Daily Prophets
Day 155
“I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you to your land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean… I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will cause you to follow My laws and guard and do my social ordinances…you shall be My people and I will be your God.”(Ezekiel 36:26-28).
Ezekiel is once again giving hope to the people. He is not saying you deserve this, Israel, he is saying that God’s compassion and mercy, God’s forgiveness and desire for our return is beyond measure. He is also reminding us that we need God’s help to return to being human.
In the first verse above, we are being reminded that we have been exiled. We are reminded, without being beaten over the head, of our errors, our transgressions that caused our exile. We are being asked to remember how we got to this situation. At the same time, we are being told that we can and will return home. What a gift, what a show of grace, compassion and kindness by God. Earlier in this chapter, Ezekiel hints that we haven’t been so loyal to God in our exile and God wants us to return to our proper place.
As I am writing this, I realize that so many of us are out of our proper places, some because we exiled ourselves, some because we never looked for where we belong, and some because we were exiled by another(s) for their own gain. Slavery is an example of being exiled for another(s) gain as is restricting voting rights and democratic norms, as well as power for the sake of self aggrandizement. Addiction is an example of exiling ourselves and failure to launch and trying to usurp another are examples of never looking for where we truly belong and living a false life.
What is God’s response to and for us? To take us to the Mikvah, the ritual bath where we can use water to cleanse ourselves, to leave the old me behind and to look forward with the “new heart and new spirit” that God gives us. Going to the Mikvah, as I am reading Ezekiel today, is a path for letting go of our heart of stone. It wasn’t how we were born, we were born with a clean heart and a heart of flesh, yet we turned it to stone through both our actions and inactions. When we act in cruel ways towards another human being, we are changing our hearts from flesh to stone. When we don’t act to take stock of our actions and beingness, we are changing our hearts from flesh to stone. When we continue to defend our bad actions, when we stop being loyal to God and God’s ways, we are changing our hearts to stone from flesh.
After we, each of us, allow the waters of the Mikvah to cleanse us, receive with gratitude, joy and responsibility, the heart of flesh that God gives us again, then we honor this gift of return to our place, to our being, to our spirit by following in God’s paths. We see people all the time who say one thing and do another, they make a commitment and pledge until something better comes along, they are constantly seeking to look good, be on the “right” side of issues and life while they act in direct opposition to the words, ways and paths of God. Yet, they wrap themselves in the clothes of the “righteous” ones. Immersing ourselves in the Mikvah is a statement that we are going to immerse ourselves in God’s ways, in the lessons of the Bible and in the words of the Prophets. Keyn Y’hi Ratzon, may it happen now.
In recovery, we don’t just talk a good game while we act in UnGodly ways, we don’t give our word only to take it back when “something better comes along”, we honor our gift of recovery by caring for another(s), self and God. We have been cleansed by God, hence the second step of AA, “Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.” In a meeting last week, someone commented on the “Came to” as waking up from a drunken stupor and/or a deep unawareness of what is sanity/reality. The words of Ezekiel above, are keys to our recovery. It is a new heart, it is a new spirit that replaces not just the heart of stone, it unlocks and revives the soul, the decency and the hope that God placed in us when we were born. We truly recover our connection to the Creative Force of the Universe, the Ineffable One, when we “come to”.
I let go of my heart of stone while in prison in 1987 and continually work to improve my spiritual condition daily. While I don’t always succeed, I do know that I am better today than I was 34 years ago. I also know that I found my place, as a healer, a rabbi, a guide, a father, a son, a brother, and a husband. I know that I am who I am and I will never be a ‘mainstream’ guy because I don’t buy into the ‘party line’. I constantly know that I need to have myself cleansed by God and by my T’Shuvah. I know that when I see people who I described above and they are unable to do a T’Shuvah and must blame me, or another(s), I get enraged and I understand the passion of the prophet who is accused of being angry instead of being understood as a righteously indignant human being because of being a witness to these ways. It is time for us to be accountable and to hold another(s) accountable. Let’s accept the new heart and new spirit God is giving us and use them well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark