Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 204
This is how we must begin in our effort to purify the self; to become aware of our inner enslavements to the ego, to detect the taints in our virtues, the tinge of idolatry in our worship of God.” (God in Search of Man pg. 401)
The first phrase above assumes a way of being that does not seem to be in vogue these days with Clergy nor with We the People! Who is truly putting forth an “effort to purify the self” in our world? Certainly not the President of the U.S nor of Russia, absolutely not the President of Hungary nor his ‘good friend’ the Prime Minister of Israel. Nor is most of the Clergy we hear about interested in engaging in the “effort to purify the self” because they are gaining so much power, prestige, money from staying in their “inner enslavements to the ego”! This is the war we are in and, unfortunately, it seems as if we are losing one battle after another. While it looks bleak, we have to remember the Union Army wasn’t always doing so good in the Civil War and they made a comeback. The descendants of Jacob were in a wee bit of tsuris(trouble) before they were redeemed, Christ was crucified and on and on. Because of these ‘victories’, We the People of authentic faith in God, in the Ineffable One, in the God of Moses, of Jesus, of Mohammed, cannot fall into despair and debilitating depression.
Today’s ‘leaders’ in social media, in government, in business, in our courts, in law firms, in universities all give us a wide-open look at what happens when “our inner enslavements to the ego” take over our lives. We the People become whores, prostitutes, we kiss the big fat ass of Trump, et al and then we go home and brag about how smart we are because we ‘got a deal’ from Trump that he will never honor just as he has never honored any deal he makes when it doesn’t suit him anymore. We the People are living under the terror of Roy Cohn, Trump’s mentor. The man who electrocuted Ethel Rosenberg while knowing she was completely innocent, the man who helped Joe McCarthy in his reign of terror and intimidation, the man who denied being a homosexual and publicly shamed gay people while privately being gay, this is who taught the Grifter In Chief, the Liar in the White House, the scared asshole who hides behind the National Guard and the Army to show how strong he is, everything he knows! And, We the People voted an insurrectionist into office, We the People gave him and his cronies who never think about making an “effort to purify the self”, who never think about their “inner enslavements” because their egos are so false and so large all they care about is feeding them!
We the People have to stop being led around by the nose by these PAGANS, be it the clergy who support these assholes or the assholes themselves, be it the elected officials who pledged loyalty to the Constitution and are only loyal to Trump and getting re-elected or to John Roberts and his court of ‘constitutionalists’ who are giving away the country, democracy, and freedom to an autocratic wannabe dictator! We the People have “to become aware of our inner enslavements to the ego”, to money, to power, to the lies we tell ourselves, to our self-deceptions and to the deceptions of another(s). We the People are being called upon to stand up and redeem ourselves and our neighbors from the horrors that Trump and his partners are putting us through; be it what is going on in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Los Angeles and Washington DC with sending the National Guard and Army to be police?! WTF!!
We the People have to demand of ourselves an authentic accounting of the Soul, a “fearless and searching inventory” of “inner enslavements” so we can do our T’Shuvah, make a new plan, renew our covenant with God, with our higher consciousness, and have new responses to these Domestic and Foreign Terrorists running various governments. YES, Trump, Miller, Vought, Vance, Lutnick, Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, Orban, Putin, and their cronies are TERRORISTS! We the People, because of our obliviousness to our “inner enslavements to the ego” are supporting Terrorists, Law firms who kiss the ring, Universities who kiss the Ass, and Bimbos who are running the very institutions meant to preserve our democracy which they are trying to annihilate! Bondi, Patel, McMahon, etc don’t believe in the agencies they are running, RFK Jr., a disgrace to his father’s name and memory, wants to deny the science that has saved 100’s of millions of lives over the years and this is who We the People put in charge!! They are in charge because We the People have been unwilling to do the work to “become aware of our inner enslavements to the ego”!
I have spent the past 38+ years peeling away the layers of “inner enslavements” which caused me to live in terrorizing ways. As a drunk and a criminal, I was a terrorist, just as all people who are not in recovery are. Rabbi Heschel’s words hit home with me in very personal ways and they hit home for everyone who is willing to “become aware of our inner enslavements to the ego”, to everyone who is willing to search out the Chametz, the bread that has leavening in it, the puffed up parts of our egos which we do every year at Passover. With Yom Kippur only 48 days away, the beginning of Elul only 7 days away, it is time for us to begin to look at the actions which impede our “effort to purify the self” and take these next 48 days to do exactly this-“purify the self”. This is the work I do every year at this time and every day as well. I am enraged at the state of the world and the loss of democracy-while I am not directly effected yet, as I said to someone yesterday; I am a person of faith, when you are being targeted, I am effected, when you are in fear, I am here to stand with you and help you. This is what being a person of faith means, this is what the Bible directs us to do. This is the gift of being human. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark