Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 12

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 12

I am obsessed with this concept, I see how we all ghost God, ghost Self so often during the days, weeks, months, years of our lives and, in most instances, we are completely oblivious to this truth. In fact, we are so oblivious that we actually believe that we are fulfilling our ‘destiny’, being ‘authentic’ and other such self-deceptions. As Rabbi Heschel wrote: self-deception is a major disease.

The inner war that, evidently only some of us have, is one that is constantly pitting our rational mind, our reptilian mind against our intuitive mind, our higher consciousness. For many of we the people this war is exhausting and, because our religious/spiritual training is SO FUCKING POOR, giving up quickly seems to ‘make sense’. Giving up almost always involves allowing the rational, the convenient, the ‘easy way’ to “win”. In actuality, as has been proven throughout history, giving up leads to bad things happening to the people around us, to ourselves, to our descendants. Take Abraham as a case in point. After God shows him the land of Canaan, he can’t stop wandering-maybe this is where “wandering Jew” came from:). He goes down to Egypt and is afraid for his life, not worrying about Sarah’s. While the story may not be “factual”, it is a true story. This story depicts what happens when rational mind overtakes intuitive one, when one’s ears become so full of the rational gobbly gook that one is unable to “SHEMA”, hear, listen, nor understand the call of the intuitive mind, the call of God, the wisdom of our higher consciousness. Abraham PIMPS his wife Sarah and then is cast out of Egypt for trying to trick Pharaoh in order to save his own skin. How ugly can one get?

We find ourselves in this predicament constantly, it is ridiculous that after all these years of reading the Bible, discussing this story, that we the people continue to follow, worship, idolize, vote into power PIMPS, WHORES, THIEVES, AUTHORITARIAN WANNABES! Yet we continue to do so. Rather than SHEMA, human beings continue to put cotton in their ears and keep blabbing with their mouths some bullshit lie to deceive themselves, to join in with the majority to do evil, to hate our neighbors in our hearts, to proclaim superiority throughout the land for the “White Christian Nationalist People”! Thank God for Pope Leo, for the few Clergy who are speaking up and out, and it is the JOB of WE THE PEOPLE to continue to listen to them, to continue to protest, to continue to LOVE THE STRANGER, to LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR, to PROCLAIM FREEDOM throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein, to CARE FOR the POOR, the NEEDY, etc.

We are 18 days from Shavuot, the harvest festival where we celebrate receiving the Torah, the 10 Sayings from God, when we responded to the question of will we accept and follow these words: WE WILL DO and then WE WILL UNDERSTAND. Since this experience some 3300+ years ago, we the people have disregarded this commitment, we have continually given ourselves excuses from our rational minds, imprisoned our intuitive mind, our spiritual core, spiritual voice, our ‘knowing’ the next right thing to do, because of the fear that Abraham had, because of the greed of Abraham, because of Abraham’s self-interest overriding the interests of Sarah, the safety of Sarah.

This Shavuot, at the different “tikkuns”, repairs, I would suggest that WE THE PEOPLE re-read the commitment to DO and then UNDERSTAND, rather than continually rationalizing our bad behaviors with the popular refrain: “everyone does this”! I am calling heaven and earth to witness the SELF-DECEPTION and the CRUELTY that we the people are allowing to happen in front of our eyes, that some of we the people are cheering on. I am calling to account all of us to STAND UP AND SAY NO! DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING AND NOT WORRY ABOUT UNDERSTANDING IT BEFORE WE DO IT, TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE ABRAHAM DID TO SARAH BY TREATING WOMEN, THE POOR, THE STRANGER with THE RESPECT GOD CALLS FOR AND JESUS DID! This is a path to wholeness and holiness-will you take it?
ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the self-deceptions you continually fall into because they societal norms, mental cliches

2. Make a list of the deceptions you have rejected previously so you can continue to reject them and see the subtleties of the ones coming at you now

3. How are you being a pimp, selling our another(s) for your gain, for your ‘safety’?

4. How are you betraying the people close to you by asking, forcing them to compromise themselves to save you-ask any family member of an addict

5. How are you staying true to God, to self, to your people?

GOD BLESS and STOP Ghosting God and Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 11

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 11

“Let Freedom Ring” from the song “My Country Tis of Thee” seems to continue to elude fulfillment, is a casualty of the war between the races, is the epitome of “Ghosting God”. Whether it is Hegseth obfuscating truth behind attacks, Trump talking about his “big beautiful ballroom”, he and his kids making billions on the different poly markets, deals, Kushner and Wytkoff using their ‘peacemaking’ opportunities to actually conduct business deals, the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act, AND claiming to “love America”, “put America First”, and other such bullshit is RIDICULOUS! Yet, too many of we the people keep buying the bullshit, blinding ourselves to the truth, and supporting assholes who care NOTHING for the welfare of We the People! WHAT THE FUCK?

I know, I keep screaming in my blogs, I keep using Capital Letters, etc and it is because I am incredulous at the instances of these subtle and not-so-subtle ways of Ghosting God, of Ghosting our authentic Self. Some 37years ago, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man taught me that there can be no freedom without God, anything else is just “liberty”, the ability to do what one wants to do without the accountability to God, to another human being, a power greater than ourselves. He liken this phenomenon to the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Sinai-from slavery to being liberated(liberty) to being free once we accepted the 10 Sayings, the Bible as our blueprint for living well. We are not witnessing Freedom in this moment, we are witnessing the practice of “liberty”, ‘doing what I want and lets see you stop me’ attitude of Trump, the Republican Party, Netanyahu, Putin, et al.

“I do believe that we shall overcome some day” is more than a protest song, it comes from the Gospel song tradition and is a statement that just as the Israelites were freed from Egypt by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, so too will (fill in the blank) be freed from the slavery of the white man! This is the war that no one is talking about, this is the war that keeps being swept under the rug, it is NOT just a black person’s war, history has shown us that when the Jews were targeted, so were another minority group, when blacks were targeted so were the Chinese, the Jews are a target of the KKK, the Aryan Brotherhood, etc don’t forget. I am TIRED of listening to the same old rhetoric, I am tired of hearing the promises over and over again of the liars and cheaters, the power-hungry wannabe dictators, and I am EVEN MORE TIRED of the lunatics who keep believing these lies from Lindbergh to Coughlin, from McCarthy to Nixon, from Reagan to Gingrich, from the Tea Party to Trump. “WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN” as Pete Seeger asks?

There can be no freedom without accepting God, without acknowledging that there is a power greater than ourselves, that we the people are accountable, that we the people owe a debt to society, to God. This debt is to BE HUMAN, to BE AUTHENTIC, to BE a LEARNER, to BE a member of a community. This debt speaks to the heart of how society has accepted the betrayal of those who have helped us get to where we and, when we no  longer “need them to get ahead”, we just jettison them and ghost them. Ghosting has become such a normalized action it is now a societal norm and we the people have become oblivious to this fact. The person who complains about being ghosted is looked as if they are stupid, ‘what did you expect’ is the common refrain. There is no surprise that Trump, Bibi, Putin, Kushner, et al seek power and control, the true surprise is, after all this time, after all these examples of what happens when we the people allow these types of assholes to be in charge that WE THE PEOPLE STILL GO ALONG TO GET ALONG!!

Hence the need to return to the Prophets, to return to their teachings, the teachings of Jesus, the teachings of the Bible. There can be no freedom without God, without living into the Holiness Code, loving the stranger, caring for the poor and the needy, proclaiming FREEDOM throughout the land and to ALL ITS INHABITANTS THEREIN! I bold these words to ensure that we hear the call of the Bible, the message of Jesus, the words of the prophets loud and clear. To do this, We the People have to end our Ghosting of Self, Ghosting of God!
ACTION STEPS:

1. Each evening make a list of how you have repaid at least some of the debt owed to God by caring for another human being

2. Each evening make a list of how you were self-serving and self-seeking, adding to the debt owed.

3. Make a list of the ways you “let freedom ring” in your daily actions

4. Make a list of what you have learned about being free from today’s actions

5. Make a list of the ways you BE HUMAN each day

GOD BLESS and Stop Ghosting God, Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 10

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 10

The hubris of people never ceases to amaze me, Mondami’s telling King Charles to return a diamond to India is NONE OF HIS BUSINESS! Yet, once again, the hubris of the progressives, the hubris of Americans, the hubris of newly minted “new power players” is on full display. Of course, what can one expect when the hubris of Trump, Hegseth, Vance, Johnson, Lutnick, et al is on full display as well. The tragedy is that these mendacious, bigoted people keep pulling the wool over the eyes of enough of we the people to get elected, steal all they can, lie as much as possible, and ruin democratic institutions and democracy for years to come!

The hubris of John Roberts and his band of merry thugs on the Court-Kavanaugh, Barrett, Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas to say the Voting Rights Act did it’s job so well it isn’t needed anymore?! While Trump is attacking free and fair elections, while ICE is threatening to be at Polling Places, while the South is once again gerrymandering so Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, will have no choice but to vote for ‘a good christian nationalist white man’? WHAT THE FUCK!

We have in Abraham a man who is conflicted and fearful-for all of his faithfulness, fear still plays a big role in his life. He is afraid of the famine so he goes down to Egypt and asks his wife to say she is his sister so the Egyptians won’t kill him to get her. While the Pharaoh never fucks here, supposedly, he realizes Abraham’s trickery and rewards him because he is “blessed by God”. Like our ‘good christian nationalists’, Abraham uses his blessing to benefit himself, to amass more wealth and feed his greed. This is the side of Abraham that the Rabbis fail to speak about, this is the side of  our Self we don’t want to see nor deal with - just like Abraham didn’t the Rabbis don’t.

In contrast, King Charles was demur, firm, moral, and brought a spiritual renewal into his words and deeds on his visit here. He is a man of deep faith and a friend to people of all faiths-something that is sorely lacking here in America. We have so many examples of courageous behaviors in the face of tyranny, in the face of authoritarianism, and it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to stand up to the lies and bullshit being spewed right now, to STAND THE FUCK UP to Hegseth, Trump, Vance, Johnson, Thune, Lutnick and the Trump family and friends who are making BILLIONS from the war with Iran, from the various tariffs, from the oil of Venezuela, from the “prediction markets” which they rig on a daily basis.

Living in fear is Ghosting God, having fear is being authentic. Buying into the lies of Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Sam Alito and denying full representation to minorities is Ghosting God, supporting Elena Kagan and her dissent is being authentically true to God’s will. Acting with the hubris of “chosenness” because one is white is Ghosting God, knowing that “being the chosen people” is an obligation to do the next right thing, care for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy, love the stranger, proclaim freedom throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein is being authentic to our soul, our spiritual nature, our knowing and our connection to something greater than ourselves!

It is hard to not Ghost God at times, make no mistake about it. Abraham did with his con job on the Pharaoh, Isaac did when he bought the bullshit that Jacob was Esau, Jacob did a lot in his life, all of the Biblical characters did at one time or another. The reason they can be role models for all of us is: they came back to God, they returned to being authentic, kind, decent, moral, truthful, and loving. This is true of all the spiritual and moral leaders throughout the millennia. This is what King Charles was pointing us to in his remarks to Congress and beyond. The shared spiritual knowing that Abraham’s discovery and promotion of One God, not idols, is enough for us to find the common ground to discuss differences, to find solutions to problems that have baffled human beings forever, to end the need for war, to beat our swords into plowshares instead of making our plowshares into swords, to “learn war no more” instead of flexing the destructive nature of war as a badge of courage and honor. I know the difficulty of not ghosting oneself, not ghosting God as I have been guilty of both and each day, I get one grain of sand farther away from the behaviors that lead me to do this.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a journal of your hubris actions each day for a week

2. In the same journal, write down the actions where you did not ghost God nor your Self

3. How are you using your blessings in self-serving ways and how are you using them as gifts to bestow upon another(s)

4. How are you standing up for TRUTH, LOVE, JUSTICE, KINDNESS,

GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 9

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 9

One of the most difficult directions from the Bible is “Lech L’Cha”, “go to/for your self”; the suggestion made to Abraham when he was in Haran. He was in a foreign place, finding a spiritual discipline that went against the idolatry of his time and place, he was seeking and this message came to him. Looking at the first line of the message: “Go to/for your Self from your country, your family, from your father’s house”, reminds us to not allow our fear of the unknown stop us from exploring what is, what was, what can be. This is God telling Abraham to not “keep up with the Jones”, not “worry about how many likes he has”, rather to leave the distractions and externals that he has made into his image and seek the authentic image of God that he was created in and needed to be. What a concept!!

In every age the people in power have loved their trappings and their followers are enamored with them, the visit by King Charles is an example as was his wedding to Diana, Diana’s funeral, Trump’s Gold everything, the Inauguration of the newly elected President, funerals for dignitaries, all have their pomp and circumstance, all have tremendous interest and most of the people attending do so for show rather than meaning. Abraham is told/realizes/intuits that while “the show must go on”, he doesn’t have to buy into it. This first sentence of the 12th Chapter of Genesis is a new beginning in God’s quest for human beings to truly be a partner with God in making the world “a more perfect union”, of God and humans, of humans and humans, of humans and animals, nature.

Yet, no matter how many times we read this verse, no matter how many times we extol Abraham, we the people seem to continually miss this part of the message, continually ignore the ‘command/suggestion’ to “go to your SELF”, to find the image of God we are created in, seek out and live into the divine need each of us alone is uniquely qualified and able to fulfill. NOPE, we the people in our smallness believe the ‘larger’ we live that bigger we are-missing the message completely, turning it into an ego-serving, narcissistic message rather than a message of hope, of spirit, of truth. Be it the Rabbis and extremists in Israel (extremists on both sides), or the Rabbis, Priests, Ministers, MAGA’s, or the wimps of the Republican Party who claim to be such ‘good christian folk’ and ‘such observant Jews’; all of we the people, who are buying into the narcissism of the message, buying into the distractions another(s) paints of this message, are Ghosting God, Ghosting their authentic Self-the exact opposite of what God is telling Abraham, the exact opposite of what Jesus preached! Yet, the liars and charlatans who are in power here and abroad, fervently preach their lies and, some of we the people, so want to be deceived that these lies are bought hook, line and sinker. How sad, how terrible, how ridiculous!

The solution begins at home, it begins with parents caring as much about their child’s spiritual health as their mental, emotional and physical health. It begins with parents speaking to their children in ways they can hear them and knowing that each child hears differently and each child has to be treated differently since they are unique. It continues with NO COMPARISONS, NO COMPETITIONS between siblings, in school, in religious education. It continues with parents reminding their children that each room is better because they walked into it and each moment is an opportunity to do something good for another human being. The solution is “in our hearts and in our mouths”, it is within reach and firmly entrenched in our soul. The challenge is to let go of making our rational mind the arbiter and remembering the gift of our intuitive mind. The challenge is to let go of old ideas, realizing while they may have ‘served’ us once-they will not get us closer to the truth of our existence, closer to the joy of being authentic and connected.

Having lived both ways, the way of the narcissist, the way of Abraham, I can testify to the difficulty of God’s command/suggestion to Abraham. It was/is hard to give up what I know/think I know and hear the call of God, the message of my soul. Living into this way of being is counter-intuitive and absolutely exquisitely beautiful, it is the path to joy, to wholeness, to connection, to truth, to kindness, to true love. It was way past time for me to make Abraham’s journey(it was my Bar Mitzvah Portion-talk about Beshert) and when I began it, I found a similar pull to Abraham’s to keep going forward!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the ways you “go to/for your Self” each day for a week

2. Make a list of the ways you Go against your authentic self daily for a week

3. Make a list of the ways you feel ‘pulled’ by societal norms to go against your authentic self in order to ‘make ends meet/get ahead’

4. At end of the week of making these lists, do your own pros and cons to decide how you are going to “go forward” as your Self or as a false self

GOD BLESS and Stop Ghosting God and Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 8

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 8

The phrase from the Bible, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before God”, is not directed only to the Pharaoh in Egypt oh so long ago, it is the constant question that We the People are asked and it seems like it will take a little longer! Humility in the Bible is a good thing, it is not mealy-mouthed, it is not weak, it comes from the strength of knowing our place, knowing who we are and living into the gifts, the joys, the community that is blessed to have us and we are blessed to be a part of. Just as Abraham is told to be a blessing, so too are we the descendants of Abraham and Sarah!

It is impossible to “be a blessing” when we “refuse to humble” ourselves. Our constant ghosting of God, our constant refusal to live authentically, is the source of our discomfort, the source of our emotional illness’, the source of our addictive behaviors! Addicted to power, to money, to lying, to cruelty, to enslaving another(s), to feeding one’s inner Pharaoh, is as powerful, if not more, that any substance addiction. Yet, even in “polite” society, these ways of being are lauded and celebrated, the “elites” are not the academics, they are the Marco Rubios, the Trumps, the Vances, the Voughts, all people who wield their power like a CLUB, who smash the ‘little guy’, just because they can, who lie to the survivors of those killed on 9/11 like Lutnick has done, who hate the stranger like Miller does, who forget the reason their ancestors came to America-the land of the FREE, like Bessent, who forget the words of the Bible, of Jesus, like all of the current assholes in power both in the White House and the Congress.

One of the most important lessons of Abraham’s being is: community is important! Sarah and Abraham “raised up many souls”, not had children, rather they helped the people around them live up to the unique image of God each one possessed. This, I believe, is what “raised up many souls” means. I am thinking of my father’s parents in this moment as they had no biological children, adopting my father and then my grandmother had two sisters die in childbirth and she took in their 5 children in the 1920’s and treated them all like her own and my grandfather loved each of them fiercely as well. My grandparents knew what “be a blessing” meant although they were not ‘religious’ by today’s standards, they knew what it meant to “humble yourself before God” as they did everyday-seeking to do the next right thing and, in my grandfather’s case: never saying a bad word about another human being. When he did not understand the actions of another person, he just said: I am not walking in his/her shoes. Have pity not disdain was his way of being. They are not famous, they are not well-known, they are the epitome, for me, of what it means “to be a blessing”. Their ‘children’ went on to emulate their behaviors more and less-depending on the person and the moment. The pressures of first generation Americans got to them and the pressures of ‘making a living’, the “societal norms”, the anti-semitism, all weighed upon them and, knowing the right way to be from the examples of grandparents, their errors were compounded by knowing right and doing wrong-at times. The pressures of being a decent human being in today’s America and Israel are ENORMOUS! When Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, all bow down and kiss the ring of Donald Trump, when Ellison father and son leverage their ‘relationship’ with Trump to take over the media-making it a “state-run” media, the protests of We the People might seem too little, too late and God’s call to Abraham “to be a blessing” tells us DON’T BELIEVE THE LIE OF THE POWERFUL!

Twice a day Jews recall the exodus from Egypt in our prayers-twice a day we are reminded that the Pharaoh can be defeated, that slavery will end and we can be redeemed from the inner slavery we re-experience over and over again. It AIN’T EASY and it is doable. We begin by letting go of the societal norms we buy into that keeps us Ghosting the Self, that keeps us Ghosting God, and begin to “humble ourselves before God”. The first step in this process is to see “the blessing” we are and “the blessing” we are to gift to the world. Upon seeing this truth, this path, we find the pathway to fulfill our unique mission, continuing to “humble ourselves” by living in truth, in authenticity, in community, in connection to something greater ourselves.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the ways you “refuse to humble yourself before God” and how they ‘serve’ you

2. Make a list of the ways you “humble yourself before God and how they serve you

3. Ask yourself each morning: What is the blessing I can be/bring to my community, my family, to God TODAY?

4. Each evening, go over your day seeing where you fell into old traps of hubris, made new pathways in humility, and raised your Self and another up by being the blessing you are!

God Bless and Stop Ghosting God and Self, Rabbi Mark

GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF - Day 7

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 7

Staying connected to one’s authentic self, one’s intuitive mind is VERY difficult. It is so difficult, not one of the characters in the Bible, save the prophets and not all of them, are able to stay connected to their essence all the time, nor are they able to stay connected to God all the time. When I use the word “connected”, I am speaking about being able to follow through on what we know is the next right action, it is about being able to not only hear God’s call, but to answer it in the affirmative as well! The prophets could, for the most part, it seems because they were reluctant heroes in the Bible. Their heroism is their willingness to speak truth to power no matter what the consequences were going to be. The “fire in the belly” that Jeremiah describes overpowered the rational and very real fears of facing the kings, the wealthy, the priests, the people in power. This is the essence of being a descendant of the prophets I believe. Speak truth to power, speak truth to people, speak the words of God that “are in our hearts, in our mouths” as Moses tells us in Parsha Nitzavim. This is how we can stop Ghosting God and Ghosting our Self more and find the camaraderie, the connectivity with one another more often. Yet, it seems that we are constantly seeking connection and fearing being real, seeking authenticity and hiding from God hence, we find ourselves in the pickle we are in today: hating the stranger when we are supposed to love the stranger, taking advantage of the poor when we are supposed to care for the poor and needy, engaging in deception of self and another(s) when we are supposed to be seeking and speaking truth. WTF People?!?!

As the Big Book of AA says: “we seek spiritual progress not spiritual perfection”, while the societal norm is to judge on the result not the effort, so anything less than an “A” is meaningless, anything less than perfection is shit and this LIE has been ingrained in so many of us that Trump got elected TWICE!! It is hard to live up to the truth that the Bible tells us when we are so full of the societal lies, the societal norms, the societal mental cliches, the bullshit of the Greeks and the GHOSTING OF GOD BY THE CLERGY! Over and over again I hear the Jewish Republicans extol Trump, go along with Carlson, while both HATE Jews-no matter that Trump’s grandchildren are Jewish- have you ever seen a picture with him and his Jewish grandchildren? When Jews support a person who defies the foundational principles of Judaism; love your neighbor as yourself,  you shall be holy, the stranger, the poor, the needy are mentioned 36 times in the first 5 books of the Bible, the prophets rail against the bullshit sacrifices of the priests and the people while they treat one another so badly, when Jews support a person who engages in senseless hatred, profits from the poor and the needy, one has to ask: How do you LIVE your Jewishness, Mr. Kushner, Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Bessent, Mr. Miller et al? This is the great conundrum for the Jewish Republicans, in my opinion: Support Trump and his Christian Nationalists who hate Jews, support Bibi in his quest for absolute power and cuddling up to dictators, or stand with the prophets, stand with Moses, stand with King David and fight for God, fight to do the next right thing, wrestle with ones opposing inclinations and transform the energy of the Yetzer HaRa, earthly inclinations, to serve the Yetzer HaTov, the divine inclinations. IT AIN’T EASY! It is also the great conundrum for all people of faith: Support Trump and his Christian Nationalists who bastardize Jesus’ words and desecrate Jesus’ name or stand with the disciples who followed Jesus by imitating his deeds, honor his name by caring for the sick, the lame, the poor, the needy, the stranger as Jesus did. IT AIN’T EASY and Pope Leo shows all of us how to rise above the fear of rejection, the fear of retaliation because the fear of Ghosting God, of Ghosting one’s Self is greater!

Living in the tension of these fears: rejection, retaliation, vis a vis Ghosting God and Ghosting self is exhilarating to me, now. Because I fell prey to the fear of rejection and retaliation I know how excruciatingly painful the realization that my fears overpowered my truth, my authenticity and God. Sitting here writing these words, I am overcome with deep sadness and feels he betrayal of my father’s and grandfather’s ways and teachings. These past almost 40 years has not been about not drinking or committing criminal acts: it has been about not Ghosting God nor Ghosting my Self-living with the consequences of speaking truth, of being wrong, of not taking the bullshit of ‘polite society’, not going along to get along, living the values of my ancestors, the values of the Bible, the call of God. IT AIN’T EASY!

Action Steps:

1. Be aware of the inner wrestling between your rational mind and your intuitive one

2. Each day find the incongruences between your values and your actions

3. Each day find the congruences between your values and your actions

4. Each day notice how you honor God and how you desecrate your Self

5) Each day notice how you honor your desires and desecrate God

God Bless and Stop Ghosting God and Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self- Day 6

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 6

Of course everyone today will be talking about the White House Correspondents Dinner, where for the first time ever, an “assailant” tried to enter the ballroom and assassinate someone? If this were any other President, I would be more concerned, however after all the hoopla over the ‘assassination’ attempt in Pennsylvania, where he only got a scratch and a supposed person lurking in the bushes at Mar-a Lago,, it is stretching it to believe Donald J Trump is this hated, this vulnerable to an attack! It is ghosting our sense of reality-which is Trump’s specialty and a constant for Trump’s career as a business person and a politician. So, maybe there are “alternative facts” here, people, maybe Trump set this whole affair up to ruin the dinner celebrating the FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, which he calls “fake news”, maybe Trump set this whole affair up to get his HORRIFIC RIDICULOUS WAR against IRAN off the front pages, maybe Trump set this whole affair up to rile up ‘his base’ for the Midterms, maybe…. Of course when I say Trump, I am talking about the Project 2025 people, the MAGA leadership, et al.

Whenever we the people allow ourselves to be sidetracked by the bullshit, the ‘shining new object’ that someone throws our way, we are Ghosting God by allowing the lies, the mendacity, the deception to steer us off course! Listening to the Talking Heads, even on Channels I respect, is like reading about the tower of Babel-all of them babbling on and on and not one person spoke up about the ‘coincidences’ that keep happening to Trump! Maybe it is the insiders in Project 2025 that want him dead-cause they can’t handle impeachment and Trump is not going away quietly. Maybe it is the rank manipulation of the FREE PRESS that these Talking Heads keep buying like guppies, whatever it is, the fact that the babbling keeps going on and on, while people are dying in Iran, in Lebanon, in Israel, the true damage to the military bases in the Middle East is yet to be disclosed. The babbling continues while the ruining of the Justice Department, the FBI, the Education Department, the ridiculous expenditures to the Trump children for their BOGUS BULLSHIT BUSINESS’, the genuflecting in front of Trump by ‘those good christian nationalists’, the bastardization of Christ’s name and teachings, the desecration of God’s name by ‘those good jewish folk’ like Kushner, Bessent, Lutnick, Miller et al, grows stronger each and every day! Talk about Ghosting God, these idolators have a PhD in doing this and We the people have to STAND UP and CALL OUT the BULLSHIT and THE LIES!

This is the only way to end our incessant, consistent, and ridiculous Ghosting of our Self! Whenever we Ghost God, we Ghost our Self as God is both immanent and transcendent, exists within each one of us, and outside of all of us. God is the mystery, the marvel, the TRUTH that lies at the very core of existence, of the universe, of everything. Denying the truth is Ghosting God, “Alternative Facts” is Ghosting God, making a mockery of those who “Love the Stranger” is Ghosting God, making it ‘normal’ to kill civilians in one’s pursuit of absolute power, in pursuit  of money, property, prestige is Ghosting God, Ignoring the plight of the poor, the needy, the widow and the orphan, not being a partner in the healing of the sick, not respecting the infinite, unique, equal dignity and worth of another human being is Ghosting God.

All of the things the people who were building the Tower of Babel were doing- caring more about the material bricks than the cost of a human life, caring more about building the Tower, than about the Truth, the dignity of another human being, the leadership of the Tower-building believed “those people” were around to serve them and their interests-not God’s-they were trying to reach Heaven so they could be God and it seems as if this desire has never been quenched, never been released, at least in some of us.This is the challenge for each and every one of us: recover our sense of Self, our Knowing of God, or continue to Ghost both of these entities. As one who has lived both ways, I much prefer to NOT GHOST GOD nor SELF anymore, I know it is right to live into my uniqueness, my voice, my divine calling, no matter what the material cost is, loneliness, shunned, etc.

ACTION STEPS:

1. What truths are you still hiding from-truths about your authentic self, truths about the facades you keep putting up

2. What lies are you still buying into so you can ‘be accepted’, so you can hide from the Call from Sinai

3. How are you building your own Tower of Babel, believing you are God, you are in control, you have the right to deny freedom to another because of your brilliance, your power, your BULLSHIT?

4. Look at the ways you disregard what is in front of your eyes so you can paint the picture that satisfies you and/or buy into the picture of the liar in chief whom you are following?

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD and SELF

GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF- Day 5

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 5

I was talking with Harriet about my new blog-which she likes, Thank God, and I said that the entire Bible is the story of Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, finding and connecting to God, finding and connecting to self, and then the cycle begins again! Immersing ourselves in the Bible gives us the insight to see how easy it is to Ghost God, Ghost self, and how difficult it can be to return. Hence, the Rabbis teach that T’Shuvah was put into the world before the world was created and I add: Because God knew we would fuck up and need a way back! Unfortunately, most of us do not avail ourselves of the path back to God, back to authentic self, choosing to Ghost God and our self - just read the prophets, listen to news, watch what they do, not what they say!

Continuing with the Biblical story of Noah, his son Ham saw his nakedness, whatever one understands this to mean, and is cursed for it. Noah’s other two sons, Shem and Japheth, cover their father up and are praised for it. Maybe the Rabbis got it wrong! Maybe Ham is the hero here for not “covering up” his father’s errors, not “covering up” his father’s alcoholism, not hiding from the truth of what is! Maybe Noah, Japheth, and Shem were Ghosting God, Ghosting their self when they cursed Ham, maybe they had to curse their ‘enemy’ for their own bad behavior! Sound familiar?! The hypocrisy of Noah, the incongruence of the Rabbis, the ridiculous need to make the people in the Bible ‘perfect’ is antithetical to the truth, the real lesson of the Bible: Human beings will err, we will fuck up AND God heals our backsliding, God takes us back in love-as soon as we turn back and stop Ghosting God, Ghosting our authentic self- read Jeremiah and Hosea.

The hypocrisy of the Republicans in elected office in this moment is as monumental, as ridiculous as the Rabbis cleaning up the messiness of our Biblical characters. The Trump sons are making money hand over fist selling shit to our Government, making side deals with our allies and our enemies, using their father’s name and influence to land lucrative contracts, become part of companies they know NOTHING about. Anyone remember Hunter Biden and the Republicans? Anyone remember Hillary Clinton and the Republicans? There is no shame to their game, they are brazen in their hypocrisy, in their incongruence, and we are the ones to suffer from their actions-while Donny, Don Jr., Eric, Jared, Ivanka all get richer! THESE ARE THE PEOPLE some ‘fine christian nationalist clergy’ declare our Christ’s messenger? WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE??

Where are the Jews condemning Howard Lutnick? Where are the Jews condemning Bibi Netanyahu, where are the Jews condemning Stephen Miller, where are the Jews railing about the theft of our money-paying off Jan.6 rioters-, the insider trading going on Kashi, etc? Where are the Jews condemning the indiscriminate killing of Lebanese, Iranian, and Gaza’s civilian populations? WHERE ARE THE JEWS?? This hypocrisy is, to me, the worst of all! We Jews are the people who first brought to light the “narrow place” of Egypt, first brought to light the “narrow place” of inner slavery, the “narrow place” of idol worship, of bowing down to a mere mortal, the “narrow place” of ignoring the infinite dignity of ALL human beings, the uniqueness of ALL human beings and now, We are the people who are going along to get along, we are the people that are “covering up” the wrongs of the State of Israel, the wrongs of Trump and his ‘mafia family’?? WHAT THE FUCK FELLOW JEWS?

I know these narrow places, I lived in them prior to my recovery some 39 years ago. As I grew up in prison, as I learned and learned anew the lessons of Noah and the flood, I realized prison was my flood time, it was the time for me to begin to “get clean” of my lies, of my unrealistic fears, and begin to re-learn how to live as a decent human being. It also was the moment when I knew I could not hide if I was to be a father to Heather, a sibling, a son, etc. I have stayed true to this awareness-not always doing the next right thing, sometimes coming up with excuses, and never hiding who I am and/or what I am thinking. It is not always popular, I am usually very messy and I WILL NOT COVER UP what is, I WILL NOT COVER UP the TRUTH. I WILL NOT STAND IDLY BY while the lies, the destruction of freedom is happening.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Ask yourself: What am I covering up and what is the reason I am doing this

2. Look around you, at home, at work and SEE how people are hiding from you and you from them

3. What about TRUTH scares you so much that you rather hide/be a slave than be free?

4. What is your fear of doing T’Shuvah each day

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD and SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 4

Watching the “news”, listening to the pundits, reading the in-depth reporting in newspapers, magazines like The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Guardian, it seems as if many human beings are DRUNK! Having survived Covid, it seems as if the reaction of so many of we the people is to get drunk, ala Noah! While the majority of we the people may not have a substance abuse problem, a drinking problem, it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that a substantial majority of we the people have the “ism”, the “stinking thinking”, the belief that we are entitled to be bulllies, be cruel, be invasive, seek power, and be like we the people were before the FLOOD! While shit happens in the Bible, there is also an underlying and, at times, obvious correlation between the choices of we the people and the resulting consequences, both good and not-so-good. Most of the not-so-good consequences are the result of not-so-good choices made in our drunken stupor of believing we are God, we can control God, we have the “‘right’ to do whatever we fucking want to do-who is going to stop me?” This is not a new phenomena, look at Jacob, his sons, Korach, Kings Saul and David, King Solomon, etc. It is precisely what the prophets scream at We the People about and, like our ancestors, we the people are too drunk with our own deceptions, self and the ones we buy into, to hear them, to follow them, to learn from them! This is one of the greatest tragedies of humankind-our inablity to hear, learn, follow the gift of the prophets: how to live a life compatible with being a partner of God’s in perfecting creation!

The name Noah means comfort and it is a “polar opposite” verb because the Bible uses the same word to express God’s regret at creating human beings once God witnesses the cruelty, the entitlement, the savagery we the people perpetrate upon one another. Noah’s story is both an uplifting one and a warning; Noah is a righteous human being in a generation of degenerates! It is hard to be decent when all around you is indecency, is cruelty, is thievery, is power grabs, is enslavement by ‘the man’. Yet, he was and this is what God “found comfort in” and the lesson for We the People is simple and profound: Stand for what is good and right no matter what is happening around you. This is the message of Noah, I believe, and it is the message that keeps emanating from Mount Sinai, keeps reverberating in the spiritual and moral universe We the People can attune our ears to. We the People are not doomed to be cruel, to be ruled by the multitude of Pharaohs that present themselves to us, by the dictates of our “hearts and eyes”. We the People do not have to “drunk” on our power, on our entitlement, on our sense of importance, on our being a victim, on our victimizing another(s), on…. There is a program of Recovery for all of humanity: it is called Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Eastern Philosophy, etc. I am not speaking of the rituals, the bullshit of ‘looking good’, the lies of the prosperity gospel, the bullshit that killing innocents gets you 70 Virgins in heaven, the desecration of God’s Name done by the far-right Jews who claim it is “G’Shriben”, written in the Torah to kill Palestinans, that they are less than human! Talk about BEING DRUNK, these liars, these false prophets, these bastardizers, are KILLING the TRUTH, trying to upend the democratic underpinnings that the Exodus began that the experience at Sinai gave us the blueprint of, and We the People, like multitudes of families have done with the drunk in their midst: SAY NO!

One of my favorite phrases to people is: I will support your recovery and I will not help you kill yourself or anyone else. My own drunkeness caused so much damage to people I genuinely cared about, it sullied my family name that my father and grandfather were so dilligent about building, it caused my daughter to not be able to trust while desperately wanting to trust, it made people much more cautious about helping someone else after I took advantage of their vulnerabilities, I was a fucking HORROR SHOW! Hence: listening to Hegseth, Trump, et al, Bibi, Smotrich, et al, Putin, MBS, et al, Kushner, Wytkoff et al, I keep wondering: WHEN IS CONGRESS GOING TO DO THE INTERVENTION that the Constitution calls for? WHEN ARE WE THE PEOPLE going to demand that our governing bodies SOBER UP, DO THEIR JOBS, RECOVER FROM THEIR ENTITLEMENT, THEIR LIES, THEIR DRUNKENNESS? When are they going to do their T’Shuvah, their Amends, have a plan to do things differently? When are the democrats going to have a PLAN of RECOVERY from their mealy-mouthed, attack-dog ways and give We the People a choice?

ACTION STEPS:
1) Do an Inventory of your personal Drunkenness-being rigorously truthful with your self

2) Do an inventory of self-deceptive ways you hide from God, from another(s), from your authentic self

3) Choose a path of recovery from the paths of indecency, inhumanity, drunkenness you are engaging in

4) Make a Plan of recovery, find a friend, group of people, a spiritual guide to help you along the way-to “sponsor” your becoming more human

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD and SELF, Rabbi Mark

How do you learn- from another, from history, or only from your own experience? Day 3

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 3

Iran, Israel, Tariffs, Affordability, Gasoline Prices, College debt, Lying, are not new issues for America nor the world. Throughout history, there have been countries who want to conquer another country, who want to take the fruits of another’s work and make it their own. Since the beginning we have had floods of nature, floods of cruelty, floods of entitlement, floods of violence, floods of kindness, floods of love, floods of betrayals, floods of faithfulness. Yet, We the People refuse to learn from our ancestors, we have adopted some idiotic societal norm of “having to learn it myself” because at our core, we the people have not accepted that truth is to trusted, not denied!

When Adam and Eve learned to ‘see’ after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their innocence died and their deceptions began. Rather than learn from the negative consequences of their actions, we the people have continued to hide, continued to disobey when disobediance goes against our best interests, and continue to blame another for our woes, ‘she made me do it, the devil made me do it’! Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME to learn the lesson of the Garden of Eden? Isn’t it WAY PAST TIME to answer “Hineni”(here I am) to the call from God, from a stranger, from a friend? According to some, Jared, Donny, JD, Pete the drunk, Todd, Marco, et al NO! The despot, the authoritarian is banking (literally and figuratively) on we the people not learning from our history, not disobeying their dictates, not coming out of hiding. They do this with good reason because we the people, historically, have given the dictator a wide berth before finally rebelling-since the days of being in Egypt till today!

We the People are created in the Image of God, we have infinite dignity and value, we are equal in dignity and value to every human being, we all have unique gifts and talents that no one else can replicate-hence we are all needed for the world to function correctly. At issue today is the same issue that was prevailing in the prophet’s time: CORRUPTION in the Name of God, War for the sake of God, Economic Injustice, Legal Injustice, the pursuit of pleasure, power, money rather than the pursuit of truth, justice, mercy, etc. We the People failed to hear and change then and we the people are failing ONCE AGAIN- WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE!?!?!??! The spiritual and moral health of a human being and a nation is to be measured by the treatment of the “waterbearer”, the person who is the ‘lowest’ on the economic scale. Since the beginning of this experiment called the United States, we the people have failed to protect the most vulnerable, we have failed to “love the stranger”, we have failed to care for the needy, the poor, the sick, all while proclaiming We are a God Fearing People! The parallels to Ancient Israel, to Ancient Judea are astounding and the current crop of Clergy-Jewish, Christian, Muslim- don’t seem to be able to call this bullshit out! Instead, the people who claim to have been called to serve God, human beings, are more interested in serving the Rich, the Powerful, the LIE!

Bibi is as big a liar as the Pharaoh in Egypt! Trump is as interested in violence as we the people who were destroyed in the flood! Putin is as interrested in absolute power and wealth as King Solomon! We the People are being called to STAND UP and FIGHT FOR WHAT IS TRUE AND RIGHT. We the People are inheritors of the spiritual essence of the prophets, their words, their power, their strength, their knowing that their destiny is to serve! We the People have within us the history of our ancestors standing up to Hitler and the Nazis, think about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that is now Yom HaShoah. We the People have the knowing that England was defeated by the 13 Colonies against all odds. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to use our inherited knowing, our inherited strength, our inherited spiritual power to say NO to the Lies, NO to the Cruelty, NO to the mistreatment of the poor, the stranger, the needy, NO to the graft and thievery of ‘der Fuhrers’, NO to the part of us that tells us to shush, don’t make waves. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to say YES to the call of Ayecha, YES to the call to Pursue Justice, Righteousness, YES to the call to Love our Neighbor, YES to the call to BE HOLY, YES to the Truth, YES to GOD! Anything else is Ghosting God and Ghosting our Self

ACTION STEPS:

1. Read/Re-read the Bible, the words of Jesus and find the wisdom you are lacking

2. Write down a Plan of Action to fulfill the divine needs expressed in the above wisdom books

3. At every meal go over the Plan of Action, making sure you are on course and making whatever course corrections needed

4. Honor the wisdom that you have inherited, the courage of our ancestors who took great risks so we, their descendants, could live free

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD AND SELF, Rabbi Mark

How are you forming "a more perfect union" with good, how are you forming a more perfect union with not good?

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 2

“We the People in order to form a more perfect union establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” is not only the beginning of the U.S. Constitution, it is the theme of the entire Bible. The “more perfect union” is the one we are forming with God, with higher consciousness, with our intuitive mind, with our inner life. When we the people abandon this “more perfect union” for our selfish, self-centered, self-deceptions we the people suffer. And it is, of course, not only the individual, it is the people around them and depending on one’s position, it could be an entire country, world-as we are witnessing right now.

My particular target this morning is not just Donald Trump and his minions, it is the clergy that buy the bullshit, that placate people in power for their own needs. There is a Bible Reading Marathon happening where Trump is reading from II Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?? TALK ABOUT GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF! These ‘fine christian fellows’ are using a verse from the Bible to intuit the divinity of the United States, they are using a known idolator to deliver the message and NONE OF THEM are the least bit interested in:

1. “humble themselves” they would rather brag about themselves, their ‘big beautiful bill that has cost Americans a fortune while perserving the money for the richest 1%! Trump goes on and on about “my ballroom”, ignoring the disastor happening in the Middle East, ignoring that Russia and China are helping Iran and watching the rot and decay of this braggard tear down 85 years of alliance building, strengthening of democracy across the globe. WTF- PEOPLE??!!

2. “pray”, in Hebrew is a reflexive verb, it means to look at oneself from the inside out, to judge one’s actions and do the necessary repairs for our errors, relearn what the next right thnk to do is and make the amends we need to in order to restore the dignity and balance of another human being. It is not a PETITIONARY experience, it is a reflexive one-Pete Hegseth!

3. “turn from their evil ways” doesn’t seem to be a major concern for Trump, for his ‘spiritual advisors’, for his ‘good church going, synagogue going’ cult followers. Instead, as we see with his sons, with Jared Kushner, using the pretext of negotiating a ceasefire with Iran to meet with Arab leaders and get money for their business’ is more important that “the common defense”! “Domestic tranquility, general welfare, blessings of liberty” are to be reserved for themselves, their thugs, and fuck the rest of us, who cares if Americans are dying in this Iranian War Trump started, certainly not Trump, not Kushner, not Vance-they are more concerned with teaching the Pope Christian Theology!! REALLY PEOPLE?!

While it is easy and convenient to blame the assholes in charge, it is more correct to hold the assholes who elected these self-centered, egotistical, deceptive, wannabe Mafia Dons to office, giving them the power to promote their lying, cheating ways for their benefit and not to “establish justice”. It is we the people who, when God calls have been hiding. It is we the people who reject “a more perfect union” that the U.S. Constitution calls for and the Bible demands. From the beginning, Adam hides once his eyes are opened, he uses “the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” to do more evil, to hide, to deceive and we the people have never learned the lesson to BE TRANSPARENT, to BE AUTHENTIC and there is no authentically evil human being. Of course We the People commit evil acts and We are created “in the image of God” with “the spirit of God” breathed into us; ergo-We the People cannot be born evil, the evilness we the people purpetrate is “learned from our youth” and We the People do not have to learn these lessons and/or can do T’Shuvah and unlearn them! This is the challenge We the People are being given: AYECHA, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

ACTION STEPS:

1. Learn from your spiritual counselor/guide what truth is and wrestle with your spiritual friend to find the truth in your daily actions

2. At every meal, ask your SELF, how am I answering God’s call of Ayecha; when am I saying Hineni-here I am and when am I, like Adam, hiding?

3. Each evening, write down the ways I participated in forming “a more perfect union” with God, with myself, with my community

4. Each night write down the ways I participated in selfish, self-centered ways of deception, greed, graft, and what I am going to do to repair and change.

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD and SELF, Rabbi Mark

NEW BLOG: Ghosting God, Ghosting Self- an exploration of hiding and coming out

Ghosting God, Ghosting Selt

Good morning! This is the first day of my newest Blog: Ghosting God, Ghosting Self. I am going to be putting this blog along with my other writing together, with the amazing aid of my writing coach, Gay Walley, in a book later this year. The themes will vary from day to day, the throughline is: recovering our prophetic voice and taking the actions this voice nags at us to do.

The term “ghosting” is used when there seems to have been a relationship and then all of sudden one of the parties to the relationship goes ‘dark’ and is incommunicato, unable to be reached. I believe this is what is happening in our world right now and, while this is not a new phenomena, it seems to be on steroids, destroying faith in everything, especially in TRUTH. When there is no TRUTH, God cannot be present because, as we Jews say: “God is Truth”, “God is Everything” and when the glory of God is used to validate greed, avarice, capriciousness, mendacity, warmongering, etc then God is being ghosted!

Human beings are “just below the angels” and as such, We the People, in order to “form a more perfect union” with the world, with one another, with one’s self and with God have to come out of hiding, we have to tear down the curtain and stop trying to be the Wizard of Oz, stop following “the great and grand wizard”, stop defrauding ourselves and those around us. When we the people don’t engage to “form a more perfect union” we are ghosting ourselves.

I am overwhelmed with righteous indignation, which many people classify as personal anger, ego-driven because I don’t have a bully pulpit anymore. The difference is my indignation is directed at the people who are purporting to be ‘religious’, ‘holy’, and are, in fact, liars, charlatans, idolators, practitioners of mendacity. This is not personal!

OOPS, that may not be true. As a person of faith, as a Jew who wrestles with God, who ‘corrects’ God when immorality creeps into the Biblical dictates, who follows Rabbi Harold Shulweis’ dictate that we have a duty to obey as well as a duty to disobey, when ASSHOLES, like JD Vance, Paula Cain-White, Ben-G’Vir, Smotrich, Netanyahu bastardize the Bible, take the name of God in vain, make false idols of themselves, Trump, money, power, I do take it personally. I realize in this moment, the reason why!! Becase I have been redeemed by God, because the prophets words and actions ring so loudly in my ears, in my soul, because the Jewish world seems to have become mute vis a vis Israel’s foibles, because the Jewish world has lost the essence of what “Am Yisrael” means and is in the spiritual realm, I take this assault on God, on Faith, on Truth, on Holiness, on the Pope, very personally. An assault on any faith, on truth, on the holiness of the human being, is an assault on ALL OF US!

Not only are there False Images of God being purpertrated upon the masses by those ‘good christian LIARS’, these bastards continue to use the Name of God in vain. When Trump, Vance, et al lecture the Pope on Christian Doctrine and the entire Republican Party does not stand up and say ENOUGH, the conspiracy to use the Name of God in vain is vast and wide. When the prosperity gospels are promoted as ‘coming from Christ’ and Christ spoke about the “money-changers” in the Temple, about loving the stranger, caring for the poor and needy, everything coming from the Bible, we the people have to RISE UP from our Self-Deception, we have to WAKE UP from our desire to be in “the in crowd”, we have to LET GO of our need for certainty, power, greed and STAND WITH GOD, not with the False Images, not with taking the Name of God in Vain, etc.

I have been fighting this fight all my life, for about 20 years, I lost more often than ‘won’, this is my period of alcoholism, of criminality, of rebellion against “the societal norms”. It was not the proper rebellion, it was the wrong way to rebel, it was how I ghosted both God and my authentic self, my family and my friends. There were times when I was present, I did the next right thing, I fought the ‘good fight’, I just wasn’t consistent, I allowed my own greed, grief, anger to override what I knew to be right. These past 39+ years have been spent becoming more and more consistent in doing the next right action, in not hiding, in not Ghosting God nor my Self. This is the goal of this blog, to help you do the same-come out, come out wherever you are!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the ways you decieved your self today

2. Make a list of the ways you bought into the deception of another

3. Go over both lists and discern the reasons you went against what you know in your guts, in your soul to allow these deceptions to run you

4. Begin/continue a spiritual practice of T’Shuvah: inventory, repair the damages you have wrought, enhance the goodness you have brought

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD & SELF, Rabbi Mark

Selfish motives vis a vis the DEED and GOD this is the choice we face each day - Year 5 Day 40

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 40

“Man may be replete with selfish motives but a deed and God are stronger than selfish motives. The redemptive power discharged in carrying out the good purifies the mind. The deed is wiser than the heart.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 94)

While I firmly and deeply believe in “the redemptive power”, having been a recipient of it, I also know that the “selfish motives” are very powerful and without God, without “hitting bottom”, our self-deception can and does lead many good people to miss their own “selfish motives” while condemning those of another. “Don’t scout after your heart and your eyes”(Numbers 15:39) because “the deed is wiser than the heart” and We the People seem to be unable to grasp this truth no matter how many times we experience the negative consequences of “following our heart”, of believing in another who “knows what is best”, etc! How ridiculous that we the people continue to “looked like grasshoppers in our eyes and so we must have looked in their eyes”(Numbers 14:23) This projection is insane and we the people contnue to do this, we continue to not SEE whom we really are: partners with God, divine reminders, here to fulfill a divine need that no one else can. Yet, between our terrible eyesight, our self-deceptions, our need for power, prestige, wealth, control, and our greedy selfish inclination-we the people fall backwards over and over again. Rather than “fail forward”, learning from our own mistakes and those of our ancestors, we the people fall back into our selfish, bad habits that have gone on for the millennia! WTF, PEOPLE?!?!?

This the 1500th day of my writing on Rabbi Heschel’s teachings. It is the last I am going to do for a while. Tomorrow, I will begin a new Blog: Ghosting God, Ghosting our Self. It is also the title of my next book to come out some time this year. It is precisely what I hear Rabbi Heschel’s teachings call to us to end! God in Search of Man, Man is Not Alone, The Insecurity of Freedom, Who is Man, etc all give us life lessons on how to answer HINENI to the call of AYECHA and, since the time of Adam and Eve, we the people continue to miss the truth of our existence and ‘see’ ourselves as “grasshoppers”, as ‘gods’, bouncing back and forth between “my shit don’t stink” and “if you ony knew”, between “I am trapped in this narrow place(Egypt)” and “I am the Captain of my destiny”, living in the either/or of societal norms, denying the truth that is in our souls, that is in our intuitive mind, in our guts. The refusal to engage in “a deed and God”, ignoring the truth of “the redemptive power” and denying that “the good purifies the mind” has gotten We the People, once again, to a spiritual crisis. When the President of the United States speaks so disgustingly about the Pope who is pushing back against the bastardization of Christ’s words, when the Vice-President of the United States declares the “Pope should be more careful when talking about theology, when the Republicans do NOTHING about this, we the people are in a SPIRITUAL CRISIS!

I am ENGRAGED that there are not more Jewish Voices joining Pope Leo, I am BEYOND the BEYOND that Rabbis, Cantors, etc are afraid to speak to their congregants about the WRONGS of ISRAEL, the WRONGS of the Jews who supported Epstein, the WRONGS of the Jews helping Trump wage war on the stranger, forgetting that “We were strangers in the Land of Egypt”! I am a Zionist, I am NOT a BIBI’ist! I do not believe in the JDL and I am appalled that equating calling out the wrongs of Israel is tantamount to being a “self-loathing Jew”. In the Holiness Code we are COMMANDED to “rebuke your neighbor and don’t bear guilt because of them”(Lev. 19:17) so, my fellow Rabbis: WHERE ARE YOU?? AYECHA is being called out each day from Sinai and it seems the Jewish response has become: “I’m HIDING” just like Adam and Eve, learning NOTHING from the Torah, believing in the hubris and the hatred Ezra put into the Torah, forgetting that  we were brought out of Egypt to “be a light unto the Nations” (Isaiah 42:6). This is the job, this is the privilege, this is the Call from Sinai and the JEWISH PEOPLE are not ANSWERING the CALL with light, with hope. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to stand up, be counted, and respond to what is happening with justice, mercy, love, truth, kindness and not with ‘where’s mine, what’s safe, I’m afraid I will offend someone, I may lose my job, etc.’

I have never believed in going along to get along, even though I am guilty of doing it. I have fought for the truth, I have listened to my intuitive voice, I have heard the call from Sinai and I continue to speak out through my writing, regardless of no responses. I am a pariah, it seems, I am deemed too crass because I refuse to put up with the “Ghosting of God”, the “Ghosting of self” that continues to be de rigeueur in our world. Rabbi Heschel has been a constant companion on my journey and these 1500 days, my book 365 Life Lessons of Rabbi Heschel are my repaying the debt, knowing I can never fully repay the gift of living well he gives me.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Do your deeds purify your evil inclinations or your good ones? Year 5 Day 39

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 39

“Left alone, the soul is subject to caprice. Yet there is power in the deed that purifies desires. It is the act, life itself, that educates the will. The good motive comes into being while doing the good.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 94)

“Caprice”, an unaccountable sudden change of mind based on a whim, a feeling, is the condition that We the People are suffering from in this very moment. While everyone knew who Donald J. Trump was/is, it did not seem to matter to the majority of Americans who voted in 2024-granted Kamala was not a great candidate and Tim was an even worse pick- yet a majority of Americans decided to put a person who’s middle name and way of being screams “capriciousness” in charge and saving democracy has become the #1 goal for many of we the people even ones who voted for Trump. Rather than allow “the deed that purifies desires” to impact him, his buddies, the Republican party, all of these entities stay away from any “deed that purifies” and, instead, engage in all of the actions possible which support their avarice, their greed, their hunger for absolute power, up to and including going along with a ridiculous ‘war’ with Pope Leo, accusing the Pope-a boy from Chicago- of not understanding Christ’s words and “deeds”!! WTF PEOPLE?!!

Immersing myself in the words above, I realize the absolute truth of the 2nd sentence: “the power in the deed that purifies desires” applies to the “good deed” and to the “evil deed”. When evil is pursued through deeds, like Bibi and Donny (and their band of thieves, cronies, ass-kissers, cult followers) are doing-they derive more and more power and their motives, desires become stronger, purer, and this is the reason they sound so convincing-because they have put themselves through the purification process that says evil is actually good, denying the Truth is the way of Jesus, Moses, Christianity and Judaism throughout the millennia! I ask again: WTF People?!?@*%$

We the People are being called to account by the words above, by the moment we are living in. The question that I hear coming from the words above and from the Voice on Sinai is: Od Matai-until when will we the people refuse to do God’s wll, to do justly, love mercy, love the stranger, help the poor and the needy, proclam freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be Holy…? We the People have to seek out the spiritual counselor that can speak directly to the soul within us. We the People have to do an accounting of our soul and list the capricious moments we engage in and heal the wounds that make it okay to violate our covenant with God, betray our neighbors, friends, family. We the People have to make a list of the “deed that purifies desires” and have caused us to do the next right thing and how to enhance these “deeds”.

It is not an easy transition from avarice and capriciousness to doing the next right thing, I know. It took a jail cell to wake me up, it took my 6 year-old daughter’s letter of hate and love to solidify what I knew all along was the right way to live. Ever since, for the past 39 years, I have been on this journey of doing and then understanding, of taking an education and learning the beauty and the ugliness of the actions I engage in, and my life has been a classroom wherein I keep learning more and more how to live, what being a partner with the ineffable one means, how to be the husband Harriet needs, the father Heather needs, the grandfather Miles needs, the brother my siblings need, the uncle my nieces and nephews need, the Rabbi, person my communities need. IT AIN’T EASY AND it is so much more rewarding that the WTF People?!?!! activities I used to engage in! As the Bible teaches us: King David could admit his errors and be repentant and forgiven, the people who left Egypt could bitch and moan AND they never turned back towards Egypt, Moses reminds us that: t”he word is in your mouth, in your heart”. We the People are never to far away to turn back, never so lost we can’t read the map, never too evil to do T’Shuvah and return! The key is: allow the “good” to adjust our motives, to allow the “good” to “educate our will” so God’s will becomes our will.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the triggers for your capriciousness

2. Make a list of solutions to these triggers because they are not going away

3. Make a daily inventory of ways your “deeds” purify your evil desires and help you hide from the Truth

4. Make a daily inventory of  your “deeds” that purify you good desires and help you live into Truth

5. Find and engage with a spiritual counselor, a spiritual friend in learning and educating your soul and your will to be in line with the divine.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living into "ideal goals", "sacred deeds", "sacred goals" - Year 5 day 38

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 38

“Deeds set upon ideal goals, deeds performed not with careless ease and routine but in exertion and submission to their ends are stronger than the surprise and attack of caprice. Serving sacred goals may change mean motives.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 93)

We the People have come to misunderstand what “sacred deeds” are, I believe. When the word “sacred” is used, the dictionary and society automatically identify “sacred” as religious, having to do with God, etc. While a “sacred deed” is given to us by God, it is not a “religious” action as society defines “religious actions”. The use of “sacred” by Rabbi Heschel is, I believe, having to do with any and all actions that fall within the purview of the 248 “thou shall” and the 365 “don’t do” sayings, commandments, directives by God in the Bible. “Love the stranger” is a “sacred deed/goal”, as is “don’t make false idols”, “don’t go back to the narrow straits of Egypt”, “do justly”, “love mercy”, etc. I hear Rabbi Heschel calling out to us to let go of our adjustments to societal norms and continue to be maladjusted so we can “see”, “hear”, “understand” the freshness and newness of each and every action we take, not be bystanders in our lives. Rather, I hear the call of God to live life on and with purpose and not by accident!

The highest  of “ideal goals” is, of course, serve God, serve humanity, live the unique gift we have in the world and in the open for the purpose of serving not for self-serving. Hence, we the people who are living with careless ease and routine, with ‘what’s in it for me’, ‘how do I keep the power I have’, etc live in capriciousness. They live in and revel in “being guided by sudden, impulsive, or unpredictable changes in mood, behavior, or decisions, rather than reason or consistency”. Sound like anyone in power today?!? This way of being is not confined to Trump alone, Bibi does it, Vlad is guilty of doing this, as are many other leaders. This way of being is anathema to freedom, it is the opposite of the “deeds” in the Bible, the preachings of Christ, the actions of Christ, the ways of the prophets. Yet, we keep hearing from so-called ‘religious’ leaders that these are “good men”, who are ‘saving the Jews’, ‘loving Israel’, ‘keeping America first’, and other such bullshit! WTF PEOPLE???

The choice facing all of We the People is simple: accept the “yoke of heaven”, the call to engage in “sacred goals” and have a daily routine of “deeds” that re-enforces these goals or not. Yet, even in this simple choice, there are nuances. When we are engaged in a routine, it is imperative to NEVER DO IT ROUTINELY! As is stated above, we have to exert ourselves and submit ourselves to the ends that we are attempting to serve. Just as there is no ‘one and done’ in the spiritual life of service, there is no ‘easy way’ to perform the mitzvot, to fulfill a “sacred deed”, to serve a “sacred goal”. We the People are being called to be fully present and immersed in the experience we are in, to focus our attention, our actions in service of the “sacred deed” that presents itself in this moment. It AIN’T EASY! Hence, the need for “exertion and submission”. Every time we submit to the will of God, to the call to perform a “sacred deed”, we are strengthening our ability to surrender to a higher call, we are strengthening our staying power when many of we the people would quit.

Being engaged in “sacred deeds” is the pathway out of the morass we the people find ourselves in. Believing a liar, thief, racist, rapist, felon who has never told the truth in his life and making him President? Supporting the myriad of men who, like Swallwell and Gonzales, use their positions of power to sexually assault women without any awareness of their incongruency because they also ‘believe the victims of Epstein, et al’! Living an either/or life when it comes to Israel and Bibi-being ostracized if one believes that Oct. 7th was horrific, Hamas is dangerous and what happened in Gaza has changed Hamas’ stranglehold nor is what the settlers/government doing in the West Bank kosher. Living into “sacred goals” is what my recovery is based on, what most peoples’ recovery is based on and what is desperately needed today!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down your routine of spiritual growing and practice-formalizing your pathway to growing into your authenticity

2. Make a gratitude list and a list of “sacred actions” you are going to take this day.

3. Mid-day take your spiritual and emotional temperature, are you present in your living, are you aware of the “sacred deeds” that are calling for your actions?

4. Each evening go over your routine and make note of the ones you did routinely and the ones you were present for.

5. Each evening write down how your “sacred actions” of today changed you.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Power of the Good Deed versus the Power of the EGO - Year 5 Day 37

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 37

“The good is carried out in acts, and there is an intense fascination that comes from a good deed couteracting the pressure and ardor of the ego. The ego is redeemed by the absorbing power and the inexorable provocativeness of a just task which we face.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 93)

70+ years ago, Rabbi Heschel is reminding we the people that all of our intentions, all of our ‘inner goodness’ means absolutely NOTHING if We the People are not STANDING UP and DOING GOOD! Oh, that we the people would have heeded these words and similar words of so many other people then! Since we didn’t then, in the words of Hillel the Elder, I ask IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

While it is true for every moment, this moment is especially in need of “the good”, we the people are in the throes of a society that is giving honor to the thieves, worshiping the golden calf, bowing down to power and greed, surrendering to “the pressure and ardor of the ego”. Every society throughout history has fallen for these exact reasons. From the Children of Israel splitting up into two nations because of Solomon’s greed to the Hasmoneans becoming more Greek-like than the Jews they fought against to gain power, we have watched this movie end with the destruction of the Temples, the destruction of the country, and we, Jews, think Bibi is Moses-like, think Bibi is the modern-day King David??? WTF, people? When we allow past victories to lull us into the false belief that we are invincible, that ‘we have a just cause’, that “never again” gives us the right to keep people in camps, treat another human being as if they are less than human… We the People are FUCKED!

Posting as if you are Jesus Christ or a ‘doctor’ and you heal people with your touch-PLEASE DONALD J TRUMP! Starting a war of words with the Pope, having your VP, that lackey JD Vance stand up for you against the leader of his faith, humiliating him at each and every turn, showing disdain for the Iranians by sending Vance and not Rubio, Kushner and not experienced diplomats, and then using your fuck-ups as an excuse to ‘flex your muscles’, which puts American heroic military people at risk just to prove “the pressure and ardor of your ego” can counteract any good deed that another human being does?! Where is the 25th Amendment? Where are the balls of the Republican White Men in Congress to bring Impeachment and get this lunatic away from the controls. Vance is not a great back-up and he is better than this lunatic! MAGA must RISE UP and SAY NO because as it is, We the People are FUCKED!

Making a habit of doing the next right thing, taking the next right action is not trying to be perfect, in fact it recognizes our fallibility by telling us that whatever we are doing now, may not be right and we have CHOICE! This is the greatest power of “the good”. In doing a “good act”, we become aware of our power over our choices, we find a new freedom, a liberation from “same shit different day” attitude. When We the People embrace how “a good deed (is) counteracting the pressure and ardor of the ego” there is an overwhelming sense of hope, of joy, of love, of connection with our spirituality, with a power greater than ourselves, with our community.

I have been engaged in “doing the next right thing” for the past 38+ years. It is not always easy nor does it always “feel good” in the moment. There are moments of “why do I have to do it when no one else is”, there are moments of “doing this loses me money”, there are moments of intense anger being directed towards me, there are moments of profound misunderstandings, there are moments of intense betrayal. All these experiences, while hurtful, while negative DO NOT come close to the joy, the wonder, the awe, the spiritual fulfillment that “a good deed counteracting the pressure and ardor of the ego” brings! Each and every “good deed” is a repayment to God for the gift of life, for the gifts life brings me, for the love I experience and for the joy I live in. This is what We the People need to do to counter-act the evil that is at the core of our current Government, the greed and avarice that runs throughout the government and people.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the actions you take today that show your goodness

2. Write down the actions you take today that show your not goodness

3. Write down the reasons and the outcomes of the actions you take today, both the good ones and the not so good ones

4. See what you were oblivious to this day, look at the lies you told yourself this day

5. Do an ego check a few times a day to see if the pressure and ardor are rising to dangerous levels

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Living into being "descendants of the prophets" - Year 5 Day 36

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 36

“The prophets are forgotten. No one reades the prophets. They have not touched the mind of America. And this is why such statements come out. What is the greatest concern in the Bible? Injustice to one’s fellow man. What is the greatest dream of the prophets and of the Bible? Peace.” (Continuation of Rabbi Heschel’s intervew with Carl Stern for Eternal Light)

Given the defeat of Viktor Orban, the end of authoritarianism in Hungary, at least for the moment, one can hope that America, Israel will come to their senses and back to their roots. Of course, Hungary is a nascent democracy, remember the Shoe Memorial by the Danube where Hungarians were so eager to kill Jews they didn’t even want to wait for the transports at the end of the war, they shot them in the back of the head and kept their shoes! Israel is also a nascent democracy and both of these countries show us the danger of democracy: it can be used as a weapon by the authoritarian, by the fascist, by the people who have “forgotten” “the prophets”! In America, where we have more experience with democracy, the same is happening; Trump and his minions and handlers are destroying the basic tenets upon which our country was founded: Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom to vote, Freedom of Religion, Checks and balances of the SEPARATE branches of Government, etc.

While Trump and his ‘good christian nationalist folks’ continue to invoke the name of Jesus in all they do, We the People of faith like Pope Leo continue to speak out against the lies and the idolatry of these charlatans. We the People like Bishop William Barber continue to support and stand with the poor, the needy, the stranger. The resistance is here, the question is if we are going to have to wait years until Trump and his Gang of Thieves are gone? Or, are We the People going to stand up and throw the bums out right now? I ask the same question of the Israeli people who know that Bibi is killing the principles Israel was founded on, who know that he is a thief and a liar, who know…

Teaching the prophets is imperative for the health of a democracy, without this knowledge, without understanding We the People are the descendants of the prophets, the inheritors of the prophetic spirit, without opening our beings to hear the call from Sinai, the call from the burning bush, the call to wake up, to speak up, to save we the people from our small minds, our ego-driven desires, our hateful, spiteful actions, We the People are doomed to continue to repeat this cycle of freedom, authoritarianism, liberation, freedom, authoritarianism…

NOW is the moment for We the People to be like Hosea and see how we have WHORED ourselves for a pot of gold that is actually coal, how our naked desires and rampant rationalizations have spun a web of deceit that seems impossibel to break free of. NOW is the moment for We the People to be like Jerimiah and call out to one another the power of spirit, the desire of God to “heal our backsliding”, to “take us back in love”. NOW is the moment to hear the call of Isaiah to end our incessant subterfuge of rituals and bastardizations of God’s will and surrender to the spirit within each of us, to appreciate and use the Gift of our intuitve minds rather than worship the mendacity of our rational minds. NOW is the moment for We the People to say NO to the injustices that surround us. NO to the senseless hatred being sprewed and promoted by those ‘fearless leaders’, the wannabe ‘fuhrers’, the whores we the people elected to screw us over! The injustices being practiced in the name of we the people are disgusting, dismantling the fabric of our society, disfiguring the Image of God that is in each of us and deflecting the TRUTH of who We the People can be.

What better day to think, speak, write about this subject than today, Yom HaShoah, the day of remembering the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto and it is a day of mourning. I remember when it was called Warsaw Ghetto day-honoring the uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto which lasted almost a month! When We the People arm ourselves with the words of the prophets, when We the People uncover the spirit of the prophets that is within each of us, when We the People believe in, fight for, and engage in paths of “peace”, miracles happen! This is the call of today, it is the call of the prophets.

ACTION STEPS:
1) Write down how you answer the call of the prophets each day for a week

2) Make notes of how you still want to believe the lies of your rational mind, 3) Make a list of the ways you whored yourself each day, asking yourself for forgiveness and changing your ways, your eyesight

4) Make a list of the ways you honored your prophetic spirit, doing justly, loving your neighbor and the stranger

5) Make a plan for this day to strengthen the prophetic voice within and follow it a little better.

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Spiritual needs and politics, God and Social Issues-do they belong together? Year 5 Day 35

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 35

Question from Carl Stern: “Prospective jurors, one after another, were questioned…said they thought it was wrong for clergymen to be involved in politics, that their job is to administer to spiritual needs.” Response from Rabbi Heschel: “It is such a good statement that if the prophets were alive, they would already be sent to jail by these jurors. Because the prophets mixed into social-political issues. And, frankly, I would say that God seems to be a non-religious person, because, if you read the words of God in the Bible, He always mixes in politics and social issues.”

Sitting here at my computer, reading the news, was drawn to these words and this interview once again. The entire interview is powerful, uplifting, deeply disturbing, and motivating with the passage above speaking directly to our moment in time. Reading the words of Trump about Pope Leo is infuriating, enraging, head-shaking, and tragic. That this despicable human being-he is, after all, a human being without any humanity, without any empathy, compassion, truthfulness, love, spiritual maturity- can take credit for the assension of Pope Leo is IDIOTIC, LUNACY! Yet, he does. Calling Pope Leo “WEAK on crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” is such an affront to the spiritual, moral teachings and lessons the Pope is trying to pass on to Catholics, Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims. All of us owe our allegiance to God, Allah, Adonai, the ineffable One. And where are the Catholics in Congress, in the Republican Party, where are the Jews in Congress, in the Republican Party? SILENT as usual!! That this IDOLATOR, this FORNICATOR, can post a picture of himself as “having saint-like powers akin to those of Jesus Christ. Wearing a bilbical-style robe, Trump is seen laying hands on a bedridden man as light emanates from his fingers.”(Apple News 4/13) is an ABOMINATION! Where are the Jews, the Christians, the Catholics who support this ASSHOLE? SILENT! Maybe it is time for We the People to heed Rabbi Heschel’s words above, maybe it is time to go back to the Bible and READ, STUDY, HEAR, UNDERSTAND the words and actions of the prophets, of Jesus, of Adonai!! YA THINK?

In Israel, a land I have great kinship with, an idea that stems from the Biblical accounts of what should be, what could be if and when We the People become a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 49:6), watching the destruction of the Declaration of Independence, the destruction of the rule of law, the destruction of humanity, the destruction of the ideals and morals the ‘rabbis’ are supposed to be teaching is beyond sad, it is tragic. The verse in Isaiah says that God is “Giving you to be a Light to the nations”, we are the gift, not the destroyer, we are the examples of humanity, of freedom, of liberation from slavery-NOT THE PHARAOH!! When there is condemnation of the policies of Bibi and friends, We the People who are following in the footsteps of the prophets, are labled as traitors by Rabbis who KNOW BETTER? When We the People are living in the both/and of the cruelty of Hamas, the constant pressure from the Arab countries around us to destroy us AND the cruelty of what has happened in Gaza, the ‘collateral damage’ of the strikes in Lebanon, in Iran(an unprovoked war by the way) and labeled as Anti-Semitic, Anti-Zionist by the very CROOKS WHO VIOLATE THE DEMANDS OF THE PROPHETS AND GOD?! This is the moment when We the People must rise up and live the deeds and words of the prophets, when We the People must “give ourselves to be a light to the peoples of the world through protest, through action!

I know I have gone on, I know my views are not always popular, I know that my soul is unable to keep silent, to be ‘political’, and I know that my colleagues are divided. What I don’t know is how anyone can be divided: holding two opposing thoughts, two opposing truths in one moment, in every moment is what it means to BE HUMAN! The Rabbis fear of the prophets is because the prophets would not be nice to them, anymore than they were nice to the Kings, to the priests, to the wealthy, to the people Israel, to the Judean people. FUCK NICE, FUCK going along to get along, FUCK whitewashing evil because it is being done by ‘our side’. FUCK Bibi, FUCK Donny, FUCK EVIL!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a self-examination of the incongruence between what you say are your principles, morals and the actions, the silence you practice

2. Take a self-examination of when your principles, morals are congruent with the actions you take

3. Study the Prophets, finding the words and actions that resonate most within you and find ways to incorporate them into your daily living

4. Find places and people with whom you can engage with to effect change in the cruelty, to effect bringing the “law” of Jesus, of Moses, of Adonai more into the town square!
   

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Faith without works is DEAD! Are you one of the walking dead? Year 5 Day 34

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 34

“Indeed, the awareness of the weakness of the heart, the unreliability of human inwardness, may perhaps have been on the reasons that compleled Judaism to take recourse to actions instead of relying upon inward devotion. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of the Rabbis’ counsel: one should always do the good, even though it is not done for its own sake, It is the act that teaches us the meaning of the act.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92-93)

Having crossed the Red Sea and on this Day 10 of our counting of the Omer, the slaves who were liberated forgot their words, their commitments and were overcome with fear of ‘no water’. Rather than keep “their hearts in the right place”, we the people witness over and over again the “weakness of the heart” even though We the People had this amazing spiritual experience of God’s liberation! From the time of Adam and Eve, the human heart has proved over and over again to have “weakness”, that our “inwardness” is unreliable and everytime we pick ourselves up, we the people “scout after our heart and eyes to WHORE after them” even though the 3rd Prayer of the Shema tells us NOT to go after them! In Deuteronomy we find Moses telling the people to “love God with all your heart, your soul, your everything and walk in God’s ways, follow the commandments, Choose Life”. While loving God is a good thing, this alone will not lead to doing the next right action. In John 14:15 Jesus says: “If you love Me, keep my commandments” in 14:21: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me”, and in 14:24: “He who does not love Me does not keep My words: and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent me.” Once again we learn the TRUTH: Love is NOT A FEELING, it is AN ACTION! Hence, “one should always do the good, even though it is not done for its own sake”!

We the People are in another moment in time where Truth is being pummeled by deceivers and these grifters and liars, where even the White House had to issue a directive for its staffers to NOT bet on the Iran War in the polymarkets! This assualt is coming from Trump which is not new because Donald Trump never told the truth-in business, in personal, in political realms. He learned to lie at his father’s feet, he learned to hate from his father’s actions, he learned to be cruel as his father’s right-hand man. TRUMP IS NOT THE PROBLEM! The problem is the myriad of clergy, beginning with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, et al who have defied Christ’s words as related by John in the Gospel! The problem is all the Christian Nationalist Clergy who support the lies of Hegseth, the grift and graft of Rubio, the cruelty of Vought loudly and proudly while calling themselves followers of Christ! Can you imagine what Jesus is saying? Can you imagine how, Jesus the immigrant is experiencing the Detention Centers these ‘fine christian folk’ are setting up, running and supporting? Lest you think that Jews are so much better: Kushner, Lutnick, Bessent, Miller all proclaim loyalty to Judaism and love Israel, while going against the very commandments that Moses gave to us. Rather than believe that God is God, they and the right-wing in Israel believe they know what the Bible is ‘really saying’ and the rest of We the People ‘just don’t understand’. While they peddle these lies, the text says: LOVE THE STRANGER- NOT BE CRUEL TO THE STRANGER, the text says: ONE LAW FOR THE CITIZEN AND STRANGER ALIKE-NOT ONE LAW FOR THE RICH AND ANOTHER FOR THE REST OF WE THE PEOPLE! So, to these ‘good jews’ I say BULLSHIT- READ THE BIBLE, HEAR, LISTEN UNDERSTAND AND DO the words of Moses, the words of the Prophets-not the bastardizations of people throughout the millennia.

At Mount Sinai, We the People committed to DO and THEN UNDERSTAND! No mention is made of our motivation, no mention is made of how we ‘feel’ about it- the only two emotions that are prevelant in the Bible are loving God, the strangter, our neighbor, ourselves, and hating evil, cruelty, lying, greed, murder, coveting! Ergo: It is imperative for We the People to TAKE THE NEXT RIGHT ACTION, to “always do the good”, no matter how we think or feel. More on this tomorrow

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the good you could have done in the past and didn’t because you didn’t “feel like it”

2. Read Numbers 15:38-40 each morning and evening; in the am make a list of the traps of your heart and your eyes and in the evening-which ones did you fall into, which ones you did not and what new ones did you fall into

3. List the Loving Actions you took today and the non-loving ones as well

4. Write down your plan to repair the non-loving ones and enhance the loving one

5. Live life congruent with the principles you hold dear and in concert with the Biblical mandates

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark

Going beyond the mind, going beyond the mystery.... Year 5 Day 33

Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 5 Day 33

“Israel was taught how to accost Him who is beyond the mystery. Beyond the mind is the mystery, but beyond the mystery is mercy. Out of the darkness comes a voice disclosing that the ultimate mystery is not an enigma but the God of mercy; that the Creator of all is teh “Father in Heaven.” (Thunder in the Soul pg. 92)

We the People have lost our ability “to accost Him who is beyond mystery” because we have to solve any and every mystery. In our hubris, we the people have decided that we are god, no matter how much we pray to Jesus, Allah, Adonai-our actions disprove our words, we the people, or at least a plurality of us cannot conceive that anything is “beyond the mind”, if we only apply ourselves enough! Not only is this hubris, it is STUPID! I have yet to meet a human being who can make the sky turn its myriad of colors, I have yet to meet a human being who can make mountains grow, who can create ex nihlo fruit bearing trees, etc. While one of the new ‘frontiers’ is creating life by cloning, making Robots have human emotions, no one that I have heard of has created a human being ex-nihlo. Sure, it may happen, and it will not be the same!

“but beyond the mystery is mercy” is the issue. No matter how often we the people create something wonderful, meaningful, helpful, there are always those who seek to exploit these creations for their power and wealth, who seek to destroy these creations for the sake of cruelty. We are in the throes of these power-hungry, never enough money grubbing, cruelty-loving assholes right now and they have the unmitigating GALL to proclaim they are doing all of this in the NAME OF JESUS, because it is what ADONAI WANTS! And do not refute them with the facts of what Jesus says nor with the 36 times the Torah demands we love the stranger, etc; because they will tell their sycophantic followers, their cult members and we who confront them that ‘you don’t understand what it is REALLY saying’. HOW INFURIATING!!

That Good Christian Men and Women, Good Jewish Men and Women in the Republican Party do not STAND THE FUCK UP and say NO, that they do not DEFEND the TRUTH, DEFEND these wanton attacks on ADONAI, on JESUS is beyond me! That We the People have not thrown these idolators, these despots, these lying BASTARDS out of office is also beyond me. It is beyond me to understand how any of the people who have the power to go “beyond the mind” and “beyond the mystery” and be “mercy”.

I do understand living in the darkness, as anyone and everyone who has had a “dark night of the soul”, a spiritual awakening, a crisis of conscience, an experience with one’s own higher consciousness can also understand. This, however, is the key. All of these sycophants KNOW better, they have done the next right action before, they know of Goldwater telling Nixon to leave, they know of booting Gingrich out of power, they know what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, and they ignore the TRUTH! When one ignores the truth, the darkness completely enwraps one. Truth is the light at the end of the tunnel and the refusal to engage in it is the downfall of every society. It is Biblical; both Temples were destroyed, the kingdom of Israel was scattered about by the Assyrians, because we the people in our hubris, in our stupidity, in our ignorance, in our self-importance believed we were ‘safe’, ‘it couldn’t happen here’, etc. WRONG!!

And We the People who are sounding the Alarm, We the People who continue to speak out, We the People who keep protesting and voting against these liars, who are cheering Pope Leo, who are resisting the societal pull to “go along to get along”, who are risking being ostracized because we won’t say ‘Israel is right’, ‘America is right’ no matter what are living the certainty that “out of the darkeness comes a voice disclosing that the ultimate mystery is not an enigma, but the God of mercy”. My constant and consistent ranting and raving about Truth, about the need to STOP THE CRUELTY is because I experience the “God of mercy” every day and I need to spread the truth that this is the “ultimate mystery”!

ACTION STEPS:
1) Write about your experiences when you “accost Him who is beyond the mystery”.

2) Do an inventory of how you stopped yourself from going “beyond your mind” because of the lie that there is nothing you can’t figure out

3) Do an inventory of how you went “beyond the mind” and experienced “the mystery”

4) What have you learned from your “dark night of the soul”, from your spirirtual awakening

5) How has the “God of mercy” changed you and how have you been more merciful in your living

GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mark