Daily Prophets
Day 196
“The diviners see lies, the dreamers tell false dreams and give empty consolations. Therefore my people stray like sheep, they suffer because there is no shepherd. I will restore them, for I have pardoned them, and it will be as if I had never let them go for I am Adonai their God and I answer them.”(Zechariah 10:2,6).
Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The diviner seeks to obtain God’s answer to man’s questions; the prophet seeks man’s answer to God’s question.”(The Prophets pg.459). Herein lies the difference in religious/spiritual attitudes and truth-seeking. Diviners and dreamers are asking God for answers and therefore have to give to us false hope and false messages. We see this time after time throughout history and yet we still fall for the false prophets, the dreamers of false dreams and the people who claim divine sight for their own power and prestige. When called a prophet, Rabbi Heschel declined such high praise and only hope he is worthy of being a descendant of the prophets, which of course he is and, I agree with calling him a prophet.
We are so quick to listen to the Ouija board, to the Tarot cards, to the palm readers, the mediums, etc because they are asking the Power Greater than ourselves questions for us. Yet, the same people refuse, in many instances, to acknowledge God and think religion is ‘opiate for the masses’ because they have a direct personal contact with the universe through their medium. The prophet is telling us that following this way of living, trying to shortcut our responsibility and our personal connection to God will always leave us wanting, lost, in exile and suffering. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that we have to give our responses/answers to God rather than ask for God’s answer to our questions. God has given us the answers through the Torah, the prophets, the writings, the wisdom each of us has within us and through our direct connection with our inner life, which is where God’s Image that we are created in resides. It is time for us to call our the liars, the charlatans, the people trying to make a quick buck and the people who want the shortcut/easy way to success and connection. It is time for us to bring everyone back to the prophets, to the Bible, to a spirituality that is rooted in them and God.
In the second verse above the prophet is giving us important information and ways to be, especially in this month of Elul as we prepare for the High Holidays. Every time we experience the call to return, to change our path is an experience of God restoring us to our proper place and proper path for us as individuals and to ensure that we know we belong to the people/community we are with. In being restored, we are both pardoned and cleaned. That God tells us we are pardoned and through this pardon(and our T’Shuvah which causes the pardon to happen) we are cleansed of all the residue of our negativity and, for God, it never happened. The Talmud speaks of this in the voice of Resh LaKeish, great is T’Shuvah because even purposeful sins are considered merits (from Yoma 86b). God doesn’t hold a grudge and is telling us to leave our guilt and shame in the past, once we have been forgiven! We no longer have to continue to beat ourselves up for our past errors, we no longer have to be berated because of past errors, we no longer have to live in fear of someone finding out about out past because we have been cleaned. In the Talmud, we are taught that we cannot remind a repentant person of their prior errors as this is a sin to God. This verse teaches us to not allow another to use our past to harm us, to stop us and to control us-God wants our return, God accepts our return, and God restores us because of our return. It is high time we surrender our guilt, shame, self-loathing to God and not allow another and/or ourselves to stop us from fulfilling God’s will and plan for us!
In recovery, we know that we have to have our own relationship with our Power Greater than Ourselves that I call God. I We can’t, as Rabbi Heschel says over and over again, engage in religious behaviorism nor spiritual plagiarism. Doing our inventory of how we missed and how we hit the mark this past year is freeing. Seeing the Amends/repairs we have yet to make spur us on to be both willing and committed to making these amends. Knowing that God forgives us and cleanses us propels us to restore the human dignity that we harmed/stole from another and, hopefully, bring them healing from the harms we wrought. In recovery, we know that we have to clean our side of the street no matter what and this brings us closer to God and to our authentic self.
My greatest errors were believing the false dreamers and diviners around me. Whether it was when I was younger or in the past 32+years. I realize I have sought people to fill the hole that was left inside of me when my own father died. I thought I had dealt with that and, upon looking back over the past 5 years, I realize I hadn’t. This seeking made me susceptible to the diviners and false prophets who I followed to my own demise-not necessarily theirs. I also know that I am cleansed by God and by the people who love me, know me and get me. I know that I no longer carry the shame and guilt of and for my past with me and these words by Zechariah strengthen my resolve to give God my answer of Hineni as God asks Where are you! I also know that my next chapter is in process of being written and leaving the past in the past, knowing I am cleansed by God will allow me to be more alert to what it is. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark