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.

Parshat Shelach: Directing our Life in God's Love

Settling in the Promised Land (living in the truthfulness of God's ways and attributes) is an endeavor that virtually takes a lifetime. We all know that life in the material world is not an easy task, hence some call it a blessing and some call it a curse depending on how easy or hard it may be or turn to be.

In the case of the Promised Land, the endeavor carries a learning process aimed to create a space for the Creator to dwell with us. This mission is ours, in the sense that it depends only on our free will. It is a choice that we either make or not.

In this context, it is clear that one thing are God's commandments and another is to fulfill them on our own free will. It is part of human nature, and the choices we make are the result of what we want in our life. It is not about what we need to do, but what we want to do.

Moses, our teacher, knows quite well the fabric with which the Creator made us and he acts accordingly. He, as the representative of our highest awareness of the Creator and His love, has to lead the higher aspects of consciousness as the ones that must direct the remaining dimensions of life.

The Creator then commands Moses.

"(…) 'send for yourself (shelach lecha) men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. You shall send one man each for his father's tribe; each one shall be a chieftain in their midst." (Numbers 13:2)

Moses sends those who are the most able to get acquainted with the traits, qualities and expressions of every level of consciousness in order to direct them into the goodness of God's ways and attributes.

"You shall see what land it is, and the people who inhabit it; are they strong or weak? Are there few or many? And what of the land they inhabit? Is it good or bad? And what of the cities in which they reside are they in the fields or in fortresses? (13:18-19)

These referring to the nature of our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, habits, moods, tendencies, emotions, feelings, passions, and instincts.

Life indeed is good, regardless the negative approach to it we may have at one point, and ultimately it is our approach to it and not God's. Our approach and not His is what makes life and the world the way they appear to us. In the approach of love everything is good.

"They [the scouts] told him [Moses] and said, 'We came to the land to which you sent us, and it is flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit'." (13:27)

The ones who directed their awareness into God's love find it even better.

"They spoke to the entire congregation of the children of Israel, saying, 'The land we passed through to scout is an exceedingly good land'." (14:7)

As we guide all aspects of consciousness in the ways of the Creator, His love makes it so.

"If the Lord desires us, He will bring us to this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey." (14:8).

In order to dwell in God's ways and attributes we must never separate from His love.

"But you shall not rebel against the Lord, and you will not fear the people of that land because they are [as] our bread. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them." (14:9)

Every facet of our consciousness is actually an essential part of life and in that sense our thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc. also feed us as bread does. When we cleanse them from their negative expressions, love is with us and thus we have nothing to fear.

If our will is not strong enough to clear negative thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts from our acts, we will fall into the darkness of the illusion that negativity is.

"For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword, because you have turned away from the Lord, and the Lord will not be with you." (14:43)

God's love is not with us when we despise His ways.

The experience of the episode of the scouts (also called "spies") indicates us that our voluble nature must be directed to pursue the loftier delights of God's ways. The guidance and direction of His love also must be constantly reminded in every aspect of consciousness.

"(…) this shall be fringes for you, and when you see it, you will remember all the commandments of the Lord to perform them, and you shall not wander after your hearts and after your eyes [ego's materialistic desires and fantasies] after which you are going astray. So that you shall remember and perform all My Commandments and you shall be holy to your God. I am the Lord, your God, who [whose Love] took you out of the land of Egypt [ego's illusions] to be your God [to live in the Truth]; (because) I am the Lord, your God." (15:39-40)

Parshat Shelach: Trusting God's Love

In Behaalotecha, the episode of lust experienced by some of the children of Israel was a clear signal that they were not ready to occupy the promised land at that time.

In Shelach that signal proved the fact. In those times (as well as in our current times) we knew that conquering our lower thoughts, emotions, passions and instincts is not an easy task unless we are completely aware that God's Love is not only what sustains every aspect of our life, but also our sole redeemer when we are trapped in the illusions of our lower consciousness.

However, most of our sages don't agree on this view and righteously say that the children of Israel were indeed ready to enter the land of Canaan, but not willing to do it. They correctly point out that the comfort of depending solely from God in the desert was preferred to facing and eventually conquering the negative aspects with which ego wants to direct our consciousness.

True, when we are all the time with God's love there is nothing to be conquered because we belong to His oneness. But God wants us with His love to conquer darkness as the negative aspect of consciousness. In order to achieve this task we have to trust love. It makes sense to doubt when we don't feel prepared for a task, hence our duty is to defeat doubt with the full certainty that love is constantly with us.

In the case of our forefathers, they had major proofs of the power of God's love: their Redemption from Egypt, the splitting of the sea, and the miracles they witnessed daily in the desert. Why then not trusting God after so many tangible proofs of His love? We now also experience His miracles every moment, and still we don't trust Him completely.

We trust money more than love, in spite of knowing quite well that without love we can't live. We rather believe that ego's fantasies and illusions are far better than living in the truthfulness of love. After all, we live in a material reality in which ego's illusions are the ones to pursue, to live by them and die by them. The point again is either to believe and trust love or not, and that's the whole point of this portion in the Torah.

We say that love is about trust, and trust is about love. This is the foundation of our relationship with God's love, the marriage between Israel and Him. In this case the story of the spies is again about trust.

"(...) 'send for yourself (shelach lecha) men who will scout the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel'." (Numbers 11:2)

They may have trusted God but not what He could do for them when they had to face lust, greed, envy, arrogance and the negative aspects consciousness represented by the Canaanite nations. Under the circumstances, common sense tells us that they just didn't trust God at all. Otherwise they would have entered the promised land immediately as originally planned.

There is an important issue we have to raise, and it is free will. God does not impose His will on us. That is why He created us, so we use our intellect and common sense to choose goodness over evil, and love over ego's fantasies and illusions.

The text is clear. "Send for yourself men" (lit. send for you people), you (Moses) let them make their choice; and they did. They chose to stay in the desert and die there under the care and protection of God's love, instead of letting Him guide them and conquer the lower aspects of consciousness. And so it was. God's love let that generation die during the following 38 years, and He prepared the next generation to fulfill His plan for Israel.

The narrative is very explicit in its imagery of what the spies "saw" in the land. Again it is reiterated that distrusting our Creator and sole nurturer carries our death under the illusions of our lower consciousness.

After the episode of the spies, the portion continues with additional sacrifices to be offered in the Tabernacle when living in the Land of Israel.

"And for the drink-offering you shall present the third part of a hin of wine, of a sweet flavor to the Lord." (15:7)

Our sages explain that this additional wine offering was not burnt but poured, meaning that we not only elevate all aspects of consciousness to God, but also pour down to the material world our goodness and happiness (represented by the libations) in order to celebrate His glory, His love in this world.

"(…) when you eat of the bread of the Land, you shall set apart a portion for a gift to the Lord." (15:19)

This is the commandment of challah that also represents the permanent connection with our Creator. The bread of the land is the result of how we transform the raw food of the earth (wheat) into bread as darkness into light, a process in which every step we are united to God's love.

The portion ends with another reminder that being and doing God's ways and attributes are our connection with His Love.

"And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that you may look upon it, and remember all the Commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that you go not about after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you use to go astray; that you may remember and do all My Commandments, and be holy." (15:39-40)