Daily Prophets
Day 88
“Accept rebuke, Jerusalem, lest I come to loathe you. To whom shall I speak, give warning they will hear? Their ears are blocked and they cannot listen. They have acted shamefully; they have done abhorrent things yet they do not feel shame and they cannot be made to blush.”(Jeremiah 6:8,10,15).
The loathing of Jerusalem is almost complete, as I read verse 8 above. Yet, there is still time to repent, to accept the rebuke and change the paths they have been traveling. Here is a truth that the prophets know, teach to us and, most of us can’t believe. God, Jeremiah, the angels, no entity wants to loathe Jerusalem, no one wants to loathe their children, their family, their partners, yet the behaviors of these partners, family members, etc cause God, Jeremiah, you and me, to have to loathe them and shun them and exile them. I hear the pain of Jeremiah, God, every parent, friend, partner in the opening cry to Jerusalem to come back to home base.
What is Jeremiah’s concern? There is no one to speak to. There is no one who can hear the warning, hear the alarm because their “ears are blocked and they cannot listen”. We are the ones who block our ears, not God, not another, it is our choice to not listen, to block out anything that doesn’t fit with the way we want to see life/reality. We choose to fill our heads, hearts and ears up with the mendacity and self-deceptions that make us feel good and eschew reality, eschew truth, eschew the hand of God reaching out to help us return to the covenant, to the partnership, to the marriage, to the family.
We know that this to be true from the last verse quoted above, no matter what the people of Jerusalem do, they don’t feel the impact of their actions and they are incapable of being responsible for the harm, destruction, they bring to the world and to God. The connection to God, to ancestors, to family are the origins of our life experience, yet we are ready willing and able to cut ourselves off from these for our false ego, our self-deception and personal ‘gain’. All the time we are losing our authenticity, our connections and our soul.
Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The ultimate purpose of a prophet is not to be inspired, but to inspire the people, not to filled with a passion, but to impassion the people with understanding for God. Yet the ears of this people were closed:”(The Prophets pg.115). Jeremiah is working so hard to inspire us and to reignite our passion for God, and the people just won’t hear, they close their ears to anything and everything that doesn’t fit into their framework/picture of what reality is. I am reminded of Rabbi Heschel’s teaching about Radical Amazement, that our greatest problem is acceptance of the conventional notions and mental cliches that prevent us from learning. When we lead with reason, we will try and adapt reality to what our minds want it to be rather than seeing it for what it is and adapting ourselves to reality. The people of Jerusalem are doing the former, not the later. This behavior, however, is not limited to the people of antiquity, as Rabbi Heschel’s writings, speeches, demonstrations, and protests attest to. He reminds us that Jeremiah knew the futility of his mission, the people had evil thoughts as well as evil deeds, they had convinced themselves that what they were doing was actually good! Yet, he continued on in his mission, he left these words for us to “impassion us with understanding of God” and be the people who repent for our ancestors as well as ourselves and open our ears to hear his words, his thoughts and follow the path of return both he and God have laid out for us.
In recovery, we come to accept the rebuke of God and another(s) in the process of writing our personal inventories. We are able to see and hear God telling us what good and what not good we have done up to that point in our lives. When we first came into recovery, many of us heeded the wisdom to “take the cotton out of our ears” so we can listen and heed the wisdom of another(s) who has more experience in recovery. While before recovery, we could not accept any criticism, hear anything anyone was saying that didn’t agree with our view and had no clue what was abhorrent or shameful about our actions, today we welcome constructive criticism, listen with our souls and continue to take personal inventory to see what we have done well and what we haven’t done well each and every day. We know the damage done from hubris, closed mindedness, and haughtiness, we know the destruction of family, relationships and spirits we have caused by living in these ways. In recovery, we do our amends and have a plan to improve each day.
I know this path well, I am guilty at times still today. Yet, I do tshuvah a lot quicker than in the “bad old days”! I relate to Jeremiah in his anger and frustration. I know the moment of accepting rebuke changes my life and the lives of those around me. I know the love and commitment people who help me unblock my ears make to me. I know the joy of feeling the shame for my erroneous actions so I can change them. I know the joy of doing T’Shuvah and being accepted back into the fold of God, family, friends and community. I welcome the truth today in ways I could never have heard it 35 years ago. Jeremiah has filled me with passion for understanding of God and he has inspired me to grow each and every day. What actions are you still running from and what words do you still close your ears to? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark