Daily Prophets
Day 138
“But she rebelled against My social ordinances and My statutes…she rejected my social ordinances and did not walk in my statutes. ..Because you defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things and your abominations, I will withdraw from you showing you no pity nor compassion. …I will scatter one-third in every direction…”(Ezekiel 5:6,11,12).
What I am hearing from him, today, is not anger, though the text is clear that God is angry. Rather, I am hearing God’s deep disappointment and sadness, God’s pathos and desire to connect, God’s bewilderedness at the ignorance, stupidity and callousness of humankind.
In the first verse above, God is lamenting more than railing against the Jews for rejecting a way of living together in peace and harmony. The Social Ordinances are the glue that keep the people together, keep them working together and able to settle differences without losing connection. It sounds angry to most of us because we cannot hear the difference between anger and pain-it is a subtle nuanced difference in many cases. Yet here, Ezekiel is portraying the deep pain of God and himself at not being able to bring the Jews of Jerusalem together to follow the path of God that will help them live well.
I hear the call of Ezekiel and the Call of God to return to the path, stop rejecting and rebelling and begin again to embrace and follow God’s path, God’s teachings and God’s design. The blueprint for living well is given to us through God’s Torah, God’s teachings, and each of us has to discern the teachings through our soul’s lens, not through our minds-trying to rationalize God’s teachings only led and leads us to rejection and rebellion. My path is different from yours by design, religious behaviorism and spiritual plagiarism is anathema to God’s Will and God’s Teaching. We get to immerse ourselves in text, find the way to live it in our unique way and join with our community to lift up our collective life to serve God, not the idols we make.
Rebellion and rejection lead to defiling God’s Sanctuary, we are taught. When we take stock of our ways, we can realize the ways we have defiled God’s Sanctuary, the Earth, till now. Yet, we have “religious people” denying Climate Change and Pandemic and the solutions to these grave threats! Why? Because they are still rejecting God’s social ordinances and statutes. They are still rejecting “E Pluribus Unum”, out of many-One. They reject the Shema Prayer, that we are all part of the Oneness of God when we hear, listen, understand and wrestle with our selfish desires and the lies we tell ourselves.
The people of Judah engaged in these practices 2600 years ago, and we are still doing these detestable things today. We are still calling another human being an abomination in order to not face the abominable things we ourselves do. We work so hard to hate another human being, we work so hard to dominate another human being, we work so hard to obstruct goodness and kindness, not because we disagree with it rather just to exert our power. Yet, we call ourselves “religious people” who are doing God’s Will. I call it Bullshit and it is time for all of us to stand up against this defiling of God’s Name and God’s social ordinances and statutes.
I hear Ezekiel warning us that destruction is coming, God’s enabling is over, God will show no mercy nor pity. Yet, in the next breath we are told that one-third of the people will survive, so God’s mercy doesn’t end ever. We are the descendants of that one-third, we are the inheritors of God’s teachings and God’s Will, we are the recipients of the gift of freedom because our ancestors made a choice to come to America to give us what they lacked in their home country. Yet we are continuing to act like the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. We, the survivors have to live in the shadow of the remnant that survived and the light of the God’s mercy and compassion.
In recovery, this is the theme of our lives, living in gratitude and honoring the saving power and grace of God. We continually make living amends for our past abominations, rebellions and rejections. We are dedicated to following God’s Will, living together with another(s) in harmony and peace, not needing to control and/or exert power and be the welcoming light for the people behind us that are seeking what we have found. We share our joy, our path gratefully and joyously. In recovery, we honor the path of those who went before us by living happy joyous and free.
I also know how I have followed the ways of the people of Judah and defiled, etc my world and the world of people around me. I also am proud of the path I took 32+ years ago and see how I fall back into rebellion and how I rebel against those who seek power and reject God’s Path, through their “talking the talk and not walking the walk”. While not perfect, I am grateful that I have honored my inheritance of surviving and thriving by staying with God and not giving into mendacity and self-deception. How are you honoring the inheritance of God’s Teachings and God’s Path? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark