Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 313
“The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use. To Bacon we owe the formulation, “Knowledge is power”…We do not know anymore how to justify any value except in terms of expediency.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)
It is increasingly more difficult for me to contain the trembling I experience each day when hearing about the latest disregard of God’s ways and trampling on the rights, the freedoms of the ‘group of the moment to discriminate against’ that seems to be the way of our President and his thugs and he is, of course, joined by the Prime Minister of Israel in this endeavor. The way America is living at this moment, the popularity of Trumpism, of progressive left, of hatred, of prejudice, of racism, anti-semitism on both the right and the left leads me to know “the modern man learns in order to use” is alive, present, front and center in this moment!
What is happening on College Campuses is horrific, it is a denial of what learning, what ‘higher education’ is about. College has become, for some time, a place that is a trade school where people go to learn whatever so they can land the job that will make them rich, a place to espouse some extreme bullshit that is called ‘conservative’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’ principles and are really just an indoctrination into some radical form of lies and deceptions. Rather than being a safe place to find oneself, to learn about what it is that we are meant to be and do in the world, rather than learn for the sake of discovery, College has become another battlefield in the war to capture soldiers for ‘my side’, the ‘right side’ of the civil war that is quietly and not so quietly happening in America right now.
Trump is not the first or the worst example of “the modern man learns in order to use”, he is a master at the sleight of hand, he has turned a losing real estate business into a Presidency that is making him BILLIONS OF DOLLARS personally-so lets not call him stupid. He has people kissing his ring, he has become ‘the Don’ that he always wanted to be, he is doing his KKK-membership father proud in heaven!
Bibi Netanyahu is the epitome of Hillul HaShem, in my opinion. Rather than be a Hebrew, be an Israelite, be a Jew, he has chosen to be “the modern man” as described above. Caring nothing for reverence and everything for his own skin, craving money, power, fame rather than seeking to serve Adonai, Bibi shows us what it means to sell one’s soul to the modernity, to whore oneself out to anyone for the sake of power and wealth, to uphold lies and deceptions that you yourself don’t believe in-I doubt that Bibi studies Torah each day nor prays 3 times a day!
Listening to the two of them briefly before their meeting yesterday is an example of “expediency”. Joe Biden went to Israel and gave Israel the weaponry they needed and asked for right after Oct. 7th-Trump pulled the weaponry needed by Ukraine in their war against the AGGRESSOR RUSSIA! Trump wouldn’t go to an American Cemetery for WWII soldiers who died in battle, Biden went to Kyiv, to Jerusalem. Bibi praises Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had” forgetting that it was Harry Truman who supported Statehood for Israel!
When expediency, use are the guiding principles of living; deception, cruelty, graft, grift, unholy alliances, betrayals abound. What is so hard for We the People to have learned this TRUTH already? Even the Greeks would comprehend this truth, these lessons in the futility of following expediency, use to their logical ends-ruin, destruction, slavery, hatred. Yet, this way of being seems to be the way of the world. When “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the watchwords and belief system of people what is happening now is the logical result. Do we really want to live under this type of system again? Hasn’t history taught us the perils of succumbing to these lies and to the loss of freedoms?
Hence the importance of “the Hebrews learned in order to revere”. “Revere” comes from the Latin meaning “to stand in awe of”. It is hard to hate, to lie, to deceive, to enslave, to cheat, to admire liars, to worship power when one is “to stand in awe of” which is what makes the goings on of today so horrific! Be one a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a follower of Eastern philosophy, we are all called upon by God, by Adonai, by Allah, by Jesus, by higher consciousness “to stand in awe of” one another, of the beauty of the world, of love, of truth. We are called “to stand in awe of” with kindness, compassion, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, giving strength to the weary, visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved, administering righteous justice, proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to everyone in it, to “BE HOLY”!
This is the way of “the Hebrews” and this is the way of Jesus, Mohammed, so it is to be the way of We the People! Yet, it isn’t and hasn’t. King David could proclaim his guilt and Bibi, Donny, and so many of us are unable to. I am guilty of expediency and use, this was the main highway I travelled prior to my recovery. Since then I have certainly been on it at times and, upon realizing or being told I am, I take the 1st Exit to get off. I have been vilified by people for my loudness, my inability to accept “the way of the world” from right and left and I welcome it. I have also been praised for standing up to the bullies and giving voice to the voiceless. I know my deep reverence for human beings, I know I “stand in awe of” so many humane giants, I sit at before them through books, through encounters and learn their ways, their thoughts and then how to put them into action in my life and the lives of those who seek me out, the lives of family and friends. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark