Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 160
“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)
“In this world, it seems, the holy and unholy do not exist apart, but are mixed, interrelated, and confounded” is the great conundrum we all face. It is the essence of living in the both/and rather than the either/or. We the People are very quick to see every experience in a binary way-it is either good or bad, winning or losing, right or wrong and the words above come to pour cold water on us so we can see what really is, that life is not so binary, that every decision and action is mixed with “the holy and unholy” and we have to tease out what is good and right and what is egocentric, wrong and not right. We are being challenged by Rabbi Heschel’s words and by current events, by our allegiances to country, to democracy, to the rule of law, and by familial duties and obligations.
Trump and Bibi will be hailed as heroes for making the Iranian truce-which may or may not be and hold, since Bibi has never had a cease-fire that hasn’t been violated by the other side, be it Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinians in the West Bank, etc. Trump did a good thing with his bombing run-full stop, Iran is a BAD ACTOR, this however, doesn’t make Trump a paragon of virtue, nor does it prove Bibi’s way of being is good for Israel nor does it prove either one is moral and decent. These two are prime examples of “evil” being “mixed, interrelated, and confounded” with “the holy and unholy”. While what happens in the Middle East has a profound effect on our lives, what happens with the Military ‘taking the streets back’ from We the People, from the peaceful protestors; what happens with “masked men” pulling people out of cars, off the streets and locking them up whether they are citizens or not, whether they are criminals or not has an even greater effect on our lives! Whether the Orthodox rule the various governmental offices in Israel, whether Bibi and his gang of thugs can decimate the legal system in Israel as Trump is trying to do here in America, has profound effects on the lives of Israelis as it does on the lives of Americans.
When the Constitution is seen as a document to bastardize and break with both the letter and spirit of it, “the holy and unholy do not exist apart”. When the Declaration of Independence holds no power over officials in the governments here and in Israel, “evil” becomes “mixed, interrelated and confounded” with the good. When We the People go along because Bibi, Trump did something great with Iran, and we forget the rest of their agenda that is so demeaning and destabilizing to our democratic foundations, We the People have “mixed, interrelated, and confounded” truth, goodness, love, with deception, cruelty and hatred, and this could be the “missing the mark” that spells the end of “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. While it has endured for 249 years in fits and starts, it has moved towards and away from the spirit of both of our founding documents, today we are facing a threat that wants to send us back to the King George days with Donald Trump as king - God Forbid, tuy, tuy, as my Grandmother would say:) We the People need to do the work of discernment, not paint everyone with the same brush, not make ‘good guys and bad guys’, not deny that evil people can do good things-if it seems in their best interest, like Trump’s bombing of Iran so he can get the Nobel Peace Prize, so he can brag about how strong he is, and Bibi can chortle as to how he played Trump to do his bidding-fine men they are!
We the People have to start with ourselves, however. Beginning with our own confusion of “holy and unholy”, our own unique ways of mixing, interrelating, and confounding “evil” with good. Be it in the ways we parent, the ways we are bosses or employees, the ways we are in the grocery store, or walking on the way, We the People have to be aware and on guard because mixing shit up is normal, it is easy, it seems natural and “self-deception is a major disease” as Rabbi Heschel says in his 1972 Interview with Carl Stern. We the People are being called to account for the ways we have dressed “idols” so they “may be rich in beauty and where the worship of God may be tinged with wickedness”. We the People have allowed this to happen, We the People have helped this to happen, and We the People have created these ‘beautiful’ “idols” and encouraged, supported the people who lead us to “worship God” with a tinge of “wickedness”. Be it Paula White-Cain, Joel Osteen, the Rabbis who support the cruelty of Trump because ‘he is good for the Jews’ while he has rabid anti-semites around him, be it anyone who is following these idolators, these charlatans who have only their self-interest at heart rather than the interests of God, of Spiritual wholeness, of living a life of spiritual principles and separating the “holy and unholy” from the terrible confounding and confusion we are in now. When the spin is called truth, when FOX is determining who is running the Government, who is ‘camera-ready’ for leading a governmental agency, when a 22 year-old punk is the head of Homeland Security’s top anti-terrorism person, We the People are guilty of abdicating our responsibility, our call, our spiritual and moral truths, and ‘missing the mark’ with God. It is Way Past Time for We the People to get our own house in order and end our fascination and our narcissistic love of confusing and confounding the GOOD with “evil”, the HOLY with “the unholy”.
I have been fighting for the “good” for a long time. In fact this fight led me down the wrong path when I was younger. I was so frustrated by the bullshit and lies and my inability to fight them, I was alone and lonely without my father’s guidance and encouragement, so I gave up and gave in. I have been dedicated to separating “the holy and unholy” ever since 1987. It is hard and I fail at times, less that I used to and less each day, however. It is possible to hold two opposing thoughts in my mind at the same time-like Bibi and Trump being bad guys who did a good thing! In my daily T’Shuvah, I keep looking for any “wickedness” and “idols” that I still fall into and, again, it is less and less each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark