This parashah has so much, as does everything in the D’Var Adonai (Word of the Lord). For instance, it is only 4 1/2 chapters (or so) but within it Moshe orders the people to obey the Lord’s mitzvot and other commandments no less than 9 times. That seems to be important, telling them 9 times to remember to obey the Lord. But do they listen? Noooooooo.
The section I want to talk about today is 8:12-8:20. Moshe warns the people that when they have come into the land, and have all good things, that they are not to forget it is because God made it all possible. He is actually telling them their future. He is warning them that if they become prideful, thinking they have obtained all these wonderful things by their own power and worthiness, then they will forget God and stop following Him. Despite the fact that all these people know it was God who fed them in the desert, gave them water and protected them, even to the point of keeping their clothes from falling apart, yet still they will forget Him and abandon Him if they aren’t careful. And, if and when they do, God will destroy them and throw them out of the land, just as he is doing to the people living there now.
When will we learn? As we know, they did go into the land. They conquered it and took possession, and did (mostly) as God had ordered them to do. And that was because Joshua made sure they kept on track.
After he dies, as we read in Judges (Shof’tim), the people did forget God and throughout that book we are told how people did as they wanted. This is how we are, to this day. Maybe even more so.
Back then there weren’t people saying that everything we see around us, including ourselves, are the result of some mutation or haphazard arrangement of chemicals. Back then there wasn’t a government that said it is illegal to have the Ten Commandments displayed as we enter our courts of law and justice. Back then we would naturally expect that both good and bad things were a result of our worship, unlike today when everything bad that happens is because we are victims of someone else’s wrongdoing, and whatever happens that is good for us is something we deserve and should have.
When are we going to learn? When are we going to humble ourselves and accept that God is in charge? Sure, yeah- we can do things of our own. We can be proud of accomplishments we have. But we need to remember that the gifts and talents we have that allow us to accomplish things are from God. I didn’t give myself an intellect (you could make an argument God didn’t, either), you didn’t give yourself the talent for music, or an ability to draw beautifully, or whatever. God gave these to us, and more often than not, God made it possible for us to discover these gifts and to utilize them.
I think the saddest people are the ones who have gifts they haven’t discovered or had the chance to utilize. We need to remember that it is God who gives the talents and abilities, and it is God who provides. He does, that is, so long as we follow His commandments, mitzvot, regulations and rulings. When we turn from Him, we are cursed.
Not that God curses, so to speak. At least, not as a human curses. When humans curse, they wish bad things on someone. They actively desire and work to make horrible events happen in another person’s life.
Gods curses are passive. The world is a cursed place. God protects us from the cursed environment in which we live. Those are His blessings. He actively makes good things happen. When we disobey and forget (i.e., reject) Him, then the curses fall on us. Not that God makes bad things happen- He just stops protecting us from the world.
Think of Him as a Kippur (covering), like an umbrella. When we follow Him, we are under His protective covering. When we walk away from Him, we are uncovered and the rain of injustice, hatefulness, and everything else that humans do to each other falls directly on our head.
Stay under God’s kippur. Follow His steps and remain under His wings, and you will be blessed. Oh, yes, there will be times when you are doing everything correctly and you will have suffering. I didn’t say God puts us in a bubble- sometimes the winds of misfortune blow so hard the rain gets under the umbrella. That’s no reason to say the umbrella isn’t working anymore! Stay under it, keep walking in His ways, and your life will be more blessed than you can imagine.
Accept Messiah, accept God’s Grace, and follow His laws. That means all His laws- there are no Jewish laws and Christian laws. Whatever God said to do, whether in the front of the Bible or the back, are His laws. God has no religion.
Don’t forget who He is, and who you are ( I believe Isaiah said we were worms. Pretty close.) And above all, remember that whatever you have that is good is from God.
All the bad stuff in your life you can take full credit for.
Shabbat Shalom !!
One statement is enough for a mature and evolved spirit to understand the immortal importance of a sentence, of a written line, due to its indestructible invaluable content that teaches how the spirit should act to develop the inner God, or to turn into Spirit and Truth, or to realise in it the teachings of the Bible – YOU ARE GODS.
There are people who devour books, searching for religions, sects and banners, listening to the incarnate and the discarnate, but they do not change inwardly and do not really blossom… They are like mediocrity that goes around the PERFECTION, without ever reaching it…
The Exemplary Word warned these people, by saying: “The Kingdom of God is inside each one, it does not come with external signs.”
Therefore, those who do not know how to LOOK FOR THEMSELVES, and have not FOUND THEMSELVES yet, will have to search high and low, hovering unhappily, in the kingdom of emptiness and painful doubts.
An old initiatic saying teaches: “The good disciple awaits doing good.”
The Exemplary Word also taught: “Upon your patience you shall build your souls.”
These abstracts say to the immature, to those empty spirits: “Learn how to run to your inner self, because it is there that God has placed His Divine Virtues, which, when blossomed, will make you a TOTAL ONE, GOD IN GOD, BECAUSE NO ONE WILL BE CHILD OF GOD ETERNALLY.”
However, let us remember these wise words: “One word to those who understand it is worth a whole speech to those who do not understand it.”
All the best. With love, Neil.
Thank you for your interest in this Blog, and I have approved your comments because discussion is important to attain the truth.
I agree with the basic statement you made, in that there are many people looking for answers in the wrong place. I respectfully disagree that what you say, i.e. looking inwardly, is the right place. This sounds very Hellenistic,along the lines of “Know Thyself” to find peace and truth.
I do not know what you are talking about when you refer to the “Exemplary Word”, but what you say it says ain’t in my Bible. To say that we are gods ourselves is blasphemy. If there is anything “inside” worth looking for, it’s the Ruach HaKodesh, the Spirit of the one, true and only God, that we receive as His gift when we accept His Messiah.
Keep looking, keep asking, and keep searching, but don’t look inside- look up. Look to God, and humble yourself before Him so that you will realize that we are not God, but we are above the angels. We are His children, and His inheritance, and (I am going out on a limb here) in that sense we are “like” God, as His children are part of Him, but we ain’t Him, Brother!
Know thyself, know who you are, who we are, and humbly accept we are, at best, one step below God.
When the so-called Initiatic Wisdom, or Science of the Mysteries, or Science of the Oracles instructs men to know themselves, so that then they may get to know the Universe and the Gods, it instructs nothing but to acknowledge that everything emanates from the ONE ORIGIN, that IN HIM everything moves and everything achieves the purpose..
Thousands of years later, when Jesus reaffirmed the ‘YOU ARE GODS’, He said nothing but the same truth. However, with the corruption of the Sublime Doctrine of the Path, these and other FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS have been forgotten, buried under the debris of all sorts of simulations and machinations, seriously harmful to people’s spiritual progress.
To say that all religions are good is the same as to purposefully insult the TRUTH. No DIVINE OR FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH depends on human opinion in order to be. The TRUTH is good and the mistakes of religion fabricators will have to burst against it.
Morals, Love, Revelation, Wisdom and Virtue are the positive factors that will make the Inner Christ of the spirit blossom. Pocket, Stomach, Sex, Pride and Selfishness are the factors that, used negatively, shall lead the spirit to weeping and grinding of teeth.
A new cyclical-evolutionary time is coming to Humanity; but the Law of God and the Divine Model Christ will see those who did wrong, grieving their guilt, because they will not go through any changes.
All the best. With love, Neil.