Daily Prophets
Day 189
“The angel of God said to the Accuser; “God rebukes you, Accuser/Satan; and the rebuke is in God choosing Jerusalem (again), it is a brand plucked from the fire. He said to him (Joshua), See! I have removed guilt from you…Thus said the Lord of Hosts if you walk in My paths and guard My paths and also be just in My house…I will allow you to be the High Priest. I will remove that country’s guilt in a single day. In that day, declares God, you will be inviting one another to the shade of vines and fig trees.”(Zechariah 3:2,4,6,9,10)
Zechariah is reminding us of God’s love and God’s eternal forgiveness. In the first verse above, God is rebuking Satan/Accuser for his readiness to deceive the court with facts that are spun in a certain manner to tell only part of the story. For the Accuser/Satan, winning is all that matters and whatever is necessary to win is what Satan is willing to do. Satan/accuser has always been at the ready to condemn the Jews, the poor, the downtrodden, the needy so she/he can have the power to rule and control. Where is the Satan/accuser in us? Are we allowing that part of us to rule our actions and our ways of being? Are we seeking power for power’s sake and twisting the facts and the truth into lies in order to accuse another person and gain both their power and power over them?
“A brand plucked from the fire” describes both Joshua the High and the People Israel. Brand here means: a charred piece of wood/a remnant of the fire. Joshua and a remnant of the Jews were saved from death through exile, the city was set on fire/destroyed as was all of Judah. He and his fellow Jews in exile were saved, they know the power of fire and they know the power of God’s saving Grace. We all can trace our history to being this “brand”, all of us in this country are immigrants, children of immigrants, descendants of immigrants, so all of us were “plucked from the fire” of persecution, poverty, injustice, mendacity, etc and saved by the love of our ancestors and the love of God. God is rebuking the Accusers, the Satans, who want to finish the job, who want to follow through on the eradicating of the Jews, Muslims, poor, needy, immigrants, anyone who isn’t ‘them’. Yet, we are all still engaging in being the Accuser in order to make ourselves feel right, vindicated and powerful. How very, very sad.
God speaks to Joshua and lets him know that his guilt does not last forever! God’s mercy and kindness, love and attachment overpower God’s anger and hurt. God doesn’t need our continuous guilt, God wants our continuous connection. We have to accept God’s forgiveness, the forgiveness of another(s) and then forgive ourselves. We do this through walking in God’s path, keeping God’s ways and living a life based on truth, justice, compassion, kindness and love. Joshua is promised to be restored to his position as High Priest as long as he lives these principles and not just talks about them. The ritual aspects of the job don’t seem as important to God as the actual living the ways the rituals are supposed to help us to do. This is such an important concept in today’s ‘political correct/incorrect’ world. We have charlatans of faith denying the need for health care, care for the poor and the needy and we have charlatans of progressive denying their own racism and hatred towards anyone who isn’t them! We are in a state where Satan/Accuser is ruling and giving power to either polarity. Zechariah’s words come to us in the ‘nick of time’ I hope.
I call upon all of us to walk in God’s ways, follow God’s path and do God’s justice in our daily lives. I call on all of us to rebuke the Satan/Accuser in us and around us. My grandfather, z”l, never said a bad word about another human being and would not let us shit talk or trash someone else’s name. He said, we are not walking in their shoes, we don’t know what happened to them and they have the power to trash or build up their/our own name-it is not our right to do this to them. I think of these words and marvel at God’s vision and the vision of the prophet:”I will remove the country’s guilt in one day.” We are clean in the day we stop being Satan/Accuser. We are clean in the day we invite one another to sit together and give each other shade, rest and food. We are clean in the day we see our similarities and allow our differences to lift each other up and help one another.
In recovery, we are learning to love ourselves, to stop beating ourselves us mentally and physically as well as spiritually. We are so aware that we are also a “brand plucked from the fire” and we have the internal and some of us the external scars to remind us. In recovery, we look for and see the similarities and the worth of every human being and we no longer stand as the Satan/Accuser towards ourselves and another(s).
I think of my grandfather’s words and I am guilty of not following them. As I age, I get better and I think of how I trashed his name, my father’s name and my family name prior to my recovery. There is an interesting difference between Satan and the Prophet, I realize. The prophet accuses in order for us to recognize our errors and return, Satan accuses in order to win and subjugate/kill their adversary. I have been like a prophet much more than Satan in my recovery and for the times I have been Satan, I have done and continue to do T’Shuvah. I pray we all hear the prophet in us and around us and cease to be Satan in our own lives and in the lives of another(s). Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark