Sculpture by Phillip Ratner Commentary By Ariel Ben Avraham In our previous commentary on Yitro: “Understanding God’s Love” (February 5, 2012 in this blog) we said that we must have been experienced idolaters in order to receive the Torah. Hence our Sages explain that without Yitro’s presence at Sinai the Torah wouldn’t have been given to the children of Israel. Likewise, without slavery in Egypt there wouldn’t have been freedom for us from God. In this sense we understand darkness as the prelude to Light, and exile as the preamble for Redemption. When we say that we have to fully assimilate the meaning of being an idolater, is because idolatry is the underlying reason for receiving the Torah. We see this reason in the Ten Commandments as well as in the rest of the Torah, from beginning to end.
In this context, let’s reflect again on the Decalogue. The most important Commandment is the first, because it encompasses everything. All that exists comes from God because He is God: “I am the Lord, your God”, and He states it in His relationship with us: “Who took you out of the land of Egypt”, indicating that He liberated us “out of the house of bondage” (20:2) a bondage to that which is against God’s ways and attributes. In this sense we can understand such bondage to ego’s fantasies and illusions, opposite to Love as the material manifestation of God’s Love. Love is the freedom we experience when we separate our consciousness from ego’s agenda. God’s Love liberates us from ego’s attachments to materialistic illusions we call idols. Consequently, “You shall not have the gods of others in My Presence.” (20:3) as the obvious corollary of God’s absolute dominion. Then, as we have said many times, Love does not cohabit with anything different or opposite to its ways and attributes.
Love’s ways are the direct opposite of ego’s fantasies and illusions as the false gods that separate us from ourselves and from others. Idolatry is understood as the result of an egotistic approach to life. We become attached to sensual desires, fantasies and illusions in direct proportion to our estrangement from Love as our Essence and true identity. The more we focus on our personal benefit at the expense of others and our surroundings, the more we separate from Love’s unifying and encompassing ways. Hence, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the Heavens above, which is on the Earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth.” (20:4-5) Considering that God’s Love is infinite and all encompassing, there is no room for separation, unless is another illusion we create for ourselves. Thus we understand the exclusivity of God’s ways and attributes, when He calls Himself zealous: “You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them for I the Lord, your God, am a zealous God (…)” (20:5)
As long as we bow to material illusions, we deny the Source from where we all come. We live by God, and we owe ourselves to Him. His Name is the Essence we mustn’t neither take for granted, despise or neglect. After all, He is our life from whom we exist: “You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold blameless anyone who takes His Name in vain.” (20:7)
As we have remarked, God’s Love is our Essence and identity, and Shabbat is one of the names of this identity. As sacred as it is, we must sanctify it to make a clear difference between profane and sacred. Shabbat is the time and space where we dwell permanently in God’s Love. All we wish to experience as the most sublime delight with our Creator is also opposite to ego’s illusions: “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it.” (20:8) The Shabbat, as exclusive as the zeal of God, doesn’t allow thoughts, emotions or feelings attached to the material world, because it is for Him. This includes ego’s fantasies, desires or illusions: “but the seventh day is a Shabbat for the Lord, your God; [therefore] you shall perform no labor. (…) Therefore, the Lord blessed the Shabbat day and sanctified it.” (20:10-11) There is no place for attachments to idols that keep us away from Love’s ways and attributes.
The message is reaffirmed again in our relationship with our parents, as the bearers of our forefathers’ legacy and inheritance: “Honor your father and your mother, in order that your days be lengthened on the land that the Lord, your God, gives you.” (20:12) This legacy is the permanent bond with our Creator and His Love. In this sense we understand the goodness of His ways and attributes as the land He gives us constantly. As long as we honor them, we reject the idols that deny our precious inheritance.
The remaining five Commandments of the Decalogue are specific warnings against falling into the idolatry of negative illusions derived from ego’s false beliefs and feelings of lack: “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or whatever belongs to your neighbor.” (20:13-14)
The magnificence of God’s Love is manifest in Moses’ words to the children of Israel: “But Moses said to the people, ‘Fear not, for God has come in order to exalt you, and in order that His awe shall be upon your faces, so that you shall not sin’.” (20:17) because He loves us to bring us close to Him. This is the way He exalts (elevates) us to His Presence. As we experience His Love, there is no chance to stray away from of His ways and attributes. In God’s Love there is no separation or room for the illusions we call sins and transgressions, because there is no lack in Love as the material manifestation of God’s Love. If God is with us, what or who could be against? Only our own illusions can separate us from Him. Hence the portion ends, as we said above, with another warning against idolatry: “You shall not make [images of anything that is] with Me. Gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves.” (20:20)
The Creator reminds us once again that as long as we live by, with, and for His ways and attributes we are blessed by Him, because God is the blessing from whom all blessings come: “Wherever I allow My Name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.” (20:21) The Prophet reiterates for us this in his vision of the Throne of Glory: “And one called to the other and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole Earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:3) and, was we have said, His glory is His Love.
- Ariel Ben Avraham
- 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, lectures and retreats that he facilitates in Israel.
