Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 111
“Ultimate commitment includes the consciousness of being accountable for the acts we perform under freedom; the awareness that what we own we owe; the capacity for repentance; that a life without the service of God is a secret scandal.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.20)
Yesterday Pope Frances was buried, not in the Vatican but rather a smaller private burial after the huge Chapel ceremony befitting a man who did so much for so many of the voiceless and powerless Catholics and non-Catholics across the globe. It brings to mind the power of the first phrase in bold above. Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, and other oligarchs as well as many people who are in the top 1% on the socio-economic scale believe they own their wealth, their property, their lives forgetting that they owe rather than own. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us, informing us that everything we ‘have’ is a gift, everything we ‘have’ is temporary, that everything we ‘have’ is to be used in service of something greater than ourselves, not for our own selfish desires and our misuse of the power each human being possess. What we ‘have’ is to be used to enhance our dignity and the dignity of every other human being we come into contact with either in person or virtually, in writing, painting, in whatever our creative talents are. We are being called to remember who we are, human beings entrusted with making our corner of the world better for everyone around us and for the future generations, we are not to use up all the resources for our selfish desires, we are not to use what we have to enhance our own names, we are not to engage in actions that harm another, that enslave another, that belittle a sovereign nation nor their leader who is fighting, literally and figuratively, for the sovereignty of his nation, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio. The United States doesn’t own Greenland nor the Panama Canal, it doesn’t own the right to dictate to Ukraine to be happy that Putin is ‘giving up’ taking the entire country, no matter what these CHARLATANS in the administration are saying. Where is Paula Cain-White advising the President about “Christian Charity”? Where are the people reminding Trump that Pope Frances’ funeral was NOT about him? Why are all these “good christians”, who pray all the time in the White House, not telling the President what real Christian Values are from the Gospels of Christ not the prosperity Gospel they preach? Oh yeah, none of these ‘good christians’ and ‘good catholics’ and ‘good jews’ believe the words of the Bible, they only use them for their advantage, so they believe they can OWN the Bible’s narrative as well as everything else. Talk about desecration of the Word of God-these assholes are Mendacious Masters at this!!
The second phrase in bold above is what life is really all about, as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning. “The capacity for repentance” is at the core of the human experience, it is the recognition of our imperfect nature, of our ability to make mistakes, learn from them, repair the damage, and re-sew the fabric of relationships we tore apart. Every human being has this “capacity for repentance” and it is horribly distressing that so many people have lost the willingness to say: “OOPS, I MADE A MISTAKE”. However, it goes hand in hand with the lie people tell themselves that they “own” what they have, they can do what they want with their lives, so they are never wrong nor do they have to make amends, engage in repentance nor accept the T’Shuvah(repentance) of anyone else! Rather, they use the vulnerabilities of another against them, they use the repentance of another to their advantage and they actually believe they are impervious to mistakes, they are incapable of making an error, and, like Trump and Nixon believe, if they are doing something, it must be true, correct and right. This is how far away we are from this phrase as well as “what we own, we owe”! Yet, the Republican Congress, the MAGA crowd still support this ‘perfect’ incarnation of ‘christ’, this ‘messiah’ as he has been anointed by the ‘prosperity gospel’ crowd. Rather than lead us in repentance, as Pope Frances did, these lying Clergy, of all the faiths that still support the Mendacious Masters, are leading people to their own ruin and away from “the service of God”.
I would disagree with Rabbi Heschel’s last phrase, just a bit. The lack of living “in the service of God” is no longer “a secret scandal”. This scandal is in front of our eyes and in our faces, the question is when We the People will “lift up our eyes and see”, when will We the People look inside of our souls, into our inner lives and admit the true nature of our wrongs against our souls, our fellow human beings and against God? When will We the People develop a plan of action that moves us closer to our authentic self, closer to the awareness of the debt we “owe” for being alive, the “capacity for repentance” and the power to move forward in our new path of “service to God”? These are the gifts we receive for being human, rather than just human beings. We the People are being called upon in this time of the counting of the Omer, the countdown to Mount Sinai, the days until we receive the Torah, the Pentecostal as some Christians call Shavuot. We the People need to open our ears and our eyes and get ourselves clean enough to be able to receive the Torah this year, be able to embrace it more, be clean enough to re-covenant with God, with one another and live our humility out loud, be grateful for what we have and what we don’t have, look upon our “capacity for repentance” as the gift of growth and awareness, and remember whatever we do has to be “in service to God” and in service to one another. This means accepting the repentance of another as God accepts ours, knowing we have to care for what we owe and be stewards of the earth for the next generations, not ‘drill baby drill’. We the People have to demand of ourselves and one another, a rebirth of spirit, a rebirth of decency, a rebirth of caring, a rebirth of justice, a rebirth of “love your neighbor as yourself”, “love the stranger”, “care for the needy, the poor, the widow and the orphan”.
I have been living these phrases for the past 37 years. Certainly not perfectly and to the best of my ability in the moment. I know the path of “repentance” is hard and not guaranteed to re-sew the fabric I have torn, I know that living “in service to God” is more than saying blessings, more than studying the Torah, more than doing the rituals, to be “in service to God” I look at people like Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King, my grandfathers, Pope Frances, and so many others as examples and for guidance. I am so sad and enraged at the terrible turn our country as taken and I am powerless to change it alone, yet together, through writing, talking, respecting the Tzelem of the MAGA crowd, I can continue to stay in “line with the divine” and live a little better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark