Daily Prophets
Day 176
“Thus says God: Guard justice and do righteousness; because My salvation is coming near and My righteousness will be revealed. Happy is the person who does this, the person who holds fast to it…and guards their hand from doing evil. And the foreigners who attach themselves God…for My House shall be called a house of prayer for all people.(Isaiah 56:1,2,6,7).
Can you imagine these words were spoken 2600+ years ago? God is calling to the people to “guard justice and do righteousness” then as God is calling to us now. The word tzedakah is commonly translated as justice, yet its meaning is righteousness. Even charity in Hebrew is established as being righteous. Righteousness here and in other places where it is mistranslated as justice is used, I believe, to go beyond the letter of the law, to go beyond what is just and to be engaged intimately in the action of justice and righteousness. Many people have stolen, killed, won races by following the letter of the law and not the spirit of it. Case in point is Billionaires who pay very little in taxes while the burden falls onto everyone else. I am not for socialism, I am for fairness and letter of the law is inherently unfair because most people don’t know the loopholes nor do they have time/energy/education to seek them out. Righteousness is an action that goes deep into the Mitzvah, deep into the law and the place/action where our actions meet God in the doing of righteousness. It is a place of no false ego, no boasting nor looking good, it is a place of humility, love, truth, kindness.
God is telling us our time in exile is almost over and we will return to our proper places. It is interesting to me that return is the major theme throughout our texts, we are returning to the land God swore to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, we are returning from exile, God and the prophets keep calling for us to return, we are to see ourselves as if we are part of the people leaving Egypt to return to the Promised Land, we are told to do T’shuvah (return) each day and, as we approach the month of Elul, we are to do our yearly inventory, ask for forgiveness so we can return to community and God fresh and new in the new year. This is a piece of the righteousness of God that gets revealed when we live a life of justice and righteousness. We are called out to, begged to, return; God wants us to come home to God, to reconnect with our authentic self and God, to walk in God’s ways and return to our purpose to make God’s world a little better than when we found it. This, I believe is the righteousness that God reveals to us and we need to get out of self-centered, false ego-driven urges to see it and to live “Happy”.
Without “holding fast” to justice and righteousness, we automatically move our “hand to do evil”. We cannot help but to do this because we have cut ourselves off from the path of God, justice and righteousness. As the Rabbis teach, we have to see the scales balanced between good and evil and our next action will tip the scale one way or the other; there is no middle ground here.
In the last verses above is God’s “oath” as Rabbi Heschel calls it. “The Father of all men is committed to all men. Second Isaiah not only conveys the Lord’s invitation and commitment to every man on earth…”(The Prophets pg 154). Such is the greatness of God, of spirit, of humanity to me. God swears an oath to the people who attach themselves to God whether an Israelite or not. Just as MalkiTzedek, Bilaam, Jethro were all connected to God and not Israelites so too will all people be able to avail themselves to God through their own paths of righteousness and justice. Holding fast to the covenant of Noah brings them God’s salvation and kindness. Israel is here to be the “light unto the nations” not the sole arbiter of how to serve God. It is sad that some other faiths/paths think that there is only one way to serve God, one understanding of the Ineffable’s message, and use this to perpetrate evil acts onto anyone who they disagree with; even to the point of watching people die from their promotion of lies, deceptions and false faith.
In recovery, we are the recipients of God’s saving Grace. We know that our recovery is dependent on how we grow more and deeper into living a just and righteous life. We are not fooled by our own self-deceptions of trying to ‘look good while doing bad’. We are committed to “holding fast” to the covenant we have made with ourselves, God, etc. We know that we have been saved, we have experienced the salvation of a life we believed could never be redeemed and we stand here today as examples of God’s love, the power of return, the power of transformation and the power of righteousness and justice together.
I have been redeemed more than once. God continues to save me and help me stay on God’s path for me. I realize my travails are always God’s way of getting my attention, not as punishments but as awareness’ and realignments. I am committed to justice and righteousness for another(s), I always have been and for my entire recovery I have lived it to the best of my ability and, when I realize I haven’t, I promptly admit it and repair it. I know that I belong in God’s world and I know I have earned the joy I experience. This is the power of righteousness, justice and salvation. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark