Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 332
“We have learned to listen to every “I” except the “I” of God. The man of our time may proudly declare: nothing animal is alien to me but everything divine is. This is the status of the Bible in modern life: it is a sublime answer, but we do not know the question anymore. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 66)
This passage comes from God in Search of Man, in the beginning of Part 2 of the book dealing with Revelation. Given that the book was published in 1955, 70 years ago, the “I” we listen to was seen as a problem by Rabbi Heschel. At a time when most people were ‘happy’, the baby boom was on, people were making a decent living or so we are led to believe, and, of course Nixon was VP, McCarthy had been censored and stripped of his powers, we were in an arms race with Russia, Black people still were treated as 3/5’s of a human being by white people in the North as well as the South. And, of course, Rabbi Heschel wrote this in the shadow of the Shoah, the deaths of 55 million people all told in WWII! Status symbols were jewelry, homes, cars, private phone lines, and, of course Color TV! 70 years ago, the “I” of the individual had reached such a state that Rabbi Heschel was concerned, annoyed, outraged, and wanted to disturb the rest of us to wake us up.
In 2026, the “I” of the individual is so loud, there is no room, no ability for most of We the People to hear, listen, understand the “I” of God. We are so busy trying to make a livelihood, pay our bills, keep food on the table, gas in the car, a roof over our head that the “I” we hear is the “I” of ‘how am I going to make ends meet’, ‘how am I/we going to get ahead’, so taking the time to consider the “I” of God seems like a luxury to many of We the People, and we just take the word of the Clergy because we are too tired, too uninformed, too lazy, believe it will not help to read the Bible, to immerse ourselves in it, to be the prayer we are saying, tone moved spiritually by the mitzvot we are engaging in. The “I” of the individual is so loud today, even louder than it was when these words were written, I believe, that we the people have come to hate the stranger rather than love the stranger as the Bible tells us; we the people have “come to suspect our neighbor”(as Rabbi Heschel says in his interview with Carl Stern) rather than love your neighbor as the Bible demands. There are so many other commands, demands, ethical and moral teachings of the Bible that the autocrats, Der Fuhrer Trump bastardize with a lot of help from their Clergy friends in both the Christian and Jewish traditions, all proving the words above to be, unfortunately, as true today if not truer than when they were written.
Remembering that “sublime” means exalted, higher up, we the people, according to Rabbi Heschel, have rejected the mission of the Bible; to raise up our standard of living, to lift up our beingness to exude and practice more holiness; to attune our ears, our eyes, our hearts, our souls to the call of The Voice from Sinai, to sublimate our rational minds to be the servants they are created to be. WHAT THE FUCK??!!
Seeing the world through clear eyes, watching and listening to the DICTATOR in the White House and his BAND OF THIEVES, NAZIS, CRUELTY PRACTITIONERS, and, of course LIARS, IDOLATORS, we the people are being called to STAND UP and be WE THE PEOPLE that Lincoln was speaking about. It is WAY PAST TIME for us to be the People who secede from this UNHOLY union that the Republicans have allowed, promoted to happen. WE THE PEOPLE are being called upon to say NO to the “I” of the Trumps, NO to the “I” of Miller, Lutnick, Bessent, Vance, Vought, Thiel, Musk, et al, NO to the ICE THUGS who wear masks, who take people out of their homes-citizens no less- which is eerily reminiscent of 1930’s Germany. The breaking of the car windows is reminiscent of Krystalnacht, maybe.
We the People are not powerless, We the People have to get out of our “I” of selfishness, fear, protection and into the “I” of God, the “I” of belonging and the “I” of BEING HUMAN! We the People are being called to a new way of reading the Bible; make it personal, see the “sublime” responses to today’s ills, to our own imperfections, to rejecting slavery, rejecting being the slave owner, to feeding our enemy, to practice righteous justice, to love mercy, walk humbly with God rather than believe one is God like Trump, et al. Like the prophets and like Jesus, We the People have to THROW THE MONEY CHANGERS OUT OF THE Temples, the Churches, the Mosques, the GOVERNMENTS of the world and bring to fruition the prophecy of Isaiah 2:4: “Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation neither shall they learn war anymore”!! We the People make this the new reality with our growing into, merging with, maturing into the “I” of God, the ways of the Bible, the actions of Jesus, Moses, King David, with all their flaws, argue with God like Abraham, wrestle with our demons like Jacob, see God face to face like both Jacob and Moses, be humble enough to admit our errors as soon as we are made aware of them like King David and write love songs to God like the Psalms.
This is the challenge I face each day, I respond to the “I” of God within me through writing and then living one grain of sand better each day. The “I” of me takes a back seat and I am aware of the difference in me. Disappointments do not lead to anger and resentments anymore, they lead to pity for the person, hurts are now learning experiences and neither of these will stop me from being the “I” God created me to be! I am a more whole me each day and I am grateful to the “I” of God for making this so. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark