“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemn gatherings; your eyes shall see Jerusalem a peaceful habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the pegs whereof shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.” (33:20)
This verse is one of the pillars of the Messianic Era in Judaism. In our Hebrew Scriptures and tradition, Jerusalem is Zion and Zion is Jerusalem: “For from Zion comes the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (2:3). We have to reiterate the meaning of this place in our consciousness. It is about our spiritual and material origin, the connection with our Creator, and our permanent awareness of it.
Our oral tradition tells us that from the soil of this place God created the First Man. The place where he presented his first offerings to God, where Noah did the same after the Flood, and where Abraham brought Isaac as an offering to God. Jacob called it the House of God, and later was the place of the Temple of Jerusalem. All comes from this place and is destined to return to it.
Here our ancestors gathered three times every year for Pesach, Shavuot and Succot, as king David reminded us: “Our feet have been standing in your gates, Jerusalem, Jerusalem the built one as a city that is joined to itself together. Where the Tribes go up, the Tribes of the Lord, as an ordinance for Israel, to give thanks to the Name of the Lord.” (Psalms 122:2-4). Jerusalem is one, the undivided and eternal capital of Israel.
This oneness “joined to itself together” is where all aspects and dimensions of consciousness are comprised in a functional harmonic unity. Functional because it has a purpose and destiny, as we elevate it as the Tribes of God to thank Him for such destiny. There is a correspondent function between ascending and being grateful. Our gratitude manifests our ascent, and our ascent is the cause of being grateful. There is a higher purpose in uniting our consciousness to the service of God, which is to reveal His Name, His Presence and His glory in and among us.
Thus we become aware that Zion is the “peaceful habitation” where we realize our completeness (peace, eternity, infinity, wholesomeness and completion are the main meanings of shalom), which we achieve in our permanent connection with God: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Prosperous are those who love you.” (122:6). We do it by being and doing His ways and attributes, the goodness that is our common bond with Him. This takes place in “the tent that shall not be removed”, for our bond with God is never broken although forgotten by us when we choose ego's fantasies and illusions instead of Love's ways and attributes. The latter are the foundations, the “pegs” and the “cords” that support our connection with God's Love.
“For there the Lord is powerful for us, a place of broad rivers and streams; no ship with oars goes into it, and a mighty ship does not pass over it. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King. He redeems us.” (Isaiah 33:21-22)
Our strength is in Zion, the highest awareness and level of consciousness where God's Presence dwells in us. Here our bond with Him is broad and extensive as rivers and their flow, where there is no place for anything different from His ways and attributes. In this endless awareness we live in His will, as our Creator and King.
“And the inhabitant shall not say: 'I am sick'; the people that dwell therein are forgiven of iniquity.” (33:24)
Nothing negative or opposed to Love's ways and attributes has a place in our connection with God. No sickness, harm, pain, suffering or any expression of evil will exist in this awareness as the realization of the Final Redemption and the Messianic Era. Here all evil and negativity will cease to be part of our consciousness. These will be forgiven and forgotten as the painful learning process to finally realize that Love -- as our common bond with God's Love -- is the destined Essence and expression to be manifest in who we are, have and do.
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