Lech Lecha: The Hebrew identity

Our patriarch Abraham is the epitome of the relation-ship between Israel and the Creator. He is the chosen one for the covenant of both parts, the seal of this pact. We must bear this in our minds, hearts and souls.

Abraham represents the higher consciousness that recognizes the oneness and uniqueness of God, the individual who rejects all kinds of idolatry as ego's fantasies and illusions. This higher consciousness knows that the one and only true reality is God, His ways, His will, and His attributes.

God chooses Abraham as Israel to seal the eternal covenant with which Israel proclaims and manifests God's presence in His creation. This is Abraham's inheritance and Israel's legacy to the world. This covenant delineates Israel's destiny in the material world, and determines our greatness as the Jewish people.

“And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [you shall] be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2)

This is Israel's identity through which we realize that God is the greatest blessing, because all the blessings come from Him. In this awareness Israel is blessed, and becomes God's blessing to be manifest in the world.

We as Israel are the recipients and bearers of the blessing to reveal God's presence, to celebrate and rejoice in the realization that His love is our essence, and also our redemption from the illusions, mirages and fantasies that separate us from Him.

Love, as the material manifestation of God's love, is indeed our redeeming spirit because love is the primordial sustenance of our life. Our love is the blessing of God's love. Thus we realize that love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways, means, and attributes.

This means that the blessings don't share time or space with curses, because the goodness of love doesn't coexist with the badness of wickedness. This is how we understand God's words in this context.

“And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you.” (12:3)

Goodness as well as all the traits, qualities, aspects and dimensions of love's ways and attributes are the blessing in which everyone is blessed. What a privilege and honor to be the bearers of the blessing to reveal God's presence in the material world! We have heard that “privileges and honors imply obligations and responsibilities”.

We don't necessarily have to understand it as some-thing forced onto us to be and to have, but to assimilate it as an essential part of our identity. In this way, we flow with the blessing in what we discern, think, believe, feel, speak and act. This is the fundamental legacy of Abraham to us (see in this blog our commentary on Parshat Lech Lecha: “Walking before the Creator” of October 9, 2010).

Jewish oral tradition tells us that at an early age, Abraham became aware of the futility inherent in ego's materialistic desires out of a feeling or belief of lack in any of our consciousness' dimensions. He learned that such illusory approach to life is the creator of idols we follow and obey, falling down under their domain and servitude, making us ignore and even deny our essence and true identity.

In this sense, the prerequisite to know and embrace God is the rejection of ego's fantasies and illusions. This is how we understand what the Torah refers to as idolatry. Abraham's total rejection of idolatry led him to realize and recognize the Creator not only as the one and only God, but also the one and only reality by which we must live as the blessing He is for us and His creation.

We achieve this awareness by knowing His ways and attributes also as ours in what we are and do (see our commentary in this blog, Lech lecha: “The Blessings of our True Identity” of October 30, 2011).

This awareness is the inner land that He gives us to live eternally.

“For all the land that you see I will give to you and to your seed to eternity.” (13:15)

As we live this blessing we assimilate its endlessness, because His giver is endless and we don't have to fear the awe our consciousness experiences because the blessing is also our shield.

This shield not only guards us from ego's illusions, but it is also part of our identity because this shield identifies what we must become in this world.

“(...) the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, 'Fear not, Abram; I am a Shield for you; [therefore] your reward is exceedingly great'.” (15:1)

Here we understand this identity as a bond with God, because His ways and attributes are our guide and destiny to live and experience in this world. As we said before, these ways do not cohabit with any different to them, because they are paths of goodness, righteousness, fairness and justice. In this direction we find our abundance, prosperity, and happiness in excess.

“(…) and He said to him, 'I am the almighty God; walk before Me and be wholehearted [righteous]. And I will place My covenant between Me and between you, and I will multiply you very greatly'.” (17:1-2)

This first dialogue between God and Abraham also re-minds us to eliminate all that is useless in our consciousness, that which we do not need in our destiny to know the Creator and reveal His presence and glory in the world... that which obstructs our path to redeem ourselves from all evil through love's ways and attributes as our essence and true identity.

That is what the foreskin represents in our body and in our consciousness.

“And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be as the sign of a covenant between Me and between you.” (17:11)

With this we seal our pact to pursue, live and rejoice in God's ways.

“But you, Israel My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, whom I love, whom I grasped from the ends of the earth, and from its nobles I called you, and I said to you, 'You are My servant'; I chose you and I did not despise you.” (Isaiah 41:8-9)

In this awareness all fantasies, mirages and illusions of the material world dissipate because God's love strengthens our love to clear them all.

“Behold I have made you a new grooved threshing-sledge, with sharp points; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them fine, and you shall make hills like chaff. You shall winnow them, and a wind shall carry them off, and a tempest shall scatter them, and you shall rejoice with the Lord, with the holy one of Israel shall you praise yourself.” (41:15-16)

Lech lecha: The Blessings of our True Identity

"Go for [to] yourself from [out of] your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you [make you see it]. And I will make you into a great Nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [so that you shall] be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and all the families of the Earth shall be blessed in you." (Genesis 12:1-3).

These verses are about one single Commandment containing several blessings that bear more blessings. All in regard to the knowledge of something in particular: the awareness of being and doing who we truly are. This awareness is the result of a process by which we have to see (or being shown) in order to know. Our Sages say that hearing relates to understanding, and seeing to knowing. We can understand what we are told, but we know it when we see it. Hence, the key of the process is for us to be shown or to make us see about who we really are.

We can be mistaken if we are not previously taught how to see in order to properly know what we have before our eyes. We need references to acquire knowledge in the proper context. In this sense, our references are contained in the Torah in contrast to the references in the non-Jewish world. In the narrative of these verses, the land that the Creator will make Abraham see is the Promised Land that the Torah reveals to us. This land is the place and time combined where the Creator's blessings are completely manifest as a purpose, as a destiny, and as an end. 

The Commandment to Abraham sounds conditional as if he complies with it, he will be rewarded with such blessings. Not quite. This Commandment is about the individual challenge to know who we truly are amid a myriad of illusions and mirages we have created as references to understand and to know what we suppose to be in the material world. These illusions exist as the result of ego's desires and fantasies that we turn into references as idols that dictate who we suppose to be and what we suppose to do.

This fantasy island is the place that Abraham had to abandon in order to go to his true self, as the land that is our true individual and collective identity. The Commandment was given to him as the chosen seed of the Jewish people whose destiny is to possess that land and dwell in it: "To your seed I will give this Land, (…) for all the Land that you see I will give to you and to your seed to eternity." (12:7, 12:15).

This Commandment is also given to every Jew as well, so that we may choose to be the blessing, as Abraham did. Our Sages say that while the nations prefer to be blessed by the Creator, Israel prefers to be His blessing.

We have to abandon the idolatry of ego's illusions through understanding and knowing what the Torah tells us, in order to partake of the blessing of being the great Nation destined to be the Light for the peoples. In these verses Abraham's name shall become enlarged as he becomes the blessing that is receiving, and consequently a blessing for those who bless him.

Cursing carries back its own curse, and blessing carries its own goodness. By being in that blessing, everyone who chooses to receive it is therefore blessed with what it represents. If we want to partake in these blessings, we have to go to who we truly are, instead of what ego's illusions tell us to be and do. We get the awareness and knowledge when we listen to the Source that created us, which is God's Love. It is also the Land that He shows us when we choose to hear and follow His ways, and manifest His attributes.

As we mentioned, this awareness requires a process in which we must confront the material illusions that blur all levels and dimensions of consciousness, as a result of misconceptions created by those illusions. As a state of consciousness, this Promised Land needs to be cleared from the nations that represent such misconceptions. They are regarded as the Canaanite nations (see in this blog our commentary "Conquering the 'nations' with Love" of June 26, 2010) that Israel has to subjugate in order to dwell in this Land.

We, as our forefathers did, must confront and defeat kingdoms that deny the moral freedom that only God's Love, as our Essence, can redeem and preserve. The Commandment to Abraham carries the blessings when we fulfill it. Through Love, as the material manifestation of God's Love in human consciousness, we clear thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts from their negative misconceptions. Love is its own cause and effect, and also the catalyst to dissipate ego's illusions, and direct our consciousness to partake in the blessings of God's Love.

Abraham listened to God's voice and Commandment and he chose back to His ways and attributes, which are His blessings: "I chose you and I did not despise you. Do not fear for I am with you; be not discouraged for I am your God: I encouraged you, I also helped you, I also supported you with My righteous hand." (Isaiah 41:9-10), because God's blessing is His Love.

Parshat Lech Lecha: Walking before the Creator

"And God said to Abram: 'Go to yourself (lech lecha) from your land, and from your relatives, and from your father's house, to the Land that I will show you' (…)" (Genesis 12:1) Who is this man chosen to hear the Master of the Universe among his generation? Jewish oral tradition tells us that Abraham was one of the few individuals of his time who believed in the uniqueness of God, and rejected idolatry. Noah and his children were still alive while Abraham heard this Divine call. This is the call that everyone who acknowledges the Creator as the One and only God, and who also rejects idolatry, should hear every moment. It is his/her most treasured awareness that he/she has, because it is the lot that makes anyone happy in this world. 

This Divine call is an invitation to keep this awareness permanently in our consciousness: go to yourself, to the portion as your lot that makes you truly happy, truly fulfilled. And we achieve that permanency in a special Land that the Creator wants to give us, the children of The Covenant, the ones who recognize His Oneness. The Promised Land is both the physical and spiritual place where we can achieve permanent awareness of our connection with the Creator, a Land that we have to conquer in order to live peacefully and harmonically in it: "And I will make you a great Nation; I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing." (12:2)

When we walk in Love's ways and attributes we indeed become a blessing, because Love is a blessing. Abram, later named Abraham by God, is considered the epitome of loving kindness (chesed in Hebrew) which is one of God's attributes (Exodus 34:6-7) As we said in the previous commentary on parshat Noach, in this context Abraham's Love met God's Love. Abraham's loving kindness was a blessing for those around him, and we also must manifest this attribute because it is what makes us God's image and likeness. We often say that God's Love created us, and it is through the awareness of Love that we are able to know the Creator. For Abraham this fundamental principle was so clear that he was able to overcome all the trials throughout his lifetime: "Fear not, Abram, I am a shield for you; your reward is very great" (Genesis 15:1) hence if God is our shield, who could be against?

Love is the Light with which we clear the darkness in the material world, and while we are and manifest His ways and attributes there is no better reward: "I am El Shaddai, walk before Me and be wholehearted. I will set My Covenant between Me and you, and I will increase you most exceedingly." (17:1-2) The Torah and the Hebrew scriptures are in their entirety a God's manifesto that proclaims the Oneness of the Creator, and constantly warns us about the consequences of idolatry. Since the transgression in the Garden of Eden down to our current exile, idolatry has been the cause of humankind's ills. The saga of our Forefathers and Prophets has been a permanent battle against what separate us from our Creator, the "enemies" of God which also are the enemies of Israel.

Our Sages single out Abraham as the true father of humankind, and not Adam or Noah because he and Sarah were the first persons who truly walked before God, and were truly wholehearted in His eyes. From these two exceptional human beings we have to learn how to conceive our Creator and how to relate to Him. The person most mentioned in our oral tradition is Abraham, more than any other biblical character because one of his qualities was his inflexible stance against idolatry. His loyalty to the Creator was faultless, and his commitment to His ways unconditional. Interestingly, this is the same unconditional Love that God has for all His Creation like the air we breathe, like the sun that shines every day, and like the rain that never asks when, where or to whom.

God loves all His Creation and He also expects Love from us, His creatures, and this does not mean that He needs our Love. He gave us free will so we can choose His Love and not ego's illusions and fantasies in the material world. His Love -- which is also our Love -- is the One that increases us and multiply us as the stars in the sky and the dust in the earth. This is the expansion that the Creator wants us to be through His ways and attributes. Abraham knew that God's blessings for him and his descendants were not about numbers, but about the traits and qualities that make us grow as Light bearers to the world.

We can understand the Land of Canaan as life itself, but in order to be true life we have to conquer and subjugate the "nations" that occupy it. These are the lower character traits that we have to elevate in order to make them subservient to the higher purpose that Love is. We have to be like Abraham, and never compromise to anything that is not God's loving kindness. We do this by being loving kindness constantly in every aspect of our consciousness. The way to succeed with this is by trusting God's Love and also in our own awareness of Love, as Abraham did. 

Abraham was afraid of the fate that his descendants would face during their period of servitude in Egypt as well as in their other exiles, because we are not as strong as he was against ego's materialistic fantasies. He prayed for us so we may not perish in the darkness of the material world; but it is our responsibility and our choice to cleave to our Creator as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did. This is the true legacy from our Patriarchs, a legacy that we must honor and fulfill. 

Let's go to our self, our true identity, into the Land that God's Love shows us. This is the same Love that cries out to Him so that we once again may dwell in the goodness of the Land He gives us.