Two Hebrew Words, Jesus, and Your Pet

Continued from yesterday…

Let’s start today’s post with a fascinating ancient Jewish concept. Stay with me here, because this brief and puzzling bit of information is mostly for the ancient literature nerds.

The Hebrew word for one is ehad, and the word for love is ahavah. In mystical numerology (gematriyya), each Hebrew letter has a numerical value.

     The gematriyya of ehad is the sum of its individual letters:
     1 (alef) + 8 (het) + 4 (dalet) = 13.
     The gematriyya of ahavah is 1 (alef) + 5 (heh) + 2 (bet) + 5 (heh) = 13.
     As you can see, oneness and love are equivalent.
     Together ehad and ahavah add up to 26.

This is the same numerical value assigned to the Jewish holiest divine name: YHVH, the sum of whose letters (10+5+6+5) also equals 26. God is oneness and love.

In the Christian tradition, Jesus gives us some practical examples of what that connection between oneness and love looks like. For example, Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourself. Notice the precision of his language: he didn’t tell us to love them as much as we love ourselves, but to actually love them as if they were us.

Another time, Jesus told his followers that what you do to the “least of these” you do unto me. The Father was in Jesus, and Jesus was in the prisoners, the strangers, the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, and the sick.

The point is that love and oneness are inextricably connected. Love is the invisible energy-field of the universe. It’s the essence of the divine presence within us that moves us toward awareness of our shared union.

Every movement toward unity, whether it’s with our children, pets, friends, partners, neighbors, or even our enemies, is a moment of awakening to the divine essence of love that rests within us. It’s the divine manifesting through form, revealing our oneness.

To be continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 1 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren