Love did not wish for any part of creation to remain in darkness, so light emissaries were sent to every part of the world, at opportune times, to those people who would be most receptive to their messages of love and oneness. The most charismatic of these emissaries were worshiped as gods or great prophets, while others, who delivered their message quietly in isolated parts of the world, were quickly forgotten. When these divinely inspired messaged were received in their purity, they lit up one of the dark corners of the world; but too often the greedy ones who were usually in power would add their own twists to these messages in order to prevent people from recognizing the divine power within themselves.
The Middle East was one area of the world where the stories of divine messengers were passed down orally from one generation to the next, and eventually recorded on animal skins that could be rolled up into scrolls. One of their earliest messengers was Moses, who gained the ability to communicate directly with Love and to see the Divine Light that is invisible to most people, even though a spark of that Light burns deep inside each of us! Moses discovered his oneness with this pure love energy by spending time as a shepherd alone in the desert where he could meditate and pray. Through his communion with the divine in nature and within himself, Moses learned the importance of relating to all of creation with compassion and love, and the Creator spoke through him to the Hebrew people: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself “ (Leviticus 19:18). Moses knew that the Israelites were not ready to embrace the concept that all people are one, and so he had to give them many laws to enforce the actions that would come naturally to anyone who felt a connection to others.
Like most people who believe in the separateness of all beings from each other and from All-That-Is, the Hebrews could not understand that Moses, being fully conscious of his oneness with Love, spoke to them directly with divine authority. When he tried to describe the Light that exploded with wisdom from within him, they visualized a talking bush that burned with a glorious flame on the mountainside. And when he wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, it was only by letting them believe the words had been written with the finger of God that Moses could make his people understand the divine origin of these laws.
The religion of Judaism grew up around these and other laws that were written down on animal skin scrolls. The Hebrews were not very different from other peoples of the world: they held prejudices against those who were different from them; they resorted to violence to resolve conflicts; and they strove to gain money, position, and prestige, even when it meant trampling on someone else’s rights. This is why they needed many laws to remind them how to behave, and why Love had to keep sending prophets to bring more light to the Hebrews’ understanding of life. These prophets wrote many books, and within their pages are some of the most beautiful images of the Creator’s love for humanity, and the Divine promises that new heavens and a new earth will someday erase all memory of this world where sorrow, sickness, and sin are allowed to exist. Micah, who wrote one of the last books of the Hebrew Scriptures, summed up Love’s message in these words: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 7:8)
Love’s angels rejoiced that these and many other words of wisdom were recorded on scrolls and later copied meticulously into the world’s first bound books. “But why did they have to add so many of their own ideas?” the angels asked each other in exasperation. “Just look at the twentieth chapter of Leviticus! What were the Levites thinking when they wrote: ‘If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. . . . If a man takes a wife and her mother also, it is depravity; they shall be burned to death, both he and they, that there may be no depravity among you.’ How could they write such things while claiming Love to be the author?”
The books of the Hebrew Scriptures were written over many centuries and the angels watched as they were written, sighing and commiserating with one another over all of the violence and vengeance, and the oppression of women; but smiling when the scribes got Love’s instructions right: that all should live with compassion toward one another.
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