Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 182
“There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God. The fear lest we hurt a poor man must be as deep as the fear of God, for He that oppresses the poor blasphemes his maker, but he who is gracious unto the needy honors Him(Proverbs 14:31) (God in Search of Man pg. 375)
“Reverence” comes from the Latin word “revereri” which means “stand in awe of”, so the first sentence above is really speaking about our ability to “stand in awe” of God and one another. The Hebrew word would be Yirah-awe/fear and while many people see these two words as opposites, I see them as complimentary and necessary for a true experience of both God and humans. While this is not a ‘new’ concept that Rabbi Heschel thought up, it is a concept that needs repeating daily by each one of us. We the People are in desperate need of “standing in awe of” one another rather than standing in contempt, standing in deceit, standing in cruelty towards one another. In fact, as ChatGPT tells us, there is a great difference between the words “towards” and “of”. Of means belonging and towards indicates direction, attitude. We cannot say We the People, exclude the “stranger among us” and say we are a ‘christian nation’ because the Bible teaches us to “welcome the stranger”, to “love the stranger”, to “have one law for the stranger and citizen alike”. Jesus hung out with the lepers, the poor, the stranger, he welcomed everyone because he knew, just like the Biblical figures knew that “without reverence for man” there cannot be “reverence for God”.
It is crucial for our spiritual growth, for our continued existence on this planet that We the People engage in “love of man” as well. Without love of human beings, we cannot love ourselves nor God. I am using human beings rather than humanity because it is not enough to say ‘I love humanity’, or ‘I am a humanist’ because as we have seen, possibly said and done, one can love the idea of humanity and hate people, one can love the idea of humanity and be cruel to ‘those people’, one can speak of ‘love of god’ and deport a person to South Sudan without the benefit of due process with some of We the People not saying a peep! When we engage in the second sentence above, it becomes impossible to act with the cruelty which we have seen happen in our lifetimes, we have learned about in history, we have engaged in ourselves, we have condoned by our leaders, we have stayed silent and willfully blind to as a ‘protection’. We the People stand guilty of ignoring the truth, the demand, not immersing ourselves in the truths above.and in the truths of the Bible, New Testament, etc. We the People are being called by the situation at hand, by the times we are in to make the same hard decisions as the prophets made.
We the People are being called to stand up and fight for the dignity of every human being. We the People need to hear the demand to “Be Holy because I, Adonai, am Holy” from Leviticus 19:2. We the People are being reminded that no one is greater than another human being ‘in the eyes of God’ nor should they be ‘in the eyes of human beings’, that every human being is created in “the mold of Adam” and therefore we all have “infinite dignity, equal dignity, and we are all unique-there is no one else like us” as Rabbi Yitz Greenberg taught the Ziegler Rabbinical Students in Summer 1997. As Rabb Adin Steinsaltz, z”l, teaches /writes in 13 Petalled Rose each of us has our own unique purpose, our own “acorn” as James Hillman writes in Soul’s Code, which makes all this comparison, competition, cheating, grifting, ‘low-self esteem’, ego-maniacal, narcissistic ways of being, the bowing low to ‘der Fuhrer’ RIDICULOUS and a BLATANT example of AVODAH ZARAH-IDOL WORSHIP.
Which brings us to the ‘religious leadership in some faiths, in some sects: they are the BLASPHEMERS, they are the PAGANS, they are the IDOLATORS, not We the People, it is the leadership of some Evangelical Christians, some Evangelical Orthodox Jews, some Evangelical Radical Muslims, that has forgotten that “there is no reverence for God without reverence for man” and one cannot condone the killing of innocent men, women children and say one has “reverence for God”. One cannot lock people up for seeking a refuge, a sanctuary from the abuse, the torture of their home countries, following in the tradition of the Puritans, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, the Chinese, the Irish, the Italians, Germans, Jews who sought refuge in America from the extreme conditions they were suffering in their countries of origin.
We the People have to once again “hear the voice at Mount Sinai”, We have to once again seek to be part of the “oneness” that we end the Shema prayer with, belonging: in Godly actions, in our love for one another, in our awe of one another, in our treatment of one another, in holding one another accountable for our good actions as well as our not good ones. We the People are being reminded of our task to “be a blessing” as descendants of Abraham, to “wrestle with God” as our name Yisrael means. We the People need to change the trajectory of our descent into making the world a living hell and go deep into ourselves so we can raise up our daily living and our world to the image that God gives us in the Bible.
I have been in awe of people whether I like them or not, most of the past 38 years. Sometimes I have been in awe of their stupidity(my impression) and sometimes in awe of their brilliance, in awe of their loyalty to principles and in awe of their loyalty to the con/grift. I have stayed loyal to the principles of the Bible for the most part of these years of recovery and I stand in awe and love of human beings so I can love God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.2