Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 129
“We have failed to use the avenues open to us to educate the hearts and minds of men, to identify ourselves with those who are underprivileged. But repentance is more than contrition and remorse for sins, for harms done. Repentance means a new insight, a new spirit. It also means a course of action. ( Insecurity of Freedom pg. 96)
On one hand it seem incomprehensible to me/to many that 62 years after these words were first spoken, 61 years after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, we are in a worse spiritual, moral space as a people, as a nation, as a human race. On the other hand, of course we would be in a space that is more corrupt morally, legally, spiritually because when the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other, both extremes think they can go farther and farther in their ‘self-righteousness’.
In America, since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we have known and “failed to use the avenues open to us to educate the hearts and minds of men”. Since Moses first came down from Mount Sinai on Shavuot, which is coming upon us, Jews and Christians, Muslims have “failed to use the avenues open to us to educate the hearts and minds of me, to identify with those who are underprivileged.” While there have been many missionaries to “those who are underprivileged”, there have been many laws passed to give them some relief, “to identify” means, as I understand the word and the context above, is to realize my own “underprivileged” nature and status. It is to see an “underprivileged” person as my kin, knowing “there but for the grace of God go I” and joining with the person to help them raise up. The missionaries who wanted to ‘help the heathen’ only wanted converts and never converted themselves “to identify with those who are underprivileged”!
In religious schools and meetings, services and discussions, too little time is spent on educating “the hearts and minds of men” towards living into doing the next right thing and too much time is spent on dogma, doctrine, hating our neighbor, holding everyone else to standards we know are impossible to maintain, etc. Our religious life boils down to buying the dogma 100%, bastardizing the Holy Texts to meet our needs, ignoring the parts of Jesus’ life and teachings, the commandments of the Hebrew Bible that are ‘inconvenient’ and go against our own interests. Religion, in many churches, synagogues, mosques, has become nothing more than a place for people to spew hatred for another, suspect their neighbor, praise some idol for the pain inflicted upon “those who are underprivileged” and concentrate on the money, like Joel Osteen, Paula Cain-White, etc.
Adopting Jesus as one’s personal savior, becoming an Observant Jew, a devout Muslim does not mean we are forgiven, it doesn’t mean we can do what we want when we want to because we ‘love god’ and ‘god loves us’. While both of these things may be true for a person, without “repentance” “for harms done” under the guise of our ‘religious’ behaviorism, none of our ‘quick fixes’ will help/atone for our “sins”. This is the greatest lie we tell ourselves, “if we feel bad, do acts of contrition, we have made things right with God”. In Judaism, if one harms a human being, one harms God, so to make things right with God, one first has to make things right with the human being they have harmed. So all the “contrition and remorse” doesn’t mean anything without action! They are just tools people use to make themselves feel better, look caring and other bullshit agendas. Of course, now we not only have the Paula Cain-White’s in the White House, we have a Republican Party that is incapable of even admitting they were wrong, we have a President who believes in his core that everything he does is right, good, the best, the most beautiful, the smartest, shrewdest, etc. So there is not even “remorse” nor “contrition”! This is another example of how far the extreme right has taken the USA and the MAGA people who are loving it, will be in for a surprise when they find they grifters in charge, the PAGANS in the Government and on the Dais of the Churches, Mosques, Temples don’t care about them, will hurt them with their ideas and get richer quicker schemes, and end our “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” so they can have their “fourth reich”. Thank you Russell Vought, thank you John Roberts, thank you dumb Democrats, thank you to all of the MAGA people who think it is fun to not “educate the hearts and minds of men” with the spiritual and moral goodness of our Bibles.
We the People are wasting time with arguing with people who cannot/will not hear truth, cannot/will not consider any other point of view than that of Trump, accept the facts instead of the alternative ones given by Trump et al, believe they are more worthy and dignified than “those who are underprivileged”. It is way past time for We the People to once again pull on the “moral ark of the Universe” and bend it, once again towards justice. Justice, Justice, you shall pursue, or Righteousness, Righteousness you shall pursue comes from Deuteronomy and is Moses’ exhorting the people to not do everything happening right now. Be it here in America, in Israel, (of course in the autocracies), the perversion of Justice, the degradation of Righteousness is the Cancer that is spreading throughout all of these countries. This can only happen when We the People are willing co-conspirators with the powers who are trying to destroy us, either through inaction, indifference, stupidity, apathy, etc. We the People are being called once again to end this racism, stop the evil that is flourishing in our midst and put real roadblocks up so we never have to do this again, so we never have to face the spread of blaming ‘the other’ for the ills we have brought upon ourselves, so we never resort to “scapegoats” to assuage our guilt. We the People have to engage in honest and truthful repentance, we have to find the new insights that our errors give us, we have to find the new paths that will set us and those around us free and on the road to happy destiny.
This has been the thrust of my life and my Rabbinate in recovery. I work hard to “educate the hearts and minds of me, identify with those who are underprivileged”. I also engage in “repentance” as Rabbi Heschel describes it. My frustration is I don’t know if I succeed in my endeavors, I don’t know if people hear me or treat me like the flys, making noise and better ignored, or get out the spray to kill the noise and the fly. I just know that I have to keep moving forward, I have to keep doing my thing because this is the way I fight my own bias’ and your prejudices. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark