Choosing the wages of virtue over the payday of 'sin' - Year 3 Day 323

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 323

“We must not underestimate the difficulties of moral living. It takes great courage, wisdom, defiance, and depth of faith to remain moral. We have been guilty of oversimplification. We maintain that virtue pays, we forget that vice pays more.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 58)

The Rabbis say the reward for doing a Mitzvah is another Mitzvah, the sense that we have accomplished something that is in our best interest and the best interest of another, the knowing we have done something that connects us more to the power of the Universe and to another human being. They say the ‘punishment’ for a ‘sin’ is another ‘sin’, the truth that once we taste the ‘honey’ of negativity, we will be moved to get more of this ‘honey’. Both of these statements are true and, I believe, an “oversimplification”. No one is all good nor all bad-each of us has the potential to do both good and not good because we have both inclinations. It is even more nuanced because what may seem not good in one moment may, in the long run, turn out to be a mitzvah! Even when taking the action of a mitzvah, aka a good action, we may be doing it for our personal gain, to get an advantage and use it for not good outcomes.

“Moral living” is not black and white, unfortunately. While it is simple to be moral, it is also very complex and causes great introspection, great maturity, and the power to choose more than what our inclinations are pulling us to. In Numbers 15:39, after the missing the mark of the spies and the people Israel, we are told: “do not scout out after your heart and your eyes which you will whore after them”. The power of our heart to move our eyes to find what it desires can be applied to the brain as well, because the Rabbis thought the heart was the seat of both emotions and wisdom. To tell someone to “just do it” is an oversimplification of the complexity of being human, a failure to acknowledge the constant war within, pulling us to do the next right thing and the next wrong thing at the same time. The war gets even more complex because both inclinations can seem to be right in the moment and, maybe they both are! Allowing my ‘evil’ inclination to protect me when someone is a danger to me, to themselves, and/or to another is a good thing; allowing it to lie to me and think someone is a danger when they are actually a friend who is speaking truth is not a good thing. We have to engage in the nuances and the complexities that are inherent in being human in order to engage in “moral living”. It ain’t easy!

One of the lessons of the prophets is that “vice pays more”. The priests and the royalty along with the rich and powerful subscribed to this belief. We know this because they bastardized the rituals and the ‘laws’ of morality. They kept, like the sons of Samuel and Eli before them, using their positions to extort bribes and more wealth from the people rather than serve God, serve the populace, serve the good inclinations of their own beings. And it worked for a long time! We see this today with clergy promoting the welfare of the rich and the powerful, the liar and the charlatan, the fascist and the authoritarian. They do not believe in the Bible’s dictate: “One law for the stranger and the citizen alike”, they do not believe in equal justice under the law, they laugh at “freedom for all”! Some of the people in chaste in the Clergy of all faiths have sold themselves to their benefactors, their patrons in order to keep their positions-not caring that the words they speak are in direct conflict with the teachings of Moses, of Jesus, of Mohammed, of Buddha, of the entire Hebrew Bible. They will lie and attend rallies for people who believe that Hitler was a good guy! They will call Latinos and Blacks ‘vermin”, they will blame the Jews if Trump doesn’t win, they are calling out false claims about the election if they don’t win! These ‘men of god’ are descendants of the Priests in the Bible who Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, et al railed against, and, in the end, who the populace believed to their own ruin. While good wins out, eventually, these liars teach us how much ‘sin’ pays and how the aftermath of their ‘sin’ can last for centuries-19 in fact till Israel was re-established as a state!

With all of this about ‘sin’ we cannot forget that “virtue pays”! While the wages don’t seem to be as much, it doesn’t seem to win all the time, it does pay dividends in the long run. Herein is the dilemma: are we in our lives for the long haul, the long run or are we so caught up in instant gratification that we can’t wait? For virtue to pay, for us to be able to live with ourselves and not constantly want to jump out of our skin, we have to accept that we will not see the fruits of our labor in our lifetime sometimes. There is a story of a boy who asks his grandfather why he is planting a tree when he will never see it bloom and nor taste its fruit and the old man answers: for you to enjoy, for the sake of future generations and because it is the right thing to do. We don’t seem to have a lot of people telling and living this story right now and we have many more than we think. Each of us can choose to do the next right thing and read the immediate ‘payment’ of being able to quiet the war within, to let go of our expectations of glory, our resentments for not being noticed, our anger at being excluded for the ‘club’ we don’t want to be part of anyway. Doing the next right thing gives us a connection with another human being that is precious, a connection with the universe which is comforting and a connection with our souls which is life sustaining. So, yes “virtue pays” and it is up to us to choose this form of payment over the other one.

Having wrestled with this truth all my life, having given into the belief that “sin pays more”, I can attest to the truth that virtue is “the easier, softer, way”. The wages of ‘sin’ paid more in the moment and cost me friendships, relationships, a way of being okay with myself. Seeing “moral living” as a ‘sucker’s way’, I did things that I regret to this day and I impacted many people in harmful ways. I almost lost myself completely in ‘sin’ and I am grateful that I was shown, often, the enslaving ways of the Pharaoh of this way of living. Finally I made the decision to change, after about 20 years of being employed and paid by ‘the wages of sin’. I am testifying to the truth that “virtue pays” and the dividends are more than one can see on a balance sheet, they are within us. I can live with myself and my errors each day, I can forgive those who have ‘trespassed against me” just as I ask them and God to forgive me m ‘trespasses”. I don’t have to worry about the cops, look over my shoulder to see who is following me, keep my back to the wall so I can see the doorway at a restaurant, etc. I can walk into a room or a place where I know there are people who think poorly of me and hold my head up. I can breathe free and care about everyone without resentment nor fear. These are some of the ways “virtue pays”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Having the Inner Strength to Live Morally in an Immoral World- Year 3 Day 322

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 322

“We must not underestimate the difficulties of moral living. It takes great courage, wisdom, defiance, and depth of faith to remain moral. We have been guilty of oversimplification. We maintain that virtue pays, we forget that vice pays more.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 57/58)

Rabbi Heschel’s words are ringing throughout the land today. Our arrogance, our obliviousness, our self-deceptions and mendacity have hidden these “difficulties of moral living” so badly that many people have come to morality as immorality and visa versa. We are a country, a world where the words of the Prophets are ignored, forgotten, or bastardized to fit the particular immorality being espoused. We see this way of being in some of our religious institutions, in some of our elected officials, in some of our homes, schools, business’, etc and we are blind to the long-term consequences and we are so arrogant as to believe what history has taught us about immorality and its consequences won’t apply to us!

People complain about the verses in the Bible that speak about what will happen when the people Israel “goes astray” calling God “Vengeful” when in fact, Israel is told of the consequences of immoral behaviors in any and all facets of living, work/employment, worship/religion, governance/caring for the people around us. These verses are n-t “vengeful”, they are prophetic. Just as the prophetic words of Deuteronomy which caution us against following a “False Prophet” call to us to stay moral, just as Moses reminding us that we will not last if we give lip-service to moral behaviors while plotting how to be immoral, how to lie with a smile and destroy the goodness within another person, We, the People, have to be aware of the deceptions of another as well as the lies we tell ourselves about the ease of “moral living”.

In Germany, the religious right, the Catholic Church supported Hitler and the Nazis, and the ones that didn’t stayed silent as Martin Neimoller’s  poem depicts: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” We saw Father Coughlin and other religious leaders support Hitler in the 1930’s with large gatherings of the German Bund at Madison Square Garden! We see the same type of support for MAGA, this time instead of Hitler, Trump and Musk are promoting Putin who we all know is the ‘most moral of men’-NOT! Yet Jews, Latinos, Blacks will vote for him because he is a liar who appeals to their lies, they are both immoral and get away with it so people think they will also, they spew hatred which appeals to the ‘downtrodden’ when Trump, Musk, and their cronies and thugs are “The Man” who has spread hatred and kept their knees on their necks! “The difficulties of moral living” are so vast and subtle, so nuanced and apparent, that most people are oblivious to them and believe the lies of liars to their own peril and ruin-just as the prophets, as Moses, as the Bible teaches and we fail to learn.

“It takes great courage, wisdom, defiance, and depth of faith to remain moral” is a truth  that we underestimate often, precisely because we underestimate the “difficulties of moral living”. From Abraham till now, to be a moral human being has always taken these attributes and most of us ignore the necessity to develop our “courage” in the face of societal conventional notions, the necessity to develop our inner “wisdom” in the face of the societal pull to ‘be like everyone else’, to develop our “depth of faith” and “defiance” in the face of ‘religion-lite’ practices and teachings. We have lost the words and actions of our ancestors the prophets because the people entrusted with their teachings and models of behavior; the Rabbis, Priests, Ministers, Imams, have given into their own fears, have cozied up to the powers that be too much and have been co-opted by the bribes they have been given and the fears that overwhelmed them. The Rabbis who were killed by the Romans have been immortalized and their ways have been forgotten and or used as ways not to be courageous, defiant, faithful and wise because one could die from it. Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Prinz, Rev King, the Berrigan Brothers all demonstrated these traits in calling out  the immorality of Racism and of the Vietnam War. Rev Barber and others are calling out the immorality of Racism and poverty today and not being heard in the chambers of power as Rev King et al were in the 1960’s. Instead, Musk and Trump have more sway over the Republican elected officials than the needs and interests of their constituents! Instead of standing courageously and defiantly against the isolators who want control over women and their bodies, against the white supremacists who believe only white ‘christian' people should rule these elected officials, even Black, Jewish and Latino ones just go along to get along!

We, the People, have to stop looking the other way, we have to stop hiding our heads in the sand and we have to pull our heads out of our asses! The time is NOW, we have put up with the lies and deceptions for too long and we are at the tipping point-either we stand for Goodness, Truth, Kindness, Wisdom, and Faith in God’s ways or we surrender to the bullies, we go along with the deceivers, we relinquish our moral and spiritual heritage. It is not too late! Vote for decency and democracy, freedom and faith in the dignity and worth of every human being, vote from the divine image you are created in rather than the false ego, the evil that has been taught you. We can return to the goals of the Bible, we can get closer to the goals of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan- we are being called to exhibit the “courage, defiance, wisdom and depth of faith” we have within us.

I come from a poor family who lived these ways of “moral living” faithfully, no matter the outer cost to them. Decency and kindness were the only ways my grandfathers did business and raised their kids. We were taught to argue for truth and not to be right, to respect every person no matter their religion or skin color. Morality was the number 1 rule in our homes and it is #1 for me in my recovery. No matter the cost, I have done my best to live a moral life in all my affairs and to be satisfied no matter the outcome as long as I am moral. I am not perfect and it is what I strive for, I refuse to stay silent in the face of immorality and I ask you to listen to my podcasts; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f-your-feelings-with-rabbi-mark/id1587525986?i=1000674219137 or https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DIT7Ls3Gp8GM0mVooOXcK?si=970f92e0de55406c God Bless and stay safe and Moral, Rabbi Mark

Does your engagement with religious/spiritual teachings and teachers help with the problems of human existence? Year 3 Day 321

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 321

“For a word of the Bible to happen it must permeate the soul, relate to one’s problems, dreams, and emotions. Detached from the living issues of the human situation, our commitment becomes dim, inane. In other words, to teach religion means to teach a way of dealing with living problems of human existence, with the problems of the student who sits in front of us. Otherwise it remains trivial. And religious cannot survive as a triviality.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 57)

Today is Simchat Torah in parts of the Jewish World, Simchat Torah means the Joy of Torah, the joy of learning, the joy of growing in understanding, wisdom and actions. Rabbi Heschel’s words above are so crucial to celebrating the amazing blueprint for living that the Bible, the Torah is. The Bible and the Torah, while universal documents, are deeply personal to each and every individual, helping each and every one of us “dealing with living problems of human existence”. To be human is to have problems, to be deeply engaged in living gives us more problems and, as Rabbi Heschel says, the deeper the problems, the richer our living!

Religion is not a one-size fits all, it is not a panacea for what ails us, it will not take away our troubles. Religion gives us paths to deal with life’s challenges and problems, to deal with the war within us, to deal with living in a communal society without giving up our uniqueness, to live our uniqueness out loud so we can add to our corner of the world. Religion teaches us morality, it teaches us how to return after we err, how to fix our messes, how to restore our dignity and the dignity of another human being after we and/or someone else tarnishes/damages our dignity or the dignity of another. Religion teaches us the pitfalls of egocentric behaviors, of jealousy, of comparisons. It teaches us the dangers of worshiping false gods, bowing down to people and giving over the control of our minds and spirits to “the new Pharaoh arises”. Religion teaches us to hold onto our choices, to choose wisely, to not accept bribes, to not buy into the lies of the false prophets, to not engage in senseless hatred and to not ignore the plight of voiceless and powerless, the poor and the needy, etc.

On a more personal level, religion teaches “the student who sits in from of us” how to deal with their individual problems and, if as teachers and practitioners of religion, we are not doing this, if we are not seeing the individual student in front of us, if we are not responding to the call of their souls, if we are not helping them find their solutions in the text, then we should not be teaching religion because we are charlatans. If we cannot see the problems of the student who sits in front of us, if we cannot admit to our own problems then we are trivializing religion, we are making a mockery of what has sustained the world for over 2500 years and transformed humanity from ‘wild beasts’, from a “dog eat dog’ mentality to a society that has empathy and compassion, one that seeks truth, one that seeks to live into acts of kindness towards all. We have to see the person in front of us as a divine image seeking a framework to express their purpose and passion through religion, through the Biblical teachings and our job is to help guide them.

Of course, we see that religion “remains trivial” to so many because they were never seen as individuals in need, the teaching of religion has been more about rules than compassion, more about creed, power, habit and not about the crisis of today, not about faith as a living fountain that we can all drink from, it has become more about authority than learning solutions to today’s problems. We have allowed the liars and the deceivers to take over the Temples, the Churches, the Mosques, and the Synagogues. We have allowed them to do the least possible and we have accepted crumbs instead of demanding a seat at the table, instead of demanding that the words of the prophets be heard, taught and followed, we have allowed the people in ‘power’ to be more like the priests, the royalty, the wealthy when both Temples were destroyed and the 10 Tribes of the Northern Kingdom were dispersed among the Assyrian nation!

Religion is not the problem, it is the solution-full stop. We are the problem both the people teaching religion, the people espousing false religious beliefs and false prophecy as well as those of us who are accepting their lies and deviousness. When we fail to see that Donald Trump is a bad human being, when we fail to call out his love of dictators and Hitler, when we call him the ‘anointed one of god’ when we use ‘christian nationalism’ as a euphemism for control by the wealthy and the white supremacists and we believe that this is freedom - it is not religion that fails, it is us who trivializes religion. When we cannot see the difference between good and evil, when we cheer a team that celebrates what Hitler’s generals did, when we vote for a candidate that fomented an insurrection and/or his cronies who kiss his ass now when they know the truth of who he is and what he is, it is our failure, not religions.

We, the people, have to take back the teaching of religion. We, the people have to return to the text and follow the example of King David who could admit his errors and do his repentance. We, the people, have to stop thinking that the teachings of religion are far away, when they are “in our mouths and in our hearts”. We have to stand up for what is right no matter the personal cost because not standing up costs so much more. We, the people, have to look ourselves in the mirror, look our children in the eyes and answer the question: “Daddy, Mommy, why did you allow these idolators to take over the Temples, the Mosques, the Churches, the Synagogues, and the country?”

I live with the teachings each day, I have worked hard to never trivialize the texts and the lessons. I have found the solutions needed to deal with my problems and the problems of living that confront me daily in the Bible. I have done the best I know to teach another how to use the texts to seek the solutions for their particular issue in any given moment. I have counseled people for years and helped them find the solutions that are particular to them always seeking to lift them up and follow my passion and purpose. I believe the words above, I live these words and am profoundly grateful for all the teachers who have seen me and showed me texts that are my solutions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Making "a word of the Bible happen" in everyday activities is possible when the words permeate our souls! Year 3 Day 320

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 320

“For a word of the Bible to happen it must permeate the soul, relate to one’s problems, dreams, and emotions. Detached from the living issues of the human situation, our commitment becomes dim, inane. In other words, to teach religion means to teach a way of dealing with living problems of human existence, with the problems of the student who sits in front of us. Otherwise it remains trivial. And religious cannot survive as a triviality.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 57)

Today is the last day of Sukkot, the eighth day and tonight is Simchat Torah, the rejoicing of the ending and new beginning of reading the Torah as well as the first anniversary, Yahrtzeit, of the Oct. 7th terrorist attack which killed over 1200 people, took 251 hostages of which some 101 hostages either dead or alive remain in captivity in Gaza. On the eighth day after a birth, a boy is circumcised and receives his name, I pray that on this eighth day the hostages and their families are given hope that a deal is being made, that the terrorists of Hamas, the government of Netanyahu and his thugs realize the importance of human life according the “word of the Bible”.

Rabbi Heschel, in the first two sentences above, describes the dilemma we are in, Be it in the Middle East, America, in our cities and communities, in our religious centers, in our individual being. “A word of the Bible” does not “permeate the soul”, it does not relate to one’s problems, dreams” and this is because many people teaching and engaging in “a word of the Bible” are unwilling to allow the words to “permeate their soul”, unable to hear truth and are more interested in twisting the “word of the Bible” to their selfish, greedy, goals of power and control.

I am struck by the first sentence in that Rabbi Heschel is talking about “a word of the Bible to happen”. He is reminding us and demanding of us, calling out to us and begging us to remember the words mean nothing if we don’t make them happen in the moment, in the world and in our inner lives. Otherwise, what is happening in ‘houses of worship’ is worshiping idols, is, in Hebrew, Avodah Zarah-worship of idols. He is also telling us how to make “a word of the Bible happen”, by having it touch our souls, by allowing ourselves to be changed by this “word of the Bible” in this moment and knowing that an imprint of this experience is left upon our inner life. We will never be the same after we allow “a word of the Bible” to “happen” to us, to “permeate the soul” because only then can we experience and understand how this “word of the Bible” relates and helps us find solutions to our “problems, dreams and emotions”. Only by making “a word of the Bible happen” in our souls so we make it “happen” in the world can we begin to breathe a little better, can we end our constant worry and holding of our breathe to see if we are going to be okay. Only by realizing that the Bible is a blueprint for all of life’s ups and downs, a solution “to one’s problems, dreams and emotions”, can we find the right solution for this moment in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Only by allowing “a word of the Bible to happen” can we end our constant fear and loathing of another human being, can we throw the Idols in the Temple out, can we light the candles of Hanukkah and rededicate ourselves to the words “of the Bible” in truth.

On page 3 of his book, God in Search of Man, Rabbi Heschel describes the reason for “the eclipse of religion in the modern world.”  “Religion declined not because it was refuted, but, because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.” It has not gotten any better since 1955 when these words were first published, in fact, I would offer each of these descriptors have gotten more embedded in the minds, teachings, preachings of the so-called ‘religious’ establishment. Because so many faith leaders have “detached from the living issues of the human situation, our commitment” has “become dim, inane”. The so-called ‘religious’ establishment in Israel, in Iran, in Gaza and in Lebanon have made “a word of the Bible”, a word of the Koran, empty and use the words found in these holy texts for their vanity, not for the sake of heaven! The same is true here in the U.S. People who claim Trump was anointed by Christ to lead America are saying this for their own power grab, they actually believe Trump will not turn to fascism, they actually believe they will thrive under a man who worships Hitler, loves authoritarians like Putin, etc. It will not be ‘christian’ law, it will be Trump-Law and this will not bode well for anyone but the Trumps! We have Idolators in the Temples and the Churches, in the Mosques and the Synagogues, yet we continue to listen to them, we continue to pay them to destroy us, to tell us ‘don’t worry, he will fix all your problems,’ and other such bullshit! Because of the Idols in the Temples, religion has lost its moral high ground, it has lost its raison d’être, “to permeate the soul” and change our hearts and actions, to make a “more perfect union” between human beings and between us and God.

We can still turn this runaway train around, we can still rescue the hostages in Gaza, in Russia, in our own communities, in our country. It will take a herculean effort to throw the idolators out of our religious institutions, it means changing the power structure, the board structure, it means demanding of our clergy that they teach the Bible and the particular religious tenets as solutions to the problems of today, that they teach all of us how to use the Bible in order to “relate to one’s problems”, how to “circumcise the foreskins of our hearts” and how to let go of our vanity and stop worshiping the emptiness of mendacity and self-deception. We do this by immersing ourselves in the spiritual texts of our faith, we do this by making “happen” a phrase like “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” in our daily activities, we do this by making “happen” a call to “care for the stranger, the orphan, the widow, the poor, the needy” every day reaching out to help rather than abuse another. We have the blueprint, we have the inner strength, we have the leadership of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, and our ancestors who have kept their teachings alive and present. We just have to have the courage to “Go for yourself, go to yourself” and live a life of blessings rather than be seduced by the curses.

I have been successful in my years of recovery to allow “a word of the Bible to happen” by having them “permeate my soul”. This is my “gift”, I can sit with someone, find the “word of the Bible” they need to hear so they can find a solution for their problems, their dreams. This is the honor I have been given by God and the task I have been created for. I am grateful that people keep helping me have the words of the Bible permeate my soul so I stay fresh, current and growing. I am no longer an empty, vain vessel, I am a servant and a student. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"Learning, study" as a lifelong challenge to sort out our inner life - Year 3 Day 319

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 319

“Learning, study is more than preparation of young people for good citizenship. Study is a form of worship, an act of inner purification.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.57)

Rabbi Harold Shulweis, whose memory is a blessing, would re-enforce the importance of study as “a form a worship” when he spoke to Rabbinic Students, to congregants, to anyone at all. I am hearing his voice along with Rabbi Heschel’s in my ears right now. This thought is a radical idea for many, in fact it is so out of people’s minds that study is no longer important except for the way it will help someone ‘get ahead’, ‘make a fortune’, etc. Religious school education ends for most young people by the time they reach their teens and even if they go on, be it by choice and/or coerced by parents, they tune it all out. In our secular schools, Civics is no longer taught in many schools so young people are not even aware of the responsibility that freedom brings, the actions of good citizenship.

We are in a crisis of our own making. The United States is facing an election that could well decide the fate of democracy as one of the candidates keeps trying to show his ‘macho man’ way of being by loving Hitler, Stalin, Putin, etc; while the other one is a woman who has been in public service her entire life, who, as a daughter of immigrants, believes deeply in the promise of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. That the former President of the United States who fomented an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, could be close to regaining the Presidency shows how far we have fallen, how not only has “good citizenship” been jettisoned, people are showing the lack of “inner purification” and their disdain for same. WTF??!!??

To engage in learning means we have to hear all sides of the issue, be it secular and religious, spiritual and practical, as every issue confronting us has both spiritual and practical aspects, they are found in both the secular foundational texts of a country’s existence and the religious texts of the Hebrew Bible which, I believe, is the foundational text for all western faiths. Learning is the process by which we let go of our old ideas and open ourselves up to new ways of seeing the text, new ways of seeing our bias’ and our self-deceptions. Learning causes us to “lift up our eyes and see”, as Abraham is instructed in Genesis, so we can find the ideas, the actions we need to take to uncover the hidden gems within us, within the texts, within another human being. Learning is never done alone because we will constantly miss the same thing over and over again. In Judaism we have a Chevruta, a spiritual friend with whom we pour over the Bible, Talmud, the commentaries, etc because our spiritual friend, our Chaver, reflects our soul back to us so we can purify the dross that we carry within. Study is not to be done all day, every day, rather we are supposed to learn each day, I prefer morning, and then put the learning into practice throughout our day because study alone will not bring about change, it is not enough to engage in “an act of inner purification” and not be engaged in the world around us. This is a truth that the Rabbis of old knew because they had professions or benefactors so they never made a living by study or teaching, it was done for the sake of learning alone. So, Mr. Ben G’Vir, Mr. Smotrich, Mr. Netanyahu, protecting the Ultra-Orthodox from serving in the military, from getting employment goes directly against the teachings of the Sages that you revere so much, whom you quote so often, whom you bastardize thinking people will not check your sources! Without “an act of inner purification”, without “learning, study”, we are raising generations of people who’s inner lives are a mess and they think it is an issue of mental health rather than an issue of spiritual immaturity. It is not their fault, it is the fault of society, it is the fault of parents, it is the fault of the system of religious and secular education who have failed us all.

The founding fathers of the United States gave us a Constitution that was flawed so they also gave us the Bill of Rights and a path for continuing to improve upon the Constitution as we learned more and progressed. While once there was slavery and a Black Man was counted as 3/5’s of a person, everyone is free and is counted as a whole person who can vote their conscience without fear or favor, in theory. We know the Voting Rights Act of 1964 which the current Supreme Court has said isn’t applicable anymore because every state just goes along with it has been gutted in many states, especially those controlled by Republican Legislators. We know that our children in Florida are being taught that Slavery was good for Black people because it taught them a trade, according to Governor DeSantis. We are aware of the dangers of immigrants thanks to Trump/Vance and the Republican leadership while we are a country founded by immigrants, a country that decimated the Native American population because we were afraid of them. We are so far from the ideal, from the path of freedom that began in Boston and Philadelphia because of our lack of “learning, study” because we no longer engage in “an act of inner purification” and believe the drivel and dross being pushed upon us by Mike Johnson, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, et al.

It is time for us to stand up and say NO to the status quo and YES to “learning, study”. It is time for us to admit our need for inner purification and to vote for people who want to do what is right and best for the many while allowing the people who oppose them to be heard and change their ideas when alternatives that make more sense are provided. It is time for us to end the status quo that keeps people from hearing truth, the status quo that provides lies and the status quo that has made a Truth a useless commodity, the status quo that holds the Liar in higher esteem than the prophets words in the Bible, who loves Korah more that Moses, who believes that authoritarianism is better that “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev.25:10). We need to stand for “inner purification” here, in Israel, and across the globe.

I have been engaged in “learning, study” for the sake of my “inner purification” since I was arrested in December, 1986. I am still fighting the status quo of my youth, I am fighting with people who think the status quo is ‘good enough’, I am fighting with the people who are so blind, so drunk with their own power, their own false egos that they believe they have achieved “inner purification” while denigrating another, hating another, lying about another, and getting people to go along because the people are afraid of them. I still rail about this mendacity, I still fight the fight for “inner purification”, I am still engaged in “learning, study” and I am still growing. It is hard and it is exquisite, exhausting and exhilarating. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Engaging in "True learning", "the study of Torah" all involve getting beyond our selfishness-are you able to do this? Year 3 Day 318

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 318

“The study of Torah is a challenge to the mind as well as an act of being involved in the dialogue of God and man, an act of sanctification of time. True learning is a way of relating oneself to something which is holy and universal.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 57)

“True learning is a way of relating oneself to something which is holy and universal” makes one think not just of religious teachings, but of all learning. When we learn science, humanities, mathematics, language, as well as the Torah and all spiritual texts we are relating ourselves “to something which is holy and universal”. Thinking about this, hearing Rabbi Heschel’s call to us I am in awe of the simple truth of this sentence. Whether our learning is about our actions or the actions of another, whether our learning is discovering the ‘secrets of the universe’, or leads to a vaccine to prevent some terrible illness or at least mitigate it, or it is about how to live a better life from the inside out, or it is about a deeper understanding of our unique purpose and how to fulfill it; all of it depends on our willingness and ability to relate ourselves to something greater than ourselves, to relate our selfs to that “which is holy and universal”.

In the beginning, this discovery of what “true learning is” was found in “the study of Torah” because one could not learn Torah with only one’s mind nor only one’s soul. “The study of Torah” has to involve both mind and spirit, body and soul because it is an experience of matter and energy, hence it “is a challenge to the mind as well as an act of being involved in the dialogue of God and man”. Just as “true learning is” an act of our whole being and can be present in all learnings, so too is “the study of Torah” an action which involves all our faculties. Without our mind engaging in this study, we will be woefully deficient in understanding and in maturation of our intellect, without our soul’s engagement we will find the rationalizations and become dismissive of the wisdom of Torah that doesn’t make sense to our rational minds.

We are in desperate need of hearing the words above, of engaging in “the study of” all religious texts in the ways described above in order to let go of our self-deceptions and the deceptions of another. Thinking about the stories of Jesus in the New Testament, he hung out with all the people that the Christian Nationalists, the Prosperity Gospels adherents, the Project 2025 architects and believers, the Billionaire Trump Boys Club hate, denigrate, use as props for their authoritarian desires! In the Torah, we are challenged to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, and the orphan 36 times! We are taught that God dwells among us when we make a space for holiness to reside within us and around us. While many people understand this as an edifice, I hear it as a space within our souls, within our minds where we engage in and are “involved in the dialogue between God” and ourselves-not just “man” as a separate entity from the individual, rather each of us as people wrestling with our minds and navigating the dialogue and the arguments between our soul’s knowing and our mind’s thinking. Hence the need to bring both of these ways of understanding and thinking, knowing and doing together to find the right action for this moment. It can never be to vilify someone for our own gain, it can never be to spew hatred and lies, in the name of God, it can never be to proclaim that ‘they’ need to be vanquished, ‘they’ are “enemies of the people”, “vermin” because another human being disagrees with someone, because another person is holding us to the standard of decency learned from Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. When ‘religious’ people proclaim adulterers, coveters, thieves, false witness’, and soul murderers as “the anointed ones” we know they are Full of Shit and we have to say STOP.

It is crucial in this time of war, both civil and between peoples, that we go back to the basics of Torah and of “true learning”. Of course there are times when we have to go to war, when we have to battle, and the first arena any war, any battle has to take place is within ourselves. We have to “challenge our mind” and be “involved in the dialogue of God and man” before we make any outer decision and because of the bastardization of holy texts, because “true learning” is no longer important to these religious charlatans, to these False Prophets, we find good people being led like sheep to their own ruin and destruction and the ruin and destruction of freedom and our holy scriptures.

This is what we are fighting for right now in the US election, in the war in Ukraine and in the Middle East quagmire. We have to call upon the leaders and the people to “challenge the minds” of conventional wisdom and old hatreds that no one really knows the origin of anymore and engage in being “maladjusted” to these conventional notions, to these old animosities, so we can find a new solution, a way forward in, at the very least, respect for the divine image of each individual no matter what “side” they are on. We have to find pathways to reach out and help people who have ‘drunk the kool-aid’ on either extreme come back to a middle path, at least 10% away from their respective extremes. We have to say NO to the likes of Bannon and Flynn, Trump and Vance, Sanders and AOC, Bibi and Ben G’Vir as well as Putin, Orban, Kim Jung Un. We have to fight for that which is “holy and universal” like freedom, respect, justice, compassion, truth, kindness, etc with all we have against the forces mentioned above who want to be in control of all of us and have the world be a kleptocracy, which is what Elon Musk is trying to make happen by bribing people to vote for Trump! We have to demand better of ourselves and we do this by voting out the charlatans, the liars and voting in fighters for decency, democracy, freedom and truth.

I have been engaged in this challenge most of my life, even when I was a drunk and criminal. I have always been fighting the inner war I hear Rabbi Heschel calling us to wage and, unfortunately, my mind won far too often in my youth; my rationalizations won and I was the people I describe in the paragraph above-indecent, uncaring, lying, cheating, etc. I am remorseful to this day for the damage I caused. I am remorseful for the damage I have caused since 1987 and I realize the vast majority of my actions, whether someone found them good or not good, were the result of the trying to serve something “holy and universal”, they were after “being involved in the dialogue of God” and me. There were/are times when I hear me and believe it is God and more often than not, God wins the dialogue and people don’t want to hear it. I am continuing to “challenge my mind” and I continue to engage in “true learning” so I become a better version of me that I was yesterday. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you using faith as a guide, a challenge or as descriptive and literal? Year 3 Day 317

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 317

“The Torah is not description but guidance; not an acceptance but a challenge; not reminiscence but commandment. It is not a portraiture of that which is but a vision, an anticipation of that which ought to be.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.57)

In his commentary on Leviticus 19:2, the Ramban says we have to be told to be holy because there are people who will be “scoundrels within the bounds of the Torah”. I hear Rabbi Heschel echoing this sentiment in the words above. When we see Torah as ‘history’, it is easy to believe it is describing something that was, that we can just accept the laws/commandments, that it gives us a false sense of ‘how to be’. Yet, as at the end of the Holiness Code we are told: “Love thy Neighbor as thyself”, there is no description as to how to do this, nor is this a reminiscence because even the Jewish People who proclaim Am Yisrael Chai, the Jewish people live, have never all agreed on anything, except, maybe, the Shema is our watch phrase, our goal. The same is true with the other Spiritual Texts held in the same esteem, holiness as the Torah and the Bible; they are for guidance, they are a challenge to our status quo, they are commanding and demanding, they are a vision as well as an anticipation of that which both ought to be and can be-if we are willing to use the Holy Texts for their intended purpose.

“The Torah” is a manual that guides us on how to be more human today than we were yesterday, how we can be better versions of ourselves in this moment than we were a year ago, how to live a life that feeds our spiritual as well as physical selves and how our souls become the arbiters of what is the next right thing to do rather than our rationalizations and feelings. We are given 365 “don’t do this” commandments because, as we have seen throughout history, we do them with little or any thought when we believe it is in our best interests to lie, to commit adultery, to steal, to make the truth non-existent, to be misogynistic when we want to have dominion and rule over a woman and/or over another group of people. We are guilty of “Coveting our neighbors’ stuff” because we decided they ‘took’ it from us rather than come face to face with our own shortcomings and repairing ourselves, as long as we have someone to blame, we don’t have to be responsible for our part in our own demise, in our own current situation. We have 248 “Do this” commandments because we can see how often we didn’t-even having them spelled out to us, we find reasons not to take the next right action and do what we are called to do. A few of the most violated “do this” commandments is “care for the stranger, the needy, the poor and the orphan” another is “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, still another is “forgiveness”. We think it serves us to denigrate the stranger, those who are ‘different than us, and hold onto our grudges! While there are many more, these three show us how we can deceive ourselves to go along with an authoritarian, with a societal ‘norm’, to our own ruination. Violating these three and the others ruins our humanity, we lessen our own value and worth, our own dignity and image; we tarnish the divine image we are created in and we deceive ourselves into believing someone will save us, rather than depending on our own strength, independence, wisdom and ability to join forces for good, for what is right and what is being demanded of us. Torah is guidance, it is not a nice story or a story of fear and punishment. It is guidance as to what happens when we take the next right action and what happens when we take the next wrong action. We don’t have to blame anyone else, we just have to look within which is the goal of Torah, to look within and then outside to see how we can add rather than subtract.

Torah is the challenge of building a world that we can live in with one another in harmony and detente, if not peace. It is the vision of how we ought to help one another, redeem the poor, ransom the captive, dignify another human being and see the infinite worth of every individual, after all we all stood at the bottom of Mt. Sinai, we all stood at the edge of the Jordan when Moses spoke to us reminding us that everyone was at the Jordan waiting to cross over and we all were equal from the water drawer to the head of the tribe.

It is time for us to reclaim the Torah from the Charlatans of the far right and the far left. It is time for us to reclaim the Bible from these ‘experts’ who believe ‘only i know what God wants’ when Torah has so many faces, so many understandings, so many interpretations. It is time for We, the people, to recapture the commandments, to use the guidance, to end our longing for the good old days and realize the best is yet to come because there living in the past is ignoring the beauty of today and the challenges of today. It is time of We, the people, to challenge the liars who claim life is so terrible, those authoritarians who want to tear everyone down so they can have control and dominion over people for their own selfish desires. We, the people, have to regain the vision of Shalom, wholeness that permeates every word of Torah, of the Bible. It is time for all of us to sit down and argue for the sake of heaven, for the sake of learning with the thoughts and values of the Bible, of the Torah rather than argue to be right and in control. We, the people, have to reclaim our heritage from the prophets, to speak truth to power and to the people, to be loud and proud of who we are and what we bring, to serve something greater than ourselves so we can truly be our authentic self. We have to ability, we have the texts, we just need to be willing-are you?

I have used the Torah and the Bible as guidance and hear the commands of the text over and over again in each reading and I hear the guidance and the commands anew each time. To this end, I have studied with Rabbi Ed Feinstein for 31 years going over the same texts, arguing anew over each one and finding new ways to set our vision in line with the divine, to hear the commandments anew, to deepen our compassion and understanding of our fellow human beings. Ed and I have been partners in Chutzpah as he says, partners in healing broken spirits, partners in loving our neighbors, partners in proclaiming freedom for all, partners in knowing if we are alive, we have to learn. The guidance and the vision of Torah has shaped my life for the last 35 years in ways that are too large for me to even comprehend. It has made me more responsible, more sensitive, more enraged at mendacity, more compassionate towards people who are just stuck. Torah has made me engaged in anticipatory excitement of what can and should be, it has cleaned my shame and allowed me to be imperfect, it gives me the strength and sight to do T’Shuvah and no longer worry about someone else defining me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How are you engaging in enobling your humanity and the humanity of another? Year 3 Day 316

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 316

“The belief in the possibility to affect and enoble human beings is the rock upon which all of Judaism is built. Denial of this belief would render all of Torah innocuous.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56-7)

While these two sentences seem obvious given the commandments we learn in the Torah and that are lived into in the rest of the Bible, we seem to forget this truth, we seem to be able to ‘spin’ the Mitzvot to our liking, to serve us instead of serving something greater than us. Rabbi Heschel’s use of the words “possibility”, “enoble”, “affect” point us in the direction of inner exploration and discernment. The Hebrew word for prayer is reflexive, we are not asking God, some other entity for something, we are actually asking our self for something, be it healing old wounds, finding new paths for reconciliation and peace, to truly understand what we know in ways that serve us and more than us, etc.

Prayer, you should, you should not commandments are for the individual human being and for a sense of communal spirit. They give us a “rock” of commonality of values and principles, they give us the wherewithal to change when needed, to help another person change, to keep a community together in truthfulness, kindness, love and loyalty to shared principles. Judaism is not just a religious movement, it is a way of living movement and we, some of us Jews, believe the spiritual principles, the commandments, the communal structure gives us a way to live with our imperfections and the imperfections of another. It is the belief that we all change, we all grow and we all have to choose what change we are going to effect in ourselves and which way we are going to grow.

Adherence, study, immersing oneself in the Torah, in the Bible gives the individual a sense of belonging, of being known, of being loved because all of the heroes in the Bible are flawed, they make mistakes and the need for Rabbis to make them perfect bastardizes the text! Understanding sibling rivalry, understanding curiosity, especially when told “don’t eat from this tree and that tree only”, standing up for people one doesn’t even know and calling the Judge of Judges to be just takes a lot of chutzpah and is necessary if we are going to enoble our humanity, if we are going to affect the ways another person grows their own humanity. We have the opportunity to do this each and every day, we have the tools, as Deuteronomy 30:14 says: “The word is very near to you, in your mouth, in your heart”. We don’t have to search too far for what will/can “affect and enoble” us, we just have to begin to dig down through the shmutz that has blocked our spiritual arteries, that is imprisoning our soul, that is denying this “belief in the possibility to affect and enoble human beings”, that is working hard to bastardize and deny the “rock upon which all of Judaism is built”.

What is the plaque in our spiritual arteries? It is greed, believing I have to ‘get mine’ and no else matters. It is power, believing I can bastardize Holy Texts to serve my power grab, my hatred of another human being, even though we are not to hate our neighbors in our hearts according to the Holiness Code in Leviticus. It is lying and making truth indiscernible, treating fiction as fact and fact as fiction, accusing another person of that which we are guilty of. It is when we don’t see the infinite worth of another person so we can enslave them, not give them equal pay, not see them as equal to us because of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, etc. Laziness in not discovering what any spiritual tradition truly says and only going by what the ‘guru’ we have picked says it says tends to create a lot of plaque because we are not exercising our spiritual muscles, our spiritual flow, we are only taking in and not really giving out and this creates a blockage as well.

When we say, believe, practice the religion, the spiritual discipline of NONE, we have made the decision that the Torah, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the Tibetan Book of the Living and Dead, etc are of no consequence for us. We have said they are not harmful nor helpful, they are not offensive nor defensive. How awful and foreboding is this! To say the Torah, etc are not offensive is like saying someone spitting in your face is love. To say the Torah is not helpful is like saying all of medicine is ridiculous because we don’t need any help from anyone nor anything. It is like saying the vaccinations developed are unnecessary, Pasteurization is too expensive and doesn’t do anything for us, the polio vaccine was a hoax, and other such stupid sayings. To “render all of Torah innocuous” is to tear down the foundation of democracy, of freedom, of Judaism and the structure of the world. We would be left with ‘survival of the cunningest’, we would see alliances no longer made for the greater good because there is no greater good than the survival of oneself, one’s community, one’s country, etc. We would see almost 50% of the people believing a convicted felon, a proven liar, a charlatan who is only out for him/herself selling a bunch of bullshit about caring for another and we would see so-called ‘religious’ people supporting him, we would see people who seem like decent people supporting the liar because s/he would be good for them. This person would be exalted because people have lost the foundational belief that Mitzvot, that faith and the actions that come out of one’s faith, can and must “affect and enoble human beings.

Sitting here this morning, getting ready to co-officiate at a wedding of two amazing young people, reading this makes me so grateful that I heard a call 38 years ago in a prison cell, that I responded to that call and began a way of being that begins each morning with prayer, study, gratitude, and writing. I am able to look back at old writings and see how faith has changed me, how AA has changed me, how Judaism has made me a better human being. I am in wonderment and disbelief that life could be so good for a guy who was not so good for much of the first half of his life. I know ‘in my bones’ that without Torah and the Bible telling me through the stories that change was possible, that Jacob could change and it was hard, that a King like David could screw up and admit his errors, do his T’Shuvah and be forgiven, that no one had to die for my sins to be forgiven, that speaking truth to power will not make you popular and is necessary as the prophets show us, that I do not have to add to the destructive forces in the universe in order to be successful. I know that money will not make me joyous, only living well will, only loving fiercely and being loyal will and I have come to realize the people I help do not always reciprocate and that is good also. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Rejecting the lies of those who claim human beings don't change- Year 3 Day 315

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 315

“Supremely sensitive as the prophets are to the wickedness of man and deeply conscious of his stubbornness and callousness, they also insist upon the ability of man to change, to repent, to return to God and live by justice and compassion. Prophecy may be defined as a formidable effort to change any spiritual status quo, as an everlasting protest against any fatalistic conscription of life, against those who teach that human nature will never change.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

“Prophecy may be defined as a formidable effort to change any spiritual status quo” can change both the ways we understand the role of the prophet, the “vengefulness” of God that people speak about when Moses foretells what is going to happen to the people when they decide to worship false gods, and it could, possibly, stop us from scouting out “after our heart and eyes because we will whore after them”(Numbers 15:39) and in the 3rd paragraph of the Shema.

The prophets were speaking truth to power AND they were making “a formidable effort” to change the people as well. Unfortunately, not enough people took their words into their hearts and changed their “spiritual status quo” then and we still haven’t leaned into them today. I hear Rabbi Heschel demanding we engage with the prophets and with the prophetic vision they have left for us, I hear him calling out for us to end our spiritual stuntedness and allow ourselves to grow spiritually, morally, mentally. When wonder is the foundation of living, then we can never be stuck in a societal “spiritual status quo”, we have to keep growing and changing. Yet, we seem to be unable to throw the “Idols in the Temples” out, just as the Priests were unable to in the days of the prophets and since.

For many in the world the “spiritual status quo” is one of anger and rage, feeling like a victim and having to be part of an identity group that has been wronged. It is always being the underdog and “THEY” are out to get us. We see the progressives engaging in anti-semitism with no thought to how the Jews have supported the underdog, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the needy, and the stranger throughout history. We watch in horror as white supremacists claim they are the group being discriminated against while they spew lies, rage, rebellion against democratic norms and democracy itself. We are witnesses to the lies of the media along with the bias’ so it is almost impossible to get the facts. Be it Bibi or Trump the ‘poor me’ and ‘strongman’ themes that both of them perpetuate are false, they are dangerous, they are demeaning and they are not in keeping with the words of the prophets, they are not to be found in the Bibles they claim to revere, yet people believe them, people are worn out by them and people have forgotten the words of the prophets and the actions those words call for. We have to reclaim our heritage, we have to reclaim our calling, we have to reclaim our spiritual health. The time is now, the way is clear and the purpose is to “form a more perfect union”, to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” which is inscribed on the Liberty Bell and in the Bible, Lev. 25:10. When the far left and the far right attempt to pull us towards idolatry, we have to say NO, loudly and proudly declaring our spiritual growth and our loyalty to the principles of the Bible and to the words of the prophets.

We, the people, have to stop going along with the lies and worshiping the idols of power, authoritarianism, hatred, victimhood, mendacity, self-deception among others. We can do this by going the “protest agains any fatalistic conception of life”. “Thats the way it is and always will be” is a lie promoted by society to control the masses. “The Bible says….” Is usually an interpretation not the actual words and when the words are used out of context they create a false justification for bad actions. The call of the Rabbis to not hear the call of the prophets but to shift their words to make them more benign and not call the people to revolt was their way of holding power and, to be fair, to keep Judaism alive as well as changing it to fit their vision. The Rabbis and Priests, Ministers and Imams who preach hatred, who support the extremism of the far left and the far right are assisting “Idols in the Temple” to flourish. The worship of the moneyed class by elected officials and by staff at non-profits as well as in the boardrooms of for-profit companies is reminiscent of the same worship that caused the destruction of both Temples and the exile of Jews from Israel and from Judea. Because of the “idols in the Temple” that Israel had, they became the “lost tribes” which is an important lesson for us all. Keeping “Idols in the Temple” will always lead to our becoming lost and, if we don’t “protest…against those who teach human nature will never change”, we will not even leave a record for the next generations.

There is a solution! Recover our spiritual passions, uncover our true selves, discover our unique gifts and purpose and continue to engage in spiritual growth. We have to be forever unsatisfied with the “spiritual status quo” no matter how good we think it is. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski once told me: “As soon as you think you are spiritual, you aren’t!” While we have to be satisfied with our growth, with our portion, satisfaction doesn’t mean stopping nor settling. It means we accept that this is the best we could have achieved for today, knowing tomorrow will be one grain of sand better. All of us yearn to connect to another human being, all of us are haunted by hiding our true selves for fear of being made fun of, all of us know we have a purpose and gifts and our afraid society will not accept our gifts and deny us our purpose. We can do this when we decide to serve something greater than society. We can do this when we realize we have a seat at the table and nobody can stop us except us. We can do this when we know change is the only constant and our evolution is imperative for the world to evolve as well.

I rail against the “spiritual status quo” all the time and I keep growing myself. I call bullshit on the ideas that change is not possible and I believe in the wonder and possibility of life. I believe everyone can change and those who choose to be extremists have to be treated like the ones who have “Tzaarat” in the Bible-sent outside the camp to be ministered to and healed. I was the Rabbi of one such camp for many years and helped many people heal and return to their proper place. This is my unique gift and I rejoice in it. I continue to speak out against “a leopard doesn’t change its spots” when it comes to human beings, I am grateful to the myriad of teachers who helped me and I continue to put these vibes into the world. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Realizing our "ability to change, to repent, to return to God, and live by justice and compassion." Year 3 Day 314

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 314

“Supremely sensitive as the prophets are to the wickedness of man and deeply conscious of his stubbornness and callousness, they also insist upon the ability of man to change, to repent, to return to God and live by justice and compassion. Prophecy may be defined as a formidable effort to change any spiritual status quo, as an everlasting protest against any fatalistic conscription of life, against those who teach that human nature will never change.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

Rabbi Herschel’s dissertation for his Doctorate at the University of Berlin was on the prophets and his book The Prophets published in 1962. He speaks often in his writings about the prophets, the need to study them, learn from them, etc. In the first sentence above, he is using the experience of the prophets, their raison d’être to remind us of both our ability to be stubborn and callous as well as “the ability of man to change”. Rabbi Heschel is calling to us to read the prophets, to imbibe the words, the experiences of the prophets, to learn what happens when we hold onto our “stubbornness and callousness”, destruction and exile, loss of self and purpose as we see from the 10 “lost” tribes and the exile of Jews from Judea for almost 1900 years! The “Idols in the Temple”, the title of this essay, are very clear to one in the writing above; they are the lack of true education, the lack of knowledge of the prophets, the insistence to ignore the truth and wisdom of the prophets, the digging in of human beings to ‘prove their rightness’, and the willingness of some to heed the call of the prophets “to change, to repent, to return to God and live by justice and compassion.”  Yesterday I wrote about our need for education of our inner life and the words are the beginning of our education, the truth that we can change, that we can repent, we can be forgiven, we can return to the person we believe we can be, that we are born to be, we can “live by justice and compassion” and thrive, not be weak.

I hear Rabbi Heschel call out to us to let go of the fallacious beliefs of ‘the rugged individual’, ‘the strongman is needed to protect me’, ‘it is my enemies fault I have to do this’, ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’, etc. Learning the prophets, hearing their innumerable calls “to return”, “to repent”, can give us both hope that God will truly “heal their backsliding, love them freely” as the prophet Hosea says. Educating our inner life through studying the prophets teaches us “Return, you backsliding children and I will heal your backslidings” as Jeremiah teaches. Throughout the Hebrew Bible we learn of God’s waiting for our “return”, we witness the changes of Joseph, of Judah, of the Israelites, we witness the return to God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and especially King David. We also are witnesses to the “stubbornness and callousness” of the Kings of Israel following King David, even his son Solomon! We learn from Elijah that the voice of God is not always so loud, is not always earthshaking, that most often it is the “still small voice” inside of us, in our inner life that without education we dismiss, silence, imprison.

We are witnessing today a phenomena that began with the Rabbis of old who were afraid of the prophets, a re-interpretation of the Biblical text to suit their needs, to give them power and to ignore the truth and the call of the prophets and the Torah, to take the text out of context to further their goals, not necessarily the goals of God, of higher consciousness, of the people we are supposed to be serving. We have so many False Witness’ in the clergy today in every faith it is stunning. When a group can call themselves “Rod of Iron Ministries” and glorify the AR-15, when a Pastor can preach hatred towards the stranger and the poor, when a Rabbi can call for the death of a prime minister of Israel (Yitzhak Rabin) and consider Palestinians not human, we are in deep shit! Not because the majority necessarily believes them, rather because a large minority does! We have become a world that has no relationship to truth, no desire to live with inconvenient facts, no willingness to leave the “stubbornness and callousness” of their need to be right-be it in governments, corporate offices, non-profit boardrooms, or family get-togethers. Rather than study the prophets, learn how “to change, to repent, to return”, we study the dictators, worship at the feet of the authoritarians, wring our hands at what is happening and lose our voice to say NO to falseness, to bastardizing Holy Texts, to “callousness”.

It is not ‘their fault’! Trump, Putin, Bibi, Omar, Tliab, are all characters we have created and nurtured, put up with and encouraged precisely because our inner lives are so chaotic, so immature. We, the people, have to return to living with compassion and justice in our daily lives. We, the people, have to learn from the prophets the way back to our true selves, the way to live authentically no matter what society is demanding and accepting. This is the life Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King, Einstein, Harriet Tubman, Theodore Herzl, Bobby Kennedy, and so many more lived and we can use them as guides. We, the people, need to repent for the injustices we have witnessed and not corrected, the compassion we have refused. We have to change our ways by seeking knowledge through “maladjustment to conventional notions and cliches”, by never seeing something the same way twice, by letting go of our need to be right. We do this by seeking our spiritual guidance, we do this by educating our inner life and taking the next right action, we do this by admitting our fallibility and our need for collaboration rather than ruling. We let go of our false need to dominate and we realize the truth of Genesis Chapter 2-“it is not good for humans to be alone”. We, the people, have to take back our world, our control and no longer seek to win, rather seek to be just, no longer seek to ‘get even’ seek to be compassionate, no longer speak lies, seek the truth.

I have studied the prophets, I wrote about them daily from Jan-Sept. In 2021, and they changed my life. I seek them out often for guidance because they speak to my inner life in a powerful manner. Knowing the scorn they felt, the impossibility of their task, the danger of speaking truth to power and to the people, I am in awe of their steadfastness to live their purpose and be the person they were born to be-no matter what. Being a truth teller is not a popular position and, truth be told, it gets one into trouble often-I know this from experience, it is why I went over to the dark side as a teenage because I was shunned when I spoke truth. In my recovery, I have taken the blows that my truth telling causes, I have admitted when what I thought was true wasn’t, I have changed, repented and returned over and over again-making me stronger not weaker. I hear the lies of people, the need to be callous and stubborn of former friends and I am sad. And, I keep the faith that change is possible. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Educating our Souls so we can refine our impulses and drives - Year 3 Day 313

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 313

“Judaism is committed to the notion that education can and must reach the inner man, that its goal is to refine and to exalt the nature of man.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

In 1635, 141 years before the American Revolution, public education began in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1642, 134 years before the American Revolution, Massachusetts Bay required parents to teach their children to read and write! In Deuteronomy, Chapter 6 verse 7 we are commanded to “teach them diligently to your children”, and in the Talmud we are told a father is “obligated to teach his son Torah” among other things pointing to the validity of what Rabbi Heschel is saying above and pointing to the importance of education for the soul of every human being, the soul of a nation dedicated to freedom, to growing a “more perfect union”, to being that “shining city on a hill”, to growing into the person we know we can be and want to be. Just as education has been crucial to Judaism and to the American experiment, it was also important to the Church, which St. Augustine began a school in the church he founded in Canterbury to study religious texts to improve and “exalt the nature of man.” Throughout the Arab world from 750 educating the young both in the Koran and other subjects was deemed important.

Education was always about the inner life of the child, the youth, the teen, the adult. Spiritual, religious education was never to be about the keeping of facts or the one-way to do something as evidenced by the myriad of arguments as to how to fulfill a commandment found in the Talmud. Education was/is to help us grow our inner life and change our outer actions. It is/was to “speak of them when sit in your house, you walk on the way, lie down, rise up” as Deuteronomy continues to teach us. We are told to keep them as “frontlets before our eyes” and “a sign upon our hand” so we are constantly available to learn, to implement, to change. Remembering what we said at Mount Sinai, “we will do and we will understand”. Unfortunately, education has been under attack for quite some time. In 2014, “only 23% of the 9100 eighth graders were at or above proficiency levels in civics” according to an article in the School Library Journal. In Judaism religious education is not much better as too many 13 year-olds are given the option of ending their religious and spiritual education once their B-Mitzvah is over. Prior to this, the state of education is always inspiring one to learn more. In all sects of Judaism, priority is given to teaching the dogma of the sect over the truth of the Bible, the “spin” of the Rabbi over the teaching students and their parents how to read the texts themselves, put themselves into the texts, learn the lessons and understand it uniquely for themselves and the moment. Hence, the problem of education is that neither public nor private, neither secular nor religious cares to “reach the inner man” nor “to exalt the nature of man”, rather it is to promote their agenda rather than truth, create cult followers rather than human beings with the power and the tools to change themselves and their world, to understand, interpret, and implement the ways of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, the teachings of Buddha, etc in their own unique way, enhance their inner life and “exalt the nature” of themselves. Religious education is so awful, fallen so far that in 2023 Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, reported that “multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, in their preaching-‘turn the other cheek’-to have someone come up and say “where did you get these liberal talking points”!! The Rabbis of the West Bank and the Far-right in Israel and the world believe it is okay to kill Palestinians because they are “Amalek” without any remorse!!

We hear much about “Am Yisrael Chai”, the people of Israel lives! Yet, we have never been one people with one way of seeing things, we have never agreed with one interpretation nor one teaching except for the Shema as the ‘watchword of the Jewish people’ and even the Shema is open to many interpretations, that something happened at Sinai, that the Torah is at least 2500+ years old and not much more. This is because Jewish education is supposed to have us “argue for the sake of heaven” so we can keep learning, keep turning the texts that influence our daily living over and over again in order to grow internally, to mature our souls and educate our intuitions. We cannot continue to be Jews and love Judaism while going against the dictate of the commands of Deuteronomy 6:4-9! We cannot say we are living a Jewish/Christian/Muslim life while treating the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan badly! We cannot say we are the saviors while we use the rhetoric of the autocrats, while we support the degradation of any group of people no matter what some in that group have done to us.

Education is the key to understanding ourselves, to growing our inner core, to having the strength to say NO to the bullies. Refining and exalting the nature of human beings forces us to let go of our need to compare, our need to be in despair because of comparisons, to accept our gifts as enough, to know we matter, to know we are growing into a richer and more meaningful way of living. This is crucial for our children to grow up knowing and for us to keep remembering as adults.  Education is the key to growing our souls to know better than to follow the wrong path without any awareness, it is the key to “lift up our eyes” and see what is truly in front of us, what is behind us and how to make better decisions and take the next right actions. We have to re-invest in our own education, in the education of those around us, in our communal education so we achieve 80-90% proficiency in Civics, in following the teachings of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. Education is the only way to fulfill the commandment of Deuteronomy Chapter 30:19; CHOOSE LIFE.

Education is the only way I am able to exist in the world of spirit, to be a decent human being, to acknowledge my “miss the marks” as well as the “hit the marks’ I achieve. It is the path I began in 1987 when I asked my brother to send me a Prayer Book and a Bible when I was in prison. It is a path that I know is never done for me, I keep finding teachers and students, learning partners and guides to help me stay fresh and not get stale. I am amazed at how I, like many others, get pigeon-holed into one way of being seen. I have been told that my message and my delivery is not conducive to ‘regular congregations’ and, every time I have spoken places, I am pretty well received, the message is ignored usually after I leave and it is heard. I continue to learn and grow, I continue to see the past in new lights and learn new lessons, I continue to learn, I continue to grow, I continue to CHOOSE LIFE. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Staying awake, aware and teachable in dangerous times - Year 3 Day 312

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 312

“Constant danger requires constant vigilance, constant guidance. What is needed is defense in depth, in the depth of every person. But the tragedy of our civilization is the liquidation of the inner man. We are doing our utmost to flatten man. Spiritual resources are being depleted.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.56)

Each morning I am surprised at what Rabbi Heschel wrote 50-100 years ago, I do not think about nor prepare what I am going to write about before I sit down in the early morning. I do this so I encounter the teachings fresh and new without my preconceived notions nor my pondering how to be ‘smart’ about his words. Today is no different and I am realizing, again, how timely his words are, how eternal they are; there is always “constant danger” and most of us are oblivious to it! When we give everyone the “benefit of the doubt” many times we are being naive and allowing evil to flourish. When we don’t pay attention to what is around us, to what people are saying, what their actions tell us, we are being ostriches and hiding our heads in the sand. When we refuse to grow our inner life, when ‘way down deep we are shallow’, we are ripe and totally susceptible to the ravings of a lunatic and the ‘saving grace’ of the strongman. This is how dictators take over, this is how authoritarians win the day. This is how good people will do things that go against their best interests to serve ‘the man’.

We are in “constant danger” politically, morally, religiously and spiritually precisely because we have failed in our “constant vigilance, constant guidance.” “Vigilance” comes from the Latin meaning “keep awake” and “guidance” comes from the Latin meaning “to teach, instruct, point out”. Rabbi Heschel called out to all of us to be aware of our surroundings, not paranoid, just aware and stay awake! Rather than going to sleep and allowing people to “teach us the wrong ways of being, to instruct us in how to deceive ourselves and lie to ourselves, he is demanding we grow our inner lives so we can discern between the lies of society and the truth of our souls. I hear him wondering and crying out to all of us DANGER surrounds us when we fall asleep, when we do not “stay awake”, when we follow the teachings of the liar and the charlatan and not the teachings that raise our souls, educate our inner life. We have to return to this teaching over and over again because we keep forgetting about the “constant danger” that the “liquidation of the inner man” has brought about.

The only reason the far right gains traction across the globe is because we have failed to have a good “defense in depth, in the depth of every person.” We have failed in our schools- many of which no longer teach basic civics; in our religious organizations- many of which teach a false dogma that was never part of the original text of the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc; and in many spiritual disciplines which are used by some practitioners as a salve for their conscience-‘see how spiritual I am, I practice Yoga and cheat my customers, but that is only business’. We have become pawns and willing participants in “the liquidation of the inner man” by deciding we don’t need any moral and spiritual training after we are 13, after our confirmation, because it won’t help us in our careers, it won’t make us any money. Even the fundamentalists stop growing their inner life at 13 because it doesn’t help their cause, it might make them rebel against the dogma that is designed to make them “excellent sheep” just as our universities and colleges, our businesses and politics are doing as well. We have to say NO to this way of being, we have to listen to our wise elders, to our ancestors, to the words of wisdom passed down through the ages. We have to stop the “liquidation” of our inner lives and souls.

Each of us needs a spiritual guide so we can receive “constant guidance” for the “constant danger” that awaits us. This “constant danger” is falling into a rut of being the smartest person in the room, believing the lies of our minds and the press we get, being empty inside because we have spent “the moral capital of our ancestors and not put any back into the moral/spiritual bank” as Dr. Stephen Marmer said at a conference in Los Angeles in 1990. We have failed to heed his words just as we have failed to heed Rabbi Heschel’s words. It is time for we, the people, to take back our birthright that we allowed the nephew of Laban the Aramean to steal from us. It is time for we, the people, to live into the blessings that Isaac gave us, to reject the “guidance” of Rebecca and the vanity of Rachel, the ‘where’s mine’ of Jacob. It is time for we, the people, to live into our birthright of being created in the image of the divine. It is time for we, the people, to return to the heritage we all share, leaving Egypt, letting go of the inner slavery as well as being saved from the harsh burdens of the taskmasters. It is time for we, the people, to once again say “We will do and we will understand” changing the ways of the Greek society we are in and returning to a ‘Jewish’ way of life, the way of Abraham, “go for yourself/go to yourself … to a land I will show you”, going forward even though we don’t know where because we will learn from our actions. It is time for we, the people, to care for the stranger within us, our inner life, and nourish our spirit, connect with a guide so we can “go for” our self to the place we belong, to fulfill the need we were created to fill.

I have had a spiritual guide since 1987 and while I have changed them, my current one I have had for the past 30+ years. I have not always listened to the guidance and I have paid a price for it, I have not heard clearly his advice and I regret that I didn’t get ‘hearing aids’ sooner. I have done the best I can to live in “constant vigilance” because I am aware of the “constant danger” around me and around the people I have served. Yet, as I look back, I see every time I forgot about the “constant danger”, I did not hear the “constant guidance” of my spiritual guides nor was I in “constant vigilance” and the situations always turned out badly. I know that it is so hard to be in “constant vigilance” from my own experience and I am understanding why “constant guidance” is part of the first sentence. I can’t do it on my own and the guide we choose is our partner in discerning the dangers ahead so we can avoid them, the guide we choose is our partner in growing our inner life rather than liquidating it. Having “constant guidance” allows us to replenish our spiritual and moral bank accounts rather than deplete them. “Guidance and Vigilance”, ‘staying awake and being teachable” is the secret to my success both in my rabbinate and in my daily living. I self-recriminate the times I fell asleep and I am so grateful for the guides and fellow spiritual travelers on my journey! To those who ‘won’ because I was asleep, I have no resentments and I say “God Speed”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How are you regaining your "independence, sensitivity, inner balance and freedom? Year 3 Day 311

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 311

“Abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes is an abdication of responsibility. It means turning over the child to other agencies of mass culture that powerfully affect attitudes and value judgments, such as television or comic books, Hollywood and Madison Avenue, the impact of which represents a major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

Rabbi Heschel wrote this in 1962, some 62 years ago! He was worried about “comic books, Hollywood, Madison Avenue” and while they all have contributed to our situation today, the internet has exploded as the “major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual”! And, like Nero, we sit and fiddle while democracy is burning from the inside in this country and across the globe. How sad and shortsighted, how devastating to the individual soul and spirit to be inundated with the lies and mendacity of “Madison Avenue”, “television” in the form of the bias of a network and the bending over backwards to achieve moral equivalence when there is none! Be in MSNBC’s very biased coverage of what is happening in the Middle East-it is horrific and there is blame on both sides yet they seem to only blame Israel when listening to Joy Reid and some others, or Fox News and the other right-wing news outlets who validate the lies of Trump and the Republicans knowingly and with no shame, even after losing a $700,000,000+ judgement to Dominion! CNN, in their desire to be ‘fair’ buys the lies of the ‘freedom fighters of Hamas’, JD Vance, et al and makes moral equivalency between the murder and massacre of Oct. 7, 2023 and the devastation in Gaza, between the raining down of missiles from Lebanon that drove 100,000 Israelis from the northern part of the country away from their homes and Israel’s targeted responses. We are in the throes of a “major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual.” This is not a new phenomenon, it is just being heightened each day by people like Elon Musk, the Murdocks, the 2025 project people, by Trump, et al; by AOC, by Rashida T’liab, by the movements that have disinvited Jews to the table because we are ‘whitey’, we are ‘oppressors’ and embrace the terrorists of Hamas and their supporters; and it is being heightened by the onslaught of lies and information coming over our smartphones, our tablets, our TV’s, our computers that bombard us with so many lies and misdirections, we no longer are able to discern truth and this is the greatest loss of all-our inability to discern truth which is the sum total of what happens when our “independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom” are threatened and under constant attack.

Mark Twain wrote: “A lie is halfway around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on.” Truth gets lost and hidden when we no longer are able to think independently because we have to ‘go along to get along’, when we are more afraid of upsetting the boss, going against the group, being alone, being laughed at for caring for ‘those people’ (fill in the blank), when we make allies of our enemies like the christian nationalists who some orthodox Jews embrace-when they hate Jews, Blacks, immigrants, people of color, etc, like the far left who embrace the Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah knowing they hate America, hate anyone who doesn’t bow down to Allah, and isn’t willing to submit themselves to the rule of the Imam/Ayatollah! How ridiculous and how seriously devastating are these ways of being? Yet, because we did not heed Rabbi Heschel’s words along with the words of many other people like Rev King, Rabbi Prinz, Bobby Kennedy, we find ourselves in a grave situation.

The 2024 Election will not be stolen by Kamala Harris-full stop. The ones trying to steal the elections, trying to rig the elections are the Republicans who are gerrymandering their states, putting ridiculous voting rules and restrictions in so blacks and other LEGAL immigrants/citizens are afraid to vote. Some of us have watched in horror people buy into the lies of Trump, willing to vote against their best interests and ignore the truth in order to buy into the lies of ‘the leader’. They are giving up their “independence” and buying into ‘group-think’. We are witnessing the diminishing of the “sensitivity” for the well-being of another human being and seeing it replaced with blaming the immigrant, using the same terminology used by Goebbels. We are witnessing the loss of “inner balance” through the denial of the Holocaust by so many ‘friends of Trump’, spewing of hatred and seeking ways to subvert the law to the whims of ‘the leader’, through the onslaught of mendacity to the point it is hard to discern the truth unless you have a very strong spiritual corpus colosseum. All of this adds up to the loss of “freedom” of each one of us. When I have to spend time railing against the lies and deceptions, it takes away from my own learning and teaching, nurturing and growing of my soul and yours. We are becoming so polarized, those of us in the middl, those of us seeking truth, are shunned, are overwhelmed at times with the push/pull of the ends of the continuum.

We have to reclaim our “freedom”- we cannot depend on Trump and his lies to help us. We cannot expect Kamala Harris to do it on her own. We have to demand of our clergy a new way of worship and learning- one that engages us in a robust argument for the ‘sake of heaven’ as we learn to do as Jews. We have to demand that politics is left at the door and we are here to learn how to make our political decisions based on principles, not likes, how to grow and nurture our spiritual health so we are not so susceptible to the lies of another and we are more aware of the moments we fall into self-deception. We have to learn how to stand with the prophets instead of the priests, stand with the prophets instead of going along with the power and the wealthy, stand with the prophets even when we are being scorned, laughed at, ignored. This is how we will keep our “independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom” as individuals and nations.

It is hard to live this way, I know. I am not perfect and have made my own errors and my own ‘slips’ into inappropriately railing against lies and mendacity. I know being ‘alone’ is better than being in a place that I know is false and full of vipers. I know that being me is more important to my soul and to my purpose than being ‘accepted in polite society’. I know my father’s legacy lives on in my siblings and myself and our children. I know speaking truth, not giving in, separates me at times and I am more okay with this than ever before. God Bless and stay safe, rabbi Mark

How are you still abdicating your responsibility to cultivate positive and truthful inner attitudes in yourself and the people around you? Year 3 Day 310

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 310

“Abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes is an abdication of responsibility. It means turning over the child to other agencies of mass culture that powerfully affect attitudes and value judgments, such as television or comic books, Hollywood and Madison Avenue, the impact of which represents a major threat to the independence, sensitivity, inner balance, and freedom of the individual.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 56)

Continuing where I left off prior to embarking on the 40 days of repentance, today being the day after Yom Kippur, I find Rabbi Heschel’s words, once again, disturbing and an apt description of what it was like, what it is like and what it will be like unless and until we heed his thoughts in whatever way we choose to.

Every word of the Bible, every Holy Day in Judaism and all other faiths I believe, point to and address “inner attitudes”. We are awash in ways to hear, grow, nurture our “inner attitudes” through religious education, prayer, meditation, developing our higher consciousness, with Rabbis, Priests, Ministers, Imams, Zen Masters, etc. Yet, we continue to be “abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes”! What is stopping us is the question that arises today, 41 days after beginning a deep dive of introspection of our inner life? I believe there are probably many reasons, I am going to focus on a few.

First of all, cultivate means “to prepare the land”, “to develop” , “to grow and nurture” so we can see Rabbi Heschel’s belief that we all need to prepare our inner life so we can develop, grow, and nurture a life worth living-which is at the core of every person’s raison d’être, everyone’s need to pursue a passion and live their unique purpose. This “cultivating” takes time and energy, it takes a commitment by the parents and the child, by the adult and the people around the adult-this cultivation can and must be happening at all times and when it doesn’t happen as a child, we the children are obligated to cultivate our inner attitudes ourselves. Just as if a parent doesn’t teach their child Torah the child is obligated to learn it when the child is old enough to find their own teacher. Herein lies the problem facing us today: The parent doesn’t see the benefit of “cultivating the inner attitudes” unless there is a ‘mental/psychological issue’. They will send their kids to shrinks at an early age, they will get them pills to help them ‘concentrate’ better, they will send them to Synagogue long enough to have a Bat/Bar Mitzvah, the party and the gifts AND not cultivate their “inner attitudes” because it doesn’t do them nor their children any economic nor social good. If we can’t ‘make money’, get more ‘likes’ achieve fame the attitude is “why bother”. Since there is no outward apparent advantage from “cultivating inner attitudes”, most people don’t. Another reason is that it is difficult and there is no ‘quick fix’. It takes time and work, there is no perfection nor ‘done’ to this endeavor. We are constantly in need of “cultivating inner attitudes” until we die. So, why bother if one can’t master it? What is the payoff for this work?

We have abdicated our responsibility and we are paying for it dearly and, once we realize the true cost of our abdication of “cultivating inner attitudes”, once we are presented with the bill for our “abdication of responsibility” we will cry out like the Israelites did in Egypt, we will realize as they did that we were, once, “more numerous and more mighty” than the Pharaohs and taskmasters and because we were “abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes” we find ourselves enslaved to the ‘strongman’, to the ‘dictator’, to the ‘christian nationalists’ , to the white supremacists, to the fascists, to the friends of Orban, Putin, etc.

Abdicating our responsibility to cultivate our “inner attitudes” causes us to lose our essence, to lose our inner compass, our ‘north star’ and this leaves us open to buy the lies and mendacities of those seeking power for their own sake. It allows us to accept their deceptions and revel in our own self-deceptions because they do not ask anything of us. These charlatans seeking power and their ‘friends’ in the religious communities tell us they will do it all for us, ‘god’ will do it all for us, believing they can sell us on these ideas because we are so gullible and infantile in our inner life. We see how this has happened in Russia with Putin, Hungary with Orban, Turkey with Erdogan, Israel with Bibi, Ben-G’Vir, Smotrich, etc. We watched in horror, all of us at the time and now only some of us, on Jan. 6th, 2021 as the Capital was breached and, even after being threatened and running to safety (like Josh Hawley did), some Republicans still tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power! Today, these same insurrectionists in the Congress claim Jan.6th was a ‘peaceful protest’ with people who were just tourists! These same people have spread the ‘big lie’ so often people don’t know what to believe precisely because of abstaining from cultivating inner attitudes.

We know how to cultivate our inner attitudes and it is not only therapy. Therapy will deal with depression and anxiety, it won’t deal with the matters of the soul-our reason for existing, our need to find the unique need we can fill, our relinquishing our power so we can be in a covenantal relationship with another human being. We are being called to stop the “abdication of our responsibility” to learn and grow our inner life, our spiritual life. We are both human and more than human, we are both matter and energy, we are both body and spirit, and without cultivating our spiritual life, without growing our connection to something greater than ourselves, we are not only abdicating our responsibility, we are becoming fertile ground for the next Pharaoh who appears, the next Trump, Netanyahu, Orban, Putin, who wants to rise from the ashes. The deceivers are never vanquished forever, we have to continue to learn and grow our inner lives so we can discern between falsehoods and truth, between deception and reality, between profane and Holy.

I ignored the inner attitudes when I was a teenager, I was too caught up in my own sorrow. In the past 37 years, I have spent a part of every day learning and growing my “inner attitudes”, I no longer abdicate my responsibility nor do I abstain from cultivating my soul’s knowing. I am dedicated to daily spiritual growth, to leaving the self-deceptions I have fallen prey to, to finding my new place to serve. I can’t do this without my inner life being clear-eyed, without hearing and following the call of my soul over the call of my mind and/or false ego. It is hard, it is a daily struggle and I fail at times and, I know, I keep coming back! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Engaging in the "urgency" of the moment and being "personally motivated" to engage in repentance, repair and change -Year 3 day 309

Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 309

9th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“Each person must examine whether one is part of a movement forced upon us by the environment or whether one is personally motivated, whether one is responding to pressure from outside or to an internal sense of urgency…Enlightenment about repentance is the central task of our time.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 70)

Today is the last day of the 10 days of Repentance, the 10 days of Awe prior to Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur. Today is the day people will feel the pressure to ask for forgiveness-maybe- and absolutely feel the communal pressure to go to Temple for services that they neither understand nor particularly like. They will go for the sermon, for the music, to see people and to be seen-how many of us go to meet God, meet our own souls “face to face”? How many of us are “part of a movement forced upon us” rather than being “personally motivated”? I fear most people attending services are part of the former group rather than the latter. We have been engaged and in the work of T’Shuvah, repentance, for the past 40 days  and have developed and or had “an internal sense of urgency” or we have been ignoring the work and only now feel the “pressure from outside” to do something. Which group do you belong to?

We are living in a moment, an era where “enlightenment about repentance” is not important to most and urgently needed. What is important is making apologies for everyone else’s feelings. It is amazing to me that the lies and the subterfuge of people both in power and next door, their feelings have more weight in our society than the truth, than the feelings of the ‘aggressor’ they have pointed out. Can one be sensitive to everyone and everything-of course not-hence the need for repentance/tshuvah. What we have going on, in some cases, is people who identify as minorities and have been wronged do not think they have any responsibility in wronging another because they are the victims. We have a victim mentality that precludes people being “enlightened about repentance” and engaging in it. This is true from Trump to the progressives who are complaining they don’t get their way-again the far right and the far left are closer to one another than to those of us in the ‘middle’ (10% off the ends of the continuum). Remembering Lyndon Johnson’s quote: “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.” People like Trump and the Christian Nationalists, Roger Stone, et al have made this an art form and they keep gaining supporters!! The far left is willing to abandon their allies, the Jews, rather than wrestle with the truth of the situation in Israel. They are calling murder and terror, hostage taking and using their citizens, schools, mosques, hospitals as human shields, Freedom Fighting! This is how badly we need “enlightenment about repentance”. This is how badly we need people to come “face to face” with their inner life and their inner voice of spirit, “face to face” with the creative energy of the universe, their higher consciousness, and gain an “internal sense of urgency” so they become “personally motivated to repent, return and change! It is time for all of us to do this work.

To this end I want to lead the way:

I, Mark Borovitz, have an internal sense of urgency to heal the wounds I have caused with another(s) through:

my inattentiveness;

My unawareness

My blindness

My insensitivity

My loudness

My overwhelming arguments

My anger

My inability to see what is

My need to get ‘my way’

My harsh opinions

For all of these I want to heal them. I ask for your forgiveness and reach out to heal our old wounds.

I, Mark Borovitz, have am personally motivated to continue and grow the good things I have caused through:

Fighting for the soul of the individual in front of me

Taking the risks necessary to help another human being flourish

Wrestling with the Yetzer HaRa of another (and myself) to help them and me be better human beings

Not accepting the status quo

Not going along to get along

Speaking truth to power no matter the consequences

Engaging in Text Study with people so we both can learn and grow

Fighting the system so people can get the health care they need in the moment

Staying loyal to the people who have helped me along the way.

Letting go of any resentments and just being sad, not mad at the ways things turn out

Reconnecting with people and laughing about ‘the good old days’.
Meeting new people and making new friends.

I, Mark Borovitz, am grateful beyond measure to those who have helped me through:

Learning with me

Rebuking me when necessary

Accepting my T’Shuvah

Helping me grow

Standing with me during the onslaughts of negativity

Calling for me to stay engaged even when I don’t have a spiritual place to call my own

Helping me be a better husband, sibling, uncle, father and grandfather

Giving me the encouragement to persevere and honoring my ‘prophetic voice’.

G’Mar Hatima Tova: Our “urgency” and “personal motivation” will turn the tide of darkness and hatred into light and rapprochement through the power of repentance and the love of one another. Let Freedom ring this year through repentance, return and change. God Bless, Easy fast, and stay safe,  Rabbi Mark

HOW LONG will it take you to "repent before God" in sincerity and HOW LONG will you buy the deceptions of TRUMP, BIBI, MAGA, the FAR LEFT? Year 3 Day 308

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 308

8th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“There is no return to Judaism without repentance before God…We must recognize that repentance has yet to begin!”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg.70)

Reading and immersing ourselves in these words at this time gives us the knowing that our struggle today is an age-old struggle that humankind keeps screwing up and, like Jacob, holding on for life itself. We keep wanting to return to ‘the good old days’ (ask any white supremacist-oops I mean Trump voter) of hating people not like us, of having all the power (even though the poor people who are supporting these MAGA liars never had any and still won’t), and we fail miserably to go back and to hold the line on the forward progress we do attain. The history of humanity is truly 3 steps forward and then 1-2 back. Sometimes, like the times Rabbi Heschel’s words are being written, we go way back, as it seems we are now.

I am studying the Book of Samuel with Rabbi Hazzan Danny Maseng and we continually find the parallels to today’s situations. Yesterday we read about Abner saying to Joab: “Shall the sword devour forever? You know it will be bitterness in the end. Until when…” Of course Abner had his own reasons for saying this, he was losing the battle badly and his words must be taken seriously today, especially by the Rabbis and leaders of the far right government currently in power in Israel. While Netanyahu quoted the first words not as a question rather as a statement, his chicanery, mendacity and deceptiveness comes out in his not finishing the quote! Also, the words “until when/how long” in Hebrew are “Aad Matai”, the same words Moses uses to speak to Pharaoh in Chapter 10 Verse 3 and then again these same words are used by Pharaoh’s Courtiers in verse 7 of the same chapter. These words, when written or spoken, are a wake-up call to let us know we are on the wrong path and we need to repent and return. Yet, some Rabbis and political leaders of all faiths and in all countries see and hear “Aad Matai” as a statement directed to their ‘enemies’. For this to be true in Israel is the “unkindest cut of all” to God and to Judaism.

The last sentence above is so important, it is crucial if live is to change, if this Yom Kippur will actually save us from ourselves, our egos and our hatreds. Rather than pat ourselves on the back with how the MAGA crowd and the Trump/Vance ticket has shredded truth, love, kindness, compassion, justice (all basic tenets of all faiths and freedoms) we have to recognize that this is not the Biblical way, this is not the way of Jesus, this is not Buddhism, nor Islam! We have to come face to face with our lies and our need to repent before God and before the people we have harmed. I think about the myriad of women who can’t get the reproductive health care they need as individuals, how the Supreme Court has decided to make all women into “Stepford Wives”. I think about the people coming over the border early in Trump’s first and, Please God, only term in office where parents were separated from their children, and put into barracks/cages while the children screamed-even infants were taken from their mother’s breasts! Sounds similar to what the SS did with the Jews, doesn’t it? Yet, Bibi, Viktor, Donny, Vlad, Kim, Xi, all believe they are above the law, they are the arbiters of what God wants and the Clergy of all faiths who give them permission to do this, who support and encourage the hatred, the anti-semitism, the hatred of anyone not like them, not white christians who want christian law are the same as the Clergy of Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s! Even Rabbis and Cantors are supporting these anti-semites and Jew-haters!! How sick is this? Are they unaware of how they are retarding our return to Jewish values and freedom by not repenting before God, by not seeing their culpability and support for the charlatans and liars, by being willfully blind to their own corruption and being Pharaoh-like??

UNTIL WHEN will they not see that the spirit of the Bible is being concealed and the teachings are being bastardized? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of our errors? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to understand our personal need to repent before God? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to end our lies and subterfuges? UNTIL WHEN will we stay willfully blind to the destruction and death, physically and spiritually, that we are participating in? UNTIL WHEN will we refuse to take off the blinders that prevent us from seeing the whole picture, from wrestling with the not so nice parts of ourselves and another so we can rise above being either Pharaoh, his Taskmasters, or his Slaves? HOW LONG will we continue to lie to ourselves and believe we have nothing to repent for? HOW LONG will we continue to refuse to “recognize repentance has yet to begin!”

We, the people, have to STAND UP for America and for Israel against the MAGA, against the BIBI THUGS, against the Far Left who celebrate Oct.7th as a great day (Ilan Omar, Rashida Talib, et al). We, the people, have to demand our clergy repent and, unfortunately, we have to lead them and the leaders of corporations, the board members of not-for-profits, leaders of governments, to “repent before God” and to “recognize repentance has yet to begin!”. We, the people have to take hold of our freedoms and exercise our spiritual truths so everyone can live better, so that this Yom Kippur will have an impact on Nov. 5th and beyond.

I have wrestled with these questions of “HOW LONG and UNTIL WHEN” for a long time-most of my life as I look back. My family would ask me these questions about my criminal behavior and drinking, my ex-wife and my daughter, Heather, would ask me these questions about crime and Heather would ask me these questions about my commitment to really show up for her. In the past 35 years, I have answered these questions with Hineni-Here I AM. I no longer need to get even, I no longer have to celebrate the downfall of my ‘enemies’ (at least not for more than a minute or two), I no longer have to put myself down for my errors as well. I know that my repentance has begun and it is not over! I know that my return to Judaism is based on my repentance before God and has to be renewed and refreshed each day. I know I continue to repent, return and renew through my new way of seeing what I saw yesterday, yesteryear. I am grateful to live in the now, in the moment and with God because I repent before God each day, I am grateful before God each day. I return to Jewish living and loving people each day and I know repentance hasn’t ended and proud that I have begun it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Letting go of our pretenses, our selfishness, and our cleverness - Year 3 Day 307

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 307

7th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“It is deplorable when a spiritual movement deteriorates into bustling and pretense. It is unclean when a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg70)

Sitting here at my computer, reading these two sentences I am in bewilderment that we are in the same situation today, in America and in Israel-formerly two shining examples of democracy and freedom- as Rabbi Heschel is describing in Berlin, Germany in 1936! What is worse is that the “deplorable” is not limited to Jews, it has encompassed all western religions and the “clever” have taken over the pulpits and trying to take over the governments of so many countries. We are in a precarious state of affairs today and, while it is NOT the same as Nazi Germany, there are too many things happening in our world today to not take notice of the similarities and the subtleties, the differences and our defenses agains the “bustling and pretense” of our “spiritual movement” and the ways “a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever.”

I am hearing the call of the Shofar-WAKE UP, SEE WHAT IS, HEAR THE WAILING OF GOD/UNIVERSE over the actions and inactions we are engaged in once again. The sound of the Shofar, these days of awe and repentance are here for us to engage in the inner work to cleanse ourselves of our fallacies, of the lies we tell ourselves, to let go of the burdens that others have put upon us with the names they call us and the pigeon holes they put us in. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel’s call to the Jewish community of Berlin and America, Germany and Israel to stop being “deplorable” to let go of the ways our “spiritual movement deteriorates into bustling and pretense.” In the next few days, many people will say to their family, friends, co-workers, etc “if I have done anything to harm you in this past year, please forgive me” and not do their own inventory, not do their own Chesbon HaNefesh, their own accounting of their soul because they can just repeat a formula and be ‘okay’, be ‘clean’ of their wrongs. BULLSHIT, I say. This is exactly the “bustling and pretense” that I hear Rabbi Heschel speaking about, he is demanding, Jewish tradition demands, the prophets demand we end these pretty “pretenses” and this phony “bustling” to make everything perfect for the meal before Kol Nidre and the Break-Fast after Neilah.

The anointing of Donald Trump by the Dominonists, by the religious right including Chabad, is another example of the deterioration of “a spiritual movement”. It shows how desperate people are to live into “pretense" rather than living into truth. In so many facets of life people are so worried about “Optics” and “cancel culture” that living a “pretense” just seems normal-it isn’t! The “woke” agenda is as deteriorating  as the white supremacist agenda, the orthodoxy of the far right politically and religiously is as “deplorable” to the “spiritual movement” of Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, etc as the orthodoxy of the far left politically and religiously. We are living in a world where there is no middle ground that is safe to stand on. If one is not “with us” then they are “agin us” and seeking to live in a Non-Binary Thinking and Non-Binary Spirituality is anathema to both the far left and the far right. It is “deplorable” how much deterioration the “spiritual movement” of America and Israel have suffered at the hands of the “clever”. Their “selfishness” is so apparent in the myriad of times they have “misused” the “holy desire” of freedom, of caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan. The “holy desire” of childbearing has been corrupted by their selfish desires to control women. No where in the Bible does is say abortion is a sin, is murder-only in the minds of the “selfishness of the clever”. Isn’t it time for all of us to stand up and say NO?

Isn’t it time to remember the call of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah, during the month of Elul and in these past 7 days? Isn’t it time for all of us to hear the wailing cries of God calling us to return so our “backsliding” can be healed and we can experience the embrace of the Ineffable One? Isn’t it time for us to let go of our pretenses and stop our need to constantly be busy and moving around and just allow the forces of compassion, truth, forgiveness and repair that are so prevalent now to overwhelm us and move us to do the work we need to so we can be more authentic and less pretentious this year? Isn’t it time for us to let go of our haughtiness that makes us believe these things don’t apply to us, we can just blame someone else for our errors because ‘they made us do this’ or, one of my favorites, ‘it is the devils handiwork’. We are the ones who have been entrusted with different spiritual movements and the one we choose to belong in needs us to care for it and grow it, not “deteriorate” it. It needs us to immerse ourselves in it so we can find the message and the question that the particular text we are reading is the answer for. It needs us to meet ourselves, one another and the entire community in authenticity rather than in pretense. We are the ones who have to say NO “when a holy desire is misused by the selfishness of the clever”. We have to be the guardians of our spiritual movements because “in every age” someone tries to co-opt the truth, tries to enslave and/or destroy us. These ‘enemies’ are often not outside of us, rather inside of us as individuals and inside of us are a spiritual movement. Remember the Temples were destroyed, according to the Rabbis, because of not caring for the poor and the stranger and senseless hatred and lying among the people as well as the corruption of the Priests, Kings, Wealthy. Sound familiar???

I have been guilt of being deplorable and unclean. In my recovery, my goal has been to not be pretentious and not be selfish. I have lived into this goal at least 80% of the past 35 years. I have railed against pretentiousness because I made amends for mine, I have railed when I see “a holy desire misused by the selfishness of the clever” because I was that person for many of the years between 17 and 37. I am a messenger of chaos to those who want to hide in their pretentiousness, to those who want to be “clever” and I do not apologize for this. I am also guilty of confusing my agenda and desires with the greater good at times in the past. I am proud of my ability to rise above the call of my mind to “get even” and accept the rejection and the pigeon holes people put me with a sense of sadness for them that they are so stuck they have to act in these ways. I am no longer accepting of the labels and the names others put upon me, rather I desire to be known by the actions I take, the souls I touch and the good I bring. My latest podcast is available now at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fyourfeelings/episodes/Im-Back-Lets-Wrestle-e2pdfqs God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you remorseful for a lost past or longing for "the good old days"? -Year 3 Day 306

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 306

6th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“If, to be sure-as is often the case among us-instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

In the world we are living in today, these words from 88 years ago are prescient and ones we did not hear then nor are we hearing now! Listening to one of the political parties here in the US, one or more of them in Israel, of course Putin reminds us of the truth of these words and the misuse of the word “return”. The MAGA crowd, the far-right religious parties here and in Israel, Putin, et al all want to ‘return’ to the glory days of slavery here in the US, the Stalin years in Russia with the countries he usurped being returned to Putin, and to some misbelief that during the reign of King David all the land “from the river to the sea” was under his control-not true! None of these lies are true nor is it true that Palestinians enjoyed freedom under the Muftis, under the Ottoman Empire, etc and they certainly are not free under Hamas nor the corrupt Palestinian Authority under Abbas. The “return” that people speak about is not the “return” of Yom Kippur, it is not the “return” that God is asking for. It is, as he says above, “a retreat, a phase”.

We are in desperate straits, we are at another precipice in world affairs and in our country’s future. The demonstrators who are in favor of Terrorists rights to murder, terrorists right to take hostages and keep them for a year, to hold dead bodies for ransom want to ‘go forward’ to where? They are supporting a group that wants to go backwards in terms of freedom and the dignity and humanity of people. They are supporting a group whose sole reason for existence is to annihilate the Jewish People. This is what the people in Michigan who came here to be free want? This is what the demonstrators around the world want for themselves-to be singled out because of their ethnicity, their religion, their skin-color?? I think not-yet these “fine people on both sides” as Trump says, want to “return” to a past that was in their favor, where they had all the power. They want to return to a way of being that was not free, that did not “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, that “proclaimed freedom throughout the land and to” only some “of its inhabitants therein.

This “so-called return” is anathema for Jews! In his book, Gift of the Jews, Thomas Cahill says one of the greatest gifts the Jews gave the world was to change the belief that life was a circle and instead teach life is a continuum, one where we grow from each action and inaction, each hitting the mark and each missing the mark. Our return is not to some way of being in power over another human being or a country, I believe. As I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words above, I know that the return is to our core being, our soul’s knowledge, to our connection to higher consciousness, our souls.  Yet even religionists are trying to promote their lies through Scriptures so they can bastardize the words of Jesus, Moses and the thoughts of divine revelation to serve them. They are trying to return to a world that was like the world the prophets encountered and we know their reaction to the “so-called return” of the priests, royalty, wealthy- it was a “phase” not a change in their ways of being.

On this 6th day of the 10 days of Repentance, 10 days of Awe, isn’t it time for all of us to look inside and see the ways we have been engaging in a “so-called return”, in “a longing for the past” instead of “remorse over the lost past”? As Rabbi Hillel says: “If not now, When”??? We have to come face to face with the person we see in the mirror, we have to cry with our self not tears of longing for the “good old days” rather tears of remorse for being stuck in the past, tears of sadness for the errors we have made in this past year and years, for being in “a retreat, a phase” rather than in “return” and authentic repentance. We have to shed tears so we can wash away the phoniness and the bullshit we have been buying and selling. We have to shed tears of relief because we are finally engaged in the work of repentance, finally willing to experience the “miracle of repentance”.

We are in the final days before we get cleaned of the errors we committed against the universe. We need to reach out to those we have harmed and to our inner life to bring together the inner and outer, to “return” and/or turn to a state of wholeness and integrity. We do this by seeing the deceptions we have bought into both from another and from our minds. We do this by remembering Einstein’s words: “the intuitive mind is a gift, the rational mind a servant. We have forgotten the gift and worship the servant”. Returning to appreciating the gift of our intuitive mind and using our rational mind as a servant is a key component to this return. Shunning the lies of these “so-called religious people” like Ben G’vir, Wilks in Texas, the people who believe in their dominion over everyone not a white christian male, the ‘christian’ nationalists who don’t live Christ’s teachings, the Jews who are willing to vote for Trump because he is ‘good for Israel’ which he isn’t and because he goes to the grave of the Rebbe all the while hanging out with Holocaust deniers, anti-semites, loving Putin who puts Jews in jail for being the ‘wrong kind of Jew’! Knowing he is a white supremacist, these Jews must believe, like the some Jews in Germany did, that he doesn’t really mean the shit he says, who cares if he abuses the rule of law, etc.

My return has never been “a retreat”, it has been, since the beginning, a move forward. I do not want to ‘go back to the good old days’, nor do I want to go backwards in time. I miss having a community and a pulpit-I just don’t need to go back to what was, rather I am intrigued and excited about what can be, what I can do in this moment, because living in the past is not living T’Shuvah, it is not living in repentance, return and new responses. I have new responses to the situations that keep repeating in my life and in the world. I support Freedom of Choice for everyone-even if I disagree with their choice. I have remorse for my past errors, I have made my amends, it pains me that some want to hold on to their anger and self-righteousness and I accept what is. Nothing is all good nor all bad, no one is devoid of the Tzelem even if they choose to bury it so deep it seems to have left them. I shed tears of remorse, of sadness, of forgiveness of another who is so stuck they are unable/unaware of their need to forgive and their need to return. I am returning to more of the primordial me so I can serve the real you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"Conscious Truthfulness" or "Self-Conscious Conformity" when/how do you choose one over the other? - Year 3 Day 305

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 305

5th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“If, to be sure-as is often the case among us-instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

Today is the anniversary of the murderous terroristic attack on innocent people on the border with Gaza, Oct. 7, 2023. This attack has changed everything in the Middle East, in the entire world and this was the goal of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia(who is a partner with Iran, North Korea, China). Thinking about this yahrzeit and the bolded words above, regrading Jews, “a self-conscious conformity” overtakes “a conscious truthfulness” all the time. In the past 9 years, Donald Trump has given this phrase more power in the United States and it dominates the Republican Party of today. When “a self-conscious conformity” overrides “a conscious truthfulness” there can be no repentance, no forgiveness, no adherence to the foundational tenets of religion I am using the ones I learned from the Dalai Lama: love, kindness, compassion, truth, and justice. We have only lies, subterfuge, deceptions and people wanting to have ‘dominion’ over another group, all groups.

Putting together the yahrtzeit of Oct. 7th, the fact there are still hostages in Gaza, Hezbollah rained rockets, Iran sent ballistic missiles, with the need for the Netanyahu Government to engage in “a self-conscious conformity” with the far-right ‘religious’ parties so he can stay in power and stay out of jail, is it any wonder so many hostages have been kept in captivity for a year? Is it any wonder so many (one is too many) have died? When “a self-conscious conformity” is the law of the land, when people hate their neighbors because of politics, when power is more important that human life, a democracy has descended into the depths of depravity that is rampant in Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, etc. They are in the depths of depravity because “a conscious truthfulness” has been replaced by “ a self-conscious conformity”.

Listening to the news, reading the papers, magazines one can wonder: “how did we get here?” We got here because “a self-conscious conformity” has been rampant in the US and in Israel as well as in the world writ large both the far right and the far left. . Since the beginning of our nation there was “a self-conscious conformity” in dealing with slavery, in dealing with Native Americans, etc. We went along to get along, to preserve our union, etc. We have a long history of exploiting Chinese and other minorities. We have been unwelcoming to the Irish, the Italians, the waves of Jews have been most problematic for many as the KKK hates Jews almost as much as they hate Blacks and since White Supremacy is on the ballot again this year in the form of Donald Trump and JD Vance, we are still dealing with this scourge. Allowing the progressives to deny the right of Jews to defend themselves and live in peace is not helping at all. Watching a political rally we are left wondering are they cheering for their ‘hero’ who tells them how to think, are they cheering for someone who wants to lead us into “a conscious truthfulness”? We have to decide, what realm do we choose to live in, which way of being are we willing to fight for? Many people have chosen, throughout history and today, to fight for a “self-conscious conformity” and they are willing to kill, to die for it. Are those of us who fight for “ a conscious truthfulness” willing to die for truth, to die for basic tenets of the Bible, truth, justice, caring for the stranger, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein, etc?

We can only make this decision if we root out the “self-conscious conformity” that is rampant in our midst and within us. It is hard to be a prophet, it is hard to be a descendant of the prophets, it is hard to go against the grain and call out lies, deceptions and mendacity. It is hard to be ostracized because we make mistakes as happens with people who encounter the criminal justice system, who are in recovery, who admit their errors and make amends. It is hard to grapple with what happens when we break out of the “self-conscious conformity” that engulfs neighbors, family, friends, country club members and we become the outcasts, our children suffer, our business could suffer, etc. This “self-conscious conformity” is so pervasive and strong, it is such an enormous part of society’s consciousness, there are consequences for breaking out of it that most people are not willing to pay. There are many spiritual leaders of all faiths who have led their congregants to recognize and become willing to pay the heavy cost of living in “a conscious truthfulness” through repentance, return and having new responses. These are the heroes to follow, not the charlatans who hate the people Jesus loved, who despise the people Joshua led into the Promised Land, who sh*t on the principles of the Bible, who are deaf to the call of the prophets, etc. We can only do this when we take the time to look inside of ourselves and see where and when we fall into “a self-conscious conformity”, we all do, and devise ways to rise above this state of being, ask for help from our spiritual guides, family, friends, to wake us up when we fall into the ether of “a self-conscious conformity” so we can return to “a conscious truthfulness”.

I have wrestled with these two ways of being for my entire life. I want to be liked, I want to be heard, I want to be respected and I want people to follow me. I also have to speak what my soul tells me, speak loudly and, at times, aggressively, I have to call out the lies and deceptions that I encounter, I have to do whatever I can to promote “a conscious truthfulness” knowing I don’t have all the answers, I am not aware of some of my blind spots at times. These two ‘wants’ have collided within me since I was a young child. The collision has gotten me into more trouble than my legal woes did because it led to them and it has led to my being considered “not right for polite society”, to me being told that  I bring “hysterical chaos” to some different situations. I am not a victim, I am not always right- FULL STOP. And, I have a fire in my belly that makes me erupt when I see the “self-conscious conformity” that leads a society to live in deception and mendacity, that allows a group/community to tear down the principles it was founded upon, when a Rabbi is afraid to use the Bible to call out inconvenient truths for fear of losing donors.I cannot “stand idly by the blood of my neighbor”. I have to bring truthfulness and I do my best to stay out of “self-conscious conformity”. It is through repentance that I continue to grow in “a conscious truthfulness”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you making a "Deliberate Decision" to repent of is your "I'm Sorry" coerced? Year 3 Day 304

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day304

4th Day of 10 Days of Awe and Repentance

“If, to be sure-as is often the case among us-instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg 69)

Shana Tova! G’Mar Tov! A good year for us all, much better than this last one as a people and as individuals. A good seal, finish to the 10 Days of Awe, 10 Days of Repentance are the sayings and responses at this time of year among Jews. Yet, how can we say this when we are not living “repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility” as I wrote about on Wednesday of last week? How can we say these greetings, these wishes when we are not making a “deliberate decision” to engage in repentance and forgiveness? I submit that we can’t!

Rabbi Heschel’s words from 88 years ago haunt me and, hopefully, are haunting you. He calls out the Jewish community of Berlin at a time when being Jewish was an act of bravery and, he is not okay with “coerced conversion”. When we are Jewish because of the anti-semites, this is a “coerced conversion”. When we go to Temple on the High Holidays out of some superstition, we are being coerced. When we wave the Israeli Flag and say Am Yisroel Chai, the Jewish People Live as if we are one people with the same thinking and feelings because of Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, this is also a “coerced conversion”. Any display of Jewishness, any doing of ritual because ‘it is written’, because ‘they are coming to get us’, because ‘I am superstitious’, because ‘my mother would kill me if I don’t go to shul for the High Holy Days’(even though she has been dead for years), it is a “coerced conversion”.

When we say ‘I’m sorry’ without really having remorse, this is a “coerced conversion”. When we use the formula that the Rabbis provide for the days before Yom Kippur-“If I have done anything to harm you in this past year, please forgive me” without doing our own “accounting of our souls”, we are engaged in a “coerced conversion”. When we beat our chests on Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur without knowing and acknowledging in our inner life, in our minds the truthfulness of our transgressions, we are engaging in a “coerced conversion”. When we guilt people into giving to sustain the Temple community without knowing what the people need nor providing a space to learn and wrestle with the opposing viewpoints, without providing a space for people to argue with one another and within themselves to find the truth, we are leading a “coerced conversion”. When we promote a Temple for it’s being ‘the way’ we are promoting a “coerced conversion” atmosphere.

Be it MAGA, the Far Right in Israel, Bibi, Orban, Putin, Trump who all seem to get along and admire(?) one another; all of these movements and people are engaging in “coerced conversion” to a way of being that denies living into the promise of the Exodus from Egypt-Slavery will end!! All of these people and movements are coercing their followers into believing lies and deceptions, feeding their desire and hunger for self-deception because a “deliberate decision” to repent, to change, to live into the truth of one’s own life and the truth of Biblical teachings is so damn hard! It is easier to buy the lies of those who say ‘don’t worry, “I am your retribution”, who remind us that “you need me”, who soothe us with “I will take care of you”-all the time knowing they only care for the rich and powerful, are interested in their own power, and the power of their white supremacist partners who believe in a Christian Nation-which Jews have always done well under, which Blacks have flourished under, which Latinos have never been coerced into converting to Christianity under, etc. We are so afraid of a deliberate decision that we choose to a “coerced conversion” because someone else is doing the work for us, we foolishly believe we can just skate by, not realizing that every authoritarian has always made it difficult for those of us who are ‘different’ and for the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan.

Making a “deliberate decision” is hard, it means I have to look at what other people are saying, their feelings, their experiences of our interactions and find the truth for me in them. While none of us can control the outcomes, none of us can control the feelings of another, we do know what is in our hearts, what is in our souls, what is in our minds. In looking back over this past year, years, we have to opportunity to see what was in these entities at the times of our interactions. We have the gift of being able to empathize with the feelings of another and know they are their feelings and interpretations of events and, though I may have a different one, I have to make my amends for my part that caused the friction, the separation-without taking their part, without telling them how they could have interpreted the events, etc. In making a “deliberate decision” to repent “in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility”, I have to allow that I am not the arbiter of all the facts, I am not the responsible for the entire problem-only my part and I need to own, be remorseful for my part and seek forgiveness.

I made a “deliberate decision” in February/March of 1987 and have lived into it ever since. I still screw up-full stop! I still do a daily accounting of my soul-many times as I write this blog. One of the benefits of making this “deliberate decision” is that I no longer see myself as a VICTIM! I also no longer see myself as a victimizer! I see my humanity, my fragility, my errors and my victories. I also do not need to keep apologizing over and over again for the same error. A “deliberate decision” gives me and everyone the opportunity to make our amends, ask for forgiveness, and be done-no longer hanging on to the guilt, no longer needed to experience “coerced conversion” because I have made a “deliberate decision”, I/we have turned my/our lives over to a higher consciousness and a higher way of living, a higher logic and to my/our soul’s knowing rather than living in “coerced conversion”, in mendacity and self-deception the ways I/we have been. A friend asked me if I do this work myself and I said YES, every day. I have sent emails of repentance that are “deliberate decisions” I made to clean up the barnacles that were weighing me down which just came to light, with people whom hurt me and that is unimportant because I was also wrong and I have to be responsible for my part without needing confirmation by another person. I am clean, I am misunderstood by some and I am clean within myself and I know me better because of my “deliberate decision”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark