Daily Prophets
Day 6
I forgot to announce that each week, I am taking Shabbat off from writing about the Prophets. I write each morning when I arise as both a meditation and gratitude to God for returning my soul to me this day. Continuing with Elijah, I am struck by his loyalty to God and his lack of martyrdom. Elijah is hunted by Jezebel and Ahab, threatened by them both and he doesn’t need to die the death of a martyr, rather he flees/disappears so he can come back another day. He never wavers in his loyalty to God and his following God’s Will. As I am writing these words, I am asking myself how often I have been a martyr and how ridiculous it usually was. I made a martyr of myself whenever I had to have it my way or the highway and there have been those times. I made a martyr of myself whenever I have held a pity party for myself. These negative ways of being a martyr are important to recognize. I think of my mother, z”l, when I called her from prison one time, she told me she could not show her face in the community. I said, “Mom, I am not that big of a criminal, I did not make the Cleveland Jewish News. How would anyone know?” She replied, “I told them.” We laughed about that for years, my mother and I and I see how I have told I have been a martyr when I have been willing to act the same way. Then there are the positive acts of martyrdom. I have been willing to walk away from people and positions when the people and/or organization is doing or thinking of doing something that is antithetical to my core values and beliefs. I ask you to look at and recognize your times of martyrdom.
Fear of losing his life did now sway Elijah from relating his prophecy and from fighting for God and for the people of the Kingdom of Israel. I understand this loyalty very well. Rabbi Heschel taught me this in his book God in Search of Man. He says on page 132: “In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event and loyalty to our response.” Elijah stayed loyal to God and God’s path no matter what. God lived his life on God’s Terms, not his own and certainly not at the whim of the King and Queen. His unwillingness to bend to the will of the rich and powerful made him a hunted man, a dangerous man, and a man who could destroy all that Ahab and Jezebel had built. He was an extreme threat. How many times have we stayed loyal to an experience with God? This is what a Spiritual Awakening connotes in the 12th Step of the Anonymous programs. This is what all of Torah and Judaism is paving the way for us. Yet so many of us fall short and/or don’t even try to stay loyal and faithful to God, only to our own needs and desires. Elijah and the other prophets stand as examples of loyalty and faithfulness. What are the examples of your loyalty and disloyalty to God, to yourself and to others?
Our current leaders in the United States need to reread (or truly read for the first time) Elijah. They have been serving Jezebel and Ahab and rejoicing in it. They have been lying to themselves that they have been loyal to God and serving God. What they have been serving is a god, a false idol that is interested in their power and an idol that gives them a good conscience rather than God who is constantly nagging at us and feeding us and calling to us to care for others and do justly. I am outraged at Pence and Pompeo who have not condemned Trump for his part in Wednesday’s insurrection. I am outraged at the people who do not condemn the evil in themselves and their cities/states. I am outraged at the people who continue to believe “the one with the gold rules”. I am outraged at the people who wrap themselves in the cloth of righteousness and cannot acknowledge their own imperfections/errors. I have been a victim of these people and been one of them also. It is time for all of us to stop acting in these ways. We are all part of God’s world, we are all created in the Image of God and we all are needed to make our corner of the world a little better.
In 1Kings Chapter 19 is the famous experience that Elijah has with the still small voice. Prior to that, however, Elijah is again fleeing for his life and he is tired. He goes off to the wilderness and asks God to take his life because he has failed in his task to get Ahab, Jezebel and the people of the Kingdom of Israel to change their ways. He lays down and sleeps and is awakened by the touch of an angel who tells him to eat, he looks around and sees bake and water. He eats and goes back to sleep until an angel of Adonai touches him again and tells him get up, eat and go on a journey. He does and goes to Mount Horeb and went into a cave. God calls out to him, asks him why he is there and then he experiences Adonai in the still small voice. Adonai tells him to go back and anoint two kings and anoint Elisha to succeed him.
Why does Elijah set himself up for such heartache and disappointment? Because he has a personal relationship with Adonai. This is the hallmark of all of the Prophets and of every person in Recovery. Today, as I experience loss of community, loss of position, loss of connection to people I have known for years, I am without resentment (finally) and have compassion for everyone because of my personal relationship with Adonai. The 23rd Psalm opens with “Adonai is my shepherd and I lack nothing”. I forget this from time to time and search for things, power, prestige that I don’t need. I remembering and rejoicing in my portion and what I have each day, now. How much better life is when I am in this space. What is your personal relationship with God and how do you remember you lack nothing, and rejoice in your portion? God Bless, Rabbi Mark