Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 271
“Our tragedy begins with the segregation of God, with the bifurcation of the secular and the sacred. We worry more about the purity of dogma than about the integrity of love. (Thunder in the Soul pg. 53-54)
Congratulations to the winners of yesterday’s elections, it was a Red Letter Day, a day that democracy was in action, a day of choice and the will of the people. While one may or may not agree with the decisions reached, their candidate might not have won, we all have to accept the outcome, we all have to do what we can to ensure free and fair elections continue, including fighting against those who want to gerrymander states so they can always have a majority!
Our democracy supports a separation between church and state, mainly because the Founding Fathers knew how bad it was to live under the thumb of one religion and the people, ie rulers, clergy, who misinterpret the words of the Bible, who deliberately bastardize, cherry pick words and/or phrases to validate their cruelty, their power grab, etc. This does not mean, however, that spiritual principles are not valid and necessary for a democracy to flourish! It does not mean that God is segregated to one group, to one area of living. In fact, we are “One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all”. OY, if we only acted this way in all our affairs.
This is the challenge of the words above: living the Pledge of Allegiance-which the Republican Christian Nationalists/autocrats want to be done in our schools and not denying God, no longer engaging in the segregation of God from our day to day living. What an order!! What chutzpah (cheeky nerve) I have demanding that these ‘good christian nationalist folk’ practice Godliness in all their affairs, practice “liberty and justice for all” every day and ensure these concepts in their governing coalition. Rabbi Heschel is calling out the people who spout religious wisdom and don’t live it, calling out the charlatans who speak so lovingly of their god while practicing idolatry. Even our Founding Fathers knew one could not have a “bifurcation of the secular and the sacred” and have a democracy. It takes “God” to have a democracy because God is the originator of “proclaim Freedom thought out the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, God is the originator of “love the stranger”, “love your neighbor because s/he is like you”, etc. How, then can we ensure “liberty and justice for all” without a higher authority than our bastardizations, our mendacities, our greed and thirst for power?
My friend and teacher, Dr. Harry Hartounian writes: “their is a vast difference between knowing the path and walking the path…To live the program means to embody its principles in every aspect of our lives”. This way of being a recovering human being is essential for long-term recovery, the same is true for our freedoms and our democracy! This is the reason I added the Pledge of Allegiance. While our Founding Fathers were certainly imperfect, they left us a road map and a legacy of struggling with doing the next right things, with the goal of “liberty and justice for all”, with the mandate to be one grain of sand better each day than they were so we can “trudge the road of happy destiny” together, with all of our disagreements. “One nation, indivisible” doesn’t mean we all agree, we speak with one voice, it means, I believe, the exact opposite! We do not speak with one voice and because we create such a cacophony of sound and ideas, we are stronger and more whole for our differences, for our wrestling to find the next best action to take, for our safeguarding of the sacredness of freedom and democracy.
It is a nuanced way of living, putting together the sacred and the secular. Yet, it seems simple. Whether your “golden rule” is “do unto others as you have them do unto you” or “what is hateful to you do not do to another”; being decent, being kind, being just, being merciful, being able to admit one’s errors, being able to accept the amends of another, being able to accept being forgiven and being able to forgive another, and so much more stems from a strong, robust, maturing spiritual core-not our servants-our rational minds! We the People are being called to let go of our binary thinking, to engage in the ways of Biblical thinking and doing, to use the prophets as our guides in dealing with our inner lives and our outer ones. We are being told to stop with our rationalizations and our greed, let go of our need to be right and optics uber alles. We the People are stuck in a vicious cycle that the Founding Fathers might have foreseen and tried to inoculate us from, however We the People gave into being stupid and simplistic, letting go of our God-given gift of discernment and distinguishing, which is the reason the 2nd sentence above is so crucial to living Godly, to not compound the tragedy of “the segregation of God, with the bifurcation of the secular and the sacred”. I will write on this sentence tomorrow.
I have combined the “secular and the sacred” every day of my recovery-I could not have any recovery without doing this. Sure I could maybe not drink, I would be a dry drunk. The key to keeping my recovery growing, to keeping my freedom intact, to safeguarding my connection to God is immersing myself in the BOTH/AND- the sacred and the secular together in one moment, in every moment. Just as “the prophet is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times” as Rabbi Heschel teaches, so too do I have to do this, I have to hold the secular and the sacred, the person who loves me and the one who hates me together with God, to see their Divine Image, and it is HARD TO DO!! Yet, I keep making this my daily goal, I keep finding new ways to accept my progress and lack thereof-depending on the moment. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark