Sunday, March 9, 2014

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (XLVII) Isaiah

God created all that exists, including what we can't perceive or grasp with our consciousness. Through its narrative, the Torah reveals to us matters that only concern to the Creator, particularly in the book of Genesis. Some of our Sages, including Maimonides, warn us about trying to understand mysteries such as the Creation, simply because these are beyond our grasp. This warning serves two purposes. One is to teach us that God is undefinable along with the how He directs His Creation. The other is to teach us humbleness, for we must assimilate the fact that our consciousness is limited by the fact that we are also limited by dimensions we perceive within the frames of time and space in the material world.

The Torah tells us God's mysteries as well as the ways and attributes with which He relates to His Creation. Hence we realize the ethics of goodness God teaches us, and also wants us to make prevail in all facets and aspects of life. Everything that God created -- what agnostics call “intelligent design” -- works according to the ethical principle derived from cause and effect. As we have indicated in previous commentaries, we are bound to learn from the consequences of our actions. Thus we understand every passage of the Torah and messages of our Prophets, including the mysterious ones such as the leviathan.

“In that day the Lord with His sword, the sharp and the great and the strong will charge on leviathan, a fleeing serpent. And on leviathan, a crooked serpent; and He has slain the dragon that is in the sea.” (Isaiah 27:1)

We understand that the “hand”, “back”, “finger”, “breath“ or “eyes” of God, -- as well as His “sword” -- represent some of His ways and attributes. In the case of this verse, the Prophet refers to “the day of the Lord” or “the end of times” as the time when He fully reveals the Final Redemption and the Messianic Era. Isaiah mentions traits such as sharp, great and strong also as qualities that define capacity and power (“great and strong”), willingness and determination (“sharp”). We need these traits and qualities to charge them on the core or root of that which denies and rejects our total freedom from negative trends in our consciousness. That which the Prophet refers to as the leviathan.

It's quite evident that we need God's help to defeat the negative tendencies in our consciousness. The fact that He created them, and promises to remove them doesn't mean that we have to sit and wait until it happens. We must initiate this process by being willful, willing and determined to abandon ego's fantasies and illusions, and to embrace Love's ways and attributes.

Evil and wickedness have their slant and crooked ways as snakes do. Hence our mystic Sages refers to ego as a serpent or dragon, and in this particular verse the Prophet reveals that God will redirect ego as the vital driving force in human consciousness completely towards Love's ways and attributes. God slays “the dragon that is in the sea”, and the sea represents consciousness as the water where our thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts dwell together. Each in their own dimension.

“In that day you will sing of her: 'A vineyard of foaming wine!'. I the Lord do guard it, I water it every moment; lest Mine anger visit it, I guard it night and day. Fury is not in Me, would that I were as the briers and thorns in flame! I would with one step burn it altogether.” (27:2-4)

Once the negative trends are removed, we all sing about our permanent connection with God calling her a fruitful vineyard or sparkling wine. We will finally harvest the fruits of the goodness in our consciousness we call here Love's ways and attributes. We will realize Love as its cause and effect in all we think, feel, speak and do. In our conscious permanent bond with God, we will be nurtured constantly to be and do His ways and attributes in order to fulfill our final destiny as we enter this new stage called the Messianic Consciousness. We will remove the briers and thorns of negative trends with the fire of Love as our material expression of God's Love. This is our destiny as God's vineyard. The Prophet has said it earlier: “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines He delights in.” (5:7).

“Or else let him [Jacob/Israel] take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me; yea, let him make peace with Me. In days to come shall Jacob take root, Israel shall blossom and bud; and the face of the world shall be filled with fruitage.” (27:5-6)

This sweet Divine Redemption is addressed to God's people as an invitation for us to initiate the permanent awareness of our connection to Him. The strength of our Love is God's Love. In this bond we realize that peace is the culmination of our connection with God, as completion, wholeness, totality. Love is our common bond with God though which we achieve Oneness with Him. In this realization we are established, we blossom and we are fruitful. Thus we fill the world with the goodness of Love's ways and attributes, making them the cause and effect of God's Plan for His Creation.

“Has He smitten him as He smote those that smote him? Or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that were slain by Him? In full measure, when You sent her away, You contend with her; He has removed her [leviathan] with His rough blast in the day of the east wind.” (27:7-8)

God reminds us that He has never treated Israel as the nations have treated us. Nor God has treated us as He has treated the nations. This is to tell us that He removes the serpent for Israel to finally fulfill our destiny to reveal God's Presence in the world as the goodness of Love's ways and attributes as the material manifestation of God's Love.

“Therefore by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be expiated, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the shrines and images shall rise no more.” (27:9)

God will remove the cause of all our iniquities. By doing this, God indeed is the One who atones for our transgressions. Thus we individually realize the cause of our sins as the idols we created as reflections of ego's fantasies and illusions. These are the shrines and images that will be no more. Thus we realize that Love will always prevail.

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From the Book's Foreword

Let's reexamine our ancestral memory, intellect, feelings, emotions and passions. Let's wake them up to our true Essence. Let us engage in the delightful awareness of Love as the Essence of G-d. The way this book is written is to reaffirm and reiterate its purpose, so it presents its message and content in a recurrent way. This is exactly its purpose, to restate the same Truth originally proclaimed by our Holy Scriptures, Prophets and Sages. Our purpose is to firmly enthrone G-d's Love in all dimensions of our consciousness, and by doing it we will fulfill His Promise that He may dwell with us on Earth forever. Let's discover together the hidden message of our ancient Scriptures and Sages. In that journey, let's realize Love as our Divine Essence, what we call in this book the revealed Light of Redemption in the Messianic era.