Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 34
“Indeed, the awareness of the weakness of the heart, the unreliability of human inwardness, may perhaps have been on the reasons that compleled Judaism to take recourse to actions instead of relying upon inward devotion. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of the Rabbis’ counsel: one should always do the good, even though it is not done for its own sake, It is the act that teaches us the meaning of the act.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92-93)
Having crossed the Red Sea and on this Day 10 of our counting of the Omer, the slaves who were liberated forgot their words, their commitments and were overcome with fear of ‘no water’. Rather than keep “their hearts in the right place”, we the people witness over and over again the “weakness of the heart” even though We the People had this amazing spiritual experience of God’s liberation! From the time of Adam and Eve, the human heart has proved over and over again to have “weakness”, that our “inwardness” is unreliable and everytime we pick ourselves up, we the people “scout after our heart and eyes to WHORE after them” even though the 3rd Prayer of the Shema tells us NOT to go after them! In Deuteronomy we find Moses telling the people to “love God with all your heart, your soul, your everything and walk in God’s ways, follow the commandments, Choose Life”. While loving God is a good thing, this alone will not lead to doing the next right action. In John 14:15 Jesus says: “If you love Me, keep my commandments” in 14:21: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me”, and in 14:24: “He who does not love Me does not keep My words: and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent me.” Once again we learn the TRUTH: Love is NOT A FEELING, it is AN ACTION! Hence, “one should always do the good, even though it is not done for its own sake”!
We the People are in another moment in time where Truth is being pummeled by deceivers and these grifters and liars, where even the White House had to issue a directive for its staffers to NOT bet on the Iran War in the polymarkets! This assualt is coming from Trump which is not new because Donald Trump never told the truth-in business, in personal, in political realms. He learned to lie at his father’s feet, he learned to hate from his father’s actions, he learned to be cruel as his father’s right-hand man. TRUMP IS NOT THE PROBLEM! The problem is the myriad of clergy, beginning with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, et al who have defied Christ’s words as related by John in the Gospel! The problem is all the Christian Nationalist Clergy who support the lies of Hegseth, the grift and graft of Rubio, the cruelty of Vought loudly and proudly while calling themselves followers of Christ! Can you imagine what Jesus is saying? Can you imagine how, Jesus the immigrant is experiencing the Detention Centers these ‘fine christian folk’ are setting up, running and supporting? Lest you think that Jews are so much better: Kushner, Lutnick, Bessent, Miller all proclaim loyalty to Judaism and love Israel, while going against the very commandments that Moses gave to us. Rather than believe that God is God, they and the right-wing in Israel believe they know what the Bible is ‘really saying’ and the rest of We the People ‘just don’t understand’. While they peddle these lies, the text says: LOVE THE STRANGER- NOT BE CRUEL TO THE STRANGER, the text says: ONE LAW FOR THE CITIZEN AND STRANGER ALIKE-NOT ONE LAW FOR THE RICH AND ANOTHER FOR THE REST OF WE THE PEOPLE! So, to these ‘good jews’ I say BULLSHIT- READ THE BIBLE, HEAR, LISTEN UNDERSTAND AND DO the words of Moses, the words of the Prophets-not the bastardizations of people throughout the millennia.
At Mount Sinai, We the People committed to DO and THEN UNDERSTAND! No mention is made of our motivation, no mention is made of how we ‘feel’ about it- the only two emotions that are prevelant in the Bible are loving God, the strangter, our neighbor, ourselves, and hating evil, cruelty, lying, greed, murder, coveting! Ergo: It is imperative for We the People to TAKE THE NEXT RIGHT ACTION, to “always do the good”, no matter how we think or feel. More on this tomorrow
ACTION STEPS:
Make a list of the good you could have done in the past and didn’t because you didn’t “feel like it”
Read Numbers 15:38-40 each morning and evening; in the am make a list of the traps of your heart and your eyes and in the evening-which ones did you fall into, which ones you did not and what new ones did you fall into
List the Loving Actions you took today and the non-loving ones as well
Write down your plan to repair the non-loving ones and enhance the loving one
Live life congruent with the principles you hold dear and in concert with the Biblical mandates
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark