Illustration by Yoseph Savan based on The Zohar . by Ariel Ben Avraham . Our consciousness faces devastation with ego’s fantasies and illusions. As we let them control our thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts we are doomed to live under their terms, conditions and whims. This sounds like living under the dictatorship of addictions, attachments and obsessions out of an either false or fabricated feeling or belief of lack.
Then we reflect on what is relevant beyond our immediate needs as the first step to free ourselves from the modern slavery of Consumer Society. The point is to make a clear difference between what is truly relevant in life and what is not. Thus we realize that from the moment we are born all we need is Love, and Love is what is necessary and relevant.
Empirically we realize that we can’t live or survive without Love. Hence Love’s ways and attributes must be the purpose of life in all its extension. Also, based on experience, we learn to put aside all that oppose Love’s ways. But we don’t. The so called “establishment” we also call “the system”, “lifestyle”, “modus vivendi” or “way of life” is what usually determines the values and principles from and for which we live. We live according to what others around us are, have and do. When we are fed up with it, we usually look for “better” or “higher” values and move to where they are. At some point (unfortunately not everyone gets there) we wonder about what our individual and collective consciousness is about.
The unavoidable questions arise. What we are, where we came from, and what is the meaning and purpose of life. The Torah gives us all the answers. Then we learn and regain what we thought we never had. Love comes as the answer for all the questions. As we reflect on the Creator’s ways and attributes we realize that these are also ours, for we came from Him. The Prophet refers to devastation in our consciousness after we allow our enemies to take over our Essence and identity. Devastation is all that doesn’t belong to who we truly are.
“And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying: ‘We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by your name, you take away our reproach’.” (Isaiah 4:1)
Though our Sages teach that in those days of devastation thousands of widows were willing to become wives of the remaining men, after their wars against the invaders, let’s understand it in other way. The fact that the verse precedes another one full of redeeming meanings invites us to take a different approach. We become aware of our basic needs and forget about ego’s desires and pretensions when we become destitute. After our consciousness is depleted by the claims and demands of materialistic fantasies, addictions, attachments and illusions, we are forced to return to what it is truly real. The seven women also represent the seven Canaanite nations as negative tendencies in consciousness (greed, envy, lust, wrath, indifference, indolence and cruelty) that instead of depleting Love as the vital force that sustains and nurtures life for the sake of their predicament, begin to provide for themselves under the guidance of one man.
This man represents human consciousness under the guidance of the unifying power of Love. The negative trends in consciousness are transformed into cooperative and productive qualities when we realize that the goodness of Love is the natural conductor of all facets and dimensions of life. Love integrates and harmonizes all aspects and trends in consciousness for the purpose of Love’s ways and attributes. In this sense we understand that Love is its own cause and effect. We can also understand the sentence, “only let us be called by your name, [and] you take away our reproach” as a plea from our negative tendencies to be redeemed and transformed by the Creator, who placed them in our consciousness for us to have free will. We ask Him to let us be called by His Name, so He may take away our reproach and disgrace. In His compassion we are redeemed from the outcome of the wrong choices we make, and their negative consequences.
As we said above, the man mentioned in the verse represents human consciousness under the guidance of the unifying power of Love. This is the Messianic Consciousness, the premise for the Final Redemption. We are not completely redeemed if we still allow in our consciousness beliefs, thoughts, feelings, emotions, passions and instincts opposite to Love’s ways, qualities, means and attributes. We have said before that the approach to Redemption is radical. Thus we understand the Commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek from below the Heavens.
Love does not cohabit with anything different from its ways and attributes. It is an imperative to remove all traces of evil, its ways and traits, in order to have the life the Creator commands us to live. The Torah is the instruction to make goodness prevail, by all means. Our Jewish identity is stated in the Torah. We act accordingly to make goodness prevail. Our individual and collective Redemption begins as we embrace the goodness that we are, and the goodness we must have as our eternal destiny. Goodness is the moral and ethical imperative of Love as the material manifestation of God’s Love. As He redeems our consciousness we realize the greatness and beauty of His Love.
“In that day shall the sprout of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land excellent and comely for the survivors of Israel.” (4:2)
We have referred to “the day of the Lord” and “in the end of times” as the time when His Presence is fully revealed as announced by our Prophets. We understand this prophecy as the time when we return to the identity God has given us in His Torah. This means when He joins us in the removal of all that is unnecessary and obstructing in our consciousness. This is the rebirth of our Essence and true identity, the beautiful and glorious sprout that blossoms in the land as the restored true meaning of life as created by God. Those who remain loyal to His ways and attributes, and to Love as the means to live them are the ones who harvest the fruits of their individual and collective Redemption. We have said that the land of Israel, the Promised Land, is the goodness of life and life in its goodness. This is the land where we become aware of our permanent connection with the Creator, where our Love meets His Love.
“And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remained in Jerusalem shall be called holy, even every one that is written unto life in Jerusalem;” (4:3)
Those who maintain their Love permanently connected to God’s Love are the holy ones, for this connection is the meaning of Zion and Jerusalem. Both represent our bond with the Creator, which is the real meaning of life and what makes us be written in its book. We rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple as the eternal time and space that keep us united with the Creator, and makes us sacred as the life He has given us.
“when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of destruction.” (4:4)
The Prophet reminds us again that as we unite our Love with God’s Love by being and doing His ways, Commandments and attributes, He washes away the negative trends in our consciousness. His Love cleans from all impurity the driving force of our life that yearns to bond with Him, by removing the destructive and demeaning traits of the negative choices we make out of ego’s false beliefs or feelings of lack.
“And the Lord will create over the whole habitation of mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory shall be a canopy.” (4:5)
After this cleansing process, the Creator promises us to completely renew our consciousness and connection with Him. This includes all their aspects and dimensions in intellect, discernment, mind, thought, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts (“the assemblies”). All these will be protected and guided by God’s will, as He did with our ancestors in the desert after their Exodus from Egypt. His cloud and fire as the canopy of His glory, which are signs of His Love.
The Prophet announces a new habitation for Zion as another dimension of our connection with God. We can’t grasp it with our current divided consciousness in which goodness and wickedness, true and false, right and wrong, positive and negative coexist in constant confrontation and conflict. This new awareness belongs to the Messianic Consciousness with which God’s Love and our Love bond, for us to fulfill the Creator’s Plan for the material world. A new consciousness without barriers against Love’s ways and attributes.
“And there shall be a pavilion for a shadow in the day time [to protect] from the heat, and for a refuge and for a covert [to protect] from storm and from rain.” (4:6)
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
