Daily Prophets
Day 203
“The remnant of the Jacob shall be, in the midst of the many peoples, like dew from God, like droplets on the grass-which do not look to any man nor place their hope in mortals. I will destroy the sorcery you practice…destroy your idols, and no more shall you bow down to the work of your hands. In anger and wrath will I execute judgement on the nations which do not hear/obey.”(Micah 5:6,12,14)
Micah is giving hope to the people by letting them know, even in exile God will see to their well-being. God will keep the remnant of Jacob that will hear, change and worship God, not idols, flourishing and, spreading the message of God, as I am reading the first verse above. Micah’s words give new meaning to exile, to not having a country for so long, even though he prophesied during the time of the 1st Temple. Immersing ourselves in his words/God’s message we find that our exile, our living in different countries has a purpose: spread God’s message and God’s ways to people everywhere. Be the light to other nations that God created us to be and help them find their paths to God in their own ways. This is the way we are dew and droplets, allowing God’s ways, God’s words, God’s justice, love, kindness, compassion and truth to permeate the nations and the individuals who live there.
Also in the first verse, we are reminded to stop worshiping another person, stop depending on people when we should be turning to God. We, of course, have to depend on another(s) and we can’t make them our end all/be all. We can’t make someone else our God. Only worship God, depend on another(s) who worship and follow God and walk in God’s ways, is what I am hearing Micah tell us. OY, what an order given our addiction to social media, to making celebrities out of people who do nothing but try to be celebrities, etc. How often are we idolizing the musician, the athlete, the artist, the builder, the (fill in the blank) rather than admiring their work and being in awe of our Creator who filled them with the spirit and vision to create such inspiring work. There is a great difference between idolizing someone and allowing their work to inspire us to do ours. Each of us is an artist, each of us has a talent, each of us has a purpose and appreciating the talent within us and the talent within another(s) is different from idolatry.
The second verse above is God’s promise to the people of Israel and to people everywhere, as I am reading the text. The false idols we have erected, money, property, prestige, will be destroyed. Stop worshiping the work of our hands and the work of any human’s hands. Stop being so in love with our ‘brilliance’ and realize where our brilliance comes from-God. In this month of Elul, we have to take stock of when we have continued to follow the sorcery of ourselves and another(s), when we have sought to ‘curse’ our enemies rather than love our neighbor, when we have thought so much of ourselves that we can destroy another(s) who tried to help us, when we take advantage of the vulnerabilities of another and use them against him/her. We have to see how we have become our own gods and follow the desires of our hearts and eyes to our ruin and the ruin of another(s). We have to make a plan to stop worshiping at the altar of power, money, falsehood, etc. and turn to God alone.
Rabbi Heschel teaches us, regarding the last verse above,:”Micah does not question the justice of the severe punishment which he predicts for his people. Yet it is not in the name of justice that he speaks, but in the name of a God who “delights in steadfast love”…there is reluctance and sorrow in that anger. It is as if God were apologizing for His severity, for His refusal to be complacent to iniquity.”(The Prophets pg. 99-100). Rabbi Heschel’s teaching here is haunting me, how often have any of us thought God was vengeful, angry, etc in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible? Yet God is loving and it hurts God when God has to mete out justice because we refuse to. God cannot be complacent to iniquity, even though we are! Isn’t this the crux of our exile, our distancing from God and from another(s), our complacency to iniquity? We have adopted an attitude of ‘everyone does it’, ‘it’s no big deal, he/she didn’t kill anyone’, watching homeless people suffer, denying treatment to people if they don’t have the money/insurance to cover it, denying entry to our country because they are Jews, Italians, Irish, Asian, Hispanic, etc. All of the ways we are complacent to iniquity, most of all standing idly by the blood of your fellow human being-allowing people to lie with impunity about another, setting up laws that false witness’ use to exploit the system, settling because it is cheaper rather than standing up for justice and truth. All of these ways are the ways of exile, the ways of separation and the reasons God has to search for us instead of us searching for God.
This is the inventory that we do in recovery and the inventory that I do daily. I am sorry for the times I have worshiped me and my creation instead of God. I am grateful that I am not complacent to iniquity and I know my reaction to iniquity is seen as bad also-for that I am sorry and I know that I could not be any other way. My Rabbi and friend, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, said in my book, The Holy Thief, that I am more prophet than Rabbi. I do explode at iniquity, my own and another(s). It gets me into trouble and I am more worried about complacency because of my past life when I was.This makes me more hyperaware to iniquity and my reactions are based on the harm I perpetrated on another(s). Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark