Daily Prophets
Day 39
“Assemblies with iniquity I cannot abide. They are a burden to Me , I cannot endure them. Wash yourselves clean…cease to do evil; learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged.(Isaiah 1:13,14,16, 17)
Isaiah is pleading for God in these verses. Here it is obvious that God is calling the people back. God is trying to rouse the decency and goodness that abides in every human being. People try and look good, clean up wrong doing with some good deed, in this case sacrifices, etc., and God through the prophet Isaiah is saying STOP.
These ways of being are a burden to God, says Isaiah. And, these ways are not just by the kings, the whole assembly of people are either engaged in these ways or standing idly by. It is a burden to God because God can’t watch the injustice and evil done to widows, orphans, the poor and the stranger.
The beauty of these verses is that we can STOP these ways of being, for there are a lot of ways to be two-faced, looking good while doing wrong, etc. We can “learn to do good”, we can be just and kind. While these verses seem to indicate that it isn’t natural to be this way, I think what Isaiah is saying is that just as we have learned to do evil, so too can we relearn how to do good.
Even though this chapter has much about destruction in it, these verses cause Rabbi Heschel to teach: “No word is God’s final word. Judgement, far from being absolute, is conditional. A change in man’s conduct brings about a change in God’s judgement. No word is God’s final word.”(The Prophets page 194). What hope Rabbi Heschel brings. Just as we have caused the judgement, so too can we change it by our actions. What actions? Justice! Rabbi Heschel reminds us that: “the prophet is a person who is not tolerant of wrongs done to others, who resents other people’s injuries.”(ibid, pg 205).
Since we are descendants of these men, why are we so tolerant of these wrongs? This is the first question I would ask our political leaders in Washington DC, state capitals all over this great land. We are witnessing the perversion of justice every day in our courts and in our State Houses and in our Congress. Yet, these fine, upstanding, supposedly religious, learned in their faith people, continue to ignore the words and warnings of the prophets. We are witnessing many assemblies of government awash in iniquities, they have become “a burden” to God, to us and to our democracy, yet we are standing idly by as a nation and as individuals. We have to hold them accountable right now, not just wait until 2022. We have to demand justice in our state capitals, justice in our courts, justice in our Congress. We have to do this now and keep the pressure up because the White Supremacists are keeping the pressure up, the lying Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are keeping the pressure up, the rich white folk who only want them to have the power to rule are keeping the pressure up. It is “time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”(Charles Weller). We must and we will, God is calling us!
In recovery, we are well aware of our iniquities. As I wrote yesterday, the 4th step is for us to become truly aware of them and own them. We do this to repair the damage, change the behavior and be relieved of the bondage of self. We also work the 6th and 7th step, which for me epitomizes the words above. The 7th step prayer “My Creator, I am not willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen” is directly correlated to the words of Isaiah above in my opinion. My recovery is dependent on relearning what is good and what looks like good, ie evil, and doing the good.
My history is one of iniquity, prior to being in recovery. I am reading these words this morning and I remember the call from God to “cease to do evil, learn to do good”. I can hear it today as clearly, maybe more clearly, as I heard it in December of 1986. It is this call that caused me to begin this journey that I have stayed on for these 32+ years. In fact, these calls along with God’s call to care for the widow, the poor, the orphan and the stranger are the basis of my recovery. They are what gives my life meaning and purpose. The structure of the verses “Cease to do evil” comes before “learn to do good” is interesting to me. Many people think that they can just do good and that makes up for the evil, and these verses says that is not true. Many people think they can “look good” for doing something while subverting the rights of others. Being on the “right” side of causes doesn’t mean we do good. ’How things look’ has been a big deal in Judaism for a long time and it does not serve us. We see how in business and in our personal lives, we are putting on masks to look good and rotting inside. We are so enthralled with the optics that we are neglecting the real. We are burying people, especially young people, who have done a great job of making their actions ‘look good’ and then dying of overdoses. How are you letting go of optics and just doing good? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark