Is Anyone Awake? What’s going on?
I sit quietly looking out at the calm of the sea and the stillness of the Shabbat morning in a small town below the mountains that divide Israel from Lebanon. All is quiet but my mind is agitated. Where is the G-d of Elijah? I can see the long ridge of Carmel in the distance and I wonder if the people are any different today than in the days of the prophets. There is a calm but what does it mean? Does it mean that a storm is just around the corner? I mean a Spiritual Storm…Is the world just taking a deep breath because almost no one knows what he or she believes anymore? The modern world…how is it different from the world of Elijah? Is there a God in Israel other than the Baals or the golden calf? Why is YHVH not speaking to Israel, or is He? Is it because most of us are not really listening? And what is it that has robbed us of our connection to the Almighty?
The reliance on leaders to be our spiritual connection has led the people to a condition where the Creator is a God twice removed. Removed because the leadership follows tradition and because the people trust the leadership as a connection to Heaven. Hashem’s Word is still seen as Holy but many of His people see it as a broken fountain that none can understand, perhaps even that it does not apply in the modern world. And the spiritual leaders are standing where they should not stand, as mediators between the people and YHVH or at least between them and the god they have created for themselves. The people for the most part do not know what is happening. Blinded eyes and deaf ears are not able to discern the truth of what is really happening in the world and what Elohim is saying for this generation.
The highest prayer is considered of value when it is offered during a pilgrimage to the grave of a famous sage or one of the esteemed “Fathers—Abraham, Yitzak, or Ya’acov.
Yet the Author of Eternity says: “am I a God at hand and not also a God in every place?” If indeed Hashem sees and hears our prayers, then why pray at the graves of those long dead? Does it give it a better WiFi connection to pray through the channel of the dead? Is YHVH dependent on decaying corpses?
Why can’t people pray directly? Why do they need books of prayers to express the deep desires of their hearts? Is it partly because through the ages the traditions of the Fathers have been passed down to the children and many of these traditions are not based on truth but on the myth and midrash that has been accepted as a replacement for the Tanakh? If the Tanakh says that the dead do not hear us nor know what takes place on the earth (see Ecclesiastes 9), then why believe that these same dead can do anything to impress Hashem to do something for us?
It seems that YHVH shakes his head in disbelief as he sees the multitudes of deluded souls reaching out to the same idolatry that led the ancient Israelites astray originally and led to our fathers and mothers going into exile. And the Creator does not change His mind. We hear that God does not speak to us directly anymore…hmm, well maybe we are tuned out to the message He is sending!
He calls in the stillness: “Who will speak for me to this people? Who will go for me to warn them that they may return from their sins and learn to hear and tremble at my Word?”
