The words of Torah were dictated to Moses and gifted to the nation of Israel in the desert at Mt. Sinai. They contain the seeds for teachings which are uncannily wise. From them, we derive wisdom's using meanings obtained through the multi-dimensional holy Hebrew language as well as references from the oral Torah established through experiences of the Jewish Nation.
Law originates from Torah, philosophy, science and medicine are based on its teachings, mathematics comes from the core of its numeric construct, but most of all, Torah explicitly tells us how we can be better people. It is the most widely documented system for the teaching of moral values and of all things spiritual. There are literally tens of thousands of books devoted to it expounding and articulating its inner meanings.
The U.S. Congress officially recognized Torah's universally accepted Noahide Laws in legislation passed by both houses. The President of the United States, George Bush Snr., indicated in Public Law 102-14, of the 102nd Congress, that the United States of America was founded upon the Seven Universal Laws of Noah. They went further stating that these Laws have been the bedrock of society since the dawn of civilization. They acknowledged that the Seven Laws of Noah are the foundation upon which civilization stands and that weakening of these principles threatened the very fabric of society. Educating the Citizens of the United States of America and future generations therefore became a priority for which Public Law designated March 26 as Education Day, U.S.A.
The Noahide Laws are specifically stated in the Torah as being those that apply to all people who are not members of the nation of Israel. They are a well known precepts that outline judicial guidance for ordered law abiding communities. These laws have been expounded upon by students of the bible and developed through analysis to the effect that the 7 laws of Noah are in fact the main branches of a significant branching tree of prohibitions which ultimately became the laws of modern societies. The main branches of the tree are;
- Idolatry is forbidden. Man is commanded to believe in the One G-d alone and worship Him only.
- Incestuous and adulterous relations are forbidden. Humans are beyond simplified objects of sexual desire and baseless submission to sexual desire does not benefit humanity.
- Murder is forbidden. The life of a human being, formed in G-d's image, is sacred.
- Using the Name of G-d in vain is forbidden. Honor and respect G-d's Names and know from this precept that our speech must be sanctified, as it is the distinctive sign that separates man from beast.
- Theft is forbidden. The world and its possessions are not ours to do with as we please.
- Eating the flesh of a living animal is forbidden. Be sensitive and respectful of all animals.
- Man is commanded to establish courts of justice and a just social order to enforce the first six laws and enact other laws or customs.
Though the Noahide laws have progressively developed into the laws governing non-Jewish societies, Israel's laws were specified in detail at the time Torah was granted. 613 positive and negative commandments and 7 Noahide laws or the 7 laws of Israel’s sages make 620 commandments in total. The details contained in the 248 positive commandments and 365 negative prohibitions of Israel's Torah law automatically formed the basis for a society which would be ordered by its commitment to holiness and complete regard and submission to one G-d.
The principles in Torah provided guidance to early societies. Today, those same modernized societies have abandoned their recognition and knowledge of Israel’s principal purpose, inherent in its' Torah laws ,whilst they pursue a track that ignores the past iterations of their societal development. Even secular laws of Israel that are meant to reflect the origin of Torah law fail to do so. Israel's multi-cultural society continues to adopt secular laws that water down the underlying higher purpose of Torah's more caring and purposeful focus intended to defend humanities heart and soul epi-center. Israel’s political regime ought to recognize more fervently the role the 620 commandments have played in the developing consciousness of humanity, because they are not disposable items, in them is a continual source of higher guidance of significant benefit to the world's modern legal doctrines.
Jews, the world over, who intensely study Torah continue to reveal aspects of and provide guidance from these commandments so that their meanings ultimately find their way into the precedents of the law courts every day. The role of Jews in this respect is akin to that of a feeder system where new understandings are bubbling to the surface all of the time, where discussions and revelations point the world toward a higher level of consciousness so that legal and moral environments become more humane and more representative of the world that was intended by G-d.
Through the common laws of society, the Noahide laws and the 620 commandments we must bring our societies closer to focus on self rectification and repair. Our world must recognize its faults and responsibility to turn out better people through improved integration of holy laws and precepts that are integrated into political regimes. Look a little deeper, with an open mind to learning, then perhaps we will all discover that the laws of the Torah are based on enormously deep precepts that are continuously being studied and expressed.
The extrapolation of Torah's 620 commandments lead to new understandings that will continue to turn the world right side up pointing it toward a more humane and adjusted path, a unification of divergent views, a path to peace and blessings, which is Israel's purpose in the world.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Soul Searching
Spend more time contemplating the makeup of your soul or meditating frequently, then you will be better prepared to deflect the noise of your life, to reach into your deeper intellect and higher soulful state. This process is akin to a slow unraveling of an onion’s layers, but in this case each is a layer of 'noise' that distracts and prevents you (the average person) from connecting with your inner 'self'. People who are able to invoke a meditative process through truthful prayer begin a journey to cleanse and remove the layers that surround their soul. This is applicable to everyone regardless of how well connected to G-d you may be, regardless of how holy you feel, how rich your are or how important you are, when this process is conducted thoroughly it will reveal weakness surrounding every soul, weakness that needs to be contemplated in order to remove layers and find ones true sense and true purpose on earth and to be strengthened on the journey. ‘Soul searching’ is a well known phrase, but soul searching armed with an understanding of the soul’s construct and ways to reach deeper, is a very different process, which can lead to a continuously productive and very healthy outcome for all.
Without you making this connection there can be no resolution and cleansing of the impurities that are attached to the soul, there can be no recognition of the issues that cause the decay, the decline or the walk down the slippery path on which man traverses life on this planet. Fundamentally a world, which devoted more of its time to self discovery, is a wiser world for sure, but there are dangers lurking in dead end and blunt solutions that mask themselves to be the solutions we seek. Lifestyle, living and well being occupy more and more of our collective time these days, but too often people compromise and follow systems that are flawed or do not carry with them the capacity to set vast societies of large numbers of people on a credible path that is imbued with the eternal wisdom necessary to answer every question and solve so many of the daunting issues we face.
The path forward to a perfectly defined system of the soul is already in existence. It is so deep and perplexing that it’s compelling enough to retain the interests of the most advanced minds ever. Man has already worked out how to analyze the minds of people, we already know how to identify compatibility, we know how to spot dangers, but we don’t apply these thoughts and we don’t seek to create a society that benefits from this perfected logic. A strange, but compelling contradiction!
The world is filled with great souls, holy people that play second fiddle in the orchestras of society, people who make their life in the study of holiness, in teaching righteousness and rightfulness, people who dig very deep into the ancient wisdom's of minds that are mostly ignored because we are all too busy with our material world to pay attention. These people are the fabric of our society the defenders of the truth, the balanced minds that bring a sense of equilibrium to attitudes and positions of good and evil, these are the people that guide us, that we identify with because they are special, yet lurking, intermixed with these holy souls are those that profess the qualities of holiness, but themselves are incomplete. If we fail to identify the right people to advise us and to connect with, we may just continue to support a self inflicted spiral toward hopelessness. Modern fundamentalism bordering terrorism is an obvious trait housed within religious groups who appear to be holy in their construct. Even though these people have chosen a path of holiness and may identify with holy people, their ways and their causes are not holy at all they are often the evil souls that know no good.
Holiness has a specific and very particular meaning associated with words like purity, G-dliness, righteousness, sanctity, saintliness, devoutness and devotion. Mostly it can only be associated with those people who have truly sacrificed themselves to the benefit of other people and to those who seek cleansing and completeness of their own souls before seeking ways to correct others.
Without you making this connection there can be no resolution and cleansing of the impurities that are attached to the soul, there can be no recognition of the issues that cause the decay, the decline or the walk down the slippery path on which man traverses life on this planet. Fundamentally a world, which devoted more of its time to self discovery, is a wiser world for sure, but there are dangers lurking in dead end and blunt solutions that mask themselves to be the solutions we seek. Lifestyle, living and well being occupy more and more of our collective time these days, but too often people compromise and follow systems that are flawed or do not carry with them the capacity to set vast societies of large numbers of people on a credible path that is imbued with the eternal wisdom necessary to answer every question and solve so many of the daunting issues we face.
The path forward to a perfectly defined system of the soul is already in existence. It is so deep and perplexing that it’s compelling enough to retain the interests of the most advanced minds ever. Man has already worked out how to analyze the minds of people, we already know how to identify compatibility, we know how to spot dangers, but we don’t apply these thoughts and we don’t seek to create a society that benefits from this perfected logic. A strange, but compelling contradiction!
The world is filled with great souls, holy people that play second fiddle in the orchestras of society, people who make their life in the study of holiness, in teaching righteousness and rightfulness, people who dig very deep into the ancient wisdom's of minds that are mostly ignored because we are all too busy with our material world to pay attention. These people are the fabric of our society the defenders of the truth, the balanced minds that bring a sense of equilibrium to attitudes and positions of good and evil, these are the people that guide us, that we identify with because they are special, yet lurking, intermixed with these holy souls are those that profess the qualities of holiness, but themselves are incomplete. If we fail to identify the right people to advise us and to connect with, we may just continue to support a self inflicted spiral toward hopelessness. Modern fundamentalism bordering terrorism is an obvious trait housed within religious groups who appear to be holy in their construct. Even though these people have chosen a path of holiness and may identify with holy people, their ways and their causes are not holy at all they are often the evil souls that know no good.
Holiness has a specific and very particular meaning associated with words like purity, G-dliness, righteousness, sanctity, saintliness, devoutness and devotion. Mostly it can only be associated with those people who have truly sacrificed themselves to the benefit of other people and to those who seek cleansing and completeness of their own souls before seeking ways to correct others.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Dedication
To achieve anything in life one must become dedicated to achieving it. Only an investment of time, focus and action will produce desired results. When Israel emerged from their captivity in ancient Egypt after a 210 year exile they were a loosely assembled nation in a state that was about to undergo a massive spiritual metamorphosis.
As Moses led Israel out of Egypt in this great exodus, of more than 2 million people, those that followed were overwhelmed, confused, bewildered and uncertain of the future that lay before them, yet they followed because they believed that some greater force was directing the masses. This time, which is frequently mentioned in Torah is constantly referenced in Jewish prayers and rituals, it is a time during which these people simultaneously elevated themselves to the highest most intense points of holiness as the spiritual worlds descended, greatly affecting the way they thought and acted.
During the 49 days from the time they left Egypt to the day they received the Torah, the soul of every person was exposed to this most intense spiritual experience. The events leading to their departure, the pursuit by Pharaoh in the desert, the parting of the Sea and the revelation at Mt. Sinai are the significant high points during which overwhelming and massive feelings of righteousness and holiness rapidly ascended in the minds and the bodies of each person living through the experience. The souls of all those people were intensely affected as they were freed from their consciousness by these special energies and emotions.
They were immediately restored their once heightened state igniting within them the desire to return to the practice of prayer and meditation that had been obscured from them during their lifetimes in captivity. Thereafter, the establishment of the priesthood and the sanctuary (Mishkan) in the desert served to direct the actions and practices of Israelites enabling them to attain and maintain these heightened states of holiness in the presence of G-d.
In the midst of their experience after crossing the sea, but before receiving the Torah, the people refused to succumb to the higher experience of their soul state, instead they questioned Moses leadership and G-d’s reasons for their lack of water. G-d commanded and Moses decreed that anyone over the age of 20 (the age of permanence when the soul manifests in the body) were never to enter the Holy Land and Israel was banished to a 40 year period of spiritual cleansing in the desert. This became the nations preparation for their entry to a land in which their entire purpose was to be directed to the establishment of a permanent dwelling place for G-d.
After receiving the Ten Commandments and Torah, the entire community turned their attention to connect with their higher soul state. Those banished to remain in the desert, particularly men, would spend most of their days in deep states of prayer and meditation. Their food was basic, their bodily excretions were almost non-existent, consuming exactly what their bodies required and their mental and physical states were completely integrated and directed to remaining in the highest spiritual order.
Those who were 20 or older knew they were going to die in the desert and they eventually submitted entirely to this will of G-d, because the nation of Israel could not go into the holy land until the generation (above 20) that fled Egypt had passed on.
At nightfall many who meditated from sunrise to well beyond sunset would position themselves in holes they had dug in the sand in preparation for the event that in their highest states their souls would pass to the higher worlds. Many people died in this dedicated way because it had become their objective to reach and retain such intense spiritual states so that their generation would essentially pass to the highest worlds that had enveloped them in the desert.
This intensely holy period of history established the origins of Judaism and of all religions and spiritual doctrines which followed, to varying degrees, the dedication to the holy practices and principles of monotheism that emerged amongst cultures from the time of Abraham and continuing through the time of Moses.
As Moses led Israel out of Egypt in this great exodus, of more than 2 million people, those that followed were overwhelmed, confused, bewildered and uncertain of the future that lay before them, yet they followed because they believed that some greater force was directing the masses. This time, which is frequently mentioned in Torah is constantly referenced in Jewish prayers and rituals, it is a time during which these people simultaneously elevated themselves to the highest most intense points of holiness as the spiritual worlds descended, greatly affecting the way they thought and acted.
During the 49 days from the time they left Egypt to the day they received the Torah, the soul of every person was exposed to this most intense spiritual experience. The events leading to their departure, the pursuit by Pharaoh in the desert, the parting of the Sea and the revelation at Mt. Sinai are the significant high points during which overwhelming and massive feelings of righteousness and holiness rapidly ascended in the minds and the bodies of each person living through the experience. The souls of all those people were intensely affected as they were freed from their consciousness by these special energies and emotions.
They were immediately restored their once heightened state igniting within them the desire to return to the practice of prayer and meditation that had been obscured from them during their lifetimes in captivity. Thereafter, the establishment of the priesthood and the sanctuary (Mishkan) in the desert served to direct the actions and practices of Israelites enabling them to attain and maintain these heightened states of holiness in the presence of G-d.
In the midst of their experience after crossing the sea, but before receiving the Torah, the people refused to succumb to the higher experience of their soul state, instead they questioned Moses leadership and G-d’s reasons for their lack of water. G-d commanded and Moses decreed that anyone over the age of 20 (the age of permanence when the soul manifests in the body) were never to enter the Holy Land and Israel was banished to a 40 year period of spiritual cleansing in the desert. This became the nations preparation for their entry to a land in which their entire purpose was to be directed to the establishment of a permanent dwelling place for G-d.
After receiving the Ten Commandments and Torah, the entire community turned their attention to connect with their higher soul state. Those banished to remain in the desert, particularly men, would spend most of their days in deep states of prayer and meditation. Their food was basic, their bodily excretions were almost non-existent, consuming exactly what their bodies required and their mental and physical states were completely integrated and directed to remaining in the highest spiritual order.
Those who were 20 or older knew they were going to die in the desert and they eventually submitted entirely to this will of G-d, because the nation of Israel could not go into the holy land until the generation (above 20) that fled Egypt had passed on.
At nightfall many who meditated from sunrise to well beyond sunset would position themselves in holes they had dug in the sand in preparation for the event that in their highest states their souls would pass to the higher worlds. Many people died in this dedicated way because it had become their objective to reach and retain such intense spiritual states so that their generation would essentially pass to the highest worlds that had enveloped them in the desert.
This intensely holy period of history established the origins of Judaism and of all religions and spiritual doctrines which followed, to varying degrees, the dedication to the holy practices and principles of monotheism that emerged amongst cultures from the time of Abraham and continuing through the time of Moses.