Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 249
“People act as they please, doing what is vile, abusing the weak, not realizing they are fighting God, affronting the divine, or that the oppression of man is a humiliation of God. He who oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, He who is kind to the needy honors Him.(Psalms 14.31) (Thunder in the Soul pg. 46)
Please let the deal for the hostages go through!! Please let there be an end to the hatred and mistrust in the Middle East. Please let there be a functioning government in the United States. Please let these ‘god-fearing good christian nationalists’ end their reign of terror and slavery. This is the 1st of 2 on these words.
Reading the words above from Rabbi Heschel, I am struck by the inability of We the People to learn from our past mistakes, learn from our history, both personal and global, and continue to find new ways to do the same old shit- “doing what is vile, abusing the weak”, etc. It is an amazing fact that the same person who seems to be doing something good in the Middle East, Trump, can be so vile and abusive here at home and with our allies. He is bullying everyone in the Middle East not realizing they have long memories, they have been fighting the same war for a millennium, at least, and Trump touts his “eternal peace”. Yet, in the spirit of both/and, he is doing something no one else has been able to do-move Netanyahu to rescue the hostages! AND, this does not mean he isn’t vile and abusive, it doesn’t mean he is not “fighting God”, or “affronting the divine”! He is and so are his thugs like Russell Vought, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, Tom Holman, et al.
In fairness to all of these abusers and liars, these practitioners of vile and oppressive ways, they get support from some of the Churches and Synagogues, they are being fed bullshit from their clergy and, while one can find certain passages in the Bible to support vile, abusive actions, when anyone decides to ignore Yud Hey Vav Hey, God who is merciful, kind, truthful, forgiving and wiping the slate clean when we repent, We the People find ourselves in the midst of autocracy and hatred, abusive and vile actions which will not stop until We the People say ENOUGH! This is our challenge today, not just because of Trump and the rest of the assholes running the world today, it is our challenge because some 3000 years ago, when King David lived, the words from Psalms were written! This is not a new phenomenon, being vile and abusive, believing we can “act as they please” is as old as humanity and, I believe, God is in Search of Man who will end this madness that We the People keep engaging in. Society has not changed much, the norms of “doing what is vile, abusing the weak” still exist and are rewarded with money and power, just like Jesus saw in the Temple and, remember, he was killed for telling the truth, murdered for speaking truth to power-just like Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther Kings Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, etc.
What is truly mind-boggling to me and to many of the people I know is the level of self-deception that We the People sink into. Once we begin to deceive ourselves, it is like we have walked into quicksand and there is no way out except by asking for help. Writing this reminds me of the Psalm 121, “I lift my eyes to the mountains, where will my help come from? It will come from Adonai, maker of heaven and earth.”. Yet, when We the People continue to be “fighting with God, affronting the divine”, how can we seek the help the Psalmist is crying out for? The issue for We the People seems to be how to let go of the mendacity that has defined us since the Psalmist wrote the words about oppressing “a poor man” and before. It continue to seem out of the grasp of humanity to come to terms with their self-deception and the incessant, constant need to deceive another(s) so they end this madness, this “vile” and “abusive” behavior. Listening to Pam Bondi at the recent Senate hearing not answer the questions asked, treating the United States Senate as a fly to flick off her shoulders, lying and hiding while the Republican Senators stayed silent, allowed her (and supported her through their silence) to denigrate the Senate body and what it stands for, or used to stand for, in our progress towards “a more perfect union”.
In this moment, “oppress the poor” is seen as joyous and in service of the god of christian nationalism, Trumpism, Project 2025, and these priests and ministers who Christ railed against and Moses warned us about-false prophets. In this moment, these ‘good god-fearing christian nationalists’ are violating the first 3 commandments because they have made god in their image and the rest of We the People are suffering. It is WAY PAST TIME for those of us who believe in and know in our bones that God is waiting for us to redeem our world, that the “word is not far away… it is in our mouth and in our heart” as Deuteronomy teaches us. It is WAY PASt TIME for We the People to stop the abuse, the vileness, the cruelty, the fight with God, the affront to the divine.
I have been supporting Indivisible, John Pavlovitz, and others who are in the fight, who are leading some charges to stop the madness. I also know that the madness has to stop inside of me and this is the ‘flash of insight’ this week. I am not slowing down enough to do what is in front of me, take my time in Bridge, Golf, Ceramics, because I am in such turmoil inside from the vile, abusive ways of the world. I am saddened that my grandson, Miles Garrett, is being raised in a world that is so much angrier, sadder, scarier than I was raised in. I pray each day for the welfare of the stranger, the poor, the needy and that someone, somewhere will lead us out of this quicksand we are sinking further and further into. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark