Daily Prophets
Day 207
“Who is like you, God, forgiving iniquity, remitting sins for the remnant of the people. Who doesn’t retain anger forever because You love kindness! You take us back with compassion, cover up our iniquities, hurl our sins into the depth of the sea. You show faith to Jacob, loyalty to Abraham…(Micah 7:18-20)
In 14 days at sunset, we will enter the Holy Day of Yom Kippur with the Kol Nidre Prayer which asks for all of our vows, oaths and promises to be annulled, especially the ones we haven’t fulfilled. In my opinion, however, we are asking for forgiveness for the ones we did not fulfill and pardon for the ones we fulfilled poorly, just as a check-the-box way of doing something. We also are asking to have our sins be separated from us, we no longer want to be seen as our worst action, it is no longer our badge of honor or courage to flaunt our negative behaviors and call them positive. It is no longer our way to live: hurting someone else so we can feel good, worshiping the idol of power and prestige, bowing down before the god of money, believing that mine is mine and yours should be mine, etc.
In 2 weeks we will ask God to forgive us, the remnant of the people who came before us, people of faith and concern. People who are dedicated to follow the words and actions of past leaders of faith, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Moses. We, the remnant of those great leaders, thinkers, transmitters and interpreters of God, get to go back to our source of strength, hope and wonder to be both forgiven and recharged. Not everyone in a faith community falls into the category of the remnant of these amazing spirits, only those who are dedicated to the principles of love, kindness, truth, justice, caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, etc. Only people who, as the prophet tells us, follow God’s ways by not retaining anger forever. NO MORE GRUDGES! What a unique way to live, no forever grudges, no need to “get even”, no drive to crush another human being just because we feel hurt-especially when they see our foibles and use them against us. No need to conquer another, in relationships (especially sexual ones), in business (especially as an employee), in politics, in national/international affairs. Of course this is not something we will do only in 2 weeks, it is a way of being that we need to be practicing every day, 365 days a year.
Micah is calling out to us to remember that God loves kindness. Hesed, in Hebrew, is the word for kindness, sometimes love, sometimes truth and it is also used, with a vowel change, to mean follower. God loves followers, God loves kindness, God loves truth and God loves to love! God’s love of kindness, et al, is greater than God’s need for anger, in fact as Rabbi Heschel has taught us before, God’s anger is painful to God and not the first line of action-in fact it only happens because all other paths to return and ways to communicate have failed. Reading these verses today tell me how wrong people are when they say “the God of the Old Testament is an Angry God”. God, as the prophet is reminding us, loves us, takes us back in love and kindness and is constantly forgiving our iniquities, forgetting our sins and keeping faith with the descendants of Abraham. Is this really the way of an Angry God?? I think not.
Rabbi Heschel teaches us: “Yet it is not in the name of justice that he speaks, but in the name of a God who “delights in steadfast love”, “pardoning iniquity and passing over transgressing.” Micah proclaims the vision of redemption. God will forgive “the remnant of His inheritance” and will cast all their sins “into the depths of the sea..”(The Prophets pg.99,101). Are we truly aware of God’s love and that what we take as anger is really frustration at our rejection of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s saving us from our own sins and iniquities? Are we aware of how God casts our sins into the sea and then we go into the waters of negativity to retrieve them? Casting our bread upon the water at Tashlich, the ceremony Jews perform on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, is to separate ourselves from our worst actions, these actions are no longer a part of me. Yet so many people are unmoved by this and by God’s forgiveness, the forgiveness of another, God’s love, etc. The unmoved people are people who are stuck in their own false pride, inflated ego’s, in love with their low self-esteem, need to be right at all costs, seeking power, etc. Rather than bask in God’s steadfast love and compassion, rather than pass that same love and compassion on to another(s) human being, they stay stuck in their own anger and resentment.
In recovery, anger and resentment are the #1 killers of serenity and wholeness. We can’t see anything with clarity/serenity when we are in anger and/or resentment. We know we have been forgiven and we are acutely aware of God’s assistance when people we have harmed forgive us. In recovery, we engage daily in proclaiming God’s greatness, God’s grace, God’s love, God’s kindness and God’s truth.
I have been the recipient of God’s love and forgiveness for a long time. God’s love and kindness, God hurling my sins into the sea and me not retrieving most of them is a miracle. Also, as I enter the High Holidays, I find myself resentment free and whole with life and whatever happens I will be able to deal with. I bear no ill will against my enemies and, while I will defend myself and my people, I do this with a heart filled with God’s kindness, love, compassion, and strength. I pray the same holds true for you. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark