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How do you “DO GOOD” each day so you can “depart from evil”? Year 4 Day 186

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 186

“To the Jewish mind, evil is an instrument rather than an iron wall; a temptation, an occasion, rather than an ultimate power. The words of the Psalmist, Depart from evil and do good(34:15), contain the epitome of right living. Yet, it seems that Jewish tradition believes that the right way of departing from evil is to do good; putting the accent on the second half of the sentence.” (God in Search of Man pg. 376)

The words in bold, the last sentence above, are crucial for our understanding of what We the People were told at Sinai and are being told every day by the Voice that still speaks to us. In today’s world, we are witnessing the bastardization of “DO GOOD” and we are all made smaller by not living what our soul, our higher consciousness call out to us to do. As Rabbi Heschel says: “virtue pays and crime pays more”. When our elected officials believe that they can do whatever they want, they can usurp the norms of “good”, and declare as Richard Nixon did: “if the President does it, then it must be legal”, we are in an autocratic, tyrannical state. When the clergy go along with these “evil” actions, the dictates of the Bible become nothing more than suggestions which are to be interpreted and twisted to fit their desire for power and wealth. When people of faith blindly go along with the PAGANS to do the bidding of the rich and powerful, we are in desperate times.

We the People are being called by the words above, by the Biblical norms to say NO to the societal bullshit we are witnessing, and by our silence, by our going along to get along, participating in. This is true of both the right and the left, it is true whenever we seek to ‘be right’, wrap ourselves in a ‘false purity’, and no matter how these actions are wrapped in ‘biblical dictates’, We the People have to stand up and follow the words and deeds of the prophets and speak truth to power and raise up the poor, the needy, the stranger. This is what the Bible calls for and this is the inheritance, the way of being we Jews have been chosen for!

Being chosen is not some ‘get out of jail free’ card. It is a mission and a purpose and the purpose and mission of being a Jew is to “do good”, no matter the cost, no matter the ridicule, no matter the prejudice, no matter how much we are hated. I would suggest that this is the foundational reason there has been, is, and will be so much Jew hatred in the world. Our ancestors demanded that the kings, the priests, the wealthy see their status as an obligation rather than a privilege, that the people never forget their inherent dignity and worth, and that We the People live the promise of God that each of us can use our unique talents and energy to make our corner of the world a little better each and every day.

“Do good” is not a bumper sticker, it is found in a dogma, it is a daily way of being the best human being we can be in the moment we are in. It is to make community a place for all people to gather, for all people to share ideas, argue with one another to figure out what the next right action is, it is a place where people belong rather than have to follow some dogmatic way of reading, seeing, living the Bible’s ways to “do good”. Leviticus chapter 19 is called the “Holiness Code”, it begins with “you shall be holy because I, Adonai, am holy. What an outrageous statement, it is calling upon every human being to be reminders and agents of God, not ourselves. It is calling upon We the People to see our divine image every morning in the mirror, to see the divine image of another in every interaction. “Do good” is to “love the stranger”, it is to “redeem our kinsfolk”, it is to “erase the margins” as Father Greg Boyle teaches. It is to care for the poor, it is to treat the ‘lowest’ of society as reminders of God. It is to stand up for the powerless and the voiceless, it is to not cheat our laborers, to not put our fingers on the scales.

We the People have to demand that society no longer puts “a stumbling block in front of the blind” nor “curses the deaf” anymore. To do this, We the People, have to ensure that each person has the same opportunities to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, it is not a purview of just the rich and powerful. We the People are being called upon to deny the whims and wishes of the extremes, to call bullshit on the constant swinging of the pendulum from one extreme to another and demand that everyone gets to be educated and trained, to find their particular niche in the world and live free. We the People are being given the gift of standing up and “do good” by rejecting the evil ways of ‘societal norms’, the degrading of any group of people so another group can gain, maintain power for themselves. We Jews have to lead the way because this is the birthright we are given, this is the gift given to us when we were “brought out of Egypt”, this is the mandate we received from Moses when he told us “Choose Life”!

I write this today from Philadelphia, the birthplace of the United States. I am taking my grandson, Miles, to see Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, etc. I will explain to him that my grandfather made the journey from oppression to this land so he and his descendants could be free. It is a gift that, for a while, I spat on and a gift that I have come to cherish, revere, and live into. I certainly missed the mark many times and I hit the bullseye so many more. I am not the worst of my actions, though society likes to make us think we are, my legacy is that I rose above them to “do good” no matter how I felt, no matter how my rational mind and ego wanted more, I have given more than I received and in doing so, I have received so much more than I ever thought possible. “The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah” has been the light and the truth I live by. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Doing good at any and all costs or shading the truth 'when necessary'? What do your daily actions show? -Year 4 Day 185

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 185

“To the Jewish mind, evil is an instrument rather than an iron wall; a temptation, an occasion, rather than an ultimate power. The words of the Psalmist, Depart from evil and do good(34:15), contain the epitome of right living. Yet, it seems that Jewish tradition believes that the right way of departing from evil is to do good; putting the accent on the second half of the sentence.” (God in Search of Man pg. 376)

While this quote is particularly speaking of “the Jewish mind”, the thoughts, ideas and demand is not limited to Jews. Most people get overwhelmed in the face of evil, we are so susceptible to fear of evil, fear of the authoritarian that we are unable to face both our fears and the evil inside of us and outside of us. The authoritarian fear probably comes from childhood, “father know best” and “spare the rod, spoil the child”, along with “because I said so” experiences. The command to honor your mother and father does not mean to go along with them when they are wrong, “au contraire mon frere”, it means to not correct them in public, don’t sit in their place, don’t try and be their clone, rebuke them in private when they are screwing up, go to the Rabbi, priest, police if they are abusing you, etc. This commandment, according to “the Jewish mind” doesn’t give the parents the right to do anything and everything to their child including treating their kids as if they are their investment because each of us is accountable to and invested in by God - not humans!

Ergo, when one knows and understands that “evil is an instrument rather than an iron wall” it is much simpler to deal with evil. It isn’t easy nor is it quick, and it is simpler. Knowing that the “evil urge” within every human being is tamable, is transformable, gives us the “job” and the power to face and confront our rational minds which want to ‘be in charge’ and, instead, help the “intuitive mind” win the war, and it is an inner war between our rational minds and the evil they see as good and our intuitive minds and the evil they see and transform it so the energy and insight is used for good! This is the power of “the Jewish mind” whether one is Jewish or not, it is the power of seeing “evil” for what it is: powerful, overwhelming, cunning, baffling, and “an instrument…, a temptation, an occasion” and it is not “an ultimate power”. Knowing this, belonging to this type of community, be a faith community or an intellectual one is of no consequence, is crucial to our being able to live into the wisdom of “the Psalmist” quoted above.

The words before the quote above are:”keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking guile”(Psalms 34:14), the words that are at the end of the Amidah and we say/pray 3 times a day. The words after what is quoted above in the same verse are:”seek peace/wholeness and pursue it”. To “the Jewish mind” therefore, this bullshit of loving Trump, of following Bibi, of believing the lying Rabbis and the Idolatrous ministers who are catering to these two who believe cruelty, evil, grift, etc are good and We the People must help them see the light. We the People are being called upon by Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, his spirit, his actions, to STAND UP, to BE COUNTED, to, as Isaiah says: “BE A LIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS!

And, We the People can only do this if and when we are ready and willing to accept the challenge of Godliness, the challenge of pursuing wholeness/peace, the fulfillment of the covenant at Sinai. Mount Sinai was an earth shattering moment because in this moment, We the People had the experience of being free, of belonging to something so much greater than ourselves that we were overwhelmed and didn’t hear much, and, even though we had no idea what it all meant, We the People instinctively knew that we had to take action before understanding and the power of Sinai, the spiritual energy that was infused in us, that we discovered within us was so great, so powerful that in that moment, in that experience, We the People knew Truth. Because We the People are aware that we cannot think our way into right acting, that our intentions, while good for most of us, are not enough to overpower, to control the “evil” within us. For that we need help and that help is found in taking action, in doing good, because doing good is the training ground for transforming the “evil” urges within us to do the next right thing instead, to use it’s energy to “pursue peace” as the Psalmist says, to “keep your tongue from evil” because evil speech is the precursor to evil actions, be it said out loud or to oneself, the power of evil speech has caused much pain, sorrow, death, famine, hatred, oppression, wars, etc throughout history. Hence the need for We the People to listen up, to take action and to reach out to those less fortunate in spirit as well as material ways. Bibi, Trump, are spiritually sick bastards, the people around them as as sick if not sicker-the question We the People have to ask and answer:”are they as far gone as Pharaoh was?” If so, we have to see them destroyed and we have to take whatever action is necessary to restore freedoms, liberty and ‘the American Way’.

Having been a sick bastard, my gratitude to “the Jewish mind”, which I always had and ignored for far too long, is boundless. I know the power of “departing from evil”, it is the freest I ever was and it is what keeps me free today. Pursuing wholeness and Shalom, has given me an outlook on life that I never had during my ‘using’ years. I am able to see clearly what is good, what is right. I am able to wrestle with my negativity and help my better angels prevail. I am more willing to stand up for my principles and my lips no longer NEED to be “speaking guile”. This is the gift of Sinai and we all need to re-experience it so we can all be free! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living in the "real world" or living the Ideals of our ancestors, like freedom, kindness, truth-which way do your actions say you choose? Year 4 Day 184

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 184

“Ideals have a high mortality rate in our generation. Contemporary thinking looks like a graveyard of discredited ideals. With his moral efforts man, it is felt, can build castles in the air. All our norms are nothing but desires in disguise.” (God in Search of Man pg. 376)

This was published in 1955, imagine Rabbi Heschel’s words today!! We are witnessing the destruction of ideals on a minute by minute basis by ‘true Americans’ and ‘real Jews’ if we are to believe Trump and his gang of PAGAN thugs as well as Netanyahu and his practitioners of Avodah Zarah, idol worship. Our ideals of democracy, our ideals of how to live together with our differences, celebrating the diverse skills, talents, ideas and ways of every individual, honoring the divine image in each and every person seem to have been or are being crushed. Isn’t this the ultimate evil-making We the People into sheep, into instruments of the wealthy and the greedy, soldiers in a war that we do not want nor did we ask for, beggars begging for scraps at the tables of power and parishioners receiving lies rather than truth, spiritual death rather than spiritual growth from the Clergy who, rather than serve God, serve themselves and their ‘masters’? This is where we find ourselves some 70 years after Rabbi Heschel warned us and cajoled us into understanding the issues of his day which are the issues of our day, which are the issues of every day throughout the history of humankind.

Since the Garden of Eden humans have been unable to hold onto and fulfill the ideals of the Bible, of our ‘better angels’, of morality. Cain killing Abel, the “men of renown” taking any woman they wanted just because they could(sound familiar), the violence(Hamas) that led to the Flood, the inter-family conflicts of our patriarchs and matriarchs, being enslaved in Egypt, wandering in the desert with gratitude not always being present, inter-tribal fighting, and finally dying to give a new generation a chance at being free. Even they screwed it up and we Jews, have been wandering ever since-yes we have a homeland, Israel, and we are still wandering in the “graveyard of discredited ideals”, the ideals that have been crushed by Netanyahu and his gang, the ideals that have been bastardized by the ‘rabbinic authorities’ in right-wing Israeli society, the ideals that the IDF used to have and don’t seem to anymore, the beliefs that Israel was safe from an Oct 7th type of attack. The ideals of “love the stranger because you were a stranger in Egypt”, “rebuke your neighbor and don’t bear sin because of him/her”, “circumcise the foreskin of your heart”, “do justly, love mercy, walk in the ways of God”, etc. We Jews are still wandering in the desert and graveyard of our ancestors simply because we are unwilling, too stiff-necked to find ways to have a strong enough heart, a willing enough spirit to surrender to the will of God instead of the desires of our false ego. We the People are the ones who have gone along like lambs being led to slaughter with the PAGANS and Idolators, the bastardizers and charlatans who laugh at the ideal of democracy, who spit on the ideals of religion, and who cheer at their cruel and evil actions. This is how far we have fallen in the 70 years since Rabbi Heschel wrote these words.

We the People are the only ones who can pull the rip cords so we can have a softer landing on firm ground. Firm ground in this case is the ideal of democracy, the ideal of spiritual growth, the ideal of seeing the divine image in every human being, the ideal of refusing to do evil in order to satisfy some urge, some desire that is not an authentic one, rather it is a manufactured one by societal norms/conventions and/or our (ir)rational minds. We the People need to stop with our airy-fairy “castles in the sky” and get down to tachlis, brass tacks! We the People are being called to live into our higher consciousness, to stop allowing our (ir)rational minds to override what we know in our gut, what our inner life knows to be true and good, right and holy. We the People have to, like our ancestors before us, say to Pharaoh: LET MY PEOPLE GO to serve Adonai, not some wannabe autocrat, some fascist loving asshole. We the People have to say to one another LET’S GO, we can leave Egypt because we have within us the power of spirit, the power of good, the power of resilience, the power of decency, the power of truth to propel us through our fears of conflict, through our fears of confrontation, through our fears of rocking the boat. The boat we are in right now is sinking, the “norms” of the current ‘ruling parties’ “are but desires in disguise” and We the People are the only ones who can stop the boat from sinking, who can resurrect the ideals of Moses, of Jesus, of Mohammed, of the Buddha. We the People have the power, the path and the strength-our question is do We the People have the willingness?

I think of the ideals that I jettisoned as a teen-ager and I am sick over it. I think of the ideals I have held to in my recovery and I am proud of it. I know that my actions are not perfect and I know I have not always lived up the my ideals, the ideals of faith and recovery, spiritual health and truth, AND I know I have done my best. I have put the welfare of another before mine many times, I have been part of a life-saving, soul-enhancing organization, I have preached truth to power and power to the powerless, I have given voice to the previously voiceless and learned with some of the greatest minds in the world-people who have been to hell, like me, and come back. I have learned that this world with all its flaws is the place of my work and I know that my job is to be the best me. My norms have evolved from that teen-age boy’s egotism to serving another as the greatest act of freedom, kindness, truth and fulfilling the will of God and me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Winning at any and all costs, winning is the only thing or Care for the stranger, the poor, the needy - Year 4 Day 183

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 183

“There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God. The fear lest we hurt a poor man must be as deep as the fear of God, for he that oppresses the poor blasphemes his maker, but he who is gracious unto the needy honors Him(Proverbs 14:31) (God in Search of Man pg. 375)

Reading and re-reading the words above in bold I am reminded of the story of King David, Bathsheba, Uriah and the prophet Nathan. Nathan tells David a story of a rich man who steals the only thing the poor man has, an ewe, so he can offer a meal to a traveler without it costing him anything. David is enraged and wants to kill the rich man and then Nathan says: “That man is you” and David puts on sackcloth and repents. David the King forgot to have “the fear lest we hurt a poor man must be as deep as the fear of God” and life changed for him for quite a while afterward, his connection to God was diminished, not by God but by his inability to keep his personal covenant with God. This is the daily challenge we all face, keeping our personal covenant with God so we keep our spiritual connection to the universe, to our higher consciousness, growing, thriving and open.

When Mike Johnson, the PAGAN, the Idolator, the false ‘christian’ proclaims that if you want to know his politics, read the Bible, we know he DOESN’T READ IT! When the evangelicals like Joni Ernst proclaim their ‘loyalty’ to Jesus Christ, we know they ARE DISLOYAL! When Ben G’Vir and his thugs proclaim they are ‘torah jews’, we know they read a different Bible than the rest of us because they pick out obscure inserts that go agains the main thrust of the Torah and they are the epitome of “he that oppresses the poor blasphemies his maker”! Rather than learn from King David, rather than hear the and immerse themselves in the numerous times of how to love the stranger, care for the poor, give dignity and aid to the needy, rather than “redeem your kinsman”, rather than “love your neighbor as yourself”, these PAGANS continue to say one thing and do another, speak with “forked tongue” and, in the case of Netanyahu, say one thing in English and the exact opposite in Hebrew. The chutzpah of these assholes is undeniable and unbelievable, the buying of their deceptions and bullshit by We the People is unfathomable.

How we got here is important and not as important as how to we return to living decently, living in a free society once again, living in and with “reverence for God”? I believe Rabbi Heschel’s words above are one of the ways to come back to living in God’s will and God’s light, returning to the spiritual nature we are born with and the personal covenant we all have been given at birth. Each of us has a different calling, each of us has our own unique spiritual mission, personal covenant. We are not being called to compete and compare with one another as the words above indicate, we are being called to help one another, to not give in to our negative urge to ‘win at all costs’, to fuck over the little guy because the rich are in so much need of more tax cuts, more money, more de-regulation, more polluting, more screwing with the Ozone, more investment income and less taxes, they should never have to “pay their fair share” because they are rich. Like King David in the story above, Trump, Vought, Bezos, Vance, Johnson, Ernst, et al believe it is good and right for the rich to steal from the poor so they don’t have to have any skin in the game when a traveler comes to visit, so they don’t have to support the very country that has made it possible for them to be rich, that they are not responsible to the journey their ancestors made to come to the United States so they could have a better life. No, instead of doing the next right thing, they blame the very class of people their ancestors were, they do to another group of people exactly what was done to their ancestors when they came here. “What is hateful to you do not do to another human being” is an antiquated saying to the PAGANS like Ben G’Vir, Netanyahu, Smotrich and the Rabbis and Jews who clap for them and support them. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has been transformed by those ‘good christian nationalist folks’ like Johnson, to “fuck the poor, the needy, the stranger” and use them for personal gain.

We the People have to renew our personal covenant with God, we have to renew our spiritual commitment to do the next right thing, we have to leave the Egypt of callousness and cruelty. We the People both here in the USA and in Israel have to stand up and rebel against the fascists like Vance, Netanyahu, Miller, Katz, and the rest of their gang of thugs. We the People have to restore within us the trembling awe, the fear that leads to “know before whom you stand” so we grow into the truth that every person is a reminder of God, that everyone, even Trump, Netanyahu, are created in the Image of God and, We the People have to “come to Pharaoh” and if their divine image is so buried, their egos are so inflated they will not listen, then they have to drown in their own “red sea” and We the People have to redeem our kinsman, welcome the stranger, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”. We the People are being called to stand for and on the Spiritual Principles that the Bible gives us, to live our Spiritual Principles our loud and, in today’s world, very loudly. Will you answer this call?

I have been very loud over the years, as both a con man and a recovering person. I cannot “stand idly by the blood of my neighbor”, I can’t be ‘politically correct’, I believe everyone is entitled to freedom, and we have to rebuke one another so we don’t bear guilt and maybe they awaken their personal covenant. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Standing in Awe of one another vis a vis Being Cruel to one another - Year 4 Day 182

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 182

“There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God. The fear lest we hurt a poor man must be as deep as the fear of God, for He that oppresses the poor blasphemes his maker, but he who is gracious unto the needy honors Him(Proverbs 14:31) (God in Search of Man pg. 375)

“Reverence” comes from the Latin word “revereri” which means “stand in awe of”, so the first sentence above is really speaking about our ability to “stand in awe” of God and one another. The Hebrew word would be Yirah-awe/fear and while many people see these two words as opposites, I see them as complimentary and necessary for a true experience of both God and humans. While this is not a ‘new’ concept that Rabbi Heschel thought up, it is a concept that needs repeating daily by each one of us. We the People are in desperate need of “standing in awe of” one another rather than standing in contempt, standing in deceit, standing in cruelty towards one another. In fact, as ChatGPT tells us, there is a great difference between the words “towards” and “of”. Of means belonging and towards indicates direction, attitude. We cannot say We the People, exclude the “stranger among us” and say we are a ‘christian nation’ because the Bible teaches us to “welcome the stranger”, to “love the stranger”, to “have one law for the stranger and citizen alike”. Jesus hung out with the lepers, the poor, the stranger, he welcomed everyone because he knew, just like the Biblical figures knew that “without reverence for man” there cannot be “reverence for God”.

It is crucial for our spiritual growth, for our continued existence on this planet that We the People engage in “love of man” as well. Without love of human beings, we cannot love ourselves nor God. I am using human beings rather than humanity because it is not enough to say ‘I love humanity’, or ‘I am a humanist’ because as we have seen, possibly said and done, one can love the idea of humanity and hate people, one can love the idea of humanity and be cruel to ‘those people’, one can speak of ‘love of god’ and deport a person to South Sudan without the benefit of due process with some of We the People not saying a peep! When we engage in the second sentence above, it becomes impossible to act with the cruelty which we have seen happen in our lifetimes, we have learned about in history, we have engaged in ourselves, we have condoned by our leaders, we have stayed silent and willfully blind to as a ‘protection’. We the People stand guilty of ignoring the truth, the demand, not immersing ourselves in the truths above.and in the truths of the Bible, New Testament, etc. We the People are being called by the situation at hand, by the times we are in to make the same hard decisions as the prophets made.

We the People are being called to stand up and fight for the dignity of every human being. We the People need to hear the demand to “Be Holy because I, Adonai, am Holy” from Leviticus 19:2. We the People are being reminded that no one is greater than another human being ‘in the eyes of God’ nor should they be ‘in the eyes of human beings’, that every human being is created in “the mold of Adam” and therefore we all have “infinite dignity, equal dignity, and we are all unique-there is no one else like us” as Rabbi Yitz Greenberg taught the Ziegler Rabbinical Students in Summer 1997. As Rabb Adin Steinsaltz, z”l, teaches /writes in 13 Petalled Rose each of us has our own unique purpose, our own “acorn” as James Hillman writes in Soul’s Code, which makes all this comparison, competition, cheating, grifting, ‘low-self esteem’, ego-maniacal, narcissistic ways of being, the bowing low to ‘der Fuhrer’ RIDICULOUS and a BLATANT example of AVODAH ZARAH-IDOL WORSHIP.

Which brings us to the ‘religious leadership in some faiths, in some sects: they are the BLASPHEMERS, they are the PAGANS, they are the IDOLATORS, not We the People, it is the leadership of some Evangelical Christians, some Evangelical Orthodox Jews, some Evangelical Radical Muslims, that has forgotten that “there is no reverence for God without reverence for man” and one cannot condone the killing of innocent men, women children and say one has “reverence for God”. One cannot lock people up for seeking a refuge, a sanctuary from the abuse, the torture of their home countries, following in the tradition of the Puritans, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, the Chinese, the Irish, the Italians, Germans, Jews who sought refuge in America from the extreme conditions they were suffering in their countries of origin.

We the People have to once again “hear the voice at Mount Sinai”, We have to once again seek to be part of the “oneness” that we end the Shema prayer with, belonging: in Godly actions, in our love for one another, in our awe of one another, in our treatment of one another, in holding one another accountable for our good actions as well as our not good ones. We the People are being reminded of our task to “be a blessing” as descendants of Abraham, to “wrestle with God” as our name Yisrael means. We the People need to change the trajectory of our descent into making the world a living hell and go deep into ourselves so we can raise up our daily living and our world to the image that God gives us in the Bible.

I have been in awe of people whether I like them or not, most of the past 38 years. Sometimes I have been in awe of their stupidity(my impression) and sometimes in awe of their brilliance, in awe of their loyalty to principles and in awe of their loyalty to the con/grift. I have stayed loyal to the principles of the Bible for the most part of these years of recovery and I stand in awe and love of human beings so I can love God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.2

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Seeking Oneness with God, with Self, with Another human being - Year 4 Day 181

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 181

“In the light of the Bible, the good is more than a value; it is a divine concern, a way of God. This is the profound implication of the oneness of God: all deeds are relevant to Him. He is present in all our deeds.” (God in Search of Man pg. 375)

All of our lives most of us seek “oneness”/wholeness. We proclaim, in the Shema prayer, Adonai Ehad, God is One, yet we may not have a true understanding of what “oneness” truly is. Dwelling in this idea of “oneness” presented above by Rabbi Heschel gives us a picture that doesn’t have everyone in sync with one another, doesn’t have all of us locked arm in arm with one another, doesn’t have Am Yisrael Chai as the only chant, it is teaching us that “oneness” with God, with one another comes from adhering to “a divine concern”, to attaching ourselves to “the good” as “a value” above all others. This, of course, flies in the face of both Religious and Governmental leadership for the millennia, since King David’s time, I believe. “The good” as the supreme value, as “a divine concern” places upon all of us the burden, the yoke of caring about what is happening in the world around us and what is happening in our inner world. The “profound implication” of this way of being, that “all deeds are relevant to God”, that “He is present in all our deeds” is overwhelming! Just as God was present in Pharaoh, so too is God present in the evil/wrong deeds we commit, I use evil to signify willful actions and wrong to signify unwitting actions.

If We the People truly want to find “oneness” rather than just being perpetual seekers, we have to begin with making “the good” “a value” above all others. We the People have to end our willful blindness and our lack of spiritual, moral maturity; we have to stop putting the servant(our rational minds) ahead of the gift(our intuitive minds) and live into what we know in our soul, what our kishkas are telling us. Rather than being self-serving and self-seeking, rather than being self-centered, “oneness” calls upon us to be part of something greater than ourselves. “Oneness” requires us to surrender our inflated ego, our need to be right and our ‘political correctness’ and engage in what is right, what is good, what is “a divine concern”, ie being human. Since “all deeds are relevant to Him”, it is time for us to stop saying and acting “it is my life and I can do whatever I want to”. While this is true since we are given free will, it is a lie that belies the gift of free will. Just as with everything we have, free will is a gift, not an entitlement, it is to be used in conjunction with our intuitive mind, in tune with and as a means to “the oneness of God”, not as something that serves our greed, our sense of fascism, our need to be right, our desire to be the power of the universe.

The evil that surrounds us today is a direct result of not heeding Rabbi Heschel’s words which reflect the spiritual truths of the Bible, the call and demand of the prophets, the words and deeds of Jesus in the Gospels, etc. The willful actions of Trump, Vought, Vance, Miller, Netanyahu, the IDF, Smotrich, et al are selfish and self-centered, they do not believe in God of the either Bible, nor do they seek “oneness with God”. They do not even seek “oneness” with one another, ‘how can I use you today to get more for me’ is their only concern. They wrap themselves in the language of holiness, in the language of religious fervor, and they are LYING PAGANS! The ‘clergy’ who support them are the same as the Priests who oversaw the destruction of both Temples, those lying PAGANS who sucked up to power and money rather than serve God, rather than seeking the “oneness with God” that the prophets begged them and the People Israel to do. The assholes in charge now in the U.S.A. and in Israel mistake the fact that “He is present in all our deeds” to mean approval of the evil they perpetrate which, of course, is the exact opposite of what is being said. God being “present in all our deeds” reminds us that we cannot hide, we have within us a voice, a power, a spirit that seeks to help us do the next right thing and find our ways back to decency, to justice, to mercy, to walking humbly with God once again.

We the People have to demand of ourselves first and then our leaders a return to having the same “divine concern” for “the good” that God has. We the People need to reinvigorate our spiritual health and clean out our spiritual arteries so we can find God “in all our deeds” and realize that the deeds of another, especially of leaders, are “relevant to Him” and to US! We the People need to re-attach ourselves to the spiritual force in the universe which changes lives, as President George W. Bush said to a group of us: “God entered my heart and I didn’t have to drink”. When We the People allow God to enter our hearts, when we “circumcise the foreskins of our hearts and stiffen our necks no more”(Deut.10:16), our lives change and so do the lives of the people around us and around the globe. When We the People make a decision to be part of the “oneness of God”, we fulfill the Shema prayer and our lives are never the same nor are we at ‘peace’ because the injustices, the lack of mercy and kindness, the bastardization of “the good” by both evil doers and wrong doers makes us walk the floors at night. This is the way of the prophets, this is the way of God crying out each night “my children are in exile” and this is the way to making “the good” the supreme value for all.

I knew God was present in my evil and wrongs, today’s teaching solidifies this truth and explains why I could never commit fully to evil and how I kept getting caught! I could not ‘kill’ God being “present in all my deeds” and this is what saved me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living "the Good" in all of our affairs - Year 4 Day 180

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 180

“In the light of the Bible, the good is more than a value; it is a divine concern, a way of God. This is the profound implication of the oneness of God: all deeds are relevant to Him. He is present in all our deeds.” (God in Search of Man pg. 375)

Living into the enormity of these teachings and words above is the goal of humanity, as I am understanding and hearing Rabbi Heschel this morning. His voice is in my head each and every day; morning, noon and night and it is a disturbing voice, a voice that is both a cheerleader and a critic, a loving, caring, demanding, unwavering, voice that continues to implore me to do one grain of sand better and to stop giving into the negativity that seeks to overwhelm me. Rabbi Heschel’s voice awakens the prophetic voice inside of me and, hopefully, you as well so We the People will accept once and for all time that “the good is more than a value” and we will “teach it to our children, speak of this when we walk on the way, when we lie down, when we rise up…” as the V’Ahavta prayer demands of us. This is an example of the “deed” of prayer, to take action on the words we say rather than just mumble them, sing them with no understanding or kavanah of what the prayer is asking of us, what the implications of ignoring the prayer are, and to pay attention to the experience of prayer “making us worthy to be saved” as Rabbi Heschel teaches.

“The good is more than a value; it is a divine concern” is an outrageous statement, it is a ridiculous statement to many; in Greek and Roman mythology, the gods have no concern other than fucking with human beings and their own selfish narcissistic desires. In other pagan religions the idols are made of clay and call for human sacrifices, fucking in the fields with the holy prostitutes so there is a good crop, etc. Only in the Bible do we learn that “good” is “a divine concern”, only in the Bible do we hear the demand to “Choose Life”, which is to choose good. We are being reminded that God has a stake in what we do, God has an interest in human beings that goes way beyond any ‘need’ of God, it is the concern of a parent that their child finds their way in the world, that they find their “Soul’s Code” as James Hillman writes about in his book of the same name. The outrageousness is that most people think that God is ‘some guy in the sky with a long white beard’ or Jesus on the Cross, or, or, or because they cannot wrap their heads around the idea that God is an abstract entity, that God is indefinable, indescribable, is the ineffable One. I believe we have raised idiots when it comes to spiritual maturity and growth, spiritual knowledge and insight because the Religious leadership hasn’t given We the People the benefit of their doubt that we are sophisticated enough to experience God as an abstract entity and still be faithful. How sad and ridiculous as well as elitist!

If only the Religious Leadership would study Rabbi Heschel, would immerse themselves in the Bible, would take seriously that “the good is more than a value; it is a divine concern”, then instead of spiritual midgets, We the People, all the people regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, would be spiritually educated, would be connected to the Source of all and truly be able to fulfill the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” and the “stranger” in our midst would be welcomed and embraced instead of feared and incarcerated. Were “the good is more than a value” be fully embraced by the Religious Leadership, we would not have the strife, the wars, the senseless hatred that is happening right here, right now. While many of We the People are well aware of the truth that “the good…is a divine concern” it is way past time for We the People to demand from our Religious Leaders and from our elected officials that they accept, live into and learn how to practice this eternal truth. It is way past time for We the People to throw these Charlatans, these PAGANS, these deceivers, these grifters the hell out of office, keep them away from power and throw out all of their co-conspirators, these ‘good christian folk’ who have cut the aid package that has saved millions of people from dying from AIDS (Pepfar) and many other important needs of We the People! When the elected officials and their appointees don’t care about We the People as this administration constantly shows and the Congress is too cowardly to do the next right thing, when they live and act as if “the good” is just another value which can be spun, when they fail to live, act and surrender to “a divine concern” and yet continue to talk about how much the Bible rules their daily living, it is way past time for We the People to stage another “Boston Tea Party” and dump these lying assholes, these grifting punks, these mendacious PAGANS out on their asses!

I cannot keep quiet nor can I speak in politically correct ways. I don’t care that the progressives think me a boor, that the conservatives think me a radical, because “a divine concern” is more important for me to follow than being liked, being fit for ‘proper society’. I can’t go along to get along, I realize that I am not able to compromise on principles, on values as I did before my spiritual awakening. I have, of course, compromised at times and it has been acid in my stomach, angina in my spiritual arteries and veins, and a tremendous war within and I lashed out at another(s), usually those I love most, when I couldn’t deal with the compromises I was making. I am not built to compromise, to shade, to wait when I perceive, see, experience, know in my bones that “a divine concern” is being violated, ignored, bastardized. I did these very same actions in my life prior to recovery, prior to my spiritual awakening, I witnessed ‘the good people’ violating, ignoring, bastardizing “a divine concern” and be leaders at the Temple, in business, in government and it was too much for me then and I succumbed to their way and since 1987 I refuse to do this again. “The good is more that a value; it is a divine concern” so it has to be mine and I continue to wrestle with me and you to make this happen. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Is Prayer mystical or magical? Does doing a mitsvah, the next right thing, change you ? Year 4 Day 179

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 179

“What is a mitsvah? A prayer in the form of a deed. And to pray is to sense His presence. “In all thy ways though shalt know Him.” Prayer should be part of all our ways. It does not have to be always on lips; it must always be on our minds, in our hearts.” ( God in Search of Man pg. 375)

Rabbi Heschel’s definition of “a mitsvah” above says it all to me. Doing “a mitsvah” cannot be done by rote any more than prayer should be done from memorization and become routine. When people are accosting people in the street to ask “are you Jewish?, did you wrap Tefillin today? Let me wrap it for you”, they are not fulfilling a mitsvah, no matter what you are told, they are fulfilling a check list! They are not sensing “His presence” in what they are doing, they are only showing off their ‘devotion’. The people who are being ‘wrapped’ in Tefillin may think there is something magical/mystical happening and without the experience being a “prayer in the form of a deed”, without the commitment to continue doing it and wrapping the Tefillin in the morning as we are told to do, it is a magic show that denigrates the “mitsvah” and cheapens our tradition.

The same is true in Christianity, in Islam, in Buddhism, when one is promoting and/or looking for a magic show, the essence of the faith, of the spiritual path is lost. Hence, these ‘good christians’ and ‘good jews’ who are promoting and perpetrating great harms against Latinos, Blacks, Jews, and Arabs are FULL OF SHIT! They are not fulfilling “a mitsvah” as they claim; they are not living Christ’s values, teachings, actions as they claim; they are living out their fantasies of power and prestige, money-grabbing and autocracy. They are living in self-deception and spewing out deceptions to We the People so fast and so furious we don’t have time to debunk one because there come in droves, these deceptions. Whether it is in politics or in the street, in the Church or the Synagogue, any time and every time ‘magic’ is used to ‘convince’ people of the primacy of der fuhrer’s position, to ‘convince’ people of the ‘rightness’ of the preacher’s words and ways, we are witnessing and experiencing the opposite of what “a mitsvah” is, the opposite of “a prayer in the form of a deed” and this is the tragedy of our time because most of We the People are unable to discern the difference.

In Judaism there is a prayer for just about everything! In immersing myself in the words above, I realize the Rabbis did this so that “prayer should be part of all our ways”. If we are constantly reciting a prayer upon seeing rainbow, an ugly person, a national park, the Grand Canyon, Old Faithful, upon eating and drinking, then were are really living the V’Ahavta prayer: we are loving God with everything we have, we are speaking of the teachings, the miracles, the mitzvahs while we are walking on our way, we are never forgetting that we are not the end all/be all, and we are constantly affirming our position as beings who are compatible with being a partner of God’s, we are actively seeking and making our corner of the world one grain of sand better each day. Making “prayer” a “part of all our ways” is to take life seriously, to realize our “destiny is to aid and serve” as Rabbi Heschel teaches. It causes We the People to be a little more deliberate in our actions, to be a little more disciplined in our ways of being and a little more aware of what is around us, beauty, holiness, ugliness and unholiness. “Prayer should be part of all our ways” is the antidote to willful blindness and indifference to evil, “indifference to the sublime wonder of living”. We cannot be blind nor indifferent when “prayer” is a “part of all our ways”. Living into this phrase will help us discern the lies from the truths that we tell ourselves and that we hear from the mouths of those ‘good christian folk’, those ‘good jewish men’ etc. This is the antidote to evil and ugly-making “prayer” a “part of all our ways”!

Before you complain, I don’t believe in prayer, look at the last sentence of this quote. “Prayer” is not about saying some words by rote and routinely, “prayer” is about action, it is about doing the next right thing, it is about being engaged in the activities one is doing and participating fully in THiS MOMENT. “Prayer” is not something done with our lips alone, it is an action that consumes our minds and our hearts, it is an action that reminds us of our station in life-infinitely worthy and dignified, equal to all and unique/different from everyone else. “Prayer”, in this sense, gives We the People the vision to see what is ahead, the spiritual sustenance to weather and defeat the fascists in our midst and the Pharaoh that resides within us. “It must always be on our minds, in our hearts” gives each and every one of us the ability to hear the call from Sinai, to respond to the cries of the Jews, Palestinians, the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Asians, etc-every minority that the fascists in charge of our Nation and Israel want to blame for all our troubles, want to discriminate against and want to deport from “the land of the free”! “Prayer” is what makes We the People know we cannot “stand idly by the blood of our neighbor” and, as Ben Franklin taught, hang together or we will hang separately, cause the fascists in charge want to split us so they can divide and conquer. “Prayer” as described above will not allow this to happen!

I do the best I can to live these words each and every day of my recovery. I am loud, abrasive and dedicated to prayer, to the inner wisdom of “a mitsvah” and a better person because of living this way! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Doing the next right thing, doing what I want to do to get ahead one leads to good, one leads to evil - Year 4 Day 178

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 178

“We are never alone in our struggle with evil. A mitsvah, unlike the concept of duty, is not anonymous and impersonal. To do a mitsvah is give an answer to His will, to respond to what He expects of us. This is why an act of mitsvah is preceded by a prayer: “Blessed be Thou…” (God in Search of Man pg. 375)

WOW!! What good news-“we are never alone in our struggle with evil” makes facing “evil” less scarier and more doable for many of us. Yet, at the same time, most people feel alone in their “struggle with evil” because they feel like hypocrites for doing “a mitsvah” and saying a “prayer” while knowing that 5 minutes ago they were overcome by their urges to do something that was not “a mitsvah” and, in fact, was wrong, bad, “evil”. This incongruence, this cognitive dissonance makes many people reject the first sentence above and the rest of the words above. They don’t realize that every human being is flawed, every human being is incongruent, every human being has an urge to do “evil” and the reason “evil” doesn’t dominate people is because they know they are “never alone in our struggle with evil”. We have the Bible, the New Testament, Koran, Buddhist teachings, etc. We have the mitsvah which obligates us to continue the “good fight” to overcome the myriad of urges and rational reasoning that lead to doing “evil” and convincing ourselves that every thing is upside down so we can live with the cruelty and ruination we are causing.

“A mitsvah” is personal, very personal. Some people are able to ‘mail it in’, do “a mitsvah” and not be touched by it, not be changed by the experience, they can even just do “a mitsvah” as a checklist, something to check off and the same is true of prayer-just going through the motions and call themselves ‘religious’, ‘pious’, ‘the keepers of the flame’, and other such lies, mendacities and bullshit. This is not what we are learning above. Since “a mitsvah” “is not anonymous and impersonal”, we have to make sure that we know what we are doing, we have to broadcast doing the next right thing-not for egotistical reasons-so another human being knows what the next right thing to do is, it is a way of teaching humanity about service, about obligation that represents “I GET TO DO THIS”, about the deep personal satisfaction one receives upon looking at the good they have done for another human being, for “His will”, and the knowing that, in this moment, I have responded “to what He expects of us”.

This is why the lies about Jesus, about the “stranger”, the demonizing of another group of people for one’s personal gain, the injustice being served up on a platter, the lies and cruelty shown to We the People in the ‘big bullshit bill’, the arming of a secret police that rivals the Gestapo, the Russian Secret Police, etc is so disturbing to people of faith-real faith not the IDOLATRY that Vought, Osteen, Pence, Bondi, Trump, promote. “A mitsvah” cannot be done in earnest by PAGANS, they may make a mistake and do the next right thing once in a while, and it is either a mistake or a calculated strategy to ‘look good’ so they can pick your pocket somewhere else. What is happening in our country by those ‘good christian nationalist, white supremacy folks’ is NOT what the Bible teaches! It is not what the Torah teaches, no matter how loud Ben G’Vir screams and the ‘orthodox’ Jews yell about the West Bank and Gaza being ‘given to us by god’ to prove their point of superiority-sounds like a playbook used before by those who have persecuted and tormented Jews!

What is happening in the United States, in Israel is criminal by Biblical Standards, in my opinion. These two governments, in the name of We the People are throwing gasoline on democracy and democratic norms, lighting the match like the burning of Jewish Books, Torah Scrolls, Tallis’, Skullcaps, etc on Kristallnacht! How could this have happened? Simple-when one doesn’t recite “a prayer” before doing something, one’s heart, mind, spirit cannot be in alignment, there can be no kavanah, no heart pointing and soul controlling our actions. When one does ‘a mitsvah’ for their own sake and not because this is “what He expects of us”, it is a selfish action that precedes more and more selfish acts and they are done under the guise of protection, retribution, fairness, caring, etc. These selfish acts that people like Netanyahu, Trump, et al perform under the guise of “a mitsvah” are actually acts of cruelty, acts of going directly against “His will”, never responding to “what He expects of us” and abdicating our position of being God’s partner because these PAGANS have decided they know better than god, they are idolators and non-believers kissing babies for show, being prayed over by other PAGANS and everyone is having a big laugh at the expense of the very people Jesus hung out with, the very people the Torah, the Bible tells us to take care of! Then, to have this evil “preceded by a prayer: Blessed by Thou…” by Cain-White, Osteen, Hagee, et al is AVODAH ZARAH- IDOLATRY to the Nth Degree! Yet, many of We the People buy into this bullshit, have put blinders on to what is true and real and merrily go along with cruelty, fascism, racism, which leads to the ruination of our Great Nation because we are no longer “conceived in liberty”, we are no longer concerned with Justice, Mercy and could care less about “walk humbly with God” because they believe to their core that they are god- these ‘good christian, jewish muslim folk’!

Having been a PAGAN for 20 years, from 17-36, I know of what I speak. Having been dedicated to “His will” and “to respond to what He expects of us” for the past 38, I choose LIFE, I choose the “mitsvah” as the way to go because I never have to look over my shoulder, I never have to worry. Being part of a community, a group of friends reminds me I am “never alone in our struggle with evil”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Focusing on what matters- the Commandments of God! Year 4 Day 177

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 177

“To the Jew, Sinai is at stake in every act of man, and the supreme issue is not good and evil, but God, and His commandment to love good and hate evil; not the sinfulness of ma but the commandment of God.” (God in Search of Man pg. 375)

The first phrase above is both true and forgotten by many a “Jew”. This is the tragedy of the Jewish people; “Sinai is at stake in every act of man” and we forget this, we twist this, we put ourselves, the truth, the good, the evil in pretzel machines come out with skewed attitudes, confused understandings, and promotion of evil rather than the good. This has happened over the millennia and, it seems to me, it is happening on steroids in our time. The State of Israel is a homeland for Jews and it was created with the intention that Jews and Arabs could share the land, live side by side. The Arab nations and the Arab people living in the original mark-up of the land by the UN in 1947/48 decided this was not okay, went to war with Israel as soon as Statehood was announced, gone to war a few times since and has never wanted to make a deal even when Arafat got over 90% of what he was asking for!! The wars were not of Israel’s making and, for a long time, going to war was done with a heavy heart because the loss of one life is too much-this is what “Sinai is at stake in every act of man” means even when it comes to going to war because one has to defend oneself, one’s country. It has been evil of the Palestinians to not want to make peace, not want to find ways to live in at least detente with Israelis, Hamas is evil, Hezbollah is evil as well because they do not fight for peace, they fight for hatred. Their claim of Allah Akbar, God is Great, is a hollow call when they continue to promote evil, to promote hatred, terrorism, holding hostages, etc. The Arab nations that continue to support Hamas and their leaders are also evil, they are perpetuating a wrong, the evil actions of Oct. 7, 2023 and they have never pressured the Palestinians to have a leader that can make peace/detente with Israel.

Israel, for its part has also been “evil”, forgetting “God and His commandment to love good and hate evil”! No matter how many ultra-orthodox Jews are in his cabinet, no matter how many ‘real jews’ supporters Netanyahu has, all of them are PAGANS, they do not “love good and hate evil” because they are perpetuating the evil of occupation for far too long. Their attitude that Arabs in the West Bank could be killed and it is not a crime is atrocious, the worst evil I can think of because it goes against the very essence of what the creation story teaches us about humanity! We all come from the mold of Adam, we, every human being, is created with infinite dignity, worth as we learn from Exodus 10:1 when God says to Moses: “Come to Pharaoh”, we don’t say “come” unless we are there so God was still within Pharaoh, just as God is within every human being alive! To say only Jews have infinite value and worth is denying that “Sinai is at stake in every act of man”! This is the evil being perpetrated upon all Jews and non-Jews by Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben G’Vir, et al in the Israeli government which has led to the continuing hostage drama and saga as well as throughout the Jewish world led by Chabad, AIPAC, and other ‘right-wing’ Jews. No where in any of the commandments is the command to be CRUEL, the command to hate another human being-in fact, we are told to LOVE THE STRANGER over and over again, we are told to “hate evil” not promote it, we are told to “rebuke your neighbor and don’t bear guilt because of them”.

It is time for We the People to live up to and into the demand and knowing that “Sinai is at stake in every act of man”. It is time for We the People to stop going along to get along, to stop kissing the asses of those in power here in America and there in Israel. It is time for We the People to demonstrate with our actions that “the supreme issue” is “the commandment of God” not the desires of the PAGANS, the LIARS, the IDOLATORS! We the People are being called to duty, We the People are being called to serve God, not humans, We the People are being called to jettison the lies and deceptions we have bought into, the ones in our minds and the ones another(s) tell us. We the People are being given the opportunity to do a complete T’Shuvah for Adam’s hiding in the Garden by “coming out” from the shadows, leaving the ‘safety’ of hiding under our beds, rising above our fears of being harmed by the ‘milita’ of these autocrats and PAGANS like Netanyahu, Trump, Miller, Osteen, Chabad, Ultra-Orthodox right-wingers and left-wingers and STAND AT SINAI once again and repeat the words that have kept Judaism alive: NA’ASEH V’NISHMA, WE WILL DO AND THEN UNDERSTAND! We the People have to “take a leap of action” as Rabbi Heschel reminds us.

As you can probably gather, the “fire” I wrote about yesterday is flashing through me today as well! I am so tired of living in the binary world of human beings who only seek to use it for power and control, be it on the left, be it on the right. Rather than seek to find the middle ground, the middle path which Maimonidies recommends, these assholes, these ‘self-righteous pricks’ have to have it their way or the highway. I guess this is why my “fire”, my prophetic inheritance gets ignited so easily and quickly-which I admit is not always a good thing! Yet, I live a life where “Sinai is at stake in every act” of Mark. I know the dangers of flirting with evil, with hanging out with the bad, because I did, got seduced, went against what I knew to be right and did wrong. This is the tragedy of the Jews on the extremes, they are not able to experience the seduction that has happened to them, they continue to wrap themselves in Torah, in the “good” and continue to miss the truth of their actions, the “sinfulness” and the “commandment of God”. This is the tragedy that I am railing against today. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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The Ability to Cope with Evil and using the Power of God's will to defeat it Year 4 Day 176

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 176

“Sinai was superimposed on the failure of Adam. The fact that we were given the knowledge of His will is a sign of some ability to cope with evil. The voice is more than a challenge. It is powerful enough to shake the wilderness of the soul, to strip the ego bare, to flash forth His will like fire.” (God in Search of Man pg. 374-5)

I have been thinking about the first sentence forever, in a way, and more specifically since Friday when I first copied it down. What was the failure of Adam? It certainly wasn’t the disobedience because the Garden story is a setup and since the Torah is Eternal Wisdom and Truth, I believe “the failure of Adam” was to hide, to deny, to blame rather than be responsible for his actions. “Sinai” is where there was no hiding, no one was left out, everyone had their own experience there, no two being the same according to the Torah, and everyone felt seen and saw something, everyone believed they were heard and heard something, everyone experienced being invited in and they knew they belonged. Everyone experienced the will of God, their higher/highest consciousness and ‘saw’ the possibilities of living free, living whole, living holy after years of being slaves to Pharaoh and slaves to their own immature inner life. What a gift in the face of the evil of Egypt, in the face of the fear of the unknown: to be known, belonging and supported by one’s ‘tribe’, one’s community, one’s higher power!

I’m hearing Rabbi Heschel remind us of our own power and to use it, our own voices and own them, our knowing of what is right and not right and choosing good, choosing what is right, choosing life!

Our “knowledge of His will is” the beginning. After Sinai we have no excuse for not carrying it out, for not using it to combat the evil that is within us and the evil that surrounds us. When the Minister of Defense of the State of Israel declares that killing a Palestinian in the West Bank is not a terrorist act, that it is ‘okay’, when IDF soldiers murder an entire family who had been guarded by Jewish volunteers the week before so they could pick the olives from their trees, and claim that this is god’s will, we know that Sinai had no effect on them, we know they are the idolators and false prophets Moses warned us about. We know that Anochi is not their God, their god is an idol and they are part of the PAGANS that have taken power across the globe. When we have the second tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor, at the expense of medicaid, at the expense of so Pepfar the USA is being run by the same fascist cult that lived 100 years ago in Nazi Germany. When masked Latinos are arresting, beating, deporting other Latinos and won’t show their faces for fear of being recognized by their community, we know that Jesus’ words have no effect on them. When Miller, Holman, Cain-White, Bannon, Osteen, Hagee, all agree that Jesus is the LION, that Jesus doesn’t care about justice, mercy, or walking humbly with God, we know that Sinai, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection has no impact on them and the “knowledge of God’s will” is overtaken by the desires of their will, the call of power, cruelty, hatred, prejudice has become their raison d’être!

Yet, there is hope and the hope lies with We the People! Because we all stood at Sinai, according to the Jewish Tradition, and in Parasha Nitzavim, we are told that all of us from the heads of the tribes to the water-carrier stood and were a community at the edge of the Jordan river, we all hear, know, recognize “the voice” and “the voice” “is powerful enough to shake the wilderness of the soul, to strip the ego bare, to flash forth His will like fire.” We the People are being called to once again STAND AT SINAI and once again HEAR THE VOICE so our egos can be stripped bare, so our soul can find its way home to connection and maturity, so His will burns within us like fire and we fully claim our prophetic inheritance. This is the path for us every day, and it is especially important for this to be the path we follow in this moment when the powers that be are more interested in giving into their inner Pharaohs than their inner Moses’. When Netanyahu and Trump can join forces to exile the Palestinians, to think that building concentration camps like the one Bibi has proposed and Alligator Alcatraz Trump has built in Florida, Pharaoh reigns. When they can make the streets of Los Angeles look like the streets of Germany in the 1930’s, when they can kill children at hospitals seeking attention, when they are more concerned with power and staying out of jail, more concerned at never being held responsible for their actions, we are being led by FASCISTS and PAGANS, no matter what halos they put on their heads, no matter what Jewish stars they put on their bodies, no matter what pins they wear depicting the flags of either/both countries. We the People are being called to use “the knowledge of His will” to not just “cope with evil” we are being told we can defeat “evil” and it is up to us to join together as we did at the Red Sea, as we did at Sinai, as we did on the other side of the Jordan River to fight and defeat the evil within us and outside of us.

I ma watching in horror as the two places I always believed would put principles above personalities, would always seek to do the next right thing, would hold anyone accountable for their actions have caved into cravenness so quickly and easily. I know the power of seduction that evil has, I know the power of the rational mind to make evil seem like the good and I know that “Sinai” is the response to the “evil” within us. I have been blessed to have the “voice” “flash forth His will like fire” and, at times, flashed fire at another(s) and been told I am inappropriate. All of the ‘appropriate’ people and ways helped “evil” flourish and it is time for a “Fire” to burn the evil away so we can live in the good. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Dependence on self, on the nature of human beings or Dependence on Higher Consciousness, on God, on the Word from Sinai? Year 4 Day 175

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 175

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

Immersing ourselves in these words, in these thoughts as we begin our day with a prayer of gratitude to God for returning our souls to us, with a gratitude list for the people around us, for the goodness we experience, raises our consciousness above our immature egos, above our rational, selfish, self-centered minds to a higher consciousness, to our intuitive minds, to serving something greater than ourselves.

Unfortunately, most of the people in power today do not immerse themselves in “the mitsvah”, they bastardize “the commandments” and “take the name of God in vain” when they proclaim that “god told me to be cruel” or “god wants only white people to rule America”, and other such bullshit. When the people in power can delay help from FEMA for three days to a red State like Texas, waiting for Kristy Noem to get her photo-op on while children and adults are dying and missing, is it any wonder that in blue States they have the National Guard and Marines terrorizing the cities? Is it any wonder that we are in the situations we are in because these ‘good christian nationalist folk’ believe their nature is god’s will? Where is our outrage? Where is our resistance? Where is our demand to make America a “more perfect union”? Union being the key word here; it comes from the Latin meaning “one, unity”. This doesn’t mean we all agree all the time, rather, we have one goal, as stated in our Declaration Of Independence: “all people are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness”, that we have one path: Freedom as laid out in the Bill of Rights. Without using these documents as our guides and standards here in America, we are giving the control to “the nature of man”…and “the surely the outlook (is) dim”!

Just as the Jewish People have “Sinai”, we Americans have Bunker Hill, we have “the midnight ride of Paul Revere”, we have John Hancock signing the Declaration so large, “King George won’t need his spectacles to read it”! Both traditions have assistance that goes beyond our narcissistic egos, that help us rise from the selfish and greedy individuals we are/have become, the power-hungry, prejudicial, judgmental assholes we have the tendency to be. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence were written by men of faith, they knew of “Sinai”, they had reverence for “the word of God” even though they did believe they had ‘the right’ to own slaves-which “Sinai” comes to say that slavery will, eventually, end. I watch in horror as these ‘good christian nationalist folks’ continue to proclaim their ‘love of Jesus’, their ‘devotion to the Bible’, and then act with cruelty, abandoning the stranger, pissing on the poor, imprisoning the needy and fucking over the widow and orphan. I watch in horror as ‘orthodox jews’ shout “death to the Palestinians”, as they “cheer the destruction in Gaza”, as they seek to dominate what is “jewish and what isn’t”, how they bastardize the Bible’s essence and constantly repeat the “failure of Adam” and deny the voice that blares from “Sinai”! Rather than hear  and adhere to “the word of God”, these PAGANS in their Tzitzis, Yamulka’s and beards, like their counterparts, ‘those good christian nationalists folks’, do more to encourage people to never here nor adhere to the word of God!

It is way past time for We the People to retake our power. It is way past time for We the People to honor the prophetic inheritance we have received. It is way past time for We the People to repay the debt we owe our ancestors for coming to America so we could be born in a FREE COUNTRY, whether they came here ‘legally’ or ‘illegally’. The fact that, unlike in during WWII, people who serve in the military are not automatically granted citizenship is disgusting. The fact that people born here have to worry about CRUEL ASSHOLES like Kristy Noem, Pam Bondi, Stephen Miller, Donald DRUMPH, denying them the rights guaranteed by our Constitution is abhorrent. We the People have enjoyed the “certain unalienable rights” and if we are so foolish to believe that when these “unalienable rights” are taken from one person, one group they will not be take from us, then we will go down the path of Hungry, of Israel, and walk willingly into autocracy, fascism, and senseless hatred, which are the ingredients for the destruction of our way of living, as they have been throughout history. We the People are being called, there is a demand that comes through each and every day from “Sinai”, the call of God, the call of conscience, the call of higher consciousness, the call of our intuitive mind to RISE UP and do the next right thing. These voices are demanding we Love the Stranger, Love our Neighbor, that we DO NOT stand idly be the bloods of our neighbors, etc. They are calling us to acknowledge our fear of taking action and being subjected to the same cruelty that ‘those people’ are and then DO IT ANYWAY. This is the way of God, this is the path of the heroes of the Bible-not perfect beings in any way, shape or form and what makes them heroes is Judah standing up for his brother Benjamin after he didn’t for Joseph, Abraham standing up for Sodom even though he didn’t for Isaac, the prophets standing against the powers that be at the cost of life, liberty. This is the inheritance We the People must honor and use.

I use my inheritance every day and have since December of 1986, not always well, not always hearing “The Voice”, and listening for it to the best of my ability. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Are you "standing idly by the blood of your neighbor" or are you "doing justly, loving mercy, walking humbly with God"? Year 4 Day 174

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 174

“Does not goodness tend to turn impotent in the face of temptation? Crime, vice, sin offer us rewards; while virtue demands self-restraint, self-denial. Sin is thrilling and full of excitement. Is virtue thrilling? (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

I awoke earlier than usual this morning and my mind would not leave me alone. I was thinking about what is happening in the world, in my country, in Israel, in Ukraine and bewildered as to how this is happening less than 100 years since Nazi Germany. I cannot wrap my head around the idea that Israel is going to ‘set up an area’ for Palestinians who want to ‘stay in Gaza’ can live, those who do not want to self-deport to, I don’t know, South Sudan! I am enraged beyond, beyond that masked men are scooping up Latino men, women, and children under the assumption that they are “illegal criminals” and these goons, these storm-troopers (National Guard/Marines) believe have the right to come into any city they want, yet we don’t see them in Texas or in Florida-DUH!! And this is all being done in the name of god, because this is what ‘Jesus’ wants, because we didn’t do this October 7th happened as god’s punishment to the Jews for not having Gaza, West Bank!! What utter and complete BULLSHIT, this is the essence of Idolatry. It describes how “goodness tend(s) to turn impotent in the face of temptation”.

I know there are verses to point to in the Bible, in the New Testament, in the Koran that can validate these extremest views, I also know there are many more verses that INVALIDATE these idiotic, inhumane ways of being. Hillel the Elder says: “In a place where there is no humanity, be human.” We are living in a time where the criminals are running the show, be it Putin, Bibi, Orban, Trump, Vance, Smotrich, Vought, Miller, Ben G’Vir, Erdogan, MBS, Xi, etc. These criminals have convinced at least of plurality of their people that “crime, vice, sin” is actually goodness in disguise-‘cause, you see Mark, you just don’t understand and are not spiritually fit enough to realize the ‘hand of god’ in what we are doing’. AND too many people are still buying these lies, this bullshit, and giving these criminals free rein-Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Amy Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito!! Rather than exhibiting “self-restraint, self-denial” these criminals and their cohorts, their enablers and ass-kissers are running amok and wild in their pursuit of cruelty, money, power, control and We the People are not doing enough to stop them.

The Republican majority in Congress have violated the Oath they took upon the start of this Congress- to defend and protect the Constitution against enemies, foreign and domestic. Domestic enemies, domestic terrorists are running our country right now and I am ashamed, embarrassed and don’t know how to contain my outrage-not only at them, my outrage is overwhelmingly towards those of We the People who continue to support such “crime, vice, sin” and believe the “rewards” from these activities benefit ‘all of us’. To act in these ways and say the Bible tells me so-AVODAH ZARAH- IDOLATRY IN ACTION!!

My outrage towards Netanyahu and what is happening in Israel is no less and, possibly, more than towards Trump and what is happening in the U.S.A. We the Jews were given one mission by God-spread the word! “You shall be a blessing” Abraham is told (Gen.12:2) and, by extension, his descendants are to “be a blessing” also-that is us, my fellow Jews. No matter how much Ben G’Vir, Smotrich, and others of their ilk try to put a tuxedo on a pig-it is still a pig, just as their lies, no matter how they couch them in ‘text’, are still lies. That Jews would even think about displacing people is anathema to our very existence-that Jews, who have been displaced from every land we have lived on/in-remember the “land that I will show you”(Gen.12:1) threw us out because, according to the Rabbis that these ‘real jews’ follow, we defiled it, we turned our backs on the poor, the needy, we encouraged senseless hatred and we failed to be in truth with ourselves, with God, with one another. We the Jews, of that time, could not bring ourselves to admit our mistakes, We the Jews, of that time, would not do our T’Shuvah and, instead, railed against the prophets who came with a message from God to get our shit together or we would lose our place. Well, BIBI, well, Smotrich, well Settlers- the Prophets are screaming at you right now and, once again, true to your nature and the inheritance of those you proclaim to be ‘the real jews’, you ignore the call, the demand, the insistence to be human that is coming from Mount Sinai, that is in the words and deeds of so many Israelis and Jews around the globe!

Rabbi Heschel says in his interview with Carl Stern: “how can I pray when I am co-responsible for the deaths of 1000’s of innocent Vietnamese?”. I ask: how can we act as if everything is normal when we are co-responsible for the cruelty being perpetrated upon so many innocent strangers here in America; how can we act as if “crime, vice, sin” is good when perpetrated upon those “non-human Palestinians” as the Right-Wing in Israel believes? WTF!! As a former practitioner of evil, of knowing that crime pays more than virtue in the short run, knowing the “rush” of the score, the euphoria of the “win”, I can say with certainty that Trump, Bibi and their gangs(no matter who is pulling the strings), are criminals and gangsters. They are not ‘good christian folk’, good and real jews’. They are PAGANS who are hellbent on bastardizing what is good and virtuous. It is up to us to stop them and we must! Our grandchildren are counting on us! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Ego-the driving force that can promote "the good" and can defeat "the good" - Year 4 Day 173

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 173

“The ego is a powerful rival of the good. When coupled with gain, when virtue pays, the good has a chance to prevail. When the good is to be realized at a loss, with no reward, it is easily defeated. Now, since the good it is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward, what is the change of the good ever to prevail over the interests of the ego?” (God in Search of Man pg. 374)

Once again, Rabbi Heschel touches on what is happening in our time as it has in every time. While I maintain the ego is a gift from God, that it has an important function within human beings, I also maintain it has caused the greatest problems throughout history and within individual communities, families and within ourselves. Thomas Edison had an ego which kept him trying to invent the light bulb over 6000+ attempts, every great scientific discovery comes from people with egos who will not give up, maybe it is stubbornness, maybe it is a calling, it does, in the end, have to do with ego. Ego also has produced the great tragedies of human history: Genghis Khan, Pharaoh, Roman Empire, Babylonia, The various wars throughout Europe over the centuries, Spanish Inquisition, Anti-Semitism, racism, slavery, Nazi Germany, Newt Gingrich, MAGA, Stalin, Netanyahu, Trump, Putin, etc.

My question is: how did “the good” and “ego” become such rivals? As I read the Bible, I am struck by the warnings against allowing these two important and powerful forces to become enemies. “Choose Life”, here is “a pathway to a richer and more meaningful life”, “love your neighbor”, help your enemy if they are thirsty or hungry, “love the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”, etc. Within the Bible are all the ways these two forces become rivals and how to make them friends, yet we seem to have lost the wisdom of the Bible and we are intent on having our “ego” serve our rational minds and our ‘heart’s desires’. Hence the warning in our daily prayers, in the third paragraph of the Shema, from Numbers 15:39; “do not explore/scout after your heart and your eyes because you will whore after them.” This warning, which is not recited out loud in most congregations and is overlooked by most people, is so explicit and so condemning of our willful and unwitting blindness as well as our willful acts of an egotistical nature, goes unnoticed by the likes of both MAGA and the “progressives”, as well as many in the ‘middle’. Human beings have ignored the warnings, the stories, the consequences of an “ego” out of proper measure and we all suffer from the actions of a few, of the many. It is so important for We the People to be on guard and watch ourselves so we do not let the “ego” get out of proper measure that we are told “do not run after the majority to do evil”!

What happened in Ancient Israel if not the consequences from “the ego is a powerful rival of the good”. King Solomon got too full of himself, ignored the warnings to not go back to Egypt, to not have too many wives, to not have too many… and the people rebelled once he died. He held Israel together by fear, not by love, by might, not by shared vision and mission, so once he was dead there was no one who had his charisma, his power and the nation fell apart. Be it Torquemada, Titus, King George, Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, they all allowed/are allowing their “egos” to “be a powerful rival of the good” and we are the collateral damage in their march of narcissistic sociopathy, in their search for more and more ‘bad guys’, in their incessant need for having their asses kissed, being glorified, winning at any and all costs.

What will it take for We the People to both realize and demand our elected officials obligate themselves as we are obligating ourselves that “the good” is always “coupled with gain” and has “to prevail” over our oversized, out of proportion “egos”? When we live into the Bible, not the BULLSHIT Trump/Cain-White, Kushner, Osteen, Hagee “American Bible”, the REAL BIBLE, we see prior to not “scouting after our heart and our eyes”, we are told “one law for the you and the stranger as well”, “one Torah and one justice for you and the stranger as well”(Numbers 15:15-16). The “good” always has a reward, in Rabbinic lore the reward is the opportunity to another “good”/right action, in the spiritual realm, the reward for doing “good”, doing the next right thing, is being able to live within one’s skin more comfortably. It is being able to sleep without as much anxiety and worry, it is doing one’s inventory each day, doing one’s T’Shuvah each day and cleaning up messes sooner and learning how to do one grain of sand better tomorrow. Rather than “scout out after one’s heart and eyes”, when we have our “egos” in proper measure, we are in acceptance of what is, we live in radical amazement, every day is a new adventure and we seek more knowledge of how to live well in this moment, in this time and we refuse to lower ourselves to the baser level of “scouting after our heart and eyes”. We the People need to reject the principles of Bibi and Donny, of Vought and Bondi that  the “good” has “no reward” and is “easily defeated” by appealing to people’s fears and greed. We the People are being called to re-establish democratic principles in our government, throw out the autocrats, and demand “the good” from our elected officials. For far too long, they have allowed their “egos” to rule both them and, by extension, us. We the People have to say NO and stop this destructive pattern and path that leads to ruin, exile, wandering.

Having lived in both realms, I know “the good” pays more dividends than the “ego” that is out of proper measure. My recovery is all about staying “right-sized” and serving you, God, family, and then self. My spiritual awakening taught me this truth and the dividends of “the good” last a lot longer than the short-term gains of the out of measure “ego”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Is Justice an obligation like any other or is something to pursue with passion and purpose? Year 4 Day 172

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 172

“Justice has always appeared as obligatory, but for a long time it was an obligation like other obligations. It met, like the others, a social need; and it was the pressure of society on the individual which made justice obligatory. This being so, an injustice was neither more nor less shocking that any other breach of the rules.(Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion) (God in Search of Man pg. 373)

“What does God want of you: only to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God”. These words of the prophet Micah as Abraham’s question to God: “Shall not the judge of all the earth do justly, portray the central theme of being Jewish, of having a relationship with God, with living into one’s higher consciousness. Far above “a social need”, “justice” is part of the fabric of the inner structure of the world and embedded in each and every human being. The prophets did everything they could to arise the inner sense of justice and mercy, kindness and truth in the powers that be, in the wealthy, in the priestly, in the people, to no avail, so we lost Israel, lost our homeland, lost our place in the world figuratively and literally, for almost 1900 years! And, as Netanyahu and his right-wing, ultra-religious governing partners keep showing us, they still haven’t learned the lesson of the prophets, of the Bible, of the exile. How sad and devastating the consequences may be, for Israel, for Jewish people, for the world.

To make “justice” “an obligation like other obligations” is like saying truth is malleable, reality is what I decide it should be, and the handiwork of the autocratic, narcissistic, psychopathic wannabe king who is in power at the moment. We have seen this scenario play out forever-be it King Saul and his injustice towards David, King David with Uriah and his subsequent being called on it by Nathan the prophet, the Greeks, the Romans, the Pharaoh, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, England, France, Russia, China, Iran, Spain, Italy, Germany, etc; all of the nations have, at one time or another, committed the same folly as the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the people of antiquity-making “justice” and “obligation like other obligations” and were consumed, destroyed, overtaken and changed into a lessor power because of it! When “justice” is not revered and held as a Holy Action, as a Mitzvah, it becomes trite, it becomes a tool for the autocrat, for the fascist as we saw 100 years ago, as we see today. Listening to Pam Bondi and thinking about the great Attorneys General we have had makes one want to VOMIT! Elliot Richardson resigned rather than follow an immoral and unjust request from Nixon. Bobby Kennedy stood up to the racists and the bigots in Alabama and to the racketeering labor union chief Jimmy Hoffa. Up until recently, U.S. Attorneys General believed in the rule of law, believed in the sanctity of “justice” and the holiness of “justice”. Yet, today, under Pam Bondi’s leadership, everyone knows “justice” is not only not an obligation, not only is not “a social need”, “justice” is for sale, it is weaponized and it is trashed and bastardized by this bitch, her boss, and her cohorts. That people are going along with this bullshit, with this “injustice” reminds us of David’s words upon hearing of King Saul and Jonathan’s deaths: “Oh how the strong (the mighty, the heroes) have fallen”(2 Samuel:1:19).

We the People are being called by the words above, by the times we are in to STAND UP for Justice, to remember the words of Deuteronomy 16:20: “Justice, Justice (Righteousness, Righteousness) you shall pursue”, and to say NO to the lies and the deceptions that Trump, Netanyahu, their co-conspirators are perpetrating on us, We the People have to be the keepers of the flame of “justice”. We the People are descendants of the prophets to whom each ‘minor injustice, little white lie’ is a major catastrophe! We the People have to rekindle our outrage and channel it into making a change in the way things are. We the People have to stop being so afraid of the ‘bogeyman’ that we forget we are standing before God, that we have to deal with our own higher consciousness, and we have to face “the man in the glass”. “Know before whom you stand” is a teaching in the Talmud (Berakhot 28b), and while it is about when one is praying, since prayer is about an action-taking the action to respond to the call of the oppressed is one way to repay the debt we owe to our ancestors for giving us an opportunity to be free, to live in a ‘free’ country and to honor their journey from an oppressive government to a democratic one. We the People cannot go back on the inheritance of freedom that our ancestors left for us! We the People cannot see an “injustice” and not be “shocked” by it because we know and come from the prophetic tradition of faith! We the People have to do whatever is we can to add to freedom, to add to justice, to add to truth and stop buying the bullshit, the lies, the deceptions of these narcissistic, autocratic, unjust PAGANS!

Having been one who perpetrated “injustice” upon family, friends, strangers, I know of what Henri Bergson speaks. These writings, the current times have made me review my past, once again, and I see the power of “injustice”, the power of lies and deceptions. As a youth, I believed in calling out lies and injustice, while lying and stealing candy from the candy store, and I lost this desire to really be just, even though my father, my grandfathers, some Aunts and Uncles were honest to ‘a fault’. My father would not declare bankruptcy because he was embarrassed his business failed. I know that my spirit was crushed by the world I was in, by the loneliness I experienced and I allowed it to rule me. This is the difference today-“Justice” rules, Truth rules and the rest is bullshit. I am not interested in being politically correct nor have I been in my recovery. I only care about truth, justice, righteousness. God Bless and Stay safe, RabbI Mark

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Distinctions between "Good and Evil" is what makes us human Year 4 Day 171

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day171

“Good and evil are not values among other values. Good is life, and evil is death. ‘See I have set before thee this day life and good, death and evil…choose life(Deut. 30:15,19)… The distinction between good and evil counts as much as the distinction between life and death.” (God in Search of Man pg 373)

Because of people’s indifference to evil, because we are, once again in a lifestyle of it is ‘those’ people “getting what they deserve”, we have come to blur what is good and what is evil and, more importantly as Rabbi Heschel’s words above warn us; we have come to consider “good and evil” as “values among other values”. Herein lies the tragedy and the danger in rational thinking. When our conscience, our sense of what is right and what is wrong can be overridden by petty jealousies, fearful prejudices, the deception by another(s), and our own self-deception, then humanity is losing its humanness and we have turned to our “animal nature” and joined the animal kingdom. What makes us human is our ability to make choices, free-will moral choices according to Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, because without making moral choices, what good is our ability to think, to consider, etc? Since we are told to do T’Shuvah one day before we die so we never leave any business unfinished, how could one ever believe that “good and evil” are “values among values”?

Doing the “good” promotes life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; it causes justice to be done without fear nor favor, it opens up our eyes to see the similarities between people, it aids us in respecting the dignity, worth, equality and uniqueness of every single person we encounter and those we hear about and can aid and serve. Knowing and living “good is life” gives us the opportunity to enhance this world, to find our unique gift and live them out loud, to love another person, raise a healthy family, to have a life rooted in spiritual principles and engaged in the “Four Freedoms”: “freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear” as articulated by FDR in his 1941 State of the Union speech. This is one of the reasons,  I believe learn “the reward for a mitzvah is another mitzvah” to remind us that doing the “good” is a like being on a train and each stop brings us closer to our destination. While we humans will never “arrive”, we keep the journey to the “the kingship of God” going when we are engaged in the “good”. It is not an ethereal issue, it is not a philosophical debate, it is right here, right now, if one wants to LIVE, DO “GOOD”.

The other side of this is that “evil” leads to death. While many will point to how long evil people live, how each person does some evil in their lives and both are true, “evil” gets defeated for at least a minute throughout our history, and it leads to the death of one’s humanity, one’s integrity, and it does take a toll on one’s physical health. “Death” is the price one pays for engaging in “evil”. These “deaths” include the death of the freedoms mentioned above, the death of the morality of an individual, the death of a spiritual corpus colosseum, the death of covenantal life, the death of love, truth, justice, kindness, mercy, compassion, the death of serving another for the sake of another. “Evil” will always have a lure to it, it is inbred in us, as we all have an “evil inclination” from God, what the “good” does is transform the energy from “evil” to “good” and uses the evil inclination’s energy to serve, love, be in truth, practice justice, show kindness, compassion, mercy.

To treat these as “values among values” cheapens them and cheapens the human experience as well as each individual human. Hence the goal of the Fascist, the preaching of the PAGAN is towards “evil” and towards making “good and evil” just “values among values” so no one notices them picking their pockets, subjecting them to rules/laws that enslave rather than free them, feed their self-deception, their bias, their victimhood, and their need for a bad guy along with their desire to “get even”. As we can see in America and in Israel, this shit works! Death of democracy is not a big deal to John Roberts and the ‘conservative’ majority; I guess Clarence Thomas doesn’t realize that when they overturn the Loving Decision, he and his wife Ginny will be considered law breakers; it is to be praised and ‘sent by god’ according to Mike Johnson and the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and many of We the People have come to accept their lies and become oblivious to the hatred, the prejudice, the fascism that is overtaking our country.

To not make the “distinction” that these are the primary values we have to engage in, to not realize the importance of “Choose Life”, is to deny our humanity, to deny the dignity of another human being, to deny our conscience, to deny our spiritual truths and our inner life’s call. This is what makes a person a criminal, whether they are breaking a law or not. I say this from a deep review of my younger life when I was choosing life and was laughed at(by my peers and at school), when I had no one to validate my choices and be my cheerleader (after my father died), I just “gave in to the ways of the world” and even though I wasn’t a criminal yet, once I made no distinction between “good and evil” and any other value, I was on my descent into the gates of indifference and the hell of evil/death. Spiritually, I was empty and while I felt love for my sister, then my daughter, I could not show it, so visited my evil on them and everyone else was denied some of their freedoms when around me-siblings, wife, girlfriends, friends, family and I still regret these actions. In recovery, the distinctions between “good and evil” and knowing these are THE values to concentrate on are #1 for me each day. I practice “good” be living a spiritual program of freedom for me and for you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Is your vision, experience of the Universe in concert with God's? Year 4 Day 170

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 170

“If an artist were to find a word describing how the universe looked to God at the dawn of its existence, the word be sublime or beautiful. But the word the  Bible has is good. Indeed, when looking through a telescope into the stellar space, the word that comes to our mind is grandeur, mystery, splendor. But the God of Israel is not impressed with splendor; He is impressed with goodness.” (God in Search of Man pg. 372)

The artist would not be wrong in describing the universe as “sublime or beautiful”, nor are we in error when we marvel at the “grandeur, mystery, splendor” of the universe and its vast expanse. The error, the act of wrongdoing is, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel this morning, is to stop at these descriptions, to think that all we have to do is: marvel at existence, contemplate the splendor, solve the mystery, enjoy the beauty. All of these activities are great, they are fine, and they are not enough. I know many of us have been told we are not good enough forever and hearing ‘not enough’ can trigger some bad memories, and the truth is just admiring, enjoying, marveling, contemplating, seeking answers is not enough for the world to continue as a place of freedom, a place of spiritual growth and health, a place where loving the stranger becomes commonplace. To co-create with God, to honor our Higher Consciousness, we have to nurture the world and teach our children to “love your neighbor as yourself”, to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants there in”, to “if your enemy is hungry, feed them, if your enemy is thirsty, give them drink”, then we have to engage in what God “is impressed with goodness”!

“Goodness” is not the same as being nice! Nice doesn’t have to have truth, justice, mercy as components and “goodness” must have these three. “Goodness” is not just about doing something good, it is also about not doing something evil. “Goodness” is not about perfection nor about denial, it is also about admitting one’s mistakes, making T’Shuvah for them and growing in wisdom, kindness, mercy, justice, love, and truth each time/day. “Goodness” is standing up like Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, the Adams boys, Ben Franklin, Daniel Webster, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Clara Barton, John Lewis, et al, the soldiers who have received the Congressional Medal of Honor, people who have stood up when there was something on the line, their lives, their livelihood, their standing, and did the next right thing, no matter what. “Good” is the response of God to each day of creation, except the 2nd when God had to wrestle with evil, maybe with the Angels who did not want humans created, so we have “it was good” twice on the 3rd day! We also have “good” twice on the 6th day, once with the animals and “very good” when human beings are created, “male and female God created them both”. This is the first challenge given to human beings as I am understanding anew the first Chapter of Genesis in light of the words above: be good, do good! Isn’t it time We the People live into this challenge and end our love affair with bullying, with cruelty, with evil, with grifting, with self-deception, with lying and with bastardizing the “Good” that the Bible, that God, that our higher consciousness demands of us?

Having a UFC fight to celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence doesn’t seem “good” to me! Spewing his hatred of people who don’t bend the knee in front of him by saying “I hate Democrats” is not “good” in the view of the Bible, Donald Drumpf, JD(Vance. It is not “the Christian way” as Christ lived life in the Gospels, it is certainly not the Jewish way, Misters Lutnick, Wytkoff, Miller! Running the con, shoveling the bullshit, bearing false witness is not Holy, FOX UNNEWS! No matter how many cars and planes you have, Mr. Osteen, you can’t hide your evil from all of the people all of the time and certainly not from God, maybe from the idols you worship you can hide-just not from people, entities that are engaging in speaking truth, which is the first step, prerequisite for being “good”. Ignoring the person on the street, not saying hello to people when you are at the Cash Register, believing Facebook friends are real (the ones you don’t actually know in real life), thinking that “likes” on Instagram, X, etc are what is important, are all subtle reminders of how not good we have become. Fearing the stranger, instead of loving them is a direct repudiation of not just the Bible, it is a direct slap in the face to the experience of our ancestors who came here as an escape from terrible conditions, from prejudice, hatred, fear of being conscripted to die, fear of or experience of rape, beatings, etc. Why was America ‘supposed to be open and welcoming” for our ancestors and not for people suffering today? How many of our ancestors were considered criminals in their country of origin? How many began life in America doing some type of criminal act-like owning a Whore House like Trumps Grandfather!!

Being “good” is the North Star for me and for the people in my circle, it is the only way to be in recovery, it is the only way to be able to look in the mirror without hiding, without being disgusted by one’s deeds. I know this because I spent almost 20 years being disgusted, hiding. Being “good” allows me to fall and pick myself up, it causes me to admit my errors, learn from them and blame others much less. It forces me to be responsible for my actions and to take action when I see wrong being committed. Hence this blog, these words are to get all of us riled up enough to recall the challenges I mentioned at the beginning: BE GOOD, welcome and love the stranger, don’t mistreat anyone, speak truth, be just, act with mercy, care for the poor, the needy, the spiritually ill as well as the medically ill, don’t take bribes, etc. When I fall short, which I do often, I make my amends and grow a little each time-progress not perfection. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

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Cruelty, Unjust, unloving of the stranger, the poor, the needy or empathetic with boundaries and consequences? Year 4 Day 169

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 169

“The power to make distinctions is a primary operation of intelligence. We distinguish between white and black, beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant, gain and loss, good and evil, right and wrong. The fate of mankind depends upon the realization that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong is superior to all other distinctions. As long as such realization is lacking, pleasantness in alliance with evil will be preferred to unpleasantness in alliance with good. To teach humanity the primacy of that distinction is of the essence to the Biblical message.” (God in Search of Man pg. 372)

Happy July 4th!? Was July 4, 2024 the last truly Independence Day we will celebrate in the United States? It could be unless, as Rabbi Heschel says above, “to teach humanity the primacy of that distinction is of the essence to the Biblical message”. All of these LYING PAGANS like Mike Johnson who has made Donald Trump into a god, an idol that he worships, who has made wealth and power his other gods, would like you to believe that there is no distinction between right and wrong, good and evil except their version of what is right and good and what is bad and evil. The former being anything they do no matter how cruel, unjust, unloving of the stranger, poor, needy and the later being anything that says NO to their idol worship, NO to their indecency, NO to their deliberate deceptions and mendacity!

Elon Musk says what is wrong with the United States is too much empathy and Hannah Arendt says the end of empathy is the beginning of Fascism. Can both be true, maybe but doubtful. Having empathy means to be “in feeling” with another, it doesn’t mean condoning the evil, wrong actions of another, it means that one can relate to the experiences that drive people to do the next wrong thing, like feeling separate, feeling desperate, seeking a land/place where “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” as the Bible and the Liberty Bell proclaim. As I understand/experience empathy, it means that all of us can relate to feelings of uncertainty and insecurity, experiences of trauma and inadequacy, being in situations where we feel completely lost, out of our depth. It doesn’t mean that one condones, one excuses bad behaviors, it just means that We the People can use our empathy to mitigate our anger and desire to punish another who has done evil, done wrong while still stopping them from continuing. Without this way of being, fascism makes sense and cruelty reigns, which is what we are witnessing, experiencing, facing in our country today. When we are more concerned with building up ICE than with caring for our citizens, when we are more focused on finding a common enemy that being the “melting pot” we have been, when we are more concerned with masked men beating up on unsuspecting people here legally and illegally, with no criminal record at all, we have lost our empathy as a nation. The fact that at least 1/3rd of We the People cheer these thugs on, that the Republicans in Congress, both the House and the Senate, passed a bill that they admitted did not pass the smell test, that they acknowledged will hurt the ‘little guy’, and they are cheering this bill and intimating that god gave them their right to do this, we have lost our empathy!

We the People, the other 2/3rds, have to set out to re-teach or teach for the first time the other 1/3rd about empathy. We have to have divine pathos for them, being able to say a hard NO to their cruelty and, at the same time, know that they are pathetic, they are so stuck in their lies and deceptions that they have been unable to see truth and hear God, to immerse themselves in what the Bible actually says, not what they are being lied to by their ‘good christian nationalist, money-grubbing, clergy’ or their ‘good jewish ultra-orthodox anti-loving the stranger or our neighbor clergy’, or their ‘good muslim terrorist-provoking, hate mongering clergy’! Unfortunately, the reason that the distinction between good and evil, between right and wrong is not being taught, is not seen as the demarcation line between freedom and tyranny, is because the people who are supposed to be delivering the messages of the Bible, the people who are the ‘learned’ ones are the very PAGANS in charge!! OY, OY!

I have been thinking about this for a while, since my recovery began: what happened to me that a boy who was raised to be moral, a boy who went to shul and loved praying/davening, could lose enough empathy to do criminal actions. It is too much to fully explain here and I am still learning more about the deceptions, lies, blurring of distinctions that led to my behaviors and I am fully and totally responsible for all of my actions-FULL STOP. What I do know is that I always felt different, I wet the bed, I had different ideas, I became a clown, I was ignored when my father was gone, I was blamed for many things, being the youngest of three boys:), but most of all, I knew I was different from my brothers, from the people around me and I tried to “fit in” because I never belonged anywhere except with my father and his death destroyed my moorings and I was adrift. People tried to talk to me and I could not/would not hear. I saw the lies and deceptions of the world in a new light-rather than being wrong and evil, they were the ones getting ahead so why not join them cause as a 14-15 year-old, I certainly wasn’t going to beat them.

These past 38+ years have been spent fighting them, knowing I belong and both living into and delivering the “primacy of that distinction is of the essence of the Biblical message”. It is essential to not just the message, it is essential to our living well, to our being human. This is the call of July 4th this year, this is the call of the United States, this is the Call from Sinai. This is what being a Jew, Christian, Muslim means. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Alliance with Evil, Alliance with Good, which do you find more pleasant-be truthful! Year 4 Day 168

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 168

“The power to make distinctions is a primary operation of intelligence. We distinguish between white and black, beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant, gain and loss, good and evil, right and wrong. The fate of mankind depends upon the realization that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong is superior to all other distinctions. As long as such realization is lacking, pleasantness in alliance with evil will be preferred to unpleasantness in alliance with good. To teach humanity the primacy of that distinction is of the essence to the Biblical message.” (God in Search of Man pg. 372)

The italicized and underlined sentences above are, on their very face, a DUH! Yet, we continue to watch, some of us in horror, the constant and consistent refusal by human beings to become aware that “the realization that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong is superior to all other distinctions”. From Cain until now, the inability of humanity to, a) make these distinctions and b) live into them has been fraught with mistakes and errors. The main issue, it always seems, is humanity’s need to be in control, humanity’s narcissism and search for certainty, power, fame, fortune, etc. Yes, we are told that we have within us an “evil inclination”, yes we are told that “sin desires us much” and we are also told that we can master our own negativity, we can transform the energy of our evil inclination to serve the good and the right. The question that looms so large in our lives, which often goes unasked, is: will we?

Our willful blindness and our unwillingness to make these distinctions make it almost impossible to ask ourselves the questions: “is this good or evil”, “is this the next right thing to do”. Without asking ourselves these questions, in each experience, in each moment, we will continue to not distinguish between the distinction of gain and loss and the distinction of good and evil; hence the situation we find ourselves in is the result of blindness, unwillingness, ignorance, narcissism, and power-seeking. Trump is the leader of this band and he is also just a prop. The real power is in the FOX UNNEWS people who keep spreading the lies and command ‘their viewers’ to be numb to facts, numb to the truth of the Biblical teachings of the prophets, the wanderings in the desert, to the ways of Jesus. The real power is also in the hands of the PAGAN CLERGY who continue to bastardize the teachings of the Bible, the New Testament. Be they Jewish or Christian, these PAGANS promote a way of being that is xenophobic, racist, homophobic, and cruel. Nowhere in the words of Jesus that I have read, nowhere in the Bible are we told to be cruel-there are parts of the Bible which can be read this way and, when we are told that a court who executed one person in 70 years is called a murderous court, we can understand the Bible’s overriding belief in CHOOSE LIFE!

We the People are responsible to listen to the call of our souls, to read the texts for ourselves, to study with serious people and argue with our spiritual friends as to how to live the values in our everyday life. We the People are called upon by Proverbs to treat our enemies as human beings, not put them in ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ! We the People are responsible for what our governments do, just as the Judeans were responsible for not heeding the prophets no matter what the Priests, Wealthy, and Royals did. We the People are being called to account in the words above, we are being called to account in how we respond to the “BIG UGLY BILL” that promotes more cruelty, more violence by ICE, more hatred of immigrants, more power to deport American Citizens, more power and money to the wealthy, more cruelty to the working poor and the middle class, more cruelty to Rural Hospitals, more cruelty to elder citizens, more breaking of promises that We the People have come to rely on. All of this in the name of “Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior” according to Joanie Ernst!! All of this for a few crumbs according to Lisa Murkowski! WTF??? Are We the People really this small, are We the People really this ignorant, are We the People really this cruel, are We the People really this hateful of what the Bible, Jesus actually teach us???

Of course we are as long as “such realization is lacking” so that “pleasantness in alliance with evil will be preferred to unpleasantness in alliance with good”! We the People have to awaken from the sleep-walking We have engaged in and stop seeking happiness, fun, likes on social media, fame, wealth, etc. We the People are in desperate need of being slapped and cajoled, shaken and having our blinders taken off, taking the cotton out of our ears and put it in our mouths so we stop our bullshit, our lies, our specious arguments. We the People are constantly being called by the Voice that was at Sinai, the Voice that was in the Garden: AYECHA-Where are you? How can any of us be cheering when we are “standing idly by the blood of our neighbor”, when we are engaged in senseless hatred, when prejudice and racism, hatred and cruelty are being extolled as good? WHERE ARE YOU? This is the question we all have to answer each and every day; judging by the way our government, which is an extension of We the People, are behaving, it seems as if We the People are in favor of everything that is unholy, everything that is “pleasantness in alliance with evil”!

This is a way of being that I am intimately familiar with, as I lived “in alliance with evil” for many years, this is not to say I did not do good things, because I did and I have to be accountable for this alliance as well. This is why I am so sensitive to bullshit and lies, evil and subterfuge, why I become bombastic because the other side of my “alliance with evil” is my prophetic voices which is loud, arrogant, urgent, and powerful. For the people who don’t like it, oh well. It is who I am and I know I won’t change this. I am too aware of the subtle power of not making distinctions and getting in bed with “the pleasantness in alliance with evil”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

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The Power of Distinction is to be used for Good, not as a weapon for evil and/or cruelty! Year 4 Day 167

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 167

“The power to make distinctions is a primary operation of intelligence. We distinguish between white and black, beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant, gain and loss, good and evil, right and wrong. The fate of mankind depends upon the realization that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong is superior to all other distinctions. As long as such realization is lacking, pleasantness in alliance with evil will be preferred to unpleasantness in alliance with good. To teach humanity the primacy of that distinction is of the essence to the Biblical message.” (God in Search of Man pg. 372)

I am jumping out of my skin reading and rereading the words above and witnessing what is happening in our world today. “The power to make distinctions” has been usurped and co-opted by Trump, Bibi, Miller, Vought, Vance, et al. They have offered a ‘different’ set of distinctions to ‘their people’, calling evil ‘good’, projecting theft as ‘just’, promoting cruelty as ‘kindness’ etc. and We the People are buying it!!! INSANE and true. When a United States Senator, Lisa Murkowski, gives an interview where she calls the ‘big ugly bill’, she just voted for because she got concessions for ‘her people of Alaska’ while people in the other 49 States will suffer, we see the “fate of mankind” going down the drain because these ‘good christian folk’, these ‘lovers of Jesus’, are using their “power to make distinctions” for their own gain, for the purpose of cruelty, for the advancement of evil with their eyes wide open. Unlike people who are unaware, unsophisticated, just plain honest so they can’t imagine someone lying to them, people who follow the Golden Rule and do unto others so they can’t comprehend someone abusing their kindness, these Republican Senators and Congresspeople fucked We the People with their eyes wide open and with joy in their hearts! Just ask JD Vance.

We the People are in the throes of Tyranny and watching “Hannah Arendt-Facing Tyranny” on PBS last night shook both Harriet and me to our core. Substitute ‘illegal aliens’, ‘criminals’ ‘non-white’ ‘non-christian nationalist’ for Jews and the similarities are chilling! While many people are unwilling to speak truth to power, staying willfully blind to what is happening, refusing to say “history repeats itself”, the fact that we are in the throes of a fascist takeover, that Russell Vought is leading the charge to ‘remake’ America in the image of the early 19th Century, that he wants “Christianity” to influence government, just not the “Christianity” of Christ in the Gospels, instead he wants, as the ‘big ugly bill’ proves to pay homage to the “money-changers in the Temple”, the biggest one of course is Trump who keeps benefitting off of the Presidency, emoluments be damned! The fake and phony slight of hand is not even good! The grift is in the open, the hatred and cruelty are being praised by these ‘good christian, jewish, muslim’ folks as ‘light, spiritual, beautiful, pleasant, a gain for ‘god’, as well as being promoted as good and righteous! WTF!!?? How can We the People buy this bullshit? How can We the People go along with this cruelty and call ourselves a ‘christian nation’? How can We the People watch masked thugs beat people up in our cities and towns, be threatened with deportation even if we are citizens because we oppose DRUMPH, and not remember the history lesson of the 1930’s here with “America First”, “The Bund”, “Father Coughlin”, “The Protocols of Zion” as well as what happened in Europe?

We the People are being called to account and to take action by Rabbi Heschel’s words of 70 years ago and by the happenings in our Country today. Being against Bibi is not Anti-Israel just being against DRUMPH, Miller, Vought, Lutnick, Vance, et al is not being anti-United States!  Being against both of these fascists regimes is being FOR GOD, being FOR FREEDOM, being FOR A SPIRITUAL SOLUTION to the ills of today. The time for changing the narrative is growing shorter and shorter, We the People cannot complain that no one is doing this because it is up to We the People to invoke our prophetic voice, our dedication to justice, to mercy, to kindness, to truth, to love right here and right now. We the People have to call out the lies of Osteen, Hagee, Cain-White, and promote the Truth of Bishop Barber, Father Greg Boyle, John Pavlovitz, Mark Whitlock and other Christian Faith leaders who follow Christ’s teachings. We the People have to promote the words of Pope Leo who welcomes the stranger, the poor, the needy. We the People have to take the “leap of action” that all Jews are commanded to do and follow the ways of Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Rabbi David Saperstein, Rabbi Harold Shulweis, z”l, Jihad Turk, et al. We the People have to take the blinders off, have to call out the liars and PAGANS, the spiritually ill people that Maimonidies describes in “the Eight Chapters”, people who think black is white, evil is good, wrong is right, ugly is beautiful, etc. The time is now, the place is here, this is how we repay our ancestors for coming here so we could be born in freedom, this is how we repay the dead who “gave their last full measure” in the various wars so we can enjoy freedom.

I am so enraged by the goings on and, while I can’t change anything on my own, I have to do my part. This blog is one action, showing up at the protests is another, donating to the causes that are dear to my heart is another. Being kind and loving towards even my enemies, as Proverbs teaches us, is another. Knowing what it is like to be scapegoated and hated keeps me from doing the same to anyone else. Calling out truth and lies, distinguishing between good and evil continue to be my daily task and the path to a richer and more meaningful life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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