Struggle with one's imperfections or be a "Person of the Lie"- Year 5 Day 5

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 5

“It is in the employment of his will, not in reflection, that he meets his own self as it is; not as he should like it to be. In his deeds man exposes his immanent as well as his suppressed desires, spelling even that which he cannot apprehend. What he may not dare to think, he often utters in deeds. The heart is revealed in deeds.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.82)

“But I’m a good person” was a refrain I both said while in my addiction and heard myriads of times as a Rabbi and Spiritual leader of a Recovery Center/Congregation! And, it was always said when confronted with my own or when another person was confronted with “the employment of his will”! When we listen to what they say and not what they do, We the People are making the pact to keep the secrets of another(s) so they will keep ours. We the People do not want to “meet his own self as it is” so we buy the bullshit and mendacity of another(s) in order for them to buy ours!! I keep shuddering and feeling the rage of the prophets when they would confront the powerful and the powerless and meet the heavy, almost impenetrable denial of BOTH groups!

Having been a “person of the lie” as M.Scott Peck named one of his seminal books, I know the power of the “but I’m a good person” lie, it makes another feel sorry for me, it was my way of trying to excuse the inexcusable! The worst attribute is that the people that actually cared for me, were the ones I hurt the most with this way of being. I kept trying to live a facade, paint a picture of fantasy for people to buy into and it took a while and then they stopped buying and I kept selling; resulting in being in a jail cell in Dec. 1986 and, finally, having to “meet my own self as it is; not as I should like it to be”! Possibly, that is the reason I am trembling and shuddering with the rage of the prophets, with the cry of Jacob’s descendants who were trapped in their narrow spaces that we call Egypt and forget that being trapped exists on at least two planes, physical, emotional, spiritual…

We the People are living in the worst of times, I believe, and the prophets of today and the prophets of the Bible have yet to “win the day” because of the idolators, the False Prophets like Vought, Trump, Vance, Lutnick, Miller, Bessent, Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, et al. These “People of the Lie” are not only sociopaths, they are cruel, mean, and full of shit. That We the People have not caught on to the lie, that We the People have not thrown them out of office, prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law, taken their cronies, their religious vindicators “out to the woodshed” is UNBELIEVABLE!!

There is only one reason these “People of the Lie” are still in power-we the people are afraid to “meet his(our) own self”! This is the problem the prophets faced, the problem Moses faced when he first came back to Egypt, the problem the people who travelled the desert faced each time hardship came about, the problem Joseph faced when first confronted by his brothers and then when Judah stood up to him.  It is the problem We the People face each and every day and how we respond to this problem, this challenge will determine this day and influence the next day, the next… “People of the Lie” never “meet his own self” because they are too busy lying to everyone and, to become a person of the lie, one has to fully buy into the bullshit they have been selling so when they look into the mirror, they see him/herself “as he/she should like it to be”-which is the greatest con job a person can pull off and the worst effect it has on the people near and far from “People of the Lie” as we can see both in world events-think of Germany 1930’s, America since 2015, Israel lately under Bibi- and in our personal lives. Knowing what I know forces me to tighten the circle around me because when another person is hiding, I can no longer be connected and without connection, what is ‘friendship’? What is passing for friendship is, in many cases, an agreement to not uncover the Lie of another so they will not uncover the Lie of one. How sad, how enraging, and how horrific the consequences-I still am sad at the misery I caused for my family, especially Heather, my brother, my sister and the trashing of my father’s name.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the Lies you tell yourself  about who you are, ie “as you should like it to be”

2. Write out what your deeds today say about who you are

3. Do an inventory of your past deeds and write down what they say about who you are

4. Make a decision as to the person you are going to be going forward, the person of the lie, the imperfect individual who constantly confronts her/himself and makes the changes needed on a daily basis!

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Choosing the Community you belong to; practitioner of "deeds" that relieve tensions or "deeds" that increase them? Year 5 Day 4

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 4

“It is in deeds that man becomes aware of what his life really is, of his power to harm and to hurt, to wreck and to ruin; of his ability to derive joy and to bestow it upon others; to relieve and increase his own and other people’s tensions.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 81-82)

I am in absolute wonder as to the twists and turns that all of we the people make up to deny that our “deeds” cause the harm, the hurt, the ruin, the tensions that is happening in the world today, yesterday, every day! While there is, of course, no shortage of taking credit for our “ability to derive joy and to bestow it upon others”, if we like them, as beneficent lords, slave owners, power-hungry despots/autocrats! Yet, We the People have become so adept at ‘the spin’, so entrenched with ‘the media’ that “Fake News” is often thrown about when the truth is being told, that “I haven’t seen/read/heard that” when asked a question one doesn’t want to answer, that “accuse another of that which you are guilty of” when one’s ethics, morals, spirit of the law as well as letter is being confronted. While the people in power today seem to have learned these lessons of prior times, the ways of dealing with the “inhumanity towards man” has not! Delivery vehicles have changed and the basic “deeds” to wreck havoc, to harm the souls of a nation, a group, and an individual, to increase the tensions of another(s) while decreasing one’s own have not! This is, of course, the main thrust of the Bible-changing the “deeds” that We the People engage in.

What is so incredibly fascinatingly frustrating is “our ability” to continue to engage in the “deeds” that make us feel good by doing bad towards another! “I jewed down the Jew”, “I killed him in this deal”, “I left nothing on the table”, I squeezed every penny from him”, “I took no prisoners”, “I nailed him to the cross”,  etc, etc! Yet, we the people, in our smallness, in our pettiness, in our enmity, take great pleasure in these “deeds”, to the ruin of another and to the ruin of our souls, our ethics, our inner life-all the while proclaiming our UNDYING LOVE for GOD, our ABSOLUTE LIVING THE BIBLE, and other such BULLSHIT!

It is WAY PAST TIME, that We the People stop living in the smallness of self-centered ego, in the pettiness of resentments, in the enmity of hating one’s neighbor instead of loving her/him! It is even WAY, WAY, PAST TIME for We the People to take our rightful place in God’s world, in today’s world and “become aware of what our life really is! We the People either live as partners with God in making the world a little better than when we found it or we the people continue to “get mine” and “fuck the rest of you”! While I am usually against either/or choices, sometimes they are the correct questions: Which are you, as a member of We the People or as a member of we the people going to choose? Which community are you joining: the community of people, believers or not, who practice the “deeds” that the Bible directs us to or to the community of people, ‘believers’ or not, who practice the “deeds” the Bible tells us NOT to do?

We the People are given the 248 “Thou will/should/must do” commandments precisely because it goes against the evil inclination, against our self-centered goals and ways. We the People are given the 365 “Thou must/will/should not do” precisely because they feed the false ego, the rational mindset of “where’s mine”, the lure of being the Pharaoh in our own story. Without TShuvah, without “lifting up our eyes and seeing”, without “hearing, listening, understanding” the cries of those who we harm, who are harmed by another, we the people will revel in our smallness, in our pettiness and continue to deceive ourselves into believing we are being “beneficent dictators”, buy into the mendacity being shoveled like shit at us that ‘this is for your own good’, “I am getting your retribution”, “This war is because I listened to my own opinion”, “the rich getting richer is good for the poor”, and other such lies! Hence, the Jewish belief that “TShuvah was put into the world before the world was created” and I add because God knew we would screw up and need a path back to Shalem, wholeness, to Ahava, love, to the Kahal, community. This is the power that Harriet and I and the staff at Beit T’Shuvah tapped into, being the camp outside the camp so people could return to community, to love, to wholeness.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Examine how many deeds today came from your mind/ego and the results they caused, internally, externally, materially, spiritually

2. Examine how deeds today came from your spirit, your soul, your intuitive mind and the results they caused, internally, externally, materially, spiritually

3. Write down the dialogue that goes on within your between the gift, ie your intuitive mind and the servant, ie the rational mind. Which wins more often

4. Choose which ‘voice’ you are going to follow tomorrow and recognize when you are not!

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Awareness of the power of We the People to harm and to hurt... Year 5 Day 3

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 3

“It is in deeds that man becomes aware of what his life really is, of his power to harm and to hurt, to wreck and to ruin; of his ability to derive joy and to bestow it upon others; to relieve and increase his own and other people’s tensions.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 81-82)

Descartes says: “I think, therefore I am” and Judaism says: I am therefore I take action. While thinking is important and necessary, otherwise human beings would be like angels and animals, like robots, just doing what is programmed, it is not where we discover the truth about ourselves, about another(s), about life, about so many things-as I hear Rabbi Heschel this morning. A caveat to this truth, one has to do a daily T’Shuvah, a daily inventory so one can learn what one’s actions are saying-DUH!! This is where reflection, thinking is crucial to promote change, refinement, improvement. Yet, even though Rabbi Eliezer in the Talmud, Shabbat 153a, says: “Do TShuvah one day before you die and since none of us know the day of our death do it every day”, We the People-and I am speaking to Jews especially in this moment, DO NOT ENGAGE IN THIS PRACTICE TOO MUCH! Hence, hearing how many people are cheering at the death of innocent Iranians, innocent Palestinians, innocent Jews (this has been going on a long time) innocent Americans, innocent Blacks, Browns, Asians, etc seems to make perfect sense! If it isn’t us getting killed, discriminated against, hated, forced into slavery, then it is all good, right?!?

We the People are at another crossroads in our history, in our spiritual health, in our physical well-being, in our morality, in our emotional health and our intelligence in all realms of being. Watching the cruelty of carpet bombing, the horror of ICE ‘agents’ (many of them are said to have been pardoned for their Jan 6th crimes and found a ‘home’ with Noem) killing innocent Americans, arresting people for the color of their skin, people who are NOT WHITE being called “vermin” by the President of the United States, by Jews in his Cabinet, by Cubans in his cabinet, proves my point of very little TShuvah being done by the rich and powerful! The audacity of We the People to allow, to watch, to stand idly by the use of “power to harm and to hurt, to wreck and to ruin” is a disavowal of everything that 1776 stands for, everything the Bill of Rights guarantees, what our Constitution is supposed to stand for and these rich, powerful, ‘beautiful’ people are trampling it, are indifferent to the “wreck and ruin” they are bringing to We the People! I am enraged by the indifference, I am trembling at the world my grandson is growing up in, I am mourning the loss of Truth, the loss of dialogue between people with differing viewpoints, the loss of equal opportunity for all and a return to the “good old boys network”, keeping them “n——’s and kikes out of here” actions, bringing back the Jim Crow days, the ‘boy, I said so’ era, etc makes me want to SCREAM!!

Witnessing the joy that cruelty gives to Lutnick, Miller, Vance, Vought, Trump and his kids, to Kushner and his daddy, to Johnson, Jordan, and the rest of the Republicans in Congress is soul crushing, it causes fear of resistance for many of we the people and it is overwhelming many people by the vastness of the cruelty and the celebration of same! What is the difference between the joy of Trump at his cruelty, the glee of Bondi at her cruel and inhumane treatment of people, the happiness of Patel at firing the people responsible for combatting terrorism in the FBI, the celebration of Noem at the killings in Minnesota, AND the joy in Gaza after 9/11? When We the People do not do an inventory of our actions and/or when we do and see NOTHING WRONG with the cruelty, the missing the mark, the sinister theme of our actions, the “mine, first, last and always” attitude, we are denying the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words above.

Having had to do the painful reflection, inventory of my errors soon after I had my spiritual awakening, my call from the Ineffable One, I know how difficult it is,  how disgusting I felt upon seeing in black and white, the “harm and hurt” I caused. AND, it set me free in a way I had never been free-I came out of hiding and I have stayed out of hiding ever since. More on this tomorrow!
ACTION STEPS:

1. Do an inventory of your deeds each day

2. Analyze the goodness, the not good, the horrifying nature, and the excellence of your deeds this day

3. Make a plan to remedy the not good, the horrifying actions you took this day

4. Make a plan on how to enhance the goodness and the excellence of the deeds you accomplished today

5. Write a gratitude list in the morning and then after doing the above in the evening-grateful for knowing what is good and not good!

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Using Self-reflection to lead to beautifully deceptive thoughts and ideals - Year 5 Day 2

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 2

“In what dimension of existence does man become aware of the grandeur and earnestness of living? What are the occasions in which he discovers the nature of his own self? In the solitude of self-reflection the self may seem to be a fountain of beautiful thoughts and ideals. Yet thought may be a spell and ideals may be worn like borrowed diadems.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 82)

“The grandeur and earnestness of living” are constant themes for Rabbi Heschel with which We the People are held to be accountable to. Grandeur, meaning “impressive, grand” and earnestness, the state of “intense conviction”, are not for the self-aggrandizement of the human being, not being used above to promote the wonderful reflection in the mirror we see. Rather, I hear Rabbi Heschel’s use of these words to give us a direction to go in. We the People are woefully unaware of the “impressiveness” of being alive, the “intense conviction” it takes to BE HUMAN, resulting in the egotistical behaviors of aggrandizement, thinking one’s shit doesn’t stink(psst, everyone’s does), believing in their superiority over another human being, bullying, lying, cheating, stealing’s whoring one’s self, etc. It is in our unawareness that We the People perpetrate crimes against humanity, do what is hateful to us to another human being, accuse another of that which we are guilty of, promote “prosperity gospels” as the ‘one true way of Christ’, believe the parts of the Bible that cater to the needs of the few to dominate and control Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. Our willful unawareness has allowed people to start wars so they can show how ‘strong’ they are, Misters Trump, Putin, Netanyahu while taking no responsibility for the causalities, no mention of their failures, their greed, their insatiable thirst for power, prestige, wealth.

The more we the people believe the lies we tell ourselves, the more we the people hide from our awareness of the grandeur of being human, the earnestness with which we are to live life, the more poverty, suffering, senseless hatred, murdering of innocents under the guise of ‘collateral damage is unavoidable’ will occur. Rather than “love thy neighbor”, “suspect thy neighbor” plays our more as Rabbi Heschel said in his interview with Carl Stern. To be a partner with God in mending, promoting, perfecting, this world is a pretty impressive job, an awesome responsibility and can only be engaged in with an conviction that is so intense, nothing will stop We the People from our mission, from living our unique gift out loud, adding our fulfillment of the divine need we are created to fill to the world so our corner is a little better than when we found it. Only by having and engaging with a spiritual discipline can we be reminded daily of “the grandeur and earnestness of living”.

“Self-reflection” is a wonderful way of seeing what is, it is an essential element of T’Shuvah, and, as Rabbi Heschel writes above, it can be another way we engage in self-deception. Some meditations are to get rid of the negative thoughts and this is a worthwhile endeavor except when it isn’t. Just thinking “beautiful thoughts and ideals” is not a complete self-reflection and this is where the “rubber meets the road”. Are we the people going to continue to believe that we can think our way into right action? Are we the people going to continue to follow the PT Barnim’s of our time to our ruin because they paint such pretty pictures of redemption, retribution, sharing the wealth, etc? Are we the people going to continue to buy the bullshit of the bastards who sell us out to their rich friends, their co-authoritarians? The answer of course is YES. As long as we continue to have “ideals…worn like borrowed diadems” YES is the only answer there is. As long as we the people continue to “bind” our heads, our hearts, our minds and our spirits with the bullshit and lies of ‘royalty’, of idolators, of charlatans; as long as we the people continue to ‘crown their heads’ with a symbol of royalty and sovereignty, YES is the only answer to “are you going to continue to sell out to ‘the man’! Self-reflection takes thinking and realizing the non-beautiful thought and ideals we carry and what to do about them as well! These are the ways I have been able to say NO to selling out to the man, to not buying the bullshit of the man and myself! It ain’t easy and these have worked for me over these years!
ACTION STEPS:

1. Each morning and evening examine the basic and inherent features of your inner self, your outer self, your rational mind and your gut instinct

2. Each morning make a plan for noticing the impressiveness of life, of nature, of another(s) human being, of your authentic self

3. Each morning make a plan for living with a little more intensity than the day before, not allowing what you know in your soul to be pushed aside by your rationalizations nor the rationalizations of another(s)-no matter how much power over you they may have

4. Each evening check your plans, celebrating the victories, acknowledging the missing the marks and learning from both!

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living into the "grandeur and mystery of living" Year 5 Day 1

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel’s Writings

Year 5 Day 1

“How should man, a being created in the likeness of God, live? What way of living is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living? It is a problem which man has always been anxious to ignore. Upon the pavement of the Roman city of Timgat an inscription was found which reads: “To hunt, to bathe, to gamble, to laugh, that is to live”. Judaism is a reminder of the grandeur and earnestness of living.”

In beginning Year 5, I had to think: “whom am I doing this for?” I am certainly writing for my own spiritual growth, my own moral activism, as part of my getting centered each day and “lift up my eyes and see”. I also have thought long and hard as to whether anyone wants to hear, read, see what I am thinking and if it can help another human being in their own spiritual growth, their own return from spiritual bankruptcy, moral decay, idolatry. Since I have been told by some people, not an overwhelming amount, that what I write helps, I decided to “keep on keeping on”. I pray these words of Rabbi Heschel touch your soul as they do mine. I pray that my words touch you and give the knowing of how much YOU MATTER, the experience of hearing your inner voice and the joy that comes with each grain of sand you add to your spiritual back account.

All of the above is an example of how I have been engaged in a “way of living (that) is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living”. Rather than deny that each and every person is “a being created in the likeness of God”, rather than buy into the self-deception that “only my kind knows what God wants”, rather than continue to make another group, another person “the scapegoat”, the words above from Rabbi Heschel are calling us to Truth, calling us to what is Real, calling us to let go of our misconceptions, our need for perfection, our need for power, and focus, as Reinhold Niebuhr teaches;  to ask God for the grace and clarity to  “accept the things I cannot change, change the things I should and the wisdom to discern one from the other”. Upon asking for grace and clarity, aka serenity, we are acknowledging the “mystery of living”, we are admitting our limitations, we are asking for help to navigate the world, we are in awe of the grandeur and have no need to control it, capture it, just to bask in it. This is the challenge of finding a way “of living (that) is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living”. AND, We the People are up to the challenge, We the People have the way to meet this challenge. We the People are only lacking the willingness to ask for the grace and clarity we are in desperate need of and goes against societal norms and cliches.

The Romans had to hate the Jews, despise the Christians because both groups challenged every word of the inscription above, which challenges every way they, and the Greeks, lived! Hence, feeding the Christians to the lions was a way of preserving their lifestyle at any and all costs, it was a way to be despicable and hateful while validating the need to do this because of “them”, “those people” who wanted to instill morals and spirituality in we the people of Rome! How dare they!! In fact, how dare Rabbi Heschel, the Bible, the prophets, the Catholic Church, the Ministers tell some of we the people that grifting and stealing from the very people you are elected to serve and protect is WRONG? Telling these ‘fine upstanding gentlemen’, mostly, that the faiths they proclaim to affirm their living, affirm their actions says the exact opposite of what they are doing? This was true in Ancient Israel, Ancient Judea, as the prophets proclaim over and over again in the Bible, as We the People know in our souls, in our bones, in our guts that what is going on today, “to hunt, to bathe, to gamble, to laugh, that is to live” is WRONG! We the People know that we are so much more than our basest instincts, than our inauthentic desires, than our self-deceptions. The Bible, the prophets, the Catholic Church, the Ministers, the Rabbis dare to call all of We the People to account precisely because of the “grandeur and mystery” we represent, simply pointing out different ways that We the People, “created in the likeness of God”, divine reminders for one another, are able to LIVE!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Each morning look in the mirror and see what is reflected back to you from the inside out.

2. Each day notice the “likeness of God” that another human being represents and what your “likeness of God” can offer to him/her

3. Each day ask for the help you need to grow a part of you that is underdeveloped because it is not the dominant attribute of your “likeness of God”

4. Each day seek to grow into your acceptance of your powerlessness and commitment to “change the things you should”!

5. Each day, write in your journal the growth you have experienced, be it through positive actions/learnings or learnings from your mistakes-know it is all part of the “grandeur and mystery of living”

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Awareness or Willful Blindness to the truth that We the People ALWAYS know: We live in the Presence of God all the time! Year 4 Day 365

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 365

“The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God. The problem we face is: How can we live in a way which is in agreement with such convictions?” (Thunder in the Soul pg.81)

Waking up to the news of a new wave of strikes against Iran yesterday, on Shabbat, by Israel and the United States, knowing that two opposing thoughts are true: Iran sponsors terrorism throughout the world, the United States wants it’s sovereignty protected and using military force to create regime change in Iran, Venezuela, or anywhere is an invitation for China and Russia to do more of same. Praying for the wounded in the Middle East, for the safety of U.S. soldiers, for the innocents in Iran-there is no such thing as no collateral damage. It also brings up the question of Israel’s reign of terror against the people of the West Bank-do we just ignore this because it is ‘our people’ doing the senseless killing, land grabbing, etc? AND the Iranian regime was horrible to the people of Iran, yet we the people of the United States failed in Afghanistan, Iraq-just saying!

Hence, “the problem we face” confronts us at all times and it is not a one and done, there is no such thing, I believe, as a ‘one size fits all’. Each “moment of living in the presence of God” is a different challenge, a different set of circumstances, a different response is needed. AND every moment we are alive is one of the “moments of living in the presence of God” and most of We the People are willfully blind to this truth, oblivious to it, just plain ignorant of it, and/or use it to appeal to the desire to be deceived found in most of us. The moment of birth is a moment of KNOWING we the parents are “living in the presence of God”, the moment of discovery as infants, children, adolescents, young adults, all through life are “moments of living in the presence of God”, the experience of love, of friendship, of learning, of intuitive knowledge are “moments of living in the presence of God”, as well. The issue is not whether there are these “moments”, the issue is are We the People willing to acknowledge them, are We the People so afraid of living “in a way which is in agreement with such convictions” that we remain willfully blind to these “moments”? Are We the People so stuck in our societal norms that self-deception overrules what is right in front of our faces? Are We the People so power-hungry, false ego-driven that we twist the truth of the statements above to say “God wants you to send me money”, “If you suffer, if you are poor, it is because God doesn’t love you”, and other such bullshit so this segment of we the people can deceive, can steal, can grift and can capture and remain in power. Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump were friends and co-conspirators in this practice of abusing the willful blindness of we the people to exploit us, to exploit people around them, using money, fame, access as the currency to steal, to manipulate, to NOT “live in a way which is in agreement of such convictions”, to proclaim that they are the ones who know “the true meaning of existence” and only they can help you/us. It is the same tired old song that has been used by autocrats, con men, schemers and scammers, forever, like Bernie Madoff, Jared Kushner, et al.

The response to Rabbi Heschel’s question above has to be, in my opinion, Hear, listen, understand our better angels. Living into the mitzvot, finding new and fresh ways to experience the infinite dignity and worth of every human being-including our self- is a daily occurrence. Remembering that we are GIFTED this day and say a prayer of gratitude and commitment each morning with the Modeh Ani, prayer thanking God for returning our souls to us with compassion and faithfulness-hence even before we rise from our beds, we are “living in the presence of God' and this “presence” never leaves us even though many of We the People choose to ignore the “presence” for the rest of the day, or at least when it is not ‘convenient’ for us to do what we want to do. The Bible gives us a path to not ignoring “the presence” by instructing us to “make fringes on the corner of their garments” so that looking at them will ensure that  We the People “do not follow after our hearts and our eyes and WHORE after them! Since the beginning of time, God learned the difficulty humanity has in “living in the presence of God” and has given us clues, protections, connections to overcome our fears, our over-sized false egos, our inauthentic needs and desires-not to get rid of them, OH NO, rather to acknowledge them and rise above them. We the People have the path, we have the power, we have the Spirit and Soul to do this-what we the people seem to lack is the spiritual maturity to live into “the presence”! I have been facing “the problem” for my entire life and it wasn’t until December of 1986 that I truly allowed myself to be confronted and hear, listen, understand what “living in the presence of God” means and entails. The gifts I have received are not “beyond my deserving” AND they are so much more than I ever dreamed of receiving. Living with acceptance and pathos, love and joy, connection and conviction, passion and purpose, responsibility and accountability is my response to the problem stated above.
ACTION STEPS:

1. Acknowledge God’s Presence each morning with some ritual that has meaning for you.

2. See the reflection of the divine in those whom you love and those whom you don’t-remembering that God cried when the Egyptians were drowning-“my people are dying”

3. Make a list of the moments when you jettisoned your knowing for your momentary egotistical, financial gain

4. Each night, write a gratitude note to those whom helped you this day.

5. Each night make your amends to God for the hours/moments you were not aware of living in God’s presence.
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living into the "likeness of God" humans are created in or distorting/forfeiting this gift? Year 4 Day 364

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 364

“Our way of living must be compatible with our essence as created in the likeness of God. We must beware lest our likeness be distorted and even forfeited. In our way of living we must remain true not only to our sense of power and beauty but also to our sense of the grandeur and mystery of existence.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 80-81)

Greek mythology is, to me, a story of the gods fucking with humans, the Bible is, to me, a story of how God uplifts the human being, giving us Good Orderly Direction. The human being comes into existence as being made “in the Image of God”, “male and female God created them both”. Unlike animals and angels, only humans have free will, the power to choose and the Bible is the story of good choices, not good choices, horrible choices and the consequences of each. It is also the guide book as to how to make good choices that we, spiritually immature human beings, would not necessarily see and how to avoid making bad choices that might seem good in our eyes! Accepting our “essence as created in the likeness of God” makes We the People responsible for acting in the ways of the divine, doing the next right action, serving something greater than our false ego, our immature pride, the servant our rational mind is created to be. Yet, We the People have eschewed this obligation, only to pay for the consequences the Bible lays out, not exactly the same words and, We the People have found ways to not honor our parents, not teach our children, not welcome the stranger, not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the needy and the poor, love our neighbors, proclaim freedom throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein, etc.

In fact, We the People have become experts in the ways of making our “likeness be distorted and even forfeited”. I believe the reason being told and taught that “God created humanity in God’s image…” is to make us aware of the tremendous gift, awesome responsibility, immense obligation that We the People are given and possess. It also makes us aware of the fact that We the People are a gift to ourselves and to those around us. Yet, very little time, very little teaching is done on this verse, I believe, because most people are very uncomfortable with this truth, most people do not want to be this obligated to something greater than themselves, to God who calls for us to “circumcise the foreskin of our heart” and “be holy, because I, God, am holy”. Many people are uncomfortable, even angry when “God doesn’t punish ‘those people’, ‘him’, because they want their ‘enemies’ vanquished AND don’t want to be held responsible to the same standards when they fuck up! Every year we read this verse and instead of leaning into this TRUTH, instead of seeing the equality of both men and women, of girls and boys, society has relegated women to being 2nd class (or lower) citizens and girls do not have to be educated, they just have to be barefoot and pregnant, they are toys for the powerful men as Chapter 6 of Genesis tells us!

Jeffrey Epstein is not a new phenomenon nor is he alone in his sexual predator role. Besides the fact that so many people “attended his parties, his Island but never saw anything”, so many people kept doing business with him after he was first convicted and girls first started to report the white slavery he was engaging in, the fact that the government is still UNWILLING to tell the truth about his escapades, about the people who went along with him, like Melania and Donny, is atrocious and points to misogyny and corruption that is indigenous to the power structure. The “elohim/men of renown” took whatever women they wanted because they could! Just like the Greek gods would come to earth to fuck the women they wanted to, the men they wanted to, the Bible tells us that this behavior made God “regret that human beings were created”. We the People have been at war with our “likeness” being “distorted and even forfeited” since the beginning of time and the Bible gives us the antidote to this distortion, this forfeiture: Mitzvot! What are the 10 Commandments if not the antidote to what we are witnessing happening here in America, in Israel, across the globe.

In 1986, after being awakened again by God and staying loyal to the experience this time, I began to read, immerse, engage with the Bible and the prayers on a personal level, I became teachable and Rabbi Silverman introduced me to Rabbi Heschel’s books and Rabbi Heschel has improved my life and the lives of so many immeasurably. It is hard to fight the societal norms, it is hard to fight the “evil inclination” within me, and living in a way that my life is “compatible with our essence as created in the likeness of God” is the way to overcome, to rise above these baser instincts when they are going to cause us to “distort and even forfeit” our likeness. Using the 10 Commandments, here are a few ACTION STEPS:

1. Remember God is God and I, no human being, IS NOT!

2. Do NOT create idols out of stone, out of human beings, out of oneself!

3. Do NOT use your own name in vain; mean what you say, say what you mean

4. Do NOT create walls and prisons for your soul, your spirit

5. Honor the wisdom of parents, ancestors, the Bible using the wisdom to enhance your living

6. Do NOT MURDER Your SOUL nor the soul of another(s)

7. Do NOT Prostitute your self, your morals, values for the sake of ‘getting along’

8. Do NOT steal from your self, your neighbor, the people you are responsible for

9. Do NOT LIE, create subterfuges, mendacities so you can ‘get ahead’

10. 10) Want what you have rather than needing to “covet” what another has.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living the wisdom of the Bible ushers us into "spiritual meaning", certainty "of the hereness of God" _Year 4 Day 363

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 363

“In carrying out the word of the Torah is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning. Through the ecstasy of deeds he learns to be certain of the hereness of God. Right living is a way to right thinking…” (Thunder in the Soul pg.80)

“Presence” comes from the Latin meaning “being at hand” and “ecstasy” comes from the Latin meaning “standing outside oneself”. An English definition for “ecstasy” is “an experience of mystic self-transcendence” and “an overwhelming experience of great joy. “Presence” is “the state of being present in a thing” and something that “exists and is not seen”. “Usher” means to “show or guide someone somewhere”.  Ergo, I understand Rabbi Heschel to be reminding us that “in carrying out the word of the Torah” we are “guided into being at hand of a spiritual meaning”. Through the overwhelming experience of joy that doing a deed brings, we both learn the certainty of the “hereness of God” and we experience a self-transcendence. WOW!! Being present in the “word of the Torah” can, and I believe does, give us the guidance and shows us the way for our own unique “spiritual meaning”. Unfortunately, Rabbi Heschel cannot give We the People “the spiritual meaning” because like it says in the Talmud, every soul is unique-no two people experience “the word of the Torah” in the same way NOR SHOULD WE! Just as after the crossing of the Red Sea, after the moment at Mount Sinai, each person had their own personal, unique spiritual experience by “being at hand” and had their own experience of “standing outside oneself”, so too do each and every one of We the People have to have our own unique experience of any and every “word of the Torah”.

At issue is our lack of understanding and our lack of skill to “be at hand”, to receive the “present” that the Torah is, to have a moment of “mystic self-transcendence” that is not induced by some drug, outside influence like “killing it in business” etc. This need to know the “ecstasy”, the “hereness of God” may be why so many Shamans are portrayed as “standing outside themselves”, why the mystics were always looked at with a greater or lesser amount of skepticism, like the prophets were, like the Torah is now. Developing the skill to KNOW something that cannot be seen is to experience the deepest connection with the authentic self. Only by learning to live in our authenticity rather than in societal norms, in ‘follow the leader’, the moments after the Red Sea, after Mount Sinai, after each and every spiritual experience come to remind us and give us the inner strength to tell everyone to Go to Hell when they want, demand, threaten We the People to go along to get along. When We the People “do the deed”, experience “the ecstasy”, become “certain of the hereness of God”, we catapult our authentic self through the shmutz, the barbed wire that have imprisoned what we have always known to be true and were too afraid to live it. We the People are now armed with the armor of God, with the nearness and “hereness of God” and there is no turning back, we are changed forever, we do “stand outside ourselves” more and more, we are being “guided” to our rightful place.

Of course, this is NOT a one and done! AND it is not a thoughtful path that gets us there, as the last sentence above reminds us. Of course reflection, meditation,   are important and crucial to our spiritual growing, they just come after the DOING!  “Right living is a way to right thinking” is another way of saying “Na’Aseh V’Nishmah” we will do and then understand. While the Rabbis wanted to give us the ‘right way’ to do, even they could not agree, hence the arguments in the Talmud, the saying two Jews, three (or more) opinions. We the People are taught to turn the Torah over and over, not just read it each year, experience anew “the word of the Torah”, the “word” that stands out to us this year and then LIVE IT each week. The day after is the most important day, as I have said in the name of my friend and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein. The day after we are “ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning” is the most important day, the day after we experience “the ecstasy of deeds” and learn “the hereness of God” is the most important day because what we do with the experience is crucial to our living well, to our society living well and to being more authentically our SELF.  It is not easy to continue to build on these experiences as any recovering addict will tell you and it is pretty simple. Using the KISS method (keep it simple stupid) I have each day for the past 39+ years put one foot in front of the other, taking two steps forward and one back, sometimes one forward and two back and I have never returned to the way I was because I made the commitment, followed thru on the commitment to “do the next right action” and I have acted my way into right thinking! It was a struggle for awhile, it is not anymore, I still screw up, and it is not hard to admit it, to acknowledge my frustrations, to rise above them. In my years of personal recovery and in helping addicts and non-addicts find their own authentic selves, doing before understanding is a difficult pill to swallow and when we/they have, the “presence”, the “ecstasy” abound.

Here are some ACTION STEPS:

1. Find a Guide to read the Torah with and begin to immerse yourself in “the word” and develop your own experience of “the word”

2. Engage in the actions of the characters, not as an actual happening, rather see how their struggles are, have been, could be yours

3. Accept the guidance of a force that IS and cannot be seen by you nor anyone

4. Do an inventory each night of the “right living” you did and you did not achieve that day-acknowledging when your thoughts overrode your authentic knowing.
   
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Limiting our "understanding" because we have to "think" about something first! - Year 4 Day 362

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 362

“A Jew is asked to take a leap of action, rather than a leap of thought. He is asked to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to understand more. In carrying out the word of Torah he is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.80)

Well, this about says it all! We, the modern day Hellenists, the people the Maccabees fought against, have forgotten the commitment we made at Sinai, or was made for us by our ancestors; N’Aseh V’Nishmah, We will do and understand. The doing comes first in the Torah, not the understanding. How arrogant are We the People to believe we can discern through thought, God’s reasoning, the question our current experience is the answer for? Yet, we continue to do this, we continue to take “a leap of thought” before we “take a leap of action” and, as we see from the current times, this way of being that the Democrats engaged with in 2024, led to the current crisis we are in right now.

Trump and his thugs are, and have been taking “a leap of action”, not the ones Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, not the ones found in the Torah, yet, his actions have worked, they paralyzed the Congress, they used the slowness of the Federal Judiciary, the lies of Bondi, Hegseth, Lutnick (that fine outstanding Jew who was honored by a few Jewish Organizations for being a liar, a cheat, etc), Stephen Miller and Scott Bessent (two more Jews who betray the oath we took at Sinai, Russell Vought (the implementer of his vision of Christ’s hatred of the poor, the stranger-huh), to implement some of the greatest cruelty, deconstruction of the Bill of Rights, the world has ever seen-not as bad as Nazi Germany-YET-and it is certainly reminiscent of those early times, just waiting for Trump’s version of the Reichstag Fire before the Mid-Term elections because he can’t allow them to go forward, cause he will lose his majorities.

Because of the incessant need of some on the left to have to “know” everything there is to no before taking actions, because of the insane way of repeating the same mistakes they did in the 80’s, we the people have made it more and more difficult to change on a dime, to respond to the current situation in the moment until Indivisible began the protests against Kings, against ICE and DHS, against the cruel and inhumane treatment of both American Citizens-resulting in death for a few- and people here legally and illegally-especially those here illegally who have NO CRIMINAL RECORD, who have paid taxes, helped the economy, etc. Trump doesn’t mind the people here illegally who take care of Mar-a-Lago, his golf courses-don’t forget.

The revolution that is needed in this moment is the Return to being We the People of ACTION!  Taking a “leap of action” is the only path to understanding so much more than our minds can ever comprehend, it is the way to apprehend truth, wisdom, mystery, and have the mystical, spiritual experience all of us crave and are ‘waiting for’. Well, as my father, z”l, used to tell me: “Get off your ass and DO something”! We the People have spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME and ENERGY on ‘figuring it out’ before we even truly know the situation, before we experience what is, before we take the “leap of action” so we can “lift up our eyes and see” what the picture truly is, what the obstacles are that are giving us the opportunity to succeed, to “leap” forward farther than our rational minds can take us. This is the way we respond to the “leap of action” that the charlatans are taking!

Rather than just see and think about: how does this situation fulfill my needs, how can I make it serve me- Rabbi Heschel is reminding us to, in my words, GET THE FUCK OVER OURSELVES! Surpassing our needs is a prerequisite of a spiritual experience, it is a prerequisite of “knowing” the truth, of having a connection that is soul to soul rather than role to role, as my wife, Harriet Rossetto, teaches, preaches and writes about in her book Lost Founder finds Herself”. What we the people call “a thirst for knowledge” is, in actuality, a thirst of things to think about, to ponder, to figure out how to use to our advantage, how to engage in the deception of another(s) and, of course, our own self-deception. One of the reasons Rabbi Heschel was/is considered such a radical, was not appreciated for his “knowing”, for his wisdom, his visions, in Academia and in many Pulpits around the nation in his time is because he demanded We Jews “surpass our needs”, he kept telling us that our understanding was lacking because we the people were too busy studying, amassing facts and figures, meeting the needs of our lower, in some cases lowest self; rather than seeking to find the “understanding” that comes with surpassing our needs and taking a “leap of action”.

Over the years, these are the ACTION STEPS that have led me to grow, learn, understand and be gifted with love, connection, wisdom, knowing:

1. Find a Rabbi, a Spiritual guide who you will take direction from, who “knows” you and helps you grow

2. As Pirke Avot says: Find for yourself a Spiritual Friend, a person to whom you reveal your soul and he/she reveals theirs back-who will help you realize the lies you tell yourself, the deceptions you spread, and when you’re DOING IT

3. Say NO to those who want to tell you why something won’t work-everything works because, when we are in a “leap of action”, our understanding grows and this is the best “working” we can receive.

4. Each day, write down what you understand a little better because of the actions you took , this day.
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

"Keep it Simple Stupid" was about making airplanes, then about sales, today, about how to live? Year 4 Day 361

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 361

“The world is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred. Our task is to cleanse, to illumine, to repair. Every deed is either a clash or an aid in the effort of redemption. Man is not one with God, not even with his true self. Our task is to bring eternity into time, to clear in the wilderness a way to make plain in the desert a highway for God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 80)

I ma taking my time with this thought, this teaching because it is, in my opinion, a crucial link in our progress or retardation of spiritual growth. Either everything matters or nothing matters, either “every deed is either a clash or an aid” or no deed is. While I usually disdain “either/or” comparisons, in this case, as our history and present day environments show, it is totally appropriate. We the People are being called in this moment, as Rabbi Heschel called us 70+ years ago, as the prophets called us 2500+ years ago, as God called to Abraham, as God called to Adam and Eve at the ‘beginning’ of human creation. The call is the same: “Ayecha, Where are YOU?” Given yesterday’s writing on the first two sentences above, this is the crucial question for us at this moment as it has been throughout the history of humanity.

Without asking ourselves this question, without asking one another this question, “every deed” will become, more often than not “a clash” “in the effort of redemption”. In fact, without having a response, a thoughtful response, redemption will not even be a factor in our decision making. All that will matter is: “where’s mine”. Nathan, the prophet to King David, had the strength of character and the devotion to God to confront David when he had sex with Bathsheba, had Uriah killed, and then moved her into the Palace. King David, unlike most powerful people, following in the example of his ancestor Judah, said “I have sinned”. This is the conundrum for we the people; will we begin the day by responding to this eternal question: Where am I?; will we follow it up with: Who am I?; and finish our morning wake-up routine with a prayer in gratitude for waking up, for the compassion of God returning, thereby cleaning our souls, and for God’s faith in each of us as individuals and as a human race or just ignore all of these pressing questions and live “same shit, different day”/“who can I screw over today to get mine”?

Be it Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Martin Buber, the Baal Shem Tov, Abraham Joshua Heschel, William Barber, John Pavlovitz, Shai Held, Sharon Brous, these modern day prophets and spiritual leaders all are conveying the importance of every one of We the People! They continue to give us strength, rebuke, pathways to serve, so that We the People do not retreat anymore, we stop buying the lie that we the people are too small to make a difference, We the People always remember our partnership with God, God’s dependence upon us to “aid in the effort of redemption”! We the People are able, capable, and never have to retreat, never have to surrender to being small, we the people again!

Beginning our day with the questions I outline above is the beginning. Engaging in the work of maturing our inner life, of hearing, listening, understanding (Shema) the call of our intuitive mind, our spiritual hunger, our deep knowing of the next right action to take, is the Number One ingredient in being able to answer the call of God, have a positive response to “Ayecha” with the phrase made famous by Abraham when called by God: Hineni-here I am. The exact opposite response of Adam who, when called by God responded with: “I’m hiding”. What is your response?; how do you still hide from the truth?; from the call?; from your soul’s purpose?; your inner passion? This is the power behind the second sentence that is in bold above. Without “every deed” being “an aid in the effort of redemption” there is no “one with God”, there is no “Ehad-oneness” in the world because we the people have split from our soul’s knowing , our spiritual craving, our deepest truth for fear of being ‘found out to be a fraud’. Rather than understand that “redemption” is always ongoing, that humanity was never intended to be perfect, we the people, in our smallest selves bought the Greek bullshit that we are supposed to be perfect; hence we continue to hide from our errors and point out yours so you won’t notice ours. No wonder, buying into the societal bullshit, We the People, created in the Image of God, have become we the people small, petty trained seals!

Each day, I become more and more “at one with God” and, most importantly, at one “with my true self”. More and more, because of the spiritual work I continue to engage in, I can be disappointed in people and not hate them, I can wonder at the responses of people to me and my way of being without feeling hurt, I can appreciate and see the “true self” of another and not need them to be perfect anymore, not need them to take care of me, feel divine pathos when another fails to live up to their higher self. The anger I experience is, almost 90% righteous indignation, the prophetic anger and not the personal one it used to be!

ACTION STEPS

1. Write down your response to Ayecha each morning upon rising, at lunchtime, at dinner time and then at bed time for at least one week

2. Make note of your growth or lack thereof in your responses

3. Do a daily inventory of when you “clash” with redemption and when you “aid in the effort of redemption”

4. Write a gratitude list and call one person a day to express gratitude for the gift they give you

5. Notice when you are one of we the people and when you We the People

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

How are you part of the problem and/or solution for the "conflicts, folly, hatred" that is so prevalent today? Year 4 Day 360

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 360

“The world is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred. Our task is to cleanse, to illumine, to repair. Every deed is either a clash or an aid in the effort of redemption. Man is not one with God, not even with his true self. Our task is to bring eternity into time, to clear in the wilderness a way to make plain the desert a highway for God.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 80)

These words were written some 70+ years ago, during ‘the good old days’ as some people like to call the mid-1950’s. After Korea, after WWII, before Vietnam, Jim Crow laws still in effect, quotas on how many Jews could get into different colleges, grad schools, and this is what the “good christian nationalist folk” call ‘the good old days’?? Immersing ourselves in the words above, it is imperative for we the people to raise up our self-image to meet the world that is in this moment, not some utopian vision or euphoric recalling. Our world today “is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred” and We the People are being called by this moment, by today’s “folly”, by the senseless “hatred” being spewed by the top echelon of government, business people like Jeff Bezos, clergy like Doug Wilson, and supported actively and/or passively by the Republican Party, the Republican Congress, and Jews, Blacks, Latinos, among them! WTF PEOPLE??!!!

What is the call, one might ask; the call is, as Rabbi Heschel says: “to cleanse, to illumine, to repair”. And while there are many who proclaim this to be their passion, their mission, it seems as if We the People don’t believe them and I wonder what the reason is that Bishop Barber, John Pavlovitz, Josh Shapiro, Katherine Clark, haven’t gotten more support, there are not more demands for change, “to cleanse”, etc. Unlike the late 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s of last century when MLK was believed and followed, joined by Rabbi Heschel and so many clergy of different sects, by a groundswell of We the People, when Bobby Kennedy was seen as someone who would Keep Hope Alive, when Johnson, Nixon were held accountable for their misdeeds, their lies, We the People are not in the same space. I believe the reason is personal, spiritual, moral, societal. Before we the people can “cleanse, illumine, repair” the outside world, we have to do the same in our inner lives. Buying into societal lies, believing that “if only they would/wouldn’t do… and we would be happy”, rejecting the faith traditions of our parents, grandparents because they were not passed down with meaning and congruent behaviors, has led to the spiritual, moral, societal bankruptcy that Trump, Lutnick, Netanyahu, Ben G’Vir, et al have capitalized upon. These grifters are not the problem!

It is We the People that is the problem, we elected them, we empower them.  we buy their lies or are so overwhelmed at the amount of lies and subterfuge we feel fatigued. Unlike the prophets whom we are descended from, unlike John Lewis who continued to get into “good trouble” until the day he died, unlike Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Prinz, the Berrigan Brothers, MLK, Bobby, who continued to fight for truth, for justice, who sought “to cleanse, to illumine, to repair” until their deaths, we the people have made ourselves so small, we have forgotten that we the people are all created in the image of God, all have infinite dignity, worth, unique gifts to bring and so we the people find ourselves in the predicaments listed above, some 70+ years after being warned, being educated, being cajoled, being cautioned. Whether it is the racist in the White House, the Goebbels devotee Stephen Miller, the lying money-grabbing Lutnick, the murdering settlers in the West Bank, the terrorist Hamas’ in Gaza, Putin in Moscow, Orban in Hungary, MBS in Riyadh, all of these bankrupt souls, these thieves do not have the power to resist when We the People “cleanse, illumine, repair” ourselves and then set out “to repair” the world through T’Shuvah, “to cleanse” the world through our amends and forgiveness, “to illumine” the world because we are to be “a light unto the nations” and, after repairing, cleaning up our shit and the pile of shit that another(s) have made, our vision gets clearer, our sight gets sharper, and We the People find our place, our passion, our purpose and our similarities which far outweigh our differences, in fact, our differences bring joy to another(s) for they make up for what is missing in their path and vice versa.

The more I write, the more I re-read Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, the more I experience, the more I am able “to cleanse” myself of the lies, the false ego that I have lived from at times in the past 38+ years, the more I am able “to illumine” for myself and another(s), the more I can “repair” and pay it forward. I also am acutely aware of the ways in which I operate which seem so foreign to another(s), the knowing I have which seems outlandish to many, the ‘seemingly inappropriate’ ways I have of expressing myself, ie I am politically incorrect:). I also have illumined a path for many and the reciprocity of generosity has not always come back from these people and I know that is okay-I do what I do because it is the next right thing and this is what the cleaning, the repairing of my inner life has illuminated for me.
ACTION STEPS:

1. Ask yourself what the balance in your spiritual, moral bank accounts are and if they need some deposits.

2. Make a list of the things you need “to cleanse” in order to begin to see what truly is and not the lies you tell yourself and/or the deceptions of another(s) you have bought into

3. Make TShuvah a daily practice so you can repair the damage you have caused and get clean enough “to illumine” the path of right living for you and those around you.
   GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

No separation between the happiness of human beings and the concerns of God - Year 4 Day 359

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 359

“There is no dichotomy between the happiness of man and the designs of God. To discover the absence of that dichotomy, to live that identity, is the true reward of religious living. God shares man’s joy, if man is open to God’s concern. The satisfaction of a human need is a dedication to a divine end.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 79-80)

“The happiness of man and the designs of God” are not separate, according to Rabbi Heschel. What a statement, what a denial of Greek Mythology, what a wonderful way to see humanity and the divine. Yet, there are many who would say that man’s happiness is irrelevant to God, that only by complete surrender to God’s will can mankind survive, only by forgoing the pleasures of the flesh, the arguments of the mind, the knowing of one’s inner life, by subduing my happiness for the sake of heaven can I be a ‘religious person’. Poppycock, Rabbi Heschel is saying and, surprise, surprise, I happen to agree with Rabbi Heschel.

Discovering “the absence of that dichotomy” is the challenge and the path of “religious living”. It is the goal, it is the way, it is the truth that seems to elude so many of us, especially the ‘most holy of holy rollers’. Rather than fire and brimstone, rather than abject fear of God’s punishing ways, rather than call God of ‘the old testament’ a vengeful God, Rabbi Heschel is pointing us to understand that what seems like vengeance is human based-not God based. God tells us to love the stranger, care for the poor and needy, love our neighbor, rebuke people who are going astray because they follow their hearts and their eyes, honor our parents, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet, proclaim freedom, redeem your kinsmen, erase the margins, BE HOLY!

We the People have bought into the societal bullshit and mendacity of “where’s mine”, of “the one with the gold rules”, of “money talks bullshit walks”, of “do to another before they do it to you”, and other such ridiculous aphorisms. Listening to some of the loudest clergy, the ones people swear by is dangerous because they are spouting a doctrine of “dichotomy”, they are telling their people that believing the lies of ‘their candidate’, their false image of God, of Jesus, is the only way to happiness and this takes the complete surrender of a human beings’ sense of rational thinking, of spiritual knowing, of believing what they hear instead of what they see. And, what is worse, too many of we the people have made ourselves so small as to buy the bullshit and follow their direction to HELL on Earth. Listening to that ‘fine christian, Donald Trump, sent here by god to save the United States, is about as holy as hating the stranger, as the actions of the Pharaoh, the sins of King David and too many of we the people buy this lie as well.

There is a partnership between God and man, human beings have to adopt Godly concerns and God rejoices in humanity’s joy, humanity’s satisfying of their authentic needs, including those of the flesh. There is no sin in sex, according to Jewish belief, there is sin in sexual assault, in forcing even one’s wife to have sex when she isn’t up to having it! There is no sin in making a living, in making a good living, there is sin in cheating to get ahead, to extorting money, to taking advantage of someone’s ignorance, innocence. There are over 100 laws re: money in Judaism and one of them is: The Seller has to disclose! Also, when one is fortunate enough to make a living, one is obligated to help the community chest, to give Tzedakah and the more one makes, the more Tzedakah one is blessed to give, not how little can I give, rather-how blessed am I to be able to give more because I have been blessed with such wealth. It is not for tax purposes, it is because the plight of the poor, the widow, the stranger, the needy is a MAJOR CONCERN OF GOD’s! Hence, when there is fulfillment of God’s designs as laid out in the Bible, as Jesus taught, the happiness of human beings is a DUH!

This is the challenge for We the People, to realize the our needs and God’s concerns coincide, they mirror one another and only when We the People live from scarcity, from egotistic lies, from willful blindness do We the People go astray, forget this truth, become self-centered, boorish, cruel, etc. Where the world is today is a prime example of the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words, because Trump, Bibi, et al bastardize what God’s concerns are, turning them into what they want/need, we the people are left out in the cold if/when We the People disagree with them. Putin puts his naysayers in prison and kills them, Trump sends his ICE storm troopers into cities to terrorize them, Bibi winks when the settlers raid Palestinian homes in the West Bank. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to Stand Up and take these
ACTION STEPS:

1. Immerse ourselves in the Bible and find the true concerns of God, those that are beyond our human selfishness

2. Make a list of the false needs we continue to fulfill because of societal norms

3. Find a path to live in Radical Amazement, the maladjustment to conventional notions and mental cliches

4. Shout down the LIARS and IDOLATORS who proclaim that God wants people to suffer, that God only wants White Christian Men to be in charge of everything

5. Make and live into your unique plan to be a Partner with God, joining needs and concerns, joy and satisfaction.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Standing firm in principles and values no matter what the provocation to abandon them rises - Year 4 Day 358

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 358

“It is constancy that sanctifies. Judaism is an attempt to place all of life under the glory of ultimate significance, to relate all scattered actions to the One. Through the constant rhythm of prayers, disciplines, reminders, joys, man is taught not too forfeit his grandeur.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 79)

As I wrote yesterday, “constancy” comes from the Latin root meaning “stand firm”, it doesn’t mean doing the same thing in the same way over and over again, I believe. “Standing firm”, means that I don’t wander too far off the path, that I am grounded and rooted in ways that enhance my living and the lives of those around me. Which leads to the question for all of us: What are we standing firm in?

The current leaders of government are “standing firm” in their incessant need for more, more, more-money, adoration, worshipers, and so many other not good traits. They are inviting Putin, Orban, et al into the US government, into the corporate structures of American Business all the while not caring when, not if, Putin decides to either extract extortion money from them or just take their business’ over! Yet, here is Trump caring more about Vladimir Putin that the United States, more about his money and fame that We the People he swore to serve and protect, more about his lies than the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

However, Trump is not the problem here, We the People are the problem! We have chosen to not “stand firm” in our beliefs, in the values that our parents, grandparents risked everything for so we could live free. Rather than honor those who gave “their last full measure” to protect and defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our way of life, we the people have made ourselves so small that we don’t believe we can “stand firm” in values, “stand firm” on our principles, “stand firm” with one another because ICE will ‘get’ us, because the DOJ will ‘come’ for us, because we know we are not perfect and this makes us feel weak, vulnerable, etc. I am saying BULLSHIT on these excuses, perfection is a myth, it is not real, it is not worth pursuing even-because we the people will never get there and our pursuit of it renders our attempts to “rend our callousness” futile.

Hence the gift that Judaism, Christianity, any and all authentic spiritual paths are because as written above, all spiritual disciplines “attempt to place all of life under the glory of ultimate significance, to relate al scattered actions to the One.” Our Bridge Teacher, (the best one in my opinion) Randy B, reminds us all the time that each card tells a story, it is part of the puzzle of the hand-so too is each action we take, each time we “stand firm” in principles and values that uplift and each time we “stand firm” in values and principles that demean another human being for our own self-aggrandizement, our own personal gain, our false ego’s desires, etc. Each action we take, every prayer we say either moves us closer to our “best self” in the moment or detracts us from same. How can it detract, you might ask, well I will tell you. When I am so absorbed in prayer that I don’t notice nor care about you, your needs, I am too busy praying to save you from an assault, the prayer detracts from us being our best self, when I am so busy studying in the Yeshiva that I don’t serve in the military, I don’t have a job, I am relying on welfare and for ‘those’ people who I have nothing but disdain for to support me, my studying, my praying, the reminders of you being a divine gift, made in the image of God just leaves me; ergo: they are worthless prayers, worthless studying, even to the point of being harmful.

However, when “the constant rhythm of prayers, disciplines, reminders, joys” are in service of something greater than ourselves, when they are in service to “the One” then the puzzle of our lives comes together in a beautiful picture, like the jigsaws people work on, so too do all of these ways of being put together the ‘jigsaw’ of our lives, giving us a glimpse of what we are capable of, and helping us “not to forfeit our grandeur”! And human beings, created in the image of God, We the People all possess an inherent grandeur,  a beauty, a necessary piece of the jigsaw puzzle called life. Yet, far too often, We the People allow another human being to demean us, to put us down, to con us into believing they know what they are talking about when it is all BULLSHIT-like Madoff, Epstein, PT Barnum, Donald Trump, et all.

As a person who forfeited my “grandeur” for 20 years, I know the enormous cost it takes out of one, the gigantic tornado I brought upon another(s) and I have dedicated these past 39+ years to doing T’Shuvah. I know without the “rhythm’ mentioned above, without the “constancy” of staying power, I would be lost and so would many people. I am grateful to my family, teachers, and friends for hanging in there with me and for helping me grow.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of principles and values you believe in and practice:

2. Write down how you “stood firm” in them today and how you didn’t for political expediency, for monetary gain

3. What is your spiritual practice, discipline and how often do you “stand firm” in it?

4. How does prayer, meditation, move you to action which honors your dignity and the dignity of another?

5. How do you celebrate your grandeur and the grandeur of another each day?

God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Are you being willfully blind/oblivious to the Callousness you practice, to the cruelty happening right now? Year 4 Day 357

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 357

“It is not by the rare act of greatness that character is determined, but by everyday actions, by a constant effort to rend our callousness. It is constancy that sanctifies.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.79)

Continuing on yesterday’s theme and, truthfully, the major theme I receive from Rabbi Heschel, stop looking for the HIGHS, the PEAKS and, as Deuteronomy teaches remember the mountains, the sea, the ‘over there’ is not where We the People are going to find Good Orderly Direction, as the program of Alcoholics Anonymous reminds as well. Looking at history, seeing the ‘growth’ of Western Civilization that Marco Rubio was so eloquent about while being part of a regime that wants to kill democracy, set up autocracy and have ‘whitey in charge’ just like it used to be and he is CUBAN!! It is so ridiculous because civilization has always been in a push/pull between autocracy and freedom, between Pharaoh and Moses, between profane and holy, these are all points on the continuum that we the People have to choose which way we are headed. Rather than understand our very survival depends on what we do with our inner lives, how we raise our spiritual health, how we know and understand what our “intuitive mind” is telling us, where our “knowing” is guiding us and LIVE these truths, We the People still believe “daddy will fix it”, “mommy will make the booboo go away”! PLEASE PEOPLE - get real, get right sized!

We the People are enamored with celebrity, with wealth, with “greatness” and far too many of we the people keep making ourselves into small caricatures of who we are in order to achieve these false idols. Erroneously believing that “greatness”, wealth, power, are protectors against uncertainty, even death is the bane of the human experience, it is the lie we continue to tell ourselves, it is the insanity we continue to grow. Rather than being enamored with “greatness”, with wealth, with power, the words above remind us of God’s calls to us: “Ayecha-where are you?”, “Shema-hear listen understand”, “Love the Stranger”, “Care for the Poor”, “Be Holy”, etc. It is not our ‘job’ to be great, according to the teaching above; it is our job to “rend our callousness”, ie to “tear our callousness” away from us, to let go of the mendacious belief that cruelty is good, it is necessary at times so we can deal with “those people”, you know “the vermin” that Trump et al speak about, like Hispanics, Democrats, and you better believe many of his cronies include Jews in  their definition of “vermin”. We the People have heard this rhetoric before, in the 1920’s-40’s in Germany by a small little group of people who called themselves NAZIS!! Wake up People, when something speaks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck- it is a duck! When people spout the rhetoric of Goebbels, the words of Hitler, erect and put people in Camps like the ones in WWII, have masked men plucking people off the streets, beating people in the streets-what do you think is happening??!!

It is in these actions that these LYING ASSHOLES proclaim their allegiance to “Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior” not caring one iota that everything they are doing is spitting in Jesus’ face, defying the “word of God” found in the Bible and, instead of “rend our callousness” they are boasting about callousness and cruelty and WHERE THE HELL ARE WE THE PEOPLE?? The Congress should be impeached, recalled in special elections across the country, the Republicans should be indicted and imprisoned for Lying under Oath when they swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic because they have allowed both Putin and Orban, Trump and Vance, Vought, Rubio, Miller to attack our foundational core values and “rend” them useless!

To “rend our callousness”, We the People have to stop “swinging for the fences”, end our insane ‘special interest’ modalities, stop living in the either/or of far right, far left. To “rend our callousness”, We the People  are being called upon to “do the next right thing”, not perfectly, not with flair nor need for accolades, just quietly, in our “everyday actions” make a difference, move the needle one grain of sand towards what God truly wants-freedom for all, loving the stranger, being holy, caring for the needy and poor, not stealing, murdering, coveting, bearing false witness, selling our souls, not following our hearts and eyes to whore after them, etc. It is only when we “stand firm” (live in “constancy”) that our inner lives transform, that our outer actions are more “in line with the divine”, that Ash Wednesday is the be the beginning of Repentance for both Christians AND Jews, that Passover be the beginning of Liberation from the inner lies, societal norms that are enslaving us and giving us a bad name, a bad conscience. We the People have the power, the skill, the guidance to “rend our callousness” and turn our cruelty into caring, our need for power, wealth, “greatness” into service and love.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Which will We choose today- “callousenss” or good “everyday actions”?

2. What “false god” are you worshiping that makes “cruelty” callousness seem logical and ‘holy’?

3. How are you so focused on “greatness” that you miss the simple acts of random kindness you can do, are done to and for you?

4. What will it take for you to listen better to your “intuitive voice” as an antidote to the rational/emotional voices that try to get you to go against what is right and good?

GOD BLESS AND STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Seeing the top of the mountain one step at a time, through the common deed - Year 4 Day 356

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 356

“The highest peak of spiritual living is not necessarily reached in rare moments of ecstasy; the highest peak lies wherever we are and may be ascended in a common deed. There can be as sublime a holiness in performing friendship, in observing dietary laws day by say, as in uttering a prayer on the Day of Atonement.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 79)

There is no “highest peak of spiritual living” unless it is happening in this moment, in this “common deed” that is right in front of us, in my humble opinion! Humankind seems to need these “highest peaks” to satisfy their thirst for ecstasy, their need to ‘get high’ and whether it is in climbing the highest mountain, swimming the widest sea, sitting under the Bodhi Tree, achieving the wealth, fame, fortune that is so sought after or just getting high on substances/process’. We the People are addicted to attaining “the highest peak” and seem to be willfully blind to the truth that the “highest peak” is always changing, just like no two moments are the same, so too, there is no one “highest peak” and there is no living at that level for more than a moment or two. Just like the drunk or the addict who eventually have to “come down”, wake up with a hangover, those who continue to seek “the highest peak of spiritual living” through any of the means I delineated above, will find themselves always hungry, always thirsty, and always ignoring the “common deed” for their erroneous belief that the “next high is just around the corner”!

I am overwhelmed with the thought/realization that the cruelty being practiced in this moment by Trump et al and by Bibi and his cohorts is truly their seeking of “the highest peak of spiritual living” for them; selfish, bastardizations of what “holiness” is and they are surrounded by such sycophants who validate their ‘holy actions’ in the churches, the synagogues around this country and in Israel!! The insanity of an clergy celebrating cruelty as “the highest peak of spiritual living” is anathema to the teachings of Moses, the words of Christ, the actions of the Prophets, and the experiences of the Christians being fed to the lions and the anti-semitism that Jews have experienced for the millennia! Yet, here we are, with Jews who laughed with and hung out with a known pedophile like Jeffrey Epstein, with Jews who relish the cruelty of ICE and the cruelty of the “big beautiful bill”, the insane hatred of the stranger forgetting that We the Jews were strangers in the land of Egypt! Here we are with Christians who celebrate the separation of families, the inhumane conditions in these ‘camps’ (ala Albrecht Macht Frie of the 1930-40’s), who extol the actions of cruelty as wanted by Christ?!!

The popularity of Social Media, the Smartphone (which is helping to dumb down our children) has contributed to the state of moral decay, spiritual bankruptcy we find ourselves in. Rather than study the Bible, rather than learn mathematics, rather than learn the grammar of any language much less the “grammar of living”, we the people feel so small and so large at the same time that we say ‘let AI do it’. Rather than seek to “enoble the common”, we the people are seeking to constantly ‘find the high’, ‘make a killing/score’, have an orgastic moment over a deal, sex, shopping, winning. Rather than see the “highest peak lies where we are” we the people continue to look either up at the sky or down on the ground, thereby missing the moment of connection with what is, the moment of connection with another human being, the moment of “holiness” that is ascended in common deed. We the People are so addicted to the “highest peak” we have failed miserably to experience/see the “holiness in performing friendship”. Friendship is NOT “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, it is NOT one bad action, one disagreement and we are quits, it is NOT fair weather, it is not kissing the ass of another, it is NOT being a sycophant. Friendship IS speaking truth to one another, friendship IS wrestling with one another to find truth, to help one another grow along spiritual lines, to live a moral life, an obligated life, friendship IS making mistakes and being forgiven, laughing and crying together, Friendship IS helping one another engage in “the common deed” and experience the spiritual ecstasy that comes with this sublime action.

I know this because I have lived in both realms, I have been the asshole seeking a ‘high’ through theft, through booze, and it never lasted too long. I have some stories that are ‘funny’ and I can TESTIFY to the TRUTH that the “peaks of spirituality” I have achieved in these past 39+ years are higher and still are with me, each one leaving an imprint on my soul. I have not needed to “be the man” for a long time, it was slow to give it up at first and I no longer need the acknowledgment of another to know my worth, to know the “high” of the common deed, to continue to do ‘the next right thing’ without recognition. This is a complete TShuvah for me, as a kid I always wanted to be recognized, even in my recovery at times I find this to be true and it is not anymore. Living in the “common deed” of this moment is the “high”, is the joy, is the goal.
ACTION STEPS:

1. What are the false peaks you are trying to climb to “reach the high”

2. How are you engaging in cruelty, mendacity, towards self and/or another to reach this false “peak”

3. How do you stay present and aware in the moment and experience the holiness of it

4. What “common deeds” raise you up to “the highest peak”?

GOD BLESS AND STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Every moment an occasion or taking things for granted - Year 4 Day 355

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 355

“Religion is not made for extraordinary occasions, such as birth, marriage, and death. Religion is trying to teach us that no act is trite, every moment is an extraordinary occasion.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

OY VEY! What is Rabbi Heschel talking about? How can “every moment is an occasion” be true, it would be too hard otherwise not complain, to not bitch and moan, to not see how ‘the man is screwing us’, etc. Taking seriously what he is saying, teaching, means We the People have to stop compartmentalizing our “religious actions” from our “normal everyday actions”. As I wrote about yesterday, Judaism is a personal experience rather than an institutional brand and Rabbi Heschel’s words ring true, or “ping” as my wife Harriet Rossetto says, in our souls, no matter how much our minds, our egos, our ‘hearts’ desires’ want to deny this truth. In fact, in Judaism the Mohel who circumcises the newborn baby doesn’t have to be a Clergy person, the officiant for a marriage doesn’t have to be a Rabbi and the person who leads the funeral also is not required to have any kind of S’micha(ordination). The rituals surrounding these “extraordinary occasions” are helpful, spiritually uplifting and allowing for grief as well as joy, all need and welcome communal support and love; hence Judaism being “the grammar of living” as I wrote about yesterday. AND relegating these “occasions” to the “extraordinary” and not seeing the wonder and awe of this moment is a powerful blow, a tremendous wound to the spirit that lives within us and the spirit that surrounds us!

Od Matai, Until When will We the People refuse to honor our spiritual well-being, our spiritual knowledge, our soul’s knowing? It is the greatest desecration of God’s name, in my opinion, to NOT grab ahold of what “religion is trying to teach us”, to NOT “circumcise the foreskin of our hearts” so we can be open to immense gift this moment, this occasion is. Not only is “religion trying to teach us that no act is trite”, it reminds us that We the People are gifted each day with life and that We the People, as individuals, are a GIFT that has to be given to another human being. This is not a narcissistic attitude, this is a TRUTH that We the People have ignored for far too long. Because Judaism is a personal experience, each one of us has to take what God gives us and use it to better the moment we are currently in. Each of us is called upon to “reach out and touch somebody’s hand” to help them up, to lift them up, to care for one another as another way to serve the spiritual calling within us. Being the Unique GIFT that each one of us is makes us obligated to live it, to give it away as AA says: “you can’t keep it if you don’t give it away” and to RECEIVE THE GIFT THAT ANOTHER HAS FOR YOU! This receiving is not about lacking, it is not about weakness, no matter what the politicians, the false prophets tell us, receiving the GIFT that another has for we the people is our act of humility, our recognizing how INTERDEPENDENT we the people are on one another. No one can do it alone, as the Bible says: “It is not good for humanity to be alone”. Only in community can We the People become right-sized, only in community can We the People find our soulmates, our spiritual friends, our proper place, live our purpose with the passion that religion, that spirituality bestows upon us.

None of this can happen, however, without recognizing, without knowing, without accepting that THIS MOMENT IS AN OCCASION! It is an occasion for growth, for service, for love, for TShuvah, for forgiveness, for joy, for sadness, for holiness, for wholeness, etc. I first learned this in Prison in 1987 from Rabbi Mel Silverman, z”l. He and I studied every day he was at the Prison where I was his clerk and I studied on my own when he wasn’t there. I learned how to stop the negative behaviors I had been engaging in for 20+years and begin each day with the Modeh Ani prayer, in which I thank God for “returning my soul to me with compassion, great is Your faithfulness” which obligates me to be compassionate with myself and with another(s), it obligates me to be faithful to my spiritual knowing, my soul’s intuition, to God, and to the people in my life. Being faithful means to celebrate this moment with you, to see your GIFT and accept it, to give you my GIFT without any quid pro quo, knowing there is a reciprocity of generosity in the universe. Be it at the bridge table or the dining table, be it on the golf course or the Ceramics studio, be it in the den or the bed with Harriet, each moment is cause for celebration, each moment is important and, We the People, including me, forgets this often. The challenge of “religion” is to not allow our devices, our negativity, our false egos to overpower what is true and right, good and holy: “no act is trite, every moment is an extraordinary occasion”. Living into this, knowing you are THE GIFT that keeps on giving, and “religion” is a personal experience is the GIFT we give ourselves!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of all the things you believe are “trite” and find the uplift in them

2. Find ways to acknowledge the “little things” you do each day which helps you, another, the community

3. See the ways you treat each moment as battleground, trying to make yourself good by spreading LaShon HaRa about another, by putting another down.

4. Do an inventory of your GIFT, and how often you “freely offer” it to another and how often the GIFT of another has been “freely offered to you

5. Live your religion as a personal experience, seeing where you have fucked off your GIFT, where you have abused the GIFT and generosity of another, etc.

GOD BLESS AND STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

What is the “grammar of living” you follow? Year 4 Day 354

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 354

“The goal of Jewish law is to be the grammar of living, dealing with all relations and functions of living. Its main theme is the person rather than an institution.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

What a wonderful phrase, “the grammar of living”! Sadly, history and present day seem to indicate “the goal” is yet to be reached! We know this from the Bible itself, Moses’s railing against the people in Deuteronomy, the books of Joshua and Ezra, the sex crimes of King David, the overreach of King Solomon, the need for the Prophets, etc. The Rabbis in their zeal to reach “the goal of Jewish law” made it so rigid, so inane in some cases, so restrictive in others, that We the People have never really engaged in it with the sense that it is “the grammar of living”, learning how to live into “Jewish law” not as a chore, not as a “have to”, rather as the way to make our unique life what it is meant to be, just as proper grammar is the way to make a sentence mean what it is meant to mean.

Unfortunately, just as English grammar seems to have taken a back seat to LOL’s, etc, “the goal of Jewish Law is to be the grammar of living” also seems to have done the same. Being more interested in the check list,  caring more about being “Shabbat Police”, sneaking around for gossip on one’s neighbor, spreading LaShon HaRa, bragging about how many mitzvahs one did today, not caring whether they impacted another human being or not-just doing the mitzvah and checking it off is more important, keeping kosher according to the law regarding food  and NOT in the over 100 laws of making, spending their money, has made “Jewish law” not important to too many of We the People. Instead of seeing “the goal of Jewish law is to be the grammar of living”, today’s orthodoxy is more interested in Jewish law being a weapon against ‘those people’ who are not even good enough to be called an apikoros, a sceptic!

Understanding, seeing, living “Jewish law”, means to deal with one another in truth, with dignity, with awe for the divine image and gift another human being brings. It is to “treat the stranger well because you were strangers in the Land of Egypt”! It is to not take what isn’t yours, to not treat another human being with malice, to not deny the dignity of anyone, including your enemies because We the People, all of us are created in the image of God, ergo: we all have infinite worth and dignity, equal worth and dignity and unique worth and dignity. No one can say: “my father is better than yours” according to the Talmud and the tragedy I see today is that the very people who proclaim to be ‘the real jews’ are constantly misusing “the grammar of living”, constantly bastardizing the “goal of Jewish law” and betraying our gift to the world; “be a light unto the nations”!

The reason this is all happening is found in the 2nd sentence above. Rather than keep the “main theme” of “Jewish law” “the person rather than an institution”, modernity has turned the tables on this idea, this way of being. We find that our religious “institutions” are more important than “the person”. Just as in business, keeping the business open is more important than how employers treat their employees, always complaining about paying them a livable wage, providing benefits, etc and, when a customer complains, when someone holds business’ accountable, there is howling like a dog at the moon! Well, the same is true with “religious institutions” these days. Hasidism began as a revolution to freedom of expression for the individual towards God and became a part of Orthodoxy, what the Baal Shem Tov did not want to happen, given his myriad of arguments with the Orthodoxy of the time.

Having run a Jewish Institution for over 20 years, I know the traps involved, I know how easy it is to make the institution more important than the people and, I say with humble pride, Beit T’Shuvah kept it’s commitment to “the goal of Jewish Law”, we kept the “person” front and center, often to the dismay of people who wanted “follow the rules”, “punish the people”, etc. Rather than just have a cookie cutter way of dealing with “all relations and functions of living”, the staff followed “the goal of Jewish law” and saw each case on its own merits, asked what was best for the individual AND the group, how do we treat the stranger with kindness and welcoming, how do we help people find the path of “Jewish law” that will give voice to the melody of their soul, etc . Rather than ‘follow the rules’, we, like Rabbi Harold Shulweis taught us, believed there were times to obey and times to disobey. This was the cause of many discussions, many anxious moments, there were times when we, the staff, brought issues to We the People and members of the community at that time helped in decision making. Putting the person first, allowed for the restoration of dignity and value, truth and justice, kindness and grace within the person themselves.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Ask yourself what is the goal of the “law” you live by-is it to raise your standard of living materially, socially AND spiritually or just the first two and forget the latter.

2. Write down how your “goal” has overtaken your decency, your morality, your intuitive mind.

3. How has the “institution” you run, be it family, business, religious group become more important than the individuals in the “institution”?

4. What of “Jewish law” (or any spiritual discipline) can/does/could help you to reach being “the self you were created to be”?

5. Write a T’Shuvah letter to your soul for ignoring it in the past and make the commitment to hear it more and louder in the present.

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

How do you use/abuse your “rare moments” of insight? Year 4 Day 353

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 353

“Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days. The spirit withers when confined in splendid isolation. What is decisive is not the climax we reach in rare moments, but how the achievements of rare moments affect the climate of the entire life.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

Reading the emboldened words above makes me think of something else Rabbi Heschel wrote in God in Search of Man pg. 132: “The immediate certainty that we attain in moments of insight does not retain its intensity after the moments are gone…The remembrance of that experience and the loyalty to the response of that moment are the forces that sustain our faith. In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event, loyalty to our response”. We the People are spending much too much time seeking the “climax we reach in rare moments”, the ecstasy of the “high”, be it from substances, process’, ‘making a killing in the market’, ‘getting one over on _____(fill in the blank), etc. This is one of the issues We the People are facing re our devices-how we keep checking them, playing the games on them, using them for old fashion research, mathematics, etc.

“Loyalty” to something greater than ourselves that is part of us and NOT part of us, is an old-fashioned idea nowadays. Rather than appreciate the “climax we reach in rare moments”, rather than have “loyalty to our response” to these moments, too many of We the People have decided to ignore the responses and only seek the stimuli, be it by elected officials who are only interested in what they want rather than what is best for the people who elected them, business leaders who care only about “delivering for their shareholders” rather than what is best for their customers, clergy people who are willing to do what their boards/diocese says so they can ‘keep their job’ rather than live into the CALL from God that propelled them into the Rabbinate, Priesthood, Ministerial roles.

What passes for “loyalty” to an experience and “loyalty to our response” in all religious sects is, for the most part, BULLSHIT! We the People are mad at Clergy who remind us of our heritage, of our responsibility, of loving the stranger, helping our enemies’ asses, being rebuked for our own behavior, demanding that We the People do a daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our soul, and see where we have ignored people who have been kind to us cause we just don’t need them anymore, they are too “inconvenient”, too much of a reminder of when we the people were needy. The response in the “wilderness of Sinai” was “WE WILL DO and THEN we will understand”. There was a climactic experience upon crossing the Red Sea, upon receiving the 10 Sayings, and 45 days later, We the People built the Golden Calf! It ain’t easy to be “loyal to our response” after “the climax we reach in rare moments” AND We the People have to get better at it, we have to remember those who have helped us along the way, know we owe a debt to them, to God, to the people we have yet to meet. The importance of these ecstatic moments is to WAKE US THE FUCK UP! It is not a “nirvana” experience, it is not for us to ‘feel so uplifted”, “feel so peaceful”. These “rare moments” are to get us into action, to make us recognize the unique divine image we possess, the unique divine image that every other human being possess’ and stop our narcissistic, egotistical actions of “Only I can fix it”, “Only I am important”, Only I …

In December of 1986 I had a “rare moment” that changed me. It was a “rare moment” that changed everything for me, changed “the climate of my entire life”. I knew it then, I made a conscious decision to not blow this moment off, as I had so many other times. It is a terrible experience, excruciatingly painful when you are aware of the “climax we reach in rate moments” and then just blow them off, ignore them because of fears, because of greed, because of not wanting to see the harm caused by our ignorance of the truth shown to us in these “rare moments”. Every one of We the People have these “rare moments”, each of us are called by these moments, even the “dark night of the soul” moments to action and, as we see today and throughout history, the action most people take is to be more insular, to figure out the ‘angle I can use to get more, more, more’, to be a fascist, a dictator, an autocrat, an asshole! AND We the People keep electing these people to lead us!! WHAT THE FUCK??

My “rare moment” changed my life, the lives of my daughter, my wife, my ex-wife, my siblings and so many people, it got me to meet President George W. Bush with whom I disagreed politically and connected with his spirit and he with mine. I have met the finest of people who seek to improve their spiritual maturity and health and I have met the worst of people who keep using power and position as a cudgel against having their own “rare moments” change them. It is sad and joyous, exhilarating and depressing and, because of being loyal to my response: I never leave the playing field, I am always ready to pick up the bat and make a hit, score a run, make the catch. This is how my “rare moment” changed me!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of “rare moments” you have experienced

2. Next to each one, write your response to them in the moments after

3. Write how you have incorporated them into your daily living

4. Look at the ones you haven’t incorporated and ask yourself “why not”

5. Write a plan to incorporate and be aware of when/how these moments help you live better.   

God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

Do you confine your spirit and allow it to wither so it can't nag at you to do the Next Right Thing? Year 4 Day 352

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 352

“Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days. The spirit withers when confined in splendid isolation. What is decisive is not the climax we reach in rare moments, but how the achievements of rare moments affect the climate of the entire life.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

“Religion” gets a bad name, not from any particular “religion”, rather from the people who use “religion” to assert power, control and use ‘the name of god’, in that “GOD” voice to validate their bastardizations, their abuses, etc. “Religion” was never about the hierarchy that we see now, it was given in the desert, to a bunch of ragtag newly freed slaves as a way of integrating themselves into society with a new goal, a new purpose, a new way of living so they did not return to being a slave (do not return to Egypt) and they didn’t make anyone else a slave either (love the stranger, remember you were strangers in the land of Egypt). Yet, it has become so institutionalized, it has become a parasite upon which clergy find their power, many use their voice for good many times and, almost as many, for their own selfish desires, for the desires of the wealthy, for evil! We know this from the prophets, they did not come to tell the people to be more ‘observant’, they came to tell the We the People to stop deceiving ourselves, to stop believing the deception of the priests, the rulers, the wealthy and follow God’s commands as they were delivered in the Desert, as the Voice from on top of Mt. Sinai ‘spoke’ and We the People agreed with “we will DO and then we will understand”. The only way to see the nuances, the different ways to understand the mitzvah is by the DO-ing of it, then we can see the 70 ways to DO and understand instead of trying to understand before we DO. There is no checklist for fulfilling our religious obligations, there is only being decent, kind, truthful, caring, compassionate, loving, recognizing our imperfections, making our amends, and knowing the greatest ‘sin’ is to HIDE!

This is what I believe Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, at least today I hear him calling out to us to NOT HIDE! Hiding forces our being “confined” and when we buy the self-deception that hiding is really just isolating to ‘find our happy space’, or to ‘enjoy the spiritual experience we just had’ we tend to stay hidden. How many of We the People are truly transparent in our living, how many of us are willing to put our authentic self on display and be the messenger, the divine need we are created to be? How many of We the People are being guided by the inheritance of the prophets which we all have a share of? I am thinking of the wrapping ourselves in the various garments we do, Clergy wearing robes to hide what, exactly? We are NOT the High Priest, we are the Levites, caring for and tending to the needs of the people, we do not need to put on our ‘Sunday best, Shabbat finery’ to pray, to engage in our “religion”. As the prophets tell we the people God doesn’t want our sacrifices, God doesn’t want our “splendid isolation” of religion only in the Church, in the Synagogue, in the Mosque-God wants us to LIVE THE PATH in our everyday affairs, as the 12th Step of AA says: “Practice these principles in all our affairs(italics are mine). How often have We the People not waited even till after the service to critique it, the Priest, the Rabbi, the Imam? How often have We the People said AMEN to something, meaning “it is true, so be it” and then ignored the needy, the lame, the beggar, who according to Jewish lore might be Elijah waiting for some human kindness and then call the Messiah to show up, and/or hate the stranger and blame “those people” for our troubles? Not having a clue that we are negating the power of the AMEN we spoke at the end of the prayers, that we are denying the TRUTH we just agreed to during our prayer experience, We the People continue to “confine” the spirit to “splendid isolation”, with ‘that is just for church, it doesn’t play in the REAL world’-refusing to change this world of illusion and make it into the REAL world that is envisioned in the Bible, in the words of Jesus! How sad, how tragic, how CRIMINAL that this BULLSHIT passes for “religion” Mike Johnson, Erika Kirk, Bibi Netanyahu, and the “Believer in Chief” Donald Trump!

I am at a loss to understand the depths one has to go to in order to be a ‘religious’ person who goes against the tenets we find in the Bible, who knows right and does wrong, who values their dignity while demeaning and defiling the dignity of another(s). What is even harder to understand is how We the People act like guppies swallowing up the bullshit of the charlatans, the idolators, the autocrats and keep returning them to elected office! What is more and more difficult to understand is a Pam Bondi who knows right from wrong and rather deflect than seek truth, a Kash Patel who would rather go to the Rock Concert, find the ‘enemies’ than enforce the Constitution on the people in charge. The selling of the souls that Rubio, Lutnick, Bessent, Vought have done is, to me, surreal and inexplicable. I know the cost of doing this, I sold my soul for a pot of gold that turned out to be nothing but coal and everyone around me payed the price-this is the truth of what happens when one sells one’s soul-everyone pays. I am grateful for my spiritual awakening and more grateful that I allowed it to “affect the climate of my entire life”!

ACTION STEPS:

1. How do you compartmentalize your religious practice, your spiritual practice?

2. How are you buying your self-deception and the deception of another(s) as to what God wants us to do?

3. What are the ways you continue to ‘look good’ while doing wrong?

4. How do you engage in using what is Holy as cover for your UNHOLY actions?

5. How are you allowing a spiritual experience to “affect the climate of your entire life?
   God Bless and Stay Safe, Rabbi Mark

Living in a Binary World or an Integrated World- which do you choose? Year 4 Day 351

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 4 Day 351

“Worship and living are not two separate realms. Unless living is a form of worship, our worship has no life. Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 78)

These words, this thought is so obvious, so ridiculous to have to write, to say, yet 70 years ago when God in Search of Man was published, Rabbi Heschel found the need to say them! In a Binary world, in an either/or world everything is separate, physical and spiritual, “worship and living”, observance and actions, etc. Forever, it seems, humanity has needed a “scapegoat to put their sins on it’s head” just as described in Leviticus. Being able to make “them” the enemy, “them” the cause of all evil around us, “them” the reason you are unhappy, poor, etc has given power to the white man-in this country at least and to the far right throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia, etc. It hasn’t mattered who the “them” is, in fact throughout the history of America Black people are the “them”, Jews are the “them”, Italians, Irish, Chinese have also taken their turns in the bucket of “them”, and, of course, the Hispanics are the current and past “them” everyone seems to be fucking with. In this Binary way of being, it is WAY PAST REAL that white people are suing for discrimination!! They are the injured party-just ask Donald J. Trump how he has been persecuted by “them”. The ways in which he, Vance, Miller, Noem, et al speak about, treat people who look like Marco Rubio is abhorrent and they justify it by saying “we are saving America and Americans from the vermin who are infecting our country”. If this sounds familiar, it is the same rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf being the only book Trump has ever read, according to his late first wife, Ivana. Yet, they are all “good book” quoters!

Listening to Mike Johnson and other Republicans who proclaim their ‘love of Jesus’ while hating the stranger instead of loving her/him, while injuring the poor instead of helping them, hating “them” in their hearts instead of loving them, never admitting they make any errors-blaming “them” instead, throwing a lot of stones while they are NOT without SIN themselves! AND they say “if you want to know what I think, how I govern, just read the Bible”. WHAT BIBLE IS HE/THEY talking about? Not the Hebrew Bible, not the “Old Testament”, not the New Testament, not the Gospels, so what the fuck is going on? How do We the People buy into the bullshit and mendacity that is being heaped upon us?

The reason is We the People have adapted to and adopted the Binary world view and way of being also! Even though, in our guts, in our soul we know the world is “both/and”, even though we know that our “living” has to reflect, be impacted by, be improved by our “worship”, we seem to be able to deny and deflect the truth long enough to partake and ‘be a part of’ the people who are not “them” in this moment. Rather than living the Mitzvot; Miller, Lutnick, Bessent, and all the Jews who are supporting these Fascists, these autocrats want to “be in the IN Crowd”, have a “seat” at the “Power Table”. Rather than loving the stranger, they hate everyone who is not like the power people, these idiots are so far in the ether, they think they are white and will not be seen as “them Jews”! Rather than do T’Shuvah every day, they glorify their cruelty, they wear as a badge of honor their ability to hate their brother/their neighbor in their heart. They cover up their crimes, they make fun of their supporters who buy their bullshit, they are mendacious, they steal, they whore themselves, they murder the souls of another(s), they covet everything someone else has, believing no one but they are entitled to anything worthwhile that “them” has. AND they will tell you how much they love Judaism, how they go to Synagogue on the High Holy Days, celebrate Passover, etc.

My friend and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, teaches that the most important day is the “day after”, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shabbat, Shavuot, Passover, and, of course TODAY! Has going to Synagogue moved the needle inside of you enough to change your behaviors, change your actions, get you to honor the commitment of our ancestors at Sinai: Na’Aseh V’Nishmah- we will DO then we will understand? Has the prayer you said this morning moved you to be more kind, more compassionate, more truthful, more loving, more decent? Has the experience of Shabbat made you more open to immersing yourself in being one grain of sand better today than yesterday? Has your worship impacted your living  at all? This is the issue Rabbi Heschel saw 70 years ago and it is ON STEROIDS today. It is up to We the People to bring these “two separate realms” back together! This is the work I do to recover my integrity, my soul, my sense of true self, my purpose since prison and up to, including today and tomorrow. It is the work that has helped 1000’s of people recover their passion and discover their soul, it is the path Harriet Rossetto laid out for people to follow with founding Beit T’Shuvah and not going for the Binary thinking of her peers-being the outcast because she KNEW what would help, living her worship!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Find a prayer that helps you live better, read it each day aloud and see how you can live it.

2. Choose a Text you believe will help your spirit grow and read it each day/study it with another person maybe

3. Each day, at the end of the day, write down how you lived your prayer, your study that day

4. Create, join a community of people who “walk their talk” and share your experience, strength and hope and imbue theirs.

God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark