Ecclesiastes: The illusion of vanity and the reality of love (VII)

“A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to heap up stones. A time to embrace and a time to be far from embracing. A time to seek and a time to destroy. A time to keep and a time to cast away.” (Ecclesiastes 3:4-6)

Weeping and mourning can be preconditions to laughing and dancing as the culmination of the lessons learned with our suffering. This does not mean that we have to cry and lament in order to find joy and delight, but to understand negative situations and experiences as processes that direct us to appreciate their opposite qualities.

“To appoint to mourners in Zion, to give to them beauty instead of ashes; the oil of joy instead of mourning, a mantle of praise for a spirit of weakness; and He is calling to them, ‘Trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord to be beautified’.” (Isaiah 61:3)

We repeat often that life in the material world is a learning process designed to assimilate the transcendence of goodness as the reason and purpose our existence. Thus we understand that there are stones that obstruct our progression, and also there are stones on which we build the leading traits and qualities of our essence and true identity.

As we see obstacles before us we also strive for gathering the lessons we learn as the building stones that help us pursue what truly matters in life.

In this journey of progression we embrace what nurtures us and encourages us to live in goodness for the sake of goodness, and we reject the negative traits and trends that obstruct our purpose in this world.

In this journey of our soul we all are compelled to seek as part of the empirical process of learning from positive and negative experiences. As we seek and experience, we also compel consciousness to discard or destroy what we recognize as the opposites of the goodness we enjoy in love’s ways and attributes.

This is the culmination of keeping what nurtures, dignifies, honors and elevates life while casting away the destructive, despising, dishonoring and degrading traits and trends in human consciousness.

“A time to rend and a time to sew. A time to be silent and a time to speak.”

(Ecclesiastes 3:7)

We can understand the first phase of this verse as necessary actions we must take before situations that we can’t afford to allow in our midst.

We must urge ourselves to respond in outrage against negative ideologies and beliefs that seek to destroy the dignity of life, and pursue their destruction by all means necessary. We memorialize the genocides and atrocities perpetrated throughout history not just to remember the horrors committed against humanity but to bring awareness in regards to the ideologies and beliefs that led to such depravity.

As our sages remind us, we must fight to eliminate sin and not the transgressors. Thus we sew the garments we rend once we end the time to be silent in order to speak out and act accordingly. As we strive to live in goodness’ loving kindness, it will always show us God’s ways and paths.

“Cause me to hear Your loving kindness in the morning for I trust in You. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk for I lift up my soul to You.”, “All the paths of the Lord are loving kindness and truth for those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.”

(Psalms 143:8, 25:10)

Silence is the space we need to meditate and reflect on the things that matter, and make the right decisions when we choose between the vanity, futility and vexation of ego’s fantasies and illusions and the honor, truth and transcendence of love’s ways and attributes.

“A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:8)

This verse seals the messages king Solomon gives us in the previous ones, for indeed there is a time that comes either sooner or later to appreciate, respect, honor and love what celebrates our essence and true identity; and an time to hate, reject, repudiate and condemn all that threatens and harms who we really are.

In this awareness we wage war against that by all means, for this war is the necessary means to pursue and achieve peace as the wholeness, completion and totality of the full knowledge that God dwells in our midst.

Ecclesiastes: The illusion of vanity and the reality of love (VI)

“There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy goodness in his labor. This also I saw, that it [goodness as our labor] is from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?” (2:24-25)

We have said often that the man who understood the Torah the best is King David, and the proof of that is his book of Psalms from which his heir also learned part of his great wisdom. The psalmist recalls frequently that God’s creation came from His eternal loving kindness, and from this we realize that the latter is the cause and purpose of all that exists. Hence goodness is for which we labor in this world to also be our food and drink that make us enjoy life, for goodness comes from the Creator.

The last part of the second verse should not be understood as an arrogant statement by King Solomon. We must understand every statement in the Hebrew Bible in the context where is mentioned. He is telling us that because of his full awareness of the goodness coming out of God, he is the one who enjoys it the most as his food and drink. The more we are aware of God’s love in all His creations, the more we delight in His love.

“For to a man who is good before Him, He has given wisdom, and knowledge, and joy; and to a sinner He has given travail, to gather and to heap up, to give to the one who is good before God. Even this is vanity and vexation of spirit.” (2:26)

Again we are reminded that wisdom, knowledge and joy are inherent in goodness, and also are its rewards. From this we learn that goodness doesn’t exist without wisdom and knowledge as its ethical frames in which we find joy.

“For the Lord gives wisdom, from His mouth knowledge and understanding.”

(Proverbs (2:6)

The “sinner” is one who pursues ego’s fantasies and illusions for which he toils and wastes his life gathering and piling up material possessions that eventually will end up in the hands of those who God sees proper give. Solomon repeatedly insists that the travails of fantasies and illusions are vanity and a vexation to the spirit that sustains life. We can also understand the “sinners” as the negative traits and trends that will end up serving the purpose of goodness as God promised for the Messianic age.    

“To everything [there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

We know that life is a learning process since we are born, and we are destined to go through stages that enable us to ascend in understanding, awareness, knowledge and wisdom which lead us by and for goodness in life as our “every purpose under the heavens” in the material world.

In regards to the last part of this verse, it refers to planting goodness in order to harvest goodness, for we already know that whatever we reap what we sow.

“A time to slay and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up.” (3:2-3)

We must not take “to slay” literally, for the context of the phrase is to counter balance or correct a negative action. Hence “slaying” refers to the damage we may cause physically, mentally or emotionally on us or onto others, and the next phrase has the same meaning and message.

As we mentioned before, life is a learning process that God wants us to experience as much as we can in order to assimilate goodness in contrast to wickedness. This may be a painful process because the endure suffering as a result of living with a negative and destructive approach to life out of ego’s materialistic fantasies and illusions.

The Creator also wants us learn not only from goodness but also from the negative choices He presents before us in order to choose always goodness in all its forms, ways and expressions.

“Come, let us return to the Lord, for He has torn us but He has healed us. He has wounded us but He has bandaged us.” (Hosea 6:1)

“Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness. Behold, we come to You, for You are the Lord our God.” (Jeremiah 3:22)

We can understand this also as a refining and strengthening journey toward appreciating the expanding qualities of goodness in human consciousness that God will reveal for us in the Messianic times.

“He will revive us after two days, [and] He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him.” (Hosea 6:2)

The prophet Hosea reminds us that after the destruction of the second Temple of Jerusalem (“one day” for each Temple), God will appear to us in the Third and eternal Temple for us to live (dwell) before Him forever. In those Messianic times we will live only to know abundantly our Creator “as the waters cover the bed of the oceans”.

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

“Come away, My beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young deer upon the mountains of spices!” (Song of Songs 8:14)

God’s final words in this Song of Songs reiterate His plea to Israel for her return to Him. God’s love urges her to flee the darkness of the exile in ego’s fantasies and illusions among the nations, and haste as “gazelles” and “harts” to ascend up to the mountains of spices, where one of these excels as the summit of the Temple of Jerusalem as the symbol of Israel’s eternal bond with God.

These are the sublime fragrances emanated from the new guidelines as the traits and qualities of the new consciousness God promised Israel after His final redemption, to begin fathoming the endless dimensions of His creation.

“He does great things, unfathomable; and wondrous works without number.” (Job 9:10)

In the times of king Solomon, Israel brought the nations to her. In the Jewish final redemption, Israel will bring the nations to the Creator, for the Messianic consciousness unfolds in the infinite knowledge of God.

“The world was made for the Messiah.” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b)

“Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:5)

May this be very soon and in our times! Amen.

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

“Come, my Beloved, let us go into the field.” (Song of Songs 7:12)

God asks His beloved to go with Him to the field where His redeeming love makes everything flourish and blossom. This field is another clear reference to the Messianic times, when the material world will share the same dimension with the spiritual heavens. The earth will return to its original state as the Garden of Eden, also known as “the field of God”.

“Let’s us lodge in the villages, we rise early to the vineyards, to us see if the vine has budded, the blossom has opened, the pomegranates have blossomed. There, I shall give My loves to you. The mandrakes yield fragrance, and at our doors [are] all precious fruits, new and old, I have hidden for you My beloved.” (7:13-14)

The Creator continues introducing the coming Messianic times. In this part the poem mentions villages (lit. towns) and not cities, referring to new ways of fathoming, reasoning, thinking and feeling what He reserves for us.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, but man can’t fathom the work that God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

These are the new dwellings of the divinely redeemed human consciousness. From there God’s love and Israel's love will partner promptly (“rise early”), guiding and directing the nations and humankind as vineyards. The new trends in the new human consciousness will yield their produce as their budding, blossoming and ripening of their fruits as deeds and actions to build the renewed earth.

“The peoples will thank You, O God; all the peoples will thank You. The nations will be glad and sing for joy; for You will judge the peoples with equity, and lead the nations on earth forever. The peoples will thank You, O God; all the peoples will thank You, for the earth will have yielded its produce. And God, our God, will bless us; and everyone from all the ends of the earth will revere Him.” (Psalms 67:4-7)

In these joined partnership, God will share with Israel the unrevealed hidden ways, means and attributes of His love (“My loves”).

“And all your sons shall be taught from the Lord, and abundant is the peace of your sons.” (Isaiah 54:13)

“(…) For they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord (…).” (Jeremiah 31:34)

“As in the days of your coming forth out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things.” (Micah 7:15)

All these are about the endless journey of knowing our Creator, who will give us a new consciousness capable to guide us in this path.

“I have given them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord. And they have been My people and I will be their God for them to return to Me with all their heart. (…) I have given My Torah in their innards and in their heart will I write it. And I have been a God for them, and they have been My people.” (Jeremiah 24:7, 31:33)

We will smell the concealed fragrances of odorless plants, the hidden nurturing qualities of fruits (“new and old”) God has stored for Israel after her final redemption and in Messianic times.

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

“I knew not my soul, that my soul set me as chariots of my people, Nadib.” (6:12)

Israel answers to God's inquiries by admitting that in her long and dark exile she became alienated and assimilated enough to disregard her own soul. In exile, Israel has been prone to lose the awareness of her essence and true identity. Instead of assuming responsibility for her separation from God's ways and attributes, and the consequences of her negative choices, Israel blames Him for her predicament under the nations.

As we allow ego’s fantasies and illusions, these become the rulers of our free will. In this predicament we become vulnerable to others controlled by negative traits and trends. Our total freedom is in love’s ways and attributes, with which we are full and without lack. Thus we make them the rulers to bring the blessings God’s love wants us to enjoy in the material world and in all expressions of life.

We must be aware that we also can bless ourselves in order to be the blessing we want to be in order to be a blessing for others. Our thoughts, speech and actions have the potential to reflect our blessings or curses. Negative traits and trends are indeed curses that turn our self into evil for us and for others. Curses not only come from others or our midst, but also from our self. Thus we understand king David’s warning.

“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouths. They that make them shall become like them; yea, everyone that trust in them.” (Psalms 135:15-18)

The idols as ego’s fantasies and illusions with their negative trends are the curses we bring to our self, that rule and control our thoughts, emotions, feelings, passion and instinct. As they turn us into them, we become either the epitome of lust, envy, coveting, wrath, haughtiness, indifference or indolence, among other cursing traits. Thus we realize that the blessings of love’s ways and attributes elevate us, while the curses of negative traits and trends keep us trapped in the shallowness and futility of ego’s fantasies and illusions.

We must be constantly bonding with goodness in order to allow the blessings flow in us, for us and for others, and fulfilling our soul’s purpose to make goodness prevail in human life and the material world. We maintain this constant flow by being and doing goodness, allowing our self to be its vessel and channel in the awareness that goodness comes from God’s love. Thus we understand that the cause of His creation is goodness, and the purpose and end of His creation is goodness, as it is written.

“Everything the Lord has made [is] for His sake.” (Proverbs 16:4)

“And God saw everything that He made; and behold, very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

“(...) may the Lord rejoice in His works.” (Psalms 104:31)

Goodness indeed rejoices in goodness. As we have mentioned often, our total fulfillment in every aspect of life is complete only by the goodness that emanates from God’s love. We achieve this with our constant desire for goodness by bonding with His loving goodness.

“(…) You [God] open Your hand and satisfy the wanton of every living thing.” (Ibid. 145:16)

“The Lord wants those who revere Him, they who desire His loving kindness.” (Ibid 147:11)

Thus we also realize the transcendence of goodness, which makes it perfect.

“Everyone called [created] in My Name, and whom I have created for My honor [goodness], I have created him, I have shaped [perfected] Him.” (Isaiah 43:7)

Materialistic fantasies and illusions tamper the awareness of our essence and true identity, while love’s ways provide us the clarity to elevate our consciousness to higher realms where we are able to reveal God’s concealed presence. Prior to our journey to fully know God’s ways and attributes, we must know our own. Only then we can realize the strength of our awareness of love, the weaknesses of our fears and feelings of lack; the creative potentials to bring and manifest goodness in what we are and do, and the limitations of negative ideas, emotions and feelings.

Thus we learn what brings us closer to our Creator is goodness, and what separates us from Him is anything that is not good. Then we begin the journey to refine our consciousness and body by eliminating and avoiding negative traits; redirecting our basic drives, trends and creative potentials; and strengthening our positive qualities to guide all expressions of life.

This self-refinement process is indeed the premise to approach God’s ways and attributes, for as we have said, only through goodness we can bond with Him. Hence we engage in the knowledge of our self as goodness and inherently separated from anything different from goodness.

We must see our self as the soul that looks for its place in human life and this place is goodness, for goodness is from which the soul comes and its only reference to approach the material world. Thus we realize that the purpose of the soul is to find goodness as the place it knows before entering human consciousness.

Evidently, the material world is not suited for the loftiness of the soul, yet it looks forward to make the physical realm a reflection of the soul realm. Therefore we as the soul have to pursue goodness always and in all ways. Thus we assimilate that “the ways of the world are His” (Habakkuk 3:6), for all of them are the ways of His goodness. The soul finds its ways in the ways and attributes of its Creator, for which it is destined in the world.

“Certainly there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.” (Job 32:8)

As we have indicated, the soul as pure intellect begins this process analyzing the nature of human consciousness by knowing the dynamics of positive and negative traits, and their expressions and effects; and selecting those that are compatible and inherent to the soul. It does so in every level of consciousness, from the mind and thoughts through emotions and feelings, passions and instincts, by separating from them anything opposite to goodness and love’s ways and attributes.

We must be as practical, empirical and pragmatic as we can be, in order to learn from the goodness of positive traits and actions, as well as their opposites. Thus we can effectively execute change in our consciousness and surroundings, unless we bind ourselves to the repetitive vicious circles of obsessions, attachments and addictions to destructive ideas, thoughts, emotions and feelings.

The soul is actually the one that directs the refinement of human consciousness towards its goal to bond permanently with the Creator, while dwelling in the world. We must not allow the soul as our essence and true identity be trapped in the negative ways and trends of ego’s fantasies and illusions, for these are not its place.

The soul gives us the intellect and its discernment to remove them completely in order to allow it manifest its divine origin and qualities, as extensions of God’s love. This is one of the meanings of Israel’s mission to build a place for God to dwell in our midst.

Israel recognizes before God (called here Nadib, Benefactor) her choice to falling into negative traits and trends. This falling (represented by her exile among the nations) turned into vassals (“chariots”) His people.

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

“I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine, who feeds among the roses.” (Song of Songs 6:3)

Israel knows her Beloved and His dwellings, for both belong to each other and share their common bonds founded on the goodness of love's ways and attributes, from which God nurtures His creation with His constant blessings as roses to pick from His garden.

As it has been mentioned, the Creator shares this garden with Israel as His partner in bestowing the blessings to make goodness prevail in the material world.

“You are beautiful, My beloved, as Tirzah. Comely as Jerusalem, awe inspiring as an army with banners.” (6:4)

God recognizes and praises Israel's love as her desire (“Tirzah”) to bond with His love. Also reiterates His love comparing her to Jerusalem. We can understand Tirzah as the motivation and determination, desire and willingness to fulfill Israel's destiny to be the guiding light for the nations.

In this sense Jerusalem represents the fulfillment of this destiny. Once achieved, it is as imposing and compelling as an army whose high banners of loving kindness, righteousness, compassion, fairness, truth and peace inspire the nations to revere them. Thus the nations make them their principles and values to live for.

God compares Israel to Jerusalem as one and the same, for the love He shares with Israel inspires the nations to follow her in the elimination of evil and negative traits from human consciousness, initiating the final redemption and the establishment of the Messianic era.

In these coming times, the highest level of consciousness where love leads all aspects, facets and dimensions of life, inspires and evokes the complying and reverence of the lower levels arousing their desire to follow its ways and directions to rejoice in their goodness.

“Turn Your eyes away from me, for they have made me proud. Your hair [is] as a flock of goats streaming down from Gilead. Your teeth [are] like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. All of them wholesome, forming twins, and there is none missing among them. Your temples are like a slice of pomegranate from behind your veil.” (6:5-7)

Israel confesses that God's love led her to become haughty. This haughtiness turned her to materialistic desires out of ego's fantasies and illusions of grandeur. We can also understand this first sentence as Israel's difficulty to fully assimilate and bear with the overwhelming qualities of God's love for the human consciousness. Thus, leading her to follow the profane ways of the nations.

Returning to her natural humbleness, Israel evades God's love for feeling unworthy of it. At the same time, she yearns and evokes the beauty and delight of her rejoicing in bonding with His love in the inner chamber of their Temple, as metaphorically described in the previous chapters.

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

“His cheeks [are] like a bed of spices, towers of perfumes. His lips [are] like roses dripping flowing myrrh. His arms are rods of gold, set with diamonds. His body shinning ivory covered by sapphires. His legs [are] pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold. His appearance [is] like Lebanon, choicest among cedars.” (Song of Songs 5:12-15)

Israel continues evoking God and her bonding with His love now in the inner chamber of the Temple, allegorically described as a human body. This allegory suggests empathy and admiration for God's ways and attributes as if they were countenance, lips, arms, legs and presence. All these joined with their scents, fragrances as expressions (arms, body, legs and appearance) of His goodness as the finest gold and precious stones, and radiantly beautiful.

As we empathize with the expressions of God's ways and attributes, we also experience oneness with the place and circumstances we are in. Thus the place, the time and the elements involved become as one and the same. God is in the Temple, and is also the Temple and what is in it, as these verses suggest. This principle also extends to all His creation, if we are able to assimilate it.

Israel knows this in her soul and in her heart, for she has lived with, by and in God's love. Such is her answer to the traits and qualities of goodness set in the higher level of our consciousness, as the daughters of Jerusalem.

“His palate is sweetness, and all of Him is delightful. This is my Beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!” (5:16)

Now these sublime traits and qualities ask Israel as the conscious self where her Beloved has gone.

“Where has your Beloved gone, O beautiful among women? Where has your Beloved turned, that we may seek Him with you? My Beloved has descended to His garden, to the beds of fragrances, to delight in the gardens and to pick up roses.” (6:1-2)

The questions are directed not only to our awareness of free will, but to our essence and true identity that make us separate from the lower levels of consciousness (the nations as “women”) and be chosen to belong to the higher levels. This essence is what distinguishes Israel as “beautiful among women”.

Israel, as conscious self-endowed with free will, must have the initiative and willingness to firmly take the steps to return to God's ways. The daughters of Jerusalem as our highest values and principles as well as the positive and uplifting traits and trends, follow through and stand by us in our firm determination to return to the permanent awareness of our connection with God.

We certainly know “where” our Creator, partner, beloved and husband is. He is not hidden or concealed from us, for it is us who separate and hide from Him and His promised final redemption. Once we have the willingness and determination to abandon ego's fantasies and negative trends, and embrace love's ways and attributes, we will be back in the garden where our Beloved delights bestowing His loving kindness and truth to His creation.

Israel knows that God has already descended to the place of our bonding with Him, waiting for us to do our part and return to Him. In the second verse the garden is an allegory of the Temple of Jerusalem, and in this instance represents the highest level of consciousness where we must ascend by enthroning love's ways and attributes to rule and lead every aspect and facet of life. It also refers to the idyllic garden of Eden where only goodness directs life, as promised by God to also be in Messianic times.

“Return to Me, and I will return to you.” (Malachi 3:7)

Our ascending love embraces God's descending love to graze together in the gardens and to pick roses. Here we see the gardens as a reference to the new dimensions in consciousness inherent to the Messianic era, where new expressions of the goodness of God's love will be gathered as the roses He will descend to pick.

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

“My Beloved is clear and ruddy, preeminent above a myriad! His head [is] finest gold, His locks [are as if] flowing, black as raven. His eyes [are like] doves besides streams of water, bathing in milk, sitting in fullness.” (Song of Songs, 5:10-12)

Israel responds that she knows God quite well, and can recognize Him in the countless multitude of His creation. Israel knows that He is actually present and evident as the Creator of all that is, who controls and directs His creation.

This evident presence is what makes God “clear” and alive as the ruddy blood flowing in our body. Hence He is preeminent and conspicuous above the multitude of His creation we are able to see with human eyes.

The allegory continues describing God as the cause and source of all as the highest and exalted as the finest gold can represent. Cause and source of all as the “head” that rules above all.

The flowing hair as wavy symbolizes the eternal and endless dimensions that emanate from God's plan and will for His creation, unfathomable to us as the shinning blackness of the raven's feathers.

God's love “eyes” for goodness and its expressions in His creation, flowing and moving free as “doves” that drink the living waters of His ways and attributes, from which all is created and nurtured. This sustenance is also the “milk” with which we are also renewed and revitalized every moment, as the source of our fullness and plenitude in which we abode.

The streams of water and ponds of milk are the wisdom and knowledge of the Torah God gave to Israel as their wedlock that constitutes the fullness where we sit as Israel's love embraces God's love.

Our human perception is conditioned according to our circumstances, either filled and approached with love's ways and attributes or with the limitations of ego's fantasies and illusions. God's love indeed sustains and fills all His creation.

“All the earth is full of His glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)

We become aware of the perfection of God's creation when we begin to approach it through a selfless perception, realizing that everything comes from God's love; and that love is the driving force that unites all, sustains all, and fills all to perfection.

Only in our complete awareness of love as our essence and true identity, we will be able to fully relate to God's love as the source and sustenance of all that exists. We begin to relate to God's creation through the eyes of love's ways and attributes. Then we realize that love is what connects, binds, unites and harmonizes everything.

Thus we will approach each other and our surroundings with loving kindness, grace, compassion, cooperation and empathy, coexisting in harmony and peace. As this awareness becomes permanent in our consciousness, we begin to live our final redemption and enter the Messianic era.

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

“What is your Beloved above [any] beloved, O beautiful among women? What is your Beloved above [any] beloved, that thus you have adjured us?” (5:9)

Our good traits, qualities, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts along with our positive speech and actions (all these “the daughter of Jerusalem”, for they come from Jerusalem as our permanent connection with God) come to question the truthfulness and fidelity of our yearning for God's love and His promised final redemption.

They ask Israel who is her God, her Beloved, over other lesser gods as idols revered by ego's beliefs and feelings of lack out of material fantasies and illusions.

They seem to ask,

“Why do you appeal to us if you yourself have desired and chosen to go after your false gods of vanity, futility, haughtiness, 'glamour', 'prestige', 'class', and 'sophistication', in the fantasy world of consumer society, 'light' culture, fashion trends, false ideologies and beliefs?”

“Are you aware that the goodness of love as a material manifestation of God's love does not cohabit with ego's fantasies and illusions?”

Our conscious self is compelled to answer to our essence and true identity, built on the truth of goodness.

Speaking of truth, living by it and making it the source and foundation for judgment are the expressions of goodness in the material world.

Thus we realize that we pursue goodness as the truth by which we apply our judgment. Hence goodness is the utmost truth of life to live by and for it in the world, and learn that the reason of justice is to make truth prevail as the embodiment of goodness.

All expressions of goodness come from the Creator. By being and doing goodness we bless ourselves as extensions and expressions of God’s goodness. Our sages call this being partners with God in His creation (Talmud, Shabbat 10a).

Thus we become channels, but also vessels of goodness. We not only do goodness for the sake of it, but to proclaim and teach its principles and make them rule all aspects of life.

This is the original meaning of the Hebrew word for correctness or righteousness, usually translated as charity; for goodness is the right thing to do.

It’s not just an act of bestowing or giving food or material goods for those in need, it is also about the ethical principle behind the action. We are good because is the right way to be and live.

“The highway of righteousness leads to life, and in its path there is no death.” (Proverbs 12:28)

In this ethical context, death represents the opposite traits and qualities of goodness. Death as the destructive traits and trends in consciousness we must transform and redirect towards love’s ways and attributes.

Thus we wipe out evil from the face of the earth, and begin to live the goodness of God’s love fully revealed in the Messianic era.

We have to realize that goodness is the source and object of our fullness. As goodness satisfies every aspect, level and dimension of life, we achieve completeness as the primordial quality of peace.

In the wholesomeness of peace there is no space for lack, deficiency, illness, disease, failure, wrongness, falsehood or sin, for there is nothing to transgress.

This completeness characterizes the Messianic consciousness as the beginning of the total redemption promised by God in Jewish prophecy. Thus we also realize the stillness of peace as the perfection of living in, by, with and for the sake of goodness.

This is the final result of completion after we end the changing process from a consciousness of lack to a consciousness of fulfillment. Hence when we hear that the straight and narrow path of righteousness is walked with eternal vigilance, we assimilate that if we look to the right or to the left we must see only the same goodness we leave behind as we walk, and look ahead for new and greater expressions of goodness God sets up for us.

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

“I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by gazelles or hinds of the field. If you stir or arouse the love until it pleases.” (3:5)

God does not impose His will on Israel and on humankind, for He gave them free will to choose either love's ways and attributes or ego's fantasies and illusions. Hence He also warns our highest traits and qualities (the daughters of Jerusalem) not to force their goodness on the aspects and dimensions (intellect, mid, emotions, feelings, passion and instinct) that comprise human consciousness.

There is another reference to gazelles and hinds as symbols of delicate and sublime qualities that constitute our common bond with God. He wants our conscious self to return to His ways and attributes by our own desire and volition. Thus we realize that our relationship with Him is built through a learning process, based on the experiences we have with the choices we make.

“Who is she that ascends from the desert like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, of every powder of the merchant? Behold, it is the couch of Solomon [the couch of He whose peace belongs]. Sixty mighty ones are around it, of the mighty of Israel. All of them holding sword, learned in warfare, each with his sword on his thigh, because of the fear in the nights. A sedan chair has king Solomon [has the King whose peace belongs] made onto him [onto Himself], of wood from the Lebanon. He made its pillars of silver, its coverings were gold, its seat purple, its midst lined with love.” (3:6-10)

This verse and the following (3:7-10) make reference to the Temple of Jerusalem as the place shared by God and Israel. The scents mentioned represent the most sublime human qualities that ascend to bond with God's ways and attributes. The inner chamber is the dwelling of the peace that belongs to Him, the holy of hollies.

The sixty men are an allegory of the enhanced or elevated character traits that build and protect our reaching out for God's love as their Creator. There is an inherent human factor that makes possible the connection and bond with Him.

This human factor is love as the motivator to reach out to God's love. These character traits must be guided and directed into the positive ways and means of love's attributes, in order to become an essential part of Israel's spiritual and material identity.

These are the “mighty ones of Israel” as the best of human qualities. These are the principles, values and foundations that stand strong to protect our ways to approach the material world, and to confront and overcome the darkness (“the fear in the nights”) of negative beliefs, ideologies, ideas, thoughts, emotions, feelings, speech and actions. Their swords are the truth of love's ways and attributes as the expressions and purpose of God's will and commandments.

Our highest level of consciousness in regards to the permanent awareness of our connection with God (represented by the Temple of Jerusalem) is what He has made for Him to dwell with us. Israel builds the Temple with the pillars of her utmost traits and qualities. These columns are mentioned as trees grown in the courtyard of the Temple.

As we have mentioned, the Lebanon (lit. white or whitened) is another name for the Temple of Jerusalem, because of its power to transform blackness into whiteness, and darkness into light, besides the shinning white light coming from it.

Wood of Lebanon refers to the trees that adorn the Temple's courtyard, allegorically representing the strongest principles and values that beautify it. They also symbolize the wise men from whom we learn such fundamental values and principles of Judaism. The internal decorations of the Tabernacle are mentioned as the goodness and beauty of the ways and means of God's love, shared by Israel's loving traits represented by the daughters of Jerusalem or Zion.

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

“To My joyous one (lit. mare) in chariots of Pharaoh, I have compared you, My beloved.” (1:9)

Mare, a female horse, represents a particular sensual trend as a driving passionate (bodily urgency to express and emotion), fully vibrant and moving force, motivated by love's ways and attributes.

In this context God's love calls Israel's love as a feminine ruling principle for the material world. Thus we understand God addressing Israel as His feminine companion whose loving expression in human consciousness corresponds to the material manifestation of God's love.

This is the ruling principle in God's material creation, known in Jewish mysticism as malchut (kinship), the reigning and sovereign divine rule. Hence Israel's love is God's love manifest in the world.

This mare as the vital driving force charged with fertile, life creating energy, pulls Pharaoh's chariot. The latter represents ego's choice of direction or purpose in life.

This verse makes us aware of the creative and constructive power of love God infused in Israel to become the chosen people to make the world ruled by the goodness of love's ways and attributes.

Rashi says that the expression “I have compared (you)” actually means “I have demonstrated”, in reference to confirming Israel as God's beloved and the chosen to fully reveal His love in the material world.

“Beautiful have been your cheeks with garlands, your neck with chains. Garlands of gold we do make for you, with studs of silver!” (1:10-11)

The face is the most identifying image of the human body, for it reflects one's identity. Israel's countenance is adorned with jewels as admirable traits and means to convey God's ways and attributes, and fulfill her mission in the world.

God bestowed in Israel additional qualities that enhance and highlight her character and expression. The neck holds the head, and God also blesses Israel by beautifying the foundation (neck) and principles (chains) that support her spiritual and material identity.

These verses also refer to the Temple of Jerusalem as an essential part of Israel's identity, for it represents her permanent bond and connection with the Creator.

The second verse in first person plural speaks about Israel's future after God's promised final redemption for her. All the expressions of goodness He has stored for the Messianic era speak to Israel as the inheritor of such goodness. God speaks in plural, for He is the source of goodness, and He joins His blessings to grant them to Israel.

“While the King [is] reclined [by His table], my nard has given its fragrance.” (1:12)

After God beautifies and recognizes Israel as a truthful servant and messenger of His glory and will, she responds by elevating to Him in sacred offering the fruits of the goodness He has bestowed on her. Israel's offerings in the Temple of Jerusalem are full of the same goodness God commanded her to manifest in the world.

Israel gives testimony of her service for humankind before the Creator “reclined” by the ark of the covenant in the inner chamber of the Temple. There He “smells” the fragrance of her nard, that was considered one of the ingredients for the incense at the Temple. The burnt nard's petals represent the emotional and passionate intensity of Israel's love for God.

In the offerings Israel elevates to God in the Temple, there are several expressions of her love for Him. These include the ones to express regret for sins and transgressions, and the ones to express thanksgiving and peace as encompassing qualities to celebrate Israel's bond with God.