Whichever way you look at it, Fear and Love or backwards, Love and Fear, it is an experience of high emotional feeling, all the six senses are active, the hormones secretions from the glands escalate, you be in a tizzy of passion, desire, bent over in a bow, and "kneeling three times a day" as is required, it so says in The Chumash, Jewish Bible.
There are three Festivals we must attend at a Temple per year: Three??? Yes, three: Shavuot, Passover, Sukkot. Three? Dial the number three anytime during this message. How can we change the number three into a friend? Capitalize it: THREE. And use the numerical system: 3. The letter 3, is E turned backwards. E as in Equation. E as in Equal. E as in Excitement. E as in EL. EL being a way to say God.
What is LOVE? Love is belovedness, sweetness, care and concern, a kiss, holding hands, shaking the hands of a fellow, a high five, building a snowman with the kids, an Eskimo fort, buying a new dog from the shelter, feeding the birds, Red Cardinals, Bluebirds, a birdbath for them both to meet. Eating blueberries in one's oatmeal. Going to a spa with your friends. Love is goodness and GREATNESS. As GREATNESS, love is affection. To be fond of someone. To be proud of your kids. To be selfless in your love for your family. To take your high school graduate to different colleges for him to choose where he would like to study. A University of IL in the south farmlands, and also a sister-school University of IL in the big city of Chicago.
So, then we're with you. Then what is FEAR? Fear is Halloween! Comes once a year. A pagan holiday, to be approached by an AIDS victim in his sexual pursuit. This is real FEAR. To must fight for your life if a beggar/thief demands your purse. This is fear, yes, to lose your cellphone, to have someone use it when you no longer have it and they dial out of the country, and it goes on your bill. To must leave your home because your boyfriend is abusing you domestically. To need the safety of a Shelter for the Abused, to eat their pig slop everyday, to have excruciating pains in one's stomach. To sleep at night with a bowl of rat poison "food", next to one's pillow. To be chosen as the one there who brings all the garbage (ten bags) to the dumpster to compress it. Large black plastic garbage bags. To try as you might to get out of there. To find another place to live. Not to end up in a jail, a prison, for stealing a loaf of bread, there to sleep on a cot, with a smelly never-cleaned toilet bowl at your headrest.
If we say we love and fear our Lord, we are sated, it is not like loving or fearing others in other situations when the love may not be returned. The Lord loves and fears us back, so we always have requited emotions, His emotion for us to mimic and we can choose which one, love or fear, in which of these mind states we would like to be.
To have the help of beautiful sing-song Hebrew language words, straight from The Torah, living Words with melodic tropes. Hebrew words we like as we pray and meditate, so these words bring us the love we need as we use them to speak love to God.
Words like what? Mercy, lovingkindness, strength, understanding, truth, beauty, charity, compassion, empathy, sympathy, honorableness, dignity, appreciation, thankfulness, meditation, mega-thinking, prophesy, mental telepathy, prayer, blessing, philosophy, highly powered hearing, speaking, singing, chanting.
The use of these afore-mentioned words to be sung in song, to be chanted with other members of one's Minyan (Jewish prayer group), to feel the love and courage of one's Rabbi and other minyan members, to feel the almighty power of the LOVE and FEAR of our Sovereign. Our LORD. To love God in return.
Mourning? No, morning. A GOOD morning. How can we capitalize GOOD, without a GOD? Are there churches without a God? Yes, there is the Unitarian Church whose members don't worship a God, instead they are politically active and do social reform. So, yes, good, but not GREAT.
"Tom and Jerry" a cat and a mouse, watching this cat catch this mouse on TV. In a high chair, yellow upholstered, high off the ground.
Like to be in a theater, to watch Gilligan's Island. A Skipper who is fat and a young man who is childlike, he is Gilligan, always tripping up. A rich man and his wife, an actress, a small ship that did not sink, but crashed on a desert island. No one, not a plane or bird, yes! It's Superman! Clark Kent. Used to be, now he's saving lives. All the Commandments of the Torah may be broken if a life is at stake, to break the rules if it saves a life. So CPR? Bringing the dead back to life? Yes, it is legal.
Mommy! Is there anything to eat? Gerber's baby foods, in a glass (purified) jar with a turning metal lid popped airtight, to have a little kids' Sterling silver spoon, to chase it like an airplane or bird as it flies into your open mouth. Begging Mommy like a birdie. The newborn birds of a Cardinal's nest, to watch the male Cardinal colorful feed his mate a female Cardinal muted colors, butterflies flitting everywhere, white, yellow, red and black Monarchs, dragonflies. Flying on by, not to chase you, nothing to fear.
A Huge Monstrous Ape Man Gorilla. But not a Megillah Gorilla. Why not a Megillah? Because there are no such things as ghosts. Really? Yes, ghosts cannot be proven scientifically. But we like them so we want to keep them? Sure. An imagination? Yes, scientifically some brains are keener than other brains, and have greater imaginary powers, more ghosts and thus more creativity.
To keep a Higher Power, then? Purposely to do social reform, to research the sciences? But also to have ghosts? Okay. Flying as high as our Higher Power, sliding down Jacob's Ladder. Four chair legs, not three. But we like three!!! So be it, then just call me "ME".
What are you wearing today? Do you pick out a new clothing outfit everyday? Do you wear the same clothes, a uniform everyday? The Torah says that the same clothes worn everyday instills fear into the viewer of these same clothes. A police officer or courtroom judge? Someone who wears the same clothes everyday whom you fear?
The color of clothes? The Torah says that blue, purple and red-dyed wool are the clothes' colors of the Priests of olden times. Yes, red. There is a red color called Crimson Red, which is like a reddish hot pink in a deep red color. This red was worn by Jewish Priests, red is an ancient color (and is not only a Christian color), Jews wore red before there were any such people as Christians. We wore red in BCE. Before Common Era and now in CE Common Era.
This purple? The Proverbs by King Solomon, son of King David, encourage women to wear the color purple everyday. We also can wear white everyday. Hence, the white uniforms of doctors and nurses. White, celibacy, holiness, the saving of lives in Medical Science. A pharmacist's white clothing, he helps you by giving you your medicine. The 6 pointed star of the security guard, worn on all their clothing everyday pinned to their chest.
Blue? There was a snail in olden times that secreted a blue dye color. There were farms of these snails, that is where the blue color was manufactured in BCE. These snails are now extinct. The sky is a beautiful blue, the oceans, waters are a gorgeous blue, the throne of our Lord is a Sapphire blue and gold, there is navy blue in our USA flags we fly as we fight across the blue seas in defense of our country, our legal rights, to keep our flag flying as we continue to live and fight those who are against us.
We have a combination of types of threads, the material in our clothing that is called Sha'atnez. Sha'atnez is a Hebrew transliteration of a word that means a mixture of lamb's wool and linen together in one garment of clothing. This combo is against the rules of Judaism, not to be worn, except by the Priests. The Kohen and Levi Priests. To check the materials of the clothing you buy, to make sure it is not a combo of linen and wool.
All the colors of the rainbow? Sure! Why not! In a prayer shawl? Beautiful! More power to you. How lovely, how wonderful!
To get to know a Rabbi, to be a member of a synagogue with a Rabbi. What are we expected to follow, is there a special protocol to obey as we become close, in good standing with our Rabbi at our Temple? What does he expect from you and what can you expect from him. And why?
In the Mishnah Torah, written by Rabbi Maimonides, it says never to turn your back on a Rabbi even when just walking away, to step backwards, not to ever give your Rabbi your back. I spoke to a Rabbi concerning this Maimonides rule, and she said it was excessive. That she would never mind if someone walked away from her. But, I understand the reasoning for his statement. To always protect, obey, respect, honor, and trust your Rabbi, not to turn away your heart from his words, his design for you as his pupil. A Torah student, a pupil of the Torah, the deep pupils of a Rabbi's eyes. Never to betray him.
To give your Rabbi a gift? How sweet! Some gift for him and his wife, his wife who we call our Rebbitzen. But, to ask first if they want it, so you are not giving them something they cannot use or do not want. To bestow an object of great beauty for them, maybe a book? Maybe some jewelry? Are you an artist? Can you paint them a picture? Write them a poem? Some thing they both would appreciate and adore.
If not to directly give the Rabbi a gift, but to donate money towards the operating expenses of the Temple building. To donate this money in Honor of the Rabbi and Rebbitzen.
To ask your Rabbi to perform funeral services or a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for your loved ones. A wedding? To have a beautiful wedding under a canopy in a park garden or in a Temple.
To have a Naming Celebration for your new born girl baby. To have a Brit Mila, [circumcize] your baby boy, eight days after he is born.
To ask a Rabbi to give you "The Priestly Blessing" in front of the congregation on a Friday Shabbat evening. To look deeply constantly into his dark peaceful brown eyes as he holds your shoulders and recites the blessing, as God goes into your souls as his eyes penetrate yours, captivated. To listen to him speak his beautiful Hebrew as he bestows holiness upon you, and to therefore understand this Greatness of the Hebrew God.
Can we shake the hand of a Rabbi? The females cannot shake the hands of a male Orthodox Rabbi. Why not? Because he usually has a wife. A female Conservative or Reform Rabbi? Conservative or Reform male Rabbi? Sure, they shake the hands of anyone who comes as a friend, not a foe.
What is the secret? How can a person be both good and great?
To be able to express love to a family member and also to be a corporate business owner, a doctor, or PhD student? To be able to study Finance or Accounting and still schmooze with people who you love, not just like. Is it possible to turn on and off this love, so you do not have love when it is unrequited?
What can we do to love only those who love us back, to communicate with those who love all the time, never turning off this true love, so they are never without affection, stimulation, compassion, desire, lovingkindness, truth, fondness, wonderment, real true love, as it is because they have a friend (as a God), even if it is just a pet rock, to have a friend and to feel this love, in order to be a friend to someone to express to them this love.
To meet them on their own terms, to love when you are with them, and then when you are without them to have common sense, to get back to work, to put love aside, to accomplish, meet goals, have achievement.
To look to these loving people for a boost, to gain confidence, to have a cheering squad, a cheer leader. People who believe in you and say so, requited love, to therefore love them back.
After feeling this love for others and them for you, to then apply this love to our one and only God. To love God and to praise Him, to love only Yah. To in this way, feel the greatness of true love, and getting there one step at a time, to indulge in this Oneness, to create love, true love, from everything you feel, read, taste, see, hear, remember.
To follow the path to righteousness, to know all the rules and not to ever break even one. To love this goodness that becomes Greatness. To love goodness with a Great heart.
