Eighth. Shemini.

THE BIG IDEA

What is harder…. To look at the unconscious of our own behavior or to consider the dark side of divinity? 

This week’s energy urges us to expand our notion of ‘God’ to include a more balanced picture of the mystery that moves the world.

Take time to ask all your questions of why things happen as they do. Address your questions to the same ‘God’ that took Aaron’s 2 sons in a holy fire on the 8th day of his inauguration as the High Priest.  The same God that allowed a Holocaust to happen to his 'chosen' people. The same God that placed this 'chosen' people on land surrounded by ancient enemies.

Speak directly to the Source Energy you believe to be responsible for the creation and sustenance of this planet, your individual life, and intergenerational unfolding. 

Cosmic support for this dialogue is especially strong on Wednesday night through Thursday evening where the world is invited to commemorate the terror of the Holocaust, which we pray will never touch the world or its people again. As you contemplate the divine shadow, also, within yourself consider:  

What is the purpose of evil in a creation that is intended to be ‘all good’?

DEEPER DIVE

In order to better understand this week’s contemplation of spiritual law and intergenerational consequences, we must re-situate ourselves within the Torah’s narrative. 

Remember Egypt.

A nation of slaves cry out in pain invoking the God of their ancestors. Source Energy remembers and honors his covenant with Abraham and Sarah’s offspring. He intervenes with a hand mighty enough to rip the sea open while simultaneously washing their enemies away with the very same waters.

The newly liberated slaves, unaware of the spiritual practice of their own ancestors, wander in the desert (fed on miracles) until a system of spiritual law is brought into a concrete form. The 40 day process of revelation at Sinai encodes the spiritual law into a form that could be practiced. And yet, as the story goes, before Moses has the chance to return with the stone covenant and the Torah, the Israelite men lose focus and demand Aaron to create a physical representation of God.

Aaron manages the uprising by collecting their gold, throwing it into the fire, and producing a Golden Calf which they subsequently worship- thereby violating the first and most essential principle of this spiritual law.

And while the core violation and it’s energetic fallout is cleaned up by Moses, ( who uses the opening as a chance to bring the nation into an even more exclusive relationship with God) , the spiritual consequences of that event cannot be overlooked.

Shemini, meaning the 8th, and the focus of this week’s meditation begins on the 8th day of a ceremonial inauguration of ohel mord (God's Tent) - and the high priests. Aaron and his sons have spent 7 days covered in holy oil and herbs receiving their specific priestly instructions. On this 8th day Aaron, his sons, and the entire people are instructed to give a sin offering. A calf is placed on the altar, along with the other required animals, and the glory of God appears in a fire and eats the offering before their eyes. The people, understandably fall on their faces.

And then, with the remains of the sacrifice still uneaten, Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avehu take a pan, put in incense and make an offering of strange fire at that altar (which they were not commanded to do) and the holy fire comes down and eats them.

Poof.

Dead.

Moses immediately steps in and tells Aaron ‘this is what God meant when he said through my closest I show myself holy and the entire nation will respect me.’ And Aaron goes silent. 

Spiritual consequences and God Logic exist at a level of consciousness so terrifying we hide ourselves from it. Aaron and his remaining sons hold the mystery without revolt, only refusing to eat the sin offering as Moses reminds them they are obliged to do.

The text then goes on to explain the difference between holy and impure animals, fish, birds, and creatures, as well as the requirement to stay away from dead animals and carcasses. Just as Aaron wouldn’t eat the sin offering that took his children, there are things that are indigestible and forbidden from eating- ever. And so, immediately after god’s holy fire eats 2 of his priests, conscious eating enters the world.

INNER WORK GUIDE

You must consider, on some level, how the same holy fire that took Aaron’s sons, gives and takes everything. The terrifying awesomeness of sacred fire. So too with the fires of Germany, or any genocide, holocaust, or war that is beyond human comprehension.

And so, along with shadow work and outrage, we must each feel for the luck, chance, and spiritual merits beyond our own, that helped our ancestors survive, and spared us the direct trauma of the experience -- on either side of the war.

Inner Work Exercises.

If you are from a Hebrew bloodline, take some time on Thursday to literally count your blessings in this life, offer gratitude for the merits of your ancestors whose lives were spared.

Close your eyes, imagine the fires your ancestors outlived and offer a prayer of remembrance.  

Sample Prayer for those of Eastern European or Ashkenazi origin -

 I am grateful for whatever circumstance helped my ancestry escape the fires of hell and bring me into being. Please _-_-_-_ forgive whatever cosmic debt we owed that brought that upon us and all of creation, and remove the intergenerational trauma I have been chosen to carry.

(and then insert your own prayer)

Sample Prayer for those of Sephardic Origin

I am grateful for the mystery of my life, and the merits of my ancestors that protected us from the unimaginable trauma of the Shoah. I recognize the struggles of my heritage without denying the pain I was spared. Please _-_-_-_ let our spiritual debts be paid off entirely and may we live to see the end of suffering in this lifetime.

(and then add your own prayer).

If you are not from a Torah bloodline but feel grateful you didn’t have to personally face any part of that horror, it is simply by the merits of those that came before you that you were born into a generation, time, and place that was not Nazi Germany in WWII.

Sample prayer:

Dear Source Energy, forgive the spiritual debt of the world — however it works - in order to release your people and this entire planet from a cycle of endless persecution and suffering.

(and add a prayer of your own)

The entire world is moving in a single, balanced, vibration - and because there is no spiritual action without consequence, we ask all our debts to be, once and for all, to be resolved.

All my love, to all that is, was, and will ever be,

Hava