BS”D
Chapter Three:
Life Vest
I do not want to bore you with my autobiography. Suffice it for this writing to inform you that I moved from Hollywood, California in 1978 to Jerusalem, Israel and enrolled in a Rabbi College which is called a “yeshiva” in Hebrew from its Hebrew root word which means “to sit.” We sat for the greater part of the days and nights and learned Torah which is a Divine Teaching given to Moses by God.
The Torah for most ignoramuses is seen [and grossly misunderstood] as a collection of ancient legends and fables. Were one to properly study Torah via the Jewish Rabbinic Tradition one would readily see and understand why all Jewish Sages appreciate the Torah for being nothing less than the Blueprint for Creation. The Maker and Creator of all physical reality that we have before our eyes was kind enough to share the why’s, how’s, and wherefores about everything extant past, present and future.
Just as your Rand McNally maps provide you with clear, precise and accurate visual portrayals of where Interstate 5 goes to on the West Coast…showing you which cities you will encounter down its road and at what mileage intervals they will occur…similarly the Torah is a roadmap from God as to the purpose, course of travel and the final goal of human history. We are currently at the threshold of the greatest change that ever has and ever will occur in the history of man. Just how big is this imminent change heading our way? I have been dealing intellectually and emotionally with this since 1990 or thereabouts and I am still rattled by it.
Unlike the Rand McNally maps…every detail of all creation is to be found in the Torah. Your own name is there. Your life’s birth and death…who and what you are…what has happened to you and what will happen to you is findable in the Torah. Once again…the Torah is the Blueprint for Creation. That is why Jews have been mining its Infinite Data Base for over 3,300 years compiling volumes upon volumes of hard won insights into what God conveyed atop Sinai.
If a very, very, very pious Jew demonstrates uncompromised dedication to God in every aspect and detail of his life and adds to this a total dedication to learning Torah it then becomes possible (should God so choose and allow it to occur) that such a Jew (called a Tzaddik) is granted permission to participate in the Divine Flow coming from the Name Havaya. It is known in Judaism that a Tzaddik decrees and Heaven fulfills. More on this later.
When God revealed Himself atop Mount Sinai the first of His Ten Commandments to man was not to play nice, not to try and get rich, not to try and be king of the castle in some career or other. The first Commandment was nothing less than informing all of mankind that this universe has a BOSS who made and makes everything (known of or not) and Who rules over every detail of what He has made and makes. Not a leaf falls from any tree without Havaya being the Prime Cause, the Prime Knower and the Prime Decider of that and all other events He alone authors.
“I am the Lord your God” therefore is the most fundamental of all and the only correct orientation to actual reality that we experience as conscious humans.
Ignore, refute, disbelieve, philosophize against or in any way water down or attempt to restructure that Axiomatic Truth of all existence and you have made a catastrophic error in orientation to reality and all events of your life and those of your loved ones. Your life and mine are His Script, His Rules, under His Total Control and you have but one free choice option and that is whether you acknowledge and love and fear Him alone. All else is from Heaven except for the fear of Heaven.
Failure to obey has dire consequences. Adam was Commanded not to eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Had he obeyed this Command for merely three hours until the Sabbath arrived (at which time such eating would have been permissible) mankind would have been spared its blood soaked history, misery, pain in child birth, struggle for sustenance and anything and everything else negative that lays rotten on the trash heap of human history.
Adam’s sin initiated a series of subsequent historical events spanning millennia who’s collective purposes are but individual components of one Divine “goalpost.”
Reality throughout the universe as we know it is in store for something that even a billion million Richter scales cannot measure. And even if you have a PhD in the Book of Revelations and even if you believe with all your heart and soul that Jesus Christ is your personal Savior [and/or Mohammed, Buddha or whomever else you relate to as alleged “actual Divinity” or representing Divinity] let me teach you in no uncertain terms that you have been lied to, duped, taken for a sucker and had your very life placed in dire jeopardy by that which has posed itself to you as God and Holiness when in fact it is nothing other than idolatry posing as God and Holiness.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
When Cain slew Abel he repudiated the principle of justice, saying "there is no justice and no Judge" (Bereishit Rabba 26:6).
Cain was the first atheist.
"The curse of God is upon the house of the wicked". (Proverbs 3:33)
The vast, vast majority of mankind be they kindhearted, good, loving, and/or charitable are serving a false god other than Havaya.
That sin comes with a fatal price tag and it may very well be that this writing is your final and only life vest.
I trust I have your complete attention? Shall we learn?
