Midweek Faith Lift
“Unity, Judaism & Quantum Leap Part 2”
October 19, 2023
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Reflection
October 3, 2023
The inventor of duct tape, Vesta Stoudt, had two sons serving in the Navy during World War II, and when she learned that the tape they were using in dangerous settings was inefficient, thus prolonging their exposure, she came up with a solution: a cloth-based waterproof tape, allowing soldiers to complete their work faster and get out of harm’s way. She wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, explaining her idea, who forwarded her idea to the War Production Board in Washington, D.C.
“Ideas are the impulses that make things happen. Every invention, creation, and work of art - and every miracle - begins as an idea. And words are the agents that channel the force of miraculous ideas into the world.” – Todd Michael, Twelve Conditions of a Miracle
Affirmative prayer: A story of ingenuity, creativity, and inventiveness is unfolding in my life. My intentions are fired by trust. My consciousness and my faith are at cause. And my ideas are advancing into effects and conditions. I am blessed, and I am a blessing. Amen. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.
Ingenuity abounds in this story of the invention of duct tape, such a useful household item that is at the heart of innumerable household repairs, right? Our house has no end of “duct tape” fixes that have served us quite well, especially until the actual repair person could get to us! It is an apt metaphor for our continuing exploration of the nature of Judaism and its connection to Unity. Within Judaism, there are numerous stories of God’s faithfulness to the chosen people, the Jews even when they are unfaithful and stray from this primary relationship to God.
Last week we explored the essential nature of God in Judaism, “the Lord, our God, is one,” expressed as “Shemai, Yisrael, Adonai, Elohenu!” The history of Judaism contained in the Hebrew Scripture describes multiple instances where the people stray and the Lord brings them back into right relationship. What is true of Judaism is also true of Unity: “Judaism is more than a religion, it is a relationship between God and his people. In Judaism, that relationship is based on a reciprocal covenant.” Unity and World Religions, p.32. Think of the Covenant as a kind of “spiritual duct tape” if you will. Even as you pull away in your human willfulness, the duct tape of covenant keeps you connected and offers a way back to God or Goodness.
There are some foundational covenants within Judaism, in particular the one God makes with Abraham who becomes the patriarch of the Jewish people. This Covenant signifies the descendants of Abraham as God’s chosen people with the assurance that they will be fruitful and multiply, and they do. The second great covenant story is the story of Moses leading the Jewish people into freedom, into Canaan, the Promised Land which happens after 40 years in the wilderness, just outside the Promised Land. The story of Jewish faithfulness is both individual and collective and even as the Covenants are broken, they are renewed again and again through the understanding of the Law.
As in Unity, the spiritual journey is both collective and individual and about how you live in relation to your inner Christ nature, or higher self. As in Judaism, we have our individual spiritual journey in which we seek to awaken to our higher consciousness. While the Law was given to Moses, and the Lord is Lord of all, each one must find his own understanding to be in right relation to the Law or the Lord. There is no dogma to believe or accept in Unity or in Judaism. It is all about understanding and expressing your Christ Consciousness in Unity or following the teachings of the Law, or Lord, to be in harmony with yourself and all others. Both are very practical spiritual paths available to all.
There is no need for a hierarchy of authority, just a teacher, or Rabbi. The very breath of Spirit, or Ruah, enlivens everything and the covenant with God is ongoing and includes all living beings. As it is written in Jeremiah 31: 33-34
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people….For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
As in Unity, the Truth, the greatest spiritual Truths are within each one of us to discover and express as we become able. Spiritual teachers and ministers are to hold the space and the light for that discovery to unfold just as the Rabbi does. We seek to understand and allow that Power of Spirit to unfold within and through us as we learn how to be with one another and live in peace and wholeness.
There is a mystical tradition within Judaism of the Kabbalah, which invokes the spark of divinity in all of humankind. This is very similar to our 2nd Unity principle which holds to the spark of divinity is everyone. Rev. Paul notes the writings of a Kabbalist Moses Cordovero on p. 33 of Unity and World Religions:
The essence of divinity is found in every single thing-nothing but it exists. Since it causes everything to be—no thing can live by anything else. It enlivens them; its existence is in each existence.
That could be written by a Unity author and teacher for sure! And as we noted last week, there is no Satan as a separate entity within Judaism.
Satan is literally a character in the stories of the Hebrew Scripture and is only mentioned 4 times! Satan is described as a servant of the Lord and is an adversary or opponent. Satan is the personification of negative thinking, ignorance or darkness or as Charles Fillmore described it, “error thinking,” and as such has no real power. We are truly spiritually akin to Judaism!
In Unity, we also understand the formative power of thought as noted in the third Unity Principle, what we call the Law of Mind/Heart action. What is true for the Jewish people is that the covenant relationship is one of reciprocity and there are consequences for failing to maintain the relationship. When the Jewish people think they no longer need to attend to what the Lord tells them, then they suffer greatly as a result. Cities are wiped out, such as Sodom and Gomorrah and the flood story of Noah. The Prophets in the Hebrew Scripture serve a very specific purpose to remind the Jewish people to be faithful to the Lord and to point out when they are not faithful warning what might happen as a result.
This reminds me very specifically of the teaching in Unity that we are not punished for our sins, but by them as we experience a sense of separation from God or from our Christ Consciousness. We have moved away, God never moves away, even when it may feel like that. God is always faithful to the relationship or covenant with us as divine/human beings.
It is interesting to note that Charles and Myrtle Fillmore also wrote a Dedication and Covenant with God at the start of their Unity journey. It reads as follows:
We, Charles Fillmore and Myrtle Fillmore, husband and wife, hereby dedicate ourselves, our time, our money, all we have and all we expect to have, to the Spirit of Truth, and through it, to the Society of Silent Unity.
It being understood and agreed that the said Spirit of Truth shall render unto us an equivalent for this dedication, in peace of mind, health of body, wisdom, understanding, love, life and an abundant supply of all things necessary to meet every want without making any of these things the object of our existence.
In the presence of the Conscious Mind of Christ Jesus, this 7th day of December A.D. 1892.
Charles Fillmore
Myrtle Fillmore
Just as the ancient Jewish tradition is rooted in a Covenant with Spirit, we too, in Unity are grounded in the covenantal relationship that our founders acknowledged at the start of Unity as a formal spiritual path.
Likewise, within the Jewish tradition there is a practice of Tikkun which means establishing and making right, or setting it right. In the Kabbalist tradition, this became tikkun olam or a mending or repairing of the world, a polishing of the world. We have our 5th Unity principle which tells us that we have to put our spiritual principles into practice in our everyday life for there to be any impactful growth in consciousness for us or the world. Our own Eric Butterworth taught that we first pray to “see things right” and then we can set them right.
It is no wonder that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked arm in arm with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr in the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. Rabbi Heschel said he felt as though his feet were praying as he was marching. It is truly an example of tikkum olam, repairing the world. It is also an illustration of what the words of the prophet, Micah truly mean: “He has told you, O mortal what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
May it be so as we learn to walk together in peace and polish the world and celebrate the spiritual duct tape that holds us all together.
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb