Cleaving to God in his Name releases into resounding union with God through his Name. The cleaving, devekut, transfigures the human spirit with the deifying resonance of divine life, as it is written, “But you that did cleave to ‘I AM’ your God, are alive every one of you this day” (Deut 4:4). Christ transmits the Name ‘I AM,’ as resounding way, truth and life. (John 14: 6). So to cleave to ‘I AM’ is to abide in Christ as resounding way, opening through him to resounding truth, resonating with him in eternal life. Our divine-human life is then one with his as resonant, timeless life, ‘I AM’ as way and truth, opening to truth as way. Name hallowing, kiddush ha Shem, cleaves to ‘I AM,’ so that eternal life resounds as the Kingdom comes, opening the ear of the heart to the glory of the age to come. Cleaving hallows the Name whose primordial sound resounds through the subtle expanse of the seventh heaven, singing wisdom songs of uncreated grace, chanting mercy to all who fall from grace. Cleaving to the Name, wisdom sings in just tones of justice in the sixth heaven, justice which overturns all unjust inversions of God, exposing all that parodies God. Cleaving to ‘I AM,’ wisdom chants the Name which has a mysterious capacity to resolve cacophony in harmonious polyphony, communicating resonant beauty in the fifth heaven, conjoining mercy and justice in sacred music. The capacity of music to unite formless with formal heavens extends from harmonious beauty to resound in the fourth heaven as victory overturning all that usurps God, answered in the third heaven as majesty, antiphonal chant overcoming all that opposes God. Coming from and returning to God, sacred music gathers the antiphonal chant of victory and majesty into an all-encompassing sacred enchantment, the healing wholeness of the second heaven, resonant hallowing conjoining victory and majesty in resounding peace. Name cleaving grounds the wholesome sound of heaven’s choirs in the first heaven of the Kingdom, where the invocation of Hallelu Yah bursts forth as joy, praise of glory, hallowing the Name.
Celestial music cleaves to ‘I AM’ so as to sing from the awakened heart to awaken hearts, opening as wisdom song to resonate over the whole cosmic expanse of light, raising light to glory as prayer that ascribes glory to God. Angelic music is a direct expression of wisdom which glorifies the saints, revealing music which actively recreates creation anew in every moment. Music is no longer a pious support for religion, which proudly silences it, but an expression of uncreated creativity which directly acts on the heart, transforming the heart through what it enacts. The beauty of the fifth heaven conjoins with the wholesome peace of the second heaven, uniting mercy and justice in beauty with victory and majesty in peace. Such music hallows the Name so that the Kingdom of seven heavens returns in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father, restoring creation as one Kingdom of God, one sound of countless voices, all praising God in his Holy Name. Each voice reverberates as glory giving glory to God in his Name. Cleaving to ‘I AM,’ each invocation resounds with the ineffable oneness of ‘I AM.’ Each voice is glory singing glory to God, one breath, one Spirit, breathing in God, one deifying life alive with uncreated light, resonating with the glory of God. This is the music of the heavens, music that is heard when hearts turn and listen. It is the music of deified Elohim, the music of angels and saints. It is the sound of YHWH SABAOTH, the sound of heavenly hosts who cleave to ‘I AM, the choirs of those who abide with Christ in the Spirit, whose many voices resound as one voice. ‘I AM’ is our God, resounding as many deified gods by grace through God in God, ‘I AM’ being one in this music of many voices.
Every invocation of the hallowing Name partakes in the coming of the Kingdom as God’s hallowing will is done. Every act of cleaving to the Name breathes eternal life into the spiritually dead, putting spiritual death to death. Every note of truly sacred music resonates with this celestial sound, hallowing the Name so the Kingdom comes. There is a real sense in which such music is the act of God, a reverberation of the Logos, grace that undoes all falls from grace, a mercy that justifies fallen sinners. Such grace in the seventh heaven conjoins as mercy with justice in the sixth heaven, making all things new. Mercy and justice issue into peace as in the fifth heaven, beauty saves the world. Victory in the fourth heaven sings with majesty in the third heaven, healing all the wounded brokenness of creation. What usurps God submits to God in the fourth heaven and what resists God releases into God in the third heaven. Sacred music listens into this music of the heavens which primordially precedes it as a sacred musical destiny. It rejoins the choirs of the second heaven which resolve cacophonous confusion and heals dissonant division. It establishes itself in the first heaven by cleaving to the Name, giving glory to God in sacred chant by resonating with the sound of ‘I AM.’ When angels and saints cleave to ‘I AM’ our God, they are alive ‘this day’ with divine life, resonant with divine glory. They are alive ‘this day,’ the day of ‘I AM,’ which is every day that the seven heavens resonate with the sound of the Name. They resound with the primordial sound of Holy Trinity, God chanting the Name in every heaven, imparting divine joy to all. Music here on earth first listens, then sings, but heaven weds earth, wisdom weds glory in the singing.