It is the season in Jewish tradition when the Haftarot of Admonition are read - those texts
from the prophetic voice that express warning and Divine displeasure with human
behavior characterized by injustice, greed, and neglect of the needs of the
poor, the orphan and the widow.
This morning, as our rabbi led us in thinking about the
nature of prophecy and the prophet, she posed two different notions of what a
prophet might be: one who “hears” the voice of God in an ecstatic state, such
that what the prophet speaks are the word of God and not his or her own. Such a person does not personally own the
words given to him or her to speak but attributes them to the Holy One.
A second notion posits that a prophet is one who engages
with HaShem -perhaps even wrestles with the Holy One, so that the prophetic
word that emerges is a collaborative effort between prophet and HaShem. Isaiah and Jeremiah, classical prophets,
might exemplify the former. Moses, who
interacted and engaged with HaShem as he sought divine inspiration for his
leadership might be considered an example of the latter.
Following her
teaching, our rabbi invited us to think together about who we might
recognize as a prophet in our time. As
might be expected, the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. was the first
mentioned. Others such as Vaclav Havel
and Nelson Mandela were also lifted up.
Even the often prophetic voice of Bob Dylan made the cut.
What seemed very clear to me as the discussion unfolded is
that we seem to always look for the “BIG” voices - the ones that move
multitudes with their clear seeing and their vibrantly amplified messages
calling for justice and speaking truth
to power. And yet, as I listened to our
rabbi and her rabbi husband speak, I saw even more clearly that the prophetic
voice is not always or necessarily the booming one. Both rabbis embody the prophetic voice as
they faithfully draw our attention to the ancient texts that are so pertinent
for us today. They consistently focus
our minds and our attention on the call of HaShem to live lives of holiness,
committed to justice, to equity for all, and especially for the poor, the
homeless, the hungry, those without adequate health care and those most
vulnerable to abuses in a systemically racist culture and criminal justice
system. They invite and help us to stand
with the prophets of old.
What struck me even more powerfully was that in their
faithful commitment to focusing our attention on the sacred texts, our rabbis
are in the process of cultivating a “prophetic consciousness” in each one of us
in the congregation, empowering each one of us to live prophetic lives in our
own spheres of influence.
This is, of course, a much slower and less dramatic way of
bringing human consciousness around to the place where it embodies the command
to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” But it is an inexorable force.
Like the slow and hidden work of the yeast in a beautiful
challah, the steady focus on the
prophetic words from the voices from our history shapes and guides our thinking
and action in a world that might conclude that the age of prophecy is long
gone.
As the day
progresses, I find myself wondering how much more quickly the age of “prophetic
consciousness” might expand if we each listened with sharper minds and ears to
what our rabbis and ministers and imams and priests might be trying to do as
they fulfill their own prophetic calling to expose the words of the prophets,
inviting us to fill ourselves up with them so that we, too, feel ourselves in
that great rushing movement where “justice rolls down like waters and
righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”
Vicky Hanjian
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