Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 113
“God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance, which means a deep certainty that it is better to be defeated with Him than be victorious without Him.” (Man is Not Alone pg.92)
Rabbi Heschel is giving us the blueprint for our relationship with God, with our self, with our higher consciousness, with one another and with the physical world. After reminding us that God is “eternal challenge, an urgent demand,” Rabbi Heschel is stating both the obvious and the obscured truth that victory is not measured by who won, rather by whom we were fighting for.
One problem we have today is, of course, a large minority and/or small majority of people do not believe that God is important at all, much less supremely important. They will go around and preach the gospel as they are told it, as it suits them, to give them stature and power and a sense of belonging. Yet, they are preaching and living emptiness because they are missing the truth of the gospels they are preaching, they are using the words of God to enrich, empower themselves while enslaving and imprisoning anyone who doesn’t bow down to them. This is not the way of God, this is not the way of Jesus, this is not the way of the Prophets, this is the way of IDOLATORS who are the people described in Deuteronomy as false prophets, as idol worshipers. These people are trying to take over the United States as they have in Russia, Turkey, China, Hungary, etc. They are passing laws that will limit free speech, stop the free flow of intellectual ideas in schools depriving young people of their right to seek and find the truth of life. They say God is important and act for their own importance instead.
These idolators are preaching that God is against abortion, yet nothing in the New Testament nor the Hebrew Bible states such a fact.Since we are a free people and God gave us our Free-Will, to take away choice from one group seems a little incongruent with this truth. These idolators are passing laws in many states to deny the right to vote to people of color or at least make it more difficult for them to vote and proclaim the ‘whiteness’, I mean ‘rightness’ of these laws. These idolators view the world through the “eye disease” of prejudice and they are spreading a “cancer of the soul” of America, of individuals and an affront to God.
To the many people who do not want to be associated with the god of these idolators, I say Congratulations for being able to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from deception. I also say it is imperative to join the fight that Pastor John Pavlovitz, Rev Najuma Smith Pollard, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Rev William Barber, and so many others are fighting against these idolators. Join those of us who are continuing the cause of freedom and truth that began so many millennia ago with Abraham. Join with those of us who are seeking to immerse ourselves in God and Godliness, in the lessons of the Bible and the ways of morality and justice, love and truth, kindness and compassion. Join with those of us who deeply believe it is our privilege to carry on in the words, the deeds, and the paths of Rev Martin Luther King Jr, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, John Lewis, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner; the last three the Freedom Riders who died in Mississippi.
In recovery, we are aware of the trap of living falsely and proclaiming that God told us to! One of the subtle lies people who are in sobriety and not recovery say is that God must have wanted us to go through and do what we did so we could get here (meaning a seat at a meeting), which I believe is another way of lying to our self and to another human being. All of us had choices, until we didn’t, and God never wants us to make the wrong choice, God does give us free-will to make these wrong choices and then we, and everyone around us, experiences the consequences of our wrong choices. God did not, nor does not, want us to suffer in order to come near to God, doesn’t want us to harm another person so we ‘learn our lesson’, cries when we are in exile and separate from God.
Prior to my spiritual awakening in 1986, God was of importance to me, just not “of supreme importance” and immersing myself in these words today make me painfully aware of the difference. I understand my frustration and righteous indignation with the idolators, with the charlatans, with the false leaders, with the people who want to look good while doing wrong, etc today because I was one of them. I was the guy who would do all of the things these idolators are doing for my own gain. I also am aware that my frustration with these ways since making God “of supreme importance” comes from my ability to see these charlatans, these liars and their insidious ways of blinding people and using good people, good words, good teachings, and God to further their needs, their bank accounts, their optics while destroying anything and everything that is holy, good, Godly in their way. I have yell(ed), rant(ed) and rav(ed) when I see/saw this happening in order to have the people being fooled to see the “supreme importance” of God rather than the lies and subterfuge of the idolator. Sometimes I was heard, more often I was marginalized both because of my delivery and because the people being fooled wanted to stay fooled and blind, did not want to hear and see truth/God rather they wanted to see the shiny reflection of themselves that the charlatan was giving them. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark