Naso: Honoring our Faithfulness to God's Love

Let's reflect on the passages of this portion regarding the faithfulness between a married couple (Numbers 5:12-15).

Faithfulness is actually the foundation of any relationship, and also the foundation of the social establishment in which one lives. If there is no trust and reliability among people and their institutions, there is corruption, unrest and conflict.                                                   

No wonder the hefty budget devoted to law enforcement in most civilized countries. Faithfulness indeed has a price that we are willing to pay because from it depends what we trust, cherish, appreciate, value and love the most.

We pay to be safe and to receive goods and services we need in order to have peace and tranquility in our individual and collective environment. If we compel ourselves to pay for trust, confidence, faithfulness, loyalty and reliability in order to feel safe and secure in the material world, how much would we be willing to do in order to secure our relationship with God? How much does it cost to have Him close to us always in our lives? The price is faithfulness.

It takes something more to be close to God than paying taxes to rely on government services such as law enforcement and social security, because our relationship with Him is priceless, and beyond any social contracts. However, either we want it or not, our relationship with Him is bound to our relationship with each other in our surroundings.

“Tell the children of Israel: When a man or woman commits any of the sins against man to act treacherously against God (...)” (5:6).

We love each other because we love God. God's Love is our Essence and common bond with Him and with each other here in the material world. In this context Love is the faithfulness we have for each other because we know that if the ways and attributes of Love are not present, we are not safe, secured, protected or cared for.

Love is the foundation of our faithfulness in anything we want to be, to have, and to do. We are faithful to Love because we must have to be faithful with the Essence of who we are.

Under the consumer society we live in we have to pay for anything that makes us feel safe, secured and protected. We humans have created such darkness that we have to pay in order to stay away from the harm, perils and dangers that we have created! It's an irony that we create negative conditions and pay to stay away from them, and we do it for the sake of money.

We create addictions, distractions and unhealthy conditions and later pay to free ourselves from them. It's outrageous what ego's fantasies and illusions can create in order to keep us in darkness and negativity. Yet we seem to be more faithful to ego's materialistic desires than to Love's ways and attributes. We rather allow the negative current state of affairs and the consumer society's establishment to rule over us than allowing the positive qualities of Love as our Essence and true identity.

Let's reflect on the meanings of faithfulness the Torah points out when it mentions the respect and loyalty man owes to woman, and woman to man. As we already said, we owe faithfulness to each other as we owe faithfulness to our God. He commands us to be faithful with each other because it is about the same faithfulness He wants from us to Him.

In this context we must be faithful and loyal to the principles that define our Jewish identity. Otherwise, we cheat, deceit and betray ourselves. We most be aware that when one is unfaithful to his values and to whom he commits his loyalty, he is unfaithful to himself.

God wants us to be faithful for our own sake, not His. God's Love for us is our true reference, the real foundation of our consciousness. This means that as long as we are faithful to His ways and attributes as the guidelines and ground rules for what we are, have and do, we are faithful to ourselves. Faithfulness is really about us as individuals because that's the only way that we can commit to faithfulness, truthfulness and loyalty to others.

We cheat or betray others' trust and faithfulness when we change the “rules of the game” in our relationship with them. If our rules are solid and strong as the true foundation of our consciousness, they will remain solid and strong regardless the change of others' rules.

This is a practical way to say that Love does not cohabit with anything different than its ways and attributes. As long as we remain faithful, loyal and committed to Love's ways in what we are and do, we are faithful to our identity as the Torah defines it for us (see our commentaries on Parshat Naso: “Unity in Diversity” of May 15, 2010 and “Living in the Blessings of Divine love” of May 29, 2011).

In a higher level, in terms of man-woman relationship, let's be aware that both male and female contain polarities inherent to each other, and they form a unity. We have to evolve to the higher awareness that we are materially separated as male and female in order to be united for the sacred purpose called life and its multiple facets and dimensions.

Mystic Sages conceive the harmonic union of both polarities as the whole purpose of God's Creation for us to fulfill.

For centuries we have fought against such purpose by generating confrontation and conflict among our two polarities. We have been blind to the clear evidence that in the union of both life is conceived, and with the constructive cooperation of both we elevate, enhance and consecrate life for a higher purpose than those of ego's negative fantasies and illusions. 

We are here in the material world to harmonize our male and female aspects of consciousness in order to consecrate life for the higher purpose of Love's ways and attributes. We accomplish this by being and doing such ways and attributes. There is no other way and there is no other purpose.

What we label as negative, harmful or destructive among our male and female polarities comes from our own negative approach. There is nothing negative in being a man or a woman, because we all share traits and qualities from both polarities. It does not make sense to stigmatize or undermine something that is part of us. Our dilemma is that so far we have not been able to harmonize them. 

We all are born with different proportions of both polarities, and it is our individual and collective duty to balance and harmonize them with the purpose of recreating life as the product of the male and female union. Since we are born we are destined to be united in order to maintain and expand life.

We do that by honoring, respecting and committing to each other's well being through Love's ways and attributes. Let's get truly acquainted with the male and female aspects of our human consciousness, by appreciating, respecting and honoring their traits and qualities as positive means to rectify the negative direction we have given them in the past. 

We need to know what we were made as men and women from the positive perspective that God's Love gives us as our true Essence and identity: Love. Let's be faithful to Love as the Essence that get us closer to each other with the purpose of being happy and content with each other, because God's Love created us to discover such purpose.

Once we clear the darkness we have created in the world with the Light of Love's ways and attributes, we realize the purpose of our true identity in the material world.

Parshat Naso: Living the Blessings of God's Love

This portion continues with the count of the remaining branches of the Tribe of Levi.

"Take a census (lit. raise [naso] the heads) of the sons of Gershon, of them too, following their fathers' houses, according to their families." (Numbers 4:2)

They are also counted according to their particular qualities regarding the service in the Sanctuary, which represents the highest awareness of our connection with the Creator.

The qualities of all the Levites encompass our highest thoughts, feelings, emotions, and passions in the service of the most tangible manifestation of the Creator in His Creation: His Love. In the full awareness of Love we can direct and guide every single expression of our consciousness in His ways and attributes in order to accomplish the mission that He commands us: to make this world a place for Him to dwell in us.

That place is where His Presence is concealed under the negative expressions of the lower aspects of our consciousness that we must conquer and redirect in Love's ways. From our Sages we learn on this.

"Rav Huna in the name of Rav Ami said: 'why do they call the Holy One blessed be God "the Place"? Because He is the place of the world and the world is not His place'.

R. Jose b. Halafta said: 'We do not know whether God is the place of the world or whether the world is God's place, but from the verse 'Behold, there is a place with Me (Exodus 33: 21) it follows that God is the place of God's world, but God's world is not God's place.

Rabbi Yitzchak said: It is written 'The eternal God is a home' (Deuteronomy 33:27). We would not know whether God is the home of His world or whether His world is His home; but based on the verse 'God, You have been our home' (Psalms 90:1) it follows that God is the home of His world, and His world is not His home." (Bereshit Rabba 68:9).

This home -- His Love -- is The Place that is concealed in our consciousness and we must discover it, reveal it, and be aware of it while we live in this world. In this awareness we can understand His blessings to Israel through the priests of the tribe of Levi.

"(...) 'May the Lord bless you and watch over you. May the Lord cause His countenance to shine to you and favor you. May the Lord raise His countenance toward you and grant you peace.' They (the priests) shall bestow My Name upon the children of Israel, so that I will bless them." (Numbers 5:24-27)

Let's understand these blessings as the place where we regain our true Essence and identity. Blessing bestows goodness, and being blessed by the goodness that God's Love is how we realize that His Love is our life, consequently Love guards us constantly as long as we are alive.

Once we are fully conscious of this Truth we are able to receive His Light, so we can become this Light and consequently fill our surroundings with it.

In the process of expanding His Light around us, His goodness also blesses our environment dissolving darkness and negativity, and reflects the Light back to us clearing our way thus favoring our deeds and endeavors in everything we are and do.

In this dynamics His Light elevates us in our connection with His Love, our Place in this world and in this Oneness we are totally complete, therefore in peace.

These blessings are effectively bestowed only through the highest awareness of our connection to God's Love, represented by the priests of the Tribe of Levi whose mission is to guide the People of Israel under the Torah that rests in the Ark of the Tabernacle.

In the narrative of this parshah the priestly blessings are juxtaposed to other Commandments against transgressions that separate us from the Oneness with the Creator.

"Command the children of Israel to banish from the camp all those afflicted with tzaraat with a male [seminal] discharge, and all those unclean through [contact with] the dead. Both male and female you shall banish, you shall send them outside the camp, and [so] they not defile their camps in which I dwell among [in] them." (5:2).

As we have mentioned frequently (see our commentary on parshah Metzorah in this blog), darkness represents death as the opposite of Light representing Love as the Essence of life. With the choice to "live" in the darkness and lifelessness of ego's materialistic illusions we reject Love as the true sustenance of life.

What we must banish from our lives and expel from the camp of Love is everything that separates us from who we truly are before our Creator.

The connection with the Creator is our marriage with His Love, the source of our life. Loyalty and faithfulness to His ways and attributes are essential to the completeness and wholeness we yearn for while we live in the world, and in this context we must understand this passage.

"Tell the children of Israel: When a man or woman commits any of the sins against man to act treacherously against God, and that person is [found] guilty." (5:6)

"Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: Should any man's wife go astray and deal treacherously with him (…)." (5:12)

Here we realize that and our own personal relationships as husband and wife must reflect the same allegiance and commitment to our permanent connection with the One who gives life and sustains life.

Parshat Naso: Unity in Diversity

Naso continues with the head count of the Tribe of Levi and their duties in the Tabernacle, and the census concluded "as directed by the Lord" (Numbers 4:49).

This portion refers to three situations related to "leprosy" (tzaraath), unfaithfulness (sotah) and total dedication (nazir) to divine service. In the first case is a reminder that the metzorah (see our commentary on parshat Metzorah) must be expelled from the community.

"Both male and female you shall banish; you shall send them outside the camp, and they not defile their camps, in which I dwell among [in] them." (5:3)

It is reiterated the Creator does not dwell with anything different from His ways and attributes, hence our attachment to these must be permanent.

If we chose to live in illusions such as evil talk, pride, greed, avarice, and negative patterns, we are the ones who expel ourselves from the oneness that represents God and His people. Let's remark again that there is no revenge or retaliation for the negative things we do because these are direct consequences of our actions.

Love does not expel us for our negative choices, we expel ourselves from love by choosing ego's fantasies and illusions. Love dwells among us when we follow God's ways. We say that love is about trust, and trust comes with loyalty and faithfulness.

We also mention that God and Israel are united in marriage, and such as it is sustained in trust, loyalty and faithfulness.

"When a man or woman commits any of the sins against man to act treacherously against God (…)" (5:6)

Here is clearly stated that transgressing against our fellow man or woman is a direct transgression against the Creator. Again it is indicted that the high priest atones for our transgressions. He is the one in charge to elevate our actions in order to become the vessels of God's ways and attributes, after we confess and restore or compensate our victims for the damage caused by our negligence or negative behavior.

Regarding transgressions our sages say that "a person does not sin unless a spirit of folly enters into him/her." (Talmud, Sotah 3a). This teaches that we have to be constantly vigilant against what lures us into ego's illusions and a negative approach to life.

The portion continues referring to the laws of the nazrite, the person who dedicates himself entirely to the service of God, temporarily or permanently (6:2-21). Then it states one of the most important passages of the Torah.

"Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: 'This is how you shall bless the children of Israel, saying to them: May the Lord bless you and watch over you. May the Lord cause His countenance to shine to you and favor you. May the Lord raise His countenance toward you and grant you peace.' They shall bestow My Name upon the children of Israel, so that I will bless them." (6:23-27)

Again the high priest and his descendants, who represent our permanent connection with the Creator, are in charge to fulfill the commandment to bless Israel. Let's be aware that Israel is the vessel that encompasses our individual and collective traits and qualities, and also our potentials to fulfill the mission to create a place for the Creator to dwell in this world.

Let's put these blessings in the context of God's love.

"May God's love bless you (make you be and do goodness) and watch over you (may this goodness protect you). May God's love (His countenance) to shine onto you (manifest in you and radiate in you) and be graceful to you (what you do, His manifestation, be also graceful to you). May God's love raise His countenance toward you (elevate you to Him as He elevates His manifestation in you) and grant you peace (makes you whole, one with Him)."

And the blessings are also received by those who put the holy Name upon the children of Israel.

"(...) so that I will bless them (the Priests)" which means that the awareness of our permanent connection to God is also blessed with every blessing bestowed in every aspect of our consciousness, as well as in every quality and trait we have to serve Him.

Interestingly this passage ends with the following verse.

"And it was that on the day that Moses finished erecting the tabernacle he anointed it, sanctified it, and all its vessels, and the altar and all its vessels." (7:1)

As we see, the priestly blessings are the culmination of the dedication of the highest level of consciousness, the tabernacle, as our permanent connection and unity with God's love.

The portion continues with the offerings presented by the leaders of Israel on behalf of their tribes. The detailed offerings (all exactly the same) of each are mentioned twelve times.

Why the offerings are repeated if they were all the same? Our sages explain this saying that, although they were the same offerings, each one was presented in every tribe's own way. This emphasizes the fact that each tribe is different and diverse as our individual traits are.

No matter how distinct they are, all have their own abilities and qualities that combined are the perfect vessels to fulfill God's ways and attributes, in order to reveal His presence in the world.