, Netanyahu in power, We the People are all in trouble-even the ones who ‘think’ they are safe because either or all of these three (and the myriad like them in power today) are ‘my people’. Whenever power is misused, whenever power becomes “frightful”, there are no ‘my people’ because the one in power becomes fixated on keeping the power, on punishing anyone who could hold them accountable, on ensuring their line continues to flourish and enslaving the people he/she needs to serve her/him.

Hearing, listening, and understanding the call from Sinai, the lies of the power-hungry misogynists, the idolatry of any type of ‘religious nationalism’, the picking and choosing of biblical phrases to validate your evilness, is the challenge for We the People, today as it has been in every age. On Hanukkah we sing “in every age a hero or sage” has come to our rescue. Well People, we have them today, we had them 50+ years ago, we had them 100 years ago and the question being asked today of all of us, The People is “when will we ever learn”?! Haven’t we seen enough degradation by ICE, haven’t we witnessed enough hardship because of Trump’s obsession with Putin, with MBS, with Qatar? What is the goal of the Christian Nationalists if not absolute power by their degradation of women’s capabilities and rights, by their winks and outright slogans of anti-semitism, by their disgust towards people of color? WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE!

I am angry and scared, I know the power of words, the power of speech. I have misused both in the past, even in the now. There is no perfection AND it is time for all of us to stop pointing our fingers, it is time to SHEMA the words of Christ: “whoever is without sin, cast the first stone”. I have to get my own house in order, which I do everyday and because I am aware of my own “missing the mark” I can point out the errors of another, of all of We the People. It is way past time for me to stop hiding, to stop worrying about what vulnerabilities from my past will be used against me. I am flawed! I have made my amends, done my T’Shuvah and the need by some people to degrade me and my accomplishments because of a mistake-albeit a big one- is exactly the type of behavior being used by the people in power today. I no longer care what ‘they’ say; I am me and will continue to speak out. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Recognizing the "likeness of God" that is within every one of us. Year 4 Day 307

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 307

“To imitate God, to act as He acts in mercy and love, is the way of enhancing our likeness. Man becomes what he worships… And yet that likeness may be defiled, distorted, and forfeited… The goal of man is to recognize and preserve his likeness or at least to prevent its distortion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 43)

Isn’t this the issue for We the People in this moment, in every moment? We are created in “the likeness” of God, we are called upon to “imitate God”, “walk in God’s ways”, “love mercy, do justly” “and yet” We the People have “defiled, distorted and forfeited” the very attributes that make us human, that make us more than the homo-sapiens, more than a species among species! AND I am MAD AS HELL and do not understand how everyone, regardless of political, religious, spiritual persuasion is NOT MAD AS HELL!

While I point to, as many people do, to Trump, Lutnick, Kushner, Vance, Vought, Miller, et al as focal points; the truth of our situation lies with ALL of We the People because We allowed these idolators in, We welcomed these defilers of their and our “likeness of God” that is within everyone. We begged them to lie to us, to feed our own self-deception so as to distort the image of God We all are endowed with upon birth. We have clapped like trained seals as these idolators, their clergy and ours have conned us to forfeit our imitation of God by doing good, by doing what is right, by living according to a set of principles that override our “heart and our eyes” so we don’t “whore after them” as the 3rd paragraph of the Shema teaches. Yet, We the People are continuing to allow, welcome, invite the current administration to grift, to lie, to engage in senseless hatred, to welcome anti-semites, Muslim haters, Christ haters into their little tent! WTF??

The issue today is not ‘them’, it is us. We the People have become so spiritually bankrupt, we have spent entire bank accounts of decency, morality, fighting for the needy, the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan that our grandparents, parents willed to us and we have not put enough back in to ride out the storming of the Capital by Jan. 6 rioters, the Reichstag Fire of ‘those vermin poisoning the blood of our people’, ie anyone who isn’t White, Christian Nationalist or a useful ally for right now. It is boring and tiring to listen to ‘those good people’ complain about the Epstein debacle while still supporting the idiotic tariffs, the cruelty of ICE, etc. We the People seem to have forgotten that “Male and Female God created them both”, so the mistreatment of women, the misogyny that is rampant is against the Biblical teaching in the first chapter of Genesis! We the People are giving short shrift to “love your neighbor as yourself” every time we support and/or engage in any prejudices, any type, form of racism, and support of autocrats, fascists, etc. Whenever We the People go along with, elect, support, cheer the people who deny “Proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” by lying, by name calling, by obfuscation, by sleight of hand, by grift, etc, We the People are the problem-not the ones taking these reprehensible actions!

We the People have to return to living a Spiritual Life, We the People have to seek out physicians of the soul, people to help us recover our spiritual health, someone to help us replenish our spiritual and moral bank accounts. Is Clergy the answer? MAYBE, unfortunately most clergy are not taught how to be Spiritual Counselors, they are taught to “refer them out” after a few visits. How ridiculous, when people come to their Rabbi, Priest, Minister, Imam they are not coming for Mental Health help-they are coming to find their souls, to find their way forward in a world that has baffled them, they are seeking a deeper connection with “their own likeness”. This is the path “to recognize and preserve our likeness” and this is the job of We the People first and foremost. Yet, society laughs at people who seek our spiritual health, spiritual help because it ‘isn’t scientific’, you can’t have ‘measurable objects’ so it isn’t valid. BULLSHIT! It is exactly this kind of stupidity that prevents us from the “distortion” of “our likeness”. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to recover our “likeness”, WAY PAST TIME for We the People to recover and preserve our “likeness”, WAY PAST TIME to throw the BUMS OUT and make a decision to turn towards the “likeness of God” we are created in, see the image of God of everyone around us, engage with one another from our shared humanity, shared “likeness”, “to imitate God, to act in mercy, and love”. WILL YOU?

I have been thinking a lot about these words, they permeate my soul, I have had a “spiritual counselor” since I began my recovery some 38 years ago in Prison with Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l. I have been a spiritual counselor to many over these years and it is humbling, joyful, heartbreaking, and I have so much gratitude for being able to serve another human being in their journey to their soul. I have fucked up, I have gotten angry, I have confused at times righteous anger for ego anger and I am clearer on this now, more than ever. I am spiritually fit enough to be hurt by people and not need to be resentful nor get even. I am so concerned not to engage in “distortion” because I refuse to willfully distort, defile my “likeness” and I know how easy it is to this. It takes constant awareness, a continued reflection of what is going on within me, what my outer actions are, and a rolodex of phone numbers for people who can speak to my soul, people who can hear me and I can hear. These are the ways I ensure that my “likeness” isn’t “forfeited, defiled, distorted”. These are also the ways I defy the liars, the cheats, the fascists, the autocrats seeking to grift, keep power and defile another human being, be they Trumpers, MAGA, Bibi-lovers, Ben G’vir/Smotrich allies. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Enhancing our "likeness", Acting in Mercy and Love- Year 4 Day 306

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 306

“To imitate God, to act as He acts in mercy and love, is the way of enhancing our likeness. Man becomes what he worships… And yet that likeness may be defiled, distorted, and forfeited… The goal of man is to recognize and preserve his likeness or at least to prevent its distortion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 43)

At a Chanukah Party last night, there were 8 Hanukiahs and the light was bright and watching the flames soar into the sky was breathtaking. Looking at the fellow celebrants and the hosts through this fire revealed their likeness shining from their souls, some of the people knew/know of their likeness and others not so much. Harriet and I have been having a discussion about her experience speaking at the Unitarian Church here in the desert and being in a synagogue community here. Harriet remarked the difference is the Unitarians know the principles of Unitarianism and live into them the best they can and in the synagogue, not so sure. The words above in the first two sentences are so crucial to living Jewishly-which most Jews don’t know nor realize- and I am concerned We the Jewish Clergy have failed in our mission, our calling, the demand to “teach our children”, “to walk humbly in the ways of God”.

This is NOT to say the Jews in the Pews at any Temple/Synagogue are not good people or they do NOT act “in mercy and love”. Rather, as I immerse myself in the words above, think about my experiences, know that money still is more important, or at least as important, as service, as “acts in mercy and love” within most institutions, I understand Rabbi Heschel’s concern, his clear-eyed sight of what is, what could be, what must be, and the dangers of not “enhancing our likeness.” Rather, what I am saying is We the Jews, We the People are in danger of forgetting “our likeness”, as our engagement with cruelty, with anti-semitism, with hatred of people of color, LGBTQ+ human beings increases. As Christian Nationalism rises, so does the KKK ideas and ideals, as Christian Nationalism gets stronger, the teachings and ways of Christ diminishes because they are portrayed falsely, they are bastardized and the preachers of this path do NOT care about the souls of the people, they are not concerned with “the way of enhancing our likeness” because they want the power. The irony here, of course, is that these Christian Nationalists are the exact people Christ was railing against.

Closer to home, for me, is how Jews can support these behaviors and this way of thinking/being. As the promoters of being created in “the likeness” and image of God, as the people who brought decency, morality, caring for the sick and the needy, the poor and the stranger, being commanded to be merciful and to love the stranger, our neighbor, to stand for what is holy and good, how can any Jew go along with MAGA, with Trump, Putin, Bibi, Lutnick, Kushner?? This baffles me because they are worshipping Mamon- money, power, prestige-not God, not truth, not kindness, not justice. WTF, my fellow Jews, how can any of us not differentiate between saving Israel from Hamas and saving Israel from a right-wing takeover, a religious takeover by the so-called Ultra Orthodox who don’t worship God, they worship Halacha, they worship the Talmud, they don’t treat the stranger with love, they do not care about the poor except the poor in their community that they want everyone else to take care of. Instead of living the principles of Torah, they claim studying it is enough and we see where that has gotten us. I call BULLSHIT on these liars, these idolators-Jew, Christian, Muslim.

What are We the People doing so we are “enhancing our likeness”? Are we imitating God by seeking out one another to see how our neighbor is doing? Are we saying hello to people on the street-recognizing their divine image, letting them know we know they matter? Are we engaging in ways that educate, mature our spiritual health? Are we showing mercy and kindness to the people around us, to the people who need it in our community? Are we, even in war, knowing the person who is our enemy is still created “in the likeness of God”? Are we worshipping God or an idol of our own making? Are we worshipping money more than spirit, prestige more than what is right, self-deception more than truth?

What is the state of our “likeness”? What are the ways We the People check in our divine image each day? What are we doing to make our corner of the world a little better?

These questions, these looks at my “likeness” is a daily routine for me and I hope for you, after today’s writing. I know that I have not been perfect, that money has had a lure that drove me away from my path to “imitate God, to act as He acts in mercy and love”. I also know those times have been at a minimum since my recovery began, since I started to hear the call of God, to learn what God is telling me at any given moment. I know what it is like to not be merciful and loving both as the one who isn’t and the one who sought it and was rejected. I know what it is like to be at the ‘mercy’ of those who believe optics is more important than truth, that ‘being on the right side’ is more important than “enhancing our likeness”. I know what it is like to worship anything other than God and where that took me-to the depths of jail, prison, spiritual bankruptcy. I know what it is like to watch, in horror, as people ‘in charge’ worship at the altars of ‘progressive’, at the altars of ‘fascism’, at the altars of ‘what will the neighbors think’, at the altars of ‘success=money’, etc. I know the joy of living into the “divine image” we are created in, growing in spirit to becoming the soul we are created to be, celebrating our uniqueness and no longer bowing down to the idols of self-deception, money, power, cruelty, needing to be right, etc. This is how I continue to grow my “likeness” and engage in “acts of mercy and love”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Desecration and Blasphemy are slippery slopes that most of us are unaware of, willfully blind to - Year 4 Day 305

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 305

“The fear you must feel of offending or hurting a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of God. An act of violence is an act of desecration. To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God….” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 42-43)

Since I first chose these sentences on Friday, I have had a nagging, an unsettling experience and I know the reason. These last two sentences are upsetting, unsettling, causing me to have a bad conscience, and hitting me right between the eyes. Why, you may ask and my response is I am a citizen of a country that celebrates violence, that suborns violence against their friends and enemies, uses violence to justify their own cruelty, bloodlust, and martyrdom of people, like Charlie Kirk, for their own benefit. Even Clergy people in “My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet land of Liberty” join in the justifications, approvals, and cheerleading of an “act of violence” if it serves their own ends.

Another response of mine to “why are these sentences bothering you so much” is that I am a member of a way of life, a blueprint for living a whole, holy, full life: Judaism which is also celebrating the violence it can impose on “those less than human” people, ie people who live in the West Bank who are not Jewish and people who live in Gaza. Make no mistake about my beliefs-Oct. 7, 2023 was HORRIFIC and meant to bring about the destruction of Gaza that has happened-full stop. Hamas knew exactly what they were doing and Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc all knew the plans, in my opinion. Responding to such an attack was more than necessary, it just has had to go on so long, it has had to have been met with such jubilation by Jews, by Rabbis and other Clergy. It is not ok to say “it is written in the Bible” because the opposite of what these xenophobic, power-mad, cruelty loving Clergy, politicians, far right people are saying “it is written” is also in the Bible! In fact, in the Book of Samuel, he tells the people they cannot go into the land of the Philistines (now Gaza)-it is not ours according to the man who anointed Kings Saul and David!!

Using violence as an act of creation is, as I read the words above, BULLSHIT! It is “a desecration” of God’s Name, of God’s spirit, of God’s representative, reminder, messenger-a HUMAN BEING. Isn’t it way past time for We the People to come to the realization that, as Rabbi Heschel says: the deepest wisdom man can attain is to know that his destiny is to aid, to serve”(Man is Not Alone pg.296)? Isn’t it way past time for We the People to acknowledge the innate holiness of every human being, the infinite dignity and value of every human being, the uniqueness of every human being, and the equality of dignity, value, uniqueness each one of us deserves and God demands from us? Yet, we the people have made ourselves so small (hence the non-capital letters:)) that we have forgotten we are “created in the image and likeness of God”, that we are given a task to be a ‘partner with God’ in completing the world, that we are to live a life that is compatible with being a ‘child’ of God.

In Deuteronomy we learn that even if one is hung because of taking the life of another, that person’s body should not be left overnight, that as soon as death occurs from the hanging the body is taken down and buried-otherwise it is an affront to God! This didn’t seem to register with those ‘good christian’ KKK Klansmen when they would hang black people and leave the body up so all could see and be afraid, nor did it bother their preachers! None of the ‘good christian, good jewish, good muslim’ clergy who are supporting the violence, the hatred, the cruelty going on today-and there are quite a few- realize the truth of the last sentence above, realize the importance of not being so arrogant as to say I can tell God to go Fuck GodSelf and make up what the Voice from Sinai is saying, refute the 36 times we are told to love the stranger, care for the poor and the needy, rescue the captive, remember we were strangers in the Land of Egypt. Instead, they are the arrogant ones, they are the ones who follow the Goebbels play book-accuse others of that which you are guilty of- and too many of we the people, in our smallness, in our weakness, in our lack of faith, lack of courage, lack of spiritual maturity, believe the lies or at least are unwilling to confront them, unwilling to call them out. Otherwise, the revolution begun 3500 years ago in the desert of Sinai would be mature enough to respond and repulse this vicious attack on human freedom, this “blasphemous” way of being “toward God”.

I am calling for a new “Leaving Egypt”. Just as I left the Egypt of addiction 37+ years ago, just as I left the Egypt of criminality some 38+years ago, I am constantly looking at the day I am in to make sure I am not turning back towards any Egypt, any narrow place that traps me in mendacity and obliviousness. It is time for WE THE PEOPLE to band together, to make the commitment to follow the words of the prophets and accept the “new heart of flesh”, the “new covenant” that is being given-not the New Testament but rather the renewal of the Covenant of Truth, of Goodness, of Service, of Holiness, of Wholeness that of non-violence, of love for one another, that has been bastardized by the Clergy, the wealthy, the ruling class and brought about the destruction of the Kingdoms of Judea, of Israel, and has become the way of America under Trump and his thugs and Bibi and his gang of thieves. I am asking, cajoling, demanding that WE THE PEOPLE revolt again, just as so many of us in recovery from addiction have revolted against the societal belief of “a leopard doesn’t change its spots”, just as so many Jews and Christians are standing with our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted by ICE, etc. We the People are being asked to join together to say NO to cruelty, to blasphemy in the name of YES to God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Offending and hurting a human being is the same as offending and hurting God - Year 4 Day 304

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 304

“The fear you must feel of offending or hurting a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of God. An act of violence is an act of desecration. To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God….” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 42-43)

I have been writing on Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings for 3 years and 303 days and I understand why people think he is too dense, too terse, to really immerse oneself in, why it is just better to use sound bites. It is hard to deal with the truth and reality that Rabbi Heschel teaches and he lived. Not perfectly, of course, and always striving to live into the ways of God, the words of the prophets and the wisdom of the sages. Today’s quote has me churning inside because of the subtlety of what is being said. “Offending or hurting a human being” is not a subjective phrase as I am reading it this morning. The root of both words is “to strike against”. “The fear you must feel of ‘striking against’ a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of (striking against) God” is another way of understanding the first sentence above.

Using this understanding, when we sit idly by and do nothing while people are killed because of senseless hatred, because of ‘individual rights’, because of a bastardization of the 2nd Amendment, because our elected officials are too afraid of saving our children at the expense of losing donations, We the People are guilty of “offending or hurting a human being”. When we buy into any type of hatred, prejudice against a group of people because of their skin color, their faith, their sexual orientation, when blowing up supposed drug running boats is cheered, when Hispanics are targeted in ICE raids and not white people who are here ‘illegally’, We the People are guilty of, as Amos says: “despising the Torah of God”. When we forget that each person is a divine reminder, each human being, no matter what they believe or what action they may be taking, is created in the “likeness and image of God”, and treat one another less than, enslave people for our own entertainment, forget the commandments, the social ordinances, curse the deaf and put stumbling blocks before the blind, We the People are guilty of having no respect, no fear/awe of God, our spiritual corpus colosseum is broken and we are in need of spiritual healing, we have to see a “physician of the Soul” to heal our separation from the divine, our separation from the covenant, our separation from our humanity and from another(s) human being.

Yet, we are not doing this, we are insisting that God wants us to act this way-just ask the prosperity gospel people. We are proclaiming “it is written” that we should indiscriminately kill people in the West Bank, that we are not to dwell with the lion and the lamb together, that we are to ‘hate the Egyptians” even though the Torah forbids this, that we are to abuse the stranger even though the Torah tells us 36 times to love the stranger, that we are to support theft of property, theft of money, bribery of elected officials, grift by elected officials, etc even though the Torah, the Constitution say otherwise. We the People have drifted so far away from the opening sentence above and keep putting blinders on so we don’t have to see nor be responsible for the “offending and hurting of a human being” that we are engaged in, so we don’t have to see, admit, be responsible, change our ways for the ways we have been “offending and hurting….God”! Each day I wonder to myself WTF, is written on a Coffee Cup we have. I would say the ways We the People keep “offending and hurting a human being” and by extension God, is a WHAT THE FUCK, people!! It is not too hard to see the strikes we the people are co-responsible for, and unlike Rabbi Heschel, we seem to be able to pray, to sleep well, to laugh, to continue on as if everything is exactly as it should be, with the White Supremacists, the White Christian Nationalists (men only of course) in charge.

How is this possible, I ask myself and I respond to myself; it is the same spiritual crisis and malady as any addiction, any immersion in self-deception and mendacity. We the People must wake up and realize any hatred is senseless and dangerous. We the People must stand up and do the T’Shuvah necessary to bring about a change in our actions and then our thinking, realizing We are not the end all/be all and the person next to us is as precious as we are, the person next to us is in need of spiritual healing just like we are.

I am being forceful/bolding my words because I watch people accept pap as spirituality, I listen as people speak with such enthrallment at what an empty suit says from the pulpit, I experience people proclaiming their faith in God while following a hateful, spiteful Rabbi, Priest, Minister, Imam and I AM SICKENED! I know that I have offended and hurt people and each time I learn, I grow, I make my amends and I move forward. I am accused of hurting and offending people because I say things they don’t want to hear, I also say things in ways that people feel are ‘not proper’, ‘not becoming a Rabbi’ and this is not the same as the “offending and hurting” that Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. I experience the consequences of my behavior, I accept the disdain and the exile that is sent my way by people I have helped and who feel that I have offended and hurt them. I continue to offer spiritual counseling to those who want, I continue to grow along spiritual lines, I continue to seek spiritual progress, I jettison the call for me to be spiritually perfect or spiritually whole as unattainable and the pursuit will only leave me emptier. I pray we all find the spiritual healing we need and change the world to love the Torah of God as Amos would want. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark