Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 118

This Tuesday, Rabbi Ed Feinstein and I will be doing our 2nd Melton Learning Session on T’Shuvah, Heschel, Forgiveness-Please join

The next “missing the mark” of the Ashamnu Prayer is: “speaking slander” and Rabbi Omer-man taught us to, as the Kotzker Rebbe said about the commandments, “make it personal”. Today I want to talk about the slander we speak to and about our self. While not being positive at what point in life it begins, I am reasonably certain that the slanderous speech We the People have engaged in began in early childhood, maybe the first time we got scolded, the first time we realized imperfections is the lot in life of all human beings, the first time we were made fun of because of a quirk we have, the first time… After this ‘first time’ of being made fun of, being corrected, being punished, it seems as if we the people, like Adam and Eve, went into hiding, started to be careful and wary of what we showed to another(s) and became very self-protective AND we the people also have bought into the laughter, the punishing, the needing to be corrected, seeing our imperfections as bad, etc! Herein lies the issue, the beginning of “speaking slander” or as Rabbi Omer-man taught-negative self-talk.

I can remember way back in my own life to when I was 3 years old and ‘took a walk around the block’ because no one was watching me and I was not seen, that my mother and brothers blamed me! I bought into this and began to berate myself in any number of ways and, for all of my bravado, I believed the “slanderous speech” I was spewing upon my soul, my inner life, leading me to continue down a road of “it doesn’t matter what I do, someone will berate me for it, so I might as well be bad rather than be falsely accused”. I remember this thought vividly, as I am writing this, I am having a physical reaction to this memory and I am so aware of how dumb this was to do to myself AND how much sense it seemed to make to me. Only upon returning to the Bible, only upon beginning to immerse myself in the Bible, the prophets, did I begin to realize that there is no perfection, there is only return, there is no being a goody two shoes, only people trying to get it right, there is no banishment in God’s world for making an error, there is only a desire for me/us to return. WOW, this changed everything for me, I began to speak to myself a little nicer, I still have problems with this, especially at the Bridge Table-OY!!

While there is a point in which we the people engage in so much “slanderous speech” against our self that T’Shuvah becomes very difficult, yet even Pharaoh, in Parasha Bo, still has his God-Image when God says to Moses: “Come to Pharaoh”. I believe the use of the word “come” is meant to teach us that God doesn’t leave us, it is our negative self-talk that causes we the people to leave God, to ignore the truth: We the People are created in the Image of God; We the People are Divine Reminders, Divine Needs; We the People each day are given the gift of our soul being returned so how ‘bad’ can we be if God has faith and compassion for We the People?

Wherever the thoughts come from, whenever they rear their ugly, venomous, hateful words, We the People have the opportunity to NOT BUY IN! We the People by living into a spiritual discipline, living into a program of recovering our essence, of returning to who we truly are-children of God, holy people-, and setting our intentions to have a response to the self-deceptions we the people are constantly buying into, the rationalizations we come up with, etc is a crucial part of each and every day. It is a matter of life and death for many we the people. It is very difficult to “accentuate the positive” when “eliminate the negative” is proving to be so impossible and “messing with Mr. In-Between” only leads we the people more astray, because we are trying to deny a negative and it is IMPOSSIBLE to do this, hence the need of each and every human being to hear the self-correcting speech as positive, as belief We the People can return, can improve AND NOT as a berating of self!

As I am writing this, as I said earlier, this is still a work in progress for me, and like many people, I sometimes blame another-usually Harriet- for my mistakes, because I still fall into old traps of equating making a mistake with being a mistake! I am constantly searching for more and more of the subtleties of “slanderous speech” and each year, doing this inventory helps me realize more and more ways I deceive myself, I harm myself, I betray myself by “speaking slander” to and against myself!
ACTION STEPS:
How are you “speaking slander” against your self

What do you gain from doing this

How has negative self-talk promoted you to hide more

How has the hiding more because of slanderous speech got you money, property, prestige

What is the state of your soul, are you dangerously close to Pharaoh’s path of losing his way back?

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 117

Since we looked at misappropriation, aka stealing, yesterday, We the People have to look at the myriad of ways we took the next right action, how often we were living in proper measure. Just as looking at the good we have done, seeing the ways stayed true to our principles, without engaging in the ways  and situations we take the next right action is very important for being able to acknowledge the WHOLE of our beingness, it is also one with which many of We the People are uncomfortable with.

While the hope and prayer of every spiritual discipline, of which Judaism, Christianity, Islam are, is to be accepting of all that enters our countenance, our realms, it is obvious that this is impossible for human beings! So, these spiritual disciplines all have their unique ways to “welcome us back home” after an error AND to cheer We the People on for doing the next right action. To many people this cheering feels kinda dumb-why should I be honored, cheered, rewarded for doing what I am supposed to do-many of us ask. The reason, I believe, is to give us the strength, encouragement, impetus to do the next right thing more often, especially when it is hard, when it could go against our own self-interest. Also, it is a recognition that We the People are adhering to, engaging in, reveling in the Covenant with God, hearing the Voice from Sinai call out to us, and not ignoring the pleas of the stranger, the needy, the poor.

I know this way of being is “out of vogue” right now, we the people seem to be more narcissistic than ever, more cruelty practiced than anytime since Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, the pogroms, etc. Hence the importance of We the People to look at and see how we have done the next right thing, how we have stood up to the bullies, the creeps, the grifters, the thieves, the idolators and liars, the desecrators of God’s Name, those who are swearing falsely in the Name of Jesus. This inventory is to give us the strength to admit our assets, to acknowledge our readiness to serve something higher than ourselves. It is the ultimate rebellion because instead of rebelling against something/someone, We the People are rebelling to God, to decency, to Truth, to Love, to Kindness, to Trust, to Service, to Compassion, to Forgiveness, to Being Right Sized, etc.

It is also a moment for We the People to gather ourselves with like-doing people, people for whom taking a leap of faith is secondary to “taking a leap of action” as Rabbi Heschel calls upon us to do. It is a moment for We the People to appreciate the “roads less traveled” that We have taken, the help we have received from another, taking the time to thank the people who have helped us along the way once again-there is never a better time to remember all the aid and comfort, help and guidance We the People have received in order to be able to stand in this place, in this moment, in front of the mirror, in front of God, in front of one another. It is also a moment to remember doing the next right action is not for anyone but oneself! Of course it helps another human being, of course it brings us closer to God, to the Universe, AND the action is taken so an individual can better live with her/himself. I am thinking about the resentments I have had when I was doing the next right thing and another(s) were not, they got what they wanted and I was ‘stuck’ taking care of business, how these resentments fueled my criminality and alcoholism. OY, I am experiencing such remorse right now, AND I am experiencing such JOY because I have let go of these stupid resentments, I do the next right thing because IT IS THE NEXT RIGHT THING-without much expectation of any reward and I always get the knowing in my kishkas, my gut, that I am okay in the moment I am doing the next right thing and the afterglow of this as well.

Knowing how we live in proper measure, how we do Tzedakah because we should, taking the actions needed to live a full, holy, joyous life all come from the Bible, all are spoken about in the Torah, by the Prophets, in the various books of Psalms, Proverbs, etc. While many of We the People proclaim they are past religion, they are beyond the need of the Biblical Commandments, they are humanists, I have great fear of people who are unwilling to surrender to anything, anyone other than themselves! Hence the importance of doing this part of our inventory. This is the balancing principle so We the People do not get so down on ourselves for our “missing the marks” or so uninterested in seeing our part in each and every action/aspect of life.

There is much talk about self-esteem, self-worth, etc and Knowing, Acknowledging, Proclaiming our actions that have helped another(s), our following the commandments to serve, to care for, to be in truth, to “pursue righteousness”, to “do justly”, to “love mercy”, are very impactful and lasting ways to see our worth, to build up our esteem as well as see the same in another(s). We the People must do this part of the inventory in order to NOT give in to the LIES of the Bullies, not do a clean up of the CRUELTY of the fundamentalists, those ‘good white christian male nationalists/supremacists’, those ‘fine upstanding defenders of torah, bible, orthodox/far right jews who kill people in the West Bank with impunity’! Action Step: do this inventory so you can take  action against those who do not do the next right thing.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 116

Staying on misappropriation, We the People are being called to understand it is crucial to make a plan as to how to use our time, our wealth, our energy, really every resource we have.  Am understanding the way of the prayer a little differently right now, once we establish We the People are guilty, with these last two ‘sins’, we the people can get into the myriad of subtle and not-so-subtle ways We the People are guilty and of what, how, when we are guilty.

Upon arising, We the People give gratitude for another day, or at least that is what we are ‘supposed’ to do according to the Rabbis and it is GOOD for the SOUL to do this. Then what? Some will say we wash our hands, eyes, etc and then begin to meditate so we can prayer with intention. Another(s) will say, wash up and eat something, read some spiritual texts to get our intentions correct, still another(s) will say: awake, wash up, eat your breakfast, talk with your spouse, significant other, kids, then go to work. There are a lot of formulas for what We the People can do upon awakening. As I hear the words of this prayer in this moment, Gazalnu, comes to remind me that without a set routine, without a path to getting my being into the moment, I will be lost and flailing for the entire day-I may get shit done, it may even be important shit, it will be done with a misappropriation of energy, time, money, etc. I know this to be true because I have suffered from this experience TOO MANY TIMES!! Talk about not learning from one’s mistakes!

The routine that makes me the best I can be in the moment is: Wake up, say the Modeh Ani(gratitude prayer), make coffee, do my games to wake up my brain and get my eye/brain coordination in working order, do the Crossword of the NY Times, read the News Headlines, sit down to write. I am more keenly aware of not misusing my energy and time as I get older and I realize that I am still falling short. I spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME on my devices, I do not exercise enough, I have to not misappropriate the food my needs as opposed to the food I want. I obsess over the things I have no power to change and keep searching for ways to change the things I should. Looking at myself and this prayer is causing me to re-think and find a new plan of action to lessen my misappropriations which always leads to the lies I tell myself and the obliviousness of my existence!

Immersing ourselves in this ‘sin’ gives we the people the experience of asking “what are the important activities of my living”, “what is my plan to let go of the extraneous bullshit that I engage in which stops me from these important activities”. “How is my misappropriation of time and energy keeping me away from fulfilling my purpose, my calling, my soul’s joyousness, my intuitive mind’s knowing?” When We the People ask these questions, we find ways to “return again” to our proper place, we find the necessary actions to end our misappropriations. It is so important to realize the societal norms that push us into the ‘sin’ of misappropriation also. Without doing this step, it just seems ridiculous to delve this deeply into these subtlety disastrous behavior! Without being “maladjusted to” societal norms and mental cliches, as Rabbi Heschel exhorts us to be, what I am writing about could very well seem like the ravings of a lunatic-I get it.

When I was young, I would rave about the misappropriation of money, time, energy, etc happening in the world around me and the world in general and people would tell me “children should be seen and not heard”, my mother shushing me is a vivid memory-not to say I was in any way appropriate, mind you. I was maladjusted and had not heard, read, nor been supported by Rabbi Heschel in those days. I believe the societal norms that my father, z”l, was adjusted to, sort of, hastened his death.

Money is a BIG misappropriation, when I was young, “if you had money you were somebody, if you didn’t, you were nobody” was the belief, now this belief is on steroids and being played out all over the world. We the People have allowed the misappropriation of money to run and ruin our lives. We have made the rich and famous idols, we have elected them to the Highest Offices in our Land and are watching them misappropriate their energy to getting richer, being more cruel and meaner, hating the stranger, kicking the poor and the needy, while they claim to be “fine christian nationalist men and women”, “observant and Torah studying Jews”, “devout followers of Islam and Mohammed’s call for peace”! AND, the question in front of all of we the people in this moment is: Do you misappropriate your money by spending too much on things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like? Are you hoarding your money like a miser and not doing Tzedakah? Have you spent way too much time  on stupid shit and not attended to the call of your soul? What are the ways, things, energies, etc you engage in misappropriation? These are the ACTION STEPS-answering them for yourself, I know I am much better about money-giving away 12% of our income, not spending frivolously, better about time management and not so good still about devices, exercise, etc.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 115

We the People have less that 20 days to get our shit together before the BIG DAY, before Yom Kippur comes to ask us, what have you done to make things right from last year, what have you done to see a different path to take because the same situations will challenge you over and over again, what have you done to repair relationships that have frayed-not so much from harms rather from not attending to them? These questions and more are being asked of we the people on Yom Kippur and the 40 days prior give us the moments to respond to them with concrete solutions that We the People have taken and are implementing. This is what the 3rd word of the Ashamnu Prayer points us to, I believe, when we confess that We the People, the ‘regular folk’ have misappropriated our time, our efforts, our money, stolen time, money, dignity, etc from another(s).

This is another of those pesky ‘sins’ that happen without any thought, without any planning often. When we say “tomorrow” we very well may be misappropriating the moment we are in, the needs of another(s), and, since we have no idea what tomorrow brings, it may not happen then. I am GUILTY as charged AND getting better-need more work on this and maybe that is why I am writing on this pesky ‘sin’ now:)! When we spend money to show off and don’t give the Tzedakah we can, misappropriation is on full display, when the taking the time to sit with someone in need isn’t ’convenient’, when being ‘too busy’ is a constant excuse/refrain, when “why bother” is one of the first responses we have to a challenge like being moral in an immoral society, misappropriation is running rampant.

This pesky ‘sin’ is asking/demanding that we the people stop making stupid excuses for our unabashed desire to “get what we want no matter the cost”. While Daniel Farragut supposedly said “Damn the Torpedos… full speed ahead” during the Civil War, it is not a blueprint for how to live in civilian life, it is not a path to follow for wholeness, for decency, kindness, love, justice, etc. Rather, this ‘sin’ is calling out to we the people because the belief that We the People can change, can do things differently, can care for the needy and poor, can love the stranger, can do justly, love mercy, follow in the ways of God is strong, is flashing in Neon Lights during these 40 days (and at other times as well) calling us to believe in our own capacity to change, in our own capacity to return to the soul we are created to be!

We the People have, as my friend and teacher Rabbi Ed Feinstein said last night on a podcast he and I are doing on Change, Heschel and Forgiveness through the Melton Program and you can sign up for the next two Tuesdays at 7PM Eastern, 4PM Pacific time, “we regular Yidden don’t do ‘bad things’” to which I responded in abject disbelief that “regular Yidden” could believe this bullshit and these lies. This is the heart of misappropriation, believing that “I don’t’ do those things, I am not like those people” and other similar lies, ways to soothe our consciences, our deep-seated beliefs that there is “something wrong with me”, that “I am defective and everyone else has it together”. Being a practitioner of these lies, being called out as “one of those people”, helped my misappropriation of time, energy, my money, allowed me, gave me permission to lie, cheat and steal. They gave me a community of people to hang out with that were not helping me raise my spiritual life, shall we say, and these same people took good care of me.

T’Shuvah, for me is not just repentance, this time is not just about making things right, it is also about returning to my original state, to believing that each morning when I wake up, I truly notice the cleansing of my soul that took place overnight, that the returning of my soul to me by God is a show of compassion, faithfulness, love, AND knowing I can end many of my misappropriations, many of the thefts that I commit by not being me, by not hearing you, by not seeing you, by hiding from myself, by refusing to take the mantle God has put on my shoulders, by not seeing myself as the worthy, dignified human being I am. I have bought into the societal lies, I have forgotten to be maladjusted at times and these actions have brought hurt, guilt, betrayal into my life-all done by me because the people who instigated these actions were just doing their thing, in their own blindness, in their own deafness, it is I who has to stand up for me, it is I who has to say NO to misappropriations!

ACTION STEP:

Make a list of the myriad of ways you misappropriate and your plan for doing one grain of sand better each day

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 114

TONIGHT begins a 3-part series on Change, featuring Rabbi Ed Feinstein and me. To get the zoom link, please go to the Melton Website and join in with us as we talk about Change, Forgiveness, and this Holy Day Season

Staying with the Ashamnu Prayer, in order to have a true picture of our Self, we the people have to look at the ways we have stayed TRUE to our Principles, our Values, our covenantal relationship with God as told to us through the Bible, the words of Jesus, the path of peace of Mohammed, etc. This is an interesting dilemma for me, because if someone’s principles are to rape, rob, pillage and they continue to do this-are they staying ‘true’ to their ‘principles’? There are many of we the people who do this and proclaim their congruence and wrap themselves in the flag of Freedom.

Of course this is not what is meant by staying true to our covenantal relationship with God, no matter what the Lying, idol-worshipping, money-grabbing, land stealing, ‘religious people/clergy’ say! When I am speaking about staying TRUE to principles, values, God, I am speaking about the ones we find in the Bible, in the words of the prophets, in Jesus’ ways, etc. In other words, I am talking about loyalty to something greater than our own self-interests, realizing that serving God, Truth, Love, Holiness, kindness, loving the stranger, caring for the needy and poor, etc are the foundation of a “good life”, a Godly life, a Spiritual life. Seeing the ways We the People have lived into these is crucial for our mental, physical, and spiritual health as we begin the final stretch towards Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is 20 days until YK and 10 days until RH, it is TIME TO BEGIN to see ourselves in our entirety, to realign our whole selves into Holy-selves, to repair the mistakes we keep making over and over again-both wittingly and unwittingly, with great reasoning and with lazy reasoning.

Our political, business principles are proud of their lying, their money-grabbing, their “care about the stockholders”, the lobbyists who bribe me, etc Ethics and Principles while proclaiming their love of Jesus, their adherence to the Bible, and being DEAF to the words of the prophets, ignoring the powers of compassion, forgiveness, judgment, kindness that are so overwhelming in this moment. To those of we the people who believe fervently in the misuse of the Bible, the misuse of Jesus’ words, the misuse of the Koran, We the People must have a new response to! It is not the response of going to the other end of the spectrum, it is not the response of hatred and disdain, it is not the response of seeing them as less than human. I hear the words of Jesus ringing in my ears right now: “Forgive them for they know not what they do”. While forgiveness cannot be granted until someone asks for it, makes their amends, etc, letting go of resentment can happen and this is one of the principles of compassion and kindness that is so prevalent right now. Letting go of the resentment is in line with the prophets’ continuous call to “return” to “heal your backsliding”, to knowing our fallibility, our imperfections, our vulnerabilities and GOD WANTS US BACK! We the People cannot return while holding onto resentments, holding onto hatred for a person, “hate the sin, not the sinner” as the New Testament says, “love your enemies” as the Bible teaches.

Looking at the myriad of ways we have stayed True to the principles and values that God holds dear, that the Bible speaks about reminds us, as does this week’s Torah Portion, Nitzavim, to CHOOSE LIFE! This moment in this month of Elul, in this year of 5786, the 20th day of 40, gives us the gift of seeing our WHOLE SELVES and, just like when we received the Torah at Sinai, just like when the entire Bible was complied and codified, We the People when we SEE our WHOLE selves, can make more informed choices as to how to CHOOSE LIFE in each and every situation, knowing we are prone to messing it up, making mistakes, and repairing them quicker, lessening the mistakes and their severity each year.

I have been doing this ‘work’ of Elul for the past 39 years and, like every other year, I find the same mistakes, the same ‘missing the marks’ rear their ugly heads and I get frustrated with myself. The biggest difference is I know it is me, not anyone else, who causes my errors, causes my betrayals, AND causes my Loyalty to God, to Principles, using my Prophetic Inheritance and Voice better each year. I still am outraged at the Desecration of God’s Name that is happening impunity!! I am still bewildered at the lack of truth that is rampant in the world today-I think maybe more than at any time and I could be wrong. I am worried for my grandson, my grand-nieces and nephews that the world I am leaving to them is so much worse than the one I inherited. I also know my siblings and I are leaving them a legacy of decency, of principles, of standing up for what is right, what is true, what is holy.
ACTION STEP:

Write a list of the principles you hold dear and how you have lived into them this year.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 113

BEGINNING TOMORROW, Rabbi Ed Feinstein and myself will be doing a 3-week program for Melton on “Can We Change, Heschel, T’Shuvah and Beginning Again”. The link is available on the Melton Website-hope you can join us!!

Another, more subtle way of ‘missing the mark’ during the month of Elul and the 10 days of T’Shuvah is to not acknowledge the positive side of the ledger. Using the Ashamnu Prayer, the opposite of guilt is, according to AI, innocence, clear conscience. I believe the opposite of guilt is to acknowledge the good. Having the ledger sheet of what we the people are guilty of, We now take another sheet of paper and write at the top: Things I did well and then who was helped, how they were helped and how can I inhale these behaviors in the coming year.

I say this is a subtle way of ‘missing the mark’ because the emphasis is on our guilt and not always on the entirety of our actions in this past year. It is also hard for many of We the People to truly acknowledge and revel in the good we do because it seems braggadocios, conceited, etc. In reality, it is an awareness of the goodness that is in our guts and the Holiness we engage in each and every day. Guilt makes us point the finger at ourselves rather than at another and doing good makes us point the finger at ourselves in a different light-without Both, we always have a distorted picture of who we are, what we are, and live inauthentic lives.

This time of year is crucial in the quest of We the People to live more authentic lives, to live into the Individual Call from Sinai, like when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, each had their own experience of God, when they stood at the base of Mount Sinai, each individual had their own experience of receiving the 10 Sayings, so too do each of We the People have an individual and unique experience of the Call from Sinai happening each and every day. The Call is constant and, acknowledging the good we do, engaging in the gift of T’Shuvah, allows us to hear the Call that is just for us, as individuals as well as a human race.

Looking at the good we have done is also important for us to know the path to correcting the guilt, the harms we have brought. It is an educational as well as spiritual lesson, it teaches us to stop berating ourselves for our imperfections, to realize and rejoice in the myriad of ways we rise above pettiness and pride, envy and enmity, to be giving and humble, to appreciate what we have and let go of senseless hatred. Looking at the good we have done also gives is the gift of being able to KNOW that We the People do know the next right action to take in any and all scenarios.

While we spend a lot of time in the negativity of our leadership, especially the weak-kneed, ass-kissing Republicans in the Congress and the Narcissistic Grifters in the Executive Branch, and the cock-sucking members of the Supreme Court, all of whom are seeking to end our Democracy and install an autocracy; looking at the good allows us to see the good that so many of We the People are doing-from Bishop William Barber to John Pavlovitz, from Najuma Smith to Elliot Cosgrove, from Maria Shriver to Oprah Winfrey, from Steven Spielberg to Robert DiNiro, from you to me!

Looking over the past year(s), I can focus on the negative that I have done and that has been done to me AND, while I don’t ignore it, I choose to focus on the good I have done, the lives I have touched and the generosity of spirit I have been shown for the past almost 40 years-beginning with Detective Jim Bashira who arrested me in Dec. 1986 and started me on this journey. This is a terribly important choice that We the People make each and every day. Of course the people who raised us, our parents, made mistakes, of course the teachers we had failed to see who we are and accentuate the gifts we had/have, of course our employers don’t see the importance of the work we do whether it is keeping the place clean or inventing the next great thing for them to patent. Yet, this is not what is important-what is important is that We the People know the goodness we show to another(s), know the goodness we receive from the universe, not need to have a tit-for-tat relationship, not need to keep score, not need to judge ourselves NOR another(s) on our/their worst actions. What is important is our ability to forgive another for their errors just as We the People want forgiveness for ours. I have been forgiven by God each year and by most of the people I make T’Shuvah with and the rest, I accept their unwillingness to reconnect, to resew the fabric of our relationship and am sad AND not in excessive guilt! Knowing the good I do allows me to feel empathy for those who have harmed me and for those who are unable to forgive, to reconnect.
ACTION STEP:

Write down the good you have done and who/how another was impacted.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 112

The second word of the Ashamnu confessional can be translated as “betrayed”. In thinking about this and speaking with Harriet Rossetto, my brilliant, amazing, wonderful wife, partner, best friend, she asked “what about shame” when she read Friday’s post. In the afternoon, on the way home from Bridge, where we played very poorly, I realized shame is the greatest betrayal of self and of God. We are made in the image of God, how can we be in shame? While embarrassment is part of the Bible, Adam  and Eve hiding after eating the fruit,  Noah and Canaan, Abraham allowing Sarah to send Hagar and Ishmael away, Jacob’s worrying about how he will look to people after Levi and Simeon murder the men of Shechem, etc, no place is shame a punishment nor a producer of better behavior! Yet, society has used it forever to ‘keep people in line’ and made it an internal experience coming from not being perfect, from doing the ‘wrong thing’, from ‘missing the mark’ rather than using the guilt I wrote about on Friday to improve. There is never improvement from shame; as John Bradshaw wrote: “Guilt is for what I have done, Shame is for who I am”. Hence-there is no Shame when We the People remember we are created in the Image of God!! On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we will recite the Avinu Malkeynu prayer-declaring We the People to be the subjects and the children of God, acknowledging our God-Images, another opportunity to shed the shame that has trapped us, that has been weaponized against us by the bullies, by the autocrats, by our parents, etc. When we buy the shame another(s) is putting upon us, we are betraying God’s belief in us, we are betraying our self, which is the opposite of what this month, what living a life of faith, what Yom Kippur, Passover, Shavuot celebrate: freedom from shame, connection/reconnection to Authentic Self, to God.

I am thinking about the myriad of betrayals we the people commit on a daily basis-from our sales pitch which leaves a lot of stuff out to our going along with people to ‘get ours’, to not be harassed, to not be laughed at, to not be shamed by another, to our need to “accuse someone else of that which you are guilty of” as Goebbels so wonderfully taught people who are wanna be Fascists and We the People are experiencing on steroids in this moment. The betrayal of the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Amendments to the Constitution by Trump, et al is not unexpected, he told us as much in his campaigns, that the Supreme Court has supported his CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, both legal and spiritual against our founding documents, the spirit of the Revolution of 1776, is what is truly unbelievably betraying and bewildering. That these ‘god fearing’ ‘good christian men and women’ can betray the words and deeds of Jesus, can go to church and preach/pray words of love while doing actions of hatred, immorality, is astounding AND a Betrayal of their Oath of Office as well as a Betrayal of their proclaimed ‘love of Jesus’ which is, in reality, a love of self, a love of the “money-changers in the Temple/White House”.

On a personal note, We the People are being called to look inside of ourselves, to look back over this past year(s) to realize the betrayals we have committed, betraying our authentic self, our moral fiber, our principles, the values of the Bible, the dignity of another human being as well as our own dignity. This is one of the hardest parts of the Ashamnu prayer-this deep dive into the betrayals we the people commit without even realizing they are betrayals! Especially the betrayal of parents to children by shaming them, by speaking to them in ways they cannot understand-going against the wisdom of Proverbs. This, which is a societal norm, has caused the greatest amount of grief, of self-doubt, of negative rebellion over the millennia as has the shaming of teachers to their students which runs a close second to that of the parents. The use of God to punish, shaming someone for not knowing, is a tremendous betrayal of our obligations to “teach our children well” which is not just a song, it is a commandment.!

I have been obsessing over the betrayals I have committed over the years and realize the biggest betrayal was allowing myself to become a caricature of me, giving into the ‘role’ I put myself into and another(s) put me in. I have done my part and, as with other amends that have not resulted in any form of reunification, I am powerless over the result and just have to do the work. This is the beauty and wonder of T’Shuvah, it cleans the soul of the one doing it without needing anyone to accept it-God does and We the People can move forward without shame and knowing we have repaired the guilt that we incurred, with an eye and plan not to do the same thing again. I miss the people who have betrayed me and not made any effort to heal the rift and pray for them, wish them well, and send blessings to them. To Heather, Harriet, Neal, Sheri, my family, to the people who still stay in touch, who have accepted my T’Shuvah, THANK YOU!

ACTION STEP
Make a list of your betrayals, make amends to self and the people harmed.

God Bless, Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 111

BEGINNING THIS TUESDAY, Rabbi Ed Feinstein and myself will be doing a 3-week program for Melton on “Can We Change, Heschel, T’Shuvah and Beginning Again”. The link is available on the Melton Website-hope you can join us!!

On this 15th Day of Elul, halfway into this month of preparation, this month of introspection, this month of rigorous honesty, of fearlessly searching our self for both actions and motives behind our actions, good and not good, it is important for We the People to take a moment and realize that “this is the day Adonai has made and let us rejoice in it” as the Psalmist says. While this is part of the Hallel Prayers said on Holidays, new moons, it is something to say everyday, I believe. Saying it reminds us that what we have is today, what we are able to do, especially during Elul, with this day is move forward in our inventory, move forward in the repairs we have to make, move forward in “the things that should be changed” as Reinhold Niebuhr writes in the original Serenity Prayer, move forward in our enhancing our better angels to be more present and a little louder when our not better angels are screaming in our ears.

Elul and the entire High Holiday Liturgy remind us that we the people need to take care of our stuff as soon as we realize there is stuff to take care of. None of us know the day of our death, it says in the Talmud, and from this Rabbi Eliezer concludes since a person should do T’Shuvah one day before his/her death, she/he should do T’Shuvah every day. During this month, when compassion, forgiveness, kindness, truth, love are so overwhelmingly present that they INFECT everyone (almost) We the People are being called home, called back to the soul we were created to be and to live our lives by surrendering to God’s Will, not the will of the people ‘running’ religions today, not the power-hungry, money-changers that are as prevalent, if not more so, then in the time of Christ, in the time of the Prophets!

To do this, is to immerse ourselves in the different prayers and I am going to use the Ashamnu prayer, the confessional prayer we say on Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur. “We are guilty” is a confession that most people are unwilling to make, many of us plead “No Contest” rather than admit our guilt which is, in my opinion, one of the reasons that MENDACITY is so present in our everyday way of being. It is the reason so many people upon hearing the T’Shuvah of another(s) are unable to forgive them because they cannot, will not see their own part in the interactions that led to the harms. It is the reason so many people refuse to reconnect with the ‘guilty’ party because then they would have to be responsible for their part. Hence, I believe, the Rabbis made this prayer in the plural, because if everyone is “guilty”, it doesn’t sting too much. BULLSHIT on the Rabbis not ensuring on the Holiest Day of the Year in Judaism that WE THE PEOPLE, individually as well as collectively take responsibility for that which we the people are guilty of. Were they afraid of their own guilt overwhelming them?

BTW, guilt is a GOOD thing, it is a positive experience and emotion. It proves that one is not a sociopath, a malignant narcissist, that we the people have not lost our humanity, WHEW! It is also something that is used as a weapon by another(s), it is used by we the people as a weapon against ourselves by indulging in it, by believing our worst actions define us, by accepting that we are worthless and don’t deserve to breath the same air as ____. This is the worst weaponization of guilt we can do to ourselves! It renders us defenseless against the onslaught of negative thoughts, negative rejoinders by another(s), and it makes doing T’Shuvah, being forgiven seem like a bridge too far. This was an issue for me for a long time, one of the reasons I did not even try to change, one of the reasons I was hopeless.

Learning about the power of T’Shuvah, learning it from Maimonidies, Heschel, the Talmud changed all of this. It is not enough that I ask Adonai for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, I have to ask you for forgiveness each time I screw up! The difference between when I was hopeless and did not try to change and now is that I KNOW change is the only constant, that change is possible, doable and I am not worthless, I am not a piece of shit, I am a human being and being human means I revel in my guilt because it causes change, it brings me closer to my own authenticity, it allows me to grow. Guilt has nothing to do with shame, I am not ashamed to be Mark Borovitz, I actually “rejoice in it”, as I do “in this day that Adonai has made”!

ACTION STEP

Write down your “guilts” and rejoice in repairing and changing them!

Each day, declare: “This is the Day God has made, I will rejoice in it”!

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 110

“And the sign said, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sound of silence.” I love the ending of this song because it encapsulates the experience of Elul through Yom Kippur for me. We the People read the words of the prophets each day, the words of the Psalmist, we are able to see them in the faces of the people we love and, if we are aware, focused and attentive, in the faces of those we do not love. This is one of the many challenges of these 40 days from Elul till Yom Kippur.

Of course, greatest challenge for We the People is to SEE! To see “the words of the prophets” that are written wherever and whenever there is poverty, injustice, enslavement, cruelty, money-grabbing, power-hungry individuals who want to take away our FREEDOM, as the Pharaoh did so long ago in Egypt, as the horrific Kings did after King David, and in both of the kingdoms that splintered after Solomon. Hence, “on the subway walls and tenement halls”. Yet, the place We the People fear most and ignore, block our ears to, is “the words of the prophets…whispered in the sound of silence”. Thinking about this phrase, I realize just now that if we the people stay busy enough with housework, homework, work itself, TV shows, movies, even books, then we the people don’t have to deal with “the words” that are “whispered in the sound of silence”.

Knowingly or unknowingly, Paul Simon used his prophetic voice in creating this song, in giving us the gift of a roadmap to how to live into this month of Elul. We the People on the other hand, for the most part, are afraid of “the sound of silence”, we keep refusing to hear “the words of the prophets”, we refuse to take in, to revel, to learn from, to change our ways that “the words of the prophets are written” compel us to do, so we the people continue to not SEE. How terribly frustrating for the “Freedom Riders” among us, how tremendously infuriating for the “People of the Book” who take these “words” to heart and act upon them with focus and attention. Yet, as long as society continues to ‘reward’ the hater, give ‘power’ to the oppressor, practice injustice and favor the rich and powerful, the autocrat and the dictator, NOTHING WILL CHANGE!

I am totally enthralled with this song, always have been and never delved into it in this depth. I keep wondering how we the people, including myself of course, have kept “the words of the prophets” from our hearts, from our souls and kept them at bay while reading them each week, each month, each year. It is, without question, one of the great conundrums for me. To listen to them beg we the people to return to God, to do T’Shuvah, to care for the poor and the needy, to love the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt and, before the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph arose, treated we the people very well! To read of their undying love for both human beings and God, in the same moment, to remind God of the Covenant and to scream at We the People to honor the Covenant is both spiritually uplifting and breaks one’s heart.

This last phrase, “whispered in the sound of silence” reminds we the people to STOP being afraid of “the sound of silence” and, instead, listen for it, hear what “the words of the prophets” so We the People, both individually and collectively, can move forward towards our destiny-to live the life each and every one of us is created to live. Listening to “the sound of silence” allows We the People hear the call of our soul, to hear the cry of the needy, to hear the love from the stranger who believes being here is being saved, to listen to the wisdom of the universe, and to understand “the words of the prophets” in today’s world, to meet the challenges of today armed with their strength and wisdom, with the confidence that We the People have joined God’s army, are fighting for what is RIGHT, JUST, MERCIFUL, LOVING, KIND, and HOLY!

I was afraid of “the sound of silence” for a long time because it kept telling me that I was better than my worst actions, that I did not need to keep the lies I was telling myself going, that I needed to return. “The words of the prophets….whispered in the sound of silence” scared the hell out of me. In these past almost 40 years, what scared me the most, brings me the most joy. What I ran from-my true self-is what I run towards. What I purposely misunderstood, I now am maladjusted to. I continue to read and re-read “the words of the prophets” so I can grow in knowing my soul, knowing what God wants from me. I continue to listen to “the sound of silence” because it is now a comfort place for me, to learn from my errors and to rejoice in the ‘wins’ I get to do for another, for God. This is the joy of “the words of the prophets written…whispered in the sound of silence”!

ACTION STEP:

Set aside time each day to read “the words of the prophets” and to hear, listen understand what is being said in “the sound of silence”

God Bless, STOP Ghosting God, STOP Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 109

“And the sign said, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sound of silence.” This is the last phrase of the song, Sound of Silence and I have only 2 more blogs left on this song for this month of Elul this year. I want to begin with the first phrase: “the words of the prophets are written”. These words have been written for over 2500 years, these words have been read, spoken, chanted, spoken about by religious leaders, paraphrased by Jesus. Jeremiah tells us, the modern day descendants of the prophets, to: “Have no fear of them for I am with you to deliver you, declares Adonai”. Yet, We the People seem to have ignored this command, we the people seem blind to “the words of the prophets are written”, deaf to: “declares Adonai”, and unwilling to take the action these words have called us to for the past 2500+ years.

This is the theme for me today, what is that stops we the people from reading what is “written” in the name of the prophets? What is that prevents we the people from taking in what our ears hear each week in Synagogue, in Church? What is it that gives us permission to ignore “the words of the prophets”? This is the conundrum that has faced humanity from the time of the prophets, since the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and the Israelites from there scattered across the Assyrian holdings, since the destruction of the 1st Temple and the exile to Babylon, since the destruction of the 2nd Temple (we Jews were not smart enough to heed them even after the experience of exile and destruction!), even since the 1878 year exile from the land of Israel! It is the conundrum that Christians and Catholics face as well, when they proclaim that Jesus is their savior AND live antithetically to his teachings of love, of caring for the stranger, the poor, the needy, of justice for all, of freedom for all, of throwing the money-changers out of the Temple while the loudest of today’s so-called christian clergy, like Joel Osteen, Franklin Graham, et al are all about the Benjamins, spending money of homes, cars, private Jets, etc, and preaching a prosperity gospel that Christ never did!

This is the time to GET RIGHT, people. We the People are called in this month of Elul, in this period leading to Yom Kippur to open up our eyes, to lift up our eyes, to SEE what truly is, not some ridiculous societal norm that has been put in place precisely to ignore the “words of the prophets”! The gift of this moment, of this month, of this period of time is the Divine Compassion, the Divine Pathos that fills the air, that is in the water we drink, the food we eat, because everything is being called to Judgement Day and everything is afforded the Divine Compassion and Pathos, the Divine Mercy and Forgiveness that the Rabbis have spoken about and written about. This is NOT, however, granted without work on the part of We the People, this is not given because we want it. The Grace we receive in this moment, this time of the year is based on our willingness to READ “the words of the prophets written on the Subway walls” and ingest them, allow them to nourish our spirits, our souls, our inner life, using them to make our rational mind the servant it is intended to be rather than the Pharaoh it has become for some so they can put into servitude the rest of us.

The prophets kept trying to tell the people WAKE UP! Their words and actions are trying to do the same for we the people and we are no more willing to hear, to listen, to understand, and to take action of their words than our ancestors were and we  call ourselves smart! That we the people continue to refuse to heed “the words of the prophets”, that we the people continue to follow the false prophets/autocrats who say what we want to hear and then do the opposite once they are in power, is UNBELIEVABLE, yet true:(!

It took me 36 years to truly imbue “the words of the prophets written” in the Bible, on the walls of a prison cell, in the innermost chamber of my heart. In these past 38+ years of imbibing in their words, in hearing their call, in following their direction, my life keeps being immeasurably better. I keep seeing the world through their eyes, aka the “eyes of God” more and more each year, I keep realizing the errors of my past in new light and see the goodness I have sown and the reciprocity of generosity I receive and the awe, wonder, radical amazement of people I have counseled, helped in their recovery, provide services to so many people in need, give their wisdom and knowledge, their “Torah” to another(s) so more people can bask in “the words of the prophets written”. What a joy and honor, a privilege and a responsibility to be a descendant of the prophets and spread their message! How Blessed are We the People to do this!!

ACTION STEP
Read “the words of the prophets written” in the Bible and make a plan to carry out their call to action

Call down the forces of compassion and grace by doing a little more of your inventory today

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 108

“And the sign flashed out its warning” part of verse 5 of Sound of Silence is so maddening to me, as I sit here 62 years later remembering the teen-ager I was at the time, remembering the social justice advocate I was and my family was. I am pissed off at myself for losing sight of “the sign flashed out its warning” throughout my ‘lost years’, throughout my addiction to alcohol and criminality. This song represented hope, power to the people, and an resurgence of prophecy that filled me up and then I got deflated by Vietnam, by the lies of people, by the race to have the most toys, etc.

Here we are, in 2026, “and the sign flashed out its warning” again/still and we the people seem to be too blind to see it, too deaf to hear it, too egotistical, too enthralled with power, prestige, wealth and/or the search for same to heed it!

What is it about humanity that we the people are more apt to go along with societal norms that we know are wrong, go along with the mental cliches that hinder our search for knowledge? Is it really so simple as “don’t rock the boat”? I am one of those who did go along with the mental cliches and my response was being a criminal, not the best life path for a person. Yet, today, if one is a ‘big enough’ criminal, it is a great life path-ask Musk, Trump, Kushner, Lutnick, Bessent, et al. While they all claim to ‘love God’ the ‘God’ they love are two aspects of idolatry, of false gods: worshiping power and money! And what is even more egregious and infuriating, to me at least, is the safeguards of the Congress and the Supreme Court are silent, are acquiescing, are folding like cheap tents! Then, to top it off, enough of we the people still ‘believe in Trumpism’ while their savings are dwindling, the prices they pay for groceries, for gas, etc are going up and they do not have enough money in the market for its rise to really help them!

“The sign flashed out its warning” is happening every single day, it comes from the Voice on Sinai, it comes from the prophets of our time, it comes from the prophets of the Bible, it comes from the text of the Bible. We the People are being bombarded with “the flashing” and we keep ignoring it, we keep doing the exact opposite of the Call of “the sign flashed out its warning”, like Jonah. Yet, like the people who try and get over the tracks as the arm is coming down, the flashing lights are going off and they still think they can beat the train because whatever they are doing is so much more important than “the sign” that is flashing, we the people are continuing to speed by “the sign” because the societal norms we are trying to adhere to, the search for money, property, fame, prestige, etc are more important than hearing and understanding what is True and Real, we the people find ourselves in a situation where our Freedom is at stake.

I can hear Vought, Kushner, Lutnick, Miller saying to Trump: “let us deal wisely with them because they are stronger and more numerous than we”, just like the Pharaoh in Egypt. These people know their scriptures and are unabashedly not afraid to twist the meaning, twist the words, twist the text to fit their needs and too many of we the people are stupid enough, naive enough, spiritually immature enough, to GO ALONG with their bullshit! This is the spiritual bankruptcy that the month of Elul comes to repair.

“The sign flashed its warning” is what this month is all about. The flashing light you see is the call to regain our moral footing, to return to the state of being that is awareness of our place in the world, a return to the connection we have with Adonai, Jesus, Mohammed, higher consciousness, however one describes the Power Greater than Ourselves in the Universe. This “sign” has “flashed its warning” forever and we the people have ignored it from Adam and Eve through today. We the People seem to enjoy rolling around in a quicksand of our own making while the cure for what ails us is at our fingertips: RETURN!

I am infuriated, irate, bewildered by the state of affairs because I know the freedom of using this month of Elul to “get right with oneself” to RETURN to my essence, my spiritual core, to my community in new and better ways, to return to my place in the world with renewed energy and clarity, to take the reins of what I have power over and let go of the things I am powerless over. The inventory, the T’Shuvah, the asking for and granting of forgiveness that this month of Elul brings to me is exhilarating, uplifting, and  each year I live into being one grain of sand better and at a higher spiritual level again by one grain of sand. It is a simple action of being real, of seeing the truth of one’s soul and living into it a little more this coming year.

ACTION STEP:

How are you ignoring  “the sign flashed out its warning”?

What do you gain from this ignorance?

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 107

I have been thinking about and living into the “Sound of Silence” song, thinking about when it was written, the poetry of it, the power of it and, in this last verse, the foresight of Paul Simon in realizing the “neon god” that “the people bowed and prayed to”. While I wrote about this on Friday, I am still thinking about it today. Given the news, the lies, the grift, the destruction of our democracy in favor of a ‘more powerful executive’ branch that no longer needs Congress’ approval to spend, to make or break treaties, to decide whom our allies will be, etc, the “neon god” of Trump is getting larger and larger in some circles, and I am at a loss as to the reason for this.

We the People are well aware of the consequences of being one who “bowed and prayed to the neon god they made”, it is resplendent throughout history, the United States of America came into being because King George thought the Colonies should bow down and pray to him! Now, 250 years later, the Republicans, the ‘christian’ Nationalists, the White Supremacists, the Orthodox Jews, the seekers of money, power, and prestige, all have come together and are hellbent on taking away the Freedoms found in the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers found in the Constitution, the safeguards against a ‘king’ ruling our country found in the Constitution, the Rule of Law found in our Constitution, and, of course, the basic moral, ethical spiritual commandments of God found in the Bible, in the New Testament.

Psalm 121, verses 1&2 call out to me at this moment: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come” My help comes from Adonai, maker of heaven and earth”. I am calling out my colleagues in the Clergy to make this Psalm COME ALIVE in your hearts, in your minds, in your souls and spread THIS message to your disparate flocks, not the message of MAGA, not the message of BIBI, not the message of JEW/ISRAEL HATRED, not the message of ISLAMAPHOBIA, not the message of HATE THE STRANGER, not the message of TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ANYONE YOU CAN, ESPECIALLY THE POOR, etc.

Yes I am pissed! I cannot “stand idly by the blood of my neighbors” because God is calling me and you, all of God’s People to care for one another, to lift up the poor and the needy, to love and welcome the stranger, to see the Image of God in each and every one we meet. We the People, in this month of Elul, are called to remember that just as the writer of Song of Songs tells us “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine”. We the People are God’s beloved and, We the People are being called by Paul Simon, by the prophets, by the Psalmist, by the authors of the Bible, by the words of Christ to RETURN TO MAKING GOD OUR BELOVED! We can only do this when we REJECT “the neon god they made” and REJECT bowing down to and praying to the ORANGE IDOL in the White House, to the Puppet Masters behind the Orange Idol, to the fascists on both the right and the left!

It is so simple to return to our basic goodness of being, to return to bowing and praying to Adonai, to God, to return to the authentic self we are born to be. NOT EASY, just simple. It takes engaging in this month of Elul with great excitement, great seriousness, great anticipation, great trembling awe, and a great commitment to RETURN AGAIN TO THE LAND OF YOUR SOUL, as Reb Shlomo Carlebach teaches us in his song “Return Again”. We the People are given this gift of taking 40 days, the same number that it took to get the slave out of the People who left Egypt in the desert, to review, repent, rejoice, make our amends and our changes so we can reconnect, renew, resign our Covenant with God. This gift of Elul, of the 10 days of T’Shuvah, is also a mirror into our beingness, into our core, and it allows us to change from the selfish, unwilling, unwitting, witting ways we have fallen away from our authentic self, from God’s call, from our neighbors and from our Beloved.

Having engaged in this process for 39 years earnestly and in-depth, I can testify to the both the simplicity of the process and the difficulty of it. Looking back over my past each year, because I review the ways I have acted in the past to see if they need repairing based on new insights, is painful and exhilarating, embarrassing and exalting, enlightening because I keep taking new skins of the blinders I have worn and “Lift up my eyes and SEE” the beauty of living well, the horror of my errors upon another and my soul, the joy of repentance and learning new paths to living well, and the love of reconnection to people, to God because of making a T’Shuvah and accepting a T’Shuvah. What a journey this life is/can be.

ACTION STEP

Look at the Subtle ways you are still worshiping “the neon god you made”

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

This Blog, today, is dedicated to the life of ANNETTE SHAPIRO, Z"L

To ANNETTE, A WOMAN OF VALOR

Today’s Blog is dedicated to Annette Shapiro, z”l, who passed away this past Friday. Annette was, and to me, still is, a force to be reckoned with. She was the Grande Dame of Jewish LA and beyond. Her 78 year marriage to Leonard Shapiro is a marvel of love, of joy, of bearing unbearable sadness, and moving forward all the time.

While her accomplishments are too many for me to recount here, what I want to talk about is her soul, her energy that helped her family and so many of us, her ‘projects’, live lives so far beyond our dreams it still seems surreal. The love for her children, her extended family-about 150 strong- and the rest of us is too large to describe and through the pain of loss of parents, of relatives, of her son, David Shapiro, z”l, Annette kept on being a “professional volunteer”, a patron of the arts, a patron of the people. While Annette had her ‘professional self’ which she shared with everyone, which she taught to my wife, Harriet Rossetto, she had a personal self that exuded the same love for ‘her people’ that her ‘professional self’ exuded for everyone. When it comes to love, Annette was totally congruent.

I met Annette when she became President of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, the first woman to hold this position in the LA Jewish Community. She visited all the agencies that the Foundation awarded grants to and she came to Beit T’Shuvah down on Lake Street. What an experience, Annette was like blown away with the stories, with the recovery, and thought the building was a wreck, the neighborhood dangerous, all of which was true, and decided to have a resident whose parents were Holocaust survivors and she was a junkie come speak after hearing of ‘Lila’s’(not real name) experience of joy at her first Shabbat at BTS. That started a 30+year relationship that, for me, still goes on.

Annette was excited to learn my story, in fact Annette was a storyteller herself, she was a curious mind person-always interested in knowing another person’s thoughts, ideas and, when she felt necessary, “I have a suggestion” help for those she was talking to. Annette’s laugh was infectious, it was loud, it was joyful, it was heartfelt. Being a bit of a bull in the china shop, Annette always had a “suggestion” for how I could tone it down a little/actually a lot and we would laugh at my feeble attempts and agree that being me was more important than being political. Annette’s suggestions were like commandments for so many of us because they were delivered with the same love I find God has in the Torah/Bible and Annette was never judgmental in the years I was blessed to be in her orbit.

Annette wanted to see Beit T’Shuvah flourish and, when her Granddaughter needed our help, she called Harriet and we showed up. The first Shabbat Annette and Leonard attended was a trip. They hadn’t seen their granddaughter in a while, they were hurt and angry, Harriet did a session before Shabbat and then they experienced Shabbat under the Tent, with raucous singing, loud preaching(me) and gun shots noises filling the air. To say Annette was nervous, enthralled, bewildered, and excited is an understatement. Then, in a meeting where ‘normal people’, the Jewish Professional world was at, Annette announced that Addiction was a major disease in Jewish LA and, while her family member was not a drug addict, she had an addiction and it was Beit T’Shuvah that was helping her and the family. That did it, the rich and famous of Jewish LA began to trickle to our doors to get help in a Jewish framework for their kids, their spouses, their adult children. Annette and Warren Breslow began our Capital Campaign in 1998 and by 1999, they/we had raised $5million to renovate and inhabit a new facility in West LA where Beit T’Shuvah still is.

What Annette was to me is too hard to describe. She was a mentor, a wise elder, a friend, a confidant, a woman of valor. Annette taught me it was okay to be me, she had my back and when I was too far off the reservation, she would meet me, usually at Factors, and make her “suggestions” as to how I could fix it, change, etc. Annette and Leonard were regulars at Shabbat Services and Leonard would laugh and give Annette an elbow if he thought my sermon applied to her and they would laugh together. They were the example I have followed in my relationship with Harriet all these years. Annette was prim and proper and, when I told her she was “a stand-up broad”, Annette laughed, Leonard laughed and she hugged me saying it was the nicest compliment I could give her. Annette taught me/us to give more when adversity strikes, to do the next right thing a little more.

Annette Shapiro was my friend, while there was physical distance between us, while my action in Feb.2020 made it hard for their to be much conversation, spiritually we have always been connected and, speaking to her last week, telling her my/our love for her and the connection in our eyes validated this. Annette, forever grateful, forever loving, Mark

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 106

“And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made” is pretty remarkable given the times we were in when this was written, given that Vietnam had not yet exploded, it was in the aftermath of JKF’s assassination, and LBJ was working on the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Great Society. What keeps striking me over and over agin is Paul Simon’s ability to SEE what the rest of us couldn’t, to try and speak to us even though we the people were not hearing so well, to not be deterred by any of this, much like the prophets of old. AND WE THE PEOPLE still are not listening, still not touching the “sound of silence”, still bowing and praying to “the neon god they/we made”. WTF, PEOPLE!

Today is the 8th day of Elul, it is one week since we began this dive into our SELF, this exercise to STOP GHOSTING OUR SELF, to live into “the soul we are created to be” rather than follow the bullshit script we have made up for our self or the one that has been foisted upon us by another(s), by life. This is the choice and the opportunity that this month, really any day/week/month, gives us with the full force of forgiveness, compassion, mercy overwhelming every other spiritual force, even and especially “strict justice”. When we the people seek to be forgiven by making a “searching and fearless inventory”, as we say in AA, make the amends we can and must, then forgiveness is granted either by the person we have harmed and/or God. We the People are commanded to not hold resentments, to forgive easily, to welcome people back in our lives as we want to be welcomed back into the lives of the people we have harmed, as we want to be welcomed back into the Covenant with God after we have harmed, defamed, ignored, disobeyed God’s Will!

This 8th day of Elul is our “circumcision day”, it is the day when we have to “circumcise the foreskin of our hearts” as Moses commands us to do in Deuteronomy, just like we welcome the baby boy into the covenant on the 8th day-so too do we welcome ourselves back into the covenant as we engage in the work of Elul. On this 8th day, We the People admit our guilt for bowing and praying to “the neon god we/they made”, just as the Israelites in the desert built the Golden Calf. The difference, however, is the people in the desert were newly freed slaves and their leader had been gone for 12 hours longer than they thought he was supposed to be gone and were bereft that he would not return; We, however, “bowed and prayed to the neon god we/they made” not out of fear, rather out of blind obedience to ‘societal norms’, overpowering rationalizations to satisfy our greed, our lust for power over another(s), over women, over business, over other nations, etc. The unraveling of democratic norms in the USA, in Israel, the unraveling of basic ethical and moral tenets is the result of “the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made” and We the People are the only ones who can right the ship, can change course and the path to doing this is to use this 8th day of Elul and “circumcise our hearts” to serve God, to serve one another, to serve our authentic self.

The time this song was written was a difficult time for me, I knew my father was sick, his business was starting to fail, he was stressed and having another heart attack, and I knew the world was full of shit. I was having my Bar Mitzvah in 1964, so while Paul Simon was prophecizing, I was learning the Torah Portion for my Bar Mitzvah-appropriated named Lech L’Cha- go to yourself/for yourself…and be a blessing. I was speaking up and out and not being listened to except by my father who agreed with me and told me it was an uphill battle that society did not want us to win, the battle for ethical and moral behaviors, decency, being judged for the content of one’s character not the money in the bank, not the color of one’s skin, not the religion one practiced. AND, he was desperate that his son’s knew how to pray to God, to say Kaddish for his soul after he died. While I went and “bowed and prayed to the neon god they made”, the societal one of money, I knew it was wrong and have spent the last 40 years circumcising my heart over and over again because the foreskin is stubborn and wants to grow back. Today, on the 8th day of Elul this year, I am circumcised again, the ‘neon god’ of money, of needing to be seen, needing to be heard, is pretty much gone, I know I have enough and I am enough! I know that my prophetic voice will never reach the millions that Paul Simon’s has and that doesn’t make mine any less important, any more relevant than his, it just means that, following his example and the example of so many people I, Mark Borovitz refuse to bow down and pray to the neon god of societal norms and mental cliches anymore!

ACTION STEP:

Make a list of the “neon gods” you still bow down to

Make a concerted effort to “circumcise the foreskin of your heart” today

What fears keep you from being the authentic you

How are your false needs, your facades allowing you to be less than moral

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 105

“But my words, like silent raindrops, fell and echoed in the wells of silence”. These final words of verse 4 of Sound of Silence are reminders to We the People on this 7th day of Elul, this ‘Shabbat’, that compassion and mercy are in the air, they are so prevalent in the the spiritual realm at this time of year for this very reason-Don’t let God’s Words, the words of the prophets “like silent raindrops” fall into “the wells of silence” ANYMORE!

We the People are a week into this period of GRACE that God provides us so we can allow ourselves to be embraced and enveloped in “arms that might reach you”, and engage in the learning that Torah(the Teaching) avails to us, the learning and being that the entire Bible gives us freely. The question that is on my mind each and every day: “how am I taking advantage of the Grace that God gives me?” Not as an entitlement, rather as a gift that I am supposed to use in the manner, the intent, the spirit it is given in. God’s Grace during this month is for We the People to RETURN, to GET RID OF THE SCHMUTZ of this past year that is still hanging on to us, and to leave the “echoed…wells of silence”. Is this really too much to ask?

I am asking questions in the body of this blog because I am trying to make the point crystal clear: DON’T GIVE INTO THE SILENCE our RATIONAL MINDS KEEP TRYING TO OVERCOME US WITH! Don’t give into the noise of the liars and grifters of course and, as I am experiencing this Elul, this year, I realize the silence that is so loud, that is practiced by so many people is a Cancer that kills. It kills the connection between people, it kills the knowing “I owe” because of the aid and help, sometimes life-saving help, that a person did for me and I don’t want to be reminded of this fact. Silence, like cancer, kills the basic goodness of being that we all are created with, it kills the living into the spirit of God’s Will even though one is living into the ‘letter of the law’ and can rationalize the wrong-doing, the forgetting of the debts we owe, using ‘the courts’ to declare spiritual bankruptcy and believe our debts are discharged-WRONG!

Hence the NEED for this month of Elul! Each year the Torah is read from beginning to end, each year we read the call of the prophets, each year we celebrate the Holy Days, each year we succumb, hide in “the wells of silence” because we the people are too afraid to face Truth, to engage with “the person in the glass” as the poem goes. And each year, the gift of the Rabbis and Sages is this month of Elul. In Israel and in the U.S.A. the “wells of silence” are deafening, they are ringing in my ears and, I pray, in yours as well. This month, this “Shabbat” day of Elul is for us to regenerate our spirits, to gird our loins for battle with the forces inside of us and outside of us that want and depend on us living in “the wells of silence” so they/we can do the dirty work, the power grabs, the grifting, the taking of freedoms away from We the People. Another question: Are We the People going to continue to allow this to happen?

“An unexamined life is not worth living” according to Socrates and “an examined life is painful” according to Malcolm X and BOTH ARE TRUE. This is the reason, I believe, that the forces of compassion and mercy are so prevalent right now, to mitigate the pain(not erase it) and to buoy our spiritual knowing that we the people have to engage in examining our lives. I have been doing this since 1987, during the month of Elul and on a daily basis. I have found things from years ago that I just did not either think about or dismissed as okay ways to be. I send out my T’Shuvah and don’t worry about the responses. I keep repaying the debt that I have incurred over the years from the people who have and keep helping me to the best of my ability. I am sad that some of the people whom I have helped do not feel the same AND, I experience the reciprocity of generosity from so many different people, places, that the sadness is very small, and, in full disclosure, still there. While I have never done ‘sad’ well in my younger years, I am getting very comfortable with the experience and hold no resentments nor angers. I am just sad that so many people are so pathetic, in need of divine pathos, they cannot see the very actions they are taking would have meant their demise-Stephen Miller, et al and, more importantly, you and me. Elul gives We the People the opportunity to go back, to pull ourselves out of “the wells of silence”, to take “My words” and no longer let them “like silent raindrops, fell”. Rather take the “My words” as delivered by “My prophets” and use them to RETURN, to FIND YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF and jettison the FALSE SELF you have been reveling in and get out of the pig sty of jealousy, hatred, elitism, power-grabbing, money-grabbing, etc all to get out of the knowing YOU OWE! I OWE and repaying the debt is a joy and life’s mission for me, one I have continued to engage in to this day.

ACTION STEP: Make a list of how you fall into and play around in and pull yourself out of  “the wells of silence”

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 104

“Hear my words that I might teach you, take my arms that I might reach you” are, to me, Paul Simon channelling the call of the prophets, whether he was religious, whether he knew the prophets or not. My premise, as I have stated before, is that we are descendants of the prophets, we all have within us a prophetic voice and, in Paul Simon’s case, his voice comes out in his songs, in his actions as well.

On this 6th day of Elul, these words from verse 4 of “Sounds of Silence” are ringing loud in my ears, they are getting past the tinnitus that I suffer from and, again like Judah’s words to Joseph, going right to my soul. The beautiful, fearful, trembling, awesome aspect of Truth is that our souls know it when they hear it and no matter how hard our rational minds try to blot out the truth, our souls know it, store it, bring it up to us time and time again until We the People finally surrender to it. This is one of the objectives of the month of Elul, it is one of the goals of Yom Kippur: admit, relish, roll around in, and commit to TRUTH! Yet, as we the people continue to hide like Adam and Eve in the Garden, as we the people continue to lie as Cain did regarding his brother Abel, as we the people continue to turn to Golden Calves like the Israelites did, we the people continue to ignore the “words that I might teach you” from Moses that are in our Bible and continue to repel the “arms that I might reach you” even though we KNOW that only through the “outstretched arm of God” were we brought out of Egypt. What is our need to reject “my words” and “my arms” is the question God asks over and over, as I read the Bible, as I understand the prophets.

It is not modernity that has caused these problems, as I have listed above, this way of rejecting words of Truth, repelling arms that want to hold us, goes back to time immemorial, the question I have is, as Pete Seeger asks, “when will we the people ever learn”? I believe We the People are capable of learning, I know We the People are capable of changing, I also know how easy it is to reject the “words that I might teach you” because one doesn’t like the messenger, the “words” are inconvenient to the goal of fame, fortune, power, and the “arms” enveloping and reaching one will cause a total breakdown of the facade, of the masks we the people have been wearing. It is, once again, a battle between our rational minds and our intuitive minds.

This battle is well portrayed in the Talmud with some of the Rabbis trying to rationalize the irrational, by their very nature some of God’s commands in the Bible make no sense! Hence they are called statutes, commandments, yet, even the Rabbis of old tried to make sense of them rather than surrendering to the wisdom of God, rather than embracing the “arms that I might reach you” that God extends to all of We the People each and every day, that are even more wide open during this 40 day period. Every child wants to be held when they have a boo-boo, yet We the People are refusing God’s offer to hold us in “arms that might reach you”! WTF??!! It is unbelievable to me that I rejected being held for so long, it is miraculous to me that I finally surrendered to a power greater than myself and I allowed myself to be held and healed when I thought all was lost.

Jewish lore has it that God is calling out to We the People from Mount Sinai each and every hour of each and every day. The calls are AYECHA, where are you, SHEMA-hear, listen, and understand, and EMET- Truth. These words, like the words of the 10 Sayings/commandments, like the words of the prophets are all given as gifts because of God’s great desire that God’s  “words that I might teach you” will help we the people change into We the People whom have the same goals as God; to make the world a little better than when we found it, to speak truth to power, to care for the needy and the poor, to welcome and love the stranger because we were strangers in a strange land(for Jews this has been the story of our existence), to send up for Justice, to be merciful, to be compassionate, to pursue righteousness, to be a Mensch!

This is the path I accepted almost 40 years ago and I am still on it, I have NOT arrived nor will I ever. This truth is embedded in my psyche and, rather than give me permission to quit, it is the driving force to keep going on. I use these 40 days to Shema/“hear the words that I might teach you” and “take my arms that I might reach you” through hearing and experiencing God’s call as I did in that jail cell and to experience the joy of God’s embrace, even when I screw up! Being in Covenant with God means the “words” and the “arms” are never retracted, all I have to do is rejoin after I have gone astray.

ACTION STEP: Notice, make a list of the “words” that you hear and the “arms” that reach you which you follow and which you reject.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 103

“Fools, said I, You do not know Silence, like a cancer, grows.” This is how the fourth verse of “Sound of Silence” begins and it is entirely appropriate for this 5th day of Elul. We the People have an obligation to our SELF,  to take stock of the “cancer” that has grown within us, to see the ways we the people have allowed it to metastasize in our minds, our hearts, and how this “cancer” of “silence” is trying to enter our souls! While Jesus is quoted as saying: “Forgive them Father, for they do not know”, in the case of human beings, in the case of we the people, we can claim no such ignorance, before Paul Simon wrote this song, some 62 years ago, the Bible, the New Testament, Jesus, Moses, King David, the prophets all railed about “silence” in the face of inhumanity, “silence” in the midst of cruelty, “silence” while being surrounded by deceit, thievery, and deception. Yet, throughout the history of humanity, we the people, have lived in “silence”, in “quiet desperation”.

This 5th day of Elul 5786, when we are 1/8th of the way to Yom Kippur, is, hopefully, the day We the People  begin to fight our way out of the “silence” that has prevented us from living in the light, living in a way that is congruent with the soul we are created to be, living the melody of the inner life that is uniquely ours. This day, HaYom, can be the day when we realize that “darkness” is “my old friend”, not because of the depression one may experience, rather because “darkness” comes before the light of God, the Spirit of God in the creation of the world and, I posit, in all creations. “Darkness” is the signal that something new is at hand, that the chaos and emptiness We the People have been experiencing is over and our mission is to reach up, down, out, to the Ineffable One, to the soul of another human being, to the higher consciousness of our intuitive mind and experience the “Or HaGanuz”, the same Light that God says “Let there Be” and “there was”.

As long as we the people allow the “cancer” of “silence” to grow, as long as we the people spread this “cancer” to children, to family, to friends, to allies, to enemies, the “Light” cannot come through. Hence “darkness, my old friend” is crucial to our growing up and out, going through and reaching up to find God, to find the authentic self we are created to be-by no means perfect, by no means not having to do this next Elul, even the day after Yom Kippur, just that by making “darkness, my old friend”, we the people stop the “cancer” of “silence” from growing and metastasize! I believe this is the goal of Elul, this is the goal of the prophets, this is the goal of T’Shuvah; stop the “cancer” of “silence” from growing.

It takes many forms this “cancer” of “silence”, one form is denial in the face of proof, watching the video tape, the pictures of the errors we have made, the standing “silently” by the blood of our neighbors, offering our children up to the idol Moloch through helping them stay in “silence” of what they are witnessing, denial of the commandment to “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” because we want power, wealth, etc. The ways in which we engage in “silence” are too numerous to delineate here, We the People find new and inventive ways to rationalize to our Selves our “silence”, ‘what will the neighbors think’ is an old one that my father, Jerry Borovitz, z”l, once said: “I don’t give a damn”. And, as much as I love my father, he too fell prey to the “cancer” of “silence” and it might have contributed to his way too early death.

We the People do not need to suffer in this “cancer”, this 5th day of Elul, hell the entire month, the entire 40 days gives us the Grace, the Compassion to END OUR “SILENCE” and vanquish this “cancer” from our being. As the saying goes, “IT AIN’T EASY” and it is doable. The more We the People reveal our Self to our Self, the more comfortable we become living in our skin, the more we are willing to uncover the truths about our Self that we have been hiding from, tamping down, afraid of and unwilling to go and be with “darkness, my old friend”, that is healthy rather than the darkness that is debilitating, depressing, enraging, and causes us to hide more, to live in too many of the ways that we are commanded not to be! This is the difference between “darkness, my old friend” and the “darkness” of shame, of hiding, of blame, of fear. The difference is just being revealed to me as I write this. “Darkness” is not the problem, our use of it is!

Looking at my life through this lens, I am shuddering at my own ignorance of this distinction, even though I know that distinctions are necessary if we are to have a true and clear picture of what is, to fully live in radical amazement. I am more aware of the nuances and subtleties of “silence”and the “cancer” it grows because of today’s writing.
ACTION STEP:

Do an inventory of the “silences”  and the “cancers” within you

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day 102

Wow, this is the 4th day of Elul, the 4th day of the Rabbis demanding of We the People to take “a searching and fearless inventory”, as we say in AA, to see where we are in our lives, to check in and evaluate our progress, our retardation in living the life we created for. It is an exhilarating process and one that brings all of We the People to a place of humility, bringing us back to connection, to returning to our rightful place, to moving the ball forward on our life’s purpose and mission, bringing us to see our subterfuges, our lies, our mendacity, etc, as well.

In their song “Sounds of Silence”, Simon and Garfunkel point out the issue that faces us today, 60+ years ago Paul Simon was able to articulate what was happening in the USA and, unfortunately, still is. “People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never shared, And no one dared Disturb the sound of silence”. This is the month designated for all of We the People who continue to hide from “speaking”, combat “listening”, keep their “voices” quiet, and continue to “silence” the call of their soul, the demand of the Voice on Sinai each and every day. AND, We GET to end these self-deceptions, We get to return home this month, and We get to reconnect with self, with another(s), with the force in the universe! This is the GOOD NEWS!!

The rest of the story is: to learn how to engage in “speaking, listening”, sharing our “voices”, disturbing the “sound of silence”. This seems to be the issue that has haunted and daunted human beings since the time of Adam and Eve. The “sin” of the Garden of Eden was NOT eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, it WAS HIDING/NOT SPEAKING UP when God called out to them, it WAS not listening to God’s words and realizing they were not ready for this knowledge, It was the beginning of being controlled by “the sound of silence” rather than the sound of our soul. Unfortunately, this tradition is alive and well, having been fed and nourished all these years, in this moment.

We the People see this tradition in the advertising that bombards us, in the way the politicians talk, in the ways we ignore the call of the strangers, the needy, the poor, and in the silence we endure and keep as democracy is assaulted, the lessons of freedom are ignored, and the laws of common decency, the ways to BE HOLY, the words of Christ, the words of the Bible, are bastardized, this is the Hillul HaShem we the people are either promoting, participating in, going along with or fighting. It is not “those” people who are the problem, as Elul comes to inform us, it is We the People who are continuing to be afraid to “disturb the sound of silence”.

To “disturb the sound of silence” is to let go of the buttoned-up image we have created for our Self, to smash the idols we have so meticulously built,  to destroy the myriad of places where we hide from our truth, from speaking from our souls, speaking from our intuitive mind, listening to the Call of what is being said, not just the words, doing as Judah did with Joseph and letting someone “speak in our ears”. In our finding our authentic voice, We the People will once again write songs like Paul Simon, like “Sound of Silence” and our voices will rise up and be heard like the “shot heard around the world” and We the People will begin another revolution, the revolution of Freedom from the Bondage of Self, the revolution of Freedom to Speak TRUTH, no matter what, the revolution of Standing up for the Voiceless and Powerless, the revolution of Caring for the Needy, loving the Stranger, the revolution of NO-SCAPEGOATING, the revolution of “Becoming the soul you/I are/am created to be”, the revolution of Kindness, of Love, of Holiness, of Charity, of Justice FOR ALL, of Mercy, of RETURNING home.

This is what has happened, is happening to me because I made a decision to “disturb the sound of silence”. It is not an easy decision to make, I had to be in a jail cell for the umpteenth time in order to be able to be “listening” not just hearing, to “speaking”, not just talking, to not cover up my spiritual awakening with a return to “the sound of silence”. In these 39+ years since that experience, I have used the month of Elul to continue to “disturb the sound of silence” that keeps intruding in on me like a bad penny, keeps coming back and disguises itself so well that I am not aware I am in it until something shakes me awake, which the month of Elul always does. To the people who believe I heard them and did not listen, I am sorry, to the people who thought I was just talking and not speaking to them, I apologize, to the people who felt ignored because “the sound of silence” was controlling me, I ask for forgiveness for all of these ways I fell prey to.

ACTION STEP:

Make a list of the “sound of silence” you fall prey to, the times and ways you hear and don’t listen, talk and don’t speak, etc.

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Day101

“In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, there was emptiness and chaos, darkness on the face of the deep” gives We the People a clear vision of darkness that is NOT horrific, terrible, fearful. While Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel may not be “religious Jews” and they may not have been trying to write a spiritual song, the more I delve into this song during this month of Elul, the more I am seeing the influence of growing up Jewish in Queens in the shadow of the Shoah, in a family of Eastern European descent. Simon and Garfunkel remind us, that “darkness, my old friend” is true for many of us who, “in restless dreams I walked alone…when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night and touched the sound of silence”. While St. John of the Cross was the first person to coin the phrase: “dark night of the soul”, we encounter this experience throughout the Bible from Noah on. It is only since our “eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light” that We the People can hear the voice of our souls, the voice of God, the Call from Sinai, be touched and changed by the words of the prophets to “return”, because that “neon light that split the night and touched the should of silence” that was stifling the voice of my soul, the words of heart, the knowing of my intuition.

The “dark night of the soul” experience is documented throughout our history and I want to begin with Jacob, our ancestor for whom the Jewish People are named Israel, who had a couple of these experiences and, unfortunately, did not allow them to pierce his way of being entirely. In Jacob, we see the issue of not giving oneself over completely to the experience of having our “eyes stabbed by the flash of a neon light”, we see the result of returning to the “sound of silence” which the Bible documents both in the killing of the people of Shechem and when Joseph brags about his dreams. He has moments where the “flash of a neon light” reminds him of who he truly is, what his purpose is and how to carry it out AND, he can’t hold onto it. Moses, on the other hand, can and does!

Bill Wilson had this “flash” and, with Dr. Bob Smith, began, founded Alcoholics Anonymous, which has ‘saved’ millions upon millions of lives in these 91+ years of existence and, in full disclosure, I am one of their members. Steve Jobs, Louis Pasteur, DaVinci, Chagall, Mozart, Beethoven, and every creative genius in any and every realm of living has had a “dark night of the soul” where they realized how “touched by God” they are/were and saw the path of their lives clearly, in full color. When our “eyes are stabbed” it indicates the suddenness of awakening, the surprise of ‘seeing for the first time’, the trembling awe of coming face to face with our truth, our authentic self. Moses’s awe is well documented as is King David’s, yet, Joshua’s not so much, Judah’s dark night is shown and his change is also said out loud for all to see.

Johnny Mercer reminds us to “have faith or pandemonium liable to walk upon the scene”. He also calls out to We the People to “spread joy to the maximum, bring gloom down to the minimum” reminding us that both exist, just as Simon and Garfunkel remind us that both “the sound of silence” and “the neon light” both exist. It is up to We the People to decide which ones we are going to “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate”.

The same is true for this month of Elul, both our ‘missing the mark’ and our ‘victories’ are true, and, when we allow ourselves to be moved by the “dark night of the soul”, when we don’t hide from the brightness of the “flash of neon light that split the night and touched the sound of silence” We the People are able to grow into the souls we are created to be, as Thomas Merton teaches us. When we “have faith” the “pandemonium” that does walk along is less likely to overtake our life script, our life style.

I know this to be true, I know the trembling awe of the “dark night of the soul”, the overwhelming experience of “the flash of neon light that split the night” and forced me to hear the sound of my soul, the voice of God, the call of decency and goodness, the vision of WTF had I been doing up to now, I knew right and did wrong, I was a mess and finally accepted it and I knew there was hope, so I began to study, to pray and my faith shut the door on the pandemonium that my alcoholism, my criminality kept stoking. Life is “bumpy, bumpy” for me as Rabbi Ed Feinstein describes in “The Holy Thief”, and, with the vision from “the flash of neon light” that I still receive, it always will be.
ACTION STEP:

How have you responded to the “dark night of the soul” you have experienced

Do you follow up on your “flash of neon light that split the night” or leave it

How are you living in the “both” making informed choices rather than the “or” and feeling trapped

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

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

Ghosting God, Ghosting Self

1st day of Elul

Today is the first day of Elul, yesterday was announcing the New Month. On this first day, I want to share a few thoughts. Elul is the month prior to Rosh HaShanah, getting us prepared to start a ‘new year’, in a sense. Tishrei, the name of the month that Rosh Hashanah is in, is actually the 7th month in the Hebrew Calendar. It was replaced as the first month by the month of Nissan, the month of our exodus from slavery in Egypt. Now, 6 months after being liberated, 3+ months after receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, we are called to watch the video tape of the ways we lived in the past year(s) to see where we hit the mark and where we missed the mark. Hence, We the People are given Grace by God to repair the mistakes, enhance the goodness and make a plan for going forward, knowing we will always come back to this month, always watch the video tape, always repent, make a plan for restitution and repair, always see the goodness of being we are/live, and find ways to “accentuate the positive” while not being able to “eliminate the negative”, we can tone it down and “don’t mess with Mr. In-Between”!

Living “with mr. In-Between” could be the greatest of our ‘missing the mark’ because it means we are not willing to stand for what we believe, we are not willing to make a decision, we are not willing to leave our self-deception, our fear of ‘being wrong’, our fear of ‘having egg on our face’ and we are not willing to face God, to face “the person in the glass”. This is the tragedy of “mr. In-Between” and far TOO many of we the people are living here-hence Johnny Mercer’s song from 1944 is so relevant today. If Judaism had an English song to define, this one could be it. It encapsulates what this month of Elul is all about!

Putting this together with Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” is a wonderful beginning to do the work of this month, to engage in the joy of darkness, the power of “the positive”, the jettisoning of “mr. In-Between” and, toning down “the negative”. What is “the vision” that is “softly creeping” and “left its seeds while I was sleeping”? Is it the vision of one who believes he/she is above the law, is it the vision of one who believes they never have to make an accounting of their Soul, a Chesbon HaNefesh? Is it the vision of one who has determined not only that they know God’s Will, what Jesus really meant by his words, they KNOW they are ABOVE God, ABOVE everyone else, and so narcissistic that they can not see the forest for the trees? Is your “vision softly creeping” and “left” the “seeds” of self-rightness, of self-adornment, of self always being on the ‘right’ side of issues and actions? Is your “vision softly creeping” one that shows the goodness and the power of when you “accentuate the positive” and the devastation and power of destruction when you don’t “eliminate(tone down) the negative” and the indifference and evil that you help to perpetrate when you “mess with Mr. In-Between”? Is this what keeps you tossing and turning at night? If it isn’t during this month, then you are STILL HIDING from the Truth of your existence, the Truth of how you are Ghosting God, the Truth of how you are Ghosting your Self!

Sitting down with pencil and paper, with a blank sheet on the computer, iPad, Phone, any tablet you have is the beginning, it is the only path on which to begin this journey from the past to the present in order to be clean, clear-eyed, ready, and excited for the future. I know because I am still doing it, I have been doing it for the past few weeks, to be honest. I sent a T’Shuvah to people and heard Crickets back, I asked someone to forward this T’Shuvah to a whole bunch of people and was told nope, I get it, I am old news, the people I knew before, most of them don’t want to hear me, -while sad and a little hurtful, I get it and accept it-don’t like it and accept it. Someone over the weekend asked me the worst thing about my retirement and I responded with: “the phone doesn’t ring” and I had an awareness that doing what I did/do well means the phone doesn’t have to ring, I taught people how to fish and that is good enough. The people I owe amends to, I have offered the requisite 3 times and I am clean. I am tossing and turning in my sleep, according to my Oura Ring, so I am still looking at the video tapes of this past year and the myriad of ones previous to this year. It is ugly at times, it is joyful at times. I understand and experience “in restless dreams I walked alone narrow streets of cobblestone”. Cobblestone streets are slippery and uneven, which is what I/We are engaging in this month, seeing the slippery slope we went down knowingly and unknowingly. And, this journey We the People have to “walk alone” because the “narrow streets”  the streets of truth, of decency, of subtlety, of authenticity, of faith, of being Holy, etc. Each year, I walk these streets and, because of this practice, I walk these streets each day-to the best of my ability.

Action Step:

Begin a list of “the positive”, “the negative” and “mr. In-Between”

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