Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 39

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 39

The news is the news, the grift is the grift, the camaraderie between dictators and autocrats is purely situational and transactional, the ‘war’ with Iran is ongoing and devastating so many lives, Ukraine is still fighting for its independence against a ‘stronger’ Russia and Putin. While many are feeling hopeless and many are feeling buoyed by some of the primary results and hopes for the midterms, I am hearing the words of Hosea: “there is no truth, no kindness” reverberating and echoing in my ears, my mind, my soul, in my veins and arteries! All of the rest of what is going on here, in Israel, in the war in Ukraine, the ‘takeover’ of Venezuela, is based on “no truth, no kindness”, the very foundations of Judaism, Christianity, Islam!! So, as I am wont to say WHAT THE FUCK?! One of the issues of the present that is different from my youth is there does not seem to be a Martin Luther King Jr., an Joachim Prinz, an Abraham Joshua Heschel, etc to “lead us out of Egypt and into the Promised Land”! I believe these people exist, I believe they are trying so valiantly and so hard to be heard, and like the prophets of old, they are ignored, there is indifference to their calls to action, to their cries of help, to their warnings of the cancer that racism, anti-semitism,  islamaphobia cause. It is so infuriating and, as I am writing, I think that golden age of America was in the late 50’s, 60’s, early 70’s when the voices of our “modern-day prophets” like Rabbis Prinz, Heschel, Rev. King, were heard, were responded to, and their demands were met by We the People with fervor, passion, purpose and energy!

There was a passion for Truth that was ignited by these men, by the women like Rosa Parks, by the ugliness of Bull Connor, George Wallace, the Klan, et al. There was a lack of kindness and love in the bombings of Churches, Temples, the Cross Burnings, the Lynchings which brought about the song that Billie Holiday was tortured by the Government for singing; Strange Fruit. This was the war then as it is now: Truth versus mendacity; Racism, hatred, lynchings of innocent Black people versus Kindness- all done in the name of Christ? All done by those ‘fine christian southern folks’ who go to church each week and hear their pastors and ministers urge them to continue their evil ways calling it “the lord’s work”, ie lying to fit their prejudices, feeding the cancer of the souls of the people engaged in these evils with strength and courage. It was’t so much better in the North, either-just a little subdued and when the Black men who were working at a business that my father had just bought had their wages raised to that of the white men there for the same work-the white men QUIT! We are 20 days away from the 62 Yahrzeit of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner who were killed brutally in Mississippi on June 24, 1964 by those ‘fine white christian, god-fearing’ Ku Klux Klansmen who were cheered on and supported by those ‘fine white christian god-fearing’ women who were their wives, daughters, sisters, etc and here we are again-disenfranchising Black voters in the South, arresting anyone who looks Hispanic whether they are citizens, here legally, etc and treating them like garbage instead of showing kindness, humanity, and love which the New Testament calls for!

This moment is DEMANDING a RETURN TO TRUTH, A RETURN TO KINDNESS that is preached by Moses, by Jesus, that is preached by the prophets, that is called for by Dr. King when we hear his “I have a Dream” speech, that is called for by Rabbi Heschel when we read any of his writings, especially the Race and Religion speech where he tells us that “prejudice is an eye disease”, that “the more current, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence” that Rabbi Prinz a Rabbi who was thrown out of Berlin in 1937 and had been urging his congregants to leave Germany. It is not for a lack of the wisdom, a lack of leadership, a lack of a Moses, Jesus, prophet in our moment, we are in this situation because We the People have chosen to be small, to be we the people and NOT STAND up to the mendacity, the cruelty being spewed by Trump, Netanyahu and their gangs of THUGS. That Jews and Blacks could support these heinous crimes against humanity and God, that Jews and Blacks can go along with these assaults on Truth, on Kindness is beyond me! Both of our cultures KNOW where this leads to and we can’t get over our petty differences, acknowledging our errors, cleaning our side of the street to make America, America again? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write down the ways you subtly and overtly support, participate in the assault on Truth and Kindness happening in this moment

2. Make a commitment to find the “prophet” who speaks to you in a way you can understand to make Truth, Kindness, Love, the path to follow

3. Support and spread the word of your “prophet” and join in the war to Save America!

4. Honor the memories of all the people mentioned here by STANDING UP AGAINST PREJUDICE AND HATRED!

GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, rabbi mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 38

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 38

“Hear the word, people of Israel; God is angry with the inhabitants fo the land because there is no truth, no kindness, no knowledge of God in the land.”(Hosea 4:1). I am quoting this verse today because, again, it is a great descriptor of where we are at, as a country, as human beings. Since the “days of yore”, the bastardization of “truth, kindness, knowing God” has been the achilles heel of humanity. While we don’t know how bad this bastardization was in the times of Hosea, the rest of the prophets, Jesus, it seems from the writings we have, today’s reality is not a new one. People have, from the beginning of time, tried to hide from the truth, from the consequences of their actions, blame another for their actions(thank you Josef Goebbels, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, etc). “When will we ever learn” asks Pete Seeger in his 1955 song “Where have all the Flowers gone?”

Imagine this, some 71 years ago, when there was no ‘war’ raging, Seeger had the foresight, the spiritual vision to ask the question that we the people are still running away from. The midterm elections are the latest measuring stick of whether we are going to respond to the call of God, the call of Hosea, the call of “when will ever learn” or continue to run and hide, ala Adam and Eve. The assault on “truth, kindness, knowledge of God” has been going on for a long time, since the founding fathers, in their desperate need to keep the South in the newly formed United States, agreed that Black people were to be counted as 3/5’s of a person! WHAT THE FUCK!! These ‘good christian white men’ from the South and the North could put their hand on the Bible and do this? This is an example of “no knowledge of God in the land”. That, after the Civil War and the 14th Amendment the “carpet baggers” took over the South, the haters, the racists came back into power and the Klan, the Jim Crow era took over, negating the gains from the Civil war, by those other ‘fine christian white men’ is another example of “no knowledge of God in the land”.

Yet, in both of these examples, these liars, these charlatans, went to their priest’s, their ministers, etc to get ‘permission’ or at least a ‘pass’ to do these reprehensible deeds and the fucking clergy gave it to them, in the Name of Christ!! How low can we go- pretty far down, we the people both then and now are refusing to have “knowledge of God” in our land and foolishly, recklessly believe the fate of all others who tore apart the 3rd Commandment, won’t happen to us! Talk about hubris, stupidity, being blinded by the gold we seek and the toys we believe fervently will fix us!

Our country was founded on the principle of “religious freedom”, that fought one another for the dignity of all human beings, we still have not reckoned with the truth that women are also equally dignified and worthy, that Black and Brown people deserve the same rights, dignities as everyone else, that Jews are not to be continually hated. In order to shy away from our purposeful “not have knowledge of God” some of we the people are rewriting the story of our birth, the difficult growing pains of a new nation that wrestled with one another to find the next right action to take. That we are being HIJACKED by the Unchristian nationalists, the white supremacists, the descendants of the Klan, the followers of the fascists like Coughlin, Lindbergh, Ford, et al is INSANE! Yet, here we are. The question that should be searing our the foreskins of our hearts is: AD MATAI, for how long will we the people continue to run away from and hide from God, the “knowledge of God” that is within us?

Be it at the Bridge Club, the golf course, at home, with friends, this is the question that haunts me, gives me indigestion, a bad conscience: Am I “knowing God” in this moment, am I bringing God into this experience? I am, at times, oblivious to both the question and diving into my “knowledge of God” so I can better deal with the experience I am in. Each of these times has proved to be disastrous for me and those around me!! Yet, it still happens and today’s reminder from Hosea is what will help me stay aware of God being right here with me, whispering into my ears through my soul/gut what the next right action to take is and then I have to listen!! OY, what an order!! And, I know it is doable because for the past 39 years, little by little, I have increased my “knowledge of God” and, as a friend of mine and I were saying-“You can’t get here(where we are today) from our beginnings:)

ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a daily inventory, for 3-7 days, of when you are activating and living in your “knowledge of God” and when you are activating and living in your “Not Knowledge of God”

2. How are you, in your progressiveness, conservatism, denying the validity, the dignity, the worth, the uniqueness of another because, ‘they ain’t like me, they ain’t my people’?

3. What is your response to Pete Seeger’s question: Have you learned?
   GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, rabbi mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 37

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 37

“I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in justice, and in kindness and in mercies.” (Hosea 2:21) I have been stuck in this part of the verse for 24 hours now. Immersing ourselves in these words is the key to living well, to end our incessant and idiotic ghosting of our authentic self, or our soul’s purpose, of the demand of God to LIVE and BE HUMAN!

These words of Hosea speak directly to the issue facing humanity since time immemorial; how to live in this world with the obligations God demands of us vis a vis the demands of our false ego/rational mind out of proper measure? How do we remember that we are “Betrothed” to righteousness, to justice, to kindness, to mercy when our rational mind rejects being a servant to our intuitive mind/our soul? Rather than accept our “being engaged” to and with God, most of we the people spend our time trying to ignore the call of this engagement, the need to fulfill our part, to live into the knowing that is within all of us, the infinite, unique equal dignity and worth every human being has by virtue of being “in the Image of God”, with “Ruach Elohim”, the spirit of God blown into us at birth.

What made the American Revolution so unique and the Presidency of Washington, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution such maladjustments to societal norms of the day was the leaders were not supposed to be in it for themselves! The President served We the People not the other way around. We the People made a conscious decision that to provide space and pathways to those “certain unalienable rights”, it has to be a “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. This is why this moment is so crucial-not just the elections-rather our entire view of the United States of America(which we have never been totally united since the Revolutionary War) must return to the foundational tenets upon which we began-“all people are created equal”, the “unalienable rights”, Freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, and the inclusion of Black, Brown, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim as well as Christian folk in all of our affairs. Rather than blackball them as Hegseth seems to love to do, denying promotions based on sex, ethnicity, religion, as Trump loves to point out to the women who challenge him, the Blacks and Browns who do, the Jews he calls “not loving Israel” because they don’t love Trump, the prophet Hosea is delivering a message from God, from the Universe, the power greater than ourselves, to ‘turn around’ and go back to the times when freedoms were free, when bribes were not allowed, when “righteousness” was pursued by the majority. Hosea is calling us out for our lack of humanity, just as he called out the people of the Northern Kingdom, Israel. I find it so interesting that King David, the warrior, the strong man, the king who’s descendants some of us Jews wish would return as the Messiah, was the ONLY KING to LISTEN TO the Prophet of his time, Nathan!

Righteousness, Justice we are told to pursue, not as a suggestion rather as a Command, because God knew, the Biblical author(s) knew that humankind would jettison a suggestion that called upon them to go beyond their comfort zone really quickly. Kindness is an integral part of being Jewish, being a person of faith, of the Bible, the New Testament. It is what God continually shows to us, bestows upon us, and tells us we have to do the same to one another-“love the stranger”- Mr. Trump, Pastor Hagee, Pastor Cain-White, Pastor Osteen. Caring about the needy and the poor, both commandments from God, from Jesus, is another Command, Mr. Trump, Drunk Pete Hegseth, Greedy Howard Lutnick, Grifter Jared Kushner, Ass-kissing Marco Rubio, etc. All of you ‘good bible-believing folk’ take a look at the words, the meaning, the call of the Bible you so extol! BULLSHIT Which brings me to We the People! These words of Hosea are calling for us to make a fucking choice- are we Standing for God or Standing for the Fuhrer? Are we responding to the command to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” or to wet dreams of Trump and his thugs to enslave the people they don’t like, anyone who is not a white christian nationalist, throughout the land and believe their call to ensure that “the Jews will not replace us”?

ACTION STEPS: they are simple, not easy.

1. Find a spiritual guide and learn about your inner life, as I have since December of 1986

2. Write out the barriers you have put up to righteousness, mercy, justice, kindness for ‘those people’

3. Journal each day on what Righteousness, mercy, kindness, justice you need to practice and be shown so you can “grow along spiritual lines”

4. Who is the prophet you are following-a real one or one of many false ones?

5. Find and adopt a spiritual discipline-could be an amalgamation of a few and live into one grain of sand more each day- it is the solution that has helped me grow into who I am today

God Bless, Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 36

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 35

“I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in justice, and in kindness and in mercies.” (Hosea 2:21) Along with the verse from yesterday, Jews say these two verses every morning when we “lay tefillin”, put on our phylacteries. Most people say it by rote, getting through the verses as quickly as possible and herein lies the issue I have with prayer, with people. Each and every prayer has to be said slowly, with meaning, immersing ourselves in what is the call of this prayer on this day. We the People are “doing” the words of the V’Ahavta prayer, the first prayer after the Shema, we are expressing our commitment/love to God in accepting God’s “betrothal” and we are making a sign between our eyes and a sign upon our hand as commanded in the Shema, so why are we the people rushing through the words without taking in the meaning for us this day, without understanding the actions we are taking with “laying tefillin” and immersing ourselves in this most intimate of relationships, God and us, and we with ourselves.

This is a prime example of the name of this blog; we ghost God whenever we say this prayer and are not having an intimate relationship with God/intuitive mind/higher consciousness, which is most of our daily living. We the People have bought into the lies, the deceptions, the self-deceptions that dogma is what God wants. Some Orthodox Jews believe following the Mitzvot, learning Talmud, and wearing the proper clothes is having an intimate relationship with God-WRONG! Some Conservative/Reform Jews believe it is all about spiritual connection and the laws are “not relevant” to me, to life today, etc- WRONG! The first verse above says it all: “FOREVER”.  The issue most people get wrong most of the time is that there is NO DIVORCE, no LEGAL SEPARATION from God, no matter what we the people do, think, believe. God and humanity are forever linked in an intimate relationship, in finding ways of living into our covenant, living into our continuing errors and learning from them, living into our awesomeness and wonder/radical amazement of being alive! Whether a person is ‘religious’ or ‘secular’, whether they are active in their church or not, we the people are all in a relationship with God and, by extension, with one another.

No matter what Trump et al say: each one of us needs the whole of humanity so we can live because “no man is an island” as John Donne’s poem teaches us. He says what Hosea is saying, what God is reminding us of in a different way: “any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” And, by extension, every birth uplifts me, fills me! This bullshit happening in New Jersey with ICE and the private prison contractors has to STOP, you “Fine Christian Folk”, you “Upstanding Fruma Yidden(observant Jews)! No one, be one Christian, Jewish, Catholic can proclaim the Name of God, proclaim Allegiance to Jesus and allow our fellow human beings to be treated in this manner. THIS IS NOT THE SOLUTION TO THE UNDOCUMENTED WORKER PROBLEMS! It is not in keeping with being married to, “betrothed” to, God! I say in the name of the prophet Hosea, to Rubio, Hagee, Cain-White, Kushner, Lutnick, Bessent, Trump, Vance, Miller, Wytkoff, et al, and all of we the people who are still supporting them: STOP YOUR BULLSHIT, STOP YOUR LIES, STOP YOUR DESECRATION of GOD’S NAME, STOP YOUR HARLOTRY!

The anger, sadness, empathy with God, bewilderment with the people is coursing through my veins right now. I get so ‘crazy’ because I HAVE BEEN IN THE SAME PLACE AS some of We the People, who are still under the ether are and it is so devastating when our eyes open, when our vision becomes clear and we see what we have wrought with our harlotry, with our breaking of the “betrothal” vows, with our foray into false judgments, taking bribes, believing that “forever” doesn’t mean anything any more.  There is a solution, however. It is one that takes discipline, commitment, love, and faithfulness. The pathway back to being in this intimate relationship with God begins with our self. Looking at the false rumors I have believed and given voice to, the self-deceptions I have been unwilling to let go of, the using of people’s vulnerabilities against them, thinking my family always has to take me back, etc. Seeing the truth of the words when I “lay tefillin” in the morning, when I say any of my prayers and living into their truth rather than my lies or societal lies and mental cliches. Staying maladjusted enough to see everything today as if it was the first time-my wife, my daughter, my family, my friends, the bridge game, etc. This is the challenge and the way.

ACTION STEPS:
1) Ask yourself how intimate you are with your soul, with God

2) Write down the “forever” lies you hold onto and the “forever” truths you hold dear

3) Make a list of what/whom you hold dear and how you honor them and you by showing up and taking actions of them

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 35

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 35

Again from the prophet Hosea 2:21: “I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know YHVH.” I am stopping here because the verses before this were about Israel’s harlotry, her betrayal of the Covenant, of the 10 Sayings, of the simple command to “Love Adonai with all your heart, your soul, your everything”. No matter how much kindness, love, care, strength, wisdom human beings experience, are granted-whoring after the next ‘shiny thing’, running to the ‘certainty’ of an idol seems to win out. Israel was whoring after those gods they did not know! Hence the use of the word “know” in the verse quoted above is very telling-We the People “know” God and it is when we forget “one we came in with”, as Sinatra sings in “Luck be a Lady tonight”, everything starts to go haywire and we find ourselves stranded, alone, broke, and empty. Unfortunately, most of we the people blame another(s), blame ‘bad luck’, blame God! Rather than being responsible for our own harlotry.

I went to Sacred Heart Catholic Church last night with Harriet and a friend from the Bridge Club. I realize I was imagining what the Temple Service of old would have been, with it’s pomp and ceremony. I also realize that for Catholics, Communion is a renewing of their Covenant with Christ, Christ’s teachings, Christ’s ways of being in the world and I found very moving and profound. There were young and old people there, the service was 45 minutes, the Priest’s message was spot on for the moment we are in without ever mentioning politics, and the experience of seeing the joy, the kindness, the love of the congregants for one another, for the stranger in their midst, was/is uplifting and hopeful. I watched with awe, reverence, wonder how people resonate to the message of forgiveness, of redemption, of love and it makes my heart open even more and my spirit soar.

The problem that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel told us about: “We don’t study the Prophets” is getting bigger and bigger by the moment. Without immersing ourselves in the Prophets, how are we the people going to learn how to remedy our errors, not make the same mistakes in the same was as our ancestors did, refuse to learn from another(s), stay willfully blind to the Truth, not whore ourselves out as the rich, powerful, clergy did in the times of the prophets? WE CAN’T!

AND there is a solution, it is a simple one that seems too hard for most of we the people: Accept God’s betrothal!! Stop whoring around, end our incessant need to sleep with anyone and everyone who tells us what we want to hear. Let go of the lies we have been telling ourselves, as the Priest said last night, let of of the “excess baggage” we are carrying in our minds, in our emotions, in our hearts (living in the past errors that we have done T’Shuvah for, neurotic guilt, etc), let go of the spiritual fears of “not being enough” and accept that God wants us, God believes in our ability to be faithful, which will allow us to suspend our disbelief in this truth. Thank you Rev Pastor Gregory Elder!

Being known by God, being loved by God’s unending love, being accepted for who we are, warts and all, imperfect as we are, takes faith, takes willingness, takes community and takes commitment. Accepting this “betrothal” is to accept our SELF for whom we are and stop trying to ‘flip our script’, LIVE into the divine need we are here to fulfill ie, the talents we are given to heal and repair, to learn and grow, and see every human being as a divine reminder, a fellow human being, no longer “judging a book by its cover”, no longer giving into the cancer of prejudice, letting go of our fears of people doing to us what we have done to them-my ‘fine white christian nationalists, my soooo very observant jewish nationalists’!

Most of all, as Hosea reminds us: We the People KNOW God! Knowing in the Bible means having intimate relations with another. Hosea is reminding us that our connection to God, our “knowing” God is innate, it is intrinsic to being human. Living in “faithfulness”, “knowing YHVH”, gives We the People the path back home, the roadmap to living with and on purpose, the joy of learning, of being curious, of letting go of old ideas, “excess baggage”, “not being enough”, etc. Our relationship with YHVH is the most intimate one we the people can ever have because YHVH is nonjudgmental, betroths YHVH to us in faithfulness and, unlike humans who hide so much of the time, is never hiding, always accessible, “in our mouths, in our hearts”.
ACTION STEPS:

1. Without Drama, self-flagellation, list the ways and areas when/where I have been unfaithful

2. Look in the mirror and realize you “can’t hide from the man in the glass” and begin to be in truth with your Self, with another.

3. Write down how you are going to stop being the harlot and accept YHVH’s betrothal and KNOW YHVH and your SELF intimately

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 34

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 34

The prophet Hosea speaks to the “harlotry” of the People Israel, telling us, in the beginning chapters of his book, that because ‘she’/Israel, the Northern Kingdom, will not “put away her harlotry” and will be stripped “naked”. This is the kingdom that was made up of a majority of tribes, it is a kingdom that is ‘run’ by the descendants of Joseph’s children, Manasseh and Ephraim, the descendants of the chosen of Jacob and, like Jacob-they could not ever truly believe in God’s love, they could not completely surrender themselves to the truth of God’s ways and they whored themselves all the time-seeking the ‘certainty of idolatry’, they were risk averse, and they found themselves overtaken, conquered by the Assyrians and dispersed so they could not come together to fight the Assyrians nor would they remember where they came from in a generation or two.

Twice each day, in the Shema and her paragraphs, we say “Lo Taturu”, “don’t scout after your heart and your eyes because you will whore after them”-this is a literal translation. The Rabbis, without giving attribution to Hosea because they were afraid of the prophets, the prophets hated the smallest injustice, the least amount of inauthenticity, the minute bastardization of God’s will/words, thought the lessons of the Northern Kingdom were important enough to include this warning in our prayers, saying it twice and following these words with “I am the Lord, God who brought you out of Egypt…” I am hearing the call this morning to STOP WHORING in the slightest way, to STOP running after the false idols of money, prestige, power, to STOP BASTARDIZING the word of God, the word of Christ for one’s own benefit and to STOP GIVING IN to the lies of the autocrat, the mendacity of these ‘fine christian, jewish, and muslim’ clergy who are telling us to kill the bastards who are ‘against us’, like those Black people and those Jews, those Christians and those Muslims, ie, anyone who is not like us!!

To speak to what is happening right now is to shudder at the criminality, the grift, the hating the stranger, the killing of innocent people, the grab for absolute power and the lack of resistance from We the People’s representatives on the Republican side and the idiotic resistance from We the People’s representatives on the “progressive” side. To not see the reflection of Hosea’s description of the Northern Kingdom in today’s world is to stay willfully blind, something Jews repent for each Yom Kippur and do a daily inventory (T’Shuvah) about each day. Yet, when Scott Bessent can proudly stand up and show off a counterfeit $250.00 bill with Trump’s picture on it, when Scott Bessent can loudly and proudly support everything the administration is doing to curtail the rights of We the People, when Scott Bessent can smile at the Supreme Court’s thinking about reviewing the Marriage Act that allows Same-Sex marriages throughout the land, he is the EXACT HARLOT that Hosea is speaking about and to! A gay married man kissing the ring, the ass, sucking up to and off the very people who think he is an ABOMINATION! What the FUCK??

Be it Bibi, Wytkoff, Kushner, Bessent, AIPAC, they myriad of Jews who are supporting this grift and graft, supporting the restriction of freedoms for ‘those people’, all of the people who are in the extremes are ignorant and/or ignoring the lessons of Hosea. I find it unbelievable that Rabbis, Cantors, Jews of any and all stripes could continue to be THE HARLOT that destroyed the Northern Kingdom that caused “the lost tribes” and, ultimately, destroyed both Temples. I am AGHAST that Jewish Education is so puny, so ridiculous that the Prophets are not studied, taught, emulated and imitated.

I believe it comes down to risk benefit. Too many people have shown throughout the millennia they are afraid to surrender to ADONAI, to live into a monotheistic way of life, to stop being the harlot and start being the faithful spouse, the loyal husband, the child that obeys because their experience and the experience of their ancestors has taught her/him the wisdom of God’s ways, the joy of wonder, the power of connection, and the need for curiosity. I know once I opened myself up to learning, once a became excited again each morning cause I knew/know I am going to learn something, everything changed-surrender became a joy, certainty was sent out of my ken, stupid risks didn’t control me as they had in the past and I risk everything to “save one soul” because, as Jewish Wisdom teaches, “it is as if you have saved an entire world”. I am grateful that I have been able to imbue the wisdom of the universe and show up when called and stand up when needed.
ACTION STEP: 1( How have you been the harlot overtly and covertly-what is the T’Shuvah you need to do to get back onto God’s path?
    GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 33

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 33

“Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin” according to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Yesterday, in a zoom study, we were speaking about the lost “art of wonder”. We the People have taken so much for granted and find ourselves heading back to the last century, to the 1800’s, and beyond in history. With the racism and antisemitism coming from both the right and the left, it seems overwhelming to many of us. In his book, The Secret War against Hate, Steven J. Ross lays out how the indifference to hate, our indifference to what was happening since the end of World War II has brought us to this moment, when our caring and concern, our “surprise” and fear of being taken hostage by the autocracy in charge right now is in full bloom and on full display in many circles-both in 60’s liberal circles and 60’s conservative ones.

Yesterday I asked “What happened to us” and this is the major reason America and Israel for the domestic turmoil both countries are in-indifference going far back in both of our histories. For Israel it is a repeat of the errors dating back to the times of the prophets and 70 ad, for America, according to Professor Ross, it is what happened upon the soldiers returning from World War II. He posits that the returning soldiers came back to an America that was different. After fighting to “keep our country safe”, they now had to deal with a new reality back home: women working, Jews and Blacks getting the same jobs they held, these non-Christians did not know their place! And the lies of Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, Lindbergh, took root, again, and issued in a new “Jim Crow” era. These returning soldiers were from the North and the South, the East and the West, they brought together the simmering hatred, the fear of ‘the other’, the belief that White Christian men were the privileged ones and the ONLY people that should be running things!

While this was met with indifference by the government of Dwight D. Eisenhower, their anger, their cruelty, their ‘who do these n-word and kikes thing they are grew exponentially! The Brown v Board of Education ruling was largely ignored in the South and in the North, it took Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus and the subsequent bus boycott of 381 days to get Montgomery, Alabama to say “Uncle” and end the segregation on buses! Not the segregation everywhere else, however-and most of America remained indifferent! The Jews were treated the same with quotas for admission to the colleges, being told to change their names to get ‘good’ jobs, still being under suspicion as not “real Americans” because they cared more about Israel and one another to care for “our White Christian Country”. Are you starting to understand the evil that indifference allows, supports, brings about?

The Republicans in Congress remain “indifferent” to the plight of the average American-giving power to the rich, to their allies here and abroad, kissing the ass of Putin and AIPAC, Xi and Saudi Arabia, wanting to annihilate Iran and kill millions of innocents while not putting American Soldiers on the ground-how ridiculous!! AOC, Bernie, and their gang-who are as thuggish as Trump’s and the Republican’s, also are indifferent to the plight of anyone they deem not poor enough, not discriminated enough, not enough of an underdog to warrant their concern-hence they can support the terrorists of Hamas and, by extension, the terrorism promoted by Iran; they can inhibit the “free speech” of the centrists by name-calling, not being willing to make incremental changes because that’s what’s available; having their noses turned up and disdain for anyone who disagrees with them-using name calling and shaming as much as Trump, et al.

“What happened to us”, is we the people became indifferent to “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”, we all have “certain unalienable rights”, “among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness”. NO WHERE DOES IT SAY CHRISTIAN WHITE MEN ONLY! The Supreme Court has become “indifferent” to these words and the Bill of Rights as well. The course correction is crucial, We the People are being called by God, by one another, to take these demands of the Bible, of the Declaration of Independence, of the Constitution seriously and take these

ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a daily inventory of the things you have been indifferent to this day and in previous days

2. Write on the reasons you have stayed indifferent and how you rationalize this way of being

3. Make a list of those you have harmed beginning with self, God, family and the people most in need of your help

4. Say HELLO to people, ask how they are and how you can help with sincerity and eagerness to be of service and joy at the opportunity.

5. List your talents and find places to offer them to those in need

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 32

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 32

What happened to us? This is the question that has occupied my being for some time-I don’t mean only right now, I am speaking about the ideal/idea to “make a more perfect union”, the idea/ideal of “all men(people) are created equal”, the idea/ideal that “all of us have intrinsically dignity and worth, uniqueness and we all possess equal measures-hence there is no one who has more dignity, worth, uniqueness than another person. I am thinking about the Psalmist King David and the warrior King David,the David who could listen to women and his prophet, who could admit his errors and repent and everyone who followed him who has been unable to do the same. I am thinking about the prophets who came to warn, cajole, lovingly and harshly coax the People Israel back to the Sinai experience, the Red Sea experience, knowing the difference between slavery and liberty, liberty and freedom.

I am not thinking about doubts, about wondering if it is God or Ego that we are connecting to because we the people do both! Abraham, the man of great faith, even greater than Moses’ because there weren’t a lot of people around who thought about, practiced, spread the idea, the concept, the Truth of One God, he had doubts, he had foibles-remember he pimped Sarah twice, (but never Hagar, hmm…), threw out Ishmael, almost killed Isaac, AND he had great faith, great allegiance, to God. Yet, we tend to forget, gloss over, explain away the foibles, the errors of our ancestors in the Bible because We the People do not want to come face to face with our own incongruities. Rather than continue the tradition begun in wilderness of Sinai, the practice of bringing an offering so we don’t stray from the community nor from God, so we don’t go into the “poor me, I’m so bad” bullshit, the “I will never be forgiven” lies, rather we make our amends to the people harmed, we make restitution to the best of our ability, and we re-sew the fabric of our connection to God. Since the destruction of the Temple, this process is T’Shuvah-return, repent, response. This is the true greatness of King David-he did it willingly, as completely as he could and he was not afraid to stand up, admit his errors, do his T’Shuvah and experience the consequences of his bad behavior just like he did the same regarding his good behavior.

This is the basis for the opening question, “What happened to us? As Dara Horn state state in an article in the journal Sapir: monotheism is a political idea, that the reason the Jews are hated, and I would add admired, is because “Jewish Civilization is an anti-tyrannical movement, a nonconformist movement, an anti-hierarchical movement, based on a story of liberation that taught the world that change is possible”! We the People know the solution to the ills of today, to the autocracy that is trying to enslave the world today, the cruelty, the power struggle, the stealing, the disgusting actions of so many who are in power-forgetting that We the People gave them the opportunity to serve the Greater Good, not themselves and they have FUCKED WE THE PEOPLE, Royally! It is WAY PAST TIME for we the people to rise up once again, to stand up once again, to say LET MY PEOPLE GO to the various Pharaohs in the world today and to say NO to the rational mind that has gone along with the lies, the self-deceptions allowing us to become enslaved ONCE AGAIN!

“What happened to us?” We the People have stopped immersing ourselves in the Bible, we have made a conscious decision to not read, hear, listen, understand the gifts that the Prophets are constantly giving to us: the strength to go against the grain, the reminder of our experience at the Red Sea and then at Sinai, the bitching and moaning of the desert years, and the whole shebang-we the people are stiff-necked and stubborn, seeking certainty and knowing there is none, wanting consistency and knowing the only constant is change, etc. Yet, as my recovery has taught me, liberation happens all the time, none of us have to be too far gone for redemption, for those who are, it is a choice they have made-like Pharaoh in Egypt made. I am living proof that the anti-tyrannical, anti-hierarchical, nonconformist Jewish culture saves lives! This was the basis of the way Harriet and I ran Beit T’Shuvah, where if one staff member thought they could help the resident everyone thought should leave, we kept them, where telling the truth is more important than the crime, usually. This is the path, nonconformity, anti-hierarchical, anti-tyrannical  actions to returning to the ways of the Bible, the path of King David, the ideals/ideas of Moses and God!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Each day, for a week, write down how conformity served your soul and how it harmed your soul

2. Look at how you are Pharaoh and the Pharaoh you are following

3. How has your nonconformity hurt your status/revenue and helped your soul

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 31

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 31

America is bombing Iran, again after saying a deal was close. Israel is bombing Hezbollah because Trump gave Netanyahu permission, evidently. We just commemorated the offering that our military people gave so We the People can live free, saying “Happy Memorial Day”. This got me wondering, what is “happy” about Memorial Day? The original name for this day was “Decoration Day” to decorate the graves of the soldiers lost in the Civil War as a way of honoring their offering of “their last full measure”. Unfortunately, given the reign of chaos, terror, ignorance, cruelty that this “great nation” that is supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” and “shall not perish from this earth” is putting this dream, this vision, this idea/ideal of the founding fathers and each successive generation in grave danger!

It is a custom, with some Jews, to offer a prayer, a statement at the time of death, on the anniversary of the death of a loved one: “HaMakom YiNachem”, which means “God will comfort you”. A lot of people add “may” to the beginning of this phrase, which is the same people do to a lot of blessings when the “may” is not in the phrase, the blessing. What these two words tell us and the mourner is: we cannot give you the comfort you need from our rational minds, from our facts and figures, we can only sit with you, hold you, connect with you and together seek the wisdom and way forward, not out of grief, the way forward to live without this person you/we love so much. To every mourner, each day is Memorial Day, for the last 60+ years, my father’s memory, his wisdom, his calling for me to be one grain of sand better each day has nagged at me, given me bad conscience when I was screwing up and embracing me since I am doing well.

“God comforts you” is a way of putting order to the chaos of death, to chaos of living without this important person in our lives, to the immense sense of being alone. It is a refusal to give in to the cruelty of vengeance, to the need to be right, to the need to blame and shame, to the seeking of injustice, to the need to hate. This is what is missing today here in the US and in Israel-a refusal to Hate, to Cruelty, to Blame and Shame, to promoting and bragging about Injustices Trump, Netanyahu, et al are perpetrating with glee and reckless abandon. Really BIBI, Really Ben G’Vir, you whom are descendants of the people who “wrote the book”, who taught us how to behave no matter who was the physical leader of where we live, who coined the phrase “God comforts You” are perpetuating hate, cruelty, dehumanization of another(s)? I understand Trump doing this because all his life he has cared about himself alone, sought to be rich, sought to have people kiss his ass, wanted to be a Mafia don, and now he is Capo D’Tutti, the head man and his evil inclination, which was always on display, has free reign, hence the back and forth with Iran, the need to show how strong he is, the decisions he makes based on who is pumping him up at this moment. But you, Netanyahu, YOU ARE A JEW and MORE IS EXPECTED OF YOU! It is not about turning the other cheek, it is ABOUT REJECTING CRUELTY! It is about not being like the “other nations”, it is about representing the Kindness, Truth, Justice, Love, Compassion, etc that God promotes, that God teaches us to have, and the Loyalty to Principles that the Prophets remind us of each day! You have screwed the pooch BIG TIME, Bibi and Israel, like the US, will take a while to recover from your corruption, your lies, your destruction of freedoms, your hateful actions towards the Images of God that Palestinians represent!

When we allow for “God comfort You” to overtake us as visitors to the mourners, as mourners ourselves, a change happens. I no longer needed to blame society for my father’s premature death at 42, I no longer needed to be angry that I was alone with no one to understand/“get me”. Rather, I became and grow in gratitude that Jerry was my dad, that I got to learn from him and still am talking to him, that my siblings and I have good relationships, that I am connected to my wife and daughter in close and loving ways. “God comforts You” whenever you open yourself to the healing powers of the universe, when we the people become ready and willing to be comforted because the anger, the getting even, the cruelty, is not serving us at all. It is like the family who, after the guilty verdict, are happy that justice has been done AND they are still not whole, the hole in their soul that their loved one filled is still empty. When and if We the People allow “God comforts You” to make an impression upon us, to hold the hand of the people who offer nothing but comfort in whatever way you need it-the hole starts to get smaller because, like my experience with my father (who was a veteran of WWII) our loved one never leaves!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Each day, write down the moments, experiences when you allowed ‘God comfort You” to help you out of the morass you feel you are in

2. Each day, ask yourself is you are honoring the memory of our deceased loved ones or not

God Bless and STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF! Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 30

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 30

Today marks 30 days since I began this new blog and I am just getting going! Today is also Memorial Day in the United States, a day of remembrance of the people who “gave their last full measure” to protect and defend our democratic way of living, our belief that “all men are created equal” is a work in progress that we must keep working towards, that the freedoms guaranteed us in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights are to be followed and never be ripped apart-no matter what Vought, Miller, Kushner, Vance and, of course, Donald say and do. I am wondering how the Republicans in the Senate and the House can celebrate our veterans while continuing to tear down the very freedoms, the democratic way of being that they died for? What are the lies Lindsey Graham has to tell himself to defend the Republican abdication of their duty to serve, protect and defend the Constitution that John McCain-his good friend (supposedly)- served time in the “Hanoi Hilton” prison camp to protect and defend in Vietnam? What are the lies we the people are telling ourselves that prevent us from rising up as We the People did in the late 50’s and 60’s?

A Country Pastor, a group/person on Facebook, that my wife Harriet has turned me on to, wrote yesterday about Balaam and his Ass. The Ass saw what the great seer, the prophet of God could not-the danger ahead- probably because he had visions of riches in his head, he saw his retirement being fully funded, and he sort of got approval from God to go ahead. Yet, because of his visions of no more financial worries, he didn’t hear clearly and decisively that he could only speak the words God gives him and not the words that Balak wants him to speak. The same seems to be true in our politics today, and do not think for a moment that the Bible is not Political, that Judaism isn’t political because they both give us ways to live a decent lifestyle, ways to be of service to one another and to God/universe, ways to grow our inner life and learn how to live in cognitive dissonance, live into the Both/And of “this is true and this is true”. What is really interesting in this story is that the Ass knew what his mind didn’t, this may be the first example of not being able to “save your ass and your face at the same time”!

It gives a whole new meaning to “talking out of your ass” as well. In this story, the Ass speaks truth, the Ass sees the danger, the Ass tries to protect the idiot that is riding it, thinking that the Ass is only there to do his bidding, that Balaam believes he can hit it unmercifully, he can be cruel to it because it is impeding his drive for riches and fame. Does this sound like anything that is happening now? Of course it does and the real question is: what are we the people going to do to stop the attack on what the brave men and women throughout our history have given their lives to defend? What are We the People going to do to ensure the principles and ideals like “certain unalienable rights” grow and flourish instead of being thrown away as the powers that be are trying to do right now? Maybe the person we are calling an Ass is the truth teller, the warning from God, the prophet we don’t want to hear nor listen to? Maybe we should be paying more attention to our Ass than to our rational mind, to the lies we tell ourselves and to being less oblivious to what really is happening. Ending our self-deception ain’t easy and it is the only path to freedom of self, freedom for another(s), acknowledging the infinite dignity within our Self and every other Self!

Watching the world I fought for as a teenager, the world my father and uncles fought for in World War II, the friends who fought in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, the ones who made it back with such inner scaring, some even took their lives from their experience over there, come apart because of greed, of lust for power, because of a Bastardization of Christ’s words and deeds, a Bastardization of the Bible, is so very painful. Watching Recovery from Addiction treatment centers become big business rather than serving the needs of people, seeing them as individuals, hurts my heart. Knowing that we are in need of a Prophet, in need of a Moses, Jesus, Mohammed like person, another MLK type, another Ben Franklin and knowing how difficult it is to be heard when you are like Amos, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, makes some people give up hope. WRONG! This is the moment to infuse hope into the conversation with yourself, this is the moment to find the Ass that you can ride to vision, to hearing, to being safe and being a SERVANT of God! This is the challenge, the solution.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the times when looking good was more important than being good

2. Make a list of the Ass’ who have told you to get on their back, ride their coattails to a richer and more meaning full life

3. Raise your hand to salute the myriads of soldiers who gave their lives so we can live free, the myriad of social activists who dedicated their lives to the proposition: All people are created equal, having certain unalienable rights.

God Bless and Stop Ghosting God, Stop Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 29

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 29

Today is Pentecost Day for Catholics and Protestants; Friday, I did not write because it was Shavuot, the time of “Receiving the Torah” and both have in common the principle of each human being has a personal experience of God, a confrontation, a visit, being enveloped in love, mercy, kindness, in this moment and, I would add, at every moment. The religious, spiritual and moral significance of receiving the Torah, being ‘struck’ with the ability to speak in tongues as Christianity recounts, is BE HUMAN!

None of us can BE HUMAN without an experience of God, without God being our constant companion-be it higher consciousness, Allah, Jesus, Adonai-the names do not matter. What the experience of the Pentecost, of receiving the Torah does is let us know that we are “loved by an unending love”, that we are always being cooed, being called to return ‘to the fold’, to be healed and move forward. Yet, most of we the people are not interested in this knowledge, most of we the people are more concerned with self and self-interest that we are constantly doing everything in our power to Ghost God, Ghost our true Self and go against what is in our best interest: Serving another(s), serving God!

Thursday night, I had the privilege of studying with my dear friend Rabbi Hazzan Danny Maseng. We looked at Hosea, given the whoring that is rampant in our world today we decided to look at the prophet who speaks most about the whoredom of Israel! The study of the Bible is not to confirm the truth of what it is talking about as much it is to confirm what is happening again and again in the different times since the Bible was written down! Even the Rabbis who compiled it, who canonized it, could not, would not live into it enough to effect a psychic change within themselves and within the People Israel. How sad that throughout the ages, we Jews, who are supposed to “carry the message” of Hosea, of the prophets, of the entire Tanach, the Bible, instead continue to live like the Rabbis of old-making excuses and being victims(which we have been victimized throughout the ages) and not living into the principles that are gifted to us, Jew and non-Jew, in order to live a principled, joyous life! There were, I am sure, many all-night studies Thursday night/Friday morning, I used to lead one at Beit T’Shuvah and the miraculous experiences of residents, alumni, staff, donors, community members is still spoken about! This happened because people came to learn, came to be moved by the study, by the myriad of teachers from the Community, and to have their own individual experience of God that could only happen in community. At 6am, when the study was wrapping up, I would recite the 10 Commandments, stopping at each one and asking if the people still awake would accept and live into each individual one-after an all-nighter, the energy of their YES infused everyone, especially me, with a spiritual high. This is what the Tikkun is aboutnot to show how smart and erudite one is, not to argue the minutiae, rather it is about having the experience of the people at Mount Sinai, the experience of the people crossing the Red Sea, the experience and declaration that “Zeh Eli”, “This is my God” and keeping our end of the covenantal love!

The people of Israel, of the Northern Kingdom were called to account by Hosea for their whoring after false gods, their whoring after women from Baal, their whoring after money, power, prestige, doing anything and everything to keep control, to put down ‘the other’ instead of loving the stranger, proclaiming Freedom throughout the land-they sought to keep power in a very tight circle, impose harshness and cruelty upon ‘those people’ and God knew they would have to experience/bear the consequences of their behaviors. While the innocent got exiled with the guilty, it is an example of how connected we the people are to one another and how responsible we have to be to one another. Hosea, keeps reminding the people, however, that doing TShuvah, returning to God will repair the damage, that God will take them back in love and heal their backsliding. Yet, the people don’t believe, they don’t heed, the just keep going on as if they are impervious to the consequences of their actions. SOUND FAMILIAR?

The Jews who study all night and give money and support to the cruelty, the injustice, the callousness, the sins being committed here and in Israel are eerily similar to the people who populated Israel in the time of Hosea! It is time for the Jewish People, the Christian People to take seriously Shavuot, the Pentecost and the commitments made that have been broken. It is time for We the People to repair the damage and recommit to Doing and then Understanding!
ACTION STEPS:

1. Reread the giving of the Commandments in Exodus, reread the account of speaking in tongues in Acts and recommit to living into the underlying principle of serving God, serving another(s)

God Bless, Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 28

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 28

There was a piece on Facebook yesterday that Harriet liked by “A Country Preacher”- whether it is AI or real, is of no matter to me in the moment because what it talks about is Very Real! It cites the myriad of times that the People Israel are warned about having a King and, of course, their not heeding the warnings!! DUH! Yet, to this day people are seeking to have “the big strongman” take care of them, protect them, ensure their safety at the cost of their money, property, freedom-yet we the people persist to this day, refusing to learn the lessons of the Bible, the lessons of history, so we keep being bewildered when our “king”, our “autocrat”, our “dictator” turns on us-unbelievable! Yet true.

This “Country Preacher” quotes from the Bible, the New Testament, and makes an interesting point: “before kings, Israel was far more communal, tribal, local and shared in responsibility. There were judges, elders, prophets, community discernment. It was imperfect because human beings are imperfect”. While historically the “more communal” can be argued, the main point of “tribal, local, shared in responsibility…judges, elders, community discernment” is more to the point. In fact, in their “community discernment” the People Israel pushed Samuel to appoint a King, which he was vehemently against and did it. It was all downhill from there-this is not to say the Priesthood was not without its own imperfections, like the sons of Samuel, of Eli being bullies, thieves, extortion artists. All of which speaks to the issue of power and where does it emanate from. When it is a “top down” power structure, abuse is sure to happen. David was a ‘benevolent’ king because he had Nathan, the prophet, at his side and when he didn’t have Nathan or one of the smart women in his life by his side, he fucked it all up, ie the murder of Uriah! His son Solomon was a pig and could never get enough, he turned the people against one another and created a rift between this faction and that faction that is getting bigger by the day-thank you Bibi and your thugs for proving the lessons of the Bible are still unheard, still ignored by you and your ‘good torah jews’ who are idolators and charlatans!

In America, as we prepare to celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, we the people need to look at our own history to see how fractured we have been since the beginning-Slave states and non-slave states, the Civil War, the isolationists and the Nazi-lovers like Lindbergh, Coughlin, Ford, et al. “We the People in order to form a more perfect union” has been the goal and it is still unrealized and, under the current climate, becoming more and more unrecognizable. The current push by the President to be shielded from any and all prosecution, any and all false tax returns, any and all responsibility for his actions is ANTI-AMERICAN! It goes against the Bible, the New Testament, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the spirit of how, when, why the United States of America was founded! Yet, here we are-thank you ‘you good white christian nationalist Republicans, you non-white jewish christian nationalist Republicans’! Thank you Bibi, Ben G’Vir, Smotrich, et al for showing us that Jews can act as antithetical to the Biblical concerns today as they were back then!

I am calling for a different kind of protest, not just a No Kings rally-although they are super important- I am calling for a ballot box protest, a voting with our feet protest, a Get out of Our Elections Mr. President, you disgusting Proud Boys, you not living up to your name Oath Keepers, you ICE agents who are too afraid to be ‘unmasked’. Hey Trump, Hey ICE, at least Hitler and the Nazis were not afraid to be seen stealing, looting, raping, killing innocent people just because they were not white Aryans. You all don’t even have the balls to do this-you ‘big strong’ PUNKS.

I am calling for a Return to our Spiritual Roots and Callings. I see and hear God’s demand upon us all, people of any and all faiths, people of no faith, people who follow Eastern Spiritual Disciplines to GET UP and BE FREE! Is it any wonder we are told to NOT GO BACK TO EGYPT? Is it any wonder that the prescription for a King is to read the Bible every night with advisors/prophets who speak Truth to Power? Is it any wonder that we have forgotten and/or twisted the words of the Prophets, the words of Jesus, the words of the Bible to fit the lying, mendacious narrative our power-hungry self wants to wield? We the People are being called by the Voice on Sinai, right this moment, to STAND UP and take back our freedoms, take back our countries, take back our religions.

ACTION STEP:

1. Write down the ways you have/are improving your community

2. Make a list of the ways you kiss the ass of the Powerful, speaking lies instead of truth so you can ‘get by’

3. “Make your home a meeting place for the wise” and start planning on how we will win at the ballot box

God Bless, Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 27

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 27

I am being told that my writings are political and may not carry well with people who disagree with me politically, who may read these years later when the people mentioned are long forgotten, and they may be correct. And my intention is not to be political-rather to point out how we the people are ghosting God by not standing on and for principles and ghosting self by not following the demands, the calls to be holy, to be decent, to be loving, to proclaim and ensure freedom to “all the inhabitants therein”! Just as the Bible is written so humanity can read, hear, do and then understand, so too am I attempting for these blogs to be written so everyone can read, hear, learn, do and then understand how far away from Godliness, from Holiness, from the principles of the Bible, of the New Testament, AA, Buddhism, all spiritual disciplines we are and, in future generations, not stray as far as we the people have!

Watching what is happening in the United States in this moment gives me Agida, heartburn, heartache, sadness in my soul! The mendacity, the indifference, the idiotic belief that ‘these good christian men’ are the only ones who should have power, that ‘these followers of Christ’ would go against everything he stood for, is simply enraging to a Jew like me! I do not have the same reverence for “Christ, our Lord” as my Christian friends do AND I have great reverence and respect for the principles Christ espoused because they all come from the Bible, they all are reminiscent of the words and deeds of the prophets! The situation Christ encountered, from my reading of his words, is the same the prophets encountered and the same We the People are encountering today: the Priests, the Ministers, the Rabbis, are going along with the people in power and the wealthy so they can enjoy and reap the benefits of being next to power! Just ask Clarence Thomas what this feel likes and the joy he experiences by selling his soul to “The (WHITE) MAN!!

Of course my disdain, my bewilderment, my rage is pointed mostly towards the Rabbis who are on their knees in front of Trump and his gang. These supposed ‘men and women of god’ are worshipping false idols, they are making graven images of God, they are taking the Name of God in vain, they are murdering innocent people by their lying ways, they are stealing the soul of the Bible by their grift and graft, they are bearing false witness before Congress, before us, they are whoring themselves out to the highest bidder, they are coveting their neighbors ass, the neighbors’ wives ass, etc. Howard Lutnick and Jeffery Epstein’s were pals after all! That AIPAC would throw 100’s of millions dollars to defeat Republicans who have shown some backbone and pushback to Trump’s shielding Epstein’s files and his friends(which donny boy is one of), to the Iran War, to the high cost of living  that is impacting people from every walk of life-except the billionaires who are reaping insane amounts of money-keeping the tariff refunds for themselves while they gouged the rest of us is unfathomable to me. Yet, this is where we are at. Do AIPAC and the Jewish Republican Coalition really believe that the KKK/South will rise again ‘good white christian men’ will “take care of them”? Do they not realize that every ‘good white christian man’ throughout history has either killed Jews, made us the reason for the troubles of the masses, spoken blood libel about us, culminating in the Concentration Camps in Germany and Poland? Are they so drunk on their ‘power’ that, like the priests, the wealthy, the people in charge in the days of the prophets, they are unable to “lift up their eyes and SEE” what is real?

I guess so! Hence the NEED for We the People to stop letting a minority of people run our country, our livelihood, our moral fiber, our spiritual health into the ground. I am calling out all of you so-called ‘normies’ who think your shit don’t stink, who believe in your “progressive” ways, who are certain that only my “conservative friends” will save us, who support the doings of Trump and Bibi in creating camps to demean and store like inanimate objects, the “stranger in our midst” instead of loving the stranger as God calls for! I am calling out We the People to fight these hateful, vengeful, thieving individuals who are giving money to the very people who go against the principles of Christ, of the Bible, who abuse the legacy of King David; calling him a warrior and forgetting his writing of the Psalms, his connection to God, his ability to admit his errors and do TShuvah for them. I know the life of People of the Lie and it is not good for the rest of us, it attacks our reality, our knowing and spits on our dignity and worth, our uniqueness and our gifts! We must put a stop to this RIGHT NOW!

ACTION STEPS:

1. What lessons from history have you internalized and are not repeating-personal history and global history

2. How are you confusing what is ‘good for your pocketbook’ and what God is calling on us to DO

3. What is the draw of the liars, the thieves that you keep buying their bullshit and your own lies

God Bless, Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 26

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 26

Each morning I wake up, sometimes WAY TOO EARLY, and I am excited to be alive and dreading what the latest horrific news from Trump et al is going to be. This is NOT Trump Derangement Syndrome-it is knowing what a lying, cheating grifting asshole is capable of-since in my youth I was one! Knowing that everything coming out of his mouth is probably a lie, except when he says he doesn’t think about the average American- only the rich idiots who keep kissing his ass and sucking his you know what! Yet, he was able to defeat a good and decent man like Dr. Cassidy in Louisiana, one of the places where his followers are getting royally fucked! What is wrong with people? The bombing in San Diego at the Mosque he called a terrible thing-thank God he didn’t say, ‘well, you know, they hate Trump and the Muslim people come from shit countries, and we are at war with them’ and other such idiocy-can you imagine, I am grateful he wasn’t an asshole this time, pretty low bar that he and his gang of incompetent thugs continue to go under it!!

Hegseth in Kentucky to campaign against Thomas Massey while the ‘war’ with Iran rages on, Kushner and Wytkoff in the Middle East, Russia, etc  seeking money for themselves and Trump while Marco Rubio keeps his nose up Trump’s ass, and other ridiculous goings on that capture our imagination and sense of horror. The best may be how many stock trades he has done and then those companies are either visited by him, promoted by him, obtain Government contracts, etc. His graft, his destruction of the emoluments clause is total and unprecedented and our Congress which is supposed to be one of the checks and balances on the President and the Supreme Court is DOING NOTHING!! These ‘fine Christian men and women’ are turning a blind eye to the stealing by Trump while wanting the 10 Commandments to be posted in every school. Jesus complained about “the money changers in the Temple” while these “true believers” cheer Trump’s thieving ways and give him another 1.8 billion to give out to the Jan 6 rioters, the Proud Boys, etc. Is this really what Jesus would want?

The Jewish Republicans who are cheering these behaviors on, who are in lockstep with Netanyahu in Israel, who promote hatred of the stranger, who believe the enemy of my enemy is my friend, who are putting stumbling blocks before the blind and cursing the deaf are even more disgusting to me! How can these ‘learned jews, bible thumping practitioners of everything that goes against the prophets, that is inline with all of the actions like senseless hatred, ignoring the cries of the poor, the needy, the stranger, call themselves Jews, I just don’t know. I am positing that to BE A JEW, is so much more than birth identity, so much more than circumcision, so much more than Bar/Bat Mitzvah, following dogmatic rules imposed by the Rabbis and other men. To BE A JEW is to “be a light unto the nations”, it is to “be a blessing”, to carry the words and deeds of God to every experience we have, to “love the stranger” said 36 times in the Bible, to do TShuvah for our errors, to come back to the fold because God heals our backsliding and loves us in our return, to know that where the truly repentant stands, not even the most saintly can reach her/his level. Yet, what do we have? We have Rabbis who say the right things and look right through people, who we are told to not take their ignoring of one personally because he/she does it to everyone. We have Rabbis who look to be politically safe rather than use their prophetic voice and call out the Bullshit around them. We have institutions who are so afraid of losing their funding they will not speak out nor up-even the ADL under Jonathan Greenblatt has caved to Trump, to the Republican massacre of Truth, of Decency, of Kindness, of Love!

It is way past time for Jews to START BEING JEWS/JEWISH again/for the first time. We wandered in the Desert for 40 years to get slavery out of our inner life, we wandered in the desert for 40 years to experience the wonder that wandering provides for us, we wandered in the desert for 40 years so we could learn how to be free, how to be a people, how to serve something greater than ourselves in our own unique way-not according to some bullshit societal nonsense! The way that some of these ‘frumma yids’ worship the Golden Calf of Trump in Florida and DC, the way that Meir Soloveitchik promoted a Christian Bible day when the speakers were calling for the US to be a ‘christian nation as the founding fathers wanted’ (WRONG), and NOT speak out about Religious Freedom, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to choose, etc is mind-boggling to me. We the Jews who believe we are “a light to the nations” have to speak out and speak up; have to live by the 10 Commandments, the Holiness Code, etc and CHOOSE LIFE instead of the slow death of allowing our rational mind, our fears, our need to be certain, our need to be rich to kill us softly.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Decide how you are going to stop Ghosting God, losing your authentic self and serve God instead.

GOD BLESS, Stop GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 25

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 25

Continuing with Einstein’s quote and looking at the macro, seeing how since time immemorial there have been people with “great spirits” in conflict with people who have “mediocre minds”, it is evident that we are deep in the throes of this battle for the soul of the U.S., the soul of Israel, the soul of the world. It is precisely this moment, when our capability to destroy everything God has created is being threatened by those ‘fine christian men’, the ‘good Jewish men’, and, not to be left out, our ‘brothers who continually preach killing the infidel muslims’, that We the People are being called upon like some of We the People were in the 60’s and 70’s.

A moment of euphoric recall: Kennedy in the White House promised youth, new thinking, “a new frontier”, positive energy-with all of his faults, with all of his infidelities, he gave us young people hope that change was possible. Martin Luther King Jr. gave us the kind of fiery sermons that, the young Jews of my generation longed to here from our Rabbis. Bobby Kennedy stood up to Jimmy Hoffa, to George Wallace, to Bull Connor, etc giving us kids hope and then John was assassinated by  whom we will never know, Johnson took over and did great things for the inner workings of the country-including getting the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed AND he fucked up our country by lying about and escalating Vietnam. Then, when Bobby was going to run-he was assassinated by whom we will never know and Tricky Dicky paved the way for Reagan who was a closet racist, John Roberts who’s life mission was to end the Voting Rights Act, and Oliver North, et al who gave rise to Gingrich who’s lasting legacy is one of political hatred and evil who gave rise to the Tea Party and their outrage that a Black Man would be in ‘their White House’ bringing about Trump and his assault on Truth, on Freedom, on the average Joe, on everyone but himself and his family!

Mitch McConnell took over for Gingrich albeit in the Senate and has made a mockery of Freedom through his Supreme Court choices, through his loyalty to party, to making a name for himself, to wealth and NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION which he swore an oath to. He is such a “mediocre mind” that he supported Trump after his wife quit, after Trump insulted her with ethnic sneer campaign! He is consistent, I guess-he is not faithful to the vows he made to care for and defend neither the Constitution nor his wife!

My greatest disgust, as always, lies with the Clergy, the “good christian nationalists, orthodox jews, Israel love it or leave the US people of many stripes, the Israel hate it no matter what they have brought to the world in life-saving medical, technological advances, rescuing people from disasters, and the MAGA believers that TRUTH DOESN’T MATTER!! The “mediocre minds” like Hegseth, Rubio, Lutnick, Vought, Bessent, Miller are doing everything they can to kill the spirit of the United States, the spirit of Freedom. Throw in Trump’s grift and graft, the meaningless Republicans in Congress who suck up everything he says and kiss his ass and the recipe for disaster is being stirred and baked. That Black Clergy and Orthodox Jews can stand and hold hands worshipping the Golden Calf Statue of Trump in Florida, that Black and Jewish clergy defend Trump and love him because ‘he is the best president Israel has ever had’, ‘more black people are working under Trump than ever before’ is MIND BOGGLING. It is the prime example of the great spirits like Pope Leo, William Barber, Sharon Brous, encountering the “violent opposition of mediocre minds”. Unfortunately these “mediocre minds” have been winning the day, the South has risen again, the KKK is back in vogue-or at least their principles are- and disenfranchising of Black voters, of democratic voters, the trampling on the Freedoms that have made America Great is sad and, I KNOW in my bones this will change sooner rather than later.

How do I KNOW in my bones? I know because the Bible reminds me of all the times we the people Ghosted God, Ghosted our Self and then did TShuvah and returned. It has happened throughout the Bible, throughout History and it is happening now. The sad piece for me is that we Jews have forgotten the lessons of the Prophets, the ignoring of truth, of human decency that they teach us and we the people will hear their voices again, will heed them this time and We the People will throw off the yoke of “mediocre minds” and “Proclaim Freedom” in every corner of the Earth and to ALL People everywhere. This is the ACTION STEP We the People need to take!

God Bless and Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 24

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day24

As many of you know, I love quotes because in a few words they capture the moment we are in, the moments that have repeated themselves over and over again, and forearms us with ways to counter-act the horrific inhumanity that human beings perpetrate upon one another.

For the past few days, I have been living with and talking about Einstein’s quote: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” WOW, what a mouthful, what an apt description of this moment, just as it was at the moment he said it in defense of Bertram Russell who’s brilliance was being demeaned because of his social and moral unusual views. His views on religion, capitalism, and other societal norms would not be considered so ‘out of the box’ today, and they were then. Why Einstein said it is not as important as that he did say this and leave this to all of us as part of his legacy!

In speaking with people over the past few days, I realized that there are both the macro and micro levels to this quote. I have been thinking about how this quote is used to denigrate, explain, defend another person’s behaviors; the negativity of the “mediocre mind” and the soaring of the “great spirits”. Today, I am writing about the MICRO level because not only does another(s) do this to We the People, we the people allow our rational mind to violently oppose what our guts/souls know is the next right thing to do.

How often have any of us ‘gone along to get along’? How many times have we given up our principles and knowing in order to keep the job, the wife, the kids, …? How often have we ‘cut corners’ in order to get ahead, keep our social standing, get what we think we deserve? I know I am guilty of all of these, most prior to my recovery and, I, regretfully admit, there have been times in my recovery that I allowed my servant mind to override what my spiritual mind was telling me because I was afraid, because I convinced myself that this was for the ‘greater good’ and in many cases it was…for a while. What is at stake in every decision we make, every choice we choose, is our dignity, our longevity, our ability to “look at the man in the mirror” and not be disgusted by my decisions, by my choices. When I “go along to get along”, “cut corners” for my sake and not for the sake of heaven/another person, when I compromise my principles to ‘keep’ anything, I have lost myself, I have allowed the “violent opposition” of my own rational mind to overpower the spiritual truth that is reverberating inside of me. This battle between “violent opposition” of my rational mind servant and my intuitive/spiritual mind gift goes on all the time, yet most people are unaware of it, psychologists and psychiatrists believe they can medicate the war away, talk the war out when in reality they are helping to promote the “RATIONAL MIND’S “VIOLENT OPPOSITION”!

This is not to say that the rational mind isn’t useful and necessary-of course it is! At issue is the when, where, how we use it! As Einstein also says; “rational mind is a servant” and in modernity, since the renaissance maybe, society has elevated the rational mind to a much higher status than God does in the Bible-remember even the Israelites said “we will DO and then we will UNDERSTAND-not the other way around as is the case today.

My ‘math brain’ allows me to see way ahead of time the problems coming down the pike, it gives me solutions to material issues that come up all the time. It gives me a long-view of living in the material world that has helped me to succeed. It has also given me bad advice and when I have allowed it to take over, the chaos and evil that comes out is debilitating to everyone around me, bewildering to people, to me. It always comes out after its “violent opposition” to my soul’s solution and it sounds so rational, so correct that even after all these years, it still fools me sometimes. In Judaism we call this “violent opposition” the Yetzer HaRa-the evil inclination. Its is necessary and it is good when the energy is transformed, it is evil and very unnecessary when the energy is not transformed. I know the war, my soul has won overwhelmingly over the “violent opposition” of my “mediocre mind” and I have to be on guard all the time because it is a sneaky bastard!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a daily inventory of when your rational mind overwhelms, is in “violent opposition” to your soul’s knowing

2. Make a list of when your intuition was right and you followed it, when it was right and you didn’t, when it was wrong and you followed it and when it was wrong and you didn’t.

3. Ask yourself what the reward is from following the servant and is it worth it

4. Make a list of the times you did and then understood and the times you have waited to understand before taking action.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 23

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 23

In one week Jews around the world will be celebrating the spring festival of Shavuot. It is a harvest festival like all the other major festivals and it has had the receiving of the 10 Sayings, the Torah added on by the Rabbis. Not a bad idea, it goes along with the Biblical narrative of the timeline from leaving Egypt till arriving at Sinai. The custom of staying up all night on Erev Shavuot (the night before) began with Isaac Luria, the famous Kabbalistic Master. Their are so many fervent Jews of all denominations who participate in this ritual while at the same time supporting the very ideas and principles that are diametrically opposed to what the Torah teaches, what God is demanding and they just don’t care-they just want to be seen, look good and sound smart, so they can keep on being next to power, in power, getting richer while we the people are getting poorer, suffering indignities that go against “certain unalienable right”, having the Freedoms promised and fulfilled for the most part for most of these past 250 years TAKEN AWAY, RIPPED APART, and the Supreme Court, the Congress, both of whom are the checks and balances, are sucking the private parts of Trump, Vought, Lutnick, Miller, Bessent, et al. WTF?!

As we Jews study all night in order to repair for the Israelites supposedly “sleeping in” on the day the Torah was being given, We the People are actually being called upon to repair the damage being done to the principles, the call, the demands of God to we the people. I love this night and have for the past 37 years because I have stayed up all night and studied, except for the last 5. At Beit T’Shuvah, it was a time for our residents and alumni to teach all of us, staff, residents, alumni how to live better through the principles that made a difference in their life. We would start at 8PM with 100+ people and by 6 AM there would be 50+ left and we read the 10 Commandments out loud, with everyone wrapped inside an open Torah Scroll-a very powerful, spiritual uplift to end this experience. There are many recovering people who still remember the “word of Torah” that they pointed to and lived into each year one grain of sand more.

Rather than speaking about living the principles of the Holiness Code, of the 10 Commandments/sayings, most of the Jews keep trying to outdo one another with their erudite knowing of the sources, the Talmud, the Mishnah, etc. Rather than delve into their need to Tikkun/Repair their ways, their inner life, their Ghosting of God, their living inauthentically, they keep pretending that they are fine, they know what they are doing and they are doing “god’s will”; “god’s will” being whatever they decide it to be, whatever serves them, not another(s), not the betterment of the world, not loving the stranger, not loving their neighbor as themselves and they refuse to be rebuked, they refuse to acknowledge the myriad of ways they put stumbling blocks before the blind, they are cursing the deaf. It is ‘just business’, just ‘the way of the world’.

Shavuot is the moment in time when God called upon We the People to make the ways of the world in line with the Divine rather than follow the insanity, the hubris, the egocentric paths of the rich, famous, cruel autocrats. Hence, the ways of the Jews who work for, support, donate to the Trump bullshit, the Republicans who have no backbone, the Christian Nationalists who spout their ‘love for Israel’, who worship at the Statue of Donald J Trump in Florida, ARE NOT THE WAYS OF GOD, ARE ONLY MAKING THE DAMAGE HARSHER, BIGGER, MORE IRREPARABLE, rather than actually DOING TSHUVAH, DOING TIKKUN!

I know the power of Torah, it saved me when I began to read it, study it, LIVE it in earnest when I was in Prison for the 2nd time-I am so smart it took me going to the joint twice to “get it”. Each day I study something so I can learn, I wake up excited to learn, to use whatever is happening to better my daily living-be it coming in first or the middle of the pack at the bridge club, be it trying new glaze combinations and shapes in the ceramics studio, be it in leaning into the conversations I have with Harriet, with any of the people I am connected to. What is important for me is to live these principles in all my affairs-as AA also stresses. How am I being in truth, being kind, being just, being merciful, being compassionate, walking in the ways of Godliness are the questions I ask myself many times a day and, I am happy to report, as the years have gone by-I get more and more in line with the divine!

ACTION STEPS:

1. What do you need to repair this year on Shavuot

2. How are you preparing yourself to receive Torah this year

3. What are the Incongruence that  you keep refusing to deal with

4. How are you hiding behind dogma and looking good rather than being just

5. How are you living and not living the principles of love, truth, kindness?

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 22

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 22

Each morning I wake up with joy and trepidation, excited and scared, Oh my God- how is this happening and OH MY GOD-How amazing is this day. Living in the tension of these seemingly opposing experiences is, to me, the essence of living in the “both/and”, the radical amazement and wonder of living with purpose, passion, and meaning.

Each morning I do my mental exercises, playing games on my iPad, doing the NYT’s wordle, mini and regular crosswords, practicing my bridge skills(which are not all that great), read the latest news, say my prayers and sit down to write this blog. Through all the turmoil and chaos in the world, through the cruelty of Trump and his master/good friend Putin and their buddy Netanyahu, through the idiocy of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, through the lunacy of people who support these charlatans even though their policies are killing them, I keep hope, faith, compassion, love and Truth alive within me.

Am I concerned that Trump will abandon Taiwan-of course and it will not surprise me because he abandons EVERYONE! Am I aghast at what Trump has done to the people of Cuba-of course and it doesn’t surprise me because he doesn’t care about anyone besides himself and maybe Ivanka and Marco Rubio wants the US to take back Cuba so he is willing and able to watch innocent people die, be treated with abject cruelty and starved, have their electricity turned off, run out of fuel to obtain his goal. Does the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court in allowing State Legislatures to redistrict Black legislators out of office with their ‘redistricting’ while stopping the officially elected redistricting maps of Democratic States- OF COURSE and it is not surprising given the absolute racial bias of Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Thomas along with the “good christian belief that women should follow what their man tells them to do” of Barrett! Am I scared to death at where the country is going, that the midterms are being co-opted, that We the People are having our Freedoms stripped by these wonderful ‘christian nationalist lies’-You Bet! These are what keep me up at night, what invade my sleep, and give me trepidation, fear, and Oh my God how is this happening.

And each morning I wake up grateful to be alive, reading the Bible, hearing the call of the prophets, the calls of Rabbis Hillel, Shammai, the prophets, of Rabbi Heschel and the original founders of the Hasidic movement, etc. I know that my job is not to worry about the results and to be in action, doing my part to bring the words emanating from Sinai to the ears of the people around me. I know my work is never done and I cannot fall into despair at the situation that is happening around me. I know my job is to be God’s Cheerleader, to be “a light unto the nations”, to use my prophetic voice to speak to the prophetic voice of you and everyone I engage with. I know these truths and they give me joy, excitement, OH MY GOD-how amazing is this experience! I continue to be “maladjusted to notions and words” so I can “have an authentic experience of that which is” and live in wonder, radical amazement as Rabbi Heschel teaches.

Being maladjusted has its drawbacks, there is an exilic experience because most people just want to go along to get along-even the people with whom I share concerns and outlooks with-stay political enough to not ‘rock the boat’. It is an experience that keeps me on the outside looking in because I am not ‘good’ in polite society-THANK GOD! I use street language that my brother suggests I may want to tone down, I use capital letters to show my outrage and anger. I am my father’s son and can get bombastic in a moment when I see injustice, mendacity, etc. I wake up early and meditate on the day ahead, continually trying to be one grain of sand better. Living in the BOTH/AND of life is impossible when Dogma takes over, when the need to be certain is more important than the need to be in truth, when the need to be right, powerful, wealthy is more important than the need to be decent, to be free. AND WE SHALL OVERCOME, someday-this is my belief, my knowing, and what keeps me excited, joyous, and in radical amazement each and every day.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Take your spiritual temperature each morning

2. Find and follow a spiritual routine and don’t do it routinely

3. Don’t deny the evil that surrounds you and don’t be beaten down by it

4. Know the good within you, the good around you and join with these “good angels” to defeat despair, abject fear, and acquiescence to power

5. Stay maladjusted to words and notions so each experience is new, empowering, and you become spontaneous.

6. God Bless and Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 21

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 21

“Am I your favorite” is a refrain that evey child says, every friend asks, every student desires, every employee seeks, etc, etc. It is as old as the story of Cain and Abel. The name Abel means “mist”, so the idea that one could be God’s ‘favorite’ is RIDICULOUS! Just as seeking “favorite one” status is insane, it is even crazier to seek it from Donald J Trump as Rubio and Vance are doing, as Lindsey Graham is doing. Rather, we the people should take a lesson from Zelensky and Ukraine, Europe, etc and ignore Trump, ignore Netanyahu, ignore Putin and fight for what is right and good. It is written in the Talmud, Avot 1:3: “Antigonus said: Be not like servants who serve their master expecting a  reward, be like servants who serve their master without expecting a reward”. Yet, how often do We the People not expect something in return? How often are we butt-hurt when we don’t receive at least a ‘good boy, good girl’ for our efforts, how many times during a day do we get pissed off like Cain does and, while not killing our brother, rival, friend, enemy, how often do we set fire to the relationship that stands in our way of being #1?

This way of being plays out throughout the Bible, except with Isaac and Ishmael! There is no sibling rivalry, in fact, as I read the Biblical account of Issac, it seems as if he is coming home from visiting Ishmael when he first sees Rebecca! I wonder if the spiritual nature of Isaac, the meditative, thoughtful, serving without expectation of a reward that was Isaac is the difference between their relationship and Jacob’s with Esau-where Jacob is the shit-disturber, the one seeking ‘favored status’. This dynamic of seeking to be the favorite of the people, the favorite of God is ongoing throughout the Bible and We the People still haven’t learned how to live the wisdom from Avot!

It is playing out in our political realm, ignore the machinations of Trump because no matter what Vance and Rubio do-there is no loyalty, no commitment from anyone who needs to be ‘the favorite’, ‘number 1’ in the eyes of parents, teachers, groups of friends, employees, politicians, etc. Loyalty is at the core of what Antigonus is saying above, I am discovering as I write this. When any of we the people in our small-minded, ego-centered, soul bankruptcy seek to “be like a servant who serve their master expecting a reward”, we have no loyalty to any principle except “getting mine”. However, when We the People are “like a servant who serve their master without any expectation of a reward”, We not only are loyal to something/someone, We are being loyal to God, to principles, to values, to truth, to love, to kindness! Rather than be relationship arsonists, We become relationship builders, rather than being ‘out for number 1’ We are seeking to serve a greater good, rise above our small self and grow into the “Self our soul wants us to be” as Thomas Merton teaches. This is the challenge of Antigonus, the challenge of the Bible, the challenge of every spiritual discipline! And it is a challenge that is ignored by most people. While many of we the people claim to be doing God’s bidding, like Mike Johnson, the god they serve is an idol, is a self-serving one, is worse than the ones in Greek and Roman mythology because at least Zeus, et al told us they were out for themselves while Johnson and his like-minded racists, haters, anti-semites claim to be serving Jesus-who was not White most likely!!

I also sought “favorite status” in my youth and it was only in recovery that I came to realize and decide this was a fool’s errand. When people were seeking to be my favorite, I put a picture of my daughter Heather on my door with the caption: MY ONLY FAVORITE CHILD! Everyone laughed and got the message. My ‘favorite’ people are the ones who live by the principles of Truth, Love, Justice, Mercy, Kindness, Compassion and help me live into and up to these principles as well. I work hard to not fall into the traps of relationship arsonists and not be one as well. It is difficult because when I see someone who, in my experience, is full of shit- I want to warn another(s) and some people interpret this as me being a relationship arsonist. Yet not do this violates the commandment from the Holiness Code: Lev.19:17 “You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear guilt because of her/him”. This is the challenge I face every day-speaking truth, guarding people and self, serving God just because it is the right thing to do. It AIN’T EASY!

ACTION STEPS:

1. Make a list of the ways and areas of life you continue to seek to “be the favorite”

2. Write down each day for a week, how you were a relationship arsonist this day

3. Write down each day for a week, how you were a relationship builder this day

4. Make a daily list of the things you did to get a reward

5. Make a daily list of the things you did just because it was right to do

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 20

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 20

Trump is in China going to get outmaneuvered by Xi, again. Trump is in China and he could very easily give Xi the green light to attack Taiwan. Netanyahu is in Jerusalem and using AI to gin up more racism and hate, Putin is in Moscow and sowing his usual hatred for everyone not Putin and where are We the People? This is the question that is nagging me every day.

Witnessing the successful pushbacks in cities where Miller et al wanted to open concentration camps for immigrants they deem here illegally is one way that We the People are showing up. The Democrats keep trying to win the redistricting map war through process while the Republicans just muscle their way to victory-one way to witness the NON-SHOWING UP by these phony ‘good’ people. We are in a war for the soul of America, the soul of Freedom and to allow the enemy to use our vulnerabilities against us is EVIL ON OUR PART! I am not advocating violence, I AM advocating “taking it to the streets” once again! We the People are being called by something much larger than our fears, our need to “go along to get along”. It is the call of our ancestors who WERE IMMIGRANTS- many of them could be considered illegal, the ‘dregs’ of society, even Trump’s grandfather may have come here illegally! It is the call of our descendants, our children and grandchildren. As a child of a WWII veteran, there were never war stories spoken about, my father did not want to put his trauma upon his children. When my oldest brother left college and had to go to boot camp for the National Guard, my father shook with his memories of boot camp and the anti-semitism he encountered. We the People owe our ancestors who braved everything to allow us to grow up in freedom, we owe our children and grandchildren the same opportunity we had, we owe one another the dignity of being human and decent towards one another, we owe God gratitude for being alive, for the hope that this day brings, and the power to change, be one grain of sand better. None of this is possible as long as we the people hide and stay small in our little bed with the covers over our head!

I am thinking about the 3 ‘men’ who visited Abraham to bring him news of Sarah giving birth, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the saving of Lot, his nephew. Abraham, instinctively knew these were messengers, he rushed to serve them, he listened to them intently, and then had his famous conversation with God-bargaining for the life of the people of Sodom and winning the bargain, only to be unable to find 10 good men in the kingdom-which sounds crazy and, how many good men/women can we find in positions of power in our government today? I do not think we can come with 10 either. Against the greatest power in the universe, God, Abraham stood up through his fear and argued for the sake of people he did not know-just as the demonstrators are doing when We the People stand up to: ICE, to the proposed and in use ‘detention centers’, to the illegal raping and pillaging going on in the West Bank, the illegal war Russia began and CAN NOT SEEM TO WIN against Ukraine, etc.

While as every recovering person will attest to, we may be powerless over Trump and his ilk here and abroad, We the People are not powerless over protesting, changing the ‘way things are’, arguing for the sake of heaven-not self, and fighting for what is Holy- “love your neighbor”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein, “love the stranger”, “all men are created equal… with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, etc. It was done in 1776, it was done in the French Revolution, it was done with the Magna Carta, it was done with the Russian Revolution, it was done in 1948, 1956, 1967 when Israel was attacked and/or going to be attacked.

I am the son and grandson of men who believed in the human spirit, who practiced the principles of the Bible while not being what most would call “religious”, they would not have worshiped at the Golden Calf of Trump like some Black and Jewish ‘holy rollers’ do! They fought for the dignity of all people, they believed in the freedom-having come to America without much, having fought in WWII to preserve our freedoms and the freedom of Europe and Asia, stood up against prejudice and senseless hatred because they were subjected to both. This is my inheritance, it may be yours as well. We the People have the epi-genetics to resist the cruelty and fight for freedom.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Have an inner dialogue with the cruel, negative parts of you that still want to prevail

2. Find the antidote, the contrary action necessary to transform your cruelty/negativity into ways to serve decency and kindness

3. Read the story of Abraham and God re: Sodom and meditate on standing the FUCK UP instead of sitting down to “get ahead”

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