Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 290
“A battle is raging: man in his presumption undertakes to fashion history in disregard and defiance of God. The prophets witness the misery that man endures as well as man’s wickedness that God endures, and even tolerates. But God is wrestling with man.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 36-27)
I am sitting here at my computer, reading the words above and want to jump out of my skin! The first phrase: “a battle is raging” when combined with the last sentence above: “God is wrestling with man” says it all. I cannot contain myself in the beauty, the light of this truth. We have called descendants of Jacob: “God-wrestlers” and reading this maybe We the People have had it wrong. Jacob did not win the battle against the angel, the angel did not come to attack Jacob for Esau’s sake, it was God wrestling with Jacob to see the error of his ways towards his brother, his twin Esau. Maybe it was God wrestling with Jacob to make him understand that he needs the help and support of his brother, his twin, his Yetzer HaTov (good inclination) because his Yetzer HaRa (evil/earthly) inclination was so strong. As we see with Jacob, however, he never fully surrendered to God, he never allowed God to win the wrestling match completely, as Abraham did, as Moses did, as Judah did.
We are in such a horrific state right now that too many of We the People do not even realize their “presumption” to “fashion history in disregard and defiance of God”!! Too many of We the People still laud Trump and Lutnick for selling out the United States, too many of We the People are clapping for Wytkoff and Kushner as they sell out to Vladimir Putin and fuck over Ukraine! Too many of We the People are still believing the lies of Blondie Bondi, Nasty Noem, and Meany Miller. The worst, however is that too many of We the People adhere to the words of Hateful Hegseth and not to the truth in front of their eyes! WTF!!??!!??
When I use the phrase “too many” I am not suggesting a majority of We the People believe, go along with, clap, adhere to any of these presumptive mendacious human beings, I am saying that any amount of We the People who give them the benefit of the doubt, who give them aid and comfort, is too many! We the People are in desperate need of hearing the call of the prophets to end our “disregard and defiance” of God’s direction. We the People are being welcomed into the embrace of God, the wrestling with the divine, the wrestling with our own inner conflicting voices and desires, so that we can bring to an end, or at least a beginning of the end of “man’s wickedness that God endures”. SO WHY DOES GOD ENDURE WICKEDNESS, one might ask and while the question is, in many ways, the wrong question to ask, the response is FREE WILL! Do We the People really want to be puppets? God has angels to do God’s bidding, humans are supposed to be partners, not marionettes. The response: “if God didn’t want me to do this, God would stop me” is another ridiculous excuse made by humans to cover up our “defiance”, our selfishness, our “disregard” for the words and deeds of the prophets, of the Biblical directions. In fact, we can see “God is wrestling with man” in the ways the editors of the Bible put contradictory statements into the Bible to satisfy their xenophobic, narcissistic ends. 36 times we are told to care for the powerless, the voiceless, the stranger, the widow, the poor, the needy, the orphan, the blind, the deaf, in the physical and spiritual realms. Nothing else is mentioned this many times so what do we see throughout history and on steroids right now from ‘these fine christian gentlemen’ like Vought, Vance, Trump, et al ‘these keepers of the flame of the Temple orthodox jews’ like Kushner, Wytkoff, et al? THE EXACT OPPOSITE! The “wickedness” of our leaders, of their followers among We the People is sickening, disgusting, and just plain wrong! It is time, way past time, for the majority of We the People who believe in “proclaim Freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants therein”, who adhere to the biblical and revolutionary claim of “all people are created with certain unalienable rights”, who are the descendants of immigrants to this land at any time since America was discovered in 1492 and honor that gift of “a new birth of freedom” that our ancestors gave us, to STAND UP, SAY NO TO THE FASCISTS, SAY YES TO GOD. IT IS WAY PAST TIME TO ALLOW GOD TO WIN THE WRESTLING MATCH AND SURRENDER TO LIVING WELL, LIVING IN AND WITH LOVE, LIVING IN TRUTH!
Sitting here this morning, understanding Jacob’s wrestling from God’s point of view, from the prophets’ teachings, fills me with remorse. Not the remorse that is self-flagellation, rather the remorse that teaches me how not to be in this moment, how not to keep fighting the wrestling matches that I have with people, with God, with myself. I am constantly ‘at unease’ with what is happening in the world, whenever I see injustice, especially whenever I commit injustice! I have been told that I should take a ‘chill pill’, it’s not that big of a deal, I have told people the same lie and, my experience with the words above are shaking me to my core. I see the wickedness that God has endured from me and I am sorry, I am remorseful, I know I will do it again and I resolve to do it less often and less severely. I see the misery I have endured from another human being and the bile makes me throw up, yet I have to have compassion while condemning evil. I watch in horror at the “disregard and defiance” of God that I perpetrate and know that I do it much less each day. Watching the “disregard and defiance” that people around me perpetrate fills me with righteous anger that I have to dispense in ways that another can hear me, instead of raging like the prophets. Most of all, I am grateful that God still wrestles with me, that God still helps my inner life grow and my connections to the divine reminders around me makes me more and more aware of my need and calling to be a divine reminder myself. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark