Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 205
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)
One of the great teachings of Judaism, of the Rabbis-whom I have many arguments with:)- is the teaching of T’Shuvah. Most of us think about this or hear about this only on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Yet, Rabbi Eliezer teaches in the Talmud, tractate Shabbat 153a, that we should do T’Shuvah one day before we die and since no one knows the day of their death, we should do it every day. Without this practice, the period of Elul, which we will enter in 8 days, this month of preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is meaningless and these “Days of Awe” lose their importance and the strength they imbue us with to have the courage to do the next right thing.
In Proverbs 1:7 we are taught: “The awe of God is the beginning of knowledge and fools despise wisdom and knowledge” and the words in bold above remind me of this truth and the folly we are living in today. Rather than “detect the taints in our virtues”, people today point out the “taints” in another person so they do not ‘have’ to look at themselves. In this culture of ‘perfection is the standard’ not the goal, the standard, any “taint” is viewed as a defect which then leads to being vulnerable to attacks by “them”. The old adage “the best defense is a good offense” is alive and well, used and abused by the idolators who pose as ‘religious’, the PAGANS who proclaim their allegiance to Christ, to Adonai, to Allah.
We the People are suffering through a Pandemic that is a greater threat than Covid-19, in my opinion. This pandemic is called “christian nationalism” and is led by people like Doug Wilson, who is Pete Hegseth’s pastor and thought leader. This brand of “christian nationalism” believes women should not have the right to vote, that only ‘christians’ should hold office, that the United States should jettison the Constitution in favor of a Christian Theocracy that he devises, probably alongside of people like Paula White-Cain, Joel Osteen, John Hagee, etc. We the People have to stop listening to and giving any credence to these charlatans who constantly and consistently bastardize the words of Christ, the words of Moses, and refuse to “detect the taints in” their “virtues”, only accuse the rest of us, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, LGBTQ+ non-people of having “taints”. These assholes along with the ‘real jew’ Rabbis and their followers are infecting this country, Israel, and the world with a way of being that has to lead to destruction because it always has. These “fools despise wisdom and knowledge” and We the People who are following them, who are nodding our heads to their vile speech, their idolatrous ways, to their desecration of God’s name, are responsible for “the taints in our virtues” that we are unwilling to detect. We the People have to engage in the practice of T’Shuvah that Rabbi Eliezer teaches right here, right now, because we are circling the drain of what it means to be human, we are not so slowly losing our humanity, our commitment “to do justly, love mercy and walk in the ways of God”(Micah 6:8). We the People are being reminded of this way of being by the words above, by Rabbi Heschel’s teachings.
While I am not so concerned with how we got to this point, usually, I do realize that many people need to know the path that led us here so we don’t go down it again and there is great “virtue” in this. It is simple, really, just as the people in Ancient Israel and Judea reached the pinnacle of inhumanity to humanity, We the People are closing in on it quickly and, very possibly, surpassing it because of “the tinge of idolatry in our worship of God”. The prophets kept telling the people, the priests, the wealthy and ruling class that God was not interested in their rituals, in their sacrifices as long as their hearts were uncircumcised, as long as their actions towards one another showed disdain for another human being, as long as they continued to believe their own bullshit that they were ‘better’ than those who were ‘lower’ than them, that they were the ‘entitled ones’ who could lie with impunity and, like the “men of renown” found in Genesis, they could fuck anyone and everyone without any consequences.
These people that we read about in the books of the Prophets are alive and well today! They are living next door to us, they are elected to office and are governing us, they are sitting around laughing at the idiocy of We the People who bought their lies, who are so into our own self-deception that we could not perceive their deception of us, and how they are getting rich off the backs of the poor, the stranger, the needy and then calling themselves “Good Christians”, “the Real Jews”, “True Muslims”!!! WHAT THE FUCK!! We the People have to do our own work to “purify the self”, to remove the “tinge of idolatry in our worship of God”, to “detect the taints in our virtues” and, most of all, end our self-deception, stand up for Godliness, live into our innate Holiness, act as a reminder of God, as a divine need, and see the Image of God in everyone else, honoring it, and speaking to it so there is a change someone else will do their T’Shvuah and then We the People can change the world.
I have fought against the Doug Wilson’s of the world forever, I have been a grifter and hated myself for it. I have refused to “detect the taint in my virtues” and suffered for it in my soul. These 38+years of living in the light bring me to this moment with joy and fear, with hope and worry, with “awe of God”, “wisdom and knowledge”. I can’t abide by the Doug Wilsons, the Hegseths, the PAGANS and Idolators, the grifters and fascists of today so I continue to clean my side of the street and mourn for those who are unable to clean theirs. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark