Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 - Day 8
“The world has fallen away from God. The decision of each individual person and of the many stands in opposition to God. Through our dullness and obstinacy we, too, are antagonists. But still, sometimes we ache when we see God betrayed and abandoned.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity).
As we enter the new year in the Jewish Calendar of 5783 tonight, the last sentence above seems especially poignant. We are, as I believe Rabbi Heschel was experiencing, an ache because of the betrayal and abandonment of God by all of us, and especially by Jewish people and tonight, tomorrow, during the 10 days of T’Shuvah, the 10 days of Awe, we are called to account for these betrayals and abandonments and make a commitment to return, to do T’Shuvah, to turn back to the principles and values that we accepted at Mount Sinai, that we have learned to use as the foundations of our actions, to stay rooted and grounded in God instead of mendacity, instead of deception, instead of inauthentic needs.
Looking at the world in this moment should cause all of us to ache, all of us to see the betrayal and abandonment of God in the actions of Trump’s good friend, Vladimir Putin. We have not done all we can as a country, as individuals to stop the atrocities of Putin and his minions in Ukraine because of a realistic fear of nuclear war. Yet, our country was created and stands because men and women went beyond their realistic fears to fight for the freedom that we take for granted. God wants all people to be free, God wants all people to find ways to serve one another, serve God and, as the Prophets teach: “nation shall not lift up sword anymore, neither shall they learn war anymore”(Isaiah 2:4). We learn war, it is not as natural as people think, it is not ‘second nature’, it is a learned action that we can choose to unlearn when we choose to be close to and honor the gifts of life God gives us.
How can we not ache when we see the Republican Party embrace a demagogue like Viktor Orban? How can we not ache when we see so-called religious Jews embrace Orban who uses anti-semitic tropes in his speeches, who uses Jew as the bogeyman like Hitler before him? How can we not ache when these same ‘the only real Jews’ go directly against the commandments of God by bearing false witness, killing the souls of their own children, running with the majority to do evil, hating their neighbor in their hearts, using the kindness of democracy to serve themselves at the expense of everyone/anyone else? How can we not ache?
How can we not ache when we see how LGBTQ+ are treated as pariahs, as not worthy human beings, when we abandon and betray God by berating this group/individual rather than, as the Talmud teaches, go to their maker and complain? How can we not ache when Jews are willing to abandon the values and principles of Torah in favor of optics? How can we not ache when we treat women as 2nd class citizens even though Rashi taught his daughters Torah and Talmud, even though the stories of women saving the Jewish people are throughout the Hebrew Bible? How can we not ache when Israel treats the minority Arabs as their ancestors were treated throughout history-as less than rather than giving them their proper seats at the table? How can we not ache when Jews treat the stranger poorly even though 36 times in the Torah we are told to treat the stranger well because we were strangers in Egypt? How can we not ache?
How can we not ache when we bow down to MBS for oil and for geo-political reasons even though he is a murderer, a despot? How can we not ache when Jarod Kushner, Donald Trump, his children and his cronies raped the Federal Government for their own wealth and now are in bed with MBS and the rest of the oligarchs, plutocrats, who abandon and betray God with almost every breath? How can we not ache when the MAGA Republicans are trying to overtake this country by making sure there are not free and fair elections? How can we not ache when we stand by and watch Mealy Mouth McCarthy and Moscow Mitch bow down to Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, et al knowing they want to end democracy? How can we not ache when the Democrats can’t use their majority to end the blight and stain on our country by not passing voting rights, by not passing protections for women, for minorities, by not ensuring we are a nation of Religious Freedom not a Christian Nation as some of these charlatans want! How can we not ache when Jews are supporting the very people who want to turn the US into a Christian Nation? How can we not ache?
In recovery, our realization of how much we abandoned and betrayed God, family, self is what motivated our change. The ache became too great to ignore, there was no amount of self-deception that could stop the ache anymore and we made a decision to turn back to God, to principles, to values, to moral behaviors, to love, kindness, justice, compassion and truth. The ache is still present with every imperfect action we take and we know how to lessen it, how to heal it now-return to decency, return to authenticity, return to loving God and being loved by God.
I ache for all the reasons above and more. A sweet 5783, a good 5783 and God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark