“Only watch yourself, and watch your soul diligently, lest you forget…” (Deut. 4:9a; Deut. 8:11). We are in constant and great need to remember the greatness of God, for when we forget this central truth, we lose sight of who we are and why we exist… Therefore we are earnestly admonished to guard our hearts with all diligence, for from the heart flows the streams of life (Prov. 4:23). Forgetfulness leads to apathy and indulgent thinking – a sure recipe for idolatry and despair… On the other hand, as we “practice the presence” of God, we encounter daily miracles and realize that our life comes from above: “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If we do not know God in all our ways, we lose touch with the purpose for our lives; if we close our eyes to the wonders of life, we forget both their source and the source of all that exists…

 

• Deut. 4:9a reading page (pdf)

 

C.S. Lewis related that during his college years he “played with” philosophy as way to show off or gain prestige among his fellow students. One day, however, he overheard a conversation between a Christian acquaintance who was discussing Plato’s thinking with another person. As he listened, it suddenly dawned on him that they were discussing philosophy as if it really mattered, as if it could somehow change their lives. Questions about reality, truth, beauty, justice, and so on suddenly became weighty and existential – matters of life and death – and that realization marked a key point in his conversion to Christianity.

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We read in our Torah portion for this week (i.e., parashat Eikev): “But now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask from you … but to love him with all your heart and with all your soul?” (Deut. 10:12). But how are we able to love God be’khol levavka (בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ) – “with all our heart” – and be’khol nafshekha (וּבְכָל־נַפְשֶׁךָ) – “with all our soul,” apart from healing of the brokenness that makes our hearts divided and sick? That is what the redemption from Egypt was about: we were personally chosen by God, redeemed by his grace, led out from from cruel bondage, only to be led into the desert, away from the world, where we slowly began to understand that we were valued, cared for, and beloved of God. We believed in the possibility of promise, of covenant… Only then could we hear the request from heaven: “Now love Me…” In other words, we can only truly love God by knowing we are beloved by God, and the invitation to love him is a response of his great passion for you (1 John 4:19). Accept that you are accepted in the heart of the Beloved (Eph. 1:4-6).

What the LORD asks from us is humanly impossible, since the human heart is unable to truly love and serve the LORD apart from intervening grace (Eph. 2:1-10). The real miracle of faith is found in a transformed heart. It is never a question of “willpower” or the “zeal” of man; no – it is never a question of what I can do but rather what God can do (John 1:13).

 

• Psalm 119:32 reading page (pdf)

 

We love because He loves us (and we receive and accept that love). It is the strength of his love that keeps you, not the strength of your own… Nevertheless it seems to be the pattern of God’s grace to bring affliction and trouble into our lives so that we will begin to seek the Presence of God (i.e., the “troubles of love”). We all are delivered from Egypt by the blood (i.e., the love) of God in the tribulation of hard exile. After all, how many of us came to know the LORD apart from the pain that comes from apprehending our own slavery to inner brokenness? Indeed it is a “severe mercy.” Therefore our Savior says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). The hard “outer shell” of the seed must be broken so that the life of the Spirit can come through… The commandment to love the LORD, then, only finds its voice after we come to faith, after we experience the Holy Spirit’s power, indeed, after we are made alive from the dead.

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For more on this, see “Blessings and Brokenness.”

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Most of us understand that loving God is our essential obligation, the end or “goal” of all the other commandments, the very reason why God has spoken and why we exist. Yeshua plainly taught that this was the point of “the Torah and the prophets,” the rest being commentary (Matt. 7:12, Matt. 22:36-40). However, while love is our greatest duty – the yoke of heaven – you might be surprised to learn that the most frequent commandment is simply al-tira, “Be not afraid.” Over and over again in the Scriptures we hear the LORD saying to those who trust in Him, al tira, “be not afraid.”

 

• Isa. 41:10 reading page (pdf)

This is a word for the exiles of every age: Be not afraid – al-tira – not of man, nor of war, nor of tribulation, nor even of death itself (Rom. 8:35-39). If God be for us, who can be against us? Indeed, Yeshua came to die to destroy the power of death “and to release all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14-15). The resurrection of the Messiah is the focal point of history – not the “dust of death.” Death does not have the final word. Indeed, because Yeshua is alive, we also shall live (John 14:19). Because of Yeshua’s victory, we can now live without fear: al-tira, “Be not afraid, it is I.” “There is no fear in God’s perfect love,” as the Apostle John wrote (1 John 4:18). If we love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), then we find courage because of the heart He imparts to us… God will uphold you – even in the trials of your faith.

Of course this doesn’t mean that we should pretend that evil doesn’t exist or that there’s no real danger in this world. No, the Scriptures are clear that there are spiritual enemies in the world and we are engaged in a genuine spiritual war (1 Pet. 5:8-9; Eph. 6:10-18). Indeed every day the media attempts to frighten us by broadcasting lies and fearmongering propaganda. We must fight these messages of fear by remembering the truth and promises of God; we must never fear mere men but rather the LORD our God, who is our Maker, our King, and our Redeemer. We must train our minds to see beyond mere appearances, to ignore the messages of this dark world, and to look for God’s Presence in everything.

 

• Psalm 33:22 reading page (pdf)

 

We must trust in the LORD and His care for our lives, which always comes “as we hope” in Him… May it please God to impart to each us the courage that comes from Heaven itself. May He help us not to live in fear, but rather to walk in faith, full of confidence. So remember: al-tira, “be not afraid!” Let us be strong and be strengthened in Yeshua our King.

 

 

You may sometimes feel lonely and afraid, wondering if anyone really cares for you; you may feel abandoned to wander about in your heartache, without a sense of acceptance or “place” for your life; you may feel estranged from others, in a place of desperation, a silent scream, without apparent comfort in the world… These are real feelings and I do not discount them, though often such feelings arise from unbelief, or at least from questioning whether God’s love is for you, after all…

Friend, there is an intimate comfort for your mourning; there is heavenly consolation for the grief and emptiness you feel inside. Look again to the cross and attend to God’s passion for you; believe in the miracle of Yeshua’s love for you; by faith see his blood shed for you… He knows your alienation: he was “despised and rejected of men”; he knows the pains of your heart: he was a “man of sorrows acquainted with grief”; he knows the heartache of being forsaken, abandoned, and utterly betrayed. Indeed Yeshua knows your infirmities; he understands how you hurt and calls you to his comfort… Therefore when feelings of loneliness well up within you, go inward to commune with the Spirit. Ask God for his consolation so that you too might console others who are suffering (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Do not lose hope but foresee your blessed future. Focus on the coming day of healing for all the world. Remind yourself again and again that you are never really alone, that nothing can separate you from God’s love, and that God’s Name is “I-am-with-you-always,” “I am your Abba, your true home and place of belonging, all your dreams of love will come true, and unimaginable beauty and endless delight await you in the glories of the world to come.”

 

Whoever has God truly has a companion in all places, both on the street and among people.. Why is this so? It is because such people posses God alone, keeping their gaze fixed upon him, and thus all things reveal God for them…. Such people bear God in all their deeds and in the places they go, and it is God alone who is the author of all they do.” (Meister Eckhart: Talks of Instruction)

You will never experience peace as long as you regard the acceptance of who you are as conditional, since you will only be as secure as your own best efforts, a project that will exhaust you in the end. Instead you must know yourself as truly loved by God, just as the “prodigal son” came to know his father’s unconditional love and acceptance despite his many misdeeds (Luke 15:11-32). The incarnation of Jesus means that God “runs to meet and embrace you,” regardless of whatever happened in your life that made you run away from home. And whatever else it may be, sin is the separation from God’s love, but Yeshua made the decision to die for your sins before you were born. Your sin cannot overrule God’s surpassing and personal love for your soul, since God gave up his very life for you to find life.

A.W. Tozer once wrote: “The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorptions in the love of Christ; and because with his circle of friends there are few who share his inner experiences, he’s forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord himself suffered in the same way.

“The man (or woman) who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided, and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for the friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none, he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart. It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else.”

Such was Abraham’s test, as he had no way to communicate his burden regarding the sacrifice of his beloved son Isaac. And there is also a loneliness that arises when you must wrestle through disappointment in your walk with God… This is an empty place where you realize that you’re request has been denied, and yet you must continue to walk on in trust. That is a hard place, too.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6). Yes, blessed are those who suffer such desperate need, who know inner emptiness, who are not made numb to the ache, and who cry from the heart for deliverance. Blessed are those who are in dread over themselves, who fall as one dead before the Divine Presence, who know they are undone, ruined, and dying for life… The great danger, spiritually speaking, is to become complacent, untouched by poverty of heart, to be lulled asleep, lost within a dream, made comatose, living-yet-dead. The gift of faith first reveals our own lostness and then imparts courage to live with ourselves despite ourselves as we seek God’s healing and life…

 

• Psalm 25:16-17 Hebrew lesson page (pdf)

 

Our father Abraham is called ha-ivri (הָעִבְרִי) – “the Hebrew,” a term that means “one who has crossed over” (עָבַר) from another place (Gen. 14:13). The famous medieval Torah commentator Rashi literally identified this “other place” as Ur Kasdim (אוּר כַּשְׂדִים), located east of the Euphrates River, though the midrash (Genesis Rabbah) spiritually identified it as the realm of idolatry: “The whole world stood on one side, but Abram crossed over to the other.” Abram separated himself from a world steeped in idolatry and polytheism by worshipping One God who is the sole Creator of all things…. Understood in this way, being “Hebrew” means being regarded as an “other,” a “stranger,” or an “outsider” to idolatrous worldly culture. Therefore all those who “cross over” from the realm of death to life because of Yeshua are rightly called “Hebrews” (John 5:24).

The term “Jew,” on the other hand, refers to one who praises the LORD (יְהוּדָה). The word (יְהוּדִי) comes from a root (יָדָה) which means to “confess” or to “praise” God (Gen. 29:35). The Apostle Paul alluded to this by saying that one whose heart has been circumcised by the Spirit is “one who is praised by God — not by men” (Rom. 2:29).  Being a Jew therefore means you are “chosen” to receive blessings and grace to live in holiness for the glory of God and for the healing of the world. The performance of various mitzvot are for the greater purpose of tikkun olam, the “repair of the world,” in order to reveal God’s goodness and love (Eph. 2:8-10). Doing so makes someone a Jew, since his praise comes not from man, but from the LORD. God is the source and the power of what makes a true tzaddik (righteous person). After all, Israel was meant to be a “light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6; 60:3), and God had always planned for all the families of the earth to come to know Him and give Him glory through his chosen servant Abraham (see Gen. 12:3; 22:18). “Jewishness” is therefore not an end in itself but rather a means to bring healing to the nations… Indeed, the entire redemptive story of the Scriptures centers on the cosmic conflict to deliver humanity from the “curse” by means of the “Seed of the woman” who would come. The gospel is Jewish because it concerns God’s great redemptive plan for the whole world (John 3:16; 4:22).

 

• Isa. 64:8 Hebrew lesson page (pdf)

 

“If a person vows a vow (i.e., neder: נֶדֶר) to the LORD, or swears an oath (i.e., shevuah: שְׁבוּעָה) to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth” (Num. 30:2).  The Hebrew expression “break his word” literally means “profane his word” (יַחֵל דְּבָרוֹ), that is, to defile the soul by causing it to be inwardly divided, irresolute, and cowardly. After all, breaking your word means violating the integrity of who you are, showing that what you say and what you do are not unified, and this leads to feelings of shame. Your words confess your reality and bring it to life… If you cannot keep your word, your word becomes profane, empty, lost — you become a “stranger to yourself,” unsure of what you intend. “Let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no; learn to say what you mean and mean what you say (Matt. 5:37).

In the Book of Proverbs we read, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is wise” (Prov. 10:19).  The Chofetz Chaim comments: “When people are preparing a telegram, notice how carefully they consider each word before they put it down. That is how careful we must be when we speak.” As James admonishes us: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).

 

• Prov. 10:19 Hebrew lesson page (pdf)

 

Since words represent thoughts, the use of our tongues has to do with how we choose to think… “Think on these things…” We are instructed to “take every thought captive” (αἰχμαλωτίζω, i.e., lead away as a prisoner) to the obedience of Messiah… It is wise to restrain our speech, because, after all, we often have no idea what we are talking about, and therefore our words can become unruly and even dangerous. Whenever we open our mouth to speak, Heaven is listening (Matt. 12:36-37).

The Hebrew word “spirit” (i.e., ruach: רוּחַ) points to wonder, to something extraordinary and beyond our expectation, that is, to the mysterious Divine Presence that pervades all things yet rises above all things. Yeshua likened the ruach with the inscrutable motions of the wind.  He said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). We see the effects of the wind, but not the wind itself, which illustrates that the wind surrounds us yet is ultimately beyond our grasp and control. To be “born of the Spirit” is therefore a mysterious intervention from heaven (John 1:13), just as being “led by the Spirit” implies seeing differently, that is, apprehending the Divine Presence in the mysterious motions of life.

 

• Psalm 139:7 Hebrew lesson page (pdf)

 

“The wind blows where it will; you are aware of its soughing, but no one knows whence it comes or whither it goes. So also with longing, the longing for God and the eternal, the longing for our Savior and Redeemer. Comprehend it you cannot, nor should you; indeed, you dare not even want to attempt – but you are to use the longing. Would the merchant be responsible if he does not use the opportune moment; would the sailor be responsible if he does not use the favorable winds – how much more, then, is the one who does not use the occasion of longing when it is offered” (Kierkegaard: Discourses). Amen, may the hunger and yearning for the Lord be within you. Amen.

From our Torah portion this week (i.e., parashat Mattot) we read: zeh ha’davar asher tzivah Adonai (זה הדבר אשׁר צוה יהוה), “This is the thing the LORD has commanded” (Num. 30:1). The language here seems to suggest that there is only one matter that God has commanded, namely, to speak truth and to be faithful in our promises (Num. 30:2). This is because the sacredness of our word is the foundation for all our other responsibilities. After all, if our word is equivocal, it is unclear, unreliable, undecided, and therefore ultimately meaningless…. Insincere words are without genuine commitment, and the lack of decisiveness undermines all Torah. זה הדבר אשׁר צוה יהוה – “This is the thing the LORD has commanded,” namely, to accept your duty to honor the truth; to keep your faith in God’s word; and to hold sacred your commitment before God.

 

• Prov. 8:7 Hebrew lesson page (pdf)