Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 36
“Rules are generalizations. In actual living, we come upon countless problems for which no general solutions are available. There are many ways of applying a general rule to a concrete situation. There are evil applications of noble rules. Thus the choice of the right way of applying a general rule to a particular situation is “left to the heart,” to the individual, to one’s conscience.” (God in Search of Man pg. 327)
We are in a moment of great peril today. We see the dismantling of the rights and freedoms accorded people by our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence and by every Spiritual Tradition/Discipline. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is only the latest in a long line of haters, disseminators of anti-Semitic lies. We have Marjorie Taylor Greene who is being hailed by the Republican Party for accusing the Rothschilds’ of starting the Wildfires, calling Jamie Raskin a communist and a pedophile, etc, etc. We had Pizzagate in 2016 and ad nauseum through the ages. We have the Stanford report on their exclusion of Jews and non-welcoming of Jews in the 50’s and 60’s. We have the assault on a woman’s right to choose, an assault on vaccines to keep us safe, an assault on the rule of law, an assault on our freedom to vote, an assault on our democracy by Ye, Greene, McCarthy, Trump, De Santis, Abbott, et al. Yet, people cheer and clap when Greene says she wants to ‘kill the bitch’ Pelosi, impeach Joe Biden, arrest the FBI, etc. There used to be a “bring your child to work” day - now the people fawning over Greene, Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz, J.D. Vance, Blake Masters, Kari Lake, and the like believe we should “bring your AK47 to work”. Why not blast away the competition, the people who speak truth, the people who don’t agree with you- my heart is telling me this is okay must be their inner dialogue.
I understand the Rabbis’ desire to set hard and fast rules which they realized could never hold so they adopted another way to understand the rules, follow the law and allow individuality and personality to be part of living within the confines of the Torah/Teaching from God/Higher Consciousness. They put the minority opinions into the discussion that was written down and we now have parameters within which everyone is able to live-if we choose to live with Godliness and Holiness in all of our affairs. They even went so far as to say, if at all possible-never make a law that would make people feel far away from God and/or the law. This is the caveat within which we have to live-while there are some absolutes-don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet, no idolatry- most of life comes down to choices of how to follow a way of living that is compatible with being a partner of God, choices of how best to honor the infinite worth and dignity of every human being including our self. The Jewish Tradition teaches: “To destroy one soul is to destroy an entire world and to save one soul is to save an entire world”. It doesn’t differentiate between race, color, creed, ethnicity, in fact Biblical living calls for us to have “One law for the citizen and stranger alike”. There is no difference between us that allows one person to enslave another, to allow one person to believe they are above the rules, laws, desires of God and humanity, to allow one person to believe they can spread mendacity for their own power and greed with impunity and call themselves Godly.
Here is the great challenge for all of us, how to stop these unholy imposters, these unGodly messengers pretending to be people of faith, these money-changers, power-brokers in our Churches, Mosques and Temples who curry favor with the Kevin McCathys, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Donald Trumps, the Ron Di Santis’, the Greg Abbots, Jim Jordans, et al. People who are supposed to be messengers of Christ’s teachings, of Mohammed’s prophecy, of Moses’ insight and warnings. We have to uncover their falseness and their deceptions, we have to stop allowing these haters, these demagogues to drive us into being an authoritarian nation, a nation that denies it’s heritage, it’s mission and it’s raison d’etre. We have to do everything in our power to repel this assault on our freedom, our choices, our souls. These liars call themselves ‘god-fearing people’ ‘christian nationalists’ yet there is nothing Godly in what they are doing-God demands truth from us, not lies, and there is nothing Christian in what they are doing and saying-Christ cared for the powerless, the voiceless, the stranger, etc. Greene, et al and their ministers of greed and power are the very things they accuse everyone else of-they are using Goebbel’s playbook like masters. We have the power to stop them, we have our votes today, this election. We have social media, we have the power of pen and tongue - let us use it for God’s Sake, for Democracy’s sake, for our freedom’s sake!
In recovery, we recite the Serenity Prayer at most meetings. Reinholt Niebuhr’s prayer asks us, demands of us to be proactive and concentrate on what things we can change, our self, our responses and our actions. It is an activist prayer which is telling us to stop concerning our selves with things out of our control and engage in what we can control and change.
I believe we can control and change the trajectory of our democracy. I believe, as Rev Niebuhr demands, we must engage in this struggle. We may or may not be at the brink of a Civil War, I do know we are engaged in a struggle to determine if this nation, under God, will survive this latest assault on it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.