Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 105
“The challenge we face is a test of our integrity. We are all on trial, we are all under judgement. The issue is whether we are morally strong, whether we are spiritually worthy to answer God’s demand…The problem we face is to be or not to be human. The situation of the Negro is the test, the trial, and the risk.” (The Insecurity of Freedom, pg. 104)
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I was drawn to this passage in the paper Rabbi Heschel wrote in March of 1964, titled: “The White Man on Trial”. It is frightening that almost 60 years later, we are all still on trial. We are facing God’s demands and deceiving ourselves that we are meeting them, that we are spiritually worthy to consider ourselves people of faith, while watching the corrosion of rights; the imprisonment of Black and Brown people at alarming rates and for many crimes that White people get lighter sentences for; getting angry at the homeless people who have no home to go to because of addiction, mental health issues, traumas suffered defending our country; and putting money and power over the health and well-being of human beings and our democracy.
The issues that Reverend King fought for have not been solved, in fact, I would say they have gotten worse. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is being eroded, slowly but surely. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been demolished, decimated, and found to be not needed by the Supreme Court, a majority of whom believe in the inferiority of different races, creeds, etc evidently, because immediately after their decision, many states began to limit the voting rights of people of color, poor people (except for poor whites who vote their way of course) and allowed the legislatures, the vote counters to decide the outcome of elections, not the voters themselves. Sounds a lot like King George to me.
One of the trials we face today, I believe, is the penultimate sentence above, “The problem we face is to be or not to be human.” The “good church going, god-fearing” are the people who are imprisoning people of color at an alarming rate, who are dismantling our democracy so they can get and hold power in their authoritarian manner, who continue to advocate for their “Christian Nation” and “Christian Values” while trying to scare people about “sharia law” and promote the White Supremacists’ values and insurrections as well as their Anti-Semitic, Anti-Muslim, Homophobic tenets! They are upholding and revering the leaders of the Confederacy as heroes instead of the treasonous villains they were. These “good church going, god-fearing” people falsely believe and engage in the self-deceptive ways that allow them to believe they are the true humans and everyone else is vermin. How ridiculous, how sad and how scary!
God is calling all of us to stop these charlatans, to end their constant denigration of God’s Name through their worship and devotion to their “god-fearing” ways, their idol worship and their inhumanity. We need to stand up to their lies, their insurrection and their desecration of God’s Name through their mistreatment of God’s Children-everyone who isn’t them. We do this by demanding our elected officials act in accordance with their oaths of office, we censure and evict the members of Congress who participated in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021; we put the Trump family in jail for their crimes instead of being afraid of them. We support the human rights of all citizens and we find ways to properly and safely reform our immigration system. We vote, vote, vote and we help all people who qualify to vote get to their polling stations, apply for Mail-In ballots, without suggesting how they vote, only that they do vote. We need to organize a March on Washington, Austin Texas, Columbus, Ohio, Tallahassee, Florida, Jefferson City, Mo. and all the other states that are engaged in stopping vote in order to promote the stealing of our democracy.
Rather than stop the spread of Covid-19, these “good church going, god-fearing” deceivers have convinced true people of faith, true God-Fearing people that stopping the steal of democracy is real and truthful. They are taking the strong belief that people have in God and in our system and using this belief to lead them into the Red Sea, as Pharaoh led the Egyptians, only for all of them to drown-not Pharaoh of course, just the people he could convince to lead. Jim Jordan, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, et al will not suffer from their actions, it is all of the rest of us who will. They are the ones who believe they are the Oligarchs and their worship of Vladimir Putin is so great, they are emulating all of his actions. Rather than tell the truth, they continue to obfuscate the truth so they can continue to fleece the government, the people they deal with, the entire country out of our money, our freedom and our spiritual worthiness and moral strength.
We have to stop the stealing of our democracy, the stealing of the soul of America, the stealing of our dignity and the stealing of our humanity. We have to stop letting our humanity be determined by the loudest, most deceptive, most cunning and conning voices of our time. We have to stand up as the real People Of All Faiths, People dedicated to Honoring God’s Name, People of Integrity and Compassion, People who live our Humanity out loud, for and with everyone. We have to say NO to the mendacity of these deceivers and YES to “God’s Demands”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark