Chukat: Living God's Commandments

We have said frequently that the Torah defines our Jewish identity, which is about who we Jews are and what we do, and these also determine our relationship with the Creator. This relationship is shaped by our connection with Him, which depends on His commandments, decrees and statutes delineated in the Torah.

We have indicated that in Hebrew the semantic root of the term “commandment” means connection, and this connection is determined by His rules, not ours. We have to understand and assimilate the ways, means and attributes with which God relates to His Creation, us included, according to what the Torah instructs us.

These are the foundation for us to comprehend His commandments, despite our limitations to know Him, because He does not have definition. This is why our sages teach us that we only can know Him through His ways and attributes, and yet we will never get to know Him at all.

We must insist that our Jewish identity is the sum of all the 613 commandments in the Torah, because they not only define who we are but our connection with the Creator. The underlying essence of this connection is love as our common bond with Him. God's love is present in His (thirteen) attributes as the Torah tells us (Exodus 34:6-7).

As we mentioned in our book “God's Love” the repeated attribute of the Creator for His Creation is compassion as the material manifestation of His love. These attributes indicate our bond with Him and to approach and perform His Commandments, because these are the only ways to assimilate His love as also our essence and identity.

The psalmist reminds us about this.

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness. The Lord is good to all, He has compassion on all He has created.” (Psalms 145:8-9)

Therefore, God's love is our reference in all levels of consciousness. This is how we must approach life and what we are and do.

Recently we commented on the priestly blessings recorded in the Torah and, in the context of our relationship with God, we have to understand them not only as something we receive from Him but as a commandment to fulfill as part of our connection with Him.

He blesses us and protects us as long as we also bless with His love whatever we do. In this action we are indeed protected because love is our protection.

He shines His countenance (His love) on us as long as we also shine (manifest) love with our deeds. Thus His grace is in us when we act with love. He elevates His countenance (love) on us and puts peace on us, as long as we let love elevate our consciousness. In this process peace is unto us and those we approach with loving kindness.

In other words, God's blessings are not for us to enjoy as a gift that makes us feel fulfilled and satisfied at a personal level. His blessings indeed have a purpose, which is for us to manifest them in what we are and do. This is the way His commandments work in our relationship with Him. As long as we perform them, we are connected to Him and this is a practical and concrete process.

We can't afford the luxury of living in ego's illusion that we are blessed by God because we deserve His blessings. We ask for them in order to manifest them in all dimensions of life, including our relationship with others and our surroundings. Being blessed is not a personal o selfish endowment. It implies the same meaning of “to whom a lot is given, a lot is expected”.

One of the major differences between Judaism and other beliefs is that we Jews are entitled to manifest God's will out in the material world, and not in our self. God's commandments are not directed to benefit us individually but collectively. Our personal redemption must be part of the collective redemption. 

In Shelach we recall the episode of the spies as the personal neglecting approach to God's will, meaning that they rather stayed under the protecting and nurturing divine cloud in the desert than going out and conquer the Canaanite nations in order to settle in the Promised Land.

In our current times, we understand this as going out in the material world and conquer the negative aspects of our consciousness that don't allow us to settle in love's ways and attributes.

The psalmist helps us understand this.

“All the paths of the Lord are loving kindness and truth for those who keep His covenant and [His] commandments.” (Ibid. 25:10)

This teaches us that His commandments indeed are the loving kindness and truth inherent to His love, and the ways He loves us. In this sense we must assimilate love as our protection.

“May your loving kindness and truth protect me constantly.” (40:12)

“The Torah of the Lord is perfect, it restores the soul; the testimony of the Lord is faithful, making wise the simple. The commandments of the Lord are righteous, they are joyful for the heart. The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes.” (19:8-9)

In love's ways and attributes all is righteous, joyful and enlightening.

In our daily prayers we bless God and thank Him for His commandments.

“(...) for with the light of Your countenance [in His love], Lord our God, You gave us the Torah of life and loving kindness, goodness, righteousness, blessing and compassion, life and peace.”

These are the attributes of the commandments He gave us as part of the identity He wants us to have as His chosen ones. Such attributes are the decrees, the statutes and testimonies that define our connection with Him because they are also His attributes and our common bond with Him.

Korach: The Separatist Agenda of Ego's Fantasies and Illusions

The whole idea of living in the material world is to make it a place where the Divine Presence may dwell with us. We do this when we first create that space in our own consciousness. What would be the point of living if we don't do it with the One who created us and all that exists?

There is a major void in our consciousness when we are not aware of who we truly are, and we become fully aware of our identity once we realize that we emanate from the Creator and His love. We have said this many times to emphasize that all that exist came from God's love, therefore His love is our true Essence and identity. The unawareness of this universal and transcendental truth is what we call “living in ego's fantasies and illusions”.

In the split consciousness we have, in which we are “divided” into the duality of good and evil, true and false, right and wrong, positive and negative, etc., the Creator endowed us with free will to enable us to choose what is the most convenient for us to do. He gave us His Torah to instruct us that “convenient” means the best for us as long as it is also good for others and our immediate surroundings.

In this primordial principle we assimilate God's Presence in our consciousness, hence in our lives. Good, right, true and all that is positive are the essentials to live in the unity and oneness that love is, because love unites us through its ways and attributes.

As long as we live in, with and for them we are never separated, neither from each other or from God because love is our common bond with each other and also with Him. Not living in this awareness is the clearest indication that we are separated from love and living in ego's separatist agenda.

Ego defines our sense of individuality because we perceive each other as individuals, and this does not mean to pursue individualistic agendas by separating ourselves from others. Separation is the worst of all illusions, simply because we can't live separated or isolated from each other.

We learn this since we were born in this world. We can't live alone because we were created by God to be united by love as our common Essence and identity, and also united to Him because we are here by His love for all His Creation.

Within our “divided” consciousness (we put it on quotation marks because this is how we are conditioned to perceived ourselves and the material reality) we have all potential archetypes, negative and positive, to choose from.

This means that we have the potential to become like Moses and Aaron, or like Korach and his proxies. Ego, as our powerful sense of individuality, can lead us either to Love's ways and attributes that unite us with each other and with God, or to illusions and fantasies that separate us from each other and from God.

At this point in the history of our collective consciousness we must be aware of what unites us and what separate us. We have learned this by our own experience throughout history, and we have the Torah to instruct us and to remind us about the means to do it in our Creator's ways, not ego's ways.

Let's insist again and reiterate that our “separation” from God's ways -- His Love as He wants us to understand it through His attributes stated in the Torah -- is the most illusory of all illusions we may have.

Indeed, this is the greatest dilemma as confusion we have, and it requires as well the greatest certainty and clarity of all. We end our separation from the Creator when we become fully aware of love as our uniting and bonding connection with Him and the rest of His Creation.

Korach is the individualistic separatist that we must remove from our consciousness in order to fill his space with the collectivist unifying awareness represented by Moses and Aaron. We have to be watchful and mindful in all our discernment, thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts in order to lead them in Love's ways and attributes, and maintain our consciousness united in the potential goodness of their purpose (see our commentaries on Parshat Korach: “Overcoming Ego's Illusions” of June 9, 2010 and “Discerning Truth from Illusion” of June 19, 2011).

God gave us the precious gift of life to be experienced as individuals who depend on the care for one another, and this care is love. As He cares for us providing our daily sustenance and nurturing us with His grace, He also wants us to care for each other and provide for each other.

We know this by experience, by empirical evidence, and the Torah instructs us and reminds us about this. We live in times that compel us to eradicate the separatist mentality and replace it by the unifying consciousness that love invites us to live for the goodness of it.

Expecting others to change their separatist mentality first and then we change ours is part of Korach's approach, while Moses' and Aaron's approach is first to start the process to transform our individual consciousness. After all, it is about our individual and personal Redemption from ego's fantasies and illusions. Once we all do it, collective Redemption will come. May it manifest fully and promptly in our days!

Shelach: Discovering our Relationship with the Creator

We have reflected on two aspects of our relationship with God in our previous commentaries on Shelach. One is our trust in Him and His Love (Parshat Shelach: Trusting God's Love on May 30, 2010), and choosing with our own free will to walk in His ways and attributes (Parshat Shelach: Directing our Life in God's Love on June 12, 2011).

These two aspects are essential to realize our connection with Him. The events recorded in this portion of the Torah are indeed timeless because then and now we face the same dilemma and challenges in regards to knowing who we are and the purpose of our lives as Jews.

We have said that the Jewish identity encompasses multidimensional facets contained in the twelve Tribes of Israel, and these facets are aimed to manifest all the potential goodness in human consciousness. This process must occur as a united and cooperative endeavor, and this is why our Creator instructs Moses (our highest awareness of Him) to guide and direct all dimensions of consciousness in the journey to settle in the potential goodness of who we are, the Promised Land.

In the awareness of our individual and collective diversity, we know that such diversity is expressed differently regarding their purpose. The way a warrior expresses himself is quite different from the healer, the priest, the merchant, the judge, the artist, the shoemaker, and the wanderer, to mention only a few. This does not mean that the warrior can't dwell with those who don't do what he does. As a united Israel, we all are part of the multidimensional identity that defines us as Jews, and as such we are destined to fulfill our unity as the Creator wants us to.

We must explore the qualities or “territories” of our Tribes, their potential and resources to manifest God's ways and attributes as Love's ways and means to create a place for Him to dwell with us. In the material world, under the dictatorship of ego's fantasies and illusions and their negative trends, we find that our territories are occupied by “peoples” and “nations” that deny the goodness that we want to sow and reap in every aspect of consciousness.

Interestingly, we have a similar situation nowadays seeing declared enemies occupying our Land and virtually living in our home. Our benevolence and tolerance for our enemies are actually considered by them as aggression and oppression. This is the consequence of letting our consciousness cohabit with enemies. Once we eradicate them from our Land, our home, we will be able to fulfill our destiny. The only way to do this is by being together and united for the common purpose of realizing our Jewish identity as the means to proclaim God's will in the material world.

Caleb from the Tribe of Judah was the only one who, by his own conviction, faithfulness and loyalty to the Creator, realized the extraordinary goodness of the Promised Land and confronted his peers with their negative report on the Land.

“The Land that we passed through to explore, the Land is very, very good!” (Numbers 14:7)

We must approach the material world with the potential goodness we can manifest from it and for it, because this is the approach that God wants from us. This is what identifies us as Jews, as the Chosen People. If we have a negative conception and attitude about life and the world, we certainly deny any goodness in them.

This is the reason that made Judah prevail over the other Tribes. The descendants of Judah chose to remain loyal to the identity that God gave to Israel in His Torah. This faithfulness and loyalty also compelled another descendant of Judah, Nachson son of Amanadav, to become the first to jump into the divided waters of the Sea of Reeds, taking himself into a journey in which the only guide is God's Love.

This is the awareness needed to settle in the Promised Land, in the extraordinary goodness of Love's ways and attributes as the only means to remove darkness and negativity from human consciousness. Caleb was aware of the weakness that ego's fantasies and illusions produce in our consciousness. In illusions all becomes uncertain, vain, ephemeral and futile, because that is their nature.

We must clear our consciousness from darkness in order to allow Light to occupy all dimensions of life, and we do that by embracing Love as our Essence and true identity. Caleb knew the dangers of material illusions and he needed to reaffirm his Jewish identity in order to remain strong in his awareness of God's Love, hence he went to pray on the graves of our Patriarchs in Chevron. There he infused himself with the meaning of his identity as the legacy of the Covenant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the Creator; because we must know from where we came and our history in order to fully realize who we are.

We are weak when we ignore who we are, and our strength depends on what we are, have and are able to accomplish. Negative thoughts, emotions, feelings and passions can become real giants that may overpower us at the time when we have to choose between them and Love's attributes.

It can be easier to become indifferent, greedy, coveting, lusty, envious, indolent, and neglecting, when the feeling of lack takes over our consciousness. Then we find extremely hard to recognize and embrace our identity. In our identity lies our Essence and strength to elevate ourselves to the high level of extraordinary goodness in life.

“Caleb silenced the people towards Moses and said, 'We shall surely ascend and conquer it, for we can surely do it!' But the men who have ascended with him said, 'We can not ascend to that people for it is too strong for us!'” (13:30-31)

The negative aspects of consciousness indeed can be stronger than our will to defeat them, and it depends on us to change that predicament. Negativity can destroy the best in us: “(...) is a land that devours its inhabitants!” (13:32)

We discover our relationship with the Creator in the identity that He forged for us as His People. We come to know who we are in His ways and attributes, because He want us to emulate them. God's Love is the source and strength of our life, and with Love we empower all levels and dimensions of consciousness to conquer the hardships and difficulties from ego's fantasies and illusions. Love is our Promised Land.

Shelach: Discovering our Relationship with the Creator

We have reflected on two aspects of our relationship with God in our previous commentaries on Shelach. One is our trust in Him and His Love (Parshat Shelach: Trusting God's Love on May 30, 2010), and choosing with our own free will to walk in His ways and attributes (Parshat Shelach: Directing our Life in God's Love on June 12, 2011). These two aspects are essential to realize our connection with Him. The events recorded in this portion of the Torah are indeed timeless because then and now we face the same dilemma and challenges in regards to knowing who we are and the purpose of our lives as Jews.

We have said that the Jewish identity encompasses multidimensional facets contained in the twelve Tribes of Israel, and these facets are aimed to manifest all the potential goodness in human consciousness. This process must occur as a united and cooperative endeavor. This is why our Creator instructs Moses (our highest awareness of Him) to guide and direct all dimensions of consciousness in the journey to settle in the potential goodness of who we are, the Promised Land.

In the awareness of our individual and collective diversity, we know that such diversity is expressed differently regarding their purpose. The way a warrior expresses himself is quite different from the healer, the priest, the merchant, the judge, the artist, the shoemaker, and the wanderer, to mention only a few. This does not mean that the warrior can't dwell with those who don't do what he does. As a united Israel, we all are part of the multidimensional identity that defines us as Jews, and as such we are destined to fulfill our unity as the Creator wants us to.

We must explore the qualities or “territories” of our Tribes, their potential and resources to manifest God's ways and attributes as Love's ways and means to create a place for Him to dwell with us. In the material world, under the dictatorship of ego's fantasies and illusions and their negative trends, we find that our territories are occupied by “peoples” and “nations” that deny the goodness that we want to sow and reap in every aspect of consciousness.

Interestingly, we have a similar situation nowadays seeing declared enemies occupying our Land and virtually living in our home. Our benevolence and tolerance for our enemies are actually considered by them as aggression and oppression. This is the consequence of letting our consciousness cohabit with enemies. Once we eradicate them from our Land, our home, we will be able to fulfill our destiny. The only way to do this is by being together and united for the common purpose of realizing our Jewish identity as the means to proclaim God's will in the material world.

Caleb from the Tribe of Judah was the only one who, by his own conviction, faithfulness and loyalty to the Creator, realized the extraordinary goodness of the Promised Land and confronted his peers with their negative report on the Land: “The Land that we passed through to explore, the Land is very, very good!” (Numbers 14:7). We must approach the material world with the potential goodness we can manifest from it and for it, because this is the approach that God wants from us.

This is what identifies us as Jews, as the Chosen People. If we have a negative conception and attitude about life and the world, we certainly deny any goodness in them. This is the reason that made Judah prevail over the other Tribes. The descendants of Judah chose to remain loyal to the identity that God gave to Israel in His Torah. This faithfulness and loyalty also compelled another descendant of Judah, Nachson son of Amanadav, to become the first to jump into the divided waters of the Sea of Reeds, taking himself into a journey in which the only guide is God's Love.

This is the awareness needed to settle in the Promised Land, in the extraordinary goodness of Love's ways and attributes as the only means to remove darkness and negativity from human consciousness. Caleb was aware of the weakness that ego's fantasies and illusions produce in our consciousness. In illusions all becomes uncertain, vain, ephemeral and futile, because that is their nature. We must clear our consciousness from darkness in order to allow Light to occupy all dimensions of life, and we do that by embracing God's Love as our Essence and true identity.

Caleb knew the dangers of material illusions and he needed to reaffirm his Jewish identity in order to remain strong in his awareness of God's Love, hence he went to pray by the graves of our Patriarchs in Hebron. There he infused himself with the meaning of his identity as the legacy of the Covenant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the Creator. Thus we must know from where we came and our history in order to fully realize who we are.

We are weak when we ignore who we are, and our strength depends on what we are, have and are able to accomplish. Negative thoughts, emotions, feelings and passions can become real giants that may overpower us at the time when we have to choose between them and Love's attributes. It can be easier to become indifferent, greedy, coveting, lusty, envious, indolent, and neglecting, when the feeling of lack takes over our consciousness. Then we find extremely hard to recognize and embrace our identity.

In our identity lies our Essence and strength to elevate ourselves to the high level of extraordinary goodness in life: “Caleb silenced the people towards Moses and said, 'We shall surely ascend and conquer it, for we can surely do it!' But the men who have ascended with him said, 'We can not ascend to that people for it is too strong for us!'” (13:30-31). The negative aspects of consciousness indeed can be stronger than our will to defeat them, and it depends on us to change that predicament. Negativity can destroy the best in us: “(...) is a land that devours its inhabitants!” (13:32).

We discover our relationship with the Creator in the identity that He forged for us as His People. We come to know who we are in His ways and attributes, because He wants us to emulate them. God's Love is the source and strength of our life, and with Love we empower all levels and dimensions of consciousness to conquer the hardships and difficulties from ego's fantasies and illusions. The goodness of Love's ways and attributes is our Promised Land.

Behaalotecha: Living in God's Ways and Means

“So it was, whenever the ark [of the Covenant between God and Israel] set out, Moses would say, 'Arise, O Lord, may Your enemies be dispersed and may those who hate You flee from You.' And when it came to rest he would say, 'Repose O Lord, among the myriads of thousands of Israel'.” (Numbers 10:35-36).

The ark is where the Torah is stored, and we can say that both share the same place in Jerusalem and its Temple, which also represent the highest level of consciousness. It is where we keep God's Torah and His Commandments, and from there we guide all dimensions of life. The Prophet reiterates this.

“For from Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2:3)

In this sense when we get up in the morning our awareness must be in convergence with God's will. We are entitled to express our gratitude to God since the moment we open the eyes, acknowledging Him as the Owner of His Creation, including us. We get up by setting out the ark of the Covenant to face the new day that God creates for us, another journey full of challenges in which we have to make choices every moment.

We are thankful to be God's chosen to make the right choices, through and for Love's ways and means, instead of through and for ego's fantasies and illusions (see our previous commentaries in this blog on Parshat Behaalotecha: “Lighting up our Consciousness” of May 22, 2010 and “Enlightening Ourselves with God's Love” of June 5, 2011).

We have said that Moses represents our individual highest knowledge of God's ways and attributes. In this foremost awareness we manifest them in what we discern, think, feel, speak and do.

King David reminds us this.

“All the paths of the Lord are loving kindness and truth for those who keep His Covenant and His testimonies.” (Psalms 25:10)

And he puts it in context.

“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; loving kindness and truth go before Your face.” (89:14)

These qualities belong to Love's ways and attributes for us to permeate what we are, have and do at all times. These derive from God's Love for us to emulate in the material world.

We just need to bring our permanent awareness that God's Love, His Glory, is present in all His Creation.

“He loves righteousness and justice, the Earth is full of the loving kindness of the Lord.” (33:5)

We must be mindful of this when we meet the mirages of ego's illusions within ourselves and in others. We get up every day in the battlefield of the negative tendencies of consciousness and the positive qualities of Love's ways and attributes.

In this scenario Love is our strength and armor as the material manifestation of God's loving kindness. In this strength we overcome our most difficult problems and negative situations, the enemies of easiness, goodness, simplicity, humility and the positive traits we want to make prevail in ourselves and our individual circumstances.

“God, whose loving kindness shall come to meet me, God shall let me see my desire upon my enemies.” (59:11)

We have said in many of our study gatherings in Israel that king David is the Biblical character who best understood the Torah and God's ways, and the proof of this are his book of Psalms and his sayings recorded in the books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible.

His reflections encompass the primordial messages of the Torah to bring us a practical and easier comprehension of God's Love, and our Prophets reiterate the wisdom of our beloved king of Israel.

“And you, return to your God: keep loving kindness and justice, and wait on your God continually.” (Hosea 12:6)

“Thus spoke the Lord of hosts saying, 'Execute true justice, and show loving kindness and compassion to one to another'.” (Zechariah 7:9)

Thus we reflect on Moses' words above. In full awareness of Love's ways and attributes, as the material manifestation of God's Love, we face our enemies not only those who want our death and the destruction of Israel but also defamers and detractors who hate us because they don't find anything else to pour down their frustration and hatred.

Tough times we and our ancestors have faced, and still face every day, to defend our right to exist and to proclaim the true Essence and identity that God gave us in His Torah.

Let's also be mindful that similar enemies threaten to take over our consciousness to undermine our loving kindness, justice and compassion when we allow ego's negative fantasies and illusions to control our thoughts, feelings, passions and instincts.

Our Sages point out that when one lets himself be submitted to negative traits, he  submits himself to people with similar traits. In other words, when one become slave of destructive addictions, bad habits and negative attitudes, he enslaves himself to the rules of those who share the same traits.

Some people call this predicament “living in hell”, and portray “hell” and “purgatory” as places or situations in which everything is negative to the point of saturation, in order to learn completely what “negative” means.

We have mentioned in other commentaries that some people say that the evil in the world is enough, but in some places it seems to get worse every day. They wonder if there is such a thing as the Final Redemption as promised by God and the Prophets in Judaism. We tell them that indeed there is a Final Redemption, and it begins when we choose Love's ways and attributes instead of the negative and destructive ways ego wants to rule in our consciousness.

Now we say, “Let Redemption be, and let it start with me!”. We do it by letting Love direct and guide all aspects and dimensions of consciousness, one individual at a time.

Let's be mindful that Redemption starts first within us as individuals. We can't demand change for good in others if we don't change first for good in ourselves. First we have to raise all levels of consciousness up to the guidance of Love's ways and means. Thus we dispel and eliminate our enemies. Thus we understand “Arise, O Lord, may Your enemies be dispersed and may those who hate You flee from You.” because in the awareness of Love we are united with our Creator; hence our enemies are also His.

After we finish the day, our journey of challenges and choices in which we choose Love instead of its opposites, we may say happily, “Repose O Lord, among the myriads of thousands of Israel”. And remain with us, Father, with those who know You through Your loving kindness, justice, truth and compassion, which are Your endless Love.

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.

Judah Macabee: Homophobe

In view of the recent stirred debates on gay marriages in the United States, I want to share an article by a dear friend of mine, Philip Lefkowitz, Rabbi of the congregation Agudat Achim in Chicago.

Dear haverim,

I am not trying to preach or impress you by my writing skills. I share the following as I believe that gay marriage is a "blessing and a curse" placed before us. A blessing because it affords us the opportunity to make American Jewry look at their own reflection in the mirror. A curse as, if we don't deal with it in a manner to change the mindset of American Jewry, it marks yet another step toward its collective demise.

Phil Lefkowitz

Judah Macabee: Homophobe

Plato said, “Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by Barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love; all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce.” and Plutarch said, “The noble lover of beauty engages in love wherever he sees excellence and splendid natural endowment without regard for any difference in physiological detail.”

Statistics evaluating American Jewish religious expression show that the Jewish observance most practiced in the United States is the lighting of Hanukkah candles. Hanukkah commemorates and celebrates the miraculous victory of Judah Macabee, his family and small group of followers who, repulsed by the decree from Antiochus IV to place a statue of Zeus in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem – the center of Monotheism –, mounted a guerrilla war against the Hellenized Syrian-Mesopotamian Empire then in control of ancient Israel.

Considering the support of so many Jews for gay marriage in America, one wonders how they can celebrate Hanukkah. For today many would label Judah, his family, the Hasmoneans, and their followers as homophobes. Yes, homophobes. Let me explain. The Jewish world of the Macabees was completely swallowed up by Hellenism. Assimilated by the Greek philosophy of life and its emphasis upon the worship of the physical, as opposed to spiritual development, young Jewish men began to work out in the nude on the courtyards of the Temple Mount. In an attempt to hide the “deformity” inflicted upon their well-toned “Grecian” physiques by their parents through the rite of circumcision, they would employ various techniques to disguise this Jewish “mutilation”. Of course, Greek names and life style had become the norm for the Jews of that time. Now there are those, in discussing the contemporary challenge presented by assimilation, who compare American Jewry to the Hellenized Jewish world of the Macabees.

As the quotes from Plato and Plutarch demonstrate, not only was homosexuality widely engaged in by Hellenistic societies, but aslo embraced by the Hellenized Jews in the time of the Macabees, and it was lauded as a valuable element in the development of a “sophisticated” society. As Plato states, it is the Barbarian and the dictator that seek to stifle homosexual expression. Plutarch reminds us all of the fascination the Hellenists had for the physical body, arbitrarily equating love with sexual expression, by engaging with individuals of “special natural endowment”, either male or female, in stark contrast to Judaism which views love as a manifestation far more transcending than a temporary physical encounter.

The Macabees, the Hassidim of their age, were those who as a minority maintained Jewish observance and values in the face of a Jewish world possessed by an alien culture and pagan beliefs. The Macabees, unlike Plato, were repulsed by the rampant and open sexual promiscuity among the Jewry of their days, which included homosexuality, seeing it as leading to the destruction of the great Temple of Jewish thought and spiritual purity exemplified by the observance of the Torah and its Commandments. And when the fortress of Judaism was breached, when the Temple was defiled and rededicated as a pagan shrine to Zeus, in spite of their small numbers the Macabees realized that there was no alternative but to take to the hills and fight to the death for their Jewish beliefs with the call to arms: “Whoever is for the L-rd follow me!”

We live in a confused Jewish world where that which is rejected by Judaism is now an expression of Jewish values, as represented by the recent remark of the President of the National Jewish Democratic Council that gay marriage is a step forward in the important endeavor of Tikun Olam, the bringing of balance and perfection to the physical world through G-d’s Commandments. How could this have happened? May I suggest that we live with faulty Jewish mathematics? One of the major equations used in Jewish life today states: A Jewish position on a given issue equals the opinion of the majority of Jews. 

If we truly believe this equation, if we believe that Jewish views are determined by the majority of Jews, then as the title of this article states, there is no doubt that Judah Macabee was a homophobe. For, was he not battling and risking his life and the life of his followers against a superior and well armed force to reinstate the values of Judaism in Jewish society? Unlike the majority of the Jews of his day who echoed the sentiments of Plato and Plutarch, he saw in the expression of sexuality beyond the sacred bond of marriage between man and woman, a violation of G-d’s Divine law. He would give no quarter to such immoral behavior. He was what nowadays some would call a fanatic, a veritable “Bible thumper” in his day. And yet, we Jews embrace the victory of the Macabees, their rise to both Kingship and Priesthood, their restoring the values of G-d, as something to celebrate: Hanukkah as the Jewish celebration embraced by more Jews than any other in our religious lexicon.

In 1885 the leaders of the Reform Movement met in Pittsburgh to define their sense of Judaism. They issued the “Pittsburgh Platform” now understood as the encapsulation of classical Reform Judaism. In part it states: “Second- We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as priests of the one true God, and value it as the most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction. Third- (…) today we accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as to elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.” By endorsing gay marriage most American Jews have parted company with this liberal expression of Judaism.

As classical Reform Judaism declares that “record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as priests of the one true God”, that “most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction”, in today’s terms that ancient yet eternal Jewish “Rules for Radicals”, the Bible teaches us in the book of Leviticus that, “If a man lies with a man as with a woman both of them have committed an abomination.”, “You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.” 

In the book of Isaiah we read, “It is too light a thing for you [Jews] to be My servants, to establish the Tribes of Jacob, and to restore the scions of Israel; and I shall submit you as a light unto the nations, to be My redemption until the end of the Earth. (...) I the L-ord have called unto you in righteousness, and have taken hold of your hand, and submitted you as the people's Covenant, as a light unto the nations. (...) And unto your light, nations shall walk, and kings unto the brightness of your rising”.

Something to think about.

Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz - Congregation Agudat Achim of Chicago.