The Contract

From: Yahveh, the Almighty
TO: His People
Re: Request to Terminate Contract

Dearly Beloved,

I got your recent message concerning your desire not to renew, sent to me with a litany of your complaints.

Why am I not surprised?  You people never stop complaining.  After I performed enormous miracles, rained plagues down on the heads of your oppressors, had Eygpt drowning, got you and yours all your 400 years of back-pay, set you on the road to freedom, what do I hear?  You want to go back to Eygpt because you miss the cucumbers... Please.  Anyhow, I'd like to remind you that I was the one who begged to terminate this contract.  Remember that little conversation with Moses where I suggested you cucumber lovers could go the way of the Egyptian first-borns?  Remember how Moses begged me to reconsider?  Like a true Jewish lawyer, you couldn't argue with his reasoning: What will the world think if I were to abandon the children of Abraham after the promise I made?  Well, as you can see, it worked.

I know, believe me, that it hasn't been easy.  Had I only known what I was getting into...  Here you are settled in the Promised Land, handed victory on a silver platter within easy walking distance of Milk and Honey, and all you had to do was fulfill your end of the bargain.  After everything we went through together (and by the way, who was it that refused to enter the Holy Land, whose spies said: We can't win? So that forty years in the desert thing... be honest.  I knew where I was taking you, you just refused to go.)

You set up these barbie dolls and start the barbie doll worship cult.  If I was the kind of being that got mad, I would have been mad.  Really mad.  Instead, I simply educated you on Mount Carmel, showing up your priests and their barbie dolls for being the weakest link, voted off.  But your repentance never, ever lasted.  Every single time I helped you out, kept you from disappearing off the face of the earth like the Hittites and Sumerians and Akkadians... you found another way to break the deal.

Let me remind you what the deal we had was all about: You were going to promote goodness, justice, compassion, kindness and peace on earth by keeping the laws in my international bestseller, The Torah.  In exchange, I was going to watch over you as my priests, making sure you had good housing, plenty of food, and the Land of Israel.

That meant acting priestly: not marrying out of the faith.  It meant getting married and having children.  Not eating pork or shellfish. Not cleaning your car radiator on the Sabbath.  Not eating on Yom Kippur.  Repenting of your sins.  Being charitable and honest and good natured.  Not ruining the environment.  Not running after material things obsessively, but only to the extent necessary to do good deeds and care for your family.  I'd like you to please look at your deeds and then count your blessings.

I've been much nicer to you than you've been to me.

Whatever your faults, I don't want to replace you.  I want you to shake up the world and right the wrongs.

So, unless you want the deal to be retroactive, that is for you to  go the way of all those who started out with you in history, breaking the contract isn't an option.

So how shall I put it to you?  We are stuck with each other  and in spite of everything, I still love you. You are my children, my beloved. I know there are still a few of you out there knocking on my door, despite all the terrible things happening to you. You remember to call on Me. And I hear you.  Believe me, my children, I'm listening. Whatever happens, we are in this together! Forever!

~ Submited By Naomi Ragen ~