Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 159
“Even more frustrating than the fact that evil is real, mighty, and tempting is the fact that it thrives so well in the disguise of the good, that it can draw its nutriment from the life of the holy. In this world, it seems, the holy and unholy do not exist apart, but are mixed, interrelated and confounded. It is a world where idols may be rich in beauty, and where the worship of God may be tinged with wickedness.” ( God in Search of Man pg. 369)
Reading the first sentence above, knowing it is as true today as it was 70 years ago, as it was 2000 years ago, 2500 years ago, is sad and hopeful. It is sad because We the People seem incapable of learning the lessons of the prophets, the lessons of the Bible, the lessons of what “evil”, when it is “in the disguise of the good” does to the inner life of human beings and the horrific deeds we perpetrate upon one another, ‘in the name of god’, not in the Name of God, rather in the name of one’s self-interest, one’s narcissistic needs, in the name of power, prestige and wealth. Because this way of lying and deceiving has been around since the days before the 1st Temple, many people believe that religion is full of shit and just a meaningless way for ‘them’ to control the rest of us. This point is not without merit-most of the dogmatic followers, the evangelicalism in all faiths are in it for control and for themselves, no matter what they say and this is a prime example of “evil” “in the disguise of the good”.
We witness this with the bombing of Iranian Nuclear sites by the United States; Iran is a Bad Actor and can no more be believed than Trump or Bibi or any of the other autocrats in the world. Yet, there is a hint of “evil” here because for both Bibi and Trump, this action and the actions of Israel’s strikes on Iran also got the heat off of both for not bringing the hostages home and the continued destruction of Gaza(Bibi) and the National Guard and Marines coming into LA and other Democratic led cities and States(Trump) as well as ‘the big beautiful bill’ which will inflict more pain on We the People along with the tariffs. J D Vance claims it wasn’t an attack on Iran, only on Iran Nuclear Facilities, I am sure he would feel that way if someone attacked one of our naval shipyards saying it was only an attack on the U.S. Naval facility! When pure bullshit is dressed up like a pig in a tuxedo, We the People have to see the pig, not the tuxedo and the bullshit, not the deception.
Another example of “evil” thriving “so well in the disguise of the good” is how many “holy rollers” of religious acclaim keep asking for more money because ‘god’ wants them to be prosperous and if one can’t be prosperous than one should make sure their clergy is! What bullshit is being spread by Osteen, White-Cain, et al - do preachers really need many homes, cars, private Jets, all the while bastardizing Jesus’ words and deeds?? This is an example of “evil” being able to “draw its nutriment from the life of the holy”. It is true for people like Ben G’Vir and Smotrich and the other ‘orthodox’ Jews who demand total allegiance to dogma and no allegiance to the words of the Bible that remind us to “love the stranger”, “there shall be one law for the stranger and the citizen alike”, “care for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy”. The issue for We the People, is when are we going to demand truth and goodness be our motto and our goal, when are we going to demand from ourselves and one another that we be the “good people” who take action instead of letting “evil flourish” as the saying goes? When are We the People going to ingest the words of Martin Niemoller who reminds us of our obligation to stand for and with Truth, Love, Kindness, and against Evil, Mendacity and Deception-both self and buying the deceptions of another.
This is the great challenge for We the People. The words above, which I will elaborate more on tomorrow, call us to look inside of ourselves before we point our fingers, it demands of us a truthful, fearless, and painstakingly inventory of our actions, our thoughts, our ways of being - coming to terms with the ways we “miss the mark” of decency and the holy, the ways we surrender to the “evil” that is “real, mighty and tempting”, the ways we have used “the life of the holy” to supply “nutriment” to the evil that resides within us. We the People have to discern between “evil” and our own “evil inclination”. While both come from God, (in Judaism we don’t have a devil on the same level as God) the “evil inclination” is part of the Or HaGanuze, the hidden light that was present on the first day of creation and then hidden within each human being to help settle the Tohu V’Vohu, the chaotic void that also exists in every person, while “evil” is the abdication of wrestling with one’s disparate parts. Not fighting, but focusing as a friend spoke to me about yesterday. Focus on what the task at hand is and in every opportunity the main task is not to finish the task, not to ‘win the day’, but to separate the “evil” from the good and not have our “holy” actions give food, shelter to “evil”.
Most of us are oblivious to how we mix “evil” with “good”, how we feed our own “evil inclinations” with “the holy” and then perpetrate “evil” and “choose death/curse” as Moses cautions us against doing at the end of Deuteronomy. Most of us are oblivious to the truth that we have within us the wherewithal to Choose Life, to Be a Blessing. We are oblivious to the spiritual messages of our intuitive mind, our soul’s speaking to us and this is the reason that the truthful, fearless, painstakingly inventory is so crucial to our well-being. With the ability to destroy the world comes the responsibility to save it, no matter what those ‘good christian folks’ who are dying for Armageddon want! We the People have to take off our blinders, we have to put on “a new pair of glasses”, and we have to “lift up our eyes and see” what is true, what is good, what is holy and what is false, what is wrong, what is “evil”. This is the separation, the discernment that has to go into every action we take, no matter what our self-interest, our narcissism, our indifference are screaming at us!
It is a hard way of living, just as Malcolm X. He was right, an examined life is difficult and it is the only way to live well. The exploring of “evil” that is “in the disguise of the good” has been my life’s work since 1987 and it is an ongoing, unfinished work. I keep looking for when my interest conflicts with God’s, when my actions give “nutriment” to “evil”, when I have been willfully blind to the truth because I believed in “my rightness”. There are at least a few times this has been true in the past 38 years:) ha ha!!. And I am constantly reviewing my life and making the T’Shuvah necessary. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark