Daily Prophets
Day 183
“In all their affliction God was afflicted…in God’s love and in God’s pity God redeemed them; and God bore them, and carried them all the days of old. Where is Your zeal and Your mighty acts? Your compassion and Your mercy toward me are withheld from me. Lord, why have you made us stray from your ways, and hardened our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.“(Isaiah 63:9,15,17)
Second Isaiah is recounting for God the history of the people. In the first verse above, he is reminding both God and us that when we are afflicted, so is God. The prophet is reminding us and God that we are inextricably linked together. We are so entwined with God that our suffering becomes God’s suffering. God is engaged with humanity at times of sorrow and joy, at that time and in all times. God’s love, pity, compassion, connection, and covenant override the sadness and anger that God experiences, according to the prophets, and God’s redemption is always near. Second Isaiah seems to be reminding the people not to lose courage, strength, heart and willingness to be redeemed by reminding them of days of old. Many of us forget that God is afflicted by the pain and suffering experienced by human beings and we inflict the same onto ourselves and another(s). These words cause me to reflect on the suffering I have caused and I am bowed by my actions. I and we have to commit to end our afflicting another(s) because of our own pain and/or our need to be powerful.
In the second verse above, Second Isaiah is calling God out. I love his fearlessness and his belief that God is still in tzimtzum, hiding. While he knows the end of exile is near, he is getting inpatient it seems. He is calling for God to end God’s withholding of zeal, mighty acts, compassion and mercy. I understand this to be the prophet’s call to God that enough is enough. God’s silence and inaction are bewildering to the prophet, it seems. I am fascinated by this verse because the prophet has been in contact with God, hence prophecy, and knows that God is going to redeem the people, yet it isn’t happening in the prophet’s time. I think about the words found on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany after the Shoah, “I believe in God even when God is silent”. Second Isaiah is taking God’s inaction as silence and I am not sure he is correct. God’s time is different than our time and, I believe, God is waiting for a critical mass to return to God for redemption to take place. Yet, the prophet’s plea here is one that many have thought/spoken. “Where are You, God” is a familiar refrain in times of distress and despair for many of us. I have asked this question many times in my life also. The response always seems to be “where are you, Mark” and that is when I find God and me and we are together again.
Rabbi Heschel’s teachings on the last verse blow me away. He teaches:”The opposite of Freedom is not determinism, but hardness of heart. Freedom presupposes openness of heart, of mind, of eye, and ear…Freedom is not a natural disposition, but God’s precious gift to man…While not denying that the people sin of their own free will, there is a subtle awareness of God’s being involved in man’s going astray…” Rabbi Heschel’s words cause me to tremble with fear and awe. Hardness of heart is what the prophet is accusing God of in a way by not redeeming the people already, he is pleading with God to open God’s heart to the people and welcome us back. Rabbi Heschel is also pointing out that God gave us the free will to be callous, to go astray, to forget the gift. To paraphrase Einstein, the Intuitive Mind(I call soul) is a gift and the rational mind a servant, we have forgotten the gift and worship the servant comes to mind for me in reading Rabbi Heschel. We get to use the gift of freedom wisely or throw it away. While the prophet is calling God to redeem us and knows it will take God to return us to our proper places, while he is also reminding God that God plays a part in our exile as well as our return, I think his words are a plea to God that we are ready, we need God’s intervention to regain the gift because we threw it away once and need to be reassured of our worthiness through God’s redemption and then we can honor our inheritance from God.
In recovery, we are aware of how we hardened our hearts and turned away from God, from another(s), from our own humanity. We are aware of our need for God to redeem us and we realize that what we are recovering is our integrity, our humanity and our freedom. We called out to God in our exile without being responsible for our hardness of heart. In recovery we know that our brokenness is imperative if we are to be open to hear, understand, see and truly take in the gift of freedom that God is giving us in recovery. Each day we seek to stay open, willing, and in truth to deepen the brokenness of our hearts to let more of God in. In this way we can act more Godly in our daily life.
I know that God gave me the will and the power to be callous and hard hearted. I know that God was with me in those times as well. I know this because God was so near and dear when I called out, when I asked to return and when I asked for wonder and knowledge. The freedom I experience is not continuous and not linear. It is truly based on my spiritual condition each day. My commitment is to remember that God is with me, wants me to be open hearted and helps me grow as I let God’s light propel me to more goodness and less affliction of another(s) and myself. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark