Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 137
“Humanity can thrive only when challenged, when called upon to answer new demands, to reach out for new heights. Imagine how smug, complacent, vapid, and foolish we would be, if we had to subsist on prosperity alone. It is for us to understand that religion is not sentimentality, that God is not a patron. Religion is a demand, God is a challenge, speaking to us in the language of human situations.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.97)
We the People are being challenged each and every day, every minute of every day and, judging by the chaos that is ruling us all right now, we are not meeting the challenges so well! We the People do not have to “imagine how smug, complacent, vapid and foolish we would be” because WE ARE! There is no need to imagine, we are already here and the MAGA world is bowing and genuflecting at the feet of Miller, Trump, Vance, Lutnick, Ben Shapiro, and Witkoff, et al. They have no idea how screwed they are with this ‘big beautiful bill’ that will mortgage the future, cause interest rates to go up, could cause a rise in inflation, and, wait for it, KISS The ASSES OF THE 1%!
As we approach Shavuot, the time of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, I want to call attention to those ‘great jews’, those ‘torah-desecrating jews’ who celebrate Trump and his thugs along with Bibi and his thugs. Rather than meet the “challenges” of today, rather than “answer new demands” these Charlatans, these PAGANS are calling this ‘god’s will’ -it may be, yet many of us have no idea what god they are worshiping. They have made a conscious decision to ‘worship gods they do not know’, ie money, power, fame, so they can clean up their self-serving, narcissistic actions as ‘god’s will’! BULLSHIT, I call on you PAGANS trying to pass yourself off as Torah Jews. Read the Torah, see how many times it says care/love the stranger, how many times it talks about holiness and how to live with one another, how much redemption is focused on be it at the Sea, at Mount Sinai, in the Desert, the entire book of Leviticus. Rather than accept the Will of God that people should be free, these ASSHOLE PAGANS are trying to put everyone under their thumb. These desecrators of God’s name are arm in arm with Osteen, Cain-White, Hagee, et al.
Rather than read, study, follow the great thinkers and Jews of centuries past, like Ramban, Rambam, Buber, the Baal Shem Tov, Reb Nachman, Rabbi Heschel, these desecrators are following the likes of Meir Kahane, the ways of the Jews who engaged in senseless hatred during the first and second destructions of the Temples. These ‘grosse yidden’ believe they can act in the same ways that have brought calamity to our people in the Desert, at the Sea, in the land of Israel and in the Diaspora and everything will be okay because they “have God on their side” as the Bob Dylan song from 1963. The lyrics tell it all, and while many do not consider Dylan a religious human being, the last stanza says it all: “So now as I’m leaving, I’m weary as hell. The confusion I’m feeling ain’t no tongue can tell, the words fill my head and they fall to the floor, That if God’s on our side, he’ll stop the next war!” Isn’t this what the main thrust of the Bible, of the Torah all about? Isn’t the most ink in the Bible given to how to repent, how to redeem, how to return to God, to “all of its ways are ways of pleasantness and all of its paths are Shalom(peace/wholeness/welcoming)? Yet the “rabbis” in charge of the Trump/Bibi loving groups want cruelty and destruction, they do not want “one law for the stranger and citizen alike”. They want power and wealth, they do not want “redeem your kinsman”. They want to be ‘king’ or close to the ‘king’, they do not want “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. They do not want judges who will not take bribes, they do not want elected officials who believe their duty is to serve a higher calling than the whims of PAGANS. They do not want to hear about “new heights” because they are so focused on new lows and these PAGANS are calling themselves ‘religious’?!?! I hear Rabbi Heschel calling them out, I hear our ancestors, the prophets, railing against them, I hear my relatives asking “du bist a Yid, you are a Jew?”
We the People are needed to “thrive” once again. It is up to us to MAKE HUMANITY GREAT AGAIN, not that we ever have reached the top in our history. It is up to We the People to deny the PAGANS the victories they so desire, it is up to us to call out these PAGANS in all faiths, for me, especially Jews, who are willing to deny the Truth of the Bible, the Call of the Torah, the Spirit of God that hovers over us looking to be let into our hearts. It is up to We the People to circumcise our hearts so the light of the universe, the intuitive mind can overtake the selfish, narcissistic ‘rational’ brain that only seeks instant gratification, that believes they are greater when they put another ‘in his place’, that a woman is ‘to serve a man, have no independent thoughts, etc’. Rather than realize the Life-Saving actions of women in the Torah, in the Bible, these ‘frum jews’ ignore the debt we owe to the women ancestors, deny the wisdom of our mothers, grandmothers, etc. We the People are being given an opportunity to right the wrongs that have been perpetrated from centuries. We the People are being given the opportunity to end the smugness, the complacency, the vapidity, and the foolishness that is and has been overtaking us as individuals and as groups of people. We the People ave being challenged to tell the ‘UnRelgious Right’ to move out of the way for the People of God, Jew, Christian, Muslim, are taking back the reins and giving them over to God’s will as told to us by Moses, by Jesus, by Mohammed, not as interpreted by the PAGANS!
I have been seeking to “answer new demands” each and every day and I do, sometimes well and others, well I miss the mark. I know I am challenged each do so I can thrive and grow, no pain-no gain as the saying goes. I refuse to be smug, vapid, foolish nor complacent and I have railed against the people who engage in these ways. My railing, my loudness, my ‘inappropriate’ ways get me into trouble in the ‘politically correct’ atmosphere that was and the one that is-it is politically correct to hate ‘those people’ and I say BULLSHIT to Trump, Miller, Bibi, Ben G’Vir, et al. It is not politically correct in Judaism to really live into the words of the prophets, they have to be mitigated by the Rabbis because the Rabbis were afraid of losing control of the people. I have lost a lot because I am unrelenting in my aversion to smugness, vapidity, foolishness, etc and I am cool with it because to hold on to my position, my place, money by acting in these abhorrent ways would kill me. God bless those who can and believe they are ‘fighting the good fight’. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark