Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day136
“Required is a breakthrough, a leap of action. It is the deed that will purify the heart. It is the deed that will sanctify the mind. The deed is the test, the trial, and the risk. (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 97)
These sentences bring to mind for me, Moses’ challenge to the children of the slaves who left Egypt as his own life was drawing to a close: “Heaven and Earth are my witnesses, I put before you life and death, blessing and curse, CHOOSE LIFE! (Deuteronomy 30:19). To make a choice is to take an action, to choose life is an action that honors oneself, honors humanity, and makes it possible to stand up to the testimony of “heaven and earth”. This is a reminder that We the People are being called to “choose Life” in every mundane deed we do, to realize that We the People have it within our power to bless ourselves and one another and to curse ourselves and one another. It is not about ‘god’ or ‘the devil’ doing anything to us, it is about our choices, blessing and life, curse and death. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling out to us to remember that every deed has implications of the choice Moses laid out for We the People!
What do We the People have to “breakthrough”? Our own apathy, our own indifference, our own lack of spiritual strength to make the choice Torah reminds us of. When we are indifferent to the suffering of another because we say “thank god it isn’t me”, we are in desperate need to have a “breakthrough” by our intuitive mind to remind our rational mind that “what one does to another human being, they will do to you”. The lunacy of believing any of us are immune to Trump’s chaos, to his hatred, to his racism, to his delusions of grandeur and belief that he is the DON of DON’s in mafia language is inexplicable at this point-yet there are many who believe they are immune. I would suggest they look at Elon Musk who not only is not part of the ‘team’ anymore, his companies have lost a lot of value. I would suggest they look at Bibi and Israel and see how Trump has abandoned them to deal with Hamas directly and praise the Syrian President who killed many Americans. I would suggest they look at the people who were in the first Trump White House who have been targeted for truth telling. I would suggest they look at the people, institutions, businesses who are being targeted by the Tariffs and Trump himself because they are not bending over enough for him to fuck them so he will fuck them any way he can. Remaining indifferent to the plight of immigrants is reminiscent of 1930’s Germany when people were indifferent to the plight of the Jews and to have someone raised a Jew who has Holocaust survivors in his family tree be the person leading this discrimination is BEYOND, BEYOND! Having Jews cheer Trump and Miller on is the most disgusting display of ignorance, ass-kissing, spiritual bastardization and desecration of God’s Name one could imagine! Yet, here we are.
The “leap of action, is a change in our way of being, it is to remember that God cares about the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the needy as well as the rest of us, there is no human being that God is not concerned with, according to the Bible, according to the actions of Christ. Yet, we are witnessing people who tell us that harsh treatment of the stranger, enslaving the poor, imprisoning the needy is exactly what Christ desires and what the Bible speaks of-where they find these one liners is a mystery to me and how they contort themselves like a pretzel to come up with these interpretations is amazing-all in the name of keeping themselves dirty while trying to portray ‘purity’ to the masses. Be it the Orthodox Rabbis who proclaim that Oct 7 was god’s wake-up call to the Israelis to take over all of the land, Joel Osteen and John Hagee who claim Christ wants his pastors to be rich and by donating to them the people will become rich, or Paula Cain-White promising Passover Blessing for buying her crosses, WE THE PEOPLE have to say NO to the CURSES of Trump and his supporters, fellow grifters. WE THE PEOPLE have to “require a breakthrough” by our lawmakers and force them to take “ a leap of action”, insist they “purify their hearts” through “the deed” and they allow “the deed to sanctify their mind”. All of this happens when we realize that it is only through our actions that redemption will come, only through our T’Shuvah/Amends will life change for us and for the many, only through making our rational mind a servant to our intuitive mind will we be able to see what the next right action to take is. We are in desperate times and these times call for deliberate actions, they are calling out to We the People to engage with and stand with God as the Torah directs us to.
Living an examined life is always a risk, taking a “leap of action” “the test, the trial” because both involve truth with oneself, they involve the judgement of another, they involve taking a stand for what is right, what is good, what is true. These are not popular ways, as we have seen throughout the millennia. Yet, trying to live according to “the script’ society lays out for us hasn’t been so good for us either, addiction, murders, wars, greed, etc continue to be our plagues. We repeat the Tower of Babel story every day with the ways we treat ‘those people’ (whomever ‘those people are today). We keep hearing proclamations that “God is on our side” by the religious communities on both ends of the spectrum and, as I was saying to Harriet yesterday, isn’t it time for us to BE ON GOD’S SIDE? This is another message I am hearing loud and clear this morning from Rabbi Heschel. We the People are being called to take “a leap of action” to CHOOSE LIFE! We need to “breakthrough” our indifferences and our fears, our apathy and our wanting to fit in. We the People are being called to “purify our hearts.. sanctify our minds” so we can meet “the test, the trial” head on and no longer be more afraid of taking “the risk” than we should be of not taking the “risk”. It isn’t easy nor is it ‘safe’, it is necessary, however, if we are to be able to live in and with integrity, if we are to follow the words of Reb Zusya, “they will ask me: why were you not more like Zusya?”
I have been engaging in these “breakthroughs” for most of my life, ignoring many of them when I was in my ‘addictive’ years and following them in my recovery years. It isn’t easy, nor do I do either quietly. I cannot follow the script, as Harriet reminded me yesterday and, truth be told, I don’t want to. I have to live with myself, I have to be in truth, I have to shout it from the rooftops because this is the calling I hear for myself, to stand with and on God’s side, to hear the prophets and be worthy of being their descendant. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark