Vayalach: God's Love is Enough

“And Moses went and spoke these words to all of Israel” (Deuteronomy 31:1) Our Sages say that Moses went to each and everyone of all the Tribes of Israel, and impregnated in them part of his soul. They teach that there is a spark of him and his connection with God that live in every Jewish soul. We have said often that Moses achieved the highest knowledge of the Creator and His ways and attributes, hence he represents such knowledge in our consciousness. 

At this point in the Torah's narrative we can understand that one of the reasons of his absence in Israel's crossover the Jordan river is to teach us that we must cleave to our own individual knowledge of the Creator in order to maintain our personal connection to Him. Moses refers to this in the following verses, reiterating what he has been emphasizing throughout the last book of the Torah: “The Lord your God, He will go over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shalt dispossess them” (31:3)

In the awareness of His Presence in our life we are truly free, and in this freedom there is no room for the nations represented by ego's illusions and negative traits derived from a false belief or feeling of lack. These are the nations that are destroyed before the Divine Presence. In other words, when we let go ego's illusions and let God, He indeed erases them from our consciousness. We start the process by letting go what we don't need in our lives. This letting go is our willingness and determination that we renounce to anything different from Love's ways and attributes. At this point we are letting God's Love to come in and occupy the space we allow in our consciousness for Him to dwell in us. His sole Presence dissolves negative traits, patterns, additions and habits that separate us from His ways. We have to take the first step and invite God back in every aspect and dimension of life.

Let's insist that ego's fantasies and illusions exist out of beliefs and feelings of lack. If Love's ways and attributes are always with us, what can we lack? Love, as a material manifestation of God's Love, is enough by itself and there is no lack in it. God is enough in all His Creation, because there is no lack in His ways, attributes and works. Once we remove fantasies and illusions and enthrone within us the permanent awareness of God in our life, we begin to realize our true Essence and identity. We must be strong in this awareness if we want to let go and let God: “Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He it is who goes with you; He will not fail you, nor forsake you.” (31:6) This awareness defines our Jewish identity. In this sense Moses, our highest and strongest knowledge of God, is the guarantor of our relationship and connection with Him. This is one of the reasons Moses is our teacher. He opens our discernment, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passion and instinct to the knowledge of the One from whom all exists (see in this blog our commentary on Parshat Vayalach: “The Choice to Return to God” of September 25, 2011)

Thanks to Moses our teacher we know the ways, means and attributes of God's Love we invoke twice a day in the Jewish prayers, when we evaluate our negative approach to life. We recall the transcendental moment when the Creator told Moses His attributes of compassion (Exodus 34:6-7), which are also the traits God wants us to manifest in all aspects of our lives. This is how we love Him, by being and doing according to His ways, His will and His Commandments. King David also recalls Moses' reminders about the futility of materialistic illusions: “You [God] has set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the Light of Your countenance”, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet is their pride but travail and vanity; for it is speedily gone, and we fly away.” (Psalms 90:8, 10) and this realization brings us back to God: “And let the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish You also upon us the work of our hands; yea, the work of our hands You establish” (90:17)

Living in denial of our highest knowledge of God forfeits our Jewish identity, and we fall down to what is contrary to His ways and attributes: “For I know that after my death you will in any wise deal corruptly, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the end of days; because you will do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him through the work of your hands.” (Deuteronomy 31:29) This admonition is part of the prophecies we read in the last book of the Torah. The Creator loves us so much that He warns us time and again about the consequences of living in the false reality ego's fantasies create in the material world. We really don't need to be reminded about what we already know, considering that we are who create our individual and collective reality. It is amazing that God spends so much space in His Torah to instruct us about what idolatry is for us, just to make us realize what His Love is for us.

Deuteronomy emphasizes the Love of God for us. God loves us. He created us, He sustains us, He teaches us, He is compassionate with us, He is our One and only Redeemer. And we realize this eternal Truth when we love Him back, because this is the only way to bond with Him and delight in His Presence. Only then we will know who we really are. 

We must wake up from the material illusions we have created ever since we planted in our consciousness the mother of all illusions, the one that makes us believe that we are separated from God. This illusion tells us that the God from whose Essence we were created, and whose Essence gives us life and identity, is not enough. If only we would take a quick glance at God's Creation, just the universe where we are... Is it not enough? How about infinity and eternity... are they not enough? Therefore, what is that we think is not enough? Ego is the only one saying that anything is not enough. That is indeed the worst of all material illusions.The Prophet invites us again to abandon our negative and destructive ways and return to the goodness that God's Love is: “and return unto the Lord; say unto Him: 'Forgive all iniquity, and accept that which is good (…) For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just do walk in them; but transgressors do stumble therein.” (Hosea 14:3, 10) and we have to take the first step to start removing all fantasies and illusions in which we live, and erase the mirages built by ego's biggest illusion. God is enough, we are enough, life is enough; and all the good things that Love is, as the blessing of God's Love, are also enough.