Daily Prophets
Day104
“Do what is right and just…do not wrong the stranger, the orphan, and the widow;…do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place…But if you do not heed these commands, I swear by Myself, declares God, this palace becomes a ruin.”(Jeremiah 22:4,5).
God sends Jeremiah to speak to the King of Judah again, knowing the king wants to imprison/kill Jeremiah for speaking God’s words to him and the people. God, in God’s infinite mercy and love, wants to give everyone another opportunity to repent, to turn away from the paths they have chosen and return to God and each other.
How do they do this? Jeremiah is going back to basics with the people: “do what is right and just” is the beginning, and I believe end, of the way back. Doing what is right and just is different from just doing what is right and just doing what is just. Separately, as I am understanding Jeremiah here, it is more than possible to do one and not the other, the “letter” of the law and not the spirit of the law. Combining the two concepts leaves no room for error in understanding God’s desire for spirit and letter to compliment each other.
God always tells us the return is how we treat the least powerful people in our society, the stranger, the poor, the widow, etc. We cannot return to God, we cannot return to our own spiritual and moral essence without caring for the powerless and voiceless in our society. One cannot be a spiritual leader or giant without standing with these people, our people, God’s people. Yet, there are many today who dispute the words of Jeremiah, we will study their outlook tomorrow.
Do not shed the blood of the innocent is reminding us of the beginning of the verse, do what is right and just. Racism is shedding the blood of the innocent. Anti-semitism, Islamophobia, gender bias, etc is shedding the blood of the innocent. Taking advantage of another(s) just because you can is shedding the blood of the innocent
Rabbi Heschel teaches us: “Justice is scarce, injustice exceedingly common. The concern for justice is delegated to the judges, as if it were a matter for professionals or specialists. But to do justices what God demands of every man: it is the supreme commandment, and one cannot be fulfilled vicariously.”(The Prophets pg 204). Oy, these words of Rabbi Heschel send chills up and down my spine. We shed the blood of the innocent by holding others to standards we don’t live up to, incarcerating minorities at insane rates and saying a life sentence for a teen is constitutional and right, as our Supreme Court did. I am sure the people in that majority erred when they were adolescents and could not have withstood the strict justice for their errors that they are putting onto others, mostly minority teenagers. Yet we allow these “professionals” with their bias’ and their interpretations to trample the rights of the downtrodden (they found that corporations are the same as an individual soul) to determine our future and we go against God’s demand for each of us to do justly and rightly.
We see it in all types of ways, we turn things over to the ‘professionals’ that we used to deal with ourselves or with the assistance of our community, the elders, the clergy, to make peace, not win; to keep dignity and worth of each party intact, not crush our opponent; to find a compromise that spoke to the truth of the situation, not trying to save face.
In recovery, we follow God’s demand and we don’t send someone else to do our work. We never ask anyone else to make amends/tshuvot, for us, we go and speak to the person we have harmed face to face whenever possible. We don’t ask someone to do something they are not capable of. We do not take advantage of the stranger, rather we welcome him/her/they with open hearts, knowing this new person will enhance our space and lives. In recovery, we continue to grow in doing what is just and right, knowing we will never be perfect and celebrating both our ‘missing the mark’ and ‘hitting the bullseye’-making a mistake and getting it right. In recovery, we work each day to increase our integrity, bringing closer our inner life and our outer life, following God’s demand to do justly and rightly more and more each day, letting go of our need for optics and immersing ourselves in the messiness of living well and rightly each day.
In my life, I have been judgmental and used people for my own gain, in fact this was most of my life prior to my recovery. In my recovery, I have been bombarded by the demand of God to do justly and rightly and the reality of the politics of work, religion, boards, etc. I know that I have sought to do justly and rightly even when that meant saying no, sometimes loudly, brashly and harshly, to people I care(d) about. The internal war that has raged inside of me vis a vis: optics and just/right; has taken a toll and, at times incorrectly, led me to explode over the injustice of optics, the injustice of allowing me to be taken advantage of because I say ‘f*&$k’ or it is too much trouble to stand up with me (or me with you). When I haven’t stood up for and with you because of fear/optics-I apologize and when I have, I am grateful you allowed me to. Optics-Demand of God-which are you choosing today? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark