Mishpatim: Learning to Live in God's Love

Ego's fantasies and illusions correspond to idolatry as Love's ways and attributes correspond to real freedom. In this sense, idolatry is the opposite of freedom.

As long as we are bowed to anything that undermines freedom, we are caught in it. We can call it a negative approach to life, addictions, bad habits or lower passions derived from a false belief or feeling of lack. These are the “false gods” of the “nations” that we are commanded to reject, subjugate, conquered and destroy.

“You shall not prostrate yourself before their gods, and you shall not worship them, and you shall not follow their practices, but you shall tear them down and you shall utterly shatter their monuments.” (Exodus 23:24)

This as part of a previous warning.

“Concerning all that I have said to you you shall beware, and the name of the gods of others you shall not mention; it shall not be heard through your mouth.” (23:13)

This portion of the Torah contains several laws as commandments which are preceded by warnings against idolatry (at the end of the previous portion) and followed by similar warnings as mentioned above. We have said that one of the fundamental messages of the Torah is the condemnation of idolatry as the main obstacle to experience higher consciousness, aimed to connect us permanently with our Creator.

We see this from beginning to end in the Torah, since the transgression in the Garden of Eden, regarded as a “fall” into ego's desires, fantasies and illusions (represented by the serpent's seduction of Eve).

Ego's idolatry of its self-centered approach to life as experienced by the generation of the Flood.

Ego's enlargement of its self-conception as god in the generation of the Tower of Babel.

More idolatry in the times of Abraham, and more egocentric obsession with Pharaoh in Egypt, the Golden Calf, and more varying idolatrous conceptions up to our current times.

We must learn from our expertise in ego's controlling ways in our own individual lives, as well as from culture, fashion, ideologies, beliefs, behavioral patterns, obsessions, habits and addictions. We have to know in depth the false gods we worship, and the idols we serve.

In this process we will be able to discern fantasies and illusions as the result of our own invention, out of a feeling or belief of lack. We have said many times that the “sin” in the Garden of Eden was the result of the false belief of lack out of ego's desire to become its own god.

Once we can tell the real origin of our fantasies and illusions, we will be able to recognize that love as the material manifestation of God's love is our true Essence and identity. Once we recognize that without Love we are dead in the mirages of ego's illusions, we will be able to return to what is truly real.

This is why the Torah tells us that there are laws that make us understand the Ten Commandments given in the preceding portion. We have to reiterate that love's ways and attributes contain their own ethics. Love isn't love without its principles and values. There is a way to love, and this way is universally applied to those who say they love.

Thus we reject and condemn those who try to exempt themselves from judgment, when they claim obeying orders to justify murdering innocent people. These are the same people who, based on wicked ideologies, hate, instigate and perpetrate mass murder. In their cynicism they also claim to love their country, their spouses and their children.

Thus we understand that their wicked ideas, destructive beliefs and negative feelings are the gods and idols they worship, in which they become. See our commentaries on parshat Mishpatim: “The Laws of God's Love” of January 23, 2011 and “Torah's Laws as God's Love” of February 12, 2012 in this blog.

King David opens our eyes to awaken from ego's inventions.

“They [idols] have hands, but they don't feel. They have feet, but they don't walk, neither do they speak through their throat. Those who make idols end up like them. So does everyone who trusts them.” (Psalms 115:7-8)

Our Prophets reaffirm his words.

“Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation (...)” (Habakkuk 2:18)

“Those who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.” (Isaiah 44:9)

The lesson of idolatry is to make us return to the true reality God is.

“And you shall worship the Lord, your God, and He will bless your food and your drink, and I will remove illness from your midst.” (Exodus 23:25)

God is the blessing from which all blessings come.

“There will be no bereaved or barren woman in your land; I will fill the number of your days.” (23:26)

Again God's love reminds us that He does not cohabit with anything different from His ways and attributes.

“You shall not form a covenant for them or for their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they cause you to sin against Me, that you will worship their gods, which will be a snare for you.” (23:33)

The laws in this portion teach us that life is a learning process from slavery to freedom. In our previous commentaries on this portion we said that our sages explain these laws not to justify or promote slavery, but to understand it as the service people must perform after losing the privilege of leading their own lives.

They explain further indicating that slavery must be understood as the service necessary to regain individual freedom. In this context, the masters to whom one was sold are the teachers, rules and norms we must assimilate in order not to fall into a negative situation that makes us lose our freedom, and that which makes us free.

In this sense freedom is the privilege to conduct our lives in love's ways and attributes, and not in the negative trends of ego's desires, fantasies and illusions. In this sense, we understand that love is our freedom as long as we live in the laws and ordinances of its ways and attributes, opposite to idolatry as slavery under ego's domains.

Love as Freedom

Does it take six million lives to sensitize human consciousness? What else does it take to live in real freedom? Indeed, we equate sensibility to freedom and we must paraphrase it as, what does it take to be sensitive enough to experience true freedom. The God of the Jews is the One of freedom as defined in the First Commandment of the Decalogue: “I am the Lord your God who took you out of the house of bondage in Egypt”, and reaffirmed in other passages of the Torah as the One “Who lift you up from the land of Egypt”, which means that His freedom for us implies an elevation from one stage or place to another. In this sense, Egypt and the Promised Land represent a lower level and a higher level, respectively. We have mentioned before in this blog that Egypt is the epitome to abject bondage to the negative aspects of consciousness, as it also occurs with the Canaanite nations as specific traits that we must overcome in order to gain moral and ethical principles as preconditions for the kind of freedom that the Creator wants for Israel (see in this blog our commentary “Conquering the 'nations' with Love” on June 26, 2010).

The answer to our questions above is the same for our quest for true freedom, and it is Love. It takes Love to sensitize human consciousness, and all the opposites of Love are the abject slavery in whose name the worse crimes are committed. In this context, evil and its derivatives are the negative expressions opposite to Love. In terms of ethics, the Torah defines “negative” as the kind of actions what deny or obstructs the connection with our God. Evil as the approach that curses life and rejects life's blessings. At the same time the Torah defines “positive” the actions that elevate us to our God by doing them. These actions are the cause and effect of our sensitivity in order to live in real freedom. Goodness as the epitome of positivity is the way to pursue such freedom. In this sense, we can't be free if we think, feel and act under anything that denies or rejects Love's ways and attributes. It takes the greatest Love of all, God's Love, to live truly in freedom and this is the kind of Love that we must experience and embrace as our true Essence and identity, because this Essence is our real freedom.

We have already learned by experience that we can't live without Love, because it is the material reflection of God's Love as the Essence that created us and sustains us. We don't need to believe in God in order to know what Love is. Agnostics and atheists know this, as well as people in the most isolated communities that we consider “primitive”. They and us agree on Love's ways and attributes as the goodness that we must embrace and pursue individually and collectively in order to live in freedom. On the other hand, we who believe in the Creator, recognize His Love as the Source of everything which include Love's ways and attributes.

Freedom is built in loving kindness because this is the foundation of the world: “The world is built on loving kindness” (Psalms 89:3) because it is an emanation of God's loving kindness as one of His attributes: “[I am] The Lord, the Lord, the God of compassion, and [the God of] grace, abundant in loving kindness (...)” (Exodus 34:6) and these are attributes from which we were created that define our Essence and identity. In these attributes we find our true freedom, and not in their opposites. Our Sages say that “those who study Torah every day secure a life in the World to Come, because the ways of the world are its [the Torah's] ways”, and in practical terms this means that those who love every day build the World to Come, because the ways of the world are Love's ways. They also speak of peace as the result of Torah study, “All your children will be students of the Lord ['s Torah], and great will be the peace of your children [as builders of peace]” because peace is the result and also a foundation to build the world according to His ways. Peace, as one of Love's ways and attributes, is also the cause and effect of living in freedom.

At this point we already know what to do regarding the content in the vessels of our thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts. We have said that they are dimensions of consciousness waiting to be filled with the choices we make between curses and blessings, positive and negative, true and false. Some say that the evil in the world is enough, then we should ask how much Love is enough to erase so much evil. How much does it take to Love enough? How many more ruthless and despotic rulers in the world? How much more fundamentalist religious oppression? How much more humiliation to human dignity? Were not enough already six million Jewish lives to learn how much does it take? We must return to our God who brought us up from the land of Egypt by walking in His ways, and emulating His attributes as our freedom from the bondage of the lower aspects of consciousness under the rule of ego's fantasies and illusions. God's Love is always present and pervades all His Creation, and it is our choice to return to Him as our true Essence, and to His Love as our true identity. Love is our way out from negative illusions because Love is our true freedom.

We must say that one of the main opposites of Love is fear, and some say that fear is the opposite of freedom. They certainly claim that as long as we live in fear we live in bondage. We have to see this predicament in our current times, and ask ourselves individually what are the issues that determine our bondage, starting with our ego's fantasies and illusions. What is that we believe we are and have, or what we are not and lack that restricts our freedom? What is beyond our simple, basic needs that shape who we are, what we want to be, or what limits who we want to be? Also let's ask what is that we are afraid of, that which cuts down our freedom. And even more important, what do we think or believe that is freedom? Again, the answer to all these questions sooner or later refers to Love as our true freedom. Are we afraid of Love even if we know that it is our Essence and identity? Let's reiterate again that Love is the cause and the effect, and when we are fully aware of this principle, we are truly free.

We as Jews and our history are the living proof that God exists, and we have existed, still exist and will exist regardless the hatred of others against us, regardless their rejection of us and their desire to destroy us. We love in spite of the world and its illusions, and we will continue loving because Love is our permanent connection with the Creator. This is our greatest freedom. He brought us up from slavery to be truly free in His Love, and that is living in His ways and attributes. We remember every day our Exodus from Egypt in order to acknowledge that all exists out of His Love, and we honor the Shabbat as a testimony of this. The Jewish tradition, defined as our identity, has been and will be the proof that God exists. We are not faithful to it as our legacy from God if we don't recognize Him nor proclaim Him, because when we don't express our true identity we simply deny His existence. This means that if we do not love, we deny the Creator. We are free when in complete free will we love the way He wants us to, and do it in His ways and attributes as our identity.