“And
of whom have you been afraid and in fear, that you lie and have not remembered
Me nor laid it to your heart? Have not I been silent, even from old times, and
you have not feared Me? I declare your righteousness, and as for your works,
they shall not be a profit for you.” (Isaiah 57:11-12)
God
asks us to whom have we devoted our life, to whom we revere, respect, obey and serve, to whom we fear. What are those desires, ideas,
beliefs, fashions, trends we pursue, which we consider more important to love
and cherish than our Creator? God reminds us His silence as an answer to the
negative choices we have made for a long time. He gave us free will to choose,
yet we purposely ignore the ways and attributes that nurture and enhance our
existence. This is one of the meanings of not “fearing” Him.
In
this context “fear” is recognition, acceptance, appreciation, and that these
imply which are reverence, respect and admiration. Thus we understand the
“fearing” our Creator. God's ways and attributes are the righteousness He
proclaims as our essence and true identity, opposite to our materialistic
fantasies and illusions. The latter are the fields from which we never profit.
“When
you cry let your gatherings deliver you. And the wind carries all of them away,
taking away vanity. And who is trusting in Me inherits the land, and possesses
My holy mountain. And He has said, 'Raise up, raise up, prepare a way, lift a
stumbling-block out of the way of My people'.” (57:13-14)
God
challenges us to rely on our own inventions, conceptions and beliefs as the
idols we create with our hands, and hoping they deliver us from the darkness we
get into. God reminds us that our vanities are ephemeral and short lasting as
leaves cast away by the wind, in contrast to the goodness of Love's ways and
attributes. The latter are the values and principles in which we trust God's
providence, the land we inherit and the sacred foundation (His “holy mountain”)
of our permanent connection to Him.
God
again reaffirms His Redemption by asking us to wake up from our long sleep in
the dreams of ego's fantasies and illusions, and arise to prepare the entrance
to the Messianic era. For this we must remove the rock that contains all the
stumbling blocks that prevent us from living our essence and true identity as God's
people.
“For
thus said the high and exalted One inhabiting eternity, and holy is His Name:
'In the high and holy place I dwell, and with the bruised and humble of spirit
to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of bruised ones'.
For I do not contend forever neither I am always angry, for the spirit from
before Me is feeble and the souls I have made.” (57:15-16)
The
Prophet reminds us specific attributes of God in this particular statement.
High, exalted (elevated), eternal, holy in His Name, as transcendental traits
we have to ascend by leaving bellow and behind the low, shallow, ephemeral and
profane traits and trends in our consciousness.
Thus we understand the
following statement related to humbleness and the revival of our loving essence
and identity. We need to ascend to Love's ways and attributes to also reach up
and bond with God's Love. God created us and He knows our flaws and weaknesses,
hence His anger is not always and His Love is never hidden.
“For
the iniquity of his dishonest gain I have been angry, and I smite him hiding
[Myself] and am angry. He goes on turning back in the way of his heart. I have
seen his ways and heal him. I lead him also and restore comforts to him and to
his mourners.” (57:17-18)
Once
again we emphasize that God's “anger” is a metaphor of our separation from His
ways and attributes. In this context, He is indeed angry by our negative
desires and choices. As we choose to live in ego's fantasies and illusions, we
separate from Love's ways and attributes. By living away from the goodness of
Love we also turn away from God's Love, yet in His compassion He awaits our
return to His ways. In His ways we are healed. In the goodness He wants us to
choose, He also comforts us from the pain and suffering (“the mourners”) we
inflicted on ourselves.
“I
create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him
who is near. And I have healed him, said the Lord. And the wicked are like the
troubled sea, for it can't rest and its waters cast up mire and dirt.”
(57:19-20)
What
a beautiful poetic introduction to peace! God creates the “fruit of the lips”.
Our Sages translate this phrase as the words of prayer, for God created us to
praise Him. God wants us to ask for peace and pursue peace as the awareness of
our oneness and completion with Him. Peace for all, the near and the far off,
for God has already healed us with His Love.
We achieve this completion, as we
mentioned above, by ascending to God through humbleness opposite to haughtiness
that retains us down under negative traits and trends of ego's fantasies and
illusions. These are the traits and trends of the wicked, and also their
agitation and restlessness from which evil and destruction (mire and dirt)
arise. Thus we understand the next verse.
“There
is no peace, said my God, to the wicked.” (57:21)
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