Daily Prophets
Day 194
“Thus says God:”I have returned to Zion and I will dwell in Jerusalem…I will rescue My people from the east and the west and I will bring them home…They shall be My people and I will be their God in truth and in righteousness. These are the things you are to do: speak truth to one another, do justice and wholeness in your gates. Do not plot evil against one another and do not love lying/mendacity for these are the things I hate. …the fasts of the 4, 5,7,& 10th month shall become occasions for joy and gladness…but you must love honesty and integrity.”(Zechariah8:3,7,8,16,19).
Many years ago, my friend, teacher and Rabbi, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, and I were studying together and he began to talk about the ways Christians speak about the “Good News Bible”. I said, “Ed, our Torah is a Good News Torah”. For months, every Friday Night at Shabbat Services I would speak about the Good News Torah-until some congregants/Board Members believed it sounded “too christian”.
Zechariah is delivering such good news to us and to the people in exile in today’s reading. God has returned to Zion and God is going to dwell in Jerusalem!! This is big news for the people who felt abandoned by God, the people who turned their backs on God in previous years and for generations, no matter what the Prophets told them, they were stiff-necked and stubborn in their refusal to live decent and truthful lives. These are the people who felt abandoned, yet now their descendants can rejoice in this Good News! Not only is God returning, God is bringing the people back to their ancestral homes and restoring them to their inheritance. God took us back then and takes us back now in truth and in righteousness. We have to be willing to return this attitude. Writing this opens me up to a truth that Gratitude is righteousness in action. In fact, the only way to repay a kindness is by living in truth and righteousness as I understand the prophet in this 3rd verse above.
We get to be redeemed and we have to pay a price, not the price of enslavement to God, rather the price of truth and righteous behavior to God and to all of God’s creations. We have to tend the earth, care for the climate, care for the animals and plants that are being extinguished by our greed and neglect. Care for the stranger, the poor and the needy through Tzedakah, righteous giving and living the truth of our good fortune, knowing I can’t keep it if I don’t give some of it away. It is God who gave me the wisdom, the strength, the insight to be able to support myself and I must help another to attain this basic human need.
There, of course, is more to the cost of redemption. We have to change our ways of being! We have to leave our mendacious ways, we have to engage in truth talk each and every day. We have to speak truth to one another, which is the same as being kind to one another; Harriet and I learned from Dr. Stephen Marmer in 1990 at a conference chaired by Elaine Breslow, z”l, that kindness is speaking truth to another human being. How difficult this seems to be for most people today-speak truth without subterfuge, without hiding, without misconstruing another’s actions, without worrying about optics, etc. just speak the unvarnished truth. How refreshing a world we would live in. AND then, God is charging us to live justly and not render false verdicts nor love false witnesses. Oy, God also wants us to stop plotting revenge against one another, stop plotting how to use the vulnerabilities of another person against them, stop plotting how to use another human being to meet one’s selfish ends!! It is too high a price to pay, some of our elected officials say; I am not God, says some of our Church/Temple/Mosque leadership; Are you serious complains the people on the “right” side of any issue. All of these foolish people who are unwilling to follow God’s words, commands, wishes thinking they will outrun God’s truth.
In recovery, we are so grateful to be redeemed that truth, kindness, justice are reliefs and gifts that we get to use. We have loved lying, plotted to and done much evil against our fellow humans and our relationship with God and all other human beings has to be rooted in truth and righteousness. In recovery, we get to rejoice in our return, we get to be grateful for our redemption and we get to spread the GOOD NEWS of recovery to everyone we meet. How Blessed are we?!
We are still in exile today- I know this from the last verse above. For 30+ years, I led services at Beit T’Shuvah on Yom Kippur believing it was a day like a wedding because we are doing T’Shuvah each day/week. I see the prophet validates my belief even when the “leaders” of my congregation, my fellow clergy, and so many others laughed at me and thought me the fool. I realize that while I may be exiled from a community, I am not exiled from God as long as I love truth and integrity. People today do not rejoice on their fast days, people today do not love truth, integrity, kindness and true justice, they want to continue to plot evil against their fellow human beings for their own gain. I have seen this in my work and I see this in the world. I am grateful for being redeemed and I realize how I abandon God when I feel rejected by people I trust. I realize that my T’Shuvah to God this year is to remember God doesn’t move nor does God ever stop loving me. We get to remember this through our spiritual work during Elul, the month before Yom Kippur, and during our entire year/life. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark