Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 263
“The prophets tried to overcome the isolationism of religion. It is the prophets who teach us that the problem of living does not arise with the question of how to take care of the rascals, of how to prevent delinquency or hideous crimes. The problem of living begins with the realization of how we all blunder in dealing with our fellow men. The silent atrocities, the secret scandals, which no law can prevent, are the true seat of moral infection.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 50)
Given the recent decline and fall of the democratic nation called the United States of America, I am writing about the last sentence that is in bold above. While there is much fodder in the ways of Trump, Trumpism, what Netanyahu is trying to do, with some success, in Israel, I am going to focus on We the People. Blame should not be laid upon Trump, his cronies, his thugs alone nor is what is happening in Israel on Netanyahu alone, just as what is going on in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, etc the fault of the dictators, royalty, autocrats alone. We the People have to take responsibility for our part in both creating these entitled assholes and for allowing them, encouraging them to be as cruel as they are. We the People have to see how our enabling of these petty little men has created the monsters we now face. The only way to do this is, of course, to look inside of ourselves.
The “silent atrocities, the secret scandals” are not just the purview of the far right nor the far left. In fact, I would offer that those of us who are always believing we are ‘on the right side of things’ have hidden, run away from the “silent atrocities, secret scandals” we have created and participated in-which only compounds the problems. We the People are being asked by the words above, by the prophets call to us to look at our own “moral infection”, the infection of our mendacious belief that “we are the ones in the right” and we have no responsibility for the bad results that have happened. It is like we are telling our children as we spank them-“this is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you”, rather than engaging and seeing what led to the inappropriate action, what we have done to give our children the wrong message like: “do as I say not as I do” and other such bullshit. In our “good people” we find they hide from their errors, from their sins, and the blame they lay on another(s) is tremendous, all the while claiming their ‘moral superiority’, which is, in fact, a moral infection. When We the People refuse to look inside of ourselves, see and admit the “silent atrocities, the secret scandals” we have committed as individuals and gone along with as a part of group, as a member of society, the “moral infection” grows and grows and makes the moment ripe for an audacious, mendacious, autocrat like we see in the United States, Israel and so many other places which used to be democratic in action as well as name!
There is a solution!! It beings with each one of us dropping the lies we have been telling another(s) about ourselves. Our “silent atrocities, secret scandals” are not lies we tell ourselves because we are aware of them and our refusal to meet them, deal with them, make the amends for them, and change our inner life so we don’t do it again, ie doing TShuvah! Rather, we lie to another(s) so we can continue to look good, so we can keep our credentials as part of the ‘resistance’, the ‘good people’, so we can fit in with the MAGA crowd, hold onto our position of relevance and power in either group. This is how far we have gotten from the words, the messages, the demands of the prophets! This is how far We the People have strayed from the call of God to each of us as individuals and to the body I call We the People. Hence it is imperative for We the People do earnestly engage in the spiritual practice of TShuvah, the spiritual practice of gratitude, the spiritual practice of asking for forgiveness, the spiritual practice of lifting ourselves up from the ruts we have made for ourselves in our brains, in our inner life, and in our outer life. The people most in need of these spiritual practices are, of course, the ones who proclaim their spirituality, their religion guides their every move, that their moral compass is strong and they follow it to such a degree that they could never really do anything wrong, they would never betray the people who have helped them, they would never blame another with out sufficient cause, etc. The people who declare their imperfections while believing they always do the next right thing, they have committed and continue to commit “silent atrocities, secret scandals” as much as those who rejoice in the cruelty they can bring- both are cruel and unusual punishment being foisted upon We the People! It will not end until We the People end it in ourselves and demand that our families, communities, countries end them as well. This is how we Jews can and must be “a light unto the nations”, a “holy nation” and the time is NOW!
My inability to acknowledge the “silent atrocities, the secret scandals” I was committing locked me up in a prison of addiction and criminality, a prison of irresponsibility and blame, a prison of self-hatred and suspicion of everyone else. I still feel the sting of those years, I still am making living TShuvah for those years. I don’t hide from myself so much anymore, in fact when I am most unsettled, what I do is turn inside and see what am I trying to hide from those around me, what I am I seeing that is driving me? Most of the time, nowadays, I can see what it is rather quickly and most unsettling and reoccurring is the nightmare I see in front of me and my inability to have my voice heard. I get frustrated that the ‘good people’ I write about above, still control who gets hear and who doesn’t-talk about the fox guarding the hen house!! I keep coming back to doing the next right thing, making sure I am keeping my side of the street clean and engaging in the work necessary to speak truth to power, speak truth to myself, and heed the words of the prophets and emulate their ways of living. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark