What is the current condition of your "attachment to the spirit"? Year 4 Day 92

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 92

“Freedom is a gift which may be taken away from us. It is not an absolute but a relative possession, an opportunity. We are free only when living in attachment to the spirit(Avot 6:2). The blessings and opportunities of living in a free society must not make us blind to those aspects of our society which threaten our freedom: the tyranny of needs, the vulgarization of the spirit are a particular challenge.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 18)

In this moment, when so many people are experiencing life in such challenging ways, ways we thought we have conquered and moved past, the opening sentence is a validation of their experience. For some people, who take “freedom” for granted, it is a cold bowl of water thrown in their faces, for some other people, who are so enamored with ‘der fuhrer’ and his band of thugs, liars, grifters, they remain oblivious to the truthfulness of the first sentence and argue to the death for their ‘fearless’ leader.

This has been true forever, not just now. What we are going through in this moment is reflected throughout history and it always is difficult, it is always cruel and it is always rebelled against, eventually. The great businessman and his Commerce Secretary, the great leader of Cantor Fitzgerald have overseen an approximate 9% drop in the Stock Market, ‘der fuhrer’ and his henchmen, Miller and Homan, are sending American Citizens to prisons in El Salvador, people here illegally to prisons in El Salvador totally against the Constitution and our democratic values. Putin’s useful idiot and Hegseth, Waltz, Gabbard are doing everything they can to undermine our alliances and ‘bend the knee, kiss the ring and the ass of daddy Vladimir, in order to make us less free and, hopefully, awaken all of us to the reality of the first two sentences above. What so many of us have taken for granted, because we were born here, because we came here with the promise of America that this is truly the “land of the free”, that the words on the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell are deeply rooted values in the American way of living; only to run into the buzzsaw of Project 2025, which has its roots in the KKK, the Bund, the Family, Gingrich, the Tea Party and MAGA. Because We the People took for granted the “gift” of freedom, we are, once again, on the brink of losing it.

People of faith, ‘good christians, jews, muslims’ who voted and still support this autocracy are the worst Desecrators of God’s Name alive today! They join with the people of Judea who, as the Rabbis tell it, because of their senseless hatred of one another caused the destruction of the 2nd Temple and an exile which lasted 1878 years! Lets stop calling ourselves and another(s) ‘good’ anything when it comes to faith traditions and the support of autocrats, dictators, lovers of cruelty because this goes against the overwhelming percentage of the Bible which speaks of love, caring, kindness, truth, righteousness, justice, and Tshuvah. It is time for We the People to hold our clergy, our religious leadership to responsible to live the ethics, the teachings of the foundational texts of every faith tradition which embodies the principles I just named. It is time for these charlatans, these grifters to leave their pulpits, their ‘hallowed halls’ of leadership of Church councils, Boards of Directors and go out to “the gates of the city” and meet the people they are called to serve, to meet Elijah the prophet and welcome, care for him/them, and bring about the messianic era. Maybe, you Holy Frauds, the Messiah is here, has been here and left because your actions, your hatred, your selfishness, your taking the “gift” of “freedom” and throwing it in the garbage heap told them ‘they’ are not ready to meet me, nor greet me! Take that you who want the rapture so badly, take that, you Jews who change “we want Moshiach now”.

The third sentence above tells us of the tragedy of this moment and so many of the moments up until now-we have lost our “attachment to the spirit” of the Ineffable One, to the “spirit” of our intuition, to the “spirit” of our higher consciousness. For some, they never got attached to it believing their minds could solve everything and their eyes could see everything. You can spot someone who has lost/never gained their own “attachment to the spirit” by the dullness in their eyes, by their need to prove how smart they are, how right they are, by their intransigence to any opinion, fact, truth other than the ones that fit their philosophy and beliefs. I call them the ‘walking dead’, they are suffering from the spiritual malady of disconnection and discontent. As Johann Hari says: “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection” and one cannot have connection with another until one experiences and lives “attachment to the spirit” of themselves. These are the challenges facing We the People right now and always: 1) treating freedom as a “gift” that than an entitlement; 2) knowing we have to grow it, nurture it and protect it from the autocrat, the fascists who quote Goebbels in Houses of Government; 3) gain and hold on to our “attachment to the spirit” of ourselves, our community, our knowing what is good and what is evil.

When a Congressman from Texas quotes Goebbels in our Congress, we know he has sacrificed the “gift” of freedom and wants us to do the same. I am so entrenched in the wisdom of my faith and what I see happening to the dream my grandparents came here to participate in abhorrent. I am also devastated by how many people who claim to be “good jews”, those who say ‘all that is important is the mitzvah’ and are supporting those who want to take away the “gift” of freedom. I am fighting against this because I know the horrors of losing the “attachment to the spirit” of oneself and the trashing of one’s family’s name and the family itself that happens. I am acutely aware of the reverberating damage done by parents who are do not display “attachment to the spirit” for their children and how much this harms the kids self-confidence and spiritual health. I am guilty of these actions in my past, I am so passionate about honoring the “gift” of freedom that we enjoy, reaching out and helping another human being who is suffering, seeing the divine image in every human being and, plowing through the schmutz that covers it up to help them find “attachment to their spirit” and live well. We are living in an addicted society, a society that has been and is addicted to power, addicted to jettisoning the very principles of the faith they claim to hold so dear, addicted to cruelty which is the worst of addictions possible. Hillel the Elder said:”what is hateful to you do not do to another human being” and the people who claim that MAGA is truth, MAGA is right and ‘der fuhrer’ is the hero are so unattached they live in deception and mendacity-a perilous path for all of us! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Do you take your freedom for granted or do you nurture and grow it each day? Year 4 Day 91

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 91

“It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal. It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg.18)

We are 9 days from the beginning of Passover and 17 days from Easter, both celebrations of liberation leading to freedom. We have been on this journey towards freedom for over 2 millennia and still, we, humans, take what freedom we have for granted! In today’s America, many people are walking around bewildered at the speed with which the freedom to be who one is has been decreed not allowed in some cases because of an executive order. Many people are in a stupor over the capitulation of the Republican Party to give up their assigned duties and responsibilities from our very Constitution to a wanna be dictator/king. Still others are in abject fear over their choice to elect this administration and watch as ‘their guys’ ruin their nest egg of Social Security or at least threaten to; cut their health insurance, Medicaid; increase the cost of goods for everyday items, tariffs; and watch their quality of living decrease and their voices mean nothing to the people they elected. As we enter this “season of liberation”, it is important for We the People to realize how much we have taken “human freedom for granted” and the quicksand we are finding ourselves in because of this. The danger is being realized, once again, on the human stage and our unwillingness to learn the lessons of history, to see the reflections of Germany in our own time, is criminal; we are all responsible and we are all guilty, we are all criminals for contributing to the downward spiral of “freedom” we find ourselves in this moment.

I am thinking about Rabbi Heschel saying these words in 1958, 13 years after the end of the War, the prescience, the vision, the prophetic voice he had and I am both angry and sad, in awe and in humiliation, at his ability to tell us what is and what will be and our ability to ignore it and, as we are experiencing in this moment, suffer because of our ignorance. “Ignorance is bliss” is a bullshit phrase for human beings who don’t want to join in the “obligation” to be free. It is not a right granted by some king, oligarch, autocrat, it is a gift from the Ineffable One that has to be nurtured and grown, guarded and lived, appreciated and deepened. “Freedom” is fragile and humanity’s treating it like a ragamuffin doll has proved over and over again to lead to fascism, communism, autocracy, oligarchy, etc. At each juncture, at each takeover, the people walk around bewildered that this has happened so they buy into the bullshit of ‘der fuhrer’ that they are ‘truly free’ now that someone is telling them what to do and when. We the People need to WAKE UP! The roses we are smelling stink and we think they are fragrant because we have deceived ourselves so much, we have put on so much mental make-up in order to live our enslaved lives and think we are free. It is time to change, as Hillel the Elder says: “if not now, when?”

This change has to come about as another revolution that starts within each person and then spreads to a group and another and another. It is a revolution that is inherent in the story of Passover, in the ways of Christ, it is an “inside job”. The second of the 5 promises God makes to the Israelite people and the other slaves that come with them is that our inner slave will vanish and be replaced by an inner servant, the rational mind that Einstein talks about. We the People have to transform the slave within us, our self-deception into a servant and a truth teller and seeker. Rather than “go along to get along”, we are being called this Passover and Easter, as we are each and every one of these two celebrations, to move towards freedom instead of towards more self-deception and more enslavement.

Rabbi Heschel, after being a witness to what was happening in Germany in the 1930’s, having so much of his family perish in the Shoah, knowing he was saved by a miracle, devoted his life to seeing “freedom” as “an obligation” and he never felt entitled to it, always grateful for it. Yet so many of us forget the journey of our ancestors to this land so we could be free and rather than accept the yoke of freedom, we want to “do what we want” and bastardize the Constitution, take care of the fringes and not care about the center, the foundations of freedom and of the people of this country. Be it only looking out for the marginalized and not care about the rest of the poor, or only caring about the rich and fuck everyone else- our government has lost its way and its raison d’être, to be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”! We the People have to demand our elected officials serve us, not Trump, Musk, the rich, the lobbyists. We the People have to march for our freedom, let them know that We the People want them to see their jobs as obligations and not entitlements, to do their work as trusted servants of We the People not Trump, Musk, Vance, Vought, et al.

To do this  We the People have to begin to get rid of the Chometz in our beings. The puffed-up places in our egos, in our bodies, in our minds that prevent us from seeing and hearing truth, that lie to us about what being free truly is, that blind us to the pitfalls and dangers of taking anything for granted much less our freedom! Only then can We the People be in “amazed at the fact that we are free”. Only then will We the People live in the promises of Exodus 6:6-9. We the People can achieve the “goal” of freedom if and only if, we are willing to let go of our bullshit, transform our slaves into servants, join with others in being truthful and honest about our needs and desires, come together as human beings with respect and awe for one another as well as care, love and kindness to journey together-hence don’t celebrate Easter or Passover alone.

Living into the words above, I want to scream and hide at the same time when I see how I bastardized freedom for over 20 years and was a slave to my fears, my evil inclination and the deception of others. I am so grateful and humbled by the grace of God that I was awakened from the nightmare that I was living and forcing others to live with me. I have dedicated myself to living free each and every day-learning that I was freer in prison than I had been ‘on the streets’ was a shock that I have never forgotten. This Passover, I will find some enslavement I have to leave and I will ask for help from my Seder mates. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How does "suspect your neighbor" enhance your living? Year 4 Day 90

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 90

“Our age may be characterized as the age of suspicion. It has become an axiom that the shortest way to the understanding of man is to suspect his motives. This seems to be the contemporary version of the Golden Rule: Suspect thy neighbor as thyself. Suspicion breeds suspicion. It creates a chain-reaction. Honesty is not necessarily an anachronism.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 17)

As I delve into this talk titled “Religion in a Free Society”, I keep shaking my head and thinking what would Rabbi Heschel be saying about the country, the world today? If the late 1950’s were “characterized as the age of suspicion”, what would he call today’s age?

We are in the throes of a chaotic moment and how long this moment lasts depends upon We the People. Senator Cory Booker took to the floor of the Senate and filibustered for over 25 hours calling for We the People to continue to take action against the senseless hatred, the cruelty, the canopy of suspicion erected by the Trump administration, by the MAGA Republicans in Congress and the grifters, liars, deceivers who are on-board with them in order to line their own pockets. His words were eloquent at times, down to earth always, and he promoted love, harmony, even in our disagreements with one another. He is a man of deep faith, deep belief in democracy, and he poked Strom Thurmond in the eye, along with the current bigots and racists in our government and country today by breaking the record for the longest speech in the Senate set by Thurmond who spoke for hated, for bigotry, against Black people. In the chaos being perpetrated by the Trump/Musk/Vance/Vought government, one man stood up to say NO to the chaos and cruelty, even though no legislation changed yesterday, I believe the “power of the people” was enhanced, was given a shot in the arm and is on the move. Just maybe, We the People will rise up and walk a few more steps higher on the mountaintop that Rev. King went to the top of before his death. Just maybe, We the People will help to realize Rev King’s dream of judging on the content of character. Just maybe, We the People will “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” and hear this proclamation from our neighbors, our friends as well. Just maybe, We the People will allow the Ineffable One to “heal our backsliding and take us back in love” so we can do the same for another(s).

Suspecting people comes from our inner immaturity, from a soul that has not grown into itself, that has been stunted, imprisoned. “It is not good for a human to be alone” it says in the 2nd Chapter of Genesis, so a “helpmeet” is ‘created’. For all of the misogynists in the different religions, maybe read the Bible and see how much women matter, how much they are needed to “help us when we are doing right and grind against us when we are on the wrong side of good”, according to the Biblical commentator Rashi. We the People need one another desperately, not as slaves, not as dupes to do our bidding, rather as helpers to keep the flame of freedom burning, as helpers to pick up the slack for our own inadequacies, as partners in making our corner of the world a little better for our being here. Yet, when we begin from “suspicion”, we can never see nor appreciate the worth of friendship, every interaction is either with an ally or an enemy, every good deed is suspected of being a con and every evil one just affirms our belief that everyone is out for themselves and out to ‘get me’. What a terrible way to live, what a horrible crime against our own souls, our own inner lives as well as what we do to another human being from the foundation of suspecting everyone! “Suspicion” will never give us an understanding of another human being nor of ourselves, it will only keep us in the dark, in the throes of chaos and in the actions of cruelty, because all of these ways make sense when we see the world through the eyes of “suspicion”-just ask Trump/Musk/Vance/Vought et al.

We the People must take back the “Golden Rule”. We must restore our selves, our communities, our nation to our foundational underpinnings: love, trust, kindness, welcoming the stranger, caring for the needy and the poor, connection and compassion. We the People need to build on what Senator Cory Booker did yesterday and stand up for freedom. We the People are being called to our higher selves, being called to live into our heritage, our inheritance from the prophets and the call of our higher consciousness, the call of God. We the People have to bring “honesty” and truth back into our conversations. We the People have to jettison the lies and the subterfuge being spewed by the grifters and deceivers in charge of things right now. We the People are being called to stand up for “honesty”, to deny that it is a way of being that is no longer in vogue or needed, to say NO to the idea that crime pays more than virtue, to stand against the “chain reaction” of “suspicion breeds suspicion”. We the People must demand an end to the cruelty, an end to the lies and the grifts of our time. We the People must make a commitment to keep our eyes open and our senses aware for the first sign of suspicion within us and determine if it is true or if it is another conventional notion we have to become maladjusted to. Our times, every era demands that We the People rise up, see what is over the mountaintop, live in radical amazement, see the humanity in everyone, embrace the frailties of self and another(s), be in awe of the goodness we do for one another and that is done to, for us.

I lived a suspicious life, I wanted desperately to trust people and my trust was broken upon my father’s death. I was alone and bereft. I imprisoned my soul because I was not seen for who I was and, instead, told what was expected of me. I carried this need to trust and not trusting war within for a long time and it led me to, of course, trust the wrong people and not trust the ‘right’ people. Reading these words from Rabbi Heschel brings this period of time back to me with great sorrow and pain. In my recovery, I have learned how to not “suspect my neighbor” until my neighbor gives me reason to, I have used my skills to hear the ping and the lead in the words and actions of another person. I want to trust people and I do until they give me reason not to and even when they do, I am always willing to accept an amends and reconnect. I do TShuvah with people I have broken trust with and am always surprised when they want to stay in suspicion of me rather than reconnect. It is painful because I know their suspicion of me is the outward manifestation of their suspicion of themselves, just as mine is. “Let Freedom Ring” not only throughout the land, let it ring throughout our entire bodies, throughout our inner life, this is the call of the words above to me, today. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

"Proclaim Freedom throughout the Land and to ALL it's inhabitants therein" - Year 4 Day 89

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 89

“The glory of a free society lies not only in the consciousness of my right to be free, and my capacity to be free, but also in the realization of my fellow man’s right to be free, and his capacity to be free. The issue we face is how to save man’s belief in his capacity to be free.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 17)

Reading these words, I am stunned at how piss poor a job we Americans have done in saving “man’s belief in his capacity to be free”. Today’s situation is a logical conclusion of the myriad of ways we have bastardized the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bible, the New Testament, ad nauseam. In making America the country we are created to be, We the People have to first live into the words above.

There is a difference, however, between our “consciousness of my right to be free and my capacity to be free”. While everyone has a knowing that being enslaved is wrong, that being ‘trapped’ is a crime against humanity, the knowing, the consciousness of our “capacity” to be free often is missing, hence we are doubly trapped and enslaved. “Capacity” comes from the Latin meaning “to take hold”, one of the English definitions is “the ability to experience, do something”. Not everyone has this ability to “take hold” of their “capacity to be free” and actualize it, use it for the benefit of another, and never relinquish it to the sociopath, autocrat, et al who want to deny our “right to be free”. This is borne out in the ways people walk in lockstep with ‘der fuhrer’, of their particular movement, political party, faith, etc.

As we prepare for Easter and Passover, as we mark the end of Ramadan, these words are so appropriate to dwell in, to live into and to commit, once again, to the idea of freedom, to accepting “my right” and “my capacity” to be free! Of course, this puts the ‘burden’ of obligation upon us, we have to nurture our “consciousness” to be on guard against the alien thoughts and ideas, the spin, twisting of words and notions that enter into our minds without notice and our introduced to us by outside forces as well. MAGA is a case in point-America has always been ‘great’ because of our insistence on the freedoms found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as all the Amendments since. We do not need to ‘make America great again’ in the ways of Trump, Musk, Bannon, et al-we need to make America live up to its promise, its goals, its charter as laid out in the Declaration of Independence. This cannot happen unless and until We the People accept, nurture and grow our “consciousness” and our “capacity to be free”.

We have to begin with ourselves in this process AND we cannot end with ourselves-this is how we are in the terrible situation we find ourselves in right now. There is enough culpability on both extremes so let us not play the ‘blame game’. Since the beginning, We the People have chosen to ignore “the realization of my fellow man’s right to free, and his capacity to be free”. In January of 1963, at a White House conference on Race and Religion, Rabbi Heschel says: “And racism is worse than idolatry. Racism is satanism, unmitigated evil.” Yet, it continues, it is a tool used by politicians to get elected, just ask Trump, Johnson, Graham, et al. Racism is not just about the Black people of our country, it is hatred against any group of people, who get lumped together, vilified, scapegoated, for the benefit of another person’s power, gain. We have not achieved Rev Kings goal of “people will not be judged by the color of their skin (I would add by their sexuality, religion, etc) but by the content of their character”, also said in 1963. Yet, 62 years later, we seem to have fallen back into a state of being that rivals the pre-Civil rights days. This is not freedom for another nor for ourselves.

Each of us are created in the image of the divine, the Bible says; the Talmud teaches that each of us are descended from Adam and Eve so we can’t claim lineage that is different from one another, and it confirms our uniqueness; given these two examples plus Jesus’ teachings about the dignity of all people, how can any of us deny the truth of “the realization of my fellow man’s right to be free and his capacity to be free”? Yet, we constantly and consistently do. We seem to need someone beneath us in order to feel strong, to feel right with ourselves. This concept of “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” seems too foreign for the ‘good christian folk’ who promote bibles like Trump and the Republican Party. This way of being, totally in concert with the founding principles of the United States of America, seems to be a ‘libtard’ concept to the MAGA cult followers. Yet, it is inherent in the Bible, in the New Testament, the Koran, Buddha’s teachings, and We the People ignore our responsibility to promote freedom for all, to promote dignity for all, to promote the value of each individual. How sad, how devastatingly dangerous as we are currently finding out.

We the People our not powerless, however. As we gather this spring for Easter, for Passover, let us talk about the ways We the People have been like Pharaoh to ourselves and to another(s) and the ways We the People have been like Moses. We the People can then make plans with our Seder participants, with our Church community, to be more like Moses, to be more like the souls we are created to be, developing our “consciousness” of what freedom entails and that freedom needs justice and mercy to prevail, it needs a constant nurturing and awareness of the attacks from within that will cause it to disappear, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. We the People can learn how to recover our “capacity to be free” from the Recovery movement and the 12 Steps of AA, from the different faith traditions when taught and understood as principles of being free, ways to be free, not dogmatic, authoritarian ways for another(s) to control us. We the People have to stage another REVOLUTION TO FREEDOM. We the People have to save our democracy, our spiritual health and our neighbors rights to same.

I have been engaged in this work for my entire life and I have fallen short at times because of my inner war, my need to have money, my using my traits out of proper measure and creating chaos, evil, harm, etc. My freedom never has to come at the expense of another and, in my unorthodox ways, I have fought with people who want to deny their own “right to be free” and doubt their “capacity to be free”. I am proud of this fight and I continue it to this day. We all need to accept the inheritance of the prophets, our ancestors, and live freer each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

How do Greed, Fear, Fitting In impact your values and how do they stupefy your inner wisdom? Year 4 Day 88

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 88

“Good and evil have always had a tendency to live in promiscuity, but in more integrated societies man, it seems, found it easier to discriminate between the two, while in our turbulent times circumstances often stupefy our power of discernment; it is as if many of us have become value-blind in the epidemics of needs.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.17)

I am writing on the same sentence as yesterday because I have been disturbed by the truth of it, by the words, by the meaning and by the question that this sentence asks each of us as both individuals and as members of a tribe, Community, faith, etc. I know that even in “integrated societies”, there are turbulent times and people are able to “discriminate between the two”, (good and evil). The key being “integrated societies as I wrote on yesterday. I am disturbed that we did not harken to his warning that we are not aware of the disintegration of our society much less ourselves. I am disturbed that we are still not listening to nor caring about the un-wholeness, un-holiness that we as individuals and as communities, both faith and secular, are engaged in. Is it willingly or unwittingly, one could argue either side yet, with the sentence above, we have to face the truth and admit our complicity in giving up whatever integrity we might have had in the face of “turbulent times”. This is so sad.

Rabbi Heschel’s choice of words is always exciting to me, here he uses the word “stupefy” to describe our experience of “being struck senseless” when it comes to “discernment”; how apropos. Isn’t this what is happening? Were we not “struck senseless” in electing a grifter who promised to take a wrecking ball to our freedoms and our democracy? Were we not “struck senseless” when we elected a Republican Congressional majority in both houses that will rubber-stamp his lunacy and his grab, grift for absolute power? Are we not “struck senseless” when we went along/go along with the lie that Jesus wants people to suffer, Jesus wants the stranger deported? Are we not “struck senseless” with the lie that Judaism unwelcome the stranger, doesn’t believe that every soul is precious because we are all created in the image of the divine? Are we not “struck senseless” when we declare “Am Yisrael Chai”, the People Israel live when we have never been a ‘whole people’ for more than 20-30 years at a time and that was only once or twice in our history? Are we not “struck senseless” when we decided that Putin is a better ally than our European Partners? Are we not “struck senseless” when our government allows Elon Musk to threaten Social Security recipients with loss of their monthly income and our Congress says and does nothing? Are we not “struck senseless” when the rule of law, the freedom of the press, freedom of assembly  and protest are under attack and “good people do nothing” like in Germany in the early 1930’s?

The choice of the words “value-blind” also intrigue me and, of course, disturb me. Is there no situation where we can make a decision that doesn’t involve invoking our values, doesn’t involve deciding between the “good and evil” of the situation? I would answer, NO, to this question after living into the words above. Every situation involves our values, our morality, our freedom to choose wisely, our freedom to choose dumbly, and reflects what we stand for and what we stand upon. Do we stand upon the lies we have told ourselves, the lies we have bought into, the deceptions of self and another, the bastardization of Holy Texts? Do we stand for and upon “the epidemic of needs” we seem to be in perpetually? Do we stand for and upon the foundational values and paths of the Torah and the Bible? Do we stand for and upon the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mohammed? When our needs are bigger than our values, we find ourselves in the most “turbulent times” possible. The turbulence comes from the inside and most people are unable to deal with their inner lives, it is anathema to them to look inside themselves, and blame an outer irritant. This is how “value-blind’ we have become, our confessions, our Tshuvahs, our amends often are tinged with some sense of blame, like ‘if only you hadn’t done this, then I wouldn’t have done that’ and the ability of our rationalizations to make the person we have harmed the perpetrator is enormous and soul-crushing; look at Trump, Bannon, Miller, Vance, and all of their cronies like Thiel and Musk.

WE THE PEOPLE are being called upon once again to stand up and on the values of our soul’s knowing. WE THE PEOPLE are being given the opportunity to become full of sense instead of senseless, to be able to navigate in these turbulent times without losing our course, like a ship in a storm. We the People are being invited and enlisted in a ‘holy war’, a war for our independence, a war for our freedoms, a war for our values and a war for the dignity, equality and uniqueness of each and every individual soul. We the People have to look inside of ourselves and say YES to the inner voice that called to Elijah, the inner voice that has been passed down by the prophets, the inner voice that is able to discern the truths of the Torah and sit under this “Tree of Life” and grasp the Torah’s “ways of pleasantness” and choose which of the “paths of peace/wholeness” is right for our soul. In this time, it is crucial to make a choice-either get in the fray or surrender to the idolator, the autocrat, and be like the Israelites after Joseph died and before Moses showed up-allowing “circumstances to stupefy our power of discernment” and give everything up because we have become “value-blind” and choosing money and power over what is right, what is good, over our ability to be free!

I know this place so well. I too have found myself becoming “value-blind” in “turbulent times”. Each time I have found myself either arrested, in prison, or bereft because I knew I was going against what I knew to be right. This is the most torturous part of going “value-blind”, the knowing one is doing it and everyone knows-no matter how we try and deceive ourselves, in our being, in our inner life-we know; I surely did! On top of this, reviewing the times I was “struck senseless”(stupefy) by my own doing, makes me want to scream. While this was mainly before my recovery, I also see where I have done this over the past 36 years as well. I made the usual excuses and they don’t absolve me. Whenever I allowed “circumstances to stupefy” my values and my “powers of discernment” convincing myself it was for a ‘higher good’, there was turmoil caused by my inner life. The inner voice took over my vocal chords and it wasn’t pretty. I realize right now, the reason this happened is described in the words above. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Discernment, Integration, are necessary tools to live well, do you possess them? Year 4 Day 87

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 87

“Good and evil have always had a tendency to live in promiscuity, but in more integrated societies man, it seems, found it easier to discriminate between the two, while in our turbulent times circumstances often stupefy our power of discernment; it is as if many of us have become value-blind in the epidemics of needs.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.17)

The language of the first phrase above sent me to the dictionary! “Promiscuity” comes from promiscuous which comes from the Latin meaning “to mix” and “indiscriminate”. Again, as he has in other writings, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us of how easy it is to “mix” up what is good and what is evil. It also reminds to be aware of the “good” that can be found in “evil”, ie using a good thing to gain a foothold so one’s evil can prevail, as well as remembering to not fall in love with our ‘goodness’ because there is, many times, evil lurking under the surface. In other words, we have to always be aware that we are not 100% pure in our actions so we have to be careful with our ‘holier than thou’ attitudes and airs. Thinking about promiscuity as a sexual term, one can gain an image of how “good and evil” have an inclination to be mixed up, to look like one is being faithful to itself and find it morphs into something completely different, once it takes off its mask. This first phrase calls out to us to realize how quickly we confuse “good and evil”, how easy it is to whore ourselves to “evil” because we deceive ourselves and/or are deceived by another that truth is a lie and a lie is truth, evil is good rather than it being evil, everyone else is to blame for everything bad that happens, “those people” are the enemy, etc. Even though, these words were written 67 years ago, they are as relevant today as then and they come from a long look at the behaviors of humanity for the millennia.

It was in 1958 that the Berlin Crisis began, with Khrushchev demanding Western Allies leave West Berlin-that didn’t happen, Vietnam was in its early stages of becoming a problem, and the John Birch Society was founded. The Birchers eventually found a home in the Republican Party, which thought they could control radical hatred, only to find out that this radical hatred has taken over the “Grand Old Party” and produced the political climate of today and the “retribution”, “dictator” we see Trump, Musk, Vought, perpetrating on both their supporters and their ‘enemies’-which is anyone who doesn’t bend the knee, kiss the ring and allow themselves to be fucked over! From the Birchers to Gingrich to Tea Party, to Trump, Bannon, Miller, Musk, Thiel, Vance, et al we can see and experience the promiscuous tendencies of “good and evil”.

The next phrase, about “integrated societies” interests me greatly. I am thinking of the difficulty of creating and then maintaining an “integrated society”; we have had them for moments and then the “evil” creeps in, slowly infecting the wholeness of a people, a family, a community with rot and lies, with rationalities that defy our spiritual truth and, unfortunately the rot doesn’t go away, the spiritual truths aren’t loud enough for most people to hear, despair and fear set in and freedom is lost, meaning is lost, uniqueness is lost and slavery is the way of the world we live in. The challenge is to be an “integrated society” and this can only happen if and when We the People are integrated as individuals. To be an integrated human being, as I understand Rabbi Heschel, other spiritual teachers like the Dalai Lama, et al,  takes time, it takes great effort, it takes not depending on oneself as the final arbiter of what is “good” and what is “evil’ regarding our own actions. It takes a clear vision that only comes about when we are aware and in truth with our own foibles, our own imperfections, our own basic goodness of being. It takes us to be willing to stand up to our rational mind that convinces us that down is up and up is down, sweet is sour, sour is sweet, etc. It takes us healing our unique spiritual malady and committing to a practice of spiritual discipline, being aware of when we ‘miss the mark’, acknowledging the “good’ we do, having a plan and accepting the myriad of nuances of the 10 Commandments/Sayings. Only when we as individuals become more integrated can we have an integrated society with our differences helping us to see the whole picture clearer, our vulnerabilities promoting our asking one another for help and giving us all the humility and grace to know we are not the smartest person in the room, we cannot fall asleep at the wheel of “same shit different day”, and our uniqueness using us to add our talents, our gifts to the corner of the world we live in-at every and any age. We are never too old nor too young to engage in being “integrated” and being part of the whole.

It takes a lot of ‘work’ to live an “integrated” life. It takes a deep commitment to truth and to spirit. This means one cannot fall asleep at the wheel of living and nod ones head when a liar and grifter is saying something that sounds good and right because the actions behind the words will be evil and wrong, the motivation behind the ‘right’ words will always be cruelty. Hitler was going to restore Germany to it’s ‘rightful’ place, a country that was the height of society with education, culture etc and it was brought to it’s knees by a lying megalomaniac who disguised his evil by saying “good”, like Make America Great Again means destroying freedom for all, only for some; destroying the promise of and the bank that people believed would fund their retirement, Social Security, etc. It is up to We The People to stand up against the indiscriminate ways of today’s society, it is up to We The People to stand up for what is true and good, for the moral and decent ways of treating one another, to stand for our inner truths and live our spiritual disciplines out loud and very loudly!

As one who mixed up “good and evil” purposefully and for my own gain, these words hit me in my core. It is 37 years since I ‘gave it up’, had my spiritual awakening and the reminder of how I was still haunts me. I work each day to be more integrated, more whole today than I was yesterday and, I believe, I have been successful in this endeavor-knowing there is a lot more work to be done. I have found, in turbulent times, people want a ‘quick-fix’ and fight against the need for spiritual maintenance. This blog is one of the bricks in my spiritual program each day, I continue to practice gratitude, I let more and more slights roll off of me, I am personally involved in everything I do and everyone I counsel, meet. I am more present each day and It is hard work, I am imperfect, and I resent myself less for falling short than I did before. I have no resentments and still anger at the lies, the evil being perpetrated on a global and personal level. I believe knowing what is evil, being angry about it spewing out is a good thing. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Committing to growing our Integrity, Freedom, and Independence - Year 4 Day 86

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 86

“To be free one must attain a degree of independence. Yet the complexities of society have enmeshed contemporary man in a web of relationships which make his independence most precarious. Inherent in man is the desire to be in agreement with others. Yet today with a mass of miscellaneous associations and unprecedented excitements, it is a grim task, indeed, to agree with all and to retain the balance of integrity.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 17)

Hearing Rabbi Heschel’s words, reading them, immersing ourselves in them, one can appreciate the timelessness of them. He was not the first to warn affirm the need for independence in order to be free, and here he is, in 1958, reminding us of our need to “attain a degree of independence” in order “to be free”! Hearing the phrase: “a degree of independence” reminds us that there is an entity greater than ourselves, the “prime mover” as Aristotle says; God as people of faith refer to this entity; higher consciousness as many spiritual disciplines call this entity that is a part of all of us and not a part of us at the same time. The issue being raised here is; how much power are We the People giving to “the complexities of society”? How “enmeshed” have we become “in a web of relationships which make (our) independence most precarious”?

Looking at our country, our world, it is quite apparent that these words, this warning is as relevant in this moment as it was then, maybe more so. Rabbi Heschel was seeing something that the rest of the people were blind to at the time and he was being prescient, because his scholarship, his faith, his inner life and intuition, all converged to give us fair warning of what could happen, what could impinge, impede, and, possibly, deny us our freedom and our independence. Yet, once again, humanity did not look at the moment with their ability to see past, present, and future all in one moment. We study ancient texts, we study the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran not for their historical accuracy, we study them to learn how to be free, what impinges on our independence, how we willingly go along to get along and this way of being makes “independence most precarious”. We are in a moment that reflects the worst traits of leaders of democracies, the worst traits of our historical figures, like the people who fought to the death to own another human being so they could ‘make more money’, because rather than worship at the altar of God, they worshipped at the altar of money and power. “There is one who has all power” we say in Alcoholics Anonymous and the people who have money say: ‘money is the goal, with it you can do anything, without it you are nothing’, we are a society that equates self-worth with net worth and this causes us to lose both independence and freedom. It is so ridiculous that there are ‘so-called religious christians, jews, muslims’ who will, for the right ‘donation’ give you blessings over cars, over bullshit, promise you anything! Worshipping at the altar of money/mammon, is the foundation of the ministries of Joel Osteen and the ‘prosperity gospels’-all fly in the face of The Bible and Jesus’ teachings. Yet, because we are worried about ‘what will the neighbors think’, looking good rather than doing good, FOMO over being ‘in the club’, etc We the People have bought this bullshit hook, line and sinker-and it makes our “independence” and “freedom” sink as well.

In the political realm, Trump and his handlers like Putin, Musk, Thiel, as well as Bibi in Israel, know the truth of the words above and use them to their advantage, the inherent danger in a free society, in a democracy which the Founding Fathers feared and put measures in place to deter this. The Republican Congresspeople and Senators are prime examples of the last sentence above. In their desire to be in agreement with “Der Fuhrer”, they have lost their integrity, they have lost their desire to ‘do their job’, they have given up both their “independence” and their “freedom” so they can get re-elected, so ‘daddy won’t be upset with me’, so their families are ‘safe’, all the while losing everything that matters for their humanity, for their ability to face “the man in the glass” each and every day, to face their constituents who are paying them. When we get caught up in the “mass of miscellaneous associations”, the “web of relationships” that serve our bank accounts, We the People miss the mark because we have lost the most important relationship we have-the one with our inner life, the one with our higher consciousness, our intuitive mind. We have sacrificed this relationship for mammon, for money, power, prestige and we all are suffering the consequences in this moment. “For want of a nail” we are losing the battle for our “freedom”, our “independence”.

So, let’s find the “nail”. It is not far away, it is the smallest of details, it is the shortest journey that is so hard, so apparent, so accepted, that we continue to ignore it. The “nail” is our inner life, it is the nurturing, maturing of our soul, the acceptance of ‘knowing what we know’ and not needing to prove it to anyone. We the People are being called, once again, to “go to ourselves”, like Abraham was told. This call to Abraham still reverberates within each of us, it is the call to let go of the “web of relationships”, the “miscellaneous associations” that keep us from being who we know ourselves to be. To jettison the bullshit that we use to prevent us from doing the next right thing no matter what. The call to Abraham was not a one and done, we are still being called to “go to yourself”, “leave everything” that stops you from being aware of and growing your inner life. We the People are being called to STAND UP for ourselves, for the widow and the orphan, the stranger, the poor, and the needy. We are being called to scream/call from the Mountain Top, as Rev. King did on the day before his assassination, and we let the powers that be know we are continuing the march to making Our Land the Promised Land with “freedom for all”, celebrating and ensuring the “independence of all people” and the responsibilities “freedom” and “independence” bring. We the People are standing on the shoulders of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, King David, especially the Prophets not to replicate them, to further their message and our “freedom”.

I wrestled with these ideas for a long time. The “mass of miscellaneous associations” and the “web of relationships” made me question “who is this guy”? Yet, unlike prior to my recovery, in recovery I have been able to have many different associations and relationships and not lose my authenticity, not lose my “independence” nor “freedom” totally. Hindsight gives me the clarity to see when I was closer than I realized and each time before I fell into the abyss, something happened to wake me the fuck up, someone using my vulnerabilities against me and this took me back inside to repair the parts of me that bought the bullshit to the detriment of me and those around me. I have kept my integrity, I have grown it as well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you aware of the condition of "the vessels of the spirit" within you? Year 4 Day 85

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 84

“Words have become pretexts in the technique of evading the necessity of honest and genuine expression. Sometimes it seems as if we were all engaged in the process of liquidating the English language. But words are the vessels of the spirit. And when the vessels are broken, our relationship to the spirit becomes precarious” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 17)

Mark Twain said: “a lie can travel halfway around the world while is still putting on its shoes” and he is also to have said: “it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled”. Lyndon Johnson said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” Twain lived in the 19th and early 20th Century, Johnson was President of the United States from November 1963 till Jan 1969, yet both of them were well aware of the horror that lies bring. Both of them were fearful of what “liquidating the English language” does to the spiritual and moral health of the soul of democracy, the moral health and practice of a people, and the spiritual health of an individual. Their fears have proven true throughout the course of history and even more so today. Before there was the internet, Twain knew the potential harm of a lie to a nation, to a group and to the individual and his warning against buying the bullshit is mostly ignored-how sad. Johnson, when he was pushing the Civil Rights bill through Congress knew the power of prejudice, the immense joy “the lowest white man” has by thinking “he’s better than the best colored man” and the irrational hatred and violence the “lowest white man” will bring.

Today, we are facing a phenomenon of both “the lowest white man” and the richest white men coming together to fulfill the vision of the Southern Slave Owners and to ‘right the wrong’ that the South lost the Civil War. Unbeknownst to most of us, the Civil War never ended, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, voting rights denied, etc all kept the war going long after the fighting stopped. In fact, one could say that “the South will rise again” has finally come true-given the lies, the racist attitudes and actions of the Government, and the endless assault on “honest and genuine expression”. Whether it is Hegseth, Trump, Musk, Thiel, Miller, Johnson, they all believe that the lies they keep repeating will be bought into and believed and this gives them the power to have absolute power, their ‘loud and proud’ lying will produce followers who will always believe them and when amplified by that paragon of mendacity, Fox News, it is almost too much for the Truth to overcome. Hence “the vessels are broken” and We the People have to come to terms with this fact, this reality in order to find ways to mend our spiritual “vessels”, to do open soul surgery on our spiritual arteries and veins. We the People have lost our ability to trust our intuition, We the People are having a “precarious relationship” to our souls and this is paralyzing many of us, it is depressing even more of us, and this is exactly what the deceivers, the grifters want.

The  assault on “words” that I heard yesterday was by the new head of the White House Office of Faith, Pastor Paula White-Cain. In an online sermon on Sunday, she was selling “honor God with your Passover/Easter Resurrection Offering” which for different amounts you will receive a "Holy Land Communion Set “- FOR PASSOVER!! It does get better, however, for $1000+ you will receive "beautiful 10-inch Waterford crystal cross” and receive these blessings: God will assign an angel to you, he will be an enemy to your enemies, he will give you prosperity, he will take sickness away from you, he will give you a long life, he'll bring increase in inheritance and he'll bring a special year of blessing.” All of this from a christian evangelist, heading a political office in Government, and for PASSOVER- a distinctly Jewish Holy Day! There are too many people who still believe in the ‘goodness’, ‘rightness’, ‘truth-telling’ of these grifters and are willing to be led to the altar of slavery by them. I know some of these people and am in utter disbelief and have stopped engaging with them because they are trying to have my “relationship to the spirit become precarious”.

We the People have to hear the words above, we have to immerse ourselves in them and we have to commit to living in truth right here and right now. We cannot prevent the liars from lying, we cannot prevent those who roll around in self-deception like pigs in shit, we cannot stop the evil inclination from dominating another person, ie Musk, et al, this is truth. Yet, We the People can speak truth to power like the prophets have in every age. We the People can stop hiding our heads in the sand and support prophets and warriors like John Pavlovitz, Marc Elias, Andrew Weissmann, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Rev. William Barber, and so many others. We the People can stop the assault on words that is taking place. We the People can engage in “honest and genuine expression” in all of our affairs. We the People can be in recovery of our decency, recover our souls, and recover our passion for truth. We the People can give the Truth the fresh legs it needs to overcome the lies in the race for wholeness, goodness and power. We the People can stop allowing our pockets to be picked by the grifters-in-chief. We the People can demand our faith leaders to stand for the principles of all faiths-decency, love your neighbor, kindness, compassion, welcoming and caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan. We the People can vote out the charlatans, we can give the House back to the democrats, only to keep the assault from being rubber-stamped by both houses of government. We the People can have the clarity to “change the things which should be changed as Reinhold Niebuhr demands of us.

I know the assault that words can do, I was a perpetrator of using words as a “technique of evading honest and genuine expression” and to screw with another person’s reality enough that I could steal from them. I still regret these actions, not in a shameful way, rather in a way that reminds me to stay way clear of this behavior and anyone who is engaging in it-I have to stand up for the truth that is within them and help them hear the call of their soul instead of the call of their deceit. Paula White-Cain is too much and shows how full of shit people are who believe “Trump is good for the Jews, he has Jewish grandchildren”, how deep in their self-deception they are. I am enraged that God is being used to promote a grift, that God is being used to bastardize liberation from slavery and freedom while the people promoting this grift are enslaving another(s) and promoting autocracy! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Dealing with the Lies of our inner life- Year 4 Day 84

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 84

“Words have become pretexts in the technique of evading the necessity of honest and genuine expression. Sometimes it seems as if we were all engaged in the process of liquidating the English language. But words are the vessels of the spirit. And when the vessels are broken, our relationship to the spirit becomes precarious” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 17)

I am in constant reflection of what it was like in the 1950’s, men back from WWII and Korea, going to school on the GI Bill, the baby boomer generation being born, Ike in the White House, Tricky Dicky as VP, economy growing, and yet, here is Rabbi Heschel seeing things that most of us miss, hearing the undercurrent of racism, mendacity, self-deception in all things because it was also the time of Brown vs. Board of Education, Rosa Parks, the emergence of Dr. King as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement and the uptick in the Klu Klux Klan activities. I wonder how much the defeat of Adlai Stevenson, a statesman as opposed to a politician, impacted him during those years, if he saw that politics had become a breeding ground for “evading the necessity of honest and genuine expression”.

Looking at the landscape of today, reading these words, drilling down on them and having them reflect our own inner life, inner language, we will experience how “words have become pretexts in the technique of evading the necessity of honest and genuine expression” within us, ie how we use words to lie to ourselves, how we use them to rationalize what should be abhorred, using words to deny what is evident and using them to obfuscate our errors and fill our ‘need to be right’ all the time! Before We the People look at Trump, Musk, Thiel, Vance, Hegseth, it is imperative to look inside of ourselves. Seeing how we have used words to negate the experiences and beliefs of people on the other side of any given issue, how we have neglected the needs of the many in order to satisfy the loudest voices of the few, how we have labeled and vilified people because they have different points of view than We the People have. Looking inside we see how the ‘good christian folk’ who support Bibi may be doing this for their own agenda, not in the best interests of Israel, we may see how we do the same thing with Trump as well as the rest of the oligarchs, Putin acolytes, ‘so-called religious people’ who have taken “words” hostage, abused them, and “engaged in the process of liquidating the English language” as well as the languages of countries all over the globe. While it is satisfying to “point the finger” at another(s), We the People have to first look inside ourselves, as Rabbi Heschel is doing when he uses the word “we” above.

We are living in a time when “words” are being used as weapons of mass destruction! They are destroying our ability to discern what is fact from what is fiction, what is true from what is false, what is real from what is fantasy, because of the ways people are using them. “Spin” is the name of the game, be it in sales, in politics, in governing, in interpreting the Constitution, the Bible, the New Testament, the Koran, etc. Everyone seems to use the words of Covenantal Texts and turn them into Transactional texts instead. Be it Bibi quoting from Samuel and only using the first half of the quote negating the rest of the story because he would have to admit his own errors, Trump hocking Bibles that he has never read nor cares about what they say, Vought, Vance, going against the principles and teachings of Christ but claiming this is what Christ meant, ‘hate the poor, unwelcome the stranger, forget the needy and take advantage of everyone because you are rich and you can’!

Watching the hearings re: the Intelligence group of the Cabinet ‘face the music’ for their gaff at inviting a journalist into their chat group AND having classified discussions over non-secure phones and apps, We the People witnessed exactly what Rabbi Heschel is speaking to in his words above. Listening to Trump speak about Ukraine, Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal, Social Security, Musk is another example of these words. Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King both had “been to the Mountaintop” and seen the “Promised Land” and knew how far our journey still was to reach it. They both knew it would take We the People being in truth with ourselves, using the words of the Bible, of the Prophets to help us “return to God” so God would “heal our backsliding”. Without doing the inner work of being in truth with oneself, we are more susceptible to the deception of another(s) because we are deep in our own self-deception. The lies of Bibi, Trump, et al are eaten up like the video game PacMan, because We the People have been unwilling to let go of our own self-deceptions, because We the People continue to use “words” as a “technique of evading the necessity of  honest and genuine expression”. We the People are so down the rabbit hole that we have come to believe that the Mad Hatter, aka Trump and his goons, is good and kind while the people who care for one another, who stand with the stranger, the poor, the needy, et al are the bad guys!!

The assault on truth, the use of words to manipulate and convince people to go against their best interests and be indecent towards their neighbors, their communities, is happening again, as it has throughout history. When Putin is believed over what we saw with our own eyes, when Putin is rewarded for taking Freedom away from people in Ukraine, when he is praised for his cruelty, we are in big trouble. Because of the use of “words” as “pretexts in the technique of evading honest and genuine expression”, we are left wondering: what is genuine? Our social media sites like twitter, Facebook, etc don’t care about truth or facts, they only care about revenue, the rule of law is under attack here, in Israel, has been in Russia forever, the words on the Liberty Bell and in the Bible about proclaiming freedom throughout the land mean nothing to those wannabe Mafia Bosses, and “love your neighbor as yourself” has been bastardized to “suspect your neighbor as you suspect yourself” which Rabbi Heschel articulated in his interview with Carl Stern. We the People have to demand of ourselves to clean out the lies and deceptions within us and then demand the same from our leaders and neighbors.

I have been doing this work for over 36 years and it is never-ending. There is no ‘arrival’, no time when I am not susceptible and/or in self-deception so I have to seek out the lies I tell myself daily. I have to have gratitude, respect, and engagement with my teachers, with texts and with the people around me. I have to keep my relationships covenantal, this is the path for me to use “words” to transmit what is in my soul and in my heart. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Uniqueness and Sacredness or Cheapening and Trivialization-how do you treat every person you meet? Year 4 Day 83

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 83

“A major root of freedom lies in the belief that man, every man, is too good to be the slave of another man. However, the dynamics of our society, the cheapening and trivialization of existence, continues to corrode that belief. The uniqueness and sacred preciousness of man is being refuted with an almost cruel consistency.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 16)

Every human being has, what psychologists call a split in their personality, consciousness. In Judaism this is called the two inclinations, good and evil. Evil is not pejorative, it is descriptive in that letting it run wild will lead us to doing evil. Christianity turned this into, I believe, that we are born in “sin”, because the evil inclination is a part of us. Judaism says: “the good inclination is good and the evil inclination is very good”. Without this inclination, according to the Talmud, our sages, nothing would be built, there would be no children, not even an egg would be fertilized! In the quotation above, we are made painfully aware of what happens when we don’t tend to this ‘split’ in our inner life. When the evil inclination runs rampant we are “cheapening” and trivializing the existence of both ourselves and everyone else. This is the situation that humanity has faced since the beginning of time, it is where wars come from, it is what makes autocrats and freedom fighters, it is what makes people of faith and the ‘so-called religious practitioners of idolatry’.

This split has to be “healed” from the inside out, there is no amount of outer success, money, property, prestige that can heal it-God knows people have tried for the millennia to make this so and it hasn’t worked. “We were slaves in Egypt” we cry during the Passover Seder and “God brought us out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” we recount. To return to “a major root of freedom”, we have to, once again, hear the call of the redeemer inside of us, take the actions necessary to “put our own house in order” and take “the outstretched arm” of another person who will help us heal our split, open our eyes, our minds to the truth of our soul’s knowing, return us to using the rational mind as a servant to the intuitive mind, as Einstein teaches. Without learning how our two inclinations work together to move our world forward, to move our lives in the direction of healing, health, purpose and meaning, we will stay in the cycle of hatred, resentments, “getting mine”, racism, anti-semitism, anti-muslim, etc. When our two inclinations work together, we are able to live in radical amazement, we are engrossed in an authentic awareness of what is and what should be, we live in the “both/and” world of the Bible. Since Cain, we have been exhorted to “master” the evil inclination because it “desires us much”, it “couches at our doors”. This is how “the dynamics of society…continues to erode that belief”. Both the belief in our ability to “master” it and our belief that “every man is too good to be the slave of another man”!

This idea, that we are all “too good to be the slave of another” is so radically simple and true, we keep missing it, ignoring it and trying to complicate it so we can prove it false. It is the antithesis of racism and all forms of hatred. It is the antithesis of autocracy, kleptocracy, dictatorship, even monarchy. Yet, like Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto says in his preface to his book Path of the Just, because this truth is so plain and apparent, we continually ignore it, forget it, violate it. We have become oblivious to the “good” in every human being, we have become willfully blind to the divine image, the purpose of every human being, we have disregarded the “infinite worth and dignity” of all human beings as well are our kinship to everyone else since we all come from the first human, Adam. This blindness, forgetfulness, ignorance, competitiveness, comparing, has led us to the state we are in right now, worse than we were in 1958 when Rabbi Heschel first spoke these words. Yet, so many people who will celebrate Passover, Easter Ramadan, continue in their ignorance, rejoice in their blindness, “spin” their evil inclination and actions into ‘good and right’, follow the dictators, the cult leaders to their ruin, we have not come so far from our historical roots of forgetting the call and demands of our souls.

I find it prescient that I am re-reading this chapter at this moment when the convergence of Passover, Easter and the “cheapening and trivialization of existence” is happening at such a rapid pace. While we speak of following Nazi Germany’s lightening pace, the playbook of Project 2025, Christian Nationalists, White Supremacists, Trump/Musk is very old, it goes back to the Pharaoh in Egypt: “a new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph”, so he would not have to respect Joseph’s heirs, just as the current administration does not know “every man is too good to be a slave”. Not just the administration, all of MAGA world believes in their goodness and no one else’s, if you are not all in-you should be jailed, enslaved, beaten, etc.

It is up to We, the People to once again restore the “sacredness and preciousness” of the human being in our society. It is up to We the People to end the cruelty of so many people who seek to enhance their wealth, their power and control and deny the truth of “a major root of freedom”. We the People are being called just as we have been called throughout history to stand up for what is good and true, what is right and holy, what is sacred and precious- the dignity and worth of every human being! We the People can only do this when we have healed our own internal split, when we make a decision to live in the “both/and” instead of the either/or style of living. When We the People take our inner life seriously and nurture our soul, our passion, our purpose and find the meaning that we are created to live, we can repel the onslaught of the “cruel consistency” of the idolators, the charlatans, the autocrats, the grifters, the mendacious ones, and their guppies who follow their every word. We the People have to call our Howard Lutnick, Peter Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, et al for their lies and their deception and stand up for and with one another, honoring the fact that “every man is too good to be a slave”, throwing off the shackles of impotence, slavery, that have bound us and taking our rightful place in our world.

I have been adhering to this truth for the past 30+ years, it took me a minute after my spiritual awakening to fully integrate this way of being, to make my evil inclination serve my good inclination. I am not perfect in doing this AND I know that every one is “too good to be a slave” to me, to themselves, and certainly not to some asshole autocrat, grifter, deceiving MoFo! I believe in the sacredness and preciousness of the human soul and do my best each day to honor this truth. God Bless, Rabbi Mark

Awareness of the "Sublime burden of Freedom"? Year 4 Day 82

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 82

“Refusal to delegate the power to make ultimate decisions to any human institution, derives its strength either from the awareness of one’s mysterious dignity or from the awareness of one’s ultimate responsibility. But that strength breaks down in the discovery that one is unable to make a significant choice. Progressive vulgarization of society may deprive man of his ability to appreciate the sublime burden of freedom. Like Esau he may be ready to sell his birthright for a pot of lentils.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.16)

Delving into this idea of our “that strength breaks down” is a critical idea in this moment. We are watching the take-over of our way of life by ‘strongmen’ and anyone who is not onboard with them gets threatened into submission or surrender. Paul Weiss Law Firm did not just surrender their dignity, they surrendered their commitment to the “rule of law”, they bent down, took it the ass and said ‘yes massa’ to Trump last week and keep validating their choice because of threats. They made a choice to not “make a significant choice”. Were they “unable” or unwilling is a question only they can answer and one that, ultimately, they will have to. The greatest lie the ‘strongman’ tells is that one has no “choice”, the consequences of not going along are too great, so ‘choose’ what they want you to choose. It is exactly this situation that the “refusal to delegate the power” is so crucial. It is exactly for times like today, here, in Israel, across the globe, that we have to have an “awareness of one’s mysterious dignity” and an "awareness of one’s ultimate responsibility.”

We are never “unable to make a significant choice”-full stop. This is a lie we tell ourselves and a lie told to us from childhood on, it is a societal norm that we can never be adjusted to if we want to live in freedom and wholeness. To be a person of faith means to believe and follow the dictate to Choose Life found in Deuteronomy. Yet, We the People buy into the lies and bullshit of another(s) and cede our power “to make a significant choice” to parents, friends, bosses, elected officials, autocrats. This is the foolishness of humanity, this is another example of Hillul HaShem, desecration of God’s Name. Each and every time we surrender our ability “to make a significant choice”, we are denying our responsibility and giving up our dignity and value. What makes us human, what makes us ‘above’ the animals and angels is our ability to make free-will moral choices, according to Rabbi Abraham Twerski, and every time we ignore this ability, every time we refuse “to make a significant choice”, we are denying the very foundation of our humanity so treating ‘those people’ like dirt, as slaves, looking down our noses at them makes perfect sense when we deny our core values and the responsibilities of making “a significant choice”.

I keep thinking about Rabbi Heschel’s experience in 1958 that drove him to write: “progressive vulgarization of society may deprive man of his ability to appreciate the sublime burden of freedom.” Immersing myself in these words, looking at today’s world and the “progressive vulgarization” that is happening daily, this sentence is so prescient We the People are the purveyors of this “vulgarization”, we are also the buyers of it, the victims of it and we seem to be unable to say NO to it! Looking at how both political parties have exploited the truth, ‘spun’ the facts, lied to We, the People, and, today, installed an authoritarian as President and Project 2025 as the blueprint to end democracy as we know it in America and across the globe, is it any wonder we have no “ability to appreciate the sublime burden of freedom”? Is it any wonder that We, the People, in 2016 and 2024, have sold our freedom, our democracy for a promise of gold, not even the actual “pot of lentils”?

And this is our current situation, one in which Jesus and the prophets, Moses and the disciples would be shaking their heads, their fists and their words of rebuke would be flowing. Yet, from some of our religious leaders we get the bullshit that Trump is the Messiah and somehow, religion and faith have become synonymous with autocracy, dictatorship, etc. We the People have to take back our democracy, renew our commitment to freedom and stand up for what is true, holy, sacred-each and every human being! We the People are being called upon to restore our sense of “the sublime burden of freedom” so we can guard it, protect it and grow it. Freedom is a burden because many people want it for themselves and not for another person, group, etc. it is burden to “choose life” each and every day, hour, because this takes vigilance and we cannot ‘go to sleep at the wheel’ or we wind up in the twin situations of Trump, et al and Bibi and his thugs-the ultra-orthodox idolators.

We the People are being presented with an opportunity to “stand up and be counted”. In 20 days we will sit with family, friends and celebrate our “liberation from Egypt” and most of us will be unaware of how enslaved we are. This year let us take these 20 days and reflect on what we need to let go of in order to be “ready to leave Egypt” on a moment’s notice. What do we need to pack for our journey to freedom? We need to regain our sense of “mysterious dignity” and pack it, we have to accept our “ultimate responsibility” and pack this in our backpacks, we have to let go of our need to be right and need to make ourselves good by putting another down, we need to let go of and take out of our suitcases and backpacks our bastardizations of the values and principles our Bible holds dear, we have to find and pack our authentic self, the self we were created to be and hold out for all to see and use the divine need only each one of us can fill. We the People can and must honor our self and another by seeing one another as human beings, not allies and enemies. In this way, we will no longer sell our souls for a “pot of lentils” nor for any price at all.

Having sold my soul for awhile, these words touch me to my core. My recovery is all about not doing this, or at least minimizing selling my soul. It is what makes me bombastic and unwilling to compromise when I know that going along will have me participate in the “progressive vulgarization”. I am so sad at what is happening to our country, I am overwhelmed with anger at how the Bible is being used as a weapon rather than a sacred text to help us “love our neighbor as ourself”. I am incensed at the surrendering of people to what they know is wrong based on an ‘economic equation’ rather than standing up based on a free-will moral choice. This is my challenge, I have missed the mark before and will again, yet this is the challenge that I take on daily and I pray you will also. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Delegate or Be Responsible, that is the question being asked today and everyday - Year 4 Day 81

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 81

“Refusal to delegate the power to make ultimate decisions to any human institution, derives its strength either from the awareness of one’s mysterious dignity or from the awareness of one’s ultimate responsibility. But that strength breaks down in the discovery that one is unable to make a significant choice. Progressive vulgarization of society may deprive man of his ability to appreciate the sublime burden of freedom. Like Esau he may be ready to sell his birthright for a pot of lentils.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg.16)

The first sentence above, albeit a long one, is a warning as well as a descriptor, as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning. I also digress here to explain what I mean when I say “I hear…”, I mean that I actually hear the words in my head, I hear the nuances of them, I hear the call of them and I hear the demand of them, from Rabbi Heschel, when I read/study the Bible, when I am in conversation with another human being-I listen with my soul whenever possible and when I am not able to, I take a break and go inside to see what is going on within me that is stopping me from this type of soul to soul connection. A soul to soul connection is not just with the living, in my world, it is with the texts we study, the books we read, the people who have gone to the ‘next world’, etc.

In the sentence that is highlighted above, the “refusal to delegate power to make ultimate decisions…” is a demand, call, that we always refuse to do this! It is a recognition of how far off the original purpose of “any human institution” can go and even the people running the “godly” institutions like the Church, the Temple/Synagogue, the Mosque etc can find themselves off the path, bastardizing the word of God for their own egos, for their own power and for the good of ‘der fuhrer’! We have witnessed this phenomenon throughout the ages and it seems to be on steroids right now.

Along with the refusal, Rabbi Heschel is also calling to us to strengthen our “awareness of” our “mysterious dignity” and to truly realize our “ultimate responsibility. “Ultimate” comes from the Latin meaning “come to an end” and one of the words in Hebrew is “Yesod” which means foundation and mystery. While the “ultimate” is a mystery to us, we don’t know how things will “end”, we are not aware of the time of our own death, life itself is a mystery for and to many of us. The teaching above is to remind us that living into the mystery is what our responsibility is, following the call of the Bible to CHOOSE LIFE, to “be a blessing”, to “love thy neighbor”, to see the infinite dignity in every person, “to proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”, etc is not just a “command”, it is the very essence of our dignity, it is the foundation of what it means to be human!

These words call upon us to be in consistent awareness of the wonder, the radical amazement that being alive brings to us. They are guides for seeing what truly is, what is important and how to live one grain of sand better each day. “Awareness of one’s mysterious dignity” and “awareness of one’s ultimate responsibility” do not happen overnight, these ways of being have to be cultivated, they have to be nurtured and they are in defiance of the ‘societal norms’ of our time. They also demand we see the “mysterious dignity” of every human being, we recognize and follow through on our “ultimate responsibility” to care for everyone!

Instead of looking within himself and his cronies, Howard Lutnick, on Friday, showed his cards when he called people who would be upset if their Social Security Check did not arrive on schedule, “fraudsters”because only “fraudsters” yell and scream about not getting what they want, like Trump, Musk, Lutnick, Vought, Johnson, Graham, etc! He is a pig, a billionaire who forgot where he came from, a College Professor and an artist; he is a member of a Synagogue, donates to Jewish causes and has not a farthing of an idea of what the Bible teaches nor does he care, as long as his name is on a building. He is the one screaming, Musk is the one screaming, Trump always screams that he is mistreated, poor little rich boy that he is. This type of behavior, which is very prevalent among certain people in the Billionaire class and the unwitting followers who are being affected by their ‘policies’, is all about cruelty, it is all about getting more and more because there is never enough power, money, control when one is addicted to it to the extent Lutnick et al are.

We the People have to stand up! We the People are being called from within and from Mt. Sinai to “hear, listen and understand” that only God is God, not Donald Trump, not Elon Musk, not Howard Lutnick, not one’s parents nor oneself! This is the first commandment, yet we continue to violate the first 3 each time we call ‘der fuhrer’ ‘the messiah’, ‘christ’s messenger’, we continue to violate the first 3 commandments each time we cannot admit our own foibles, each time we seek ‘retribution’. Each time we steal with impunity, we take away freedoms, we violate the constitution, we wipe our asses with the Declaration of Independence, we violate the last 6! Yet, the charlatans, the idolators, the ‘holy rollers’ like Mike Johnson believe because they go to church, synagogue, the mosque on the Sabbath, they are following all of the commandments and the “bible is my guide, my road map for living”-cough cough-makes one want to throw up! AND, We the People must continue to protest, we must continue to speak truth to power, we must call on the prophetic spirit that is within us and continue to nurture our “mysterious dignity” and “awareness of one’s ultimate responsibility” so we can create the world as it should be, as it was designed to be: where Freedom Rings, when each person has their place lives their unique talents and gifts, where everyone knows they belong and we all find ways to compliment one another instead of compete with one another, one where the rich care for the poor, the well care for the needy and all of us nurture our inner life and live soul to soul relationships.

This is my quest and has been since 1987. I never hit the mark and stay there, the larger is always moving because I can never settle, nor can I sit back and say I’m there. It is a journey, frustrating and exhilarating, painful and joyous. I know it will end some day and until then, I fight against the Lutnicks of the world and I keep preaching the Gospel of the Prophets, the Bible, and pray someone hears. If not, I hear and this makes me keep growing and in awe of the “mysterious dignity” of all people and the world itself and it prevents me from thinking someone else should do what I am responsible for. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Seeing the "Sublime Horizons under which we live" - Year 4 Day 80

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 80

“Loyalty to freedom means loyalty to the substance of freedom. But such loyalty must be actualized again and again. Here our way of living must change: it must open the sight of sublime horizons under which we live.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 16)

I am stunned, outraged, and bewildered that this wisdom, this insight, this prophecy has been ignored for all of these years. While it would be nice to point to ‘those people’ who ignored or silenced Rabbi Heschel’s voice, the truth is We, the People are the silencers, We, the People are the ones who have ignored this truth and so many other that Rabbi Heschel gives us. And we continue to ignore and deny the truth of all the sentences above and, for today, lets look at the one in bold.

“Our way of living must change” and, unfortunately it hasn’t. We are still as prejudiced and insensitive as the founding fathers were when they declared a Black Man, 3/5’s of a person for census taking. We are still as ruthless as the Slave Owners were when they raped their Black Women slaves and thought they were their chattel. We are still as idolatrous and bastardizing of the Bible and New Testament as Americans ever were in denying equal rights for all people, treating the immigrants we brought over (Chinese) to do work and then discriminated against them. We are still as self-righteous and evil as we were in starting the Civil War with firing on Ft. Sumner! There are differences, of course, many of us are despondent over the ways people have deepened their prejudices and are using any excuse possible to proclaim their ‘whiteness’ and that “white makes right” in any and all circumstances. Still many people voted for our current chaos to happen, both here and in Israel. Many people still support their own demise by supporting the leadership in both countries who believe they are “Der Fuhrer” and can do anything they want to, including but not limited to destroying their ‘opposition’, and setting themselves up as ‘king for a lifetime’. If we look at our history since 1958 when these words were spoken, written, we can see glimpses of leaning into “our way of living must change”, with the Kennedy Presidency, the Johnson “Great Society”, Rev. King, Bobby Kennedy, only to be followed by Tricky Dickie, then Gingrich et al who wanted to go to war with their colleagues rather than seek ways to cooperate.

On a personal level, people have been trying to “keep up with the Jones’” forever. We the People have decided it is okay to put our thumbs on the scales if we can make a few more pennies, We, the People think it is cool to “jew someone down” so we can squeeze the last penny out of a working person, a store owner. We the People believe “might makes right” and other such bullshit. We, the People lie to ourselves by saying ‘we are religious, good and right, because we follow the commandments’ while bastardizing the very words and examples the Bible gives us or ‘we are committing these atrocities in the name of Jesus Christ, our lord’! I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call to all of us to commit to a “religious revolution”, I hear him crying out to us to hear the call of the prophets, to hear God’s crying at night that God’s children are in exile and we cannot return until We the People bring about a change in “our way of living”! This goes along with the prayer where we ask God to cause us to return  and we will return-while and this is the proof that we have to make the first move, we have to know that “our way of living must change” and follow through on making the appropriate changes. We are wearing blinders, as Moses says to the Children of Israel we couldn’t hear nor see until ‘this day’. The use of “this day” (HaYom) reminds all of us that we have the opportunity to change “our way of living” any day we choose. It is not a ‘certain day’, rather following the dictate above: “our way of living must change” is open to us at any time and on any day we choose to hear the Truth once again and to Understand what is really happening and to Listen to the call of higher consciousness, the Ineffable One to return home to being “the self we were created to be” as Thomas Merton teaches. In other words, to live the Shema prayer!

We the People reading the words in bold above, hopefully are stirred to engage with the “sublime horizons under which we live”. These horizons strengthen our spiritual health and living, they give us the insight to see and the courage to “change the things that should be changed” as Reinhold Niebuhr says in the Serenity Prayer. Thinking about it in this context, the Serenity Prayer, according to Niebuhr’s daughter in the book by the same name asks for Grace, acceptance, clarity in our daily living so we know what cannot be changed: Truth, Spirit, Holiness and what should be changed: Mendacity, Self-deception and deception of another(s), Profaning the words and teachings of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. This is the path to changing “our way of living” because right now, if one hasn’t noticed, we are heading down a path that will bring pain and sorrow, war and famine, civil unrest and familial infighting-just like we see in the Books of Samuel! What will it take for We the People to wake up and engage in the words above, staying loyal to freedom and the “substance of freedom” rather than buy into the lies of the autocrats, the idolators, the charlatans? What will it take for We the People to see the wisdom and the vision of “the sublime horizons under which we live”? I believe it will take a Spiritual Revolution that follows the call of the final verse of Lamentations: “Turn us towards you, Adonai and we will return”. The Book written to commemorate the destruction of the Temple ends with a prayer, a call, not to God because God is always seeking our return as the prophets remind us, rather it is a call to our inner life, to our souls, to our intuitive mind to put the rational mind back in it’s proper place as a servant instead of worshiping it, as Einstein teaches us. We the People are capable of this, We can and must change “our way of living” so we stop our sinking back into the slavery of Egypt. It is up to us, what will you say when someone asks what did you do as your country was sinking into autocracy?

I heard this call some 38+ years ago after being arrested again! I heard that my “way of living must change in my soul, not my mind and it has stuck with me for all these years and I am constantly seeking to have sight of the “sublime horizons under which we live”. I am not always here and I get here for most of every day. I engage in the “things which I should change” and I keep turning towards God so I can return to the authentic Mark. I know that without staying loyal to the covenant I made with God, with Harriet, with Heather, with my siblings, and with all of you, I will sink into Egypt and live a life of regrets. Staying loyal to “the substance of freedom” allows me to hang out with you! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

What are you loyal to and who do you surrender yourself to? Year 4 Day 79

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 79

“Loyalty to freedom means loyalty to the substance of freedom. But such loyalty must be actualized again and again. Here our way of living must change: it must open the sight of sublime horizons under which we live.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 16)

The first sentence above reminds us to remember what “the substance of freedom” is. It is an interesting question as “substance” comes from the Latin meaning “standing firm” and “being/essence”. Hearing Rabbi Heschel demand of us to “stand firm” in the “essence” of our “being” and that essence is the “unalienable right” to live free! Loyalty means “give firm and constant support” and “allegiance to” which begs the question what are we supporting in the ways we live, work, play, in our families, in our communities, in our voting, in our faith traditions, in our spirituality? “Freedom”encompasses our entirety, it is something we have to constantly check in on, it is a way of being that is constantly under assault from within as well as from the outside. It is hard to live free as living free entails a constant examination of our daily living and as Malcolm X said: “an examined life is painful”.

While we may have little power over the outside forces which are constantly attempting to deny us “freedom”, we do have power over our inside forces which tell us to go along with “Der Fuhrer”, the autocratic leader(s) because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” thinking, because we are afraid to stand up for the “poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the needy” as the Bible demands of us. Instead, we allow our inside immature, fearful voices to convince us that “loyalty to freedom” means going along with the grifters, the liars, the deceivers, the powers that be. This is true for both ends of the continuum, progressive and conservative, total libertarian and total fascist. As we are in Lent, Ramadan, and preparation for Passover, it is important to realize what all of these Holy Days represent: a surrender to God and, more importantly, the beginning of our journey to “freedom”. “Freedom” from the “harsh labors of the Egyptians” as well as “freedom” from the slave mentality. Yet, it seems both Clergy and congregant have missed this memo from God, from our faith traditions as we hear no message of political relevance in some Synagogues, Mosques and Churches and insane messages that bastardize the essence of Christ’s teachings, Moses’ teachings, the call of the prophets and what Mohammed said! While we do not have the power to stop the charlatans and the mendacious ones, we do have the power to say NO to these idolators and their minions and as Hillel says: “If not now, when?”

Here again, Rabbi Heschel is being a ‘harsh taskmaster’ because he is reminding us that “loyalty to the substance of freedom” is not a one and done proposition. It is a daily, hourly action that “must be actualized again and again” which tells us to be aware, to be present, to not allow ourselves to be lulled into some utopia dream state by the orators, by the “enemy of my enemy”. It is hard to be constantly on guard for the attacks on “freedom” from within as well as from outside of us. Our rational minds, our egos, our need to ‘get even’, our ‘poor me’ attitudes as well as our disease of self-deception all conspire to convince us that we are being loyal to “freedom” when we join with the autocrat who is going to execute as much cruelty on our perceived ‘enemies’ as possible. It is a spiritually bankrupt society and individual who cheers the tearing down of the scaffolding on which our “freedom” is built. It is the ultimate dis-loyalty to “freedom and we seem to be incapable of realizing this because we are constantly going along with others who want to tear down the “freedom” of ‘those people’ and/or initiating such actions ourselves. We seem to be incapable of “standing firm” in our “being” free. Rather than realize the God’s promise and reminder that each of us will have our own place, each of us is unique and necessary to make the world better, each of us has “a corner of the garden” as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz teaches, we need to have it all, we need to deny another their rightful place and share, we need to make them slaves and put upon them harsh burdens-forgetting what happened to Egypt and Egyptian society when they did that: “don’t you realize that Egypt is lost”(Ex.10:7).

This is why staying loyal “to the substance of freedom” is so crucial for We the People! The first two sentences are critical to our remaining free, to our keeping the Covenant with God that we renew each day in our daily prayers, in our spiritual practices. It is not enough to think good thoughts, to do something nice, as I am hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning. These are important, don’t get me wrong AND, We the People are being called to “stand firm” in our opposition to anyone and anything that impedes our journey towards freedom. We the People are being told to remember the “essence of our being” is to be free and we have to return to this essence over and over again because history has proven that We the People get lazy and fat, we forget that “loyalty” is crucial and not a given, we ignore the warning signs, the signs that erosion of our “freedoms” is happening because we live in our rational minds and we have become “adjusted to conventional norms and mental cliches”. These two sentences are demanding we respond to the unasked questions: What are we loyal to: societal norms, getting ahead, going along, bending the knee to authority? What are we loyal to: Spiritual maturity, Freedom, God, Truth, Standing face to face with one another, living into the Covenant we remake daily with one another, with our significant others, with family, friends, co-workers, employees, employers; are we “standing firm” in the grace we have been given and the “freedoms” we have received? Do we guard and cherish our “being free”? Are we making “free-will moral choices”? We the People are being called upon not just by Rabbi Heschel’s words, which seem so prescient when we realize they were spoken in 1958, we are being called upon by the current events; are we going to be loyal to our allies or are we going to succumb to lure of the autocrat who will ‘make’ us Russian?

“Loyalty” has defined my way of living forever. I was loyal to the gangster life, I was loyal to my sister, I was loyal to the principles of being a criminal and I have been loyal to recovery and to living the principles of the Bible. I stand firm in my beliefs, I am willing to be laughed at, ostracized, betrayed, loved and embraced because of my “loyalty to the substance of freedom”. I don’t walk away and even when people have walked away from me, I am always willing to accept them back-this is what the Bible teaches is ‘unconditional love’. It is hard to actualize this loyalty over and over and I find it exhilarating and awesome. It is an experience of “radical amazement” for me to continue to stay loyal to “freedom” in all my affairs. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

Maturing or infantilizing your soul's knowing, serving your rational or intuitive mind-which are you choosing today? Year 4 Day 78

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 78

“Man’s true fulfillment cannot be reached by the isolated individual, and his true good depends on communion with, and participation in, that which transcends him. Each challenge from beyond the person is unique, and each response must be new and creative. Freedom is an act of engagement of the self to the spirit, a spiritual event.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 16)

In the first sentence above, Rabbi Heschel’s  use of the word “transcends” reminds us that there are obstacles that we have to “climb across” in order to experience “freedom”. For most of us, that obstacle is our egos, our rational minds, our immature, under educated spirits/inner lives. The lie of the “rugged individual” or the “self-made man” has been with us for so long and is so ingrained into the psyche of We, the People that we fail to see our “adjustment to this conventional notion” has caused us to lose our inner knowledge and our inner eyesight. Elon Musk would be another drugged out ketamine addict if he hadn’t received so much government money for Tesla, SpaceX, StarLink, and he goes around thinking he is the smartest guy in the room and has to take a chain saw to everything around him because he is afraid to be found out to be a fraud. The same is true for every autocrat, every oligarch, every asshole who delights in their cruelty. When one is in “communion with” and participates in, “that which transcends him”, we become not only free for the moment of this experience, this experience leaves an indelible mark on our souls, on our inner lives that we continue to long to visit, to experience again and again. Yet, we can only do this, when we are in community and engaged in ways of being that allow us, help us “climb across” the abyss of our mind and our reason to reach and dwell in wonder and/or radical amazement.

We seem to  have lost the ability to hear the “challenge from beyond” ourselves. We have become so preoccupied with our own self, we have forgotten the “gift” of the “intuitive mind” as Einstein teaches us about, and we have come to worship the “servant”, our rational mind. Even more dangerous, we have become “servants” to the rational/irrational mind of the fuhrer, which historically has led to the loss of freedom, the loss of connectivity, the loss of desire to “transcend” ourselves. We are in such a state now across the globe. The leader of the Free World and his partners in crime both here in America and in Israel, are doing everything they can to put cotton in our ears and blinders on our eyes so we can no longer hear the call from Sinai nor see the Mountain in smoke, no longer see the trembling awe of the mountain nor hear the cry of our neighbors. The Fuhrer does this so we no longer see our uniqueness, because seeing the uniqueness of ourself causes us to recognize the uniqueness of another and fuels our creative energy, the awakening of our inner lives to respond to the unique call/challenge we are given in this moment with a new and different response. To be in “communion with, and participation in, that which transcends him” we are being called to be present in this moment, we need to live in a state of wonder/radical amazement so we can hear the challenge, respond to it in our unique way and remember that SAME SHIT DIFFERENT DAY IS A LIE!

We seem to have lost our “challenge” spirit, we seem to have given away our creativity and our uniqueness in order to ‘get ahead’, to ‘go along to get along’. This is in direct opposition to the message of the prophets, to the experience of our enslavement in Egypt, and to the entirety of the Bible. We the People have continued on in the ways of Solomon, not necessarily going back to Egypt, but skirting the issue by getting horses, women, etc from Egypt. We the People have allowed the Fuhrer we have chosen to follow to lead us into a spiritual slavery, into a groupthink that kills our intuitive mind, that makes us “servants” to their irrationality, to their cruelty and one day we wake up and find we are willing to ‘throw our neighbor under the bus’ to earn some creds with THE LEADER! We have seen this story play out over and over again, in Rome, in Greece, in Jerusalem, in Germany, in France, England, in the USSR, in Iran, Saudi Arabia, all over the globe and we seem incapable of learning from our history and our ancestors.

We the People are in desperate need of heeding the last sentence above, our very existence as beings that can make “free-will moral choices” depends on it. We are at or almost at the tipping point of whether “this nation or any nation can long endure on the earth” and the time has come and is coming when each of us will have to make a choice-freedom or slavery, goodness or evil, kindness or cruelty. While I am usually against “either/or” language, there are times when it is necessary and Choose Life is one of the times. We the People are being reminded to tend to our spiritual life, to make for ourselves a spiritual practice and follow a way of being that supports, encourages, educates and matures our inner lives in order to “grow along spiritual lines” so we can live into more and more “acts of freedom”, more and more “engagements of the self to the spirit” and no longer buy the bullshit, the rhetoric, the irrational minds of the Fuhrer, the autocrat, the liars in chief like Trump, Musk, Miller, Bannon, Vought, Johnson, Schumer, Fetterman, et al. We the People can do this, in fact, this is the basic element of recovery from addictions; we people recovering from alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc “turn our lives over to the care of God as we understand God”, in Pirke Avot, we are told to “nullify your will before God’s will so God’s will becomes your will”. We believe we didn’t achieve Freedom until we reached Sinai because we were able to have a moment of transcendence, the problem for the newly freed slaves was they did not follow this moment up with more learning and developing of their inner lives. We the People can learn from our ancestors, we can stand up to the bully, deny the Fuhrer, cancel his/her minions and puppeteers. It will take “a spiritual event” that only we can make happen by being ready to hear and prepared to act upon the call, the challenge from beyond and the willingness to “climb across” the abyss.

I have been blessed with many moments of transcendence. Every day I write I have at least one. I have also experienced many moments of freedom and I realize the times I have been most enslaved were moments of my own making. No one enslaves me, I was freer in prison than I had been for over 20 years on the streets, I am freer now than I was at times when I was working, because I chose to “go along” or I chose to “follow the leader/money” and while I can give many reasons why, the truth that I am facing is that I willingly gave up my freedom for a few shekels and I will never do this again! I have returned to the Sinai experience over and over again, this Passover I will be a little freer than I was last year and a lot more aware! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

What is your response to the Burdens, Challenges, Contradictions of Freedom? Year 4 Day 77

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 77

“Freedom is a challenge and a burden against which man often rebels. He is ready to abandon it, since it is full of contradiction and continually under attack. Freedom can only endure as a vision, and loyalty to it is an act of faith.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 15-16)

Pondering these words, realizing they were written and spoken in 1958 and mostly unheard and unheeded to this day, saddens me, enrages me and emboldens me. I am sad that I did not hear these words when I was younger, I am enraged that “freedom” has been taken for granted so much that we could lose it at any moment, thank you Donald Trump, Russell Vought, Project 2025, and, of course, Elon Musk. I believe it is crucial for us to imbue, immerse and understand the words and sentiments expressed above. Remembering that these words come from a man who watched the most erudite country, the country that was considered brilliant, modern, strong, etc reject “freedom” because it was too hard, the people decided, to go against the fascists in their governments-sound familiar Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, et al?

The Declaration of Independence is not just a severing of our relationship with King George and England, it is a document full of challenges and burdens. Jefferson, a slave owner, knew what he was doing was wrong and he couldn’t bring himself to free his slaves, probably afraid of backlash and losing money, stature, etc. Yet, he believed in the equality of all people and sold the entire Continental Congress on this truth and way of being. We, America, have never lived this truth and challenge completely and it is the burden that our democracy is under and the challenge from a man of faith and decency, a man who knew right from wrong and, even when he couldn’t do the next right thing, he wanted the country to. Today, our “freedoms” are under attack from someone who thinks the real challenge is to see how powerful he can become, under attack from a group that hails Hitler (listen to Tucker Carlson, Trump, his podcasters, etc), loves Putin, Orban, Xi, Erdogan, and extols might over right. This is a prime example of “a challenge and burden against which man often rebels”.

Of course, the fascists in the White House, Congress, the ones who are lobbyists, who are the ‘religious people’, the ‘god-fearing christian nationalists’, are not the problem. The problem is We the People! Just as justice denied to anyone is justice denied to everyone, any of the  challenges and burdens of freedom that are unmet means freedom falls and we become slaves to our desires, to our self-deception, to the mendacity of the ‘leader’ and find ourselves performing harsh labor as our ancestors did in Egypt, once again. As Jews, we know how this story plays out, as Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, we are experienced in how allowing these “challenges and burdens” be unmet, by our rebelling against them leads to tyranny, torture, gas chambers, being fed to the lions, etc. While the outrageous behaviors and speech of the mendacious ones currently in power are getting worse and worse, what is really troubling is how We, the People are buying into their bullshit and defending them! We, the People are not only “ready to abandon it”, we already have in many cases. Rather than deal with the contradictions and attacks, many of We, the People have gone along to get along, believing it won’t be as bad as you think, he has Jewish grandchildren, he is a ‘strong man’, he is a ‘warrior’, he ‘resonates’ with people, etc. For this, we are willing to “abandon” our “freedom” and throw off the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are willing to go against the Biblical commandments to “love your neighbor as yourself” and “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all the inhabitants therein”. It doesn’t say only the people the ‘cult leadership’ deem to be worthy of freedom (only them and their cronies fit this description) nor does it say only the citizens(again this designation is up to the ‘cult leadership’) nor does it define “your neighbor” as only white people! Just as the Declaration of Independence is America’s challenge and burden, so too is the Bible the challenge and burden of Jews, Christians, Muslims. We, the People are not expected to finish the job, fulfill the commandments completely once and for all, rather We, the People have to respond to the demands of these holy documents, respond to the “contradictions” of “freedom” and defend it against the numerous attacks against it. Over the first 248 years of our democracy, our systems held, one or another branch of government stood up against the bully and the autocrat, today We the People must demand our elected officials, our Courts stand up unless we are cool with the abandonment of “freedom”, unless we are cool with making Germany of the 1930’s look like child’s play.

We, the People are being called by Rabbi Heschel’s words above, by our own intuitive mind, by the inner voice of higher consciousness to STAND UP, to DEFEND and PROTECT the “unalienable rights” enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. There is a demand going forth from Sinai, to people of every faith tradition and spiritual discipline to “GO TO YOURSELF/FOR YOURSELF to the “land I will show you” which is the land of democracy, the land of “freedom”. It is up to We the People to respond to this call in this moment with the same loyalty as we have to our faith tradition, our spiritual disciplines. We the People are the ones who have inherited the vision of the prophets, the vision of the Bible, the vision of the Declaration of Independence. In a marriage ceremony we sometimes hear the words, “let no man put asunder” referring to the covenantal experience of marriage. We have this same covenantal relationship with freedom as it was given to us at Mt. Sinai, because we were brought out of Egypt before and we recall and see the Egypts we are in every year at our Seders and it is high time that We the People answer the call, stay loyal to the vision of freedom and the actions that ensure We the People will always “Let Freedom Ring”.

I have fallen short of the way of being the words above teach me. I have also hit the mark and I continue to believe that “freedom” is making a “free-will moral choice” as Rabbi Abraham Twerski teaches. I have this ability, I have to do the work to clean out the shit that gets in the way of living like this-mostly my insecurities, my false desires, my inauthentic needs-which I have been lessening over these past 36 years. I am not rebelling against “freedom” anymore, I live into the burdens and challenges as well as the contradictions of being free and I am always at the ready to fight against the attackers of “freedom”, following the examples of my familial ancestors as well as the prophets, the early masters of Hassidism, and all of the people who fought for and envisioned a way of living happy, joyous and free. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are You living as a free person-letting go of prejudices and stereotypes ? Year 4 Day 76

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 76

“For freedom is not an empty concept. Man is free to be free; he is not free in choosing to be a slave; he is free in doing good; he is not free in doing evil. To choose evil is to fail to be free. In choosing evil he is not free but determined by forces which are extraneous to the spirit. Free is he who has decided to act in agreement with the spirit that goes beyond all necessities.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 15)

I am reading these words and re-reading them to hear the logic, the wisdom, the truth and the demand of them. The idea that one is not free when one is a slave seems obvious, duh!! Yet, as I allow these words to wash over me, I realize all of the slaveries we are in, be it work, the almighty dollar, our inner slaveries, our self-deceptions, our need for certainty, for surety, our need to be right and to argue to the death our point of view, our addictive behaviors and substances, and so much more make us not free and we are too oblivious to this truth to realize it! Rabbi Heschel is pretty careful with the words he chooses and “he is not free in choosing to be a slave” points me to hear his warning, his demand, his calling out to us to look at our lives differently, not that we can do whatever we want and this makes us free, rather freedom is not “choosing to be a slave”.

Writing about this, of course, forces me to ask so many questions and look at life, both mine and what is happening in the world from the lens of slavery vis a vis ”freedom” and our awareness of our being “free to be free” and “not free in doing evil”? “Free in doing good and not free in choosing to be a slave”. As I listen to people speak and they realize that our current political climate is fraught with danger, both here and abroad, they complain of their lack of agency and, in reading this, my new response is we had agency in November of 2024 and we didn’t use it to the best of our ability, we knew what was planned and, maybe for the first time in his life, Trump is being true to his words, retribution, weaponizing the government, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs, and taking over Greenland, Panama, and Canada! We the People, chose to be a slave because we did not exercise our freedom to see, to think, to hear, to know what is true and what is false, what is freedom and what is slavery, what is good and what is evil. By ignoring our basic freedom to know, we find ourselves in the quandary of our own making and too many people are unwilling to admit this and/or see the mess we are in and heading towards.

Trump wants “Hitler’s Generals”, Musk praises Stalin, Mao, Hitler and blames their “public specter employees” for the mass murders, and people still believe in them! Talk about “choosing evil” and “not free but determined by forces which are extraneous to the spirit”!!! AND, the political turmoil, the undermining of our freedoms and our democracy are also “forces which are extraneous to the spirit”. These actions, our “choosing to be a slave” last November(remember some are guilty, all our responsible), are the outer manifestations of our inability to accept the freedom we received at Sinai, the freedom of following a path of decency, kindness, justice, mercy, imperfection, and truth. It seems as if our mendacious need to be perfect, to be certain, to know what the future holds, overrides our need to be present in the moment, rejoice in our imperfections, immerse ourselves in the spiritual texts we read so we can be one grain of sand freer today than we were yesterday.

I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call us to take stock of our inner lives, to do the inner work necessary to “know the difference between cursed be Haman and blessed be Mordechai”. I hear the demand to properly prepare for Passover because we, unlike our ancestors, have the forewarning that Passover is coming, we are going to be able to leave whatever Egypt, narrow place, we are currently in and walk through the desert to freedom at Sinai, on Shavuot. We the People need to do this inventory, this inner work so we can clear out the plaque in our spiritual arteries and the wax in our spiritual hearing. We, the People are in desperate need for a “new pair of glasses” and maybe even Cataract surgery because we seem to have lost our hearing, our eyesight, and our ability to discern truth from lies, freedom from slavery, good from evil. “We got trouble, right here in River City, with a capital T” which could stand for Trump or “rhymes with a capital P” and that could stand for Putin!.

The issue is, however, as we are in Lent, Ramadan, and preparing for leaving Egypt, to see our inner Trump, Putin, Musk, Pharaoh, as well as  the inner Moses, the inner spirit, the inner prophet. We have all of these ‘voices’, ‘ideas’, ‘ways of being’ within us and we have to be constantly choosing which one will speak for us, which one will determine our actions- the one that is free or the one that is a slave to greed, power, etc. Remember the prophets railed against the very same type of leadership that We the People chose last November. It is not as if we are not constantly warned about the fragility of freedom, the need to “act in agreement with the spirit that goes beyond all necessities”-the entire Bible has stories of what happens when we go against our basic need to be free, what happens when we “choose to be a slave”, yet we seem incapable of learning from it, from the experiences of our ancestors who fled tyranny to be free in “the new world”. We the People are being called to use this time when all three Western Religions come together to celebrate being free and take the time to do the inner work to be free, to “act in agreement with the spirit that goes beyond all necessities” because the greatest necessity is for We the People to live in freedom and choose the good!

I know the subtleties of “choosing to be a slave” and I am repulsed by the times I knowingly and unknowingly chose slavery over freedom-UGH! I am also aware of the times when I gave into “forces which are extraneous to the spirit” and chose evil, not necessarily EVIL, rather the small things that have such great impact on another and my spiritual health-DOUBLE UGH!! I am also aware of how often I have chosen freedom, I have done the good because it is the next right thing to do, how often I have nullified my will before God’s will so God’s will becomes mine and how often I choose to be free, no longer giving my dignity and worth over to someone else to validate, rather the knowing of freedom and the engaging in acts of freedom that are “in agreement with” both my spirit and “the spirit that goes beyond all necessities.” Truth, justice, kindness, mercy, using my prophetic voice, speaking truth to power, all are expressions of being free. Grateful to all my teachers and friends who help me to stay free! Let’s leave the Egypt of our own making this year!! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you willing to "climb across" the normal, the 'safety net' of your rational mind and experience the transcendence of Freedom? Year 4 Day75

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 75

“The meaning of freedom is not exhausted by deliberation, decision, and responsibility, although it must include all this. The meaning of freedom presupposes an openness to transcendence, and man has to be responsive before he can become responsible.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 15)

I am eager to arise each morning, way too early, so I can read Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom for this day, I can hear his call and I can improve my ability to “be responsive”. We are living, once again, in a time where people of ‘no-faith’ are not the “NONES” who respond to the various surveys/polls done. The people of ‘no-faith’ are the people who have so twisted and bastardized the words of the Bible, the message of Jesus, the tao of Buddha, they are really worshiping the idols of their own making, either in the form of a person or an idea/rationalization they have conjured up for their own power and prestige. Unfortunately, these ‘no-faith’ people are in charge and desperate to take away our “freedom” as well as our money, safety, security, etc. Like Pharaoh in the Bible, like the Romans in Jerusalem, like Torquemada in Spain, like King George, like so many others throughout history, people who are the loudest about their loyalty to god, who claim this is what god wants are actually descendants of the people of Haran who bought the idols that Abraham’s father was making!

The cruelty, the mendacity, the “not knowing the difference between Blessed be Mordechai and Cursed be Haman” that is ‘celebrated on Purim, has put us into a situation where truth is so hard to find, it has been so bastardized and raped by the ‘good god-fearing christian nationalists’ like Vance, Vought, etc, most people are unable to discern fact from fiction, truth from lies, and good from evil. All of our “deliberation, decision, and responsibility” today seems to be geared towards screwing one another, not helping one another live free. During this period of Lent, Ramadan, preparation for Passover, isn’t it time for us to engage in the spiritual work that the universe is calling us to? Isn’t it time for us to do what it takes to be liberated from the internal prison of rationalizations, “deliberations”, and choosing the “responsibility” to the shareholders, to our benefactors over our “responsibility” to freedom for all?

We cannot do this unless we immerse ourselves in the wisdom above, the words of the Bible, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and all of their authentic disciples. Immersing ourselves is to experience the words and thoughts, the meanings and vision as if we are hearing them, reading them and seeing them in real time and in the moment. “What is the question that this piece of wisdom is the answer for today”, my Rabbi, Jonathan Omer-man used to ask me and I still ask myself and every one I study with. How do we engage in “an openness to transcendence”? “Transcendence” comes from the word transcend and the Latin is “to climb across”, hence “transcendence” is to “climb across” the norm, letting go of our adjustments to societal norms, and go to the realm of our souls, of living into the gifts of our intuitive minds. The issue for We the People is whether we are willing to be open to anything that we cannot see, touch, feel. Are we capable of climbing across our thoughts, feelings, our self-deceptions and the deceptions of another(s) to engage in the “radical amazement” and “wonder” that comes with allowing ourselves to have “an openness to transcendence”? In this moment, this is the most pressing question We the People are facing and it seems as if too many are not engaging in this openness, they are too stuck in their inner slavery, they are too invested in their self-deception and they are following the teaching of Raba in the Talmud: get so drunk we don’t know the difference between Haman and Mordechai! The people who refuse to be open to “transcendence” are also the people who are not following the teachings of Hillel in Pirke Avot, don’t get too friendly with the authorities because they are not your friends” and, in a place where there is no humanity, be human!(Pirke Avot, 2:3, 5)

We the People, as we engage in the spiritual discipline of our choice, as we let go of something for Lent, purify ourselves during Ramadan, search out and let go of the Chometz that has made us fat and lazy, insolent, deaf, and blind since last Passover, desperately need to “climb across” the abyss of lies, grifts, bastardizations and the deceptions of self and by another. We are being called to each and every day, demands are placed upon us by the cry of the needy and the poor, the desperation of the stranger seeking refuge and a better way of living, the elderly who are lonely, the veterans who answered the call to safeguard us, the prophets who follow in the footsteps of our ancestors, the prophets. 4 weeks from last night is the first Seder, the reading of the Haggadah and the meal celebrating liberation. We are not free until we reach Sinai and accept the “yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven”, until we agree “to do and then understand”. “Transcendence” is such a part of the story of Passover, the counting of the Omer and then receiving the Torah at Sinai, we read about the Rabbis who were gathered at B’Nai Brak, and told by their students that they were going to miss the time to say the Shema because of their discussions. What they were planning, according to our lore, is the Bar Kochba revolt, the last effort to be free of Roman rule, the rule of another country/despot. Isn’t this what Passover is all about-planning our freedom from our inner slaveries, ridding ourselves of the fat and lard, the treif, leavening that has clogged our spiritual arteries and caused plaque to constrict our intuitive minds giving too much power to our servant, the rational mind? This is the demand, the call: be “responsive” to the build up of shmutz that has poisoned our minds, narrowed our thinking like when we were in Egypt, helped us believe the lies we tell ourselves and the ones we have been imbued with. There is a difference between what is truth and goodness and what is a lie and evil-we cannot confuse these ways of being anymore!

I do everything I can to be “responsive” and “have an openness to transcendence” because living at the level of lies, of evil, of negativity led me to being a drunk and a thief. It allowed me to lie to myself, blame another(s) for my bad actions, deny and defend myself all the while shirking my duties and obligations as a son, brother, husband and father. Recovery through Torah and 12-steps has given me the wherewithal to “hear the call”, “respond to the demand” and take the next right action. I am engaged in my Passover preparation, I am deliberate and diligent about “being human” and not buying my bullshit nor the bullshit and lies of another, no matter who is spouting them. “Freedom” is the not only the greatest gift, as described above, it is the greatest way to thank the universe for this gift. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Moral and Spiritual Isolation leads to egocentricity and cruelty - Year 4 Day 74

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 74

This sensitivity to the novel and the unprecedented is the foundation of God-awareness and of the awareness of the preciousness of all beings. It leads from reflexive concern and the moral and spiritual isolation which is the result of egocentricity to a mode of responding to each new and unique experience in terms of broader considerations, wider interests, deeper appreciation and new, as yet unrealized values.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 15)

Today is Purim, tonight is Shabbat and tomorrow we read the story of the Golden Calf in Temples and Synagogues across the world. We also begin the countdown of 4 weeks until Passover, the “season of our liberation”. In order for all of us to be human, in order for all of us to be free, I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call us to have “sensitivity to the novel and unprecedented” rather than see the world as “same shit, different day”. We are being made aware, once again, what it takes to live into the world as it is meant to be, what it takes for us to live into our soul’s purpose and fulfill the meaning of our unique existence: “God-awareness and the awareness of the preciousness of all beings.” This is the path to freedom, worthiness, wholeness and joy and without the “sensitivity”, we are lost, we become slaves to our wants and desires as well as the wants and desires of another(s).

We are in the throes of a cycle that has been in the world for millennia, progress and then pull back, awareness and then willful blindness, “reflexive concern” and then ‘responding to each new and unique experience”. In this moment, we are being held by our throats and a gun is being put to our head to ignore “God-awareness and the awareness of the preciousness of all beings” for the sake of the few, the rich, the ones in power, the ‘god-fearing christian nationalists’ who know nothing of what Christ said, lived, taught! Rather than being sensitive to these awareness’, rather than being sensitive to the “preciousness of all beings” almost half of this country is only sensitive to their own ‘preciousness’ , their own needs and desires, jettisoning “God-awareness” for the worship of idols, of the ‘great leader’, etc. Rather than understand there is always a Haman(boo) who wants to destroy a certain group that she/he believes will thwart his/her quest for power or wants to use them as scapegoats, blaming them for the ills of the country and getting their loyal followers to hate them also-i.e. George Soros, most people buy into the bullshit these ‘leaders’ are slinging and we find ourselves in the situation we have today-people losing jobs for no good reason, the stock market and the economy are in chaos for no good reason, Democratic leaders are called dictators and dictators are hailed as ‘freedom fighters’, etc. Yet, no matter what this ‘leader’ does, his minions will clap like trained seals and his soldiers will fight his battles for him. Donald Trump is a brilliant marketer, throughout his lifetime, he has sold ice to Eskimos, and he has sold his people the idea that “reflexive concern” is more important that “a mode of responding to each new and unique experience…” We’re in a state of “moral and spiritual isolation” that is so disguised by Mike Johnson, et al that they believe they are ‘god-fearing christians’ of the highest order and Trump is their messiah!! He is their ‘anointed by God’ savior-this is the height of insensitivity to me.

Living into the words above takes We the People to leave the “moral and spiritual isolation” we have been living in. This is such a subtle state that we easily deceive ourselves that we are not in it by attending services, by saying our daily prayers, by spouting the rhetoric of the church, temple, mosque, spiritual discipline. Yet, we are seeing the effects of this “moral and spiritual isolation” the effects of the “reflexive concern” and the “egocentricity” of people in the ways we are treating one another. We forget whom we owe debts to; people who have helped us along our journey, God, parents, siblings, customers, employers, employees, etc. We are watching the “I” of our egos on full display in our homes as well as in the streets and in the halls of Congress as well as the White House-all of which belong to “all the people” of this country. When parents are authoritarians instead of guides and teachers, when children are unappreciative of the sacrifices parents make and their entitlement for what they believe should be done to and for them, when people want to force their beliefs onto everyone else, when morality and civility are considered ‘woke’, when cruelty is said to be the exercise of freedom, We the People have to stand up and say NO, NO, NO!

It is time for We the People to live into the teaching above that moment brings about a “new and unique experience in terms of broader considerations, riders interests, deeper appreciation and new, as yet unrealized values”. Rather than sit on the sidelines, rather than be depressed and in despair, Rabbi Heschel is calling We the People to action. We the People need to look inside ourselves and hear the still, small voice of wisdom and knowing, of action and goodness, of truth and justice. Following this inner voice is a path to the freedom we all seek and only some of us find. When we have “sensitivity” we are able to see far beyond the horizon, we are able to hear with clarity what the next right action is, and we are emboldened with a strength that is beyond anything we ever imagined to stand up, to take our inheritance from the prophets and speak truth to power, block the path of the usurpers and live our “God-awareness” out loud as well as extolling the “preciousness of all beings.” We the People are the messengers God has sent to the world, We the People get to do this work, We the People need to do it now!

I have been sensitive to these concerns of God for a long time, for a period of time they were not deemed worthy concerns by people around me. I fought for justice as a kid/teenager and lost the will to fight along the way. I stood with Civil Rights activists and anti-war activists, I cheated people and saw them as ‘my ticket out of poverty’ rather than as “precious beings”. I have lived the entire gamut of this continuum and it is better on the side that Rabbi Heschel is describing! I like seeing the “preciousness of all beings” because this gives me empathy and I can see the pathetic nature of these charlatans, idolators in charge, these spiritually and morally bankrupt people in all arenas of our living and our world. They are responsible and I can go to war with them with a heart of peace when I remember they are also precious children of God, when I remember they are lost sheep who can do a lot of damage, have to be corralled and it has to be NOW before the damage they cause is irreparable. I have had my interests widened, my considerations broadened, and my ability to see this moment as unique and respond accordingly because of my sensitivity to truth, justice, the moment, and God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Ass-kissing, Going along to get along or radical amazement-where do you live? Year 4 Day 73

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 73

“The shock of radical amazement, the humility born in awe and reverence, the austere discipline of unremitting inquiry and self-criticism are acts of liberating man from the routine way of looking only at those features of experience which are similar and regular, and opening his soul to the unique and transcendent.”(Insecurity of Freedom pg. 15)

Tonight is the Rabbinic holiday of Purim, when the Jews were saved from Haman (boo) and Mordechai (Yay) was honored by the King and Queen Esther saved the people Israel from extinction in Persia. It is a troubling holiday for many people because rather than show grace and compassion, when they had the opportunity, the Jews of Persia killed tens of thousands of people, a real “I’ll show you, you anti-semite”. It also is a holiday that ‘celebrates’ getting drunk as the Talmud says, “ad lo Yodea” “until you don’t know the difference between Mordechai and Haman”. Reading the words above, reading Jonathan Greenblatt’s ass-kissing praise of Trump’s arresting Mahmoud Khalil, I realize to celebrate the disastrous actions by the Jews of Persia and by some Jews ever since, like Baruch Goldstein, Meir Kahane, Netanyahu, the West Bank Settlers, we have to be drunk and not know the difference between good and evil not know the difference between right and wrong. Which is exactly what Khalil’s arrest shows, exactly what Trump’s administration is promoting and what a USEFUL IDIOT Greenblatt and other ‘good jews’ are!

Rather than having “the shock of radical amazement” change and motivate these assholes and know-it-alls to understand, see and fight for what is right and good, they are oblivious to even noticing the wonder that surrounds them because they live in a world of certainty and sureness-‘only I can fix it’, said by the one who is intent on breaking everything that makes us free and democratic. Yet, there are jews, christians, muslims, blacks, hispanics, who claim to be ‘god-fearing’ people who go against the dictate of Hillel: “ Be careful with ruling authorities, they don’t befriend a person unless it suits them and serves them, they seem like friends and don’t stand by you in your hour of distress”(Pirke Avot 2:3) and another one: “A brute is not afraid of sin…nor is someone who engages in too much business, wise. In a place where there are no humans, BE HUMAN.” (Ibid 2:5) Given the world today, I am amazed at Greenblatt’s words and actions of kissing the asses of the people in power and calling this “jewish” when Hillel the Elder, a revered Rabbi in the Talmud, tells us it is wrong! Of course Greenblatt and other Jews will defend their choices and Trump to the death because he “resonates” with the people. Haman(boo) resonated with the people, Stalin did also at first, Hitler, Sabbatai Zevi also resonated, were they also to be praised???

“Radical amazement”, “awe”, “reverence”, “humility”, “self-criticism”, “unremitting inquiry”  are the only paths to “having an authentic awareness of that which is” as Rabbi Heschel says in Man is Not Alone. These traits reside within each and every person and those who choose to live into them are often derided as ‘head in the clouds’, ‘unrealistic’, ‘not living in the real world’, stupid, easily manipulated, etc. Rather than seeing themselves as imprisoned in their rational minds, in their desires and fears, in their need to have power or be close to it, Greenblatt and the other ‘useful idiots’ who are supporting Trump, who want a dissenter like Khalil deported are forgetting Germany in the 1930’s, they are forgetting America in the 1930’s, they are oblivious that the law being used to deport Khalil is the same one that was used to deport and not allow Jews into America during the McCarthy years and that was a great time for freedom, for civil liberties, wasn’t it?

Only through the ways described above can We the People have the experiences which will get us out of the routine “same shit different day” attitude and way of being in the world. Only through wonder can We the People truly see what is, what could be, what should be and how to get there. Our rational minds are the servants to help us get there and out intuitive minds are the seer, the visionary, the pathfinders for us to fulfill our soul’s purpose, to live into the “self we were created to be” as Thomas Merton says. We the People are being called to “unremitting inquiry”, Rabbi Heschel is demanding that we never stop asking the right questions so we can be in the right solutions. It is a hard way to live, Socrates taught: “an unexamined life is not worth living” some 2400 years ago, Malcom X taught “an examined life is painful”. As the saying goes: “no pain, no gain” which makes it ridiculous that We the People keep running away from true “humility” which comes from “awe and reverence”, that we keep being adjusted to the conventional notions and mental cliches of societal norms rather than be maladjusted like Moses, Abraham, the Prophets, the 20% of the people who left Egypt, Rather than be like the Jews of Persia and enjoy killing, We the People are able to be “liberating” ourselves through letting go of these old ideas, being self-critical to learn and grow, find  and live into our individual uniqueness and transcendence. WILL YOU??

As a devotee of Rabbi Heschel and radical amazement, as someone who read the entire sugya of the story of “ad lo yodea” where Raba invites Rabbi Zera over for Purim-they both get drunk, Raba slits Rabbi Zera’s throat and then prays and he is healed. Next year, Raba invites Rabbi Zera over and the response is: “a miracle doesn’t occur every single time”! To the Jews who don’t want to know the difference tonight, I offer more than a few words of caution! As a drunk who knows the damage I inflicted in my drunkenness, I am deeply remorseful. As a human being who fell into the clutches of not being self-critical at times and was blinded by it, I offer many words of caution! Radical amazement is such a gift that is open to everyone. It takes humility, not mealy-mouthed head down, begging for scraps, true humility, knowing who one is, living a “unique and transcendent life” and helping another(s) do the same. It changes how I was with my daughter, Heather, acknowledging her as a person, not just ‘my child’, giving her agency and doing my best to ensure she knew I loved her as a person. This way of being is the path to the loving relationship I have with Harriet, it is also the reason I have spiritual friends and also the reason I am not always liked so much. I am certainly not everyone’s “cup of tea”. I can’t ‘go along to get along” like Greenblatt and many others do-not in my nature nor nurture-my father didn’t and I am not ‘politically correct’! While I know I am not always right, I do live “an examined life” and it is painful and the pain leads me to living in radical amazement, awe, reverence, humility more and more each day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark