Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 317
“Comfort, luxuries, success continually bait our appetite, impairing our vision of that which is required but now always desired. They make it easy for us to grow blind to values. Interest are the value-blind man’s dog, his pathfinder and his guide.”
These words, this sentiment, this prophecy is anywhere from 70-50 years old. Reading them in this moment, one needs to be wondering what reason society had/has for not hearing them, not wresting with them, not heeding them. The reason, of course is in the first phrase: “comfort, luxuries, success continually bait our appetite”. Rather than ‘put a lid’ on our desires, on our “appetites”, we seem to be ever-expanding our waistline and, for the rich, the famous, the people in power, ‘eating’ more and more money, resources, for the few and practicing more and more injustice here at home and in the world. What is also happening is the joining of a new “axis of power”, not Italy, Germany, Japan this time. Now we have three groups who are using one another to gain power, to feed their “appetites” making them more and more hungry for “comfort, luxuries, success”. The first group is horrific, to the hearts, minds, souls of Americans who still believe in a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people, and is made up of Putin, Xi and Trump with MBS, Netanyahu, Orban, Erdogan their understudies. They believe that taking anything, anyone’s sovereign nation for their own uses is right and good. They believe they are entitled to anything and everything that they can forcibly take, (Venezuela, Ukraine, Taiwan), they can con one out of with false promises (abuse of contractors, workers, gaining allies with false promises), and they can use Goebbels’ “accuse someone else of that which you are guilty of”! These traitors to God, to their constituents are the epitome of a Kakistocracy.
The second group is an even more insidious group, the billionaires, the wannabe billionaires, etc. These money-seeking, soul sucking individuals have convinced themselves of the lie of “trickle down economics” from the Reagan years when the only people they probably truly admire are those from the “Gilded Age”, the Robber Barons. They agree with J.D. Rockefeller when he was asked “how much money is enough” and he responded: “a little more than I have now” and he never had enough. These people have used and abused the people they are supposedly serving, the people who buy their products, use their services to “continually bait our appetites” and to bring to fruition their wet-dreams of more “comfort, luxuries, success” they are willing to set up a way of being that promotes the “most unscrupulous behaviors in government”, promotes, supports the Kakistocracy of Trump, Putin, Xi, and the rest of those mentioned above. There is no God here, only the ‘almighty dollar’, only the “top of the world ma” goals to worship.
The third group is, to me, the most disgusting. This is the group of ‘christian’ nationalists, ‘jewish’ nationalists, ‘muslim’ nationalists who continue to lie about what the Bible means and what it says, taking verses out of context to prove their xenophobic viewpoints, their need for power and control dating back to the early days of the Priests and Rabbis, of Paul, of Mohammed’s followers. Rather than immerse themselves in what Christ was doing and teaching these Anti-Christers are saying and doing the exact opposite! “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is bastardized to “I am throwing stones at anyone who can see, testify to my sins”; feeding the hungry as Christ did is ‘corrected’ to “feed me you poor people for I am your salvation, I am your retribution” and so many other holy teachings and actions of Christ are being bastardized. In case you are wondering the Desecrators of God’s name who call themselves ‘jews’ are experts at bastardizing the teaching of the Holiness Code-they don’t rebuke themselves nor one another because of the lies, the thefts, the murdering of souls they partake in. They have no desire to “welcome and love the stranger because they were strangers in the land of Egypt”, “do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor”, “if your enemy is hungry feed them”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants therein! Alas, these ‘good christian, good jewish’ folk are NOTHING BUT IDOLATORS! They desecrate God’s will, they rape the souls of people who are seeking a greater connection to the Ineffable One, they murder the souls of people who seek and speak Truth, Justice, Mercy, Love!
When will We the People say ENOUGH! DAYENU! Each year we gather at a Passover table and retell the story of the Exodus from the land of Egypt and each year this ritual is treated just like a ritual instead of as a call to action. Each year we read the Bible, Hebrew and New Testament, and this too is treated as a ritual and a way of checking another “have to” off the To-Do list. Each year we partake in the different Holy Days as obligatory events or as excuses to go to excess and extravagance. All of these ways of ignoring the Call of God, the Voice on Sinai that broadcasts each and every day, 24 hours a day, have promoted the belief that “comfort, luxuries, success” are the only things we need to satisfy and, if we give back to the unholy Temples, Synagogues, Churches, we have fulfilled our duty. BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT!
As a practitioner of “comfort, luxuries, success” as my god, I know the only solution is a spiritual awakening. The only path back to the Oneness of humanity, the Oneness of God is through our souls, through a spiritual revolution that discerns the words of Adonai and the words of the authors/editors who wanted power and used Elohim to enact justice they were incapable of living up to. I know living a double life, living into a double standard, I did it from age 15-35 and it was horrible and the ‘crimes’ I committed the most were the ones I committed against God, against people who trusted and loved me. We all have to stand up against the groups above! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark