Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 40
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge/ because you have rejected knowledge…seeing you have forgotten the Torah of God…” (Hosea 4:6) describes our current situation as well as the one he encountered some 2900 years ago! “The more things change, the more they stay the same” comes from French wisdom by Jean-Baptiste Karr and applies to our times as much, if not more, than when he said it in the 19th Century. Why do I bring these two quotes up and together? I am not sure except as I immersed myself in the news overnight, the words of Hosea(who I love) and thought about all of the “changes” modernity has brought-many of them very good-I am struck by the never-changing ways of human beings when they obtain power, when they are brought up on and spoon fed “lying is good as long as you don’t get caught and when you do, deny, deny, deny”-thank you Fred Trump and the guy who taught Donny boy everything he knows-Roy Cohn! That we the people stand idly by the bloods of our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and enemies, that we the people are living just like the children of the 10 tribes, the Northern Kingdom of Israel did, and not taking into account what their “because you rejected knowledge” did to them is UNBELIEVABLE! What makes this all the more devastating is, as “back in the day”, the people leading this “reject knowledge” way of being are the Priests, the Imams, the Ministers, the Rabbis who are either too scared to speak truth to power, too drunk on being ‘close to power’, too ignorant of their own spiritual crisis and too arrogant to realize they “have forgotten the Torah of God”.
I am so filled with righteous indignation, I am so tired of hearing about Rabbis who are worried they will piss off their donors, Rabbis who want us to be “Am Yisrael Chai” the People Israel live/are alive, rabbis who, like the Priests in Ancient Israel and Judea, “have forgotten the Torah God” and made it into the Torah of the Rabbis-as the argument in the Talmud, Baba Metzia 59b teaches us. When Rabbi Eliezer argued for the Halacha(way to walk) of God, Rabbi Yehoshua argued for the Halacha(way to walk) of the Rabbis using a part of a verse from Deuteronomy 30:12 “It is not in Heaven” and another from Exodus 23:3 “after the majority to incline/run”. Both of these proofs for wrong judgments are taken out of context, are used in the exact opposite ways they are meant in the Torah. This is the issue facing all of We the People in this moment, in every moment: are we the people going to make the “way to walk” according to some fixed human ideas, are We the People going to make the “way to walk” as God intends us to, there is a saying in Genesis Rabbah(commentary on the book of Genesis) that goes: Each day in the Heavenly court, God makes new Halacha, new ways to walk in God’s ways and not give in to the “evil in the hearts of men since their youth”!
WTF PEOPLE?!? How is it possible that these important pieces of wisdom are not being taught? How is it possible to know there are 70 ways to see the words of Torah so no one has ‘the way’ and go along with the bullshit of “only I can save you”? How is it possible to keep the beauty of knowledge, the importance of change, the sanitizing of Truth to meet the ‘needs’ of the Clergy and people in power and proclaim allegiance to God? How is it possible to stop the voices of the prophets, the voices of the people who are promoting God over their selfish needs, the voices of the poor, the stranger, the needy in favor of ICE, in favor of Bibi, Ben G’Vir, Smotrich, Rubio, Trump, Miller, Vought, Johnson, et al? This is ridiculous, this will not end well, as the destruction of the Northern Kingdom teaches us, as the “lost tribes” remind us AND we the people refuse to heed the warnings, the history, the words of Hosea.
What is the solution? There is not just one! I have been talking about solutions of the past 37+ years, I have been seeking them in earnest for almost 40 years now. I know the seduction of the rational mind, I know the seduction of the fearful mind, I know the seduction of the angry mind, I know the seduction of ‘being the hero’, I know the seduction of “I have to fix it” because in my youth I succumbed to them all! I am shuddering as I write this, I am pissed off at my lack of education in these points in my Religious education, I am embarrassed at how long it took me to realize and reject these seductions, these calls, and how they almost ruined my life and me. One of the first solutions I learned was to “immerse” myself in the Bible, not read it, not just comment on the verses, not go along with the “Rashi” on it, rather to put myself in the text, ie ask myself, “how am I “destroyed by lack of knowledge”, how have I “rejected knowledge”, how have I “forgotten the Torah of God”?
ACTION STEPS:
How do your respond to the questions above
What is your process for surrendering to the Will of God and not the will of humans who promote their will as God’s
How are you standing in the way of progress because you are stuck in the past and how are you ignoring the lessons of the past at your peril
GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, rabbi mark