Archive for February, 2009
In the second commandment we read,
Exodus 20:4 אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֵל קַנָּא–פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבֹת עַל-בָּנִים עַל-שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל-רִבֵּעִים, לְשֹׂנְאָי, \”I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation\”
Does God want to scare us? \”I am not forgetting your sins!\” \”Be good or you will suffer the consequences!\”. \”I wont forgive!\” \”I will punish your children, grand children and great grand children for your sins!\”.
Here what God gives us here is an important advice and teaching about the spiritual system.
The world was created with the element of time built in it. We have a process to follow in this world. Everything that we want to create takes time. In our mind (spiritual part of us), we can build (or/and destroy!) cities in an instant but in the material world, from thought to action takes time.
Every action we do affects our soul in a positive or negative way.
In a perfect world you\’d like to get your reward (effect) as soon as you do the action (cause) BUT in this case you would also get the negative effect of a negative action.
To keep the world in a stable state, the Creator created a distance between the effect and the cause. This is the purpose of time. It gives us the ability to correct causes before it effects us negatively or in other words, before we get \”punished\”.
We know that God does not punish us, just like we can not blame gravity for pulling us down when we jump off the window.
The Second Commandment tells us that we are responsible for the continuity in the world. A father should know that his actions affect the life of his child. He himself carries the consequences for the actions of his father. The link is very important to understand genetics, reincarnation and why things happen in a person\’s life.
In the beautiful prophecy of the future (Jeremiah 20:28 בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם–לֹא-יֹאמְרוּ )
we read עוֹד, אָבוֹת אָכְלוּ בֹסֶר; וְשִׁנֵּי בָנִים, תִּקְהֶינָה
\”In those days they shall say no more: \’The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children\’s teeth are set on edge.\”
This means that all negativity will be removed from existence. The Ten Commandments will be just a good memory of the work we did to get to the final peace.
No Comments »
One important thing to put in your mind before we try to understand the real meaning of the “Ten Commandments” is that there is no Ten Commandments.
The Torah in Exodus 20:1 tells us “וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלהִים, אֵת כָּל-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה לֵאמֹר” \”And God spoke all these words, saying…\”
Nowhere has it been said “I command you”. I suggest to everyone not to treat those holy words as commandments. The Zohar says that the word command, “צו” in Hebrew is related to idol worshiping. We can understand why the Zohar states this when we know that G-d created the universe for us. If we can build and we can destroy, it means that we have free choice. Therefore G-d’s words cannot be commandments.
Idol worshipping happens when we follow a system that takes away our free choice. If you follow a spiritual (or any) leader blindly then you lose your connection to the creator. This is idol worship.
The verb “וַיְדַבֵּר” (and he spoke) that is used in the verse (20:1) comes before the ten sayings. And then comes “אֵת כָּל-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה” (all those words/sayings). The root is “דבר” and it is used for speaking and for things, “דְּבָרִים”. From this we understand that G-d speaks to us at the lower level, to the world of Malchut.
Speaking “דיבור”, comes out from the mouth and this is where thoughts form a connection to the physical world.
The words of G-d here are sayings, Utterances, statements but not commandments.
G-d has given us his best advice. Those are the basic rules of the spiritual system. If we want to connect to the Light of the creator, it is better for us to follow those guidelines
1. You shall have no other Gods but me.
There is only one spiritual system in the world. You see Positive, it is from G-d, you see negative it’s the same. There is only one G-d. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, green, yellow, black or red. One G-d and one system for everyone. Gravity affects everyone, a headache pill from the US or Europe can relieve the aches of most people on seven continents. G-d is everything; G-d is the system.
G-d is assuring us that he is looking for our benefits when he says (20:2) “אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיך מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים”
“I am your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”.
G-d is not commanding, he is saying, Look, I took you out of slavery, made you a free nation and whatever I am saying here is for your own good so you can keep and enjoy your freedom.
2. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
Disconnecting from G-d is losing control. The Zohar teaches us that we cannot represent spiritual forces in physical terms. All matter is under control of the negative side and transferring G-d’s image to matter, also transforms the positive energy of the Light and we create a disconnection. As a result, the correction process is activated. (20:4) “כִּי אָנֹכִי יְדוָד אֱלהֶיךָ, אֵל קַנָּא–פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבֹת עַל-בָּנִים עַל-שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל-רִבֵּעִים, לְשֹׂנְאָי” “for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments”. (The English translation expresses the understanding of the verse, not the exact meaning. It is incorrect to translate “פֹּקֵד” as punishing since this root is also used for redemption.
Here G-d is saying, please listen and stay with me, otherwise I will have to activate a process of cleansing “אֵל קַנָּא”. “אֵל” is G-d’s name at the level of Chessed (Mercy) and “קַנָּא” is from the root of cleansing “נקי” and also has the same numerical value of “מקוה”, mikve (special spiritual cleansing pool). G-d also warns us that the process can go through the generations. (I expand more on that in the commentary of next week’s parasha of Mishpatim).
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
G-d gave us the power to speak and manifest energy. When we speak, we activate the four elements of nature, air, fire, earth and water.
Air is obvious, fire is the warmth of the vapor, water is the moist in the vapor and the earth (soil) is the minerals in the vapor.
When we speak we create angels positive or negative, based on the words we use. Misusing the power that G-d gave us, could hurt us if we don’t keep our words in the positive frame.
4. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
The Shabbat is the day where Malchut (female energy) has a connection with the spiritual system (Binah) and draws the energy for the whole week. The Hebrew word “זָכוֹר”, is related to male energy and connection to the light. This is the blessing that G-d is giving us here. The spiritual system is in a rest state and to connect we need to be in affinity with it. Any new creation (work) creates disaffinity and takes away the ability to connect and draw the light for the rest of the week. We can look at it as the only day where we can refill our energy tanks for the week.
A spiritual person connects to his wife on Friday night because of the high level connection and the great blessings they can draw from this (when done properly.)
The main tool to connect to that energy comes through listening to the Torah reading on Shabbat.
One of the important spiritual connections on Shabbat is the Kidush (The blessing over the wine) where we recite this paragraph word by word.
5. Respect your father and mother.
The Ari explains that even if the father and mother are not worthy of any respect (negative people, even murderers etc…), we required to do so for a simple reason that since they are the cause to our existence, then the light comes to us through them. We are connected with a spiritual umbilical cord. We cannot reveal light in our life when we do not respect our parents.
The Ari adds that we should respect our older brothers and sisters because they came before us and we are fed through the same line.
6. You must not kill.
Any form of disconnection from the light is killing. Hurting others creates some form of death. Evil tongue is a form of murder
7. You must not commit adultery.
Sexual act performed with a person that you don’t have a spiritual connection with creates a drain of positive energy and brings chaos.
8. You must not steal.
We cannot enjoy or benefit from anything that we did not earn by our efforts.
9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbor.
We need to watch from getting trapped by the illusion of the five senses.
10. You must not be envious of your neighbor’s goods.
You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Everyone has his own process in life. Envy will connect us to the negative spiritual process of the other person. Be happy with what you have.
3 Comments »
Posted by Zion in Main
Image via Wikipedia
(Jeremiah 17:8) וְהָיָה כְּעֵץ שָׁתוּל עַל-מַיִם \”For he (man) shall be as a tree planted by the waters\”
(Deuteronomy 20:19) כִּי הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה \”For is the tree of the field a man\”
(Genesis 1:27) וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם \”So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.\”
When it says that G-d created us in his own image. \”בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹקים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ\” It is exactly so. Image in Hebrew \”צֶלֶם\”, which has the same numerical value as Tree, \”עץ\”. It is the Tree of Life that is inside and outside of us.
We are the fruits of the Tree of Life and as such we carry its seeds inside of us. That gives us the ability to create life. When God said \”Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth\”, He gave us this gift. We became part of the Tree and it makes us like the Creator.
A bone in Hebrew is \”עצם\”. It also means essence. The letters are a combination of the word for Tree \”עצ\” and the final letter Mem. The letter Mem has four sides and it shaped like a square.
Without going too deep we understand from the codes of the Hebrew Alpha-Bet that our essence is connected to the Tree. We know from Kabbalah about the invisible and indestructible bone in our body called \”עצם הלוז\” \”bone of luez\”. It is the actual connection to the Tree. This bone is the seed for the resurrection of the dead when the time will come. Mashiach will re-connect us to the Tree of Life.
Like the tree we bring out fruits, which grow to be trees. The trees make more fruits in a cycle that creates continuity in the world.
In Tu B\’Shvat we have the opportunity to connect to the Tree of Life when we bless the different kind of fruits. That action actually bring blessings on ourselves at the seed level.
The attached PDF is a wonderful collection of information assembled by one of the members on the mailing list, read it to get more important information on this special day of blessing.
May we all have a blessed Holiday and renew our seed and connection to the Tree of Life. Amen.
If you enjoy this article and information please forward it to your friends. It is as easy as a simpel click. They will thank you for it.
No Comments »
|
![\"Reblog](\"http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=71bbfb0b-cfef-454c-bdef-edef0d1bea4c\")
![\"Reblog](\"http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=181a1dbe-09d3-437e-854b-a2f0c48b979a\")
![\"Reblog](\"http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7538650b-de09-481c-a688-e2a55b610e5d\")
Entries (RSS)