The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 134

“In the 30th year, on the 5th day of the 4th month, when I was in the community of exiles by Chebar Canal, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month…the word of God came to the priest Ezekiel, son of Buzi, by the Cebar Canal…and the hand of God came upon him there. Like the appearance of the bow…that was the semblance of the appearance of the Presence of God. When I saw it, I fell on my face and I heard the Voice speaking.”(Ezekiel 1: 1,2,3,28).

Ezekiel begins with a description of an encounter with God that is unlike the other prophets. Yet, when I read this account again, I am realizing that Ezekiel is attempting to give us a picture of God that he encounters-majestic, light, powerful, all-seeing, and none of this is God, these are some of God’s messengers only. The real presence of God is the light, the radiance above everything else and, the Voice. 

Ezekiel begins his prophetic work after he has been in exile for a while. He is also a priest, so connection to God is a daily practice for him. Yet, it takes a while for him to receive prophecy and, I believe, for him to be convinced that it is not false prophecy. He has his vision sitting by the Chebar Canal in Babylon, with the other exiles, presumedly from Judah, and I imagine they are talking about their woes of being in exile and calling out to God to redeem them. In this context, Ezekiel has his first vision. 

What is so important to me in the opening verses, is that along with the visions, he heard the Voice of God. He is able to have a complete experience and, in Judaism, we believe that the Voice that Spoke at Sinai, is still speaking today and we have to tune to God’s frequency. In order to do this, we have to be like Ezekiel and the other prophets and listen with our whole being.

Ezekiel is describing the experience of hearing the Call of God, being Guided by God and being totally Connected to God. It happens to/for all of us whether we realize it or not, in fact, most of us blow off this experience as coincidence, unreal, etc, because of the power of it and the responsibility of the experience. Ezekiel, the priest, knows that his new experience with God is a new chapter in his life and he can never go back to his old ways, even though they were good and of service, he knows that he has been “touched” by this experience in ways he may never fully understand. 

In the last verse above, Ezekiel speaks of his experience of being overwhelmed by the semblance of the Presence of God to the point of falling on his face, for fear of dying if he actually saw God. Yet, he was still able to hear the Voice of God speaking to him. Rabbi Heschel teaches: “This, it seems was the mark of authenticity: that fact that prophetic revelations was not merely an act of experience but an act of being an object of an experience, of being exposed to, called upon, overwhelmed and taken over by Him who seeks out those whom He sends to mankind.”(The Prophets pg.419). The issue raised by Rabbi Heschel is one which modernity disregards. I believe all of us have this experience at different times in our lives, which is the reason I can believe Ezekiel’s words. While I have not had the same experience, I have had “white-light” experiences where I have been overwhelmed and taken over by God. “Eureka” moments are such experiences, when we see what is in front of us new and see the solution to the challenge in front of us; this is such an experience. We are the objects of an experience with God and most of us blow right by these moments because we are too blind and deaf to notice them. 

In recovery, we are so aware of these spiritual awakenings, often at the moments they are happening and more often in retrospect. In recovery, we become more and more attuned to being the object of an experience of God and a tool of God to bring more goodness, hope, strength and love to our corner of the world. Without having the experience of an encounter with God, it is more difficult to stay in recovery. We are constantly seeking to “improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God” and our recovery is based on our daily spiritual condition. In recovery, we welcome these moments of connection with, being the object of and overwhelmed by God as it helps us grow and furthers our ability to live well and be of service to another(s).

I have had these experiences as well, the first I remember was as a teenager, sitting in a dark chapel at my Temple in Cleveland, Ohio. I was unable to understand the message and I ran away from the Voice of God for many years, until I was exiled again in a prison cell. I think exile helps us here better because we are so desperate to return home. I realized that day in December, 1986 that there was no “home” for me without God, without change and without returning to my roots. Since then, I have had many of these encounters and, while I have been criticized by peers, colleagues, bosses, congregants alike for my speaking about them loudly and powerfully, I realize how much freer I am because of them. The responsibility that these encounters place on me make me freer in that I am able to live into my purpose, my service and my beingness more and more from these experiences. Hearing the Voice from Sinai that still speaks is a gift I wish/hope everyone experiences. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 133

“Depart from there, My people, save your lives, each of you from the anger of God. Yes, Babylon is got fall for the slain of Israel as the slain of all the earth have fallen through Babylon. Thus says God: Babylon’s broad wall shall be knocked down and her high gates set afire…Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you get to Babylon, see the you read out all these words.”(Jeremiah 51:45,49,58,61). 

In the first verse above, I am overcome with emotion regarding God’s love for all of us, even when we screw up so bad that we need to be exiled. While many people are afraid of anger and think it is evil, out of control, etc, they fail to realize that it is our actions that trigger the “anger of God”. Righteous Indignation on the part of the prophets and God is not the same as ego hurt that turns into anger nor is it the same as the desire to deceive people by tapping into their hurts, turning these hurts to anger and using the people to further your self-serving cause. Righteous Indignation is a necessary attribute of both God and humanity. This seeing the evil being perpetrated, the indifference to it by the people has to raise God’s temperature, and should raise ours, because it goes against God’s nature and God’s teaching.

While we don’t engage in anthropomorphism, we have to describe God and events in words that we humans can understand. God’s Righteous Indignation is the result of humanity’s refusal to return to a life of decency and righteousness. The prophet Jeremiah, along with his colleagues, exhorted the people to return numerous times, alas to no avail. The biggest difference between how God’s anger is portrayed/thought of by many people and the truth of God’s anger is: people wanted to write Judaism off as having an Angry God and Christianity as having a loving God; Buddhism and other eastern religions speak of detachment, etc and having an accepting disposition towards all things that happen. While this works for a great number of people, Judaism’s use of “God’s Anger” is as a purifying agent. God doesn’t want to have to purify us after we have been born holy and pure. God also doesn’t want us to walk around feeling like we can never return to God and a life of service, holiness and goodness.

So God put T’Shuvah into the world and, through God’s words to Cain and Moses, through the words of the prophets to the generations of people, called on the people to engage in T’Shuvah and they refused. Why would someone refuse God, refute God, abuse the gifts that God gives us? It has to be because of a soul sickness that and after generations of passing this sickness down and generations of building up the ego and the mental belief that God is not needed, we follow the rituals as a kind of lip-service to older generations rather than experience the relevancy of them in our daily living. The priests, the Rabbis, the clergy of all kinds, the royalty, the wealthy all conspire to use God’s Righteous Indignation as a weapon against a population they want to control; “God will punish you for this” “You will go to Hell for this action”, the preaching of hellfire and damnation have no role in explaining God’s Righteous Indignation.

We are afraid of this Righteous Indignation because we are afraid to see the errors of our ways, the paths we have followed that are in direct conflict with the paths of God. We are afraid to do T’Shuvah because we see admitting our imperfections as weaknesses and not strengths. We use the imperfections, the strengths and vulnerabilities of another(s) against them. We do this so we don’t have to look too closely at ourselves, we don’t have to suffer the pain of our own purification and we don’t have to stop living in mendacity. God’s Righteous Indignation is with Judah, Israel, and all the other nations who defy the humanity of another(s) and treat humans as objects for their use. 

In recovery, we are able to purify ourselves with the help of God, another human being and community. We engage in T’Shuvah and we become more afraid of hiding than of being vulnerable. We are able to experience the hope that Jeremiah’s words, when spoken by Seraiah, give to the people in exile. In recovery, we are grateful for the Righteous Indignation of God that brought us to our knees and made us see the truth of our living and the path to change and the path to love, gratitude and community. 

I have engaged in anger for my ego’s sake at times and, mostly, my anger that is so condemned is the righteous anger at injustice, immorality, covenant-breaking, engaging in behaviors that could bring death to the person and/or people around the person, a malaise to and for God’s path of living well. Because of the ferocity of my indignation and the “accepted” way I, as a Rabbi, am supposed to act and be in loving acceptance of evil things, I am vilified, categorized, crucified and convicted of being a liability. I accept in this “politically correct” atmosphere this is true. God would not be allowed to have Righteous Indignation in today’s world! Again, not all of my anger is holy and pure-I know this and admit to my errors. I am deeply sorrowful that the anger that is righteous indignation is so easily tossed aside. We believe the anger of ego if it comes in a nice package and/or from someone “like us” and reject it otherwise. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 132

“Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of God, it made the whole world drunk, the nations drink of her wine therefore the nations went mad. God made the earth by God’s might, the world was established by God’s wisdom… Every man is stupid without knowledge, every goldsmith is put to shame because of the idol for his molten image is a deceit-there is no breath in them.”(Jeremiah 51:7,15,17).

As the end is near for Babylon’s rule, Jeremiah is reminding us of the pitfalls of both alcohol and drunkenness. While it is true that Babylon began as a tool of God, to get the nations, especially Judea, to wake up-Babylon went too far and became too enamored with itself. This is the great problem for all of us. When we are serving God, legitimately and fully, we have to remember to keep serving God and not ourselves. We have to keep serving God and not getting puffed up and drunk on our service. In this first verse, Jeremiah is reminding us to not get “high” off of the closeness to power, much less power itself. He is reminding us to stop becoming so drunk that we cannot discern sanity from madness, God’s will from our will, service to God and another(s) from serving self and the powerful.

This is a great conundrum for all of us today. In this world of instant fame and celebrity, pleasure seeking and escapism, power and prestige-serving God seems so pedestrian to many. While to others, they have convinced themselves and a lot of others that by treating the poor, the needy, the stranger as criminals, they are doing God’s will! This is how drunk we can become. The people of Judea were drunk on the belief they could go through the motions of serving God in the Temple, while serving themselves in their daily living. Jeremiah is, in my ears, screaming at us to learn from the errors of Judea, stop serving the kings and people in power who are drunk with their own stories and lies, speak truth to power and stand for and with God. This is our inheritance from the Prophets and this is our call from God. 

When we are drunk with power, etc we forget that it is God made the earth and God’s wisdom established this world. We get to either enhance God’s creations or we detract from them. We use God’s wisdom to make our corner of the world a little better each day or we use God’s wisdom to destroy the world a little more each day-the choice is ours because God gave us free will. 

When we use our free will to make idols, to worship the lies and BS we tell ourselves and other validate, we are stupid and without knowledge. We keep believing, to this day, that the idols we have created actually have breath and life in them, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary! Mendacity and self-deception are major diseases, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, and Jeremiah is calling us out on our own. Will we hear him today? 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “…it was Babylon whose might and splendor held many nations in her spell. A state of intoxication, a voluntary madness over came the world, eager to join and to aid the destroyer, accessories to aggression.”(The Prophets pg. 164). Rabbi Heschel’s words should be ringing in our ears, as loudly as Jeremiah’s. We are in a state of intoxication in our country today and have been for a long time. We are drunk on ‘whiteness’, on the power and superiority of white people, on the subjugation of people who are ‘not like us’. Unfortunately, this is a trait that happens within all groups, not just white people. Because we have separated ourselves from each other and made camps, rather than one country, each group believes that ‘the other’ is not like us so we have to be afraid of them and/or overpower them. This is the joining and aiding that Rabbi Heschel is speaking to me about as I read his words today. This is the aggression that we are accessories to by listening to separation speech, false speech, and inciting/fear producing speech-we all have free will to engage in this aggression and to shut it down, which are you choosing to do today? 

In recovery, we are experts in drunkenness and where that leads us. We are survivors of our own madness and the madness of “friends” who drank with us and encouraged us in our drunkenness. We are witnesses to our own idolatry and stupidity. In fact, in recovery, recounting our stories is to help another, not glorify our stupidity, recounting our stories is to help us recommit to not create the same errors as we once did. In recovery, we have a spiritual practice and a daily learning and growing that keeps us humble, of service and proud of our progress. We are dedicated to never returning to the “voluntary madness” that Rabbi Heschel teaches us about as well as not returning to the shame of our stupid reliance on idols of our own making.

I have been both the aggressor and madman as well as the servant of God. I have been blessed to be able to see the both/and of life and make choices that are not rooted in mendacity and self-deception most of the time. I have been an aid to liars unwittingly, I have been fooled by another(s). I know that I have served myself, at times, before serving God. I know that the vast majority of my living has been, is and will be authentically me. I know that I howl more like Jeremiah than speak softly like people think I should. I also know I have kept faith with God and always returned to decency, love, truth, kindness and compassion. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 131

“In those days and at that time, declares God, the people of Israel together with the people of Judah shall come and they shall weep as they go to seek the Lord their God. They shall…come and attach themselves to God by a covenant for all times which shall never be forgotten. In those days…the iniquity of Israel shall be sought and there will be none; the sins of Judah, none shall be found, for I will pardon those who survive.”(Jeremiah 50:4,5,20).

This is Jeremiah’s prophecy regarding the fall of Babylon and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and Judah. Now, when Babylon is captured, all the captives who are descendants of Jacob will once again come together and stay together.Their first act after this reunification is to seek God. No longer are they going to argue over who is right, no longer are they going to be seduced by false gods nor the mendacity of their leaders and priests. They are going to seek God, the God of their fathers and mothers, God who led us out of Egypt, God who brought us to Canaan, God who made a covenant with us and has kept it. This coming together with a singular purpose and as one people, one mind, one spirit causes them to weep with joy at their reunion with each other and the anticipated reunion with God. 

The covenant will be new for them, it is the same Covenant that God made with us at Sinai, I believe, and the same as God promised our ancestors. The difference in these verses is that there is no more hedging on it, no more looking for loopholes, we will live life on God’s terms, not ours from this day forward. We will not forget this covenant, we will teach it to our children, we will put into action the words of the V’ahavta prayer. We will constantly remind ourselves and each other to Shema, to hear the call of God to us each and every day. We will take care of the stranger, the poor and the needy as we have been all of these and God, as well as fellow humans, has cared for us.

The “reward” for returning and re-covenanting is that we will begin with a clean slate. The last verse above is the coming together of God’s hope and our dream, to be clean and to be pardoned. God doesn’t want our shame nor does God want our blaming each other. God’s desire is for us to live together, find ways to agree to disagree when there are differing opinions and focus on our shared values, our shared dreams and our shared connections with each other and with God. God wants to pardon us so we can leave the past in the past and see today and every day as new, with the opportunity to do T’Shuvah for past errors, see our positive actions and move forward without the baggage of yesterdays weighing us down. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The rule of Babylon shall pass, but God’s covenant with Israel shall last forever…The climax of Jeremiah’s prophecy is the promise of a covenant which will mean not only complete forgiveness of sin, but also a complete transformation of Israel.”(The Prophets pg.129-130). I am stuck on the first sentence of Rabbi Heschel’s, we people forget the truth that history as taught us; authoritarian rulers always come to an end and God-conscious people of faith last forever. Every nation has suffered a downfall because they became fat and left God and the covenant. While we are still waiting for a complete transformation of Israel (the people not the country) we are able to experience the complete forgiveness of God and our fellow humans when we ask for it and change our ways. 

In recovery, we know that we have to make a covenant with God/higher power/universe in order to stay right sized and not buy into the lies our minds tell us. We come together with others in recovery because we realize we need other people to help us seek and find God, seek and find our way out of situations that used to baffle us, seek and find our way to a truer and better version of ourselves. We know that if we forget this covenant, if we do not seek forgiveness when we miss the mark, joy when we hit the mark, forgive another(s), allow ourselves to be clean of shame and blame, we will fall off our path and become captives again. In recovery, we begin our days with prayer, meditation and commitment to live the spiritual principles God/higher power has given us one grain of sand more each day. 

I know the joy of reunification, I have experienced it with family and friends. I also know the relief and joy of being forgiven and being clean and new each day. I also know the sadness of being ostracized and exiled because some people forget the covenant with God and will not accept my T’shuvah. I am blessed by God with being renewed each day and the faith God has in me (and you) to fulfill a little more of our covenant each day. I also realize God’s pushing me to grow my own sphere of influence and move from my zone of comfort to do more for people who feel like strangers in their own skin and life, for these poor and needy people who do not see their light, their brilliance and continue to be bogged down in shame and blame. I/we have to liberate ourselves from the prison of what was, what ought to be and move together to the freedom of doing what God desires and accept our being welcomed and wanted by God and each other. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 130

“Why do you glory in strength? Your strength is drained, rebellious daughter you who relied on your treasures. I am bringing terror upon you…Afterword, I will restore your fortunes. Your horrible nature, your arrogant heart has seduced you.”(Jeremiah 49:4,5,6,16).

Jeremiah is continuing his prophecy regarding the nations around Judea. The first 4 verses above are for the Ammonites and the last is spoken to Edom. Jeremiah is railing against all the injustice and stupidity practiced by these people of power, wealth and education, I believe. 

His first question resounds to this day. God and modern prophets ask the same question, yet ‘strongpeople’ seem unable to hear this question, or ponder this question or respond in any other manner than ‘strongpeople’ have for the ages: ‘I am powerful and I am Sovereign/god over you’. This is plain stupid when we view what has happened throughout history to these ‘strongpeople’ and their countries, lives, etc. Yet, people still worship strength, real or imaginary as we see in our world today. 

When these ‘strongpeople’ are overthrown, the people taking their place (more often than not) are the ones who were abused and they then buy into the lie of: ‘now I am the strong one and I am Sovereign/god over you’. It has been a vicious cycle throughout the millennia. None of the people in power realize that their strength will drain and their treasures will not protect them. It is a truth that history has borne out, yet we refuse to learn this story. 

Ammon is called a “rebellious daughter” because she could/would not follow God’s ways and paths. Instead they kept moving farther and farther away from justice and kindness and love till they became suspicious of everyone. The paranoia that must have been present, in my reading of these verses, was gigantic. When one is suspicious of everyone else, when this suspicion leads to paranoia, the only result for the individual and the country is terror. Living in the terror of their paranoia, their injustice, their stupidity must have been unbearable. AND, they would not turn back to God because they were too stuck in their strength, power, treasures, and stupidity. 

Even with all of this, God promises Ammon that it will be restored one day. This is not, however, a blanket promise with no effort by Ammon, as I understand Jeremiah’s words. Ammon has to do t’shuvah and call to God, renew its own covenant with God and, then their fortunes will be restored.

Edom is told that their horrible nature and arrogant heart has seduced them and led them to ruin and total destruction. Unlike their cousins, Edom’s problem is not their reliance on strength and wealth, although they did that too; Edom’s sin was/is their horrible nature-a nature where suspicion, hatred, judgmental thinking, disregard for all of God’s ways so they have no claim or hold on them, and their arrogant heart-believing they were above God’s laws and paths-above everyone else with their power and strength. Their hubris was beyond the beyond. They were to be destroyed because of the depth of their arrogance and horrible nature-a deadly combination as the world has seen over and over again. Sound familiar today? 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “Justice may be properly described as “the active process of remedying or preventing what should arouse the sense of injustice.”(The Prophets pg.204). Jeremiah is telling us that the nations did not engage in this process. As I am writing this today, I am appalled at how often our country does not engage in this active process. I am saddened at how often “good people”, “holy people” engage in unjust actions while trying to wrap themselves in the cloak of righteousness. “On the advice of Counsel” has become a catchphrase for people to do unjust, unkind actions towards another, while living within “the letter of the law” that was made by humans, not God. This is happening on a macro and micro scale today.

In recovery, we know that our only dependence can be on God. We know the insanity of depending on strength, riches, power, etc. We tried and failed miserably. We came to God in supplication, in remorse, in t’shuvah and God raised us back up, as Jeremiah says about Ammon today. In recovery, we practice justice, kindness, righteousness and gratitude each day so we can enhance our spiritual connection and enhance our standard of living well. 

I have been destroyed a few times and God has restored me when I saw my part. I have made errors and these errors have resulted in great pain for people around me and close to me. For this pain, I am truly remorseful and have done t’shuvah. The people who participated in these errors, however, remind me of Ammon and Edom-never wanting to own their part, blaming everything on the bad one and living arrogantly, relying on their status, strength and wealth. I pray for them to realize the errors of their ways before the families, organizations, communities suffer for their lack of heeding the prophet Jeremiah’s words. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 129

“Surely because of your trust in your wealth and in your treasures, you too shall be captured. Cursed is the one who is lazy in doing God’s Holy work. I know..the wickedness that is in him. Therefore I will howl for Moab. For fire went forth…consuming the brow of Moab. But I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the days to come, declares God.”(Jeremiah 48:7,10,3031,45,47)

The opening verse is a familiar refrain for Jeremiah and God; stop thinking that wealth, treasures, property, royalty, power, prestige is going to protect you from ruin. On the contrary, these things may well be one’s undoing. Because people since antiquity have tried to use these things to stop disaster from befalling them, physically, spiritually and emotionally. At one time, the Church “sold” the idea that donating enough would save your soul from damnation. This is true for all denominations, not just the Church. Jeremiah is reminding us that none of the material things we use to “protect” us and convince us that we are okay will, in the end, prove protective.

What is the crime that most people commit, especially those with wealth and treasure? The crime of being lazy about doing God’s holy work. The text uses the word used for the building of the Temple and the word used in the 10 Commandments for not working on Shabbat. What is God’s holy work? Caring for the stranger and the poor, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, living transparently and truthfully, etc. Not doing this is the way we show “the wickedness that is in” us. We are constantly faced with the choice to take the next right action when it is needed or to put it off for a time convenient for us/wait for someone else to do it/deny that God’s call is the next right action.

When we commit the crimes enumerated above, God howls for us, as God “howls for Moab”. God’s howl is, I believe, both a howl of deep pain and sadness as well as a call for us to hear, wake up and rejoin the covenant with God, return to God’s side and be the partner we were created to be. We are not created to massacre people because of the color of their skin, nor the religion they practice; nor are we created to deny truth so we can have power, nor deceive others for our own personal gains. God’s howl is a call to us to return to our basic goodness of being and remember who we answer to. 

The fire that consumes Moab is the purifying fire that has to come about to get rid of the dross that our actions have created and we have allowed to accumulate inside of us and in our homes, families, communities, countries. It is unfortunate that we still cannot hear Jeremiah’s words and realize he is talking to us today as he spoke to the people of his era. We hold on to the hope of the last sentence, God will restore our fortunes, without appreciating the steps necessary to make that happen-our return to God and to Godly actions, our retaking our proper place in caring for the poor and the stranger because we were strangers. When will we appreciate the passion of those who rail for justice, truth, love, kindness and hate mendacity and deception?  

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The prophet was filled with a passion which demanded release; if he tried to contain it, its flame burned from within him like a fever…Jeremiah felt the divine wrath as springing up from within.”(The Prophets pg. 116/7). Rabbi Heschel is explaining what happens to the prophet, not that he wants to sound or be angry-it is not a choice because the injustices to God and to the people are so great that his identification with God and the downtrodden, the disadvantaged is so great, it bursts forth from his soul. We think that this type of passion is not good and should be kept for a spiritual leader in a service in a house of worship, yet Rabbi Heschel reminds us, at least he does me, that passion for God and living God’s words and ways is an inside job that follows us everywhere in all our affairs.

In recovery, we have let go of our old ideas that money, power, etc will shield us, protect us and/or make us happy. We know happiness, joy, power, etc all come from doing the inner work necessary to be partners with God, connected to another(s) and live a life of service and spirituality. We do not seek to change other people, places or things, we seek to stand for and with God and spiritual principles. We howl at the lost souls who come to recovery and leave, ever fearful of the destruction that awaits them. We are grateful for our recovery and we repay the “bounty God has given us” with actions that honor our humanity and the humanity of another(s). In recovery, we are the recipients of God’s Grace because our lives and our fortunes have been restored by God.

I howl for me, I howl for you and I howl for God. I know Jeremiah’s pain and anguish from the years of seeing people continue to use old ideas and old ways that have led to destruction of their souls/inner lives and the destruction of their physical beings and another(s) life as well. I howl louder because I have been restored to life and to fortune, I howl louder than most because of the fire in the belly that never goes out-always sensitive to the howl of God and God’s call to me to heal my corner. My howls are misinterpreted at times and, in a few instances, used for my ego rather than God’s service. I am aware of this and do T’shuvah for these times. I am not, however, going to be a quiet soft-spoken person; I am loud, in your face and an Advocate for your Soul and this mission of mine will never end. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Mark Borovitz <rabbimark@rabbimark.com> 

Daily Prophets

Day 128

“Thus said God: See waters are raging from the north, they shall become a raging torrent, they shall flood the land and it’s creatures, the towns and their inhabitants…Fathers shall not look to their children out of the weakness of their own hands. Because of the day that is coming for ravaging all the Philistines”.(Jeremiah 47:2,3,4).

As with Isaiah, Jeremiah is not just a prophet for the Jews, he is a prophet for all the people of the land around Judea. His prophecy is meant, I believe, to let everyone know that God is deeply involved in the matters of humanity. God Cares! Unlike the gods of mythology-God cares about, is deeply involved with and, in some ways dependent upon our being human. When there are nations that continue to break the covenant with God, the “waters raging from the north” are waters that purify and cleanse the self-serving, false ego/pride, and uncaring features of the nations that the water rages in.

When we go to war as a nation, as individuals,  collateral damage occurs. When this happens, people are sad or apologize for these events, yet everyone accepts it as part of war. Jeremiah is reminding us that we cannot control the destruction that happens. War is like a flood, going any way and anywhere it wants, destroying whatever is in its way and never looking back. 

When this “torrent” is unleashed, the prophet tells us that fathers will not be able to look at their children because of their inability to help save them. Rather than see their children “drown” in the floods of war, fathers will look away out of shame and helplessness. What an excruciatingly sad experience this must be for both father and children. Kids find that they cannot trust their parents to care for them and save them in the most perilous of times and parents have to confront their powerlessness and their culpability in causing these floods to come. Jeremiah is giving us all hope that evil ends, power mongers lose power, idolatry and mythology give way to God and truth, at least for a moment until the next group tries to prove that it is stronger, more lasting and more powerful than God and spirit.

We continually seek to grow in our being human. This entails us being more Godly, living the Divine Image we are created in more each day. It entails, as Rabbi Heschel teaches:” synthesizing morality as a supreme, impartial demand and as the object of personal preoccupation and ultimate concern, consists of human ingredients and superhuman Gestalt… And if these are characteristics of human nature, then man is endowed with attributes of the divine.”(The Prophets pg.271).  We cannot call ourselves human beings without our morality, our pathos, our care and concern for another(s), and our demand for and participation in justice. This is what Rabbi Heschel is saying to me. Yet, we live in a world where many of the people who claim to be spiritual leaders and God’s representatives/servants, preach hatred, separation, worship of power and lies, follow the liar to our own ruin and betray God’s will and the spirit of our founding fathers. We get to choose-are we going to be the Philistines, the Moabites, the Egyptians, the ruling class of Judea or are we going to be the remnant that repents, turns back to God and lives in a manner that is in concert with our being human?

In recovery, for many of us, it took this “raging torrent” to stop us on our path of destruction. We were truly unable to stop ourselves, even when we saw where we were heading and the many lives we were harming. We needed an intervention by God in order to hear the words, love and care of another(s) that we needed to be in recovery. In recovery, we are constantly on the lookout for the signs that we may be turning back to the path that caused the “raging torrent”. Being human is the only path for us to regain the trust and love of self, God and another(s). It is the path we choose to follow each and every day-growing one grain of sand more and being more human each and every day. When we are attacked by the Philistines in our midst, we do not give in nor give up to their treachery and their mendacity. In recovery, we “practice these principles in all our affairs” we do not compartmentalize our living, we live as a whole and complete human being.

I know the “raging torrent” of both the consequences and cause of the Philistine behavior. I have been this torrent in my addiction and in my criminality. I know the trust I broke, the covenant that I tore up with my daughter, my family, friends, etc. Most of it has been repaired and healed, the clean-up is always difficult, messy and incomplete, unfortunately. My recovery is based on being human, imperfect and messy and loud and lovingly human. Along my journey of recovery, I have found many fellow travelers, I have convinced many people to join this journey and I have run into some Philistines. When the Philistines act like the false prophets; sounding loving and caring, all the while plotting their takeover and their power grab; the pain is excruciating and the realization of my own self-deception tears at my soul. This is the saddest experience, I have looked at people I helped and could not stop the torrent mendacity that came their way. I am sad and apologetic at my inability to see the Philistines in front of me. I know that they will also feel the “raging torrent” and I am sad for them as well that they are so stuck in their own self-deception. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 127

“Have no fear, My servant Jacob, be not dismayed Israel. I will deliver you from far away, your seed from their land of captivity. But you, have no fear…For I am with you…I will not leave you unpunished, but I will chastise you in measure.”(Jeremiah 46:27,28). 

These words seem to have been spoken before the destruction of Israel and they could have been spoken after as well. Jeremiah is trying to reassure the people that their exile will end while earlier in this chapter he spoke of Egypt and Amnon being completely overtaken by Babylon. 

Jeremiah is promising the people that God has not forgotten them, even though they have forgotten God. He is assuring them that God’s loyalty and love is not fleeting as theirs is. He reiterates “Have no fear” twice in 2 verses because he and God know that the people are afraid. They are seeing Egypt and Amnon be overtaken, they are seeing Babylon at their gates, at their Temple and taking away their leaders, etc. so of course they would be afraid. We/they are in the most fear when we know we have done something wrong and we realize we are going to have to experience the consequences of our behavior. Jeremiah and God are telling us to not fall into fear and despair at what is going on around us, rather know that God is still the Deliverer God was in Egypt and ever since. 

Deliverance is an important word/concept here, I believe. God is not saying “don’t worry, children, nothing bad will happen even though you have betrayed My covenant”, “it is okay for you to do follow false gods and I will protect you and let you go howling after Baal, with no consequences,”; God and Jeremiah are teaching us that we have to experience the consequences of our behaviors AND their is still deliverance from exile and captivity. So many people today, do not heed this teaching.

Many of us today still want to do whatever we want to and have no consequences, ie, the College Admission Scandals happened because people believed they were above the rules. Yet, the prophet Jeremiah is reminding us that no one is, no country is, above God’s Rules. Israel/Jacob have a special bond with God, yet they too suffer the consequences for their behaviors and are sent into exile. 

The difference between God and us is that God seeks to take us out of our captivity and exile no matter how many times we break the covenant. Yet, many human beings seek to keep some of us in captivity and exile. We are afraid of the power that a prophet has so we exile them, put them in jail, demean them, smear their name, etc in order to not face the truth and change the ways of those in power. Power is the goal and the prize-once achieved, hold onto it at any and all costs. It doesn’t matter that the people who have it then go against the principles they purported to have when they were out of power, it doesn’t matter that they lie, cheat and steal to gain and hold onto power. Nothing matters except their power and showing everyone how they wield it, no matter whom it harms and they would never seek to bring their exiles back nor let them out of jail because of fear of the ones they treated so poorly.

In recovery, we are aware of our exile and our captivity. We know that without the help of God, (the Universe, higher power, higher consciousness, etc) we would still be stuck in exile and a captive to the forces that trapped us before. We know that we have been delivered and rescued. We also know that we will be imperfect in our carrying out our covenant with God (or whatever you call the creative force of the universe) and God knows it too. We are no longer afraid of our imperfections, nor do we need to hide them as we know that God just wants us to improve. We have experienced the prophet’s words:”I will not leave you unpunished, but I will chastise you in measure”. We know, that we have been treated kindly and lovingly by God for our misdeeds and our betrayals. In recovery we begin and end each day with gratitude, knowing that God’s grace is always with us. 

I have been an exile, a captive and a free person. In fact, I have been free while being imprisoned, thank you Rabbi Mel Silverman. I have also been one who takes captives and pushes people into exile. Prior to recovery, I was aware of what I was doing and I knew why-to gain power and allay my fears of powerlessness. In recovery, I have not been aware of doing it, as I always leave the door open for T’Shuvah and reconnection. I realize I have not been as clear about this as I needed to be, so people don’t know that exile is temporary, God will deliver them back to all of us and we will rejoice in their return. Because of my ways of doing things, I have been made into a horror and terrible person by some and I am sad that some people in power have exiled me with no path back-these liberal/progressive people who “care so much” for whomever the underdog is, rather than for what is right in the moment. It was difficult to accept and this teaching from Jeremiah explains to me why and now I can be in acceptance a lot more and feel sad for those who need to keep me and so many others in exile because they are afraid to see themselves and their errors. “Chastise in measure” is not good enough for these people in power, they want to crush and write some of us out of the narrative so they can feel good about their decision to be as UNGODLY as possible. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets 

Day 126

“And now, thus said the Lord, God of Hosts, God of Israel: why are you doing such great harm to yourselves…For you anger me by your deeds…They answered Jeremiah…We will not listen to you in the matter in which you spoke to us in the name of God. On the contrary, we will do everything we vowed to make offerings to the Queen of Heaven…as we and our fathers, our kings used to…(Jeremiah 44:7,8,15,16).

In speaking to the remnant that left Judea and went to Egypt, even though Jeremiah had told them not to, Jeremiah sees the people have not learned anything from their experiences nor have taken in the years of his prophecy nor the prophecy of those who preceded Jeremiah. The prophet is overwrought with fear for the people and anger towards them. He was brought to Egypt against his wishes, he risks his life again to save his people and to serve God. This is the greatness and dedication of the prophet. He just can’t keep his mouth shut and “stand idly by the blood of his brother”. 

The first verse above is the question that continues to ring in my ears and, I believe, still is being asked by God up till today. Why do we do such great harm to ourselves? Are we just oblivious to what is happening in the world? Are we oblivious to the far reaching consequences of our behavior both good and bad? Are we too arrogant to see that we are carrying the errors of our ancestors into our present? Rather than do T’shuvah and Tikkun(repair) for the errors of our ancestors, we are compounding them by our own actions. Rather than search for ways to serve God and another(s), we seek more ways to serve ourselves and gain power over another(s) so they serve us also. Rather than seek truth, we seek to enlarge our mendacity, our self-deception, the deception of another(s) so we can gain more and more power. 

It is so sad to see this happening on a macro and micro level, even and especially in some very large pulpits across our country. In churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, in the senate and house of representatives, in our state capitals and our local municipalities, people are preaching the gospel of senseless hatred, worship of idols, lies/twisting of truth, all while giving lip-service to serving God. These are the deeds that ‘anger’ God-a betrayal of our covenant with God, a refusal to follow the path of God (in our own manner), a refusal to do T’Shuvah and Tikkun-asking for forgiveness and changing our ways. 

God is calling to us, still! Yet, the remnant then, as with many of us today, refuse to listen, refuse to heed God’s call. Just as today, both some of the people and some of the leaders mentioned above, by their actions refuse to listen to God’s call and the words of Jeremiah. They, like our ancestors, vow to act in the ways that caused the destruction of Israel, Judea and Jerusalem-believing they will be okay and flourish by flouting God. Insanity at its height!

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The anger of the Lord is a tragic necessity, a calamity for man and grief for God. It is not an emotion he delights in, but an emotion He deplores…The Lord must punish, but He will not destroy.”(The Prophets pg. 294). Hearing these words of Rabbi Heschel, we are able to see our history in a different light. Rather than go along with the “party line” of Christianity and some Jews that God of the Hebrew Bible is an angry God, Rabbi Heschel, like Jeremiah above, is teaching us that God is not angry, we cause anger to be displayed because of our stubbornness and deafness. God grieves every time we cause our own destruction, our fall from grace, our exile. In the Talmud, we are taught that God cries out between the 2nd and 3rd watches at night, “My children are in Exile”. This cry is cry of deep pain and grief as Rabbi Heschel teaches. We can end the exile and the grief of both God and us through T’Shuvah and Tikkun-when will we ever learn and turn?

In recovery, we relish in God’s love and the love of a community that is dedicated to serving God and another(s). Our recovery is because we have returned from the exile we caused and we are welcomed back by God and community. So, we have to pay it forward through our deeds and our love, our loyalty and our devotion. In recovery, we keep learning each day, repairing our spirits and our actions each day and seeing the truth of ourselves and another(s) as well as the world a little more each day. This is how we have learned from our past and the past of our ancestors. This is being in recovery. 

I lived in oblivion prior to my recovery and, I have fallen into obliviousness while in recovery. I have followed and put my trust in “People of the Lie” as M. Scott Peck writes about. I have misused the trust of another(s) on some occasions. I have been imperfect and continued to repair and grow from my errors. I have made it a point to not embody Einstein’s definition of Insanity and I am enraged by my obliviousness and the obliviousness of another(s). Watching people wrap themselves in ‘holy garb’ while doing unholy actions is infuriating to me. I, like my ancestor Jeremiah, could not hold myself back, many times when I was infuriated by the actions of these people, including myself. My anger got me into trouble because it was seen as personal, rather than my being angry at mendacity and lies, obliviousness and deeds which anger God. I would rather be me, with all the fallout, than live in mendacity. God Bless and Stay Safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets 

Day 125

“Azariah…and Johanan… and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, you are lying! So Johanan… and all the army and rest of the people did not obey God’s command to remain in the land of Judah. “Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am sending my servant King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and I will set his throne over these stones…”(Jeremiah 43:2,4,10).

We continue to see this formula throughout the book of Jeremiah and through the books of all the prophets; the people in charge ask for God’s command, God’s words and, when they don’t get the answer they want-they accuse the prophet of lying! This is a pattern that continues to this day, it seems.

The arrogance of people to ask for the sign, the word of God and then completely demean and degrade as well as de-humanize the person giving the message. We see this so often in the Bible, especially in the Books of the Prophets. Yet, Jeremiah did not flinch, did not change his message because it is God’s message. This is the dilemma of the prophet: if they speak truth to power, they may die; if they don’t speak truth to power, they will burn up inside as their betrayal of God and their mission will burn their soul. So, they choose to continue to speak truth to power and, even though their message is not received well-they continue to live and carry God’s message.

The response of the people is so chilling to me because we experience these arrogant people all the time. We are living in a time where some people do not obey God’s command to stay in their lane, to live a life of Truth, Justice, Compassion, Kindness and Love. Rather, they engage in false prophecy by telling people lies and outrageous slander from their pulpits (religious and secular pulpits alike). They defame others in order to make themselves look good. It is an old story and, at this time, one that has gotten totally out of hand. 

Just like Johanan and the arrogant men, today’s deceivers will cause their own destruction and, unfortunately, take many others to their ruin as well. We have seen this with suicide bombers and, I am saying that the arrogant ones who are so sure they are correct will bring about destruction for all of us, as we saw with the Covid-19 response in it’s early stages. These arrogant people; elected officials, company CEO’s, Board of Directors in profit and non-profit arenas, who are so arrogant that they believe they can silence the voice of their prophets/founders/dissenters, so the Truth will not come out and their deceptions will be accepted as truth; will find that “my servant” will eventually win. This is the promise of God: God’s truth will win out, God’s name will be exalted and God’s ways will be followed. May it happen soon!

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “Worship preceded or followed by evil acts becomes an absurdity… The prophets of Israel proclaim that the enemy may be God’s instrument in history…Instead of cursing the enemy, the prophets condemn their own nation.”(The Prophets pg. 11&12). Johanan and the arrogant ones wanted to portray their piety by asking for God’s word and direction, and when they did not hear what they wanted to, they disobeyed. We live in absurdity when our leaders, great and small, preach their piety and do evil. When leaders of religious organizations can manipulate God’s words, God’s ways to suit their petty and small purpose of power, prestige and influence. We see this from the pulpit and from the Board Rooms as well as in the pews/seats of the sanctuaries. We see this in world of government and in the world of influence buying by corporations, individuals and in the followers of these deceivers and practitioners of mendacity. “When will they ever learn” asks the song, I pray it is soon!

In recovery, we no longer go shopping for the answer we want, we seek out God’s voice, God’s guidance and the help to carry out God’s will for each of us. We do this by belonging to a community of other seekers of God’s word-it is an arena where people from conservative to progressive, people of all colors and genders, people of all sexual types and religions all come together to hear from each other and to share God’s message of hope, community, truth, kindness, compassion and justice. In recovery we are not concerned with any of the differences that people engage in for their own benefit, we are concerned with engaging in the similarities that will help us live better each and every day. We know that our survival and our thriving depends on community, God, truth, decency and letting go of our deceptive paths and our own self-deceptions.

My experience with today’s reading is great. I have been the arrogant one and I have been Jeremiah. Being the arrogant one feels better in the moment, because of the rush of power it gives and the connection to other arrogant people it gives. Yet, living as a messenger of God is longer lasting, more fulfilling and suits me better. While I have made errors in my messaging in my recovery, I also know that living like Jeremiah; with all of the problems, disregard, betrayals, I have experienced; is still a better life because I am connected to God and so many of God’s truthful servants. This has to be enough, I cannot depend on the deceivers to validate me, nor can I allow them to deceive me into joining with them/capitulating to them. I know that hearing God’s call, following God’s message and will is the only way to truly live. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 124

“And they said to Jeremiah the prophet…pray for us to the Lord, your God…That the Lord your God may show us the way where we may walk and the thing that we may do.Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them..I will pray to the Lord, your God, according to your words…And it came to pass after 10 days that the word of God came to Jeremiah”(Jeremiah 42:2,3,4,7).

The people who chased Ishmael back to Amnon, who sought revenge for Gedaliah’s death come to Jeremiah to find out what to do. They are afraid of the Babylonia’s response to Gedaliah’s death and they are headed to Egypt. First, however, they decide to check it out with Jeremiah, the prophet. 

The first two verses above give us a hint as to what is to come from all of this. These people lived in Judah, they were Jews and worshiped at the Temple. Yet, when they come to Jeremiah, they say “the Lord, your God, not the Lord, our God. While it may seem like a slight difference or a grammatical mistake in the writing, I believe it is very telling.

Whenever we use 2nd person pronouns, as in families one parent says “your child”; as with “your team”, “your group”, “your community” “your people” “your God” in conversation/dialogue with another member of the same group/family/community/faith-we are separating ourselves, we are setting ourselves above another(s) person and we are setting up the rejection of whatever is said by the “you” we are speaking with.

The Jews are asking for Divine Guidance, yet they are not owning their relationship with God. It is a subtle action by this remnant of Judea to sound good while planning to do what they want to do no matter what Jeremiah reports God says. They know the “way to walk and the thing that we may do” from all of Jeremiah’s earlier prophecies, from the Torah God gave us at Sinai, from the call of their own souls; yet they want to hear it from God-this seems much like the Korach story in The Torah. 

Jeremiah, gives them a subtle and necessary rebuke in his response. Rather than rejecting this obvious slight to God and to himself, Jeremiah reminds the people that God is God of everyone, especially them! “I will pray to the Lord, your God, according to your words” is telling the people God is not outside of them, God is not a possession that anyone can ‘own’, rather God is calling to all of us and God is everyone’s guide and source of wisdom, strength and love, as I understand this verse today. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “Implored by the people to pray for guidance, Jeremiah, on one occasion we know of, had to wait ten days for the word to come to him.(42:7)”(The Prophets pg. 548). Reading and re-reading these words remind me that our prophets were following in the ways of Moses and Bilaam, both of whom were prophets of God and both of whom called out to God and waited for a response, they did not give in to the pressure of the people’s impatience, they did not give into their own anxiety, they stayed loyal to God’s ways and God’s time. So many people want a quick answer and the answer they want to hear. In today’s living, waiting 10 minutes for an answer is too long and not many people want a response, they just want to know the answer so, if it is not to their liking, they can reject it and seek another answer from someone else. Jeremiah does not let the crisis of the moment become his emergency.

In recovery, we know that quick fixes and answer shopping does not work out well for us in the long run. We know that separating ourselves from our peers, our family, our fellow workers, our fellow alcoholics/addicts, our fellow humans is a recipe for disaster and will lead us out of recovery. The steps of AA are in the plural because the founders of AA, Dr. Bob and Bill W, knew that community was a basic foundational principle for recovery and returning to society after isolating and abandoning family, friends, etc. In recovery, the me turns into we through our inner work, our inventories, our amends, “our conscious contact with God, as we understand God” and our being of service to another(s). As Johann Hari says: The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is connection.”

I have been both the people and Jeremiah. I have gone against the saying of Hillel, “do not separate yourself from the community”. In my pre-recovery days that is all I did. My recovery has been about connection and community, God and service. Blaming another for whatever happens harms me and them. Being responsible for my part and allowing another(s) to be responsible for theirs whether they accept it and acknowledge it or not. I know that God is God of all people, there is not “My God is better than your God” comparison that can happen and me stay in recovery. People either know my heart and my soul, my kindness and love or they don’t. I give these freely to all I encounter, sometimes in non-traditional ways. I am not seeking a quick fix nor an easy answer anymore-I wait for God to respond to me and I wait for the people who know me and honor this knowing to respond. Slow and steady is the path of connection to God and joy. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 123

“…Ishmael… came to Gedaliah…and there they ate bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael..and struck Gedaliah…with the sword and killed him. When Johanan…and all the captains of the forces with him heard of all the evil that Ishmael…had done. They took all the men and went to fight with Ishmael…”(Jeremiah 41:1,2,11,12).

Gedaliah was appointed by the captain of the Babylonian Army to be governor of Judea. This would allow some self-rule within the confines of being conquered by Babylonia. However, Ishmael, a descendant of the royal family of Judea, was convinced by the king of Amnon to kill Gedaliah so he, the king of Amnon, could have power over the people. I believe Ishmael thought he would be restored to the throne after he helped the king of Amnon capture Judea. He was, of course, wrong. 

In looking at the first verse above, Ishmael, who was known to Gedaliah and whom Gedaliah was warned about, came to break bread and eat together, presumedly,  as friends and fellow sufferers of the destruction of the Temple and the Kingdom. Gedaliah had been warned that Ishmael was going to kill him and he could not believe it, how could a fellow Jew kill another Jew after what had happened to the kingdom of Judea, after everyone had fought together to save it. Gedaliah must have thought ‘Ishmael is my countryman, my friend, he would not harm me-he knows that I am here at the pleasure of Babylon and I am fair and concerned for my people’. He was wrong, whether through misguided beliefs or arrogant beliefs.

Gedaliah did not see who Ishmael was and the anger, hatred, jealousy that was boiling inside of him. Ishmael did not see who Gedaliah was, doing the best he could to keep some autonomy for the Jews in Judea and Ishmael did not see himself as being used by the king of Amnon. He was so consumed with anger, rage and jealousy that he could not see what was true and what wasn’t. Nor, could he hear the still small voice inside of him that was probably saying ‘don’t do this’.

This is the greatest problem we faced then and now. The Midrash on the destruction of the 1st Temple is it was destroyed because the powers that be perverted justice and took unfair advantage of the poor and the needy and the stranger. They refused to hear God’s call to return and do the next right thing. We are still in the same situation. Political power has joined with wealthy power to ensure them continuing to be in power and take the power of choice away from everyone else, all the while convincing the people that they are the “good guys”.

Gedaliah fell prey to thinking that people meant him well and he did not see who was standing in front of him, rather he saw who Ishmael could be, he saw his facade, not the real Ishmael. Johanan, saw the truth about Ishmael and Gedaliah could not hear nor believe him. This blurred vision is what killed Gedaliah and it continues to kill us today; morally, spiritually, as well as literally.

While Rabbi Heschel does not comment on this chapter specifically, he speaks often of ‘self-deception’ and mendacity. In God in Search of Man, on page 10, he states “self-deception is is the chief source of corruption in religious thinking, more deadly than error.” Gedaliah and Ishmael both engaged in self-deception and because of that, Jewish History was changed. Today, many people in this country and across the globe are doing the same thing, engaging in self-deception so deeply that they can no longer discern truth from fiction.

In recovery, we put on a “new pair of glasses” as Chuck C’s book title suggests. We get to begin repairing our vision and, many times, we go to the opposite extreme and see everything as beautiful and don’t recognize the danger and the mendacity of another(s). This is helpful and kind to NO ONE. As we grow in recovery, we learn to discern better and stay away from the people who only show us a facade, being kind and loving and not trusting everything they say or do. A true both/and. In recovery, we see ourselves for who we truly are as well and each day take actions that bring us more in concert with our true selves, rather than the false self we created so many days, weeks, years ago. In recovery, we put on a “new pair of glasses” and see the colors of the world, not just the dark nor just the white. In recovery, we see life in its glory and beauty along with the ugly and mendacity and deal with life on God’s terms.

I have been guilty of being both Ishmael and Gedaliah. I took advantage of people in my years prior to Recovery a lot. Like Ishmael, I was full of rage and anger at society and the people in it. I saw only ‘what can I get from you’, never the true you and I harmed many people and harmed myself for years. Today and for the past 32+ years, I have been better about seeing people for who they are and meeting them where they are at. When I get betrayed, I am usually surprised, like I am sure Gedaliah was. The hurt of betrayal, however, lessens as I see my errors in vision. Remember, “Et tu Brute?” We have all had these moments, and I choose to use them as failing forward moments, lessons to grow by. There are still a few of these betrayals that will never stop hurting, and they don’t ruin my life anymore. I would rather give someone the benefit of the doubt than miss an opportunity to connect. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 122

“And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, the Lord your God has pronounced this evil upon this place. And now, behold, I free you this day from the chains…If it seems good to you to come with me to Babylon, come; but if it seems ill to you…don’t come. Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah, son of Ahikam to Mizpah and dwelt with him among the people who were left in the land.”(Jeremiah 40:2,4,6).

This is an amazing beginning of this chapter. Do the Babylonians believe in Adonai, the One God? It doesn’t seem as if they did. Yet, they knew that the only way for them to win the war and conquer Jerusalem was if God had used them to get the people’s attention. They also realize that what has happened was an evil to the place, not just the people. While they did not believe in God, they had respect for the God of the Jews.

This is why, I think that Jeremiah kept telling people to not resist so the city/country was not destroyed totally. He knew that Babylon would allow the Jews to worship God and they would have to pay tribute/tax. They would have some autonomy and, most of all, they could return to God and wait out the 70 years. Yet, the Jews in charge would not listen and destruction occurred. 

The “fact” that they freed Jeremiah and spoke to him with such kindness and care points to their respect for prophets and prophecy. They were willing to have him come to Babylon if he wanted to-they gave him his choice of places to live and provisions to live on. Jeremiah is being treated with more respect and care by strangers, supposedly pagans, than by his own people; the people of Judah. 

Rather than trying to change Jeremiah, the Babylonians wanted him to have a place of respect, befitting a prophet of God, unlike his own people who imprisoned him. This is the foreshadow of Jesus’ words: "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

Jeremiah, however, is not swayed by the promise of good fortune in Babylon nor the promise of respect and dignity there. Rather, Jeremiah decides to stay with his people, the Jews. He is in mourning for what has happened to his city, Jerusalem, and his country, Judea. He knows that he can be of benefit to Gedaliah and he listens to the call of his soul to stay home and help rebuild his people’s connection to and observance of God’s Will.

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “At a crucial moment of history, Jeremiah was the hope, the anchor, and the promise. The slaying of Jeremiah would have meant the death blow to Israel as well, a collapse of God’s mission.”(The Prophets pg. 158). In our text above, the Babylonians were more aware of Jeremiah’s worth, dignity and need to spread the word of God than the kings of Judah and their courtiers were! How amazingly stupid of the people of Judea. Yet, aren’t we that stupid today? We erudite, educated, God-fearing, authoritarian seeking, etc people don’t see nor hear nor take in the words of Jeremiah any better than the people of Judea did! We still follow the false gods of our intellects, our special interests, our ‘progressive values’ that robs others of their dignity, our devotion to self-deception and mendacity, our following the leader no matter what the truth is, our seeking and worshiping of power at the cost of our dignity and against God’s will. I agree with Rabbi Heschel, we need to study the prophets and live their warnings and their words more each and every day-then, maybe, we will be worthy of the love and redemption that God gives us. 

In recovery, we recognize that our way of God and to God is not the only ‘right’ way. Paths to God are not a one-size fits all, we all get to hear God and follow God’s will in our own unique manner, just like the Israelites at Mt. Sinai all heard God’s words as an individual experience. In recovery, we also know relapse is an option and we choose to stay in recovery, with “our people” because we constantly need to hear the call of God and follow the messages we hear from God through other people. One of the amazing and frightening experiences in early recovery is how the group frees us from the prison of our suffering and how they shower us with the gift of love, direction, compassion and kindness. In recovery, we are given the choice to take a seat with “our people” and we never have to give it up, we never have to leave our ‘home’ and we are always welcome and we belong. 

Upon my release from Prison in 1988, Rabbi Mel Silverman told me that I was free and I could go anywhere I wanted. He reminded me of my choices, continue the path of Recovery and Redemption, continue to do T’Shuvah and change the course of my former way of living, or I could return to this prison. God did not want me in prison, so stay free and stay connected to God. I have since put myself in my own prisons of anger and hurt, which I choose today to be free of with the help of God and “my people”. I have been imprisoned by seeing what I wanted to, rather than what is and been betrayed by my belief in the wrong people. I have been released because God has given me a new pair of glasses again. I choose to stay with “my people” and continue to fight with them for the sake of God, not Mark. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 121

They sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison…Now the word of God came to Jeremiah, while he was imprisoned. Go and speak to Ebed-Melech the Kushite…But I will deliver you in that day, says God…For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword…because you have put your trust in me, says God.”(Jeremiah 39:14,15,16,18).

This chapter describes the fall of Jerusalem, the capture of Zedekiah, the death of his courtiers and sons and the destruction of the Temple. Reading it is sad and understandable, when one goes against what is the next right thing to do, when one consistently thinks they are above God’s laws, God’s calls, perverting justice for their own gains, taking advantage of the poor and the needy, eventually they get fat and are conquered. A story that we never seem to learn from.

Interestingly, one of the first acts is to free Jeremiah and listen to his words. Ironically, the capturer, Babylon, gives power to the poor and the needy-they live while the powerful ones of Judah lost power and their lives for some and had everything taken from them. This is Jeremiah’s way, I believe, of showing that God had ordained Babylon to capture the city because the heads of Judah could not turn back to God and follow God’s ways.

Jeremiah’s first words to the Babylonians were about Ebed-Melech, the servant of Zedekiah who saved Jeremiah from dying and got him moved to a ‘better’ prison and made sure he had food to eat. Ebed-Melech was loyal to God and God’s ways at the risk to his life from king Zedekiah, who hated and loved Jeremiah. 

God promised to deliver Ebed-Melech as a reward for having trust in God. This points to the reciprocity of our relationship with God. God continually is close to us, within us, and guiding us and when we follow, we are ‘saved’ from our false pride and egotistical ways. God continues to put a path in front of us to serve and care for another(s) and be filled with joy, satisfaction and love. Should we not follow God’s guidance, we are constantly being called on to turn back to God and the path. The prophets were trying to save the people from their own mendacity and they would not hear. Ergo, destruction and capture. 

Yet, Ebed-Melech is saved and delivered because he trusted God, not the lies of the people in power. How strong and resilient Ebed-Melech was. What an example he is for all of us: slavery, powerful people, disaster, betrayal, fear, etc cannot break my trust and faith in God nor can any of these things stop me being loyal to God and from acting in ways that are compatible with God. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches us: “With Israel’s distress came the affliction of God. His displacement, His homelessness in the land, in the world…For Israel’s desertion was not merely an injury to man, it was an insult to God.”(The Prophets pg.142). It is so hard for so many of us to imagine this experience. Since God is not human nor matter, how do these attributes make sense? I understand God to be The Ineffable One as Rabbi Heschel teaches and, just as we can save the planet or destroy it vis a vis climate change, so too can we save or destroy the spiritual life of the planet. As we use the creative power God gives to all of us to take advantage of the poor and the needy, bastardize the will of God, proclaim and propagate lies and deceits all while using the cloak of Clergy and God, our world will be destroyed by another Babylon. We can turn back today, right now and save our country, our world-if only we tap into the spiritual courage that Ebed-Melech had. 

In recovery, we live the path of God each and every day-to varying degrees depending on the day. We cannot be in recovery without living a path of decency, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, accountability, truth, justice and love. These are the bedrocks of our recovery-whether you call this the path of God, the path of Buddha, the path of decency, the path of humanism-it does not matter. What matters is being on this path or we are on the path to destruction and ruin. We have degrees, some of us PhD’s in destruction and ruin so we know that Ebed-Melech is our exemplar. We know that following this path freed us from the prison of our false pride and egotistical ways. In recovery, we are grateful and of service whenever we have the opportunity. We know we are blessed and seek to bless others as often as we can.

I have both destroyed and been destroyed. I have sounded the alarm and been in prison. The prison that is the most difficult to live in is the prison of exile. Being put here by another(s) whom you trusted and believed in is devastating and only faith in God can free me. Thank God I have been freed from this last prison that I helped to put myself in. Staying loyal to God in these moments is not difficult, hearing God’s compassion and love a little more at times during incarceration, crying out to God after feeling sorry for myself- exhilarating and joyful as well as freeing. God’s love is truly open to all of us, when we turn back to God, not imprison ourselves nor another(s) and live the path we were created to live one grain of sand more each day. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 120

“Then the officials said to the king: Let that man be put to death…King Zedekiah replied, he is in your hands, the king cannot oppose you in anything! Then the king instructed Ebed-melech…Take with you 30 men from here and pull the prophet Jeremiah up from the pit before he dies. King Zedekiah sent for the prophet Jeremiah… then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, if you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down.” (Jeremiah 38:4,5,10,14,17)

We are once again given a glimpse into the inner workings of a country and a people who believe the lies they tell themselves and will not tolerate anyone veering from the party line they want spoken and believed. The officials in the first verse are pressuring Zedekiah and, as is wont to happen, Zedekiah caves into them. Even though he knows that killing Jeremiah is disastrous and wrong, he is afraid to lead from truth and strength. Zedekiah is unable to access his soul strength so he can stand up to the lies and the deceptions of his court. 

Yet, he undermines the very people he gives power to. He is called to account by Ebed-melech, whose name literally means: servant of the king. Zedekiah’s servant is the only one of his court who truly serves the king and the people. I find it remarkable that the servant of the king has more inner strength and less fear to speak and act in truth than the king does. While Zedekiah does the right thing and saves Jeremiah, he does it only after his servant persuades him to.

Ebed-melech is a hero in this chapter and I am thinking of all the people who worked hard to get leaders to do the next right thing throughout history. I am thinking about what it takes for a leader to accept guidance and rebuke from underlings as loving and helpful. I am thinking about the strength of Lyndon Johnson in getting the Voting Rights bill of 1965 passed and signing it as a man of the South. I am thinking about the strength of Robert F. Kennedy in caring about the poor and the needy and leading the charge to care for them. I am thinking of Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, Father Berrigan, et al, who risked everything, career, freedom and their lives to lead us to a more moral and spiritual path of living. I am thinking about what is happening today and how far from this type of leadership some of our elected officials are. 

The last verse above speaks to the wisdom of Jeremiah and the deafness/fear of Zedekiah. He sends for Jeremiah to hear truth, which Jeremiah is afraid to speak to him because Zedekiah keeps abandoning him to the self-deceiving officials. Yet Jeremiah is compelled to speak truth because he has no choice. The prophet cannot deceive anyone, much less the powerful, because they carry the words of God. Jeremiah gives Zedekiah the solution and the consequences for following God’s solution as well as the consequences for ignoring it again. We know what happened, the king and his court followed their own solution and the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was burned to the ground. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches:”A ruler of good intentions, not entirely unresponsive to the warnings fo the prophet…Zedekiah felt himself helpless among his headstrong officials, and he was under their domination.”(The Prophets pg 135). I appreciate Rabbi Heschel’s compassion towards Zedekiah and he is pointing out to me the truth: the road to hell (destruction) is paved with good intentions! Zedekiah’s impotence points to how corrupt the kingship had become. Rather than accepting his place as a descendant of King David and his calling to lead according to God’s will, not the will of the “headstrong officials”, Zedekiah capitulates. We see this so often, leaders who know better, who hear and see truth, capitulate to the loudest and lowest common denominator to hold onto their positions of power.

In recovery, we surrender our need to deceive and demonize truth speakers. We know that we have to join in searching for, accepting and living a life of truth and decency. We realize that our continued recovery is directly linked to our continued spiritual growth and we cannot grow spiritually through self-deception. We also know that we cannot try and play/placate opposing forces within us nor outside of us. In recovery, we rise above our baser instincts to hear the words of the prophets of the Bible and the prophets/guides who speak directly to us. We, in recovery, know that God speaks through other people so we have attuned our ears in order to hear the message.

I have been attuned to and heard God’s call as well as the call of Jeremiah and the other prophets for years. In the past 32+, I have acted on these calls instead of ignoring them as I did in the past. I am not always correct and the message is not always clear, yet I know the message is right and true. I have given in to the officials in my midst and, many times it has been disastrous. I have also been headstrong and, on occasion, this has also been disastrous. I know that I am able to hear the call, act on the call and, more and more let go of self-deceptions to take the next right action. I do not capitulate often and my fierceness in serving God has done much more good than bad. I am content with me and my living, are you? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 119

“The officials were furious with Jeremiah; they beat him and put him in prison…Then King Zedekiah sent for him and the king questioned him secretly in his palace. He asked, “is there any word from God? There is, Jeremiah replied and he said, into the hands of the king of Babylon you will be given…What wrong have I done to you…that you have put me in jail? So King Zedekiah gave instructions to house Jeremiah in the prison compound and to supply him with a loaf of bread daily… And Jeremiah remained in the prison compound.”(Jeremiah 37:15,17,18,21).

Jeremiah made everyone mad because he kept telling the people the truth from God. Jeremiah, as with all prophets, could only speak the words that God gave him to speak. This reminds me of Bilaam and Bilak in the Torah. Bilaam, like the prophets, could only speak the words that God gave him to speak and the king did not like the truth being spoken. Here too, the king and the people in power were not denying the words of Jeremiah and the words of God, they just didn’t want to hear them. Hearing the words and being moved to action would mean change and they did not want to/were unable to change their ways.

Beating Jeremiah satisfied a primal urge of the officials, to strike out at the one who speaks the truth they don’t want to hear. Beating Jeremiah, in the minds of the officials, would stop the truth from being spoken and stop the prophecy from occurring. This need to buy and propagate the BIG LIE has, unfortunately, continued to this day. We have the opportunity to change, we have the call to change, and as long as we continue to give in to our urges, our disease of self-deception as Rabbi Heschel teaches; we will continue to buy the BIG LIE and sabotage our freedom and our decency, our integrity and our soul. 

The king of Judah, however, knows the truth of Jeremiah’s prophecy and is acutely aware of Jeremiah’s connection to and with God. The split of Zedekiah is so apparent in these verses: he puts Jeremiah in a terrible prison and has him beaten and he sends for him to hear the truth; he knows the truth of Jeremiah’s words and is afraid for him to preach it to the people so he keeps him in prison, just a nicer one with bread/food to keep him comfortable. Zedekiah is so paralyzed by the split/war going on inside of him, he cannot make a decision regarding Jeremiah-kill him or heed him. To Zedekiah, his inner war is so great that he tries to appease both voices inside of him and does this to his ruin. We all have contradictions in us, we all have this war go on in us; do the next right thing or do the expedient thing, follow God or follow our desires and our egos. Our heroes are the people who choose to follow God and do the next right thing even though the other voice is pretty strong. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches:”Judah’s defiance against a power that crushed Assyria was as foolhardy as her reliance on Egypt was self-deceptive. The new empire did not threaten Judah’s existence… Judah could have survived under Babylonian overlordship even more easily than it did under Assyrian or Egyptian tutelage.”(The Prophets pg 138).  Rabbi Heschel is informing us of the BIG LIE that Judah bought into. We are fighting for our soveignty, our freedom, when they were paying and had been paying tribute to either Assyria or Egypt for years. Babylon was less likely to impose hardship on Judah and all the kingdom had to pay was tribute/taxes to a different boss. Yet, because they bought the BIG LIE and they would not turn back to God and truth, their self-deception destroyed themselves and all the people they were supposed to care for. Their self-deception destroyed the symbol of their freedom and their connection to their history and to God, the Holy Temple. This is what self-deception and the BIG LIE brings to all of us. 

In recovery, we let go of the BIG LIE and we continually check in to make sure that we are listening to God, to the people who bring us the words of God, and search our innermost soul to root out the self-deception that destroys us and another(s). In recovery, we know the hardships and the pain that self-deception cause and we are committed to not imprisoning our “Jeremiah’s”, rather we appreciate and extol them. In recovery, we are grateful to the people who spoke truth to us in our non-recovery, we are grateful to the people who continued to speak God’s words to us, no matter how awful we were to them and we show our gratitude by continually seeking out their wisdom and vision. In recovery, we seek truth daily, we seek guidance daily and we experience growth, compassion, kindness and love daily.

In my own experience, I have been beaten and extolled, sometimes by the same people for speaking truth. And I have tried to deny truths that are inconvenient to me. My recovery has lessened my denials and/or made them last shorter and I am aware that I have been like the officials in the first verse above. I have also experienced the beating by the officials as well as them trying to muzzle me and, I continue to speak the words that I hear from God and pray I am doing justice to God’s will for me. The saddest is the experiencing of the last two verses, counsel sought out and remaining in prison/exile because of fear. I always have a choice and I choose to leave self-deception quickly once I realize it and stay with truth and God, no matter how painful the experience may be. Stay Safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 118

“Get a scroll and write upon it all the words I have spoken to you…Perhaps when the House of Judah hear of all the disasters I intend to bring upon them, they will turn back, each man, from their wicked ways, and I will pardon their iniquity and their sin. Yet the king and all his courtiers who heard all these words showed no fear and did not tear their garments.”(Jeremiah 36:3, 23). 

God just doesn’t stop trying to bring us back from the brink of disaster and extinction. Here he is telling Jeremiah to write down the scroll of God’s words to him from the beginning of their relationship till now, read it to the people and the people in power in hopes that they will wake up to what is happening and change their ways. The love of God, the love of Jeremiah is so palpable to me. Jeremiah, rather than wondering why he should do this again, risk his life even more as he was already in hiding, says: ‘Hineni, Here I am God, ready to do your biding’ with his actions. 

Jeremiah paid such close attention to God that not a word was forgotten (or so we are led to believe). How is this possible? I believe Jeremiah went back in his mind and soul to the moments God spoke to him and dictated the words to his trusted aide, Baruch. Jeremiah was able to recall all the encounters with God because he paid attention to them and he was changed, uplifted, determined, connected and honored each and every time God spoke to him and God trusted him. When we put this much trust in another, we pray that they will rise to the occasion and stay loyal. 

God’s hope is that hearing in totality the horror that awaits the people, they will return to God and be pardoned as well as not suffering the disastrous fate that is awaiting them now. God wants each person to “turn back from their wicked ways” because God knows as long as people don’t turn back from negativity in their souls, hearts and minds, they will plot how to get by right now and then go back when the heat is off.

The king of Judah and his courtiers were not moved by this recitation, in fact the king would cut up the scroll that Baruch wrote down and burn the parchment. The king showed so little concern for God and God’s words, he threw them into the fire section by section. Instead of just stopping the reading and burning the scroll in its entirety, he denigrated God more by hearing the words, rejecting the plea, disbelieving what God is saying and then burning it the words bit by bit to show how unimpressed he was with the call to return. What hubris! Not only were they not moved to turn back, they went even further down the road of disrespect and disdain for God. 

Rabbi Heschel writes:”Jeremiah, looking upon the garishness of Jerusalem, felt hurt by the people’s guilt and by the knowledge that they had a dreadful debt to pay. Rather than inflict a penalty on the whole people, the Lord had tried to purify them. Yet, all attempts at purification were of no avail.”(The Prophets pg 105).   As I read these words, think about where we were in the time that Rabbi Heschel taught us this, and where we are today-I tremble. We have so many prophets asking us to turn back from our partisan, polarizing rhetoric and paths, yet our leaders and many of their followers refuse to listen. No one in power wanted to hear Rabbi Heschel for years about the Vietnam War and do something about it. Our leaders, all over the world, are ignoring God’s words, each of us can and must hear God’s call to “turn back from our wicked ways” and force a change in our interactions and live in God’s path. Honoring the call of God to return to God is honoring the love God gives to us. 

In recovery, we constantly “turn back” from our negativity and our bad actions. We are consistently engaged in hearing God’s call, repenting for our errors, and moving our lives forward. We no longer get stuck in dogma and the need to be right, we no longer get stuck in the stinking thinking of self. We are aware of the danger and destruction that comes from ignoring God’s call to us. Each and every day we engage in “improving our conscious contact with God”(from the 11th step of AA). We know our propensity to do evil, we know the pull of negativity as we have lived there before so we tremble each morning with the awe and joy of having another day to serve God and, like Jeremiah, spread the message of return, hope and love. 

I have heard the words of God and heeded them for the last 32+ years. As I write this, I am realizing the truth of “God is doing for me, what I couldn’t do for myself”, more and more. While I do not always like the messenger and the way the message is presented, I do appreciate God sending me signs and messages to help me grow and live well. I realize I am exactly where I should be, I am taken care of by God, and the people who have rejected me with disdain and disrespect are also messengers of God. Rather than hating these people, I feel great pity and sadness that they could not/would not deliver God’s message in a way that honored and respected my dignity and theirs. I also realize how I have done the same to others, and I am deeply remorseful for this action. Maybe, they thought this was the only way I could hear and, they know that having a conversation is a more Godly way to have handled this. People get entrenched in being right and being a victim and they cannot hear anything else. Isn’t it sad and I am grateful that I am not living in their shoes today. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 117

“I persistently sent all My servants, the prophets to say: Turn back, every one of you, from your wicked ways and mend your deeds; do not follow other gods or serve them. Then you may remain on the land that I gave to you and your fathers. But you did not give ear or listen to Me. The family of Jonadab son of Rehab have indeed fulfilled the charge…but this people have not listened to Me.”(Jeremiah 35:15-16).

God is using the Rehabites as an example to prove to the people that staying true to the commandments is possible. Also, God and Jeremiah are reminding us that return/change is possible. Yet, the people can’t/won’t listen and act. What is the action God wants from the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem? God wants us back-God wants our return. God wants us to mend our deeds and repair the damage we have wrought from our egotistical, narcissistic ways of being. God wants us to stop thinking and playing god and start being human beings and partners. 

God is calling us back, still, at the 11th hour, as Babylon is circling Jerusalem, God still wants us back-yet we can’t/won’t hear. What is the pull of these other gods we run to serve? At Sinai we said Na’Aseh V’Nishmah: we will do and then we will understand. Yet ever since then we continually try to think our way out of the doing and substitute what we decide is right, giving no consideration of God’s desires, God’s guidance and God’s call.

God’s compassion is on display in these verses as well as God’s bewilderment. God cannot understand the betrayal by the people God has cared for and revived, lifted out of slavery and delivered to their own safe space. God’s cry of pain is palpable in these verses, to me, and the people are unmoved still. Jeremiah must be beside himself as he sees the future, it is death, and the people are marching there like sheep because of their refusal to surrender to God’s will and God’s ways. 

I hear the pain in God and in Jeremiah from the last verse above. A family listened to their ancestor, even though it meant hardship for themselves, living in tents, not owning a vineyard, etc. The people God saved, shepherded, and cared for, however, would not/could not hear and listen to God’s call for their salvation. How painful and sad it is for God to continually have this experience because of our stubbornness. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “Over and above man’s blindness stood the wonder of repentance, the open gateway through which man could enter if he would. Jeremiah’s call was addressed to Israel as a whole as well as to every member of the people. Jeremiah, looking upon the garishness of Jerusalem, felt hurt by the people’s guilt and the knowledge that they had a dreadful debt to pay.”(The Prophets pgs 104/5).  Rabbi Heschel is calling us all to account here. He is calling those of us who are growing the insight and vision worthy of being descendants of the Prophets and those of us who are still refusing to, believing our sight should be used for our own personal good, not the good of another(s). Each and every one of us is endowed with the ability to hear the call of God and the call of God’s prophets, whom I believe are with us today-both from the Bible and from people like Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, Father Greg Boyle, Pastor John Pavlovitz, Rev. Mark Whitlock, Rev. Najuma Smith Pollard, etc. Yet, most of us still refuse to hear and heed. This is painful to our prophets and leaders, it is painful to God and God still provides the “open gateway” of repentance. What keeps us in blindness and defiance when we can walk through the gates of repentance and see, live, be joyous and free? 

In recovery, we know the sadness of God and Jeremiah when we did not listen to the people who cried out to us to walk through the “open gateway” of repentance. We know the frustration and pain our loved ones experienced when they witnessed us following the gods of our addictions, our inappropriate behaviors, our meanness towards others for our own gain. Yet, we finally heard their call and the call of God. We call the people who point us to recovery, eskimos. They are also the prophets we listened to who brought us the words of God and the path back to God. In recovery, we  keep turning back to God, to community, to family, and to our souls for strength and joy. We no longer think we know everything, what we do know is we need God, we need to walk God’s path and we need to do this individually and as part of a community. 

I am aware of both sides of these verses, Jeremiah’s and the peoples. I choose to be on Jeremiah’s side, no matter the pain. Jeremiah was not perfect, nor am I. Yet, Jeremiah was doing what he could to save his people, he was connected to them and I feel the same way with my people. Their betrayal pains me, not because they hurt me (which they may), rather because they hurt themselves by betraying God’s ways. Without God, there is no turning back, no reconnection, because people believe they are connected to the greatest power in the universe, themselves. It is sad to watch and I know that I cannot wish them any harm, I have to keep hoping and praying that they will find their way back to God’s ways-irrespective of any acknowledgement to/of me. We get to return each and every day-will you return before you destroy yourself and another(s)? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 116

“I am going to bring her relief and healing. I will clean them of all sins which they committed against Me, and I will forgive them… again shall be heard in … Jerusalem…the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and bride, those who cry Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts for God is good and God’s kindness is forever.”(Jeremiah 33:6,8,10,11). 

This is a prophecy from Jeremiah while sitting in prison. Imagine the connection and commitment Jeremiah has to God. He is imprisoned for preaching God’s words and, with the possibility of a worse fate, Jeremiah continues to speak God’s words and Truth to power. This is what is so amazing about the prophet as a person to me. If we could only have this loyalty and dedication, our world would be so much better.

In the first verse above, God is giving us the hope for better days. God is letting us know that, while we abandoned God, God has not abandoned us. God is going to bring us relief and healing. This is not a hope, this is a promise from God. The relief is that we will be returned to our land, our city of Jerusalem, the relief is, I believe, that we will be able to live without shame for our prior acts.

We will be cleansed of all sins, we will be made clean from all prior acts, according to Jeremiah. We will also be forgiven. What a promise, what a commitment, what a relief, to be able to return after the bad actions we committed. This is, in my opinion, what unconditional love is. It is something each and every one of us can practice. Being open to the T’Shuvah of another(s), forgiving someone who has harmed you with an openness and connection that is cleansing for both you and the person you are re-engaging with. This is acting Godly. 

When God does this, Jerusalem gets filled with the shouts of “bridegroom and bride”, meaning new life and continuing new life will make Jerusalem alive again after the period of desolation it experienced while we were in exile. We returnees know that we are back only because of the Grace of God and we cry to ourselves, to each other “God’s kindness is forever”. Remembering that the entire population suffered the devastation, teaches us that everyone participated in the destruction and exile, especially those who thought they were so perfect and above everyone else. Since God does this for and to us daily, how are we shouting and praising God’s kindness, goodness and love? 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The climax of Jeremiah’s prophecy is the promise of a covenant which will mean not only complete forgiveness of sin, but also a complete transformation of Israel.”(The Prophets pg. 129/30). As I read these words, I am struck by the wisdom and truth of Rabbi Heschel’s words. When we do T’Shuvah, when we return to God, to family, friends, the world; we do so transformed by our experiences, by the love and kindness of God and the covenant of repair, change and hope. This new covenant, which has to be grown and committed to each and every day, is a cleansing of our past errors and a path forward that uses the lessons of the past to enhance today and tomorrow. We get to experience this transformation when we are able to acknowledge our errors. There is never any repair for someone who doesn’t acknowledge they have erred. This is the bane of our existence both in the days of the Prophets and today-people in power do not want to acknowledge their errors, they want to blame another(s) and not seek out God for help with their errors, rather they seek God for power. Because of this behavior, the same fate awaits us as befell Jerusalem and Judah-exile and destruction because of stiff-heartedness. 

In recovery, we rejoice each and every day in the resurrection of our lives. We have been restored to health by God and we know it. We give thanks and shout Hallelujah many times a day to God for cleansing us, for forgiving us, and for transforming us. We have a new covenant with God, with the people around us, with the people we have harmed. This new covenant is based in kindness and love, doing the next right thing no matter how we feel, reviewing our actions daily; admitting our errors quickly and repairing them as well as acknowledging our goodness. We also commit to spreading the word of God to others who seek us out, caring for the poor and the needy, joining in the joy of another without jealousy or envy, giving thanks to God for everything we have and don’t have. 

I have been cleansed and I have been forgiven. I continue to seek forgiveness for my errors, I continue to repair my inner life and outer actions, I continue to change my vision and grow and I continue to have hope for self and another(s) of greater, stronger and deeper connection with God and with people. I also know that rejoicing in my portion is so important. I haven’t been jealous of what another(s) has (except for private jets:)) for the years of my recovery and connection with God. In fact, jealousy is a key to my disconnection from God and from people. I am grateful for what I have and what I don’t have. I am grateful for what you have as well. Living a life of transformation takes great work and brings great joy-are you willing to join God, Jeremiah and so many of us in this endeavor? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark

The Prophets - wisdom to enhance our daily living

Daily Prophets

Day 115

“The word which came to Jeremiah from God after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim a release among them-that everyone should free his Hebrew slaves…Everyone…agreed to set their male and female slaves free…afterward they turned about and brought back the men and women they set fee and forced them into slavery again. Thus said the Lord…now you have turned back and have profaned My name.”(Jeremiah 34:8,9,10,11,13,16). 

The word is what Jeremiah exists for and is graced to bring to the people. He has been gifted the opportunity and ability to orate the will of God to and for the people. Yet, as we see above, even when they begin to follow it, they do it in name only, just for show. 

The first verse above is a little strange to me as this release was part of the Torah already, it was inscribed into law by Moses and the Israelites after leaving Egypt, so why do we need a covenant? Because they had stopped observing the year of release. They made the decision that it was okay to own another person and force them to remain enslaved. These people, whose ancestors had been slaves in Egypt, made the decision to go against God’s commandment to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein.” They had to make a covenant with the King, not God, in order to honor this commandment. They were more likely to follow a human sovereign than honor and obey the Sovereignty of God.

Because of their choice to honor the human king/sovereign, they could then decide to go back on their covenant. Because a covenant made without God as a party to it, is just a contract and can be broken. A covenant with God as a party to it cannot be broken; we may stray from it, we may run away from it as Jonah does, we just can’t break it without agreement of both parties, us and God. We see in the second verse above, how the people kept trying to look good and do wrong. They set them free and then reneged and “forced them into slavery again”. 

This is the bane of our existence, seeming to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit of it, so we can come up with legal fictions to overturn/bastardize the law itself. It happens with the Rabbis also, when Rabbi Hillel comes up with a formula to overturn the release of debts. What we are not cognizant of is the anger, sadness this behavior engenders in God. This two-faced way of being has continued to this day. We continue to try and find ways around the spirit of the law as well as the letter so we continue to “profane My name”. We continue to turn back from God thinking we can get over the rules and/or bend them to suit us, instead of bending to the will of God. 

Rabbi Heschel teaches: “Kind and compassionate in all His ways, the God of Israel chooses to bind His people in a covenant, in a reciprocal relation with Himself of rights and obligations. He will, if their deeds disturb the covenant, plead with them and go to all lengths to restore them to their loyalty.”(The Prophets pg. 287-288). Rabbi Heschel is calling all of us to return to the covenant not as a burden, rather as a reciprocity for God’s kindness and compassion. We forget our part of the covenant and only want/expect the benefits without doing the work. We believe we can phone it in and rationalize our turning our backs to God and profaning the Covenant and God’s name. I am not sure what gives us this belief, I only know that our lack of immersing ourselves in the prophets and allowing their message and the history of the Jewish people to sink in, means we will continually do the same errors as our ancestors. How sad it is to have the answer to the problems of today and not be able to implement them. 

In recovery, we know the consequences of profaning God’s name and turning our backs on God. We are the beneficiaries of God never breaking the covenant and wanting our return. We know the kindness and compassion of God in a visceral manner. We know that we are in a reciprocal relation with God and we are honored to be in this covenant with God. We no longer try to look good and do wrong. We no longer need to enslave anyone to our whims and desires. We are excited to do God’s will and we see the obligations as gifts and know our rights to be presents beyond our deserving. In recovery, we live each day knowing we are here by the Grace of God and we get to honor God through our actions, not just our words. We have been restored to our loyalty by God and we recommit each and every day to stay loyal through our actions. 

I am joyous that I am able to be yoked to God through the covenant and the rights and obligations therein. I am grateful to experience the freedom that God has given me and the ability to grow that freedom each time I enslave myself to old ideas and ways. I am grateful to have the passion and sensitivity that Jeremiah and the prophets willed to all of us. I am grateful I get to do God’s will today and everyday. I am grateful that God continues to bring me back through a myriad of ways when I falter and stumble. I am grateful to be blessed with the understanding that God’s ‘anger’ is really a momentary experience and the consequences of my stubbornness and defiance. I am grateful that it is used to bring me back, not throw me away. I am grateful to have turned back. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark