Daily Prophets
Day 133
“Depart from there, My people, save your lives, each of you from the anger of God. Yes, Babylon is got fall for the slain of Israel as the slain of all the earth have fallen through Babylon. Thus says God: Babylon’s broad wall shall be knocked down and her high gates set afire…Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you get to Babylon, see the you read out all these words.”(Jeremiah 51:45,49,58,61).
In the first verse above, I am overcome with emotion regarding God’s love for all of us, even when we screw up so bad that we need to be exiled. While many people are afraid of anger and think it is evil, out of control, etc, they fail to realize that it is our actions that trigger the “anger of God”. Righteous Indignation on the part of the prophets and God is not the same as ego hurt that turns into anger nor is it the same as the desire to deceive people by tapping into their hurts, turning these hurts to anger and using the people to further your self-serving cause. Righteous Indignation is a necessary attribute of both God and humanity. This seeing the evil being perpetrated, the indifference to it by the people has to raise God’s temperature, and should raise ours, because it goes against God’s nature and God’s teaching.
While we don’t engage in anthropomorphism, we have to describe God and events in words that we humans can understand. God’s Righteous Indignation is the result of humanity’s refusal to return to a life of decency and righteousness. The prophet Jeremiah, along with his colleagues, exhorted the people to return numerous times, alas to no avail. The biggest difference between how God’s anger is portrayed/thought of by many people and the truth of God’s anger is: people wanted to write Judaism off as having an Angry God and Christianity as having a loving God; Buddhism and other eastern religions speak of detachment, etc and having an accepting disposition towards all things that happen. While this works for a great number of people, Judaism’s use of “God’s Anger” is as a purifying agent. God doesn’t want to have to purify us after we have been born holy and pure. God also doesn’t want us to walk around feeling like we can never return to God and a life of service, holiness and goodness.
So God put T’Shuvah into the world and, through God’s words to Cain and Moses, through the words of the prophets to the generations of people, called on the people to engage in T’Shuvah and they refused. Why would someone refuse God, refute God, abuse the gifts that God gives us? It has to be because of a soul sickness that and after generations of passing this sickness down and generations of building up the ego and the mental belief that God is not needed, we follow the rituals as a kind of lip-service to older generations rather than experience the relevancy of them in our daily living. The priests, the Rabbis, the clergy of all kinds, the royalty, the wealthy all conspire to use God’s Righteous Indignation as a weapon against a population they want to control; “God will punish you for this” “You will go to Hell for this action”, the preaching of hellfire and damnation have no role in explaining God’s Righteous Indignation.
We are afraid of this Righteous Indignation because we are afraid to see the errors of our ways, the paths we have followed that are in direct conflict with the paths of God. We are afraid to do T’Shuvah because we see admitting our imperfections as weaknesses and not strengths. We use the imperfections, the strengths and vulnerabilities of another(s) against them. We do this so we don’t have to look too closely at ourselves, we don’t have to suffer the pain of our own purification and we don’t have to stop living in mendacity. God’s Righteous Indignation is with Judah, Israel, and all the other nations who defy the humanity of another(s) and treat humans as objects for their use.
In recovery, we are able to purify ourselves with the help of God, another human being and community. We engage in T’Shuvah and we become more afraid of hiding than of being vulnerable. We are able to experience the hope that Jeremiah’s words, when spoken by Seraiah, give to the people in exile. In recovery, we are grateful for the Righteous Indignation of God that brought us to our knees and made us see the truth of our living and the path to change and the path to love, gratitude and community.
I have engaged in anger for my ego’s sake at times and, mostly, my anger that is so condemned is the righteous anger at injustice, immorality, covenant-breaking, engaging in behaviors that could bring death to the person and/or people around the person, a malaise to and for God’s path of living well. Because of the ferocity of my indignation and the “accepted” way I, as a Rabbi, am supposed to act and be in loving acceptance of evil things, I am vilified, categorized, crucified and convicted of being a liability. I accept in this “politically correct” atmosphere this is true. God would not be allowed to have Righteous Indignation in today’s world! Again, not all of my anger is holy and pure-I know this and admit to my errors. I am deeply sorrowful that the anger that is righteous indignation is so easily tossed aside. We believe the anger of ego if it comes in a nice package and/or from someone “like us” and reject it otherwise. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark