Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 260
“Tranquility is unknown to the soul of a prophet. The miseries of the world give him no rest. While others are callous, and even callous to their callousness and unaware of their insensitivity, the prophets remain examples of supreme impatience with evil, distracted by neither might nor applause, by neither success nor beauty. Their intense sensitivity to right and wrong is due to their intense sensitivity to God’s concern for right and wrong. They feel fiercely because they hear deeply.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 49)
As some of you know, I began my blogging ‘career’ with the Prophets because I can relate and know they are needed today more than ever. We the People are in the throes of evil, in the throes of grand theft, in the throes of losing our freedoms, in the throes of an authoritarian takeover of the United States by a group of white male ‘christian nationalist’ group -yes, I have learned that Jews can be ‘christian nationalists and people of color can be part of white christian nationalism, much to my chagrin. The Republican Congresspeople, the Republican Senators do not resemble Lincoln, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II at all and they have become the lackeys and rubber stamps for the Trump administration. The Democratic Congresspeople and Senators are not doing much better- like Israel, their PR and messaging STINKS along with the fact that their message is not so strong, they are more concerned with philosophical ideas than on the ground solutions to the “kitchen table issues” facing most of America-no matter the color of one’s skin, the religion one practices, the party alignment one has.
We the People seem to have forgotten our roots, we are descendants of Abraham who was unafraid to ask God: “should not the Judge of the world do justly?” We the People are the inheritors of Amos and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah, Malachi and Hosea, all men who stood up to power and spoke truth, all men who stood at the Temple and accused the priests of their wrongdoing, their catering to the powers that be rather than serving the interests of God nor the interests of the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, and/or the stranger. While the “American Way” of freedom and decency, kindness and welcoming is being wrecked with a wrecking ball and sledge hammers, much like the East Wing of the White House, We the People seem paralyzed to do much. Yes, the NO KINGS protest was a rousing success, now what is next? Where are the people who are going to stand up and speak truth, who are going to know they will be indicted for speaking truth in a world where mendacity is trying to once again hold court and have to speak what is in their souls anyway? While the prophet we need today is important, what is more important is what and how We the People will join them, will support them, unlike the Israelites and Judeans of antiquity.
We the People have to remember our inheritance from the prophets and no longer be “clutching our pearls” as JD Vance says, rather we need to be in his face and speak truth and uncover the evil he and his boss and their cronies are doing! When Healthcare for so many is going to go to costing people who can ill afford it 20-25% of their gross income, this is EVIL! How can people who claim “if you want to know my policies, read the Bible”, like Mike Johnson not know that Christ catered to “those people” he is targeting, that the Bible is replete with the teaching to “care for” the widow, the poor, the orphan, the needy and the stranger? We the People are being called to let go of the distractions of power and flattery, the distractions of “beauty” and “success” in the face of the cost of these distractions-“following the majority to do evil”, ruining our souls, turning our back on freedom, on justice, on truth, on kindness. Is this really the way We the People want to live?!? We the People have to dig deep into our beingness, reunite with our “better angels” and commit to being the prophet needed in this moment. We the People are being called by the moment to show up in all our splendor and glory, in our sackcloth and ashes, in our fear and our strength, in our weakness and our commitment to the Covenant we made at Sinai. We the People need to be more “impatient with evil” than the people of Israel and Judea were. We the People need to find ways to express our outrage and indignation at the EVIL in America and in Israel, in Russia and in Turkey, in Qatar and in Saudi Arabia, ie all over the world that have impact and meaning. We the People carry within us the demand to CHOOSE GOOD, CHOOSE LIFE and we seem to frittering this demand away, we seem to be forgetting what is good and what is life-this is the spiritual malady We the People are suffering and what Spiritual Counselors have to address!
My outrage, hopefully, is coming through, I am impatient with evil, I am impatient with the errors I make when I know better, I am impatient with people who are not impatient! Not necessarily one of my better traits, according to some, and the one that has propelled me to write books, to help 1000’s of people recover from their spiritual maladies whether they were/are addicts or ‘normies’. I refuse to ‘calm down’ in the face the evil we see, I refuse to be ‘a good German, I mean American’ and go along to get along. FUCK FASCISM! FUCK THE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS OF THE FASCIST AND THE PROGRESSIVE. I am dedicated to seeing the good and knowing what is evil both within me, in you and in the world. I don’t care what the ‘right’ thing to say is, I care and promote truth as the only right way to speak and be. I promote freedom to learn, to grow, to be who one is meant to be as the greatest good and denial of these freedoms to be the greatest evil! I am not popular nor do I care, I live into truth each day and I am grateful. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark