Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 79

Jonah is so, so upset that he asks God to kill him rather than face the ‘shame’ of his words helping to change the people of Nineveh. Rather than see himself as a redeemer, in the shadow of Moses, Jonah sees himself as a failure because Nineveh didn’t “get what was coming to them”. Rather than see himself as a life-saver, he is so pissed off that God is “full of compassion, graciousness, slow to anger, great in kindness and repents evil” for Nineveh, while at the same time, he prayed for all of these attributes for himself in the belly of the fish! Jonah wants “strict justice” for those he considers enemies, evil, etc and wants “great compassion and grace” for himself! He is so, so upset that he reminds God, this is why he did not want to come to Nineveh, this is why he fled to Tarshish, so he would not have to watch the people repent, he would not have to see the people redeemed. Rather than rejoice in a “mission accomplished” moment, he is angry, depressed, suicidal that people repent and live-WTF

This is, unfortunately, a very human response. Too many of we the people are upset when people are given a “second, third, fourth” chance to make amends, to ‘get it right’, to live up to their divine nature and not stay stuck in our animal nature. This same segment of we the people, however, believe they are entitled to these multiple chances, believe they should not be punished for their errors, because they are not really wrong-the rest of us just don’t understand, etc. This segment of we the people are as two-faced, as incongruent, as evil acting as Jonah. I use the word evil because when what is hateful to you, you do to another, when you use the vulnerabilities of another against them, this is an evil action. AND the rest of us, the Clergy, the ‘good people’, the progressive fascists, perpetrate the evil we hate upon “those” people! Rather than put an end to discrimination, to prejudice, many of these so-called “freedom fighting supporters of Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, 2023”, haters of Israel/Jews, attackers of Jews on Campus, in our Houses of Worship, promote more and more prejudices, more and more Cancers of the Soul upon themselves, their followers and the rest of us.

Be it the “manosphere” or the “Bernie crowd”, both of these insane factions one with concern about testosterone levels, how they look, power to the White Christian Nationalists ONLY, the other with concern only for the current underdog, hating the rich, ignoring the crimes of ‘their underdog’, wanting to allow the Arabs in the Middle East to decimate Israel as they have tried to in 48, 56, 67, 73, the intifadas, and all of these Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi attacks. Israel is not wearing Lilly-white gloves here by any means, yet this ‘fine progressive, socialist democrats’ look the other way when it comes to the ‘poor Palestinians’ and their crimes, not wanting to admit their responsibility for their plight because they would not say YES to a deal that gave them 95% of what they asked for! Again, I DO NOT agree with Netanyahu and the Israeli government, AND I have to see both sides. Just as Jonah could only see his desires, his wants, his need for revenge and destruction, so too, the right and the left can only see life from their narrow viewpoint, with their blinders on. Isn’t this the root of prejudice-seeing only what you want to see-, isn’t this the manifestation of the cancer of the soul these two extremes have grown within themselves and their followers so they are blinded by their desires, isn’t this the epitome of rejecting the cure for this cancer of the soul-spiritual maturity, spiritual counseling? Of course it is and I am holding all of us responsible! Rather than shutting down the Bernies and the Manospherers, we the people either ignored them or supported them, either we actively helped them grow because some of what they are saying we could go along with-unwittingly helping their agenda and being blind and deaf to their motives and end goals, or we passively helped them grow because we ‘could not be bothered’ to discern truth from fiction, bought the lies because we the people are more like Jonah that like God. How sad, how criminal!

AND We the People still have time to say NO to these haters, to these ‘flavor of the month’ causes, to these fascists who want control, who want to steal from the rich and give to whom-AOC seems to have a lot of money for a girl who claims to be so poor, just saying. We the People have the opportunity during this period of time, from Tisha B’Av to Yom Kippur to clean up our acts, to tame the Jonah-hatred part of us and enhance the Jonah-messenger part of us. I have been honing the Jonah, the prophet in me for 39+ years and I am a much better human being for it-not great, not perfect, just many grains of sand better from the guy in the Jail Cell who was caught again, from the guy who denied his father’s wishes to be a decent human being. This is the joy of being human, the gift of “You are forgiven as you have spoken”, the essence of Yom Kippur.
ACTION STEP:

Do a deep dive into the prejudices you still hold, the ways you deny forgiveness to another(s) and want it for yourself

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 78

I am stuck on Jonah for a minute, as you can tell. I want to address a part of Jonah’s character that many of we the people share: wanting someone who is a better human being, who knows the next right action, who speaks truth to power to fail, to “get theirs”, to stop throwing it in our face how low we can go, how small we are, how God wants our return, loves us graciously, and takes us back. This is something that began with Cain and Abel, where jealousy got the better of Cain so badly that he killed his brother, asking “Am I my brother’s keeper?” While that question is not directly answered in the text between Cain and God-he is, after all, only thinking about his consequences, it is implied that We the People are indeed our “brother’s keeper” and it goes on to explicitly tell us this in the Holiness Code.

One of the interesting pieces of the Book of Jonah to me is our lack of understanding how it applies to We the People, how we seem to ignore the myriad of ways our resentments are talked about, the amount of jealousies we harbor and our secret longing to be free of the inner judgements of ourselves, especially when we compare our self, our actions to those of decent people who have no guile, who just mind their own business, who “get ahead” by being moral, ethical and loving, open to TShuvah and doing their own. This makes me think of my Grandfather, Abe Borovitz, who never said a bad, mean word about anyone in his entire life! He wasn’t a monetarily rich man, he fathered no children, adopted one and took in 5 of his wife’s sisters children to raise during the depression. Unlike Jonah, he heard a call within him that he followed, his moral compass was so strong he would not let anyone talk bad about people in his presence, a trait that was not passed down so much. He is the gold standard in our family and maybe that way of being will pass down to my grandson, to my nieces and nephews. It certainly is still not valued in the ‘real world’-just look at how far Trump, et al, have gotten by hating the goodness of another, making fun and fodder of good people, and killing those who are seeking a better life. It is ironic that Trump of all people talks about “illegal” when he is the person who deals illegally with everyone!

When white men would not work for my father in his business because he raised the pay of Black men to be the same as white men for the same work(he was an equal opportunity employer way before it was talked about), my brothers and I were called N____ lovers! In Cleveland, Ohio, on the other side of town from his business-word of fairness, of treating all human beings with dignity travelled fast and, like with Jonah, was looked down upon. Some of the people who went to the Temple we went to, some of the people who were ‘pillars of the community’, participated in this name calling-my father was a poor man, he was a man who loved his family and it was painful for him to see his children being called such disgusting names AND, he explained to me that doing the right thing sometimes has a cost to it and it is a far less cost than doing the wrong thing in order to go along with the ‘status quo’.

My issue with the Book of Jonah is not what it talks about, not what it is showing us, my issue is with:

1) the ways in which it is explained or not explained,

2) the ways in which the Rabbis then and especially now ignore the inconvenient truths spoken about

3) Admiring the prose and not getting lost in the flowery words and the beautiful Hebrew

4) Praising of God’s ability to return and not acknowledging that Nineveh, aka, non-Jews, could hear the call to return and take action to return while the Israelites and the Judeans 20+ years later and up through 70AD, could not!

It is time for We the People to get off our high horses, to stop seeing ourselves as “the chosen people” conferring some special status on us, granting us immunity for our wrong doings. It is time for We the People to take the Book of Jonah seriously and stop HATING THOSE WHO DO GOOD, THOSE WHO ARE NOT WILLING TO FOLLOW THE MAJORITY TO DO EVIL! It is time for We the People to throw Bibi and his thugs, Trump and his thugs out of power, to end their reign of terror upon decent people, end their desecration of the teachings of Jonah, of the Bible, of Christ! It is time for We the People to realize the myriad of spiritual awakenings we have had and continue to have and STOP IGNORING THEM! It is time for We the People to realize the only way to “get ahead” is through being moral, through being decent, through “Return Again” as Reb Shlomo Carlebach sings to us.

ACTION STEP:

Look at the ways you are more like Jonah than you want to admit, admit this truth and return again to being more decent

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 77

“And this displeased Jonah greatly and he was ANGRY!” (Jonah 4:1) Can you imagine, the granting of a pardon would “displease” the prophet who warned them of their fate and the people hearing him, waking up to the truth of their situation, the truth of the damage they have done, repenting and changing their ways? WTF?? Isn’t this the real mission of the prophet? Doesn’t every other prophet want the “word of God” to be heard, to awaken the souls of the people who need to hear “the word of God”, and to do T’Shuvah? Of course they do, so what is Jonah’s problem?  I believe it is the problem most of We the People suffer from, engage in, revel in. The problem is our love of watching those we disagree with, those we don’t like, those we are afraid of, those who are better human beings than we are: GET WHAT WE THINK/WANT WHAT’S COMING TO THEM!

Jonah is so intent upon exacting the revenge he thinks is necessary and appropriate, he cannot fathom God not doing this. He is angry  with God and he complains that he knew this would happen. “Is this not what I said in my own land? I fled to Tarshish because I know you are grant grace and compassion, slow to anger, loving kindness,…Now, take my life, God because it is better I die than live!”(Jonah 4:2-3) Jonah knows God is able to accept the repentance of people and this drives him CRAZY!! Weird, isn’t it? Yet, how true for so many of We the People! God, on the other hand, sees accepting repentance, allowing for T’Shuvah as part of the covenant God made with Human Beings, as far back as Adam and Eve, Cain, etc.

I do believe Jonah is being a touch melodramatic, here; to ask that he die because the people listened to his words and believed he was sent by God?! To ask that he die because the people repented and God accepted their T’Shuvah?!! To ask that he die because God “gives grace and compassion, is full of loving kindness, slow to anger, and cleans the evil from people when they repent”?!!? Isn’t this what we pray for each day, certainly each Yom Kippur? Isn’t this what we are told God is in Exodus after the Golden Calf debacle? Yet, Jonah, doesn’t want it to be true for the people of Nineveh. I am sure, he wants it to be true for himself and the people he likes, though! And, I think that Jonah represents a lot more of We the People than most of us think. I think Jonah represents the “white christian nationalists” who believe that people of color, that muslims, Jews, even Catholics, do not deserve to be redeemed, to not deserve to have their repentance accepted and, to them, Jesus is a merciless Judge, not a merciful one. Jesus is, to them, a lion who will destroy their enemies, not a lover of people, not full of loving kindness. To them, Jesus is a warrior god, not a God of caring for the stranger, protecting the blind and the deaf, loving neighbors, etc. This is how far from truth being vengeful like Jonah can take us!

This love of seeing someone “get theirs”, “receive what is coming to them” is a sick way to live, it is the way of those who think “life should be fair”, except when they screw up. It is the way of people who are unwilling, afraid, unknowing how to face themselves, to face their own foibles, to make T’Shuvah for their errors and, as has been true since before Jonah, want to blame someone else, complain their punishment is too great, even though Cain killed his brother! It is rampant in our world today and it causes the downfall of the nation and the individual, it causes the enslavement of another(s) who we the people deem different, ie not worthy, those we are in fear of; and the finding of a common enemy from outside of our circle so we can keep power, keep from being called to account, etc.

All of this ends, however, on Yom Kippur. This is the day of Accounting, this is the day where either we accept God’s forgiveness so we can then truly admit to our errors, to our evil ways, to our being seduced by our rational minds, self-deceptions, deceptions of another(s) and turn away from those ways and turn back to God’s ways OR we keep believing we never have to be accountable because no one has ever been able to make anything stick-the Teflon Donny Trump, J D Vance, etc. These people, who are running our country, along with their compatriots like Bibi and Ben G’Vir, Hegseth and Rubio, Lutnick, Miller, Bessent, Vought, truly are “afraid to meet their maker” because they KNOW they are full of shit, they KNOW they are going against God’s will, they KNOW they are like Jonah, vengeful, spiteful, angry, etc.

In 4 days, we will commemorate the destruction of the Temples and other horrific experiences of the Jewish people, the questions We the People have to answer are: Will we continue to demand compassion, forgiveness for ourselves, for our people while granting none to ‘our enemies’? Will we continue to hide from ourselves the truth about our actions and not repent?

GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 76

I am still fascinated with the selection of Jonah as the prophet to read on Yom Kippur, the day of At-One-Ment, the day of Return, Repentance, New Response. At the end of Chapter 3 of Jonah, verse 10; God sees the seriousness of the people of Nineveh, “that they turned from their evil ways and God was comforted” by their commitment to turn away from evil and the decree was annulled. Imagine this, We the People have the power, the chutzpah, the ability to change God’s decrees, to change God’s mind, to “comfort” God. This is our part of the relationship, it is not a one-sided relationship, nor is it a top/down relationship. In this way, as we say when we put on T’fiillin, “I will betroth you to Me forever, I will betroth you to Me with righteousness, justice, kindness, and mercy. I will betroth you to Me with fidelity and you will know Adonai” becomes the foundation of our relationship with God and with one another. On Yom Kippur, this is what is happening, we are recommitting to our relationship with God, with our community, with our authenticity and every time we do this, God is welcoming us back, God is working hard to heal our backsliding, God takes us back in and with love and we the people keep forgetting that we are “betrothed with fidelity”!

This may be the thinking of the Rabbis who included this prophet in the Yom Kippur liturgy. It is in the afternoon service, just before the “closing of the gates” so as we experience being forgiven from Kol Nidre’s declaration “I have forgiven as you have spoken”, let we the people not think we got off easy! Rather, as the People of Nineveh, that evil city, did, so too must We the People repent, reconnect, “turn away from” our “evil ways”. Hence our need to search for the ways in which we have rejected and played the harlot to our “fidelity” to God, in our misuse of justice, rejecting kindness, poopooing mercy, and holding cruelty, hatred, retribution, graft as the ways of righteousness. In other words, on Yom Kippur the reading of Jonah is a call to take another look inside of ourselves, to dig deep enough to ensure the ways of the MAGA’s, the ways of the “Socialist Democrats”, the “progressives” are no longer holding us hostage.

The relationship that began with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, MalkiTzedek, Jethro, Moses, the People who left Egypt and became the Israelites who stood at Sinai and proclaimed “We will do and then we will understand”, is on life support and not doing so well both here in the United States and in Israel. The commitment being made daily and weekly both in Church and in Synagogue, are lies we the people say to assuage our guilt, to sound good, to keep the rest of we the people in the ether of the bullshit being spread! Rather than hear the call of God, of Jesus, these ‘leaders’ and their ‘fine christian nationalist, jewish nationalist, progressive, and/or socialist’ followers could care less about the call and only hear the lies and deceptions they are being fed and the ones that are embedded in their minds. These people are no more committed to “fidelity” with God, with truth, with righteousness, with justice, with kindness, with mercy than Trump, Vance, Lutnick, Kushner, et al are committed to telling the truth! That Kushner and Lutnick, two Jews who wear their ‘judaism’ on their sleeves would reject the ways of God, would live into the ways of Nineveh before Jonah/God called out to them is a GREAT DESECRATION OF GOD’S NAME, it is IDOLATRY! Yet, people like them, like Bibi, like Ben G’Vir, are called ‘righteous jews’ while they betroth themselves to lies, to power, to wealth-not to Justice, Righteousness, Mercy, Kindness, Truth, God!

It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to stand up to the Charlatans guarding the gates, the thieves who are in the safes and the bank accounts, the liars who swear FALSE OATHS to the Constitution, to the Declaration of Independence, to the Bible, to the New Testament, to the words and deeds of Christ, the Prophets, King David! It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to do what I did some 38 years ago, THROW OFF THE YOKE OF DECEPTION, “TURN FROM THE EVIL WAYS” I had been living in and allow GOD to TAKE ME BACK and for me to BETROTH MYSELF TO GOD, once again. The power of the words found in the Book of Jonah 3:10, are that We the People can go home again, We the People can repair the damage we have caused to our relationship with God, We the People have to be open to and for repair of relationships we have damaged and to the people who have damaged our relationship with them. This is the power and the responsibility of being like the People of Nineveh after God, through Jonah, woke them up. I was woken up in a jail cell and have stayed awake for these past almost 40 years, certainly not perfectly, I have had a cat nap or two:) and I keep going back on Yom Kippur and seeing the brightness of my soul, recommitting to my fidelity to God, to my authentic self and to you, my community!
ACTION STEP

See the destructions, you have caused and prepare to repair them

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 75

Continuing with the Book of Jonah, we see that once he is thrown overboard, swallowed by a fish, there in the belly of the fish(unnamed species) for 3 days and nights, he begins to pray to God, prayers of contrition, prayers, as we will see in a minute are bullshit-get the heat off, save me from the trouble I caused prayers! What is remarkable is that this is the Haftorah reading for Yom Kippur! The reason for this continues to engage me.

After God has the fish spit Jonah out, God tells him, again, to go to Nineveh and give them the message that in 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed. Nineveh was a BAD place, on the scale of Sodom, Gomorrah, and was a fierce and feared land. When Jonah got there, he preached the message and, low and behold, “the people believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the smallest” (Jonah 3:5) Even the King joined in, in his sackcloth and sat in ashes to repent for their evil. He even decreed that the people should turn away from their evil, their repentance may bring about God’s repentance. AND IT DID!

The Book of Jonah is telling us in this chapter the difference between Nineveh and Ancient Israel, Judea, and all of the other nations whose cruelty has caused their downfall. The Book of Jonah is about Jonah and he represents the worst of humankind, the one who wants to see the bad guy get annihilated rather than transformed. The Book of Jonah is about the people of Nineveh, the most evil, hearing the call to change, to do T’Shuvah, to repent, to live differently going forward and THEY RESPONDED POSITIVELY, unlike the Northern Kingdom, unlike Judea, unlike the United States today, Israel today. Both of these countries and many more, Russia, China, Iran and their proxies, are examples of the cruelty that will, at some point, cause their downfalls. What is so sad, is neither the United States nor Israel can hear the call of God to repent, to turn back to Godliness, to turn back to truth, to justice, to kindness, to loving the stranger, to treating each human being as a divine reminder, valuing the dignity and worth of everyone. Yet, the leaders of both of these countries, like Judea and Ancient Israel, will claim fidelity to Christ, to Adonai while doing everything against the Biblical dictates and Christ’s pronouncements. This is Ghosting God on a level that surpasses Jonah!

We read the story of Jonah on Yom Kippur to ask ourselves: who are we like, the people of Nineveh, the people who reached the apogee of distance from God so they could return; or like Jonah, like Judea, like Ancient and present day Israel, like the United States under Trump and his sycophants? While it is not Yom Kippur yet, it is the 2nd day of Av, 7 days before the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples, the beginning of the end for Judea as a country and the beginning of the wanderings of the Jews. The Book of Jonah is a counterintuitive saga, one would think that Nineveh would never repent, yet they heard something that Jonah, the messenger, could not grasp: the Gates of Repentance are always open, 24/7/365. Learning from Pharaoh, unlike the Egyptians, the King of Nineveh and the people of Nineveh, knew the truth when they heard it, knew they had gone too far and believed they could return, believed God would “heal their backsliding and take them back in love” and God DID!! What is even more interesting is that Jonah is considered the 2nd of the pre-exilic prophets, before Amos and the rest of the group who preached to Judea and Ancient Israel. This will be explored more tomorrow!

As one who hit his own apogee, as Rabbi Ed Feinstein said in the book The Holy Thief, I know the power of repentance, I know the necessity of returning, I know the joy of being forgiven, I know the strength God gives me/us to do the work of T’Shuvah. Christ was doing the same thing in his time, which is why I consider him to be a prophet, Jesus was asking the people in charge of the Jewish community to REPENT, to FOLLOW THE BIBLE, to LIVE DECENTLY, to…. And just as with Ancient Israel, just as with Israel today, the United States today, Jesus’ words, the Bible’s Call, the anguish of the prophets go unheard and unheeded! The example of Nineveh is immaterial to most of We the People and the result is cruelty upon cruelty. It seems as if we the people either have not hit the apogee or are blowing through it. I have spent the past 39+ years in Repentance and keep learning more and more is revealed to me. I am sorry to the people who believe I harmed them and not made amends, I am sorry for the misunderstandings of me that people have spouted and thought. I ain’t no saint and I ain’t that evil guy! Unlike God, some human beings are incapable of “taking someone back in love”. This is the challenge for this time of year, who do we need to ask forgiveness from and who do we need to forgive who has asked for it.

Action Step:

How do we end the inner and outer destructive forces that surround us

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 74

I am in awe of the Prophets, their courage, their dedication, their loyalty AND, on Yom Kippur, we read the Book of Jonah; the only prophet to be a selfish, not loyal and having no courage, desire to speak God’s words,  and no dedication to something greater than himself. This is, in my opinion, the epitome of Ghosting God, Ghosting Self! So, why did the Rabbis put this reading of the Prophets into the afternoon service of Yom Kippur?

In the 2nd and 3rd verses of Chapter 1, Jonah is told to go to Nineveh and preach God’s words and Jonah, being the selfish asshole that he is, gets on a ship going the opposite way! This is the epitome of the exact opposite of what Jonah is to say later when he finally speaks to the people of Nineveh, it is the epitome of the exact opposite of what every other prophet says to the People of Ancient Israel and the People of Judea! So, I ask again, what are the Rabbis trying to say to We the People on the Holiest Day of the Jewish Year? There are many ways in which I will write about in the coming days and today I want to focus on Ignorance, again! The Book of Jonah is all about Jonah ignoring the Call, the Demand of God. He is also ignoring the call of his soul, the demand of his calling in the world. He begins his ignorance of his soul’s calling, his purpose and mission by getting on that ship going to Tarshish, when the ocean is tossing the ship to and fro, Jonah ignores this too, until the Captain asks him to pray to his God so they don’t all drown. It is only when his back is to the wall that he takes action and good action it is, he knows that the seas will calm if he goes overboard, yet, he is unable to do the job himself and he makes the men in the boat throw him overboard with them feeling guilty rather than just jumping in himself. This action is reprehensible and in line with his selfishness, his caring more about himself than how his actions impact another(s).

This, I believe, is one of the reasons to read this on Yom Kippur afternoon, before the Gates of Repentance close, before the Gates of Community close, before the Gates of Return close; don’t get too full of oneself just because you have been forgiven, because you have not suffered consequences for you despicable actions. Too many of we the people go to Temple on Yom Kippur out of habit, out of superstition, out of wanting to see people, wanting to be seen and NOT to ask for, not accept the forgiveness of God, the admission of our errors, sins, etc.  Too many of we the people are so spiritually immature, so enamored with our self, our rational minds, we are like Jonah-knowing there is a higher power, knowing God exists, just refusing to believe this truth has any impact on me, refusing to surrender our self-centered, egotistical desires and beliefs. Today is the 1st day of Av, in 9 days we will commemorate the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples, we will commemorate our inability to get past our need for power, wealth, certainty, denial of our mortality, and cause our destruction-spiritually and morally, communally and individually. Of course the Temples were destroyed by our enemies, and We the People were weaker than them, yet could there have been a different outcome had we the people not ignored God’s call to us, had not listened to and emulated Jonah rather than Hosea, Jeremiah, Micah, etc? MAYBE!

We the People are witnessing and some of we the people are participating in the ways of Jonah, ignoring the authentic call of God to us, the demand to BE HOLY, to love the stranger, to help the poor and the needy, to not be “a scoundrel within the limits of the law”, ie living the spirit as well as the letter of the law so as not to bastardize God’s words, Jesus’ words. The 1st Temple was destroyed, according to some Rabbis, because of idolatry, sexual inappropriateness, and bloodshed. Sound familiar to anyone? When Andrew Tate, who promotes inappropriate sexual behaviors/deviancy, is hailed by Baron Trump and gotten out trouble in Romania by Donald Trump, when Nick Fuentes and his Gruypers are being hailed for their hatred of Jews, women, people of color, when White Christian Nationalists like Pastor Doug Wilson (Pete Hegseth’s Minister) preach the Gospel of women not being allowed to vote, women being totally subservient to men, when ICE is celebrated for killing innocent human beings, here both legally and illegally, does it seem any different than what happened in Ancient Israel?

The Book of Jonah is here to remind us of our need to be aware and NOT IGNORE the calls, the demands, the teachings, the ways of living well taught by the Bible, taught by Christ. It is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to recover our hearing, recover our vision, recover our mission and purpose and END the SINS of the Rich and Powerful, RETURN to God, God’s ways, No longer participate in destroying our souls, rather maturing them, growing them, living into them.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 73

Returning to the theme of ignorance, I find remarkable that people who were so aware of what someone ‘did’ to them, are so ignorant of what they do to another human being and that they are doing the same things they accuse another(s) of! Or at least they claim to be, ha ha! Be it on the global stage, the nation stage, the state stage, the local stage, the home live in, the people we work with, the lean of human beings to be ignorant of the greater good, ignorant of what their minds rationalize as bad when ‘you’ do it and good when ‘I’ do it is beyond belief.

The 2020 election bullshit is once again in the news and the IGNORANT media is covering it! The making Israel a pariah nation while forgetting what Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Arab countries have done to it is a way of IGNORANCE. Not standing up for what the Constitution says, demands, while proclaiming their patriotism is SOP for liars, idolators, etc-buying into it by We the People is IGNORANCE AND WILLFUL BLINDNESS. Yet, here we are again, as we the people have been for the millennia. Be it Ancient Israel in the time of Joel who calls to us to “tear your heart, not your clothes”. What the hell is he talking about? Instead of tearing our clothes, as we do when in mourning, and now replaced by a ribbon, we the people need to be tearing our hearts, cutting away the foreskin, the hardness that has covered our hearts so our country doesn’t perish, our ideals do get bastardized, our connection to God, to one another doesn’t die. The problem stems, of course, from our lack of inner life, our lack of inner dialogue, our lack of wrestling with our opposing inclinations, holding our fears in abeyance long enough to make a “free-will moral choice”, which in Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski’s view, is what makes us humans and not animals nor angels.

We the People are being IGNORANT of what is going on inside of us, what our intuitive mind is telling us, what our souls are calling to us to do, ignorant of hearing God’s voice from Sinai calling out to us. This is, the fundamental issue/problem, the place where responsibility lies, at the feet of We the People! Ignoring our own inner needs, ignoring the claims of our souls, ignoring the demands of our guts, leaves the door open to the lies of self-deception and deception by another(s), leaves the door open to forgetting who we are, our job to be a “light unto the nations”, that we have been chosen for a particular purpose that no one else can fulfill and it is waiting for us. Ignorance IS NOT BLISS!

I have a sign that someone gave me, “If you would be smarter, I would be nicer”, to remind people that “dumbing it down”, acting like “a dummy” is an affront to the person you are speaking to and an affront to your self, it is another subtle, not so subtle way of Ghosting Self and Ghosting God. Feigning ignorance, answering questions with “I don’t recall”, trying to make everyone else ignorant for your own benefit, these are all ways that prove one has not “tear you heart” yet. The stubbornness of the human being, the ridiculous holding on to the lies of our rational minds, the belief that ‘my money, my property, my ….’  Will protect me is IGNORANCE on steroids! Yet, we persist in these false ways that have been proven false, we continue to resist the path of spiritual wellness, spiritual guidance, spiritual maturity and rely on our past so we can stay ‘stupid’, stay stuck in the past, so we can roll around in our ignorance like a pig in shit! WTF

I know these ways of being, well. I lived them for over 20 years, I had an open heart, I had a deep curiosity and then, upon the death of my father, the bullshit of people who told me how to feel, the immense pain I experienced, I closed my heart, I decided to join the club of liars, of scam artists, of “get ahead at any cost”. I failed miserably in this club because I could not commit to these ways of being fully, completely, my father’s and grandfather’s voices were in my head, my uncle and aunt who I adored were talking to me and I knew I couldn’t go over to the dark side wholly, and I couldn’t live with the lies of the ‘light’ side. I felt my father’s, my family’s dilemma and couldn’t resist either pull. It was hell and I knew it-until that fateful day in December of 1986, when God called to me, slapped me awake, threw water on my face and I woke up, I let go of my IGNORANCE, I admitted that I needed help, that I needed to stop running and face me, face God, face the world. I was/am better than the ignorant asshole who was sitting in jain, on his way to prison, AGAIN! This led to finding my voice, finding my place and the rest, as they say, is history. I check in on the “tear your heart” each day and watch it widen and my heart be more open.

ACTION STEP:

Make a list of what you are still willfully blind to. Make a list of the areas you are still ignorant in and is your ignorance willful because you really do know better or is it willful because you haven’t wanted to see what truly is

GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 72

Senator Lindsey Graham died yesterday of a sudden Cardiac episode. While many will continue to make this a conspiracy, it is a medical condition that happens suddenly-period, end of story. Mitch McConnell finally showed he is alive, denying heart problems, saying he fell-who knows. Both are part of the ‘older lions’ in the Senate and both have had storied careers. McConnell will best be remembered for dismantling the Supreme Court from a Court that seeks justice using wisdom to a Court that is partisan, wants to kiss the ring of Trump, and is dismantling the Constitution of the United States, ie, McConnell will be best remembered for continuing the decline of democracy begun by Gingrich, shepherding it through its middle stages by fighting Obama no matter how the legislation might serve We the People and bringing democracy to the brink of the abyss through sucking Trump’s _______(you know what)

Graham, on the other hand will have a different legacy, a more confusing one, a more troubling one. As a friend of Joe Lieberman, John McCain, a staunch believer in foreign aid and a foe of Russia, Lindsey brought a powerful coalition together to help Ukraine when Russia attacked, McConnell helped and wilted under pressure from Trump. Graham never veered from his support for Ukraine, dying right after returning from a trip to Ukraine, and doing his best to get Trump to stop kissing Putin’s ass and stand with our allies fighting Putin, not realizing that Trump adored, admired Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, the Ayatollah, Xi in China, Un in North Korea. Graham will be known for his turning away from his morals, turning on his dear friend John McCain, turning towards Trump and becoming a MAGA nut. Sad.

What this has to do with the theme of this blog is these two men, imbued with the Spirit of God, claiming to be “fine christian (nationalist) good white men, ghosted God in their actions of dismantling democracy, turning away from by not defending their friends, doing immoral things or at least standing idly by the bloods of their neighbors. It is a tragic and a very old story: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts completely. McConnell had absolute power in the Senate and he allowed to go to his head, to corrupt him completely and Graham went along with it. In his last act as a Senator, John McCain voted down the bill that would have killed the Affordable Care Act while his ‘good friend’ Lindsey Graham voted to kill it, to impoverish so many people, many of them his own constituents! Graham ghosted God and himself when, after going on so many overseas trips with Hillary Clinton, knowing the patriot she is, he attacked her because that’s what the party/the boss told him to do, it is as if Lindsey Graham lost his conscience, lost his moral compass in order to serve ‘der fuhrer’, Donald Trump. This is the saddest piece of his story, to me.

What does this say for the rest of us? In Amos 6:8, “I loathe the pride of Jacob and hate his palaces”, reminds us of what we need to end right now-the hubris, the pride we feel in being so “right”, so “justified” to hate another(s), so proud of the Gold with which we are adorning the White House and everything else Trump touches. Now all of these ‘fine christian nationalist white men’ and these ‘ultra observant, uber jews’ like Kushner, Wytkoff, Lutnick know these verses, know of Amos, know of his deep horror at seeing what Israel was doing, at Israel not being able to return to God, yet, they all persist in doing the same things that God loathes and wonder why people are shunning them, even Putin is!! In reality, of course, all they care about is making money and having power, which both are being given to them by we the people!

What Graham’s death, McConnells secret illness, have brought up for me is this extreme pride both of these men had and have in their destructive ways, the palaces they have built for themselves and for Trump, the billionaires boys club, etc. What I am realizing is that the pride I take in my wisdom, my work is in proper measure because I did and am doing my best to cause “Good Trouble” like John Lewis taught. I know that I don’t need to be the most loved, adored Rabbi nor do I need a pulpit to get my message out and I know that my message will not necessarily be received by the masses because I am “rough around the edges” and not willing to compromise my morality in order to get along-knowing I did this in my work life, not too much and I did. I know that my pride in my work has to be right-sized, I know that I don’t need the biggest and best house on the block, I know that I don’t need to be the richest in world, I just NEED TO BE ME! This is the task for all of us!
Action Step:

List the ways you are YOU in your affairs, not compromising your morals and when you are NOT YOU.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 71

Harriet and I have been speaking about “ignorance is bliss” as one of the most self-deceptive and societal things we say to ourselves and one another! Ignore comes from the Latin meaning “to not know, to disregard” and this is the crime of ignorance rather than the “bliss” of it. Ignorance, like FOMO, feeling of missing out, are both subtle and not so subtle ways of telling another human being(s), telling one’s self that you don’t matter! This is antithetical to the teaching in the Talmud that every soul is worth an entire world, so “whom ever destroys a single soul, destroys an entire world”(Sanhedrin 37a). Yet, we the people continue to leave people out on purpose, as a weapon and ignore people, situations, experiences that we ‘don’t like’ and everyone suffers for it.

Be it the ICE killings of innocent people, who’s only crime has been to stand up for their neighbors, to have come here for a better life for them and their children, is a total “disregard” for human life, is a total “not knowing” that everyone has infinite dignity and worth. Be it the everyday slights that occur when we refuse to say hello to someone in the store, walking by us, in our community centers, etc, when someone has decided that they don’t want to bestow their time and/or do not believe that another human being is ‘worth their time to say hello to’. Both the micro and the macro experiences of ignoring are criminal in the spiritual world, in the Jewish world. EVERYONE MATTERS or no one does, EVERYONE is CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD or no one is and societal norms and bullshit deceptions of both self and another(s), has created the lies we tell ourselves to deny the truths in capital letters above.

It is making me crazier and crazier thinking about the ways I ignored people, the ways I was willfully blind to situations, people, things because I had a view I wanted to preserve and sell to you, both before and during my recovery. The more I study, the more time I spend in contemplation, in writing, the more ‘errors of my youth’(any day before the one I am in) pop up. Everyday, I say hello to people, strangers and people I know, distant acquaintances and close friends, because this was my father’s way, my brother’s way and the older I get, the wiser they get:)! I keep paying attention to the news and to what is happening around me, when someone I know is sick, not feeling well, I reach out to see how they are doing, when someone is not around for a few days, I ask about them or, if I have their contact info, I reach out to them. This is not to pat myself on the back, rather it is to remind me and you of how “return again” is mandatory if we are to live life with and on purpose, with and in joy, bask in the light and brilliance of the God Image another human being is.

I have made the mistake, during my recovery as well as before it, to be too busy to say hello, to think I was protected and people ‘had my back’ and ignored what was happening around me, to not realize when “the end was near” and for the people who believe I was ignoring them, I AM SORRY. While it was not my intention, while I heard what they were saying, I let my belief in ‘my way’ override the constructive suggestions and rebukes of people who were trying to “make things better, one grain of sand at a time. This was MY BAD and the epitome of causing another human being(s) to feel discarded, which was never my intention and it was the result of my actions. Since Harriet and I began speaking about this idea, after both of us were ignored by someone we know, I have been seeing the ways I did the same and am sorry.

EVERYONE MATTERS is not a prominent theme in America today nor in Israel, unfortunately. It is only the rich and famous, the powerful and their thugs/cronies who are important. Republicans in the House and Senate don’t want everyone to have health care, don’t care how much premiums rise because they want their rich donors, their rich friends, their own wealth to grow and fuck the ‘little guy’. The ignoring of what is true and seeing the complexities and responsibility of both sides in the Israel/Hamas war, the Israel/Hezbollah war, the Israel/Iran war is cause celebre for the “Socialist Democrats”, celebrating Hamas’ horrendous actions on Oct. 7th was more important than being outraged at the murder of innocent babies, people, the rape, torture, capture of men and women, and children! What is the message to Jews everywhere, what is the message to non-Jews everywhere: you can ignore Jewish blood, as the world did during Hitler’s reign and care only about ‘our people’! This is a message that has been sent throughout the millennia and doesn’t validate the terrible killing of innocents by Israel. Holding both truths in our being is what being alert, being alive, being human are all about.
ACTION STEPS
What are you ignoring within your SELF and outside yourself that needs to be brought to light

How are you living the call from Mt. Sinai: “EVERYONE MATTERS”

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 70

The second and third directives of yesterday’s quote: “Hate the evil, love the good and establish Justice in your gate”(Amos 5:15) are crucial for We the People to establish, maintain, keep and grow the democratic way of being that was set into motion here in America some 250 years ago. Rather than see the “good” as a fool’s errand, as a way of ‘getting over on someone’, as a tool in exploiting another(s) for personal gain, as is the case in America today by many of we the people, the good is not arbitrary, it is not wishy washy, it is written in stone tablets, aka The 10 sayings Moses brought down from Mount Sinai.

The “good” is not situational AND how it is achieved depends on the situations we are in. While ‘thou shall not murder” is one of the Commandments, if someone is breaking into your home with a gun and you shoot them first, while some would say it is ‘overkill’, the Bible would say you are correct in defending your self, your family, your home. While it is not okay to steal, if you are hungry, starving, and you steal a loaf of bread to feed you, your child, is this really a crime? The “good” is to do the next right thing, to acknowledge the humanity of your self and another, to obey and disobey the commandments depending on the context, etc. What ICE is doing is NOT “GOOD”! What Trump is doing with his power grab is NOT “GOOD”! What the Supreme Court is doing with its political right agenda, its giving undue and unchecked power to this Administration, we will see how they reverse themselves when a Democrat is in the White House, is NOT “GOOD”! What we the people are doing by having re-elected Trump, knowing what Project 2025 had in-store for us, knowing who he is, is NOT “GOOD”! What we the people are doing by going along to get along, to make money (big business, big law firms, etc) by staying in the ether of self-deception and buying the lies is NOT “GOOD”! Yet, many of our ‘fine christian nationalist clergy and adherents’ praise Jesus and invoke Jesus’ name to validate their crimes. Many of our fine ‘jewish nationalist clergy and adherents invoke the name of God to validate the killing of innocents, the unkindness to the stranger (after all, they are the goyim), even the unkindness to another Jew(s) who don’t share their prejudices and racism! Rather than fulfill their duty to disobey the idolators and false prophets, the ignorant and immoral additions to the Bible, the massaging of Holy Texts to suit a need of “Der Fuhrer”, these ‘fine christian nationalists and jewish nationalists’ are fulfilling their personal desires for power and greed. This is NOT “GOOD”!

“Establish justice in your gate” is so chilling and so awe-inspiring, I am shuddering as I write these words. Amos is telling Ancient Israelites, descendants of people who received the Commandments at Mount Sinai, descendants of people who first established true judicial reforms in the world to “establish justice in your gate”!? Can you imagine how far the people of Ancient Israel had fallen that they were being told to “establish justice” in their land, that “justice” had been bastardized and beaten to death so badly, it no longer existed in their land? Yet, here we are today, doing many of the same things that led to the fall of Ancient Israel, perverting “justice” instead of “establishing” it, taking bribes which blind the just, recognizing ‘friends’ and tipping the scales their way, caring more about ideology, about dogma of political purity than about the adminstration of “justice”, rather than “establish justice”. It is both sad and infuriating that Todd Blanche is being put up for Attorney General when all of We the People are acutely aware of his prejudices, of his racism, of his being a lackey to the lunatic in the White House!

What is at stake here with both “the good” and “establish justice” is the soul of America, of course, and, more importantly, the soul of We the People, collectively and individually. None of the transgressions of today are possible when we the people take seriously the words of Amos above, the historical facts of what happened to Ancient Israel, the call of God from Mount Sinai from the time of giving of the 10 Sayings till now-God’s call hasn’t changed-We the People have. Instead of listening, instead of hearing, instead of doing so we can understand the wisdom and beauty of “the good”, we the people have twisted and turned “the good” into such pretzels for the sake of power, for, for the sake of prestige, for the sake of money. It is time for We the People to wake up to the lies and deceits of the Graham Platner’s, the Socialist Democrats like Mandami who couch their hatred of Jews in ‘anti-Israel’ rhetoric, the Bernie Sanders’ who just go along with anyone who spouts his rhetoric without checking shit out, the Trump MAGA, Christian Nationalists who want to make this a White, (not really)Christian Nation and We the People have to do it NOW!

ACTION STEPS
What are you doing to “establish Justice” within your self, within your gates

How are you doing “the good” in the face of the pushback of another(s)

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 69

The more that I am writing, I realize that I am speaking about what is going on in the world and some people may not see the relevance to their own living. This is NOT my intention. What is going on around us is begins with what is going on inside of us. While I know many of you reading this blog are not cruel and indecent, all of us have a Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick, Mike Johnson, et al within us, just as we have a Moses, a George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Jacob, Esau, King David inside of us. The archetypes from the Bible reside within each of us, some traits stronger than others, some we have developed more than others, some we have jettisoned because they ‘didn’t help us get ahead’. This is the conundrum we human beings find ourselves in every day. Hence the admonition to “walk humbly with God” by both Moses and Micah. Maybe Abraham’s walking before God was a subtle hint from the Bible to be careful as to how ‘spiritual’ we call ourselves and/or another.

Graham Platner is leaving the Maine Senate race without any admission of wrongdoing. Do I know if he sexually assaulted the woman claiming he did, NO. Do I know that his other behaviors which he pooh-poohed were also out of the realm of decency, YES. Yet, he decided to blame the Democratic Leadership in DC rather than take responsibility, he decided to extol himself rather than offer an apology to the voters of Maine, which he claims to love so much. Could the woman who made the accusations be lying-I guess it is possible, yet it seems like a great conspiracy on the part of the Republicans, their supporters and, unfortunately in this day and age since the “MeToo” movement, since Trump and the assault on truth, it is possible. This is not to cast aspersions on the woman who came forward, there is plenty of smoke around Platner, it is to say that living into the subtleties of life, finding and exploiting the vulnerabilities of another, accusing people of things to serve a personal agenda, get money, is the path of the unjust and there is PLENTY of injustice happening around us.

Amos tells us: “Hate evil, love the good, and establish justice in the gate”(Amos 5:15). This is the call to all of We the People who believe in, relate to, and made a covenant with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the United States of America. Yet, over and over again, We the People have allowed scoundrels to get ahead, grifters in Congress to make plenty of money from the lobbyists, on both sides of the aisle and reelected these gonifs(thieves). Rather than “hate evil” we the people have continued to return people like Mitch McConnell, Bernie Sanders, Mike Johnson, AOC to Congress and then wonder why nothing gets done?! Rather than “love the good”, we the people return people like DeSantis to be Governors of the different states, and then wonder why “we all can’t just get along”!? Being witness’ to the desecration of the rule of law by the Supreme Court reminds we the people of how far we have fallen away from Amos’ call to “establish justice in the gate”!! AND WE THE PEOPLE are still NOT RISING UP and SHOUTING “WE WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE”!!

The reason, of course, is because in rising up and shouting “we won’t take it anymore” entails a look inside of ourselves, an honest appraisal of how we have and do give in to the same impulses we say we abhor in our politicians, in our neighbors, in our country and in our world! “Hate evil” was not just about the rich, famous, powerful, controlling forces in Ancient Israel, nor was it just about the leaders of Sodom. “Hate evil” was directed and is directed to We the People, to our own inner lives, to our own foibles and self-deceptions. “Hate evil” is not the same as trying to kill it, because as we all know from experience, the evil inclination that serves the good inclination makes us a whole, authentic, person who is BEING HUMAN! Amos is not preaching perfection, Amos is not chastising We the People which is how many people experience the prophets, rather Amos and the other prophets are reminding us of our importance, of our partnership, and rebuking we the people so we get back to being God’s partner instead of God’s adversary!

I hate in evil within me that remains untamed, that flares up at the people I love and those I don’t know. In hating it over the years, less and less remains untamed-thank God and all the people who have helped me grow over the years. It is a tough job, it is an exhausting job and it is the job that keeps me most in touch with my soul, with God, with we the people that are in my life. I know the power of “evil” within me and each day I go to war with it and each day, the power lessens a little, this lessening allows me to be hurt less and resent less those whom I don’t understand why the ghost me, why I am persona non grata with no explanation, and it doesn’t matter so much anymore-I am in acceptance of what is and in constant awareness of the “evil” that wants me.

ACTION STEP

How and what “evil’ are you no longer going to allow in your life

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 68

Is Mitch McConnell alive, is he awake and alert, did John Thune really speak to him? What will Trump do with NATO, will he follow through on the sale of fighter Jets to Turkey, will he dis the other NATO countries as he has been, will he lie about Meloni’s amorous intentions towards him(NOT), will he blow up the Iran cease-fire by once again bombing them? These questions and more are swirling around the political world right now. In these worldly affairs, one constant feature that I hear in the News is the word “genocide” to validate the Socialist Democrats belief in the “rightness” of their hate of Israel and deny their antisemitic beliefs, the right wing nuts speak of Israel having too much power in our politics-an old, old anti-semitic phrase. It is amazing to hear both the left and the right take off on Israel but ‘love their Jews’-sort of like the South who enslaved Black people and loved their mammy’s! Listening to, reading about the exploits of our politicians, our wealthy, our poor, is to worry about the fate of humanity.

The prophet Amos is a good reminder of who we are, who we can be: “For I know your transgressions, your sins, you who afflict the just, take a bribe, turn aside the poor at the gate…Seek good and not evil, that you may live” (Amos 5:12,14). What some of We the People are witnessing and some of we the people are participating in is what is described by Amos and yet, all of these ‘good god(idol)-worshiping ‘christians, jews, muslims seem to conveniently forget these words, become wittingly blind and purposefully deaf to the cries of Amos, to the shouts of Amos, and put him down because he is so angry and hurt, he is so afraid for the people and disgusted by their lack of fidelity to God, as Frank Sinatra sang: “stick with me, baby, I’m the One you came in with” and Bibi, Trump, and their ‘friends’ are like “lady luck”, they go and “blow on another guy’s dice” and, like our ancestors throughout history, forget “the One who brought them to live free, who rescued all of us time and time again from the “narrow places”, the Egypts we continually put ourselves into.

Sitting here this morning, after watching and hearing Chris Hayes, who I respect, constantly go on a tangent about “genocide” is very disheartening, hearing him extol these “social democrats” and their anti-semitic leanings is concerning. Knowing that whether the prejudice starts with Jews or Blacks, Hispanics or Asians, the poor or the lame, the blind or the deaf, it reaches into everyone’s life. Prejudice is not something that is contained to only one group of people, one class of people. Prejudice is like water, it goes everywhere. When God separated heaven and earth, God separated the waters and, had a hard time-took two days! Yet, too many of we the people are of the belief they can limit their prejudice to just the “Jews” and only the “Jews in Israel”, AIPAC, and, oh you know,  the rest of the Jews who they know support Israel, as demonstrated on College Campus’ . “When will they ever learn”, Pete Seeger’s refrain, for me, for us is based in the words of Amos in the Bible. Do the people perpetrating these prejudices, those who “afflict the just”, those who “take a bribe”, those who “turn away the poor at the gate” really believe they are doing the Will of Christ, the Will of God in the Bible? PLEASE, give me a break! And what of the rest of the people who refuse to stand up, who refuse to demand proof of Mitch McConnell’s alertness, of Trump’s baseless claims and goodness? Where are our morals, where is our fidelity to “the One who came in with”?

The “Bernie groupies”, the “socialist Democrats” are in a quandary because of Platner, they backed him against a moderate, against someone who seeks consensus and now he is their embarrassment and, could throw the election to Susan Collins-a terrible liar, a terrible person who supports the overturning of Roe v Wade, the demolition of Voting Rights, the pumping of dark money into our election process, etc. All of this because so many of we the people are unwilling to hear Amos’ warnings, Amos’ calls to return to God. It is embarrassing to witness the wanton destruction of the Declaration, the Constitution, the words and ways of both Christ and the Bible. Yet, too many of we the people are too stuck in their willful blindness, deafness, arrogance to change, to hear Amos, to return and all of us suffer for their refusals.

I am aware of my ‘naivety’ as Harriet puts it and I cannot believe how many people can’t see what is right in front of their eyes. I have not valued myself, my vision enough to realize that most of the world is blind! Even in my worst moments, my worst actions, I KNEW THEY WERE WRONG and this doesn’t seem to be the case today. This is the challenge of our time, to “rebuke your neighbor and not bear guilt because of them”. This was the way of the prophets from Nathan to today, the way of Heschel and King, the way of Bobby Kennedy after he had a spiritual awakening. I suggest We the People “lift up our eyes and SEE” what truly is!

ACTION STEP

What are you willfully blind to and how does it serve you

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 67

No matter what channel one turns on, no matter what newspaper one reads, no matter which podcast one listens to; it seems as if they all spew the same rhetoric: an either/or societal way of living. Both ‘sides’ lie and exaggerate, both sides paint each other as the ‘devil’, the ‘communist’, the ‘fascist’ and, both may be true! Graham Platner is being called upon to leave the Senate race in Maine because a woman has accused him of rape-a very serious charge and one that did not preclude Trump from getting elected. I agree that these are very serious charges and no one knows if the woman is a plant like other Republican operatives have been in this race and others. I also agree that Platner is a very flawed candidate and it is up to the voters in Maine to tell him what he should do. Yet, the Republicans have supported sexual predators in the past and in the present so them going on and on is a ‘bit’ disingenuous!

I am watching the disgusting spectacle that Trump has called ‘the greatest celebration of America ever’ and I am nervous about what he will do at the NATO summit after talking to his ‘daddy Vlady’. I am concerned that his cruelty knows no bounds, that the people around him cheer with glee at every turn as they get to push him and themselves to crueler and crueler. I am watching and discussing life with people on the other side of the political spectrum than me and keeping it civil and personal, keeping it curious and informative, showing another side of the story and, maybe, just maybe, opening up something within the people I am speaking with as they do with me. A serious, respectful exchange of ideas is how things got started here and it is an important foundational aspect of how we have survived, thrived, retarded and moved forward from the different eras in our 250 year history.

What is striking me today are words from Amos 5:4 “this is what God says: Seek Me and you shall live”. 5 words that are the difference between life and death. Yes, I know that this is not about physical life and death AND it is, in a way. Once my spirit, once my moral core, once my intuitive mind is silenced, I become a walking dead person, a shell of what a human being is, so while my spiritual life is on life-support, my rational mind can put me into dangerous situations often. What this is about, however, is the loss of our spiritual and moral cores. When a human being ceases to “Seek Me”, we begin the somewhat rapid process of losing our paths, losing our raison d’etre, and losing our humanity. In other words, we the people who choose not to seek God, not to emulate the ways of God, to build on our cruelty, to give more and more oxygen to the negativity that resides inside of every human being, to crow about the theft, graft, grift we are perpetrating upon another(s) person, upon an entire country and do so in the name of ‘jesus christ’(in small letters because their ‘worship’ is not of Christ in the New Testament, it is of some false prophet they have once again made up), are the cause of the fall of Israel, Judea, Greece, Rome, Assyria, Persia, etc in the ancient world. I would add these are the reasons for the fall of the European Countries in the Middle Ages and, could be the power behind the next giant to fall.

That these indignities are being pushed by ‘those fine white christian, jewish, black, hispanic, muslim’ clergy and their ‘born-again’ adherents is SO WRONG! JD Vance telling the Pope he doesn’t understand scriptures and he has no business talking about political issues when Christ’s entire ministry, his entire preaching and acting was all about ‘political issues’ is infuriatingly insane and inane! Mike Johnson telling us if we want to know his politics, look at the Bible, and I am looking for where it says HATE the STRANGER, HATE YOUR BROTHER IN YOUR HEART, LEAVE NOTHING IN THE CORNERS OF YOUR FIELD, etc, can someone show me these commandments?

I have done a few searches and cannot find these commandments anywhere and, having been one who did lose my humanity, I can tell you that I was one of the walking dead-I cared about people close to me and I did not know how to be connected with any of them except Heather and even there I failed her by being a drunk and going to prison. Upon my awakening, upon hearing Amos’ call, upon “Seeking God”, everything changed, the true me began to emerge, the politically incorrect, passionate advocate for the soul of another(s) and mine began to be on full blast, loud, angry at myself for losing the humanity God placed in me and my father had nurtured, frustrated with people who continually refused to see the light of their own soul, who wanted to stay stuck so I would yell, cajole, etc to get them to wake up-some even said they were going to grow just to spite me-Baruch HaShem! Was I always right, of course not, was I always attempting to “Seek God”, absolutely.

ACTION STEP

Each day, for at least one week, write on “SEEK GOD” in your daily affairs

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 66

Thinking about the experiment in democracy that the United States has been in for 250 years now and reading, learning our history, it is apparent to me that, like Israel, we the people have never been united on so many things, ideas, ideals, ways to “form a more perfect Union” AND We the People, up until recently, believed “to form a more perfect Union” was the goal. Today, not so much on either the side of the progressives who have nothing but disdain for moderates and conservatives, seeing moderates as weak, stupid, etc and conservatives as bad, bad, bad, and wrong, wrong, wrong nor on the side of the far right conservatives who call moderates and progressives “communist”, invoking the Red Scare of the late 1940’s/50’s, reminding us of the McCarthy Era, not caring about truth, about justice, only about winning and making names for themselves. While both give lip-service to one of the founding ideas of the framers of the Declaration of Independence, they don’t care about it, they only value their ideas, ideals which boil down to “my way is the only way”! Both do, however, invoke some Holy Text that they say guides them, with many on both extremes claiming the Bible as their guide and place their extremist attitudes in Biblical terms, etc.

This way of being by the progressives who claim the Bible, Jesus tells them to be more progressive, and this way being by the far right who believe that Jesus was the Lion, not the lamb, that the Bible gives them permission to murder people, to be the ruler of the land, etc is ANATHEMA to what the Bible teaches, the ways Jesus spoke and lived and the ideals of the Founding Fathers. As Amos 4:5 relates to us: “Offer a sacrifice(offering) of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, proclaim free will offerings, publish them, for this is what you like to do…” Amos, in God’s name, is castigating the People of Israel for trying look good while doing bad, trying to say ‘look how religious we are’ while going against the spirit of the Commandments, not utilizing the power of change that the Commandments and Blessings afford us. This is happening here and in Israel-both places that began with ideals and ideas, with promises and hope, by people who had been oppressed and abused in their countries of origin and, sadly, are oppressing another(s) in their countries. How sad, how infuriating and how desecrating to God’s name doing it in the ‘name’ of religious fervor!

Watching the celebrations, listening to the lies of the politicians, on both ends of the spectrum, turned my stomach, made me want to throw up. That some MAGA people believed PBS was disrespectful towards President Trump by reading the Declaration of Independence  tells us the MAGA’s KNOW that what they are doing goes against the founding documents of our country, that they KNOW we are going backwards in the experiment that is the United States of America. The United States of America have never been completely United! We have been at odds with one another since the writing of the Declaration of Independence about slavery, about the worth of Black people, and the compromises made in the Declaration and the Constitution represent the path to creating a democratic union of people who could have differences and find compromises, solutions to benefit the whole nation. Again, this is no longer true, this seems to be a time like 1860 where the South decided they didn’t want to be part of the experiment anymore and, instead of just leaving, they started a war. I pray this is not repeated. Amos’ words represent what is happening here and in Israel; the use of the Bible to justify lies and deceptions. Yet, just like the people of Ancient Israel, we the people, do not believe we will be found out, that the MAGA’s will not have to face their hypocrisy, their treachery, that the progressives will not have to face their incongruence over hating Jews/Israel, loving the regressive ways of Hamas, Hezbollah, and proclaiming “all people are created equal”.

We the People need to wake up, we need to put on a new pair of glasses as Chuck Chamberlain teaches us in his book by the same name. We the People are being called upon by Amos, by the Bible, by Christ’s ways and words to STAND UP and stop our own hypocrisy. I remember going to Temple for services and stealing the rest of the time, I remember telling my daughter how much I loved her and going to prison and abandoning her, I remember being outraged by immorality and continuing to be immoral, I remember being angry about the thefts by politicians and continuing to lie, cheat and steal from anyone and everyone. No longer being a hypocrite was the beginning of my recovery, no longer needing to hide, no longer needing to watch and wait for an opening to steal is a mainstay of my recovery. Being HUMAN, Loving God, my neighbor, the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan are the foundation for me to “make a more perfect union” within me.
ACTION STEP:

How are you “making a more perfect union” within your self?

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - WAS CHRIST A COMMUNIST?

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 65

Listening to the Rhetoric coming from Trump and his allies(?) or sycophants in the Republican Party, hearing from the progressives both of whom are dismissive of religious life, anyone who doesn’t think like them, got me wondering:

WAS CHRIST A COMMUNIST?

After all, he believed that all people are created equal, all human beings, including women, deserve respect, to have their inner dignity to be acknowledged and for no one to think they are “better than” anyone else. He preached about LOVING THE STRANGER, FEEDING THE POOR, and “BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO ARE PERSECUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE” and so much more of the things that are being called out for being communist propaganda by the Trumpists and ultra conservative rhetoric by the progressives!

So, the only conclusion I can come to is: CHRIST WAS A COMMUNIST according to today’s ‘leaders’ of the right and the left. Ergo: all of We the People that believe in kindness, decency, loving the stranger, feeding the poor, caring for the needy, respecting the dignity of ALL people, appreciating the gifts and talents of our every human being, being responsible for our imperfections and repairing the damage they wrought instead of denying there is anything imperfect about is: MUST BE COMMUNISTS TOO! This is a common ground for Pope Leo and his followers in Catholicism and Jews who live in these ways towards ALL people, and Muslims who seek the peace that Islam guides them to and the Eastern Spiritual disciplines to forge new alliances, to stand together against the charlatans, the idolators, the money-changes in the Churches, Temples, and Government of the USA and Israel, to name two.

Of course I am mocking the current bullshit of Trump et al and I am also mocking the ridiculous of the progressives. I am being outrageous to make a point: every time we are going along for the ride on the pendulum swings, we are denying the Truths Christ spoke, the Blessings that he gave, the warnings he delivered and the mercy he showed. “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do” as he is being crucified is not just a wonderful spiritual message of forgiveness, it is a call to action for all of us, Jew and Gentile, Christian and Muslim to “lift up our eyes and see” as God tells Abraham, as we are being called to do by Christ, and by the moment we are living in. Most of all, I am being outrageous to get the Clergy who are promoting this bullshit, the Clergy who are co-signing, urging on Trump and his ass-kissers and Netanyahu and his ‘religious’ allies who spread hatred and spew lies about Arabs, about what God wants, etc.

What is wrong with we the people that we have fallen so far away from the teachings of Christ, that we have co-opted the words of Sermon on the Mount to mean the exact opposite of what Christ said. Being merciful is an attribute, not a weakness, being meek is what will remind us that God is God and we the people are not! It is so important to re-capture the essence of what Christ preached; kindness, truth, mercy, righteousness, forgiveness, love because our world is so empty of these actions we may be on the precipice of spiritual and moral extinction. Our bodies may continue and we the people will walk around shell-shocked, empty and as bewildered as people on thorazine. This is the fate for all those who continue to believe and preach: CHRIST WAS A COMMUNIST!

It is HIGH TIME that We the People re-capture the Spirit of 1776, that We the People and the path to compromise with people who we disagree with re: paths to achieve a “more perfect union” and who we agree with that a “more perfect union” is what we seek. It is HIGH TIME for We the People to come to grips with the ways in which we have not practiced what Christ preached: love, kindness, truth, mercy, forgiveness, righteousness and REPAIR the damage we have wrought while admonishing those around us who are not even willing to acknowledge their errors. It is HIGH TIME for We the People to appreciate, and pat ourselves on the back for the myriad of times and experiences when love, kindness, truth, mercy, forgiveness, righteousness were on full display in our actions towards God, towards every human being. It is important to acknowledge the ways in which each of us, as individuals, have are the peacemakers by standing for and with God and God’s ways. It is a hard life, this examined, accountable way of living and it is the most exquisite, joyful, meaningful, purposeful, loving way of life.

ACTION STEPS:

1. How are you ‘going along to get along’ with the groups that believe Christ was a Communist?

2. What are the ways you live into and promote being loving, forgiving, etc?

3. How are you living “this examined life” each and every day?

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 64

Tomorrow is the 250th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence, an amazing document, the foundational document of our Democracy, of the United States of America. I have been writing about the similarities between what our founding fathers accused King George III of and what Donald J Trump and his gang of Thugs, Thieves, christian nationalists are doing today. Yet, in the finest display of what Chutzpah is, means, these thieves, thugs, christian nationalists who want to control everything, who don’t want to answer to Congress, to the Courts, to We the People are planning the ‘big celebration’ by syphoning off money from the America 250 organization that was set up in 2016! Rather than have a bi-partisan commission do it right, Trump et al decided to figure out ways to syphon the money, solicit and steal new money coming in and make a mockery out of something Holy and Spiritual-the celebration of the founding  Spiritual, Moral document that pointed the founding fathers and everyone since in the direction that God had opened their hearts and eyes to! Alas, the progress towards the goals and principles laid out in this ‘holy scripture of democracy’, has been forward and then retarded, depending on whom was in power in the Presidency, in the Congress, in the Courts-allowing petty politics, grabs for power, resentments, fears, hatreds undermine the progress the founding fathers hoped would happen.

Today, there is no pretense of aiming for these goals, no pretense of living these principles, no pretense of surrendering to the principles and goals of Christ, of the Bible, of the Declaration of Independence nor to the Constitution! Yet, way too many of We the People still support these thieves, these charlatans, these idolators-at least 33+%, when all of We the People need to rise up and say NO to Trump, to Vance, to Lutnick, to Vought, to Miller, to Rubio, et al in the name of our Holy Documents, “to proclaim Freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein”!! Yes, I am angry that the Freedoms my father fought for in World War II, that my friends fought for in Vietnam, that men and women have been fighting for since 1776, that my friends and I, along with millions and millions of people fought for in the 1960’s and ’70’s are being trashed, stepped on, shredded by John Roberts and HIS LYING Cohorts like Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh( that fine christian man who believes he should be able to take any women he wants to) and, at times, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett. Yet, these Mendacious Band of Merry Men(Coney Barrett belongs to a sect of Christianity that says MEN RULE) along with the Men and Women who serve themselves and Trump have convinced enough people to still scare the Republicans in Congress to shut the fuck up and kiss Trump’s ring, ass, whatever he tells them to.

And now, the Democrats offer stupid pap and far left “socialist democrats” to the mix! Bernie, AOC, Mandami all are having a field day promoting and supporting the Palestinians like Hamas who have done more enslavement of their people than Israel has-which is saying a lot! They are supporting the paths of religious fervor, Sharia law, keeping women ‘in their place’, hating Jews, making Israel the enemy, the hatred and death sentences for being gay, trans, etc. Hey Zoran, Bernie, Alexandria-how is this “proclaim freedom thought the land and to all its inhabitants therein”? Just asking to see if you are aware of the lies you are telling yourself and just practicing deception upon the rest of We the People or if you are so far in the ether that you believe in the goodness of people who rape and murder men, women, children and babies-all of whom were trying to find common ground, gave jobs to the people who viciously attacked them and whom you have proclaimed since October 7th as ‘freedom fighters’, repeating their slogan “from the river to the sea” which has the historical context of killing all the Jews in Israel and then the world? Is it true that you took the name Socialist Democrats from the party that ruled Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s? Both these “socialist democrats” and these ‘fine upstanding christian nationalist men and women’ join together in their hatred for Jews, for Israel, for Freedom of Speech, , for Freedom of Religion, for Freedom of the Press, for Freedom of thought and Free and Fair elections. Both will scream “fake news”, “stolen elections” and laugh all the way to the bank while fleecing the rest of us and the government- just wondering how a poor girl like AOC immediately began wearing designer clothes?

ACTION STEPS:

Read and immerse yourself in the Declaration of Independence- see how you can further the goals of our founding fathers and overthrow the new Pharaoh who knew not Jefferson, Franklin, Hancock.

Make a Decision to celebrate the Flag and for which it stands-not the confederacy, not the christian nationalism being promoted

Get together with people, democrats and republicans, who believe freedom is more important than petty differences and seeking power to find common ground and a plan to change what is.

Happy 4th, God Bless America, God Bless all of you, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 63

“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…HE has made Judges dependent on his will alone…he has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislators…For imposing taxes on us without our consent”(from the Declaration of Independence)

WOW, what a long list of crimes the founding fathers accused King George of! It was so long and there are some of the more heinous crimes, to me, that the only recourse was to declare Independence and as We the People come closer to the 250 anniversary of the sending of this Declaration, reading this Declaration, it is high time for us to hold this administration accountable for these same crimes that it is perpetrating upon We the People! The Congress has to STAND UP and do the job they took an OATH to do, not the bidding of a raving lunatic, I guess in this way Trump and old King George have a lot in common, sharing a lunacy, a meanness, a cruelty that knew/knows no bounds.

More importantly, of course, is our own dive into our being, into our actions, into our souls and find the ways we have ‘gone along to get along’ (billionaires, media, racists, anti-semites, fascists, etc) and ask ourselves how our actions are in agreement with the Declaration made so long ago that, we as Americans, are responsible to uphold and push further towards completing and retarding the task our founding fathers began 250 years ago. In order to “Let Freedom Ring” We the People have to keep the bell sounding, we have to keep the clanger on the bell in pristine condition, cleaning the inside of the bell, the clanger and ensuring that when we are ringing it, the sound is true, authentic, and in line with the divinity of the Declaration. In order to keep a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, We the People must be part of the solution and, in my humble opinion, we are in danger of fucking it up AGAIN!

Electing Trump twice is a deliberate attempt by Russia, by the Democrats, by the Republicans to undermine this Holy Document that forms the basis of our RIGHT TO REVOLT, our DIGNITY as human beings, and THE EQUALITY of every human being! Now, when there is a good opportunity to flip the Congress, the Democrats are hellbent on electing ‘progressives’ who are as FASCIST as the Republicans in Congress today! WTF, Democrats?

I would ask all these Anti-Semites who hide behind “anti-zionism, anti-Israel” slogans what Hamas did for the People of Gaza all these years? To the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, how many GAY PRIDE parades happened in Gaza, in any Arab country? How many DIKE marches have been in these places? Do you remember that it was the Arab countries who attacked Israel as soon as the UN Mandate was in place? Do you know that Israel has Gay Pride Parades? Do you know that Israel is/was one of the first nations to respond to disasters all across the globe? How many Saudi Arabians have responded? How many Qataris’ have responded, how many UAE scientists have produced ground-breaking drugs as cures, aids for many different ailments?

Do these achievements absolve the current Israeli government from its actions? NO, NO, NO! Holding Netanyahu and his gang of thugs accountable is as important as holding Trump and his Mafia accountable. Both fascists are guilty of the crimes that led to the Declaration of Independence, to the Revolutionary War and We the People need to rebel against both of them and their lawlessness, cruelty. AND, the ‘poor Arabs’ that these Socialist Democrats are so supportive of, in part  because of the propaganda being spewed for years by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Iran on college campus’ never gave their people Freedom of Speech, Freedom of thought, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press, and these are the people the fascists on the left are supporting!

It is way past time for We the People to SHEMA, (hear, listen, and understand) the words of Amos the prophet:”For they do not know how to do right, said God regretfully, those who’s inclination is towards violence/chaos and robbery in there palaces”. We the People are being called upon on this 250th Anniversary to regain the spiritual strength of the leaders of the 13 Colonies, the prophets and speak Truth to Power and hold the powerful accountable.

ACTION STEP:
What are the ways you have allowed the abandonment of the principles of the Declaration to happen

What are the ways you uphold “these truths to be self-evident”

When will you throw out the Fascists on the right and left

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 62

I am completely fascinated by the words, the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the 250th Birthday of it being published. That the MAGA crowd, the Republican lackeys, the Socialist Democrats, are waving the flag and planning great celebrations is RIDICULOUS! What all of these groups have in common is a complete disdain for the Holiest document in American History, they are shitting on it daily, hourly and trying to convince We the People of how patriotic they are by waving the flag, by flying it from their homes, etc when in reality, even the Supreme Court Justices can’t hide their contempt for both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because they are putting their agenda, their politics, in the case of Clarence Thomas his need to be white, above what is their sworn oath-to protect and defend, to uphold the Constitution, not give in to a wannabe King, not allow grift and graft to happen in the hallways of our Government and they FAIL much more often than not! Just for shits and giggles, Baron Trump would have to be deported because Melania wasn’t a citizen at the time-just saying!

The founding fathers(yes I know the women were not there, yet I believe they had a little hand in telling their husbands what to do) wrote: “When a long train of abuses, usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces the same design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, their duty to throw off such government”. Can you imagine the people who wrote this watching what is happening today and asking WHERE IS CONGRESS? WHERE IS THE SUPREME COURT??! Well, it is high time, We the People respond to these questions, it is high time for We the People to look in the mirror and face “the person in the glass”, face the call of our souls, the cries of the poor, the needy, the begging of the stranger and the ruthlessness, cruelties of the rich bastards who are supporting this “government” and, as in Egypt, tell the Pharaoh to “LET MY PEOPLE GO” and take control as our ancestors, IMMIGRANTS ALL OF THEM, did some 250 years ago.

We the People seem to be deaf to the cries of our own souls, the screaming of our intuition that tells us; watch out, they are coming for ‘them’ now and they will come for you. I hear Martin Niemoller’s poem reminding us of Ben Franklin’s words: “We all hang together or we all hang separately” and I hear the similarity between ‘socialist democrats’ and ‘national socialists’ as both hate Jews, blame Jews for the evils, and they join with their polar opposite far right “christian nationalists” to promote anti-semitism and Jew-hatred as well as many other despicable hatreds they spew venom about.

The prophets keep calling us back, calling upon us to return to the commandments of God, to return to boundaries these commandments put up. They are not asking for perfection, they are asking for transparency, they are asking for fidelity to the 10 Sayings, to our spiritual history, to our soul’s knowings. Just as We the People, at least some of us, are demanding we return to both the first founding in 1776 and the second founding in 1863, 1865 at Gettysburg, at Appomattox. I am left speechless at the love of deception that so many people have, the readiness to believe the liars, believe their own lies, and blame, shame, exile good people because of their ethnicity, their religion, their seeking of the American Dream? I know something has to be done to reform our immigration policies, I also know that Stephen Miller, Tom Holman, JD Vance, Marco Rubio would have sent the St. Louis back to Europe, I know they would not have taken in the refugees from Cuba-‘little Marco’, and they would let people die in the streets, like Veterans are doing right now. The “long train of abuses, usurpations” is as great as it was in 1776 and that it is being done in America, that it is being carried out and approved by the Republican Majority in Congress and the Fascist Supreme Court is beyond the pale. There is only one solution: STAND UP and FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT-not just elect Democrats, elect serious people who will follow the law, hear God crying about their harlotry by serving Trump instead of We the People, serving their financial goals, serving the lobbyists rather than We the People. KICK THEM OUT OF OFFICE!

First, however, We the People have to surrender our desire to deceive and be deceived, stop waiting for Jesus to come back, for the Messiah to show up. Rather, We the People who are faithful to the principles found in every Spiritual discipline, who are willing to be in the solution, have to create the atmosphere for Christ to show up and be recognized, to create the space and places for the Messiah to be heard. Remember, both Christ and the Messiah may have visited for a minute and been rejected by we the people in our desire to engage in “abuses, usurpations”!

How are you rebelling against the “abuses, usurpations” of self and another(s)

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 61

“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” are themes woven throughout the history and meaning of being American, of what the United States stands for at its core. As always, these “founding principles” are once again under attack. Rather than hear the call of the spirit of these words, there have been members of Congress, Presidents, regular janes and joes, like we the people, who have bastardized and remained blinded by prejudices and fears so they have narrowed and narrowed the scope of these words.

We learn in the Bible that “all people are created in the Image of God” and “God blew spirit into the human” and we came alive-so how can any of these principles, which come from the Bible, be narrowed into only ‘the white race’ should have the privilege of these principles while the rest of us Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Hispanics from Latin America, refugees from Haiti and Syria should be subservient to ‘the white man, the master race’? Sounds a little familiar, oh yeah, this is part and parcel with all Fascists, all authoritarian governments! 81 years ago we won a victory over this type of government in Europe and, it seems, lost it here at home, Lindbergh, Coughlin, et al are cheering the current government on, I am sure.

“Liberty” in Biblical terms is Freedom. “Liberty” implies being able to do what one wants to do, whenever one wants to do it and this is not the spiritual calling of the founding fathers, rather, as the Bill of Rights asserts, it is about Freedom, the surrendering of our false egos, the ending of our servitude to Pharaoh, and joining, signing the covenant with God. This covenant is found throughout the Bible, it is found in the words of Jesus-not necessarily Paul- and it never ends, we can never break it. While we can turn away from it, there will always be a prophet to remind us of our covenant, remind us of our duty to obey and our duty to disobey, as Rabbi Harold Shulweis, z”l teaches us in his book by the same name.

In this moment, We the People are once again faced with the decision that the Israelites were faced with, that so many peoples throughout history have been faced with: Will we surrender to Pharaoh, or will we join with God-in both cases, we are “turning our will over to the care of” some entity other than our own ‘self-sufficiency’. The question is not will we surrender, the question is to WHOM/WHAT will we surrender. When “the pursuit of happiness is understood in its narrowest form, ‘how can I have fun’; we once again are bastardizing the concept. In every Holy document, the language is terse, is expansive, is pregnant with various meanings: the literal, the allegorical, the homiletic and the mystical. For far too long, the racist, xenophobic white trash-I mean anyone regardless of economic status, who believes their whiteness gives them superiority over anyone and everyone else, who believes their Non-Christian christian nationalism makes them closer to God(IDOL) have been in charge, they have taken over the country and spread a virus that makes Covid look like child’s play. These Fascists have infused our country with, what I believe is the worst sins, Indifference, Mendacity, Virtual Reality that is not even close to Truth, and, their favorite-accuse another(s) of that which you are guilty of.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” can only be realized when We the People stand up for God, for the Covenant We made with God, for the spirit of these words, for the gift of our Constitution, for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the needy, the poor. When We the People ensure that our way of being is congruent with the words on the Statue of Liberty, when We are ensuring the word on the Liberty Bell are being fulfilled, to ensure that “all people are created equal” is the goal and the ways of living We the People are pursuing and commanding our Government to pursue these goals and ways as well.

These three words in and of themselves can take days, weeks, a lifetime to unpack. I know from my personal experience with slavery, with following a Pharaoh of my own making, of being a Pharaoh to the people who loved me and whom were so deeply impacted by my evil ways, how important living these words out loud, living the spiritual meaning of them and making sure that everyone else has the same opportunity. I can have no life if I allow suffering that I can help heal go on unabated, if I I want freedom only for me and mine and not all, if my “pursuit of happiness” infringes on anyone else. This truth seems to be missing from those ‘fine white christian nationalist prejudicial men and women who bow down to them’! It is WAY PAST TIME to take our country back, to honor the Declaration!

ACTION STEPS:

Do an inventory on how your are pursuing “Life, Liberty, pursuit of Happiness” in honorable ways

Define the ways you bastardize these principles to “get ahead”

Ask yourself why you go along with, don’t fight the Fascists at our Gates

How is  America similar to Ancient Israel and Ancient Judea

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 60

Continuing with the words of our founding document, after acknowledging every person has a unique gift, unique relationship with “their Creator”, we move to “certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness.” The bolding of “among” is mine because, once again, as with “their Creator”, the founding fathers did not limit our “unalienable rights” to just those three! Yet, we seem to forget that We the People, and all human beings living here or abroad have “unalienable rights” that the United States should be helping to protect and we did for 83 years, as our alliances with NATO countries proves.

Today, as we approach 250 years of living with, against, into this Holy Text of our nation, We the People are facing down a “new Pharaoh” who has arisen from the ashes, from the garbage heap and doesn’t know this document, doesn’t know Washington, Lincoln, Truman, Reagan, et al. Like the Pharaoh in the Bible, the current President and his merry band of thieves and cruel, malicious, mendacious men, the narcissism is rampant, the vision is limited, the control of a segment of we the people is total-a recipe for disaster that is happening in front of us and too many of We the People are handwringing and feeling powerless while the idiotic Democrats, who have/had a chance to reassert some sanity in Government, are supporting Anti-Israel candidates, promoting Anti-Zionism as a cover for their Anti-Semitism, going as far to the left as possible and, once again, as they did in 2024, promoting an American Dream that is full of hatred for ‘the other’, disgust and disrespect for anyone but “the underdog of the moment” and being as exclusive and ‘elite’ as they were 2 years ago-BRILLIANT!

I hear the call of the prophets to the People Israel and the People of Judah, to the people in the America, to the people living in Israel in this moment, “RETURN, RETURN” the call of God to those of us who have exiled ourselves from the covenant, from the teachings of Adonai, of Jesus, by being bullies, by being so arrogant as to believe we don’t need a spiritual practice, by having the hubris to believe everything we do is “God’s Will” when it is, in reality, our egocentric desires we masquerade as “God’s Will”. What the prophets are calling to us is, I believe, encapsulated in Shlomo Carlbach’s song: “Return Again”. The lyrics go like this: “return again, return again; return to the land of your soul; return to who you are; return to what you are; return to where you are; born and reborn again”. These words capture the message of the prophets, the message of God, that every return has to begin with a “return to the land of your soul”. This is, I believe, what Thomas Jefferson and others were doing when they were blocked from including freedom for Black Slaves in this document and hid their belief in “liberty for all”, even black slaves and believed that everyone deserves a life that fulfills what, who they are created to be without interference from the new ‘king George’, the new ‘pharaoh who has arisen’!

Unfortunately, like the representatives from the Southern Colonies for whom their entire economy was built on slave labor, who had already developed their willful blindness to the fact that Black Men and Women were and are human beings deserving of dignity, seeing both their worth and their equality with every human being, and saw their uniqueness as either only for their gain or as stubbornness that had to be beaten out of them-man or woman, is on steroids today with the “South as risen again”, with the prejudice, the cancer of the soul that prejudice is, brings about. Rather than be “people of faith”, these Anti-Christ christian nationalists refuse to hear the call of either the Declaration of Independence that the founding fathers wrote nor the Declaration of Independence found in the Bible, the New Testament! We the People have to take back our power, take back our control, take back a government that is of the people, by the people, for the people which we the people are allowing to perish, even after knowing Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address! In the Revolutionary War as in every war, people of all faiths and colors, many different ethnicities fought for the principles above, the principles of the prophets, and were willing to “give their last full measure” to “Let Freedom Ring”.

As one who has returned from the “dark side”, from the narcissistic, self-centered belief that I was ‘owed’ something, that if I could steal it, then it was meant to be mine, from the prisoner, to a free man, a man of faith, a man of deep connection to “my Creator” and the Prophets-I can tell you the gains received by being with, in, on, the “dark side” with the liars, etc is not the panacea that is being sold. It is a cruel trip and when I “return again to the land of my soul”, I began to and continue to understand “certain unalienable rights” for me and for you-hence my devotion to helping people recover and “return to the land of their souls”!
How are you engaging in a return to who you are, what you are?

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