Insight of the Week: G-d’s Wrath

Each day we say in the Shema, that if we follow alien gods, “G-d’s wrath will burn against you and He will stop the heavens, so there will not be rain…”

Statements like these in the Torah can easily be misunderstood. G-d can be perceived as a Lord of wrath who waits to punish us for every wrongdoing.

G-d is love. G-d loves you unconditionally. Nothing you do or don’t do can destroy or even dampen that love. The core of your being is pure, holy, good, perfect, one with the essence of all existence. Your Being is cherished and loved by G-d, because it is part of G-d. G-d never “punishes” you because He hates you, or because He wants revenge, or because He wants to “show you” whose boss, or because He is upset that you disobeyed Him; rather, He challenges you in order to bring out the best in you, to help you discover your essence, and to achieve your mission in life.

If you read the words of the Shema in the original Hebrew it actually says, “G-d’s intense passion will burn in you.” This means that G-d craves that you see yourself as He does. All of our mistakes come from the fact that we do not appreciate who we really are and what we are capable of. He wants His intense passion to burn in our hearts that we experience ourselves and the world around us from His perspective, so that you would be permeated with His passion for what it means to live.