Parshat Behar: Serving the Love of God

The Torah defines the Jewish identity as the people who are destined to serve the Creator. The entire Torah is about our individual and collective service to Him, and the messages in Behar make a special emphasis in the practical aspects of this service, because we honor God by serving Him the way He wants.

We have said many times and will continue reiterating that the service of God is the service of Love. We serve Him by being and doing His ways and attributes which emanate from His Love, the source of our true Essence and identity.

By, through, and with Love we fulfill God's will for us, and we do it in the ways and means of His ways and attributes. This is how we care and protect each other, and the way to love each other.

“And you shall not wrong, one man his fellow Jew, and you shall revere your God, for I am the Lord, your God.” (Leviticus 25:17)

God loves us in the same way.

We learn to love each other as the way to build, elevate and enhance all aspects and dimensions of consciousness in order to expand the goodness of Love in what we are, have and do. Again we repeat that Love is its cause and effect, for the only purpose of Love is Love. Hence Love does not cohabit with anything different form its ways and attributes. We are not supposed to do wrong to each other because the Creator doesn't do wrong to us.

In this context we are responsible to each other, accountable to each other, and liable for each other. We are entitled to protect each other and dignify each other. This is our obligation and the reason to fight anything that attempts against our individual and collective dignity and integrity. For the sake of Love, and in the name of Love as our Essence and identity, we must honor its ways, means and attributes and repel and defeat their opposites.

We have to stop totalitarian, despotic, denigrating, exploiting and oppressing beliefs and ideologies from our midst, because this is our responsibility, duty and obligation, not God's. We can't blame Him for what we create and inflict in our material reality. If we have cruelty, wickedness, negativity, et al, is because we adopted them, not God. This is the price to pay after creating the wrong thoughts, emotions, feelings and passions, and putting them into action.

We already know that evil and negativity are only references for us to exercise free will, and they are not choices. Hence we are obligated to avoid them in all levels of consciousness and choose Love's ways and attributes as the right choices. We are obligated to eradicate evil from human consciousness, and that includes fascism, racism, totalitarianism and fundamentalism in all their forms and ways.

Eradicating negativity as a choice is the beginning to truly love ourselves, and by extension to love others. Let's be loving enough and mindful enough to realize that ego's fantasies and materialistic desires trigger our separation from Love as our true Essence, and also from our individual and collective well being.

We live secured and protected in Love's ways and attributes, because they comprise the Land, with is also the higher consciousness that God's Love gives us to reveal His Presence in the world.

“You shall perform My statutes, keep My ordinances and perform them, then you will live on the Land securely.” (25:18)

 As long as we do it...

“(...) the Land will then yield its fruit and you will eat to satiety, and live upon it securely.” (25:19)

Trading or replacing our higher consciousness with something different is inconceivable because this awareness emanates from the Creator, and is sustained by Him.

“The Land shall not be sold permanently, for the Land belongs to Me, for you are strangers and residents with Me.” (25:23)

Indeed we are passers-by in the material world. Nothing belongs to us, including Love as the Essence and identity that God gives us to know Him and to reveal Him in who we are.

“Therefore, throughout the Land of your possession, you shall give redemption for the Land.” (25:24)

Through Love's qualities and traits as the Land that God gives us, we redeem ourselves from the fantasies and illusions of the material world, that which ego wants to make real (only in ego's dreams!), and we also must redeem the goodness of Love from the burdens of the material world.

The following verses indicate the dynamics and practicality of Love in our consciousness as the means to make Love prevail in our midst.

“If your brother becomes destitute and his hand falters beside you, you shall support him [whether] a convert or a resident, so that he can live with you. (…) and you shall revere Your God, and let your brother live with you.” (25:35-36)

We honor and revere our God when we share our individual lot of Love with those whose awareness of Love is diminished, in order to help them increase their lot.

The Love that God gives us as our higher consciousness is destined to be manifest in all aspects, levels and dimensions of our lives. As we said, this is the way He wants us to serve Him and this is why He chose us from among the nations.

“I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be a God to you.” (25:38)

In other words, He redeemed us from the house of slavery in order for us to dwell in His ways and attributes; and, as long as we do that, He is our God.

The Creator is God to us because He delivered us from the land of Egypt to give us the Land of Israel. Only in this context we can understand that we are His servants,

“For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants, whom I took out of the land of Egypt. [For] I am the Lord, your God.” (25:55)

In this awareness there is no room for ego's fantasies and illusions as negative addictions and attachments in our consciousness.

“You shall not make idols for yourselves, nor shall you set up a statue or a monument for yourselves. And in your Land you shall not place a pavement stone on which to prostrate yourselves, for I am the Lord, your God.” (26:1)

As we have repeated, Love does not coexist with anything different from its ways and attributes. The principle of this awareness is reaffirmed in the last verse of Behar, in which the unity with the Creator in His Shabbat and His Temple is the premise to fully experience the meaning of living in His ways and attributes, as the source of our true Essence and identity.

“You shall keep My Shabbats and revere My Sanctuary. [For] I am the Lord.” (26:2)

The service of God is our identity and destiny, and in this awareness we settle in our country because such is our Land.

“And You gave them this Land which You swore to their fathers to give them, a Land flowing with milk and honey.” (Jeremiah 32:22)

This Land is the sweetness of God's Love. (Other aspects of this portion of the Torah are addressed in this blog's Parshat Behar: “Shabbat” of May 1, 2010 and “The Place of Divine Love” of May 8, 2011).

Q & A

The way you communicate the messages of God as Love seems easy to understand, yet difficult to adapt to (the material) reality. How can we experience more Love in our lives amid the negativity we have to deal on a daily basis?

Indeed it sounds easy because at some point in our lives we have experienced full awareness of Love and its attributes. We know that without Love is simply impossible to live and sustain life. This means that also at some point we adapted Love to our surrounding reality, either as children or as parents, brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones. We have pointed out countless times that the main obstacle to let Love lead in all circumstances is ego's “personal” agenda. We have said that the problems in our relationship with others begin when when we trespass the boundaries set by mutual respect, care and protection of each other. In other words, our freedom ends when the freedom of others beings, which means that we must not gain, enjoy or profit at the expense of others' loss, suffering or lack. In this sense, Love implies a win-win situation in which none of the parties involved loses. This is why we say that Love is the cause and the effect, because it must be in that way in order to be true Love. Ego's obstruction manifests when we want something at the expense or detriment of others, and Love's ways manifest when we share goodness for the advancement and betterment of all. This is the kind of consciousness that defines the Final Redemption in Judaism. We say in God as Love that “democracy” is not about 51% ruling and 49% ruled, or 51 winning and 49 losing and reduced to be “the opposition”, because we believe that true “democracy” (we put it on quotation marks because the term belongs to the “nations”, therefore alien to Judaism) is about general consensus. We all must agree on that which is for the individual and collective benefit. We also have mentioned that our mystic Sages teach that we fight darkness (negativity) not by declaring war on evil but by expanding Light (Love's ways and attributes), meaning by doing good and positive actions (what we call in Judaism “learning Torah and fulfilling its Commandments”) we dissipate evil and its derivatives. To answer your question, we experience more Love in our life when we follow its ways and practice its attributes. In this sense the more you love, the more you dissolve negativity in your midst. It may not be an easy process, but if you start with your own self trying to be mindful about Love as our true Essence and common bond with the Creator, His Love will guide you to clear the darkness that may be around. Be mindful that you love because Love is your Essence and identity, and you do it just for the sake of Love.

I have difficulty to understand passages of the Tanach (the Torah and the Hebrew sacred scriptures) though I am aware of their inner meanings beyond my discernment. Is there any way to assimilate the messages of those passages that seem to be far from our human understanding?

You already know what our Sages say regarding the levels of perception and/or understanding of our Hebrew scriptures, which are literal, allegorical, indirect, by ethical/philosophical deduction, and through esoteric/mystic understanding. They also remark that we must perceive, discern and assimilate all these levels, meaning that we have to understand and accept them as truthful ways and means to learn and know the Creator's messages in the whole Tanach. A fundamental example is the Exodus from Egypt that indeed occurred literally as mentioned in the Torah. We were slaves in the most depraved nation of ancient times, we were submitted to forced hard physical labor, we were exploited, humiliated, abused and murdered amid the most abject conditions. Our oral tradition is abundantly clear in this respect. At the same time, this particular historical facts reflect the level of spiritual awareness almost close to none, from which the Creator lifted our ancestors to freedom in miraculous ways. The conditions were so negative that only through direct Divine intervention was possible to exit the lowest levels of consciousness, and cross over to the highest levels in close contact with the Deliverer of such freedom. We also must be fully aware that the Torah is written in human language in order for us to understand the ethics and morals of God's Love, and His ways and means to relate with Him. Our Sages also explain that the entire content of the Hebrew Scriptures is Divinely intended as strict ethical rules and guidelines to safeguard our individual and collective well being. The strictness of this rules reflects the fundamental principle that Love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes. We must understand this strictness not as restrictions or limitations to our individual and collective freedom but exactly as the opposite, because Love is about inclusion and expansion unlike the excluding, subtracting and restrictive qualities of ego's fantasies and illusions. The strictness of Love's ways and attributes are aimed to eliminate anything that threatens their goodness and positive qualities. In this way we understand what our mystic Sages mean when they say that we must be always “eternally vigilant” in order not to go off the “straight and narrow path” of righteousness.

What are the signs of the Redemption promised by God and our Prophets?

Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, the Rambam) elaborates about this in his Mishneh Torah (Laws of the Kings), as well as other Sages, based on the books of our Prophets, and we have to understand these signs in the context of our current times. In other words, we must assimilate the Messianic era as the time in which Truth prevails. We have repeated in this blog that such Truth encompasses Love's ways and attributes as the material reflection of God's Love for us and His Creation. This means that living in the Truth is living in Love's ways, because Love is the cause of Truth. In a practical ethical and moral sense, when we live from, by, with, and for the Truth there is nothing different or opposite to it. Living with the Truth individually and collective is a clear sign that we are living in the Redemption, opposite to living in the lies of ego's illusions. The moment we abandon ego's illusions and choose to embrace Love's attributes as the real Truth, we are redeemed. Mutual cooperation and solidarity are also signs of the Messianic era, and in Judaism we refer to them as tzedakah (usually mistranslated as “charity”, and its true meaning is “doing righteousness as justice, or as the just thing to do for others, which is doing goodness”), and makes perfect sense because Redemption is about doing goodness to each other permanently. A definite sign of Redemption is when we fully enthrone Love as our true Essence and identity, as the sovereign conductor of all levels and dimensions of consciousness. In this sense we understand Love as “the flourishing power” of Redemption.

Tetzaveh: Living our Connection with God's Love

The Sanctuary and the High Priest relate to each other not as complements but as parts of the same unity, as body and consciousness comprise human life. Our Sages compare the Sanctuary as the material aspect of life and the High Priest as the spiritual. Both as a unity because nothing is separated when we approach life as God's emanation. It seems paradoxical that two apparently different qualities can be part of a unity, because in our fragmented consciousness we conceive everything separate in order to assimilate every part as elements of the same thing. The more we separate and divide something, the more we seem to understand it. This happens when we want to “know” something or somebody: we want every detail as pieces of an image that also we want according to our understanding or preconditioned idea.

We experience this when we watch a movie in which we suppose to know every character in order to anticipate or predict the outcome of the plot. There's nothing unusual about this, because it is part of the way culture shapes our minds. We even have this same approach with the Creator but it doesn't work as the way to relate to Him. In this sense this is a materialistic approach hard to change, though we must if we want to know God's ways and attributes.

In this knowledge we are able to realize who we really are. We must know our true Essence and identity when we learn to know God's Love as our Creator. The Torah tells us how because it defines our identity as Jews based on the our relationship with God.

We have said that Aaron or the High Priest represents the highest awareness of our connection with the Creator. We know that He is undefinable, and the only way to relate to Him is through His ways and attributes as indicated in His Torah. These attributes reflect His Love for His Creation in general and for Israel in particular, because we have a special relationship with Him as also stated in the Torah. We must relate to Him with all dimensions of our life, “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might [all you are and have]”, and these are parts of a unity called life.

The heart encompasses our vital drives (ego, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts), the soul comprises intellect and discernment about our Essence and identity which emanate from God's Love, and our might is all we acquire, achieve and possess in life which include knowledge and skills that lead us to “being”, “doing” and “having”. In the harmonic unity of these dimensions we approach who we are in our relationship with God.

No matter how mundane or materialistic they may sound, the idea is to “elevate” them in His ways and through His attributes. The High Priest, as our true vital force, is the Jewish higher consciousness with which we achieve this, and the Sanctuary as the time and space in which all dimensions of consciousness are united. This is part of our Jewish identity because it comes to us as a direct positive Commandment: “And you shall command (tetzaveh) the children of Israel (...)” (Exodus 27:20), and the one who commands the children of Israel (all aspects, qualities and dimensions of consciousness) is Moses (the highest knowledge of the Creator and His Love). Only through the knowledge of God's Love we connect with Him. Let's be mindful that in Hebrew the semantic root of “commandment” and “to command” also means “connection” and “to connect”. Thus we understand that by fulfilling God's Commandments we connect with Him.

The High Priest, as the highest awareness of our connection with the Creator, is the one who loves every aspect and dimension of consciousness enough to elevate them with his Love united to God's Love permanently: “(…) so that they [the names of the Tribes of Israel] will be over Aaron's heart when he comes before the Lord, and Aaron will carry the judgment of the children of Israel over his heart before the Lord at all times.” (28:30). We referred before to the High Priest (see in this blog our commentary “Parshat Tetzaveh: The Permanent Awareness of our Connection to God's Love” of February 6, 2011) as the most sublime loving approach to life and our circumstances, and as the exact opposite of ego's materialistic fantasies and illusions.

In this sense we realize that Love is the natural conductor of all aspects of consciousness, ego included. In this awareness our Love is the means to embrace God's Love: “It shall be upon Aaron's forehead, and Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the holy things that the children of Israel sanctify, for all their holy gifts. It shall be upon his forehead constantly to make them favorable before the Lord.” (28:36-38). In the mindful awareness of our own Love (Aaron's forehead) we sanctify life and all that is related to it as holy gifts that God created for us.

When we constantly consecrate our material reality to His ways and attributes, He also embraces us with His Love and this how we make the world favorable before Him. In this way we realize what is our relation and connection with Him: “They will know that I, the Lord, am their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt in order that I may dwell in their midst; I am the Lord, their God.” (29:46). In this way we know that Love is our common bond with Him.

We have to get acquainted with Love as our true Essence and identity, and we do it by awakening the High Priest in our consciousness as the ways and means to infuse Love into our life and immediate reality. Love as the teacher, the guide and the conductor in what we believe, think, feel, speak and act. This is our true Redemption from the bondage in the land of ego's fantasies and illusions. If we don't know how to regain awareness of Love as our Essence and identity, the Torah instructs us how because it defines for us who we truly are.

Let's not be shallow and settle for less with materialistic fantasies and illusions from which we become the nothingness they are. Love is our Creator's legacy and inheritance for us and all His Creation, because everything that is comes from His Love. We come from His Love, and we also are His Love for us to discover, celebrate, enjoy and share with each other. Let's know the Creator through our Love as our common bond with Him.

Love and Life as Cause and Effect

Let's summarize some of the principles that we present in "God as Love" as inherent to the soul of Judaism.

1- God's Love is the cause and effect of His Creation, and in our finite and limited understanding we are able to conceive the Creator through what we perceive as His Creation. What we make out from the Creation is our creation and not His. This is important to remark because many people "blame" God for the choices and actions that we make and do instead of taking full responsibility for the consequences of our deeds. We have learned long time ago that we, as most of animal species, are designed to live by caring for each other as the premise to survive in the material world, and we also know that this "caring" is nothing but Love. This is the real and tangible Truth, not for those who know it but deny it, reject it, and even fight against it. How is this possible? Why some of us can deny something as evident and obvious as Love, our true Essence and identity? 

We probably must ask the question in a different way. Why some selectively acknowledge and experience Love in certain aspects of their lives --with family, close friends, beliefs or ideologies-- and not in other circumstances? Like the people who are kind with some and cruel with others who don't represent a threat or danger for them, as it happened with Germans and Jews in the first half of the XX century. What is the root of this irrational selective hatred? Is it ideology? Is it mental illness? Is it possible to submit Love to ideology? Should we call insane those who "love" their families while hating others irrationally? These people hate at the expense of Love in the same way that some kill at the expense of life. We need to be alive in order to kill, as we need to have Love in order to be able to hate because Love is the Essence that sustains life, as the material manifestation of God's Love in His Creation.

2- Love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes. In this sense we define Judaism as "the ethics of Love", because the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, both as one, contain the ways to completely fulfill the cornerstone of Judaism: "Love your neighbor as [you love] yourself, [because] I am the Lord." (Leviticus 19:18) and there are ways and attributes to love our fellow human beings that we learn from God by our awareness of His Love in His Creation. It is fundamental to know and experience God's Love in order conceive and approach our Love in the material world. We love because of God's Love, and we do it emulating the way He loves us and His entire Creation. This explains that the goodness we pursue for ourselves individually must be the same goodness that we pursue for others. This includes the Talmudic warning that we must not do to others what we consider unpleasant to us, which implies a direct contradiction to doing good for our sake and simultaneously doing something unpleasant to others, as it happened by Germans against Jews and others during the Nazi regime.

3- Love is the awareness of our connection and relationship with God. The more we are aware and mindful of God's Love in His Creation, the more we know Him and the more we love Him. The more we think, feel and act in Love's ways and attributes, the more we are connected to God. The term "Commandment" in Hebrew literally means "connection", and our Sages explain that we fulfill God's Will (His Commandments) as the means to be connected to Him. This makes perfect sense because by our good actions we manifest our closeness to Him. In this context, doing the opposite is to separate from Him, and this is what we mean when we say that Love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes. The Creator is always with us, regardless what we may believe, think, feel or do, because we are creatures emanated from Him; and it is us who make the choice to "separate" from Him.

3- Love, as the material manifestation of God's Love, is our true Essence and identity. In this awareness and realization, Love is also the ways and means to redeem our consciousness from the negative approach to life and its negative results that we see in the world. The Creator endowed us with free will for us to experience real and total freedom, and in this knowledge we are entitled to make positive choices in order to harvest positive effects. God is not responsible for our actions, we are. If we know what Love is, then we also know our true freedom and Redemption. Let's be mindful that it is up to us, individually and collectively, to redeem ourselves and fix the damage we have caused with a negative approach to life and the world. This is our responsibility and not God's. In this sense, it is our duty to manifest the Messianic era and the Redemption that our Prophets announced.

Maimonides and other Jewish Sages share the same view about "the end of times". As we often say, we were responsible for the destruction of the First and Second Temples of Jerusalem, and it is also up to us to build the Third Temple as a final and perpetual place in our Land as well as in our consciousness. In the same way that we have allowed negative thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts in our consciousness, we are perfectly capable to direct them in a positive direction and purpose, which are Love's ways and attributes as cause and effect of goodness. Ego, along with all aspects of consciousness, is a driving force that also must be directed in Love's ways and attributes.

4- Love is inherent to life, and life is inherent to Love. This principle is derived in a deeper way from the first mentioned above. In the same way that God's Love conceived us, we are materially conceived by, through and for Love as our Essence and identity. We know that life is the purpose of Creation. In Jewish liturgy we recite every morning "You [God] are the life of all worlds" and in our consciousness of being alive we must say "the world was created for me", as our Sages teach us. We must approach life as we approach Love, as Essential as simple, because there is nothing complex about Love. We care for each other just because this is part of how we love. Love defines itself by its ways and attributes which all are about goodness.

Our Sages relate simplicity to humbleness and complexity to haughtiness, and we can conclude that the simpler we are the easier we approach life. The less we have to worry about what we believe, feel or possess, the easier we live. People too attached to their complexities in every level of consciousness find more difficulty to adapt to simpler conditions or environments. Humbleness and simplicity are the vessels for God's blessings which are His Love. Love flows easier with simplicity, and usually is either rejected or conditioned by complexities, which are mostly derived by ego's materialistic fantasies and illusions.

The Desert as a Field of Life

The experience of our ancestors in the Sinai desert after the Exodus from Egypt set a principle for us, individually as Jews and collectively as a Nation. We understand their journeys in the desert as a transition process between slavery in Egypt and freedom in the Promised Land, darkness and Light, exile and Redemption, ignorance and knowledge. It seems to be a process in which there are many elements involved with total freedom as the common purpose. Life itself encompasses a similar process as the vehicle that supposes to be the means and the end for freedom. We have said many times that freedom is inherent to life in the sense that freedom is the means to experience it in a meaningful way. For this we have to define "freedom" and "meaningful". Even though both terms seem to complement each other, they may mean something different depending on who defines them and this also depends on the circumstances and the borders within we live.

We also have said often that Love is what gives sense and purpose in life, while the opposite of Love's ways and attributes deny any sense nor purpose in life. With these premises in mind we are going to approach "desert" and "journey" as well as "transition" and "purpose", among other terms relevant in the message that we aim to convey here. The desert is a place related to barrenness, lifelessness and something unable to sustain life. We can't live in a desert as a dwelling place unless we bring with us what we are going to need there in order to survive. The material world offers more suitable places, and the last place we want or need to go is a desert, except if we can find in it an oasis or an enlarged version like the one called Las Vegas. 

It's amazing what ego's materialistic desires can achieve to the point of building an entertaining city in the middle of the desert dedicated to fantasies and illusions. It sounds like defying the whole point that the Torah wants to teach us about Israel's journeys in the desert, which was to be closer to the Creator and not closer to ego's desires. The desert is the absence of anything that invites our consciousness to desire or to possess, simply because there is nothing there. We leave behind the accessories for a life in comfort in order to find something that gives meaning to any possible material asset to experience life in the best conceivable way. The desert, the land of nothing, the non-having and non-desiring place becomes the setting as a precondition to start knowing the One who created all and owns all. 

As we reflect on this, we start realizing that we humans do not really own anything, neither in the material world nor in the spiritual world. This is easy to confirm this when we realize that we don't take with us what we have when we die. In other words, we must realize that the only "possession" is our consciousness as long as we live with it in freedom. This is one of the lessons about knowing the Creator when we "meet" Him in the wilderness of Sinai. We can stand before Him when our consciousness is free from the bondage of material illusions we call "possessions" and other fantasies created by ego's desires.

Our mystic Sages say that we have to empty our consciousness in order to make space for God's blessings, which are His ways and attributes for us to experience and manifest in what we think, feel, speak and do. This conclusion is based on the Talmudic quote, "The Creator doesn't dwell with one who is full of himself", just because he leave no space for Him. Hence, the main obstruction to approach Him is the way we conceive ourselves individually, and what we do with our life according to such conception. Here we start to make the classical existential questions related to who or what we are, why are we here, etc. In the answers we suppose to find the whole point.

Most people believe that we are the result of our circumstances, and we act according to them without objections because "that's all there is". If we are not happy with that, we try as much as we can to change things and turn our circumstances according to what or who we think we are or "should" be. The other day an Israeli newspaper mentioned a new book of about a religious character whose life and deeds are based on legends that have been modified or transformed according to the interests of a particular religion. This book pretends to give a different perspective or vision about this particular character based on other legends and the author's own interpretation of them. He is basically trying to change a myth with his own version of the same myth, a lie from another lie. Most of us do the same regarding beliefs, customs, habits and views about things and people, and we are (not all of us) changing throughout our lives according to the times and circumstances.

We must assimilate the "desert" as a state of consciousness in which we make a space to meet the Creator. In order to enter this space we must reflect on our needs in every aspect of life, and come to the awareness that all our needs are fulfilled by God. If we don't realize this, we are back into the bondage of an approach to life that commands us to live according to ego's "rules of the game" or "fair play" in the fields of the material world. This is when we rather return to the consciousness of "Egypt" than pursuing a consciousness of real freedom in the fields of God. We have to embark in a journey in a desert with many stops and turns until we empty all levels of consciousness in order to let God fill them with the Essence of who we truly are. 

In this process God's Love is fully revealed to us in direct proportion to the space we allow for Him in our consciousness. The more we experience Love and manifest Love, the more we are able to transform darkness into Light. Our Sages say that a good deed is rewarded with the opportunity to do another good deed, and it makes sense because once we see the Light and hold it in our hands we are able to illuminate dark places. They also refer to the light of fire as something that we give or share without losing it, as it also happens with Love's ways and attributes. We give Love without losing it. We understand Love as something endless and infinite as God's Love, because it is our Essence and identity as well as the source and sustenance of life.

We realize this when we entrust ourselves to leave behind the mirages, fantasies and illusions of what we are not, and the "desert" is the empty space in our consciousness where this endeavor takes place. Here is where we stand before our Creator, who tells us that we are His and belong to Him, not to ego's illusions. Not to Egypt, not to Vegas, not to consumer society, not to "light" culture, not to vanity and glamour, not to futility, not to a meaningless life. In the desert we meet our Creator and in the desert we build a Sanctuary for Him, a place in the highest level of consciousness in which both our highest awareness of Him and our highest awareness of our connection to Him are the main leading and driving forces to approach life and the material world as emanations of God's Love.

In order to understand and assimilate the knowledge of life and the world, first we have to know their Creator and His Love; and we do this through Love as our common bond with Him. Let's leave behind our bondage to the material illusions fabricated by ego and engage in our individual inner journey to the place where only the Truth of who we are dwells, and let's dwell always in this Truth. This is Israel's legacy, inheritance and destiny as the state of consciousness in which God's Love fills every space of who we are as His children and as His chosen people, because we chose back to embrace Him as our Father and our King. This is our true Essence and identity, either in the desert or in any other place, to turn the desert into a field of life as He conceives it for us.

Parshat Haazinu: The Sheltering Love of God

The ardent plea of Moses in this portion contains the words of our highest knowledge of the Creator, summoning Heaven and Earth as the two dimensions that comprise human consciousness.

"Listen, O Heaven, and I will speak! And let the Earth hear the words of my mouth!" (Deuteronomy 32:1)

The essential message of this portion summarizes one of the primordial principles of our Torah and hence in Judaism, the oneness of the Creator from whom everything emanates, and the way it happens.

"The deeds of the Rock [the Almighty] are perfect, for all His ways are just; a faithful God, without injustice He is righteous and upright." (32:4)

These are the qualities of God's love, and love as we experience Him in His ways and attributes.

In this sense we understand that anything different from His ways are our own choices, either be ego's illusions or lower passions derived from uncontrolled desires.

"Destruction is not His; it is His children's defect you crooked and twisted generation." (32:5)

Moses, representing our highest awareness of God, questions our choices when we separate from His attributes.

"Is this how you repay the Lord, you disgraceful, unwise people?! Is He not your Father, your Master? He has made you and established you. (…) You forgot the Rock [the Almighty] who bore you; you forgot the God who delivered you." (32:6, 18)

We are reminded again that God's love does not dwell with anything different than His ways and attributes.

"[So] the Lord guided them alone, and there was no alien deity with Him." (32:12)

This is reaffirmed time and again.

"See now that it is I! I am the One, and there is no god like Me! I cause death and grant life. I strike, but I heal, and no one can rescue from My hand!" (32:39)

The vast majority in this world live in and for material illusions derived either from ideologies, beliefs, culture, fashion, or most commonly from consumer society's trends. We literally live and die for them, sometimes regardless if they don't make sense, or if they are right or wrong.

We can call it our contemporary idolatry. The question that Moses asks us is if these idols really nurture our life and save us from their negative predicament.

"Then He will say, 'Where is their deity, the rock in which they trusted, who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations? Let them arise and help you! Let them be your shelter!" (32:37-38)

Hence we must ask ourselves if there is anything of true value in ego's illusions, and what is left after they consume the vitality of our minds and bodies.

The portion continues with the consequences of living in the realm of illusions, the separation from our own essence that emanates from God's love, as the reiterated warning against separating from His ways.

Our sages wisely choose one of the most beautiful reflections of king David, inviting us to heal our ordeals in the mirages of the material world by trusting and embracing God's love, in the accompanying haftarah for this portion.

"God is my rock, under whom I take cover; my shield, and the horn of my redemption, my support, and my refuge; [He is] my savior who saves me from violence." (2 Samuel 22:3)

"When I am in distress, I call upon the Lord, yes I call upon my God: and out of His abode He hears my voice, and my cry enters His ears." (22:7)

"He sent from on high [and] He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my mighty enemy; from them that hated me; for they were too powerful for me. They [my enemies] confronted me on the day of my calamity; but the Lord was a support to me. And He brought me forth into a wide place; He delivered me because He took delight in me." (22:17-20)

The psalmist praises the Creator and His ways always in the right context, because he is aware that the only way to dwell with Him is by thinking, feeling and acting according to His ways.

"The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from [the commandments of] my God." (22:21-22)

Again we are reminded that His love does not dwell with anything different than His ways and attributes.

"With a kind one, You show Yourself kind. With an righteous mighty man, You show Yourself righteous. With a pure one, You show Yourself pure; but with a perverse one, You deal crookedly. And the humble people You do deliver; but Your eyes are upon the haughty [in order] to humble them." (22:26-28)

Humbleness is the yoke that directs ego into love's paths of righteousness, and out of the illusions of grandeur and fantasies of the material world.

Parshat Vayelech: The Choice to Return to God

Our highest knowledge of the Creator (represented by Moses) is our natural guide toward our permanent connection with Him (represented by Aaron, the High Priest). Moses sets up the tabernacle for Aaron to officiate in it, and in this sequence of action we allow God to direct every aspect of our life because He is the means and the end in which we must conduct ourselves; as Moses teaches us.

"The Lord, your God, He will cross before you; He will destroy these nations from before you so that you will possess them. The Lord He is the One who goes before you; He will be with you; He will neither fail you, nor forsake you. Do not fear, and do not be dismayed." (Deuteronomy 31:3, 8)

The psalmist and all our prophets remind us of this truth, which we must enthrone in all levels and dimensions of consciousness. Hence it is our choice either to do so, or follow ego's illusions and fantasies as the idols that we create out of a false sense of lack.

Trusting God's love is trusting love as our true essence and identity, as well as the power and strength that fights for us against the idols of materialism.

"And the Lord will do to them, as He did to the Amorite kings, Sichon and Og, and to their land, [all of] which He destroyed." (31:4)

This awareness we understand that only by living in love's ways and attributes we indeed are delivered from ego's illusions.

"And [when] the Lord delivers them before you, you shall do to them according to all the commandment that I have commanded you." (31:5)

If we can't trust God's love as our Creator and our essence, we are probably trusting illusions that ultimately lead us to our estrangement from who we truly are, along with its negative consequences. Therefore, we must be unshakable.

"Be strong and courageous! Neither fear nor be dismayed of them, for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will neither fail you, nor forsake you." (31:6)

Fantasies and illusions, by their nature, always forsake us because they are as insatiable as ego's desires, like the eyes that are never filled with what they see.

We have to unite all traits, qualities, levels, aspects and dimensions of consciousness around God's ways and attributes, and harmonize them toward His service.

"Assemble the people: the men, the women, and the children, and your stranger in your cities, in order that they hear, and in order that they learn and revere the Lord, your God, and they will observe to do all the words of this Torah." (31:12)

We have to reiterate again that love, as the material manifestation of God's love, does not dwell with anything different from its ways and attributes. This is an immutable principle that we must be aware of every moment in what we think, feel, sense, and do.

"And I will hide My face on that day, because of all the evil they have committed, when they turned to other deities." (31:18)

If this awareness is not present anymore (represented by Moses' death) we are at the mercy of our own materialistic illusions.

"For I know that after my death, you will surely become corrupted, and deviate from the way which I had commanded you. Consequently, the evil will befall you at the end of days, because you did evil in the eyes of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands." (31:29)

Our actions, "the work of our hands", illustrate what we believe and what we follow. If they are not love's ways, they are probably something that does not dwell with love.

We know quite well that we love selectively, and according to our ego's agenda. We condition love to be what we want it to be, and not what it is; in the same way that many condition God to be their own "personal" god. They usually call it "my God" at their service, without ethics or moral values attached to it, a god of fanaticism.

We all know that it doesn't work that way. Love inherently means and implies ethics, as God's attributes also imply ethics. He is the God of the Torah and the Jewish Scriptures, the God whose Creation is an emanation of His love. The God who knows and loves His creation, including our human nature, the way He made us.

In His love, God gives us free will to choose between love and our illusions. He loves us unconditionally because He gives us free will. In His unconditional love, He awaits our return to Him as the essence of who we truly are.

Our prophets reiterate this truth in the haftarah for this portion.

"Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take words with yourselves and return to the Lord. Say, "You shall forgive all iniquity and teach us [the] good [way], and let us render [for] bulls [the offering of] our lips." (Hosea 14:2-3)

"Who is a God like You, who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not maintain His anger forever, for He desires loving kindness. He shall return and grant us compassion. He shall hide our iniquities, and You shall cast into the depths of the sea all their sins. You shall give the truth of Jacob, the loving kindness of Abraham, which You swore to our forefathers from days of yore." (Micah 7:18-20)

Reflections on Elul

Our Jewish tradition tells us that Elul is the month of returning to our Creator. Some of our Sages call this process "repentance", a term that implies a return to the way things were before we made the choice of separating from Him. Some of our contemporaries compare it to rebooting a personal computer, and it may be so. After all, life as with computers, work with a "program" designed to function according to the information that it contains or that is provided. But we know that life is more complex than that, otherwise we would live as androids; though many people live like preprogrammed, preconditioned machines. The issue here is what kind of program or conditioning are those that make irrelevant free will and freedom, due to the fact that they turn people into responding and reacting entities based on how they were told to think, feel, behave and act.

This preamble is an invitation to reflect in who we really are, in our true identity as reasoning, thinking individuals endowed with emotions, feelings, passions and instincts. Where have we gone that we need to return to the Creator? How far are we from who we truly are? These are the questions that we ponder in Elul prior to stand before the One who created all there is. What "reality" is that which takes us away from Him, that makes us doubt and be uncertain about who we are? What is the original "program" set in the Essence of who we are? In the book "God as Love" we say countless times that God's Love is our Essence because we, as well as all His Creation, are an emanation of His Love; and Love is the ways and means to relate to Him and His Creation. Love is the program, the input and the outcome, the cause and the effect. Anything different from Love is what separates us from Love itself; and therefore from our Creator and all there is, because all comes from Him. Only with our full awareness of Love as our cause and effect in our lives are we able to stand up before God.

At this point in our reflections we realize that what is different from Love are the fantasies and illusions of ego's materialistic desires, the wrong "data" and the "viruses" that harm and damage the original program of human life, and life in general as well. In this sense, "repentance" implies a thorough, thoughtful and mindful process of detailed inventory of the things that harms and damages our life, the lives of others, and our environment. These things encompass thoughts, ideas, beliefs, social-cultural values, behavioral patterns, emotions, feelings and psychic/physical addictions. After we are done with the inventory of discerning the negative things that we do not want in our life and our surroundings, we must have the courage and determination to separate from them; simply because they were the choices made out of ego's illusions and feelings of lack. On one hand, we realize that lack is the belief and feeling of incompleteness; and on the other, that Love is what keeps our cup always full. This is the awareness (the anointment) that we need to bear constantly in our mind and heart, so our life (the cup) will be constantly full of Love: "You have anointed my head with oil, my cup overflows" (Psalms 23:5) after all, if God's Love is our sustenance and guidance, what shall we lack? "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not lack" (23:1)

It is not an easy process after an entire lifetime of conditioning based on the wrong education we have received throughout thousands of years. Neither easy to wipe out within a month. However, if we have the courage not only to face our ego's fantasies and illusions but also to endure their outcome, there is indeed a blessing in our pain and suffering because through them we realize that negativity is what we don't need in our individual and collective lives. How much pain and suffering, sadness and depression have we created and still create in the world as if it is not already enough? In "God as Love" we say that we believe that life and the world are to be lived and enjoyed as the original Garden of Eden that was meant to be and it is meant to be, and Love is the way to return there.

Let's then return together as the Psalmist reminds us how in the six verses of one of his praises to the Creator:

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not lack. In lush meadows He lays me down [in the abundance of His Love as our Essence and identity]; beside tranquil waters He leads me [Love's thoughts directing our actions]. He restores my soul [Love sustains and nurtures our consciousness of God's Love even when we separate from Him]. He leads me on paths of righteousness for His Name's sake [Love's ways are all righteous because they are inherent to Him]. Though I walk in the valley overshadow by death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me [even if we walk in the darkness of negative desires and illusions, Love as our true Essence does not forsake us because Love is who we are]. Your rod and your staff [Love's ways and attributes], they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in full view of my tormentors [we are able to recognize that Love is greater than any material illusion, because Love transcends the material world. Love is the table full of His attributes in contrast to the lack derived from negativity, our tormentor]. You anointed my head with oil, my cup overflows [when we become aware of God's Love as our own Love we are totally fulfilled]. [And in this sublime knowledge may we always live in the awareness of Love in every dimension of our consciousness:] May only goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord for long years" (Psalm 23)

May our reflections on returning to God's Love, to Love as our true identity lead us to remove all negativity from our lives and our surroundings, and from that which is unnecessary in the world we live in. And may only Love and His attributes fill the world with His Glory, as it is and as it always has been. Amén.

Parshat Bechukotai: Following God's Ways

The fact that this portion starts with the conditional if makes us reflect about who is putting conditions in our relation with the Creator.

"If you follow My statutes (bechukotai), and observe My commandments, and perform them" (Leviticus 26:3)

Semantically we can conclude that God conditions His love to us but in reality we, with the free will He gave us, are who act under the conditions of doing what is right or not.

If we fully assimilate that God's love for His creation is truly unconditional because He lets us choose the conditions, then we can understand that He gives us the choice to either follow our material individualistic desires or His ways and attributes.

Love is the choice for being as abundant as His rains, the produce of His land, the fruit of His tree; and these also are our threshing, our vintage, and our food to eat to satiety. Love is our security and our peace in God's love, because love is our land in which nothing frightens us.

Our Creator gives us the strength to remove the wild beasts, the enemies and their swords before us, because our covenant with Him increases us and makes us fruitful, as it is written in this portion (26:4-9).

Love renews and revives our lives when we let God dwell in our midst, because when we embrace Him and walk with Him, He never rejects us (26:10-11).

"I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people." (26:12)

God's love liberates us from the slavery of lower thoughts, emotions, passions, desires and instincts.

"(...) and I broke the pegs of your yoke and led you upright." (26:13)

God's love is the sole nurturer and sustains all His creation. We must realize this truth since the very moment when we were born. In this awareness we must realize that we exist for the sake of love. Hence love is the choice we must be compelled to make every moment of our lives, instead of ego's illusion that being self-centered is the drive that gives sense to life in the material world.

God's love pervades and transcends all creation, in contrast to the ephemeral nature of human illusions. Ego's illusions deny the ways and attributes of love and, when we choose them as the idols they are, we become the victims of their outcome. The words of the Torah regarding this choice are loud and clear, not as a curse but as a direct result of the choices we make.

It sounds that God's love is "against" us when we do not choose His ways, but let's be aware that our choices have consequences. We don't have to label them necessarily as love's "punishments", but as the direct result of our actions.

We certainly know that love does not punish because transgressions contain their own punishment. The moment we abandon love, anything different than love await us (26:14-43). Therefore we can't blame it on God's love because is unconditional as He is.

"(…) despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them; thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, because I am the Lord their God." (26:44)

Yes, because God is our creator and sustenance.

After these divine warnings of the consequences of separating our lives from God's love, there are more commandments to make us aware that our peace and plenitude in the material reality depend on our total commitment to our oneness with Him, as our offering to Him.

"However, anything that a man devotes to the Lord from any of his property whether a person, an animal, or part of his inherited field shall not be sold, nor shall it be redeemed, [because] all devoted things are holy of hollies to the Lord." (27:28)

In this sense, every personal trait, quality, talent and acquired knowledge as an individual possession must be devoted to God's ways and attributes, and not sold o given to anything different simply because they are gifts from the Creator and therefore sacred to Him.

Love, as a material manifestation of God's love, is our true essence and identity, and when we choose love all fantasies disappear, as the prophet reminds us in the haftarah that accompanies this parshah.

"O Lord, who are my power and my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble, to You nations will come from the ends of the Earth to say, 'Only lies have our fathers handed down to us, emptiness in which there is nothing of any avail! Can a man make gods for himself, and they are no gods?" (Jeremiah 16:19-20)

God's love is our power and strength because love is our life, and love tells ego's fantasies and illusions (the "nations") the lies and emptiness they are, in contrast to the truth that love is.

We create our own fantasies and we who turn them into gods, and it is only up to us to return to love's ways to free us again from them.

"Therefore, behold I let them know; at this time I will let them know My power and My might, and they shall know that My name is the Lord." (16:21)

Parshat Tzav: The Permanent Fire of God's Love

In Tzav the offerings in the Sanctuary are detailed as well as the service of the priests (kohanim): "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying 'Command (Tzav) Aaron and his sons, saying, "This is the law of the burnt offering: That is the burnt offering which burns on the altar all night until morning, and the fire of the altar shall burn with it"." (Leviticus 6:1-2) and it is also emphasized that the fire in the altar must be lit all the time: "And the fire on the altar shall burn on it; it shall not go out. A continuous fire shall burn upon the altar; it shall not go out." (6:5-6).

We mentioned that the offerings of "sacrifices" that we bring to our Creator in the Sanctuary represent every trait and quality of the different dimensions of consciousness. These include not just our thoughts, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts, but also our desires and the intentions behind them.

Every aspect of our individual identity must be consecrated to the Creator simply because we are His Creation and He sustains us constantly in the material reality that He created for us. Let's insist and reiterate that we are here because of His Love, and His Love is our own Essence. Hence, the offerings are the ways we relate and communicate with His Love, and ultimately to become united to Him. The permanent awareness of our connection to Him (represented by Aaron, the High Priest) is our means to achieve this unification.

In a practical sense our offerings make us maintain this awareness all the time. Our Love (the "burning fire") and God's Love (the "Heavenly fire") must be lit together in order to realize that we are His image and likeness. We realize this awareness when we know that God's Love is always with us, as we praise in our daily prayers' modim (we thank): "(…) We shall thank You and relate Your praise (evening, morning, and afternoon) for our lives, which are committed to Your power and for our souls that are entrusted to You" because our existence and all existence emanate from Him and are sustained by Him; "for Your miracles that are with us every day, and for Your wonders and favors in every season" and we have to be aware of this (the burning fire) permanently. "The Beneficent One, because Your compassion is never exhausted; and the Compassionate One, because Your loving kindnesses never ended, always have we put our hope in You.", the always good and kind Love of God that we praise when we guide every dimension of our consciousness with His Love. And let's be aware that this praise is not just with our words but with our actions.

This thanksgiving prayer is reaffirmed by our Sages: "the God of all flesh, our Molder, the Molder of the universe", because we are His Creation. Therefore, "Blessings and thanks are due Your great and holy Name because You have given us life and sustained us. So may You continue to give us life and sustain us and gather our exiles to the Courtyards of Your Sanctuary, to observe Your decrees, to do Your will and serve You wholeheartedly."

Let's understand that the exiles are not only our fellow Jews who live far from the Promised Land but also the traits and qualities of our consciousness that we have to integrate in the unity that the Tabernacle symbolizes as our permanent connection to God's Love. His Love empowers us to follow His ways and attributes (His "decrees") which are the means to serve Him with all our heart.

The permanent awareness of our connection with God (represented by the High Priest) is what blesses us, as it is written: "Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them: 'The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord shine His face to you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face to you and grant you peace. So shall they put My Name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.' (Numbers 6:24-27).

These are the blessings of His Love because it is about His Love for us. As we said earlier, this portion relates to our offerings and particularly about the means to elevate our life in order to be unified with the Creator. Our intellect gives us the knowledge of Him through a clear notion of the Truth that sustains the Creation. The intellect and the knowledge that provide for our understanding are represented by Moses, our teacher.

"And Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood that was on the altar, and he sprinkled it on Aaron and on his garments, and on his sons, and on his sons' garments, and he sanctified Aaron, his garments, his sons and his sons' garments with him." (Leviticus 8:30). The oil symbolizes our awareness of God's Love, and the blood represents the passion with which we live His Love in the material world. Both must be impregnated in our garments that represent every dimension of our consciousness. The portion ends highlighting this fact: "And Aaron and his sons did all the things that the Lord commanded through Moses." (8:36).

The haftarah for this portion reminds us this awareness: "And this thing I commanded them, saying: 'Hearken to My voice, so that I am your God and you are My people; and walk you in all the ways that I command you, so that it may be well with you'." (Jeremiah 7:23) which is the main message of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In the knowledge of the Creator and in our connection with His Love we are truly fulfilled in the material world: "Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, neither let the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches; but let him that boast exult in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who practices living kindness, justice, and righteousness on the Earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord." (9:22-23) and these things come from God's Love.