JERUSALEM IN THE BOOK OF PSALMS (XI)

“Praise waits for You, O God, in Zion; and to You the vow is performed.”

(Psalms 65:2)

We evoke and call for our Creator in the place where we can find Him. In this verse once more King David invites us to reflect on Zion. It is reiterated again that we find, recognize and acknowledge God in what we have in common with Him, which is goodness.

When we call God, let’s do it in goodness for the sake of goodness, for the place of His dwelling is goodness. In that place in consciousness we praise Him and make our vows to Him, which are the commitment and determination to being, having and doing goodness.

“Happy is the man whom You choose and bring near, that he may dwell in Your courtyards, be satisfied with the goodness of Your house. Sacred Your temple!” (65:5)

Many are the times when we are chosen, but few when we choose to be chosen. This verse is about choosing to be near God. We also can understand this as being happy to be chosen by the goodness others bestow on us. Certainly true happiness and joy come from living in goodness, for it is our complete fulfillment and plenitude.

This verse reminds us the sacredness of goodness as the house where we find our Creator, from whom all goodness comes. Let’s remind ourselves that a house with its courtyards represents the consciousness with which we live. All we have in that place determines who we are, what we have and do.

“I will come to Your house with burnt offerings. To You I will perform my vows.” (66:13)

Once more, God’s “house” is where our highest level of consciousness and utmost awareness of goodness meet with His goodness. Hence it is where we offer the best in us to renew and replenish it with the promise of making it prevail in what we are and do.

“A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in the habitation of His sacredness.” (68:6)

We are fatherless when there are no ruling and guiding principles for which to live. In this sense, father and mother are the sustaining, nurturing and conducting sources that give meaning to our life.

The same goes to having or lacking judgment to do what is right, proper and just, in situations when we don’t have the material and moral support to cope with life.

Let's be aware that God’s habitation encompasses the ruling, ethical principles of His ways and attributes that we see in the goodness He wants us to live.

JERUSALEM IN THE BOOK OF PSALMS (X)

“And I am like an olive tree in the house of God, and my trust in the loving kindness of God for ever and ever.”

(Psalms 52:10)

King David’s love, devotion and praise to the Creator are emblematic, for there has not been someone like him to exalt His works and wonders.

These qualities also embrace those of an olive tree, deep rooted, strong and long lasting. There seems to be a corresponding nature between the aforementioned qualities and the trust derived from them, with the eternal loving kindness by which God sustains His creation.

Let’s remember that olives produce the oil to light up the darkness of the late and early hours of the day. Every time we hear or speak about anointment, it is about our capacity to enlighten ourselves with the multidimensional and transcendental meanings of the Torah.

This is the same anointment that leads us to our final redemption with the ultimate knowledge and awareness of the Creator in our consciousness that takes place in “the house of the Lord”.

Planting consciousness in this house like olive trees means to live permanently in the awareness of the truth that God’s loving kindness is from where we came, and to where we are destined to live forever and ever.

“Who shall give from Zion the redemption of Israel? The Lord will turn the captivity of His people. Jacob will be glad, Israel will rejoice.” (53:7)

The verse tells us that God’s final redemption for Israel, and consequently for humankind, comes from Zion as the connecting place between the Creator and the material world.

We must realize that Zion, as the total awareness of our connection with God, is the time and space of our complete freedom from anything different from God’s ways and attributes, which we understand as pure goodness free from what is alien to it.

Our captivity encompasses all that lacks goodness, which is living in the negative and destructive predicament of the evil ways of an egocentric approach to life.

As long as we don’t lose focus of goodness and acknowledge it as our essence and true identity, we recognize ourselves as Jacob and Israel, the two aspects of a life committed to reveal God’s will for the material world, which is to make goodness prevail.

Once we allow goodness to manifest in all levels, aspects and expressions of human consciousness, we begin to rejoice and be glad of living in true redemption, free from the captivity of evil.

As we see it in the following verse, living in this awareness is the culmination of the fulfilled prophecies in the Hebrew Bible with their transcending and eternal quality.

“I will dwell in Your tent forever. I will take refuge in the covert of Your wings, forever.” (61:5)

In the Hebrew tradition, tents are related to places of learning and study of the Torah in regards to how God relates to His creation. God’s tent is as unfathomable and impenetrable as the Creator, for He is eternal.

This is the transcendental time and space where our consciousness is promised to dwell as in a refuge under eternal divine protection.

JERUSALEM IN THE BOOK OF PSALMS (IX)

“Walk in Zion, and go round about her; count her towers. Mark ye her ramparts, traverse her palaces; that ye may tell it to the next generation.”

(Psalms 48:13-14)

King David invites us to thoroughly know the city of God for obvious reasons. We have to know our Creator, the One who sustains us and provides us with the goodness necessary to live in this world.

Furthermore, this knowledge is actually more about us than God. As we have said frequently, Jerusalem is the highest level of consciousness by which we relate and bond with Him.

We are talking about elevated traits, attributes and qualities as the strongholds represented by “towers”, “ramparts” and “palaces” we share with God. The more we know them, recognize them, and embrace them as part of who we are, we will begin to also get acquainted with Whom we share them, in the unique place He calls His dwelling.

“For such is God, our God, forever and ever. He will guide us eternally.” (48:15)

Let’s be aware that this process of divine awareness is an eternal one, for God is unfathomably eternal. In this understanding we realize that our knowledge of the Creator is for all times and all generations, which means that our children and grandchildren are also born to share this divine destiny.

“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined forth.” (50:2)

We have said that light in contrast to darkness, perfection in contrast imperfection, beauty in contrast to ugliness, are all references and abstractions of goodness. By definition, there is no taint, error, or defect in goodness.

This is the same quality of Zion, for it is the place and throne of the goodness emanated from God. Our Creator “shines” out of Zion, for goodness is the perfection of beauty He wants us to live, experience and enjoy for eternity.

The verse invites us to reflect on our required permanent awareness that goodness is what we must pursue for ourselves individually and collectively as our bond with God.

“Do goodness in Your desire to Zion; build [You] the walls of Jerusalem.” (51:20)

Our Sages refer to this verse as a prayer to ask God for goodness and the protection of Jerusalem as goodness. We can read the verse also as an invitation for us to evoke and bring goodness as the best in us, represented by Zion.

We too have to build the walls to protect goodness as the source and sustenance of our well being, happiness and complete fulfillment.

“Then You shall delight in the offerings of righteousness, the burnt offering and all the entire offerings; then will they offer bulls upon Your altar.” (51:21)

The Psalmist reiterates that the goodness we want to be, have and do, sustains itself in righteousness, for goodness is the ethical ruling principle in God’s creation.

The offerings we elevate in the Temple of Jerusalem represent our willingness and determination to make goodness rule every aspect, dimension and expression of our consciousness.

JERUSALEM IN THE BOOK OF PSALMS (VIII)

“God in Your palaces [You are] known for stronghold.” (Psalms 48:4)

We have said that Jerusalem, as the city of God, is also the place of His dwelling. We understand that a “place” is to be or to stand on as the leading and driving force of life and foundation of our consciousness, and in this sense that place is goodness.

The “palaces” are the positive traits, ways, means, trends and qualities which are the strongholds by which we protect ourselves and prosper, for goodness is the purpose of goodness.

“As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of multitudes, in the city of our God. God established it for eternity, forever.” (48:9)

Goodness is destined to prevail in God’s creation, for eternity. We come to this ultimate realization in the awareness that the city of God is such goodness. In this way we understand that “multitudes” are also the unfathomable ways and dimensions where God reigns and rules over His entire creation, as the Psalmist also proclaimed.

“And David blessed the Lord before all the assembly; and David said, ‘Blessed are You, O Lord, God of our father Israel in all the realms, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty! For all in the heavens and in the earth is Yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom and You are exalted as head above all.”

(I Chronicles 10-11)

In this blessing King David invites us to reflect on who we are, what we have and do, for these also come from the Creator and we are destined to fulfill His will.

“We have reflected on Your loving kindness, O God, in the midst of Your temple.” (Psalms 48:10)

Loving kindness is a primordial attribute of goodness, in which we inspire ourselves in our bonding with the Creator that is represented by the Temple of Jerusalem.

Abundant loving kindness is referred in the Torah (Exodus 34:6-7) as one of God’s thirteen attributes of compassion. These are considered also as the references for His judgments.

“Rejoice, mount Zion; be happy, daughters of Judah, because of Your judgments.” (48:12)

This verse invites us to understand God’s judgments as a source of rejoicing, for these come from His goodness that stands in the mount of His sacredness.

The “daughters of Judah” are expressions of our recognition of goodness as our link with the Creator. These also can be understood as expressions of gratitude and recognition for God’s goodness, for in Hebrew Judah literally means “I shall thank/acknowledge God”.

JERUSALEM IN THE BOOK OF PSALMS (VII)

“God is in the midst of her [Jerusalem], she shall not be moved. God shall help her, at the approach of morning.”

(Psalms 46:6)

Jerusalem is God’s chosen place for His dwelling in the world, that He won’t move or change. We have said that God and His dwelling are inherent in each other, which makes Jerusalem as unchangeable as Him.

“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?”

(Numbers 23:19)

“And also the preeminence of Israel does not lie or repent, for He is not a man to repent.”

(I Samuel 15:29)

“I profane not My covenant, and that which is going forth from My lips I change not.”

(Psalms 89:34)

Thus we understand God’s oneness as immutable, for that is a quality of what is completed and completion does need addition, subtraction or change.

The second sentence of the verse speaks about God’s revelation in His promised final redemption. In this sense, the latter is related to enlightenment as “the approaching morning”, a new day as a new beginning for human consciousness.

This is the “help” humankind has been hoping for since its beginnings, to finally see the advent of a new life without any trace of evil.

“Great is the Lord and exalted highly in the city of our God, the mount of His sacredness.” (48:2)

Our Sages relate God’s greatness to His infinite loving kindness from which all came to existence, for all exists by God’s goodness and nothing else. This divine attribute is manifest in all its dimensions in Jerusalem, which also represents the highest level of consciousness by which we bond with God.

As we have mentioned earlier, sacredness as an evil-free consciousness is the precondition to engage into the next level where our bonding with God’s sacredness takes us to a higher and more spiritual approach to life in this world.

“Beautiful sight, the joy of the whole earth [is] mount Zion, the northern sides, the city of the great King.” (48:3)

This verse speaks about the unfathomable and indescribable experience of living in, with and by our sacred bonding with the Creator, represented by mount Zion. Beauty becomes an expression of goodness, for goodness is beautiful in any form, way or direction it manifests, for it encompasses all.