Heaven’s Mistakes — What Was Heaven Thinking?

Heaven’s mistake? “… Creation, it turns out, is mostly revision — even in Heaven …” ~ Heavenly aside 🙂

After the Foreword’s (Part 1 of this series) divine confession … where Heaven admits it might have “edited itself into trouble” … we now enter the story proper …

The story, of course, is The Ten Commandments Reboot — where Gershon’s irreverent yet insightful vision earned the book the 2025 New Mexico Book Award for Religion & Philosophy, after also being nominated in Humor.

As the curtain lifts quietly on God’s own writer’s room — a celestial space where reflection meets mischief …

Gershon leans in with a half-smile: What the hell was Heaven thinking? … A question both comic and sincere.

Here, he lets the celestial narrator relive its earliest blunders — how omniscience became overconfidence, how a simple guidance turned into a cinematic blunder.

Gabriel drafts … Moses edits … and Beelzebub, the ever-present shadow co-author, offers unsolicited advice.

Through it all, laughter becomes revelation: divine fallibility seen not as failure … but as evolution in disguise.

Each fumble, each revision, each crossed-out clause, every misplaced tablet … part of a larger grace still unfolding …

That’s what awaits us in chapter 1 … but before that …

Let’s savor a small taste of Gershon’s humor and brilliance — brief excerpts from the Preface and Introduction …

Below are two short glimpses — Heaven’s memo and its follow-up apology — that set the stage for what unfolds next.

Preface

Dear Esteemed Member of the Mechanigencia,

Unless you are devoid of all conscience, ignoring a cry for help will come back to haunt you like a slice of forgotten camembert hiding in the back of your fridge. Should that plea come from a forever friend, you are inflicting a hurt only such a friend might forgive. How then, in spite of all my many misgivings, could I refuse just such a call from my oldest, most esteemed colleague? I could not, and this book is a testimony that I did not.

Over the millennia, my co-creator, buddy, and teammate has been known to you down there by such names as “God,” “Father Sun,” “Allah,” “First Cause,” “Father Sky,” “Jah,” “Great Spirit,” and even “Lord of Lords,” which is over the top IMHO. Up here we mostly just call It “SOP,” our affectionate nickname for “Source of Powers.”

Now you can call It “Yahweh,” “Elohim,” or “Adonai.” You can call It any of six dozen other names used throughout human history. But when SOP asks for help, you are wise to get your ass in gear and give it your all.

[…]

As far as SOP getting back into the work of creation, don’t expect any divine intervention aimed at repairing the damage humanity has inflicted on itself and Mother Earth. SOP has given an oath that this book is a final attempt at micromanaging the Humankind Project. My advice to you is to be willing for the divine intention herein to guide your personal wills, both collectively and individually.

This book attempts to make amends for Heaven’s mistakes with the Humankind Project. The ball is now in your hands. Try not to blow what looks to be your final chance.

Supreme Archangel Beelzebub
2024 (Earth Time)
This Side of the Galaxy

Introduction

My Dearest Children of the Humankind Project,

On behalf of Heaven, we wish to express our sincerest condolences to all of humanity for its most current existential crisis. We are sorry to inform you that this one is a real doozy, and the multiple calamities now facing you were not in Heaven’s original plan. Our intention was to have humans become our co-creators and the mature managers of Mother Earth. Much of the responsibility for this failure results from the unlearned lessons prepared for humanity by Heaven.

[…]

Offering you these potential course corrections reminds us of the hope Heaven felt when Saint Moses led those bewildered chosen people out of slavery. Hidden within humanity’s current dire circumstances is a golden opportunity. As dark as it appears, with all the seemingly impossible challenges now facing the continuation of your species, your individual possibilities are merely awaiting your awakening to them. You have what it takes. Please remember that the only sin is not using what is already yours.

Our comments are predicated on the assumption that humanity wants to survive. Heaven is crossing its collective fingers, hoping that enough humans begin actualizing the material contained herein before collective karma catches up with them. If just 10–15 percent of humanity were to use the blessings Heaven has bestowed—such as self-awareness, creativity, brilliant flexible thinking, intuitive knowing, remorse of conscience, compassion, forgiveness, and so forth—humanity on Mother Earth might avoid extinction. It couldn’t hurt.

In love, faith, and hope,
Source of Powers, CEO
2024 (Earth Time)
This Side of the Galaxy

Now … let’s step into Chapter 1 … where comedy and compassion share the same quill — and Heaven learns, once again, how to laugh at itself … where humor softens the holy, …

… and the sacred discovers its humanity … once again!

Heaven’s Mistake: What the Hell Was Heaven Thinking?

Illustration from The Ten Commandments Reboot — a glimpse inside Heaven’s creative process, where even the sacred sketches itself into being …

Divine Overconfidence : The moment omniscience blinks — pride meets its first self-awareness …

Heaven knows most of humanity is hardly concerned with the Ten Commandments. If you’re of a certain age, images from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film may float through your overstimulated mind. And for good reason. Ranking in the top ten of cinema’s surreal moments, Charlton Heston’s Moses is overcome by fear and awe, forced to turn away at the sight of a cartoon version of God’s fiery finger chiseling Hebraic letters into stone. Sad to say, that campy Hollywood visual has left a deeper impression in the popular psyche than whatever morality humanity was to have received from those words over three millennia ago.

DeMille’s depiction of Moses receiving Heaven’s alleged words may very well be burned into humanity’s imagination, but what really happened between Moses and Heaven’s representative, while somewhat heated at times, tended more toward the tedious. Had DeMille stuck to the actual historical script that played out between the real Saint Moses and God, you would have thought you were watching My Dinner with Andre in slow motion.

Heaven’s Fumble : The celestial slip caught on film — creation’s comic edit …

The content of Heaven’s original Ten Commandments would have taken up way more space than two teeny-weeny granite tablets could hold, even if we had used ten-point type. Which, by association, reminds us of that movie scene in the Mel Brooks parody History of the World, lampooning the DeMille/Heston depiction. Having received the commandments from Jehovah, Moses begins to announce that he is bringing fifteen commandments from God to the people but drops one of the three stone tablets on which they are written. Without skipping a beat, he tells them he has ten commandments. Even Beelzebub laughed at that one.

Just to show you how life imitates art, it just so happens that we did, in fact, present Saint Moses with fifteen commandments. Only we weren’t calling them “commandments” when he first received them. “Commandment” is such a harsh term, and we tried to dissuade Moses from using it. But Moses had other ideas and hated so many of Heaven’s suggestions that much of the text we gave him ended up on the cutting-room floor (in keeping with the cinema parlance).

All kidding aside, we are not faulting Hollywood for hyping up the drama. Can you imagine the constant pressure Mr. DeMille was under from studio heads to produce a summer blockbuster? Still, with all the omniscience available to us, all of Heaven scratched its collective heads over how badly Edward G. Robinson was miscast.

A Covenant Revised? The divine editor re-opens the file — laughter meeting mercy …

Sorry. Let us put our pet cinema peeves aside and refocus on what we were actually thinking and intending for humankind with what has mistakenly been referred to as the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are a direct result of the Hebrews exiting from captivity in Egypt. Calling it a harrowing escape would be an understatement. You may recall how the parting of the Sea of Reeds was critical to their freedom. What is not widely known is that in addition to the thousands of pursuing Egyptian charioteers who drowned, a goodly number of Hebrew stragglers had their last gulp as well—mostly the sick, lame, and aged, as you would expect. One can only part a sea for so long. Not only did we get a hernia from it, we actually pulled a groin muscle.

What with all the trauma, many of the Hebrew survivors were confused, some even suffering from what might be called PTSD in today’s terms. When you combine seven generations living as slaves on top of a very urgent exodus, dislocating them from the only home they had ever known, you can understand how the Hebrews lost their moral compass. They were a shadow of the chosen people previous to their time in Egypt. Both Saint Moses and the heavenly hosts agreed that a thorough revising of the original covenant made with them was necessary. What Heaven and Moses could not agree on were many crucial details we wanted in the new covenant.

The Birth of Commandments : The whole creative arc — from inspiration to revision to release …

We conferred with Archangel Gabriel and had him draft a kind of “Chosen People Covenant 2.0” that would consist of two documents. Of necessity, this version was a much more thorough document than the first one made with Abraham. In that original iteration, you may remember there was a simple circumcision clause imposed on each male child. Credit is due Archangel Shlong for coming up with that clever provision, which served two important functions. The sacrifice of snipping off foreskin brings real gravitas in being a chosen person. And at the same time, it helps to hold the Hebrews back from becoming too braggadocio, if you get my meaning.

In accepting our covenant, Abraham also understood that Heaven expected his tribe to be a righteous example for the goyim by always aspiring in thought, word, and action to live up to the human potential. And of course, in exchange for setting a righteous example, Heaven was to grant the Hebrews guidance and protection. But those were simpler times.

Subsequent to the exodus, Heaven needed humanity to have a much deeper understanding of what we expected from it. So we instructed Gabriel to create an instruction manual for humanity that would explain the inner workings of the human bio-machine. Titled “Humanity’s Quick Setup Guide for the Three Divine Gifts of Intelligent Awareness” (“the guide” for short), it was composed so humanity could develop the necessary capacities for becoming Heaven’s co-creator.

After drafting the manual, Gabriel churned out a second document containing a list of specific behaviors intended to keep the chosen people worthy of that moniker. Included in this document were the reasons underlying these specific behaviors. Originally called The Thirty Hebrew Edicts, Heaven’s editorial board complained it contained too much micromanaging. And rather than naming a particular group, we wanted a more generic title inviting all of humanity. Gabriel came back with The Fifteen Statements, the draft that we eventually presented to Saint Moses.

By far, the guide was the more important of the two documents. Without a knowledge of how to use the three divine gifts, humanity could not be expected to fully implement one or two mandates, let alone fifteen. Tragically, the guide was never delivered to the general public because Saint Moses withheld it.

Besides keeping the guide secreted away from the bulk of humanity, Saint Moses insisted on edits to The Fifteen Statements. He even went so far as to eliminate five of them altogether, which is how they came to be called the Ten Commandments. Saint Moses got his way because of certain editorial conditions we had foolishly allowed him. Being who we are, we have had little practice at compromise. The art of negotiation is not our forte.

Saint Moses contended that after so many generations of living as slaves, a newly freed people needed clear, bare-bones moral instruction. He insisted that “statements” was too weak a word. “Furthermore,” he concluded, “the Hebrews have lost touch with exercising their free will, let alone a will that is divinely guided. They need solid laws to give them a sense of certainty. They need very simple, straightforward commandments. Just tell them what to do and what not to do in no uncertain terms.”

We could understand the need for simple and straightforward, but who likes to be told what to do and what not to do? From our experience, certainly not the Hebrews. And those Kohanim and Levites? Forget about it. We were willing to compromise with The Ten Suggestions, but once again, Moses was insistent, so our suggestions aimed at stabilizing an entire nation of newly freed, not to mention traumatized, former stone quarry slaves came to be known to the world as “commandments.”

Having to endure Saint Moses’s extremely heavy-handed editing was humiliating. As you will see, his style of brevity was no-nonsense to the point of terse. Which is not to say that we did not need editing. Every writer needs a good editor, and we will be the first to admit that many of Moses’s changes proved helpful. He knows how to be concise, while we tend to give more context than is sometimes necessary. Such is the burden of omniscience.

And speaking of editors, as alluded to above, we have enough self-awareness to know that we cannot lay all the responsibility for our previous miscommunications solely on humanity’s lack of curiosity — nor on its inability to make sustained efforts at understanding. Some of our past misunderstandings with humanity lie with us.

Our tendency for excessive contextualizing can often result in giving too complex a picture for average human comprehension. Honing down our multifaceted perspective to a single-pointed message appropriate for the intended recipient has always been our challenge. That’s why we called on Supreme Archangel Beelzebub to co-author this project. Crafty beyond measure and conversant with the cynical attitude so pervasive in these times, we believe he has the language skills necessary for penetrating even the most compromised of human psyches.

Before giving you the repaired Ten Commandments, you need to become more than familiar with the material offered in the guide, which Heaven intended as a primer for all humans. Unfortunately, due to Saint Moses’s insistence, the guide has only been available to a very small circle of humanity. In it are critical instructions for a complete understanding of the Ten Commandments.

Be advised, these are the Ten Commandments before they were heavily redacted by Saint Moses and after Archangel Beelzebub helped recontextualize them. We’re both pleased with and grateful for how Beelzebub has kept the general intent of our original counsel while making it more accessible for the modern audience.

Be warned that Beelzebub also added his own brand of humor, which we often find overly sarcastic. But then, everyone has their shadow side, and given that Beelzebub is our shadow side, what did we expect from our evil twin?

Even with Beelzebub’s prodigious knowledge of humanity’s current schizoid state, there is no guarantee that our current collaboration will have the desired salubrious impact for which we hope. Let’s face it, we’re a bit late in the game, and humanity has demonstrated such poor management skills that Mother Earth is quickly losing her ability to sustain anything other than viruses. Not that we have anything against viruses.

Looking back at our original suggestions in the form of statements, it is embarrassing to see how defensive we were feeling at the time. Perhaps we were still beating ourselves up about leaving humanity to pretty much fend for itself soon after the creation. But in our defense, remember that we set you up in paradise — literally. We had not counted on how tempting that serpent was or the amount of greed contained in the human heart. All we asked of you was to leave alone the fruit of one lousy tree out of millions. But no!

In publishing these, our unabridged Ten Commandments, as well as the five lost commandments, Heaven is crossing its collective fingers for the transformation of Homo sapiens to finally be worthy of their self-assumed name, “Wise Humans.” But as has been alluded to, humanity is at the bottom of the ninth inning with no runs and no batters on. Time to step up to the plate.

Stay tuned for more … of Gershon’s other insightful and playful “takes” from Reboot …

All italicized text (except noted otherwise) below is from The Ten Commandments Reboot by Gershon Siegel and is published here with his generous permission.