“Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit” (Matthew 7:17)

When or if Jesus spoke those words, he spoke them in a Middle Eastern language, Aramaic. In Aramaic and in all the Semitic languages, the word for “good” primarily means ripe, and the word for “corrupt” or “evil” primarily means unripe. When heard with Aramaic ears, those words might sound more like this:
A” ripe tree brings forth ripe fruit, an unripe tree brings forth unripe fruit. “

This makes a world of difference. The tree is not morally bad, but rather unripe: this is not the right time and place for it to bear. The saying gives an example from nature. Rather than imposing an external standard of goodness, the lesson has to do with time and place, setting and circumstance, health and disease. (from intro)

Aramaic and Hebrew have only one preposition that must describe both the relationship “within” (as in “within my interior, emotional life”) and “among” (as in “among my exterior social community”). When “within” and “among” are the same word, then the way in which I treat the different voices within me — my interior “selves” — is always connected to the way I treat my friends, neighbors, and enemies — my exterior “selves.”

In addition, the Greek division of human life into “mind,” “body,” “emotions,” “psyche,” and “spirit” underlies the modern Western view. The Semitic languages do not divide reality in this way. They provide multiple words for the subconscious self, all tied to the communal self. They imply a continuum between what we call spirit and body, not a division.

In Aramaic, the name ALAHA refers to the divine and wherever you read the word “God” in a quote from Yeshua (Jesus), you can insert this word. It means variously: Sacred Unity, Oneness, the All, the Ultimate Power/Potential, the One with no opposite. It is related to the name of God in Hebrew, Elohim, which is based on the same root word: EL or AL. This root could be translated literally as the sacred “The,” since it is also used as the definite article in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.

If we think deeply into this, we find it suggests that every definite “article” — every unique being — should remind us of the one Unity. If only one Being exists, then every other being must have a share in it. Individuality is only relative in this view of God. [page 27]

The Western idea of a”super-natural” event takes for granted that nature is neither conscious nor sacred . In the Middle Eastern view,however, events are always embedded in Sacred Unity, even when we don’t understand their purpose. [page 31]