Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 25
“The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual inwardness. It needs more than sacred sentiments and good intentions. God asks for the heart because He needs the lives. It is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity of the human heart.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 88)
In a country that seems dominated by SELF-SEEKING by the “rugged individual” myth, by the bastardization of Jesus’ words, the ways of the Jewish Tradition, these words are a not-so-gentle rebuke of Pete Hegseth’s prayer for war, prayer for cruelty, belief in some radicalized re-interpretation of the New Testament and the forgetfulness by all ‘religious zealots’ of the words and deeds of the prophets! Yet, We the People are not doing enough to effect change, we the people are continuing to live in our “secret holiness”, our “good intentions” while the country and the world spirals deeper and deeper into chaos, authoritarianism, hatred and war.
Abusing Christ’s ways and words as we are in the season of Lent, praying for Jesus to help kill more innocent people in Iran by the mendacious Hegseth, was totally rebuked by Pope Leo at his Palm Sunday Service, but then again, as JD Vance has said before, what does Pope Leo really know about Jesus!! Forgetting, rejecting the words and deeds of the prophets by the ‘religious Jews’, believing all is good if it is in the name of Israel, engenders many to leave the faith. Yet, these ‘good religious folk’ keep proclaiming, like Mike Johnson: “I live by what God tells me”. I am sure he and his cronies believe this-the question is: What god are they listening to? It sure is not God of the Bible, God of the New Testament. In both Sacred Texts, what is asked for is “the heart”. Since the beating heart is what keeps us living, since “the heart” is so crucial in our actions that in Numbers we are reminded to “not scout out after your heart and eyes because you whore after them”, which we recite 3 times a day when we say the Shema prayer, morning, evening, at bedtime. These ASSHOLES like Johnson, Hegseth, Vance, using Jesus to justify the cruelty and violence they are perpetrating in Iran, in Venezuela, in Cuba, on the streets of America is SO INFURIATING to those of We the People who believe in God, who respond to the Voice on Sinai’s call of “Where are You” with the only proper response: Hineni-Here I am.
This is the key for We the People, to keep responding Hineni, to keep finding new and deeper ways to live our lives “in concordance with God”, to ensure that our “deeds exceed our wisdom” as we learn in Pirke Avot. It takes great humility to live “lives that beat in concordance with God”, it takes a more that “good intentions”, because as one of the “good books” says: the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak(Matthew 26:41). What We the People are being called upon to DO, is to live into the divine image we are created in, to rise above the selfishness, the mendacious attitude of our own ‘smartness’ and live into the intuitive mind that KNOWS what it KNOWS and KNOWS what it DOESN’T KNOW! This is a crucial aspect of how to BE HUMAN, how to live a life compatible with being a partner of God in making the world a one grain of sand better each day.
When We the People rise above our base instincts, when we end our ridiculous belief that our rational mind knows all, we begin to use our intuitive mind to SEE what truly is, to HEAR the lies of those around us, to SMELL the shit these idolators are trying to sell us and to FEEL the pain and the cruelty being done to another(s). Using our intuitive minds allows We the People to know and understand the “deed” that is necessary to be performed in this moment, reminds us of “the finite charity of the human heart”. It is not that we the people are not charitable, at least most of we the people, it is that without the intuitive mind running the show, without hearing the call of the Voice on Sinai through our souls, without making real the stirrings of our hearts, “charity” remains finite. Only through “lives” will “the world be redeemed”, only through our actions that are in “concordance with God” can we “live” and not merely exist as selfish, stupid individuals. Only through “concordance with God” and our “deeds” can we create the communities that promote Exodus from Egypt(narrow places) and the trek to Sinai and the Promised Land-aka FREEDOM!
ACTION STEPS:
write down the self-seeking in your actions today-knowing that purity of heart is not the goal
Estimate if your self-seeking is more than 50% of you taking any particular action
Meditate, pray, engage in ways to access your higher consciousness to rise above the self-seeking that is more than 50%
DO T’SHUVAH to God, self and those you harmed by your self-seeking, making a plan to avoid the over 50%self-seeking part of a good deed
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark