Tzvi Freeman

"We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life" (Ephesians 2:10). "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, having always enough in everything, may abound to every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8).

By following the commandments of Christ, which are love, we live in a way that extends God's redemption to the world. The sixteenth-century Rabbi Isaac Luria spoke of finding the sparks of the Divine in all things and Saint Maximus the Confessor spoke of the LOGOI which are embodied in and come from the Divine LOGOS and dwell in the things of the created order. According to Saint Maximus, the LOGOI express Themselves in the ordering, structuring, and various dynamic movements of created beings, such as the expansion, contraction, and progression of all created things. By means of self-purification through ascetical struggle with the assistance of Grace, we are enabled to behold and contemplate the rationales of the LOGOI and cooperate with the movements of the Divine Will (רצון) and Directive (תורה), so, like a Bride (כלה) toward Her Bridegroom (חתן), the Church (הקהל) advances with all creation toward the consummation (הכלה) of all things in Christ (משיח), Who is the Culmination (הנצח הנצחים).… (more)