“I am the Lord, this is My Name. And My honor I don't give to another, nor My praise to engraved images.” (42:8)
The Creator reminds us His Name to make us aware of His ways and attributes that define for us His Love. These attributes are His honor that are not meant to cohabit with anything different from them. The idols we create out of ego's fantasies and illusions to depend on do not share the same time and space of the truth with which God relates to us.
“Behold, the former things have happened, and I declare new things. I tell you about them before they come up. Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth. Ye who go down to the sea and all that is therein, the islands and their inhabitants.” (42:9-10)
Again God opens our eyes to finally learn from our own history in the material world. Thousands of years has passed living in the fantasies and also nightmares of ego's fantasies and illusions. God created us with free will to choose, yet we don't seem to have learned from our wrong choices. These are “the former things” that have happened before the Messianic Consciousness is fully manifest. God tells us in advance that goodness is destined to prevail in spite of our negative choices, and invites us time and again to choose goodness as our eternal Redemption. He calls on us who have already gone down “to the sea and all that is therein, the islands and their inhabitants”.
“The wilderness and its cities do lift up the voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits. Sing do the inhabitants of Sela, from the top of mountains they shout. They give honor to the Lord, and they declare His praise in the islands.” (42:11-12)
Let's call up from the desert of our negative ways and trends in darkness, and from the desolation of our addictions, attachments, obsessions, depressions and frustrations, and ascend to the higher realms of consciousness to return to our permanent connection with God. We do this by being and doing goodness as our common bond with Him. From this place we honor Him and celebrate His ways and attributes as the islands we must unite as one firm land we will make eternal.
“The Lord as a mighty one goes forth. He stirs up zeal like a man of war. He will raise a war cry. Yes, he will shout aloud. Against His enemies He shows Himself mighty. I have been silent a long time. I have been quiet and restrained Myself. As a travailing woman I cry out, I desolate and swallow up together.” (42:13-14)
God calls on the “man of war” in us to shout aloud against the traits and trends that keep us captive in their darkness. The Creator tells us that captivity in the darkness we chose to live is not forever, for ego's fantasies and illusions are temporary. One day He will wake us up as He fulfills His promise to eliminate darkness and evil altogether. He compares this process to a woman giving birth, who cries during her delivery and at the end she will be joyful.
“I make waste mountains and hills, and all their herbs I dry up. And I have made rivers become isles, and ponds I dry up.” (42:15)
We must understand these metaphors as the changes our consciousness must assimilate in order to enter the Final Redemption. Their common denominator is goodness to be established completely and permanently in all aspects and dimensions of life. This is the culmination of God's Love for us, after blinding our eyes to the truth of goodness. Now He takes us in the paths of goodness we never waked before. A whole new awareness of what goodness is, where only Light shines. Plain places without ups and downs. Goodness as the truth that never has forsaken us.
“And I have caused the blind to go, in a way they have not known, in paths they have not known I cause them to tread. I make a dark place before them become Light, and unleveled places become a plain. These are the things I have done to them, and I have not forsaken them.” (42:16)
Let's bear in mind that God refers to the Messianic Consciousness not as an individual but a collective awareness. He points out to Israel as the people from whom this consciousness will sprout, and their king messiah as the focal point that leads all aspects and dimensions of life in the direction of God's Love as the primordial focal point in all levels of consciousness.
“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, 'You are our gods' will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed. Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see.” (42:17-18)
Again the Creator warns us about ego's fantasies and illusions as the idols that will disappear when we choose to open our eyes and ears. Those who live by their own beliefs, ideologies, addictions, obsessions and attachments are not satisfied or content with the goodness opposed to their wrong choices. We meet people who don't believe in goodness as the truth and freedom in human consciousness. These are the ones who need to learn this once they realize that disappointment is part of the outcome of fantasies and illusions, for truth does not belong to them.
“Who is blind, but My servant? Or who is as deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as the servant of the Lord? You see many things, but don't observe. His ears are open, but he doesn't listen.” (42:19-20)
The Creator makes a reference to the people of Israel, His chosen servant, who have been blind and deaf for most of their years in the material world. Our repetitive disregard of the Torah and our Covenant with God is manifest through assimilation to other nations, exiles and the Diaspora. These are the result of our blindness and deafness regarding our Essence and true identity as the chosen people. Idolatry is the cause and effect of our separation from God's ways and the bond we share with Him.
“The Lord is pleased for the sake of his [Israel's] righteousness, making the Torah great and glorious. And this is a people seized and spoiled, snared in holes all of them. And in houses of restraint they were concealed, they have been for a prey, and there is no deliverer. A spoil, and none is saying, 'Restore'.” (42:21-22)
At the same time, God recognizes Israel's moral and ethical contributions to the world, which He calls his righteousness. God tells us that He is pleased with it, for it has make the Torah great and glorious for all the nations. In spite of this, He points out what Israel has received in exchange. He says that there is none who wants to restore this truth, and help to acknowledge Israel's preeminence as the bearer of God's light for the world.
“Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who listens and hears for the time to come? Who has given Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the spoilers? Is it not the Lord, He against whom we sinned? Yea, they have not been willing to walk in His ways, nor have they hearkened to His Torah.” (42:23-24)
Once more God reminds us that our captivity among the nations is the consequence of disregarding and ignoring our Jewish identity and walk in the paths of ego's fantasies and illusions, instead of God's ways and attributes. We rather believe in the natural order of cause and effect, and not recognize that all that happened to us in the darkness and exile among the nations are the outcome of our separation from God. This separation is indeed the rejection of our Essence and true identity, as our permanent bond with Him.
“Therefore He poured the fierceness of His anger on him [Israel], and the strength of battle. And it set him on fire all around, but he didn't know. And it burned him, but he didn't take it to heart.” (42:25)
Centuries of persecution, looting, massacres, oppression, discrimination, humiliation and unceasing hatred have not served for us to return to God, whose Love chose us to be His messenger and servant with the mission to make goodness prevail over evil, and Light over darkness. The Creator through His Prophets repeats us that His ways and attributes have been, are, and always will be our liberation and eternal Redemption.
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