Parshat Ki Tavo: The Heritage of God's Love

The second verse of this portion commands...

"(…) that you shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you will bring from your land, which the Lord your God is giving you." (Deuteronomy 26:2)

Our mystic sages refer to two levels of awareness represented by the vegetable and animal realms. Contrary to what we may think, they explain that the former depicts sensuality and sexual activity (symbolized by the perennial blossoming and fruitfulness of some plants and trees), and the latter purposefulness and movement (symbolized of the instinctual animal behavior to act according to their purpose in nature).

In this sense we may have a better understanding of the sacrifices (offerings) made by Cain and Abel. In the context of this portion, the "fruit of the ground" (the expression of our individual creative process in every aspect of consciousness, particularly those related to the senses, sensuality, passions, and instincts) must be elevated towards the mission the Creator has commanded to Israel.

The previous verses in Ki Teitzei and the followings in Ki Tavo are related to the ethical values aimed to promote individual and collective harmony among different social levels and economic conditions among the people of Israel. Hence, the verse above is just another reminder that we have to direct all aspects of consciousness toward God's ways and attributes, because we have to be aware that all creation, our individual lives included, belong to the Creator.

By acknowledging this, we are indeed willing to fulfill God's will.

"I declare this day to the Lord, your God, that I have come to the land which the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us." (26:3)

This land is the awareness that God's love made us, and we also must be and do according to love's ways as individuals and as the nation we are.

Our true freedom takes place in this level of consciousness opposite to slavery under ego's materialistic fantasies and illusions. These are the mirages for which we enslave our life to "work hard" to keep them as "real".

"And the Egyptians treated us cruelly and afflicted us, and they imposed hard labor upon us." (26:6)

This is why we have to remember every day our Exodus from Egypt in order to make the choice every moment, either to live in the slavery of ego's illusions or in the freedom of love's attributes.

After all, God's love is our true essence and redemption from the miseries of living by and for the illusions of the material world.

"So we cried out to the Lord, God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression." (26:7)

We become truly free in the land that He offers us.

"And He brought us to this place, and He gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey." (26:9)

That is the place in every levels of consciousness where we all are happy.

"Then, you shall rejoice with all the good that the Lord, your God, has granted you and your household you, the Levite, and the stranger who is among you." (26:11)

The place where every level and dimension of consciousness dwell in the transcendence of God's love as our essence and identity.

For this we ask God constantly to keep us aware of love's attributes as His heritage for us.

"Look down from Your holy dwelling, from the heavens, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given to us, as You swore to our forefathers a land flowing with milk and honey." (26:15)

"And the Lord has selected you this day to be His treasured people, as He spoke to you, and so that you shall observe all His commandments, and to make you supreme above all the nations that He made, [so that you will have] praise, a [distinguished] name and glory; and so that you will be a holy people to the Lord, your God, as He spoke." (26:18-19)

Hence we have to choose back to Him by exercising and manifesting the identity He has bestowed upon us, the honor and privilege of being and manifesting love's ways and attributes as the inheritance of the greatest love of all, God's love.

The prophet again recalls for us the awareness of our heritage in the haftarah for this portion.

"And nations shall go by your light and kings by the brilliance of your shine. Lift up your eyes all around and see, they all have gathered, they have come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be raised on [their] side. Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart shall be amazed and become enlarged, for the abundance of the sea shall be turned over to you, the wealth of the nations that will come to you." (Isaiah 60:3-5)

In this awareness we realize our purpose and destiny.

"Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither robbery nor destruction within your borders, and you shall call redemption your walls and your gates praise. You shall no longer have the sun for light by day, and for brightness, the moon shall not give you light, but the Lord shall be to you for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory." (60:18-19)

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 Ki Teitzei: Ethics of Love's Ways and Attributes

"When you go out to war on your enemies, the Lord your God shall deliver them into your hands." (Deuteronomy 21:10)

This verse contains the assurance that when love's ways and attributes confront ego's materialistic illusions, love as the attitude and altitude from which we approach the pain, and suffering as their result, God delivers them in our hands.

In our hands, because in the same way that our negative behavior takes our hands to do and experience harmful thoughts, hurtful emotions and destructive passions, also with our hands we rectify and enhance our deeds and actions under the guidance of love's attributes.

As we mention often, love is the catalyst to transform and refine the negative traits, conceptions and habits when we live under ego's rule.

This transformation starts when we are able to see the potential goodness, righteousness and virtues of our thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts; the beauty we can embrace when we live in love's ways.

"If you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire her (…)" (21:11)

The same emotions, feelings, passions and instincts we experience negatively such as depression, sadness, anger, greed, indolence, etc. we also can experience the opposite when love fills them all.

We start doing it with our own life, and once we are strengthened with the complete awareness of God's love in our consciousness, we help those in our immediate surroundings, our loved ones including our fellow Jews.

"You shall not see your brother's ox or sheep straying, and ignore them. [Rather,] You shall return them to your brother." (22:1)

We must not be indifferent to our brother's ego's lower desires and passions (their strayed "ox" and "sheep").

Regarding the issue of gender identity, we are by birth endowed with two polarities, male and female, that we are summoned to develop and direct under God's will in His Torah, the commandments of God's love for Israel.

These two polarities must coexist in a working and purposeful harmony. We know that we all strive to balance them the best way we can in order to live individually as well as collectively in harmony. Both polarities, as well as the rest of our levels and dimensions of consciousness, must be guided and directed by love's ways and attributes and not to be led strayed by ego's fantasies and illusions.

Masculine and feminine are the two fundamental principles of material creation, and we have to "dress" them with their own respective inherent traits and qualities, in order to cultivate them as the enhancing complementing energies that keep the balance of our material existence.

"A man's attire shall not be on a woman, nor may a man wear a woman's garment because whoever does these [things] is detestable to the Lord, your God." (22:5)

The ethical lessons continue in this portion, and compassion among them as one of the essential ways and attributes of love.

"You shall send away the mother, and [then] you may take the young for yourself, in order that it should be good for you, and you should lengthen your days." (22:7)

Also to remark that the commandments (the rational and the supra-rational as well) are given for us to refine and enhance our individual and collective lives, as ethical and moral principles that ensure a life dedicated to justice, peace, and happiness for all, and not simply to please the Creator. We are reminded of this.

"If you sin, how have you affected Him? If your transgressions multiply, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give Him? What can He possible receive from your hand? (Job 35:6-7)

Our sages say that even if (God forbid!) He is not with us, we have to live by the truth of justice and righteousness for our own individual and collective sake. In this sense, life is a matter of ethics in order to coexist and survive as loving human beings and not as wild beasts.

We are talking about the ethics of love's ways and attributes, that we must preserve and protect by being and manifesting love as our identity.

"When you build a new house, you shall make a guardrail for your roof, so that you shall not cause blood [to be spilled] in your house, that the one who falls should fall from it [the roof]." (Deuteronomy 22:8)

In the process of building love's values in our consciousness (the house) we have to make them prevail in every aspect of what we are, have and do, thus we guard and protect ourselves from falling down into negative illusions that end up destroying the foundations of love's ways and attributes by letting illusions take over our consciousness, and bringing disgrace to what we consider the most cherished and sacred asset of all.

We must walk in the ways of the blessings of love, God's love in our consciousness, and separate from the curses of a loveless life represented by Canaanite nations.

"But the Lord, your God, did not want to listen to Balaam. So the Lord, your God, transformed the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord, your God, loves you." (23:6)

As we already know, His love is with us as long as we allow Him in all aspects of consciousness.

"For the Lord, your God, goes along in the midst of your camp, to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you. [Therefore,] Your camp shall be holy, so that He should not see anything unseemly among you and would turn away from you."(23:15)

Hence selling our awareness of love to materialistic illusions is how we separate from the Creator.

This portion with its many commandments ends reminding us to destroy the memory, the thought, the feeling and the emotion of doubt, uncertainty and hesitation regarding the only true choice of all that is living in love's ways and attributes.

"[Therefore,] it will be, when the Lord your God grants you respite from all your enemies around [you] in the land which the Lord, your God, gives to you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!" (25:19)

Let's be aware always that God is our Creator, and His love is our essence and identity for which we have to live every moment. Love is what we are made of, love is who we are, and love is what we have to manifest.

Ego's fantasies are ephemeral and they abandon us in their illusion, while love's ways always remain and are waiting for us to return to them.

Parshat Shoftim: Living in God's Justice

The best guidance and counsel we have in consciousness is our judgment, and we have to endow it with the highest awareness of love's ways and attributes.

Our consciousness encompasses multiple facets, layers, dimensions and expressions that in the Torah are represented by our Tribes (the best human traits and qualities to fulfill the Creator's will), the Promised Land (our individual and collective lives with their entire potential in God's ways and attributes), cities (material knowledge, habits, customs, ideologies, beliefs, convictions, tendencies) that we must direct with the wisdom God teaches us when we follow His ways.

This direction is the judgment, the discernment that only the righteousness and justice of God's love must be the conductors of all aspects of life in plenitude, abundance, happiness and peace.

"You shall set up judges (shoftim) and [law enforcement] officials for yourself in all your cities that the Lord, your God, is giving you, for your Tribes, and they shall judge the people [with] righteous judgment." (Deuteronomy 16:18)

Hence the best judges in our consciousness are love's ways and attributes, not only to guide all dimensions of life but also the way we approach our surrounding material reality.

"Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and possess the land the Lord, your God, is giving you." (16:20)

This is the justice of love, the only one that we must pursue in order to live in our Promised Land.

We have indicated that righteousness, justice, truth, peace and loving kindness are all inherent qualities of themselves, as it is reminded by our wisest kings and prophets.

"Loving kindness and truth have met, righteousness and peace have kissed", "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; loving kindness and truthfulness go before You." (Psalms 85:11, 89:15)

"Let love and truthfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the table of your heart." (Proverbs 3:3)

"The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be tranquility and confidence forever." (Isaiah 32:17)

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act with justice and to love loving kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

"Thus said the Lord of hosts has said: 'Administer true justice; do loving kindness and compassion to one another." (Zechariah 7:9)

We have to understand them all as the primordial ways and attributes of love, as well as clear reflections of God's love in us.

The portion continues emphasizing the inspiring, guiding and teaching role of our highest awareness of God's love, represented by the high priest and the tribe of Levi, as our best judgment to approach life and the world.

"According to the law they [priests and Levites] instruct you [and] according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left. (…) For the Lord, your God, has chosen him [Levi] out of all your Tribes, to stand and serve in the Name of the Lord, he and his sons, all the days." (Deuteronomy 17:11, 18:5)

We need the best judgment when we have to confront ego's materialistic desires in the battlefield of illusions.

"And it will be, when you approach the battle, that the kohen [high priest] shall come near, and speak to the people." (20:2)

This discernment also reminds us that when we live in love's ways, God's love is also fighting in our wars to freedom from the attachments to ego's fantasies and illusions.

"For the Lord, your God, is the One who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to redeem you." (20:4)

It is thus, for He is our sole redeemer from the traps of the illusions that we create with our feelings of lack.

These wars and battles are about regaining love in every aspect of our life, love as our essence and true identity. In order to set up love in all dimensions of consciousness we first must work with the traits that have taken us down into the darkness of negative thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts.

These traits are the cities that represent our mistaken beliefs and ideas, negative thoughts and emotions, lower desires and passions, and instincts out of control. We have to confront them not necessarily as mortal enemies that we must destroy, but as traits that we can transform or redirect into the positive and constructive ways of love's attributes.

"When you approach a city to wage war against it, you shall propose peace to it. And it will be, if it responds to you with peace, and it opens up to you, then it will be, [that] all the people found therein shall become tributary to you, and they shall serve you." (20:10-11)

We must be persistent until we refine them enough to make them part of our intellectual, mental, emotional and physical strength.

"(…) and you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until its submission." (20:20)

Again, the prophet recalls in the haftarah that God's love is with us in our wars to regain the freedom that love is, in order to leave behind the negative consequences of ego's materialistic illusions, the nothingness for which we sale our true identity.

"Shake yourselves from the dust, arise, sit down O Jerusalem; free yourself of the bands of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For so said the Lord, 'you were sold for nothing, and you shall not be redeemed for money'." (Isaiah 52:2-3)

God's love teaches us that though we sale our consciousness for the nothingness of illusion, not with another illusion ("money") we regain it, in order to return to love.

Thus we know that it is up to us our return to His love, because He always speaks to us even in our darkest illusions.

"Therefore, My people shall know My name; therefore, on that day, for I am He who speaks, here I am." (52:6)

Parshat Re'eh: Seeing God's Love

The purpose of the three major Jewish festivals (Pesach, Shavuot and Succot) is to see the Creator to whom we bring our offerings in the Temple of Jerusalem.

We have said in our commentaries on Vayikra (the book of Leviticus) that the offerings are the ways to elevate our main human traits and qualities in order to devote them to His service. Only throughout this divine service we achieve our unity with God.

The name of this portion, as well as its first word, reminds us that by choosing His blessing we indeed see Him.

"See (re'eh), I set before you today a blessing and a curse." (Deuteronomy 11:26)

The following verses make clear that we are blessed by cleaving to His ways and attributes, and the curse is the consequence of attaching to the idols we make out of ego's fantasies and illusions. The commandment to destroy such idols is unambiguous.

"You shall utterly destroy from all the places where the nations, that you shall possess, worshiped their gods, upon the lofty mountains and upon the hills, and under every lush tree." (12:2)

We have to make our individual inventory of the material illusions in which we live, and to which we dedicate every aspect of our consciousness. These aspects are the "places" that encompass our higher awareness ("the top of the mountains and hills") and our lower traits (the underground) where we have to examine what compels us to think, speak and act the way we do.

The goal of this inventory is to transform and redirect our thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions, and instincts into love's ways.

"And you shall tear down their altars, smash their monuments, burn their woods with fire, cut down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name from that place." (12:3)

This transformation occurs when we refine the ways we approach life in the material world through the blessings of God's love.

"And there you shall eat before the Lord, your God, and you shall rejoice in all your endeavors you and your households, as the Lord, your God, has blessed you. (…) and He will give you rest from all your enemies surrounding you, and you will dwell in safety." (12:7, 10)

As we said above, the ways to see the Creator and dwell in His ways are our willingness to assume love as our true identity, and to live in His attributes.

"And you shall eat them before the Lord, your God, in the place the Lord, your God, will choose you, your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, and the Levite who is in your cities, and you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, in all your endeavors."(12:18)

We have to implement and incorporate ("to eat") the best of who we are in the presence of love ("the place" of God's loving kindness) all aspects of consciousness (us and our creations [oneself, sons, daughters], our motivations [servants] to deeds and actions, and our highest awareness of divine love [the Levite priesthood]) in order to exult with love in all we are, have and do.

This is the blessing, our blessing.

"For you are a holy people to the Lord, your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a treasured people for Him, out of all the nations that are upon the earth." (14:2)

The portion ends reminding us again to see the Creator in our festivals.

"Three times in the year, every one of your males shall appear (lit. shall see) before the Lord, your God, in the place He will choose: on the festival of matzot and on the festival of weeks, and on the festival of succot, and he shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed." (16:16)

We come to see Him and be united to Him with our love that is also His love, the essence with which He created us. We see Him when we elevate all dimensions of consciousness with, in and for His love because God's love is what is revealed in His creation, and is what we have to reveal from its concealment under the darkness of the negative aspects and expressions of our consciousness.

Let's keep in mind that the portion, the lot that He has given us individually is measured and limited by our own awareness of His Love, and this lot is also our relationship with Him.

Let's not be mistaken thinking that He gives more to some and less to others, because the love we have is directly proportional to the love we want to have in our life. Thus we understand this coming verse.

"[Every] man [shall bring] as much as he can afford, according to the blessing of the Lord, your God, which He has given you." (16:17)

In the haftarah for this portion, the prophet invites us again to fulfill the commandment to cleave to the Creator.

"Hearken to Me and eat what is good, and your soul shall delight in fatness. Incline your ear and come to Me, hearken and your soul shall live, and I will make for you an everlasting covenant, the trusted loving kindness David. Incline your ear and come to Me, hearken and your soul shall live, and I will make for you an everlasting covenant, the trusted loving kindness of David." (Isaiah 55:2-4)

King David represents the loving kindness of the Messianic consciousness God's love offers us to redeem ourselves individually and collectively from the negative situations we have created by living in ego's materialistic illusions.

Once we realize this we become aware that all depends on the blessings of love ever since we are born until we die. This awareness is the beginning of our way out from the darkness of exile into our way to redemption.

Parshat Eikev: Because We Have to Love

In previous commentaries we have insisted that there is not such a thing as the apparent conditionality of God's love, because all conditions exist on our behalf.

We also have repeated that love is its cause and effect, its instant reward. In this sense we understand the first verse of this portion.

"(…) because (eikev) you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord your God will keep for you the covenant and the loving kindness He swore to your forefathers." (Deuteronomy 7:12)

Also the meaning of His covenant and loving kindness.

"(…) He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you (…)" (7:13)

Thus, as long as we walk in His ways and attributes, His love is also with us. The covenant is always present as God's love is omnipresent and omniscient, and it's up to us to be aware of this truth.

We are Israel and such as we are bound to fulfill our part of the covenant, the alliance that defines our identity as Jews, and our greatest blessing.

"You shall be blessed above all peoples. (...) There will be no sterile male or barren female among you or among your livestock." (7:14)

These means no lack, no inadequacies.

"And the Lord will remove from you all illness, and all of the evil diseases of Egypt which you know, He will not set upon you, but He will lay them upon all your enemies." (7:15)

The lack and emptiness of ego's materialistic desires and illusions (Egypt) are our diseases, and love makes us aware that those illusions live from their own lack.

For most of us, living in ego's illusions is easier than accepting the truthfulness of love. Thousands of years conditioning our intellect, mind, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts under the mirages of an egotistic approach to life can't be overcome overnight.

It may take also many centuries to overturn the negative patterns ("the nations") imprinted in humankind's genetic memory. The good news is that love is the cure for our illnesses.

"And the Lord your God will drive out those nations from before you, little by little. You will not be able to destroy them quickly, lest the beasts of the field outnumber you." (7:22)

The fire of God's love in us can transform darkness and negativity into love's ways and attributes in all levels and dimensions of our consciousness, hence in our surroundings.

"The graven images of their gods you will burn in fire (…)" (7:25)

This is the way to return again to the kind of life God's love wants for us. A life that affirms that we are created in His image and likeness

"(...) a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it (…). And you will eat and be sated, and you shall bless the Lord, your God, for the good land He has given you." (8:9-10)

Time and again we are warned throughout the entire Torah about the consequences of separating our consciousness from God's ways and attributes. This separation only happens when we let ego's materialistic agenda to rule our lives.

"(...) and you will say to yourself, 'My strength and the might of my hand that has accumulated this wealth for me'." (8:17)

Also, time and again the way to return to God's ways and attributes is always paved and cleared for us.

"But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you strength to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your forefathers, as it is this day." (8:18)

Such a simple and plain truth overshadowed by our false sense of self-sufficiency!

We have to be aware that, while ego quenches its thirst with the waters of materialistic illusions, love sustains us directly from our Creator. As our true essence and identity, God's love settles us in the delights of His ways and attributes.

"For the land into which you go (...) drinks water of the rain of heaven." (11:10-11)

Once we enthrone love's ways in all levels of consciousness, we are fully satiated with prosperity, joy, happiness, and abundance.

"I will give grass in your fields for your livestock, so that you may eat and be full." (11:15)

Let's never forget that loving our Creator and our attachment to Him are two of His commandments in order for us to keep His covenant.

"(..) to love the Lord your God, (…) to cleave to Him." (11:22, 10:20)

The prophet also reminds us that in our love the love of God is our sole redeemer in all times.

"For the Lord shall console Zion, He shall console all her ruins, and He shall make her desert like a paradise, and her wasteland like the garden of the Lord; joy and happiness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and a voice of song." (Isaiah 51:3)

Amen.

Parshat Va'etchanan: Our Bond with God's Love

Loving our Creator is the essential commandment to fully understand our relationship with Him, and our oneness with Him, as we realize the most important statement for Israel in the Torah.

"Hear [understand] Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4)

The realization of this statement is our heritage, our identity and the source of all our blessings. We have to reaffirm again this truth as the primordial message of our blog "God's Love", every moment of our lives and we do it by constantly loving Him.

Love is our common bond with the Creator, and this is why we have to be aware of love always.

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (6:6)

This is not an entirely mystic or spiritual bonding with the Creator, but a very real and concrete experience in the material world, for being and manifesting our true essence and identity are the ways to reveal His presence in us and around us.

The first verses of this portion are an invitation to live such experience.

"And I implored (va'etchanan) the Lord at that time, saying, 'O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your strong hand, for who is [like] God in Heaven or on Earth who can do as Your deeds and Your might?" (3:23-24)

Our true reason to exist in this world is to experience our Creator and His love for all His creation. This happens when we, as part of His oneness, approach Him. Thus in that awareness we realize that we are truly alive.

"And you who cleave to the Lord your God are alive, all of you, today." (4:4)

Today is the permanent time and space of the knowledge that His love is what creates and sustains of our life and everything that exists.

In this awareness we see and experience the blessings of love in who we are, and how we approach life and the material world. Hence, we have to be vigilant against ego's fantasies and illusions as the idols that deny the preeminence of love.

"And you shall watch yourselves very well, for you did not see any image on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb [Sinai] from the midst of the fire." (4:15)

Love does not cohabit with fantasies or illusions, and is the material manifestation of the divine fire that transmutes them, for us to see and live in God's ways and attributes completely free from ego's materialistic approach to life.

This vigilance must be permanent.

"Beware, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image, the likeness of anything, which the Lord your God has forbidden you." (4:23)

In this context, we have to reiterate the inherent exclusivity of God's love.

"For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a zealous [exclusive] God." (4:24)

Thus is as the fire that consumes not only materialistic illusions but their negative expressions. Our mystic sages say that instead of fighting darkness we rather bring light to it, because with it we turn darkness into light.

This statement is deeper than we think. Darkness indeed is the necessary condition in order to make the light prevail. If there is no darkness, then what is it to be lighted up? We call darkness the negative conditions and situations we must transform with the fire of love.

This means that we have to add love in order to subtract egotism. In this sense, we do not have to fight or kill our egos but to redeem them from the negative effects of their attachment to lower thoughts, emotions, passions and instincts.

Let's remind ourselves again that our choices either get us closer to God's love or separate us from Him, because He never abandons us. When we disregard love as our true essence and identity we withdraw our consciousness to the realm of potentially negative emotions.

"And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will remain few in number among the nations to where the Lord will lead you." (4:27)

In the absence of love in our lives, our positive traits and qualities are the minority amid the overwhelming power of lower emotions under ego's desires and control. But as we know, God's love is always present and available because He is the source and sustenance of all.

"And from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are distressed, and all these things happen upon you in the end of days, then you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice." (4:29-30)

Let's never forget this.

"For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not let you lose or destroy you; neither will He forget the Covenant of your fathers, which He swore to them." (4:31)

This is the covenant of love He gave us as our legacy, our heritage, and our identity for which we live to reveal Him in every dimension of our consciousness and in all His creation.

The haftarah for this portion reaffirms such principle in these two verses.

"And the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see that the mouth of the Lord spoke." (Isaiah 40:5)

"Lift up your eyes on high and see, Who created these, Who takes out their multitudes by number; all of them He calls by name; because of His great might and because He is strong in power, no one is missing." (40:26)