Daily Prophets
Day 72
“My God says: because this people has approached with it’s mouth and honored Me with its lips, but has kept its heart far from Me and its worship of Me has been a commandment of me, learned by rote. Therefore I will add to their bafflement, the wisdom of their wise shall fail and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid.”(Isaiah 29:13,14).
These words of Isaiah go to the heart of every human being’s choice. Will I give lip service to God or will I give God my heart and my presence? Isaiah is calling the people out for giving just lip service and not, as Rambam teaches, making sure that “what is on your lips is in your heart”. The people believe that they can get away with lip service to God and they find out, albeit the hard way, that their actions do not help them.
When we do things by rote, we are practicing idol worship as I understand Isaiah today. God calls for us to “walk in God’s paths”, “serve God with our whole heart”, not just go through the motions. There are many Rabbis who do this, there are many leaders of other faiths who do this, there are many of us celebrating Passover last night and tonight who are doing this, and Isaiah is telling us that this will lead to our ruin.
The result of our lip service will not be that we are smarter or more understanding, on the contrary, we will be less wise and less understanding. We will continue to think that we know how to “get over” and “win” all while we are losing everything. Moses asks Pharaoh: Ad Matai, until when will you listen to God? I hear the echo of this question in these words of Isaiah. I ask you to speak at your Seders tonight, until when will you surrender to God, stop giving lip service to justice, kindness, etc, and put your whole heart into the action of service God by being just, being kind, being loving…?
Rabbi Heschel teaches us that verse 29:13 is about the prophets cry to the people to stop just saying things and remember that God is calling out “the fault is in their hearts, not alone in their deeds.”(The Prophets pg. 208). What a statement Isaiah is making and Rabbi Heschel is teaching. Stop putting on a face, stop trying to “look good”, without God’s words and demands going into our hearts, there is no way we can fulfill them. How many times have any of us ‘phoned it in’ and not cared? Rabbi Heschel reminds us “Human wisdom and understanding have failed to save man form pride, presumption and arrogance” when speaking about verse 29:14 above. So, I ask us all, why are we still engaging in this folly?
Our political leaders across the country are working hard to suppress voter turnout, take choice out of the realm of women in re: abortion and make the man in charge, stop any outward signs of decency and kindness on election day; all in the name of democracy and following God’s words! These fine, upstanding God-fearing men and women are exactly who Isaiah’s words are aimed at. They are aimed at all of our leaders who think they can phone in lies and conceal the truth and their gains from these actions to remind them and us that this path just leads to ruin, to destruction and to the end of the great experiment called America. We, the People, have to call out their lies, hold people responsible for their actions and take back our government so it is “of the people, by the people and for the people” once more.
In recovery, we know that faith without works is dead! The very essence of recovery is to be present and stop with the lies and deceits we used to engage in. In the Bible, we are told the Israelites said: “Na’aseh V’Nishmah” “we will do and then we will understand”, aka ‘fake it till you make it’ ‘act as if’. We know that we “came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” so we have to take the actions that can make the belief possible. The stories of AA, The Hebrew Bible, The Koran, The New Testament, etc all speak of our need to immerse ourselves in God’s World and no longer be ‘stuck on me’ as one AA speaker said and remember that the interests of others have to be our concern. In recovery, we are constantly turning our “will and lives” over to God . The second and third steps of the 12-Step program are the results of learning the verses of Isaiah for us in recovery.
I used to think that I could “get over” on anyone and everyone. I found out that this wasn’t true long before I began my journey of T’Shuvah/recovery, yet I kept trying. I could not believe that I couldn’t talk my way out of things, even going so far to think that upon arrival at State Prison in 1984, the system would realize they made a mistake and set me free! Today, I know that I can’t talk my way out of anything, I can only take the actions that God has shown me and my heart/soul instruct me to. Yes, there are times when I act out inappropriately, yet, I don’t act from bullshit and trying to look good. I let go of trying to be slick and am staying with being real, even when it doesn’t get me what I want because others are being slick and saving face instead of doing the real that God is calling for. How are you still giving lip service to God, when are you doing the real that God calls for? Stay safe, Hag Sameach, and God Bless, Rabbi Mark