Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 261

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

Encountering Rabbi Heschel’s teaching this day allows us to have a new respect, understanding and experience of what it means to honor and frequent our genuine coming into being, our genuine taking a stand for what is good and right ethically, morally whether or not someone passes laws that go against what is right and good! The Latin root meaning “frequented/honor” is so crucial to our understanding and encounter with celebration, I believe. Where does one frequent in their constant search for both meaning and purpose? Where do you frequent in your search for the next right action? Where do we need to frequent in order to honor the being we are/need to be coming into? These questions, I believe, are the ones we need to be asking ourselves in this moment, at this time, and for the sake of our souls as well as for the sake of our world.

We are witnesses to the constant drumbeat of mendacity; of Goebbels playbook being used over and over again; tell a lie often enough and it becomes true! Another deception is: if I live my false self long enough it becomes my real/genuine self! We are witnessing Mealy-Mouthed McCarthy pledge to investigate the Democrats with Junkyard Dog and Look The Other Way while young college athletes are being molested Jim Jordan heading the charge. These ‘good christian IDOLATORS and scam artists are frequenting the club where Donald Trump is Don, they are Capos, and White Supremacy, steal as much as you can, and fealty to the Don is all that is important. This is what we are witnessing happening to our country, our institutions of democracy are being torn down in the name of Jesus Christ while the people tearing them down are acting IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE of Jesus’ teachings. These good bible-thumping deceivers go against every possible way of honoring God, honoring the teachings of Moses, honoring Jesus’ teachings, honoring Mohammed’s teachings, yet they believe you will continue to frequent their 3 Card Monte game and continue to be the suckers we have been.

To frequent places that help us find our “authentic existence” we need to change the areas we frequent. We have to stop “going to the well” of senseless hatred and take the cotton out of our ears to hear truth. Why do we hate anyone, what do we gain from being hateful towards one another? Nothing except power, camaraderie, and continued energy to stay stuck in blame rather than be responsible for our self and for “turning our swords into plowshares”. As long as we continue to frequent the clubs of mendacity, senseless hatred, prejudice, we will keep on hating, we will tear down the ideals, ideas, the very constitution these Judas’ claim to be following. We have a choice to end our sucking on the tit of self-hatred, the tit of white supremacy, the tit of prejudice aka “cancer of the soul” and be in recovery from this nightmare of our own making.

There are no more good guys/gals and bad gals/guys, there is only us, fellow human beings seeking an “authentic existence” that is in service of a power greater than ourselves, in service of a higher consciousness, in service to the premise that “all men/women are created equal” and “are endowed with the unalienable right to life, liberty and happiness”. I challenge the Crooked Cruz’, the Molester Gaetz’, et al to be in service of these ideals and promises, I challenge Mendacious Mitch to be in service of the principles and experiences that Lincoln espoused and went to war for, I challenge us all to look at the places we frequent, Fox News, Hearings of Jan.6th Committee, etc and decide if we are honoring the dead who fought for our freedoms, honoring the Israelites who left Egypt so there would be an Israel where Jesus could learn and add to the teachings he learned from the Hebrew Bible, honoring the deaths of the Concentration Camps of Nazi Germany of 6 Million Jews + so many other people. Where one frequents will determine if one honors God, truth, love, kindness, justice, mercy  and compassion, if one honors imperfection, Tshuvah/amends and forgiveness and moving forward. This is the choice encountering these words today bring us to.

In recovery, we are acutely aware that if we hang out in the barbershop long enough, we will get our hair cut, meaning if we frequent areas that are bad for us, neighborhoods that will bring us back to old behaviors, we will fall back, we will partake in our old ways of deception, mendacity, dishonesty, etc. In recovery, we make and find new places to frequent so we can continue to honor God, people, and our authentic self each day.

I have frequented places in my head that are bad neighborhoods for me and in these places I have not honored what I know and my recovery. I also have frequented one place over and over again, the neighborhood of truth, of speaking about the emperor having no clothes and I am not popular for this and for the ways I speak at times. People make my choice of language an issue when they don’t want to face the issues I am speaking about. I commit to continue to frequent the places where truth, kindness, justice, mercy, compassion and truth hang out! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 260

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

Rabbi Heschel’s teachings have to be encountered, not just read and analyzed. Just as with freedom, each day, his wisdom has to be encountered new and fresh each time we read, study and live it. This is the mistake most people make when studying Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance. Many people think they already know what he means and, like Torah, there are many ways to understand Rabbi Heschel and this is the reason I continue to encounter new thoughts, new applications of his path to wholeness for us.

Encountering the second sentence above causes one to reflect on how “utilization and celebration” are part of our “authentic existence”. Using ‘a genuine taking a stand for/come into being’ as a definition for “authentic existence”; and defining utilization as  “make practical use of” for utilization and celebrate as ‘honored and frequented’; Rabbi Heschel’s teachings cause us to encounter the way we are living and the ways of the world as a new experience each and every day. The practical use of our living is to cause our self to ‘come into being’ as a unique individual who has something to give to the world, a gift that is needed, a way of being that is necessary, and a skill that no one else can bring in the manner we one can. This is not to be used for egotistical satisfaction nor for power, prestige and/or control. Rather, encountering these words today, we realize the call of the Ineffable One, the call of our surroundings, the call of people whom we know and those we don’t to contribute our talent/skill/uniqueness to the betterment of our corner of the world, regardless of any financial gain, any notoriety, any scorn. When we make ‘practical use’ of our abilities and skills, our gifts and talents, we grow more and more into the human our souls are begging us to ‘come into being’. When we make practical use of who we are we respond to the demand of our higher consciousness to ‘take a stand for’ what is right, what is true, what is holy.

Living a life of utilization in this manner is not the usual way most people think of when hearing this word. Most people think this means making use of something for our gain, making use of something in a concrete manner for personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Yet, doing this has not helped people achieve a sense of beingness that brings fulfillment and/or satisfaction. It usually brings a need for more and more to fill the whole in the soul that can only be filled by living an “authentic existence”. Since so many people are engaged in living their ‘false self’; it is no wonder that we are experiencing so many mental health issues, so much hatred and strife, so much mendacity and deception, so much jockeying for power and riches. When we do not tie “utilization” to “authentic existence” all we are left with is emptiness, low-grade misery, anger, and a loss of faith because what we have faith in, our ‘false self’ will always disappoint us, will always cause more strife, sadness and emptiness.

We have the opportunity each and every day to encounter the world and our “authentic existence”. We have the skill within us to make good practical use of our talents and skills, our kindness and compassion, our mercy and justice, our truth and love. It takes courage according to what Reinhold Niebuhr teaches in the original Serenity Prayer, “the courage to change the things I should”. We cannot change nature, we cannot change another person, we can change the ways we utilize our minds and hearts, souls and intuition for the betterment of all, not just for our selfish needs. We have the ways to do this, prayer, meditation, standing for what is right, good, true, seeing each and every person as having equal worth and dignity, greeting their authentic self, their ‘genuine coming into being’ as a much needed gift that we can utilize together to make peace, wholeness, community and love.

In recovery, we keep “peeling the onion skins” of our false living to find our “authentic existence”. We are on a search for the real ‘me’ and keep discarding the false ‘me’ we have been living and that has brought so much pain and suffering to us and to those around us. We welcome and love the ‘genuine being’ of a newcomer before they can even recognize who they truly are. In recovery, we make practical use of ability to deceive by recognizing our self-deceptions and letting them go so we can be of service to another human being and to God.

I have utilized my talents and skills for the sake of self and for the sake of heaven throughout my life. Prior to recovery, the scales were weighted down on the side of self and deception was my go to way of being. In recovery, the scales have been weighted towards utilizing my gifts for the sake of heaven and for the sake of the people I encounter. As with everything else, it is never 100% either way, yet I know I am more weighted towards justice and mercy, compassion and kindness, truth and love then I am towards self. I keep checking myself to ensure that both my actions and intentions are on the scale leaning towards God. Encountering each day with the knowledge that I have the opportunity and demand to grow my “authentic existence” through “utilization of my gifts brings me hope and excitement. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 259

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

These are interesting pairs of actions/words that Rabbi Heschel is using above; “manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, work and worship; while seemingly opposites, we can experience them as partners in our being able to “come into being, take a stand for” a genuineness in our living that brings us to a life of joy, radical amazement, action, connection, justice, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and, most of all love. This is our birthright and, like Esau in the Bible, most of us either sell it cheap or have it taken away from us by the deceptions of another(s).

Many people use manipulation to further their ends, not for the betterment of another(s). They are bastardizing the words of the Bible, the heart of the Bible, the Soul of the Bible, and calling it ‘christianity’, when what they are doing is being false prophets, being like the Egyptians and the Canaanites, being the Romans and the Greeks, the Assyrians and the Judas’. In an article in the New York Times yesterday, a man who went to the Capital on Jan. 6th and supported Trump’s BIG LIE, has been skewered as an FBI plant to foment the riot and the insurrection. Tucker Carlson has made him the scapegoat, has manipulated millions of people to believe that Mr. Epps alone caused the riot and did so on the order of the FBI that William Barr and Donald Trump were in charge of! Mr. Epps had to sell his business and home at a great loss, move to a mobile home somewhere in the Rockies and is living in fear of his life and the life of his wife, all because Tucker Carlson, et al, needed to blame someone other than the true culprits. Who are these true culprits, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Donald  Trump! Yet, as great manipulators, they escape responsibility, justice and truth. Mean spirit Mark Meadows, Junkyard Jim Jordan, Molester Matt Gaetz, Mendacious Marjorie Taylor Greene, and their cronies all believe that manipulation, lies, deceit and deception done in the name of them having power is their right, is the demand that Jesus puts upon them. They are so lost, these manipulators for evil, manipulators for self, they have co-opted what it means to be a person of faith, to be a person of God, to be a person of religious and spiritual values; no wonder attendance at houses of worship keeps declining, no wonder mental health issues, addiction issues, trust issues have risen exponentially over the past 40 years! These people, their ancestors, their partners in crime have given spirit, religion, faith, God a bad name.

We can change this, as Rabbi Heschel is calling on us to do. Rev Martin Luther King, Rabbi Heschel, Reinhold Niebuhr, among others are prophets for us, Jefferson, Hamilton, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, John and Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and others are role models for us to learn how to leave our self-deceptions, learn how to follow the call/demand of our souls, see every human being as worthy of dignity, respect and assistance being manipulated back into the beings they are created to be, adjusted to fulfill the purposes we are needed to fulfill. Each one of the people above, and so many more, heard a call that was more powerful than their false ego call for power, property and prestige, Each one of the politicians made a difference in the ways we fulfill the promise of 1776, each one, in their own way, ushered in new ways of seeing freedom, living decently, ensuring justice, caring for the stranger, the needy and the poor! Each of the Spiritual Leaders above followed the dictates of God, the call of their souls and the needs of the individuals in front of them and have promoted connection between people, love of God and one’s neighbor, and a covenant of truth, mercy and imperfection. We can do the same if we are willing to manipulate/get an adjustment in our thinking from me to we, begin anew to stand for ethics and morals for all, prize and cherish love over power, truth over money, cooperation over slavery, dignity over degradation and forgiveness of self, another over resentment and hatred.

In recovery, we are in the mode of manipulating our self to “come to believe a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity”. We know we are in need of help to return/turn to a life of kindness, compassion and sanity so we seek it from this power greater than us and we seen wisdom and guidance from people who have achieved a measure of the life we are seeking. We know how to follow direction, because we followed it to our ruin, now we seek to follow direction to our benefit and in service of another(s).

I viscerally understand the power of manipulation for self-seeking reasons, I did it for many years consciously. I also know the joy of manipulation for the sake of heaven, for the sake of another and for the sake on my own soul. As I have said over the years, I am still a hustler, the difference is I hustle for God instead of me/greed. I allowed Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l, to be my first manipulator in my recovery, Rabbi Heschel has been my ‘chiropractor of the soul’ for all these years along with Rabbis Jonathan Omer-man, Harold Shulweis, z”l, and Rabbi Edward Feinstein, Harriet Rossetto, Heather Garrett and many others.  More on Sunday, God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 258

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

Manipulation comes from the Latin meaning “handful” and is defined as “the act of manipulating something in a skillful manner and the action of manipulating someone in a clever or unscrupulous way”. Appreciation means “to prize, to set at a price, to appraise, and is defined as “a full understanding of the situation and recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities”. We can have a ‘genuine come into being’ only when we are able to appraise and set at a price the handful of living we have in front of us. We can have an “authentic existence” only when we are willing to manipulate our unique purpose in life with a skillful manner and with a full understanding of the totality of our beingness, including our earthly inclination, as Rabbi Harold Kushner calls the Yetzer HaRa, as well as a recognition of and enjoyment of the ups, downs, joys, sadness’, hitting the mark and missing the mark of our living. To engage in manipulation in this sense is to take the handful of life, to take the handful of experiences, the handful of knowledge, and handle them skillfully for the sake of heaven, rather than handle them in a clever and unscrupulous manner.

I am, like many, obsessed with the hearings from the Jan. 6th Committee. It has given all of us the proof of what some of us knew and most did not: Trump, his crew, his ‘family’ were manipulating our country for their own clever and unscrupulous results. Jared Kushner is so supercilious and such a terrible example of the way of living Jewishly that Rabbi Heschel teaches us, that Torah teaches us, it is disgusting. The real RINO’s in our country are the people who call themselves Republicans and support Trump, support all of the ideals that go against Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, the heart of what the party used to stand for. Mendacious Mitch, Crooked Cruz, Hooligan Hawley, Groveling Gommert, Mealy-Mouthed McCarthy to name a few. I ask myself why now are these people who witnessed the degradation of our democracy for all 4 years of the Trump Presidency speaking out now. I pray and hope that they have been struck truthful, struck ‘sober’ in their thoughts and actions because they had a “dark night of the soul” and found themselves at the cross-road of either genuine existence, manipulation for good and appraising their past actions and decided to make things right. I have no idea of what they will do next, I do believe many of the witnesses have had a spiritual awakening and a renewal of an authentic existence.

We need to manipulate our selves back into alignment with God, with decency, with ethical and moral behaviors and stop the clever and unscrupulous ways we demean our selves and another(s). We need to realize we are able to handle the hands we have been dealt and to “play our cards” for the sake of heaven, for the sake of humanity and for sake of our humanness. It is high time we stop setting the bar so low, we stop with the false appraisals of our self and of another self. It is high time we stop seeing how clever we can be. We need to answer the call of Rabbi Heschel in a telegram he sent to President Kennedy, we need to respond to the call of our time, the call of the stranger, the needy, the poor: the call to engage in “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”. We all have the ability, we all have the tools, we just need the will to respond to this call from God, from another human being, from our souls.

In recovery, we are constantly appraising our self, we are constantly seeking to use the raw material of our being and manipulate this raw material into a life that we are proud to live. Having had so much experience in manipulating our raw material, our talents, our fears, our egos and our false egos for the sake of self and into actions we regret, this shift in focus is refreshing, exciting and we find ourselves eager to engage in all that life has and continue to learn and progress to a fuller understanding of our purpose and passion in life.

Just as with a Chiropractic visitation, my manipulation of my soul to be in alignment with God, with my purpose, is in constant need of appraisal and re-adjustment. I am aware of the moments when I get out of alignment just a little now whereas prior to recovery, I was unaware and thought being out of adjustment was the ‘normal’ way of being for me and their was no hope to ever be aligned. The manipulations that God, Rabbi Heschel,  Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Rabbi Mel Silverman, Jerry Borovitz, my siblings, Stuart, Neal and Sheri, nieces and nephews, my daughter Heather and grandson Miles Stuart, along with Harriet Rossetto, my wife, partner, lover and friend have given me and still give me keep me much more in alignment with truth, justice, kindness, mercy, compassion than ever. Each day, my prayers, this writing, my interactions with people keep me skillfully using my talents to serve another, to serve God-not my false ego. The manipulation only lasts a while, the joy and hope though is each time my getting out of alignment is incrementally smaller and more painful, easier to be reset and, upon recognizing the full extent of my actions when I am even a little out of alignment, infinitely more painful to appraise. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 257

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

I have been immersed in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and am in awe of the far-reaching impact it has on all areas, crevices and corners of living. Once we determine what is genuine in our living, we have to make the decision to  take a stand for something; be it for mendacity or truth, be it for decency or indecency, be it for power only or power and service, etc. We face this decision each and every day, hour, minute and, unfortunately, most of us are willfully blind to the need for and the consequences of not making a decision, of not determining what is genuine and what isn’t. In the Jan. 6th hearings, Liz Cheney said it so well, we cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind to what is going on around us, inside of us and by our own hands.

What do we exist for? What do we stand for? What do we stand against? America is the dynamic response to the enslavement of the colonies by King George, it stands against power for the sake of power, it is the response and the message that not only “taxation without representation” is wrong, any form of enslavement, destruction of the human spirit and/or imprisonment through prejudice, slavery, unjust limitations of freedom, forcing people to live under someone else’s religious intolerance is wrong. The Founding Fathers and Mothers took stands against tyranny, they wanted freedom to ring, they moved the needle a great deal, knowing that moving it to completion was a process and would take time. This doesn’t mean they stood for slavery, Jefferson knew it was wrong, Franklin knew it and they were powerless to move the needle, this doesn’t mean that the needle should not be moved!

We all have to think about what we are/will/must take a stand against as well as what we take a stand for. Our political climate is filled with hatred, with willful blindness, with power for the sake of power, etc and it seems as if “good people” have decided to do nothing because they are shouted down by the far right and the far left. Watching Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson work together is a glimpse into what can be accomplished when good decent people take a stand for principles and against just following along party lines, when good decent people take a stand for ethical behavior and against unethical methods, when good decent people take a stand for freedom and against tyranny, take a stand for truth and against mendacity and deception. These two Congresspeople will oppose each other on policies and the implementation of policies that they agree on in the future. Yet, they will do it with civility and respect, with admiration and knowledge that disagreements are part of living, finding common ground is what this country is based on and how it came into being.

What are we, the rest of the populace of this great experiment in self-government, in democratic rule, in anti-authoritarianism, going to do? We need to ‘take a stand’ against prejudice, pride, envy, and enmity. We have to ‘take a stand’ against the senseless hatred that is permeating our streets and causing senseless deaths, immeasurable harms and soul-crushing experiences to and for so many of us. We have to ‘take a stand’ for freedom, we have to ‘take a stand’ for truth, we have to ‘take a stand’ for Godliness, for holiness, for the image of the divine that is in all of us. We have to ‘take a stand’ and support the physical health, mental health and spiritual health of everyone. We have to ‘take a stand’ for the Four Freedoms: Freedom of speech and worship, Freedom from fear and want, as FDR articulated on Jan. 6th, 1941. Ironic isn’t it that some 80 years later, these freedoms would come under the most vicious internal attack, America has ever seen.

In recovery, we are acutely aware and attuned to “principles before personality” and the awareness that “contempt prior to investigation” will lead us to slavery, to ignorance, to willful blindness, to hatred, prejudice and out of our recovery. We know that we are not going to like everyone nor should we. We are aware we do and will have differences of opinions on how to live the principles of living well and this is what makes us unique. What we all commit to, however, is to ‘take a stand’ against following personalities who lack the willingness to live spiritual principles and moral principles. We commit to ‘take a stand’ for truth, for decency, for recovery, for life.

I am fearful for the world my grandson is growing into. A world/country that is filled with hatred; overflowing with prejudice and anti-semitism; with regressive thoughts, actions and laws towards women, LGBTQ; with a desire to have a ‘christian nation’ that bears no resemblance to Christ’s words, no resemblance to Moses’ teachings, not a clue about Mohammed’s brilliance. I am writing, studying with people in small groups to effect the changes I believe Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, the changes the Bible insists upon and to respond to the call/demand that I hear from God. I don’t have the bully pulpit I used to and I have a voice and this is my stand. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 256

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

Beginning with the phrase “authentic existence”, Rabbi Heschel is again awakening us to basic principles and ways of being. Authentic comes from the Latin meaning “genuine” and existence from the Latin meaning “take a stand” and/or “come into being”. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to remember and learn from our history, from the examples that lasted “for thousands of years” to take a genuine stand in the ways we live, to stop the mendacity, to stop the deceptions, to end our own self-deception and to end our indifference to the genuine love and duty that life calls upon us to engage in. Having never looked up existence before, I am blown away with the root of it. While the dictionary definition is “continued survival/way of living/all that exist”, the root of the word gives us all much more to ponder and to live to. To ensure that his words are not bastardized, I believe, and to ensure that people can easily(?) understand him, Rabbi Heschel puts together genuine with taking a stand, so he is reminding us, teaching us, enlightening us to the fact that for thousands of years, people lived lives of taking a genuine stand on issues, on living, on caring for one another. While power has certainly always been an issue, the words above reflect the majority of people’s way of being. Families cared for one another in genuine ways, not just for how things would look, unless of course you were in the ‘ruling class’ then optics was all that mattered. Nothing can come into being unless we take a stand to make it happen, unless we take an action to cause an idea, a goal, an invention, a cure to emerge, we stay stuck in the same old ways of doing things and life is no longer dynamic, it is static, boring and oppressive.

Today, we are facing the very challenge Rabbi Heschel put in front of us in 1963, are you going to live an authentic existence or continue to live in deception of another, deception of self, mendacity? Living in deception and mendacity has its rewards, as we can see from so many people like the leader of the pack to end our democracy, Trickster Trumpster, Caving Kevin, Josh aka Judas Hawley, Moscow Mitch who believes Christ was a lion and a bully, the squad who needs someone to hate in order to flourish, etc. All of these ‘leaders’ live lives of “quiet desperation” as Thoreau spoke about and rather than face themselves, rather than have a “dark night of the soul” they engage in the self-deception of blaming another for the ills of the world and wrap themselves in the mendacity of victim and savior all at the same time. These people and their ‘soldiers’ like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, et al, continue to bully, cajole, lie to everyone about their motives, except for Moscow Mitch-he tells everyone he only cares about power and supporting the corporations and the ultra-rich.

“Authentic existence” is calling to our souls to overcome the mendacity and deceptions of these so-called leaders, these so-called ‘good christians’ who spout hatred rather than love, who denigrate the stranger, the poor, the needy rather than welcoming them, for whom prejudice, anti-semitism, racism, Islamaphobia, homophobia, etc are at their core and are cancers eating away at their inner life, their souls so they can continue to practice their art of indifference to the plight of their fellows and the plight of their souls. It is so sad, frightening, devastating, serious to see the level of inauthenticity being lived by so many today. It is depleting and fatiguing to do battle with the bombardment of lies, the flood of deception, the storm of spin, the assault on truth that the charlatans above and their followers, their competitors in deception are engaging in each day. Probably the saddest realization for me/us is the followers of deceptive and mendacious people are not even aware they are being duped and feel genuine in their indifference and self-deceptions.

In recovery, we take a stand every day to live as genuine, as decent, as ethically principled as possible. We are aware of our previous shortcomings, our previous self-deceptions and deceptions of another, so we are sensitive to the lies of another. We know that we have to scrape our self-deceptions away from us as people scrape barnacles off a boat. It is a never-ending job and a job that brings genuine joy each and every day.

I am so aware of deception of another, deception of self, and when I am being deceived usually. And then there are times when I fool myself, times when I get fooled. In doing my own inventory, I know my reactions to mendacity and deception seem over the top and, to some they are. Yet, I also know of how afraid I am to get near to mendacity, to be close to deception, to be inauthentic, to not take a stand. I am hyper-afraid because I was a mendacious, devious deceiver who took no prisoners prior to my last Prison Term. If I am not bombastic, if I do not have a strong inner revulsion to mendacity and deception whether practiced by me or another, I am in danger of sliding backwards on my journey to the Promised Land. I don’t expect to get there, I do not have any illusions of perfection, I only know the path to Hell is paved with deception and I refuse to go there anymore. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 255

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

We are in the midst of a great war, both inner and outer, for the soul of our self, the soul of our country, the soul of the world and our connection to the Ineffable One. The news is full of stories recounting the Mental Health crisis of our young and not so young, accounting most of it to the Pandemic. This is another way of deflecting from the root cause of the mental health crisis we face, blame it on something out of our control, blame it on God, on the universe, etc. The first sentence above points to the cause of the crisis today, just as it was revealing the same crisis almost 60 years ago, a crisis of the spirit, a dark night of the soul, a wrestling/struggle between truth and mendacity, indifference and wonder, fulfilling the demand/call of a power greater than oneself/higher consciousness and ignoring the call in favor of power, prestige, wealth, engaging in “treating the stranger well” and taking advantage of anyone/everyone just because we can. This is the crisis we face as individuals and as members of a religion, ethnicity, country, etc. Yet, too many of us are unwilling to wrestle with these opposing forces, too many of us are unwilling to acknowledge our “ability to appreciate” and “give expression to appreciation”.

Why, you may ask, is simple. When we appreciate something, we can no longer denigrate it. When we appreciate a human being, we can no longer hate them, be prejudicial towards them or ‘their kind’, we can no longer treat them as less than and we must treat them with love, kindness, truth, justice, compassion. Just as the Bible teaches: “Love your neighbor as your self”, when we appreciate a person, we see them as our partner, a divine reminder, an image of God, an equal. From this place we can no longer engage in the senseless hatred that has plagued our society for millennia. We can no longer engage in ‘making our self look good by making another self look bad’, we no longer will seek solace in hatred, in alcohol, in drugs, in risky behaviors, in trying to control women, another ethnicity, another race, in treating the stranger poorly. We need to engage in this spiritual dark night of the soul as a people and as individuals. It is difficult, it is painful and it is the only path to wholeness that has stood the test of time, from Jacob in the Bible to today.

Appreciation, of course, begins with accepting what is and finding ways to make our corner of the world a little better. Acceptance is not the same as settling and being stuck. Acceptance is the first step in change, acceptance is acknowledging what is and then finding ways to improve the current situation. I can’t change what I don’t accept as reality, and we can’t accept mendacity, status quo, ‘this is the way it has always been’ as excused to not engage. Remembering that the only constant is change, we are constantly moving even though we don’t feel the earth turning, we can join with other appreciators to end the outer wars we experience with people who are lying about their certainty of action, their certainty of hatred, their mendacious ways of deception and enslavement. We can and must combat their mendacity with our appreciation, combat their hatred with our expressions of love, appreciation, reminders of what is truly important and holy to our mission of fulfilling the divine need we were created to fill.

In recovery, we are told in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today”(page 417). We know we have to accept our powerlessness over people, places, things, substances, etc. We have to be in acceptance before we can control our selfs, have the strength to appreciate the power of our bad habits, stinking thinking, mental crisis’ and spiritual malady. Once we are in acceptance, the path to change, to living well, to understanding the teaching above, to opening our eyes and seeing what is in front of us is clear and we are resolved to change, to make things better, to be responsible for what our past ways have caused and what moving forward in appreciation and truth looks like.

These past 255 days have been an appreciation of Rabbi Heschel’s contribution to my life, I would say his saving my life/giving me a life worth saving. My writing is my expression of appreciation, of prizing his wisdom, of recognizing the value of spiritual health, spiritual connection, of love, truth, radical amazement, justice, kindness, compassion and activism. While I am much louder, more ‘street vernacular’ than Rabbi Heschel, I share his drive for truth, I share and have learned how to be human a little better each day, and I am indebted to him for opening my eyes, my heart, my soul to hear, listen, understand and see the wrestlings I engage in everyday are holy, our natural and are necessary. Appreciation doesn’t always win in the moment, and it always wins in the end for me. I am grateful for my losses, my ‘missing the mark’, my errors in judgement and the hurts I have incurred as much as I am grateful for the victories I have shared with so many, the times I ‘got it right’ and the joys that true connections have brought. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 253

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

As I have immersed myself in the first sentence above, I realize that our fear of appreciation, our fear of expressing appreciation, gratitude, our fear of ‘being in someone’s debt’, has led us to prejudice and hatred. It leads us to anger, blame and shame, it has led us to the erroneous tenet perpetrated by ‘societal norms’ that we should be able to “do it on our own”. Yet, this attitude flies in the face of the wisdom above, as I am experiencing it today. Appreciate is to appraise, value, put a price on, recognize the worth of; how can we do this if we are afraid to ask for help, if we are afraid to ‘be seen as weak’, afraid to acknowledge someone else, afraid to be grateful to God, to another human being for the aid, comfort and assistance they give us. Most of all, we seem to be afraid to acknowledge the contributions, dignity and worth of another person if they are ‘not like us’, ‘not our kind’. Hence the propensity towards prejudice, senseless hatred, racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, etc.

Yet, what do we have to fear really? My appreciation of Rabbi Heschel, my recognizing the value of his teachings, the dignity of his being, my gratitude for him helping immensely to give me a life worth saving and helping me save my own life, only leads me to engage more and more in ‘good living’. When one is being human as the first sentence above describes, we become propelled to a way of living that is hate-free and welcoming to all. We become excited to see people, places, things, ideas, facts, teachings new each time we encounter them. Our loved ones become more interesting, important and appreciated because we discover more and more traits to be valued and more and more reasons to hold on to their love of us and reciprocate. Rather than being ‘one of the crowd’, engaging our ability to appreciate allows and reveals more of our uniqueness which then gets appreciated more by another.

Giving expression to appreciation strengthens our commitment to being a part of rather than apart from. While this mode of being has been bastardized over the millennia, as it is being right now by the authoritarians on both ends of the continuum, it is the gold standard of living well, as I read these words of praise, wisdom and learning from Rabbi Heschel today. Appreciation is one of the basic ingredients of being human, without it we are stuck in jealousy and rage, comparisons and competitions, false ego and pride, blame and shame. We are witnesses to these inhuman ways of being every day. When a Black man is shot 60+ times for running from police on a traffic stop and a White man is peacefully apprehended after he massacred people at an Independence Day parade in a Jewish neighborhood, we see the results and effects of our lack of appreciation, our lack of being human. When “Jews will not replace us” is seen as being said by “good people” as Trump and his minions have said, we experience the hatred and prejudice of people being supported and promoted by an authoritarian ‘wanta-be’. When we witness the immoral agreements of politicians like Moscow Mitch, Caving Kevin, Lying Ted, Little Marco, to go along with the authoritarian desires of Trump, of the Federalist society, of Tucker Carlson, we are witnesses to the destruction of what being human means according to the Bibles, the Koran, to Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, St. Francis, Rev. King, Rabbi Heschel, and so many others!

Yet, there are so many people who would rather engage in their own self-deceptions so they can believe these liars, these charlatans, these INHUMAN beings who are homo-sapiens. Our self-deception has led to the many ills and deaths of our current society and of past societies. Too many people are content with believing the lies they tell themselves and ignoring the call to appreciate the wisdom of our Ancient Teachings which have stood the test of time, ignoring the demand of God to rise to this occasion and respond to the question: “Where are you”, and following the charlatans and practitioners of mendacity named above and all of their ilk. We are in danger of losing the freedoms that this country was founded on, I saw a poster reminding everyone that this country, “founded to allow freedom from Religious persecution is using religion to persecute freedoms?” Appreciation and expressing our appreciation, recognizing the value of real freedom, living free of the pettiness, pride, envy and emnity that seems to overpower so many is the key to a better life.

In recovery, relearning to appreciate and express our appreciation is the key to our long-term recovery and to living well. We, who have bastardized all of the teachings of love, kindness, truth, justice, and compassion when we were not in recovery, are acutely aware of our need and desire to “BE HUMAN” again. We engage in living amends through our ability to grow in appreciation, to be unafraid to express it and to enjoy the aid and comfort of those who love us.

I will write more on this tomorrow. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 253

“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)

As we enter Shabbat tonight and for some on Sunday, this first sentence is so important, I believe. Rabbi Heschel is teaching/reminding us of what it means to be human in different ways than he has earlier. Appreciate comes from the Latin meaning to price, to appraise and the dictionary definition is to “recognize the full worth of; recognize the full implications of”. Ability comes from the word able which in comes from the Latin meaning “to hold”. Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above implores us engage in holding on to the full worth of our experiences of both our inner and outer living. He is also reminding us that we can hold on to these experiences and express our recognition of them as well. Rabbi Heschel is calling upon all of us to engage in appreciation and express our appreciation so we can “be human”. This appreciation, this appraisal of life is not about the outside trappings, however. It is to experience life from the inside out, to engage in rich, disturbing, challenging inner dialogues, inner wars, inner turmoil leading to inner clarity, integration of our inner forces and voices. Yet, most people are afraid to grapple with our inner discord, our inner turmoil and, instead, seek to add more outer trappings and prize the outer rather than deal with the inner. This is surely apparent in our political state of affairs, it is the basis for Putin invading Ukraine, Trump and his sycophants pushing the mendacious “Big Lie” on our country in an effort to tear down democracy. It is apparent in the machinations of Moscow Mitch who believes he can set up an autocracy and never be out of power, out of favor and this is what God means in the teachings about taking care of the poor, the needy, the stranger! The more outer ‘success’ these politicians have with deceiving their masses, the more they “recognize the full worth of” their mendacity. This is the antithesis to both the teaching above and the call/demand of God.

We witness this bastardization of appreciation in some of the 1%. They recognize the worth of their private Jets (which I do also:) more than they recognize the worth of their inner life. Like our politicians, they have run from their inner lives by filling their outer lives with stuff, toys, money, prestige, titles, etc. I have met many people who are bewildered because they “have everything” and are still unsatisfied, still in turmoil and still unable to appreciate what they have, believing the ‘next big’ success will bring them the calm they have been searching for. We see this in families as well, parents believing they will be okay if their children are okay, fulfill their dreams for their children, rescuing them from themselves and seeking their obedience and believing obedience is love. I have witnessed children who fail to appreciate their parents for who they are, rather than who they are not. They are so intent on destroying their parents ability to recognize the worth of their lives these children are willing to destroy their own life, literally and figuratively. In my vocation and avocation of being an “advocate of the soul” for 1000’s of people and their families, I have watched the difficulty people have in recognizing the worth of their own lives, much less appreciating the worth of anyone else’s.

This is where jealousy, hatred, prejudice stem from, I believe. I am experiencing Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom today as a call to end this false foundation of life, the foundation which believes if the outer looks good, then I can hide my inner turmoil from another and myself. This is the Biggest of the Big Lie!

In recovery, we relearn/learn for the first time to be able/hold on to an authentic recognition of the value of our inner life, to be hold on to the vision our inner life is providing for us and learn to express our gratitude for being alive, for finally not needing to cover up our warts and hide our foibles. In recovery, we are able to put the highest price on our relationships with another person, with family, with God, with our true self. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Today’s writing brings me to realize that the things I have run from in my life are the things I have to run to. First responders run towards danger, not away from it and I am recognizing the value of the many times when I have engaged in the dangerous labyrinth of my inner life. I have always recognized my hold on truth even when I was engaging in mendacity and deception. I am experiencing my past in glorious ways because of this teaching above. I am no longer living in shame for my errors, I have to recognize the value of my errors so I can improve, I can and must make T’Shuvah for the harm I have caused which I do upon realizing them. I also have to recognize the worth of my contribution to making my corner of the world better, I have to recognize how much my inner sense of God’s will to love the stranger, the neighbor and God have allowed me to be ‘angry for God, angry for the senseless hatred and treatment of people who are not like the people in power (aka white men). Recognizing the value of my dignity and your dignity forces me to be kinder, more loving, more human. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 252

“To be overtaken with awe of God is not to entertain a feeling but to share in a spirit that permeates all being…As an act of personal recognition our praise would be fatuous; it is meaningful only as an act of joining in the endless song.” (Who is Man pg.116)

The paragraph begins with being “overtaken with awe of God” and this, I believe, is the heart of “the endless song”. Immersing myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words makes me realize “joining in the endless song” is a call and response between one another and between us and God. God calls “Ayecha”, (where are you) to Adam and Eve and Adam states he was hiding. Imagine this, the first two human beings who were in the Garden of Eden and had it all, ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and chose to hide instead of being in truth, instead of allowing themselves “to be overtaken with awe of God”. After a while God realizes we need a manual on how to live in this state of awe, how to live with one another, how to share with one another in the spirit that permeates all being, so we receive Torah and the Bible. Because we all hear and learn differently, some of us need the New Testament, the Koran, Buddha’s vision, etc. Whatever our foundational teachings, experiences in a “power greater than ourselves”, they all lead us to the experience of being “overtaken with awe of God”.

Throughout the millennia men have sold people on awe being a feeling rather than an opportunity to “share in a spirit that permeates all being”. This manipulation and deception serves the manipulator not the person being manipulated. It gives the deceiver the power to bring false images and ideas that they claim give the ‘feeling’ of awe, they sell the people who are infatuated with them the bullshit that they alone are going to lead them to the ‘promised land’. The mendacious ones are so good at their ‘pitch’ the people who are infatuated with them and with being deceived do not realize they will never share in the ‘milk and honey’ of the promised land, they do not realize they will be the ones working to harvest the milk and honey and become a slave to these ‘leaders’ and ‘prophets’. The warning about false prophets in the Bible is still valid and true today, it is sad we don’t heed it and don’t recognize these charlatans and give them equal status as God’s prophets. They seek personal recognition and praise rather than joining in the “endless song”.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and so many others in the Bible as well as St. Francis, Rev. King, Rabbi Heschel and many more had a different response to God’s call of Ayecha, they said Hineni, here I am! Not all the time and not perfectly and they had the experience of being “overtaken with awe of God” and their response, in direct opposition to Adam and Eve, was to “share in a spirit that permeates all being”. They were determined to show up to the best of their ability and, as King David shows us, to admit when they were wrong, either on their own or with help, and do T’Shuvah, return to God, to decency to joining in “the endless song”. When being “overtaken with awe of God” is an experience rather than a feeling, the experience never leaves us. Staying loyal to the experience and loyal to our response is a path of faith, is a path to joining in the “the endless song”. It is the way we engage with God in a call and response: God: “Where Are YOU?”, our response is: “Here I AM!”. Wherever we are, we are willing to be found, we are willing to return, we are asking for help because we want to have the experience of sharing “in a spirit that permeates all being.”

The song is endless because our spirits are eternal, God is eternal and, while as human forms we die, the words and the melody of our contribution to the “endless song” never die. We are faced each hour, day, week, month, year, lifetime with the choice to be fatuous (foolish) and live by feelings that can be manipulated and the other choice to truly experience the “awe of God”, “share in a spirit that permeates all being” and sing the melody of the “endless song” that comes from our souls, our spirits. We have the choice each and every day to sing Hineni, to sing the Shema, to sing of love of God and our fellow human beings. Singing these songs are the antidote to buying into the manipulation of the charlatans selling “feel good” hatred and violence, authoritarianism and prejudice.

In recovery, we are joining in the “endless song” and holding on to the experiences of being “overtaken with awe of God”. Our voice is different from the other voices around us and we no longer feel the need to be carbon copies, we know adding our voice and song to the cacophony of sound already playing is the call we have received and the path to answering Hineni, here I am.

I have confused feeling with having a “share in a spirit that permeates all beings” on some occasions, much fewer and farther in-between in my recovery than prior. Most of all, my joining in “the endless song”, as I reflect on Rabbi Heschel’s words, has been loud, off-key, brash, not always “polite and proper” and uniquely, authentically me. This, as I write today is more important and the ridicule, the exile, being ignored is part of the price one pays for authenticity, for saying Hineni, and I gladly pay it. Real is better than optics and adding my voice to God’s song is better than singing for my supper. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel’s Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 251

“To be overtaken with awe of God is not to entertain a feeling but to share in a spirit that permeates all being…As an act of personal recognition our praise would be fatuous; it is meaningful only as an act of joining in the endless song.” (Who is Man pg.116)

“Joining in the endless song” is the call and the demand we hear each and every day from the Universe, from God, from people next to us and people we have never met. The situation in the Ukraine is an example of the world “joining in the endless song” because we praise the Ineffable One through our actions which then change our inner life, our inner thoughts and reflect the essence of our spiritual living. It is so interesting that in times of conflict, we are all able to join together, when we have an outside enemy, we can join together, however when we have opportunities to make meaningful changes in the living conditions of people, when we have opportunities to have a peaceful transition of power, when we have opportunities to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow and orphan we fight with one another. We cease “joining in the endless song” whenever there is a call to give voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless and speak truth to power. There is always a pushback and a violent denial of the rights of the stranger as being the same as the citizen, although the Bible says so and the United States of America came into being because strangers were seeking a better life, seeking to be free of the power of a monarch/ruler who was a liar, who did not care about the people he was supposed to be serving, rather caring about only himself and “his people”.

Rabbi Heschel gave these lectures at a time in American History when there was great upheaval and change. John F. Kennedy was President, Bobby Kennedy was Attorney General, Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking out, marching, creating peaceful civil disobedience events, Rabbi Heschel joined with Rev. King in speaking out against the injustices of prejudice and inequality, the time was ripe for people to hear what they did not want to hear-we are all created with infinite dignity and worth, all people “are created equal with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Yet, just as today, some people back then did not want to acknowledge these truths in their churches nor in the town square, yet them called themselves ‘people of faith, faith leaders,’ they purported to believe in “the American Way”. Rather than work “to form a more perfect Union” the people of the 60’s worked to keep their being at the top of the power pyramid. They needed an outside enemy to keep ‘their’ people from turning on them because they were screwing the very people who supported their UnAmerican activities. Sound familiar? We are facing the same situation today, only the names have changed. Just as back in the 50’s and 60’s breathing while black is a crime to some, breathing while Jewish is a crime to some, voting for anything  other than white supremacy is a crime to some, speaking truth is a crime to some today. The House Committee on the Jan. 6th Attack on the Capital is really investigating people who are actively engaged in UnAmerican activities: people who are trying desperately to overthrow our democratic norms, legislatures that are trying to limit the rights of citizens to vote, people who are treating strangers, the poor, the needy in ways that neither God nor the founders of this Republic ever intended.

While it may seem as if we are powerless, we are not. We have to acknowledge and enhance the ways we are “joining in the endless song”. We have to stop wringing our hands, mourning what was(which it never really was we only thought change had taken hold). We need to get to work and prize the ways God prizes and praises. We have to continue to imitate God and make new paths to goodness, wholeness, equality, dignity, love, kindness, mercy and justice every day as God does in the Heavenly Court. We have to and are able to effect the changes that God wants, that decency, freedom, and living together demand. We do this through demonstrating these ways of being in our everyday living. We do this by shouting at the top of our lungs our awe of God, we do this by praising and prizing truth, justice, mercy, kindness, love and compassion. We do this by reaching out to the people who are intoxicated with the mendacity of these people who engage in UnAmerican activities like Jim Jordan, J.D.Vance, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, these power-hungry war mongers like Giuliani, Meadows, Cruz, Hawley, DiSantis and these immoral and unGodly deceivers like Kushner, Trump, Eastman, Carlson, to help them see truth, to relate to their fears and pain while also bringing them out of the ether these people have put them in, assist them in being advocates for their true interests and find ways to reach compromises that ensure the dignity of all people.

In recovery, we are “joining in the endless song” because we know without joining this choir, we will surely die, spiritually, emotionally and, maybe even, physically. We were the people who, while looking good(or trying to/thinking we were) were practicing UnAmerican activities and unGodly activities. We took advantage of the vulnerabilities of people and we have been able to say NO to that way of living. We do this by saying YES to the awe of and call of God. We say YES by “joining in the endless song” with our authentic voice and living.

I am fighting for the voices of my grandson, my great nieces and nephews. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 250

“To be overtaken with awe of God is not to entertain a feeling but to share in a spirit that permeates all being…As an act of personal recognition our praise would be fatuous; it is meaningful only as an act of joining in the endless song.” (Who is Man pg.116)

Returning to Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom on how to celebrate rather than indulge a feeling is in direct contrast to the devastating news of yesterday. When America is supposed to celebrate the Declaration of Independence there are people who are working hard to make us come under the tyranny of MAGA, of idolatry, of mendacious people purporting to be people of faith, etc. White males who kill people at an Independence Day parade in Illinois, at a protest in Wisconsin are arrested, a Black male who runs from police for fear of death or arrest for driving while black, etc are shot 60 times? Yet some are praising the MAGA people, some are praising the Qanoners, some of our elected representatives are fawning over the treasonous Trump, the deceptive DeSantis, the bobblehead Pence, the Russian money grabbing McConnell, and call these actions ‘acts of faith’, acts of patriotism! How ridiculous and how have we sunk so deep into the quicksand of self-deception?

Rabbi Heschel is telling us in the second sentence above. We have come to use praise as personal recognition rather than recognizing the spiritual energy “that permeates all beings.” None of these so-called patriots are praising the Founding Fathers, none of these so-called conservative Supreme Court and lower Federal Court judges are interpreting the Constitution as the founding fathers meant it to be. They are trying to keep the status quo on a document that was created to be dynamic, to respond to new information, to continue to afford more freedom, not more restrictions. Yet, as we can see from the latest set of rulings, these judges are not about justice for all, they are not following the dictates of God. They are not recognizing nor joining in the endless song of justice, mercy, kindness, truth, love that God sings every day, that the Constitution offers to all of us when we are immersed in both the letter and spirit of it. They are recognizing their own political power, they are praising the money people who possibly gave them stipends in their earlier careers, to whom they are indebted to because of the ‘leg up’ they got from being associated with them (the Federalist group and others) and they prize the idolatry and mendacity of their patrons and themselves more than they prize serving something greater than themselves. Clarence Thomas spreading false rumors as good science says it all, he would rather praise and prize mendacity, he would rather praise and prize death for the people who choose to not be vaccinated and all those they come into contact with than to praise and prize life, than to praise and prize truth! I wonder if he will agree that the Loving decision is to be overturned as well?

We all have to look who and what are we praising and prizing. It is no longer enough to ‘be on the right side’ of an argument, it is no longer enough to ensure the optics of a situation look good, it is no longer enough to mouth the ‘right’ words be one a conservative or progressive. We have to join in the endless song that was begun when the world was created. We have to add our voices to the eternal song that praises life, that prizes truth, that joins as one of the voices in God’s song not having to rewrite God’s music to fit our own needs/wants/desires. It is time for us to move forward the promise God made at the Red Sea, it is time for us to move forward the Covenant God made with all people at Mount Sinai. It is time for us to move forward the words of the prophets, the gates of return and repentance our always open and the words of a central prayer in the Jewish faith, God desires our return. It is time to move forward the promise of the Constitution of the United States to stay as a ‘beacon on the hill’ for every other country to light their lights by the lamp of Lady Liberty. We only do this when we join the endless songs of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Henry, Franklin, Hamilton, Lincoln, et al. They may have been serving their own agendas at times, yet their main agendas were to move forward the freedom they and their contemporaries fought so hard to win. They continued to praise and prize a power greater than themselves, the spirit of freedom, and joined in “the endless song” that was begun at the time the world was created.

In recovery, we let go of our false needs to puff ourselves up and find our own personal ‘right size’ way of living. We no longer need to engage in the fatuousness of personal recognition, rather we know our service is the surest sign of our praise and we prize being part of the “endless song” and sing our melody loudly and proudly as one of God’s servants.

The prayer upon awakening that I immerse myself in each day has a word that usually means compassion and can also mean ‘inflamed’. I find myself more and more inflamed with praise for God, more and more recognizing my voice in the “endless song” both preretirement and, finally, post retirement. The soul sickness I experienced last week has been replaced with praise for God, praise for the good people who ran to help the victims of these mass shootings and those who help everyday without notice. I am, again, part of the “endless song” and singing it loudly and in my own key. I hope you are also. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 249

“In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just”. “However, an honest estimation of the moral state of our society will disclose: some are guilty, but all are responsible.”(The Insecurity of Freedom pg. 89,93).

In honor of the 4th of July, I have chosen these two quotes from the paper Rabbi Heschel delivered on Religion and Race in January of 1963. The entire paper is so rich in spirit, in truth, in a path forward. In likening the plight of Black people to the Israelites in Egypt, Rabbi Heschel brought together the basis for everyone to be inflamed with the need for justice for all no matter the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation, their political bias, their faith, etc. Yet, here we are today, some 59 years later, in as bad a morass, if not worse, then when these words were both written and spoken.

Jefferson’s quote above is what a “fearless and searching inventory” or a “Chesbon HaNefesh, accounting of the soul” produces. The author of the Declaration of Independence, knowing his owning of slaves, knowing his not considering Black People as fully human was wrong, was an affront to God and was unjust. Today, we are still not appreciating the words of Jefferson nor are some people even capable of trembling for our country because they are too busy ‘being right’, speaking of ‘righteousness’, bastardizing God’s teachings by wrapping themselves in some Bible that is not original to either Judaism, Christianity nor Islam. We are facing a moment in our history that is as bleak if not bleaker than the moments Jefferson was facing and some of the leaders are not trembling “for my country when I reflect that God is just”. The reason they are not trembling is because they think they control God, their god is an idol of their making and they are using the words and sentiments of religious thought to enhance their idolatry.

Mitt Romney where are you? How can you as a devout Mormon go along with the idolatry of Moscow Mitch? How can you as a believer in God go along with the people who want to enslave, make less than human any one who is not like them/anyone who isn’t them? How do you vote with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley who openly and proudly supported an insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021? How do you support Moscow Mitch who wants to make corporations more equal that human beings? How do you go to Church on Sunday, how do you swear your allegiance to God and go along with these inhumane actions? I call you to account with Rabbi Heschel’s quote above: “some are guilty, but all are responsible.” You and your cronies, you and your fellow Republicans have done more to tear down this Republic, smash the democratic norms and rules that make this country “a shining city upon a hill”, as Ronald Reagan said! Yet, you go along with Moscow Mitch’s ways of grabbing power, exercising power to put down anyone who doesn’t agree with the inhumane ways of treating one another, crush anyone who isn’t willing to enslave people and to imprison children “yearning to breathe free”. What is up with all you good church-going charlatans, what is up with the idolators who put on the National Prayer Breakfasts? What is up with the rest of us who don’t stop this travesty of justice, this travesty of Godliness, this immorality we have come to accept and/or be indifferent to?

We are all responsible and those of us who feel powerless to change these immoral actions of our government and courts, GET OVER IT! We all have the power to speak out, we all have the power to write letters, we all have the power to vote, we all have the power to make phone calls to Congress people, we all have the power of Holiness and Godliness in us. We have to make the decision to change our impotence into to potency by changing the ways we speak to one another, not the language necessarily, just the tone. We can argue for the sake of being right and/or we can argue for the sake of God. Jefferson is reminding us that the later is more important and more rewarding than the former. We can stop being indifferent by indulging in our powerlessness on a global level and make the changes we can on a personal level, in our families, our communities, our workplaces, our cities, etc. We can be the pebble in the water that creates ripple effects. We can take seriously Rabbi Heschel’s words and no longer hide behind the powerlessness of changing the macro and work on changing the micro, our inner life, our family life, etc.

In recovery, we are constantly taking inventory, we are constantly reflecting on how to live our higher consciousness/divine image. We know we are responsible for all that happens and we take personal responsibility for the errors and victories we cause.

I have trembled at my own unjust ways. I have worked hard to change them. I have felt the powerlessness to make a difference and experienced what a friend called “soul sickness”. Yet, I continue to do what I can, where I can, and when I can to make changes in my inner life, changes in my family’s life, changes in my community’s life. The success and/or failure of such efforts is immaterial as I am reading today’s quotes, what is important is my engagement in them. God is just and God is merciful, hence our command to “love mercy, do justly and walk in the ways of God”. Let's all do it a little more and be the responsible Divine needs we are created to be. God Bless, stay safe and Happy 4th of July, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 248

“To be overtaken with awe of God is not to entertain a feeling but to share in a spirit that permeates all being…As an act of personal recognition our praise would be fatuous; it is meaningful only as an act of joining in the endless song.” (Who is Man pg.116)

Continuing on Friday’s writing, I have found myself asking what is going through me? Is it pride and ego that has the larger hold on me or does sharing in “a spirit that permeates all being” have the larger hold on me? While it is never always and/or never, which one of these energies has 51+% control of us is entirely dependent on us. We get to choose what is going to go through us and what we are going to make the foundation of our life. Rabbi Heschel is reminding us, teaching us, calling to us to hear the demand of God, “to be overtaken with awe of God” as a way of being not as a feeling that we like. Rather, I hear Rabbi Heschel demanding that we acknowledge the awesomeness of God, that we stop believing it is just a personal experience known only to us and we then can tell other people how to acknowledge. Immersing myself in these words, I am hearing Rabbi Heschel explain to us, more patiently than I would, the “awe of God” is not a real experience unless we are also engaged in sharing “in a spirit that permeates all being”, it is not a real experience unless we respect and engage with every other being as if they too have been “overtaken with awe of God” and are sharing in the same spiritual experience while having their own unique one.

At the Red Sea and at Mt. Sinai, everyone saw the power and glory of God, everyone heard the call of God and each person had their own experience unlike the experience of everyone else. Yet, they could all share in being “overtaken with awe of God” in their unique way and as a communal commitment. The response at the Red Sea was “this is my God and I will honor God” and the response of Mt. Sinai was “we will do and we will understand”. At the Red Sea, it was a more personal response, the people matured enough by Mt. Sinai to be able to have a communal response to their very unique individual experience because they were able to “share in a spirit that permeates all being”.

As we approach the 4th of July, I believe it is high time for “all good people to come to the aid of their country” as the typing test/challenge says. We all share in the spirit of the  founding fathers whose desire to be free is captured so beautifully in the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”. For the ‘conservative’ impostors like Clarence Thomas, his wife Ginny, lying Ted Cruz, little Marco Rubio, Moscow Mitch and Trump-kissing Kevin McCarthy, these words have no meaning and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence is not a “spirit that permeates all being”, it is just a feeling for a day, a way to slap hands and give out phony smiles.

This July 4th we are being called by Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teaching, by all spiritual disciplines to rededicate ourselves to the values and the meaning, the spirit and the actions that our founding document is calling for us to do. We have to end our need to live in our pride and false egos, we have to let go of our desire to be right and make another(s) wrong, we have to stop feeding the deceptions of ourselves that lead us to deceive another(s) and to believe in the lies of the people in power. We are being called upon to answer the call and the needs of these tired, poor, huddled masses” in this country as well as those who are knocking on our door for a better life. We are being called to “share in the spirit that permeates all being” and help the poor, the needy, the stranger rather than exploit them, rather than jail them, rather than reject them. We can only respond to the demand and call of God when we are “overtaken with the awe of God” and follow the words of Moses in the Torah and the prophets: “Love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly in the ways of God.” God is always ready for our return, God desires our return as our prayers tell us 3 times each day. God needs our return so we can be the partners with God that we were created to be. God needs our return so we stop hiding, we need our return so we can take our proper place and help those who need help. This is what 51+% “share in a spirit that permeates all being” looks like and acts like.

In recovery, we are so aware of our need to let go of our false pride and false ego in order to have the ability to “share in a spirit that permeates all being” . We are aware of our need to shift the balance of power within us to 51%+ decency, kindness, truth, love, justice and mercy. We learn to live in a state where we are “overtaken with awe of God” in our daily affairs, we develop a practice of experiencing the call of the Ineffable One in all of our affairs and no two experiences are ever the same.

I know that this ‘battle’ as to what is going to have power over me is never done! I forgot this for a bit, I realize that false ego and pride has ruled me on more than one occasion in my recovery and I also know that I have continued to return to a state where I can be and am “overtaken with the awe of God” and I continue to “share in a spirit that permeates all being”. I am grateful for the people who help me return and who stand with me and by me because they know my soul, know my heart. I am grateful that God accepts my T’Shuvah and helps me return to my proper place.  God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 247

“To be overtaken with awe of God is not to entertain a feeling but to share in a spirit that permeates all being…As an act of personal recognition our praise would be fatuous; it is meaningful only as an act of joining in the endless song.” (Who is Man pg.116)

To permeate comes from the Latin meaning “pass through” and share as a verb means to have a portion of something with another. Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is to remind us that rather than us pass through the spirit, the spirit has to pass through us. Rather than thinking and acting as if we have it all, we are entitled to do as we please, we have to live our lives as a shareholder of this spirit which “permeates all being” if we are “to be overtaken with awe of God”.

Herein lies the challenge, the question, the demand of God and of one another I believe. Are we going through life, are we going through the teachings of history or are they going through us? Are we going through the Bible or is the Bible going through us? Are we going through “awe of God” or is the “awe of God” going through us? These have been issues for humankind since our beginnings and now, more than ever I believe, these issues and our responses are crucial to our survival and our thriving.

It is clear that our democracy has been overtaken by ideology in ways never before seen. It is clear that some of our religions have been overtaken by ideology never seen nor meant in the basic texts of our religions. Yet, here we are, living in a world where “the awe of God” is overtaken by the awe of self. Narcissism has morphed into and overtaken democratic norms, our Supreme Court and some of the Justices therein, our everyday conversations and our relationships with one another. The reflection of self and ‘righteous self’ finding and fighting against the ‘enemy’ has become the prominent theme of our time. It has become the way of being for so many people that they are arming themselves with military-grade assault weapons to kill as many as their fellow country people as they can when their “revolution” begins. We called Fidel Castro and Che Guevara terrorists and some people are worshiping the terrorists that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6th, bowing down to the organizers of this attack and others on our democracy, and taking orders from liars, cheats, charlatans and mean-spirited power-seeking men.

While these people engage in wrapping themselves in the Bible, as we saw in June of 2020, they hold it upside down because they have never allowed the teachings of either the Christian Bible nor the Hebrew Bible nor the Koran nor the sacred texts of Buddhism, etc to go through them. They have deftly and sincerely not allowed these teachings nor the “awe of God” to permeate them. Clarence Thomas’ lies about the vaccines are as outrageous as they are dangerous. The Supreme Court’s need to give priority to money rather than health and life are not the needs of those whom are “overtaken with the awe of God”. Yet, they keep using the name of God in vain. They keep violating the 3rd Commandment with impunity and pride. And the people who follow them, who hang on their every word, who are waiting for the call to rise up and kill those ‘lefties’ in California, New York and everywhere in-between, are true believers in the idolatry of these narcissists, these deceivers because the people’s need to be deceived and to engage in self-deception is so great.

We are, like Adam and Eve, facing the greatest challenge of all; allowing our selves to be seen in the raw, to be experienced in our authenticity, or to hide behind the bushes, hide when called by God and another person, be so ashamed of who we see ourselves to be that we adopt different personas so no one will truly know us. We believe if we live a false self long enough, we will become it. The authoritarian leaders people follow know this challenge well, they decided to be authentically self-absorbed and self-centered. They made a decision that God is here to serve them so they worship the god of their making. Yet, so many people will follow these religious and political and business leaders believing that their power will shield them, protect them and rub off on them. How foolish to believe the narcissists attempting to destroy our democracy from within like McConnell and the senators who no longer can vote anyway but his way, Clarence Thomas and his flock on the Supreme Court, McCarthy and his congresspeople who defend Marjorie Taylor Greene’s fascist beliefs. What part of the Bible has permeated them? How has the “awe of God” permeated them? With whom to they share in the “spirit” that flows through all things?

The masks we wear is what we take off to recover our authentic self in recovery. At a meeting last night, the leader spoke about these masks and we all shared about the difficulty of taking them off. In a teaching prior to Yom Kippur in 1989, Rabbi Jonathon Omer-man taught us that the ‘sins’ we commit are like barnacles on boat and we have to scrap them off. So too with the masks we continue to wear. Having Torah and Rabbi Heschel go through me has changed and continues to change my life, engaging with the “awe of God” every day keeps me sharing in “the spirit that permeates all being”. I am blessed by Rabbi Heschel’s teachings, they saved my life and keep me living a life of meaning and purpose. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 246

“To be overtaken with awe of God is not to entertain a feeling but to share in a spirit that permeates all being…As an act of personal recognition our praise would be fatuous; it is meaningful only as an act of joining in the endless song.” (Who is Man pg.116)

The first sentence above is the problem that is facing all of us today, yesterday and tomorrow. Can we be overtaken with the awe of God as a sharing in the “spirit that permeates all being”? Rabbi Heschel was speaking of this as a crisis/challenge almost 60 years ago in the lectures this book is based on. Today, is seems to me, that the crisis/challenge has grown and the divide between what Rabbi Heschel is describing in the first sentence above and the ‘winning’ of entertaining “a feeling” overtaking the sharing in “a spirit that permeates all being” is apparent in our political, social, religious spheres.

People stand at the Grand Canyon, etc and are overtaken with awe and wonder, of this there is little doubt or argument. However, for most people, these experiences of awe, like the awe of a ‘beautiful’ sunset are feelings that are fleeting and remembered with wistfulness. They do not, however, make a dent in the ways we interact with one another, they do not make an impact in the ways we treat the earth, they do not impact the ways we seek power for its own sake, they do not make an impact on our daily living. They are ‘special occasions’ and then we return to the ‘real world’. In our ‘real world’ we are “dog eat dog”; “anything goes as long as we win”,; obfuscate the truth; tell the Big Lies; winning is everything; take advantage of the poor, the needy, the stranger; prejudice and senseless hatred carry the day so we can stay in power; and so on. This is the problem we are facing today; are we going to truly “be overtaken with the awe of God” or are we going to stop in and recharge our feelings and beliefs that we are doing god’s work, when we are truly worshiping the idols we have set up?

We are witnessing idolatry being ‘sold’ as monotheism by people who want religion and their god to serve them rather than they serve God and follow the principles, tenets, commandments, path their religion is founded on and flourishes on. We see this at all levels of life right now. There are the people who march, demonstrate and even use violence to stop women from choosing what they want to do with their bodies, yet these same people believe in the death penalty. There are people who believe violence is called for when “their side” doesn’t get its way, as in the Jan. 6th Insurrection. There are people who are calling for an end to the freedoms so many Americans have fought and died for since 1776 because they don’t want to extend them to everyone, only to the ELITE WHITE CHRISTIANS that join with them. Yet, all of these people will describe the ‘awe of god’ they are overtaken by that is uniquely personal to them and their compatriots. No one else can share it this awe precisely because it is a personal feeling that only the people who are on the same page as they are can share, understand and feel.

For some of us, when we are “overtaken with the awe of God” we know we are part of something so much greater than ourselves and our allies and enemies. We become aware of our connection to the mountains, the deserts, the seas and the land. We rejoice in sharing with all peoples and know we are all part of the oneness of the world, the Oneness of God, the oneness of living. We are connected to “a spirit that permeates all being” and are refreshed, rejuvenated and revived by this connection. We are overcome with the vision of the world that God has given us, the part we have in making our corner of the world a little better than when we found it,  and the strength to carry out our unique mission no matter what obstacles are in front of us. We are overcome with a “fire in our belly” like Jeremiah the prophet to speak truth, to learn truth, to engage with all people in truth. We are overcome with God’s vision of all humans having infinite value, equal value and unique value, a vision that reminds us of our uniqueness so we end our comparing and competing, our need to ‘be right’,  our need to ‘crush our enemies’, and our need to ‘win at the cost of our souls/spirits’. We are aware of the difference between awe of God being a feeling and a sharing in “a spirit” when we are unable to describe the experience and we are overtaken with kindness, compassion, love and lack of prejudice for all humanity, for all of God’s creations.

In recovery, we learn to “act as if”, “fake it till you make it” in order to let the spirit of experiences rule us instead of the feelings we are having. We have learned that following our emotional feelings can get us into trouble and send us back to our old ways which harmed us and those around us. In recovery, we are always searching to be authentic, have authentic experiences and authentic relationship with God.

I have said “f*&%ck your feelings” for a long time and add “do the next right thing” after saying that. While I have confused feelings of awe with the sharing in the Spirit that is the life force which sustains all life and creation, more often than not, I have been engaged in the sharing, I have been able to see the person in front of me, I have been able to identify with all people and have let go of stereotypes and judgmental thoughts, feelings and behaviors. To do this means to be free of the inauthentic needs mentioned above and seek and engage with the “spirit that permeates all being”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 245

“The secret of spiritual living is the power to praise. Praise is the harvest of love. Praise precedes faith. First we sing, then we believe. The fundamental issue is not faith but sensitivity and praise, being ready for faith.”(Who is Man pg. 116).

Rabbi Heschel is challenging us to be people of sensitivity and praise prior to declaring that we are people of faith, an out of the box challenge and one that is crucial to our ability to take the actions necessary to serve God/The Ineffable One. Yesterday, I wrote on the power of sensitivity and the power of insensitivity, today I am immersed in praise. I think about how some people go to Church, Temple, Synagogue, Mosque, their Crystals, etc and praise the Holy Spirit, Soul of the Universe, Allah, Adonai, Higher Consciousness, in words that are just false and those who praise their particular entity of belief in truth. What is the difference, as my wife, Harriet Rossetto asked about the people who came forward to testify and defy the final requests of Trump and those who did not! The difference is, I believe, engaging in the true nature of praise-to prize.

Each of us has a dark night of the soul, like Jacob in the Bible, where we have to make a decision as to what path we are going to follow. When we choose praise, we are going  on a path of prizing the tenets of our faith, our religion, our spiritual discipline over our personal desires and gains. This is what Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Martin Luther King Jr. Rabbi Heschel and the Berrigan brothers, and so many others did. It is what we all need to do right here, right now. Unfortunately we see too often the droves of people who choose falseness, who choose personal desires and gains over principles of faith, decency, kindness, truth, love, etc. This is why, to me, these heroes of the Jan.6th hearings are actually cowardly heroes. They went along with the mistreatment of so many people, they went along with and helped carry out the biddings of people who were only out for themselves and gained money, prestige, etc for themselves. They aided and abetted a system that was rigged against women, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants-legal and illegal, a system that caged innocent children and infants, keeping them away from their parents. They were cowards then AND they are heroes for not going along with the demise of democracy that Trump and Meadows and the rest of their “gang that couldn’t shoot straight” were attempting to bring about. They were faced with their own “dark night of the soul” and I am in awe of many of the witnesses, especially Cassidy Hutchinson who at age 25 showed more courage, more concern, more moral fiber and backbone, and prized principles more than her personal gains by testifying in person and on camera so truth could be known.

To prize the teachings and principles of our faiths, we have to stop making excuses for the bad behaviors we engage in. We have to wrestle with our darker angels and allow ourselves to confronted and defeated by a Higher Truth. We are able to do this when we make the decision, because of our own “dark night of the soul”  when everything we know in our soul is confronted with the mendacity of another(s) and the desires of our minds/egos/bodies and our soul wins out. Many of us think we don’t need to have this dark night of the soul, we prize these principles already and we are wrong. Everyone has to have this wrestling match, this confrontation between our desires and our soul’s knowledge of what is truth. We are witnessing the ramifications of denying this experience, of not prizing the tenets of God, the tenets of spirit, the tenets of the Universe everyday. We are witnesses to the destruction of our freedom from fear, prejudice, christian rule, one-way thinking, etc. Between the lies of the Supreme Court Justices and their personal agendas getting in the way of truth, the willingness of so many people to go along with The BIG LIE of Trump, Pence, et al, the level of discourse of so many descendants of immigrants who disparage immigrants and disparage anyone not like them, the white supremacist theology that even people of color are going along with under the guise of ‘conservatives’, the identity politics and need for optics, political correctness, etc we are slowly and quickly helping the democracy that so many people fought for and died for slip away. When we truly prize democracy, when we truly prize and praise God/Higher Power/the Ineffable One, we fight for truth, we wrestle people to the ground for kindness, we help people open their eyes and see reality with and as kindness, we welcome the stranger, the poor, the needy with open arms and let them know they are loved and belong. We stop ranking human beings and realize we all are worth an entire world, we all have infinite, equal and unique value and dignity. This is how we praise, this is the path to sensitivity!

As in recovery, placing “principles before personalities” has helped me to face my dark nights of the soul and have God win, have my soul win. I am acutely aware of when my ego has won, temporarily, because I am never settled, never able to see clearly or live easily. I just went through a bout of soul sickness with all of the freedoms that my father fought for in WWII and we all marched for and lived in the 60’s and beyond being dismantled. I had to face my fears of what America will be like for my inter-racial grandson, what it will be like for daughter, nieces and nephews, for the poor, the needy, the stranger. I had to face the fact that I don’t have the same bully pulpit I have had for years and I found the serenity(clarity) to see I am not powerless over a response to evil, I am not powerless to reach out through my writing and I am not in control of the results and my job, the gift given to me is to be in the solution that prizes and praises the teachings of God! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 244

“The secret of spiritual living is the power to praise. Praise is the harvest of love. Praise precedes faith. First we sing, then we believe. The fundamental issue is not faith but sensitivity and praise, being ready for faith.”(Who is Man pg. 116).

As I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and call, I am more inflamed with sadness, anger and a need to speak out. We have lost our ability to be sensitive to one another on both a micro and macro scale. We have lost our ability to praise/prize the path of living that is laid out for us in the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels of the Christian Bible and the Koran. We are in a terrible state of affairs and, worse than all of this, is our indifference to our inabilities to praise/prize God’s creations/creatures and to be sensitive to the will of God. All of this coming from both ends of the spectrum-the so-called conservatives and the so-called progressives. Both are regressive, both are authoritarian, both insensitive to the call and the demands of God and the majority of people in this country.

I am angry at our insensitivity to one another. I am angry at our inability to live with one another in harmony and truth. I am angry at our need to ‘be right’ at any and all costs, even the cost of our democracy, our decency, our humanity. What right do any of us have to be insensitive to the call of a woman’s mental and/or physical well-being? What right do these so-called ‘good christians’ have to be insensitive to the needs of the poor, the stranger among us? What right do we have to endorse the falseness of the many 2nd Amendment claims about everyone having a right to bear arms when the Amendment was put because the framers wanted the States to be reassured that the Federal Government would not do what King George did. What right do the Supreme Court Justices have to be insensitive to the ever-changing needs, scientific and emotional/spiritual knowledge that becomes more available each day? What right do these so-called conservatives have to deny the idea of progress and dynamic living when the Constitution was adopted by the States only because it was immediately amended! These lying, mendacious, phony grifters like Clarence Thomas are destroying the very democracy they say they are trying to ‘conserve’. Of course the irony is that a black man is doing the bidding of white supremacists!

The far-left movement is also insensitive to the needs of people, especially those who do not agree with them. They are insensitive to the need for gradual change in some cases, they are insensitive to compromise, they are insensitive to the beliefs and truths of another whom they decree is not worthy of listening to because they are white, they are male, they are… They are insensitive to the pain they are causing by doing the same thing to white people, especially white men, that has been done to them; vilifying all whites, painting all white men with the same brush, denying the truth of the past being we have to judge things in the context they happened, not by today’s standards. Following the ‘progressive’ playbook with as much rigidity as the conservatives follow their playbook makes both extremes the same people. We have all seen the need of the progressives, like the squad, to play to the cameras, to make sure the optics are right, to bully people into being anti-semitic, anti-Israel, anti-white male, etc.

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above is so humbling and inviting, and so unheard and ignored. We can be sensitive to one another, we can be authentic and imperfect, we can conserve, progress and not be at extremes. Over the years, Harriet Rossetto, Rabbi Harold Shulweis, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Rabbi Heschel have spoken about, been proponents and teachers of the “Both/And” of living. The either/or of the extremes lead us to war, to paralyzing fear and anxiety, to the mental health crisis we are seeing in both youth and adults right now, the lack of togetherness to fight Covid-19 in smart, scientific ways, the inability to see the divine Image of one another, to live in a world of darkness, meanness, mendacity and hatred. Tomorrow I will write on more of the solution that Rabbi Heschel is giving us.

In recovery, one of the fundamental resources we are recovering is our ability to be sensitive to more than the lies we have been telling ourselves. We are recovering our ability to experience life as more than either/or, me against them, my way or the highway, etc. We do this one moment at a time, one day at a time, we reach out to another people to make sure we are seeing things correctly and reflect back to them the reality they are in. In recovery, our regaining of our sensitivity is one of the keys to living well.

I have been insensitive at times, which I am sorry for and regret deeply. I have been insensitive by believing my way was right and I did not hear the call of another, I have been insensitive because I was preoccupied with something other than the person in front of me. I have been called insensitive by being a loud, in your face person that some people feel offended by my way and this I do not regret. I have also been sensitive to the needs and calls of so many people, most of all family and God. I know I have to continue to be sensitive to the call of my soul and people for the health of my soul and the continued ability to help another human being. I commit to be angry about the insensitivity of the world and more aware of my own insensitivities as well. Be safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 243

“The secret of spiritual living is the power to praise. Praise is the harvest of love. Praise precedes faith. First we sing, then we believe. The fundamental issue is not faith but sensitivity and praise, being ready for faith.”(Who is Man pg. 116).

What are we really sensitive to? The word in Latin means “feel”, the English definitions are “quick to detect or respond to small changes, signals, influences”. While we are all sensitive to the slights that people throw our way, the experiences we take personally whether meant that way or not, how sensitive are we to God’s Will? How sensitive are we to our own divine Image and the divine Image in each and every human being? How do we really ‘feel’ their pain and their joy? How do we truly express our gratitude to and for our connection with another human being, with God?

As we immerse ourselves in the last sentence above, we can find that these are some of the fundament questions we need to be asking ourselves. We are living in a very narcissistic society, which has always been true to a lessor and greater degree, that is on the upswing of the narcissistic continuum. However, the narcissists in charge have worked hard to deceive all of us into believing they are acting from a religious, a faith-based, a God’s will basis. Yet, they miss the fundamental issue of sensitivity to God’s call, God’s demand. The exodus from Egypt, as I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man, is the manifestation that slavery will not last forever and, I add, that freedom is the natural state of being. We are created with Free Will and when charlatans and liars, deceivers and practitioners of mendacity, under the guise of god wants this, manipulate and convince people to believe these lies, when they are only sensitive to appealing to the lowest common denominator of human beings, fear and prejudice, “we have a problem Houston” as the Astronauts said on Apollo 13!

Be it the Justices who lied directly to the Congress, the elected officials who lie to their constituents, to the American People, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other such white supremacist groups, and/or the Donald Trump/PT Barnum circus that keeps happening, we are facing the greatest crisis since the Civil War: when President Lincoln so beautifully captured our current situation “a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men(people) are created equal.” Will we “have a new birth of freedom” depends on what we do now!

We have to hone our sensitivity to God’s demand, to the call of the voiceless and the powerless. We have to stop serving our selfish and false egos, we have to stop listening to the liars and the deceivers, we have to hear the truth and discern our own self-deceptions. We need to stand up for justice, truth, kindness, compassion, mercy, and love if we are to meet the challenge of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above. It is almost 60 years since these words were spoken at Stanford University and we have shunned his wisdom rather than embraced it.

Standing for justice and truth, entails first the acknowledgement of our Sages who said every soul has infinite value, every soul is worth an entire world, every soul’s dignity and worth is equal to every other soul’s dignity and worth and, finally, every soul is unique; no two souls are exactly alike , so no need to compare and compete, to hate and deny the humanity of one another. As a country we have to stop the rhetoric of them/us, stop the degradation of one another by labelling people and using those labels to define them. We have to be sensitive, “feel” the words and actions we are about to take and, as Rabbi Hillel taught 2000+ years ago, “what is hateful to you do not do to another”. We are engaged in a “great civil war” a war for civility, a war for integrity, a war against prejudice and senseless hatred, a war for the acknowledgment of all people, based not on race, color, creed, religion, rather based on “the content of their character”.

In recovery, we are seeking to be more human each day. We are peeling away the armor we have been wearing that we, mistakenly thought, protected us and empowered us to fight the world. This armor, as we increase our sensitivity to what is and what was, we find was another lie we were telling ourselves and the key to recovering our authentic self is willingness, honesty and openness, the WHO am I going to be today.

I have always been sensitive to injustice and blind to the ways I was unjust when I was steeped in my own mendacity. I apologize to my family, my siblings, my daughter and my first wife, Linda, for my willful and unwitting blindness. Being sensitive, to me, means to review the past every so often because as I grow in sensitivity and awareness I find new gems that I have learned and given away as well as new ways I was not so nice. I have and do work hard to be sensitive to the needs/calls of another and I am being more sensitive to the call and needs of my self as well. The writing daily of this blog helps we realize more and more how wonderful life is and how much greater it can be by living Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom. I know the scales are tilted towards justice, love, truth in the way I live today. I know that mendacity is so antithetical to me I still get inflamed and loudly try to shout down the lies people are telling themselves and another. Most of the time, I am considered the crazy one, yet, like Jeremiah, I have a fire in my belly that cannot be put out with water or mendacity, only with truth speaking can I rest. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living Rabbi Heschel's Wisdom - A Daily Path to Living Well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Day 242

“The secret of spiritual living is the power to praise. Praise is the harvest of love. Praise precedes faith. First we sing, then we believe. The fundamental issue is not faith but sensitivity and praise, being ready for faith.”(Who is Man pg. 116).

As I delve into the last sentence above, I realize the so-called conservatives, both social and religious, who have decided that women have no right to making free-will choices about their bodies, with their bodies, for their mental/spiritual/physical health, are the least faithful people one can imagine. They have no living faith in God, no living faith in the principles this country was founded on, no living faith in anyone other than men to ‘make the right choices’. As we have seen from history, looking back on all of the wars, all the hatred, all the prejudice, etc that men have caused, participated in and engineered, I have little faith in these so-called ‘people of faith’.

The people who have killed doctors, bombed clinics, legislated anti-choice laws which are not pro-life as they claim, are people of little sensitivity, little praise and prize only their power, their misguided beliefs, their deceptions. None of this ‘conservative’ agenda is about “traditional values” of our country because our Founding Fathers were agents of change, democracy is/was a revolutionary idea and experiment. The Revolutionary War happened because of the sensitivity of the rebellious leaders of the colonies to the call of the soul of humans to be free. Yet, these scammers, these charlatans, these promoters of the Big Lies continue to spew their hatred, their fears, their need for control, their prejudices on all of us. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling on clergy everywhere to stand up, to be sensitive to the call of the souls of women, the souls of the voiceless and powerless, to prize serving God by being advocates for the soul of another(s) instead of prizing power.

The misogyny that dominated most of the world from the beginning is disgusting and wrong, especially given that so many of these so-called ‘conservatives’ are libertarians. The overturning of Roe v Wade is done by the same people who say ‘I don’t have to take your vaccines, I don’t have to wear a mask and the government can’t tell me what to do with my body’ and other such poppycock. Yet, these same mendacious haters can tell a woman what to do with hers? This need for control of women by men has made domestic violence, rape, non-equal pay, denial of voting rights for so long, etc and has been driven by the fear these male losers have of women being better than they. This is not about love of life; they will allow a women to die to save the baby, they will vote for the death penalty, they do not care what happens after the baby is born because they don’t believe in vaccines. This decision and the war on progress is for power, control and enslavement of anyone who is not in “lockstep with us”.

Conservative is defined as  “averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values” and the most traditional value is change, the most traditional value is to remember we are all created in the Image of God. The most traditional value, according to a famous commentary on Genesis, is: “there is not a day where God doesn’t make new paths/laws in the Heavenly Court”. Since we are supposed to reflect what is above here below, we should follow God’s example both in this commentary and in the entire Hebrew Bible of continuing and constant change, living a dynamic way of being. The Christian Bible is/was a change from the Bible that Christ followed! Yet, these purveyors of mendacity, these power hungry deceivers, these ‘prayer breakfast bastardizers of Christ’s principles, the principles of Torah, the ways of God, all want things to stay the way they want them-white men in power is their most cherished traditional value! All the while forgetting that the cradle of civilization was in the Middle East-which they do not consider white.

In recovery, we know that we go through a psychic change, a paradigm shift in order to continue to grow. We recognize our “old ideas” led us to bad places, they brought pain, heartache, instability to those around us and were based on lies we told ourselves. We are painfully aware of the discomfort of change, the need to be constantly re-evaluating what we believed and thought we ‘knew’ last week because of what we have learned this week. In recovery, change is the constant and without change, without progress, we will die, emotionally, spiritually and physically miserable.

I have been changing each and every day of my life and my years in recovery have made me aware of my need to manage the changes, manage my self and prize truth, justice, compassion, love and kindness over everything else. At times, these principles/ways of being can seem to be at odds with each other and I have come to realize they are not-in fact without being in all of these at the same time, love and truth quickly dissolve into falseness and mendacity, love becomes a word/tool for emotional power over another and truth becomes ‘alternative facts’ in the mouths of liars. Having practiced these ways prior to my recovery-I recognize the practitioners of this way of being quickly and am sensitive to their lies. Without being able to “detect and respond to signals, slight changes…”(the definition of sensitive), we cannot live as the Hebrew Bible teaches: love mercy, seek justice, walk in the ways of God. To do this is to be dynamically alive and engaged in life, as I understand Rabbi Heschel and have been moved to do in my recovery. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark