llustration by Yoseph Savan based on The Zohar . by Ariel Ben Avraham “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [saying]: ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised as a calf untamed; return You to me, and I shall return [to You], for You are the Lord my God.” (31:17)
The redeeming passages of Jeremiah’s prophecies refer to Israel as God’s son, and Ephraim His firstborn [(…) “for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.” (31:8)]. This makes us reflect on the link that connects them all. In our commentaries on the last four portions of the book of Genesis we remark the meanings of the verse “These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph (…)” (Genesis 37:2) which introduces Joseph as the inheritor of the birthright. Hence Jacob, Joseph and Ephraim integrate the same principle represented by the firstborn. When the Creator tells us that Israel is His firstborn we realize the meaning of this.
We gather the character traits of Jacob and Joseph, and we see they complement each other as the goodness derived from Love’s ways and attributes. These are the qualities inherited by Ephraim (representing here the entire Israel) from the Creator, which we are destined to manifest in the material world.
Historically, Ephraim characterizes our Jewish rebelliousness from God’s Love for us. The Love of the Creator in which we delight in His Commandments, opposite to the false gods and idols derived from ego’s fantasies and illusions. These are the choices we make which also become the punishments for our separation from Love’s ways and attributes. We are the rebellious children who blame God for the negative choices we make, the untamed wild calves waiting to bear the yoke of Heaven.
After thousands of years of suffering the deceit of the idols made by our hands, again we cry out loud to return to the goodness that God is. In this sense, we must give the first step in that direction by returning to the goodness of Love that is the material reflection of God’s Love. We have to return to our Essence and true identity that make us image and likeness of the Creator of all. There is no other way. We first embrace goodness in order to embrace the goodness of God.
“Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh. I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.” (31:18)
The return to Love begins when we fully learn from ego’s fantasies and the negative choices we make. Through the eyes of Love we find enough compassion to forgive ourselves, and look forward to live in its ways and attributes. We embrace Love as our true identity by which we are and do. We realize Love is the teacher that instructs our discernment, intellect, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts. Far and beyond what we are aware and not aware in our consciousness.
This verse carries the fundamental prevision to forgive ourselves. Shame, reproach, recrimination are lashes we inflict on our utmost desire to return to Love. Hence confusion takes control to make us remain in the vicious circle of coming in and out ego’s fantasies and illusions. These are the sins and transgressions as the choices we make by ignorance in our youth, our unrefined judgement. Once we assimilate that life is also a learning process to choose the goodness of its blessings, we realize that self-forgiveness is the gate that shows the way back to Love. We forgive ourselves as the beginning to return to who we truly are and have.
“Is Ephraim a beloved son to Me? Is he a child that is dandled? For as often as I speak of him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore My heart yearned for him, I will surely have compassion upon him, said the Lord.” (31:19)
Here we also realize that God’s Love forgives us too, because He never ceases to love us and all His Creation. His Love yearns for our Love that is the common bond with Him. He knows that we are able to learn from our mistakes and the suffering derived from them. God understands our rebelliousness because He gave us free will to learn by our choices. He is not content with the miseries we carry in the negative vicious circle of ego’s materialistic desires. In His compassion God feels our ordeals, hoping we choose to return to Love as our bond with His Love.
“Set up for yourself way marks, make for yourself guide-posts; set your heart toward the high-way, even the way by which you went; return, O virgin of Israel, return to these your cities.” (31:20)
We return to Love though its ways, its guide, its direction, which are Love’s qualities and attributes. We know them because we went to them since we were born, and have walked in its ways. We know Love is the Essential part of who we are. Through Love’s ways and attributes we return to all these mean and represent, as the cities built by the awareness of our permanent connection to God. This link is Jerusalem, the virgin of Israel.
“And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant, said the Lord.” (31:28)
As we mentioned before, our choices lead us to a learning process from evil to goodness. God’s compassion offers His constant Redemption for us to embrace forever. As He sees our transgressions and wickedness by which we pluck up, break down, overthrow, destroy and afflict our lives, He also sees the goodness in our potential to build and plant. This is the choice He wants us to make as the beginning of the next phase of our destiny, what we call here the Messianic Consciousness in the Final Redemption.
“Behold, the days come, said the Lord, that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for as much as they broke My Covenant, although I was a lord over them, said the Lord.” (31:31-32)
This is the prophecy of what awaits us in the end of times, in the day of the Lord, when evil will be wiped out from the face of the Earth and only goodness will prevail. This is the goodness of God, which will be revealed to us as we devote our lives only to know Him.
“But this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, said the Lord. I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: ‘Know the Lord’. For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, said the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.” (31:32-33)
Haifa, Southern Galilee, Israel- Ariel Ben Avraham (f. Zapata) was born in Cartagena, Colombia in 1958. After studying Cultural Anthropology in Bogotá moved to Chicago in 1984 where he worked as a television writer, reporter and producer for 18 years. In the 1990′s he produced video documentaries related to art, music, history and culture such as “Latin American Trails: Guatemala” distributed by Facets.org. Most of his life he studied ancient spiritual traditions and mysticism of major religions, understanding the mystic experience as the individual means to connect with Divinity. Since 2004 he studies and writes about Jewish mysticism and spirituality mainly derived from the Chassidic tradition, and the practical philosophy of the teachings of Jewish mystic Sages. The book “God as Love” is the compilation of his last years studying and learning Jewish mysticism, and the messages of the book are part of the content, exercises and processes of a series of seminars
