DailY Prophets
Day 205
“With what shall I come before God, to bow before God on High? God has told you, Human, what is good and what God requires from you: Do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God.(Micah 6:6,8).
The first verse above is a question that we humans have asked forever. When we have erred, missed the mark we constantly ask how can we ever return to God, how can we ever be forgiven, how can we repair the relationship we have broken with God, with another human being. Many people disbelieve that God and/or another human being could forgive our transgressions. And, while some people will not forgive our errors, some people will use those errors to constantly deride us, most people want to forgive someone who comes to them in truth, sincerity and remorse. When we have to ask this question, we are usually in the camp of those who feel there is no forgiveness, no return. How sad that these people can’t hear the call and teaching of the prophets to return. How sad for people to be unable to forgive another, forgetting about their own part in any negative (and/or positive) interaction and their own foibles/missing the marks.
Micah answers the question for all of us. Listen to what God tells us, follow the good and respond to God’s call to and for us, as individuals and as a community/tribe/group/country. How simple a solution and yet, how hard for most of us to follow. It is hard to listen to/for God’s call, I believe, because doing so requires I let go of my need to be right, my need to be seen as____, my need for power and prestige, my need to be adored, etc. It also is hard to do because I have to: Do Justice! I can’t just talk about justice, I can’t just point out the ways I am treated unjustly, I have to participate in doing justice to and for myself, to and for another human being, and to and for God. I have to bring the justice that God has shown us, taught us and loved us with to the here and now, to this world and to my fellow human beings. Doing justice means putting aside my own needs, my own desires, my own ability to get over on another human being, to to f*^$%k my feelings and do the next right thing, to going against my self interests for the good of another human being/community. It also means combining the letter of the law with the spirit of the law, as we are taught in Deuteronomy. It means adhering to a way of being that is compatible with our being partners with God in growing our world.
Loving kindness is even harder for many people than doing justice. This call from God means that we have to have a good heart, follow the paths of love, of compassion, of truth, open to the tshuvah/return of another human being. We have to change from our negative and fearful beliefs, thoughts and actions from how we have to protect ourselves to how can we give more of ourselves. Protection, suspicion has overtaken our inner belief system, since the days of the prophets, and God is calling us back to a way of being that has at it’s core, trust, need for another, openness to being loved and loving, a heart and a practice of being involved in doing good things for self and another. To love kindness means to be engaged in the moment so we know what is needed by another, by the community, etc to make life better now than it was yesterday, one grain of sand each day. Loving kindness means speaking truth and living the purpose God implanted in us to the best of our ability each day. Loving kindness means to dedicate our lives to serving God, our fellow human beings and our authentic self.
Rabbi Heschel speaks about this in his book The Prophets on page 207:”The prophets tries to excite fervor, to make hesed an object of love. What the Lord requires of man is more than fulfilling ones’ duty. To love implies an insatiable thirst, a passionate craving. To love means to transfer the center of one’s inner life from the ego to the the object of one’s love.” Isn’t this the perfect way “to walk humbly with God”? There are many people who have a lot of fervor, I am just not sure that their fervor is for Kindness, God and humanity rather than for their own power and self-importance. Rabbi Heschel is teaching us to have an “insatiable thirst and passionate craving” for a connection with God, for another human being, for justice, for kindness, for redemption. Many of us have insatiable thirsts and passionate cravings for self-important things, for ego-centric desires and for power-God, the prophets, Rabbi Heschel and all spiritual disciplines tell us to transform our thirsts and cravings from our ego to God, to another human being and to the ones we love. Love is not something that fills my ego, love is not something that looks good to the outside world, love becomes the inner connection with another human being and God. We create a new entity-God, another human being/community and me and we all serve the new entity-not each other. This is walking humbly with God as well.
In recovery and in my recovery this verse is what we set out to do each and every day. I reach this goal each day, with someone, not everyone. I no longer have to be perfect and I know that walking humbly with God allows me to be me and no one else. Loving kindness and doing justice helps me open my heart to forgive and take the love of another/community into my core and live better each and every day. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark