This article was originally published in 2016.
This week’s portion opens with Moses pleading to the Creator. It says that Moses prays 515 different ways, begging to be allowed to finish the job that he started in Egypt and to enter into the Holy Land. Yet, the Creator tells Moses that he cannot enter into the Holy Land; for the energy of Moses was so powerful that it would have transformed anything negative into positive, and the nature of people in this world is that anything we do not work for, we cannot appreciate. The Israelites throughout the generations would have to do the work of creating a more positive world on their own. This, in and of itself, is a powerful lesson.
"Anything we do not work for, we cannot appreciate."
However, it also poses the question: What was Moses so afraid of that he had to pray 515 ways to the Creator? Surely it couldn’t have been that Moses was afraid to die. Moses was like a son to the Creator. They spoke like friends, and so there is no way we can believe that Moses wanted so much to remain in his physical body, or to stay in this physical world.
The Zohar reveals that what Moses feared in not entering the Holy Land… was losing his connection to the Light of the Creator.
Most of the time, when we pray, we ask for health, sustenance, or other such blessings. Maybe we pray that the deal we are working on manifests or that we’ll get the phone call we’ve been waiting for, the answer we’ve been seeking, or the miracle we think that we need. But how often do we pray for a closer connection to the Creator?
"How often do we pray for a closer connection to the Creator?"
It’s perfectly okay to pray for the things we want and need, but what we learn this week is that the most powerful prayer of all is to ask for closeness. After all, to be close to God would incorporate any of the other blessings we might seek. What the Creator wants for us is so much more than we could ever want for ourselves.
This week, let’s place our attention towards asking to be close to the Creator, because the energy to elevate our consciousness for this desire is available to us. So before you go to that important meeting, instead of asking for the outcome you seek, simply pause and ask the Light to join you. If someone looks to you for advice, before you give your thoughts, ask that it be not just your words, but also the Light that you share.
Of course, sometimes we can become so busy in our day to day lives that we don’t have the time to pause and meditate before making a call, or taking a meeting. This is why I begin each day with a prayer to help me in making this connection:
“Dear God, please make my thoughts your thoughts. Make my eyes see what You see. Make my mouth utter only the words that You wish for me to speak. Open my heart to love all people the way that You do. Make my hands be hands that share more than they take, and make my body a vehicle to do the work that I came to this world to accomplish. Dear God, make me not just a vessel for your Light, but a channel. In all my interactions today, let it not be my thoughts, words and energy that is shared, but your Light. For it is only from the Light of the Creator that great wisdom and understanding can be given, and that great miracles can occur.”
