Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 178
“We are never alone in our struggle with evil. A mitsvah, unlike the concept of duty, is not anonymous and impersonal. To do a mitsvah is give an answer to His will, to respond to what He expects of us. This is why an act of mitsvah is preceded by a prayer: “Blessed be Thou…” (God in Search of Man pg. 375)
WOW!! What good news-“we are never alone in our struggle with evil” makes facing “evil” less scarier and more doable for many of us. Yet, at the same time, most people feel alone in their “struggle with evil” because they feel like hypocrites for doing “a mitsvah” and saying a “prayer” while knowing that 5 minutes ago they were overcome by their urges to do something that was not “a mitsvah” and, in fact, was wrong, bad, “evil”. This incongruence, this cognitive dissonance makes many people reject the first sentence above and the rest of the words above. They don’t realize that every human being is flawed, every human being is incongruent, every human being has an urge to do “evil” and the reason “evil” doesn’t dominate people is because they know they are “never alone in our struggle with evil”. We have the Bible, the New Testament, Koran, Buddhist teachings, etc. We have the mitsvah which obligates us to continue the “good fight” to overcome the myriad of urges and rational reasoning that lead to doing “evil” and convincing ourselves that every thing is upside down so we can live with the cruelty and ruination we are causing.
“A mitsvah” is personal, very personal. Some people are able to ‘mail it in’, do “a mitsvah” and not be touched by it, not be changed by the experience, they can even just do “a mitsvah” as a checklist, something to check off and the same is true of prayer-just going through the motions and call themselves ‘religious’, ‘pious’, ‘the keepers of the flame’, and other such lies, mendacities and bullshit. This is not what we are learning above. Since “a mitsvah” “is not anonymous and impersonal”, we have to make sure that we know what we are doing, we have to broadcast doing the next right thing-not for egotistical reasons-so another human being knows what the next right thing to do is, it is a way of teaching humanity about service, about obligation that represents “I GET TO DO THIS”, about the deep personal satisfaction one receives upon looking at the good they have done for another human being, for “His will”, and the knowing that, in this moment, I have responded “to what He expects of us”.
This is why the lies about Jesus, about the “stranger”, the demonizing of another group of people for one’s personal gain, the injustice being served up on a platter, the lies and cruelty shown to We the People in the ‘big bullshit bill’, the arming of a secret police that rivals the Gestapo, the Russian Secret Police, etc is so disturbing to people of faith-real faith not the IDOLATRY that Vought, Osteen, Pence, Bondi, Trump, promote. “A mitsvah” cannot be done in earnest by PAGANS, they may make a mistake and do the next right thing once in a while, and it is either a mistake or a calculated strategy to ‘look good’ so they can pick your pocket somewhere else. What is happening in our country by those ‘good christian nationalist, white supremacy folks’ is NOT what the Bible teaches! It is not what the Torah teaches, no matter how loud Ben G’Vir screams and the ‘orthodox’ Jews yell about the West Bank and Gaza being ‘given to us by god’ to prove their point of superiority-sounds like a playbook used before by those who have persecuted and tormented Jews!
What is happening in the United States, in Israel is criminal by Biblical Standards, in my opinion. These two governments, in the name of We the People are throwing gasoline on democracy and democratic norms, lighting the match like the burning of Jewish Books, Torah Scrolls, Tallis’, Skullcaps, etc on Kristallnacht! How could this have happened? Simple-when one doesn’t recite “a prayer” before doing something, one’s heart, mind, spirit cannot be in alignment, there can be no kavanah, no heart pointing and soul controlling our actions. When one does ‘a mitsvah’ for their own sake and not because this is “what He expects of us”, it is a selfish action that precedes more and more selfish acts and they are done under the guise of protection, retribution, fairness, caring, etc. These selfish acts that people like Netanyahu, Trump, et al perform under the guise of “a mitsvah” are actually acts of cruelty, acts of going directly against “His will”, never responding to “what He expects of us” and abdicating our position of being God’s partner because these PAGANS have decided they know better than god, they are idolators and non-believers kissing babies for show, being prayed over by other PAGANS and everyone is having a big laugh at the expense of the very people Jesus hung out with, the very people the Torah, the Bible tells us to take care of! Then, to have this evil “preceded by a prayer: Blessed by Thou…” by Cain-White, Osteen, Hagee, et al is AVODAH ZARAH- IDOLATRY to the Nth Degree! Yet, many of We the People buy into this bullshit, have put blinders on to what is true and real and merrily go along with cruelty, fascism, racism, which leads to the ruination of our Great Nation because we are no longer “conceived in liberty”, we are no longer concerned with Justice, Mercy and could care less about “walk humbly with God” because they believe to their core that they are god- these ‘good christian, jewish muslim folk’!
Having been a PAGAN for 20 years, from 17-36, I know of what I speak. Having been dedicated to “His will” and “to respond to what He expects of us” for the past 38, I choose LIFE, I choose the “mitsvah” as the way to go because I never have to look over my shoulder, I never have to worry. Being part of a community, a group of friends reminds me I am “never alone in our struggle with evil”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark