Meditation and the Moral Compass

Begin analyzing the structure of Biblical Law and you will find that the nature of all of the Commandments is predicated on morality. When you boil down the essence of Biblical Law, you are dealing with a universal, divine imperative. God speaks to us with the direct intention of imparting to us, specifically what He wants from us. From the biblical standpoint the very law of the universe that governs humanity is based squarely on the importance of moral behavior.

The covenant at Mount Sinai sets down in terms of our relationship with the divine. Not only is that relationship worked out directly with God, but also involves to an even more explicit extent how we interact with each other. In short, our relationship to God and our relationship to mankind are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, the Commandments are meant to be an intricate fabric of moral instruction.

On the practical level, all of the Commandments found in the Bible are meant to be a training process for the soul. The objective is twofold. First, by following the Commandments one is trained spiritually on how to approach God.  Drawing close to God involves reverence and devotion. By being able to sense the holy, we are imbued with an abiding sense of reverence. With a deepening of reverence comes the growing desire to serve with devotion. These are the keys to an expanding experience of the divine.

Second, the Commandments are designed to instruct us as to how to interact with one’s fellow man. Communication and interchange with other human beings requires moral consciousness. From the biblical vantage point, the entire universe is governed by the laws that God has set down.  In regard to the cosmos as a whole, the law of God is understood as natural law. The counterpart of natural law as it applies to humanity is moral law. It is a specific application of universal law.

Because humanity is endowed with both high intelligence and free will, there is a great capacity within human experience to move away from the divine toward self-aggrandizement and self-interest. Therefore, God articulated the Commandments as a system of moral instruction. The objective of this instruction is to move the soul consciously and deliberately toward holiness and a deeper connection with the divine.

In communicating with us at Mount Sinai, God was setting down a behavioral pattern that is to regulate human interchange along moral lines, which parallel universal law. Hence, the injunctions regarding the approach we need to take with the divine are designed to bring the soul into more direct experience of the holy and the Holy One.

Moreover, the divine imperatives that underlie the Commandments are also designed for the spiritual development of the soul. This is accomplished by setting specific, moral guidelines for ones interaction with others that train the soul in the behavioral imperatives that are essential for peace, harmony and alignment with the divine will.

One way of understanding this concept simply is to understand that service to God comes primarily through action. How we relate to the world is also how we relate to God. Morality has to be understood as an absolute. It is universal law as applies specifically to human beings. In other words, morality is righteousness.

It is through the process of moral behavior that we walk in the path of righteousness. Righteous conduct honors God as creator. Righteousness produces, as well, continual benefit and great blessing specifically for others. In Jewish tradition it says that throughout his whole life Noah strove to help and enlighten all those around him. That is why the Bible states clearly that Noah was a righteous man that walked with God.

Righteousness is the realization that every soul, as a created being, is interconnected as part of the divine fabric that constitutes humanity. By following a righteous path, a soul is affirming its connection to God through acting in accord of the divine will as laid out through the moral instruction revealed at Mount Sinai.

The reality of our sojourn on earth is that we are continually navigating life and the  lessons that the experience imparts. Righteousness is the compass that allows the soul to navigate one’s lifetime successfully. On the path of life, one has to have faith both in God and in one’s own divine spark in order to fulfill the mission of one’s life purpose. Righteousness and the moral law that underlies it is what guides our steps and makes them steadfast.

The road of life is always one of trial and error. If we are walking in the world  consciously, we’ll learn from both our successes and our mistakes. With an operative moral compass, we are much more likely to be aware of our mistakes and confident of our successes. We become eager and willing to learn from them both. It is also likely that we will be much more appreciative of the wisdom we’ve gained from our overall experience and willing to model it behaviorally and spiritually.

Walking the path of righteousness leads to a practical crescendo. By strengthening our moral compass, we deepen our connection to spiritual life and to the higher worlds. When we do this, we gain access to increasing light within the soul. The more light the soul has the more we are in line with righteousness, which in turn allows us to continue to evolve more efficiently. As we evolve, we succeed in improving the accuracy and the calibration of the compass itself.

The moral compass is internal and reflects a direct connection to higher consciousness. If we err and transgress the boundaries set by God, our compass can be repaired through repentance. If we acknowledge and regret what we have done, we are acting consciously and therefore in a position to know what needs to be done by way of rectification both with others and with the divine. Once that is done, our inner compass is more directly aligned to the higher and higher realms as well as our own  reservoir of inner wisdom.

Calibration of the moral compass of righteousness is most effectively accomplished through meditation. Since meditation allows us to move inwardly, to initiate the introspective process and elevate consciousness, it is a superb tool not only for self-enrichment, but also for aligning the soul with the divine will.

In Kabbalist meditation, there is always a conscious focus. There is an aim and goal to any specific meditation. However, the objectives are generally always the same. They include subordinating the ego, so as to move into deeper levels of self, to open doors of perception, to explore the structure and reality of creation and one’s relation to it as a creative being and to allow for the ascension of consciousness in order to encounter and experience the Divine.

All of these facets of meditative experience have the effect of strengthening the soul by expanding consciousness. The result is a direct increase in the light of the soul and a subsequent refinement of the moral compass. Increased experience of higher consciousness through meditation leads to a deeper connection to moral law, which results in a strengthening of not only ones moral fiber, but of one’s moral sense as well.

To sum up; If we move into ourselves and thereby expand to higher consciousness we not only come to understand ourselves more deeply, but also what God is instructing us to do. Aligning to the divine will and evolving as souls is predicated both on understanding the deeper nature of moral imperatives through meditation and study on one hand and the righteous action taken at the behest of ones moral compass on the other.

When we internalize the principles God is imparting either through the Commandments or through our Higher Self we become more aligned with divine wisdom, which is the basis for both natural and moral law. This alignment between our Self and the divine imperative, in turn, places us more firmly on the path of righteousness. Whereby, we are led to increased wisdom and connection with the divine will as a result.

 

The Internal Process of Redemption

In the Tree of Life, the Kabbalist model of existence, the very center of human experience is the Sefirah of Tiferet, the level of the heart. The heart is seen as the core of our conscious connection with the world and with our lives in it. The heart is the psycho-emotional nexus that serves as the soul’s platform for being present in physical reality and acting out life purpose.

In other words, as sentient beings in the world, the Kabbalah sees the heart as our full conscious presence. We are totally present and conscious in life, only if we are operating effectively from the heart. Our experience in the world, our ability to receive from it and our work within it are all based on the combination of mind and emotion operating together from the heart perspective.

Full human consciousness in the world is understood to be the melding and balance of mind and emotion, which occur at the level of the heart. Being fully human means to be heart based and centeredness in the heart involves an internal balancing of thought and emotion.

The Kabbalist view is that one’s soul engages life through the heart. To be fully oneself and be present in life requires clarity, which in turn involves experiencing day-to-day existence specifically from an unencumbered psycho-emotional position. That is, being balanced mentally and emotionally in the heart centers us  and makes life a clear,  unobstructed reality. It is a way of being in the world and within ourselves at the same time to the highest degree possible. Being centered in Tiferet is the path of open heartedness, acceptance and compassion.

It is not hard for us to be thrown off course in life, if our heart energy is adversely effected, because we have lost our natural, internal center of gravity. Whatever encumbers or burdens the heart immediately impairs our ability to function as ourselves in the world. What shackles the heart is imbalance and the disruption of focus.

In order to understand this, we need to remember that the heart level, Tiferet is flanked on the left and right by four other Sefirot. Surrounding Tiferet are the Sefirot of Hesed, Gevurah, Netzakh and Hod. These are the forces of mind and emotion, in human terms. When functioning properly they support and give added expression to the heart’s energy. When out of balance, however, healthy psycho-emotional function is either thrown off track or worse, distorted.

Overemphasis or excessive focus on any or all of these levels can create a bondage of the heart, a restriction of the heart’s function and a distinct loss of psychological and emotional equilibrium. A heavy concentration of energy in one Sefirah leads to a depletion of energy in another, which invariably creates serious impairment and resulting malfunction, first in the heart and subsequently in the whole of one’s conscious existence. One’s life is no longer optimal. One is not free to be oneself, because the condition of balance has been undermined.

For example, taking on the concerns of others constantly is a distortion within Hesed. Excessive concern with one’s own issues is a malfunction in Gevurah. Not being able to sufficiently distinguish one’s own emotions from those of other people is a problem in Netzakh and harsh, incessant, internal self-judgment is a curse created in Hod. These are all distortions within the realms surrounding Tiferet. They have very detrimental effects that are all constrictive, impairing our ability to be truly heart centered and thereby fully oneself in life.

If we cannot fully live our lives, unable to be ourselves because the heart center is damaged, then we as individuals are under very serious constraint. Our ability to completely express who we are is being compromised due to the malfunction at our center. So, to a large extent our ability to fulfill our life purpose is under siege and we are in battle within ourselves. We are imprisoned by our own malfunctioning system.

How does one emancipate Self from the bondage of psychological and emotional imbalance and the chains it places on our being? The answer is through the process of Internal Redemption.

The basic meaning of the term “redeem” is to rescue something or someone through the act of purchase. In Kabbalist thought, one of the chief connotations of “redeem” is to restore someone to his or her original state. Energy therefore is exerted to rectify a state of denigration and re-establish the person’s integrity.

Redemption is not the healing process, though healing is often a decided effect. Redemption is not emancipation. Becoming free is the platform on which redemption can take place, but the redemption itself is the process of restoring an individual’s freedom of complete self-expression. Redemption is the return of a positive sense of self and the re-instatement of full function as a soul operating in the world.

When our heart has been burdened, weighed down, constrained or shut down, redemption is the process of readjusting the balance between thought and feeling. It is the realignment of the mind and the emotions, so that they become a united, inner harmony, a balanced ebb and flow of psycho-emotional interplay. That is the sign of a healthy, heart-based individual, who is fully and consciously present in the world and in the moment.

So, how is this accomplished?

The key is in the center pillar of the Tree. To regain the centrality of the heart, to bring back a reality of heart-based existence, requires reversing the displacement of energy that has taken place.

To engage the areas of overload directly either will exacerbate or possibly complicate the problem. At best, if a solution can be created by working through the problem areas, it will be a complex one. One is dealing with a bewildering array of variables and interactions that occur at this level, between Hesed, Gevurah, Netzakh and Hod.

To effectively bring Tiferet back into balance primarily involves drawing on the spiritual plane and allowing ones own inner light and wisdom to emanate down from the depths of one’s being, from the hidden realm of Keter, Khochmah and Binah.

The spiritual force of the soul, when one deliberately connects with it, will reach the heart directly and re-align it with life purpose as a matter of course. The resulting restoration of the heart will then redistribute the energy and bring all of the surrounding Sefirot back to normal function and harmony. The soul has to be called to redeem the heart. The heart redeemed, then rectifies the energy balance and flow within the surrounding realms. It simply does not work the other way around.

As the Kabbalists would say, this is a great mystery and one should ponder it very carefully.

Rabbi Fisdel

April 2011

 

Uprooting Idolatry

The actual practice of worshiping foreign gods passed out of existence in Israel at the end of the biblical period. The sin of idolatry on that level has ceased to be an issue in Jewish spiritual life millennia ago. Yet, idolatry still exists in different forms and continues to plague human life. This is true even among our own people. There are modern forms of idolatry, just as insidious as the original.

The worship of other gods entails an abandonment of God. One’s alligence cannot be in two mutually exclusive places at the same time. To put one’s faith and trust anywhere other than in God is the supreme act of idolatry. Such a course of action is to make a deliberate break with God. Idolatry is a repudiation of God’s will, a desertion of the Mitzvot and a direct breach with the Covenant made between us and God at Mount Sinai.

We as Jews undertook to fulfill a covenant with God when we stood at Mount Sinai. We accepted the responsibility of living our lives in accordance with God’s Law, the Torah. The very first two commandments tie us to a complete acceptance and allegiance to God and His Mitzvot. To place faith and trust anywhere else is to abrogate the covenant with God and to repudiate His will and our relationship to Him.

The Dead Sea Scrolls refer to idolatry as “the idolatry of the heart”. It defines this type of idolatry in various ways. It defines it primarily, as “the worship of gold and silver’. The scrolls see materialism as a core evil in human experience. If one focuses their life efforts and their daily concerns heavily on material possession, if one places their trust and hope in financial security, the acquisition of wealth becomes the emotional center of their lives. It dominates their lives and their thinking as a result.

The spiritual center of such individuals is linked to materialism, not to God. They worship gold and silver. In modern terms, this means that such people are emotionally tied to material possession, and driven to continually acquire wealth and strive continually for financial security. Their faith is put in the illusion of power and security that wealth produces.

Our focus as individuals should be on developing our potential as unique creations. We need to be focusing our lives on who we can become and how we can fully express who we are, rather than on increasing what we have, so we can feel more safe. We need to be more secure within ourselves and less concerned with the illusion of external security. This is the issue of faith.

Where does one put their faith?

There are two basic possibilities. One can put their faith in the outside world. One can place their fate in the hands of external forces and seek to gain wealth, power, influence, position, external structure and physical security or one can put their faith in God.

One can seek within and strive to connect with the Creator and to do God’s will.
One can choose to place his/her faith in themselves and rely on the inner security of knowing who you are and that God will assist you, if you call upon God in truth and sincerety. That is the biblical message.

The scrolls also define the ramifications of idolatry. They point out, that idolatry is a separation from the will of God. It leads an individual to setting himself up as God. He or she begins to think that they are able to determine what is right or wrong, solely according to their own viewpoint or their own intellectual perspective. They become judge and jury for everyone around them, as if they were omniscient. They set themselves up as the final arbiters of what should be. This leads, according to the scrolls, away from God to self-worship.

Self-worship, the worship of an abstract concept, and the worship of material self-interest, all have ample illustration in our century. All have proven their power and their enormous destructiveness. One needs only mention the course of direction taken by communism, fascism and the various ardent, parochial forms of nationalism, that have dominated this century, to realize the tremendous damage and monumental pain that is inflicted on humanity, when faith is put somewhere other than in God.

The manifestations that emerge from such an “ idolatry of the heart” are a pattern of arrogance, hatred, vengeance and violence. Idolatry, in this sense is a primary source of evil. When one puts their faith in armed force, or seek security in the possession of land, or place the fate of an entire people in the hands of a political ideology or movement, they are forsaking God. They are yielding to fear. They are assuming that force, be it military, political or economic has the ultimate power to save. How much hatred, violence, bloodshed and death have been perpetrated in the relentless, emotion-laden quest for land? Has it produced security? Has it brought peace? No. Rather, it has brought suffering, misery and genocide.

The truth is that land is not security. Land is not identity. Land is not survival. Land is not home. Land by itself is just space and shelter. Without God’s blessing, it is nothing. The Bible states that if we seek to do the will of God, uphold the covenant and fulfill the Mitzvot, God will bless the land. If we trust in God, he will guide us and protect us.

But, if we go after our own hearts and our own eyes, God will make the land desolate. That is, if we abandon God and seek to do what we want to strictly according to our own drives, lusts and reasons, the land will dry up and become a barren curse. God will abandon us as we have abandoned Him.

Israel is a people. The Land of Israel is a dwelling place. The two should not be confused. We should have our priorities straight. The people of Israel are to be a light unto the nations. We have done that for four thousand years. We have done that with a homeland and we have done that without one. Our primary relationship is to be with God and to fulfill His word. The Torah commands us to respect other people and to uphold the sanctity of life. We must work toward mutual understanding and respect with those around us.

All people are our brethren. Since all people are children of God, made in the divine image, then reaching a level of mutual respect and understanding is central to fulfilling the Mitzvot. The entire law of the Torah makes it crystal clear, that we fulfill our obligation to God, primarily through morality, justice, and service to other people. In the Torah, justice is the cardinal principle of divine law and it makes no distinction between human beings or nations.

God has returned us to Zion. We are secure in the Land of Israel and we are blessed. It is our obligation to place our faith in God, in His Law and in His promise. We must obey the commandments and strive to serve all people through justice, compassion and understanding. To do otherwise is to violate the very core of the Torah and repudiate the Covenant of Sinai. We cannot allow ourselves to yield to fear and place our faith in territorial acquisition. We cannot yield to a messianic furor driven by desperation. We cannot seek to isolate ourselves from the world physically and emotionally by creating a fortress Israel.

This will not bring redemption. It will not bring security. It will not bring peace. It will bring self-destruction and devastation. Should we as a people take such a route, surrendering faith in God for faith in something else other than Him, even if that is the Land and the Messiah, God will not stand by us and He will not stand idly. The Jewish state was destroyed twice before. Once, through the sin of idolatry, once through the sins of ardent messianists who tried to force God’s hand and bring redemption on their terms. Both paths lead to disaster.

It is imperative we heed the lesson now and not bring Israel to ruin once again. We need to learn to serve God through justice and righteousness and to abandon the idolatry of self-interest, fear and doubt. We need to open ourselves up and understand that true faith is connection to God and service to all of humanity. Anything less is a breach of our obligations as Jews. Anything less is not Judaism. It is Idolatry.

Rabbi Fisdel

www.classicalkabbalist.org

Coping With Darkness

With the coming of winter, we embrace not only the beginning of a new year, we are also faced with having to work through the season of darkness. During this season, days are still short and the nights are, determinedly long. The ground turns cold and vegetation is in stasis. There is no growth in nature, just extended darkness and cold rains.

There are seasons within our own lives when similar conditions prevail. Unexpected events, sudden change or misfortune, trauma or distress can affect us emotionally the same way. The loss of a job, the departure of a loved one, dashed hopes or broken dreams can send us into our own personal winters. That is part of the cycle of life.

For human beings, winter represents an end point. It represents the termination of an element or phase of our lives. There is a distinct finality to such moments, be it the conclusion of a relationship, be it the death of a loved one or be it the end of a personal era, manifested as a career change or a transition into middle age.

We humans, as sentient beings, have an option that neither the natural world nor the animal kingdom possesses. We have choice. We have the freedom and ability to alter our focus, to change the perspectives we have on our lives and our situation. We can perceive things differently, if we so choose to. An end can be mourned or it can be honored. The past can be pined for as an irretrievable loss or it can be cherished as valued experience. The decision is in our hands, exclusively.

During times of difficulty or pain, we can choose to sink into our own void and let the darkness overcome us. We can surrender to despondency, despair and melancholy. We can yield to anger, recrimination and aggression.

Surrendering to despair comes as a result of inaction. Outbursts of anger and hostility are reaction patterns to pain. Both approaches, one passive and one overt, lead to the same place, to a deepening of the darkness. Both stem from emotional investment in our own limited egos.

Winter, if properly understood, offers us a great opportunity. It is the season of regeneration, the season of rest. Darkness, in its truest sense, is not an absence of light nor is it the negation of light. It is the partner of light. Light is energy, growth and movement. It is joy, desire and achievement.

True darkness is the quietude of rejuvenation. It is the rebuilding process, by which the universe strengthens itself. It is the time, when the hidden forces of nature are busy regrouping. When there is darkness, life force is regaining it’s integrity, so that at the proper season it will reemerge and produce growth and revival.

Understanding this, we should look at the difficult periods of our lives in the exact same vein. When loss or disruption, misfortune or defeat affect our lives, we must embrace it. Such times are, in essence, an opportunity to close down what can no longer be, to relinquish what has already spent it’s energy or that which, simply, has finished running it’s course.

For spiritual, emotional and psychological growth to take place, we need to make room for it to happen. This involves a process of release. We have let go of what we no longer need. We have to relinquish that which we are still carrying within us, which may have been necessary and important at an earlier stage of our lives, but now has become either useless and burdensome to us or worse, detrimental.

This emptying process, though of great importance, produces a sense of loss and with loss comes grief. The aftermath of experiencing either a loss or a release is the process of grieving. It is, truly, necessary to grieve a loss. Grieving is essential to the process of letting go on all levels, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. To grieve is to empty oneself out. By so doing, one leaves the cup empty, so to speak, making room for endless, new possibility.

Once an individual empties out the old psychological constructs and disposes of the accompanying emotional contents, the way is open to internal regeneration and eventually, to the attainment of a new state of consciousness. There is a critical stage of transition between one’s past, completed experience and a new expression of one’s life. It is achieved by passing through the grief.

The stage beyond grief is that of neutrality, rest and peace. Our periods of darkness should be times of release, inner quiet and restoration. True darkness is the season of renewal. As such, we should accept it with open mind and embrace it with a tranquil heart. It is the gateway to spiritual evolution.

Periods of darkness, when understood properly, are the times of post-completion. After we have let go and released what we have finished with, in our life experience, there is a sacred time of peace. There is a period of great quiet when we become whole. During this sacred time, if we are using the darkness properly, we avail ourselves of the opportunity and the need to focus on the hidden resources deep within us. The season of darkness is the time to attune ourselves to the deep wells of spirit within and let the waters, there, be replenished by our connection to God.

The season of darkness is not a time of barrenness. It is not a time of death. The season of darkness is the time of restoration and regeneration. It is dark, not in the sense of the absence of light, but rather, that darkness is the manifestation of the hidden, the secret and the sacred. It is peace.

May God who establishes peace in the highest heavens, grant us the courage to forego what has past, to dwell securely in the quietude within and to embrace its potential for the future. And we say, Amen.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

The Human Dichotomy: Good and Evil

The reality of Good and Evil expresses itself differently in Judaism, than in other religious traditions. Good and evil is not a strict duality in Jewish belief. Rather, they are seen as coming from the same basic source, God’s Will.

Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby bringing them both into the world, by their actions. The act of assimilating the knowledge of good and evil produced its emergence in the world. In other words, good and evil was a potential that was brought into the world by man’s conscious decision. It was an act of will on mankind’s part. It did not have to be made manifest. In fact, God specifically had told the couple not to do so.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood at the heart of the garden of Eden. Therefore, it had a legitimate place within the structure of Creation. However, that was not meant for mankind to assimilate. God says so directly. He prohibits them from eating of the fruit of that tree. The Knowledge of Good and Evil, the full understanding of the polar principles that govern the functioning of the universe, was not meant for human beings to take upon themselves.

Once, having done so, the basic polarity of existence was fundamentally changed, as far as human experience is concerned.  Now, humanity was able to make subjective determinations. Everything would be seen through the focus of positive and negative, good and evil. Yet, much of this viewpoint is purely subjective. What is good for one person, may be evil for another. What is beneficial to one group of people, may be detrimental or devastating to another. What benefits one group, may be doing so at the expense of another.  When we make value judgements, we are overlaying connotations of good or bad on the basic duality of the world.

Everything in Creation is polarized into dualities. Living beings are either male or female. Space is polarized into left and right, forward and backward, up and down. Energy is the dualism of electricity and magnetism. Life takes place by movement within time and space. The basic duality of existence is inescapable.

So, what did Adam and Eve do when they ate of the Tree? They introduced subjective value judgment into the equation. Now, instead of seeing right and left or this and that as neutral and natural, they saw everything as good or bad. This added perception produces great distortion.  If one is looking at two apples, one fresh and one that is rotting, it is not necessarily true to assume that the former one is good and the latter apple is bad.

The rotting apple may fall to the ground and serve as badly needed fertilizer, which is good from nature’s standpoint. Whereas, there may too many apples on the tree, and the ripening one being considered, is draining off much needed resources from the other fruit. This prevents the apples on the tree from coming to full fruition. Hence, the whole crop of apples ultimately, will be ruined.

Goodness and Evil, good and bad are not always appropriate considerations. Much in life is actually neutral or a balanced admixture of positive and negative. Good or bad is merely a function of how something is being viewed.

Very little in nature is either good or bad per se. Rather, something becomes good or bad based upon how it is used. Enormous harm and tremendous evil have been done to countless people and nations over the millennia, in the name of what was thought to be the ultimate good.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood in the Garden of Eden to regulate the balance of the opposing forces, that constitute the very makeup of the world. That force of regulation was planted by God. The Tree was meant to serve Creation on a level of its own, beyond the pale of human comprehension and human thought. When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree, they took it upon themselves to decide, what in the world was good and what was evil. The making of such distinctions would inevitably derive strictly from their own narrow frame of reference. This was the sin of mankind. We set ourselves up as the ultimate judges of what is and what is not reality. Moreover, we continue to make such decisions, and we are doing so through the distorted lens of subjective value judgment.

By setting ourselves up as judges, we are preempting God, the true, eternal judge. Our distorted perceptions lead to inappropriate action, causing harm, damage and destruction on many levels. We are bringing evil into the world, through actions precipitated by confusion and misconception.

How do we escape this unending cycle of good and evil, progress and retrogression? The answer is implied in the Book of Job. At the end of the story, at the point where Job admits he cannot fathom evil and suffering, God forces the issue. God demands to know why Job or anyone else, for that matter, thinks they can know the mind and intent of God. The true roots of good and evil lie deep in the very fabric of Creation, in the Will of God. This is far beyond the scope of human comprehension. No human explanation will ever be adequate to even remotely approximate the true reality. Why does man persist in distorting the world and human experience by playing God and making subjective judgments and then casting them in terms of good and evil?
A return to Eden involves the surrender by humanity of this dualistic view of the universe, and the permanent release of judgmentalism. Mankind must move beyond the cycle of good and evil, that has dominated human experience from the beginning. We need to return to the original pattern of experience, symbolized by Eden. Mankind must allow itself to be guided by God directly, rather than by the limited insight of our own reason.

The question then, is how exactly is this achieved?  Before mankind was created, God judged all of Creation to be good. The universe is innately good, according to the Torah. No mention of evil is made at all, in the description of Creation.This suggests, that there is a universal Good that transcends both good and evil as we understand it. There is a transcendent Good that is at the core of all Creation. Good and evil are relative to each other. They are interdependent. Without one, the other ceases to exist. This relative good, that we usually experience then, is only a reflection of the transcendent Good that underlies Creation.

The dichotomy of good and evil that mankind brought into the world interferes with our ability to experience the true Good.  According to the Book of Deuteronomy, good and evil is really a set of choices that we are forced to make continually. Choose life and good or death and evil. Choose to serve God or choose to abandon God. Do not assume that understanding what God wants from us is hidden away somewhere or far beyond our reach. That is not the case. God’s Will is very near to us. It is within our hearts and souls.

This is what the Torah teaches us.  To reach the Good, we must pass through the dichotomy of good and evil. We must first strive for the good, listen to our hearts, study the Torah and work to serve God. We must remain firm in our convictions and resist the temptations of ego and misplaced emotion that lead to sin and destructive behavior. By working through the good and resisting the inclination to do evil, we move in the direction of connecting with the transcendent Good, the light of holiness and joy, that is beyond good and evil as we understand it.

The Transcendent Good stands alone. It is eternal. It is the underlying force in all Creation. This is the goodness, light and love that will one day rule all life on earth, when evil has passed away and the Kingdom of God is finally established. May our lives reflect that coming reality. May our daily existence be filled with a striving for the good, so that we each lay down a small part of the foundation of God’s everlasting kingdom, little by little, in our everyday life. If we do this, we become one with God and God’s Will.

Rabbi Fisdel

www.classicalkabbalist.org