The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (XIX) Jeremiah

In order to fully assimilate the Messianic Consciousness as the premise for the Final Redemption, we have to understand key fundamental principles the Hebrew Bible teaches us. God created us in His image and likeness; we and all the Creation emanate from God's Love and are sustained by Him; our Essence and true identity come from God's Love; we are destined to be and manifest Love as the material manifestation of God's Love; He has a Plan for His Creation as a result of His Love for it; in His Love, God endowed humankind with free will for us to know our Essence and identity in order to know Him; God created evil to enable free will and become aware that evil exists only as a reference to choose goodness.

As we reflect on these principles we come to the easy conclusion that everything we discern, think, feel, say and do are based on free will. Hence the Messianic Consciousness and the Final Redemption depend on the choices we make. In this context, we have to choose in order to live by what we chose. The Torah tells us that the Redemption from slavery in Egypt was the result of the children of Israel's crying out loud to God. They remembered Him, and He responded to their call. From this Chassidic Sages teach that the Redemption from Egypt came from above, and the Final Redemption will come from bellow. We must understand this as a dynamic process. God hears if we speak to Him, and also responds when we cry out to Him. This is the real "primal scream". We call out to our Creator since the moment we take our first breath in the material world.

"For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bands, and you said: 'I will not transgress'; upon every high hill and under every leafy tree you did recline, playing the harlot." (Jeremiah 2:20) "Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst; but you said: 'There is no hope; no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go'." (2:25)

Speaking of choices, the Prophet calls our attention regarding free will. God reminds us through him that He gave us free will, because that is the key to connect to Him. The "problem" is how we handle free will. Here we have to reflect on our Essence and true identity. This one is destined to rule and guide free will. At this point we realize that our freedom lies on Love as the material manifestation of God's Love, from where we all came. Thus we assimilate that Love is its own cause and effect, the paradigm of our existence. We are here because of Love and for Love. Real freedom is living in Love's ways and attributes. Therefore we exercise our free will by choosing Love as the motivation and the intention in order to see Love as its effect. All the Jewish Prophets make us aware of the negative choices we make, and their cause and effect in our consciousness.

"If you will return, O Israel, said the Lord, return unto Me; and if you will put away your detestable things out of My sight, and will not waver; and will swear: 'As the Lord lives' in truth, in justice, and in righteousness; then shall the nations bless themselves by Him, and in Him shall they glorify. For thus said the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: break up for you a fallow ground, and sow not among thorns." (4:1-3)

As we mentioned above, the dynamics of human consciousness is based on free will. This means we have to choose the path to the Final Redemption by assimilating the Messianic Consciousness, in which Love guides and directs all aspects, facets and dimensions of life. We kiss goodbye ego's desire for material fantasies and illusions, and embrace the truth, justice and righteousness of Love's ways and attributes, the blessings of God's Love by which we glorify Him. These are the fertile fields where there are no thorns. We are not going to be redeemed by God's Love if we do not choose back to Love. As long as we remain living with and in the negative trends of consciousness, Redemption will be pure wishful thinking.

"O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be redeemed. How long shall your baleful thoughts lodge within you?" (4:14) "For My people is foolish, they know Me not; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." (4:22)

The admonitions and warnings continue in the messages of the Prophet, as a reiteration process to make us fully aware of what we do with our free will. Here we realize that our choices are directly proportional to our knowledge of God. The less we know Him, the less we are connected to Him. Let's remind ourselves that the knowledge of God leads us to know our Essence and identity, for what we are and have come from Him. The more we know Him, the more we know who we are and for what are we here.

"Thus said the Lord: Let not the wise man glorify in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glorify in his might, let not the rich man glorify in his riches. But let him that glorifies glorify in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the Earth; for in these things I delight, said the Lord." (9:22-23)

God's Love is our glory and delight. In His ways and attributes we delight, for they are our freedom and fulfillment. These verses make us understand what our Sages meant when they ask who is rich. We see here that it's not about wisdom, might or material possessions, but our knowledge of the Creator. In this knowledge we realize that true richness is our connection with Him.

"O Lord, correct me, but in measure; not in Your anger, lest You diminish me. Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that know You not, and upon the families that call not on Your Name; for they have devoured Jacob, yea, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation." (10:24-25)

Hence in true humbleness we ask Him to guide us in the path He promised for us. At this point we have learned that the nations, as the negative trends in consciousness, are the cause of our separation from Him, His ways and attributes, which make our free will wise and safeguard our bond with Him. The Prophet emulates here King David's words: 

"Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks unto Your holy Name, that we may glorify in Your praise. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting even to everlasting, and let all the people say: 'Amen'. Praise the Lord." (Psalms 106:47-48)

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (XVIII) Jeremiah

The most persecuted, humiliated and oppressed of all Jewish Prophets was Jeremiah. Not just because he was the messenger of God's words for Israel and the nations, but because he told the truth. The irony of this is that being God's speaker and telling the Truth are the same. We know that God reveals to us attributes that manifest His Love for His Creation: "And the Lord passed by before him [Moses], and proclaimed: 'The Lord, the Lord, God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth (...)'." (Exodus 34:6) Hence our Sages teach that these attributes correspond to some of the Names of God, and Truth is one of them.

It's not easy to live with the truth, which means to live by and for it. This is the precious heritage of our Jewish identity that the Torah bestows on us. We have said that being the image and likeness of our Creator means being and manifesting His ways and attributes. We are compassionate because He is compassionate, we are kind and loving because He is abundant in loving kindness, we are graceful because He is gracious, we live in truth because He is the One and only Truth.

These are some of the reasons that Israel has been the most persecuted of all peoples on Earth. We live by and for the Truth that is God's will for the material world and beyond. Jeremiah's life reminds us who we are, what we live for, and what we die for. The encompassing definition of this is the goodness God wants us to live, enjoy and celebrate at all times. What and who are the enemies of this simple and yet comprising purpose? Who wants to obliterate and destroy goodness? Who can live without goodness as the expression of Love's ways and attributes as the material manifestation of God's Love? What can be against our Essence and true identity, with its freedom, expansion, wholeness, abundance and plenitude as gifts from God's Love? The answers to these questions are the negative trends of human consciousness we call here ego's fantasies and illusions. These are the idols and enemies of the Truth we are and are meant to live and manifest.

"Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you; I have appointed you a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)

In this sense, Jeremiah represents Israel. As the inheritors of the Torah, we are the bearers of God's word and will for the material world. Thus we understand that when the Creator speaks to Jeremiah, He is speaking to Israel.

"Then the Lord said to me: 'Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, said. And they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah." (1:14-15)

In our last commentary on Ezekiel's prophecies (on August 11, 2013 in this blog) we said the cardinal points represent traits of our consciousness, and the north symbolizes negative and destructive trends. These are also represented by our left arm, hence "the enemy comes from the north". These are the negative qualities of ego's fantasies and illusions, lower passions and instincts. These are the major threats against the goodness of Love's ways and attributes that rule in the highest level of consciousness, represented by Jerusalem. Chassidic Sages refer to the "gates" of Jerusalem as the openings we have in the upper part of the body, the head. They point out at the threats as the negative seductions we perceive with our open eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Hence we have to guard ourselves from what we see, hear, smell and taste.

This means that we have to keep away from ego's materialistic desires we actually experience through our physical senses, which come from the sinister (the left arm) north.

"Thus said the Lord: what unrighteousness have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after things of vanity, and became vain?" (2:5) "Has a nation changed its gods, which yet are no gods? But My people has changed its glory for that which does not benefit." (2:11) "For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (2:13)

The warnings and admonitions against idolatry are fundamental messages of the Torah and the Jewish Prophets, for us to reflect on ego's fantasies and illusions as idols that enslave our free will. We lose our freedom after we get attached, obsessed and addicted to them. These are the vanities that make us vain, the gods that are not gods for which we trade Love's ways and attributes as the sources of goodness from which we benefit. These are the living waters that emanate from God's Love. We trade them for materialistic fantasies, the broken vessels that have no water.

"Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backsliding shall reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing, that you have forsaken the Lord your God, neither is My fear in you, said the Lord God of hosts." (2:19)

Living in ego's fantasies and illusions sooner or later makes us aware of their true nature. This becomes a learning process through which we end up forced to pursue goodness out of the pain and suffering as the aftermath of such fantasies and illusions. Negativity becomes the prosecutor and the punishment that push us back to the goodness we traded for vanity. This verse comprises what we reiterate time and again. God does not punish our transgressions, we are punished by the consequences of our separation from Him. What can be more evil and bitter than living away from the Truth and Loving kindness from which we came to exist? In this sense the bitterness of evil and wickedness is the exile we suffer far from the Promised Land of Love's ways and attributes, that is also our Redemption.

We have said that the only purpose of evil in all its forms and expressions is to be a reference -- and not an option -- in order for us to choose goodness. We come from goodness and are destined to manifest it in all its forms and expressions as Love's ways and attributes. The Messianic Consciousness is what brings us back to the Essence of who we are, God's Love.

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (XVII) Ezekiel

Three of the final chapters (40, 41 and 42) of Ezekiel's prophecies refer to the most important place on Earth: the Temple of Jerusalem. We have said often in this blog that the Temple represents the highest level of consciousness as the awareness of our permanent connection with the Creator. In these three chapters the Prophet describes the dimensions and chambers of the third and final Temple destined to last forever. Compared to the size of the previous ones, it will be a larger structure meant to integrate all aspects, traits, qualities, dimensions and facets of consciousness, into the regency of the Creator.

"He measured it by the four sides; it had a wall round about, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common." (Ezekiel 42:20)

The detailed description of the final Temple ends with its main reason. In this sense the separation between holy and profane serves a purpose, which is to transform and elevate the material world in order to make it a place for God to dwell among (in) us.

"And He said to me: 'Son of man, this is the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever; and the house of Israel shall no more defile My Holy Name, neither they, nor their kings, by their harlotry, and by the carcasses of their kings in their high places." (43:7)

The message is clear. There is no room for the negative trends of consciousness before the Presence of God. As we always say, Love's ways and attributes don't dwell with anything different from them. Love's ways are the opposite of ego's fantasies and illusions.

"Now let them put away their harlotry, and the carcasses of their kings, far from Me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever." (43:9)

It's been a long time since the transgression in the Garden of Eden up until now. Thousands of years -- that are too many -- living under the rule of the negative trends in human consciousness, at the expense of God's Love. The Love of the Creator gives us life and sustains it, for us to live and enjoy the goodness of it, not the evil we inflict on it. Cruelty, indolence, indifference, wrath, arrogance, greed, lust, envy, and the like are the carcasses of ego's false sense of lack. These are the harlots and kings with whom we have the false belief they may fulfill our materialistic desires.

"Then he brought me back the way of the outer gate of the Sanctuary, which looked toward the east; and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: 'This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, neither shall any man enter in by it for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, being a prince, he shall sit therein to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same'." (44:1-3)

This is a reference to the Jewish Messiah, called here the prince. The first verses mention the eastern gate of the Temple as the most important, for the mere fact that God reveals His Presence through it. Our Sages reflect on the cardinal points in relation to the human body, saying that what we face in front of us is the east. The place of the rising sun as the symbol of God's Love for His Creation. Our right arm symbolizes the south, and both represent loving kindness. Our back as the Mediterranean Sea (west) represents our thoughts and deeds, which we leave behind as we act. The north is the point where the negative trends in consciousness come from, and is represented by the left arm. Hence we always must face God's Presence from whom we come to exist and live.

The Prince, as the anchor for the Messianic Consciousness, sits "to eat bread before the Lord". This Prince is the key stone of our individual and collective consciousness as Israel. We embrace him as the herald of the Final Redemption. In this sense there is no Final Redemption without Messianic Consciousness. In this new phase of the Divine Plan for the material world, the Prince replaces the High Priest as the awareness of our permanent connection with God. This awareness is fed by bread, a source of sustenance, that is eaten before our Creator. This particular bread will nurture a new life with a new purpose, in which Love's ways and attributes are the exclusive means to experience life in all its revealed and hidden dimensions.

"And you shall say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel: Thus said the Lord God: O you house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations, in that you have brought in aliens, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My Sanctuary, to profane it, even My house, when you offer My bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken My Covenant, to add unto all your abominations." (44:6-7)

This is another reproach of God' Love against our stubbornness to choose ego's fantasies and illusions over Love's ways and attributes. This predicament is destined to end forever as we invite the Messianic Consciousness to lead our discernment, thoughts, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts.

"But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of My Sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to Me to minister unto Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer unto Me the fat and the blood, said the Lord God. (...) And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the common, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean." (44:15, 23)

The good and positive traits, qualities, talents and creative potentials of human consciousness, represented by the Tribes of Israel, are mentioned here also as the Levites and priests, the sons of Zadok (righteousness) that always remain attached and loyal to God's ways and Commandments. These are the positive trends that guide our consciousness to choose what is also positive. These are the chosen to serve God's will in the Final Redemption.

"Moreover, when you shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, you shall set apart an offering unto the Lord, a holy portion of the land (...)" (45:1)

As the Tribes of Israel return to settle in the land of their inheritance, each one will have a place for God to dwell among them. This means, as we said above, that every trait, quality, talent, skill and creative potentials will be inspired, nurtured and directed by God's Presence in our lives. These are the assigned portions that also represent our lives as individuals and as a Nation. Thus we realize that God is our Creator, and His Love the Essence of who we truly are.

"(...) and My princes shall no more wrong My people; but they shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their Tribes. Thus said the Lord God: Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel; remove violence and spoil, and execute justice and righteousness; take away your abuses from My people, said the Lord God." (45:8-9)

As we allow Love's ways and attributes to inspire and conduct every aspect and level of consciousness -- as the princes that rule our life --, there won't be evil, iniquity or wickedness in what we think, feel or do; because thus said the Creator.

"And it shall be the prince's part to give the burnt-offerings, and the meal-offerings, and the drink-offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the Sabbaths, in all the appointed seasons of the house of Israel; he shall prepare the sin-offering, and the meal-offering, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel." (45:17)

The Messianic Consciousness as the final and eternal regent of our life has the power to transform and elevate what obstructs the destiny God wants for us. In this context, it will atone for every dimension of life represented by the house of Israel.

Ezekiel ends his prophecies telling us that from the Temple of Jerusalem will emanate two rivers that extend to the east and to the south (47:1-12). These rivers will heal and revitalize those who enter their waters. We also understand these waters as the loving kindness that emanates from our permanent bond with the Creator. Once our Love embraces His Love, indeed we will be fully redeemed and living forever in His kingdom, knowing that He is our Creator. Thus we reveal His Presence in the material world, and only goodness will prevail as He promised for the end of days.

"And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for food, whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail; it shall bring forth new fruit every month, because the waters thereof issue out of the Sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for food, and the leaf thereof for healing." (47:12)

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (XVI) Ezekiel

"Thus said the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog (...)" (Ezekiel 38:3)

Our Sages teach us that the Creator's ways and attributes are all good and righteous. We realize this if we take a look around His Creation. God loves His Creation, and consequently He sustains it. They also teach that we come to know Him through what He doesn't do or associates to. By His righteousness we infer that He is compassionate, and not indifferent to His Creation. We add to this principle that His Love permeates everything because we come from His Love. Hence we value and appreciate His Love from which we emanate and are sustained, therefore it is our Essence and identity. 

Love is the image and likeness of God's Love in the material world. This also means that, though He created darkness and evil for us to choose Light and Love, He does not associate with darkness and evil. By the fact that He asks us to choose goodness and life over evil and death, God is against the latter. Hence He is against Gog and Magog, the epitomes of evil and negativity we are destined to eradicate from our consciousness, and consequently from the face of the Earth.

"After many days you shall be mustered for service, in the latter years you shall come against the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, against the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste; but it is brought forth out of the peoples, and they dwell safely all of them." (38:8)

One of the Fundamentals of Judaism is that God controls and directs His Creation, evil and negativity included. This principle does not contradict the fact that He gave us free will to choose between good and evil, true and false, positive and negative, productive and useless, etc. Ultimately we are bound to cause and effect out of free will. This means that the choices we make have consequences. In this sense, when we read that God addresses Gog (the negative and destructive aspects and tendencies in human consciousness) to attack the land that has been delivered precisely from the traits represented by Gog and Magog, we must understand it as a final test for those -- Israel -- who were gathered from the nations to dwell safely back in their land.

If we are really redeemed from the negative aspects of consciousness, as this prophecy indicates, we have nothing to fear. If we don't deal with evil anymore in what we discern, think, feel, speak and do, evil can't hurt us. It's God's promise announced by these verses.

"(...) and you shall say: I will go up against the land of unwalled villages; I will come upon them that are at quiet, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates (...)" (38:11)

Our habitual negative approach to life, which is an attachment or addiction for many, is not going to give in to goodness as easy as we may think. Negativity comes against our innocence ("unwalled villages"), against the inner and outer peace we gain as we allow Love to lead all facets of life ("being at quiet"), against our assertiveness and determination to live by and for what is right ("dwelling safely"), against our true freedom ("dwelling without walls") without fears, doubts, apprehensions or uncertainties ("neither bars nor gates").

"And you shall come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you, and many peoples with you, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army (...)" (38:15)

Most references that Hebrew Scriptures make regarding the "north" are related to negative traits personified by "peoples" and "nations" coming from that direction or attitude. In a deeper sense, they represent the same traits and qualities embodied by Gog, Magog and their allies. These are the armies riding on horses to inflict violence and oppression against the goodness represented by the gathering of the dispersed and exiled Tribes of Israel, referred in this particular passage.

"(...) it shall be in the end of days, and I will bring you [Gog] against My land, that the nations may know Me, when I shall be sanctified through you, O Gog, before their eyes." (38:16)

As we have pointed out, the Torah and Jewish Prophecy anticipate the prevalence of goodness over evil, after a period in which we are destined to recognize, value and enthrone goodness as the true reason and purpose of life. Hence there is a time ("the end of days" or "the day of the Lord") when consciousness is called by our Creator to end its negative choices, and embrace forever the Essence and true identity He gave us to enjoy and be rejoiced. By bringing for the last time the negative aspects and tendencies of consciousness to a final confrontation with the positive, God wants to manifest His will as His glory. Thus we assimilate that evil and darkness serve their purpose in God's Creation. They also exist to fulfill His Plan for us. Before His Presence we will realize what evil and negativity have done to fulfill His will.

"And I will plead against him [Gog] with pestilence and with blood, and I will cause to rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone." (38:21-22)

The Final Redemption revealed in these verses remind us the Exodus from Egypt, when God inflicted pestilence and blood over Pharaoh, his land and his people. Here these come with cleansing elements like rain, overflowing waters, hail, fire and brimstone. We can infer that the negative traits represented by Gog, Magog and their "many peoples" with them are going to be not only destroyed but also transmuted and transformed into positive qualities that will recognize the leading goodness of Israel destined to reveal God's Presence in the material world.

"Thus will I magnify Myself, and sanctify Myself, and I will make Myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am the Lord." (38:23)

As we enthrone Love's ways and attributes in every aspect and dimension of consciousness, God's Love will be also fully revealed.

"And I will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell safely in the isles; and they shall know that I am the Lord. And My holy Name will I make known in the midst of My people Israel; neither will I suffer My holy Name to be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel." (39:6-7)

Our Sages say that the usual meaning of Magog is "what comes from Gog", hence both names represent the same. This means that evil engenders evil. Also we infer that evil isolates us from the goodness that life is. We initiate this trend when we allow ego's fantasies and illusions to control and direct our thoughts, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts. God's Love is the Divine Fire that transform the isolating effects of egotism and its derivatives. 

Only God's Love can redeem our consciousness from the oppression and captivity of ego's fantasies and illusions. In our liberation and freedom we recognize our Creator and His sacred Name in what we are destined to be, have and do, according to His Plan.

"Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them, and it shall be to them a renown; in the day that I shall be glorified, said the Lord God." (39:13)

Indeed the Creator will be glorified by all of us when we bury once and for all evil from the face of Earth, and this includes our individual and collective consciousness. This is the core of all Jewish Prophecies.

"(...) gather yourselves on every side to My feast that I do prepare for you, even a great feast, upon the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. The flesh of the mighty shall you eat, and the blood of the princes of the earth shall you drink; rams, lambs, and goats, bullocks, fattened animals from Bashan are they all of them. And you shall eat fat till you be full, and drink blood till you be drunken, of My feast which I have prepared for you." (39:17-19)

We said twice above that evil ways will be either eliminated or transformed and transmuted into good ways by which we will be enabled to know our Creator when His Presence is revealed in the material world. In this context, these verses tell us that we will be strengthened by "eating" the flesh of the "mighty" and "drinking" their blood in a great feast upon the mountains of Israel. These mountains are the unshakable knowledge that God is our Creator, and all we are, have and do come from Him. 

Those beliefs, ideas, attachments, addictions and obsessions, represented by the blood of princes and animal offerings elevated to their idols (lust, greed, envy, indifference, indolence, wrath, arrogance, etc.) will be devoured and transformed into the delights God's Love prepares for us in the next phase of His Plan we call the Messianic Consciousness in the Final Redemption.

"And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, in that I caused them to go into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them unto their own land; and I will leave none of them any more there; neither will I hide My face any more from them; for I have poured out My Spirit upon the house of Israel, said the Lord God." (39:28-29)