Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 296
Those of us to whom the crimes of the world are mere incidents, and the agony ”of the poor is one of the many facts of life, may be inclined to describe the God of the prophets as stern, arbitrary, inscrutable, even unaccountable. But the thought of God and indifference to other people’s suffering are mutually exclusive.” ( Thunder in the Soul pg. 39)
Reading these words, living in this moment, seeing what is and what could be, hearing the prophets words and deeds ringing in my ears, I am angry, bewildered, in disbelief, and wildly enraged at the lack of understanding by We the People of the demand of this moment. We are in an experience, a situation where the words above are the predominant way our Government is working, the path that the Israeli government is taking and way too many of we the people are still supporting, sitting on our hands, going along with the cruelty, the “crimes”, “the agony of the poor”!
What is it about humanity that we can’t seem to hear the call of kindness, compassion, truth, love, justice that abounds in the universe? What is about We the People that, after all of these years, we continue to allow, promote even our reptilian brain over and above our gift to make free-will moral choices? What is so compelling about the “crimes of the world” that We the People allow and call them “mere incidents”?
Immersing myself in the words above, the phrases “that’s just the way it is” and “this is the way the world works” are BULLSHIT! They are society’s way of trying to clean up what it knows is WRONG! Yet, who is society if not We the People? Blaming society like it is some separate entity from oneself also points out how full of shit we humans can be! There is no such thing as a crime being a “mere incident” or “the agony of the poor is one of the many facts of life” to and for a person of faith, a person who values their relationship with the Ineffable One, with the Holy texts of their spiritual discipline and the liars and deceivers who claim “it says it in the Bible” are only reading parts of the Bible, and choosing to ignore the conflicting ideas found in the Bible. As my friend and teacher, Rabbi Hazan Danny Maseng teaches there are conflicting ideas of how to treat the stranger-36 times it says to love, welcome, care for the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt and a few times it says kill them all. The reptilian brain of the ‘orthodox’ has them choose the later while the discerning spirit, the intuitive mind has many of We the People choose the later. Unfortunately, as we see today and throughout history-the reptilian brain people usually win out.
As a Jew, knowing the crimes that have been perpetrated against me, against my people for the millennia, how can I NOT love the prophets, how can I NOT hear and follow the call of God to justice, the call of the prophets to RETURN to a way of being that honors higher consciousness, that honors spiritual knowing? As a human beings who are descendants of people who came to America, came to Israel seeking a respite from the discrimination, the narrow place of their former home, how can We the People NOT revel in the call of the prophets who are telling We the People that God is NOT indifferent, God is caring, loving, always wanting our return?
Listening to Trump, Netanyahu, and their spooky minions is terrifying, their deliberate appeal to the reptilian brain of the masses is meant to get ‘their people’ onboard and defending the worst of their crimes and it works! OY VAVOY!! The ways in which they dismiss “the agony of the poor”, the amount of “crimes” they themselves commit and then seek to have themselves exonerated is atrocious. What is more atrocious, however, is that We the People have allowed them to get away with their crimes, We the People have helped them promote their grift, their killing of innocents, their horrific treatment of the stranger within our midst! This is the crime, We the People stand guilty of, this is the type of crime the prophets and God railed against, asked and begged the people of Israel and Judah to turn away from and THEY DID NOT. The result was the destruction of the way of life as they knew it, the result was a wandering that lasted almost 1900 years, the result was the mistreatment of Jews, the mendacity about Jews, the scapegoating of Jews and, in this moment, we see it all again! It began with Trans people, moved to ‘those’ people (people of Hispanic descent), came to embrace antisemitism, and even the FUCKING JEWS in Trump’s cabinet are embracing the people who spout this hatred, embracing Putin who is a war criminal, embracing Bibi who is also a war criminal to his own people, a willing participant in the Oct. 7th attack as evidenced by his unwillingness to hold an inquiry which is always done-Bibi was either asleep at the wheel or looking for an excuse to go into Gaza and, like Trump, Putin, et al no one is holding him accountable. This is why we have to SHEMA-Hear, Listen, Understand the words of the prophets so We the People will save our selves, honor our spirituality and hold assholes accountable for their crimes and no longer sit idly by the “cries of the poor”!
I have been the asshole who didn’t care about my own actions and re-living those moments makes me ill! This is the reason I have not been able to turn away from the poor, the reason I have sought spiritual growth and guidance at all times, to ensure I NEVER go back to the callousness, the cruelty of my youth. Living into being responsible to and for the prophetic inheritance I/we receive is difficult, it is lonely at times, it is off-putting to many. Yet, I have no choice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.