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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 137

“If the nature of man were all we had, then surely the outlook would be dim. But we also have the aid of God, the commandment, the mitsvah. The central Biblical fact is Sinai, the covenant, the word of God. Sinai was superimposed on the failure of Adam.”(God in Search of Man pg 374)

One “nature of man” we seem to mired in is our desire to win at any and all costs and our propensity for mendacity and self-deception. ‘Dishing the dirt’ is a major pastime for many of us and we seem ready, willing, and able to believe the ‘dirt’ more often than the good. We forget the commandment to ‘not go about as a tale bearer among people’. In fact, we have raised this tale bearing to new heights/lows. LaShon Hara, evil/negative speech is considered a ‘delicious pleasure’ as one of my rabbis’, Jonathon Omer-man, once described it. Many people engage in this gossip and slander for their own gain, to make themselves feel better, to win an election, to beat the competition, etc. This “nature of man”, left unchecked, left unchallenged destroys families, communities, countries, civilizations, and we seem to be unable to engage in it.

Listening to the political discourse of some very loud politicians should make us tremble and yet it doesn’t. When Fox ‘news’ puts forth lies knowingly and their hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram knowingly rile up their viewers so they can get better ratings and make more money, we are approaching the precipice of destroying democracy and making a mockery of free speech. When Marjorie Taylor Greene brags about killing her enemies, when she talks of divorcing ‘blue states’ from ‘red states’ she is speaking treason. When Ron DeSantis engages in hate speech against everyone who isn’t for him, everyone who isn’t on board with his authoritarianism, he is fomenting anger, he is promoting violence against ‘our enemies’ as he puts it. These people, along with so many others, are dangerous and what is more dangerous is all the people who stay silent. All of us who listen to this negative rhetoric, these mendacious statements, theories, hate speech, and do nothing are even more dangerous than those who speak them. By doing nothing, we are giving silent acquiescence to these lies, we are allowing this negativity to overwhelm us and, quite possibly, become our reality. Of the 70 million people who voted for Deceptive Donald Trump, there are many who know the truth, who know he and his cronies were lying and they voted for him anyway because they voted ‘their pocketbook’, his ‘love for Israel’, his ‘standing up for White Russia’, etc. They bought into the deception, they imbibed it enough to deceive themselves that ‘he wasn’t that bad and better than the other guy’. We have come to accept authoritarian liars as good people because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”!

Our country is still a laboratory for democracy and freedom. We are still struggling to put into practice the words of our Declaration of Independence, we are still wrestling with “welcoming the stranger” as Abraham in the Bible was known for, we are still battling our split soul of Jacob/Israel. It is not a war that we will win once and for all, it is not a practice that is one and done, it is not something that can be legislated. This struggle to see “all men are created equal” never ends because we are constantly bombarded with deceptions from outside of us and our inner self-deceptions. “Welcoming the stranger” means we have to share our good fortune, we have to remember our roots and our ancestors who were strangers to this land, we have to remember they were recipients of the sacrifices of the people who came here before them and owed the strangers coming after them a welcome atmosphere rather than a suspicious one.

In recovery, we are constantly battling our split soul, our Jacob/Israel. We know the dangers of giving into the Jacob part of our soul completely because then we con, lie, steal and cheat the people around us and go back into the prisons of our minds, we punish anyone and everyone around us with our need to be right, our need to be in control, our need to win. In recovery, we learn how to sublimate our Jacob energy to serve Israel, the energy and way of being that is in concert with the divine, using the aid of God to make life better for our self and for all other selves.

OY! Looking at the myriad of subtle ways my own ‘nature’ has crept into my actions makes me ill, sad and remorseful. Self-deception is so powerful and cunning that I have fallen prey to it more often than I realized, in fact, only in hindsight am I able to be accountable for the subtle ways I have given into my “nature”. More on this tomorrow because I am running out of room:) God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 136

“If the nature of man were all we had, then surely the outlook would be dim. But we also have the aid of God, the commandment, the mitsvah. The central Biblical fact is Sinai, the covenant, the word of God. Sinai was superimposed on the failure of Adam.”(God in Search of Man pg 374)

Throughout history we have witnessed the “nature of man” without “the aid of God” and we have witnessed the horrific murders, injustices, destructions our nature has brought about. Science and religion, personal gains and virtue, have been divorced from one another in many of us and even in many of us for whom this divorce has not happened, we get stuck in conventional notions and mental cliches. Our inner and outer lives are often incongruent, kindness, mercy, truth have become situational, good intentions are overridden by bad actions. We know how to be good, we know how to be virtuous, yet, as it says in Matthew 26:41, “the spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak”. The angst that is like a cloud upon our hearts, our way of life is because the nature of some people is overriding the virtue, the good, the holy. It is becoming so loud and all-encompassing that the good, the just, the merciful, the kind, the truth is getting obscured and ignored by many. We seem to be stuck in this cloud, much like the Israelites were stuck in the cloud of  harsh labors and slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt.

“I look to the mountains, where will my help come from? It will come from God, creator of heaven and earth”(Psalm 121:1-2) is what comes to mind from Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. We know our nature is “evil from our youth” as God says in Genesis, we know our inclinations are selfish and egotistical as history and the Bible teach us, yet some of us keep believing we can think ourselves out of our negative ways, some of us keep believing our negative ways are the ways of God, some of us are paralyzed by the overwhelming cloud of angst and keep wringing our hands and crying “woe is me, woe is us”. What we need to do is to “look to the mountains” and engage with “the aid of God” that is all around us. We keep forgetting Jacob’s ladder, the angels are going up the ladder, they are here, all around us, we have to engage in them! We have to accept the help of God, we have to engage in the commandments and do the mitzvot, we have to be part of the solution instead of continuing to be part of the problem. We are more than our worst actions, we are more than our negative thoughts, we are more than our money, property, prestige, power, we are more than our egotism. We are human beings, created in the Image of God, we are partners with God in completing creation.

We have to make a decision to stop allowing “the nature of man” to be all we use in our daily living. We have to make a decision to not allow the negativity of our nature, the selfishness of our egos, the insecurities of inner lives rule our actions any more. We have to stop allowing the loudest voice in the room, the cloud of mental, physical, educational, spiritual slavery to darken our doorstep and drown out the voice of God, to bastardize the teachings of the commandments and the practice of the mitzvot. It is a yeoman’s task at times, and it is the only action that will prevent us from falling into the abyss of “the nature of man”, it is the only action that will light up the dim outlook that our natures, left unchecked, bring about. It is time for the “aid of God” to overtake the charlatans that are preaching idolatry, it is time for the “aid of God” to silence the false prophets who claim exclusive knowledge of God’s will and claim that it is God who sends them to us. We have to “look to the mountains” and we have to look deep inside of us to partner with the Spirit of God that is within and without of us to overcome our natures and the natures of the egotistical, the power-hungry, the idolators, etc. We have to remarry science and religion, virtue and personal gain, we have to let go of our conventional notions and live in radical amazement as Rabbi Heschel teaches us.

I lived a life of misery for myself and for all those I touched when I lived without “the aid of God”. Since I have accepted and engaged God’s aid, I am no longer a danger to myself and to others. I make mistakes, I disappoint people, and I make my amends, I learn from my errors and I disappoint people and myself less and less each day. The “aid of God” has helped me show up for people, be of service to and for another human being, let go of resentments and bewilderments, hurts and wounds, etc. The “aid of God” has brought me out from under the cloud of fear, angst, selfishness and into the bright blue sky of possibilities, excitement, curiosity, care for my ‘enemies’ and joy for and with the people who love me. Without the “aid of God” joy would be unreachable and I am blessed to live in joy. Thank you God for my whole life! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 135

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of the thrill and excitement most people get when they are engaged in “sketchy” activities. “Getting over” is one of the most enjoyable activities for many people. We see this around Income Tax time when everyone wants to fudge at least a little on their taxes so they don’t have to pay as much and/or get a refund. We see this in the way business’ pay lobbyists so they can maximize profits while minimizing regulations and taxes. We see this in the way the tax code works against the poor and the middle class in favor of the wealthy, as the Tax Bill of Paul Ryan passed.

We see this in the way people like George Santos lie to get elected and, when found out, just smile and say ‘oh well’. We are watching this with the so-called ‘freedom caucus’ who want to divorce blue states and red states, who still claim the 2020 election was stolen, the Insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021 was actually people who just wanted to visit the Capital Building, etc. Some of us are witnesses to the joy of people who continue to lie, cheat, steal with impunity and wring our hands in distress as to what is happening to our country. Some of us are adherents to those same people and cheer them on. We are all witnesses to the assault on truth and facts, yet too many of us fail to have the courage of to stand up for truth, to stand up for facts. We can disagree on our interpretations of facts, yet changing them to “alternative facts” gives so many people a thrill and they get so animated and excited that truth means nothing to them!

We get a thrill from so many ‘sins’ and ego boosting activities that we have become unaware of the difference between sin and virtue, I am afraid. We are living in a world that thrives on alternate realities and too many of us are willing to say, “well that is their truth” knowing that people are basing “their truth” on falsehoods, on clean-ups for their bad behaviors, on lies they have told themselves and deceptions they have bought into. Kevin McCarthy’s defense of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s lies and deceptions, his assault on the truth of what happened on Jan.6th, 2021, his willingness to get into bed with racists, antisemites, religious charlatans, gives him joy. He is animated and excited when he is doing this, Jim Jordan loves to hear himself talk and his mendacious behaviors give bring him and his buddies great joy. We see McCarthy, et al call people liars who tell the truth and deny the very words they have spoken. While this is not a new phenomena, it is at a fever pitch right now.

Caring for the poor, the stranger, the needy which is embedded in Scriptures has no meaning for many people, especially the so-called religious right. “Love thy neighbor as you love yourself” is meaningless to people who are calling for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, which McCarthy et al have done, are doing, and will do. Calling them entitlements is ridiculous since we have all paid into these programs, yet they seem to have a spiritual experience denying care for the needy and poor, they believe they are acting as Jesus did when they debase the stranger. While it is important to point out these actions, it is equally important to point out our own subtle and not-so subtle ways of being excited at our own sins. When we look down upon another person, when we feel good because someone else lost, when we ignore the divine image in every person, when we celebrate ‘jewing someone down’, when we fail to support and defend freedom, when we ‘go along to get along’ and so many more everyday actions that we don’t think of as sins.

My past is replete with experiences of excitement and thrill at ‘getting over’, committing sins and I have engaged in T’Shuvah for those actions. I have also, with the help of Rabbi Heschel, Rabbis Feinstein, Silverman, Omer-man, my sponsors, my recovery program, the myriad of people I have met during my career, my family, my daughter, my wife, emptied my heart of the need to get even, the need to sin at any and all costs, the need to deny, the need to resent, etc. I still sin and, while it may bring a momentary thrill, it brings remorse and a commitment to repair, change and have a new response. Recovery through Torah and 12-Steps helps me find the excitement and thrill in virtue much more than in sin, it has changed me from being oblivious to my sins to aware of how I can help and be of service in this moment instead. God Bless an stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 134

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Surrender and acceptance are necessary in order to practice self-restraint and self-denial. To live a life of goodness and virtue means we have to surrender our false ego, our inauthentic needs to a power greater than ourselves and accept our proper place as a being compatible with being a partner with the Ineffable One. Being human, as our religious and spiritual disciplines teach us, means we have to not only follow the 365 ‘thou shall nots’ of the Bible, we have to engage in the 248 ‘thou shall’ demands. We are faced each day with choices of how we are going to engage with the world and when guided by these ‘thou shall’s’ we find ourselves enriched and able to live with our self and one another in dignity, respect and concern.

Virtue is not easy to achieve because self-restraint and self-denial in service of something greater than ourselves is a difficult task. We are taught from an early age it’s a ‘dog eat dog’ world, we learn conspiracy theories and we listen to the bias of media that enriches them and impoverishes us. We are watching in real time the ways that Fox News and their hosts knew they were spreading disinformation and did not care what it did to the nation. We are witnesses to the deceiving marketing of products that will ‘make us young, fix our ailments, make us look like new’, etc. We are watching, hopefully in horror, as our Congress is more concerned with theater than with governing. We are seeing the upsurge of anti-semitism, racism, criminalizing the poor and the stranger precisely because some of the people in power, owners of media, everyday people are fearful of losing power, money and status. Lyndon Johnson once said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” This is what Fox News, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, et al are doing and their mendacity and deceptions are unrestrained and they are denying themselves nothing in their quest for power, for status, for wealth. They have, ingeniously, put together a coalition of “lowest white” men and women along with the “religious right” and added in the wealthy who want to hold onto their wealth at all costs to the country and to their fellow human beings. This coalition is not surrendering to nor accepting the laws of the Universe as written in the Holy Books of Religions and Spiritual Disciplines-no matter how much they wrap themselves in the Bible. Jesus would not recognize their interpretations nor would Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, etc.

We, the People, are Divine Reminders and fulfill a unique Divine Need according to Rabbi Heschel. We cannot fulfill these massive undertaking without self-restraint and self-denial. We are faced many times each day with the choice to live a life of virtue or live a life of selfishness, without a deep knowing of ourselves, without a strong commitment to self-denial and self-restraint, virtue will not prevail. Yet, even in our commitment and knowing we have to be aware of the ways we deceive ourselves into believing we are acting for the greater good and not for the greater good of self. Too often we are faced with a choice of looking good and self-aggrandizing while believing it is for the greater good for all. This is an area of great concern to our ancestors and their solution is T’Shuvah, their solution is the Bill of Rights, their solution is care for the stranger, the poor, the needy in our midst and see the parts of our self that feel like the stranger, that are needy, and that are poor in dignity and value. Then we will be able to relate and join with another(s) to raise all of us up, then we will deny our selfishness and greed, then we will restrain our power and rejoice in virtue.

I have wrestled with these concepts my entire life. In recovering my self and my purpose, I have learned how to practice both of these principles and know when I am not. I am attuned to my self-deceptions more and more each day. I work diligently to engage in more virtuous activities each day, I am remorseful for the times I do not. I fight against the mendacity and the deceptions that people use and I surrender to God’s Will more often than not. I have acted my way into right thinking by accepting that God is in charge and I am not, accepting that I am blessed to be a servant and my service is my reward, my virtue and my joy. I am enriched by each ‘next right action’ I take and that is a reward in itself. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark   

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 133

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Virtue’s demands are illustrated in every spiritual tradition, in fact, religious and spiritual disciplines are gifts to us in order to learn and practice both self-restraint and self-denial. Of the 613 commandments in the Torah, there are 365 “thou shall not” demands/commandments in the Hebrew Bible with many illustrations as to the consequences of not following them as well as the consequences of following them. As I have often said, we have these “thou shall not” because we would do them if we were not told/commanded not to! We are living in times where people are jettisoning religious living and religions in general because they don’t want to be restrained, because the people ‘in charge’, clergy, lay leaders, etc are using religious living and religious teachings as clubs, as power tools rather than as models for self-restraint and self-denial. Rather than using our holy documents and teachings to elevate our connection to one another, they are being used to elevate a ‘select few’ so this ‘select few’ can enslave everyone else, so they can restrain anyone else from taking their place, so they can deny another their God-given dignity, value, place in the world! Our religious and political leaders need to take a refresher course in self-restraint and self-denial instead of demanding it from the rest of us.

Self-restraint and self-denial are two of the first lessons we learn in the Bible from the Garden of Eden story. Adam and Eve’s lack of both give them the permission disobey God’s command and then hide from their errors. Lack of self-restraint is, as we learn there and throughout the Bible, a human characteristic and we have an opportunity to do T’Shuvah/make amends and learn from our missing the marks so we can change our patterns. We learn the consequences of not changing our ways in the story of the Flood, God is dismayed not just because “man is evil from his youth”, God is also dismayed because our lack of self-restraint and self-denial when it comes to people who are not as fortunate, not in positions of power, and who are in need of our kindness, compassion, truthfulness, justice, mercy, etc. Unfortunately, we have not learned much through these teachings and experiences of our Biblical ancestors!

We are witnesses to the same actions and activities as described in the Bible, as experienced throughout history, so many people are willing to say “we have been through this before, it will run it’s course” and stand on the sidelines. This is another example of a lack of self-restraint-subtle as it may be. Edmund Burke is said to have said: “Evil flourishes when good people do nothing”. By standing on the sidelines and waiting for things to “run their course” we are showing a lack of self-restraint for doing the next right thing, a lack of self-restraining our fears of ‘going against the man’, a lack of self-restraint in wanting to run and hide. We are Adam and Eve, we are the Israelites that allowed Pharaoh to enslave them, we are Jonah, we are going against the demands/commandments that make us free, we are participating in murdering our own spirits, in whoring ourselves so we can ‘stay above the fray’, in lying about and to ourselves, in making false images of self, God, another(s), etc. Self-restraint is about not doing something because it is the next wrong thing, so anytime we “stand idly by the blood of our brothers and sisters”, we are not practicing self-restraint.

In recovery, we know we have to rise above our fears and our anxieties so we can restrain ourselves from engaging in behaviors that will “take us out again”. We know we have to restrain our impulses to stop following God’s Will and just do what we want to do. We have to restrain our impulses to live in our own bubbles and not reach out to help another human being. We have to meet the demand to “carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.”

I am guilty of not practicing self-restraint when I perceive injustice, when I watch as someone takes actions that will harm themselves and another(s). I am also loud, abrasive, and, at times, out of control when I get near people who are hiding and lying. My lack of self-restraint has caused me and people around me great angst at times and it has saved me and many people around me at times. I am not always right in my lack of self-restraint. It is a difficult dance and I will never get the steps right all the time. I do refuse to stand by silently in the face of injustice, when someone is harming themselves, another, an institution. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 132

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

The second phrase of the second sentence is/should be humbling for us all! Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of the essence of religion and spirituality in this phrase, as I am understanding him today. While many people balk at the restraints and denials that religious life and spirituality put upon us, both are demanding and teaching us that true connection to higher consciousness, higher power, God, the Ineffable One, only comes from these self-restraining and self-denying actions. Religious and Spiritual living means, for our purposes, living in ways that are compatible with decency, truth, kindness, compassion, mercy, justice, etc. The problem for most people is that we no longer see the rewards from this path, we only see what we are losing by living with self-restraints and self-denials.

This inner war, this constant battle between our ‘good angels’ and ‘bad angels’ has been a part of humanity since the beginning, remember Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden where not only did they not practice self-restraint, they loved eating the fruit, they loved the knowledge they acquired and they used it to hide from their ‘boss’, God. There are so many examples of this war/battle throughout history they are too numerous to name. We are witnesses to our own inner war, our battle between our rationalizing bad behaviors and knowing, speaking truth. We are engaging in our desire to hide our crimes and misdemeanors, to turn them into virtues through our self-deception and our mendacity.

We are willing participants in denying and hiding from living spiritually and religiously. It has become usual and, in many cases, goes unnoticed for a person to lie, cheat, steal; for a company to engage in dishonest business practices; for a politician to proclaim ‘stolen election’ when they lose; for individuals to shame another(s), promote lies, puff themselves up on social media with joy and no repercussions. We are so against self-restraint and self-denial that we are willing to enslave another for our needs, we are willing to villify another for our aggrandizement, we are willing to keep people out of our group because they are not ‘woke’ enough, they are not discriminated against enough, they are of a different ethnicity, a different culture, an immigrant, an Arab, a Jew, a Hispanic, a Black, an Asian, a White person. People in power are not willing to practice self-restraint in ‘need’ to hold onto power, in their kissing up to the wealthy and the powerful, in their insatiable appetite to rule forever and become authoritarians. We are watching this in Russia with Putin unable to see he has lost his war in Ukraine, we are watching this in America with DeSantis, Trump, Pence, McCarthy, Greene, etc working with White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, to attempt to deny free and fair elections in a democracy. We are witnesses to the far-right in Israel unable, unwilling to practice self-restraint, self-denial in their dealings with the West Bank, Gaza, Israeli Arabs, Israelis who are on the other side of the political spectrum, religious spectrum than they. We are witnesses to the Monarchies in the Arab world who are so desperate to hold onto power, they gleefully hold oil hostage, imprison and kill dissidents, yet frolic at all of the world’s playgrounds and are welcome because of the money they spend. Self-restraint and self-denial have become like ‘four-letter’ words in our culture, as they have been throughout the millennia.

Recovery is based on these two actions. We deny ourselves our ‘drug of choice’ be it power, gambling, excessive eating, alcohol, drugs, abusive behaviors, etc. We restrain ourselves from saying what we are thinking until we can evaluate our thoughts and decide if they are in line with our newfound religious and spiritual path of life. We join a community of people who are wrestling with how to be a better person, how to feed our better angels instead of feeding our self-serving angels as we had in the past. It is a constant and daily struggle, yet each day we are one grain of sand better by engaging in our own inner war.

I am testifying to my struggle in this area, my defeats in this area, and my deep remorse for the times I needed to practice self-restraint and self-denial and did not. I am saddened at the times I harmed people by my lack of self-restraint and self-denial, I am sorry for this pain I caused. I am also not ashamed of my errors, I use them to ‘fail forward’ and grow both in my T’Shuvah and in my living better each day. More 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

Year 2 Day 131

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

We are living in an era of identity politics, identity victimhood, and this has made us forget what it means to be free and live in “the land of liberty” rather than in “the home of the brave”. The second sentence above gives us an “eye chart” with which to see our behaviors, our actions as well as the actions and behaviors of another(s). In our misguided definition of freedom: doing anything we want to, spinning laws to our advantage, finding friendly courts to go along with mendacity, saying anything we want to whether true or not, winning at any and all costs, let the buyer beware, not taking responsibility for our actions if we have the power to hide, cover-up, and deny, etc. When the people in power, when White Power/White Supremacists claim they are being discriminated against because they are being called to account and being held responsible; when Black people forget that Jews have been oppressed, hated, discriminated against, and engage in anti-semitism; when Jews forget they were slaves in Egypt and we are commanded 36 times to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy not take advantage of another person, when we forget “the seller must disclose any flaws”, when we support any oppressive, authoritarian ways of being, we forget our experience throughout the millennia and especially in 1930’s Germany; when Muslims forget they were some of the most educated people in the world and they had a practice of welcoming, working with and engaging with people from different religions and cultures, when they forget that Islam means peace; when Christians bastardize the teachings of Christ, when they seek to oppress anyone and everyone who doesn’t follow their mendacious interpretation of Christ’s words, when they use their New Testament as a weapon rather than an outstretched hand; “crime, vice, sin” are being rewarded. Doing this under the guise of the Bill of Rights is UnAmerican, more like Joe McCarthy than Abraham Lincoln, more like Vladimir Putin than Vladimir Zelensky, more like the Confederacy than the Union Lincoln sought to preserve.

We, the People, have to look in the mirror, we have to look at the “eye chart”, as I call the second sentence above and, really, all of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings, and clear up our vision of what the “land of the free and home of the brave” truly means. It doesn’t mean any of the actions and/or behaviors listed above and so many other deceptions we perpetrate onto another(s) and it is trying to address our myriad of self-deceptions. Living in America is a responsibility, being Jewish is a responsibility, as is being a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, Hindu, etc. Being blessed to live in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” is not to be taken for granted, not to be bastardized to the point of discrimination, not to be denied to other immigrants seeking refuge as all of our ancestors were, except for the Native Americans whom we have shunted off to reservations and treated so poorly. We, the people, have to stand with the poor, the needy, the stranger, and raise them up as we/our ancestors were lifted up. None of us ‘made it on our own’, no matter what lies we continue to propagate, no matter how much we want to rewrite history!

We, the people, have to return to the spirit of our founding even though our founders could not completely act in the spirit they knew was needed. This is not a license to enslave people, to treat people badly, our history is one of knowing what is right and good, committing “crime, vice, sin” and still believing in virtue and goodness-just not able to fulfill it in all of our affairs. This is not a knock on our founding fathers, it is an acknowledgment of their humanness, their imperfections. We, the people, have to see the imperfections of our ancestors and improve upon them, we have to acknowledge our own inadequacies and ask for forgiveness and help, we have to stop using the worst acts of another(s) as the totality of them and stop using the worst acts of our ancestors as a cover for our own bad acts.

As an angry teen-ager who hated the world because of my father’s early death and being left adrift, I know how “crime, vice, sin” was soothing and rewarding. I know how enslaving they are for the person committing them and the people on the receiving end. I am a witness to both sides of this coin, I am not a victim of either and I am a giver and receiver of “crime, vice, sin”. My recovery is based on not promoting them anymore and having compassion for those who need to. I am not perfect and a whole lot better than I was-progress not perfection is my goal and one grain of sand better each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 130

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Society has confused rewards and punishments throughout history. As Rabbi Heschel is teaching us above, we have come to confuse reward and punishment, we believe “crime, vice, sin offer us rewards” because this is our experience! We have watched another(s) and enjoyed ourselves the “rewards” of our sins, the getting away with crimes, misdemeanors, the enriching ourselves at the cost of another(s), the power of enslaving groups of people, the inner joy and camaraderie of hating together, the “delicious pleasure of LaShon Hara, evil speech” as Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man once taught me. We have come to accept immorality as ‘just the way the world works’ and pay little attention to the plight of those who are our victims and the victims of another(s).

From Pharaoh in Egypt to White Supremacists today, from Amalek to the Neo-Nazis’ of today, we see the joy, the rewards that authoritarians receive, Putin has a nation of people who, like the Egyptians, will follow him into a modern Red Sea, Orban has the Hungarian people believing Jews are the cause of their problems. The insurrectionists and other far-right political/religious groups believe blacks, browns, some Jews, democrats, are the destroyers of “the American Way”. All of these people, groups believe these ways of being give them power, prestige and money and they are not willing to give their positions up, they are not willing to see the destruction they bring, they are not willing to change, they are not willing to hear the call/demand of God. Some may give lip service to the Bible, to God’s word, and they are constantly deceiving, bastardizing the Bible, God, goodness.

In the face of these crimes against humanity, goodness does tend to turn impotent, people who stand for democracy, freedom, caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, people who stand up and say Dayenu-Enough are laughed at, ridiculed and ignored by the populace because we have been deceived for so long, we have bought into the self-deception that crime pays and goodness is for shleppers! We are seeing this in our Churches, Temples, Mosques, in our government, in our election cycles, in our schools, in our homes. Banning of books, not teaching the truth of slavery in our country’s history and present, silently going along with denying the legitimacy of the faith of that is different than ours, using the Bible to beat people down rather than lift ourselves and all people up are all subtle ways of exercising the power that sin, crime, vice give us.

When Jews clap for Orban, when Christians applaud deplorable conditions at our borders, when Muslims cheer a suicide bomber, when business’ make unseemly profits through deception, when media giants knowingly deceive their viewers and destroy the reputation of good people, business we are witnessing how corrupt our society has become, how “goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations”. While this is not a new problem, it is a problem that has reached new heights, new ways of spreading and is a cancer on the soul of humanity! As Rabbi Heschel describes prejudice as “an eye disease”, a “cancer of the soul”, so too is our embracing of the rewards of injustice, power-grabbing, mendacity and self-deception. We can and must turn away from these delights, these delicious pleasures, these rewards that kill our spirit, our society, our communities, our families. We must acknowledge the truth, the validity of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above(and all of his wisdom) and return to the Big Book of Being Human-The Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the New Testament, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, etc.

My recovery and the recovery of all the people I know begins with letting go of the rewards of mendacity, crime, sin, etc. As the Yiddish saying goes, “you can’t dance at two weddings with one tuchus”, my recovery began when I stopped living a double life, stopped wearing the mask needed to ‘get ahead’ in the moment, stopped hiding behind a facade. When life crashed down on me enough for me to see this truth, to finally hear the words and love that people had been giving me for years, finally accepting the demand of God, I could let go of the bullshit and self-deception I had been living in. Letting go of ‘winning at all costs’, net worth=self worth, “crime pays”, and other such poppycock, taking the hands of the people who reached and reach out to me, not needing to seek out the people who didn’t reach out, began my recovery and have continued to deepen my sense of self, my embracing of people as human beings and my being who I am no matter where I am. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 129

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom in the first sentence above makes me shudder. How often have we seen, experienced and participated in goodness being “impotent in the face of temptations”? We begin to act in this way before our brains are developed enough to process what goodness is; we steal the cookies from the cookie jar at a very young age, we look innocent when asked while we are in our 2’s and 3’s, we deny our wrong doings early on in life because temptation turns goodness and the next right action impotent and seemingly silly to do.

We are, of course, witnessing this in our politics. How often have we seen the temptation for winning, the temptation for power turn good, decent people into purveyors of tactics that go against their inner goodness, their inner truth. Rabbi Heschel, in his Interview with Carl Stern in 1972, reminds us that politicians, in their tactics, have become people who suspect everyone else, have become people who are suspected of inherently lying and who, in their words and deeds have led so many people to believe their lies, their deceptions, all in the name of getting elected, getting power, getting rich! Telling the truth takes a back seat to lying and mendacity when the truth will hinder our winning, our getting ahead, not getting caught, etc. We blame, accuse another(s) of what we are doing, we deny and we make insincere apologies when we are caught. Even in the face of facts, of proof, we continue to claim that there are ‘alternate facts’. This is, of course, true in our politics and it is true in our daily living.

We see this in business all the time. Drug Companies employ 1700 lobbyists to ensure their freedom to price-gouge us, to ensure they are not held liable for the crisis’ they create in order to solve, to boost their profits for their shareholders. Business’ in general make profits and making their large shareholders happy no matter what how they may harm and/or deceive the public. Business’ want to claim the same rights as human beings and then, in the face of making more money, getting a larger market share, goodness loses to these temptations. We have watched business pay fines while not admitting guilt, they fight the rules and regulations that keep all of us safe, give everyone an opportunity, curb their ways of excluding people because of religion, skin color, education, etc. All of this they claim doing this in the name of the greater good and, unfortunately many people support this way of being, these lies because of our desire to be deceived.

This desire to be deceived, I believe, comes from our own self-deceptions. These self-deceptions begin early in our upbringing. We see it in our schools, we see it in our religious organizations, we see it in the ways parents are always defending their children and blaming someone else for their shortcomings, for their actions. Parents call their children’s teachers to get better grades, they complain to headmasters and principals about the poor grades their children get. They put more emphasis on their children’s extra-curricular activities than on their spiritual growth and maturity. Parents themselves are, in many cases, spiritual immature and don’t see the need to raise their children’s souls. We learn that serving our self is more important than being good. We give awards for ‘goodness’ in schools now just for showing up, not because our kids are truly learning what goodness is. We are not teaching our children how to resist temptation, we are teaching them how to not get caught, we are teaching them not to be responsible, we are teaching them giving into temptations is good!

In recovery, we admit how our temptations led us to ruin our own life, ruin the lives of the people around us, create chaos all around us. We gave in to our temptations to escape, to be fortified in our pursuit of the next wrong thing. In recovery, we begin to change our attitude and our actions regarding temptations and goodness. We see the good for what it is, we recognize the temptations that knock us off our foundation of goodness and we ask for help to overcome these temptations.

My history of helping goodness turn impotent is replete and my change this path is the core of my recovery. I battle my temptations constantly and daily. Rabbi Heschel helps me in my battle as does the teachings of my ancestors, the teachings of Torah and my deep commitment to “love my neighbor as I love myself”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 129

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptations? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? Are there many mystery stories that describe virtue? Are there many best-selling novels that portray adventures in goodness?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom in the first sentence above makes me shudder. How often have we seen, experienced and participated in goodness being “impotent in the face of temptations”? We begin to act in this way before our brains are developed enough to process what goodness is; we steal the cookies from the cookie jar at a very young age, we look innocent when asked while we are in our 2’s and 3’s, we deny our wrong doings early on in life because temptation turns goodness and the next right action impotent and seemingly silly to do.

We are, of course, witnessing this in our politics. How often have we seen the temptation for winning, the temptation for power turn good, decent people into purveyors of tactics that go against their inner goodness, their inner truth. Rabbi Heschel, in his Interview with Carl Stern in 1972, reminds us that politicians, in their tactics, have become people who suspect everyone else, have become people who are suspected of inherently lying and who, in their words and deeds have led so many people to believe their lies, their deceptions, all in the name of getting elected, getting power, getting rich! Telling the truth takes a back seat to lying and mendacity when the truth will hinder our winning, our getting ahead, not getting caught, etc. We blame, accuse another(s) of what we are doing, we deny and we make insincere apologies when we are caught. Even in the face of facts, of proof, we continue to claim that there are ‘alternate facts’. This is, of course, true in our politics and it is true in our daily living.

We see this in business all the time. Drug Companies employ 1700 lobbyists to ensure their freedom to price-gouge us, to ensure they are not held liable for the crisis’ they create in order to solve, to boost their profits for their shareholders. Business’ in general make profits and making their large shareholders happy no matter what how they may harm and/or deceive the public. Business’ want to claim the same rights as human beings and then, in the face of making more money, getting a larger market share, goodness loses to these temptations. We have watched business pay fines while not admitting guilt, they fight the rules and regulations that keep all of us safe, give everyone an opportunity, curb their ways of excluding people because of religion, skin color, education, etc. All of this they claim doing this in the name of the greater good and, unfortunately many people support this way of being, these lies because of our desire to be deceived.

This desire to be deceived, I believe, comes from our own self-deceptions. These self-deceptions begin early in our upbringing. We see it in our schools, we see it in our religious organizations, we see it in the ways parents are always defending their children and blaming someone else for their shortcomings, for their actions. Parents call their children’s teachers to get better grades, they complain to headmasters and principals about the poor grades their children get. They put more emphasis on their children’s extra-curricular activities than on their spiritual growth and maturity. Parents themselves are, in many cases, spiritual immature and don’t see the need to raise their children’s souls. We learn that serving our self is more important than being good. We give awards for ‘goodness’ in schools now just for showing up, not because our kids are truly learning what goodness is. We are not teaching our children how to resist temptation, we are teaching them how to not get caught, we are teaching them not to be responsible, we are teaching them giving into temptations is good!

In recovery, we admit how our temptations led us to ruin our own life, ruin the lives of the people around us, create chaos all around us. We gave in to our temptations to escape, to be fortified in our pursuit of the next wrong thing. In recovery, we begin to change our attitude and our actions regarding temptations and goodness. We see the good for what it is, we recognize the temptations that knock us off our foundation of goodness and we ask for help to overcome these temptations.

My history of helping goodness turn impotent is replete and my change this path is the core of my recovery. I battle my temptations constantly and daily. Rabbi Heschel helps me in my battle as does the teachings of my ancestors, the teachings of Torah and my deep commitment to “love my neighbor as I love myself”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 128

“The ego is a powerful rival of the good. When coupled with gain, when virtue pays, the good has a chance to prevail. When the good is to be realized at a loss, with no reward, it is easily defeated.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Gain and loss have become the barometers by which we measure everything, it seems. We are so obsessed with not losing our positions, our money, our jobs, our things, that we go to extraordinary lengths to both hold on to what we have and to keep amassing/gaining more. Because these two concepts are so embedded in our psyches, because society measures us by what we have, what our jobs, our skin color, our abilities, we have lost our sense of good and evil, we have lost our ability to hear the call of our souls, we have come to define good as gain and evil as loss.

Our egos, like the earthly inclination we are all born with, when left unchecked become the rivals of the good and we are witnesses to this phenomena throughout history. This rivalry is inherent in our struggle to be more human each and every day. Our egos, when unchecked, turn us into good people who do bad things and this is true for all people. We have become so obsessed with gain and loss that we become slaves to our egos, we give control to our egos and believe it is a holy action! It makes us live a very narrow life and gives us permission to do whatever it takes to win.

We calculate our living through the lens of gain and loss and Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above is reminding us of the danger of this way of being. From the time we are little, winning becomes an obsession, a ‘family value’, and losing is shame producing, labelling, and soul crushing. Good people will cheat to get their children into ‘a good college’ as we see from the recent College Entrance Scandal, good people will be ‘ruthless’ in business in order to ‘provide for my family’, good people will cross the street when they see an unhoused person or a person of a different race out of fear rather than greet each person as a fellow traveler. Good people will befriend some people in order to climb the social ladder, get into the ‘right’ country club, etc not because they are joining with people to do good, rather they join with people to ‘get ahead’ and be seen as good and worthy. Good people, because of ego, because of fear of loss and need of gaining, will “run after the majority to do evil” which we are cautioned against in the Bible. Good people, in order to gain prestige, power, etc, will step on anyone and everyone in the name of gain no matter who gets injured.

Living in society that is dominated with gain and loss brings about so much ruin, heartache and pain. Putin’s ego and his need to gain stature, power, etc led him to invade Ukraine, put a puppet government in Belarus, not seek a way out of the destruction and murder that he is committing. Hitler’s ego could not allow him to see how Germany was losing the war and his Generals were too afraid to tell them for fear of losing their lives. Pharaoh was too enamored with his ego and needed to not lose the Israelite slave labor so he too ruined his nation, his people and himself. These are historical truths, these people are just like the rest of us. We too, whether on a grand scale in government, politics, big business, in our families, in our schools, in our daily living need to see how we have confused gain with good and loss with evil. We have to stop blaming another for our loss, believing we have achieved our gains solely by our own hands, feeling shame when we lose and hating those who gain. We have to stop measuring our self-worth by what we have and don’t have. We have to see that good is the true measure of life, doing the next right thing is how gain, how we live better and how we serve God/the universe.

In recovery, we have a new awareness and appreciation for letting go of our need to ‘win at all costs’. We know now that doing what is good and right is the gain we need to engage in and celebrate. We have a saying that Easing God Out is a killer of our spirit, a detriment to the world and the wrong way to live.

I am aware of the years I spent in gain and loss, in Easing God Out, in ruining my own living and harming the living of so many other people and this knowledge keeps me from going back to that way of living. I am not perfect and I know that my life has been about being responsible for my part in every interaction and not taking credit for what someone else does-keeping my ego in proper measure. I also know that someone else’s loss is never my gain, that my self-worth is measured by what I have contributed, not what I have. I am also acutely aware of my need to serve what is good according to the standards of Spirit, not society or my own mind. I work hard each day to do good for the sake of good and for the sake of my soul. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 127

“The ego is a powerful rival of the good. When coupled with gain, when virtue pays, the good has a chance to prevail. When the good is to be realized at a loss, with no reward, it is easily defeated.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and words from some 68 years ago have been true forever and are true today. I sit here and write with a heavy heart precisely because we are seeing, in real time, in our time, how true and scary this teaching is. Rabbi Heschel is putting a mirror up to all of us, to humankind, and asking us what do we see, what are the self-deceptions we are engaging in so we can confuse good with evil, what are the ways we are using our egos to defeat the good?

We have two examples of this from Presidents’ Day 2023. Joe Biden took an arduous train ride to visit Kyiv, Ukraine and President Zelensky on the eve of the 1 year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He stood with the Ukrainian people, saw firsthand the devastation and the determination of the Ukrainian people to save their country, to save their democracy from an authoritarian dictator. He went there to show solidarity and support, to let the Ukrainian people know they are not alone in their fight for self-determination, to honor their struggle, their heroism and the lives that have been lost due to Putin’s Crimes against Humanity. President Biden, not as a democrat nor republican, not as a publicity stunt nor as a poke in the eye to Putin, did what he thought to be good, overcame his own self-interests to give aid and comfort to an ally, to a people who, like we did in 1812, are fighting for their sovereignty against a foreign aggressor. It was courageous, kind, and the right thing to do. We don’t know how many of his inner circle were against this trip for very valid reasons, we do know Joe Biden said Hineni, here I am, to the Ukrainian people, he said the US has your back. This is good, this is virtue, this is doing the right thing, no matter the cost.

A second example is, actually two examples: Marjorie Taylor Greene criticizing President Biden for supporting an ally, finding something wrong with a heroic show of compassion, comfort and support. For Marjorie Taylor Greene, goodness is a by-product of gain, maybe. If there is no gain for her, she will not do the next right thing. If there is no ego feeding camera around her, if there is no ego satisfying destruction she can bring, then doing good is unnecessary and stupid to her. She also is, like the Confederacy that she and her other unpatriotic allies believe in, calling for the US to be ripped apart, that there should be “a divorce between red and blue states”. A sure sign that she does not serve the Union and the Constitution as she swore an oath to, rather she serves her own underdeveloped and oversized ego, which is a rival to any and all good that there is to be done. 


Kevin McCarthy releasing the Jan. 6th tapes to Tucker Carlson who, by his own texts, we know lies and obfuscates truth for his own ratings, for his stock options, to do with what he wants with them, including giving enemies of the government of the US, a blueprint of the Capital building’s secure areas. Had they had them on Jan. 6th, the insurrectionists could have found VP Pence, the leaders of Congress, including McCarthy and killed them, held them hostage, etc. Yet, McCarthy, to serve his ego to be Speaker of the House, made a deal with the Greenes’ the Gaetz’, the Gosars’, the rest of the ‘freedom caucus’ that wants to restrict freedoms and did not even give it to all medial outlets, just to Carlson and Fox. Since Fox is in a lawsuit for over 1 billion dollars, it seems their veracity may be in serious question and McCarthy, to serve his own ego, his own gain, is giving aid and comfort to people who support the overthrow of our way of governing and living. Again, McCarthy goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of his oath of office because it doesn’t serve him.

We are all in need of recovery, as Harriet Rossetto says often “You don’t have to be an addict to be in recovery” and “You are either in recovery or in denial”. In recovery, we let go of our false ego, we stop serving only our gains, our false needs and desires, and we engage in a way of being that serves the good, that serves another person, another creation of God. In recovery, we learn that “sacrifice”, as in the Bible, means to come near. In our service, in sacrificing gain for doing what is right and good, we are coming nearer to our authentic self as we were created to be, we are coming nearer to people around us, we are seeing the differences and similarities of self and another(s) and celebrating both rather than trying to crush another human being to satisfy our egos, ala Putin, Greene, etc. We put down the sword and reach out a hand to help. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 126

“But how is such a supremacy possible? Is not our sense of beauty and ugliness, of gain and loss, more acute than our sense of good and evil?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Today is Presidents’ Day in America. It is a celebration of our Democracy and a celebration of our ability to move forward in making this a “more perfect union”. I remember when we celebrated George Washington’s Birthday and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday as two separate occasions in the month of February. It was a time to reflect on two people who led us through very dark times-one with the approval and support of all the people and one with a populace that was severely divided. As I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words and look at our country and our world today, I am dismayed by the deep truth of his question and what seems to be a constant response of Yes, our “sense of beauty and ugliness, of gain and loss” is “more acute than our sense of good and evil”!

What is it in our human make-up that gives such power to our “drive for cruel deeds” as Rabbi Heschel speaks of in his interview with Carl Stern? What is it that pushes us further and further away from our sense of good and evil and towards ugliness, beauty, gain and loss? It is, as Rabbi Heschel continues in the same interview, “You need some greater help. And that greater help, I believe, is a little fear and trembling and love of God”. Yet, the some of the most ‘god-fearing’ people, some of the ‘holier-than-thou’ people are pushing the sense of beauty, ugliness, gain and loss and trying to disguise it as a war between good and evil! These charlatans have bamboozled a myriad of people, they are the authoritarians who disguise themselves as revolutionary leaders, they are the clergy who are promoting a white christian agenda, they are the religious and spiritual leaders who are promoting their own power, their own ego, their own agenda for their own self-gratification. They are the elected officials who want to make a circus of deceiving the public with their ‘investigations’ into the supposed wrong-doing of their adversaries, ie the opposing party, rather than seek truth and do what is good and right for our country. Yet, these people will lead parades and make speeches about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Reagan, Kennedy, etc, all the while living in opposition to the peaceful transfer of power, in opposition for a search for truth, in opposition to “shining city on a hill”, in opposition to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. These liars and deceivers claim to believe and be following God, yet they have no “little fear and trembling and love of God” and we know this by their actions of loving to spread ugliness and loss onto anyone who stands up to them and demands truth and they love the beauty and gain of their mendacity and power.

While it is easy to point the finger at the charlatans who are so blatant about their mendacity and deception, Rabbi Heschel’s words are spoken to all of us. What is our path to the “fear and trembling and love of God” that we are following? Is it a path that leads to truth or is a path that allows us to engage in self-deception? Is it a path that leads to caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy or a path that aggrandizes our self and our power? Is it a path that leads us to connection with another human being seeing their divine image and honoring their infinite worth or is a path that seeks to enslave everyone else to our way? We, as individuals, have to ask ourselves what is driving us to cruelty more than to goodness, we have to ask ourselves what to do about our “sense of beauty and ugliness, of gain and loss” being “more acute than our sense of good and evil”. We, the individuals that make up this country, that are celebrating Presidents’ Day, have to recommit to living with “fear and trembling and love of God” a little more each day-not through our words, rather through our actions. Care for the stranger, the poor, the voiceless and the powerless, give comfort to the needy and the bereaved, take the “leap of action” that Rabbi Heschel calls us to do each day, in a place where there is no humanity, strive to be human-to paraphrase Rabbi Hillel in Ethics of the Ancestors 2:5.

We in recovery know the pull of darkness, of evil very well as we succumbed to it and practiced it with a mastery that, in our recovery, disgusts us. Not to the point of self-flagellation, just to the point of knowing the power of evil and our need to rely on God’s help to overcome our drive to and inability on our own to not fall into it. Paraphrasing the first 3 steps of AA-1)We Can’t 2) God Can 3) We surrender to God’s Will. Doing this each and every day allows us to ward off our drive for evil and engage in the actions that God wants us to, helping another(s), living with and learning from our imperfections, no longer blaming another and having compassion for the people who need to continue in their cruel ways while letting them know we see them. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 125

“They imparted to justice the violent imperative character which it as kept, which it has since stamped on a substance grown infinitely more extensive. Could it have been brought about by mere philosophy? There is nothing more instructive than to see how the philosophers have skirted around it, touched it, and yet missed it.”(Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 1927) But how is such a supremacy possible? Is not our sense of beauty and ugliness, of gain and loss, more acute than our sense of good and evil?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Henri Bergson’s words are very powerful for our understanding of the origin of the words of the Prophets, God, rather than these words of justice be the work of philosophers/a human mind. They also point out to us a philosopher’s understanding of the limits of philosophy, the inadequacy of philosophy to see more than the abstract, more than the literal and how easy it is to miss/ignore the imperative of justice, the horror of injustice, the cancer of prejudice, etc that brings about slavery, racism, denials of 6 million Jews being killed by Nazis, the eye disease that allows us to devalue the infinite worth of “those people”, etc.

Rabbi Heschel’s question at the end of this subchapter is haunting and/or should be haunting to all of us. How can justice obtain supremacy over our desires, our ‘need’ for money, property, prestige, celebrity? How can justice obtain supremacy over “alternative facts”, mendacity, fear, desire? As Rabbi Heschel asks us about beauty and ugliness, gain and loss being more acute “than our sense of good and evil”, each and every person is being called upon to answer this haunting question and look at the horror we witness, condone, perpetrate when beauty and gain, ugliness and loss are more important, more valued that what is good and what is evil is ignored.

We are living in a time, as he did and has happened throughout history, where people are willfully blind to what is good and what is evil. We are living in a time where people justify the evil that is practiced through unjust ways and call it justice. We are witnesses to and recipients of a court system that has turned a blind eye to the proportion that “all men are created equal” as it has since the forming of the United States. Yet, “in order to make a more perfect union” we need our legislators, our courts to lead the way and end the injustices towards the minority groups, identity and color, religious and secular, that has been a hallmark of our democracy. We, the people, have to stop honing our sense of beauty and ugly, of profit and loss, and hone “our sense of good and evil”. This is our greatest challenge as it has been throughout the ages. Yet, we seem to be unable to respond to the call of the Prophets for justice, the call of God for justice, the call of the people who suffer from our unjust ways! We are willfully blind to the horrors we are committing with our unjust ways and willfully deaf to the cries and the pleas of the people we are hurting, hence creating a world where evil is good and good is evil, a world where we are the arbiters of what is right, not God, not our ‘founding fathers’ as the deceptive minority yells about.

Injustice begins with a minority of people believing and selling, deceiving and promoting their egotistical belief that they are entitled to rule and doing anything and everything to gain and keep power is fair game and good! Injustice is promoted by people who are afraid to stand on their own, to compete in free and fair elections, compete freely and fairly in the market place, people who need to ‘put their fingers on the scale’ because they need the extra money, the extra help, to win. Injustice is promulgated by those of us who are afraid of the power of another(s) and project onto them our own beliefs and ways. Like Jacob in Genesis, when he was going to meet Esau, he immediately believed his brother was still holding a grudge from 20+ years earlier, we too believe that another person, group will be as unjust to us as we have been to them so we do everything we can to stay in power. It is time for us to end our unjust ways, societally, communally, within our races, religions, ‘gangs’ and in our families.

In recovery, we know that our individual recovery depends on our group unity. We are all the same, rich and poor, people of color and whites, religious, non-religious, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. We are all seeking to recover our humanity, our integrity and our connection to our soul, to another(s) human being and to a power greater than ourselves. We know that we have to practice and live a just life, a life that goes beyond our individual needs and desires, a life that is compatible with being a partner with the Divine.

I am embarrassed of the times when beauty, gain, ugly and loss took precedence over good which caused me to perpetrate evil. I am proud of my commitment to good and evil over everything else, even when it got me into trouble, when I was shunned for it, ostracized for it. Usually trouble, shunning and ostracizing came about because of my manner of expressing my intolerance of evil, my violent imperative for justice was loud, uncompromising and not polite nor nice. I accept that I did not speak in the ways people could hear and I also know they were willfully deaf to hear and willfully blind to what was going on. I see it today in the streets, in our Congress, in our World. Save Ukraine, Stand Up for Justice are not slogans, they are calls to action and I pray people hear them. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 124

“They imparted to justice the violent imperative character which it as kept, which it has since stamped on a substance grown infinitely more extensive. Could it have been brought about by mere philosophy? There is nothing more instructive than to see how the philosophers have skirted around it, touched it, and yet missed it. But how is such a supremacy possible? Is not our sense of beauty and ugliness, of gain and loss, more acute than our sense of good and evil?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

The word violent comes from the Latin meaning “having a marked or powerful effect and the word imperative comes from the Latin meaning “to commend, specially ordered”. Rabbi Heschel’s quoting Henri Bergson above is reminding us that the Prophets’ mission was to make known to us, to communicate to us, the supreme importance of justice. While in theory justice has kept this character, in practice not so much and herein lies our challenge. Rabbi Heschel, by using this quote, is, I believe, also demanding, challenging us to realize how extensive justice is in all of our affairs, in our daily living, in our inner lives. “Justice, Justice you shall pursue” we are told by Moses in Deuteronomy. Since he is speaking in the imperfect tense, Moses is reminding us that we are on the road to justice, we have begun the long arduous journey of justice-leaving Egypt was our first leg of this long journey-and we cannot stop moving forward, we cannot stop pursuing justice in all of its forms, in all of paths.

Immersing ourselves in this first sentence above is awesome and terrifying. This is the trembling awe that is spoken about in all spiritual disciplines. While we use violent to connote evil, bad, etc for the most part, Rabbi Heschel is using the word to move us forward towards fulfilling the Prophets’ call, to move us forward in serving God, in serving one another, in serving the deepest call of our soul/spirit. We are hardwired to hear this call, we are created to pursue justice, to make our corner of the world a little better, to fulfill the divine need each of us is uniquely qualified to fill and we have to learn how to close our ears to the words of the prophets, we have to learn how to stop hearing the “still small voice” that is within each one of us.

Throughout history, some of us have watched in horror the bastardization of the words and thoughts of the prophets’. We have watched in dismay how justice has lost it’s powerful effect on our world and people in it, we have been witness’ to the false claims of the deceivers who believe they can define justice to meet and serve their own needs. Some of us have been gleeful that we can so easily get away with injustice and falseness because people are willing to be deceived and want to learn how to “get ahead” through our ill-gotten gains. Rather than having a powerful effect on this group of people, justice has become something to ‘spin’, something to twist and pervert. This group of people is the group the Prophets’ were railing against, warning of the destruction these behaviors would cause and they fell on deaf ears because the people engaging in injustice believed they could get away with anything and there would never be a day of reckoning. They were wrong in Israel, they were wrong in Judea, they were wrong in Assyria, they were wrong in Babylonia, they were wrong in Greece, they were wrong in Rome, they were wrong in Spain, they were wrong in England, they were wrong in Germany, we are wrong here in the United States. Yet, we continue to violently oppose justice in our halls of justice for religious, political and philosophical reasons, we continue to violently oppose justice in our halls of government for religious, political, philosophical, power-hungry reasons, we continue to oppose justice in our treatment of one another in daily living for philosophical, political and religious reasons. Our hubris is that we will not suffer the same fate as the societies that came before us and opposed justice-how arrogant, how ridiculous, how scary!

We are witness’ to the rolling back of justice, of human rights, of voting rights, of freedoms for the majority because of a vocal and violent minority. Rather than see the individual worth of every human being, rather than embrace people who are different than us and learn their wisdom and spiritual truths, we seek to crush ‘those people’ and call them ‘the other’ rather than seeing them as fellow travelers and the divine needs and divine reminders that each of us is. We are witnessing people in power, people with bully pulpits and microphones purposely lie to increase their vote tallies, to increase their viewership, to increase their personal power and personal bank accounts. We are watching people like Lindsey Graham bastardize his friendship and fellowship with John McCain for the sake of Donald Trump?? We are cheering the people who instigated the Jan. 6th insurrection and vilifying the people who seek to uncover the truth. We are witness’ to Mike Pence denying the separate and equal call of one of the three branches of Government and then speaking about the constitution that he, his cronies, his boss, stepped on and continue to trash!?! All of this in the name of ‘justice’, all this in the name of Jesus?

In recovery, we hold ourselves to the “violent imperative character” the prophets teach us about and call us to. We know if we don’t we are lost and we relish the joy and growth that living a just life brings to us. We are constantly pursuing justice knowing we will not attain it wholly or completely and we can move forward as we “trudge the road to happy destiny”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 123

“Let us recall the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel. It is their voice we hear when a great injustice has been done and condoned. From the depths of the centuries they raise their protest.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Rabbi Heschel teaches us that any injustice is a grave injustice to the Prophets of Israel and should be to us as well, yet we seem to be hardened to the daily injustices that happen all around us and the ones we commit. We are so used to “that’s the way of the world” and “this is how it has always been” that we are deaf to the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” and herein is the heart of our current situation.

When a former Vice-President fights a legitimate subpoena because of politics, when he hides behind some false image of himself, his former office, he is committing an injustice and everyone is affected. The injustice that stands out most, to me, is his unwillingness to engage in truth, to speak truth and to end the mendacity that he was a part of for the past 6 years. While he paints himself as a ‘good christian’, he is not a patriot nor a good American due to his desire to lie and deceive under the guise of standing for something noble. He has shown that he stands for himself, for what he can gain, and will use mendacity and self-deception in the furtherance of these gains.

When we see an unhoused person on the street and we ignore their plight, their request for change, for a cigarette, to be recognized as a human being, we are committing an injustice. When we kiss up and sh^&t down, we are committing an injustice. When we ignore the poor and the stranger, when we criminalize being needy, when we imprison all of the Jean Valjeans’ of our communities and world, we are committing an injustice. When we go along to get along, when we care only about “getting mine”, we are committing an injustice.

When we fail to see the whole situation and put our spin on a part of the whole, when we take things out of context in order to be right and vindicate our unjust behaviors, we are guilty of injustice. When we do things in the “name of God” and they are unjust, we are not only unjust, we are taking God’s Name in vain, we are creating False Images of God, we are creating false images of our self, and we murdering the souls/spirits of another(s). When we are more concerned with status than justice, what is right, we are committing an injustice.

Unfortunately, these few examples don’t take in the breathe of injustices, there is Putin invading Ukraine, there is Netanyahu trying to take control of the courts, there is the US Supreme Court who are more interested in a political agenda than the rule of law. We have a House of Representative majority who are more interested in chaos and ‘gotcha’ than in legislating and helping our citizens. We have White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis all over the world who want to seize power and ‘kill the Jews’ and everyone else who are a threat to their power, their dominance. We have everyday people who ignore one another because of fear, of self-absorption, of self-centeredness, of wanting to make a name for themselves.

We are as deaf to the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” as we have ever been and it is leading to the degradation of our humanity. The prophets voices, no matter how loud they call to us “from the depths of centuries” are being ignored and bastardized. When an injustice is perpetrated God cries, God protests, God cares about the widow and the orphan, the poor and the stranger, the needy in material and spiritual matters and we, who ignore all of this, we who commit these ‘little’ injustices claim to be God-fearing? Actually, we are god-fearing because we have created idols, we worship at the feet of power, prestige and wealth rather than acting in concert with our status as a partner of God.

In recovery, we hear the call of the prophets all the time. In fact, we change our old ways and begin our recovery because we finally hear/heard the call to justice, the call to change from someplace other than our own ‘stinking thinking’. We “practice these principles in all our affairs” in order to be more mindful and aware of the injustices we commit and the one that are committed in around us. We know that our minds, our lower consciousness will lie to us and from there it is all downhill!

I am plagued by “the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” and I hear their protest “from the depths of centuries” through my own sense of justice and because Rabbi Heschel, like the prophets are disturbing my inner peace. I am acutely aware of injustice and I am, at times, very reactive and loud. I am not politically correct in these moments because I am so afraid of buying into the deception of another and my own self-deception. I must continually speak up because Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, etc are within me and Rabbi Heschel’s words and teaching torture me when I am unjust and when I witness injustice and say/do nothing. It is not a life that’s fun and it is a life of meaning and purpose. I believe the words of the Prophets of Israel were given to us so we can stay a little disturbed and not be too sure of ourselves and our actions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 122

“Let us recall the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel. It is their voice we hear when a great injustice has been done and condoned. From the depths of the centuries they raise their protest.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Given the injustices we see each and every day, the mass shootings, the practice of privilege for and by the rich and powerful, the ignoring of the plight of human beings, the indifference to the suffering of people, the ‘dog eat dog’ way of business, the practice of “caveat emptor”, the wariness and fear of people who are different/not of our tribe, etc; we are turning a deaf ear to “the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” and this is, I believe, the root cause of our indifference to injustice.

We, the People, like the people of Ancient Israel and Ancient Judea, are willing, able and run to condone and revel in the injustices of today, we are proud of our “getting over” on the system, on another human being, while shutting off the call of another(s) and the call of our souls and, the call of the Prophets of Israel. It is too painful, it is too nagging, it is too much of a loss for most of us to “recall the tones and accents of the Prophets of Israel”. To hear them, to recall them would force us to change our ways, force us to see the dignity of another(s), to right the injustices that make up our daily living and to surrender to truth, justice, mercy, love, compassion, empathy, to Godliness as actions rather than emotions and we are still fighting these ways that are basic to and what make us human.

We, the people, become objects of our images instead of being and living as Images of the divine. We are driven to cruelty without knowing it, without realizing it, and we believe we are doing good, we are practicing justice, mercy, etc. We know that the Nazis loved their children, classical music, and could come home after a day of destroying human lives, of attempting to destroy the humanity of another(s) and laugh, love, extol their actions as good. While it is easy to point the fingers at ‘those people’, we are missing how we practice injustice and we are turning a deaf ear to “the tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel”. When we do not stand up and with anyone who is treated poorly, we are practicing injustice. When we are silent and go along with the lies and bullying of the poor, the needy, the stranger, we are practicing injustice. When we make one law for ourselves and ‘our people’ and another law for ‘those people’ who we deem lower than ourselves, we are practicing injustice and being deaf to the call of the prophets. When we have one law for the rich and another for the poor we are practicing injustice, when we favor the poor over the rich, we are not hearing the call of the prophets nor the call of the Torah. When we forget to do T’Shuvah and not repair the damage we have caused through our practice of injustice, we are deaf to the prophets.

We are engaged in a war for the soul of America, a war for the soul of ourselves. We keep forgetting, it seems, that there is no soul of America unless and until we raise up our individual souls. Until we are willing to realize, accept, and surrender to the truth that any injustice is a great injustice, one injustice leads to another ad nauseam, we will not be able to be free. Until we are willing to look at our self, look at the injustices we wrought and repair them, respond to them and have a new way of being, we will suffer the same fate as the people of Ancient Israel and Ancient Judea: destruction of our country, destruction of our freedom, wounding our souls to their very core. It is up to us to do our own individual inventory on the injustices we have perpetrated and repair the ones we have not yet repaired and make a plan on how we are going to avoid doing the same things over and over again-believing we are being just. We have to make restitution to the people we have harmed and commit to not be indifferent to their call nor the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” any longer.

In recovery, one of the aspects of our humanity we are recovering is our sense of justice. Whether we hear the call of the prophets, the call of our higher power, the call of the person who still suffers that is sitting next to us, we hear the call to serve, we hear the call to be just, we hear the call to repair, restore and respond to the injustices we have committed and the ones committed in our name by society. Our principle of anonymity was to shield people from society’s inhuman and unjust way of ostracizing drunks from their midst and from employment and now, for me, it is a way of leveling the playing field, of not caring who someone is/was only caring for how I can be of service and how I can restore some justice back into their lives and into my own.

Since 1987 when Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l, introduced me to Rabbi Heschel, I have heard the “tone and accents of the Prophets of Israel” each and every day. I have, at times, turned a deaf ear to them as I am not perfect in anything. Yet, the majority of time and energy that I have expended since my first encounter with Rabbi Heschel has been/is in being just, hear the call of the prophets, hearing the call of my father, Jerry, z”l, my grandfathers, David, z”l, and Abe, z”l who fought for the underdog even though they were underdogs themselves, who fought for what was right no matter the personal cost and who are role models for me, for my family and I work hard to live up to their examples and their teachings. They never saw color and/or religion as a barrier, rather they saw differences as opportunities to learn and to serve, they heard and heeded the call of the prophets throughout their lives.  God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 121

“Public safety was not merely the supreme law, as indeed it has remained, it was furthermore proclaimed as such; whereas today we should not dare to lay down the principle that it justifies injustice, even if we accept any particular consequence of that principle.” (God in Search of Man pg.373)

Immersing myself in these thoughts above has brought me to question what public safety truly is. I know the societal definition, anything that keeps order and the status quo, yet I have come to believe that public safety is totally dependent on how we treat one another. After the 10 sayings in Exodus, we are confronted with how to treat one another, the social ordinances that will create, nurture, grow and enhance our individual spirits and living as well as our communal spirit and living. Using this definition of public safety, I believe we can change the status quo to a way of being that is more compatible with being partners of the Divine, more compatible with our higher consciousness.

Leaning into radical amazement, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, is a “prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is”. To do this, we have to stop reverting to, falling back on our old ideas of “public safety”. We have to, as we learn in the Bible, respect the dignity of every human being, even those who are indentured servants. Today we have to respect employees by paying them living wages, making sure their working conditions are conducive to growth and health. We have to respect the people who are serving us in stores, offices, our outdoors, maintenance, etc. We have to end looking down our noses at people we are considering less than us, people we say are unskilled laborers. Have any of us tried to pick the fruit and vegetables from the fields in which they grow? Meeting and speaking with people from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and being a witness to their ground breaking agreement with Jon Esformes and Pacific Tomato Growers, I saw the difficulty, the skill, the care with which our fruits and vegetables are harvested and I know this is truly skilled labor. Yet, until Jon and Pacific signed their agreement, the other farmers in South Florida treated their laborers as less than human! Acknowledging their humanity, their dignity, ensuring good working conditions has contributed greatly to “public safety” in South Florida and for all of us who eat fruits and vegetables.

The entire Bible is about how to live as free people and live with one another no matter our differences. “Public safety” has to encompass these principles, not be used to validate cruelty, racism, “Jim Crow”. “Public safety” has to stop being used to validate mass incarceration, denial of Civil Rights, the killing of Emmett Till, the hanging of Black people for some trumped up charge. “Public safety” does not give license to people in power to gerrymander voting districts, make decisions about women’s reproductive choices, stop or it make incredibly difficult for people of color, poor people, people of a different party to vote. Yet, this catchall phrase is used to do so many of these horrifically demeaning and dehumanizing actions.

When we are in radical amazement, we are constantly aware of how much we have to learn, we are in awe of the surprise of living and we take nothing for granted. When we reach out our hands to help another person be freer, to help another person see their own infinite worth and dignity, when we let everyone around us know how much they matter, then differences of opinion are welcome and solutions are arrived at through conversations, through give and take, through a coming together of spirits to do what is the next right thing for this current situation. Living in radical amazement, letting go of our need to hide behind “public safety” as an excuse for injustice, brings us closer to taking our proper place as a co-creator with the divine to make our corner of the world a little better each day.

In recovery, we learn to hear the call of our higher power, our higher self, the call of another human being who is in need and those who want to reach out to us in joy. We let go of our suspicious tendencies to rejoice in the coming together of a group and/or another human being to raise our spirits, our hopes and help us achieve the dreams that God has in store for us.

I know that I have been a part of the status quo at times and I deeply regret it. I know I have fought against the status quo and I am grateful for the spirit and light, teachings and leadership of people who show me this path. I know that I have lost many of the battles against the status quo and I am grateful that I have not lost the “fire in the belly” to continue this fight against injustice in the name of “public safety” and continue to move the battle forward inch by inch. I believe we all can be freer each day and I know that radical amazement, gratitude, t’shuvah are the paths for me to achieve this goal. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living rabbi heschel’s wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 120

“Public safety was not merely the supreme law, as indeed it has remained, it was furthermore proclaimed as such; whereas today we should not dare to lay down the principle that it justifies injustice, even if we accept any particular consequence of that principle.” (God in Search of Man pg.373)

Rabbi Heschel, in 1955, was decrying the claim of people who made “public safety” the supreme law. He is reminding us of the blanket immunity it gave and gives to leaders, police, citizens who practice injustice in its name. It was/is a danger to people who go against the people who do injustice in the name of “public safety”. As we look at our situation today, we need to be horrified at what we have created, perpetrated and continue to do in the name of “public safety”.

Hitler and so many others throughout the ages used this claim against the Jewish People to validate their anti-Semitic laws, to validate dispossessing them from their homes and countries of origin. The Spanish Inquisition is another example of using “public safety” as a cover to practice hatred, violence, expulsion, etc against a group of people who are, seemingly, a threat to the establishment. The anti-Semitic actions today in America and across the globe are ‘warnings’ by ‘good Christian people’ against the danger, control, otherness of the Jew in the name of keeping their children, their image of their country safe from these interlopers who will enslave them if they get power. The life of anti-Semitic literature and actions is so long that many people are unaware of their bias against Jews. A recent survey showed 85% of Americans believed, repeated some anti-Semitic statement about Jews. The leaders, like Henry Ford, believed and promoted the idea that Jews go against the safety of the public!

Since the Emancipation Proclamation, while people have tried and succeeded in incarcerating Black people and Latino People as for the good of public safety. Whether they actually committed crimes or not, they were/are convicted and put in prisons for inordinate prison terms. It has gotten so ridiculous and scary that “driving while black” gets some people killed. Every Black parent, every Latino parent has to have the “conversation” with their children about how to act when they are stopped by police whether they have done something wrong or not. These actions are done by police in the name of “public safety”.

We have used “public safety” to enslave, “keep in their place” those people who we fear will take our place, whether Jew, Black, Latino, Asian. When this behavior is called out, when it is proven, there is an outcry and NOTHING gets done. We have never stopped these prejudices, we have never stopped using “public safety” as justifications because we are afraid. While it is easy to blame the police-who are guilty-and then paint all police with the same brush, it is easy to blame the legislators who have not changed laws, who have not stood up for justice, it is easy to blame the prosecutors who have, knowingly and unknowingly, promoted prison terms for these ‘threats’ to public safety; it is more important to look within and see our own prejudices and fears that go along with these injustices, go along with these excuses that give power to our inner fears. We, the People, are the root cause of these injustices and so many others because we are unwilling, unable to face our fears, incapable it seems to be happy with our portion and allow everyone else their portion.

Spiritually this is, I believe, one of the greatest crimes. Using our selfish desires and fears to practice injustice on another and assuaging our guilt by saying it is for “public safety” goes against every spiritual principle I know. Yet, a lot of people, unaware of their hidden bias’, believe they practice and live a spiritual life while also going along with and/or employing these injustices on another. A spiritual life is based on living one’s purpose, living from one’s soul, one’s higher consciousness, and rejoicing and wanting what one has. Along with one’s rejoicing, we celebrate what another has without envy, without jealousy, without wishing them bad is a foundational block of spiritual growth. Yet, we hear so-called Spiritual Leaders speak ill of a group not like them, make it okay to steal from anyone outside the group, lessen the value and dignity of human beings created by God, if they don’t conform to and belong to their group. How sad, how ridiculous, how disgusting!

In recovery, we are more interested in the inner life of our self and our people in recovery with us. We don’t use “public safety” to exclude anyone, even those who are inebriated at the meeting, just a desire to stop drinking is enough for us. We know what it is to be left out, to be excluded and have our foibles, our vulnerabilities used against us. We are well acquainted with being public pariahs by our own doing and how different would life be if society in general could welcome people who want to belong with open arms as people in recovery do.

In our years at Beit T’Shuvah, we never used “public safety” to unjustly exclude anyone. We welcomed so many people from prison, instead of prison whom others thought not worthy of help, incapable of rehabilitation. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Living rabbi heschel’s wisdom - a daily path to living well

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 2 Day 119

“Justice has always appeared as obligatory, but for a long time it was an obligation like other obligations. It met, like the others, a social need;…This being so, an injustice was neither more nor less shocking than any other breach of the rules.There was no justice for slaves, save perhaps a relative, almost an optional, justice” (God in Search of Man pg. 373)

While we say “justice is blind”, we know this to be false given the history of inequality between the ‘justice’ for the “haves” and the ‘justice for the “have-nots” that has plagued us since humanity began. Judges are supposed to deliver “righteous justice”, justice that is tempered with mercy, appropriate sentences and, if there is doubt, not guilty verdicts. Instead, we see some people punished without mercy for crimes that another person is given a pass on. Yet, we are still not shocked by this injustice, we are not outraged at the horror of these actions, we just accept it as “sad, but true”. How disgusting a way of being. How much more inhumane can we be towards our fellow human beings?

Alan Turing was prosecuted, found guilty of being a homosexual-as if sexual orientation is a crime! God created Alan Turing to fulfill a need, he was a genius and he led a team that cracked the German Code, saving lives and helping to ensure victory in World War II. Yet the British government thought his ‘crime’ of being and acting in the way that God made him was so horrendous they dogged him into killing himself and the world missed out on his genius. We are locking people up for minor drug offenses rather than give them the help they need to recovery and call this justice. “Driving while Black” is still a capital offense according to some Police people and our Federal Government refuses to stop this, calling it a ‘state’s rights issue’. This is in direct conflict with “unalienable rights” as described in the Declaration of Independence, and our shock, outrage, marching does nothing to actually change our culture because these injustices and so many more are “neither more or less shocking than any other breach of the rules”. Without justice, the rest of the rules mean nothing and we are perpetuating and promoting a meaningless society by our inability to be shocked at injustice in a manner that produces change!

I am outraged at our not being shocked at injustice, I am also appreciating the courage of Dr. King, Gandhi, Rabbi Heschel, Rev Barber, and so many other clergy, regular people who have and are fighting for justice in every area of living. It sounds fine to have “equal justice under the law” and we are not living this truth, this command from God that there should be one law for the citizen and stranger alike and I applaud, commend the true “God-Awing” people who follow this demand, this call from God. I also am calling out the Idolators who claim Jesus, Adonai, Allah as their god and really worshiping their own resentments, their own power, their False Images of themselves and God.

“Justice, Justice, you shall pursue” Moses tells us in Deuteronomy and yet, we continue to pursue injustice instead! Justice is not in the eyes of the beholder, in the eyes of the powerful. It is in the “eyes” of God! We, the People, have to hear and respond to this command, we have to stop shrugging our shoulders at the injustices around us and we have to stand up for justice. We have to stop seeking to pervert justice for our own gain. We have to stop saying to ourselves and to another(s) “that’s just how the world works” and we have to march, vote, demand “Justice for all” and stop bastardizing our slogans, stop taking God’s name in vain by being indifferent to injustice. We keep ourselves exiled from our purpose, we keep ourselves in exile from God, we keep ourselves from our covenant with God by being indifferent to injustice. As our Prophets teach us, injustice towards one, is injustice towards all. God cares about the widow, the orphan,the stranger, the needy, the poor, the Black, the Brown, the Jew, the Asian, the Muslim, as much as God cares for the White, the wealthy, the powerful. Each of us is equal in the “eyes” of God and so should we be in our own eyes. When we accept these “truths to be self-evident”, when we stand for justice, our world, our individual lives will flourish!

In recovery, we are acutely aware of injustice precisely because we practiced injustice prior to our recovery. We “grow upon spiritual principles” because we know without our spiritual life being rich, without spiritual progress, we will fall back into our old ways and bring about the same destruction to another(s) and to our self.

I have always been sensitive to injustice because my father, my grandfathers were so keenly aware of and against injustice. What to many people was “just the way life is”, to my ancestors was a calamity. This is why my earlier path of injustice, crime and alcoholism was so antithetical to everything I learned as a youth. This is the living amends I make to them: to practice justice in my affairs, to be a person who stands for justice and not prejudice. I have made it a priority to be shocked at my own injustice, no matter how ‘small’ it may seem to another(s) and to my mind. My soul cries out to me at the injustice in the world, in my community, in my country and in my self. It is a loud cry that comes out of me as anger and is actually anguish. I pray we all hear this cry of our souls! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark