Daily Prophets
Day 185
“So that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of faith; and he who swears in the land shall swear by the God of faith; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from my eyes. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together“.(Isaiah 65:16,18,25).
In the first verse above, the prophet is calling to the people to remember that the land is God’s creation and gift. The blessings and oaths that people make to care for the land, to work the land and to live by and in the land are really blessings make to God who keeps faith with the people and with our ancestors. Faith, as Rabbi Heschel teaches in God in Search of Man, is loyalty to an event/experience and loyalty to our response. Rabbi Heschel reminds us that faith is also faithfulness. God has, does and will stay loyal to us and to God’s covenant no matter what we do. Yet, the exiles have taught us that this loyalty and love is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card. It comes with obligations and actions we get to fulfill. When we do not, exile results. This beginning of this verse reminds us of God being everything, the land, the wind, the spirit. Everything is God’s creation and has God as it’s foundation, including humanity; we have to keep remembering and honoring this fact.
The second half of the first verse is the blessing we receive constantly, God forgets our earlier iniquities and our earlier strifes. When we call out to God in remorse and responsibility, God accepts our T’Shuvah and we are able to reconnect to God. I realize that it is not God who hides, rather it is us who hide, turn away, disconnect from God. I know our tradition says God hides, yet I see this in the same vein as Cain who decided that God didn’t accept his offering; how would we know God doesn’t accept the offering and God hides when God is incorporeal? We use these descriptors to cover up our hiding and our responsibility for our troubles. God, as the prophet is teaching us, forgives and forgets once we turn back to God. This is unconditional love as I understand it; always being open to our return and forgiving easily and completely.
Second Isaiah reminds us that God’s creations are creations that are joyful and here for our rejoicing. Joy is not the same as happiness to me, it is a state of being where even the ‘bad’ things that happen are taken in with an eye to ‘what can I learn from this’, ‘what question is this experience the answer to’. Living in the state of joy doesn’t mean there is no sadness, no hurt, it means that I will not stay there and I will go through it. Getting stuck in any of these experiences leads us to depression, anxiety, bitterness and low-grade misery. God creates in us the power to live in joy and deal with all our emotions by going through them, knowing that they will pass. Joy is the state of being connected to God and to humanity, to community and to family. Joy is the way of life that God is giving to us in this chapter, will we take it and live in it?
The promise of the last verse is the promise that one day we will all be able to live together. We can bring about the days of the messianic era by learning to accept each other and, while we have disagreements, find ways to work together towards common goals. In today’s polarized society, it is impossible for this promise to be fulfilled. While many ‘people of faith’ wonder where is God in this strife, I wonder when will we put down our swords and see the humanity and the God-Image in one another? We don’t have to have the same ideas and the same religions nor the same political bent, we do have to recognize the humanity of one another for this last promise to be fulfilled. God is waiting for us, as Rabbi Heschel says in his interview with Carl Stern 10 days before his death. Are we willing to meet each other face to face, God-Image to God-Image to make this happen? I pray we find the spirit of God within us to do it sooner so we don’t have to go into exile again!
In recovery, we experience the reconnection to God and to one another so powerfully. We know the opposite of exile is connection. We also know that this reconnection begins by reconnecting to the power greater than ourselves that is both in the universe and in us. We rejoice in our recovery and we are living in joy each and every day of our recovery while going through difficult, ‘shitty’, sad, etc times. The joy is we are not hiding, we are not blaming, we are responsible for our part of each experience, good and not so good. In recovery, we seek and move closer to the last words above and see one another as travelers on the same journey; “trudging the road of happy destiny”
My own experiences are proof of the prophet’s words. I have been forgiven by God and many people along this journey of life. I have learned to delight and rejoice in the portion that God gives to me and not need to have everything I want. I know each of us is an Image of God and when I can’t see it and/or another person isn’t living/meeting my Tzelem with their Tzelem, I work hard to have compassion and I don’t always do. I see that I also have not sought out ways to eat with the wolf all the time. I also know that living in the state of Joy has allowed me to not get stuck in the sadness and the exile that I have experienced, especially as of late. I am keeping faith with God and returning to God’s ways with my imperfections and being responsible for my part in my exile. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark