Haazinu: We are God's Lot

This portion contains the poem or song that summarizes the relationship between God and Israel. The Torah defines this relationship as it has occurred throughout our past, as well as it is in the present and will be in the future. Again, the main obstacle for the harmonic fulfillment of our bond with the Creator is idolatry, the recurring subject that tampers our individual and collective awareness of our Essence and true identity.

Ego's fantasies and illusions as idols and wrong beliefs, ideologies, customs, habits and behavior patterns as false gods are the main obstructions for allow our consciousness to approach God and His Love as the Source of our existence. Our knowledge of the Creator is the awareness of who we really are because we all come from Him.

“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.” (Deuteronomy 32:2)

This awareness is the beginning to grasp God's ways and attributes, which are manifest in us as part of His Love.

“The Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are righteousness; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is He.” (32:4)

These qualities are part of our consciousness as long as we recognize Him in us, instead of thinking we are the result of ego's foolishness.

“Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not He your father that has begotten you? has He not made you, and established you?” (32:6)

If we live by our fantasies and illusions, we will die by them. This is the equation of “cause and effect”, and “what goes around comes around”. The good news is that God's faithfulness to us is unshakable and unbreakable, unlike our unfaithfulness to His ways and attributes.

“Is corruption His? No; His children's is the blemish; a generation crooked and perverse.” (32:5)

We know that we are not perfect, and we will never be because we live in an imperfect reality which we have distorted with false conceptions and wrong perceptions. The world may appear perfect by itself, but no the way we relate to it. Nature, as perfect as it may be is not always kind, benign and pleasing as we want it to be. Harsh winters and summers, wilds beasts and inhospitable environments, to mention a few. No wonder the first gods and idols of primitive peoples were the indomitable forces of nature, animals and trees, long before they started to look up to the sky for higher powered entities like the sun and the moon. Then our “blemished”, “crooked” and “perverse” ways are clearly the false idols in which we become. 

Our blemishes or defects are the false beliefs and feelings of lack, of being incomplete. This is the kind of mentality that we can't elevate to the God who is complete, sufficient and enough, who created us in His image and likeness. He doesn't settle for less, and He commands us not to settle for less. Our offerings (what we are in all dimensions of consciousness) to Him must be unblemished, complete, full, enough and sufficient, because He created us with those qualities and attributes.

We are talking here about human consciousness, not physical appearance or traits. Our crooked ways are the negative approach to ourselves and to life when we can't fulfill ego's materialistic desires out of a belief or feeling of lack. Lack makes us take what is not rightfully ours, and to say and do what trespasses individual and collective boundaries of respect for other people's property and rights.

Perversion is our denial of any ways aimed to correct and redirect our discernment, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts towards Love's ways and attributes instead of ego's negative fantasies and illusions (see in this blog our commentary on Parshat Haazinu: “Listening to God's Love” of September 5, 2010 and “The Sheltering Love of God” of October 2, 2011).

This is the practical approach when we discern what is God to us. We know Him through His ways and attributes, which are manifest in the material world as Love's ways and attributes which inherently possess righteousness, justice, fairness and goodness as part of the ethics of Love. In this context we grasp the question “Is corruption His?”, because Love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes, and does not deal with iniquity, evil, and their crooked and perverse ways.

These are the blemish that separates us from Love as the Essence and true identity that establishes our connection with God's Love, because Love is our common bond with Him. We must reclaim and embrace our true identity.

“For the portion of the Lord is His people, Jacob the lot of His inheritance.” (32:9)

This is one of the greatest statements in the entire Torah: We are God's portion! Do we have any idea at all of what this means?! Let's wake up and shake up the fibers of every dimension of our consciousness, and arouse our hearts and souls to the One who calls us His portion!

What is God's inheritance? Let's take a look around once again and see His Creation. Then look at what impregnates His Creation. Yes, His Love that proclaims the magnificence of all that is. That is the lot that He gives us, because He loves us. He made us inherit His Love that forms and sustains His Creation. God's Love is our lot, and is also enough. In this awareness there is no room for anything less than that, because there is no room for less. Unless we create the blemished, crooked, and perverse illusion that God is not enough, and run after gods and idols that exist only in our imagination.

Once we start believing in them and feeding them with the Essence that sustains our life, we fall in the fatness of the illusions we created.

“But Jeshurun [Israel] waxed fat and kicked, you did wax fat, you did grow thick, you did become gross; and he forsook God who made him, and despised the Rock of his Redemption.” (32:15)

King David recalls for us God's Love as our inheritance.

“For You are my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord does lighten my darkness. For by You I run upon a troop; by my God do I scale a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield unto all them that take refuge in Him.” (2 Samuel 22:29-31)

We are God's lot and inheritance, and the awareness of His Presence in our lives is our Redemption. Let's wake up to Love as our Essence and true identity, and through its ways and attributes let's return to God's Love as our Redemption. Amen.

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 Haazinu: Listening to God's Love

This week’s portion, Haazinu (listen in), contains some of the last words that Moses our teacher delivered to the people of Israel the day of his death.

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

Once again the greatest prophet that Israel ever had reiterates some of the keystone attributes of our Creator, the ways of His love for us; and continues.

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

Rashi also reaffirms that God's love never carries destruction, saying that “Destruction is theirs, not His!” This is essentially important to assimilate because as we have said many times, the choice is ours when we face the blessings of God’s love and the curses of ego’s materialistic fantasies and illusions.

We have said that all creation, including us, is an emanation of God’s love and Moses reminds us of this.

“Is He not your father, your master? He has made you and established you.” (32:6)

We were chosen to receive the Torah and the privilege to bear the awareness of His ways and attributes.

“Because the Lord's portion is His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance. (…) He encompassed them and bestowed understanding upon them.” (32:9-10)

In this awareness we know that He does not cohabit with anything different than His ways and attributes.

“The Lord guided them alone, and there was no alien deity with Him.” (32:12)

In His delightful ways He guides us (32:13-14) until we choose to experience the darkness of materialism.

“They sacrificed to demons, which have no power, deities they did not know, new things that only recently came, which your forefathers did not fear. You forgot the Rock Who bore you; you forgot the God Who delivered you.” (32:17-18)

When we give in to the illusions and fantasies of the material world, the delusional approach to the vanities of pride, envy, indolence, lust and negative feelings of lack, we indeed separate from love as our essence and true identity that sustains us.

“They have provoked My jealousy with a non god, provoked My anger with their vanities. Thus, I will provoke their jealousy with a non people; provoke their anger with a foolish nation.” (32:21)

Love is our only redeemer when we choose to return to God's love, and these are the final words of the portion.

“Because He will avenge the blood of His servants, inflict revenge upon His adversaries, and appease His land [and] His people.” (32:43)

The haftarah complements this week’s Torah reading with King David’s thoughts.

“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; the God who is my rock, in Him I take refuge; my shield, and my horn of Redemption, my high tower, and my refuge; my savior, You saved me from violence. Praised, I cry, is the Lord, and I am saved from my enemies.” (2 Samuel 1:2-4)

When we are as aware as the psalmist of our true identity and connection with the Creator, we live in the delights of His love.