 | How do we perceive the world – as it is becoming or as a projection of ourselves? How do we perceive the future? Do we see the future merely continuing a past or present, or brimming with possibility? A rare few among us – the prophets of old, and modern visionaries like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – get out of their own way, defy inertia and see a becoming world long before the rest of us can. Often society ignores them or mocks them. What if instead we listened and dreamed? |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Bo 5786 (2026)
Nobody qualified to be a prophet wants the job.
To be a prophet is to see what most cannot, then burn so hot with its truth that it commands to be spoken and shared come what may. It animates a prophet's life and sets them utterly apart from a world too often bent on continuing the same old ways.
A prophet is set on a collision course with what passes for leadership in a "same old" world. What a prophet sees and says is utterly not what was or even yet is, but something different. The "same old" already is changing, despite itself.
So threatening is a prophet to the vaunted status quo that, in response, a "same old" world and its leaders ignore, then mock, then fight.
Yes, we're talking about Israel's prophets of old – Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Micah and Malakhi (among others). And we're talking about the prophet of racial transformation Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the environmental prophet Rachel Carson, and others through the centuries who made history's headlines.
Other prophets are barely heard at all – yet spirit moves in them and records their words and foresight to rivet our attention that there is far more than we usually let ourselves see or hear.
Before this week's Torah portion, Pharaoh would not budge. He defied God's demand to "Let My people go." After all, despite the first seven plagues, Egypt was still alive and well thanks to slave labor, so why should Pharaoh change? In his world where might made right, where morality and ethics were only what he said they were, why should Pharaoh listen?
Now Torah adds that Pharaoh's own folks begin to speak back to him. Unnamed among his officers are ones who urge him to change course because, in their words (Exodus 10:7):
Bo 5786 (2026)
Nobody qualified to be a prophet wants the job.
To be a prophet is to see what most cannot, then burn so hot with its truth that it commands to be spoken and shared come what may. It animates a prophet's life and sets them utterly apart from a world too often bent on continuing the same old ways.
A prophet is set on a collision course with what passes for leadership in a "same old" world. What a prophet sees and says is utterly not what was or even yet is, but something different. The "same old" already is changing, despite itself.
So threatening is a prophet to the vaunted status quo that, in response, a "same old" world and its leaders ignore, then mock, then fight.
Yes, we're talking about Israel's prophets of old – Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Micah and Malakhi (among others). And we're talking about the prophet of racial transformation Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the environmental prophet Rachel Carson, and others through the centuries who made history's headlines.
Other prophets are barely heard at all – yet spirit moves in them and records their words and foresight to rivet our attention that there is far more than we usually let ourselves see or hear.
Before this week's Torah portion, Pharaoh would not budge. He defied God's demand to "Let My people go." After all, despite the first seven plagues, Egypt was still alive and well thanks to slave labor, so why should Pharaoh change? In his world where might made right, where morality and ethics were only what he said they were, why should Pharaoh listen?
Now Torah adds that Pharaoh's own folks begin to speak back to him. Unnamed among his officers are ones who urge him to change course because, in their words (Exodus 10:7):
| הֲטֶ֣רֶם תֵּדַ֔ע כִּ֥י אָבְדָ֖ה מִצְרָֽיִם | Don't you know that Egypt already is lost? |
Somehow, they saw what others could not, what even Pharaoh could not. The writing was on the wall. Change already was afoot. These unnamed prophets came to warn Pharaoh.
Pharaoh couldn't see – and wouldn't see. He was too set in his ways: he thought he himself was Egypt – like France's Louis XIV, L'état c'est moi ("I am the State"). He was like Jeremiah 5:21 says of us sometimes, having "eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear." After all, none is so blind as one who will not see.
Pharaoh couldn't see – and wouldn't see. He was too set in his ways: he thought he himself was Egypt – like France's Louis XIV, L'état c'est moi ("I am the State"). He was like Jeremiah 5:21 says of us sometimes, having "eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear." After all, none is so blind as one who will not see.
Dr. King had more than a dream: he had a prophesy. He saw the mountaintop, and knew that he himself would not live to see its peak. As a society, today we are still living into his dream – in fits and starts, sometimes despite ourselves, sometimes going backwards.
Dr. Carson's Silent Spring saw the ecological web fraying but saw hope if we change. Environmental progress since then has been thanks to Carson's beyond-her-time vision. We live in her vision today – in fits and starts, sometimes going backwards.
Pharaoh's officers saw that the world they knew already was over, and a new one already unfolding. There are such people today, whether or not titular leaders can hear them.
Notice that not all prophesies are dire warnings. Some see a far better world than our usual "same old" may believe possible. Even a reluctant Jonah redeemed the people of Nineveh.
We may think we know what's next. Conventional wisdom is a potent brew, but sometimes merely an intoxicant. We project our fears on the future, we clutch backwards thinking: what was, we believe, will continue because such is the way of the world.
But as the teacher of my teachers taught, nobody drives looking only in the rearview mirror. Spiritual life evolves a consciousness – a radical knowing – that more is possible. It is knowing that the gift of foresight is given as a fire that burns, a light that glows, a truth that is, a voice that is still and small yet deafening – and often inconvenient.
It is knowing that sometimes we don't hear, we don't see, we don't know.
What are we not hearing or seeing – perhaps within ourselves, perhaps from those who carry no title, from those who seem unnamed? What if we could truly absorb, and live, the words of Isaiah 43:19 – words our ancestors also could not fully absorb in their time. But maybe we can: maybe it's not too late to hear them now:
Pharaoh's officers saw that the world they knew already was over, and a new one already unfolding. There are such people today, whether or not titular leaders can hear them.
Notice that not all prophesies are dire warnings. Some see a far better world than our usual "same old" may believe possible. Even a reluctant Jonah redeemed the people of Nineveh.
We may think we know what's next. Conventional wisdom is a potent brew, but sometimes merely an intoxicant. We project our fears on the future, we clutch backwards thinking: what was, we believe, will continue because such is the way of the world.
But as the teacher of my teachers taught, nobody drives looking only in the rearview mirror. Spiritual life evolves a consciousness – a radical knowing – that more is possible. It is knowing that the gift of foresight is given as a fire that burns, a light that glows, a truth that is, a voice that is still and small yet deafening – and often inconvenient.
It is knowing that sometimes we don't hear, we don't see, we don't know.
What are we not hearing or seeing – perhaps within ourselves, perhaps from those who carry no title, from those who seem unnamed? What if we could truly absorb, and live, the words of Isaiah 43:19 – words our ancestors also could not fully absorb in their time. But maybe we can: maybe it's not too late to hear them now:
| הִנְנִ֨י עֹשֶׂ֤ה חֲדָשָׁה֙ עַתָּ֣ה תִצְמָ֔ח הֲל֖וֹא תֵּדָע֑וּהָ אַ֣ף אָשִׂ֤ים בַּמִּדְבָּר֙ דֶּ֔רֶךְ בִּישִׁמ֖וֹן נְהָרֽוֹת׃ | Here I am, doing something new. Even now it is flourishing. Don't you know it? Even if not, I will make a path through the wilderness and springs in the desert. |
And what if – as it was for our enslaved ancestors who at the end of this Torah portion went free despite all odds – the gift of foresight ... and helping it along ... is the ticket to liberation?
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