Parshat Vayeira: Life as an Offering to the Creator

Vayeira literally means "saw", and let's recall that our sages say that the verb "to see" has several meanings in Hebrew.

Besides its plain meaning regarding to what the eyes do, it also means to know because it is commonly assumed that we grasp something when we see as it is. In this regard it is better to see something than to hear about it because to see is to know.

"And [the Lord] appeared (vayeira) to him [Abraham]" (Genesis 18:1)

In the biblical context we "see" the Master of the universe when we come to Jerusalem (the Temple) to bring our offerings. This is probably the deepest meaning this verb: we have eyes as knowledge in order to know our Creator.

Hence we learn that the Lord came to see Abraham in his tent.

"Because I know him [Abraham], that he will command his children and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice (…)." (18:19)

These are two of God's ways and attributes, and two of the reasons He gives us to live in this world, because it is all about His will.

This verse is abruptly juxtaposed to the next to call our attention into what is the opposite of love's ways.

"And the Lord said, 'Since the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great, and since their sin is very grave, I will descend now and see whether according to her cry which has come to Me, they have done; destruction, and if not, I will know'." (18:20-21)

As in the generation of the Flood, the people of the valley of Sodom were already "dead" because of their corruption, and their destruction was already upon them. Divine fire destroyed their wickedness but not completely for Abraham's nephew. Lot and his daughters, from whom two of the "nations" by Canaan would be later born after incestuous relationships, were spared.

"And Abraham was a hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said: 'God has made laughter for me, so that all who hear will laugh (itzchak: Isaac) with [because of] me'." (21:5-6)

Mystic sages teach that this verse foretells the Messianic era when "the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14) and "the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:9).

We all will rejoice with God's love completely revealed in the world, and we can also reveal His presence by being and manifesting love's ways and attributes. This is how our Creator is with us as He was with Abraham.

"Abimelech and Pichol, his general, said to Abraham saying: 'God is with you in all that you do." (Genesis 21:22)

The portion continues with one of the most significant events that determined the relationship between Israel and the Creator.

"And he [Isaac] said: 'Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' And Abraham said: 'God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' And they went both of them together." (22:7-8)

Isaac knew that his father would have to make an (animal) burnt offering after Isaac's own offering of his entire life to God, and he asked his father for the lamb. It was clear for them that their lives, as well as all that exists in creation, belong to God. It is a fundamental conception to accept His will.

By truly knowing that His Love sustains all His creation we are compelled to trust in His love and will. This awareness was unbreakable in Abraham and Isaac, and that is why the passage says "and they went both of them together".

Should it be called a test, "that God tested Abraham" (22:1) or even a trial?

As we mentioned many times, love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes because the vessel of love is love. Both Abraham and Isaac indeed succeeded in becoming this truth.

Are we able to also become the truth?

Our patriarchs did it for us, so we may emulate them as the chosen people that we are. Hence we must fulfill this destiny as the mission that our Father wants from us. Love is the light of the world, the redemption we must reveal from the darkness of ego's fantasies and illusions.

Once we all realize that love is the material manifestation of the love of God that redeems us from our deepest grief, sadness and pain, we will be truly free.

It's been said many times in the Torah and the Hebrew Scriptures that the choice is only ours, and that we must choose life over death, love over darkness. If we are capable to create so much pain and suffering to each other in this world, we are also capable to create happiness and joy for each other.

The result of choosing ego's illusions of lack makes us inflict suffering on us and others. In contrast, choosing love to share among us is the best joy we can experience. When love is the cause, love is also the effect.

The sacrifice of Isaac was not about his life or his body but his total devotion and commitment to the Creator. This means to be all He wants us to be in the world He created for us.

"And Abraham called the name of that place Ado-nai Yireh [God shall see, and/or God shall appear] as it is said to this day: 'On the mount God shall appear [see]'." (22:14)

This is where the Temple of Jerusalem (Yireh Shalem), the highest awareness of the Creator, stands. It is the same place where we bring the choicest fruits of our own love's ways and attributes as offerings, so God may see our image and likeness of Him. It is there where we become one with God.

God already manifests His love for all His creation by sustaining it every moment. Now we in return have to elevate our love to Him, so both loves meet and become one.

This is indeed the place where we elevate all aspects and dimensions of consciousness to do His will, and these are represented by the tithes brought to the priests (Kohanim) and Levites, and the animals to be sacrificed in the Temple.

Every level and aspect of consciousness must be bound to do that which is sacred (this is the original meaning of "sacrifice": to do the sacred). God knew that Abraham and Isaac were bound to serve Him by loving Him with all their heart, all their soul and all their might.

In Vayeira we learn again that God's love sees us and recognizes us for the love that we are and manifest when we walk in His ways. Thus love shall be with us in all we do, as it happened with Abraham.

When we live this truth individually and collectively, redemption is already manifest. Hence we all rejoice and laugh as our matriarch Sarah did when she heard that she was going to have a child from whom we all now rejoice.

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.

Parshat Noach: Idolatry as Corruption, Love as Life

"The Earth was corrupt before God, and the Earth was filled with violence. And God saw the Earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the Earth." (Genesis 6:11-12)

What could be so damaged before God that its corruption is denounced three times in these two verses? It was life and its purpose before the eyes of the Creator. As we have said many times, life is the manifestation of God's love, and its mission is also to be love manifest in all its dimensions.

This is what the Creator wants from us, to be and manifest His light, His will, His love. This is sealed in His first two commandments of the Decalogue.

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall not have other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:2-5, Deuteronomy 5:6-9)

When one denies this truth also denies his/her own existence and freedom, because in this denial other gods are acknowledged as real. These gods are ego's fantasies and illusions that trigger negative trends and trends in consciousness as the idols that corrupt life.

Corruption means decay and decomposition associated with death. We can say that before the eyes of love, as the material manifestation of God's love, corruption is indeed death. The first two blessings of the central Jewish daily prayers somehow reflect the first two commandments mentioned above. They refer to the Creator as "our God and God our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (…) who is our "King, Helper, Redeemer and Shield. Blessed are you Lord, the shield of Abraham." 

These are some of love's ways and attributes: to help, to redeem and to protect. Our patriarch Abraham is exalted in this blessing as the epitome of the loving kindness with which the whole creation is sustained.

The second blessing praises His might to "revive the dead, You have the power to save (…) You sustain the living with loving kindness, You revive the dead with great compassion (…) Blessed are You Lord, who revives the dead." It is clear that the opposite of life is death, and God's love removes death caused by corruption derived from idolatry.

In the times of Noach, his generation was dead before God because living in the illusions of idolatry does not make sense in the eyes of love as our true essence and identity. We have mentioned that our mystic sages say that water and fire represent cleansing, purifying and transformation, and not necessarily death or destruction as many of us believe.

We said in our commentary on Bereshit that the purpose of creation is to discover the Creator, and to know Him through His love as His light that created everything that exists. Then, why destruction should come from Him? We must understand that we have to go through transformation in the process of knowing the Creator, because revealing His concealed presence in the darkness also requires revealing Him in our consciousness.

If we don't find Him within us, how can we find Him in His creation? In this context we must understand the Flood, the waters that cleanse our consciousness in order to know what is the truth.

The generation of the Flood was corrupted and already dead before God, and this kind of death had to be removed from the Earth. Even knowing that He is the "King who puts to death and restores to life, and causes redemption to flourish", God wants us to choose life when we exercise our free will.

Even when He cleanses us by restoring life to us, He still endows us with freedom of choice; and free will makes possible to choose the idolatry of the lower levels of consciousness, after the Flood. Love as the material manifestation of God's love is the permanent connection with Him, symbolized by the rainbow.

"And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the Earth." (Genesis 9:16)

Our humankind that flourished on Earth are the descendants of Noach.

"And the sons of Noah that went forth from the ark were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan." (9:18)

A new human being emerged with three main levels of consciousness. Shem represents the highest awareness of our connection with the Creator, symbolized by Jerusalem and its temple, and the Levite priesthood. Japheth represents the mind and thoughts related to the material world. Ham, "the father of Canaan", represents the lower aspects of consciousness that we have to conquer and subjugate in order to be and manifest love's ways and attributes.

"(…) a servant of servants shall he [Ham] be unto his brethren. And he [Noach] said: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and let Canaan [Ham] be their servant. God enlarges Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be their servant." (9:25-27)

Let's note that Japheth shall learn from Shem because all levels and dimensions of consciousness must follow our highest awareness of  the Creator and His love.

As we have said in this blog, every aspect and expression of our consciousness was created to discover, to know and to proclaim the glory of God which fills all the earth. Our mission is to be aware of this principle.

Free will once more was exercised by this new emerging humankind, and ego's agenda was again their choice.

"And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name (…)" (11:4)

A city and a tower that represent a consciousness of their own, with a mentality of their own separated from the Creator. Some of our contemporary sages define this period of history as the birth of the totalitarian mind that conceives ideologies such as Nazism, Fascism, Fundamentalism, and fanaticism related to political, religious or cultural beliefs that pursue the elimination of diversity in the human spirit.

"And the Lord said: 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withhold from them, which they purpose to do." (11:6)

This is exactly what the Nazi ideology and other totalitarian regimes want, to impose a lifestyle that does not recognize God, but only gods of flesh and bones that they would call "the perfect superior race".

The portion ends with the birth of two extraordinary human beings that redirected the course of humankind: Abraham and Sarah. Our oral tradition tells us that Abraham recognized the oneness of the Creator at the age of three, and ever since he rejected idolatry amid a family of idolaters, and under the rule of idolaters.

Abraham's keen intelligence led him to conclude that everything comes from one Creator and sustained by Him. Hence we owe our existence to Him and none else, and Abraham was willing to die for this truth. 

The midrash says that his own father accused him in a court of law for denying and rejecting idolatry, and Abraham was sentenced to death in a crematory chamber. Then man's love meets God's love, and God saved Abraham from the flames in front of his executioners.

God chose Abraham for His covenant, the covenant with Israel, his descendants. With Abraham and Sarah our history, Israel's history, began.

Parshat Bereshit: Let there be Light!

"In the beginning [bereshit]" (Genesis 1:1) invites us to wonder about what motivated God to make His Creation. What would have been His "reasons"? Why the Master of the universe wanted to create everything that exists? When we ask these questions we certainly are in awe looking at the stars, the sunset, and all around us. We realize that goodness is the purpose, because "God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good" (1:31).

Let's be aware that this goodness is always good, in the present tense. Our sages say that the purpose of creation was for the sake of man so that he can recognize the goodness of God in it. In this sense we realize that creation is indeed an act of God's love, therefore the cause and reason of creation is love and its purpose is love.

This is why we say here in this blog that love is the cause and the effect. We are here because of God's love, and if everything is created and sustained by Him, this awareness is the foundation of our identity as God's creatures. We are born and cared for since we open our eyes for the first time, and this love that keeps us alive is the true essence that we have to recognize as the one and only real connection with our Creator.

How do we recognize Him? How do we get to know Him? There is a clear distinction between what He calls light, "and God saw that the Light was good" (1:3) and darkness. Mystic sages teach that the first day of God's Creation was "day One" (1:5) because all contained in Creation is one with Him, for it emanates from Him and sustained by Him.

This does not mean or imply a definition or conception of the Creator because He is beyond comprehension. But we humans are able to understand that, although He is not His creation, as its creator He controls it and directs it. Hence we understand oneness as the encompassing divine will in His creation.

After day one, the next five days are the times in which creation was set in order (what contemporary agnostics call "intelligent design"), preceding the creation of man. This order starts with the separation of light and darkness, which our mystic sages call the revealed and concealed aspects of the oneness we just mentioned.

We learn from the Torah that the light is good, and our sages conclude that it is hidden for the wicked and is the reward for the righteous. This makes sense in the ethical context of Judaism. From this we learn that for those who pursue goodness, light is their reward.

Then what is the light that we should pursue it? Our Creator says that it is good, "and God separated between the light and the darkness" (1:3). Darkness is where the Creator conceals the light in order for us to have free will. We deduct from this that everything is illuminated, but a part of it is hidden as darkness so we can tell one from the other.

This is the divinely set scenario for us in the Garden of Eden where Adam in his wisdom chose to embrace the light as his natural state and reality.

Living in the light, as the fully revealed God's love in His creation, means living in God's ways and attributes in total harmony with the Him, as we realize that love is destined to be the cause and the effect of every thought, emotion, feeling, passion and instinct.

Love is the great motivator who leads us to reveal God's love where and when He is concealed. The purpose of love is love as the purpose of light is to enlighten. What could be able to question such purpose and break the harmony of man as the creature destined to live for the cause and the effect of love?

The answer is a change of approach as a change of reality. What kind of change could challenge the harmony of living in love's ways and attributes? The kind of change that only free will can validate as real. But how can we consider real something different from the light, love and truth that created us and sustain us every moment? This happens when we consider real the darkness and the illusions that come from it.

That was the choice made by Eve after being seduced by the serpent, and the choice made by Adam when he ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The scenario also changed, and ever since we have to discern between good and evil. This is entire purpose of the Torah and the ethics of Judaism.

The purpose of God's creation is "Let there be Light!", and it is also our individual and collective mission "to be the Light for the nations", and enlighten others.

Mystic sages explain that the serpent in the Garden of Eden and Pharaoh of Egypt both represent ego, which tells us that we can become gods and that there is no greater god than us.

How can we become gods? When love is not present, this task becomes not only harder but a curse that empowers the most negative traits and emotions, such as envy and jealousy.

"(…) and Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." (4:8)

Cain and Abel used to make offerings to the Master of the universe. The offerings to God that come from the negative aspects of consciousness are not acceptable to Him simply because He does not dwell with anything different from His ways and attributes.

When the offerings come from the highest levels of every aspect of consciousness, meaning from our complete awareness of God's love, we become one with Him. That is one of the main differences between Judaism and other religions that condone evil and destructive behavior based on the belief that evil is forgivable and redeemable.

In Judaism evil is understood only as a reference that allows our free will to choose goodness as a commanded obligation.

Bereshit is clearly divided in four sections which are God's creation, the sin in the Garden of Eden, the story of Abel and Cain, and the rise of idolatry before the Flood.

Ego's rule after the episode of the tree of knowledge of good and evil corrupted humankind down to the point that the Creator was completely ignored and rejected as the one who sustains everything. Bereshit is the most complex of all portions of the Torah because God and His creation are beyond human comprehension.

We just have to pay attention to the key words and principles presented in the narrative of the Torah such as heavens and earth, light, darkness, Shabbat, man and woman, paradise, sin, guilt, abandonment, jealousy, murder, repentance, and idolatry.

Heavens and earth are clearly two levels of consciousness. The one that connects us with the Creator, and the one that connects us with the material world. The upper waters and the lower waters represent the spiritual thoughts and material thoughts which we must harmonize always letting heavens as the higher thoughts (our connection to God) lead our material existence.

Light is God's love that pervades all His creation, and our mission is to be and reveal the light concealed in the darkness. This means that from an eventual negative situation we must do the best in our reach to turn it into a positive one.

We have to be aware that completion implies satisfaction and fulfillment, which carry a deserved reward, the Shabbat, "Last in deed, but first in thought." (Lecha Dodi).

Man and woman are not separate entities spiritually because they were created originally as one. The separation as complementary physical bodies means that both are meant to be together and united.

"(...) and they shall become one flesh." (2:24)

This concept really implies unity because unity is the purpose and nature of God's creation.

Paradise is from where we came and it is where we must return, and we do it by returning to love as the material manifestation of God's love, and as our true essence and identity. As some people say "sin is its own punishment", let's be aware that sin is also our choice.

We learn by experience, by trial and error, true or false, etc., and we should know better after so many centuries living in darkness. Instead of blaming others and resent about the overwhelming negativity we have to bear every day in the world, we must start individually to redirect our lives in love's ways and attributes.

Instead of feeling that we have been "abandoned" by our Creator, let's think about how far we have separated ourselves from Him. If we have feelings of lack and coveting takes over, let's return to love as our one and only wealth. Let's be happy with our lot which is precisely our relationship with God's love.

When we are attuned with love as our essence and identity, we are aware of being God's image and likeness, and murder is unthinkable because it means denying God's essence in others.

If we transgress against God's love and our fellow man, we still can return to Him after we compensate those who we may have harmed. And finally, the more we are aware of God's love as our Creator and our essence, the more we are able to discern between love's ways and attributes and ego's fantasies and illusions, which are the idols that separate us from love.

Let's create a new beginning with the good light that love is. Let's create each day with this love, and live here and now in the paradise that love is.

This is what was meant to be and still is. We "create" our own reality based on the illusions and fantasies of the material world, either be glamour, prestige, control, power, pride, lust, fame, etc. Whatever "ego trip" one engages into, that will be his/her reality, kingdom or domain, where negative thoughts and emotions replace love's ways and attributes.

We ended up "expelled" from paradise but it was really us who kicked ourselves out, after choosing ego's fantasies by following the serpent's words. How can we return to paradise? We return when we choose back to live in love's ways and attributes.

This is how we redeem ourselves, and how we atone for our negative choices and decisions. In this process of discerning between light and darkness, truth and illusion, we have to get acquainted with all our levels of consciousness.

We were created as a unity. "(...) male and female He created them" (1:27, 5:2)

Hence we have to know what both are in all levels which encompass intellect, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, senses, passions and instincts. When we allow love to fill and guide all these dimensions, we will be in harmony with our Creator and His love.

Parshat V'Zot HaBrachah: The Legacy of God's Love

“And this is the blessing (v'zot habrachah) with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death.” (Deuteronomy 33:1)

The man of God, who represents our awareness of the Divine Presence in all dimensions of Creation, is the best one to lead us into that awareness. Moses represents the highest level that our intellect can reach regarding the knowledge of the Creator, the one that has everything about Him quite clear in our consciousness, the one that knows the best of the best.

This is the clarity we need in order to fulfill our destiny, and this clarity is the full awareness of love as our true identity. Love as material manifestation of God's love.

“Indeed, You showed love for peoples; all his holy ones [of Israel] are in Your hand, for they let themselves be centered at Your feet, bearing Your utterances.” (33:3)

We are holy when we are in His hands, in humbleness, being and manifesting love’s ways and attributes.

“The Torah that Moses commanded us is a legacy for the congregation of Jacob.” (33:4)

This is the legacy that makes us who we are, our identity as the chosen people. This is our identity as Jews. Choosing differently is not our legacy and this is why we are warned so many times in the Torah against the nations’ idolatry, against believing and following the illusions and fantasies of the material world.

This legacy is also about will and determination to fulfill Israel’s destiny, as Moses stated in his blessing to the tribe of Judah, the one that encompasses all Jews in present times.

“O Lord, hearken to Judah's voice and bring him to his people; may his hands do battle for him, and may You be a help against his adversaries.” (33:7)

Willingness and determination are our attachment to God and when we walk in His ways and manifest His attributes, what could be against? This blessing is about the commitment we make when we individually and collectively embrace the Torah’s legacy.

Moses’ blessing for the Levites reaffirms their role as the higher awareness of our connection to the Creator, hence their guidance of all levels of consciousness from the Temple, the place where we are permanently connected to our Father.

“They shall teach Your ordinances to Jacob, and Your Torah to Israel; they shall place incense before You, and burnt offerings upon Your altar.” (33:10)

The complete awareness of God's ways and attributes in all aspects of consciousness is also the fulfillment of our destiny as His children. 

This highest level was undoubtedly achieved by Joseph, therefore the sweetest blessing is bestowed in him and his descendants, the ones who choose to follow his steps.

“His land shall be blessed by the Lord, with the sweetness of the heavens with dew, and with the deep that lies below, (…) and with the sweetness of the land and its fullness, and through the contentment of the One who dwells in the thorn bush. May it come upon Joseph's head and upon the crown of the one separated from his brothers.” (33:13-16)

It is indeed the sweetest blessing of all, the blessing of love bestowed to the purest vessel for love: humbleness. Moses mentions here the bush from where he had to take off his shoes, and it is through the contentment of Love that we face our Creator because in joy is our acknowledgement of His love that created us.

“And to Zebulon he said: "Rejoice, Zebulon, in your departure, and Issachar, in your tents.” (33:18)

Rashi remarks that while Zebulon trades in the seas Issachar learns Torah in the tents, and they help each other. Moses’ blessing to both tribes highlights the cooperation that must prevail among all Israel.

Each tribe is blessed with particular traits and qualities that complement each other in the unity that we must have as one people and one nation. This cooperation is to care for each other, and our diversity must be the foundation of our unity. This is one aspect of the Torah’s legacy that makes us different from the rest of the nations which represent the lower aspects of consciousness and ego’s fantasies: pride, selfishness, egotism, envy, lust, indolence and other negative traits.

Let’s keep in mind that the blessings received by each tribe are the blessings for all Israel because in the blessing of each we are all blessed.

“Jeshurun, there is none like God; He who rides the heavens is at your assistance, and with His majesty, [He rides] the heavens.” (33:26)

The One who created us is also the One who sustains us because His glory covers all creation, hence there is none like Him. The last book the Torah ends reminding us again that it is Moses, our highest awareness of the Divine Presence in all creation, who guards us from falling into the illusions and fantasies that we create for no reason.

Mystic sages say that those are the fantasies represented by the cult of Baal Peor.

“And He buried him [Moses] in the valley, in the land of Moab, opposite Beit Peor” (34:6)

Thus Moses will always remind us not to fall in unnecessary fantasies. It is in the highest level of our intellect that we make a clear difference between ego’s fantasies and illusions, and love’s ways and attributes. Still the choice is only ours.

“And there was no other prophet who arose in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, as manifested by all the signs and wonders, which the Lord had sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants, and to all his land, and all the strong hand, and all the great awe, which Moses performed before the eyes of all Israel.” (34:10-12)

This is the privilege of the humble ones like him: “Now this man Moses was exceedingly humble, more so than any person on the face of the Earth.” (Numbers 12:3), the empty vessel eager to be filled by our Father and be able to see Him and perform His miracles so the rest of our levels of consciousness (all Israel) can see it and learn from Moses, our teacher.

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succot

These three major festivities take place within the same month when we celebrate the Jewish New Year. This fact shows that there are significant connections between them, and their common denominator is the Unity and Oneness we experience with our Creator in each one of them. In Rosh Hashana we are proclaiming Him as our King and our Father. Our Sages call it the Judgment Day in which we recognize that there is nothing besides Him. That is why we read that day the akedah, the binding of Isaac.

Mystic Sages say that Sarah, Abraham and Isaac were very aware that Creation comes from God and belongs to Him, including our lives. There is nothing we can claim as our possession simply because we don’t own anything except the materialistic illusions that make us believe otherwise. Our forefathers knew better and this is why they were so close to the Creator.

They set the example for their descendants until this complete awareness was given to us with the Ten Commandments in a day that our Sages teach is Yom Kippur. In our current new year this day will be as it was the first time, on a Shabbat. Again we solemnly celebrate our Oneness with the Creator in an occasion when He atone for our inadequacies, and redirects us to return to our true identity. 

We read the book of Jonah to plea for our return to Him after asking Him for forgiveness. If a Pagan nation can be forgiven for their repentance, why not the Chosen People? The Prophet Jonah learned in his troubled journey that it is all about trusting God and not the material illusions coming from the shade of a gourd (kikaion): “You had pity on the gourd for which you have not labored, neither made it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night.” (Jonah 4:10). These are the material fantasies and illusions we trust more than the One who created them. Our Sages explain that Jonah was angry because a Pagan nation was willing to return to God’s ways, and not His own people.

The Love of God created us and sustains us all the time as He did in His cloud of Glory when He delivered our ancestors from bondage in Egypt. He commands us to remember His permanent protection to us by living during seven days in succot. In all Jewish holidays we remind ourselves that the Love of our Creator is always with us. We were chosen to be His children and His people, then we must choose back to be His children and His people. And we can only be aware of this when we choose His ways and attributes. Only in full awareness of the Love that created all we will be able to dwell in His Presence in these memorable holidays.

May the new year bring us the highest awareness of God’s Love in every dimension of our existence. Shana tova u’metukah!

Parshat Haazinu: Listening to God's Love

This week’s portion, Haazinu (listen in), contains some of the last words that Moses our teacher delivered to the people of Israel the day of his death.

“The deeds of the Rock are perfect, for all His ways are just; a faithful God, without injustice He is righteous and upright.” (Deuteronomy 32:4)

Once again the greatest prophet that Israel ever had reiterates some of the keystone attributes of our Creator, the ways of His love for us; and continues.

“Destruction is not His; it is His children's defect, you crooked and twisted generation.” (32:5)

Rashi also reaffirms that God's love never carries destruction, saying that “Destruction is theirs, not His!” This is essentially important to assimilate because as we have said many times, the choice is ours when we face the blessings of God’s love and the curses of ego’s materialistic fantasies and illusions.

We have said that all creation, including us, is an emanation of God’s love and Moses reminds us of this.

“Is He not your father, your master? He has made you and established you.” (32:6)

We were chosen to receive the Torah and the privilege to bear the awareness of His ways and attributes.

“Because the Lord's portion is His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance. (…) He encompassed them and bestowed understanding upon them.” (32:9-10)

In this awareness we know that He does not cohabit with anything different than His ways and attributes.

“The Lord guided them alone, and there was no alien deity with Him.” (32:12)

In His delightful ways He guides us (32:13-14) until we choose to experience the darkness of materialism.

“They sacrificed to demons, which have no power, deities they did not know, new things that only recently came, which your forefathers did not fear. You forgot the Rock Who bore you; you forgot the God Who delivered you.” (32:17-18)

When we give in to the illusions and fantasies of the material world, the delusional approach to the vanities of pride, envy, indolence, lust and negative feelings of lack, we indeed separate from love as our essence and true identity that sustains us.

“They have provoked My jealousy with a non god, provoked My anger with their vanities. Thus, I will provoke their jealousy with a non people; provoke their anger with a foolish nation.” (32:21)

Love is our only redeemer when we choose to return to God's love, and these are the final words of the portion.

“Because He will avenge the blood of His servants, inflict revenge upon His adversaries, and appease His land [and] His people.” (32:43)

The haftarah complements this week’s Torah reading with King David’s thoughts.

“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; the God who is my rock, in Him I take refuge; my shield, and my horn of Redemption, my high tower, and my refuge; my savior, You saved me from violence. Praised, I cry, is the Lord, and I am saved from my enemies.” (2 Samuel 1:2-4)

When we are as aware as the psalmist of our true identity and connection with the Creator, we live in the delights of His love.