Time To Consider the Essential

Time to Consider What is Essential

As the viral pandemic of 2020 reached American shores, certain clear actions were required. Life is worth living, so it must be preserved! Those in positions of public responsibility bear the weight of decision-making. Our survival depends on their just policies. How would human lives be best safe-guarded? How would vital services necessary for our well-being be maintained while simultaneously curtailing public gatherings? A virus needs time to spread from person to person, ensuring its deadly existence.

The term “essential services” was wisely coined and implemented. The President and many state governors put their citizens “on pause” for an indefinite duration. Would your job be deemed as essential? Would what you like to do be considered essential? Will your past-times vanish? When the future of humanity on planet earth is at stake, these measures must be rightly taken.

So, sporting events, religious services, schools, and all non-essential activities were to cease. Who would have ever dreamed that this would be possible? The frantic pace of almost 7 billion lives is now interrupted. Can we now consider what is most essential in life? What are the consequences if we don’t use this God-given time wisely? This does not have to be the end of the world, but rather the dawning of a new era!

When my 60s generation was undergoing character formation, there were many things that we deemed essential which would now be considered as non-essential distractions to our global survival. Many of us could not be poured into the prescribed 9-to-5 work-a-day regimen. The American Dream of success, comfort, and security did not fit us like a glove. What deeply drew us was the call to find peace and love, to find the key to the door that opened up a nourishing life. In our idealistic search for Utopia, many pitfalls awaited. What was required of us, but was sadly lacking, were ears to hear and eyes to see what makes for peace. With almost blind eyes we groped for the reality of this song from the musical “Hair”…

Where do I go to follow the rainbow?
Where do I go to follow my heart?
Where (and who) is that someone who tells me why I live and die?
(James Rado and Jerome Ragni 1967)

Scions Are Essential to the New Age

Those who decide to seize this moment of time will qualify as scions, much as runners qualify for a marathon through their wise choices. What now awaits all is the chance to escape the spiritual virus of this age, which is selfishness. There was a man who actually lived his short life with prudence — the ability to foresee the trap of a “non-essential life.” Yahshua, the Messiah of the Scriptures, walked on this earth in the midst of war, pestilence, and loneliness. His every step was guided by love — the love of his heavenly Father, who is love.

The cause that burned in his heart was set aflame by the prophets of old. He came to restore the things that really matter. Through his words and his daily example he taught that all that is actually necessary is that we serve others first, being a foretaste of the age to come, when all selfishness will have been eradicated from the Earth. Those that follow his path, the Ancient Way, circumvent the trap of self…

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:38-40)

To Yahshua, seeking one’s own desires was a waste of breath. But to truly love your neighbor as yourself, you have to live together in community as the first disciples did in Acts 2:44.

We in the Twelve Tribes are taking advantage of this opportunity of extra time to consider what is truly essential. We closed our Yellow Deli cafés for the ancient Biblical festival of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. We removed the leaven from our houses, and searched our souls for the spiritual “leaven” — thoughts that separate us from one another, just as physical leaven produces gas that puffs up a loaf of bread. Leaven separates the wheat particles, but gluten holds them together, just as love holds us together in the face of any and all fears.

Living merely for self-fulfillment produces shallowness of character. But Yahshua, a man of valor, said, “The Kingdom of God suffers violence, and violent men will seize it for themselves.” That force of spirit to put selfishness to death and seize every opportunity to love can only found in a meek and humble people. They will stand together through all the plaques, both physical and spiritual, that are coming upon the Earth in these last days. That is the people we aspire to become.

Only Yahshua’s love in the heart of a people overcomes the emptiness of this age. Come and visit us when this plague is past. We are building a nation of love for you.

~Melevav