Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 7
“It is in the employment of his will, not in reflection, that he meets his own self as it is; not as he should like it to be. In his deeds man exposes his immanent as well as his suppressed desires, spelling even that which he cannot apprehend. What he may not dare to think, he often utters in deeds. The heart is revealed in deeds.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.82)
There is a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, “how do you know an addict/alcoholic is lying? When their lips are moving!” These last two sentences above brought this to my mind as every Recovering Alcoholic/Addict will tell you: “I don’t know how I could have done those things” in regards to their past fucked-up “deeds”. I said it, many people in recovery have said it, some of the people who go to Yom Kippur Services say it and mean it, some who go to confession say this and mean it, and some who go to either say it to get the heat off, repeatedly say “I am sorry if I hurt you”, or “I didn’t know you would feel this way”, or “that was not my intention” as if any of these lame, bullshit excuses take responsibility for the “deeds” they committed, as if any this “how do I get the heat off of me” responses acknowledge the harm, the spiritual rape one does to another! While way too many of We the People continually proclaim our goodness, continually feign ignorance regarding the impact of our “deeds”, We the People also know that we would never admit to our joy at having screwed someone over, at having “gotten back” for any and all perceived and/or real harms, because it isn’t ‘nice’ to do or think in ‘polite society’.
Over and over again we see people like Trump, Lutnick, Epstein, Netanyahu, be hailed and honored for their ‘amazing humanness’ all the while they are fucking little girls, know that someone is, screwing over the very people they have taken an oath to serve and protect, bastardizing the Holy Bibles of both Christianity and Judaism, and lying right to our faces! AND WE THE PEOPLE are going along with this BULLSHIT! While they are evil, while their actions reveal the depths of depravity, what is MORE CONCERNING is: We the People give them power, elect them, ask them for favors, stand idly by the bloods of human beings, fail to rebuke them, fail to love our neighbor as ourselves, fail to call out the false prophets they claim to be and the false prophecy they are spewing!
The issue we the people are facing and responding to VERY poorly is: what in our nature is so twisted, so spiritually immature and bankrupt that we the people allow such people to be Priests and Rabbis, be Presidents and Congresspeople, Senators and Governors, leaders of industry, leaders of institutions, etc? It is bad enough when they are fathers and mothers, to give these people whose “deeds” are so heinous, so despicable more and more power is bewildering, especially when co-signed by those ‘good christian, jewish people’!
We the People are being called upon to take a deep dive into our hearts. The call, the demand above is to: begin anew with the truth of what goes on inside of us, the war between the servant rational mind and the gift of our intuitive mind, the struggles of our good inclination to harness the power and the energy of our evil inclination and not succumb to the darkness that surrounds the light within the darkness, that tries to cover up the Godliness of our evil inclination. Rabbi Harold Kushner, z”l, taught me to use “earthly inclination” and “divine inclination” which I believe is a better description. Evil is in the world, Isaiah tells us this and there is light fashioned from the darkness and the evil-We the People have to do the fashioning, We the People are gifted with the ability to imitate God, to walk with God and change our actions, change our thoughts, change our “hearts’ desires”. When we the people only want to point the finger at an Epstein-who deserves it-we are forgetting all of those who enabled him, all of we the people who enable the other fascists, despicable people who are ‘in charge’ of our government and doing everything they can to CRUSH WE THE PEOPLE! Seeing our own “deeds” in the light of the choices we have made, forces us to “dare to think” of what our “deeds” have done and seek to repair the damage and not repeat the same missing the mark!
ACTION STEPS:
Admit the ‘joy’, the ‘reward’, the ‘rush’ you receive from doing “what you dare not think, and often utter in deeds”
Each evening, do your inventory of how you grew spiritually, morally from your “deeds” of that day
Each morning, do an inventory of what “deeds” you need to repair because they were morally and spiritually evil
Join the resistance to the evil happening around us. No longer believe what someone says; watch what they do
Each day, see how your “divine inclination” is harnessing your “earthly inclination” one grain of sand more
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark