Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 188
“It is true that the commandment to be holy is exorbitant, and that our constant failures and transgressions fill us with contrition and grief. Yet we are never lost. We are the sons of Abraham. Despite all faults, failures, and sins, we remain parts of the Covenant.” (God in Search of Man pg. 378)
At a time when so many people are dying from Gun Violence, Overdoses, Alcohol-related causes, suicide; when so many people are being shunned and called outcasts and we are unwelcoming the stranger, taking advantage of the poor, imprisoning the needy; Rabbi Heschel’s teaching is sobering, giving one a bad conscience (I hope), and, at the same time, eye-opening and hopeful.
“Yet we are never lost” is reassuring and reminds us to constantly seek the guideposts, the paths to finding our unique way to serve one another, to be “parts of the Covenant” and to remember we are all brothers/sisters who come from Abraham. We are blessed because we are his descendants, we are all inherit his mantle, his ways of welcoming people along with his foibles. Yet, we are all inextricably linked together as kinsmen. Father Greg Boyle speaks often and powerfully about “radical kinship” and “erasing the margins” and Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above brings these concepts to our consciousness and the forefront of our mind. Jesus said: “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and Rabbi Heschel is demanding we see our own sins, our own “failures and transgressions” so we can be filled “with contrition and grief.”
I am upset and concerned, have the anger of the prophets and the fear of the people within me right now as I witness the degradation of segments of humanity because of color, sexual orientation, religion, country of origin, etc. Who are these “righteous christians, righteous jews, righteous muslims” to dismiss the humanity and the connectedness of any one they deem “not good enough”? These are not God-fearing, God-connecting, people, they are not living in a manner which is compatible with being a partner of God, they are not embracing truth, justice, kindness, mercy, love; they are not walking with God nor in God’s ways; yet they wave the Bible around as a weapon instead of as a welcome home gift. The ‘red’ states are aptly named because they are willing to have blood flow in their streets before they will follow the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, they will allow suffering and misery, promote hatred and disdain of another person who is “not like them, ie white” while picking the pockets of poor white people with their lies and mendacity, their deceptions and use white people as amusement for them, ie Tucker Carlson’s comments as revealed in Court Documents.
We all have to stop the hatred, as Elie Weisel teaches. We all have to stop seeing one another as enemies, as less than human, as not “parts of the Covenant”. We have to have a NATIONAL DAY/WEEK OF REPENTANCE. I have said this before and I say it now as Shavuot, known in Christianity as Pentecost, is 22 days away. It says in the Torah that we are supposed to cleanse ourselves before we approach Sinai and receive Torah, receive God’s guide book on how to live well. What better way to do this than by every Church, Temple, Synagogue, Mosque take the time and energy to engage in a NATIONAL DAY/WEEK OF REPENTANCE? We are in desperate need of cleansing ourselves of the misguided hatred, the blaming of another for our “failures and transgressions”. What I am suggesting/calling for is a period of time where Clergy repent, then we help our congregants repent, we build together a different way of engaging in discourse where we can be adversaries, we can argue with one another passionately, and we never use vulnerabilities against one another, we never seek to destroy one another, we see one another as enemies instead of human beings, we accuse another of what we are doing, etc. We have to let go of the desire for authoritarianism to rule over one another and engage in a healthy, robust discussion of what is the best next right action to take now that is in concert with the Constitution-just as Rabbis have and still do “argue” with one another from the 1st Century BCE till now.
I engage in T’Shuvah each day, as many of you can discern from my personal accounts at the end of these blogs. I am so clear on my need to repent, my need to return, my need to be embraced by the “parts of the Covenant” that have shunned me, and on my need to accept that some people have decided they don’t want me to part of their covenant anymore and I am still part of God’s Covenant. Rabbi Heschel’s comforting words remind me that no matter what another human being does, God is here, God is welcoming, God is calling. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark