Torah-Veda

An Interspiritual Journey
Find Your Inspiration and Follow It

WELCOME TO TORAH-VEDA

Torah and Veda are two ancient sources of spirituality still vibrant today. Torah is conveyed through the sacred language of Hebrew and Veda is conveyed through the sacred language of Sanskrit. The focus here is on meditation, mysticism, philosophy, psychology and the underlying spirituality that has been incorporated into religions, and not as much on the religions themselves. Your comments and posts are welcome.


Quote of the Week 419 - Listend/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance

Quote of the Week 419 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance


Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live…


--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

CURRENT TEACHING SESSIONS




Interfaith/Inter-Spiritual Contemplative Groups


Please check out the following, which is an ongoing activity that may be of interest:


https://www.zgatl.org/contemplative-group.html


https://www.zgatl.org/ongoing-groups.html


http://www.interfaithci.org/contemplative.html


https://faithallianceofmetroatlanta.org/recent-events/programs-events/ongoing-programs/











Thursday, July 8, 2010

God, Abraham, Isaac and the Akedah


I have recently engaged in a discussion about the famous biblical event that has perturbed many and been discussed and analyzed extensively: The Akedah, the incident where Abraham comes close to sacrificing his son Isaac at God’s direction, only to be stopped at the last minute by an angel of God. In addition to the traditional lauding of Abraham for passing this test with unquestioning faith, all kinds of discussions focus on why God would play such a mind-game with Abraham, why Abraham would even consider that this was in fact a genuine command from God, and what about the traumatic effect on poor Isaac? Some discuss that at the time, it was common for human sacrifice to be practiced, and even though Abraham was forging in a new spiritual direction, he might not have considered it so odd for such a request to be made. The lesson was that from that point forward, part of the new spiritual direction would be the cessation of human sacrifice, that animal sacrifice would suffice.


This is my take/revelation about the akedah incident: I generally look below the surface for the figurative lesson that lies behind the literal story (if you are not familiar with the PARDES approach to studying scripture, you should Google it). What is most striking to me about this story is that God was asking Abraham to sacrifice his future, his legacy, his chance at eternal life/immortality, which was all embodied in his son, Isaac. It was very close to God asking Abraham to kill himself, it was just a generation removed; he was asking Abraham to sacrifice/kill/annihilate his future. Why? Because the future, legacy, eternal life/immortality sometime later are all bogus! To be immersed in the PRESENT is the only thing that really exists and the only portal to Eternity NOW. God was asking for the ultimate sacrifice in order for Abraham to have the ultimate revelation that all that ever exists is The Eternal NOW (with apologies to Eckhart Tolle). Then he can have it all, the lower animal nature of a ram will do for the sacrifice (because the lower animal nature constantly needs to be sacrificed) and Isaac can live.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

awesome blog, do you have twitter or facebook? i will bookmark this page thanks. jasmin holzbauer

Steve Gold said...

Thanks for the comment. You can find me on facebook, although I don't use it much. You are welcome and encouraged to post other comments or questions on this blog.