Some spiritual insights from a Rabbi I admire...

Date:   2/15/2006 12:55:30 AM ( 18 y ago)

on 2/14/06 12:29 PM, Bet Alef at info@betalef.org wrote:

Weekly Focus, February 12 – 18, 2006

Torah Portion: Yitro (Exodus 18:1 – 20:23)



Our journey fleeing the enslavement symbolized by an ancient Egypt was not an easy one. Perhaps no journey toward freedom ever was or ever is. The pull towards the familiarity of past conditioning and patterning is compelling and largely unconscious. We often are not even aware we have slipped back into the enslavements of roles and postures until the pain begins again.



On that ancient path, we fluctuated between excitement and despair. We celebrated each miracle, and we mourned each moment of fear. Looking back, perhaps we can learn about the ride we are on today. We enjoy the “highs” and hate the “lows,” yet do not realize that in the land of highs and lows the only freedom is in understanding and accepting the nature of that territory. In the land of highs and lows, what goes up comes down, and what comes down goes up again unless its movement is resisted.



But true freedom is something else – it contains both the highs and the lows but is not defined by either. Freedom does not mean “everything is always fine,” but rather, “I am always free.” I may not be free to change everything in my world, but I am free to choose Who I Am in any given moment. I am free to stop defining myself by the changing conditions of my world.



This Torah portion (and, yes, it is my favorite!) contains what came to be called the “Ten Commandments.” In Torah, they are referred to as the “Ten Words,” or the “Ten Principles.” In some of the earliest Jewish services, they were recited, along with the Sh’ma, as the central texts of the service.



What draws me this week is the second of the Principles:



“You shall have no other gods before me.” (20:3)



I believe that there are two basic principles at the heart of Jewish tradition. The first is the positive injunction: “I AM is the Eternal One your God Who brings you out of the land of Egypt, the place of enslavement.” (20:2) There is but One Reality, One Life, and the Realization of that Oneness connects us to our freedom.



The second basic principle is the negative: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” There can be no “sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth” that can serve as god. (20:3,4)



From this injunction and this prohibition all other commandments flow. These are the principles at the very heart of our faith.



To have another “god” before God means to eclipse the Real with the conditional—to imagine that our own images, our fame, our success or failure, our money, our possessions, our relationships, actually define the nature of our being. The belief in God has to do with the nature of our own being, the recognition that we are individual expressions of a Single Life, that our consciousness is an expression of One Consciousness. One God defines the very nature of our existence. To imagine that there are lesser gods supports the fragmentation and separation now reflected back to us by our world, because our world is the manifestation of our idolatry.



We are challenged to resist the invitations to place meaning in things and in changing conditions. We are enjoined to remember the Heart of all Being, the Center awakening through each of us that is behind the circumstantial ups and downs of our lives.



This One naturally supports the flowering of our uniqueness. With this One there is true Life and deep Joy. Remember the One you are always.



Focus Phrases:



There is only One Life and I am living it right now.



I celebrate the Life I am living.



I remember the truth of my Being with gratitude.





Writing Prompts:



When I forget the greater Being within me, I. . .



The last time I awakened to my deeper Being, I. . .



I can keep myself more aware of the truth of my Being by. . .



* * * * *



Weekly Focus © 2006 Rabbi Ted Falcon, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue
http://www.betalef.org


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