Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 336
“As faith cannot exist without a creed, piety cannot subsist without a pattern of deeds; as intelligence cannot be separated from training, religion cannot be divorced from conduct. Judaism is lived in deeds, not only in thoughts.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 74)
Focusing on “piety”, not as saintly action, something that very few people achieve, I believe it is important to understand that someone like Miller, Johnson, Vought, Vance, Trump himself, is “pious” to their cause-they have “a pattern of deeds”, that while despicable, they fulfill their “pattern of deeds” with “dutifulness” which is the Latin root of the word! Their warped intelligence is something they have been trained in for a long time, in Trump’s case seemingly since birth. This is how they can claim to be ‘good jews’ like Jared Kushner and the Orthodox Rabbis who support the cruelty of this administration do because there is cruelty in the Hebrew Bible. Rather than look at the words and deeds of Christ, Johnson and Vought can just listen to the lies and bastardizations of the words of Christ and wrap themselves in some version of the New Testament. What is missing today, what promotes the killing of U.S. Citizens by the masked thugs that are Noem’s, Trump’s, Vought’s, Vance’s and Miller’s SS Storm Troopers, is the attachment to the spirit of the Bible, to the spirit of Christ, to the infinite dignity of human beings, to “care for and love the stranger”, to “love your neighbor as yourself”, to “BE HOLY”!
The Rabbis added Mitzvot to the Torah’s “pattern of deeds” for their own power and control, I believe. They wanted to show their importance, their knowledge; to their credit- they also were trying to figure out how to keep Judaism alive without a home, without everyone being together, which in some ways seems like the blueprint for Christianity’s spreading and for other faiths/spiritual disciplines to expand and survive the loss of a homeland. Yet, as we see in the Ultra Orthodox Community-this keeping Judaism alive and thriving has been bastardized for more control, more graft, more strictness, less compromising, less interacting with ‘you heathen jews who don’t study all day’, oh yeah though, send money!!
The priests and ministers, pastors and elders who keep promoting the “prosperity gospels”, keep making anti-abortion their thing when it is never mentioned in the Bible, in the New Testament, are trying to, as the Rabbis did with the Bible’s canonization and the Ultra Orthodox have done throughout history, GET AND MAINTAIN CONTROL! Instead of seeing each of us as unique infinitely worthy souls and messengers of God, the people promoting this bullshit, these lies, using “religion” are in it for their own gain, not for God’s Glory!
It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to call a HALT to these antics, it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People of these UNITED STATES to assert our freedom, our power, our “conduct” towards Godliness, towards ending the slavery that this administration is imposing upon us, towards ending the slavery the “woke” people were/are imposing upon us.. It is WAY PAST TIME for WE THE PEOPLE to take back our government and make it “of the people, by the people, for the people” as Lincoln preached to us at Gettysburg. Rather than imitate the Pharaoh in Egypt, the Roman Emperors who killed Christ, who killed the Rabbis that defied their orders to not teach Torah, the call has to be to live our destinies as Imitatio Dei, reminders of God, messengers of God, partners with God in making the world better, not just “getting ours”.
The only solution, for a Jew, is to be immersed in deeds-not the bullshit study so you can be saved of the Ultra-Orthodox strictness to the Halacha-the law where service becomes to the law and not God, not the idiotic bullshit of the renewals who don’t need anything but spirit and their liberty to interpret anyway they ‘feel’. Judaism is not a feeling, it is not a religion, it is not a people, it is not thoughts, it “is lived in deeds” and these deeds are under the umbrella of the 10 sayings, hence there really is no place for the xenophobic, hatred being spewed by Netanyahu and his thugs-he uses the settlers as his storm troopers so he can claim plausible denial, he is immune from the DEED of TShuvah, of responsibility for his errors, for admitting his crimes against humanity and his supporters, like Trump’s extol him for his mendacity, his cruelty and then call themselves RELIGIOUS!! Call themselves JEWS?!? OY VEY
I have been thinking about, wrestling with the issue of what Judaism is for a long time and I believe it is “lived in deeds, not only thoughts”. The 10 sayings teach us to display honor and reverence; to be in touch with our inner lives and take a moment to breathe, not be a ‘doing machine’; to not murder in any way-through speech, through physical harm, through mental distress, etc; to not engage in mendacity and be a false witness; to want what we have and not need to have what someone else has-ARE YOU LISTENING TRUMP with your obsession for Greenland-‘ to no longer whore ourselves, Mike Johnson and Republicans in both houses of Government, in the Supreme Court, etc; and not engage in the self-deception of ‘if I can take it then it is mine’ grift and theft of another’s place, another’s property, another’s ideas, another’s …I know the truth of my past actions, I have done the lying, the stealing on a much smaller scale and I no longer do this. As a Jew, I am committed to the 10 sayings, the Holiness Code, to CHOOSE LIFE and no longer give into the need to be right, no longer obsess over what I don’t have, no longer give oxygen to those who have harmed, betrayed me. It is all about what can I do to make this moment better for me, my family, my community, my world. I pray you will join me and so many other people in this endeavor and we will “proclaim freedom throughout the land” and to everyone in it! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark