Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 19

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 19

Iran, Voting Rights, Freedom of the Press, even Freedom of Religion are being threatened in this moment, as they have been in the past. I am not sure if because it is history those times do not seem as bad as today’s or if it is truly worse in this moment because the fascists, the autocrats, the ego-centricity of the people “leading the charge” today, are more acutely aware of the errors of their ancestors and the errors they made to hold onto power forever. Either way, what is being lost, most of all, in my opinion, is Freedom to BE whom one is and not conform to the societal norms.

We hear a lot about Trump Derangement Disorder, we hear a lot of handwringing about what is going on, and what comes to me are Ann Frank’s words: “ In spite of everything, I still believe people are basically good at heart”. What comes to me are Rabbi Heschel’s words: “The greatest hinderance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions and mental cliches, wonder or radical amazement, the maladjustment to notions and cliches, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.” On one hand, we have all the Democrats complaining, speechmaking about the cruelty, the lawlessness and they are dismissed because they HAVEN’T DONE A DAMN THING TO CHANGE ANYTHING. On the other hand, we have the Republicans beating their chests with how powerful, how cruel, how disenfranchising, how racist, how anti-semitic, how islamaphobic they can be while sucking FAT ASS’S private parts and kissing that FAT ASS because they are making money at it. On another hand we have Kushner, Wytkoff, Lutnick, et al making a fortune off of the war with Iran, kissing Putin’s ring so they can make money in Russia-our ‘good white friend’, and pushing the agenda of MBS because he has the spigot open for them. On another hand, we have the examples of Minnesota, Chicago, Los Angeles where We the People took charge, where We the People did not listen to conventional wisdom that ICE was too strong, too pervasive, too popular, that Trump was keeping his promise about the criminal underbelly of illegal immigrants and STOPPED THEM IN THEIR TRACKS, at least for the moment-they are still rounding people up and, just like Westmorland in Vietnam, Stephen Miller and Tom Holman want the numbers-no matter if someone is not a criminal or even here legally, if they are brown-they are fair game.

What is so disgusting about what is going on today is how many Black and brown people, how many Jews voted for Trump going against their self-interests, going against what they knew to be true about him, going against what his words were saying. Even more disgusting and distressing is how people of all stripes and colors went along with the “conventional notion” of the Southern States-‘Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Asians, are here to serve THE WHITE MAN’ and they have brought to fruition: “The South will rise again”. As I look to the Bible for strength and wisdom, I find that  Sarah mistreated Hagar, a slave who became pregnant at Sarah’s request and Abraham was so disinterested in what Sarah was doing, he told her ‘go do what you want to do’, Sarah’s jealousy of Hagar was so great because she was younger, hotter, became pregnant when Sarah couldn’t and her frustration came out so badly, Hagar ran away-only to be brought back by an Angel of God. So too are these ‘good white christian folk’ going against the principles, the ways, the values, the preaching of Jesus, of the prophets, denying the exodus from the narrowness of Egypt. So too are these ‘fine white christian men’ afraid that their women will like Black men better than white men and so many other fears that these ‘fine Christ spouting men and women’ have which they hide in their cruelty. While they spout Christ’s words, they live the exact opposite of what Christ said! While the Kushner’s, Wytkoffs, Lutnicks spout the words of the Bible, they live the opposite as well, the Rabbis who support these assholes, bowing down to the Golden Statue of Trump in Florida by Hasidic leaders and, praising Trump’s Peace efforts by naming a ‘peace park’ for him in ANETEVKA!! What the FUCK, People. I am crazed over this, I hear the prophets in my ears, I hear my ancestors who fled Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary prior to WWII, I hear the cries of the 6 million who the Nazi’s murdered in the name of RACIAL PURITY, get it??!!! And here we are again-it is beyond sad, beyond anger, it is the ultimate betrayal of God, the ultimate betrayal of our Self!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the Freedom’s you have let go of in order to ‘make it in today’s world’!

2. How has senseless hatred of people who are ‘different’ than you led you to suffer from a “cancer of the soul”?

3. What are the ways you are like Sarah and/or Abraham-mistreating someone who has given you the gift of how to live well?

4. How are you fighting the fight of the Prophets against the ‘money-changers’ in the White House and Congress?

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 18

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 18

I have been in spiritual turmoil for days now and I know the root of it and I don’t want to not be in this spiritual turmoil until there is a solution to cruelty, the hatred, the racism that is THE SOUTH, that is THE REPUBLICAN PARTY! Oh how far we have fallen-from the days of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation to Trump calling Black women nasty, demeaning names, to the Southern States doing everything they can, legally and illegally, to prevent any Black Congresspeople to win a district! WHAT THE FUCK?!

Watching Jamie Harrison speak to the pain in his soul, watching and listening to Eddie Glaude cry on National TV, knowing the fight I participated in as a youth-even while being a criminal and a drunk-hurts my soul so terribly and, at my age, what I can do is protest, is to write about it, to remind my fellow Jewish Clergy of Martin Niemoller’s Poem of his realizing that not standing for another(s) means there will be no one to stand with me when ‘they’ come for me. As Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes et al gain more and more influence, as the Progressives in the Democratic Party gain more and more influence- IT AIN’T GOOD FOR THE JEWS!! Yet, somehow, my fellow clergy, my fellow Jews are cheering the cruelty, the racism, the hatred, the power grab by their (supposedly) White Supremacist and White Christian Nationalist friends? REALLY?!

I haven’t slept well since the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act because “it isn’t needed anymore” according to Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, et al. So of course, the Southern States do immediate redistricting so there is no way Black people can vote in a block, however, these “fine upstanding christian men and women’ ensure that White People can continue to vote in blocks. I am sure this is what Christ had in mind when he said: “The meek shall inherit the Earth” because these ‘poor white christians’ are being so mistreated!?!! What many of my fellow Clergy people, both Jewish and Black, have forgotten that We the People have a common enemy-the same enemy that brought Jews together with Dr. King, the same enemy that brought Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to Selma to participate in the 2nd march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge: CRUELTY, ASSAULT ON TRUTH, BASTARDIZATION OF the BIBLE! The idea that Jews are going to stand on the sidelines while Black people are being treated with such cruelty, such indignity is anathema to the principles of the Bible, it is very similar to the reason for the destruction of the Temples-senseless hatred and allowing/participating in the cruelty towards the stranger, the poor, the needy, the women, the children. Yet, so many ‘fine orthodox, amazing liberal’ Jews say that Blacks did not support them after October 7th-and while there are many instances where this is true-just as there is no monolith called “the Jewish stance” so too is there no monolith called “the Black stance”. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if Blacks ‘stood’ with Palestinians, if they stood against the destruction of Gaza and deaths of innocent civilians, what is going on now is ANTITHETICAL to the principles laid out in the Bible, in the Holiness Code. These machinations by Trump, by the Republican Party, by the Supreme Court to hold power are not so different from the machinations being done in the time of the prophets. To quote Pete Seeger, again: “When will we ever learn”?

I am calling for the impeachment (casting doubt upon) of any and all Clergy who are promoting these indignities, who are advocating for the racism that permeates our politics, our business’, today. I am calling for my fellow Rabbis and Cantors to Preach like the Prophets from their bully pulpit against the racism and the cruelty being perpetrated in our name- THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR THE JEWS! Thinking about the Bible, Abraham prostitutes Sarah twice, he does this out of fear for his survival, not thinking about what it means to his wife to be asked to demean her Self in such ways-btw, God never tells him to do this. Hagar is called “the Egyptian”, Abimelech is referred to by his country, Gerar, these are descriptors that have been used by ‘those fine orthodox scholars’ as epithets, as ways to demean a people, the same tactics used against Jews for the millennia! WHAT THE FUCK? “WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?

ACTION STEPS:
1) Call or go see your Rabbi, Cantor, Priest, Minister, Imam and deman d they speak out against injustice, against cruelty, against racism in all its forms including anti-semitism, islamophobia, etc

2) Examine your Self and root out the racism, the cruelty you support wittingly and unwittingly

3) Find and visit an AME or any Black Church in your area, seeking out the Pastor and offer to join in their battle against racism, cruelty, senseless hatred that is, once again, running rampant.

4) Write, talk to, knock on the doors of people to help them go above “party lines” and do the next right thing.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 17

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 17

I keep thinking about the myriad of ways we the people continue to ghost God and lose our authentic self to lies, mendacities, self-deceptions, running after the majority to do evil. It is infuriatingly disgusting seeing all the ways we the people miss the “angels” that are in our midst, unlike Abraham who recognizes the angels, I believe, and acknowledges their disguise as men-yet calling them “my lords”.

Listening to the political rhetoric, watching the values, principles, morals that are at the foundation of every spiritual discipline/religion be bastardized by the very people meant to safeguard them, grow them is ridiculously idiotic and dismaying. The Dalai Lama, at a conference I was privileged to attend, said every one of our religions and spiritual disciplines have at their core: truth, justice, kindness, compassion, caring, and LOVE. Watching all of these foundational ways of being dissipate and disappear is saddening and infuriating. Yet, here we the people are; what is worse is that there are still the ALWAYS TRUMPERS, the WHITE CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS, the Inheritors and descendants of the KLU KLUX KLAN who reveal in the cruelty, who promote the distortion of these principles, these calls from God and proclaim their loyalty to Christ! BULLSHIT is abounding and if We the People don’t do something to stop it right here, right now, there will not be a United States of America loyal to its Constitution nor its Declaration Of Independence! WHAT UP, WE THE PEOPLE?

One of the most beautiful aspects of the Hebrew Bible, to me is that there is no hiding when even our heroes, even the authors show their prejudices, show how easy a slide into misogyny is, how simple it is to see the flaws of another(s) and ignore the same ones within ourselves. Abraham laughs when he is told he will have a child with Sarah and nothing is said-Sarah laughs and she is scolded-MISOGYNY at its finest! The people of Sodom are to be extinguished because they don’t follow God’s ways, they are cruel and unwelcoming of the stranger, while there were the people of Nineveh who were just as cruel and nobody is calling them out, because Ishmael lives there? Abraham speaks up for the people of Sodom, not believing there could not be at least 10 decent human beings there and God ‘relents’. Is it a test to see if Abraham can be the leader God needs; the leader who will speak up for the people, the leader who believes in the basic goodness of being that can be found in all of We the People? Maybe and Abraham passed the test!

Which brings us to today-I cannot tell you, with any degree of certainty, that Sodom was destroyed and became the Dead Sea-I can tell you with absolute certainty that when evil is defeated, it leaves deadness in its wake, there is no way for life to immediately come back when the evil like Sodom, the evil like Rome, the evil like Spain, like Germany is defeated, it takes a minute for anything good to grow, it takes a minute for we the people to regain our moral compass and be able to govern with kindness, truth, love, compassion, justice. What is happening in America, in Israel is, in my opinion, the same unjust, unloving, deceitful, and hardheartedness that was present in Sodom! The cruelty towards the stranger, the power grab and land grabs both are engaging in is DISGUSTING, is AGAINST THE PRINCIPLES of the Bible and the New Testament. Yet, clergy of all faiths promote these deceivers, these narcissists, these lovers of cruelty, these assholes who continue to accuse everyone else of the evil they are perpetrating! What is the difference between the leaders of Sodom, Rome, Germany and the leadership in America and Israel? I don’t know how to discern this difference, do you?

What is needed is a SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION, an action like Abraham’s where each and everyone of We the People who still worship God and not the idolatry of power, wealth, fame, deception, mendacity, have to STAND THE FUCK UP and ARGUE FOR THE DECENCY OF AMERICA and ISRAEL! There is no ‘standing on the sidelines’, there is no time to be wishy-washy, there is not excuse for not engaging in this debate, in this fight against CRUELTY, MENDACITY, ANTITHETICAL, HATRED being perpetrated upon all of We the People who believe in decency, who live into the teachings, ways of the Bible, like “love the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”, “love your neighbor”, proclaim freedom throughout the land and to ALL its inhabitants therein”, etc.

ACTION STEPS:

1. How are you like Abraham-arguing for the basic goodness in everyone

2. How are you like the people of Sodom-seeing how you can take advantage of the stranger

3. How are you standing up for the poor and the needy in your midst

4. How are you trying to build something ‘beautiful’ out of the evil being perpetrated upon us?

   GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD, SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 16

Ghosting God Ghosting Self

Day 16

The Bible teaches us that we are all created in the image of God we all have within us the spirit of Godת hence, we are all created equal. As the Declaration says: “All men are created equal… with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”! Yet, as has been throughout history, some “men” think they are more than equal, believe they have “certain unalienable rights” that no one else has. They forget where they come from and where they are going. They have jettisoned the image of God that lies within them and replaced it with an false image of self as god! And these are the people, the ones who consider only themselves to be human, that we the idiotic people have elected and are running our country and many other countries! OY VEY!

Be it the Ayatollah, Trump, Vance, Rubio, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Putin, Xi, or any of their lackeys and minions, they all are the same, they all are like the king of Sodom who only cares about having people to carry out his whims, believing everyone is as ruthless and dishonest as he is, sure that everyone has a price for their loyalty, everyone will sell their soul. This is the greatness of Abraham on display; after he and his nephew separate because of disputes over money, property, when Lot is captured, Abraham comes to his rescue and to paraphrase what he tells the King of Sodom: Motherfucker, I am not for sale, you can’t buy me nor can you have anything to lord over me! After pimping Sarah to the Pharaoh, this is a big turnaround. Unfortunately, there are not enough people saying the same to the ‘leaders’ above!!

I watched Eddie Glaude right after the Supreme Court decided it was a good idea to gut the Voting Rights Act and the spiritual pain he was in, the moral outrage he felt, and his not wanting to talk about what’s next in that moment because the pain, the denial once again of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, was so devastatingly painful. I thought of my own ancestors who were betrayed over and over again by the Tsars, the Polish people, the German people, the British people, by people and governments across the globe, being forgotten for the good we have done, the help we gave to Isabella and Ferdinand, the friendship we had with the Arab countries in education, medicine. I thought of the stories of my Uncle’s siblings about the treatment by the Hungarians for no reason-the war was already lost and everyone knew it- CRUELTY WAS THE POINT then, just as it is now. WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE?!?!

My brothers and I were called ’N-word’ lovers because my father, z”l, made sure that Black men who worked for him made the same hourly amount as White men-every white man quit and no white man would work for him for the entire time he owned his business. Black people were not ‘servants’, they were members of our family-so much so that our cook, cleaning woman, Alberta, went to visit my grandfather when he was in the old home and called him Uncle-think about this, in the late 60’s, early 70’s, a black woman felt so connected to a white man, to a white family that she visited him of her own volition and never said anything-we only found out because the old home asked me about Alberta calling my grandfather, Uncle and I responded because she is his niece! They were dumbstruck, except for one Black nurse-she just smiled and cared for my grandfather like he was her only patient.

When community, when cooperation, when there is no comparison, no competition, when there is acknowledgment of the uniqueness of each individual, the need for all of us to be in our proper place, then CRUELTY, PREJUDICE have no oxygen, no space to breathe, to expand. Telling the ASSHOLES above; YOU CAN’T BUY ME, MOTHERFUCKER, is following in the footsteps of Abraham, following in the paths of Christ, doing what God asks of us-why is it so difficult? Because of the societal norms of separation- the need of these phony ‘good christian white men’ to make Ben Franklin’s words come true: “either we all hang together or we all hang separately”. It is WAY PAST TIME for Jews and Blacks and Hispanics and Asians to “HANG TOGETHER” and fight these BASTARDS! Heschel and King came together as did many other Rabbis of the 60’s-where are their descendants today?

ACTION STEPS:

1. Uncover, recover, discover your unique talents/gift that the community/world is in need of in this moment and live them

2. Take off the blinders, cure the EYE DISEASE of prejudice and see the humanity, the divine image of each and every human being

3. Find the commonality and ensure that ALL PEOPLE are able to pursue “life, liberty, pursuit of happiness”

4. 4)Stop taking the bribes of the rich, the majority, and tell people to FUCKOFF-I AM NOT FOR SALE

GOD BLESS STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 15

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 15

There is an inner war within all of us, a battle between what we “know in our soul/guts” and what our minds are telling us. Sarah is an archetype of this war when she gives her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham so he can have an heir and then gets so enraged when she gets pregnant and treats her so badly, Hagar runs away. This war within seems almost schizophrenic, like we have dual personalities, and psychology has given this spiritual condition a name, bipolar. The drug companies love this because they have a new drug to push on we the people for this ‘disorder’. The need to pathologize normal human reactions, conditions, is how science wants to ignore the truth of the Bible, the solution offered by spiritual disciplines, and make a LOT of money! The last thing science wants is for We the People to be connected to the spiritual forces present in the world, to use the angels that are “going up and down” on Jacob’s ladder, to live into the meaning of what an Israelite is: a God-wrestler.

Science is an important part of living well, the words above are not to degrade nor despise science, they are to remind us that, just as any one religion is not the “be all/end all” neither is science! Psychology is an important tool in the maturation of a human being AND spirituality, maturing the spirit, hearing the soul within us is also an important tool in the maturation of a human being. Sarah, after having given her husband a gift got jealous, probably because Abraham started hanging out with Hagar A LOT! The pretty young woman was more fun, didn’t know him as well as Sarah did, and adored/worshiped him, maybe, and he was ‘tired’ of Sarah and her advice, her wisdom, her nagging, her complaining. What is interesting in this story is we don’t hear nor see the inner conflicts of Abraham except with regard to Sodom/Gomorrah  and when Ishmael and Hagar are banished by Sarah. In regards to Sarah, who he pimps out twice, and Isaac, we hear no dialogue indicating he had any conflicts at the ways he treated them both! Talk about Ghosting God, even while talking to God! This is the trap many of us fall into-prayer, meditation are important parts of our daily life AND we treat women as second-class citizens, we practice our prejudices against Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians, ie anyone NOT white, never seeing the incongruence of our actions vis a vis our supposedly being “fine christian folk, good temple going Jews, devout muslims”! I ask, once again WHAT THE FUCK?

This inner war, this wrestling with God, with our inclinations is not pathological, it is not something to be ashamed of, it is not something to drink over, to lie about, to hide, etc. The inner war is to celebrated, to be spoken about, to seek spiritual help for, to “stay in the ring” and not be defeated, no matter how many rounds we have to go;)! What our religious education has forgotten to inform us about: Sarah is not an anomaly, she is no more flawed that the rest of us. Abraham is not some ‘prefect example’ of right living, he is no more flawed than the rest of us either. Yet, too many of we the people engage in whitewashing Abraham, making Sarah’s mistreatment of Hagar okay, and, in doing so, miss the lesson of incongruence, miss the lesson of imperfections not making us bad, miss the lesson of engaging in the inner war-if a situation doesn’t give us pause to discern the next right thing to do, then we are probably not engaging our spirit in finding the solution!

I am calling out all my colleagues, Jewish or not, who are unable to engage in the inner war themselves, who constantly “need to look good”, who are teaching the way of perfection, the goal of perfection. What they should be teaching is how to deal with the inner battles between the rational mind and the intuitive mind, how to deal with the opposing inclinations that are given to us by God, and the spirituality of imperfection and the importance of T’Shuvah. Yet, they continue to blow right by these basic human needs, these gifts God has given us- SO SAD and INFURIATING!! I know the power of T’Shuvah, I know the joy of dealing with my inner battles, and I know the hard work of finding the spirituality within my imperfections! It is not easy, I am blessed that I had a spiritual awakening because of being arrested AGAIN in December of 1986, being gifted with Rabbi Mel Silverman to help me learn during incarceration, Rabbis Jonathan Omer-man and Ed Feinstein as mentors ever since.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the times you felt any angst over a decision/situation you were in

2. Write down the times you have beaten yourself up, demeaned your self-image because you are not perfect, you didn’t “get it right”

3. Make a list of the time you have ignored your soul’s/gut intuition’s messages

4. Do your mentors, guides KNOW your soul so they can help you grow spiritually as well as intellectually, in business, etc?

5. Do you KNOW the soul of the people you sponsor, guide, mentor?

GOD BLESS and STOP GHOSTING GOD, SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 14

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 14

I am thinking about family today and how it is both wonderful and horrible, loving and competitive, honoring and dishonoring, generous and miserly, etc. The same, of course, is true with friendships. What is it about human beings that prevents us from acceptance of who we are at our core; acceptance of whom someone else is at their core and no longer needing to put up our facades, put on our masks, hide our authentic self from the people ‘who love us only because they don’t really know who we are’?

My wife, Harriet Rossetto, believes it is shame that began with Adam and Eve in the Garden when they hid from God-the first time we read of human beings ghosting God-. Then we have Noah getting drunk and his two sons trying to cover it up followed by Abraham pimping his wife to the Pharaoh of Egypt, after being blessed by God, given extraordinary powers to bless another(s), and the job to BE A BLESSING in the world! I agree with Harriet, of course:), AND I know it to be more than ‘just’ shame. I believe from both personal experience and professional experience, human beings are unable, for the most part, to accept themselves for who we are stems from the Greek belief that human beings can achieve ‘perfection’. BULLSHIT! This race to be perfect has colored and clouded every aspect of living, every aspect of human relationships and WE THE PEOPLE keep Ghosting our SELF and Ghosting GOD. When the clouds are covering our eyes, when we are suffering from the EYE DISEASE of prejudice, jealousy, seeking power and control, wealth and being ‘the smartest person in the room’, there is no way for authenticity to break through, only more subterfuge, more facades, more mendacity, more masks, more selling of bullshit by “dazzling them with the baubles”.

It begins in the home, watching parents struggle to make ends meet, knowing that our last name used to be ____(ill in the blank) and now it is ____. We change our name, right J D Vance, we change our rhetoric/politics, right D J Trump and the rest of the Republican Party, we change our alliances based on how to best “get ahead”, “get ours”, we throw someone else under the bus so we can get the job/promotion-all the while hiding our authentic self, running away from the values we were brought up with, that our faith tradition, spiritual discipline teach us! “Selling our soul to the devil” is an old story, we see it in the earliest chapters of the Bible, we read about our heroes giving in to the lure and the siren call of mendacity, of wearing masks, of not believing we are good enough to be loved for whom we are so we keep trying to be whom you want me to be! IT NEVER WORKS!!

A very dear friend of mine tells of his father reminding him that “Every room you walk into is better because you are in it”! What a remarkable message for our children, my father spoke to each of his sons in different ways because none of us heard things in the same way-it was/is the trait I loved most-my father knew me and then there was no one who did, who cared enough to know me. This is what We the People are being called back to: BE REAL, BE AUTHENTIC. Stop ghosting ourselves so we can stop ghosting God, and then we the people add our unique gifts and talents to the world without fear nor favor.

Imagine the world where cooperation rather than competition is an overriding principle, where community rather than ‘rugged individualism’ is an overriding value, where being truthful about oneself, about another human being, rather than wearing the masks and hiding behind the facades is the main goal of living. Imagine a family where each member is recognized for what they bring to the table rather than asking them to fit in, imagine a school where the teachers are not so interested in getting through all the material and more interested in finding the spark that turns this student on to learning and watching them glow and shine. Imagine a friendship where the friends speak the truth to one another, where they hear one another, where they change/grow into the soul they are created to be!I know this way of being is possible, I know this because I am living it and have been living it for the past 39+ years, since my spiritual awakening in a jail cell. Certainly NOT PERFECTLY! In fact I keep growing into this way of being, keep growing into my own authenticity-it is my daily spiritual work.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the ways you hide, the masks you wear and the facades you put up.

2. Write down how these ways have helped you, harmed you, and do they still work or are you losing your SELF more and more

3. Make a list of the people you KNOW you can be real with and speak to them about what they see, asking for their help to be more authentic

4. Letting go of these old ideas behind the masks, write down the values, principles, characteristics that make you unique and wonderful

GOD BLESS and Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 13

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 13

Listening to Pete Hegseth last week as he testified, under oath, and gave so many misleading, misdirected, not on point responses to the questions of the Congresspeople, I was struck with how this ‘fine, upstanding, christian man’ could use subterfuge, innuendos, attacks to hide his incompetence, his hubris, his NON-FAITH, NON-COMPLIANCE with what Jesus says in the New Testament, with what is taught in the Hebrew Bible and call himself a ‘man of deep faith and commitment to ‘christian values’! Yet, he does, as do so many of the mealy-mouthed Republicans like Lindsey Graham, Mike Johnson, J D Vance, Marco Rubio, et al. While  this  behavior is practiced on a national stage, it is also performed on a local stage, it is happening in families all over this country, in Israel, in Europe, etc. The family is the breeding ground for racism, antisemitism, islamaphobia, religious bigotry and hatred, etc, as well as the rich soil for love, kindness, oneness, caring, compassion, forgiveness and learning the “Spirituality of Imperfection”, a book by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketchum. Our modern society, with all its technological advances, is ignorant and willfully blind to the essence of being human; treating one another with love, with kindness, with rebuke when necessary, with truth, with generosity, caring for the poor, the needy, proclaiming Freedom to ALL the people who live in the land, etc.

There have been liars in power forever, AND, the assault on the TRUTH for the past 11 years by Donald Trump and his band of merry LIARS, has been relentless and a generation of young people are growing up not knowing what is true and what isn’t, adding in AI, now none of us know what is real and what is fake when we see something on social media, in our emails, etc. “The war is over…but we are sending more of our troops into harm’s way”, “We annihilated their nuclear capabilities…but we had to go back a year later because they were days away from a nuclear bomb”, and some of we the people still buy his BULLSHIT! The Republican’s control of Congress is propping up his lies, mainly because they don’t want their lies to come out and they lose their jobs, their meal tickets, they don’t want the spigot of their grift and graft to be turned off! Again, these ‘fine christian folk’ lie, cheat, abuse the poor, the needy, the stranger, abuse justice and righteousness, and proclaim their unswerving allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the Orthodox Jews like Kushner, et al proclaim their absolute faith in God, in Chabad…! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

How is it possible that so many people, the ones who elected DUMP TRUCK in the first place and the 35% that still think he is doing a great job? Yet, this is where we are at, ⅓ of the people in this country believe the lies, are willfully blind to the truth, celebrate and revere people who go against the major teachings of the Bible, the Prophets, Jesus and fervently believe they are ‘doing god’s will’, just not the God Jesus describes, not the God the prophets describe, not the God the Bible describes much more than the ‘god of war, vengeance’ that, in my learning, was added in.

The reason this is happening goes back to the call of the prophets: stop ghosting God! Stop kissing up and shitting down. Stop putting self-interest ahead of doing the next right thing. All of these messages have been ignored by many of we the people! Rather than stand up for what is right, we have learned to “go along to get along”, we have adopted the societal norm of following the majority to do evil instead of the prohibition of the Bible NOT TO FOLLOW THE MAJORITY TO DO EVIL! Just as in the times of the prophets, in the times of the destruction of Israel, the conquering of Judea, the destruction of both Temples, senseless hatred, hard-heartedness were the tools of those in power so we the people would not band together, rise up, allow a Moses to lead us and it still works!

Martin Luther King Jr., as a flawed human being, was a Moses for so many black, white, brown people in this country, as was Nelson Mandela, Elie Weisel, John Hancock, the Adams brothers, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and who is the Moses to lead We the People out of our current slavery to societal norms, to mental cliches? Each and every one of us has to feed and nurture the Moses that resides within us, each and every one of us has to tame and transform the energy and power of the Pharaoh that is within us, each and every one of us has to renew the vow at Sinai-We will DO and then we will understand. This is the challenge, this is the job.

ACTION STEPS:
1) Each day recommit the challenge, the job of feeding your inner Moses and taming your inner Pharaoh

2) Every day write down how you “kissed up and shit down”, accepting ugly and cruel as ‘just part of living’

3) Discern the truth you lived into each day and the lies you worshiped

4) Each day, Celebrate the ways you STOOD IN TRUTH!

GOD BLESS and Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

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