Day 173
“To whom was God’s arm revealed? He was despised and rejected…Surely he has carried our sicknesses and sorrows…But he was wounded because of our transgressions, he was bruised because of our iniquities; his sufferings were that we might have peace; and by his injury we are healed. He shall see the labor of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge did my servant justify the righteous One to the many, and did bear their iniquities.”(Isaiah 53:1,3,4,5,11).
Isaiah is telling the people, again, that God is coming to redeem them. He is reminding us of God’s arm and power to redeem. Exiles, poor, needy, downtrodden, enslaved,etc have no place/no entity to appeal to except God. Second Isaiah is telling the people that the hatred and rejection by those in power, who do not know God nor God’s power will end.
How often do we still hate and despise those who are trying to do the next right thing? We hate and despise individuals, and here a people (Israel), for reminding us of our duty to do the next right thing. We put upon the people the ills of society and project upon the individual all of the disowned parts of ourselves. We are always looking for a scapegoat and cause for our sufferings. Second Isaiah is telling the story of how society, including the people in charge in Judah and Israel, put the burden of their bad actions onto the people who were the most innocent and the ones who deserved it least. In the misguided belief that if they put their evils onto another person, they could be healed. They misguidedly believed they could have peace if they made someone else suffer for them.
We are still perpetrators and victims of this type of thinking and action. Our leaders, including religious ones I am sad to say, continue to blame another for their intolerance, their pettiness, their breaking faith with God, their evilness, their crimes, their imperfections. We are still suffering the sickness and the sorrow of this type of behavior and, more and more, people in power, people with money and fame are rejecting those of us who are trying to live with our imperfections and our pettiness and embarrassment at living lives that are not compatible with our being a partner with God. Second Isaiah is telling us that we are suffering for a reason, our suffering is going to bring about redemption and deliverance for us and, eventually, for all people. Our suffering is the cause of God, once again, showing God’s strength, love, forgiveness and justice by delivering us to our proper land, proper place and renewing our spirit and our lives. While it is hard for many people to accept this prophecy, it has come true over and over again. Every people has had a turn in the barrel of hatred, blame, racism, anti-semitism, etc in America and we have been redeemed. Today we are standing up to the hatred of ‘white America’ towards everyone who isn’t white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant/Evangelical. We are saying NO to this type of rejection and we are no longer bearing the sorrows and indignities that accompany their attempts to ‘keep us down’. Second Isaiah is telling us that Black Lives Matter, Asian Lives Matter, Jewish Lives Matter, Arab/Muslim Lives Matter, All Lives Matter and we will see the redemption by God because of our suffering for everyone.
Rabbi Heschel in his book The Prophets on pg. 189/190 teaches us:”As a rule we reflect on the problem of suffering in relation to him who suffers. The prophet’s message insists that suffering is not to be understood exclusively in terms of the sufferers own situation. In Israel’s agony, all nations are involved… In answer to the prophet’s fervent invocation, the Lord is about to bare His arm or His might before the eyes of all nations.” In pondering these words by Rabbi Heschel, I see the power of context and not getting stuck on self and trapped by our own suffering and self-pity. While not denying the fact of our suffering, we can’t stay stuck in just seeing our own suffering. We have to see our suffering as a message of the suffering of our society and the need to heal our own wounds. To do this, we do need the power and the help of God, because we got here by not following God’s will! We have the opportunity to direct our suffering to good use, to change the societies we live in, to bring justice and equality to all. Let’s get off the pity pot and into action to make our suffering a redemptive power for God and for good.
In recovery, we have been both the suffering and the ones causing the suffering. Prior to our recovery, we caused many people to suffer along with us. We were angry, afraid, lost and rejected and our self-harming actions caused people we love to worry and to be afraid, people we stole from to feel betrayed and mistrustful, etc. In recovery, we seek to heal old wounds through amends/tshuvah and to relieve the suffering of another through service, carrying a message of hope and acting in accordance with being partners with God to make our corner of the world a little better.
I have been on the pity pot myself and I am disgusted by this way of being. I am not using my suffering as a battering ram, rather I am using it to see new and better ways to live, to love and to redeem myself and another(s). This is the call of the prophet to me today and everyday, this is the call of God to me everyday. No more pity parties, just jump into action and accept my suffering as a good thing that helps me grow. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark