Illustration by Yoseph Savan based on The Zohar . by Ariel Ben Avraham We have said that in the Messianic Consciousness goodness prevails in all levels and dimensions of life. As long as we live in Love’s ways and attributes in what we are and do, we manifest the Final Redemption. This means than in this full awareness there is no room for ego’s fantasies and illusions. When Love occupies everything, there is no room for anything but Love.
“And the idols shall utterly pass away.” (Isaiah 2:18)
The Prophet reiterates God’s words regarding the day when He will not hide anymore His Presence from our consciousness. This is the time when the purpose of His Creation will be totally revealed to us, and we will finally know and embrace our Essence and true identity, from which God created us. The Torah is the purpose of Creation and as we learn from it we realize God’s will for us. This is how we know His ways and attributes in order to emulate them in who we are and do. Indeed God’s will is our Redemption. We are redeemed by living in His ways and attributes. In the final chapters of the Torah the Creator warns us about the consequences of living in the ways the nations, and serving their idols.
Our exile and dispersion among the nations are direct consequences of our separation from God’s ways to serve their idols, which are ego’s fantasies and illusions. We have known over centuries of separation from our Essence and true identity, that our deep sleep in the fantasies we ourselves have created won’t last forever. The day of God is the time of our awakening. He knows our nature, for He created us. He knows that we rather make wickedness a choice and not a reference. He knows the suffering from our wrong choices, and also expects us to learn from them. Yet, He won’t allow evil and wickedness to rule our consciousness if our endeavors to make goodness prevail fail, for the latter is His will. He will reveal it in the day we return to His ways, to walk with Him.
“And men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake mightily the earth.” (2:19)
The Prophet twice again (see also 2:21) brings up ego’s stubbornness to make our consciousness remain captive in its fantasies and illusions, the darkness of the caves into the hardness of narrow mindedness. The holes of the earth as the depths of materialism. In this darkness we hide from the reverence (“terror”) of God and the glory of His majesty, which are His Love that shakes mightily every level and dimension of life. We must understand that before God’s Love there is nothing in between. There is only room for His Love and our Love bonding as one. Our discernment, intellect, mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts are not shaken from anything different from Love’s ways and attributes. As we allow Love to rule all levels of consciousness, we also allow God’s Love to be revealed to us.
“In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats.” (2:20)
The Prophet reiterates time and again that we are the makers of our own materialistic fantasies and illusions. As we allow Love to reign in all aspects of life, we begin to live in the day God promised to reveal His Presence to us. All we gave arbitrary value as silver and gold in life will disappear into the nothingness they came from, the darkness where the moles and bats live.
“Cease ye from man, Whose [God’s] breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?” (2:22)
Ego’s fantasies and illusions are the works of human hands. We create them with the living Spirit with which God sustains us, the breath He exhales in our nostrils. Then, what are we accounted for but for His Love from where we are made? We must cease to depend on the fantasies and illusions we have created throughout our history, and begin to live in Love’s ways and attributes in order to know God’s will and His Plan for us.
“All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.” (Job 27:3)
The Psalmist also invites us to return to our Creator and His ways.
“Trust not in princes, [or] in a son of man, for he has no deliverance.” (Psalms 146:3) “Better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” (118:8)
Our choices have consequences. The Prophet anticipates in the third chapter of his messages the outcome of living under the rule of the lower aspects of consciousness. By despising God’s Love and His ways, we embrace the idols we create as ego’s fantasies and illusions. As we forsake Love’s ways and attributes, they also abandon our consciousness. Once again we remark that God’s separation from us is the result of our separation from Him.
“For, lo, God, the Lord of multitudes, turns aside from Jerusalem, and from Judah, stay and staff. Every stay of bread, and every stay of water.” (Isaiah 3:1)
Jerusalem is the awareness of our permanent connection with the Creator, and Judah is the empowerment to manifest this awareness in the material world. As we choose the bread and water of fantasies and illusions, we lose the bread and water of God’s ways and attributes.
“The mighty man, and the man of war; the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder. The captain of fifty, and the man of rank, and the counselor, and the cunning charmer, and the skillful enchanter. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.” (2:4)
These verses make no difference between judge, prophet, elder (wise men), warrior and adviser, and diviner, cunning charmer and skillful enchanter. Both positive and negative trends in consciousness become subjugated by the childishness and recklessness of youngsters. This is the way the Prophet refers to ego’s fantasies and illusions, childish wreckers, immature imagination.
“And the people shall oppress one another, every man his fellow, and every man his neighbor; the child shall behave insolently against the aged, and the base against the honorable.” (3:5, 6-7)
Ego’s fantasies and illusions lead us to exploit one another for the sake of our individual materialistic desires. These undermine and humiliate the goodness of Love. Our obsessions, attachments and additions insult our discernment, intellect and common sense; and debase the honor of principles and values that respect, protect and dignify life.
“For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory. The show of their countenance does witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have wrought evil unto themselves.” (3:8-9)
As we debase ourselves, we debase God’s Love in us. The lesson is to return to Love in order to return to God’s Love.
“Say ye of the righteous, that it shall be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him; for the work of his hands shall be done to him.” (3:10-11)
As we choose goodness, so we harvest goodness. As we choose ego’s fantasies and illusions, so we harvest their futility and emptiness.
“As for My people, a babe is their master, and women rule over them. O My people, they that lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.” (3:12)
God laments our separation from His ways, and the outcome of straying away from His Love. Immaturity leads to err, and weakness makes us fall. Babes and women are more vulnerable to danger and harm, thus they warns us about falling down to weakness, through which we divert from Love’s paths of righteousness. Love is our Essence and strength that lead us to be, have and manifest what we truly are. In this awareness we achieve our Final Redemption, and enter in the Messianic Era. Love is the destined regent, the natural ruler and the conductor of all aspects, levels and dimensions of consciousness to make goodness prevail in life.
- 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
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Jewish higher consciousness, Jewish mysticism, Jewish spirituality, Jewish State, Jews, Judaism, kabbalah, Land Of Israel, the Final Redemption in Judaism, the Jewish identity, the Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy, the prophecies of Isaiah