The Song of Songs: The Love Story of God and Israel (X)

“The fig tree has ripened her green figs, and the sweet smelling vines have given forth fragrance. Arise up to yourself My love, My beautiful, and go to yourself.” (Song of Songs 2:13)

God reiterates His invitation to partake in the blessings and goodness of love's ways and attributes (the ripened figs and the sweet fragrance of vines) as the leading expressions in the realm of His final redemption. Again, He asks us to rise up ourselves in His love, by returning to our essence and true identity.

“My dove [is] in clefts of the rock, in the covert [hiding place] of the step [ascent]. Show Me your countenance, make Me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, and your countenance beautiful.” (2:14)

God calls once more His redeemed Israel a dove, whose voice heralds the ways and means of the Messianic era. This new consciousness dwells hidden in the rock that represents God's presence in the world and is also the Temple of Jerusalem, for this place symbolizes the connection and bonding of God's love and Israel's love. This is the covert of the step as the place of ascent, where our highest level of consciousness rises up to God.

In this lofty level God's love is fully revealed to His beloved Israel. There God also wants to see her countenance that reveals the goodness of her traits and qualities He commands her to be, to have and manifest to humankind in the material world.

As we have mentioned often, goodness is the bond Israel shares with God, and is also her voice. Thus God desires to hear Israel's voice and see her good deeds as her countenance, for these are for Him sweet and beautiful.

“The foxes have seized us, the little foxes that destroy the vineyards, and [including] our sprouting vineyards.” (2:15)

In order to consummate His union with Israel, as the eternal covenant He established, she has to fulfill her purpose and mission in the world, to make goodness prevail in all facets and expressions of life.

This task implies the removal of negative and destructive traits and trends as the outcome of ego's fantasies and illusions. These are the foxes and little foxes that destroy the vineyards. The latter are an allegory for the nations as the basic human emotions, passions and instincts.

The negative tendencies and lower desires and instincts become destructive when they are not guided and directed to a positive, constructive and productive purpose.

God asks Israel to remove these negative traits and tendencies from her own consciousness, for Israel's qualities as God's vineyards are in bloom. These are love's ways and attributes God wants in order to make goodness prevail in human consciousness.

Everything we learn must be grasped within the boundaries of love's ethical frame, for our purpose and mission in the material world is to make goodness prevail. Thus we understand that avoiding negative thoughts and actions (known as sins and transgressions) is an act of love to ourselves, to others and to our surroundings.

We truly love ourselves and others when we avoid transgressing against each other. When we sin, we sin against goodness and the love from which it comes. Thus we become aware that when we choose to live by negative traits triggered by ego's fantasies and illusions we reject the goodness of love as the essence and foundation of our identity.

The connection between God and His creation is evident and tangible by the existence of life in the material world. When we say that God's love creates and sustains life, thus we know His presence in and around us. We experience this connection in a special way in human life through the soul as an extension of God's spirit.

The Song of Songs: The Love Story of God and Israel (IX)

“The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.” (2:12)

God tells us that once we choose goodness, our harvest is also goodness. This is a fundamental principle for the final redemption and the Messianic era, for only positive traits and trends will motivate and lead our thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts.

Goodness is founded not only on common sense and empirical knowledge (experience), but primordially on principles, values, ways, attributes, ground rules and guidelines. In such foundations we are supposed to approach our moment to moment reality. The elements of this foundations must be learned from an early age, for these are the core of the goodness we want to have abundantly in life since its beginnings.

We learn them from the Torah and God's ways and attributes as our connection with Him. Thus we realize that goodness must precede wisdom, as we mentioned above, when we said that true love does not exist without wisdom and true wisdom does not exist without love. This is “the voice of the turtle dove” that has been heard, and still is heard in our land.

This verse reminds us of king David's words on the same theme.

“The land shall yield her produce; and God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the land shall be in awe of Him!” (Psalms 67:6-7)

“The blossoms have appeared in the land” also point out to another prophetic admonition.

“Redeemers ascended to mount Zion to judge mount of Esau, and to the Lord has been the kingdom.” (Obadiah 1:21)

The redeemers in reference to renewed and empowered positive traits and trends that will lead all levels and expressions of consciousness, by correcting, rectifying and redirecting the negative traits and trends represented by the “mount of Esau”.

Thus we understand that Zion (Jerusalem and its Temple) is the place of the permanent awareness of our connection with God's love. In Zion dwells the highest and loftiest traits and qualities we share with God's ways and attributes.

The prophetic message of Obadiah makes us aware that our redemption depends on letting the “redeemers” as love's ways and attributes rule and lead eternally every facet and expression of human life. The outcome of this is jubilation, joy and singing of the highest happiness we will have ever experienced: “the time of singing has come!”

Allegorically, “the voice of the turtle dove” represents the expression of the new consciousness we will have when evil will be removed from the face of the earth. Thus we understand the words of Maimonides.

“In that [Messianic] era, there will be neither famine or war, envy or competition for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God. Therefore, the Jews will be great sages and know the hidden matters, grasping the knowledge of their Creator according to the full extent of human potential, as Isaiah 11:9 states: 'The world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed'.”

(Laws of the kings and the wars 12:5)

The Song of Songs: The Love Story of God and Israel (VIII)

“My Beloved has answered me and said to me, 'Arise up to yourself My love, My beautiful, and go to yourself'.” (2:10)

Israel realizes that God answers when she calls out to Him, and be as attached to Him as much as we want to be. He speaks to us through His ways, attributes and commandments, to elevate our consciousness to higher, lofty paths.

Hence He asks us to rise up to Him by arising (and go) to our true essence and identity which are the common bond with Him. “Rise up to yourself, My beloved, my fair, and go to yourself”, for in our going back to our true self we indeed return to Him.

This call to Israel is God's call for her redemption from the false self image out of ego's materialistic fantasies and illusions, and their negative traits and trends in consciousness. God has decreed Israel's redemption since the giving of His Torah. Then it's up to us to choose back and respond to His call.

“For lo, the winter has passed by, the rain has passed away, and is gone.” (2:11)

God reaffirms His redemption to Israel by telling her that the temporal nature of ego's fantasies and illusions along with their negative predicament are not permanently bound to our thoughts and actions. We can choose to end their permanence by breaking away from our additions, obsessions and attachments to them, and return to love's ways and attributes.

Opposite to what we may believe, there is nothingness (emptiness) in ego's fantasies and illusions, meaning that emptiness does not and can not transcend, for there is nothing to prevail from them. Thus we can see nothingness as darkness or as negative situations, or a state of mind that are factually temporary.

Ego's fantasies and illusions come from beliefs or feelings of lack. Thus we realize that lack is a state of not having, like nothingness. As long as we feed our materialistic fantasies and illusions, we are feeding the belief or feeling of lack.

“The righteous eats to satisfy his soul, but the stomach of the wicked always lack.” (Proverbs 13:25)

Once we assimilate this matter of fact, we begin to approach goodness as what is truly transcendent, and is opposite to lack and nothingness. Goodness as what truly is and has that transcends the material world, for it comes from the eternal goodness of the Creator.

Thus we assimilate that goodness is our fundamental essence and true identity, beyond the limitations of time and space.

We have to continuously love, cherish, embrace and protect goodness to permanently live and delight in its ways, attributes and blessings. As the primordial expression of love, goodness is our essence and the substance of what truly is and has.

“(So that) I give to those who love Me substance [lit. there is, it has] and fill their storehouses [with it].” (Ibid. 8:21)

Loving God means to love His goodness bestowed upon us to fulfill all our needs, in order to give meaning, purpose and direction to our intellect, mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, passion and instinct (our storehouses), and their expressions in the material world.

“Be grateful to God, for He is good, for His loving kindness is for the world. (…) God's loving kindness fills the earth.” (Psalms 136:1, 33:5)

Thus we understand that God created darkness, evil and negativity not as choices but only as references for us to choose light, goodness, and what is positive for our lives.

God reminds us again His redemption since the moment He gave us the Torah. He does it many more times through His prophets, and again it's up to us to answer and begin the journey back to our true identity as our common bond with His ways and attributes.

The Song of Songs: The Love Story of God and Israel (VII)

“I have ordered you, daughters of Jerusalem, by gazelles and by hinds of the field. Stir not up nor arouse the love until she pleases.” (2:7)

God speaks to the higher levels of consciousness (the daughters of Jerusalem) asking them not to force the conscious self (Israel) to love and manifest love in its ways and attributes as permanently as this must be, according to what our highest awareness requests from our intellect, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passion and instinct.

God does not force His will on Israel or the nations, for He gave them free will. However, God commands all to be and do goodness, for it is the natural expression of love as a material manifestation of His love in all His creation. God's love bestows His goodness on all, and sustains them all.

Nevertheless, God adjures “by gazelles and hinds of the field”. The field represents life and the goodness it contains, represented by beautiful and delicate animals as positive traits and trends in human consciousness. These qualities are summoned by God also as witnesses of the choices we make in regards to either love's ways and attributes or ego's fantasies and illusions.

“The voice of my Beloved! Lo, He is coming, leaping on the mountains, skipping on the hills.” (2:8)

Israel answers also by comparing her Beloved to a deer “leaping on the mountains” (pleased with His ways) and “skipping on the hills” (happy with His attributes). Mountains and hills are higher places as higher levels of consciousness in life as the earth where we live. Those are the “places” where God reveals to us His ways and attributes, so we come up to them in order to dwell together with Him.

Israel hears the voice of her Beloved, not only as her husband and king but also as her redeemer. God's voice is His love fulfilling the promise to redeem Israel through His ways and attributes as the mountains in which He delights.

“My Beloved is like a deer, to a young one of the harts. Lo this, He is standing behind our wall, looking from the windows, peering through the lattices.” (2:9)

Israel continues referring to God's ways and attributes as the delicate and vibrant qualities of deer and harts in the fields of life. The first part of this verse belongs to the previous one. The next sentence refers to God's presence in the Temple of Jerusalem, that permanently watches over His people.

We have to complete the allegory of the deer, gazelles, hinds and harts as the liberating and redeeming ways and attributes of God's love. Thus we understand how God cares and watches over us.

These ways and attributes also include God's commandments as the means He provides for us to bond and connect with Him. This is anchored in our highest level of consciousness represented by the Temple of Jerusalem.

God's presence is not an abstract concept but a concrete principle manifest as ways and attributes that give meaning and purpose to human life in general, and to the Jewish people in particular.

The more we attune and connect with them, the more we experience God's presence in our lives. They also protect us from ego's fantasies and illusions, for these oppose and obstruct God's purpose and mission for us; as we will see in the upcoming verses.

Thus we understand “our wall”, because God and Israel share the same house where His love stands within, looking for us from its windows hoping we come soon to dwell permanently with Him.