Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 125
“Upon the grave of the specious we encounter the valid. Much grave digging had to be done. The most fatal trap into which religious thinking may fall is the equation of faith with expediency. The genuine task of our traditions is to educate a sense for the expedient, a sensitivity to God’s demand.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.22)
In an age where the “specious” has become the norm, where the lie is so accepted that truth has lost all meaning, it is incumbent upon all of us to start to bury “the specious” in our daily living. Rabbi Heschel is imploring us to dig deep graves for “the specious” as he experienced first-hand the destruction that comes from not burying it, from engaging with it, from selling it to the masses, and from the myriad of graves never dug for decent, good people. He is harkening us to remember the manipulation of decency for the sake of power, the twisting of what is moral for the sake of scapegoating entire groups of people who were ‘not like us’, and the grift that went along with the supposed ‘taking our proper place of power’ that happened in Germany in the 1930’s. None of these “specious” arguments were valid, yet people believed them, went along with them, joined with them for their own safety?, for their own power?, for their own joy of prejudice and hatred??? How many more graves do we have to dig? When a power is rising that wants authority over all, when an autocrat engages in disrupting free and fair elections in a foreign country and one of the parties running is encouraging, soliciting, and welcoming this engagement, when the autocrat running for office in the US is telling us that he wants to be dictator and now is following through on his promise, when an outbreak of measles is killing people when it could be prevented as it has been for years, are we seeing enough graves to bury “the specious?
It seems as if the second sentence applies to all of us here. While Rabbi Heschel writes this sentence in the past tense, he is acutely aware that this is a task that needs constant vigilance and constant digging. We are seeing this need in full bloom in this moment where an autocrat who cares for nothing other than his own power and image is willing to make ‘deals with the devil’ so he can prevail, so he and his cronies can become wealthier and wealthier, on the backs and to the detriment of the majority of the people who, foolishly in my opinion, voted him back into office. He makes these grand proclamations and then follows them up with NOTHING. He is so proud of himself for making a ‘deal’ with China when he caused chaos and disruption to the people who depend on foreign trade the most, the small businesspeople. Rather than care for them, he made deals for the wealthy so they would not be hurt, he let people who he is transactional with and may need in the future know what he was going to do so they could make more money, and he fucked everyone else. This is “the specious” we all need to bury, this way of being has to be buried deeper and deeper because it keeps coming back to harm us, to harm our neighbors, to harm the stranger we are told to love, to harm the widows, the orphans, the poor and the needy whom Jesus loves and whom God cares for deeply according to the New Testament and the Bible. Do you have your shovels at the ready? Are you willing to bury your own “specious” ways? Lets start digging the graves for “the specious” we are being bombarded with today!
In the writing above, Rabbi Heschel is using “expediency” and “specious” to denote the terrible and horrific ways we have fallen into disrepute as human beings. Because we are so willing to go along with both the “specious” which means “plausible, but wrong” and the “expedient” which means “a means of attaining an end that is convenient but improper and immoral”. We the People have to demand of our Clergy that they cease and desist in their praise of the “specious” and the “expedient” because neither one leads us to Godliness, to Holiness, to Decency, to Doing the Next Right Thing! They lead us to cut the corners of the field that is supposed to be left for the poor, they lead us to make fun of people who have disabilities because we can. Both “expediency” and “specious” give us ‘permission’ to mistreat the stranger under the guise of ‘protecting our citizens’, they give us the ‘go ahead’ to treat women as 2nd Class citizens and put them in their place which is not in leadership! They allow us feed the most negative parts of ourselves by indulging in our prejudices, our biases, and rather than “righteousness, righteousness, you shall pursue” we see Grift, Lies, Power is the best pursuit! AND SOME CLERGY ARE PROMOTING THIS BULLSHIT!!
This is the “most unkindest cut of all”! That Clergy, people who purport to be engaged in doing “God’s Will” support and promote both “expediency” and “specious” arguments is appalling and disgusting. It is the worst of human nature and, in my opinion, breaking all of the last 5 of the 10 Commandments which these PAGANS want displayed in Courts, Schools, all over. It is a joke to think they want to let everyone know which Commandments they are breaking and believing that We the People are too stupid to notice. That the people in whom we are to have the utmost trust are nothing more than panhandlers, thief’s, scammers and cons is, ultimately, the greatest desecration of God’s name one can imagine. We the People have to say NO to these idolators, NO to the autocrats trying to enslave all of us in a nice warm manner, NO to the “specious” and “expedient” tendencies within us and YES to the fundamental moral behaviors that are in our souls, YES to the call and demands of the Universe to “do justly, love mercy” and respect and embrace the infinite worth and dignity of each and every soul. This is our job, this is our choice, this is our gift and this is our honor to live into the basic goodness of being that is, unfortunately, buried deep within some of us and it is incumbent upon We the People to bring it out in ourselves and in another(s).
I have spent the past 38+ years burying the “specious” and the “expedient” and each time I fail to do this, each time I give into these ways of being, I FUCK IT UP! Writing this morning has made all of my screw ups flash in front of me, which happens every day, and I see that at the core of these errors is “specious” and “expediency”, sometimes as a choice and most times unwittingly. This is the work Rabbi Heschel is speaking of, burying these two ways of being so deep, it is almost impossible for them to influence me so strongly again. I am sorry for my succumbing to them. My commitment is to see choices I make through this lens, is it “expedient”, “specious” and if so, walk away. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark