Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 184
“Ideals have a high mortality rate in our generation. Contemporary thinking looks like a graveyard of discredited ideals. With his moral efforts man, it is felt, can build castles in the air. All our norms are nothing but desires in disguise.” (God in Search of Man pg. 376)
This was published in 1955, imagine Rabbi Heschel’s words today!! We are witnessing the destruction of ideals on a minute by minute basis by ‘true Americans’ and ‘real Jews’ if we are to believe Trump and his gang of PAGAN thugs as well as Netanyahu and his practitioners of Avodah Zarah, idol worship. Our ideals of democracy, our ideals of how to live together with our differences, celebrating the diverse skills, talents, ideas and ways of every individual, honoring the divine image in each and every person seem to have been or are being crushed. Isn’t this the ultimate evil-making We the People into sheep, into instruments of the wealthy and the greedy, soldiers in a war that we do not want nor did we ask for, beggars begging for scraps at the tables of power and parishioners receiving lies rather than truth, spiritual death rather than spiritual growth from the Clergy who, rather than serve God, serve themselves and their ‘masters’? This is where we find ourselves some 70 years after Rabbi Heschel warned us and cajoled us into understanding the issues of his day which are the issues of our day, which are the issues of every day throughout the history of humankind.
Since the Garden of Eden humans have been unable to hold onto and fulfill the ideals of the Bible, of our ‘better angels’, of morality. Cain killing Abel, the “men of renown” taking any woman they wanted just because they could(sound familiar), the violence(Hamas) that led to the Flood, the inter-family conflicts of our patriarchs and matriarchs, being enslaved in Egypt, wandering in the desert with gratitude not always being present, inter-tribal fighting, and finally dying to give a new generation a chance at being free. Even they screwed it up and we Jews, have been wandering ever since-yes we have a homeland, Israel, and we are still wandering in the “graveyard of discredited ideals”, the ideals that have been crushed by Netanyahu and his gang, the ideals that have been bastardized by the ‘rabbinic authorities’ in right-wing Israeli society, the ideals that the IDF used to have and don’t seem to anymore, the beliefs that Israel was safe from an Oct 7th type of attack. The ideals of “love the stranger because you were a stranger in Egypt”, “rebuke your neighbor and don’t bear sin because of him/her”, “circumcise the foreskin of your heart”, “do justly, love mercy, walk in the ways of God”, etc. We Jews are still wandering in the desert and graveyard of our ancestors simply because we are unwilling, too stiff-necked to find ways to have a strong enough heart, a willing enough spirit to surrender to the will of God instead of the desires of our false ego. We the People are the ones who have gone along like lambs being led to slaughter with the PAGANS and Idolators, the bastardizers and charlatans who laugh at the ideal of democracy, who spit on the ideals of religion, and who cheer at their cruel and evil actions. This is how far we have fallen in the 70 years since Rabbi Heschel wrote these words.
We the People are the only ones who can pull the rip cords so we can have a softer landing on firm ground. Firm ground in this case is the ideal of democracy, the ideal of spiritual growth, the ideal of seeing the divine image in every human being, the ideal of refusing to do evil in order to satisfy some urge, some desire that is not an authentic one, rather it is a manufactured one by societal norms/conventions and/or our (ir)rational minds. We the People need to stop with our airy-fairy “castles in the sky” and get down to tachlis, brass tacks! We the People are being called to live into our higher consciousness, to stop allowing our (ir)rational minds to override what we know in our gut, what our inner life knows to be true and good, right and holy. We the People have to, like our ancestors before us, say to Pharaoh: LET MY PEOPLE GO to serve Adonai, not some wannabe autocrat, some fascist loving asshole. We the People have to say to one another LET’S GO, we can leave Egypt because we have within us the power of spirit, the power of good, the power of resilience, the power of decency, the power of truth to propel us through our fears of conflict, through our fears of confrontation, through our fears of rocking the boat. The boat we are in right now is sinking, the “norms” of the current ‘ruling parties’ “are but desires in disguise” and We the People are the only ones who can stop the boat from sinking, who can resurrect the ideals of Moses, of Jesus, of Mohammed, of the Buddha. We the People have the power, the path and the strength-our question is do We the People have the willingness?
I think of the ideals that I jettisoned as a teen-ager and I am sick over it. I think of the ideals I have held to in my recovery and I am proud of it. I know that my actions are not perfect and I know I have not always lived up the my ideals, the ideals of faith and recovery, spiritual health and truth, AND I know I have done my best. I have put the welfare of another before mine many times, I have been part of a life-saving, soul-enhancing organization, I have preached truth to power and power to the powerless, I have given voice to the previously voiceless and learned with some of the greatest minds in the world-people who have been to hell, like me, and come back. I have learned that this world with all its flaws is the place of my work and I know that my job is to be the best me. My norms have evolved from that teen-age boy’s egotism to serving another as the greatest act of freedom, kindness, truth and fulfilling the will of God and me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark