Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 168
“The power to make distinctions is a primary operation of intelligence. We distinguish between white and black, beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant, gain and loss, good and evil, right and wrong. The fate of mankind depends upon the realization that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong is superior to all other distinctions. As long as such realization is lacking, pleasantness in alliance with evil will be preferred to unpleasantness in alliance with good. To teach humanity the primacy of that distinction is of the essence to the Biblical message.” (God in Search of Man pg. 372)
The italicized and underlined sentences above are, on their very face, a DUH! Yet, we continue to watch, some of us in horror, the constant and consistent refusal by human beings to become aware that “the realization that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong is superior to all other distinctions”. From Cain until now, the inability of humanity to, a) make these distinctions and b) live into them has been fraught with mistakes and errors. The main issue, it always seems, is humanity’s need to be in control, humanity’s narcissism and search for certainty, power, fame, fortune, etc. Yes, we are told that we have within us an “evil inclination”, yes we are told that “sin desires us much” and we are also told that we can master our own negativity, we can transform the energy of our evil inclination to serve the good and the right. The question that looms so large in our lives, which often goes unasked, is: will we?
Our willful blindness and our unwillingness to make these distinctions make it almost impossible to ask ourselves the questions: “is this good or evil”, “is this the next right thing to do”. Without asking ourselves these questions, in each experience, in each moment, we will continue to not distinguish between the distinction of gain and loss and the distinction of good and evil; hence the situation we find ourselves in is the result of blindness, unwillingness, ignorance, narcissism, and power-seeking. Trump is the leader of this band and he is also just a prop. The real power is in the FOX UNNEWS people who keep spreading the lies and command ‘their viewers’ to be numb to facts, numb to the truth of the Biblical teachings of the prophets, the wanderings in the desert, to the ways of Jesus. The real power is also in the hands of the PAGAN CLERGY who continue to bastardize the teachings of the Bible, the New Testament. Be they Jewish or Christian, these PAGANS promote a way of being that is xenophobic, racist, homophobic, and cruel. Nowhere in the words of Jesus that I have read, nowhere in the Bible are we told to be cruel-there are parts of the Bible which can be read this way and, when we are told that a court who executed one person in 70 years is called a murderous court, we can understand the Bible’s overriding belief in CHOOSE LIFE!
We the People are responsible to listen to the call of our souls, to read the texts for ourselves, to study with serious people and argue with our spiritual friends as to how to live the values in our everyday life. We the People are called upon by Proverbs to treat our enemies as human beings, not put them in ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ! We the People are responsible for what our governments do, just as the Judeans were responsible for not heeding the prophets no matter what the Priests, Wealthy, and Royals did. We the People are being called to account in the words above, we are being called to account in how we respond to the “BIG UGLY BILL” that promotes more cruelty, more violence by ICE, more hatred of immigrants, more power to deport American Citizens, more power and money to the wealthy, more cruelty to the working poor and the middle class, more cruelty to Rural Hospitals, more cruelty to elder citizens, more breaking of promises that We the People have come to rely on. All of this in the name of “Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior” according to Joanie Ernst!! All of this for a few crumbs according to Lisa Murkowski! WTF??? Are We the People really this small, are We the People really this ignorant, are We the People really this cruel, are We the People really this hateful of what the Bible, Jesus actually teach us???
Of course we are as long as “such realization is lacking” so that “pleasantness in alliance with evil will be preferred to unpleasantness in alliance with good”! We the People have to awaken from the sleep-walking We have engaged in and stop seeking happiness, fun, likes on social media, fame, wealth, etc. We the People are in desperate need of being slapped and cajoled, shaken and having our blinders taken off, taking the cotton out of our ears and put it in our mouths so we stop our bullshit, our lies, our specious arguments. We the People are constantly being called by the Voice that was at Sinai, the Voice that was in the Garden: AYECHA-Where are you? How can any of us be cheering when we are “standing idly by the blood of our neighbor”, when we are engaged in senseless hatred, when prejudice and racism, hatred and cruelty are being extolled as good? WHERE ARE YOU? This is the question we all have to answer each and every day; judging by the way our government, which is an extension of We the People, are behaving, it seems as if We the People are in favor of everything that is unholy, everything that is “pleasantness in alliance with evil”!
This is a way of being that I am intimately familiar with, as I lived “in alliance with evil” for many years, this is not to say I did not do good things, because I did and I have to be accountable for this alliance as well. This is why I am so sensitive to bullshit and lies, evil and subterfuge, why I become bombastic because the other side of my “alliance with evil” is my prophetic voices which is loud, arrogant, urgent, and powerful. For the people who don’t like it, oh well. It is who I am and I know I won’t change this. I am too aware of the subtle power of not making distinctions and getting in bed with “the pleasantness in alliance with evil”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.