Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 295
“Severity must tame those whom love cannot win.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 39)
I have taken this sentence from yesterday because it both bothers me and I know the truth of it. I want to cry and scream, I want to be the instrument of “severity” towards the assholes who are actively enjoying their role in perpetrating the cruelty we see happening. I am shuddering inside because I know that the “severity” necessary to “tame those whom love cannot win” is so severe, so dangerous, so cruel in and of itself that it cannot be delivered by another human being, it has to be a divine command, a divine intervention.
I am so saddened by the truth of the statement above; there are people in power who are in love with their power, who worship their power, who believe their power gives them “certain unalienable rights” to upend the “unalienable rights” of whomever they deem as their ‘enemy’, whomever they want to use as a scapegoat, to use as a deflection from their grift, their lies, their indecency, their continuous grab for more: more power, more money, more land, more business, more sex, more, more, more. It is so disgusting that We the People have ourselves to be back in this dilemma, that we have returned to the love of autocracy and fascism, that we are gleefully returning to a state of being that reveres a Hitler and reviles a Moses. How have we fallen so far, how have we forgotten what it was like?
The sentence above is proven in the Bible by the story of the exodus from Egypt. The fact that the Pharaoh could not learn, could not surrender, could not hear of God’s love for the descendants of Jacob, is an indictment of inherited power, an accusation against the immature souls that seek, grab, maintain power when they have not a clue of what it means to BE HUMAN! Pharaoh did not care what it took for a person to feed their family, what it took to build the pyramids, what it took to be a person of faith, what it took to be a ruler/leader who actually cares about the people who have been entrusted to her/him! When we are in such a state, when we the people have sunk so low that we come to love the dictator who doesn’t give a shit, who doesn’t care about the sufferings of the people, what else but plagues will wake us up? Kindness is taken as weakness, love is used to make us co-dependent, truth is manipulated and denied so the lies of the Pharaoh, the Fuhrer, the Autocrat, are accepted by the useful idiots who lap up his/her every word, and spiritual growth is called treason, living justly is grounds for imprisonment, loving mercy is laughed at and called stupid. All of the tools of love, all of the actions of decency, all the mitzvot of the Bible, are jettisoned out of the consciousness of ‘der fuhrer’ and her/his acolytes, and We the People are left to call it out or succumb to the insanity. When we succumb, we experience/suffer the same consequences of severity, when we call it out, we experience the consequences of the crazy person in charge, the cruelty of the Pharaoh, the meanness of Attila, the vileness of Hitler. And today, We the People are experiencing the craziness of Trump, the cruelty of Miller, the meanness of Vance, the vileness of Bondi, the greed of Lutnick, the desecration of God’s Name by Kushner. One can throw Bibi Netanyahu along with Ben-G’Vir and Smotrich in the mix here as well. Don’t forget the cruelty of MBS, the vileness of Hamas also.
The question that is rising within me: “Are We the People willing to seek, hear, listen and understand the Moses for today? Are We the People ready to do battle against the evils of the current leadership here and in Israel? Are We the People willing to be part of the revolution that was begun in Egypt some 3500+ years ago, be a soldier in the cause of goodness and truth that Moses gave us the path to? Are We the People ready to experience the severity needed to WAKE US UP, to TAME THE PHARAOH? Are We the People prepared to leave the burdens of the slavery of addiction to power, addiction to fear? Are We the People willing to surrender to a power greater than ourselves that is also a part of ourselves, i.e. God? This is what it will take to teach ourselves to love again, to train ourselves to to care for the stranger, the widow, the poor, the needy. Are We the People soldiers or slaves?
These are the questions that I never asked myself prior to recovery, Pharaoh and Egypt had no relevance for me except the wonderful times at the Passover Seders with my Grandfather. Looking back on it now, I realize that my Grandfather, Abe Borovitz, was trying to teach his grandchildren what it meant to be free, what it meant to be part of a revolution begun so long ago and to never forget how tenuous freedom is, how the Cossacks are not annihilated, they are still in the shadows. He didn’t do this to make us paranoid, he was passing on his wisdom, his experiences, and he wanted us to understand the exodus from Egypt is still happening, Pharaoh is still chasing us and he did it so sweetly that I missed this message until right this minute. Oh Grandpa, I am so sorry I didn’t’ realize what you were saying and the trouble I caused because my ignorance, the ways I lived and acted that were so antithetical to you, to your life. In recovery, I am compelled to ask and respond to the questions above with a loud, a strong YES. I am called to action by the very Voice from Sinai that I denied for 20 years, that I ignored for 20 years and I refuse to ignore nor deny the Voice again. I realize that the severity of prison, the severity of being shunned was to “tame” me because “love” couldn’t. It is what makes co-dependency so dangerous and life-taking. I pray for all of us to learn from the “severity” so we can, going forward, be “tamed by love”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark