Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 43
“The world is in flames, consumed by evil. Is it possible that there is no one who cares? (God in Search of Man pg.367)
These words are haunting me greatly as I prepare for a Cultural Trip to Cuba including praying at the Synagogue in Havana and doing a little teaching there as well with my dear friend Rabbi Laura Owens. They are haunting me as we prepare for Tuesday’s mid-term elections. They are haunting me as we prepare for the onslaught of election deniers, the onslaught of armed people scaring voters away from the polling stations, the new ‘poll tax’ in Florida where, even though the people said it was okay to vote with a felony conviction, Ron DeSantis is arresting people for exercising a basic right of democracy.
They haunt me as I listed to Blake Masters and Kari Lake speak so despairingly about people seeking refuge at our borders, forgetting that even the “FOUNDING FATHERS” ,who they say they are defending, were either immigrants themselves or descendants of immigrants seeking refuge from the King of England and other Autocrats in other nations. We have forgotten our roots, we have forgotten our beginnings and we have forgotten the words on the Liberty Bell that come from Leviticus 25:10! We have forgotten how our ancestors, some as far back as 1607 and some as recently as last year, braved treacherous journeys so we can “breathe free” when we denigrate refugees. We are consumed by evil it seems in this country and people are covering their evil up with politics, instead of calling it what it is: HATRED.
The greatest evil is the evil we have become indifferent to. In his chapter on Wonder in God in Search of Man, Rabbi Heschel says: “Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” The people calling themselves patriots are, in fact, plutocrats. They are people who believe they are the smartest people in the room and no one should ever question their brilliance and decisions. They believe that everyone else should serve them, except for their fellow plutocrats. Peter Thiel is backing many of these people like Masters and J.D.Vance-people who hate the people they are asking to vote for them, people who have disdain for the poor, the needy, the stranger-forgetting the ways Vance’s ancestors were treated for being poor hillbillies and drug addicts as he depicts them in Hillbilly Elegy.
This is one reason “the world is in flames, consumed by evil.” We have forgotten our own roots. One day, I ran into a person whom had been helped at the Recovery Center I am retired from. I asked him why he didn’t come around and tell his story now that he was successful and he said: “I am disgusted that I had to sink so low as to need the charity of this place”. I was flabbergasted and it brought these words home to me in a powerful way. “The world is in flames, consumed by evil” because we have become embarrassed by our roots, we have become embarrassed by our neediness, we have become embarrassed by being the strangers, we have become embarrassed by being poor. Because we have become so embarrassed, we begin to hate the people who hold mirrors up to our faces. We hate and despise the parts of us that another human being represents that we are trying to disown, to forget, to rewrite. This is what is happening right now in our country, to our democracy.
Liz Cheney who is not in agreement with most of my opinions/beliefs on key issues, is campaigning against these Plutocrats, these freedom deniers, because saving democracy is more important to her than being in power. What a concept, she is more concerned with stripping the facade off of these so-called Republicans, these so-called believers in democracy than she has been about her own political future. She doesn’t agree with many of the policies of the candidates she is campaigning for and she sees kindred spirits in their fight to preserve our democracy and to make this a “more perfect union”. We are “consumed by evil” because our own “indifference to the sublime wonder of living.” We are “consumed by evil” because of our “indifference to evil” as Rabbi Heschel says elsewhere. We have the power and the strength to stop this assault on goodness, on truth, on holiness, on spirit, on Godliness, on love, on justice, etc-the question we all have to answer is: do we have the willpower to push back against these deceivers or are we the Israelites in Egypt when Pharaoh dealt with them slyly and they succumbed?
I have been writing this blog for almost 2 years beginning in January of 2021 with the prophets and Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom for the past year and 43 days. I am taking a spiritual rest beginning tomorrow until I return from Cuba on the 15th of November. I pray for the health, well-being and safety of everyone. I pray for the health and well-being of our democracy and for the world. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark