Matot, מַּטּוֹת  "Tribes"  Numbers 30:2-32:42  /  Masei, מַסְעֵי   "Journeys"  Numbers 33:1-36:13

Chosen

Poetic notes on the double Torah Portion of Matot-Masei*

Forty-two journeys

Forty-two lessons learned

Forty-two journeys from the Exodus to Today

Today, if you hear His Voice…

In the beginning God created...

Inside the beginning,

Masei, 42 journeys of time

Until all Israel is standing as one person 

at the eastbank of Eden

Outside the beginning, 

Matot,  tribes who cling to Hashem 

inside and outside the beginning

Inside the beginning

Where if you cross the Jordan to fight for repentance,

you can cross over the bridge to outside the beginning

Outside the beginning

where there is only the word of God commanding

the heaven and earth that is not, to be

Outside the beginning

the beginning is everywhere the same 

The Spirit of God is hovering everywhere upon the surface

The Utterance of God is everywhere sustaining all

and anointing the Mashiach of the Holy Land 

at the heart of the beginning inside,

in the land of Zion and in the six cities of refuge

Forty-two journeys just to get to Jericho

The Jericho of more love

than man or woman know

Jericho across the Jordan in the Almighty’s Chosen Land

This is the way God loved the world,

He chose a home and its fields

He chose a place

in which to raise a chosen people,

to create a greater love

than man or woman know

Give neither glance nor ear

to the showy bully pulpit of sin

It will pull you in

to a gravity well of false fear and negativity

Soul consciousness built on self-reference 

is the yetzer, Yetzer haTov and Yetzer haRa

Your inclination to God’s good, or to the Other Side

Your inclination is good in its place

But it is evil when leaving its place

to try to sit in the place of God, and say,

“I think therefore I am and all is one with me”

The commandment of God corrects the yetzer hara

The commandment of God

seals a refined soul-consciousness, to enable it to say,

“I am commanded by God, therefore I am

just as he defines and judges me to be” 

I will obey his word

I will not use the consciousness built on self-reference,

which he gives to me,

to commit idolatry

Meditate humbly on the lovely spirit

Mirror the lovely spirit in your other

Mirror the lowly spirit of divinity

This is the divine liberty

given to you in God’s commandment

To give preference to your other

is the freedom of your choice

If you give preference to yourself

your soul will lose the freedom in its voice

Exodus set the tribes of Israel free

to live life conscientiously

At Mount Sinai, God told Moshe:

"Prepare for the third day"

It will carry you on your way with forty-two stops for rest

along your long journey's day

There is a way that seems right to the human brain,

but it leads the other way, convincingly 

along the single way of death

Like a flock of sheep we have all gone astray

Prepare on the third day for the third way,

the way that moves from death to the reframe of  life

(Maintain this perspective:

The serpent has no legs)

The Jew is a single entity,

a wrapped up package of hope

Hope is born somewhere in the cities of refuge,

three on the west bank and three on the east bank of the Jordan,

lacing together the world of  worlds in one Israel,

one Jew, one hope

On the third day

Moshe received the third way

Walk with the tsitsit of Torah

through the standing waves

Neither death nor Jordan waters will defeat you

Come see the sounds and hear the sights!

Come enter the Land of Shavuot!

Each tribe of Israel is a keeper of prayer

Every tribe of the earth is put in their care

Each boundary they frame reveals God's name

Come to Zion, the grand city of refuge

Make peace with the avenger of blood

Vows and curses can yet be nullified

The High Priest who died can be justified

The beginning on the inside

had been touched with the spin of sin

But the mitzvah was done

The scales of time were then rebalanced

It remained for the beginning from the outside to be touched 

in order for the beginning to begin again without sin

Moshe’s anger has subsided

The spoils of Midian will be divided

The dirt of death can be washed away

in the Eastern Promised Land

Gad and Reuben and half of Manasseh desired to inherit

the secret of the chosen land

Hear the harp’s thunder and the secret song:

Behold the mission of creation:

Heaven and earth were made,

and their song was sorrow and darkness

They were not and then they were,

but they felt only tohu and bohu,

chaos, entropy and confusion,

and darkness at the navel of their belly

Then a divine love voiced a whisper

There was a wind of a softly beating wing above still waters

God whispered to Moshe and said, “Look over Jordan!”

Cities of refuge here, and cities of refuge there!

Compassion is busy being born

It is never dying

Come Reuben, Come Gad 

Come, you half tribe of Manasseh!

There is work for you to do!

Busy love tramples out the wine,

The wine of joy laces every soul together

Shall we do teshuvah?

Shall we dance teshuvah to the Lord?

Repentance shall fill the world with light

We will build twelve Temple gates of prayer,

while Edom builds its prisons wide 

with names of pride

Their mind ascends to the stars

God will blink his eye

and bring their thoughts down to earth

The self-made human and the artificial one 

claim to understand whatever they can measure

They understand time about as well

as they understand love

And yet they confidently say in hearts and schools,

“There is no God”

Is this tolerable? 

It is intolerable, yet God has tolerated it for so long

For God is compassionate toward them until the end

In the end, out of his first compassion,

he is strict in timely judgment 

and makes this to be compassion,

in order that they not be completely unprepared

for the new heaven and the new earth

For the Torah of Mashiach is soon coming,

to touch the beginning from the outside

and stop its spin of sin

This is the glory of his compassion,

the glorious brilliance of his justice,

the bright and living power of his mercy

With the Torah of his mouth,

God is creating from the chosen land of Israel

the new heaven and new earth

And not one hair on one head in heaven or earth

will be found out of place

Bring your broken hearted and your shattered ones

Bring your children who were stolen

Bring your elders who were cast aside,

and your failed groom and your lonely bride

Come to the grand city of refuge,

Come to the High Priest’s  Zion,

built on the foundation of Aaron’s prayer

There is healing there

A guardian of hope will lead you there

The daughters of Zion will nurse your wounds

They will open the door of hope and healing

and seal the door upon the curse

For you will meet every condition

Only from the city of refuge can you ever go home

Only from there

can you be given your divine independence,

Only from there can you come of age,

with forty-two lessons learned

Today, if you hear His voice