Daily Prophets
Day 65
“The Lord of Hosts decided it to humble the pride of all glory and to shame all the honored of the world. After a time of 70 years, God will take note of Tyre and she shall resume her trading… But her profits and trade shall be consecrated to God… rather shall her profits go to those who follow God…”(Isaiah 23:9, 18).
Isaiah is telling the people of Tarshish, Tyre, Sidon, etc; all of Mesopotamia that the end of their current way of living is coming to an end. He is giving the reason for this experience that is about to happen: False Pride. Isaiah’s words are reminders that all of us have help to achieve what we do and God is a partner in all that we build. The choice that the people of these countries, including Judah and Israel, is to use God’s power and energy to serve themselves and their cronies rather than all the people.
The False Pride is the belief that: ‘I created this and no one can take it away nor stop me’ and other such foolish thoughts. Isaiah is telling us and warning the cities that God has decided to “humble the pride and shame all the honored” in order to get the people’s attention and to ensure that the people get back to being right-sized.
In this chapter, Isaiah calls Tyre a harlot and their whoredom is what leads to their destruction. She is described as “crown-wearing”, her “merchants were noble” etc, and yet, the city and the people got so full of themselves that they could not hear Isaiah and the words of God nor think that they had to change anything, that they were indestructible! How sad and foolish, yet many of us still think the same way even today.
The good news is that after her destruction, Tyre will come back as a trade center, as a city and as a place for people to gather and consecrate themselves to God. No longer will Tyre be a city that is only concerned with itself, no longer will the rich and powerful take advantage of the poor and needy, no longer will selfishness, harshness, idolatry rule the land; people of faith will be in charge.
Rabbi Heschel says: “The root of all evil is, according to Isaiah, man’s false sense of sovereignty and, stemming from it, man’s pride, arrogant and presumption.”(The Prophets, pg. 165). Yet, we haven’t listened to nor heeded either Isaiah’s words nor Rabbi Heschel’s words. Rabbi Heschel also said: “Such presumption will not last forever.”(ibid). We see this in the destruction of the countries in antiquity and we see this in the destruction of countries today. Yet, we still continue to act in prideful, arrogant and presumptuous ways.
Speaking of pride, arrogance and presumptive, how about Congressman Roy from Texas speaking about a rope and a tall oak tree in a Congressional Hearing about Anti-Asian hate crimes! How about the Republicans saying they will obstruct any and all bills that the Democrats propose? How about people still believing the lies that the people who spoke them in the Trump administration knew were lies and told them anyway. How about the ways some people are so in love with and drunk with their sense of themselves that, like Tyre, Tarshish, Sidon, etc, they believe that they can do anything they want with impunity! They certainly haven’t read the same Bible the rest of us do and they certainly don’t immerse themselves in the text as Rabbi Heschel teaches us to do. As Pete Seeger wrote in 1955: “When will they ever learn?”.
In recovery, our false pride, arrogance and haughtiness have been broken. Unlike in earlier times, when we made false amends and false attempts to look broken, in recovery, we are aware of the danger of pride, arrogance, etc being out of proper measure and we becoming wrong-sized instead of right-sized. We still can be proud of our accomplishments and we can have a sense of arrogance that motivates us beyond our negative thinking and the put-downs of another(s), they just stay right-sized, most of the time anyway. In recovery, we are so aware of our need to serve God, to consecrate our lives to God. We live the first three steps each and every day-We are powerless, we believe in God and we turn our lives over to the care of God. In this way, we avoid the continued haughtiness of the people that Isaiah is speaking of and the haughtiness of our past, we stay in God’s space and serve God and God’s creations. These ways of being are a hallmark of recovery.
In my life, arrogance and pride have been right-sized and out of proper measure. I have been presumptive and sometimes that has served God and other times it was only serving me. This is the great challenge for me, when do these traits serve God and when are they just serving me, selfishly and indulgently. I know that when I have gotten out of proper measure, God has brought me low and I have learned a hard lesson, usually not for the first time. This is, of course, the power of T’Shuvah-we can and must keep coming back. Being humbled by God is joyous and painful, enlightening and dark, caring and humbling, a true Both/And. I know the promise of return is real and I am participating in it today and everyday. Are you right-sized in all your affairs and serving God instead of self today? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark