[Jewish] [Mindful Torah] Psalm for Tuesday: Psalm 82, verse 6

[Rabbi Steven Nathan]

 אני אמרתי אלהים אתם ובני עליון כלכםI said that you are gods; all of
you are children of the Most High.
My commentary on Verse 5 concluded: "When we acknowledge the reality of
Oneness...we know that [even] in those moments of uncertainty, we will
not be stumbling in the dark. Instead, we will know that we are
supported in those moments. The Divine, as made manifest in our fellow
human beings, will be there to guide and support us at every turn."
When we acknowledge the Oneness of the universe and live our lives free
from the forces of the ego and the self, in that moment we are not only
beings created in God's image, but we are as gods! This concept would
sound heretical were it not taken directly from the psalm.
The psalmist could have written that we were "like gods" or "in God's
image", but the Hebrew clearly states אלהים אתם - elohim atem "you are
gods." The word for gods אלהים elohim is usually simply translated
as "God." However, there are instances in the psalms and elsewhere in
the Bible where the word, which is actually written in a plural form,
is used to denote "other gods" (of the other nations) as compared to
the One God.
There are also times when it has been translated as "divine beings",
but I believe that is because translators have been afraid to
acknowledge that on some level our Biblical ancestors may have still
believe that there were "other gods", even though our God was THE God.
Even if that is not the case, the word still refers to the fact that
other nations believed in other Gods, even if we didn't. But in this
psalm, we do believe in other gods; these gods are each of us, when we
live up to our potential and live life as part of the Oneness of the
Universe.
In reality, this is not heresy at all. For what the verse says is that,
when we acknowledge that we are part of God and that God is a part of
us, then we are gods ourselves. We are not God per se. However, just as
the soul is the part of God within us, or that within that connects us
to the One, so too each of us becomes a part of God (a god,
intentionally with a lower case g) within humanity and that which
connects the world to its Divine essence. It is then as is if each of
us is the soul of the universe or of humanity.
This is an awesome responsibility, as well as a blessing and a
privilege. It is also something that reminds us that we are
indeed "children of the Most High." This refers not only to the idea
that God is "higher" than all else, but that we become children of our
highest potential as human beings. We reach the pinnacle of existence
at the moment when we feel and act as part of the One. But rather than
causing us to think that we are better or separate from all else, as
the ego wants us to believe, we are most aware at these moments that we
are part of everyone and everything else and that they are a part of
us.
This is the true blessing of being children of the Most High. This is
the true blessing of being, as it were, gods walking through life
bringing goodness, blessing, compassion and joy to the our universe.



--
Posted By Rabbi Steven Nathan to Mindful Torah at 6/01/2010 12:01:00 AM
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.hampshire.edu/pipermail/jewish/attachments/20100531/566f57d2/attachment.htm>