"Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heard not the words of this Covenant, (...) that I may establish the oath which I promised to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day." (Jeremiah 11:3, 5)
The Covenant of God and Israel is one of the pillars of the Creator's Plan for the material world. Let's reflect on this Covenant. It begins in a place and time God calls a land that flows milk and honey as in today, meaning permanent goodness in the permanent now. This is the land as the life we are destined to live according to God's Plan. We start to dwell in its blessing, its milk and honey, when we live by hearing, understanding and implementing the words of our Covenant. This is actually an alliance that turn into One the parts of the pact, the Creator and Israel.
We become completely aware of our permanent bond and connection with God when we realize what this Covenant is about. This happens by living goodness in the constant here and now. The goodness derived from Love's ways and attributes are the words of this Covenant promised by God's Love to our forefathers for us, their descendants. We as Jews are the inheritors of this everlasting legacy which is entirely revealed and manifest as the Messianic Consciousness.
"They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My words; and they are gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My Covenant which I made with their fathers." (11:10)
Our Creator reminds us time and again through His Torah and Prophets the choices that make us reject His words. Those choices are ego's desires for material fantasies and illusions, the other gods we serve, by which we brake our bond with Love's attributes as the material manifestation of the attributes of God's Love. As we break this bond we separate from our Essence and true identity, and the destiny God promised us to live only in the goodness of life.
These reminders continue in the next chapters, indicating the consequences of living for the idols we create with our vain and futile attachments, obsessions, addictions and negative patterns, that turn our lives into a fleeting sound, "(...) yet is their pride but travail and vanity, for it is speedily gone, and we fly away." (Psalms 90:10) and the Prophet valiantly pleads to God to eradicate the negative trends in human consciousness as the cause and effect of all evils and iniquities we inflict in ourselves and our surroundings.
"Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they secure that deal very treacherously? (...) How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole field wither? For the wickedness of them that dwell therein, the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said: 'He sees not our end'." (Jeremiah 12:1, 4)
But we know that in our free will we choose negative trends. If we demand from God total freedom in our consciousness, He creates evil for us to choose goodness. Now we complain to Him demanding the removal of evil and wickedness from life, the land we desolate with ego's fantasies and illusions as idols and false gods. He responds the same message all our Prophets proclaim.
"And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them; and I will bring them back, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land." (12:15)
The removal of evil from the face of the Earth is one of the foundations of the Final Redemption in Judaism. In His endless Love and compassion for all His Creation, God says repeatedly in the Torah and through His Prophets that He is is One who punishes us. We know perfectly well that we are the ones who punish ourselves by the consequences of our negative choices. Only the Greatest Love of all is willing to carry the burdens of our transgressions against the goodness He gives to life.
In the following chapters of his messages the Prophet tells us more metaphors about our estrangement from God (the hidden linen girdle, the vessel filled with wine), the upcoming captivity in Babylon and the drought in the land, the wrath as jealousy of God because of Israel's transgressions including the desecration of the Sabbath, and the redeeming sweet metaphor of the potter, "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? said the Lord. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel." (18:6) to make us aware that He is our Creator, that all we are and have belong to Him, hence ultimately live according to His Love for us. More admonitions against idolatry and the corruption of kings are brought amid prophecies announcing the destruction of Jerusalem and the consequent exile, which make Jeremiah regret his assignment as a Prophet of doom. These chapters (13 through 30) precede the message of Redemption with the return of the captives to their land.
"Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is a time of trouble unto Jacob, but out of it shall he be saved. And it shall come to pass in that day, said the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and will burst your bands; and strangers shall no more make him their bondman. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them." (30:7-9)
Indeed a great and unique day when we see in our consciousness and surroundings the vanishing of all forms of evil. The day when we leave behind forever the seduction of ego's fantasies and illusions to embrace Love's ways and attributes as our Essence and true identity. The day when we abandon forever thousands of years of misery to enter into the beginning of eternal life guided exclusively by God's Love into endless dimensions where our only purpose will be the knowledge of the Creator.
"(...) I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble; for I am become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn. (...) For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and He redeemed him from the hand of him that is stronger than he. (...) And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow unto the goodness of the Lord (...). (...) and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, said the Lord." (31:8, 10, 11, 13)
We don't have to wait for the Jewish prophecies to be fully manifest. We have to manifest them by initiating our own entrance into the Final Redemption, embracing the goodness of God by which He created us. We are made by His goodness we are destined to be and manifest through Love's ways and attributes. Let Love be the teacher, the guide, the intention, the motivation, the reason and the purpose in all we discern, think, feel, speak and create in the here and now of life as the goodness God wants us to live.
This is the river of waters where we don't stumble because we are taken by the hand of our Father who redeems us. We are His firstborn with whom He sealed His Covenant. Then we shall sing in the height of Zion, the summit of the awareness of our permanent connection with the goodness of God, His Love.
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