Shemot: Chapter 50

Does Hashem have a sword?

Synopsis

Rabbi Aba and Rabbi Yitzchak discourse on the sword of God, by which He executes Justice. The verse that describes the angel of God, who stands "with a drawn sword in his hand," signifies that he was granted permission to execute Judgment. The words of the Angel of Death, "and I will reveal their place of slaughter," refer to the disclosure of the sin that is the cause of death. Finally, the verse, "And he put up his sword again into its sheath," signifies the return of the permission to execute Judgment to the Judge to whom it belongs, God.

Relevance

The souls of humanity deeply desired in the beginning the opportunity to express their inherited Godly trait that allows them to become the cause and creators of their own fulfillment. Accordingly, free will was the necessary feature to allow man the possibility of truly earning his happiness. For this reason, time was brought into existence to separate and distance cause from effect. Namely, if man was instantly rewarded each time he opposed his evil urge, he would transform his behavior at once. Likewise, if man experienced judgment the moment he committed a misdeed, he would immediately refrain from such behavior.

Animals will curb their behavior when there is an immediate reprimand or reward, but a human being's soul is of a much higher grade. Thus, rewards and punishments are delayed, through time, to create the illusion of injustice and disorder. Under this scenario, one must now strive with great effort to resist temptation and conquer one's evil impulses. One must work hard to acquire deep wisdom and evolve acute insight so that one may perceive the underlying order beneath the chaos. One must exert tremendous effort to learn the spiritual laws of life in order to recognize the cause and effect relationship that exists in our world. This is how human beings become the cause of their own fulfillment.

The Creator, respecting this desire for free will and our need to become the cause of our Light, implanted time and the law of cause and effect into this world when it was created. Each time we sin (the cause), an equal measure of judgment will be decreed against us (the effect) by the natural laws of the universe. When our misdeeds become so great over the course of our life, the judgments reach a critical mass, and death becomes the ultimate effect.

This is the underlying meaning behind the phrase "the sword of the Creator is full of blood." God permits the natural universal laws of cause and effect to exact their toll upon humanity so that each one of us may earn and merit the infinite Light that is our destiny. However, thousands of years of judgment and suffering have already occurred. Moreover, for the first time in human history, this Holy Book of Zohar and its profound spiritual truths and Light has reached the people. Our time of earning is effectively over.

With the assistance of the Zohar and our own consciousness, we now ignite the Light of the Creator in this world. Time is hereby removed from the cause-and-effect process. We experience immediate Light and joy with each act of kindness, with each good deed. The wicked experience immediate judgment with every negative action. The world undergoes immediate transformation, where Light and immortality are the only reality.