Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 283
“Prophecy proclaims what happened to God as well as what will happen to the people. In judging human affairs, it unfolds a divine situation. Sin is not only the violation of a law, it is as if sin were as much a loss to God as to man. God’s role is not spectatorship but involvement.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 35)
STOP THE PRESSES!! NEWS FLASH!! GOD CARES! This is something that seems to be missing from most people’s realm of understanding. Many of We the People believe if God cares, where was God in the Holocaust, in the suffering we see everyday as excuses for their own bad behaviors, as reasons not to hear the cry of God each evening, the call of the Voice from Sinai each day. “What happened to God” is a minute by minute experience and, We the People determine both the joys and sorrows that God experiences. This is, after all, God who proclaims 36 times that We the People should love the stranger, take care of the poor, help the needy and protect the widow and orphan!
We the People seem to be unwilling to accept our larger role in both our lives and the life of God. We want to deny our responsibility, we want to bastardize the words of the Bible, the thoughts and prophecies of the various prophets, cleaning up the behavior of the Rabbis, of Ezra, of Joshua, inserting ridiculous commentaries to passages that are very clear and caring, truthful and just. We the People, or at least some of us throughout the ages, have taken the words of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, the Buddha and twisted them into pretzels to validate our wrong and ignorant behaviors. It is so interesting that We the People demand free will, fight for our own right to do whatever we want to, deny the same to another(s) who is ‘different’ than us, then demand that God should intervene when we are in trouble. Rather than realize every affair we are involved in is “ a divine situation”, that God is present within us and around us, that God is also present in the people around us and cares all of us, We the People want to make God into our ‘savior’ at the expense of “those people” who we want to annihilate. How sick and sad, how ridiculous and ignorant, how narcissistic and antithetical to everything the prophets teach us. Yet, We the People persist in our willful blindness, going so far as to call Trump, ‘the anointed one of Christ’!! WTF!?!?!?
I am struck by the use of the word “law” in the teaching above. In Judaism, “love your neighbor as yourself” is a “law”, “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” is a “law”, “teach your children” is a “law”, “don’t scout out after your heart and eyes because you will whore yourselves after them” is a “law”. To disabuse any of We the People who want to pervert the word “law” above, I am offering this bit of wisdom and truth, justice and kindness, mercy and compassion. Just as God believes in T’Shuvah, just as God keeps sending prophets to remind us of our duty to do T’Shuvah every day, ie a 10th step in Alcoholics Anonymous, just as the Bible gives us the direction and pathway we need to live a richer and more meaningful life, We the People are being told that these “LAWS” are as important, if not more important, than what the priests are supposed to do, than what the correct interpretation of what is kosher food consists of, than hating Amalek, than the senseless hatred that has plagued humanity forever!
Yet, if one listens to many of those ‘good christian nationalist clergy’ these “laws” mean nothing. If one listens to that ‘defender of the Bible’, Donald J Trump, these “laws” mean less than nothing. If one listens to any of the Fox News, Right-wing NUTS on podcasts, these “laws” mean nothing. If one watches and listens to Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, We the People are well-aware of the lack of meaning God’s “laws” have. The irony is, of course, that while these ‘good christian, cross wearing, prosperity gospel’ charlatans are promoting how they live by the Bible, the “laws” of the Bible hold no real sway over Mike Johnson and his band of idolators in Congress. Lindsey Graham, that betrayer of everything his friend John McCain stood for, has no regard for the “laws” of the Bible-no matter how much he proclaims his allegiance to Jesus, he is the Anti-Christ in action. What is worse, however, is not these people in power who are like this, what is worse is that so many of We the People have disregarded the words of the prophets, disregarded the “laws” of God found in the Bible, so much that these people who are enslaving us, promoting “sin” in the marketplace, in our streets, in hating the stranger, in scapegoating the resident alien, were put into power by WE THE PEOPLE!!
I am well-acquainted with the ‘prayer’ of people who have bastardized every “law” for their own benefit and then ‘prayed’ to God to save them. For example: when I was on my way to Prison for the first time, I prayed that God would tell the guards that they made a mistake and let me go! I hadn’t prayed to God for any guidance, for any direction, yet I wanted God to ‘save me’!! REALLY?! I know how often people have questioned my faith because of terrible events that happen in personal lives and in the world in general. I hear the prophets and the words above reminding me that not only does God have a stake in what is happening, more importantly I have a stake in what is going on. I have to keep cleaning my internal house of shmutz so I can stand up for the poor, the needy, the stranger around me. I have to continue to see what I do well and where I miss the mark so I can call out the bullshit of another without being like a Donald Trump, et al. I have to continue to do TShuvah each day so I can face myself in the mirror each morning, I can see more clearly each day the love I have to give and the love I receive from so many, especially my wife. I am blessed to know that my “sin” is also a loss to God and my job is to minimize God’s losses! I pray you will join me in this quest! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark