Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 140
“There are those who maintain that the situation is too grave for us to do much about it, that whatever we might do would be “too little and too late,” that the most practical thing we can do is “to weep” and to despair. If such a message is true, that God has spoken in vain. Such a message is four thousand years too late. It is good Babylonian theology. In the meantime, certain things have happened: Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, the Christian Gospel.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 97-98)
These words have been heard throughout the millennia, “it is too little, too late”, “let’s put on sackcloth and wail because nothing good will happen,” “woe is me, woe is we” and other such laments. There is an entire book of the Bible called Lamentations written about the destruction of the 1st Temple and read on Tisha B’Av each year. Yet, in Judaism, we take one day to lament all the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people except for the Shoah. I was taught that Tisha B’Av is the day we remember and repent/change our ways because the Temples were destroyed because of our behaviors, not caring for the poor and the needy, not welcoming and loving the stranger, senseless hatred amongst the people, taking advantage of the widow and the orphan, putting a stumbling block before the blind, cursing the deaf, ad nauseam. Yet, to their credit, the Rabbis began a “House of Study” in Babylon during the exile that became a great center of Jewish learning, the returning Judeans built the 2nd Temple, although maybe they should not have, in order to give the Kohanim their power back without the Kohanim taking responsibility for their spiritual and communal crimes. Even the laments of the prophets ended with the hope that upon our T’Shuvah, our return to Godly Principles and living righteously, we would come back.
There are many people today who are lamenting like the the Israelites did in the desert and at the Sea, “did you bring us here to die, why did you not leave us in Egypt, with the fleshpots to eat out of…” The Israelites, in their moments of despair had euphoric recall, imagining things as they were not! Just as people today, want to romanticize the “good old days” of Andrew Jackson, of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. They want to rewrite history so what is going on now is a return to “those good old days” which were replete with racism, xenophobia, screwing over the workers, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, etc. The people in charge today want us to believe they are saving us from unions, from cheats and fraudsters, from being ‘on the dole’, etc. Therefore, give more money to the rich in tax cuts, make it harder for the poor and lower middle income people to get good medical care, screw over the seniors who depend on Social Security because they kept their end of the promise and this government doesn’t want to honor their commitment, and ‘don’t worry, the richer becoming rich is good for your poor schmucks’ and the tariffs are wonderful and beautiful. And they call themselves “good christian folk”!!!!
Rather than live into the “Christian Gospel” these PAGANS are following the Babylonian playbook, the Roman playbook, the authoritarian playbook. They have supposed Goebbels’ in their accusing everyone else of doing what they are actually doing. They have made the “stranger” an enemy instead of loving and welcoming them, they have made us suspicious of our neighbors, afraid to speak out about the abuses happening for fear of being shunned and, eventually, hunted and charged with one of their ‘trumped’ up charges. This makes many of us “weep” and go “to despair”. This is a carefully orchestrated campaign that many people think is just willy-nilly. Trump actually knows exactly what he is doing, following the script Roy Cohn taught him 50-60 years ago, and making us completely off balance so we cannot get our bearings nor can we organize properly. Trump has been a grifter forever and he has manipulated the press, the courts, the bankruptcy laws, and everyone else for his benefit all the way up to promising to screw everyone over as a ‘retribution’ for the people he is screwing over now. The most obvious result of “despair”, of “weeping” of “wailing” is the people doing these actions will believe anyone who promises to “be your retribution” without discerning the truth of their words or the content of the character, nor the qualities of their soul.
We the People are being called back to reality with the words above. The reality is that “Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, the Christian Gospel” are the antidotes to Trumpism, to Bibi-ism, to hatred, “despair”, “weep” and “wail”. We the People have the solutions to the issues facing us today, we have always had them since the Bible was first disseminated in ancient Canaan, and “your mission, People, is to USE them to combat the worst traits of humanity from continuing to ruin peoples’ lives, to denigrate the Image of God that resides in every person, to end the senseless hatred being promoted. Read the words and see the actions of Jesus and, for those of the Christian faith(Vance, Vought, TRUMP, et al) live them instead of living the opposite of Jesus’ ways. For Jews, read the words of the Torah, the Bible, and hear the rebukes of the Prophets, do your own T’Shuvah and repair the damage you have wrought by being like ‘those people’, who “blesses him/herself in their heart saying, I will have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart”. We the People are being called once again to Stand Up, to Repent and Return so God can “heal our backsliding and take us back in love”. We the People have the power and the path to refute and repel the despicable ways of the people in power today, we have the spiritual teachings to lead us in rising up against the tyranny we are experiencing from the Prophetic literature and all the descendants of the Prophets through the ages who have stood up. We the People have the examples of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War protest years. We the People must do something so we combat the despair that couches at our door.
I have had moments of despair, I know the overwhelming power of it and, have rejected living in despair, because as Reb Nachman teaches; despair is the worst sin. Nothing good happens from sitting in despair, it is, in a way, joining the enemy by humiliating ourselves and denigrating ourselves. We are all divine reminders, we all have infinite dignity and NO ASSHOLE is going to take this truth from me. I have, at times, damaged my dignity by my own actions and it has never been ‘because of someone else’, it has been, is and always will be because I made the choice to tarnish my dignity. As I see the many times I did, I am shaking my head and know that those are in my rearview mirror because I am more aware and protective of my dignity and worth, ergo, NO DESPAIR! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark