Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 85
Habakkuk 2:4 says: “behold his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; and the righteous will live in their faith.” Given the world today, as it has always been if we are going to be real with ourselves, these words capture our times perfectly. This verse is not just about the leaders, the people we like to pick on-no matter where one is on the political continuum, rather, I hear the prophet calling out to We the People more than to the leadership. The people in charge, as we have witnessed throughout history, rarely do their own T’Shuvah, rarely own up to their mistakes in a serious manner. Look at the Pharaoh in Egypt, who would make one of his infamous “I’m sorry, relieve us of the plague” and then go back to being an asshole. King David, the King of Nineveh are the only two I believe actually said “oops I made a mistake”. Ergo: Habakkuk’s words are meant for we the people and it is us that keep being deaf to this call.
How many times do we have to be show the vision of God, the ways of being decent, the path of holiness, the roadmap to salvation, the highway to lovingkindness, the route 66 of truth, only to spit on it? The problem is not Trump, Project 2025, and the rest of the cruel people in charge. The problem is that We the People elected him the first time and then the second time-knowing full well who he is, who his people are, what he was going to do and now that he is doing it, we are in disbelief? When a person tells you who they are, believe them. Yet, we don’t!
Throughout my life, I have witnessed people whose “soul is puffed up” overwhelm and override “the righteous (who) live in their faith”. It is something I railed against throughout my life, even when I was guilty of the same thing-talk about cognitive dissonance! We are witnessing this phenomenon in the ways PAC’s have become like people, according to the Supreme Court Jesters, I mean Justices. We are witnessing this wretched display of non-faith in the business leaders being more concerned about their shareholders than the safety and well-being of we the consuming people. At issue, of course, as always, is the inability of society to admire, respect, extol those of us who have erred and returned, who have done our amends and restitution and are looked at through the eyes of “a leopard doesn’t change it’s spots”. It is true that a “leopard doesn’t change it’s spots” and We the People are not Leopards!
This is the call of Habakkuk, I believe, especially in this moment, at this time of year in the Jewish Calendar: let go of “the soul is puffed up” way of being and return to “the righteous live in faith” part of our nature. It ain’t easy! And it is more than doable. Rather than needing to be the smartest in the room, rather than needing to ‘be in charge’, rather than worrying about being ‘found out’, rather than hide from our humanity, our foibles, our vulnerabilities, STAND UP AND BE YOU!
It is not enough to just look at another(s) who are living in their puffed up soul, it is not enough to be critical and angry about it, it is not enough to rail against the rich and the powerful, it is not enough to go to the opposite end of the continuum to ‘fight the bad guys’, etc. What is “enough” is to remember that 4 months ago, we went back to basics so we could leave the narrow places that trap us, we jettisoned the leavening agents that made us fat and blind, we proclaimed “this is My God”, acknowledging a personal relationship, a covenantal relationship with a power greater than ourselves. What is “enough” is to continue to grow in our commitment to live freer from Passover, to continue to grow along spiritual lines, to take care of the needy and the poor, to love the stranger, to stay right-sized.
Of course there are more ways to practice “enough”, like “eat, be satisfied, bless” regarding food and just about everything else in life. Ben Zoma asks: “Who is Rich, one who rejoices in what one has”(Pirke 4:1) and it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to live into this teaching, it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to live faithfully and authentically according to our Soul’s script, not the script of another soul, not the script of a “soul (that) is puffed up”. We can only do this when we take this time to see the whole picture of our SELF, the entirety in which we are living, the impact of our actions and the lies we tell ourselves. We only experience “enough” when we let go of our need to be right, our need to be powerful, our need to destroy another, our need to not feel a debt of gratitude to another human being, to God, our need to deny that we ever needed help, etc. I have slowly let go of these false needs and live a life of joy, of wholeness, of service, of love, of kindness, of justice, of truth. It is a much better way to live than the ways of those who continue to live with “a soul (that) is puffed up.
Action Step:
Look at, remember the narrow place/slavery you left on Passover-how is the journey looking now?
GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi mark