Daily Prophets
Day 40
“I will turn My Hand against you, and smelt our your dross as with lye, and remove all your slag: I will restore your judges as before and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.”(Isaiah 1:24-27)
Because of the criminal ways that Israel was living in and the greed, perversion of justice, and dismissing of the needs of the powerless in their midst, God knew that there needed to be a reckoning. While many people see this as vengeance and ‘mean’, I see it as love and the logical consequences of our actions. Israel and Judah acted from a place of entitlement and belief that they could do whatever they wanted and be okay.
Isaiah is telling the people that this thinking is wrong and foolish. He is reminding us that we have to constantly be on the lookout for the “dross and slag” that builds up in us and remove it, with God’s help, each and every day. I hear the prophet reminding us to do TShuvah, inventory and amends, each and every day. Only then can we be redeemed.
Redemption is done by justice and righteousness. Justice is something we have to face for our errors and righteousness is something we earn for our T’Shuvah. It is a beautiful combination of these two foundational concepts of living. Justice is not punitive, it is restorative. When we ‘get away’ with things, we get lulled into a false sense of security and a sense that we are not able to be forgiven. When we ‘face the music’ we are redeemed, restored through our repairing of the harm our wrongs caused and changing our ways of living to not go down these roads again. This process allows us to return to God, family, community, city, etc with a new vision of ourselves, one of being clean, decent and righteous.
Rabbi Heschel points out: “Israel has forsaken God, both God will not forsake Israel. He will not forsake them…There is no redemption without affliction.”(The Prophets pg.88). I am, as always, disturbed by Rabbi Heschel because he is absolutely correct. God is faithful to us always and we are unfaithful to God when the slag and dross build up and block our vision and turn our actions against God’s Will. Affliction is the only way that the dross and slag can leave us because they have become imbedded in our nature, like barnacles on a boat. They have to be pried off, one at a time and with great strength and scrapping. Not as punishment, but as restorative and redemptive done with and in love.
In our current political climate, many of our politicians are unable to do the work of T’Shuvah, inventory. They are so filled with “dross and slag” that they don’t even see how they are subverting the rights of those less powerful than they. They are screaming for “law and order” all the while committing the same crimes of Isaiah’s prophecies. They want us to believe what they say while they do the exact opposite of their words. They want us to believe that they care about us all the while lining their own pockets and the pockets of their rich, white friends and patrons. These ‘god-fearing’, idolators lie with ease and need to be afflicted so they can be purified of their slag and dross. Knowingly lying and selling people on the big lie because they promise more lies is what brought down the Jewish People of Antiquity, in my opinion, and we have to afflict these idolators who are in the Senate and House with our voices while they are in office and our ballots to get them out of office.
In recovery, the 10th Step comes to mind here for me. In recovery, we need to keep an eagle eye out for the small steps that will take us back to our old ways of behaviors. It is a very subtle process, the move backwards. For many people it is letting things slide: “I will do my inventory tomorrow”; “you made me do this”; “I don’t have to go to a meeting today”. These refrains are typical of what I have heard from people who relapse. This happens, I believe, because the slag and dross hasn’t left them, they haven’t allowed God to remove them for fear of being afflicted. The affliction of non-recovery, the affliction of the pain they cause others is not as fearful as the affliction of God in order to remove the slag and dross from them. I have seen it often and I have been there myself. “Continuing to take personal inventory…” is one of the best ways to stop the non-recovery behaviors before they can take hold inside of us. We then are redeemed and become the righteous people God created us to be.
I relate to this a lot! My arrogance is what caused problems for me and harms to others. “I continue to take personal inventory and promptly admit when I am wrong” each and every day. I do my T’Shuvah process and, those who don’t want to forgive me, I realize from this passage, still have their own slag and dross which prevents them from hearing my call, the call of others and God’s call. I can’t be mad or resentful because I know this place of slag and dross very well. I have felt the fire that is necessary to smelt out my dross many times and I am stronger, happier and redeemed again from it. What slag and dross are you still allowing to be imbedded in you that keeps you from being redeemed? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark