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What dazzles you, what convinces you to go along to get along? Year 4 Day 315

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 315

“Dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect in science and technique, we have not only become convinced that we are masters of the earth; we have become convinced that our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 59)

Each new year, each new season, each renewed gathering of family and friends has within it a hope, a prayer, that this year, this season, this gathering will be a little better than the last, a little more productive than the last, a little friendlier, loving, joyous than the last. Except for the people who are stuck in the muck and mire of being “dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect”, which are not the end all/be all that We the People are led to believe they are. Today, the first day of 2026 is pregnant with promise, with hope, with fear, with danger, with joy, with sadness, with love, with hate, and the key to which way the pendulum swings is WE THE PEOPLE!

There is a television series we are streaming called “Burden of Truth”, it is an interesting show, at least to me, however what caught my interest is the tittle. WOW, I thought and still think: being in truth, telling the truth, living in truth is a burden, it is difficult, it is a responsibility, it is an obligation, it is the essence of living  a life of meaning, purpose, goodness, holiness, connection, justice, mercy, kindness, etc. AND humanity seems to delight in jettisoning this burden, this call to Truth, for the ‘joy’ of being “dazzled”. Society has placed supreme meaning and purpose on our “brilliant achievements” and this has distorted our standards of living, our ability to discern truth from lies, fact from fiction and, ultimately, has led to Trump’s ‘alternative facts’, his ‘retribution tour’, his hatred of anyone not white, his disdain for anyone not rich, his misogynistic treatment of women, and has led to him being surrounded by like-minded people, by people who are, in some cases and ways, worse than him. Putin, Netanyahu, Erdogan, MBS, Trump, Xi, Orban, Kushner, Ben G’Vir, Lutnick, Vought, are the symbols of success for our children. Of course there is Zuckerberg, Ellison, Cook, Musk, and the rest of the tech billionaires, there are the other “masters of the earth” in any particular field that are being worshipped in today’s society  to further erode the Truth, further the mendacious belief “that we are masters of the earth”!

Sitting here, on the first day of 2026, I am invigorated with hope, with passion, with the spiritual inheritance of the prophets, of the Bible, of the connection I have with something greater than the “I”. I invigorated with the “WE”. The “WE” that is me and God, the “WE” that is me and Harriet, the “WE” that is me and family, the “WE” that is me and community(especially the bridge club community here in the desert), the “WE” that is me and my colleagues in Clergy and Faith, the “WE” that is my AA family and friends, the “WE” that is me and the Jews who are still seeking Truth rather than those who think they know the truth, the “WE” that is me and We the People who believe in the Constitution, who are willing to protest, vote and fight for the “Unalienable Rights” of EVERY HUMAN BEING!

To make this hope, this passion, grow to more fruition than it is today, I am asking for your help; let go of the lies society has been telling us, jettison the belief of the Greeks that “everything is solvable”, stop buying the false flags of the haters, the fascists in charge of the US right now, demand the TRUTH rather than settle for the bullshit and pap. I am asking you to join me is enriching the spiritual life of oneself, one’s family, one’s neighbors, one’s country through engaging in raucous debate over what the Bible is teaching us, deep holy arguments over the contradictions in the text, and learning the holy texts of another’s faith to find the similarities and deepen our respect for the separate yet equal paths of one another as we travel the road to THE TRUTH. Knowing we will never get there completely, knowing we are flawed and will make errors by the dozens is not a reason to quit, it is the reason to keep going so we can learn from our successes and from our flaws, usually more from the flaws than the successes.

My passion and hope is also fueled by a sense, a belief, a hope that We the People are on the precipice of another SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION, like the one at Sinai, like the one that brought us out of our last “narrow place”, ie Egypt. How many times are we going to be free only to go back to a ‘new’ narrow place that is really the same as the old one: “we have become convinced that our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is right and wrong”! This is the challenge for all good people, once we are out of Egypt, stop relapsing and going back. People ask why an addict can’t just make up their mind to stop using and that is that; I ask these same people why can’t they just accept that the Egypts they have been released from don’t need to be revisited, yet they do! WTF???

I am hopeful and passionate because of the people who fight the fight against mendacity, who read Rabbi Heschel, the Bible, the words of Jesus, the Koran, with the passion for TRUTH, with the spirit of the prophets, with the joy of the people who left Egypt and sang the “Song of the Sea” after coming through the Red Sea. I have not gone back to Egypt either in my alcoholism, my criminality, my greed. I have expanded my horizons to include the things I don’t know. I am passionate about truth and kindness and eschew, scream at the mendacity, cruelty, unkindness, injustice that is abounding, even by the ‘right’ people! None of us are exempt and I continue to look at me to see my flaws and errors, correct them and take my proper seat at the bridge table, the family table, the table of life. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Decision making- is it based on a calculation, an inauthentic need or....? Year 4 Day 314

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 314

“He feels, acts, and thinks as if the sole purpose of the universe were to satisfy his needs. To the modern man everything seems calculable; everything reducible to a figure.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

In speaking about human beings some 50-70 years ago, Rabbi Heschel captures the issue we have faced from time immemorial; how to end our narcissistic beliefs that our needs come from first, last always! It seems as if our religious institutions have done a piss-poor job of helping us, our secular education institutions have seemed to promote our narcissism, and at the family dinner table(if there is family dinner time) these issues are, seemingly, not deeply discussed. Hence the proliferation of people and ways to get “the universe” to “satisfy his needs”. Nowhere is this on display more than here in the United States under Donald J. Trump and his ‘family’ of crooks and power-hungry fascists and in Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, Smotrich and the rest of their thugs. Both of these leaders who just met again, play the game of calculation, how much do I have to give to get what I want-Trump wants recognition, adoring fans, idolized behaviors, and Netanyahu gives it to him. He doesn’t contradict him in public, he breaks Israeli policy in giving Trump the Israel Prize so Trump feels important and wanted, loved. Trump, in return, gives Netanyahu wiggle room in dealing with Gaza, the West Bank, the Palestinian statehood question, etc.

To people of faith, like myself, these calculations, the satisfaction of needs uber alles is anathema and, that they are being fortified and supported by the phony clergy of christianity and judaism is infuriating! While these phony clergy have obtained ordination from mostly legitimate schools, people, I call them phony because they are not wrestling with the contradictions in the Bible, they are not listening to the Voice from Sinai who says DO JUSTLY, LOVE MERCY, WALK IN THE WAYS OF GOD-rather they have decided to PERVERT JUSTICE, BE UNMERCIFUL, WALK IN THE WAYS OF THEIR NEEDS, not God’s. And they call themselves and their followers “true christians”, “the only real Jews left”, “keepers of the flame” etc, when in reality they are putting out the light that was the first word of God, they are returning to the chaos and emptiness of the beginning of Genesis and all they want is to be Masters of their Universe.


Rather than learn that the “Elohim”, the giants, the “men of renown” shitted up the world so badly God sent the Flood, these Hookers, have become these same “men of renown” and unlike Nathan, Elijah, Amos, the rest of the prophets these idolators preach pap to the people in power, going along with their grifting, their treasuring needs over deeds, their satisfaction over God’s calling, and holding their hands out for their cut of the action. This is NOT the markings of truly religious people, this is NOT the path of the righteous, this is NOT the way to “BE HOLY”! This is the ROT we are facing and it ain’t getting any better, these people who are described in Deuteronomy as those who “say in their hearts” they can give lip service to the Bible and then go do what they want will bring the house down, as we have seen throughout history and throughout the Bible!

We the People need to examine, re-examine our “needs” and see which are authentic and which are false ego driven. Food, clothing, shelter are authentic needs; connection and covenantal love are authentic needs; transactional relationships are authentic needs as long as they are reciprocal. Billionaire status and no taxes are inauthentic needs; power over people, ie being Pharaoh or her taskmasters, is inauthentic; needing a bad guy to blame is one of the sins of Adam and Eve in the Garden- not authentic; hating/fearing the stranger is inauthentic; hiding from God, from another person(s) is inauthentic;

We the People are being given a new beginning both in terms of the calendar year changing and the fact that today is a new day, it is the “day God has made for us to rejoice in it” and rejoicing comes from doing the next right thing, rejoicing is synonymous with serving something greater than our inauthentic needs, our narcissistic wounds. Rejoicing comes about when we can look in the face of another and see our soul’s reflection, rejoicing happens when we can look in the mirror and not hide from ourselves. Rejoicing becomes the through line of our lives when we are dedicated to loving the stranger, loving God, loving our selves, loving our neighbors, engaging in righteous justice, eschewing slavery, hearing, listening and understanding the unique call of each of our soul’s and living into our call.

It is not easy to do this, I know. Yet, it is the most satisfying way to live. AS the Bible teaches not hiding, not living in secret, not living in the either/or of societal norms will bring us to joy. As Ben Zoma says in Pirke Avot 4:1: “who is rich”, one who wants what he has; not to say we don’t learn and grow into more-rather to say we have to want what we have, we have to experience the satisfaction of where we are and what is happening in our lives before we can grow, it is not about settling, it is about rejoicing.  I have to wrestle each day with this concept, I have to see the “question this experience is the answer for” and be joyous that I can see, I can hear, I can learn, I can grow, especially when it isn’t going my way.

Today is the last day of 2025 and marks the end of my 5th year of writing a daily blog, first using the prophets and now almost 4 years using Rabbi Heschel. I mention this to put into context the immense joy I receive from writing these blogs, the powerful learning/relearning I receive from the quotations I use, and the gratitude I have for all of you who read these missives daily, weekly, periodically. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Why do you learn, what does learning do for you? Year 4 Day 313

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 313

“The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use. To Bacon we owe the formulation, “Knowledge is power”…We do not know anymore how to justify any value except in terms of expediency.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

It is increasingly more difficult for me to contain the trembling I experience each day when hearing about the latest disregard of God’s ways and trampling on the rights, the freedoms of the ‘group of the moment to discriminate against’ that seems to be the way of our President and his thugs and he is, of course, joined by the Prime Minister of Israel in this endeavor. The way America is living at this moment, the popularity of Trumpism, of progressive left, of hatred, of prejudice, of racism, anti-semitism on both the right and the left leads me to know “the modern man learns in order to use” is alive, present, front and center in this moment!

What is happening on College Campuses is horrific, it is a denial of what learning, what ‘higher education’ is about. College has become, for some time, a place that is a trade school where people go to learn whatever so they can land the job that will make them rich, a place to espouse some extreme bullshit that is called ‘conservative’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’ principles and are really just an indoctrination into some radical form of lies and deceptions. Rather than being a safe place to find oneself, to learn about what it is that we are meant to be and do in the world, rather than learn for the sake of discovery, College has become another battlefield in the war to capture soldiers for ‘my side’, the ‘right side’ of the civil war that is quietly and not so quietly happening in America right now.

Trump is not the first or the worst example of “the modern man learns in order to use”, he is a master at the sleight of hand, he has turned a losing real estate business into a Presidency that is making him BILLIONS OF DOLLARS personally-so lets not call him stupid. He has people kissing his ring, he has become ‘the Don’ that he always wanted to be, he is doing his KKK-membership father proud in heaven!

Bibi Netanyahu is the epitome of Hillul HaShem, in my opinion. Rather than be a Hebrew, be an Israelite, be a Jew, he has chosen to be “the modern man” as described above. Caring nothing for reverence and everything for his own skin, craving money, power, fame rather than seeking to serve Adonai, Bibi shows us what it means to sell one’s soul to the modernity, to whore oneself out to anyone for the sake of power and wealth, to uphold lies and deceptions that you yourself don’t believe in-I doubt that Bibi studies Torah each day nor prays 3 times a day!

Listening to the two of them briefly before their meeting yesterday is an example of “expediency”. Joe Biden went to Israel and gave Israel the weaponry they needed and asked for right after Oct. 7th-Trump pulled the weaponry needed by Ukraine in their war against the AGGRESSOR RUSSIA! Trump wouldn’t go to an American Cemetery for WWII soldiers who died in battle, Biden went to Kyiv, to Jerusalem. Bibi praises Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had” forgetting that it was Harry Truman who supported Statehood for Israel!

When expediency, use are the guiding principles of living; deception, cruelty, graft, grift, unholy alliances, betrayals abound. What is so hard for We the People to have learned this TRUTH already? Even the Greeks would comprehend this truth, these lessons in the futility of following expediency, use to their logical ends-ruin, destruction, slavery, hatred. Yet, this way of being seems to be the way of the world. When “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the watchwords and belief system of people what is happening now is the logical result. Do we really want to live under this type of system again? Hasn’t history taught us the perils of succumbing to these lies and to the loss of freedoms?

Hence the importance of “the Hebrews learned in order to revere”. “Revere” comes from the Latin meaning “to stand in awe of”. It is hard to hate, to lie, to deceive, to enslave, to cheat, to admire liars, to worship power when one is “to stand in awe of” which is what makes the goings on of today so horrific! Be one a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a follower of Eastern philosophy, we are all called upon by God, by Adonai, by Allah, by Jesus, by higher consciousness “to stand in awe of” one another, of the beauty of the world, of love, of truth. We are called “to stand in awe of” with kindness, compassion, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, giving strength to the weary, visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved, administering righteous justice, proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to everyone in it, to “BE HOLY”!

This is the way of “the Hebrews” and this is the way of Jesus, Mohammed, so it is to be the way of We the People! Yet, it isn’t and hasn’t. King David could proclaim his guilt and Bibi, Donny, and so many of us are unable to. I am guilty of expediency and use, this was the main highway I travelled prior to my recovery. Since then I have certainly been on it at times and, upon realizing or being told I am, I take the 1st Exit to get off. I have been vilified by people for my loudness, my inability to accept “the way of the world” from right and left and I welcome it. I have also been praised for standing up to the bullies and giving voice to the voiceless. I know my deep reverence for human beings, I know I “stand in awe of” so many humane giants, I sit at before them through books, through encounters and learn their ways, their thoughts and then how to put them into action in my life and the lives of those who seek me out, the lives of family and friends. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Power, utilization of resources seems to "be the chief purpose" of human beings - Year 4 Day 312

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 312

“Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God’s creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal and the world is not a gigantic toolbox for the satisfaction of his needs.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

These words have so much to do with who we, as human beings, are that I am going to spend a few days taking my time with these thoughts. In the words bolded above, we find the truth of what is happening in our world today. It is not, as we can see, a new story and it is one that seems to be on steroids right now. “The attainment of power” being “the chief purpose of man in God’s creation” is on full display in the United States, in Russia, in Israel, in China and in other parts of the globe. Interestingly, Europe, which has been the scene of some of the greatest examples of this truth, is trying to bring us all back from the brink and, alas, Trump and his cronies in other countries just don’t want to hear it.

The smaller the person, the more immature the spiritual health of a person, the weaker the morality, the more fragile the ego of a human being seems to make “the attainment of power” necessary for one’s survival. As Lyndon Johnson said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Whether it is racism, xenophobia, religious dominance, just plain old greed, the need for a human being to be so caught up in “net worth = self worth” is devastating our country, our independence, our interdependence, our freedom.

This is not an issue that is a right-wing issue, this is a human condition that must be addressed before it  completely destroys us. Yet, we are reluctant to address the evil of this “chief purpose of man in God’s creation” as we saw with Merritt Garland not taking on the Trump crimes sooner, as we see with the Supreme Court not curbing the power grab of Trump, Vought, Miller, et al, as we see with the American People who are getting screwed by Trump’s grift and his getting into bed with anyone who says nice things to him and does business with him/his sons/Jared Kushner. It is an issue in Israel with the people who are protecting the fascist Prime Minister from any inquiry on QatarGate, on October 7, 2023 failure, on the devastation in Gaza, on the horrific ways of the settlers in the West Bank. AND We the People are standing idly by the blood of our neighbors, we are silent as the hatred of the stranger grows unabated and we call ourselves ‘religious people’ , ‘good christians, good jews’ who go against basic tenets found in the Bible, foundational principles found in the 10 Sayings at Sinai, not responding to the daily call of “where are you” by God.

It is so past time for WE THE PEOPLE to stand up and take back our freedoms, to sit down with the people we don’t know, ie the stranger, the poor, the rich, the person of color, the white person, the Jew, the Christian, the Muslim, the practitioners of Eastern philosophies, and find our commonality in being human. We are being called to end our assault on truth, on our environment, on our healthcare, on vaccines, on our children by their devices and ‘big brother’ listening to everything we are saying. It is way past time for us to say NO to the onslaught of technology that is killing our humanity, robbing us of our freedom to think, do, to be free rather than worry about what will be taken out of context and used against us. Now is the time for WE THE PEOPLE to stand up against the bullying of Trump and his thugs, the hatred of people towards Hispanics, Blacks, Jews, etc-you notice that no white people who are undocumented are being rounded up- and call this facade what it is-fascist racism. Hitler used the Jews, the ‘christian’ nationalists today use Hispanics, Blacks and Jews because they don’t want to be seen as prejudiced!!

America deserting our allies in favor of Putin, in favor of MBS, Qatar, etc is despicable and depressing. What is more despicable and depressing is that we are allowing it to happen. What is more depressing is that the ‘progressive’ left has their own prejudices and hatreds. All because of a spiritual immaturity, a denial of the Oneness of the Ineffable One, the idiotic bullshit that ‘god only loves my kind’, the lying and rabble-rousing of Clergy from all faiths. PEOPLE it is way past time for us to demand a spiritual renewal, a study of the prophets and a return to a path of being human and holy!

I am well aware of the ways of power-seekers, of making power “the chief purpose” of my life because I always felt so powerless. I was hellbent on proving my power, proving my worth, proving, proving and never realized that what I was trying to prove and to whom I was trying to prove it was bullshit and wrong. I came to this realization in prison the 2nd time. I have nurtured this truth and grown my joy at being powerless to do God’s job, to be God, to prove to someone who needs to be right at all costs, to make someone bend to my will. Instead, I have learned and keep learning how to speak to people in ways that God would have me speak, to use my voice to stand up for the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the needy. I have learned and keep learning how to make changes within me, to stand for truth, to stand for what is right, to stand against cruelty, to stand for decency, being one grain of sand more holy each day, to admit my errors, and to no longer be dictated to nor accept the judgmental nature of another. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Usefulness, power, winning are societal ploys to keep us from connecting with self and another - Year 4 Day 311

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 311

“Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God’s creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal and the world is not a gigantic toolbox for the satisfaction of his needs.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 58)

These words, written over 50 years ago, are proof of Rabbi Heschel’s prophetic nature, to me. What is a prophet if not a person who has the ability to see what is, see the rot and ruin that is festering, growing with the human being and society and speak out about it with warnings, with solutions? Hence, one of the reasons I love Rabbi Heschel so much and one of the reasons I study him daily!

The idea of “usefulness” has only grown in “our age”, it is not just the world of nature where it has grown, “usefulness” is the “chief merit of human nature” is the end/all be/all of “our age”. I am overcome with a familiar realization that the “usefulness” which has “merit” is the antithesis to covenantal relationships. Humanity is not going to ever have a lack of “usefulness”, since the Caveman we have found the tools, the food, the ways to sustain our physical existence; humanity is, however, in a state of covenantal bankruptcy, our very existence is dependent on being needed and needing another human being for connection. We learn in the 2nd Chapter of Genesis that “it is not good that humans are alone” and ever since the first marriage, it seems as if humanity continues to ‘go it alone’. The war between societal bullshit and authentic human needs for connection is only growing greater and the chasm is getting larger and larger. With the advent of AI, who knows where we will be in another 50+ years.

There is nothing wrong with seeking out the “usefulness” of “nature”, the “usefulness” that a human being can provide as both help all of us live better. The “usefulness” of nature cannot be used at the expense of nature as humanity has done, putting holes in the Ozone is not “taking care of the earth” as we are commanded in Genesis Chapter 1. So too, the “usefulness” of a human being cannot kill the soul, the spirit of the person and this is the issue we face today, as we have in the past. Today, the issue seems to be on steroids and, maybe every generation felt that way-certainly the prophets did. Marriage is a covenantal relationship that seems to have lost its purpose, when one partner or the other is no longer “useful”, divorce happens (useful in the broadest sense of the word); when an employee no longer is “useful”, they get fired no matter their previous value, no matter that they are “useful” in another area-if they are no longer ‘serving the man’, fire them. When an employer, who has taught us our trade, given us numerous opportunities for growth, can’t/won’t pay us what we think we are worth, we go elsewhere because loyalty means nothing, previous assistance means even less, just look at the Free Agent markets in sports, the insanity in College Football today. In relationships, friendships, when it isn’t serving, it isn’t convenient to ‘be seen’ with this person-we lose them! This begins in grade school and begins to flourish in middle/high school.

We the People have lost our sense of covenantal relationships with one another, with truth, with justice, with God. This is the problem the prophets spoke about, it is the issue that Jesus railed about, this is the situation we find ourselves in throughout history bringing us to today. The MAGA movement, the far right ‘conservative’ movement does not want to ‘conserve’ anything except utilitarianism, they only want to ‘conserve’ the power of the white man, the only ‘right’ there is in their world is what their leader spouts (think Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany), and there are no rights for ‘those people’ like Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Catholics who don’t join them, Asians, Muslims, etc.

What is the solution? Rabbi Heschel would say to re-awaken, re-learn how to have a sense of wonder. I believe he is correct and I believe the solution begins with spiritual education from a young age-no longer is learning the Aleph-Bet (the Hebrew alphabet) enough when children are young-their spiritual education, maturity has to begin at that moment as well. Young people have a sense of something greater and it is we adults who tell them “that’s not the way the world works” and we systematically begin to kill the sense of wonder, of awe, of spiritual audacity and moral grandeur within our children, our teens and then we wonder why they are going more and more inward, spending more and more time on their ‘devices’, being lured by faux connections. Just as it is impossible to remove the “evil drive” from a human being, so too is it impossible to remove the “spiritual longing” within a human being. Unfortunately, when the “evil drive” is attacked it gets stronger, when the “spiritual longing” is attacked it gets smaller and smaller as an act of protection.

I have wrestled with the issue of transactional and covenantal relationships all my life, even when I didn’t know it. I realize this was what I lost when my father died and I did not regain a sense of covenant for over 20 years. I was certainly part of the problem re: “usefulness” as the “chief purpose”, so in my recovery, my being of service is what I lead with-to the best of my ability- and I search out covenantal relationships and, at times, fooled by another, fooled by my need to be in covenant with another. What I know, what I keep learning over and over again, the #1 covenantal relationship in my life is with God, with me, and only when I am true and loving, just and merciful in my relationship with self and God can I really have the same with my family, with Harriet, with you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Worshiping at "the fountain of profit" leads to brokenness of spirit and enslavement of people. Year 4 Day 310

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 310

“There is happiness in the love of labor; there is misery in the love of gain. Many hearts and pitchers are broken at the fountain of profit. Selling himself into slavery to things, man becomes a utensil that is broken at the fountain.”

(Thunder in the Soul pg. 57)

Many of We the People doubt God’s existence, the existence of some “force of the Universe”, the existence of a fountain of spiritual wisdom, education and sustenance. The doubt begins with “how could God have allowed the Holocaust(if one is Jewish) and other tragedies, horrors”. I believe this is the wrong question; I know that this Universe was not man-made, I know that Nature is not man-made, I know that everything evolved over time, I know there is a spiritual connection that makes love knowable, justice perceivable, mercy available, and T’Shuvah (return, change, hope) redeemable. I believe We the People have to stop asking this wrong question and ask ourselves and one another: where are We the People in allowing, participating in, ignoring the tragedies we blame God for?

One of the societal norms and cliches is: “the one with the most toys wins” and this idiotic belief, this drive to ‘win’, the belief of Tevye, the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof, that “when your rich, they think you really know”, the abuse of people by those who are drinking and being sustained “at the fountain of profit”, all have contributed to the erroneous belief that God is dead when in truth it is We the People who have forfeited our spiritual natures, forfeited our morality, our sense of dignity, who have knowingly engaged in injustice, enthusiastically kiss the asses of people like Trump, like Putin, like MBS so we can “get more”, Jared Kushner, Howard Lutnick, Steve Wytkoff are great examples of this way of being. Of course, this way of being has been with us since the days of the Bible. We know this because the central theme of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, is the Pharaoh and Egypt. Evidently, the Israelites thought they could drink at “the fountain of profit” along with the Pharaoh and the Egyptians because of what Joseph did and, for the first time in their history and certainly not the last, they “were broken at the fountain of profit”. This has been the theme of the Jewish people since then-every time Jews turn and worship at “the fountain of profit” We the Jewish People wind up “selling himself into slavery to things” and We the People “become a utensil that is broken at the fountain”. Not a “utensil” for God, not a “utensil” in making the world a better place, rather “utensil that is broken at the fountain” of profit and serves the Pharaoh, the Autocrat, the fuhrer, etc.

After all of these years of our history repeating itself, after all of the times We the Jewish People have suffered through and experienced the same experience as we did in Egypt oh so long ago, after all the times We the People (all people) have witnessed and experienced the myriad ways of seeking profits, seeking to be with the “in crowd”, the “rich crowd”, the “powerful people” only to find ourselves enslaved to our roles, our jobs, “the man”, one would think that We the People would end our going to the “fountain of profit” where our “hearts are broken” time and time again. BUT WE DO NOT! We the People, in our returning over and over again to this place of abject despair and slavery, are living Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results”. Knowing this doesn’t protect us, knowing this seems to make We the People more stubborn to prove Einstein, history, and our inner wisdom, our spiritual knowing wrong-in other words, We the People seem to be hellbent on denying Truth and welcoming mendacity.

We know this to be true because We the American People re-elected Trump, knowing his desire to enslave all of us-even and, in some cases, especially his MAGA crowd. What is really confusing to some of us is the conspiracy theories and the anti-semitism that is welcomed, embraced, and never denied by many in the MAGA camp. Kushner, Lutnick, Wytkoff seem to believe they are exempt, they believe their money, their ‘leadership’ at “the fountain of profit”, their connection to Trump will save them-HA HA. Ask any of the Jews of Egypt who were advisors to the Pharaoh, the Jews of Spain who were friends of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Jews of Germany who held governmental positions, who helped to build the economy, the culture prior to 1933! WTF WE THE PEOPLE? Isn’t it time to wake up, to take off the blinders that the “love of gain” shields our eyes from seeing truth, to cry out to God for help in being redeemed from the slavery We the People willingly walk into and in each day? Isn’t it time to ask ourselves the right questions, instead of blaming, denying, defying the Spiritual Truth of life?

I am so aware of the thread of outrage the prophets left us as an inheritance, I am sitting here, writing these words and want to scream, I want to be heard. Knowing the brokenness of worshiping at the “fountain of profit”, knowing the horrific(unjust, inhumane, me first, etc)  actions that are taken in order to keep the “fountain of profit” pumping, I experience outrage for God, for the poor, the needy, the stranger. I am angry at the Jews who support Netanyahu and Ben G’Vir in their hatred, I am embarrassed by the Jews who are still proclaiming their loyalty and fealty to Trump and this bullshit conservatism that is actually hatred for anyone not a white christian nationalist.  I believe We the People are better than this, I believe the founding fathers wanted “a more perfect union”, I believe my father, z”l, and all the others who fought against the Axis Powers in WWII, fought for the end to slavery, the end of racism, the end of power grabs, the end of senseless hatred and killing. I pray we will honor their sacrifice with our own by ending our thirst at “the fountain of profit”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Are you truly happy with your "love of gain", your need to "get mine"? Year 4 Day 309

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 309

“There is happiness in the love of labor; there is misery in the love of gain. Many hearts and pitchers are broken at the fountain of profit. Selling himself into slavery to things, man becomes a utensil that is broken at the fountain.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 57)

Each morning as I read the passage I am about to write on for this/that day, I am overcome with a spiritual upheaval, a tingling throughout my body that goes directly from my soul to my head and I am at once; excited, angry, bewildered and calm. I speak often of shuddering upon reading something and I wanted to give you my complete experience. I realize as I write these words that the anger and bewilderment is from the inability of We the People to learn from the prophets, learn from the Bible, learn from teachers like Rabbi Heschel, Rev. King, Pastor Niebuhr, Christ, etc and, instead, continue to do what caused, causes destruction and ruin to countries, to communities, to individuals, to self. The excitement and calm come from a ‘seeing’ what God is saying to me/to us about how to change, how to live better and the confidence, trust that God has in us that we can and will return!

The first sentence above is calling we the people to rise up and have “love of labor” in serving something greater than ourselves. To realize how much “love” the spiritual world has for us by giving us the opportunity to do the Mitzvot, to help another human being, to leave the narcissistic tendencies of our youth, to rise above the xenophobia of political discourse, to ‘see’ what is needed in the world and what part of us can fulfill the particular need we are created for. “Love of labor” has nothing to do with making money, it has everything to do with making a life. When we are miserable at our jobs, when we feel under appreciated and under valued, when we are seeing everything wrong with our lives, when it is all about the Benjamins, we have lost the spiritual connection to something greater than ourselves, we have lost the joy of service, we have lost the ability to love. I say this with the knowing of watching people claim they love their children, their spouses, etc and are unable/unwilling to speak truth to them, they believe they can ‘fix’ them and if they can’t-then it is the fault of the other person. So they bring them to the Doctor of the body, of the soul, they send them to rehab and get “fixed”. This is NOT love, this is self-centeredness, this is worry about optics, this is a denial of responsibility, this is using the vulnerability of another against them, this is, in fact, evil! Yet, be it to a doctor, a Rabbi, a Priest, a Minister, an Imam, God is blamed for the ills of the world by ‘non-believers’ and the representative of God, the clergy person, is the brunt of the wrath. In politics, people in power who are beleaguered usually blame ‘those people’, the ‘vermin infecting our country’, the ‘democrats’, the Jews, the Blacks, the Hispanics, etc. All of this because we the people, in our smallness, in our ugliness, in our wanting to be seen as ____(fill in the blank) because optics is important. When asked “what will the neighbors think” when my father was angry about some injustice, he said-“I don’t care, what is right is right!”.

Because “getting mine” has become so ingrained in people, we are witnessing the grift of a millennia, the theft of the centuries, by the people who are supposed to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States”. While there are many who envy the money, power and prestige of the rich and famous, We the People, when we are in our proper place/lane and not giving into the smallness of pettiness and pride, KNOW the misery the flaunters, the grifters experience. We can see it in their defensiveness, in their blaming, in their abuse of power and abuse of people. While we will probably never know the truth of what happens to people in the quiet of their homes, in the “dark night of the soul”, history has shown us the “misery in the love of gain” that other people have had and, in pursuing it, many of We the People experience! Trump, Kushner, Vought, Lutnick, Patel, et al may seem like they are ‘on top of the world’, and, as Jimmy Cagney found out in the movie White Heat and said before the tank he was standing on exploded. The issue for We the People is the collateral damage that happens when the lies, the falseness, the house of cards that so many of the MAGA followers are living in and standing on explodes and there is no one to lend a hand, no one to trust, no one to “fix Humpty Dumpty”.

Hence the importance of SEEING the Truth, of HEARING the Truth, of KNOWING the difference between fact and fiction, between reason and wonder, between Truth and Mendacity. We the People can only know, see, and hear what is true and good, what is real and kind, what is holy and necessary when our, like Joseph in the Torah Portion Vayigash, the one we read this week, We allow us and the Bible to “speak into our ears” and when, like Judah in the Torah Portion Miketz, we can say: “she is more right than I”, and when, like King David, we can hear the indictment against us and know we are wrong and have to do T’Shuvah for our wrongs. This takes Spiritual Maturity, this takes knowing our “Soul’s Code” the book by James Hillman, it takes We the People studying our holy texts, immersing ourselves in the words of the Bible, the commentators, the spiritual teachers from the prophets till now, both Jewish and non-Jewish. We the People are going to live in misery without growing our souls, without gaining Spiritual Maturity and we will continue to fuck up the Garden that God gave to us.

I know the truth of what I write because in my pursuit of “gain”, I was miserable, in the pursuit of gain of many people I have encountered, they are miserable. I know my inability to truly love came from my loving my misery so much, I would not change. This is one of the biggest amends I have made, disliking misery so much, I enlarge my capacity to love. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Power: using it for self; using it to help another human being? Year 4 Day 308

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 308

“Nothing is more useful than power, nothing more frightful. We have often suffered from degradation by poverty; now we are threatened with degradation through power.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 57)

Reading these words, some 50+ years after they were written, reading the Prophets, reading books that are works of ‘fiction’ that turn out to be prescient, I am left wondering what the issue is with humanity that we just don’t listen?! Society is constantly searching for an either/or solution, a right/wrong scenario, a good/bad conclusion and this is just not how the world works, not the spiritual world nor the material world. We see this in our courts, in our laws, in our governance, in our learning. When we learn more, when we re-learn what was thought to be known, when we are in “radical amazement”, we see the both/and that the Hebrew Bible speaks to, we experience the learning that the truth is wider and more complex, made up of more parts that any one human being can comprehend; hence our need to be in community, to be a community of learners rather than experts, a community of seekers rather than know it alls, a community of caring and compassion, mercy, justice, love and kindness.

Of course “nothing is more useful than power”, without it nothing gets done. However, what power are we speaking of when We the People use this word? Are we speaking of the power of the self to regulate our emotions, to manage our passions, to control, transform, and use wisely our “evil inclination”? Are we speaking of the power to dominate another human being, to degrade another person, group of people, to end learning more about self and the ways to be a better self? These are not the only choices, of course, yet they are two major rivers/oceans in which power resides and the rest are tributaries of these two, I believe. What we have seen throughout our history, in the 2 World Wars and all the other ones as well, is the use of power to dominate, to dehumanize a group, a country, a faith, a people and it is revolting, disgusting, and not based in the spirit of the Bible. Yet, so many ‘preachers, rabbis, imams’ spew this bullshit, these tired phrases cleaning up what is clearly the same language and actions of the Pharaoh in Egypt, it is the height of mendacity, similar to the priests in the Temple of old who sold out to the wealthy, the rulers, their own needs and greeds.

What are we to do? ACTION! We the People are being called to the carpet, we are being asked to stand up for what is right and good. There is a demand emanating from Mount Sinai to SHEMA, to hear, listen and understand the way power is being used is degrading to both the ones being degraded and to those of us who are watching the current horror show. To SHEMA implies a very close hearing, a hearing which includes listening for the ping or the thud in the words being spoken and written. It includes staying sharp and aware, awake and on guard for the slightest indication that all is not as is being spoken. It includes a commitment to understand the implications and ramifications of what the speaker is proposing on both we and the rest of we. Power is consolidated to ‘improve’ the life of those who wield it, those who are close to the ones who wield power and to screw over anyone and everyone else-not even intentionally at times, just that’s the way it works when the people in power are small, are spiritually stunted, are morally challenged. In other words when there are people like Trump, Putin, Netanyahu in power, We the People are all in trouble-even the ones who ‘think’ they are safe because either or all of these three (and the myriad like them in power today) are ‘my people’. Whenever power is misused, whenever power becomes “frightful”, there are no ‘my people’ because the one in power becomes fixated on keeping the power, on punishing anyone who could hold them accountable, on ensuring their line continues to flourish and enslaving the people he/she needs to serve her/him.

Hearing, listening, and understanding the call from Sinai, the lies of the power-hungry misogynists, the idolatry of any type of ‘religious nationalism’, the picking and choosing of biblical phrases to validate your evilness, is the challenge for We the People, today as it has been in every age. On Hanukkah we sing “in every age a hero or sage” has come to our rescue. Well People, we have them today, we had them 50+ years ago, we had them 100 years ago and the question being asked today of all of us, The People is “when will we ever learn”?! Haven’t we seen enough degradation by ICE, haven’t we witnessed enough hardship because of Trump’s obsession with Putin, with MBS, with Qatar? What is the goal of the Christian Nationalists if not absolute power by their degradation of women’s capabilities and rights, by their winks and outright slogans of anti-semitism, by their disgust towards people of color? WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE!

I am angry and scared, I know the power of words, the power of speech. I have misused both in the past, even in the now. There is no perfection AND it is time for all of us to stop pointing our fingers, it is time to SHEMA the words of Christ: “whoever is without sin, cast the first stone”. I have to get my own house in order, which I do everyday and because I am aware of my own “missing the mark” I can point out the errors of another, of all of We the People. It is way past time for me to stop hiding, to stop worrying about what vulnerabilities from my past will be used against me. I am flawed! I have made my amends, done my T’Shuvah and the need by some people to degrade me and my accomplishments because of a mistake-albeit a big one- is exactly the type of behavior being used by the people in power today. I no longer care what ‘they’ say; I am me and will continue to speak out. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Recognizing the "likeness of God" that is within every one of us. Year 4 Day 307

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 307

“To imitate God, to act as He acts in mercy and love, is the way of enhancing our likeness. Man becomes what he worships… And yet that likeness may be defiled, distorted, and forfeited… The goal of man is to recognize and preserve his likeness or at least to prevent its distortion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 43)

Isn’t this the issue for We the People in this moment, in every moment? We are created in “the likeness” of God, we are called upon to “imitate God”, “walk in God’s ways”, “love mercy, do justly” “and yet” We the People have “defiled, distorted and forfeited” the very attributes that make us human, that make us more than the homo-sapiens, more than a species among species! AND I am MAD AS HELL and do not understand how everyone, regardless of political, religious, spiritual persuasion is NOT MAD AS HELL!

While I point to, as many people do, to Trump, Lutnick, Kushner, Vance, Vought, Miller, et al as focal points; the truth of our situation lies with ALL of We the People because We allowed these idolators in, We welcomed these defilers of their and our “likeness of God” that is within everyone. We begged them to lie to us, to feed our own self-deception so as to distort the image of God We all are endowed with upon birth. We have clapped like trained seals as these idolators, their clergy and ours have conned us to forfeit our imitation of God by doing good, by doing what is right, by living according to a set of principles that override our “heart and our eyes” so we don’t “whore after them” as the 3rd paragraph of the Shema teaches. Yet, We the People are continuing to allow, welcome, invite the current administration to grift, to lie, to engage in senseless hatred, to welcome anti-semites, Muslim haters, Christ haters into their little tent! WTF??

The issue today is not ‘them’, it is us. We the People have become so spiritually bankrupt, we have spent entire bank accounts of decency, morality, fighting for the needy, the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan that our grandparents, parents willed to us and we have not put enough back in to ride out the storming of the Capital by Jan. 6 rioters, the Reichstag Fire of ‘those vermin poisoning the blood of our people’, ie anyone who isn’t White, Christian Nationalist or a useful ally for right now. It is boring and tiring to listen to ‘those good people’ complain about the Epstein debacle while still supporting the idiotic tariffs, the cruelty of ICE, etc. We the People seem to have forgotten that “Male and Female God created them both”, so the mistreatment of women, the misogyny that is rampant is against the Biblical teaching in the first chapter of Genesis! We the People are giving short shrift to “love your neighbor as yourself” every time we support and/or engage in any prejudices, any type, form of racism, and support of autocrats, fascists, etc. Whenever We the People go along with, elect, support, cheer the people who deny “Proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” by lying, by name calling, by obfuscation, by sleight of hand, by grift, etc, We the People are the problem-not the ones taking these reprehensible actions!

We the People have to return to living a Spiritual Life, We the People have to seek out physicians of the soul, people to help us recover our spiritual health, someone to help us replenish our spiritual and moral bank accounts. Is Clergy the answer? MAYBE, unfortunately most clergy are not taught how to be Spiritual Counselors, they are taught to “refer them out” after a few visits. How ridiculous, when people come to their Rabbi, Priest, Minister, Imam they are not coming for Mental Health help-they are coming to find their souls, to find their way forward in a world that has baffled them, they are seeking a deeper connection with “their own likeness”. This is the path “to recognize and preserve our likeness” and this is the job of We the People first and foremost. Yet, society laughs at people who seek our spiritual health, spiritual help because it ‘isn’t scientific’, you can’t have ‘measurable objects’ so it isn’t valid. BULLSHIT! It is exactly this kind of stupidity that prevents us from the “distortion” of “our likeness”. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to recover our “likeness”, WAY PAST TIME for We the People to recover and preserve our “likeness”, WAY PAST TIME to throw the BUMS OUT and make a decision to turn towards the “likeness of God” we are created in, see the image of God of everyone around us, engage with one another from our shared humanity, shared “likeness”, “to imitate God, to act in mercy, and love”. WILL YOU?

I have been thinking a lot about these words, they permeate my soul, I have had a “spiritual counselor” since I began my recovery some 38 years ago in Prison with Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l. I have been a spiritual counselor to many over these years and it is humbling, joyful, heartbreaking, and I have so much gratitude for being able to serve another human being in their journey to their soul. I have fucked up, I have gotten angry, I have confused at times righteous anger for ego anger and I am clearer on this now, more than ever. I am spiritually fit enough to be hurt by people and not need to be resentful nor get even. I am so concerned not to engage in “distortion” because I refuse to willfully distort, defile my “likeness” and I know how easy it is to this. It takes constant awareness, a continued reflection of what is going on within me, what my outer actions are, and a rolodex of phone numbers for people who can speak to my soul, people who can hear me and I can hear. These are the ways I ensure that my “likeness” isn’t “forfeited, defiled, distorted”. These are also the ways I defy the liars, the cheats, the fascists, the autocrats seeking to grift, keep power and defile another human being, be they Trumpers, MAGA, Bibi-lovers, Ben G’vir/Smotrich allies. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Enhancing our "likeness", Acting in Mercy and Love- Year 4 Day 306

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 306

“To imitate God, to act as He acts in mercy and love, is the way of enhancing our likeness. Man becomes what he worships… And yet that likeness may be defiled, distorted, and forfeited… The goal of man is to recognize and preserve his likeness or at least to prevent its distortion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 43)

At a Chanukah Party last night, there were 8 Hanukiahs and the light was bright and watching the flames soar into the sky was breathtaking. Looking at the fellow celebrants and the hosts through this fire revealed their likeness shining from their souls, some of the people knew/know of their likeness and others not so much. Harriet and I have been having a discussion about her experience speaking at the Unitarian Church here in the desert and being in a synagogue community here. Harriet remarked the difference is the Unitarians know the principles of Unitarianism and live into them the best they can and in the synagogue, not so sure. The words above in the first two sentences are so crucial to living Jewishly-which most Jews don’t know nor realize- and I am concerned We the Jewish Clergy have failed in our mission, our calling, the demand to “teach our children”, “to walk humbly in the ways of God”.

This is NOT to say the Jews in the Pews at any Temple/Synagogue are not good people or they do NOT act “in mercy and love”. Rather, as I immerse myself in the words above, think about my experiences, know that money still is more important, or at least as important, as service, as “acts in mercy and love” within most institutions, I understand Rabbi Heschel’s concern, his clear-eyed sight of what is, what could be, what must be, and the dangers of not “enhancing our likeness.” Rather, what I am saying is We the Jews, We the People are in danger of forgetting “our likeness”, as our engagement with cruelty, with anti-semitism, with hatred of people of color, LGBTQ+ human beings increases. As Christian Nationalism rises, so does the KKK ideas and ideals, as Christian Nationalism gets stronger, the teachings and ways of Christ diminishes because they are portrayed falsely, they are bastardized and the preachers of this path do NOT care about the souls of the people, they are not concerned with “the way of enhancing our likeness” because they want the power. The irony here, of course, is that these Christian Nationalists are the exact people Christ was railing against.

Closer to home, for me, is how Jews can support these behaviors and this way of thinking/being. As the promoters of being created in “the likeness” and image of God, as the people who brought decency, morality, caring for the sick and the needy, the poor and the stranger, being commanded to be merciful and to love the stranger, our neighbor, to stand for what is holy and good, how can any Jew go along with MAGA, with Trump, Putin, Bibi, Lutnick, Kushner?? This baffles me because they are worshipping Mamon- money, power, prestige-not God, not truth, not kindness, not justice. WTF, my fellow Jews, how can any of us not differentiate between saving Israel from Hamas and saving Israel from a right-wing takeover, a religious takeover by the so-called Ultra Orthodox who don’t worship God, they worship Halacha, they worship the Talmud, they don’t treat the stranger with love, they do not care about the poor except the poor in their community that they want everyone else to take care of. Instead of living the principles of Torah, they claim studying it is enough and we see where that has gotten us. I call BULLSHIT on these liars, these idolators-Jew, Christian, Muslim.

What are We the People doing so we are “enhancing our likeness”? Are we imitating God by seeking out one another to see how our neighbor is doing? Are we saying hello to people on the street-recognizing their divine image, letting them know we know they matter? Are we engaging in ways that educate, mature our spiritual health? Are we showing mercy and kindness to the people around us, to the people who need it in our community? Are we, even in war, knowing the person who is our enemy is still created “in the likeness of God”? Are we worshipping God or an idol of our own making? Are we worshipping money more than spirit, prestige more than what is right, self-deception more than truth?

What is the state of our “likeness”? What are the ways We the People check in our divine image each day? What are we doing to make our corner of the world a little better?

These questions, these looks at my “likeness” is a daily routine for me and I hope for you, after today’s writing. I know that I have not been perfect, that money has had a lure that drove me away from my path to “imitate God, to act as He acts in mercy and love”. I also know those times have been at a minimum since my recovery began, since I started to hear the call of God, to learn what God is telling me at any given moment. I know what it is like to not be merciful and loving both as the one who isn’t and the one who sought it and was rejected. I know what it is like to be at the ‘mercy’ of those who believe optics is more important than truth, that ‘being on the right side’ is more important than “enhancing our likeness”. I know what it is like to worship anything other than God and where that took me-to the depths of jail, prison, spiritual bankruptcy. I know what it is like to watch, in horror, as people ‘in charge’ worship at the altars of ‘progressive’, at the altars of ‘fascism’, at the altars of ‘what will the neighbors think’, at the altars of ‘success=money’, etc. I know the joy of living into the “divine image” we are created in, growing in spirit to becoming the soul we are created to be, celebrating our uniqueness and no longer bowing down to the idols of self-deception, money, power, cruelty, needing to be right, etc. This is how I continue to grow my “likeness” and engage in “acts of mercy and love”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Desecration and Blasphemy are slippery slopes that most of us are unaware of, willfully blind to - Year 4 Day 305

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 305

“The fear you must feel of offending or hurting a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of God. An act of violence is an act of desecration. To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God….” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 42-43)

Since I first chose these sentences on Friday, I have had a nagging, an unsettling experience and I know the reason. These last two sentences are upsetting, unsettling, causing me to have a bad conscience, and hitting me right between the eyes. Why, you may ask and my response is I am a citizen of a country that celebrates violence, that suborns violence against their friends and enemies, uses violence to justify their own cruelty, bloodlust, and martyrdom of people, like Charlie Kirk, for their own benefit. Even Clergy people in “My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet land of Liberty” join in the justifications, approvals, and cheerleading of an “act of violence” if it serves their own ends.

Another response of mine to “why are these sentences bothering you so much” is that I am a member of a way of life, a blueprint for living a whole, holy, full life: Judaism which is also celebrating the violence it can impose on “those less than human” people, ie people who live in the West Bank who are not Jewish and people who live in Gaza. Make no mistake about my beliefs-Oct. 7, 2023 was HORRIFIC and meant to bring about the destruction of Gaza that has happened-full stop. Hamas knew exactly what they were doing and Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc all knew the plans, in my opinion. Responding to such an attack was more than necessary, it just has had to go on so long, it has had to have been met with such jubilation by Jews, by Rabbis and other Clergy. It is not ok to say “it is written in the Bible” because the opposite of what these xenophobic, power-mad, cruelty loving Clergy, politicians, far right people are saying “it is written” is also in the Bible! In fact, in the Book of Samuel, he tells the people they cannot go into the land of the Philistines (now Gaza)-it is not ours according to the man who anointed Kings Saul and David!!

Using violence as an act of creation is, as I read the words above, BULLSHIT! It is “a desecration” of God’s Name, of God’s spirit, of God’s representative, reminder, messenger-a HUMAN BEING. Isn’t it way past time for We the People to come to the realization that, as Rabbi Heschel says: the deepest wisdom man can attain is to know that his destiny is to aid, to serve”(Man is Not Alone pg.296)? Isn’t it way past time for We the People to acknowledge the innate holiness of every human being, the infinite dignity and value of every human being, the uniqueness of every human being, and the equality of dignity, value, uniqueness each one of us deserves and God demands from us? Yet, we the people have made ourselves so small (hence the non-capital letters:)) that we have forgotten we are “created in the image and likeness of God”, that we are given a task to be a ‘partner with God’ in completing the world, that we are to live a life that is compatible with being a ‘child’ of God.

In Deuteronomy we learn that even if one is hung because of taking the life of another, that person’s body should not be left overnight, that as soon as death occurs from the hanging the body is taken down and buried-otherwise it is an affront to God! This didn’t seem to register with those ‘good christian’ KKK Klansmen when they would hang black people and leave the body up so all could see and be afraid, nor did it bother their preachers! None of the ‘good christian, good jewish, good muslim’ clergy who are supporting the violence, the hatred, the cruelty going on today-and there are quite a few- realize the truth of the last sentence above, realize the importance of not being so arrogant as to say I can tell God to go Fuck GodSelf and make up what the Voice from Sinai is saying, refute the 36 times we are told to love the stranger, care for the poor and the needy, rescue the captive, remember we were strangers in the Land of Egypt. Instead, they are the arrogant ones, they are the ones who follow the Goebbels play book-accuse others of that which you are guilty of- and too many of we the people, in our smallness, in our weakness, in our lack of faith, lack of courage, lack of spiritual maturity, believe the lies or at least are unwilling to confront them, unwilling to call them out. Otherwise, the revolution begun 3500 years ago in the desert of Sinai would be mature enough to respond and repulse this vicious attack on human freedom, this “blasphemous” way of being “toward God”.

I am calling for a new “Leaving Egypt”. Just as I left the Egypt of addiction 37+ years ago, just as I left the Egypt of criminality some 38+years ago, I am constantly looking at the day I am in to make sure I am not turning back towards any Egypt, any narrow place that traps me in mendacity and obliviousness. It is time for WE THE PEOPLE to band together, to make the commitment to follow the words of the prophets and accept the “new heart of flesh”, the “new covenant” that is being given-not the New Testament but rather the renewal of the Covenant of Truth, of Goodness, of Service, of Holiness, of Wholeness that of non-violence, of love for one another, that has been bastardized by the Clergy, the wealthy, the ruling class and brought about the destruction of the Kingdoms of Judea, of Israel, and has become the way of America under Trump and his thugs and Bibi and his gang of thieves. I am asking, cajoling, demanding that WE THE PEOPLE revolt again, just as so many of us in recovery from addiction have revolted against the societal belief of “a leopard doesn’t change its spots”, just as so many Jews and Christians are standing with our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted by ICE, etc. We the People are being asked to join together to say NO to cruelty, to blasphemy in the name of YES to God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Offending and hurting a human being is the same as offending and hurting God - Year 4 Day 304

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 304

“The fear you must feel of offending or hurting a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of God. An act of violence is an act of desecration. To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God….” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 42-43)

I have been writing on Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings for 3 years and 303 days and I understand why people think he is too dense, too terse, to really immerse oneself in, why it is just better to use sound bites. It is hard to deal with the truth and reality that Rabbi Heschel teaches and he lived. Not perfectly, of course, and always striving to live into the ways of God, the words of the prophets and the wisdom of the sages. Today’s quote has me churning inside because of the subtlety of what is being said. “Offending or hurting a human being” is not a subjective phrase as I am reading it this morning. The root of both words is “to strike against”. “The fear you must feel of ‘striking against’ a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of (striking against) God” is another way of understanding the first sentence above.

Using this understanding, when we sit idly by and do nothing while people are killed because of senseless hatred, because of ‘individual rights’, because of a bastardization of the 2nd Amendment, because our elected officials are too afraid of saving our children at the expense of losing donations, We the People are guilty of “offending or hurting a human being”. When we buy into any type of hatred, prejudice against a group of people because of their skin color, their faith, their sexual orientation, when blowing up supposed drug running boats is cheered, when Hispanics are targeted in ICE raids and not white people who are here ‘illegally’, We the People are guilty of, as Amos says: “despising the Torah of God”. When we forget that each person is a divine reminder, each human being, no matter what they believe or what action they may be taking, is created in the “likeness and image of God”, and treat one another less than, enslave people for our own entertainment, forget the commandments, the social ordinances, curse the deaf and put stumbling blocks before the blind, We the People are guilty of having no respect, no fear/awe of God, our spiritual corpus colosseum is broken and we are in need of spiritual healing, we have to see a “physician of the Soul” to heal our separation from the divine, our separation from the covenant, our separation from our humanity and from another(s) human being.

Yet, we are not doing this, we are insisting that God wants us to act this way-just ask the prosperity gospel people. We are proclaiming “it is written” that we should indiscriminately kill people in the West Bank, that we are not to dwell with the lion and the lamb together, that we are to ‘hate the Egyptians” even though the Torah forbids this, that we are to abuse the stranger even though the Torah tells us 36 times to love the stranger, that we are to support theft of property, theft of money, bribery of elected officials, grift by elected officials, etc even though the Torah, the Constitution say otherwise. We the People have drifted so far away from the opening sentence above and keep putting blinders on so we don’t have to see nor be responsible for the “offending and hurting of a human being” that we are engaged in, so we don’t have to see, admit, be responsible, change our ways for the ways we have been “offending and hurting….God”! Each day I wonder to myself WTF, is written on a Coffee Cup we have. I would say the ways We the People keep “offending and hurting a human being” and by extension God, is a WHAT THE FUCK, people!! It is not too hard to see the strikes we the people are co-responsible for, and unlike Rabbi Heschel, we seem to be able to pray, to sleep well, to laugh, to continue on as if everything is exactly as it should be, with the White Supremacists, the White Christian Nationalists (men only of course) in charge.

How is this possible, I ask myself and I respond to myself; it is the same spiritual crisis and malady as any addiction, any immersion in self-deception and mendacity. We the People must wake up and realize any hatred is senseless and dangerous. We the People must stand up and do the T’Shuvah necessary to bring about a change in our actions and then our thinking, realizing We are not the end all/be all and the person next to us is as precious as we are, the person next to us is in need of spiritual healing just like we are.

I am being forceful/bolding my words because I watch people accept pap as spirituality, I listen as people speak with such enthrallment at what an empty suit says from the pulpit, I experience people proclaiming their faith in God while following a hateful, spiteful Rabbi, Priest, Minister, Imam and I AM SICKENED! I know that I have offended and hurt people and each time I learn, I grow, I make my amends and I move forward. I am accused of hurting and offending people because I say things they don’t want to hear, I also say things in ways that people feel are ‘not proper’, ‘not becoming a Rabbi’ and this is not the same as the “offending and hurting” that Rabbi Heschel is speaking of. I experience the consequences of my behavior, I accept the disdain and the exile that is sent my way by people I have helped and who feel that I have offended and hurt them. I continue to offer spiritual counseling to those who want, I continue to grow along spiritual lines, I continue to seek spiritual progress, I jettison the call for me to be spiritually perfect or spiritually whole as unattainable and the pursuit will only leave me emptier. I pray we all find the spiritual healing we need and change the world to love the Torah of God as Amos would want. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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What do you see in the mirror, what do you see in another person? Year 4 Day 303

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 303

“But the divine likeness is something all people share. This is a conception of far-reaching importance to biblical piety. What it implies can hardly be summarized. Reverence for God is shown in our reverence for man.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 42)

The tragedy of our time, of most eras in history is the denial of the first sentence above. This denial goes from the ‘secular’, ‘non-believer’ through the Clergy who preach ‘only our god is the true god’. We are in a time where, once again, many of We the People are engaging in the denial of their own “divine likeness” to worship the ‘anointed one’, be it Trump, Vought, Vance, Putin, Orban, etc. Listening to various clergy people of the different faiths preach hatred, preach fear of another human being, of another group; preach it is us against them; preach the lies of what their ‘god’ wants; should be responded to with NO! Since “the divine likeness is something all people share”, how can anyone say another person is not worthy of reverence? In Deuteronomy, 21:23, we are commanded to not let the body of a criminal, of a murderer who was condemned to death stay on the gallows overnight! In order to honor the “divine likeness” of every body, every soul, every person.

Yet, at every crossroad, at every intersection, society has sought to make one group, one person set above everyone else. Be it Pharaoh in Egypt, Balak in Moab, the King of Sodom, King Solomon and his progeny, up till Trump, Putin, et al, society and human beings clamor to and claim as their own the “one person who can save us”. What makes King David stand out as an example-as imperfect as he was-is that he knew to listen to women, to Nathan his prophet, to the voice of God, even when they were telling him NO. While he made plenty of errors, he always returned to hear the Voice, to listen to the people he trusted to bring him back to holiness, to connection with God. The leaders of today, as it has always been, believe the Priests, the Rabbis, the Ministers should be telling them what they want to hear, should be offering to ‘god’ the right bribes to get ‘god’ to go along with der fuhrer, and, unfortunately, these ‘people of god’ usually do! HOW DISGUSTING!

Rather than learn from the Bible that whoring after our hearts and eyes will lead to our downfall, will lead to our being conquered and taken away into captivity, will lead to the destruction of our Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, these people believe they are exempt, much like the Priests of Ancient Israel, Ancient Judah and we all know how that turned out. Yet, as I write this, 2 Jews, Wytkoff and Kushner are selling out Ukraine for a few shekels, for a real estate deal for themselves and Trump! As I write this, Netanyahu and his thugs are selling out Israel for money and more power. WTF?!

The disregard for the people of Ukraine, the the people of Gaza, the people of America, the people of Israel for their own gain, for their own self-aggrandizement is so blatant and unholy I do not understand why We the People allow this behavior, go along with this way of being, not see the 1930’s repeating themselves, not understand the hatred of any group comes back to hatred of Jews, that Israel is not the reason for the anti-semitism uptick, it is the fascist thinking and whenever We the People disregard the “divine likeness” that “all people share” to have a scapegoat, to have ‘someone’ to blame, Jews are next inline to be targeted, in today’s world after Hispanics, LGBTQ+, and neck and neck with Blacks-remember to be in the KKK, one had to hate Blacks and Jews. So I ask once again WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH WE THE PEOPLE??!!

We can disagree with one another and should so We can see more of the picture and discern more truth, We need to engage with one another from a place of learning and curiosity, much like the study of the Bible requires us to immerse ourselves in the text, ask ourselves “What is the question this verse, this chapter is the answer for in my life” so we can “lift up our eyes and see” as God tells Abraham and, by extension, We, the descendants of Abraham, the people who are blessed through Abraham, or the people who are cursed because we ignore Abraham’s legacy to us. “Reverence for God is shown in our reverence for man” makes me shudder and, hopefully, you shudder as well. Our reverence for one another is sorely lacking, our not throwing the bums out of Congress, out of Government, out of the White House is furthering the non-reverence for God, the disdain for human beings that is on full display and clapped for, that is being promoted by those ‘good christian nationalist folk, those ‘prosperity gospel peeps, those frumma(orthodox) yidden, those ‘the people Israel live’ crazies! We the People are not just watching a rerun of the 1930’s America, We are promoting the 586 BCE, 70AD, the destruction of both Temples! WTF?!

I am calling everyone to take the action of “reverence for God” by showing “reverence for man”! It is hard and for many years I did not do this, I know and for the past 37 years, my Recovery Birthday was yesterday, I have. While not perfectly, I also know that, like the prophets, when people thought I was being disrespectful, oftentimes I was trying to speak to them in ways they could hear because they were not showing “reverence” to their own “divine likeness”. This is the foundational ‘sin’, travesty of an addict in our/their disease(BTW, any addict to anything): not showing “reverence to their nor anyone else’s “divine likeness”. I am living into my “reverence” for both mine and your “divine likeness” one grain of sand more each day and I pray you will also. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Treating one another as "a likeness representing the King of kings" - Year 4 Day 302

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 302

“Human life is holy, holier even than the scrolls of Torah. Its holiness is not man’s achievement; it is a gift of God rather than attained through merit. Man must, therefore, be treated with the honor due to a likeness representing the King of kings.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.41)

The conclusion of this piece of wisdom from Rabbi Heschel is, for many, more outrageous and difficult to live into than the idea and obligation of “human life is holy, holier even than the scrolls of Torah”. While human beings are the only ‘creature’ said to be a partner with God, created in the “likeness, image” of God, to say we should “be treated with the honor due to a likeness representing the King of kings” is, for most people a bridge too far. Yet, here again, maybe because it is so outrageous a statement, maybe because it is so difficult to perceive, receive, and do, the emboldened sentence above is undeniably TRUE.


Which, of course, leads to the lunacy we are witnessing, participating in, protesting against, or standing on the sidelines like a ‘good MAGA’, waiting to be told what to do by the winner. Because of guilt, shame, need to be right, need for certainty, and so many more inauthentic needs, human beings have treated one another terribly, horribly, with disdain, with recklessness, with senseless hatred, with greed, with slavery, etc. Rather than showing one another “the honor due to a likeness representing the King of kings”, we show one another dishonor, we show one another oneupmanship, we show one another shame and blame. Rather than treating one another as divine reminders, divine needs, as “a likeness representing the King of kings”, we treat one another as competitors, as usurpers, as thieves coming to steal what we have, take it away from us, we see enemies and allies, we believe “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, we continue to scapegoat whomever we can, always adding the Jews in, so we can feel good about ourselves.

Our clergy is not helping too much either! They have reduced the Bible, the words of Moses and the prophets, Samuel and the Psalms, to sound bites that serve their xenophobic purposes, they have taken the words and deeds of Jesus and made them into a proof for their ill-treating the stranger and the poor! Rather than seeing and living into their responsibility to acknowledge “man must, therefore, be treated with the honor due to a likeness representing the King of kings”, these mendacious, cruel, desecrating idolators preach the ‘prosperity gospels’, the ‘christian’ nationalist bible, the hating of the stranger even though we were strangers in the land of Egypt, the refusal to help our enemy as the Torah teaches, Proverbs teaches.

We the People who believe in the human being, who understand that human beings have a higher consciousness and rise above their reptilian brain, can rise up to “be holy”, have to RISE UP and REVOLT against this degradation of God, degradation of a human being, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr.-degradation of a human being anywhere is degradation of human beings everywhere! We the People are being called by the events in our daily lives, by the events in our country, in our world to “DO JUSTLY, LOVE MERCY, WALK HUMBLY WITH GOD(IN GOD”S WAYS). Says simple and does difficult, I know AND We the People are capable because we are “a likeness representing the King of kings”!  Since we have this “gift”, since holiness is part of our make-up, it is not such a leap to live into the mandate given to the first human couple-take care of the earth and all the creatures in it. It is not too big a leap to “care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow,” it is not an impossible step to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”!

What it takes is for We the People to leave the world of binary thinking, of good guys and bad guys, of either/or and run to join God, the teachings of the Bible, in the solution to dealing with the opposing forces within us. Rather than pathologies these normal opposing forces, We the People need to learn how to deal with them, use them wisely and in proper measure to improve our lives and the lives of all those around us. Rather than seeking a scapegoat, We the People are being called to remember: “in a free society, some are guilty all are responsible”. Rather than going along to get along, rather than be part of a fascist cabal who want to have all the money, all the power, etc We the People are being called to reject societal pressures and norms so we can live into “wonder or radical amazement, the maladjustment” to norms and cliches, so we can have “an authentic awareness of that which is”. This is not a call to make it all happen today, it is a call to begin the process, to continue Neil Armstrong’s achievement: One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind”! Are We the People willing to make this step, this leap?

It is so hard to live this way all the time! I sit here at the computer with my head in my hands because I know what I am writing is so true and so hard to live completely and always-hence my fighting against the societal norm that it must be always, completely; hence my welcoming of people seeing and possibly using my vulnerabilities against me rather than hiding them, rather than denying them; hence my belief in and action of doing TShuvah out loud, not needing a community to validate me AND needing a community to belong to. It is hard to treat every human being as “a likeness representing the King of kings” and it is exhilarating when I say hello to people, when I can reach out to help another, to say Hineni, I am here, to treat myself as “a likeness representing the King of kings”, which maybe the hardest task of all and leads to the rest. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Are you aware that your life is "holier even that the scrolls of Torah"? Year 4 Day 301

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 301

“Human life is holy, holier even than the scrolls of Torah. Its holiness is not man’s achievement; it is a gift of God rather than attained through merit. Man must, therefore, be treated with the honor due to a likeness representing the King of kings.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.41)

OUTRAGEOUS!! That’s is what is coursing through my veins upon reading these words. “Human life is holy, holier even than the scrolls of Torah”? How are these words possibly spoken, written by a man who witnessed, who suffered the indignities of Nazi Germany, who is the son of a woman who died because the Nazi’s came for her, who’s family members died in the Shoah? Because they are TRUTH and, above all else, Rabbi Heschel is dedicated to the TRUTH.

Holy is defined as “sacred, blessed, etc” and in Hebrew it means “set apart, elevated, and implies connection with something greater than ourselves or at least connection with our higher consciousness. In English it comes from the word “whole”. “Human life is” elevated, connected “even more than the scrolls of Torah” because the Torah is useless unless and until we immerse ourselves in it, learn from it and with one another, and approach it in a state of seeking wholeness, seeking connection with our study partner(s), seeking to be elevated, educated, set apart from the dullness, the boredom of ridiculous societal norms and the noise of the idolators who speak in the name of religion, who speak of holiness while practicing defilement, preaching hatred, pandering to the lowest common denominator of human beings-hatred, blame, shame, etc.

These bullshit artists like Vought, Vance, Kushner, Cain-White, all follow the Nazi playbook of Goebbels, all seek to have a “fourth reich” rise up where White Christian Men are in charge in America and everyone else is subservient AND they claim to be “Good Christians” who believe fervently in Christ while doing the exact opposite of what Christ preached, what Christ did! They are so full of shit they believe that their “holiness” is achieved through their own actions, through their own “merit”, just ask Trump, Miller, Noem, Hegseth, et al. The latest post about the tragic death of Rob and Michelle Reiner is an example of their hubris and the bowing down of We the People, especially Congress, to deny our own holiness!


This is the great tragedy of modernity, of history. “Human life is holy…it is a gift of God rather than attained through merit” is unknown to most of We the People. This concept is so foreign to most and this is because we are not spiritually educated well, we are not taught from our toddler stage that We the People are “holy”, that each of us is a holy soul and deserving of honor and respect, dignity and kindness, not to be worshipped, rather to be partnered with to raise up the world instead of following the path of the Priests, the Rabbis, the Ministers, the Imams who have particularized and promoted their ‘religion’ as THE ONLY ONE that is true and right-BULLSHIT on them. Be it a Jew or non-Jew, not recognizing that there are many paths to living into the “holy, holier even than the scrolls of Torah” is ridiculous, xenophobic, and, in my opinion, ignorant. What is happening in the world today, being perpetrated by ‘religious’ people, is an affront to the thoughts above, is an affront to the words of the Bible, to the spiritual teachings of the 10 Sayings, to the Holiness Code itself! Yet, too many of We the People are willing to suspend our spiritual knowing, to suspend our moral standards to support the idolators who proclaim they will make us rich, they will make us safe. How is that working our We the People??

We the People, what a wonderful phrase, just like Am Yisrael, the people Israel, only lasted a short time! We the People have not been on the same page for a long time here in America, not even to fight the Nazis! Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin, Henry Ford and the Bund all wanted the United States to join with Germany, wanted to have Fascism be the law of the land here in the USA! Guess what, People, it is here, it is alive, just like the “South will rise again” is happening, and the Ku Klux Klan is reconstituted in a new form-MAGA! People we must stand up and stand together, as Ben Franklin said: “we all hang together or we all hang separately”. Is it really too hard to live into the “holiness” that abides in your guts? It is really too hard to live the teaching of the first chapter of Genesis: humanity is created in the “image and likeness of God”? When will we, People accept the gift of “holiness” that God has bestowed upon us and use it wisely instead of as an entitlement that is ‘mine only’? This is the challenge of the first two sentences above, more on the 3rd tomorrow!

I think about this, immersing myself in these two sentences and am trembling inside for the years I spent not believing in my own holiness, in not taking the actions of one who is “holier even than the scrolls of Torah”. While my T’Shuvah has changed me, the memory of ‘those’ years still, at times, haunts me and keeps me committed to living a more “holy” life. I am grateful each morning for life itself, for the gift of holiness, for the joy of connection, for being able to set myself apart from the baser emotions and impulses I still have. Last Friday evening, Yeshaia Blakeney and I led a Shabbat Service in L.A. with the amazing help of Nicole Goodman and the “holiness” that filled the room was palpable, enveloping everyone who was there. The next day, Shabbat, I spent with my dear friend, teacher, Rabbi, mentor, Ed Feinstein, and we learned together, we taught together, I knew and felt the “holiness” in the rooms, the connection between Ed and I permeated the spaces we were in and continues to permeate my being. How is holiness permeating you and how are you promoting it in the spaces you are in? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Recognizing the Divinity, the Image, the Likeness of God in every human being! Year 4 Day 300

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 300

“The symbol of God is man, every man. God created man in His image (tselem), in His likeness(demuth). How significant is the fact that the term tselem, which is frequently uses in a damnatory sense for a man-made image of God, as well as the term demuth - of which Isaiah claims (40:18), no demuth or likeness can be applied to God - are employed in denoting man as an image and likeness of God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 41)

While both tselem and demuth are also used to deny human making images of God, the thrust of the words above makes anyone who has a sense of something greater than themselves tremble and shudder. How can We the People claim to be ‘godly people’ when we treat one another with such disdain, such hatred, such jealousy, such violence, such greed?

The shootings at Brown University, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, all senseless violence, all caused by some senseless hatred, resentment, the stoking of anger and need to “get them”, antisemitism, homophobia, xenophobia, all the other phobias are ridiculous societal ideas in the face of the words above, in the face of the words of Genesis Chapters 1 and 2!

And, here we are, again. 80 years after the end of WWII, 80 years after Dwight D. Eisenhower had the Army film what had happened at Aushwitz because he knew people would ‘forget’, ‘deny’ that this ever happened, pretty prescient wasn’t he. 30+ years after the Rwandan horrors, 30+ years after Bosnia, we are  back again with a Putin, a Xi, an Orban, a Netanyahu, a Trump, promoting senseless hatred, xenophobic fears and images, a call to ‘return to the good old days’, when Trump’s own grandfather, the PIMP, would not be allowed in under the rules of today! I hold my greatest contempt for those ‘men and women of god’ who claim to be the true keepers of the flame of Torah, of Christ, of Islam, while demeaning God through their demeaning, hateful speech about another human being with whom they disagree. Mike Johnson claims he is governing by the Bible, by the word of Christ-where does Christ say be cruel to the poor, deny the stranger, let the needy beg and still give them, maybe scraps? It certainly doesn’t say this in the Hebrew Bible!

These idolators who pass themselves off as ‘holy people’, as people ‘doing god’s will’ are the real perpetrators of creating “a man-made image of God”. I hear about Rabbis who claim the only division in Judaism, especially since Oct. 7, 2024, is for Israel, not for Israel. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, etc are no longer important- only Israel. These Rabbis forget to hold power accountable to God’s laws, they ignore the demeaning of people by Israel, they are living in a world that is black and white while being representatives of the FAITH OF BOTH/AND! Everything in the Bible is inclusive of both ‘sides’ of an argument, we are taught there is ONE LAW for the STRANGER AND CITIZEN ALIKE- except in Israel, the United States, etc under Trump and Netanyahu.

There is no excuse for the Anti-Semitism that propelled the massacre at Bondi Beach-FULL STOP. People joining together to celebrate Chanukah are not a threat to anyone, they had no guns, no bombs, the perpetrator was fueled by the senseless hatred being spewed across the globe by the UN, by the Arab world(Jared Kushner’s friends the Saudis, the Qataries, people from the Arab Emirates, etc), by the MAGA crowd of White Christian Nationalists and people of Color who have decided Jews are the enemy.

The failure of the Rabbis, the Priests, the Ministers, the Imams to teach that “the symbol of God is man, every man” has, throughout the millennia, been the root cause of this senseless hatred. We the People need to have a Spiritual Revolution, a Spiritual Renewal, a Spiritual Awakening and We the People have to demand that our children be raised in this manner as well. It is no longer, never has been really, for hatred to be forced upon, spewed upon our children whether at home, in school, in Church, Synagogue, Mosque! It is not okay for We the People to continue to live in our resentments and our ignoring of the human being next to us. It is time, way past time, for We the People to be responsible for being an image of God, for being a divine reminder, for filling the divine need we are created for, for acknowledging the divinity, the dignity of the person next to us, across the globe from us. It is time for We the People to do our own inventory, our own accounting of when we live our divine image and when we don’t, when we see the divine image of another human being and when we treat another human being as an object for our own use-desecrating the God-image of another! We are in the last 16 days of 2025-maybe NOW is the time so 2026 can be different!

I think about the ways in which I missed the divine image of another because I was too focused on what I wanted. I am horrified by this action and commit to do much better. The words above got me thinking about the ways I have been ignored, now that I don’t have a big platform and it makes me sad. I realize that people are too busy with their own selves and this is the tragedy that our lack of spiritual awakening, spiritual maturity cause. I am blessed that I have a solution, I wave to people, I smile and say hello to people, I recognize the divine in people because this is how I respect, honor the dignity of the divine, by honoring the dignity of human beings. It ain’t easy, I am far from perfect AND I am more than 51%! This is the shift from being part of a society that only values what you do to a society that values who you are. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Are you denouncing the "perversion" of religion or going along with the perversion that is happening right now? Year 4 Day 299

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 299

“It was not the lack of religion but the perversion of it that the prophets of Israel denounced…The greater the man, the more his is exposed to sin. Piety is at times evil in disguise, an instrument in the pursuit of power.” ( Thunder in the Soul pg. 41)

Happy Chanukah! Tonight is the first night of Chanukah and, as I heard from a Rabbi yesterday, whether one is celebrating the impossible victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, the myth of the oil, lighting the Chanukiah is important and special. AND, I pray that We the People do not use Chanukah as an excuse for “evil in disguise” as some of the ultra-orthodox in Israel and in America do. The fight of the Maccabees is, in many ways, our fight today. “All who are for God come with me” Mattathias  is supposed to have said and today, We the People are being called to be “for God” and the confusing, the “evil in disguise” is what ‘god’ are people standing for and with? Is it Adonai who calls out to us on Mount Sinai to not lie, cheat, steal, whore ourselves, covet what someone else has, honor parents, love the stranger, care for the needy and poor, love one another, etc or the God who says kill them all, women and children along with the men, who is xenophobic and narcissistic? The later is the God that Smotrich and Ben G’Vir, Cain-White, Osteen, Hagee, et al worship and are spewing the hatred of one another out like lava flowing from a volcano.

Yet, the Maccabees fought for Adonai, to not have the Temple defiled with Greek philosophy, Greek mythology and, then, when in power, they succumbed to the Hellenistic influence, succumbed to the lies of Rome, and eventually were partners, unwittingly, in the destruction of the 2nd Temple. This is how subtle “piety is … an instrument in the pursuit of power.” So, reading these words, listening to Rabbis proclaim that the only “separation” in Judaism today is “are you for Israel or are you against Israel”, denominations mean nothing and it is only Israel that matters, makes me, and I pray many of We the People yearn for a deeper study of the prophets, a more spiritually aware group of Rabbis and a T’Shuvah, a Return to following Adonai, who wants us to be decent, who calls for us to make our corner of the world a little better, who demands truth, justice, mercy, and walking in/on the path towards wholeness/holiness.

It is inconceivable to me that the prophets are so ignored by today’s clergy (truth be told by clergy throughout the modern era) and, when used, their words are taken out of context, to prove a specious argument of the Rabbis, the Priests, Ministers-not to hear “The Word” from Sinai, from Jerusalem, from Samaria! Like the Kings of the Northern Kingdom and of Judea, the people in power today, Trump, Bibi, Putin, Xi, have been exposed to so much sin they are bathing in it and, unfortunately, too spiritually immature, too spiritually and morally bankrupt to get out of the tub of sin they are in. In fact, to our great dismay and the dismantling of the values found in the 10 Sayings and in the Bible, they are luxuriating in the tub of sin they are in. While one can point to reasons these leaders are so corrupt, so full of shit, the real point of the words above are for We the People! WTF, People? How have We allowed our holy books to be so bastardized, what has propelled us to draw the bath water of sin these leaders, their minions and, by extension, We the People are swimming in? Is this really the call of our your souls? Is this really the path of holiness/wholeness that We the People believe in? NOT ME, NOT MANY OTHER PEOPLE, SO what are we to do?

The solution to this issue which has plagued us FOREVER, is to go back to the Prophets, Immerse ourselves in their wisdom, in their words, in their messages, Take the action of RETURNING to God, as the prayer we say when return the Torah to the Ark, Return us to You, Adonai and we will Return, our days will be like they used to be-when we were in living the covenantal relationship, doing our part as we promised at Sinai. This is what this moment, every moment calls for. It is especially crucial right now when there are a critical mass of people who are “running after  a majority(actually a plurality) to do evil”. We the People have to throw the LYING RABBIS, PRIESTS, MINISTERS who claim God hates the poor, God wants the annihilation of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, God wants the wanton killing of boats in the Caribbean, God wants to upend the drug cartel led by Maduro in Venezuela while praising and giving a pardon to Honduran ex-President Hernandez, etc. If this isn’t “piety is at times evil in disguise”, I do not know what is. Change will only come when We the People demand it, when We the People make spiritual progress, spiritual maturity, spiritual education a priority, rather than believing the lies of those ‘pious’ people who want to destroy the moral foundation of God, who want to destroy the beating for freedom, for democracy found in every soul. We the People have to stand against these liars, these charlatans, and do it NOW.

I have railed against this bullshit behavior forever, even as a kid. The difference between then and now is that I could be and was co-opted by the shiny pot of gold that was promised and I went down a horrific path to spiritual bankruptcy. Only through Chapter 11 as the prophets demanded I go through, have I been able to replenish the spiritual bank account and add much to it which is my both my/our birthright and obligation. I cannot be co-opted today, I can’t put up with the lies and the bullshit anymore. My voice has to speak, whether it is heard or not, is not up to me, it is up to you and We the People. I pray I speak in ways that can be heard, I pray that my repeating the messages of the prophets is helpful and I cannot stop calling out the evil that so many people are bathing in. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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Living into the counterparts of our nature, of God’s Nature Year 4 Day 298

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 298

“No single attribute can convey the nature of God’s relationship to man. Since justice is His nature, love, which would disregard the evil deeds of man, our contradict His nature. Because of His concern for man, His justice is tempered with mercy. Divine anger is not the antithesis of love, but its counterpart, a help to justice as demanded by true love.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 40)

In these words above, Rabbi Heschel is explaining the ‘dual’ nature of God, the ‘dual’ nature of human beings. Yet, as I hear him saying, these are not ‘dual’ natures, these seemingly opposite attributes are “counterparts” and when we are not having one balance the other, one be the argued of the other, We the People are out of proper measure and, by being in this state, doing evil, doing wrong, and harming our souls, harming the people around us, and, of course harming God.

Accepting that our natures are not contradictory is a sign of spiritual and psychological maturity. It is an acceptance of truth at it’s most basic and deepest level. To know that our attributes have to work together so we can a) do our work; b) realize and learn more about our soul’s call; c) accept our imperfections as opportunities for growing; d) being part of a community that is engaged in spiritual, psychological growth in order to be more aware of and live into our higher consciousness more and more.

This is what I am hearing from Rabbi Heschel’s words today. It is one of the most important lessons for parenting, for teaching, for counseling, for living a whole life, a holy life. Unfortunately, our religious education doesn’t do this, it is more focused on believing, on rituals, on technical skills-all of which are also important and have their place- and not on the what these practices do for the soul, the mind of the individual. We the People have lost a generation or two/three because the Clergy preach and don’t relate the preaching and the Bible to what we are going through today for the majority of people. They dictate, they teach about the ugly parts of the Bible, they just don’t focus on the 10 Sayings, on the Mitzvot that teach about “God’s love” for the widow and the orphan, “God’s”commitment to obtain “justice” for the stranger, the poor, the needy. We the People have ignored the truth that the Bible gives us, the divine gift of how to be in any and all situations, the key to understanding “God’s attributes” not as arbitrary and based on whims, rather as a deep concern for humankind and an attempt(s) to bring We the People home to our spiritual nature, home to the love we receive when we are surrounded by people who KNOW us, home to the strength of belonging. This is the true “nature of God” as it is the true nature of human beings.

Yet, once again because of our arrogance, because of the narcissistic nature We the People seem to embrace more and more, because of the need for power and control that some of We the People can never satisfy-we are living in another time where INJUSTICE is being spoken of as if it is “Justice” according to Jesus, according to ‘god’ of the power-hungry’s making. We are in the throes of retribution that is anything but divine, it is a seeking by the few to have power over the many, it is a power-play to ensure White Christian Nationalists keep the power they have now and expand it even more. The Jews who join them, like the Young Republicans, the Kushner, Lutnick, Miller, Bessent, are in for a rude awakening when the KKK rises up from the ashes and kicks the kikes out once and for all. While these Jews ignore the Goebbels’ messaging, the Kristalnacht pattern of ICE’s attacks, the ‘good Christian folk’ in the bowels of government, in the heights of K Street, are planning for the 4th Reich or something akin to it.

That any of We the People would believe that these clergy spouting bullshit supporting Trump, Bibi, Putin, an Israel that is unrecognizable to many of us, an America that many of us, stupidly, believed had grown, is good, is holy is UNIMAGINABLE! It is the height of stupidity and, here we are. We the People are living in the “worst of times” because we are living in the stupidest of times. We the People are being called by the words above, by the moment we are in to stand up, to call on our own inner “divine anger”, to realize the practice of “divine love” also means saying NO to lies, NO to cruelty, NO to injustice, NO to bullies, NO to greed, NO to destroying the soul of America, the soul of Israel. We the People are being called to say YES to JUSTICE, YES to LOVE, YES to MERCY, YES to CREATING SOULS as Abraham and Sarah taught us in the Bible. THE QUESTION IS: IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

Once again, I am animated beyond the beyond by Rabbi Heschel’s words and my understanding of them. I know that I am over the top about this and I still am because I know the danger of not recognizing danger quickly enough, not knowing the soul needs of ourselves and finding the ‘filling station’ for them. Because of not heeding these dangers, because of my inability to hear and listen, I went down to the depths of hell and took no prisoners. Only through hearing God’s “anger”, only by experiencing God’s “concern” for me, only by experiencing “His justice tempered with mercy” have I been able to grow my spiritual life, be in the process of maturing my soul and live with the dignity and worth that I was endowed with at birth. There are no words to describe the blessing and gift that divine justice, divine mercy, divine anger and divine love have combined to help my life flourish. Living in the counterparts of our nature, of our attributes, has given me a life way beyond my deserving and I experience joy all the time. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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What gives anyone the "right" to say God is Indifferent to the suffering of people? Year 4 Day 297

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 297

“Those of us to whom the crimes of the world are mere incidents, and the agony of the poor is one of the many facts of life, may be inclined to describe the God of the prophets as stern, arbitrary, inscrutable, even unaccountable. But the thought of God and indifference to other people’s suffering are mutually exclusive.” ( Thunder in the Soul pg. 39)

Being a member of We the People both as a Jew and an American, as a person of faith and a person in recovery, knowing the spiritual truths of the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the Law, the Constitution, the thought of “indifference” by God, by me makes my soul tremble, my body shudder, and my entire being scream out at this lie. Throughout the Bible, the very essence of both theDeclaration of Independence and the Constitution the knowing of God’s caring about the suffering of the poor, the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan is abundantly clear!

So WTF, PEOPLE, what in the world is the basis for the cruelty, the meanness, the inflicting of suffering on ‘those’ people that is so rampant today? How does anyone explain away the attacks on Maduro as a leader of a drug cartel while PARDONING the Ex-Honduran President who was responsible for 500 million pounds of Cocaine coming into the U.S? How does one reconcile the treatment of women, calling them stupid, ‘piggy’, ‘low IQ’, etc when ‘christian’ values say that respect for women is so important, when Mike Pence consults ‘mother’ on everything and then these ‘fine christian men’ treat women with such disrespect.

In what world is a ClergyPerson who spouts hatred for their perceived ‘enemy’ and a ‘kill them all’ attitude going against so many commands in the Bible, hailed as a ‘man/woman’ of God- WHAT GOD are “THEY” talking about? Certainly not Adonai, certainly not God at Sinai who begins the explanation of the 10 sayings by detailing how to live with one another, how to be kind, decent, with and towards one another, the consequences when one isn’t and to “treat the stranger well because you were strangers in the land of EGYPT”! Everyone who lives here, with the exception of Native Americans, are/were strangers and the treatment of immigrants/strangers is abominable, it is Anti-Christian, it is Anti-Jewish and Clergy, people of both of these faiths are leading the parade to cause the stranger in our midst more “suffering” and calling it GODLY! OY!

This is, I believe, the main reason people leave religious life, why the Synagogue and the Church lose members, why the teachings of Christ, of Moses, are ignored: because young people smell and detect bullshit and lies, mendacity and deceptions in the Clergy, in the so-called leaders of the institutions, and reject the lies, reject the cruelty. In this way, they are closer to God as the prophets experience God than the supposed ‘people of God’, the clergy who believe and justify cruelty, suffering, because ‘those’ people deserve it. Miller, Noem, Trump, Vance, Kushner: HOW IN THE HELL CAN YOU CONTINUE TO CAUSE THIS SUFFERING WHEN YOUR PEOPLE, YOUR ANCESTORS WERE STRANGERS, WERE PIMPS, WERE PERSECUTED? I am aghast at the actions that these elected and, mostly, non-elected officials are taking. It is a joke that the worst crimes being committed today are by the un-elected officials who are heading up different parts of the government supposedly run by THE SLEEPY DON, not the strong DON, not the smart DON, the SLEEPY DON who makes Joe Biden look virile and strong, with it and on top of everything!

God does not inflict suffering upon people! When the consequences of human behaviors are delineated in the Bible, by the prophets, it is not God’s choice to see the suffering people cause themselves and one another. God cries each night, according to the Talmud, because “my children are in exile”, while the prophets remind us over and over again that God wants our return, each day in the daily prayers, 3 times a day, we refer to God as “the One who desires our return”!

God doesn’t punish us, no matter what the Rabbi, Priest, Minister, Imam may lie to us about, no matter what our parents may have spewed to us. God gives us the path to wholeness, to peace, to creating a holy, kind, loving society and We the People choose to fuck it up, to become jealous, envious as Cain was towards Abel and, like Cain we seek to kill our brothers, literally and/or figuratively. Be it actual blood relatives or another human being of any gender. WE THE PEOPLE MUST STOP THE LIES, STOP THE BLEEDING AND STOP SAYING IT IS ‘god’s’ WILL. The God that these mendacious deceiving creeps portray is another IDOL, like BAAL in the Bible-these ‘good christian, jewish, muslim, folk’ are the Money-Changers in the Temple that Christ railed about, the whores that Hosea speaks about and for this carnage to end, WE THE PEOPLE must act NOW!

I am writing a new book, using the prophets and God’s call through them to help us live in this moment, in every moment. I know that God and “indifference to other people’s suffering are mutually exclusive” because I have been the beneficiary of God’s love, direction, connection for the past 38+ years, since I began my return. II continue to write this blog to help all of us gather the strength to serve God, to serve one another, to serve the call of our souls by STANDING UP AGAINST CRUELTY, CALLING CRUELTY WHAT IT IS: IDOLATRY and serving God by eliminating or at least diminishing the suffering around us. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

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What is preventing We The People from hearing the call of the Poor, the Stranger, The PROPHETS? Year 4 Day 296

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 296

Those of us to whom the crimes of the world are mere incidents, and the agony ”of the poor is one of the many facts of life, may be inclined to describe the God of the prophets as stern, arbitrary, inscrutable, even unaccountable. But the thought of God and indifference to other people’s suffering are mutually exclusive.” ( Thunder in the Soul pg. 39)

Reading these words, living in this moment, seeing what is and what could be, hearing the prophets words and deeds ringing in my ears, I am angry, bewildered, in disbelief, and wildly enraged at the lack of understanding by We the People of the demand of this moment. We are in an experience, a situation where the words above are the predominant way our Government is working, the path that the Israeli government is taking and way too many of we the people are still supporting, sitting on our hands, going along with the cruelty, the “crimes”, “the agony of the poor”!

What is it about humanity that we can’t seem to hear the call of kindness, compassion, truth, love, justice that abounds in the universe? What is about We the People that, after all of these years, we continue to allow, promote even our reptilian brain over and above our gift to make free-will moral choices? What is so compelling about the “crimes of the world” that We the People allow and call them “mere incidents”?

Immersing myself in the words above, the phrases “that’s just the way it is” and “this is the way the world works” are BULLSHIT! They are society’s way of trying to clean up what it knows is WRONG! Yet, who is society if not We the People? Blaming society like it is some separate entity from oneself also points out how full of shit we humans can be! There is no such thing as a crime being a “mere incident” or “the agony of the poor is one of the many facts of life” to and for a person of faith, a person who values their relationship with the Ineffable One, with the Holy texts of their spiritual discipline and the liars and deceivers who claim “it says it in the Bible” are only reading parts of the Bible, and choosing to ignore the conflicting ideas found in the Bible. As my friend and teacher, Rabbi Hazan Danny Maseng teaches there are conflicting ideas of how to treat the stranger-36 times it says to love, welcome, care for the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt and a few times it says kill them all. The reptilian brain of the ‘orthodox’ has them choose the later while the discerning spirit, the intuitive mind has many of We the People choose the later. Unfortunately, as we see today and throughout history-the reptilian brain people usually win out.

As a Jew, knowing the crimes that have been perpetrated against me, against my people for the millennia, how can I NOT love the prophets, how can I NOT hear and follow the call of God to justice, the call of the prophets to RETURN to a way of being that honors higher consciousness, that honors spiritual knowing? As a human beings who are descendants of people who came to America, came to Israel seeking a respite from the discrimination, the narrow place of their former home, how can We the People NOT revel in the call of the prophets who are telling We the People that God is NOT indifferent, God is caring, loving, always wanting our return?

Listening to Trump, Netanyahu, and their spooky minions is terrifying, their deliberate appeal to the reptilian brain of the masses is meant to get ‘their people’ onboard and defending the worst of their crimes and it works! OY VAVOY!! The ways in which they dismiss “the agony of the poor”, the amount of “crimes” they themselves commit and then seek to have themselves exonerated is atrocious. What is more atrocious, however, is that We the People  have allowed them to get away with their crimes, We the People have helped them promote their grift, their killing of innocents, their horrific treatment of the stranger within our midst! This is the crime, We the People stand guilty of, this is the type of crime the prophets and God railed against, asked and begged the people of Israel and Judah to turn away from and THEY DID NOT. The result was the destruction of the way of life as they knew it, the result was a wandering that lasted almost 1900 years, the result was the mistreatment of Jews, the mendacity about Jews, the scapegoating of Jews and, in this moment, we see it all again! It began with Trans people, moved to ‘those’ people (people of Hispanic descent), came to embrace antisemitism, and even the FUCKING JEWS in Trump’s cabinet are embracing the people who spout this hatred, embracing Putin who is a war criminal, embracing Bibi who is also a war criminal to his own people, a willing participant in the Oct. 7th attack as evidenced by his unwillingness to hold an inquiry which is always done-Bibi was either asleep at the wheel or looking for an excuse to go into Gaza and, like Trump, Putin, et al no one is holding him accountable. This is why we have to SHEMA-Hear, Listen, Understand the words of the prophets so We the People will save our selves, honor our spirituality and hold assholes accountable for their crimes and no longer sit idly by the “cries of the poor”!

I have been the asshole who didn’t care about my own actions and re-living those moments makes me ill! This is the reason I have not been able to turn away from the poor, the reason I have sought spiritual growth and guidance at all times, to ensure I NEVER go back to the callousness, the cruelty of my youth. Living into being responsible to and for the prophetic inheritance I/we receive is difficult, it is lonely at times, it is off-putting to many. Yet, I have no choice. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.

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