Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 85

Habakkuk 2:4 says: “behold his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; and the righteous will live in their faith.” Given the world today, as it has always been if we are going to be real with ourselves, these words capture our times perfectly. This verse is not just about the leaders, the people we like to pick on-no matter where one is on the political continuum, rather, I hear the prophet calling out to We the People more than to the leadership. The people in charge, as we have witnessed throughout history, rarely do their own T’Shuvah, rarely own up to their mistakes in a serious manner. Look at the Pharaoh in Egypt, who would make one of his infamous “I’m sorry, relieve us of the plague” and then go back to being an asshole. King David, the King of Nineveh are the only two I believe actually said “oops I made a mistake”. Ergo: Habakkuk’s words are meant for we the people and it is us that keep being deaf to this call.

How many times do we have to be show the vision of God, the ways of being decent, the path of holiness, the roadmap to salvation, the highway to lovingkindness, the route 66 of truth, only to spit on it? The problem is not Trump, Project 2025, and the rest of the cruel people in charge. The problem is that We the People elected him the first time and then the second time-knowing full well who he is, who his people are, what he was going to do and now that he is doing it, we are in disbelief? When a person tells you who they are, believe them. Yet, we don’t!

Throughout my life, I have witnessed people whose “soul is puffed up” overwhelm and override “the righteous (who) live in their faith”. It is something I railed against throughout my life, even when I was guilty of the same thing-talk about cognitive dissonance! We are witnessing this phenomenon in the ways PAC’s have become like people, according to the Supreme Court Jesters, I mean Justices. We are witnessing this wretched display of non-faith in the business leaders being more concerned about their shareholders than the safety and well-being of we the consuming people. At issue, of course, as always, is the inability of society to admire, respect, extol those of us who have erred and returned, who have done our amends and restitution and are looked at through the eyes of “a leopard doesn’t change it’s spots”. It is true that a “leopard doesn’t change it’s spots” and We the People are not Leopards!

This is the call of Habakkuk, I believe, especially in this moment, at this time of year in the Jewish Calendar: let go of “the soul is puffed up” way of being and return to “the righteous live in faith” part of our nature. It ain’t easy! And it is more than doable. Rather than needing to be the smartest in the room, rather than needing to ‘be in charge’, rather than worrying about being ‘found out’, rather than hide from our humanity, our foibles, our vulnerabilities, STAND UP AND BE YOU!

It is not enough to just look at another(s) who are living in their puffed up soul, it is not enough to be critical and angry about it, it is not enough to rail against the rich and the powerful, it is not enough to go to the opposite end of the continuum to ‘fight the bad guys’, etc. What is “enough” is to remember that 4 months ago, we went back to basics so we could leave the narrow places that trap us, we jettisoned the leavening agents that made us fat and blind, we proclaimed “this is My God”, acknowledging a personal relationship, a covenantal relationship with a power greater than ourselves. What is “enough” is to continue to grow in our commitment to live freer from Passover, to continue to grow along spiritual lines, to take care of the needy and the poor, to love the stranger, to stay right-sized.

Of course there are more ways to practice “enough”, like “eat, be satisfied, bless” regarding food and just about everything else in life. Ben Zoma asks: “Who is Rich, one who rejoices in what one has”(Pirke 4:1) and it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to live into this teaching, it is WAY PAST TIME for We the People to live faithfully and authentically according to our Soul’s script, not the script of another soul, not the script of a “soul (that) is puffed up”. We can only do this when we take this time to see the whole picture of our SELF, the entirety in which we are living, the impact of our actions and the lies we tell ourselves. We only experience “enough” when we let go of our need to be right, our need to be powerful, our need to destroy another, our need to not feel a debt of gratitude to another human being, to God, our need to deny that we ever needed help, etc. I have slowly let go of these false needs and live a life of joy, of wholeness, of service, of love, of kindness, of justice, of truth. It is a much better way to live than the ways of those who continue to live with “a soul (that) is puffed up.
Action Step:

Look at, remember the narrow place/slavery you left on Passover-how is the journey looking now?
    GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self - Day 84

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 84

Each day there is a new assault on truth, on justice, on kindness, on compassion and each day I rebel against watching too much news because I just can’t take it. The level of acceptance of the status quo causes a volcanic reaction within me and I work hard each day to temper myself, to live the Serenity prayer: being grateful for the Grace to take in with Clarity, the things I am powerless over and the things I am not powerless over, the things I cannot change and those I should change, as well as the discernment to know the difference. Part of what makes me so volcanic are words from Habakkuk 1:4 “Therefore the Torah is slacked and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surrounds the righteous, therefore justice is perverted”. These words spoken before the destruction of the 1st Temple, before the Babylonians decimated Jerusalem, captured the Judeans and brought some back to Babylon, are as relevant today as they were then and We the People still refuse to hear them, to understand them to return Torah/the Teachings to their proper place in the hearts, minds and souls of all people and to restore Justice, Righteousness, Truth, Kindness, Compassion as the foundation of our lives, the foundation upon which the USA was built, the foundation of God’s world, of Jesus’ calling out to us, of the antidote to the selfishness, deception, indifference of humanity.

While politicians give us much to work with in terms of faults, in terms of their assault on decency, on being human, etc; it is We the People who are responsible for what is happening here at home and across the globe. Brexit happened because enough of the British people believed the lies of those who wanted power, Bibi is elected over and over because enough of the Israeli people support his racist, egotistical, grifting, megalomaniac vision, Trump was re-elected because enough of the American people would rather have a racist, megalomaniac in the White House who is stealing us blind, who is destroying everything that our democracy has stood for since 1776, and many of those people are still clapping for this evil individual!

The question I keep coming back to is: What is wrong with people that, since the days of “a new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph”, when the choice between “Freedom throughout the Land and to all its inhabitants therein” and following the new Pharaoh, going back to Egypt, the land of enslavement; choose the new Pharaoh!! It is not a problem of the mind, it is not a problem of our emotions, though both are big parts of the equation, at issue is our spiritual health, our spiritual maturity.

At the core of choosing Trump, Bibi, Brexit, Putin, etc is the spiritual malady of human beings. This spiritual malady stems from our being “slack”in Torah, being slack in Jesus’ words and deeds! Our slackness allows Justice to be perverted, kindness assaulted, Truth denied, Compassion seen as weakness, hating the stranger so we the people can have an outside enemy to focus on-which the Arab Countries have done for years, using Israel as the bugaboo so their people will not rise up against the tyranny and theft that Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, et al have inflicted upon them. We the People forever have run away, like Jonah, from the call of God, to be A MENSCH! When the stranger becomes someone to be feared instead of loved, when “the one with the gold rules”, when the rich have a different justice system than the rest of us, when retribution becomes a human ‘virtue’, when Truth is discarded in favor of “alternative facts”, when righteousness is seen as stupid, when narcissism, racism, anti-semitism, autocracy, “socialist democrats”, white supremacy, christian nationalism become the ways of the lands, Humanity is in the same type of Spiritual Crisis as before the Flood, before the Destruction of the two Temples, the fall of the Greeks, the Romans, and all of the other Nation-states who have been the powers in the world.

The solution that I believe works best for We the People is the solution I took: I went “back to basics” and rediscovered the soul I was created to be, found the morality I was brought up, and began to live into the Bible and its teachings instead of ignoring them. In these past almost 40 years since my Spiritual Awakening, I continue to grow my immersion in the Bible, my dedication to Justice, my search for Truth, the openness of my heart and soul to have more compassion for another(s), to forgive more easily, to stand against the lies and thefts by another(s), to engage with people on a soul-to-soul level rather than a role-to-role one. IEveryone I see I search for their divine image and if they choose to be slack in Torah, I choose to not engage. I respect their divinity and I don’t join in their desecration, their ignoring of said divinity. I no longer have to prove anything, which I re-learned on Thursday at the Bridge Club when in trying to prove I belong with “the big people”, I STANK IT UP BADLY! I could laugh at myself by Friday though, progress not perfection! Action Step is to see how you are “slack in Torah”, perverting Justice in the way you live.

God Bless and Stop Ghosting God, Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 83

Trump speaks at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Friday, what a sign of the times! Rather than extoll Freedom of the Press, especially when it holds him and his administration to account, Trump defames, negates, lies about, tries to intimidate, sues the press for speaking truth to the public, tries to “lock them up” when they reveal his incompetence and grift, etc. And these IDIOTS invite him to a dinner honoring everything Trump is against, honoring colleagues who speak truth to power while Trump and his autocratic regime try so hard and, at times, succeed in pulling the wool over the eyes of the public? WTF?

In Obadiah 1:3, he declares when speaking about Edom(which I think is a change from the original which has him speaking to Judea) says: “The pride of your heart deceives you”! Yet, for all of their studying of the Bible, for all of their proclaiming of the truth of the Bible, for all of Mike Johnson’s declaring that the Bible is his thinking-sad to think he has no powers of discernment and can’t see the 70 faces of the Bible-, NONE of these ‘fine white non-Christian nationalists nor religious zealots in the Orthodox movement of a Judaism that is not found in the Bible, hear, listen and do what Obadiah is warning against. In fact, they are the very people that Obadiah is speaking to! We the People are being asked about “the pride of our heart”  and demanded to be responsible to more than our desires, to more than our seeking of riches and power, to more than our greeds, our lusts and even our safety. While we are not told to put ourselves in harms way unnecessarily, we are told to honor God, to honor the divine image within us and in everyone, to not succumb to the slyness of the “new Pharaoh who did not know” to proclaim freedom throughout the land, “who did not know” to honor and value the dignity and worth of every human being, “who did not know” their “pride of their heart” will lead to death, destruction and being overthrown.

What has gotten lost, it seems to me, is that Freedom of the Press is crucial, it was in 1789 and it is today. The Press, at their finest, are the prophets of today or at least handmaids to the prophets of today. What are prophets, really? They are people who see what is, know where continuing the status quo will lead us to, and speak loudly and with authority to We the People as a warning, as a call to turn away from the glitter of gold, to remember the midrash that Moses’ hand was pushed to the coal in order for him to live. The thought that the President, his/her cabinet, his/her appointees can restrict the Press, can stop the prophets from speaking, can intimidate the Press/media to doing her/his bidding is ANATHEMA to the ways of Christ, the ways of the prophets, the ways of the Bible, the way of Abraham confronting God! Yet, Johnson and his crew of White Christian Nationalists, White Supremacists, along with Ben G’Vir and Bibi’s crew of ‘find Orthodox Jews”, both idol worshipping groups defy the words and deeds of Abraham, Moses, Judah, Joseph, King David, the prophets, Jesus, the Apostles, the Bible, and the New Testament and call themselves the REAL Christians, the REAL Jews! What bullshit and why any of We the People buy into these deceptions is beyond me.

What are We the People who see the truth, who are watching the Press capitulate in subtle and overt ways to do? We must rid our White House, our Congress, our state and local governments of these Anti-Freedom Riders! We must vote them out of power, we must remove them from their appointments over the Press, the Health departments, the Defense departments, the Intelligence departments, etc. HOWEVER, We the People   must first rid ourselves of the deceptions of self that seem to rule over us. We are in desperate need of an inner house cleaning, of a true picture of the person in the glass we see staring at us each and every day. We are being called to heed the words of Obadiah, to clean our hearts of oversized pride, of the lies we keep telling ourselves, the deceptions of another(s) that we keep buying into.

The only way to do this is by using the Jewish Calendar and begin our process of looking at our past year, our past years and see when and where we have hit the mark of being decent, human beings and when and where we have missed the mark of being decent human beings. Doing this every year keeps us updated, our operating system is cleaner and more user friendly, and our standard of living becomes elevated and we live into the soul we are created to be a little more each year. Having done this for the past 38 and this being the 39th year, I can attest to the strength, the uplift, the joy, the power, the connection that this process brings. It keeps me from being one of the charlatans, one of the people who profess loyalty and are actually Brutus. It ain’t easy to look at yourself, admit your truth, have it used against you and then watch the liars get the leg up and it is better than being one of those pathetic people who are unable to be grateful and loyal to those who helped them up the ladder.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 82

Turning back to the Book of Jonah, I find it fascinating that more time is not spent on this important book, more time is not spent on immersing ourselves in the text and its teachings for us right here, right now. In the final chapter of the book, a small book by the way, only 4 chapters, God asks Jonah if he is upset that the plant God caused to rise up, give him shade, and then die and Jonah responds: I do well to be so angry even to death”. God then tells Jonah that since his concern for something he had no hand in creating, growing, was so great, should God not have compassion and concern for “Nineveh, that great city where… and they cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?”

Here we are, on Yom Kippur afternoon, in the home stretch, just prior to the “closing of the gates”, and we are reading but not really talking about the lack of concern that humanity, we the people have for what God has wrought, what God’s words brought into reality, into being-including We the People! This message of being more upset over ‘things’ especially ‘things’ we did not create, that we may have improved upon, and since “there is nothing new under the sun”, even our wealth is earned, sometimes, and yet not really material to the survival of the world, of our humanity, of our dignity. Yet, we cry often about not having enough, where’s mine, and other such bullshit. We believe we are owed something, that fucking over the immigrant, legal or not, screwing the stranger, suspecting our neighbor, proclaiming freedom for only ‘those fine christian nationalist and Jewish white men’ are all GOOD THINGS!

Rather than hear God’s concern for Nineveh, that evil city, many of we the people would agree with Jonah and be pissed off that their T’Shuvah was accepted by a merciful, slow to anger God who should be ‘getting even with those MF’s’. Rather than having compassion for people who just do not know how to discern right from left, good from not good, holy from profane, too many of we the people are like Jonah-wanting to see “those guys” punished for doing what we ourselves are doing. Rather than hearing Jesus’ words on the cross, “forgive them father, they know not what they do”, these ‘fine christian nationalist white men’ persecute anyone and everyone who is NOT LIKE THEM-in other words, senseless hatred for those of We the People who believe in decency, who are painfully aware of our own foibles, who do our T’Shuvah daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly. Rather than honor God’s creations-human beings- some of we the people believe the only people worth honoring are themselves, their sycophants, their true believers are being used they steal from them, they lie to them, which is the ultimate of spiritual rape because Trump, et al, promised to care for and about them and, as we can see right before our eyes, Trump and all of his cronies and puppet masters care only about THEMSELVES! Like good narcissists, they are always right, they are the only ones whom matter, and if you don’t kiss the ring, then you deserve to be locked up or die-they keep it really simple.

Since human beings are created in the Image of God and We the People have free-will, each day, each moment, each experience gives us the opportunity to choose whether we are going to live down to our lowest common denominator or whether We are going to live up to our highest self- our divine image. This stark difference between these two choices is being played out in this last chapter of the Book of Jonah very powerfully to me, and I hope you. Jonah is pissed off that God, after Nineveh repents, saves the city and the people. Jonah then gets reprieve from the heat when God creates the plant to give him shade and then when the plant dies, Jonah is more upset about that than the idea that 100,000’s of people would die if Nineveh were destroyed! Can you imaging that someone, anyone, would be more upset over material loss than over the death of 100,000’s of people? Can you believe that there are some among we the people who would agree with Jonah, kill the bastards and save the money, who cares about “those people” when I can be served by something I need?

This is one of the messages of the Book of Jonah. The Rabbis were courageous in including this book that has nothing to do with the Jewish people and it has everything to do with the Jewish people. Unlike Israel and Judea, Nineveh listens to the prophets, Nineveh is saved. Jonah, the reluctant prophet, the miserable SOB, the hateful individual is the savior of Nineveh, talk about God working in mysterious ways! Like Amos, I am a fiery messenger of God’s. Unlike Jonah, I cried, cry over the death of ‘those who do not know how to discern right from left’, like the prophets, I have no idea if my words mean anything to anyone, I know this is the call for me now to keep writing to keep doing what I can to help We the People stop ghosting God, ghosting Self.

Action Step: Write down when cruelty overrides decency and visa versa

God Bless, Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 81

Every morning I wake with gratitude for being alive! I realize that much of longevity is due to God’s Grace and I have to honor the Grace shown to me by giving the same Grace to another. I call it Divine Pathos, the ability to have compassion for another(s) when what I want to do is scream and yell at them to wake them up! During my prison stints, it was more bravado and fear than it was any sense of pathos, confidence, or… In my recovery, my yelling and screaming was the frustration that I have felt when I get something, it seems so simple to me and another(s) person(s) are oblivious. The fact that I was oblivious for so long and I wanted to spare another person from suffering the same consequences as I did for staying in oblivion for so long factored in greatly. Over the years, my yelling and screaming became a ‘part of the shtick’ and I indulged it and this was wrong! Most of the people I was interacting with needed to hear things in the way I was presenting them and some did not. For this I am sorry. Most of the people I was dealing with knew my dedication to their recovery, to them living well and some did not. For this I am also sorry. I opened myself up to criticism and scorn by my way of being and, while I am deeply remorseful to those who feel I harmed them, I do not apologize for being who I am! I am starting today’s blog off in this manner because it is Tisha B’Av, the day we recall the destructions that happened to Jews, supposedly just because we are Jews, and for me I have to remember the destructions I caused to Jew and non-Jew alike. I have to recall, amend, restore the dignity to the people who believe I destroyed a part of them. I am making this amend now, not to people who want to use my vulnerabilities against me, to the people who were actually harmed by my actions, to those who did not see, to whom I did not make clear my motives, my goals, and to those whom I did not hear how to speak to them-I am sorry.

In order to Stop Ghosting God, Stop Ghosting Self, we the people, as individuals and as groups are being called upon to remember the destructions we have caused, the dignities we have stolen, the devaluing of another human being(s) we have participated in, engendered. It is crucial for We the People to come to grips with the Donald J Trump inside of us, the liar and the grifter, the deceiver and the irresponsible parts of ourselves and ensure that they do not run us AT ALL! We the People have to see how we are to combat the Hegseth’s, the Lutnick’s, the Voughts, the Ben G’Vir’s around us and within us. It is no longer okay(it never was) to stand on the sidelines and complain, it is not okay now nor has it ever been to “stand idly by the blood of your neighbor”. It is not okay nor has it ever been to treat the stranger as a criminal, as a slave, “because you were strangers in the Land of Egypt” and they took us in at our lowest state-famine, death were staring Jacob and the boys in the face! The people in charge are the descendants of immigrants, of STRANGERS-instead of being grateful that “as a stranger in a strange land” they were given an opportunity to grow and flourish rather than be conscripted, enslaved, be subject to the whims of the king!

Saudi Arabia is getting nuclear power, maybe it is a quid pro quo for helping Jerrod Kushner-who knows. Iran is still shooting missiles and being bombed mercilessly-there are no good guys in this fight. Trump is lying about elections, Rubio is lying about Cuba, Hegseth is lying about the war in Iran, Miller is lying about the ‘immigrant’ problem, and the Republicans in Congress are kissing Trump’s ass, what else is new. The Democrats response is to support the fascist wing of their party instead of having solutions that respect the dignity and worth of all people, not just their ‘underdog of the month’. AND, none of these factions nor their clergy, their churches, their synagogues are calling them to account. Hence WE THE PEOPLE must!

We the People can call another to account only after we hold ourselves to account. What better day than today-Tisha B’Av? While the month of Elul doesn’t begin for another 21 days, getting a jump on the T’Shuvah’s, the amends we have to make is not a bad idea. Once we look at the destructions we have caused, dealt with them internally, have a plan for the amend/restitution, and a plan how not to keep repeating these ways, it is much easier to live with the Divine Pathos I mentioned earlier. It becomes a ‘natural state’ for many of us. This is the challenge, this is the cure, this is where the fountain of strength, youth, wisdom, kindness, truth, love, justice emerges from. Will you drink from this fountain or keep drinking the kool-aid of Trump, Vought, Hegseth, Lutnick, and the rest of those ‘good male white christian nationalists’?
Action Step:

Write down the destructions you have caused and how to make an amend

Write down the destructions you have been victim to and how they can no longer run your life

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 80

On August 24th Harriet and I will be doing a workshop for Desert Outreach Synagogue on “preparing for the High Holy Days”, which will include thoughts and actions surrounding T’Shuvah, Celebration, Prayer, and Gratitude. Many of the thoughts I am expressing now relate to these ideas, there is no “political commentary” to be found in the workshop nor, as I see it, in these blogs. The Ghosting of God, the Ghosting of Self, is a spiritual malady, it is a moral failure, a response to what is happening in the world and in our own lives that is antithetical to what the Bible teaches us about living a kosher, aka, fitting and proper life. The commandments are not political, they are about spiritual health, being spiritually, ethically, and morally fit.

To paraphrase what the Ramban is saying in his commentary on “You shall be Holy” in the beginning of Leviticus 19: It is possible to be a scoundrel within the bounds of the Law-DON’T DO THIS! Yet, we see this happening all the time. When people are elected to serve in the government, they are “but trusted servants” as we say in AA. However, throughout history, these “trusted servants” have raped and pillaged the very people they are supposed to represent. The ways of “taxation without representation” are being subtly engaged in is HORRENDOUS! Yet, people, especially MAGA people, will call out anyone who stands up for We the People ‘socialists, communists, anti-america’ etc. These same people will use the Bible to pass laws, take actions that are antithetical to the love, kindness, justice, mercy, truth the Bible calls for and say “this is what Christ said to do”!!?? While there are many who are calling out these lies, many Clergy, both Jewish and Christian, promote the lies of these ‘religious’ people who’s only religion is to promote the dogma of hate, the dogma of power, the dogma of Pharaoh! If this isn’t Ghosting God, what is? If this isn’t Ghosting our authentic Self, our living in a way that is compatible with being a partner of God, what is?

Tonight begins the Fast day of Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av which is, according to our lore, the day on which we commemorate the destructions of both Temples in Jerusalem and other tragedies which have befallen the Jewish People. People will sit on the floor or on stools as a sign of their being mourners, they will not put on T’fillin in the morning, they will not eat all day, they will wail for the rebuilding of a 3rd Temple, and they will NOT pay any attention to their own actions that are mirrors of the actions of the both Ancient Israel and Judea. They will not heed the calls of the prophets to RETURN to being partners with God, they will not heed the demands of the prophets to listen, to put on sackcloth and sit in ashes for actual change, not for show as is the custom now and has been for a while.

Tisha B’Av is a day of reflection on the destructions We the People are causing right now, right here, not just wailing for the crimes of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Romans. It is a day for We the Jewish People to recognize, repent for, and make plans to change the idiotic, repetitive ways of living that: go against the Commandments; that stop the spread the Spiritual Malady infecting the world and so many people; that will turn us into spiritual healers instead of spiritual rapists; that will help us return again to being “trusted servants” who serve God and We the People who have entrusted us to do the next right thing. Is this Political, I think not, it is about decency, about love, about truth, about kindness, about justice, about mercy, about compassion, about grace-all spiritual principles.

It is time for We the People to end our need to be in “senseless hatred” of one another and begin to be deliberate in our hating of prejudice, our hating of power-mongering, our hating of the evil ways some of we the people use lies to promote themselves and more lies, our hating of those of we the people who use deceptions to gain more and more wealth, our hating of using the vulnerabilities of another(s) against them, our hating of the ways strangers are being treated as criminals and enemies, the ways the poor and the needy are being thrown bread crumbs sometimes, the ways of bastardizing the Bible, Jesus’s words and the actions of decency and holiness that God is demanding. This is the PATH OF RECOVERY that is being provided for We the People through reclaiming our authentic self, by reclaiming our real connection to God, through living into the Commandments, by hearing and following the Prophets calls to us, by following the example of the people of Nineveh instead of the people of Ancient Israel! This is the path I follow to grow in my recovery and I pray you choose to join the millions of people who live a life of recovery and return.
ACTION STEP:

Make a plan of recovery based on spiritual principles

Read the Prophets and “return again to the land of your soul

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

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