V'Zot HaBerachah: God is the Blessing

“And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.” (Deuteronomy 33:1)

We have said that the Creator is the blessing just by the fact that He is God, and all the blessings come from Him because He is good and all kinds of goodness emanate from Him.

The main manifestation of His blessing in His Creation is the Torah, which He bestowed on the children of Israel as the bearers of His goodness. Israel is the focal point, the axis in which God's Love for His Creation is anchored and expanded, as it is written in the Torah itself.

“Indeed, He loves peoples, all His holy ones in Your hand; centered at Your feet, bearing Your words. The Torah that Moses commanded us is [the] inheritance of the congregation of Jacob [Israel].” (33:3-4)

The Torah is our inheritance as legacy and identity for Israel to bear in the world.

We have reiterated time and again that the Torah is Israel's identity, and is our “Constitution” for us as individuals and as a Nation. We are blessed to be granted an identity from the Creator Himself for us to live, to fulfill and to hold as our greatest and most sublime blessing, from which all blessings emanate.

Are we fully aware of our inheritance? Do we really comprehend and assimilate our identity? These are the questions we must ask ourselves as individual Jews and as collective Israel. The answers begin by knowing the One who bestows our heritage and identity, as our highest knowledge of the Creator in our consciousness. This knowledge is the means to receive and live God's blessings, the Blessing He is.

In our individual and collective awareness of God's goodness we indeed are blessed. In this realization we recognize goodness in all that God created, as well as in ourselves, thus we can also be good and do good (see in this blog our commentary on Parshat V'Zot HaBerachah: “The Legacy of God's Love” of September 12, 2010 and “The Blessing of God's Love” of September 10, 2011).

God's blessings are as multidimensional as human consciousness is, and for Israel our multifaceted identity is comprised by twelve qualities, traits, talents and skills destined to bring up their highest potentials in contrast to the lowest potentials represented by the negative aspects of consciousness. In this context we understand and assimilate the blessings Moses gave to the Tribes of Israel before his death.

Let's recall that in our daily Jewish prayers, we bless the Creator for His blessings to Israel.

“Grant peace everywhere goodness and blessing, grace, loving kindness and compassion to us and unto all Israel, Your people. Bless us, our Father, all of us as one with the Light of Your face; for by the Light of Your face You have given us, Lord our God, the Torah of life, and love of kindness, and righteousness and blessing and compassion and life and peace; and may it be good in Your eyes to bless Your people Israel at all times and in every hour with Your peace. Blessed are You, Lord, who blesses Your people Israel with peace.”

No wonder this is the blessing to close the amidah, the standing prayer before God, because it encompasses all the blessings Israel receives from Him. We must remark that peace also comprises God's blessings for Israel. We have mentioned that the word shalom means much more than peace. It also means eternity, totality, wholeness, and completion in time and space. These are also the meanings of olam, usually translated as world or universe.

Let's note that the qualities indicated in this blessing -- goodness, grace, loving kindness and compassion-- are some of God's attributes revealed to Moses (Exodus 34:6-7), and contained in the Torah as God's instruction to Israel. Let's be aware that we received these blessings in order to be these blessings.

Let's bear in mind, soul and heart that there is no point to be blessed if we don't become the blessing. As we said above, the greatest blessing is God's Torah as our inheritance, legacy and identity.

We have to become and manifest who we are, our Essence and true identity which encompass the attributes the Creator wants us to integrate in every aspect of our life. These are Love's ways and attributes as the material manifestation of God's Love for us and all His Creation.

The most refined qualities with the highest potential for goodness are the foremost blessings.

“And of Levi he said: 'Your Tumim and Urim belong to Your loving kind man [the High Priest] (…). They shall teach Your ordinances to Jacob, and Your Torah to Israel; they shall place incense before You, and burnt offerings upon Your altar. May the Lord bless his army and favorably accept the work of his hands; strike the loins of those who rise up against him and his enemies, so that they will not recover'.” (Deuteronomy 33:8,10-11)

The priesthood is the guardian and protector of our inheritance, legacy and identity as the qualities that sustain the awareness of our permanent connection with God.

“And of Joseph he said: 'His land shall be blessed by the Lord, with the sweetness of the heavens with dew, and with the deep that lies below, and with the sweetness of the produce of the sun, and with the sweetness of the moon's yield, and with the crops of early mountains, and with the sweetness of perennial hills, and with the sweetness of the land and its fullness, and through the contentment of the One Who dwells in the thorn bush. May it come upon Joseph's head and upon the crown of the one separated from his brothers'.” (33:13-16)

In order to fully assimilate this blessing, we must recall Joseph's story and what he became for his brothers and the rest of his family.

Joseph represents the redeeming Love that transforms, unifies and harmonizes the negative lower aspects of consciousness such as jealousy, hatred, envy, resentment, remorse, judgment, distrust, fear, cruelty, indolence, indifference, negligence, violence and destructive thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts. Joseph represents the power of Love as wisdom, understanding, knowledge, truth, prevalence, honor, righteousness, and regency.

These traits are the blessing of life, as the land in which we dwell every moment; and they represent the sweetness from the highest levels of consciousness as the dew and rains from Heaven which are the contentment of the Provider of all blessings, the One who dwells in His own fire, His own Love.

As we receive the blessing and become the blessing, we realize our gratitude to God and we thank Him for the inheritance He has bestowed on us. This realization is the meaning of Judah, which means I will thank [God] because in our gratitude to Him we fulfill the destiny He wants for us.

“May this [also be] for Judah. And he [Moses] said, 'O Lord, hearken to Judah's voice and bring him to his people; may his hands do battle for him, and may You be a help against his adversaries'.” (33:7)

Judah's leadership as regency gathers and unites all Israel to fight the battles to enthrone the Divine Presence in the material world, and make all peoples know that God is King over all His Creation.

We must honor God's blessing by honoring the Torah as our eternal inheritance, legacy and identity.

“This book of the Torah shall not leave your mouth; you shall meditate therein day and night, in order that you observe to do all that is written in it, for then will you succeed in all your ways and then will you prosper. Did I not command you, be strong and have courage, do not fear and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:8-9)

Haazinu: We are God's Lot

This portion contains the poem or song that summarizes the relationship between God and Israel. The Torah defines this relationship as it has occurred throughout our past, as well as it is in the present and will be in the future. Again, the main obstacle for the harmonic fulfillment of our bond with the Creator is idolatry, the recurring subject that tampers our individual and collective awareness of our Essence and true identity.

Ego's fantasies and illusions as idols and wrong beliefs, ideologies, customs, habits and behavior patterns as false gods are the main obstructions for allow our consciousness to approach God and His Love as the Source of our existence. Our knowledge of the Creator is the awareness of who we really are because we all come from Him.

“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.” (Deuteronomy 32:2)

This awareness is the beginning to grasp God's ways and attributes, which are manifest in us as part of His Love.

“The Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are righteousness; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is He.” (32:4)

These qualities are part of our consciousness as long as we recognize Him in us, instead of thinking we are the result of ego's foolishness.

“Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not He your father that has begotten you? has He not made you, and established you?” (32:6)

If we live by our fantasies and illusions, we will die by them. This is the equation of “cause and effect”, and “what goes around comes around”. The good news is that God's faithfulness to us is unshakable and unbreakable, unlike our unfaithfulness to His ways and attributes.

“Is corruption His? No; His children's is the blemish; a generation crooked and perverse.” (32:5)

We know that we are not perfect, and we will never be because we live in an imperfect reality which we have distorted with false conceptions and wrong perceptions. The world may appear perfect by itself, but no the way we relate to it. Nature, as perfect as it may be is not always kind, benign and pleasing as we want it to be. Harsh winters and summers, wilds beasts and inhospitable environments, to mention a few. No wonder the first gods and idols of primitive peoples were the indomitable forces of nature, animals and trees, long before they started to look up to the sky for higher powered entities like the sun and the moon. Then our “blemished”, “crooked” and “perverse” ways are clearly the false idols in which we become. 

Our blemishes or defects are the false beliefs and feelings of lack, of being incomplete. This is the kind of mentality that we can't elevate to the God who is complete, sufficient and enough, who created us in His image and likeness. He doesn't settle for less, and He commands us not to settle for less. Our offerings (what we are in all dimensions of consciousness) to Him must be unblemished, complete, full, enough and sufficient, because He created us with those qualities and attributes.

We are talking here about human consciousness, not physical appearance or traits. Our crooked ways are the negative approach to ourselves and to life when we can't fulfill ego's materialistic desires out of a belief or feeling of lack. Lack makes us take what is not rightfully ours, and to say and do what trespasses individual and collective boundaries of respect for other people's property and rights.

Perversion is our denial of any ways aimed to correct and redirect our discernment, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts towards Love's ways and attributes instead of ego's negative fantasies and illusions (see in this blog our commentary on Parshat Haazinu: “Listening to God's Love” of September 5, 2010 and “The Sheltering Love of God” of October 2, 2011).

This is the practical approach when we discern what is God to us. We know Him through His ways and attributes, which are manifest in the material world as Love's ways and attributes which inherently possess righteousness, justice, fairness and goodness as part of the ethics of Love. In this context we grasp the question “Is corruption His?”, because Love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes, and does not deal with iniquity, evil, and their crooked and perverse ways.

These are the blemish that separates us from Love as the Essence and true identity that establishes our connection with God's Love, because Love is our common bond with Him. We must reclaim and embrace our true identity.

“For the portion of the Lord is His people, Jacob the lot of His inheritance.” (32:9)

This is one of the greatest statements in the entire Torah: We are God's portion! Do we have any idea at all of what this means?! Let's wake up and shake up the fibers of every dimension of our consciousness, and arouse our hearts and souls to the One who calls us His portion!

What is God's inheritance? Let's take a look around once again and see His Creation. Then look at what impregnates His Creation. Yes, His Love that proclaims the magnificence of all that is. That is the lot that He gives us, because He loves us. He made us inherit His Love that forms and sustains His Creation. God's Love is our lot, and is also enough. In this awareness there is no room for anything less than that, because there is no room for less. Unless we create the blemished, crooked, and perverse illusion that God is not enough, and run after gods and idols that exist only in our imagination.

Once we start believing in them and feeding them with the Essence that sustains our life, we fall in the fatness of the illusions we created.

“But Jeshurun [Israel] waxed fat and kicked, you did wax fat, you did grow thick, you did become gross; and he forsook God who made him, and despised the Rock of his Redemption.” (32:15)

King David recalls for us God's Love as our inheritance.

“For You are my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord does lighten my darkness. For by You I run upon a troop; by my God do I scale a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield unto all them that take refuge in Him.” (2 Samuel 22:29-31)

We are God's lot and inheritance, and the awareness of His Presence in our lives is our Redemption. Let's wake up to Love as our Essence and true identity, and through its ways and attributes let's return to God's Love as our Redemption. Amen.

Vayalach: God's Love is Enough

“And Moses went and spoke these words to all of Israel” (Deuteronomy 31:1) Our Sages say that Moses went to each and everyone of all the Tribes of Israel, and impregnated in them part of his soul. They teach that there is a spark of him and his connection with God that live in every Jewish soul. We have said often that Moses achieved the highest knowledge of the Creator and His ways and attributes, hence he represents such knowledge in our consciousness. 

At this point in the Torah's narrative we can understand that one of the reasons of his absence in Israel's crossover the Jordan river is to teach us that we must cleave to our own individual knowledge of the Creator in order to maintain our personal connection to Him. Moses refers to this in the following verses, reiterating what he has been emphasizing throughout the last book of the Torah: “The Lord your God, He will go over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shalt dispossess them” (31:3)

In the awareness of His Presence in our life we are truly free, and in this freedom there is no room for the nations represented by ego's illusions and negative traits derived from a false belief or feeling of lack. These are the nations that are destroyed before the Divine Presence. In other words, when we let go ego's illusions and let God, He indeed erases them from our consciousness. We start the process by letting go what we don't need in our lives. This letting go is our willingness and determination that we renounce to anything different from Love's ways and attributes. At this point we are letting God's Love to come in and occupy the space we allow in our consciousness for Him to dwell in us. His sole Presence dissolves negative traits, patterns, additions and habits that separate us from His ways. We have to take the first step and invite God back in every aspect and dimension of life.

Let's insist that ego's fantasies and illusions exist out of beliefs and feelings of lack. If Love's ways and attributes are always with us, what can we lack? Love, as a material manifestation of God's Love, is enough by itself and there is no lack in it. God is enough in all His Creation, because there is no lack in His ways, attributes and works. Once we remove fantasies and illusions and enthrone within us the permanent awareness of God in our life, we begin to realize our true Essence and identity. We must be strong in this awareness if we want to let go and let God: “Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He it is who goes with you; He will not fail you, nor forsake you.” (31:6) This awareness defines our Jewish identity. In this sense Moses, our highest and strongest knowledge of God, is the guarantor of our relationship and connection with Him. This is one of the reasons Moses is our teacher. He opens our discernment, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passion and instinct to the knowledge of the One from whom all exists (see in this blog our commentary on Parshat Vayalach: “The Choice to Return to God” of September 25, 2011)

Thanks to Moses our teacher we know the ways, means and attributes of God's Love we invoke twice a day in the Jewish prayers, when we evaluate our negative approach to life. We recall the transcendental moment when the Creator told Moses His attributes of compassion (Exodus 34:6-7), which are also the traits God wants us to manifest in all aspects of our lives. This is how we love Him, by being and doing according to His ways, His will and His Commandments. King David also recalls Moses' reminders about the futility of materialistic illusions: “You [God] has set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the Light of Your countenance”, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet is their pride but travail and vanity; for it is speedily gone, and we fly away.” (Psalms 90:8, 10) and this realization brings us back to God: “And let the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish You also upon us the work of our hands; yea, the work of our hands You establish” (90:17)

Living in denial of our highest knowledge of God forfeits our Jewish identity, and we fall down to what is contrary to His ways and attributes: “For I know that after my death you will in any wise deal corruptly, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the end of days; because you will do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him through the work of your hands.” (Deuteronomy 31:29) This admonition is part of the prophecies we read in the last book of the Torah. The Creator loves us so much that He warns us time and again about the consequences of living in the false reality ego's fantasies create in the material world. We really don't need to be reminded about what we already know, considering that we are who create our individual and collective reality. It is amazing that God spends so much space in His Torah to instruct us about what idolatry is for us, just to make us realize what His Love is for us.

Deuteronomy emphasizes the Love of God for us. God loves us. He created us, He sustains us, He teaches us, He is compassionate with us, He is our One and only Redeemer. And we realize this eternal Truth when we love Him back, because this is the only way to bond with Him and delight in His Presence. Only then we will know who we really are. 

We must wake up from the material illusions we have created ever since we planted in our consciousness the mother of all illusions, the one that makes us believe that we are separated from God. This illusion tells us that the God from whose Essence we were created, and whose Essence gives us life and identity, is not enough. If only we would take a quick glance at God's Creation, just the universe where we are... Is it not enough? How about infinity and eternity... are they not enough? Therefore, what is that we think is not enough? Ego is the only one saying that anything is not enough. That is indeed the worst of all material illusions.The Prophet invites us again to abandon our negative and destructive ways and return to the goodness that God's Love is: “and return unto the Lord; say unto Him: 'Forgive all iniquity, and accept that which is good (…) For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just do walk in them; but transgressors do stumble therein.” (Hosea 14:3, 10) and we have to take the first step to start removing all fantasies and illusions in which we live, and erase the mirages built by ego's biggest illusion. God is enough, we are enough, life is enough; and all the good things that Love is, as the blessing of God's Love, are also enough.

Nitzavim: Choosing back to God's Covenant

We are all united when the Creator summons us to His Presence.

“(...) those standing here with us today before the Lord, our God, and [also] with those who are not here with us, this day.” (29:14)

Our Sages explain this verse saying that all the Jewish souls, born and not born yet in this world are gathered by God when He commands us to enter the Promised Land and settle in it. Therefore this call is permanent for all generations including us here and now, and those about to be born. In a deeper sense, this call is no other than God's Presence in us.

If we were gathered back then at the east bank of the Jordan river, and told by our Creator through Moses that some of us were not there, His call then is referred to all of us here and now who eventually may chose to abandon Him and His Commandments. This issue is directly addressed by the Torah in this portion.

God's call is indeed for all times since we were exiled from our Land as a result of the wrong choices we make, in spite of being warned many times after the Exodus from Egypt throughout the rest of the Torah and by our Prophets. God endowed us with free will prior to putting before us the blessings and curses, hence the choice is only ours. Thus we can't argue before God that we were not instructed on how to use our discernment and common sense.

The Torah indicates that Heaven and Earth were also summoned to be witnesses against us. It is precisely against because we were properly instructed and warned about the consequences of separating from God's ways and attributes in order to embrace other gods or idols.

The question we must ask ourselves is who or what those idols are now in our times, and ego has the answer in its materialistic fantasies and illusions also represented as “the nations”.

“(...) the curse which I have set before you that you will consider in your heart, among all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.” (30:1)

As we separate from God's ways and attributes we are banished into the nations by the absence of the Divine Presence in our consciousness. We already know that life and good are the blessing God gives us when we cleave to Him.

Here we are made aware that life and goodness are material manifestations of God's Love. Thus we assimilate that Love is the source that bears life and sustains it with its goodness.

Love is life, Love is good; life is Love, good is Love because they emanate from God's Love. Then being summoned by Him even before we are born in this world is the blessing to know that, even if we chose to abandon His ways and disperse ourselves among the nations, He waits for us to abandon their gods and idols, and return to Him.

“(...) and you will return to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will listen to His voice according to all that I am commanding you this day you and your children” (30:2)

This means that, if we choose to return to Him, must be with all our heart and all our soul. Then He will gather us again.

“(...) then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations, where the Lord, your God, had dispersed you.” (30:3)

God will look for us even in Heaven because He wants all Israel together with Him in our Final Redemption within the Land He gave us.

“Even if your exiles are at the end of the Heavens, the Lord, your God, will gather you from there, and He will take you from there.” (30:4-5)

We also know that in order for us to dwell with the Divine Presence, we must remove ego's fantasies and illusions. This is not an easy task, otherwise we would have been redeemed from those idols long time ago. God knows this.

“For He knows how weak we are, He remembers we are only dust.” (Psalms 103:14)

From this we realize that we can be redeemed only by His intervention.

“And the Lord, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, [so that you may] love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, for the sake of your life. (Deuteronomy 30:6)

The Torah states that only through the circumcision of the heart we can be redeemed. Our Sages teach that the heart is the center where free will dwells, and we make our choices either positive or negative in our heart.

We have said in other commentaries in this blog that evil and negativity don't have real existence, and these are only references to choose good and Love's attributes. This means that evil is a reference, not a choice. In other words, we do not need evil and negativity in our lives, and that which is not necessary (the foreskin) must be removed.

This is one of the meanings of circumcision in Judaism, as a Commandment and reminder that our mission in this world is to remove the negative aspects of consciousness as what we do not need, in order to live in the freedom of Love's ways and attributes through God's Commandments and will.

As the greatest Love of all, God's Love will remove what makes us choose the curse, the unnecessary, instead of the blessing (see in this blog our commentaries on Parshat Nitzavim-Vayelech: “The Redemption of Love” of August 28, 2010 and Parshat Nitzavim: “God's Love as our True Identity” of September 18, 2011).

We already know by experience the difference between good and evil, and the Torah also teaches and commands -- in order for us not to have excuses -- to choose good.

“This day, I call upon the Heaven and the Earth as witnesses [that I have warned] you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live; to love the Lord your God, to listen to His voice, and to cleave to Him. For that is your life and the length of your days, to dwell on the Land which the Lord swore to your forefathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give to them.” (30:19-20)

Such this is because God is our blessing, our life and our goodness.

God calls us to honor our Covenant with Him before we entered the Promised Land (29:11), but we have to make the choice to call Him back. If we are His chosen, we must choose Him back. It doesn't work if we don't choose back.

We must call out to Him constantly until He gives us His Redemption, and liberate us from the negative illusions we have carved into gods and idols we don't need.

The Prophet also summons us to this.

“(...) those who remind the Lord, be not silent. And give Him no rest, until He establishes and until He makes Jerusalem a praise in the Land. The Lord swore by His right hand and by the arm of His strength; I will no longer give your grain to your enemies, and foreigners shall no longer drink your wine for which you have toiled.” (Isaiah 62:6-8)

Ki Tavo: Claiming our Inheritance of God's Love

We have said in previous commentaries on this portion of the Torah that the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, is the inheritance of the Jewish people. We also mentioned many times that our Land encompasses a permanent space and time with the One who gave it to us. This is the best reason to rejoice individually and collectively as part of the essence and identity God has given us in His Torah.

“Then, you shall rejoice with all the good that the Lord, your God, has granted you and your household you, the Levite, and the stranger who is among you.” (Deuteronomy 26:11).

In this context we understand the meaning of the tithes because everything that exists belongs to God. Hence what we produce out of life and Land He gave us also belongs to Him. Our individualistic and separatist approach to God and others makes us believe that we own something we consider our property, and this is one of the biggest illusions we have created out of ego's approach to life and the material world.

The Torah teaches us that our Land is part of our existence, and the space in which we realize our unity as a Nation and also unity in our consciousness. In other words, our unity depends on our individual and collective livelihood in our Land. God gave us a Land to share our common identity and purpose as Jews with our diversity, and in spite of our differences. We as Israel are diverse and multidimensional as consciousness also is, and the meaning of settling in our Land implies living in it united as individuals and as a Nation.

We tithe in order to keep and protect our unity and permanent bond with the One who gave us life, freedom, the Torah, identity, and Land. Thus we understand that our Land is the place and the a time where and when we fully recognize and experience our connection with God.

The laws, ordinances, statutes and Commandments given in the Torah, which relate to our life in the Land and the relationship with the Land, are directed to maintain our bond with God.

“You have selected the Lord this day, to be your God, and to walk in His ways, and to observe His statutes, His Commandments and His ordinances, and to obey Him. And the Lord has selected you this day to be His treasured people, as He spoke to you, and so that you shall observe all His Commandments, and to make you supreme, above all the nations that He made, [so that you will have] praise, a [distinguished] name and glory; and so that you will be a holy people to the Lord, your God, as He spoke.” (26:17-19)

We integrate this principle in all aspects and dimensions of consciousness because by doing this we realize God's Love and His Presence in our life. This is a turning point in what we know about us and about God. Once we realize that we belong to Him as His Creation emanated from His Love, we begin to discover who we truly are and sacred to Him. We turn to this awareness as we assimilate God's ways and attributes described in His Torah.

By knowing His ways and learning His attributes, we also know and learn our ways and attributes. This is how we understand the meaning of our relationship with God. We relate to Him through His ways and attributes as also ours, which we learn from Him. We do this by loving Him, because we understand His Love for us by loving Him.

This is one of the reasons the Torah commands us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might, because through Love we know His ways, and we make them our ways. Our Sages remark this as the main foundation and meaning of our essence and identity.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” as the declaration of our Jewish identity in which we realize the reason and purpose of our existence (see in this blog our previous commentaries on Parshat Ki Tavo: “Living in the Promised Land” of August 22, 2010 and “The Heritage of God's Love” of September 11, 2011).

In our Land we build and exercise our unity, because in our unity lies our bond with God. When this unity is broken or fractured as we fall into materialistic fantasies and illusions, the curses fall on us as direct consequence of our separation from each other as Jews and also from God.

“Cursed be the man who makes any graven or molten image an abomination to the Lord, the handiwork of a craftsman and sets it up in secret! And all the people shall respond, saying, 'Amen!' (...)” (27:17-26, 28:14-68)

The blessing is our bond with God's ways and attributes.

“And all these blessings will come upon you and cleave to you, if you obey the Lord, your God.” (28:1-13)

We must insist in the fact that we exist because of God's Love, and we owe Him our life and all He created to sustain us in every aspect of consciousness. Hence we have to start knowing who we truly are from the principle that we are God's creatures. Therefore, we come to know ourselves through our Creator, and nothing else.

We are not from where we were born, from a country, culture, language, customs, ideology, fashion, or religion, neither from what we have learned in school, or what we do. These things only label us in regards to other peoples' countries, culture, language, etc. which are all subjected to change depending on time, place and circumstances. Our true origin, place and time of birth, as well as our real identity are God's Love because we all come from Him.

Our true ways and attributes are His ways and attributes as stated in the Torah He gave us. These are the real “culture”, language, customs, etc. that we have to learn in order to know who we truly are as Jews, and our purpose in the world. This is how we become the Light for the nations. This is how we dissipate the fantasies and illusions ego makes out of the material world. This knowledge occurs when we allow the Creator be manifest in us as His creatures.

In this awareness we recognize Him in our life which also is the Land where He wants us to live and rejoice in our bond with Him. Be aware that our bond with God lies in Jerusalem as the highest awareness of our connection with Him.

“Arise [Jerusalem], shine, for your Light has come, and the glory of the Lord shall be seen upon you. For, behold, darkness shall cover the Earth, and gross darkness the peoples; but upon you the Lord will arise, and His glory shall be seen upon you. And nations shall walk at your Light, and kings at the brightness of your rising.” (Isaiah 60:1-3)

This is why we have to rebuild and unify Jerusalem by God's will, for this is how our Final Redemption begins.

“Violence shall no more be heard in your Land, desolation nor destruction within your borders; but you shall call your walls Redemption, and your gates Praise.” (60:18)

As we already said, living in full awareness of God's Love as our Essence and true identity is the Land where we are redeemed.

“Your people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the Land forever; the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, wherein I glory.” (60:21)