The Heart of Heaven…

In our Torah for this week (i.e., Vaetchanan), Moses recalled the awesome revelation of the Torah at Sinai, describing how the mountain “burned with fire unto the heart of heaven” (בּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ עַד־לֵב הַשָּׁמַיִם) when the Ten Commandments were inscribed upon the two tablets of testimony: “And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire unto the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone” (Deut. 4:11-13).

The sages say that the tablets represented a heart, as it says, “write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov. 3:3), and God’s word is likened to a fire that reveals the great passion of God’s heart for us (Jer. 23:29; Deut. 4:24). Tragically, the two tablets were smashed after the people lost sight of the heart of heaven (לב שמים), and therefore God requires a broken heart – teshuvah – to behold his glory once again. Therefore we see that Yeshua died of a broken heart upon the cross for our return to God, when the fire of his passion burned unto the very heart of heaven, and in his mesirat ha’nefesh we see the greater glory of God… May we, then, readily take hold of his passion and never forsake his love and truth.

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