“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. The one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). Here we see the importance of feeding the divine nature given to us in Messiah – to “sow” or “plant” truth within our hearts so that we will yield the “fruit of righteousness.” However, feeding the lower nature, gratifying the desires of the flesh, disregarding the truth of eternity for the sake of temporal pleasure, and so on, leads to corruption and to death. Spirituality (רוּחניוּת), then, is of utmost importance to us, as we learn to “renew our minds” and yield ourselves to the truth of God (Gal. 5:16). We are engaged in the battle daily – an internal struggle to direct our hearts and to make the decision to be awake to the Lord’s Presence or to surrender to our fallenness, fear, and despair. The Lord has promised us his very strength for the battle, but we must choose to believe in order to receive the blessing. Since God will surely help us as we seek to do His will (see 1 John 5:14), let us therefore draw near to the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16). God makes the way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13). The LORD God Almighty says to your heart: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God: I will strengthen you, yea, I will help you, yea, I will uphold you the right hand of my righteousness (Isa. 41:10).
Hebrew Lesson:
“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). These famous words, usually referred to as “the Shema” (from the Hebrew word “hear”), distill the central affirmation of faith for the Jewish people, and indeed the Shema is often the very first word of Torah that a Jewish child learns. During its recitation in the synagogue, Orthodox Jews pronounce each word very carefully and cover their eyes with their right hand. Many Jews recite the Shema at least twice daily: once in the morning and once in the evening. The text of the Shema is meticulously written on a small scroll which is then rolled up and put inside a mezuzah. In a sefer Torah, or a handwritten Torah scroll, the two Hebrew letters Ayin (ע) and Dalet (ד) are enlarged in the opening sentence of the Shema. Together, these letters form the word ’ed (עֵד), which means “witness,” suggesting that the Shema is a testimony of the sovereignty of God and our primary duty to love Him with our whole being.
The reason for what happens in our lives is often (always?) beyond our understanding, yet the righteousness of God’s plan – even if undisclosed to us – must be accepted by faith. When Job was tested with trouble and suffering he said, “The LORD gives; the LORD takes away; blessed is the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21), and he later reaffirmed his conviction that God was to be trusted, despite the darkness and pain he was experiencing: “Should we receive what is good from God, but not receive what is evil?”he asked (Job. 2:10). The Torah of Job teaches us that all things – both the good and the evil – are under the sovereign control of the LORD, and since “all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28), we trust God and bless Him for perceived evil as well as for perceived good. Despite appearances that sometimes seem to the contrary, we believe in an all-powerful, supreme LORD who has not abandoned the world, but who actively sustains and upholds it with benevolent intent. “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). When bad things happen to the righteous, we trust in God’s personal care for their ultimate good, despite their present troubles (Jer. 29:11). As Job further said: “Though he slay me, I will trust in Him” (Job 13:15). This is the heart behind the Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, that expresses acceptance of God’s world, despite the pain, sorrow, loss, and so on..
In our Torah portion this week (i.e., 
The story of the exodus is as an allegory of faith. We were slaves, but the LORD redeemed us and set us free from our bondage. Immediately afterward, we faced great distress as the powers of darkness sought to enslave us again, but God intervened and delivered us from their wicked devices. Through the Shekhinah Cloud we crossed over into newness of life, leaving the corpses of this world behind. We offered our thanks and praises to God, but soon we experienced severe thirst. We searched for worldly water but found it “marah,” or bitter. It was only after the “tree” was added to the bitterness that the water became sweet, a picture of the cross of Messiah who suffered and thirsted for us. Then we came to the oasis of Elim, a place of rest that pictured heaven to come, though the Spirit led us into the desert of emptiness and hunger to discover how we must trust God for “manna,” our daily bread from heaven. We experienced thirst again, and God provided an ongoing source of living water from the Rock that was smitten, another picture of the grace and sustenance of Messiah (1 Cor. 10:4). We fought against brazen powers of unbelief (Amalek), but we overcame them by the power of God. We received the Torah, only to discover we could not abide its demands. We committed idolatry but the LORD forgave and revealed the Altar of Mercy (the Tabernacle) that gave us access to His Presence by means of the sacrificial blood, recalling the Lamb of God that was slain.
The very first occurrence of the word “Torah” (תּוֹרָה) in the Scriptures refers to the faith of Abraham (Gen. 26:5), and the second occurs in our reading for this week (i.e., 
In our Torah portion this week (i.e., 
In our Torah portion for this week (i.e., 
You may feel anxious about knowing God, about how to relate to him or how to understand or interpret the Scriptures, though the heart can only know the essential meaning of God in the state of its need, as its ultimate concern, and therefore unless you cry out “from the depths” of your being, you are merely intellectualizing or playing games… After all, the inner heart asks “How can I find God?” “How can I relate to God?” “How can I find hope and life?” but the answers to such questions are found by personal encounter with the reality of the Spirit of God, not by theological rationalizations.
In light of the ever-creeping “techno-fascism” of the postmodern age, we wonder how long before politically motivated “censorship” will cross boundaries from various social media platforms to any “offensive content” on any publicly accessible website whatsoever… Indeed this is already happening as we see search engine services delivering filtered results (i.e., “shadow-banning”), Internet browsers that label web sites as “unsafe,” various conservative content providers being “defunded,” alternative social media sites being “Parler-ized,” and so on. In light of this incipient tyranny, we note there is a great passage of Scripture whereby we have precedent to make appeal to the LORD God Almighty: “O our God, will you not execute judgment? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chron. 20:12).