Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 282
“Indeed the main task of prophetic thinking is to bring the world into divine focus…The prophet is endowed with the insight that enables him to say, not I love or I condemn, but God loves or God condemns.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 34-35)
Yesterday I wrote on the first sentence above and today I want to engage with the second one. Rabbi Heschel’s description of “the prophet” confirms for me, at least, that we are truly descendants of the prophets, that we truly have available to us the inheritance from the prophets of “insight”. As human beings, we always have the choice between being selfish and egotistical, narcissistic and sociopathic and being able to see what is the next right thing to do, being generous with spirit and finances, seeing another human being as having equal and unique dignity and worth, knowing that seeing another human being is, as Jacob said to Esau: “seeing your face is like seeing the face of God” (Gen. 33:10) While Jacob was never fully capable of connecting to Esau, of accepting Esau’s forgiveness, of dealing with his own guilt, he is telling us, early on in the Bible what it is to look into the face of another, to truly SEE that another human being is, as Rabbi Heschel says often: a divine reminder.
At issue for We the People is not that the prophets existed, not even that the prophets had “the insight that enables him to say, not I love or I condemn, but God loves or God condemns”, at issue for us, is whether we are willing to leave the narcissism, exit the selfishness and connect to something greater than ourselves-call it the universe, God, Higher Power, Love, Truth, Higher Consciousness, whatever one wants to call it? We the People have been called to leave the loneliness of being egotistical and sociopathic and join with another human being to BE HUMAN! This is counter-intuitive to the ‘way of the world’, I know, it is counter-intuitive to the ways of AI, the ways of tech, the ways of Power, the ways of the wealthy and those who seek wealth. Yet, it is the inheritance we receive from the prophets, it is the key to sustaining our humanity as well as sustaining our planet. Every resource is limited except our Spirit, every road has an ending except the road to the Ineffable One, every creation is limited except those that come from our souls. This is the truth that the Clergy of today and yesterday, the power brokers, the ruling class never want We the People to know! And it is the TRUTH we have received from the prophets, it is the inheritance that has been passed down, both wittingly and unwittingly by the generation since the prophets ruled, it s the inheritance that has been lived by many heroes silent and loud throughout our history-Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Roosevelt, JFK, RFK, Liz Cheney all are examples of people of spirit and soul that lived the truth of their time and spoke out. The history of clergy is replete with people like St. Francis, Thomas Merton, MLK, the Baal Shem Tov, Reb Nachman, Rabbi Heschel, who also lived into their inheritance from the prophets. It is time for We the People to take up the mantle given to us by the prophets, wear it and live into their teachings.
This can only be done through study and wrestling with the texts. It is not a top-down education process because the words of the prophets, like much of the Bible, need to be digested, discussed, argued over and then put into action. It is not a top-down education process no matter what the ‘teachers’, the ‘rabbis’ say; it is take the action the words say to take and then understand their meaning, the exact opposite of what I just said because BOTH WAYS ARE TRUE and GOOD! Whatever way you engage with the prophets is good-just ENGAGE with them.
This is the issue of our time, when the so-called religious right is telling us that the words of the prophets mean the opposite of what the prophets are saying, when the so-called religious right is telling us that Jesus loved the rich and famous, the powerful and the mighty, that God loves the rich and the poor are being punished, that God wants the Arabs to be driven from their land and killed, that calling ‘those people’ vermin, not human, blood poisoners, WE THE PEOPLE have to, like the prophets in their time, STAND UP AND SAY NO! We are living in a precarious time because we have not stood up to the Tea Party hatred, the war-mongering of Gingrich, the hatefulness of Nixon, the lies of the KKK, the need for ‘the south to rise again’, the toying with fascism like in the 1930’s here in America, the desire of some to return to being like Egypt and having slaves do the bidding of the rich white folk. This is what We the People have wrought by our inattention to the words and the ways of the prophets, by our unwillingness to say “God loves or God condemns”.
I know the trap my immature ego set for me, both when it told me I was the Shit and when it told me I was a piece of shit. I knew of my inheritance as a young man and I squandered it, I used it for all the wrong reasons and in all the wrong ways. I still regret this, I am still acutely aware of these errors so that I don’t repeat them. I also know that in my recovery, I have lived into the inheritance I receive from the prophets, I live into the call for: justice and truth; for caring and concern of another human being; for speaking to people in the way they can hear; for spreading love and kindness. Most of all I live into the inheritance of calling out the whoring of self and the rest of us, the rebuking of myself and my neighbor, the no-holds barred battle/war with the mendacity and self-deception by someone else as well as my own, because T’Shuvah is the response God wants and the response that will save myself and humanity. “For one person’s TShuvah, the whole world endures” says Reb Meir in Yoma 86b. Will you join me in being that person? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark