JEWISH WISDOM
Jul 05, 2006 07:54 AM
by carlosaveline
JEWS, TRUTHFULNESS & PATIENCE
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Dear Friends,
In its deeper aspects, Judaism has the same universal wisdom present in the best parts of other religions and philosophies.
For instance, members of a Jewish community followed a course of instruction laid out by their teacher, Moses Cordovero, in the Kabbalah tradition. (1)
It consisted of 13 points:
1) Forbearance in the face of insult.
2) Patience in enduring evil.
3) Pardon to the point of erasing the evil suffered.
4) Total identification with one’s neighbor.
5) Complete absence of anger, combined with apropriate action.
6) Mercy, to the point of recalling only the good qualities of one’s tormentor.
7) Eliminating all traces of vengefulness.
8) Forgetting suffering inflicted on oneself by others and remembering the good.
9) Compassion for the suffering without judging them.
10) Truthfulness.
11) Mercy beyond the letter of the Law with the good.
12) Assisting the wicked to improve without judging them.
13) Remembering all human beings always in the innocence of their infancy.
To these 13 points, I would only add a couple of sentences by H. P. Blavatsky, as a commentary to the item 10, “Truthfulness”.
She wrote:
“Our motto was from the first ‘THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH’. Truth we search for, and, once found, we bring it before the world, whencesoever it comes. (2)
Best regards, Carlos.
NOTES:
(1) “The Teachings of the Jewish Mystics”, Compiled and Edited by Perle Besserman, Shambhala Inc., Boston & London, 1998, 150 pp., see p. 46.
(2) “Collected Writings”, H. P. Blavatsky, TPH, Adyar/Wheaton, Volume IX, p. 7.
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