Comment

How do you define and live "Freedom"? Year 4 Day 64

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 64

“We all share a supreme devotion to the hard-won freedoms of the American people. Yet to be worthy of retaining our freedoms we must not lose our understanding of the essential nature of freedom. Freedom means more than mere emancipation. It is primarily freedom of conscience, bound up with inner allegiance.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 14)

I am not sure that the first sentence above still holds true. To “share a supreme devotion” means to “consecrate”, to be loyal to, to hold dear, “the hard-won freedoms of the American people”. In today’s America, we are witnessing the smashing of these freedoms, some by a sledge hammer or chain saw (thank you Elon Musk) and some by a 1000 little cuts. “Consecrate” brings to mind a ‘religious’ connotation and, while it is important in my opinion to have a spiritual connection, every drop of blood shed for this country’s freedom from the Civil War through WWII is a showing of this “supreme devotion”. Yet, according to people who witnessed Trump’s musing about the military, calling them losers, this devotion is no longer valued in the MAGA America. The Republican controlled Congress also has lost their “supreme devotion to the hard-won freedoms of the American people”, even the ones they fought for! Remember it was a Republican, President Teddy Roosevelt, who was called the “Trust-buster”; a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves; a Republican, Ronald Reagan, who told Gorbachev “tear the wall down” and would never call a dictator ‘his friend’.

The focal point for me of the wisdom above is: “we must not lose our understanding of the essential nature of freedom. Freedom means more than emancipation. It is primarily freedom of conscience, bound up with inner allegiance.” As we are approaching Passover in 6 weeks, as we read in the weekly Torah portions about what is happening after our exodus from Egypt, we are reminded that “freedom” is an event. It happens for the first time in the Jewish story at Mount Sinai. While we call Passover “Z’man Heyrutanu”, the season of freedom/liberation, the Passover experience of leaving Egypt is simply and only liberation. Freedom does not occur until we reach Mt. Sinai when we proclaim our “allegiance” with and to God. With our “allegiance” to and with God and one another, we are able to make “free-will moral choices” and without “allegiance” to something greater than ourselves, we are not-a simple and complex way of being. Yet too many people believe that “Freedom” means only “emancipation” which is very ironic as those people, like Trump, MAGA, Project 2025, etc want to enslave everyone else to serve them, to pay for their lifestyles, to grovel at their feet, as displayed on Friday in that horrific, embarrassing scene in the Oval Office by Vance and Trump and then the ass-kissing by Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and other Republican officials. How far we have fallen from the experience at Gettysburg: “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.”

“Freedom of conscience” is what was given to us at Mount Sinai. It was given to us in the form of Torah, of the stories as well as the “path to walk down”, aka Halacha. Without the knowing of what is right and good, without the ability to choose something other than our self-serving, self-centered, base desires, there can be no “freedom”, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel today. We also learn that each of us has an inner knowing, that every human being is endowed with the “spirit of God” just as Adam and Eve were in their creation. Without an “inner allegiance” to the words spoken at Sinai, without an “inner allegiance” to the Bible, to the Constitution, we easily and quickly sink into the abyss of mis-information, the abyss of believing the “big lie”, the abyss of ‘the one with the gold rules’ rather than caring for the stranger, rather than “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, rather than seeking truth. Of our own ‘free will’ the American people voted in as President a person who told us who he is, a narcissistic egomaniac, and who told us he would be a dictator on day 1. Rather than having “allegiance” to the “conscience” of America, rather than having “devotion” to the Constitution, the current ‘leaders’ of America are devoted to themselves, have “allegiance” to money and power, have jettisoned the words and demands of the Bible so they have lost their “conscience” and pay no attention to the call of their inner lives.

We the People have to stand up, we have to march, we have to protest, we have to show our “conscience”. We have to call out our “devotion” to principles that match the call of our souls, of our inner life. We have to engage our “conscience” in all of our affairs. We have to recall the Sinai Experience, we have to recall the experiences of Egypt, of Assyria, of Babylonia, of our wandering throughout the 1700 years between the loss of Jerusalem, the crucifixion of Christ and the American Revolution. Only when we won our “freedom” from England could we begin to dream of being free, only when the Constitution was amended and ratified could we begin to live into the freedom of choice, the freedoms of religion, press, assembly, protest, and speech. It is up to We, the People to call upon Congress, to call our State Houses, to march in the streets, to donate any and all causes which support our “hard-won freedoms”. It is up to We the People to stand up for the stranger, the needy, the poor, the widow and the orphan. We, the People are being called to assemble, we are being reminded of what happens when the ‘king’ allows his second-in-command to take a wrecking ball to the people who helped make Shushan great again, who helped save Egypt, who assisted Ferdinand and Isabella, who stood with Lenin… We, the People are the only ones who can preserve what our ancestors, our founding fathers, our parents and grandparents fought for in WWII-“freedom of conscience, bound up with inner allegiance”.

I have fought against the bullshit of Trump, MAGA for most of my life-as a kid I couldn’t stand that rich ‘assholes’ were more important than good people, they had more say and sway. As a person in recovery, I still can’t stand that this is true and my Rabbinate is all about helping people find their “inner allegiance”, their inner freedom. As we approach the Season of our Liberation, I think about what I am truly loyal to, not just what I say I am  loyal to. I have remained loyal to the principles of Judaism, I have stayed loyal to my “Sinai experience” in a jail cell in Dec. 1986, I have stayed loyal to the people who helped me, I have stayed loyal to the call of my soul. Not perfectly and mostly. I live into the “freedom of conscience, bound up with an inner allegiance” to something greater than myself and I feel a little freer each and every day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

How are you going along with the societal norms of fatalism and inertia? Year 4 Day 63

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 63

“Judaism is forever engaged in a battle against man’s deeply rooted belief in fatalism and its ensuing inertia in social, moral, and spiritual conditions. Abraham started in rebellion agains his father and the gods of his time. His great distinction was not in being loyal and conforming, buy in defying and initiating.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 14)

Reading these words, thinking about the world in 1958 and now, I am fearful that “Judaism” is losing its “battle against man’s deeply rooted belief in fatalism”. We are witnessing the destruction of the norms of democracy as we have known it, the destruction of the defense of the constitution as we have seen administrations protect it before, the cruelty of a wannabe “mafia don” and his henchmen who are using him for their gain, for their power, and will kill him when they succeed, just like in the movies and real life. “Don Trump” learned nothing from the betrayal of “Sammy the Bull” it seems and, most importantly, the ‘christian’ nationalists selling of their fatalism, “christian” idolators selling “fatalism” and the “inertia” that comes along with it to their ‘flocks’ has led so many people to be deceived sheep who are happy to have their medicaid slashed, their social safety nets destroyed, their freedom’s greatly limited so the “don” and his ‘capos’ can enrich themselves-after all we all know that the “family” has to ‘wet its beak’ at the cost to the masses!

What is so deeply saddening is that the words above were not heeded in 1958 nor subsequently and we are paying for our ignoring them now. The bill has come due and, just as the Israelites in Egypt, we still think we are immune from the consequences of not paying our debt, not protecting freedom “to all its inhabitants therein”, and our slow-walking into servitude. This is so apparent in the ways the ADL has ‘gone over to the other side’ by defending Musk, setting up a fund that is investing in Tesla, Amazon, etc so it can stand up against the myriad of anti-semitic assaults on Jews in America. It could be called ironic, I call it fucking ridiculous that the ADL is willing to support and defend a Nazi sympathizer, a racist from South Africa and his companies in order to ‘make money’ which they say is going to fight the very core of this asshole’s being! Give me a break!! Not to be outdone, an Orthodox group Israel365 is honoring that “great zionist” Steve Bannon-an avowed white supremacist! Somehow, these frumma Yidden (strict Jews) , these “grossa machers” (big shots) have twisted Torah, Bible, Jewish History into such a pretzel, that they believe people who act like the Pharaoh and his courtiers did in the first chapters of Exodus, people who adhere to a way of being that has resulted in terrible experiences for Jews are “our friends”!!! Talk about “inertia in social, moral, and spiritual conditions”! WTF???!!

I am trolled by people who believe the bullshit of Israel365, Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL and other right-wing Jews, who believe the mendacity of Bibi and his gang of thugs, and I say-God Bless you and I pray every day for your eyes to be opened before it is too late. It is a tragedy when we realize not only that our heroes and people we count on to protect and defend our freedoms, our rights, our faith betray us. Here, we have the people who are telling us who they are, how they will betray us and so many Jews are living in the “inertia in (their) social, moral and spiritual conditions”. We, the People are being called today and everyday by our faith, by our spiritual discipline of Judaism to fight against the “fatalism” being promoted by so-called ‘religious leaders’, by so-called ‘defenders of Israel’, by so-called ‘freedom fighters of MAGA’. It is time for We, the People to relearn the lessons of Abraham’s life. It is time for We, the People to be in “rebellion against the fathers and the gods of his time” and stand up for The Ineffable One, stand up for the way of being the Bible teaches us, stand up and rebel against even God when God is unjust-as Abraham did in Sodom and Gomorrah. It is time for We, the People to say NO to the YOKE OF TRUMP, MUSK, MAGA, BIBI, PUTIN and YES to accepting the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven!

There is only one way to do this- let go of our need to be liked, let go of our need to enrich ourselves at the cost of our souls, let go of the voice of perfection that rattles around in our minds, let go of the voice of shame and blame that is a constant companion and gets exploited by the grifters, let go the fears being exploited by the deceivers in order to control us. This letting go of our worst fears means we are no longer controlled by them and no longer can our vulnerabilities be used against us-the ultimate evil practiced by one human towards another. All of the dictators, fascist leaders, communist leaders have used people’s vulnerabilities against them and created an atmosphere of evil and suspicion. We the People have to say NO to these liars and YES to CHOOSE LIFE.

We do this by enhancing our spiritual condition. “Judaism” is a path towards wholeness and spiritual health. It is a way out of our “fatalism” and it doesn’t allow us to live in inertia. Each mitzvah, each “thou shall” and “thou shall not” are for our continued growth and to help us with our poor eyesight. While some faiths promote a fatalism that teaches ‘this is your lot in life and the next world will be better’, Judaism reminds us that we all have choices, we can “proclaim freedom”, we can do T’Shuvah and change, we can repair our old errors and ways, we can welcome the stranger, care for the poor and the needy, redeem the captives, “love our neighbor as we love ourselves”, we can live the hope of the psalmist, the passion of the prophets and the courage of Abraham, we can follow the leadership of Moses and reject the lies of Korach. We have these choices and the only way to make them is to get our own “social, moral and spiritual conditions” in order. We the People are in desperate need of spiritual counseling, not just therapy. We need to have a “Physician of the Soul”, as Maimonidies writes, to help us do a deep cleaning of our spiritual arteries and clear out the plaque that has made our spiritual veins so constricted that the “fatalism” and “inertia” of the mendacious ones sound true! We, the People have the opportunity to take heed to the words above and take the nest right action right here, right now.

I have fought this battle for my whole life and, for a period of 23 years-15-37, I lost the battle and everyone around me, people I never knew were harmed greatly. Since I have accepted and engaged with Judaism on the level Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, I have benefited greatly from spiritual counseling and continue to offer it to another(s) for their benefit and their ability to ward off the liars and idolators. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

What makes lies and loyalty to personalities so appealing to humanity? Year 4 Day 62

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 62

“We are taught to prefer truth to security, to maintain loyalty even at the price of being in the minority. It is inner freedom that gives man the strength to forgo security, the courage to remain lonely in the multitude.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.13-14)

Reading these words, thinking about a seminar being held about Religion in a Free Society, looking at the great people of history, and seeing what is happening today is truly a shock to one’s system and, for people of faith, a betrayal of everything that is holy and good!

The “conventional notion/wisdom” today is to lie and keep lying, to shout the lies from the rooftops, use one’s wits and deception to speak to the lowest common denominator to get ‘our people’ to join in the spreading of lies and misinformation. When the Tea Party was formed, it was because there was a Black man in the White House, not because they actually wanted to govern. The leaders of MAGA have no use for governing, only grifting and creating more wealth for themselves and their cronies. We are watching good people who know better twist themselves into pretzels to defend their wrong doings because rather than “prefer truth to security”, they are preferring security to truth-watch some of the town halls Republican House members are having. We are in grave danger of abdicating the examples, the lessons, the wisdom of the prophets, of Moses, of Jesus for “security” that will turn out to be our ruin.

This situation doesn’t happen just because there is a leader like Trump, Putin,  Bibi, et al, it doesn’t happen because their lies are so wonderful and their ability to baffle us with bullshit is on such a great level. NO, the truth is that these grifters, these liars, these deceivers and dictators/mafia bosses only can flourish when We, the People allow them to, buy into their lies, seek to be deceived, and harbor resentments that get fed by the mendacity of a great deceiver. The real issue is our inability, our unwillingness “to maintain loyalty even at the price of being in the minority.” Our need to ‘fit in’ takes precedence over our call to “maintain loyalty” to something greater than ourselves. We are watching the same story over and over again, human beings sacrifice their loyalty to principles, to values, to the foundational wisdoms and freedoms that our ancestors had when they formed the ancient lands of Israel, Judea. The prophets railed against the deceivers of their times, they forfeited their own “security” to speak truth to power, they knew they were in the minority and they spoke out anyway. The examples of the prophets need to be spoken about and studied in all times and especially now: their is a call in everyone’s inner life to speak truth, to live in truth and this need is greater than our need for security, because without truth We, the People are never secure. Please allow this to sink in.

FOMO is a real thing today-fear of missing out- and this way of being gives us cover to deceive ourselves into going along to be with the ‘in-crowd’, with the ‘power-brokers’, to have ‘a seat at the table’. Yet, it also, usually, requires us to let go of our loyalty to spiritual truths, spiritual practices, the foundational principles of faith and the Bible. Trump, Putin, Bibi all are laughing up their sleeves at the ‘religious’ people who flock to them and call them ‘savior’, ‘precursor to the messiah’, ‘sent by god’, and other such bullshit. The MAGA masses are slowly learning the truth about the 2025 project that Trump denied knowing about on the Campaign trail and has implemented in these first 45 days with reckless abandon. When their Medicaid is cut, when their Social Security is raped, what will they say-these ‘loyalists’? Their votes come from feelings of betrayal because they believed that as white people(for the most part) they would always have privilege over ‘those people’ and the ‘jews’ in charge would be put in their place, etc. I tis because of the Religious Establishment who have engaged in deception and lies, in hatred and bigotry that these untruths have been allowed to flourish over the centuries, here and around the globe. The Religious Establishment of all faiths have twisted the Bible to their needs, they have bastardized the stories, made perfect heroes out of flawed people, taken phrases out of context and made religion a burden of bullshit rather than the beauty of truth, wisdom it is.

We, the People must return to the ways of the prophets, to the ways of Jesus, to the ways of Rev. King and Rabbi Heschel, the ways of the Hassidic masters, and all of the great spiritual leaders before and since. These entail speaking truth to oneself as well as to another(s), seeing what is true and right, what is really happening that is not true and right and speaking out about it. We, the People, have to do our own T’Shuvah, seeing where we have fallen out of truth, where and when we do not “maintain loyalty” and amend our ways, find the path to freedom through truth and loyalty to principles. We find our “inner freedom” by doing our own Chesbon HaNefesh-our accounting of our souls and this “inner freedom” leads to the outer freedom of speaking up and out, not falling for the deceptions of another(s), being more concerned about “truth” than “security” for without being true to oneself, there is never any security; we are always in fear of being found out! “Maintain loyalty” to the call of one’s inner life, to the call of our higher consciousness is the path of freedom, it is the path of our ancestors, it is the path laid out for us in the Bible and every time one of our ‘heroes’ forgets this-disaster happens. King David is a prime example of this as are the Kings that followed him leading to the ‘lost tribes’ and the destruction of the Temples. Is this really the stories We, the People want to keep engaging in over and over again? We, the People of this moment can change our narratives and the lies we tell ourselves, will you?

I live in truth and when I am not in truth, or I am not sure of being in truth, I feel it in my guts. I am troubled and loud, sometimes accusatory, and I have to do my own tshuvah to find out my part in whatever is happening. I still react and blame first at times and then come back to “maintain loyalty” with the principles I accepted and have helped me grow into being a better human being. It is difficult to not go along with the majority and I know I am in the minority and accept that living in truth is the only “security” that is truly available to me. All other “security” is smoke and mirrors. I am grateful for Governor Newsom granting me a Pardon on Wednesday evening and I am grateful to and for everyone who supported this pardon with letters and love. I am firm in holding onto truth, even when it proves me wrong and to maintaining loyalty to principles as the path to inner freedom. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Comment

Comment

Freedom is the ability to choose, to act, to love and a constant obligation! Year 4 Day 61

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 61

“He is told to abhor self-complacency, to enjoy freedom of choice. He has been given life and death, good and evil, and is urged to choose, to discriminate. Yet freedom is not only the ability to choose and to act, but also the ability to will, to love. The predominant features of Jewish teaching throughout the ages is a sense of constant obligation.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

In the words bolded above, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that “freedom” is more that our ‘doing our own thing’, being ‘free’ to do as we wish. Rabbi Heschel’s use of the word “ability” is interesting to me. I hear him asking us to realize our “ability to choose and to act” doesn’t mean do what we want to do, it means we have “the ability to will, to love”. In other words, any actions that go against our “will”, our intuitive minds, our soul’s cravings is probably not true “freedom”, hence the last sentence above. Living in “a sense of constant obligation” could be anxiety producing, (look at how many Jews go to therapists:) and in is, the essence of “freedom” according to my reading of the Torah. After the Israelites/slaves left Egypt-they went from being slaves to completely doing what they wanted to, they had no ‘instruction’ manual, they were being led by Moses and, given how many people were on that journey, the people who were not right in front didn’t hear much from him directly-it was a game of telephone. It was only when we reached Mt. Sinai, where the Aleph of Anochi was ‘spoken’ that everyone heard the essence of the Ineffable One. It was only at Sinai that our “freedom” began. Up until then, we did not have choice, we did not know any different that to be ruled by our emotions, by our rational thinking, we were even afraid to dream so as to not be broken hearted once again. Once we accepted the way of decency, morality, ethics, spirituality, we gained the “ability” to make free-will moral choices; which had been impossible up until then.

This is an important point in our ways of being. Just like a child who doesn’t know what is good and what is not good, the Bible shows us that people need to learn about “will, love” as actions of “freedom” not rebellion. We are able “to choose and to act” as assholes, as pernicious, as deniers, liars, grifters, we are able “to choose and to act” as oligarchs, as dictators, as idiots, as addicts, as, as, as…! Yet, this is not the “freedom” of one who has “a sense of constant obligation”. This was a radical experience for the Biblical human being that occurred after Sinai and throughout the wanderings in the Desert. Holding on to this radical experience, this inheritance has proven difficult for Jews and non-Jews alike. Jewish people have called obsessive exacting attention to detail over the 613 commandments fulfilling their “constant obligation”. I disagree, in Genesis Rabbah, we are taught that “every day God makes new laws in the Heavenly Court” - why are we bound by the ones from 200 years ago?

“The ability to will, to love” is the “constant obligation” that makes us free as I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words above. Of course, the goal is to fuse our will with God’s will, to surrender our need to be right to the spiritual truths and forces that hover over us at all times. Yet, even the ‘religious’ zealots have forgotten this goal, as the Talmud teaches us the Rabbis told God to fuck off when God showed signs that the Rabbi they were in opposition to kept being supported by God’s signs in the Tanour Shel Achni story. This is, unfortunately, a common action by human beings ever since. In the desert, there were wrong choices and actions and there was acknowledgment that they went against the will of God, the Rabbis of the Talmud and many ever since, have bent the will of God to meet their will instead of the other way around, as have most people. Instead of asking ‘where is/was God’ in Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia, on October 7, 2023, we should be asking where were we? Why did We, the People not take the next right action, why did We, the People not listen to the calls of our souls, the messages of people around us who told us to get out, to stop stirring the pot of hatred between peoples, to stop funding Hamas’ terrorism, etc? These are questions that no one wants to respond to, because it shows how enslaved we are to our emotions, to our rationalizations, to our lies.

We, the People are being called to live into the “constant obligation” of ensuring “freedom” for ourselves and for humanity in today’s quotation and in today’s happenings in our world. We, the People have to renew our sense of “constant obligation” to mean we are needed, we are wanted by the force of the universe to ensure that “freedom” is not only proclaimed throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein, “freedom” that is in concert with the 10 sayings, with the ways the Torah lays out using our lived experience to these paths. “Freedom” is not doing life the same way life was lived in Ancient Judea, nor in the ways that caused the destruction of the Northern Kingdom nor the loss of the Temples, Judea and made us wanderers once again from 70AD till 1948. “Freedom” is our “ability to love” one another whether we like or agree with one another. It doesn’t say “like your neighbor”, it doesn’t say agree with one another, it says to “love our neighbor as ourselves”. This is a “constant obligation” that is rarely fulfilled, unfortunately. We, the People are being called to stand up for the “freedoms” the Bible gives to us, the ability to “make Free-Will Moral choices” as Rabbi Twerski teaches, the “ability to will” so that our will becomes like God’s will as Rabbi Tarfon teaches in Pirke Avot. We, the People need to come together once again, we need to re-visit the Sinai experience this Passover-not as a historical fact, rather as a call to action. We, the People in our preparations for Purim have to remember there will always be those out to kill us, either literally or spiritually-are you listening BIBI? We, the People, have to gather at Passover to once again be like the Rabbis at B’nai Barak, planning the revolution against the new Roman Emperor and his minions-Trump, Musk, Putin, Bibi and how we are going to once again ensure that a “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth”? Otherwise, since the Revolutionary War, all those brave men and women who died for our freedoms, all the immigrants who faced brutal conditions on ships and once they landed in the “golden Medina” have all died in vain and this is the greatest desecration of God’s name and the height of Avodah Zarah, idolatry!

I fight to ensure that I keep it fresh, I keep using the principles to fuel my “constant obligation” and it brings me joy, a feeling of accomplishment, a sense of failing forward. I am living in “freedom” of choice, actions, will and love more each day! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

The Anxiety and Demands Freedom of Choice brings - Year 4 Day 60

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 60

“He is told to abhor self-complacency, to enjoy freedom of choice. He has been given life and death, good and evil, and is urged to choose, to discriminate. Yet freedom is not only the ability to choose and to act, but also the ability to will, to love. The predominant features of Jewish teaching throughout the ages is a sense of constant obligation.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

The phrase “self-complacency” is defined to mean: “a strong sense of satisfaction with yourself especially when this prevents you from having sympathy or empathy for another”. WOW, can you imagine living like this?! We see this all the time and here is Rabbi Heschel some 60+ years ago, calling us out on our behaviors. We encounter so many people who live in this manner-even those who are not so happy, so wealthy find they have a “strong sense of satisfaction” with what they are doing  and are kept down by society, by someone else-hence the blame game never ends. When our elected officials living in self-complacency, as they are right now, they think nothing of passing a resolution to cut the services to the poor, to the needy-after all, these are ‘god-fearing men and women’ who read their Bible every day and nothing gets through their thick shields, their souls. Rather than “enjoy freedom of choice”, many people would rather stay in their self-complacency. This is the bane of our existence-the belief that “only I can fix it”, because buying into the self-complacency of another leaves us open and vulnerable to the whims, the horrors of their behaviors with no ready defense against it, as we have seen throughout history.

Yet, “freedom of choice” seems to produce undo anxiety in people. We are a species who do not want to be told what to do by some God and we are willing to be sheep to the shepherds that have presented themselves like; Attila the Hun, the Pharaohs of Egypt,  the Emperors of Rome, Ferdinand and Isabella, Hitler and the Nazis, Stalin, Putin, Ayatollahs, Trump, Musk, Bibi. Look where being sheep has led us-only to destruction, despair, war, and then, finally, to revolution and a new opportunity to “enjoy freedom of choice”. As Rabbi Heschel says above: we “have been given life and death, good and evil” which is found in Deuteronomy 30:19. The call is to “choose life” which entails freedom to find out we made the wrong choice and repair the damage we have done because of it, change our ways, learn from our mistakes and have a plan not to repeat them again. Yet, those who self-complacent and those who are spiritually immature that follow them like lap dogs, don’t believe in their ability to be wrong, admitting they make a mistake is anathema to them and, these are the people who have led humanity into great wars and massive destruction. And people hear the same things over and over again from Attila til now and “when will we ever learn”, a Pete Seeger refrain, is the question We, the People have to ask ourselves.

We are also being called “to choose, to discriminate” which is an important coupling of ideas. Discriminate is defined as: “recognize a distinction; differentiate” and perceive or constitute the difference in or between. In Hebrew, the word for discriminate also means to examine, to test, to check, as in “check one’s heart”. In the words above as in Deuteronomy, we are being told that to “enjoy freedom”, to “choose”, we also have to know what we are choosing. While it is within our power to choose evil, while it is within our power to go along to get along, the mandate, the demand from God, from our Higher Consciousness is to “choose life”. This means we are being “discriminate” in our choices, we are letting go of our “self-complacency” which we need to “abhor” otherwise the magnetic pull seems so strong we are unable to resist, and we need to be guided by the principles of freedom-community, love, concern for one another, caring for the needy and poor, healing of the sick, accompanying the dead, celebrating the bride and groom, seeing the basic goodness of being in people and rebuking them when they are not living up to these principles as well as experiencing someone rebuking us as love and deep faith in our ability to be better, to live into our divine image, to our soul’s calling.

Throughout history “to discriminate” has meant keeping people out, putting people into camps and groups that don’t deserve the same as we do. From antiquity till now, this is how people have ruled and kept order-making an outside bad guy so no one will challenge my authority, my ruling. We see this with making ‘migrants’ vermin, Palestinians ‘animals’, Jews ‘vermin, blood poisoners, nazis’, Ukrainians ‘war-mongers’, etc. When people speak like this, when the progressives paint white males as the enemy, when white males paint civil rights, freedom of choice as evil doings by ‘those people’ they are purposely not using their powers “to discriminate” and are deep in their “self-complacency.

We, the People are being called, our inner strength and maturity is being ‘tested’ in this time as it has been for our ancestors in their times. 100 years ago, during the “roaring 20’s, there were undercurrents of “evil”, of “self-complacency” happening that no one paid attention to, that were considered ‘lunatic fringe’ that came to power in the ’30’s and spread throughout the world-remember the German Bund, Lindbergh praising Hitler, Father Coughlin, Henry Ford and his Protocols of Zion? We are witnessing similar hatred and power grabs by Trump, Musk, the so-called Republican Party, Putin, Orban, Xi, Bibi, etc and it is one of our “enormous responsibilities” to stand up and say NO. We, the People have the opportunity to do T’Shuvah for the errors of our ancestors, to learn from their mistakes, to fail forward from 100 years ago. We, the People have within us the ability and the desire to CHOOSE LIFE, we have the command to do this in the Torah, now we need the courage to follow the call of our souls, the longings of our hearts and the knowing of intuitive mind-making our rational mind a servant of these three entities instead of the leader. This is the challenge for us, to live in wonder, radical amazement, “to be maladjusted” to conventional wisdom and see what truly is so we are not fooled again, we do not follow the leader to meanness, to hatred, to evil.

I have dedicated my recovery to “enjoy freedom” and “to choose, to discriminate”. I am not always right-I learn, I fail forward, doing a little better the next time. I refuse to shut up about what I see, I refuse to become deaf to what people see in me, I continue to CHOOSE LIFE. I will always fight the despot, the evil in myself and in another-it is hard and not always wanted and I continue to do this. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Comment

Comment

Are you accepting the "enormous responsibility" that comes with being human? Year 4 Day 59

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 59

“As a free being the Jew must accept an enormous responsibility. The first thing a Jew is told is: You can’t let yourself go; get into the harness, carry the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. He is told to bear loads of responsibility.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

Reading this, immersing ourselves in these words, thoughts, wisdom only makes the actions of Jews, of all people of faith who believe that ‘trump is the messiah, Bibi is god’s instrument of justice and restoration of Israel’ are idiots, and have thrown off “the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven”! Rather than “accept an enormous responsibility to speak truth to power, to stand with the voiceless and powerless, to care for the stranger, to feed the poor, to extend dignity to all human beings because they are created in the Image of God, Trump, Bibi voted with a dictator that kills people just because. They voted against a country fighting to stay free while proclaiming the right of Israel to defend itself against terrorists. Yet they both are celebrating the greatest terrorist of our time: Vladimir Putin! They both voted with Iran-that great democracy and friend of Israel, to destroy Ukraine, where many ancestors of Jews were from both in Israel and America. There are many Hasidic dynasties from Ukraine, Reb Noson, Reb Nachman’s scribe, the Twerski family, etc all come from the Ukraine so the betrayal by Bibi and his ‘frumma yidden’ (orthodox jews) is all the more horrific. These assholes, these liars, these ‘keepers of the flame’ have taken one another out of “the harness”, thrown off the “loads of responsibility” they are called on to carry, and rejected the “enormous responsibility” that comes with being a Jew, that comes with being human!

What is happening in America, in Israel, around the globe is atrocious and odious. The inability of people, especially people who claim to be ‘the faithful’ to not see the warning signs of the Bible, to not see the similarities in history, to rejoice is ridiculous.The enslaving of a people, to celebrate the cruelty shown to the needy, the poor, the orphans and the widows as well as the stranger, is beyond words. The alliances with dictators like Orban, Putin, Xi, Kim Jung Un by the Unfaithful is enraging to people who celebrate our ability to “carry the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven”. Watching the Republican elected officials in Washington DC go along out of fear of reprisals from the Proud Boys and/or Oath Keepers reminds me of Benedict Arnold! The party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan is the party of Putin via Trump and Musk, Miller and Bannon and the ‘unfaithful’ anti-religion people calling themselves ‘christian nationalists’ are loving this change. Likud, the party in Israel of Begin, who made peace with Sadat, has become the lover of dictators, the lackeys of Putin and Trump-all the while believing their own lies that they are in charge and god wants them to hate the poor, mistreat the Ger, the stranger in their midst, pour salt in the wounds of the hostages’ families, allow the hostages to die in Gaza rather than make this deal happen 450 days ago.

In the Tractate Yoma on page 86b, it says:”Reb Meir says Great is repentance(T’Shuvah), for one person’s T’Shuvah, the entire world endures. As it is said: I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely for my anger has turned away from him”(Hosea 14:5). It doesn’t say “from them” rather “from him” because he repented everyone is healed. While it has a hint of Christ in this statement from Reb Meir as my friend and teacher Danny Maseng points out to me, I hear the words above echoed: we are “told to bear loads of responsibility” and what we are seeing right now from the Far Right Jews, the MAGA crowd, the supposed ‘conservative’ groups is the throwing off of responsibility-“some people say”, “I was told”, “I heard” are the clean-ups on Fox News, from Trump, from his Press people who, like almost everyone else is hired for their looks, for the ass-kissing not for their expertise. How can Marco Rubio look himself in the mirror when he supports the very dictator, the very system that his parents fled from Cuba?? How can the Hassidic Sects support the very system that killed so many of their own in Ukraine and Russia??

We, the People have to get enraged, we have to tell the trolls to shut the fuck up, we have to stand up for the voiceless and powerless, we have to change our governments back to democracies, back to the foundational values and principles of our founding. Israel was not founded to be a theocracy, America was founded because of people seeking religious freedom and both were the places where people seeking freedom, opportunity, change came to in droves. We, the People have to take on the “yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven” and pull together to push the charlatans, the idolators, the Desecraters of God’s Name out of power. We, the People have to accept the “enormous responsibility” that comes with being human, that comes with living a spiritual life, with being a partner of God. We, the People have to “get into harness” and pull together carrying the heavy load of “Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”(Lev.25:10). We, the People are being honored with the call to “rebuke your neighbor”, to “not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor”, to not “bear false witness”, to “not murder the soul of another”, to “not make false images of God”, etc. All of these commandments from the 10 sayings, from the Holiness Code are meant to guide all people of faith and spirit to reject the lies of the False Prophets and speak the Truth and NOW IS THE TIME!

I am enraged, my grandparents came from Ukraine, my nephew was a Peace Corps volunteer there. Zelensky has fought off the paper tiger that Putin is and is being ‘rewarded’ by Trump and Bibi with betrayal, with venom and vile. I know this way of being-I acted in similar ways prior to my recovery-I took advantage of good people for my own gains. Since 1987, however, when I first began to accept “the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven”, when I began my journey of T’Shuvah - return, repentance and new responses- I have run to be responsible for the good and for the not good I have done. I bear “loads of responsibility” in living free, I have to honor the journey of my grandparents from Russia/Poland and the Ukraine to give me a life of freedom and possibility by living the best I can in this moment. Both of my grandfathers were members of Workman Circle, both fought for freedom and decency in their own ways, both treated everyone who crossed their paths with respect, both sent money to relatives in Poland, in the Ukraine even during the war-whether they could afford it or not. From this lineage, I am over the top with shame and embarrassment at what the heads of two countries that I love are doing to democracy, to loyalties, to allies, to us. Please join me in being outraged and fighting back. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Entitled or Obligated- which is your modus operandi for life? Year 4 Day 58

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 58

“Every child is a prince; every man is obliged to feel that the world was created for his sake. Man is not the measure of all things, but the means by which to accomplish all tasks.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

In the Jewish liturgy there is a prayer, Avinu Malkeynu which translates to “Our Parent, Our Sovereign” which, I believe, is the foundation for the first phrase above. Thinking about this prayer, it shows how much Judaism thinks of the human being and of God. God is sovereign, aka higher consciousness, power greater than ourselves, prime mover, whatever one calls the creative energy in the universe; and human beings are in the palace, we are children living in the palace, we are royalty and we have a purpose to fulfill. Each of us, as the Talmud teaches, has infinite worth and dignity, equal to everyone else in worth and dignity, and, finally, we all possess unique worth and dignity-we all are different and have unique qualities that separate us from one another while uniting us because we need one another’s uniqueness to ‘finish the job’. These two ideas are meant to, in my opinion, fuel the life of the Jew and non-Jew. Knowing we are all “princes and princesses” gives us a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility as it is used in the Jewish tradition-not entitlement! While there are many Jews who see their status as entitlement and create havoc, antithetical actions, because of their ‘entitlement’ status, this is not the intent of the first phrase above. It is a bastardization of the teachings of the Bible, of the Talmud and it is a sin against God.

The second half of the first sentence above is a tricky one. In fact, it can and has led to great catastrophes perpetrated by the very people who are supposed to understand the meaning of this phrase, who are supposed to be living examples of the wisdom, beauty and awe of this concept, yet they don’t. Instead, the rich, the royalty, the learned use this phrase to keep the masses in line, to invent the “prosperity gospels”, the validation for occupying the West Bank, taking of Ukraine, wanting to take Greenland, Canada, etc.  Pastor Joel Osteen pays himself an annual salary of $54,000,000 from his church profits. Donald Trump’s idea is for America to take Gaza and develop it while the Palestinians who lived there are dispersed to other lands-like the Assyrians did with the Jews, like the Holy Roman Empire did in 1492, like so many countries have done to the Jews throughout the millennia. Vladimir Putin claiming that Russia was attacked by Ukraine and Trump, some Republicans going along with this LIE now, etc are examples of how this beautiful teaching, this grand idea can be abused, bastardized, and prooftext for evil!

The real meaning of the second half of the first sentence above is that human beings have an obligation to experience the world as being created for their sake in order to use their uniqueness, their talents to improve it-not rule it! This seems to have escaped the Clergy who preach it, the powerful who abuse it, the rest of us who willingly fall prey to the lies of the Osteen’s, the Prosperity Gospel pushers, the Bannon’s, the Miller’s, the Vought’s and 2025 projects. People seem to forget wisdom of Rabbi Simcha Bunim of P'shiskha who used to say that: “everyone should carry two slips of paper with them. On one we should write, “For me the whole world was created” and the other should say, “I am but dust and ashes.” We have to look at them when we change pants each day, when we reach for our money, for our keys, etc-i.e at least a few times a day. It is time for We, the People to demand the leaders of the world, the leaders of our faith traditions return to living an obligated life rather than an entitled life! We the People must change our ways, deciding to be an active participant in our life, in the life of our cities, states, countries and no longer allow the atrocities that these entitled bastards are perpetrating, those in the past that have become ‘ho hum’, those in the present and the ones in the future. It is way past time to put “throw the bums out” and we have to see this as one of the infinite tasks which we are measured by. It will not be easy, it will be frustrating, painful, dangerous, it will entail going against the grain, standing firm in the face of ridicule, an onslaught of hatred, possibly going to jail (think of Alexei Navalny) and even death. However as Patrick Henry said: “Give me liberty or give me death”.

We the People are being called to our obligation to live up to and into the lessons and actions of our ancestors, using the errors of our Biblical figures and in our history since the Bible was canonized. These lessons include the knowledge that the Maccabees defeated King Antiochus IV, Kings Saul and David protected the kingdoms of Judea and Israel (yes they were separate for a time before the great split) from the Philistines primarily, the American colonies defeated the British, the Baal Shem Tov and Hassidism prevailed over the objections of the ‘mainstream’ Jewish community leaders, Israel defeated the Arab Nations that attacked it in 1948, 1956, 1973, etc. We, the People have to demand the end of the reign of terror of King Donald, Co-King Musk, Putrid Putin, Bad Bibi, etc. We, the People have to rise up against the Reprehensible Republicans who are acting entitled instead of obligated. We, the People have to stand with and for one another’s uniqueness as badges of honor, recognize the princely nature of all human beings, all genders, all colors, all races. We, the People are being called in this moment to stand with one another against the arrogance and entitlement of the rich and the people in power. We are being given strength and purpose in the words above. To paraphrase Socrates: “An unobligated life is not worth living” and to paraphrase Malcolm X: “an obligated life is painful”. Both of these statements are true and We the People need to live into them both, walk thru the pain and reach the joy of being a “prince”, of fulfilling our need to be “obliged” and make our corner of the world better. We, the People need to answer the question: what were doing while the world burned, while the Fascists, the Deceivers were ruling? God forbid we say we did nothing. We the People also have to remember the words of Rabbi Tarfon in Pirke Avot 2:16: “We are not obligated to finish the work, neither are we free to desist from it”.

I believe it is time, past time to get into action! I have lived an obligated life for the past 36 years, I lived an obligated life for my first 15 and I was obligated even in my 20 year hiatus from decency in all my affairs. I believe in the royal nature of every human being, I believe we are all obliged to live into our infinite worth and dignity and to treat one another dignity. I also know I fall short and when I do there is T’Shuvah to get back on the path. I am screaming to everyone DO YOUR TSHUVAH and get on the path of being spiritual warriors and lets save our corner of the world together. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Living into our calling to be elated and dedicated even though the work is never done - Year 4 Day 57

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 56

“We are not taught to feel accused, to bear a sense of boundless guilt. We are asked to feel elated, bred to meet the tasks that never end. Every child is a prince; every man is obliged to feel that the world was created for his sake. Man is not the measure of all things, but the means by which to accomplish all tasks.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

The truth of these words above escape many of us. We have, it seems, lost our ability to hear what is being asked of us, “to feel elated”, because of the accusations and guilt we are laden with from parents, from clergy, from society in general. We have been controlled and confined by the accusations and guilt, we have lost our ability to “feel elated, bred to meet tasks that never end”. Trump and his cronies are perfecting the Goebbels playbook of accusing someone else of that which you are guilty of. Some progressives have made accusing everyone and making them pay for the errors against humanity we all have committed no matter what the context. The ‘woke’ shit has gone too far and the ‘Jesus loves the rich’ bullshit has taken us over an edge. We have lost the wisdom of the words above and the means, strength, commitment to carry them out!

WE WOKE UP THIS MORNING!!! Hurrah, Hurrah, in the Jewish tradition, upon awakening, before getting out of bed, we say: “Thank you God for returning my soul to me with compassion, great is your faithfulness”, we are elated to be alive. There is no “oh shit, I woke up again” in the Jewish tradition-even though there are many Jews who feel this way:)! We then get out of bed with a mission, to be compassionate to ourselves and those we meet and to faithful to our covenant with God, faithful to the call of our soul, be faithful to the commitments we have made and will make. Compassion is not the same as compliance, complicity, allowing someone else to walk all over the principles and values of the Bible; it is to allow another person their imperfections, to allow for our imperfections without making our worst actions, our errors define nor confine us. Compassion is knowing how sad it is when someone is so stuck they cannot see the forest for the trees, when someone is angry that you walk around elated and joyful to be alive and you can smile at them rather than be put down by them or get angry at them. Compassion is what keeps us in conversation rather than taking up arms against another human being. We also have to have compassion for ourselves, we have to realize that being “bred to meet tasks that never end” is frustrating for a ‘goal-oriented person, society’. It is a herculean task to take on these tasks, like loving your neighbor, caring for the sick, the poor, the needy, welcoming the stranger, helping your enemy. Compassion is a trait that needs to be nourished, nurtured, it is not a trait that makes one weak, it is not a trait that cedes power to another-no matter what Trump, Bannon, Musk, Bibi say or do. It is time for We, the People to demand more compassion from the leaders we have elected-whether we voted for them or not. It is time for We, the People to stand up for this value in our country, in our cities, in our personal lives. COMPASSION NOT ACCUSATIONS!

Continuing the power of the “Prayer upon Arising”, God’s loyalty to us and to the Covenant is what we are acknowledging and grateful for in this prayer. We are also, by our acknowledging God’s loyalty making a commitment for us to stay loyal, faithful as well. This is a great challenge, as we see today. Being loyal to our souls, to our principles, to our shared values when we are gaining something is ‘easy’ for most people. Yet, the prayer we say has nothing to do with gain or loss- only faithfulness, only loyalty to justice, truth, kindness, love, to our covenant. The measure of our humanity comes to the forefront when we are called to be loyal and faithful to our principles, our values as defined in our covenant with God and one another through the Torah no matter what the gain/loss ratio is. The measure of our faithfulness and loyalty are shown to us and to the world when we are confronted with wrongdoing, evil, disloyalty, idolatry, someone attempting to take God’s ‘throne and crown’, by another person, group. What do we do? Do we stand up and shout “this is wrong, this is bullshit, this is blasphemy” from the rooftops, do we do whatever we can to overthrow the idolators, the deceivers, the liars and grifters? Do we hide away in the cellars, do we go along to get along. Loyalty and faithfulness are easy to speak about when there is nothing at stake and what most people miss is that “there is something at stake in every event”-our souls, our connection to one another and to the spirit/force of the universe.

Being “asked to feel elated” begins in the morning with this prayer, I believe. This prayer sets the scene for us for the rest of our day and lifetime-we will never be able to fulfill the endless tasks of compassion, faithfulness, as well as seeking truth, “love our neighbor as ourselves”, caring for the sick and needy, welcoming the poor and the stranger, seeing the humanity, the divine in everyone we meet-especially in our ‘enemies’. We are given the gift of being God’s representatives here, we are given the gift of breath, of spirit, of an intuitive mind in order to stay faithful to our principles and values each and every day. It is time for We, the People to use this gift wisely and as completely as we can-after all this is what we are “bred for”. We the People are being called in this moment to be loyal and faithful to the spiritual truths of our beingness, to the goodness of being at the core of every human being, to stand up for the “little guy”(we are the little guy), to stand against those who are breaking the covenants we made with God, with one another, with our ancestors from the Israelites wandering in the desert until they could get the slave mentality out of their spirits, to the prophets, to the Founding Fathers of the United States, to freeing of the slaves by Lincoln, to the safety nets of FDR, to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, to  Great Society/Voting Rights, Civil Rights legislation, to today when we are being faced, once again, with terrorism from the top of governments-Russia, Trump, Iran, etc. We the People have to deal with the never-ending task of ensuring that we constantly “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. This task is crucial at all times and especially now! What will you tell your children and grandchildren about what you did as America was being raped-stand by or stand up?

I can’t stand idly by, I am raising the alarm in my individual talks and in my writing-I don’t have the bully pulpit nor megaphone of some of my colleagues and I REFUSE to stay silent. We have to stop the Musk, Trump, Bannon, MAGA machine NOW! There is no time to waste nor to lose. I beg of you to take part, make calls, go to demonstrations, vote in the special elections to switch the House majority. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Ending Boundless Guilt and Endless Accusations - Year 4 Day 56

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 56

“We are not taught to feel accused, to bear a sense of boundless guilt. We are asked to feel elated, bred to meet the tasks that never end. Every child is a prince; every man is obliged to feel that the world was created for his sake. Man is not the measure of all things, but the means by which to accomplish all tasks.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

The first sentence flies in the face of societal conventional notions! People have used accusations and put guilt upon one another forever, especially in many religious communities! How often have we heard of Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt, etc? How often have we been told by our clergy that we are wrong, our opinions are stupid(maybe not in those words), our questions are blasphemy? How many people, after suffering in prison for crimes they did not commit, have been freed because someone took a stand to not just accept the accusations of ‘the law’ and listen to the cry of the souls of the innocent? Hell, we have a President who calls himself King because he falsely accused others of what he was doing! We have a regime in the highest office in the land who believes and is following the playbook of Josef Goebbels to a T-accuse others of that which you are guilty of, they are following the examples of the great ‘freedom fighter’ Roy Cohn, et al. The problem is that we are being “taught to feel accused”, we are being asked, burdened with “a sense of boundless guilt”!

As a white male, I am considered guilty by some of the progressives just for being white. As a Jew, I am considered guilty by both progressives and regressives for being a ‘Christ Killer’, a terrorist, a Zionist, and any other ‘ist’ you want to label a Jew as. I am not alone, everyone who has a stake in their lives, everyone who stands for something that “mainstream society” doesn’t like gets accused. “Mainstream society” has been accused also. In the “Me too” movement, women were given a voice to speak out about things that were wrong and how they were wrong. AND that went too far also because then everyone and anyone could be and was accused of wrongdoing. While there is no doubt women were treated wrongly, they were treated as objects instead of as human beings-“boundless guilt” towards all males is not the answer either.

Just as some not all non-Jews are antisemitic, not all anti-Israel is antisemitic, not all males are anti-women. Just as not all Republicans are cruel bastards, not all of the accusers have clean hands themselves. We have lost the ability to distinguish what is a real accusation and what is a convenient one to “get the heat off of me”. How often when speaking to someone about their behavior do they deflect by accusing you “what about what you have done”? Jews have been made to feel “boundless guilt” for the millennia re: Christ’s crucifixion. It was in the Catechism of the Catholic Church until Vatican 2 when Rabbi Heschel helped to convince Cardinal Bea and the Pope to take out “Jews Killed Christ” and “Mission to the Jews” from the catechism! Talk about “feel accused” and “boundless guilt”-  this was a prime example of both!


Trump, Musk, Vance, Vought, Patel et al are capitalizing on the upbringing of so many people re: feeling “accused” and accepting the accusations of “those in power”, especially Clergy-so when the Pastor, Rabbi, Imam, Priest preaches the same words as Musk, Trump, et al- the congregants are catapulted back to their earliest days of religious school and family life-where daily accusations were commonplace. I am suggesting that We, the People once and for all say FUCK YOUR FALSE ACCUSATIONS! FUCK YOUR PUTTING “BOUNDLESS GUILT” ON ME!

It is time for We, the People to take back our inheritance from the prophets, from Abraham, Isaac, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses and remember we are being “asked to feel elated”! We are partners with the Ineffable One in creating a better world, we are called to live with purpose and passion, we are be loved by an unending love, we are blessed to be able to connect with one another and a force that we can never adequately describe. We are given tasks that will never end and which we move forward in for the next generation as an inheritance, as a gift of remembering it is not about the end result, it is about our ability to rejoice in the doing of life’s tasks, in the radical amazement of connection and love. It is time for our Clergy to preach these truths and it is time we demand that Clergy and Congregants alike follow the dictates of Deuteronomy 16:20 “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdoaf” “”Justice Justice you shall pursue” is the usual translation. The ‘real’ translation is: “Righteousness, Righteousness you shall run after”. This verse comes after we are told to “not pervert judgement”, for Judges to “not be familiar with a person who is in front of them”, and to “not take bribes because bribes blind the eyes of the just”-hence Lady Justice with her blindfold. Where are our religious institutions in decrying the current state of affairs? Why are there ‘good christian folk’, ‘torah jews’, and so many other ‘true believers’ supporting the perversion of Justice, the rape of righteousness, the false accusations that are being amplified from the megaphones of UnTruthful Trump and Malicious Musk? These two grifters who would be broke if not for the government and the bankruptcy laws, these two BUST OUTS who would be nothing if not for the belief in the basic goodness of people. Yet, too many people are going along with these RAPISTS out of fear, out of PTSD of being accused and told they were guilty by the very religious and family systems that are supposed to uplift us and protect us. It is time to call these religious and family systems to account. It is time to hold them accountable and change the ways of society once and for all. Otherwise, freedom will not be proclaimed throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein-it will be available to the “select few” who bow down and bend over far enough for ‘the king dumptrump’.

I know the this feeling, I was raised by a Jewish mother:)! I know the “boundless guilt” that some women, people of color, etc have put upon me. I know the truth of “One oh shit wipes out 100+ atta boys”! Yet, I work each day to leave the accusations and guilt in the past. While I am certainly guilty of many things, I make my amends, I improve my ways and I work really hard to leave the past in the past. I also reject and feel sad for those who want to keep the past alive in the present. I have found I do not need them to forgive me, I do not accept their accusations and relieving myself of the “boundless guilt” of another is true freedom. I pursue “righteousness” each day and I reject the lies of the deceivers and grifters. I am standing up against mendacity and false accusations and for EMET (truth), Tzedek, and Justice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Comment

Comment

What is the source of your living- Freedom or necessity? Year 4 Day 55

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 55

“The most commanding idea that Judaism dares to thinks is that freedom, not necessity, is the source of all being. The universe was not caused, it was created…The inevitable is not eternal. All compulsions are a matter of choice. A tinge of that exemption from necessities is hiding in the folds of the human spirit.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

These words and ideas can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, which is one of the facets of Rabbi Herschel that I love so much. While these words reflect Rabbi Heschel’s deep faith in God and the Bible, they don’t exclude the agnostics, people of any other faith.

What a radical idea to ponder on and live into: “freedom, not necessity, is the source of all being”! Rabbi Heschel is positing that all of the mitzvot, all of the imperfections of human beings, all of the stories in the Bible point us to finding the greatest gift God could have given to human beings; Free-Will. He is telling us, as I hear him today, that we Free-Will is the source of our being, Free-Will gives us choices, it forces us to be non-robotic, to engage in thinking, feeling, emoting, loving, hating, isolating, being part of a community, etc. All of life is about choice, not just compulsions, and Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that without choice, without Free-Will, we would be no different than the animals-run by our needs, by our instincts, and as we have seen throughout history, this usually leads humans to run amok. Rabbi Abraham Twerski, z”l, had a talk on “Animals and Angels”, if you can find it, please listen to it-it is wonderful. In this talk he said that what sets human beings apart from animals is our ability to “make free-will moral choices”. Neither animals nor angels have this capacity, he went on to say and spoke about what the cause of our addictions are; lack of spirituality. He went on to say just as someone who has scurvy needs vitamin C, because nothing else will cure scurvy, so too someone who is deep in their compulsions needs spirituality to cure them.

Bending the knee at the foot of the ‘leader’, going along to get along, staying silent for fear of retribution, being primaried, not being part of the “in crowd”, all are choices. Addiction, meanness, cruelty, needing to be right/smartest person in the room, are choices. Love, sobriety, faith, listening to the call of our spirits, our souls are also choices. This is the dilemma that we human beings face: which choices are we going to make? Do we continue to make the choices that we feel are “necessities”, do we take a closer look at these “necessities” to see if they are real or just filling a false ego need?  Do we choose to be part of a community of people seeking to do the next right thing or a community of people seeking to ‘get ahead’ at any and all costs to another and to their souls? Do we choose a life of recovery or a life mired in the myriad of addictive behaviors and substances readily available to us? Do we choose to be part of a cult or to be part of faith community dedicated to freedom for all?

The words above stir up these questions within me. Harriet Rossetto, my wife and founder of Beit T’Shuvah, says the Torah, the Bible is the “Big Book of Jewish Recovery from the Brokenness of the human being”. This is not too far from the idea that “the most commanding ideal that Judaism dares to think is that freedom, not necessity, is the source of all being.” Delving into the Bible, all of the mitzvot come to us as repairs for the errors of our heroes, not because they got it all right! The imperfections of everyone in the Bible teach us about Free-Will and the frightening things that happen when we use it unwisely, when we use it for our own selfish needs, desires. They also teach us what happens when we use our Free-Will wisely, in line with the divine, using it to promote the welfare of everyone, adding to our corner of the world, helping the person next to us, the person across the globe from us. Esau is an example of using Free-Will wisely; he is denied his blessing by trickery, his mother plots against him, and he stays home, takes care of his father and mother while the ‘good son’, Jacob, is in Haran, learning how to be a better conman from his Uncle Laban. While the Rabbis make Esau a bad guy, the truth is he comes to welcome his brother home with honor and love and is rejected because of Jacob’s guilt. Moses is another example of Free-Will when he doesn’t turn away from the burning bush-we have no idea how many other people saw the bush burning and turned away from it. While reluctant to do God’s bidding, he eventually chooses to and the rest is history.

We all have Free-Will and what we do with it depends on how well we have matured our spiritual nature. We all have “a tinge of that exemption from necessities hiding in the folds of the human spirit” and the challenge Rabbi Heschel, the challenge the Bible, the challenge that Judaism and all faith traditions present to us: will we seek this “exemption”? Will we engage in the “necessity” of spiritual growth that we have shunned up until now or continue to grow if we have been engaged in it? Will we use the wisdom stories of our faith traditions to grow our knowledge of what is the next right thing to do to help us rise above the compulsions that we miss-believe we have no choice to overcome? Will We, the People stand up for what is right and kind? Will We, the People leave the lies and self-deceptions that have fueled our acquiescence to grifters, ‘kings’, cult leaders, etc? Will We, the People find the spiritual counselors, the spiritual teachers that speak to our souls and grow into being free? Will We, the People immerse ourselves in the Bible and learn from the imperfect heroes what to do and not to do when we are faced with the same/similar situations? Will We, the People live in concert with the Covenant God makes with each of us and all of us?

These questions are not being asked rhetorically. I ask myself these questions daily. I am subject to compulsions, to erroneous choices, to feeling trapped, and the only way out of these boxes for me is spirit. This is the reason I have had a spiritual guide since Prison in 1987, it is why I continue to be an advocate for the soul of people to this day, it is why I continue to study with people and to learn more about them and myself no matter what side of the table I am on. I know the lure of addictions, I know the feeling as if it is not a choice to use or not use-yet it is a choice because there are so many people who have chosen to put down the drink, the drug, etc. The choice to put down our need for power, for greed, for cruelty is also difficult and not impossible. The power I wielded was in service of a higher principle, even when I didn’t get there, even when I allowed my necessities to get in the way-the intention was always serving something greater than myself. I use my Free-Will to the best of my ability each day and, all in all, I can report that over 50% of the time it is for the good. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Comment

Comment

Redeemer or Enslaver- which are you, which do you support? Year 4 Day 54

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 54

“When the Voice of God spoke at Sinai, it did not begin by saying, “I am the Lord your God Who created heaven and earth.” It began by saying, “I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Judaism is not only deliverance from external slavery, but also freedom from false fears and false glories, from fashion, from intellectual will-o’-the-wisps.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 13)

Of course we have all heard the first commandment over and over again and, Rabbi Heschel is pointing out an important aspect of God. God is introducing Godself as a Redeemer, an entity that cares about the human being, that, as said earlier has “a stake in the life of every person”. I am hearing God’s humility in this first commandment unlike I have heard it before. Rather than puffing our God’s ‘chest’, God is telling us we are so important, there is so much love in God for human beings-collectively and individually, God cares about our redemption, God is invested in our being free from all the things that bind us, that imprison us-external and internal. This theme is carried on throughout the Torah and the Bible climaxing with the prophets and the ‘angry God’ bullshit is proven false because God is our redeemer, God wants to heal our backsliding, God takes us back in love, etc as the prophets tell us-it is human beings who are recalcitrant, who have fallen in love with the myriad of slaveries that other human beings convince them are really freedoms that is the problem-not God. Rabbi Heschel is pointing out to us what we already know and stay oblivious to: God wants to redeem us, God cries when we are in exile, God needs us and we need God, redemption and freedom.

We are engaged in a time when “false fears and false glories” are rampant and considered to be true. We are in a moment when “external slavery” is being called ‘safety’, ridding our country of “vermin”, getting rid of those who are “poisoning the blood of our people”. We are in a moment where science is no longer important-even though God gave our scientists the spirit, knowing, passion to physically heal people and prevent illness’. We are in a moment where privacy is not important nor are the agreements that have made America a leader of democracy. We are hearing about the “false glories” of Trump, Musk, et al while they are nothing if they don’t have the Federal Government funding their projects, if they are not cheating the ‘little guy’, etc. Tesla and Space X could not have survived without Government Funding and he is tearing down the same Government that made him because he thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Trump knows nothing about loyalty-except he demands it of people to him. Yet, being loyal to the Constitution, which he swore to uphold means nothing, loyalty to the people who have worked for him is stupid in his warped mind, upholding the covenant we made with one another in this country at the time of the Civil War, World War II, the Civil Rights movement means nothing to this liar.

The Republican party’s going along with the false fears that Trump/Musk/Vance/Vought are spreading is atrocious. It is cowardly and it is enslaving. They have become willing slaves to the ‘great leader’ who is “making America great again” only in the eyes of his true believers. These charlatans and their co-conspirators in the Religious Communities are making a mockery out of the first Commandment! They do not care about God as Redeemer, they do not care about God’s Will, they do not care about having an intimate relationship with God because Trump/Musk think they are GOD!! They are spreading lies and Clergy, Religious zealots are repeating them, giving them credence and exhorting anyone who says differently. Why should any of us care about people seeking refuge from terror, rape, slavery in their country of origin, after all, our ancestors were not seeking refuge when they came here on the Mayflower, when they landed in Jamestown, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue with a lot of Jews leaving Spain. We have a short memory span, like when the St. Louis came here in May of 1939 and was refused entry and we told Cuba not to take them as well so they could die in the Camps of Nazi Germany! This is what the “Self-Righteous” Christian Nationalists, Jews, et al support and the agenda they push and, they say it is in God’s name? What bullshit when the first commandment is about Redemption, about leaving slavery.

The issue, of course, is our inability to leave the inner slavery of “false fears and false glories”. We have become such weaklings that we have to build ourselves up with the lies and deceptions that we are “strong”, that we are “in control”, that “we are the greatest”, that “those people” are the problem, etc. We have needed someone to blame since the Garden of Eden and isn’t it sad that We, the People refuse to learn the lessons of blaming and shaming? When we refuse to be in truth, when we refuse to be responsible for our actions, good and not good, we resort to blaming someone else, we resort to feeding our inner shame demon who is always hungry. It is time for us to relate to the Ineffable One, to the Force of the Universe, to Higher Consciousness as a Redeeming energy that helps lift us up out of the external and internal slaveries we find ourselves in, be it our choice to willingly walk into the imprisonment like the Israelites in Ancient Egypt or have it imposed upon us like Putin, Orban, et al have done in their countries and DUMPTRUMP/MUSK are attempting to do here. We, the People are being called in this moment to hold our religious institutions accountable-call out our Rabbis, Priests, Ministers, Imams for their acquiescence to power instead of upholding the Prophetic Tradition of speaking Truth to Power-Abraham and Moses both spoke Truth to God and we are afraid to do the same with mere mortals? WTF!!!

I am calling out the Clergy who are silent and/or going along with the powers that be. It is disgraceful, it is a violation of the vows we take when we are ordained to go along with such rampant enslavements, such denigrations of human beings, such unwelcoming, uncaring, deceitful, whoring, coveting, stealing, and bearing false witness. Yet, I see it happening, I am powerless over what others do, I know this and I am not powerless to call it out. I am standing on my soapbox, I am calling out to We, the People: STOP BELIEVING THE LIES. Turn back to being human, to being a partner with God in redeeming our corner of the world. Return to living the Covenant made at Sinai and preserved till now. Return to wrestling with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Amendments keeping the Rule of Law sacrosanct for all. Return to a way of being that honors your soul and the souls of everyone else, to a way of being that “proclaims freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. This is my call, this is my prayer. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

"God has a stake in the life" of human beings, of every human being. Year 4 Day 53

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 53

“This is the most important thought: God has a stake in the life of man, of every man. But this idea cannot be imposed from without; it must be discovered by every man; it cannot be preached, it must be experienced.” (Insecurity of Freedom pgs.12-13)

This “most important thought” is found throughout Judaism and, I believe, all faiths in one way or another. Yet, too many people find this “thought” to be ridiculous either because they don’t believe in God or Higher Consciousness and/or if they do-why would God who is so exalted, so mighty, etc care about one person? This is the great conundrum for many of us, especially Clergy who want to be real and have to admit there is no “factual proof” of either God’s existence nor that God cares about every human being. What we have is the recording of the Biblical experience through the prophets of God’s immense concern with human beings, God’s sadness over our frailties and failures to be kind, loving, just and merciful with one another. For some of us, this is proof and it matches our experiences of the numerous random acts of kindness that ‘miraculously’ occur at the most needed of times. For others, it is bullshit, superstition, and “opiate for the masses”. Both view have some merit given the ways that religious people/leaders have, throughout the millennia, used religion as a club rather than a warm blanket, as a dogma rather than a path for each of us to explore and live into in our own unique way.

What passes for religion today, according to orthodox Jews, evangelical Christians, Christian nationalists, ‘orthodox’ Muslims, and pre-Vatican II Catholics is not the same as what Rabbi Heschel is teaching us. Their views are different between them in some ways and they all agree that their way is the Only way, God wants obedience and if one is not obedient, one is cut off from God, maybe forever, maybe not. This insane dogmatic view and way of worship is the farthest thing from what the Bible says, what Jesus says, etc. Both the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels tell the stories of people not hearing, listening to nor understanding when Moses tells us that we will whore ourselves and it will be bad because we will be so drunk with our own egotistical powers we will continue down a path of ruination until we are so low, ,we call out like our ancestors in Egypt called out and God will remember, God will deliver us because “God has a stake in the life of man, every man”.

The issue for all of us is that Rabbi Heschel is correct: “this ideal cannot be imposed from without; it must be discovered by every man; it cannot be preached, it must be experienced.” This is the rub for all of us, we have to discover God’s stake in our life and in the life of our world. I am not speaking of having one religion, nor am I speaking about following a dogma that will lead one to Nirvana. Rather, as we have been discussing, this discovery is a way station on the path to living from the inside out, it is a benefit we derive from soul to soul living and connections rather than the transactional life most people lead. Even love has become, in many cases, a transactional experience; look at the divorce rates, look at the myriad of corporate and institutional battles for control from the ‘founder syndrome’ bullshit. Gratitude lasts only as long as we are sated and then we forget it as it says in the Bible, Eat, be satisfied, bless. We humans forget to say a blessing when someone helps us, so it is easy to ignore our debt. We ignore our debt to God when we act in ways that are antithetical to the paths of the Bible, when we say in our hearts “we can do what we want, pay lip service to this bullshit, find the loopholes and drive a Mac truck through them”, which is a more common thought than most of us would like to admit to.

How do we discover and experience the truth above? We listen to the preachers who are telling us we can’t do it their way, there is no vicarious means of this precious discovery, there is no experience one can replicate to have their own experience. We can and must study the Bible, the teachers of wisdom, etc and immerse ourselves in the message, in the paths- knowing that each of us is unique and therefore we all have our own unique path of discovery and experiences. We take a journey to ‘the wild side’ the place inside each of us that we have walled off because we don’t want to hear the “still small voice” telling us what the next right action is and what wrong actions we have already engaged in. This journey to ‘the wild side’ is a spiritual cleansing exercise which allows us to clear the arteries and veins of our spiritual life in order to have real experiences of soul to soul relationships, to resign the covenant that our ancestors made and which we, upon being born, named, joined without consent and with community. This  is going to take a physician of the soul, an advocate of the soul and sometimes clergy fill this job and sometimes they don’t.

Our seminaries have to do a better job of teaching spiritual counseling and helping the future ordainees learn how to deal with the questions and needs of people seeking the meaning to their lives and not “refer them out” to a shrink! People know about therapists, they come to clergy not for their mental issues, not for their psychological issues, rather for their spiritual issues. They are seeking a path of discovery for the truth stated above: “God has a stake in the life of man, of every man.” The people we refer out have their misbelief that God doesn’t care reenforced by clergy telling them they need secular help because God can’t help them! This, of course, is the exact opposite of the prophetic literature, of the prophetic experience-but the clergy of today are so much smarter than those ‘primitives’! Is it any wonder why Musk and his MuskRats are so pro alt-right, so happy with the Nazi slogans, salutes, racism? They are spiritually bankrupt in a system that functioned for 248 years on a spiritual contract with one another, democracy is a spiritual contract, hence the need for freedom of religion, speech, the press, and all the other amendments we have made.

I have been an advocate for the soul of people for these past 34+ years. I have been an outspoken, rude, impatient advocate for another human being because I know that “God has a stake in the life of man, of every man” and when we are throwing our lives away, when we are being immoral, unethical, mendacious it drives me nuts and I act out against the lies and bullshit. I cannot stand for people engaged in transactional living calling it covenantal living and when people are believing these BIG LIES, it drives to action-not always appropriate in ‘polite society’ as my friend Rabbi Ed Feinstein says, and in keeping with my inheritance as a descendant of the prophets. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Are you aware of your Spiritual 'temperature', your intuitive mind each day? - Year 4 Day 52

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 52

“Perhaps this is the most urgent task: to save the inner man from oblivion, to remind ourselves that we are a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust. Our future depends upon our appreciation of the reality of the inner life, of the splendor of thought, of the dignity of wonder and reverence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)

Delving into the words in bold above, one can be and, frankly, should be struck on how the first phrase has been so under appreciated! Rather than deal with the issues of the inner life which, ultimately, lead to the issues of our outer lives, our religious institutions have been dealing with their own survival, their own power, their need to keep themselves in jobs, in power, etc. “Human beings are going to therapists for what they should be going to Clergy for” said my Rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man back in 1990. While there are many good reasons to see a therapist (my wife is a therapist), for the problems, the issues, “the reality of the inner life”, our clergy should be our main source of guidance and help-yet they are not! Saying more prayers, lighting more candles, doing more mitzvot will not make us appreciate “the reality of the inner life” more, in fact all of this may well cause more disturbance and distress in our inner lives and lead us farther from “appreciation” into depreciation and more into our rational minds-fulfilling Einstein’s quote about the intuitive mind and the rational mind-with the rational mind being the servant who has become our master and forgetting about the intuitive mind. This is the issue we have been facing for a long time and our current situation in this country and in the world is the result of our under “appreciation of the reality of the inner life”.

We got Trouble right here in America with a capital T and that stands for Trump-as the song goes. Yet, Trump is just the face of our troubles, they begin with our under “appreciation of the reality of the inner life” and then we become mired in the false belief that “I think, therefore I am” believing that my thoughts prove I exist rather than understanding that I exist ergo I can think. Yet, we have become so enamored with our ability to think, our ability to rationalize the worst behaviors, our ability to deny and defend, we have become drunk on serving the servant, denying truth, selling and believing bullshit and promoting conspiracy theories, lies and doing this and more under the guise of ‘religion’, under the facade of ‘christian nationalism’, ‘jewish law’, ‘shariah law’, etc. Why the religious communities are not standing up and shouting from the rooftops that these people are LIARS, they are twisting of Holy Books, foundational teachings from Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha. We should be hearing of the Rape of America, the Rape of Israel, the Rape of Hungary, the proposed Rape of Germany, etc by Vance, Musk, the “alt-right” haters and killers. Yet, our religious institutions listen to Netanyahu, to Trump and clap like trained seals-as do the Republican Party and some Israelis rather than shout and act like we have learned from history, we do believe the Biblical dictates to be human in every situation, even in war! Our rational minds allow us to make everything okay and, because the liars make so much sense, we find ourselves nodding our heads and going along to get along, not taking the time to engage in “the splendor of thought” nor the “dignity of wonder and reverence.”

Engaging in these three ways of living does not allow us to be cruel-full stop. Engaging our “inner life” so our thoughts are in line with the foundational ethics and ways that the Bible teaches us promotes physical, moral and spiritual health is crucial to a good life. We, the People are being called to account. What is the “reality of our inner life”? How are we dealing with the push/pull of our “mysterious grandeur and pompous dust”? Is our rational mind subservient to our intuitive mind? Do we live in the “dignity of wonder and reverence”? These questions and more come to us when delving into the words above and the crime against humanity is that we have not heard them before, we have not dealt with these issues in our youth, we have not had the spiritual education and counseling to wrestle with all of these ways of being! It is a religious tragedy and we keep perpetuating it. Some people think they have the answer, force Religion in the schools- have school prayers that coincide with the ‘christian nationalist’ mendacious falsification of Jesus’ words; that coincide with the Hillul HaShem (desecration of God’s Name) that the far-right Orthodoxy in Israel and the US engage in; that embolden the bastardization of Mohammed’s teachings by the ‘true believers’.

The only solution is for We, the People to find the spiritual teachers and paths that will help us deal with “the reality of the inner life”, finding ways for our intuitive mind to overcome the power of our rational one, strengthening our soul’s knowing so we can withstand the onslaught of lies and rationalizations from within us and from another(s). This is our work as human beings. We, the People have to take back our lives from the abyss of rationalizations, we have to rescue our lives from the pit of snake-oil we have been forced to drink as well as the snake-oil we have begged to drink, we have to “rebuke your neighbor and don’t put guilt upon him/her”. We, the People are being called to face our fears and, like David in the Bible- GO UP AGAINST GOLIATH. We, the People have to wrestle with our own inner life, we have to demand of our clergy their assistance and guidance of what is in our best interests, help us decode what our souls are calling out for us to do, and not allow the liars, the idolators, the ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ to prevail because they sound good.


This is going to take a new way of understanding, teaching, and learning the Bible and other Holy Texts. It means we, the Clergy, are going to get off our asses, deal with the Truth of the Bible, immerse ourselves in the texts and find the meaning and teaching for the particular individual we are with in the moment and how it applies to living in today’s world. The fallacy that the Bible is about the ‘law’ has to be buried and we stand in the texts seeking truth, justice, kindness and love in our own life. I have had the experience of people with a lot more money and fame than I ask me how I am and I say “great” and they go ballistic because they can’t understand, with all of my own tzuris(problems) how I can be great. Because I have “appreciation of the reality of the inner life”, I have learned how to tame and tamper my emotions and thoughts so I don’t allow them to control me-too often. Because my spiritual knowing leads me, most of the time, I can erupt like the prophets with just ‘knowing in my bones’ and this has led people to call me volatile and “a liability”. I accept this truth and I know that because God took me back, is healing my backsliding, today is great day. Having dignity for wonder and revering life gives me joy and makes me accountable. I pray everyone finds this way of being. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Dealing with our Human Duality - Year 4 Day 51

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 51

“Perhaps this is the most urgent task: to save the inner man from oblivion, to remind ourselves that we are a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust. Our future depends upon our appreciation of the reality of the inner life, of the splendor of thought, of the dignity of wonder and reverence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)

The second phrase in the first sentence makes one, or should make one, tremble with trembling awe. It is one of the best descriptions of the inner life and experience of human beings that I have read in a long time. Our inner life is filled with contradictions, etc because of our humanity and not dealing with the “duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust”. In fact, we are witnesses to human beings believing their “pompous dust” is their “grandeur”!! This “pompous dust” wins elections, makes compromises and collaborative processes almost impossible because the “pompous dust” of one person clashes with the wisdom of another and the egomaniac who believes she/he is the smartest person in the room usually wins. The issue with our “pompous dust” is that it deceives us into believing we are ‘the greatest’ and we can “MAGA” or anything else one wants to substitute for the first A. Our pompous dust is so insidious it can, will and does make us believe the words of a clergy person rather than their actions or the actions of Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. Our “pompous dust” is so deceptive we allow ourselves and another(s) to twist the words of the Bible, to misuse the warnings and deeds of the prophets so we, the liars, can be cruel, be powerful, and be seen as Moses’ when we/they are really Pharaohs.

Our “pompous dust” disguises itself as “mysterious grandeur” at times and, with a human being’s mendacious power, convinces ourselves and another(s) that wrong is right, theft is giving, lies are truth, facts are irrelevant, injustice is justice and cruelty is merciful! This is how sick we have been, behaved throughout the millennia and we seem to be reaching new lows/heights in this type of living right now. When the VP of the United States, a lying, asshole punk, tries to lecture Europeans about embracing far-right parties who embrace Nazi slogans and tells them how wrong they are, we see an example of “pompous dust” on full display. When Trump and Musk, as Co-Presidents, they laugh and dance at the cruelty their chaos is causing and the people they are hurting as much as anyone else, if not more, are the very people who voted them into office, “pompous dust” easily becomes the law of the land, breaking down the very imperfect democracy that the United States has been fro 248 years! When the Senators know they are endangering the country, when they know they are violating their oath and go along with the Chief “Pompous Dust”er we see the wide-ranging affects of not dealing with our inner duality. We are witnesses to the history of living under a “Pompous Dust”er, from the days of Nimrod, Pharaoh, Hammurabi, Solomon, the Greek Emperors, the Roman Caesars, through old King George and up to today in some of the Royal Kingdoms in the Middle East. Yet, we continue to elect, follow and participate in the cruelty, injustice, mendacity, theft, etc, and these people continue to violate all of the second 5 of the 10 Commandments!

All of us ‘god-fearing’ faithful who go along with these “pompous dust”ers, are also full of shit and as guilty as the ones promoting and living diametrically opposed to the principles and values our religious life is based on, the principles and values upon which our secular life is based on, the principles and values our Constitution is based on! Yet, we are celebrating the murdering of souls that figuratively and literally that is happening right now. We embrace the whores who are cutting benefits for the needy and putting the money in their pockets, ensuring that Tesla, Space X, etc never suffer any cuts. We are watching Vought steal from the other departments money, power, while putting people out of work, thereby stealing their wages from them. The bearing of false witness that is happening in the Media-FOX BULLSHIT(not NEWS), in the White House, in the Congress, etc is beyond anything we have ever seen before-if Jesus was upset about how the poor were treated ‘back in the day’, can you imagine how distressed he would be now? The prophets thought it was bad 2500+ years ago-can you, the ‘faithful’ hear them now??

It is time for all of us to begin to deal with our “duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust” in earnest. We will never become perfect, we will never defeat our urge to lean into our “pompous dust” thinking and acting, AND we can, must, allow our “mysterious grandeur” to run the show, we can, must engage with and lean into the joys, wisdom, truth of the “mysterious grandeur” of being human, of living as a partner of the Ineffable One, of being given a mission to make our corner of the world a little better than when we found it. This is what it means to be a person of faith! We, the People are being given a clear explanation of what makes us tick-both parts of our duality. We, the People have been show the path of using our “pompous dust” to support the wisdom, dreams, visions of our “mysterious grandeur” through our religious traditions, through our spiritual disciplines, and we keep falling short which is why both Jeremiah and Hosea tell us that “God takes us back in love and heals our backsliding”. It is not that we will be perfect, it is to stop engaging in our worst imperfect ways of being. Make an end to our bullshit excuses and engage in the deeds which build up our strength to do “the next right thing” more often. This is the goal, the mission of religion, not the bullshit and pap we are being fed by Pharaoh’s courtiers! Now is the time for us to stand up and respond to the question: Who is for being human and who is for being Trump’s lackey?

Reading these words today makes me tremble because I know what it is to live as “pompous dust”, I have been a subject to it and I have lived it in different times throughout my life. My recovery and faith does not protect me nor you from my forays into this part of my duality-what they do is help me realize it quicker, make my amends, learn from it and move forward. I find it sad that people who have known me hold onto the moments of “pompous dust” so fiercely while forgetting the hours, days, of “mysterious grandeur”. I pray for them and I pray for all of us to wake up and see our “mysterious grandeur”, run after it more than our “pompous dust” each day. As Rabbi Heschel says: “we need more trembling awe” in our living. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

What is the Balance in your Spiritual and Moral Bank Accounts? Year 4 Day 50

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 50

“Perhaps this is the most urgent task: to save the inner man from oblivion, to remind ourselves that we are a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous dust.Our future depends upon our appreciation of the reality of the inner life, of the splendor of thought, of the dignity of wonder and reverence.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)

Like the prophets, like the Baal Shem Tov, like Maimonidies, etc, Rabbi Heschel is a disturbing presence for me, for all of us. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha were all disturbing presences and they have all left a legacy of “good trouble” as John Lewis says. The question that is before us: are we going to squander this legacy, are we noticing that our moral, spiritual, inner life bank accounts are either at zero or overdrawn? I check my bank accounts each day to detect fraud/theft as many people do, what prevents us from checking our moral, spiritual back accounts each day?

It is impossible to “save the inner man from oblivion” without an awareness of what is in our spiritual, moral bank accounts. We inherited a lot of merit and goodness, moral and spiritual uplift from our ancestors since Biblical days-we have had some major withdrawals by them as well. As Dr. Stephen Marmer said in 1990, “we have spent the moral capital of our ancestors and not put anything back” at a conference about hiding the scourge of addiction in the Jewish Community. We keep believing if we go to Church, Temple, Mosque and pray hard, if we support the ‘right’ causes (on either side of the political spectrum), if we do the mitzvot, we will be okay, we are adding to our spiritual back accounts. The problem with this theory is that it is a fallacy. When a mitzvah doesn’t change our inner life, when we keep doing things by rote, when we are too busy defending our next wrong action, when we are unable to admit our errors, when we refuse to see our part in every situation, we are living as a human doing, not a human being. We are running our spiritual, moral bank accounts dry and, like the emperor, we can’t see how bankrupt we are. Hence we keep committing more and more  moral atrocities, more and more spiritual rape and calling it ‘the greatest thing to happen to you’, ‘this is going to be better than the French Riviera’, ‘on day 1 your cost of groceries is going to go down’, etc.

Our religious institutions, in many cases and situations, have given up on this “most urgent task” by promoting the lies of ‘christian nationalism’, by engaging in senseless hatred and treating the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan as outcasts, as enemies instead of welcoming them and caring for them. Of course every house of worship should be a sanctuary-not for criminals rather for people seeking a better life who are desperate to “breathe free”. Emma Lazarus’ poem is more than what is found on the Statue of Liberty and reflects, I believe, what we should be teaching and living in order to add to our spiritual and moral bank accounts:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This is the responsibility of every religion, every spiritual discipline to help its members, adherents to stand like “a mighty woman with a torch” to “lift my lamp beside the golden door” and not just welcome “your tired, your poor, you huddled masses yearning to breath free” we have to engage with our brothers and sisters who are seeking the life that our ancestors sought when they came to America-there are no indigenous Americans except the Native Americans and we put them on reservations, in ‘detention camps’. Is it any wonder that those ‘good christian nationalists’ want to put everyone not like them either in work camps, detention camps or exile? They believe the words on the Statue Of Liberty are antithetical to what it means for White Supremacy and they are correct. Some of our religious institutions are fighting back by filing suits, by going to court as friends of those filing suits, and we need them to do more. We need our religious institutions to be preaching the words and actions of the “New Colossus” every week, we need our clergy to let go of their fears of kissing the ring of the Anti-Christs-Trump and Musk-, bowing down to these Nazi-lovers and backers of mendacious conspiracies, and STAND UP for the spiritual and moral deeds and actions of the foundational Holy Texts of their particular faith. Clergy stop being afraid, you have taken on the mantle of the prophets, you have volunteered to be spiritual leaders and keepers of the faith- STOP STEALING FUNDS FROM THE SPIRITUAL BANK ACCOUNTS AND START DEPOSITING THE ONES YOU HAVE STOLEN AND THE NEW ONES YOU ARE CREATING.

This is how America decided to remind ourselves of the need to add to our spiritual bank accounts even as we were excluding Chinese, even as the Klan was being resurrected, even as racism, anti-semitism, and other bigotries were on the rise. Just as America and every country has to deal with its duality, so too do we humans have to deal with ours. In beginning typing classes we had to type: “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”. While it was an exercise in typing, it is also a message to all of us. All good people have to come to the aid of our country as we “save the inner life” of our country from oblivion, as we “save the inner life” of friends and foe from oblivion, and as we “save the inner life” of our own from oblivion. It is up to us, our kids, grandkids, are depending on us-will you answer this clarion call?

I have been graced with the good fortune to “save the inner life of man from oblivion” for many people and I have been graced with the blessing of having my own “inner life” saved by so many. I believe in the words of Emma Lazarus, I work hard to live them each day, I don’t see enemies and allies, I see human beings who are lost and seeking to be found and those who don’t want to be found. For the latter, I have great empathy and pathos and for the former, I reach out my hand as the Lady Liberty lifts her lamp. I know what it is like to “yearn to breathe free” and because someone resuscitated me. Gratitude, joy, and love are the gifts of growing my inner life and it don’t get better than this. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Are your needs more important than your Soul's Demands? Year 4 Day 49

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 49

“By religion is meant what is done publicly rather than that which comes about in privacy. The chief virtue is social affiliation rather than conviction. Inwardness is ignored. The spirit has become a myth. Man treats himself as if he were created in the likeness of a machine rather than in the likeness of God. The body is his god, and its needs are his prophets. Having lost his awareness of his sacred image, he became deaf to the meaning: to live in a way which is compatible with his image.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 12)

WOW!! Reading the words above, watching what Trump and his Putin Puppets are doing to the United States of America, witnessing the absolute acquiescence of religions to political hacks, seeing the ways people are ignoring what is in their best interest, ie science, climate change, decent pay, etc; could drive someone to drink! I prefer not to go there as my history with alcoholism is tragic for all concerned:) “Inwardness is ignored. The spirit has become a myth” defines today at least as much as it defined 1958 and I keep asking myself over and over again-why did no one listen to Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, the Berrigan Brothers and other clergy across the Nation, across the globe when they were telling us this?

We are so obsessed with working out, what our body looks like, how many reps can we do, do we have 6-pack abs, is her ass shapely, etc. We look at one another as if we were assessing a car, a horse, an inanimate object, we are not looking at one another with the awe and reverence, with the radical amazement and wonder of seeing God face to face! We have lost our ability to do this because our “inwardness is ignored”, our “spirit has become a myth”. When many people talk about ‘their souls’, and ‘the spirit that moves them’ they are not speaking about the soul that “God placed in me”, they are speaking in ways they can con the people they are speaking to. Mike Johnson should be called out by his religious fellowship for lying when he says “read the Bible to know what I think” as he sells America to Putin and Xi, into slavery, into conquest, into an authoritarian state. God, calls out this kind of bullshit throughout the Bible; Jesus rails about the money-changers in the Temple-meaning the people who are bastardizing what God is demanding of us; the prophets called us WHORES because the people, the priests, the palace, the wealthy were all acting like Mike Johnson is now!

Are we really this obtuse? Have you never read the Bible, our history books? Do we really believe that our “needs are the prophets” for the image we are trying to create for ourselves? How do we go to our religious institutions, say the prayers of the prayerbook/hymnal, read the Bible portions, and then act in the ways Rabbi Heschel describes above and the ways we are acting in right now?? Where is our outrage against the idolators, the charlatans, the Pharaohs, the Hitlers, the Authoritarians, the Racists, the Anti-Semites, the Anti-Religionists running our country right now? IT IS NOT HERE because our “inwardness is ignored”, our “spirit has become a myth”! We worship our bodies, our money, our career or those of the image that is ‘in charge’, forgetting that God, our Higher Consciousness is in charge, unaware that we are refusing to reach for our higher consciousness, for God, into our inner life, to hear our spirit’s message.

Because we seem constitutionally incapable of seeing our own sacred image nor the sacred image of another human being, we are deaf to the cries of human beings to the torture they are undergoing, we are blind to the cruelties that are perpetrated in our names, we are numb to the attack on our freedoms and our way of being because ‘herr trump’, ‘herr musk’ have spoken and they are ‘giving it to the libs’. The same ‘libs’ that ensured multi-generations with money for their retirement years-social security; affordable healthcare in our “golden years”-medicare; help when we are down and out-welfare; assistance for the working poor-school lunches, snap programs. These are not a panacea, they are not a utopia, they are not even run that efficiently- they are, however, following the demands of God in Leviticus: Love your neighbor as you love yourself; Proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein; when you are doing well-bring a wholeness offering and share it with the people around you. That the assholes in Washington like Trump, Musk, Johnson are looking to get paid on the backs of the poor, the needy, the stranger is disgusting, disastrous, and setting us up to be enslaved, just like the Kingdom of Israel was, the Kingdom of Judea was, just like so many kingdoms, countries have been throughout history.

STAND UP, DO SOMETHING before it is too late, it is late enough already and there is hope. We, the People are being called upon to put on a new pair of glasses and see our “sacred image” that we are created in once again. We, the People are being called to show up and stop shutting up! We, the People need to reclaim our birthright of freedom, our call to “learn war no more”, the cry of our spirit to be heard and heeded, our eyesight to see what truly is and how we can make it better. We, the People have been called to stand up for our “sacred image”, to end the lies about the spiritual nature of humanity and the spiritual energy in our world, to rejoice and celebrate the “inwardness” of each human being raising the voices of truth that they speak to the surface, heeding the wisdom of the ages they give out and celebrating the wonder, awe, love, justice and joy living our “sacred image” brings to us and to everyone around us.

I have wrestled with these issues all my life, I have seen the horrors that come from treating ourselves and one another as machines, as human doings instead of as human beings. I have been lost because my inwardness was ignored by people and then by me, I have lost the war of “the emperor has no clothes” as a youth and surrendered to ‘the dark side’ consciously and with forethought. I still recoil at these memories! I did hear the call 37 years ago, I hear it a little better now, I did have my eyes open and they are open even more now, I circumcised the foreskin of my heart back in 1986/87 and this aids me in bringing more light into me, it helps me hear the call of the Ineffable One more, it causes me great distress by making the words of the prophets ring louder and louder in my ears, it moves me to volcanic eruptions at the cruelty and stupidity that is all around us and it moves me to action when the freedoms of anyone are threatened and injustice is being handed out by the people who are the guardians of freedom and justice. I am a loudmouth who will not silence himself, I will not surrender my voice again. I pray you won’t either. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

How has "social affiliation" supplanted truth and spirit in your religious/spiritual life? Year 4 Day 48

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 48

“By religion is meant what is done publicly rather than that which comes about in privacy. The chief virtue is social affiliation rather than conviction. Inwardness is ignored. The spirit has become a myth. Man treats himself as if he were created in the likeness of a machine rather than in the likeness of God. The body is his god, and its needs are his prophets. Having lost his awareness of his sacred image, he became deaf to the meaning: to live in a way which is compatible with his image.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 12)

Listening and watching what is happening in the world because of the myriad of False Prophets all around us in this moment, whom so many people are willing to follow like human beings have followed them to their ruin over and over again throughout history, is excruciating more painful when seeing today through the lens of reflection of 1958 and Rabbi Heschel’s accurate description of what was and our knowing it still is! We are being led to the slaughter by charlatans and idolators posing as pious and religious. They go so far as to swear under oath to tell the truth and then lie through their teeth! Some go even farther by wearing the clothes of clergy, many by identifying themselves as ‘religious’ in dress, custom and ‘prayer’, while being hateful towards their fellow human beings, power-hungry, abusers of God’s Will and God’s Word!

These people pray “Holy, Holy, Holy is God” loudly and proudly in a prayer service, they will give “Praise the Lord” shouts throughout the sermons and hymns because they are so committed to their lies and their subterfuge, they need to “show off” their piety in public-because after all isn’t that all that matters? If I can convince you of my piety, you will believe in me, follow me, allow me to pick your pockets, put you into servitude, and gain more power, wealth, stature; which is all I am really after anyway-right?

Joel Osteen would not open his Church up in a disaster to the needy; Rick Warren gave 95% of the proceeds of his book to his Church to help others less fortunate-see the difference? Osteen preaches so well-he is so adored and his public persona is so refined and honed; yet privately he is selfish, he was uncaring in this instance, and would not live the public principles in his private/public life. How sad and devastating for ‘the faithful’. Rick Warren stands for and on the principles of his faith-he believes in equality, diversity, inclusion because he knows in his soul, he preaches in public that all of us are created in the Image of God, ergo his private actions match his public ones-this is a true person of faith! Donald Trump sells Bibles, his daughter is an Orthodox Jew, J.D. Vance is a Catholic, they are surrounded by “christians” and none of them follow the laws, principles, values of their respective religions-they sure enough spout the words of the ‘Pious’, they sing about ‘that old time religion’ and their actions are ones of meanness, misogyny, power-hungry, money grubbing ways, and cruelty. In fact, for these ‘good christians’, ‘devout catholics’, and ‘pious jews’ all that is important is their disguise in public while they flaunt their power, their wealth, and, most of all, outdo one another as to how cruel, mean, deceitful they can be! This is what is passing as ‘religious and god-fearing’ people like Russell Vought, Mike Johnson, etc.

“The chief virtue is a social affiliation rather than conviction” is true in our current state mostly. These idolators, these God-Hating individuals have a “conviction” it is just not a “conviction” of true faith, not a “conviction” of Biblical paths/ways. We are also aware that the “social affiliation” is based on shared greed, shared power-hunger, shared short-term goals and, as history reflects, those shared “goals” will not be strong enough for these narcissists to stay together, they will not be enough for their egos not to battle, they will find themselves at odds and then the real ‘big daddy’ (aka Putin, Orban, etc) will show up and all of us will be screwed! We have seen over and over again that “social affiliation” is not the same as nor as adhesive as conviction. This is not to say it isn’t powerful and alluring, it is to say it frays easier, comes unwound quicker than true conviction. Case in point: the Hebrew Bible is still read today,Jews/non-Jews refer to it, seek its wisdom and spirituality and adhere to the covenant that God made with humanity at the time of Noah, at Mount Sinai. We don’t follow it completely, we don’t live into it perfectly and we have never completely told God to fuck off-until now maybe.

“Social affiliation” is fickle, finite, and transactional. “Conviction” is ethical, moral, infinite and relational. “Religion” is the later not the former, no matter how often the former seems to win out in our religious institutions. We have witnessed the rich hanging together even when they know what they are doing is immoral, wrong, because they are more interested in holding onto their wealth, not being uncomfortable when seeing one another at the country club, the spa, the French Rivera, etc. God forbid the wealthy are made uncomfortable! What a ‘sin’ to make the powerful accountable! These are some of the ‘rules’ of “social affiliation” and they suck! We the People are being called upon and the demand is being put upon us to say NO to these liars. For the sake of our living well we have to “Throw the BUMS OUT” of the stadiums of power because they are violating the sacred trust we put in them, they are shredding the holy documents of our Constitution and our Bible, they are seeking to set up another “1000 year Reich” and believe White Supremacy is the only way for the country to survive! This is one of the qualifications to be hired in the government today, this is the belief of Elon Musk when he seeks only Afrikaners to allowed into the country! Stand Up, Stand Tall, Live Your Convictions!

The way of faith for me, the spiritual truth and life as I understand it and live it is to live with integrity. Maimonidies teaches: “what is on your heart should be on your lips”, there is a prayer at the end of the Amidah prayer which says: God, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile”, every time one of the characters of the Bible experiences heartache and hardship it is because of their incongruity, because of their lack of integrity-look at the ways of Jacob. I am a flawed human being, I wrestle each day to live one grain of sand better than the day before, I am not interested in “social affiliation”, nor in the public persona of people- I am concerned, invested in, and engaged with the “convictions” I have and living them in my daily affairs. I am excited to wake up each day because it means I can be of service a little more, I can love a little more, I can be me a little more this day. STANDING UP to the lies of religious institutions, STANDING TALL against the immoral actions by the “social affiliations” is my jam. I do LIVE MY CONVICTIONS each day. I pray you do too. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

Are you succumbing to "activities" rather than commitment? Year 4 Day 47

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 47

“The central commandment is in relation to the person. But religion today has lost sight of the person. Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment. It has fallen victim to the belief that the real is only that which is capable of being registered by fact-finding surveys.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)

I do not know which “fact-finding surveys” were being done in the late 1950’s or how many/how often. I do know they have become fast and furious in our times and everyone seems to believe whichever “survey” suits their needs. Religious institutions use negative “fact-finding surveys” to raise money and alarm bells that dogma is more important to “bring people back into the fold”, they use them to enshrine the “institutional loyalty” of the ‘faithful’. They use them to see what “activities” people want to engage in so they keep paying their dues, keep tithing, etc. They are being used as proof that being stricter in our observances, screaming about the “liberal attitude” of caring for the poor, the stranger, etc, preserving freedom for all the inhabitants is not what is in the Bible, is not what Jesus said and did! In other words, just as politicians use polls for their benefit and “spin” them as they want, so too do religious institutions!

When someone becomes a member of their particular faith, joining the covenant with others and with God, it puts an obligation upon us, not an entitlement. Yet, so many religious institutions strut around like peacocks, proclaiming that “God loves me most”, “I have turned my life over to Jesus”, “It says it in the Bible so I do it”, and other such bullshit. These same religious institutions promote lies and deceptions, they care little for their congregants, their parishioners, they only care about staying afloat and having power, being close to power and they have lost the sense of the person, they have become shells of what their founding principles are, bastardizing their inheritance from the messengers sent by the Ineffable One, and believing they will escape any consequences. I see a parallel with King David, once he had Uriah killed, he changed and his life became harder, more complicated and he lost the connection with God that had propelled him to greatness. The same seems to be true of our religious institutions- what propelled them to a higher spiritual level has been shit-canned and replaced with ‘how do I stay in favor with the powers that be’. So sad, terrifying, and disgusting.

“Religion” is a deeply personal affair, the commandments are given mostly in the singular, the stories are about people (real, perceived) just like us. None of the heroes of the Hebrew Bible were the top of the heap (Moses was thrown out of the palace and fled for his life, remember). God “speaks” to and through individuals, sometimes to the masses like at Mt. Sinai, so we can have a “personal relationship” with God, Higher Consciousness, whatever the power greater than yourself is. When speaking of “institutional loyalty”, the Bible’s only request for loyalty is to the Covenant-“if you listen to my voice and guard my covenant”(Exodus 19:5) not to an institution nor a person, just the covenant. In Judaism a boy is ushered into the covenant with circumcision, a girl with a naming ceremony. The rest of our lives we are to stay loyal to the covenant, stay loyal to the principles-whether we carry them out or not. Loyalty doesn’t mean perfect adherence, it means we never stray from the goals of: Proclaim liberty…, Love your neighbor…, welcoming the stranger, caring for the needy, etc. Loyalty is not to a person or a place, not to a country or religion, it is to the Covenant God made with us when we were in need and lost; like after the flood, after our exodus from Egypt-that narrow place of slavery-, for some of us it is when we have a spiritual awakening and realize the emptiness inside that “institutional loyalty” never filled. At these moments, we know that only through a personal attachment, a personal commitment to the covenant we make with God, through a return to hearing the call, listening for the still, small voice, and understanding our importance, our worth, our being a divine need will we be able to go to sleep each night knowing we did our best and our best is always good enough!

The only “fact-finding survey” that is important, I believe as I hear Rabbi Heschel’s words roll around in my head and pierce my soul’s the one We, the People initiate and fill out which asks us how we are fulfilling our covenant with truth, our covenant with justice, our covenant with mercy, our covenant with being obligated to do the next right thing, our covenant to “do T’Shuvah one day before we die, since we don’t know the day of our death, do T’Shuvah each day”(Talmud, Shabbat 153a), our covenant to be loyal to our inheritance from Abraham and Sarah, from the Prophets, etc. The issue is most of us do not fill out this survey! We are too lazy, we don’t see the point in “religion”, we may go out of an obligation a few times a year and we are not ‘into it’. This is the result of “religious institutions” being stale, being “impersonal”, not allowing for the “stillness of commitment”, instead trying to entice people to join and participate in “activities” that belie the foundational principles of the Covenant they proclaim to be attached to. This is true for fundamentalists and progressives, they still do what they want to, they wrap themselves in the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran in ways that are anathema to the words, the deeds, the lessons of these Holy Texts. Their bastardization of the texts has led us to where we are in Israel, in America, in Arab countries that say Sharia Law is the law of the land, into a quagmire, into quicksand where God, freedom, justice, truth are slowly and maybe not so slowly are sinking into the quicksand and mendacity, deception, worship of a person is taking the place of these “religions” that say-worship no man-only God. We, the People have to stop with our “fact-finding surveys” and listen to the still, small voice of commitment and take action to once again be loyal to the principles, not the person.

I am enraged and devastated, sad and mad, crying for what is being lost, wailing for the Desecration of God’s Name that our “religious institutions” are perpetrating upon all of us. I am calling us all to join with God, to read and study the Bible with another(s) so we can discuss the myriad of meanings and actions we can take so the paths of justice, peace, mercy, truth, love, kindness prevail over the bullshit being promoted by so many clergy, “religious institutions”. Even the ones who are not promoting the lies and are not Screaming at the Top of their Lungs, are doing what Martin Niemoller did when the Nazis came to power. I hear Rabbi Heschel in my soul, I am bombarded by the prophets, by the Bible each hour of every day and I can’t “stand idly by” so I get into trouble with people, and I believe it is “good trouble, necessary trouble” so I take the blows and do it the “prophets way”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Comment

Comment

How have you "lost sight" of the person you are meant to be, want to be? Year 4 Day 46

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 46

“The central commandment is in relation to the person. But religion today has lost sight of the person. Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment. It has fallen victim to the belief that the real is only that which is capable of being registered by fact-finding surveys.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 12)

WOW, what an indictment of religion in 1958 to a group of fellow clergy people and non-clergy people. Imagine the commitment, the power of passion and truth that drives a person to stand for what she/he believes in to the point of being more afraid of staying silent, more afraid of doing nothing than the fear of reprisals? This is the commitment of the prophets, of the myriad of descendants of the prophets (in all faiths) throughout history, and what we have today. This is our dilemma and our challenge: Hear the words of the prophets and their descendants throughout history from the Bible, from their writings, from the mouths of their descendants today and ACT UPON THEM!!

Of course, if one is waiting for a guy(the prophets of old were all men) or a gal to show up in long flowing robe with a beard or flowers in her hair like a halo-we will wait for a long time. If one is waiting for a sign to act upon the words, the deeds, the leadership of the prophets and their descendants-it is here already and has always been. “The central commandment is in relation to the person” is a clarion call to all of us to “love your neighbor as yourself”. This is, according to Rabbi Akiba, the most important principle of the Bible and everything else flows from this foundational idea/commandment. One way of understanding this is that we have to love our self, love our divine image, love the person we know we can be and strive to live into our uniqueness and the divine need we are. This is necessary because without self-love(not narcissistic love), we can’t love another human being-hence divorces, family estrangements, break-up of friendships, wars, not feeding the hungry, not caring for the needy, unwelcoming the stranger, etc.

Another way of understanding this foundational idea is to see in our neighbor the reflection of our soul, to see the infinite worth and dignity of our self and their self, to welcome their diversity, their equal worth, their uniqueness and, when making decisions, include their opinions, thoughts, needs, into our equations, into our responses to the challenges of life.

The human being is one of the two central entities in the Bible, the other being God. The entire Bible is about the evolving relationship between God and humanity, with both growing in knowledge of the will and need of the other. This evolution, at times, seems harsh both when God seems to be ‘punishing the human’ and when the human commits adultery against God. Yet, through it all, the relationship of God and human continues, the human being is important to God, God is important to the human and there are bumps in the road of this loving, covenantal relationship. “Religion has lost sight of the person” is probably the worst indictment against religion possible. The fact that Rabbi Heschel saw this some 67 years ago and we have only gotten worse is criminal. While many Rabbis and Priests, Ministers and Imams speak to people, counsel them at times, teach classes with morals and different viewpoints of what the Bible, New Testament, Koran is saying- the number of clergy that have “lost sight of the person” is evident in the ways they tell their congregants whom to vote for, in the ways they support cruel and inhumane actions against ‘those’ people(anyone not like us), in the ways they bastardize the words of our ancient texts, Moses, Mohamed, Jesus, etc. Other times we see the evidence of this truth in the ways our clergy kiss up and shit down-the wealthy donors are catered to and the poor are treated as a vehicle to ‘get to heaven’, ‘to check off a mitzvah on the list’ rather than to see both are in need of spiritual counseling, spiritual growth and are, like the messiah, just waiting for a word and deed of kindness and caring so they can blossom and emerge. In Jewish tradition, Elijah, the prophet, is always amongst the poor and the leper, the sick and the homeless never living in a castle or palatial home-so why are we so enamored with listening to the rich and famous rather than the ‘prophets in the streets’?

We, the People are being challenged by these words above to change our ways, to demand more from our religious leaders, to call them out on their bullshit and to castigate them for cozying up to power and ‘anointing’ Trump, Bibi, Orban, Putin as “messengers from Christ, from God in Bibi’s case”. We, the People have to stop buying the bullshit and lies of the “religious zealots” who have bastardized, trampled upon and desecrated the Name of God, a Hillul HaShem in Hebrew, with their mendacity, their twisting of Truth, Justice, Mercy, of their walking in their own path rather than God’s and creating an army of liars, deceivers, bastardizers ready to stone, kill, imprison those descendants of the prophets who rail on and on about Truth, Justice, Mercy. We, the People are being called upon in this hour, in this time to STAND FOR freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein. This verse doesn’t say a different law for strangers, it doesn’t say those who were not born in the land don’t deserve freedom nor should they get it, it doesn’t say a freed slave isn’t entitled to the same laws, respect, opportunities as a ‘citizen’. No matter what the “religious establishment” says, We the People have to reject these conventional notions and live in “wonder, radical amazement” that we get to stand with and for “the person”. We are needed today, so LETS GET GOING!!

I find these words to be so true, when I was young my shul was a place of coldness and warmth. The senior Rabbi was kind and patient, the Cantor was a perfectionist who let me be part of the Cantor’s Club even though I could not sing, the second Rabbi was colder to me. When my father died, the shul responded, the old men of the minyan took me in, I felt home. And, I did feel like I had to live a double life, not being able to speak to anyone about what was going on inside of me because I wasn’t sure they would understand nor care. My bad, their bad, probably both-yet the person was not as stressed as the rules which is still true today-be it the rules of the Bible, the rules of the institution, the rules of the Rabbi. We have not truly returned to teaching the “central commandment is in relation to the person” because we have not returned to loving ourselves and seeing our neighbor’s soul reflected in us and ours in them. This is what I have done for these past 37 years and what I continue to do today-keep the individual central to my actions, to my teachings, to my counseling. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment

Comment

What "neutral acts, needs" do you seek to fulfill each day? Year 4 Day 45

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 45

“What is at stake in the life of man is not the fact of sin, of the wrong and corrupt, but the neutral acts, the needs. Our possessions pose no less a problem than our passions. Our task, therefore, is not how to deal with the evil, but how to deal with the neutral, how to deal with needs.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.12)

This paper was given at a seminar sponsored by the Fund for the Republic, part of the Ford Foundation. It was an ecumenical seminar and it seems the purpose was to find ways for “all of us to get along”, with a shared sense of faith and secularism, not trying to make the Government over into a specific ‘religious’ image, rather helping the secularism of government live up to the foundational freedoms, morals, truth, justice, mercy of all faiths.

Given this setting, given our current circumstances, we can experience the rumbling in our guts, the despair/anger rising up from our bellies, the pain and sorrow of our souls upon reflecting that 67 years ago Rabbi Heschel and others spoke to us of the dangers of neglecting “the neutral acts, the needs”. Neglecting meaning not paying attention to them, not keeping them in their proper places and controlling our appetites, rather than ‘I feel like I can’t live without___, get it for me/I will get it at any cost’ neglecting of needs. I do not believe he is also not speaking of authentic needs, as we covered earlier, I believe when discussing “the neutral acts, the needs” he is speaking of our coveting things we don’t truly “need”, taking actions that we convince ourselves (deceive ourselves/lie to ourselves) are “neutral”, they don’t hurt or help anyone. In all my reading, studying of Rabbi Heschel, of Jewish Texts, I have yet to find a “neutral act”! Everything we do has a consequence, good and not good, whether it is affecting another human being, the environment, God, the spiritual realm, our own bodies, souls. There is never an act that is “neutral”, just like there is no action that is ‘amoral’; people can be ‘amoral’-meaning “unprincipled, unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something”, however, I do not believe that our actions can be “neutral” nor amoral.

“What is at stake in the life of man” meaning: what is the risk, what is to be won or lost, in the way we live, in what meaning our lives have, what we do with our lives is all about the “neutral acts, the needs” precisely because as we learn in Numbers and throughout the Bible, humans put their “needs” before God, before what is right and good, before anything else and their “needs” come from scouting out after our hearts and eyes and we will whore after them, it is so important to realize this that we say this 3 times a day when we recite the Shema! It is so important for us to realize the error of seeking after our “needs” uber alles, that the Bible is ripe with the stories of the ‘good guys/gals’ who rise above their instincts to serve their own “needs” often and still succumb to the power of “needs” and, in their minds and the minds of the Rabbis of old, decide they are not ‘bad’, rather they are “neutral”-which is just a bunch of hogwash to overcome the guilt of doing the next wrong thing in service of “needs” instead of doing the next right thing in service of self, another, and the Universal Spirit.

I am still in awe that the Fund for the Republic put this seminar on at a time when everything was supposed to be ‘so good’. Ike was in the White House, baby boomers were doing well after WWII, religious institutions were seemingly flourishing, etc and Rabbi Heschel comes along, looks at the underbelly of what is happening in our country, in the world and uses his powers of insight, his experience of Nazi Germany and Poland, his inheritance as a descendant of the prophets to remind us “we got trouble” right here in America and it begins with a Capital N for “neutral acts, needs”.

“We Got Trouble” alright-not the kind from the Music Man about pool halls, “We Got Trouble” with our democracy precisely because we have spent these past 67 years worrying about inauthentic “needs”, we have spent these years not paying attention to “the neutral” and extolling the extremes on either end of the continuum. The result is Donald Trump, Project 2025, Elon Musk and “big balls” and his friends! We are witnessing the demolition of both religion and a free society while the ASSHOLE SENATORS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY just are BOBBLEHEADS for lawlessness, mendacity, anti-religious actions, and fulfilling the “Needs” of the Donald.

We, the People have to call a halt to labels like progressive, conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc. None of those labels mean what they used to, they are being bastardized and used to separate us rather than identify our leanings so we could have a discussion with those with whom we disagree and/or agree. Also, they were labels that belied the sense of freedom and faith where we could be liberal about one thing and conservative about another. We, the People have to say NO to the fulfilling of the selfish inauthentic needs of Trump, Musk, ‘Christian’ Nationalists, and the rest of the religious zealots, the rest of the power-hungry anarchists like Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, etc. We, the People are being called to account and being asked what are we staking our life on? What are we doing about the “neutral”, to “our passions” is what will determine our democracy surviving this current onslaught or losing to autocracy. We, the People are being called on today, as we were 67 years ago, 3500 years ago, 2000 years ago, to take a stand for what is good and right rather than standing for what we  have and don’t have. We, the People can no longer hide behind ‘I didn’t realize’ bullshit because the problem of “what is at stake in the life of man” has been written about and spoken about for over 3500 years when the Bible was begun and even before that when God spoke to Cain in the Garden of Eden! Isn’t it time for us to heed the words to Cain: “Sin couches at your door, it desires you much AND you can master it”?

I have been wrestling with “needs” forever. I do not believe there are “neutral acts”, I know that everything I do impacts someone, even if that someone is ‘only me’. I know that the ‘only me’ line is bullshit because whatever I do to myself leaks out and impacts another-be it good or not good. When I take care of me, I care for another better, when I am alert to what is going on in my inner life, I am more aware of the inner life of another, especially those around me. My trajectory was from learning about and taking moral actions to becoming immoral to regaining my morality, my ethics, my authentic self. I know what is important, I know what I do for my “needs” (like buy lottery tickets so I can win and donate more-for the good of people and my own ego). This awareness helps me stay away from “the neutral”, the false “needs” more often and not completely. I am a work in progress and I love to learn. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Comment