Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 183
“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)
Reading and re-reading the words above in bold I am reminded of the story of King David, Bathsheba, Uriah and the prophet Nathan. Nathan tells David a story of a rich man who steals the only thing the poor man has, an ewe, so he can offer a meal to a traveler without it costing him anything. David is enraged and wants to kill the rich man and then Nathan says: “That man is you” and David puts on sackcloth and repents. David the King forgot to have “the fear lest we hurt a poor man must be as deep as the fear of God” and life changed for him for quite a while afterward, his connection to God was diminished, not by God but by his inability to keep his personal covenant with God. This is the daily challenge we all face, keeping our personal covenant with God so we keep our spiritual connection to the universe, to our higher consciousness, growing, thriving and open.
When Mike Johnson, the PAGAN, the Idolator, the false ‘christian’ proclaims that if you want to know his politics, read the Bible, we know he DOESN’T READ IT! When the evangelicals like Joni Ernst proclaim their ‘loyalty’ to Jesus Christ, we know they ARE DISLOYAL! When Ben G’Vir and his thugs proclaim they are ‘torah jews’, we know they read a different Bible than the rest of us because they pick out obscure inserts that go agains the main thrust of the Torah and they are the epitome of “he that oppresses the poor blasphemies his maker”! Rather than learn from King David, rather than hear the and immerse themselves in the numerous times of how to love the stranger, care for the poor, give dignity and aid to the needy, rather than “redeem your kinsman”, rather than “love your neighbor as yourself”, these PAGANS continue to say one thing and do another, speak with “forked tongue” and, in the case of Netanyahu, say one thing in English and the exact opposite in Hebrew. The chutzpah of these assholes is undeniable and unbelievable, the buying of their deceptions and bullshit by We the People is unfathomable.
How we got here is important and not as important as how to we return to living decently, living in a free society once again, living in and with “reverence for God”? I believe Rabbi Heschel’s words above are one of the ways to come back to living in God’s will and God’s light, returning to the spiritual nature we are born with and the personal covenant we all have been given at birth. Each of us has a different calling, each of us has our own unique spiritual mission, personal covenant. We are not being called to compete and compare with one another as the words above indicate, we are being called to help one another, to not give in to our negative urge to ‘win at all costs’, to fuck over the little guy because the rich are in so much need of more tax cuts, more money, more de-regulation, more polluting, more screwing with the Ozone, more investment income and less taxes, they should never have to “pay their fair share” because they are rich. Like King David in the story above, Trump, Vought, Bezos, Vance, Johnson, Ernst, et al believe it is good and right for the rich to steal from the poor so they don’t have to have any skin in the game when a traveler comes to visit, so they don’t have to support the very country that has made it possible for them to be rich, that they are not responsible to the journey their ancestors made to come to the United States so they could have a better life. No, instead of doing the next right thing, they blame the very class of people their ancestors were, they do to another group of people exactly what was done to their ancestors when they came here. “What is hateful to you do not do to another human being” is an antiquated saying to the PAGANS like Ben G’Vir, Netanyahu, Smotrich and the Rabbis and Jews who clap for them and support them. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has been transformed by those ‘good christian nationalist folks’ like Johnson, to “fuck the poor, the needy, the stranger” and use them for personal gain.
We the People have to renew our personal covenant with God, we have to renew our spiritual commitment to do the next right thing, we have to leave the Egypt of callousness and cruelty. We the People both here in the USA and in Israel have to stand up and rebel against the fascists like Vance, Netanyahu, Miller, Katz, and the rest of their gang of thugs. We the People have to restore within us the trembling awe, the fear that leads to “know before whom you stand” so we grow into the truth that every person is a reminder of God, that everyone, even Trump, Netanyahu, are created in the Image of God and, We the People have to “come to Pharaoh” and if their divine image is so buried, their egos are so inflated they will not listen, then they have to drown in their own “red sea” and We the People have to redeem our kinsman, welcome the stranger, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. We the People are being called to stand for and on the Spiritual Principles that the Bible gives us, to live our Spiritual Principles our loud and, in today’s world, very loudly. Will you answer this call?
I have been very loud over the years, as both a con man and a recovering person. I cannot “stand idly by the blood of my neighbor”, I can’t be ‘politically correct’, I believe everyone is entitled to freedom, and we have to rebuke one another so we don’t bear guilt and maybe they awaken their personal covenant. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark