Something in the Torah that resonates with me over and over, is when Aaron, (the High Priest of Israel,) two of his sons offer profane rituals at the Tabernacle and are consumed by fire, and G-d tells Aaron words to the effect of:
You are not allowed to cry. You may not mourn. You are not allowed.
Israel as a whole could mourn for them, but Aaron was forbidden to. On one level that's like, holy crap, the dude just lost his sons! Have a heart, Lord! But it becomes more and more clear to me.
Aaron was the High Priest of Israel. Moses wasn't, Aaron was. And yes there were ritual purity issues relating to mourning, you don't bring death into the Temple, but I believe it's more than that.
We are told that G-d is a jealous G-d. He doesn't share. He is fiercely passionate, which may offend some people's idea of what god is supposed to be, but according to the Tanakh He is. Aaron was supposed to be the person who represents all of Israel before the face of G-d. He cannot have divided loyalties in his heart. G-d must have all of him. And these two men, who happened to be his sons, defamed G-d's holy place. As a father, his response surely must have been
"My sons! My sons are dead! G-d killed my sons!"
As High Priest, his response could only be "they have desecrated the holy Tabernacle and now they have died. If they had not died, I would have had to kill them myself."
And you see that story repeated in the lives of the prophets. People having to put their feelings aside, even their very acute feelings, to represent G-d. If something is dearer to you than G-d, He tends to point that out to you.
Jeremiah, he didn't want what happened to him. He wanted to be a family man. He didn't choose to spend life being spit on and warning people in vain against a fate that he knew was about to happen to them. Imagine that for a minute. You know that the Babylonians are about to open a can of whupass on your whole beloved nation, and your job is to warn them, in vain. Why? So that they have been warned. So that they have to actually make the choice to get annihilated rather than submit to what G-d was telling them. So that they could seal their fate, and Jeremiah had to be an instrument in that.
Jeremiah arguably didn't want any part of any of that. He wanted to settle down and raise a family and not be the object of ridicule and persecution. He was chosen. Which on the one hand is, OMG, you are a prophet of Almighty G-d. Pretty cool dude. On the other hand, in any kind of material terms, pretty sucky.
However not only prophets had to do the Aaron thing, putting aside love for nation and family and even the people you love most. The Torah states that even if your own brother or mother, even your wife or husband, entices you to the service of other gods, you must kill them (presumably legally according to the laws of ancient Israel, which means you would have had to have another witness besides yourself.) You yourself must cast the first stone to stone them to death. Your most beloved, you must pick up a stone in front of an angry mob with stones and throw the first stone at them which will result in their deaths.
That's hardcore.
That begins to show what it really means to put G-d first. Most people, even most believers, actually don't. I am not judging that at all, it's hard, and I do think that despite what I have said here so far that G-d really is merciful and doesn't expect people to make quantum leaps in holiness and godly focus. Like, try, try your best. That's the first thing, just try. If you can do baby steps, do baby steps.
But I think that if you do try, one day you may find yourself in the position where G-d says like He did to Aaron and to others, "I want ALL of you." No divided loyalties.
"You are MINE ALONE. You do not belong to other people, you do not belong to anything else, you belong to ME ALONE."
And do not imagine that is all cupcakes and ice cream, that there are no sacrifices. There are indeed incomparable compensations, but not without cost. Measure the cost.
And I am beginning to see what that is like.
You will become an alien on your own planet. You will be different. When you make contact with other people, it will be clear that they are not on that wavelength. I try to reach out to other people, this blog is me reaching out to other people. I don't want to be alone, a square peg in an ocean of round holes, any more than any other human being does. But this is my reality. I AM a square peg in an ocean of round holes. He is a jealous, an impassioned G-d, and He does not share.
“I the Lord am your G-d who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me."
~Exodus 20:2
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