Daily Prophets
Day 192
The word of God came to me:…Take silver and gold and make crowns. Place one on the head of the High Priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and say to him,”Thus says God, behold a man called the sprout/branch shall sprout up/branch out from the place he is and he shall build the Temple. He shall sit on the throne and there shall also be a priest seated on the throne and they shall have peace between them… if only you will hearken to the voice of Adonai, your God.”(Zechariah 6:9,11,12,13,15).
The beginning of this chapter is a revelation in the manner of Ezekiel, with chariots, horses and other mystical experiences. They became so in tune with God and so identified with God that they imagined/experienced themselves in heaven with God. This was also an experience that the Early Hassidic Masters had, ie Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.
In the verses for today, we hear Zechariah tell us what is going to happen to both rebuild the Temple and to rebuild the leadership of Judah/Jerusalem. Joshua will be crowned High Priest and he is being told that someone will be the Branch/Sprout to take over the building of the Temple and sit on the throne of kingship. The prophet here is crowning/anointing the High Priest and then the new King. This new covenant, new earth that he talked about earlier is coming to pass in that there is a new High Priest and a new King-from the appropriate families, probably, just not the choice of the former High Priest nor the former King. Rather the choice is God’s choice, which is an important distinction. God wants a reboot of everything in the return from exile. If we go back to the same people and the same lineage, what will be different seems to be God’s question and God’s response is to change everything up.
The name of the man for the rebuilding is Zemach, which could be his name and/or it could be where he comes from. He is a branch of and he sprouts up from God and from God followers, unlike the previous regime who followed their own negativity and desires, not God’s. I love this description and it makes me realize we are all branches of and sprouts up from God and most of us forget this basic fact. This reminds me of the introduction to Path of the Just by Rabbi Moses Luzzato, to paraphrase, because we accept our being created by God as a basic fact, we become oblivious to the meaning of this fact and the carrying out of the obligations this basic fact puts on us. Being a branch of God means we have to/get to act Godly, as Rabbi Harold Shulweis, z”l, teaches us. We have to/get to exercise our higher nature, our natural tendency to assist another human being, to care for the stranger, the needy and the poor. This way of being then sprouts up and causes us to be our own unique branch of God in all of our affairs. We no longer can say “we didn’t know”, rather we will say:”oops, I made a mistake”. We will no longer take advantage of the vulnerabilities of another, rather we will help them live well. We will no longer engage in mendacity because truth will sprout up from us and branch out to everyone we encounter everywhere we are.
This branch is the only person who can build an edifice that God would dwell in. Since God dwells among us, as we learned in Exodus, and since we are branches and sprouts of God, only when we are tuned into and in harmony with another(s) can we build a sanctuary for ourselves so God is recognized as being among us. I am understanding the harmony between people is dependent on all of us hearing God’s voice. The political and the spiritual are not at odds with each other. Both know their lanes and both are serving God in their own ways. When we acknowledge that we do not know everything and another human beings wisdom sprouts up, we have to acknowledge they could know better in this area than I. It is this hearing of each other that leads to hearing God’s voice and it is the hearing of God voice that leads to hearing each other! We have to power to change our way of being, we have to power to be the branches and the sprouts of God’s love, compassion, justice, kindness and truth- will we use our power for God’s ends or our own selfish ones?
In recovery, we know that we are branches of God and we know that we have a spirit that is true and a guide for us. We are constantly searching our inner lives to clean out the schmutz/crap that keeps us from hearing God’s voice within us and what we have to do to nurture our particular branch of Godliness so it can sprout up from us. In recovery, we are acutely aware that our spirituality is not relegated to meetings or religious experiences, rather, our spirituality is to be lived ‘in all of our affairs’ in all of our days.
I am struck with a teaching: there are three crowns, the crown of royalty, priesthood and wealth, yet the crown of a good name exceeds them all. I am embarrassed at all the times I didn’t live the truth of being a branch of God and acting Godly. I am sorry to the people who I pushed away rather than brought near. I am also grateful to everyone who has understood me and for everyone who has helped me sprout my wings to be a better branch of God. I know that my hearing of God keeps improving and my harmony with the people I share life with keeps getting better. I am so grateful for and to Harriet and Heather and Miles as well as my extended family for helping this off-tune person get more tuned in each day. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark