The Bible

 

Genesis 1:7

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7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Commentary

 

Bake

  
Photo of hands kneading bread, by Jenny Stein

It’s also worth noting that baked food is often starchy – bread, cakes and other high-energy foods. So baking is focused more on the on the desire for good, while other forms of cooking have other meanings.In a broad sense, there are two things we get from our food. One is energy, in the form of carbohydrates and fats. The other is building material – the proteins our bodies use to build new fibers, and the vitamins that help make our bodies function correctly. On a spiritual level, that energy represents a desire for good; the proteins and vitamins represent the ideas and concepts necessary to turn that desire into useful work.Fire, meanwhile, also represents desire, an emotional state of wanting something. This is easy to see in modern language: We might “burn” with passion or feel the “flame” of desire. This can obviously be good or bad depending on our desires, just as fire can be a powerful force for good and also one of the most destructive forces we know.Baking is a way of using the massive but unfocused energy of that fire to prepare food for the body. If we have a strong underlying drive to be good, we can use it to turn our ideas and good intentions into effective, well-planned action.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #7625

Study this Passage

  
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7625. The sun and its light may be used to form an idea of good which is synonymous with charity, and of truth which is synonymous with faith. When the light that emanates from the sun comes combined with heat, as happens in spring and summer, everything on earth grows and is alive. But when the light lacks heat, as in wintertime, everything on earth becomes inactive and dies off. In the Word also the Lord is compared to the sun, and truth combined with good which emanates from Him is compared to the light, in addition to which in the Word the truth of faith is called 'light' and the good of love 'fire'. Love is also 'the fire of life', and faith 'the light of life'.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.