Daily Prophets
Day 144
“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, you dwell in
the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not; for they are a rebellious house. For there shall be no more any vain vision nor flattering divination...(Ezekiel 12:1,2,24)
Again, Ezekiel is speaking as if Jerusalem still stands and we know his prophecy is in Babylon. I am realizing he is recounting the events in a new light to the exiles so they learn the lessons that God and the earlier prophets were teaching them, yet they refused to heed and heel to.
The opening message from God is one that Jeremiah spoke about, the other prophets alluded to and Moses warned us about. All throughout the millennia, this has been a constant refrain. “Can’t you see what is right in front of you” is a common question asked by parents, kids, bosses, employees, by all of us to another. Yet, we don’t always ask this question of ourselves. Ezekiel is being instructed by God to ask this question to the exiles in Babylon so they can affirm their faithfulness rather than their rebellion.
Rebellion against God, against decency, against kindness, etc happens, as I am understanding Ezekiel this morning, because of our own willful blindness and willful deafness. In rebellion, even good ones, we often fall prey to our zealousness and are so focused on rebelling/our goal that we don’t hear the whole story nor do we see the pain, fears and pitfalls in front of us. I am thinking of the Maccabees and how Hanukkah became the beginning of the end with the later generations reverting to Greek names and ways, while selling out to the Romans who eventually destroyed them.
We are unable to see what is in front of us because we are not willing to confront truth. Willful blindness is a state of being unwilling/afraid to confront reality head on. Rather, we see what we want to see, we see people for whom we want them to be, we see strengths as weaknesses, and weaknesses as strength. We are, as the Rambam writes in Shemoneh Prakim, we are suffering a spiritual sickness where bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter, everything is reversed. In this state, God sends Ezekiel to remind us of what the cost of this willful blindness is, death, destruction, exile, etc.
Learning from our errors, from the errors of our ancestors allows us to let go of our vanity and our need to flatter ourselves and another(s) to get what we want/think we deserve. It is the bane of our existence. As we can see from our own personal history as well as the history of our country, if we are willing to let go of our willful blindness, our vanity and flattery has caused great suffering, world wars, racism, anti-Semitism, hatred of everyone different that me, etc. We are experiencing the vanity of our former president and the need by so many, seeming aware people, to flatter him and buy into his lies and deception.
Vanity and flattery lead to mendacity, self-deception and the deception of another(s), as Rabbi Heschel teaches. We see this in the prophecies of Ezekiel and the other prophets. We see this in the opening two verses above: when we are engaged in vanity and flattery, we cannot see nor can we hear truth-we only see the lies, the deception and spread this mendacity till it ruins us internally and destroys all around us. We are faced with this curse over and over again in our lives and the life of the world.
In recovery, vanity, flattery, not hearing and not seeing are what we are recovering from! We spent much time in “having eyes and not seeing, having ears and not hearing” and it led to our ruin and destroyed so many relationships and possibilities that we had. We are acutely aware of our desire to see what we want and hear what we want so in recovery, we are doing inventory each day to check ourselves, we are checking in with another(s) to make sure our eyesight and hearing are good. We meet with people in humanship and to help them as well as ourselves. In recovery, we work hard to not buy into the flattery of another(s) and keep our vanity in check-otherwise we know we will return to spaces and places of destruction and rebellion.
I have always been a rebel, for many years I rebelled against God and everyone else. I have given into vanity and flattery, I have not heard and seen what is in front of me even in my recovery. Last week, I realized what the issue is/was: Indifference, my inability to defer to the wisdom of another(s) at times and to defer to the message God was sending me. This led me to give in to my vanity and buy the bullshit others were slinging. I understand it fed my lower self and I was willfully blind because of my lack of deference and reverence. It is a hard pill to swallow, yet it is necessary if I am going to grow and be more in concert with and act in partnership with God and another(s). I am also grateful for being the rebel I am so I can join the rebellion that Judaism has always been, that spirituality calls for, the rebellion towards God, towards community and aware from willful blindness and vanity. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark