These are the idols we feed with the work of our hands, in which we end up becoming like them. Thus we become the epitome of greed, pride, envy, indifference, indolence, lust and cruelty. These are the names of the nations we either had to conquer, destroy or subjugate in order to occupy the Promised Land. The Torah reminds us that the battles of our ancestors to defeat such nations we all fought by our God. Simply because we were not able then, and we are not able now to win over our own negative fantasies and illusions. These are the giants before whom we feel like grass hoppers. Hence we need God’s strong hand and stretched arm — His abundant loving kindness and compassion — to fight and win all the battles against our enemies and oppressors.

“For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the foreigner shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.” (Isaiah 14:1)

We can’t do it without God’s Love fighting along with our Love. These are the two fires that bond with each other when we elevate to Him the goodness in life as our continuous offering to Him. The goodness of Love’s ways and attributes is the pleasing aroma in which God delights. The Prophet reminds us that God has compassion on us, for He chose Israel as the goodness He wants to prevail in the world. Israel has a setting, the Promised Land that is the material manifestation of the goodness in life. The foreigners who also pursue goodness join our people to cleave together in the destiny God wants us to fulfill, and make prevail in the material world.

“And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and for handmaids; and they shall take them captive, whose captives they were, and they shall rule over their oppressors.” (14:2)

The Final Redemption begins when the negative trends in consciousness cease to exist by becoming subservient to the positive qualities of Love’s ways and attributes. Our negative tendencies and their outcome eventually lead us to the positive things we want to live and enjoy in life. Darkness is the premise to recognize Light. Exile is the prelude to Redemption. Slavery and captivity are the preamble to liberation and freedom. These rather obvious conditions have not been completely rooted in our consciousness, no matter how no non-sense they may be. As we said above, our addiction to negative states in consciousness is quite hard to break. We are defenseless against masochism by choice.

In this idle and stagnating point we cry out to our Creator, and ask Him to break the vicious circle or living in ego’s fantasies and illusions. We ask Him to be our One and only God. We want to stop being Pharaoh’s slaves — ego’s slaves — and become God’s servants. We rather be servants of God’s ways and attributes than slaves of the negative trends in consciousness. God wants to know if we truly want to live in His Promised Land, now His Final Redemption, to help us fight our ultimate battle against the nations. Then He will turn them into our allies.

Our perennial inner and outer enemies, not only will join us but also will bring us to our place, the Land of the Lord as the goodness in life. What once were negative aspects and trends in consciousness — to which we were captives — will become our captives, the servants and handmaids who used to be our oppressors. Thus we understand darkness as the premise to recognize Light, and exile as the prelude to Redemption. Thus we assimilate the proclamation of the Creator to our Matriarch Rebecca, when He told her that two nations were in her womb and the older will serve the younger.

“And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give you rest from your travail, and from your trouble, and from the hard service wherein you were made to serve, that you shall take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say: How has the oppressor ceased! the tax-collector of gold ceased!” (14:3-4)

The Final Redemption begins the day when the Creator turns what we have perceived and experienced as dark and negative into Light and goodness. We will be the eternal servants of the greater purpose God has for His Creation, which is to eternally live in the goodness of His ways and attributes. This awareness and realization will be the yoke of ego as the vital drive and motivation to live. This is the awareness against the king of Babylon as the epitome of ego’s negative predicament, that will cease to exist in the Messianic Era.

“The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, that smote the peoples in wrath with an incessant stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained.” (14:5-6)

The Messianic Consciousness is the staff and banner that will eternally prevail when the Creator breaks us free from the rule of our negative beliefs, ideologies, habits, attachments, addictions, obsessions and attitudes, in their constant oppression. These are the negative traits that rule in anger, pride, greed, envy, lust, indifference, indolence and cruelty, without restrain and without a chance to escape from them.

As we reach out to God’s eternal loving kindness and compassion through our own loving kindness and compassion, we find the Redemption we have been yearning for. As we begin to let Love’s ways and attributes to rule every aspect and dimension of consciousness, we begin to live in real freedom. All oppressing traits in consciousness will cease forever, and only peace and tranquility will sing in happiness. The trees that represent our values and principles, as our permanent bond with God, will know that nothing will afflict them ever again.

“The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet; they break forth into singing. Yea, the cypresses rejoice at you, and the cedars of Lebanon: ‘Since you [the king of Babylon] are laid down, no feller is come up against us’.” (14:7-8)