The Mountain of laws.

THE BIG IDEA

According to the Torah Omens this is an excellent time to contemplate the relationship between blessing, choice, and consequence.

We have enough history behind us to understand that just as God gives, God takes, sometimes in the most terrifying ways.

Like it or not, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob's four wives were ‘chosen’ to reflect divine consciousness in the world -- both as individual practitioners and a collective responsible for one another. Abide by spiritual law and experience a blessing like no other, fall off the path and suffer the consequences. Once awareness is codified and revealed by the infinite source energy, (it would seem) it cannot be ignored. 

The book of Va’yikra (Leviticus) ends this week with the final meditations on spiritual law that extends to the land to which the tribe of spiritual slaves are being delivered. The physical earth is treated to a Sabbath rest every seven years, and literal slaves are set free in 50 year cycles. This practice formalizes the acknowledgement of a oneness higher than any single one, that moves those ‘chosen’ for spiritual awareness of all things, at all times.

In addition to contemplating consequence, and spiritual law in general, is a favorable time to examine how you ritualize, through concrete actions, your respect for needs of things like the cycle of the earth that feed us.

DEEPER DIVE

Things to expect from a promised land.

The land on which you stand.

The one that feeds you, and provides for you, and your family, and animals, and visitors, and workers, and immigrants. The land you might think you own, but really belongs to a vision inspired by the first clear bond between God and a woman and man.

At The Mountain, Behar, Moses extends the practice of spiritual awareness beyond the personal and social to the physical practice of living on the holy land, and everything that walks upon it. Those that merit to live on this land are bound by its sacred status and spiritual laws which include a 7th year rest for the land, and a 50th year liberation for the land and slaves.

The ritualization of the practice of awareness of the sacred and designated earth. Or, else, as we see in the next and final chapters of this book, called B’Chukotai, translated as my laws, you will suffer (to almost) no end.

The creation of a holy status for the land every seven years, invites everyone to drop their identities and walk the earth with equal access and entitlement to pick the fruit and take what they need.

Home owner and slave, princess and prostitute, all as Adam roaming the garden.

No harvesting. No planting. Just being on the earth, together. Living. Eating. Breathing.

Every 7 years, a shmetah (sabbath for the land)

and every 7 x 7 year cycles, a yovel (jubilee) where everything goes free.

Everything. 

And if you don’t do this, or follow the other spiritual laws that have been presented, trust that a curse will fall upon you that will ensure endless restlessness and suffering for you. You be be left to wander untethered, constantly afraid even though nothing chases you.

To understand chosen, you must consider what you are chosen for - and decide — is the practice of awareness a good thing?

Either way, you have to abide.

INNER WORK GUIDE:

To be ‘Chosen’ is to be moved from material slavery into spiritual service for all time.

Still this is the spiritual law for slaves, now subservient to a cosmic master. ‘Chosen’ as a state of both receiving the gift of alignment, and the consequences of defiance.

This is a great time to ask yourself:

Are you motivated by blessing or curse?

By gifts or punishment?

By love or consequences?

When the one or the other come to you (reward or punishment) do you take it personally?

How do you relate your personal choices to the consequences of the collective?

Can you see the consequences as the most loving way to keep you focused?

NOTE:

While I don’t have much to contribute, it feels important to mention the 45 that were killed in Meron last week on Lag Ba’Omer. Last week’s deaths connect our generation with the mystery of Rabbi akiva’s students who died throughout the Omer. As we know, Rabbi Akiva brought forward the mitzvah of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ to the forefront of jewish consideration.

As the last days of Omer are counted, please have this meditation in mind.

“if you can’t breathe, neither can your neighbor.”  

Shabbat Shalom.