Category: Hebrew Reading Lesson

Reading Hebrew exercises and practice verses

The Hope of Despair…

John J Parsons

Originally published on the Hebrew for Christians website Dec, 2021

Our most serious struggles are inward, matters of heart, as we wrestle with dark emotions like fear, anger, disappointment, and guilt. We often despair over the contradiction between our ideals and our realities; we deny reality and then feel lost and unlovable in the hardness of unspoken shame…

On the deepest level, however, the presence of despair may be a sign of real hope, since it may express a holy “protest” over what the heart knows is wrong in its yearning for deliverance from its own wretchedness. The desperate heart knows it must find God or die. This sort of despair laments because it believes, and it believes in the midst of its lament.

As Yeshua said, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit – the needy, the bankrupt, the powerless – for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). The hidden life of the seed is not released until it first is broken and dies (John 12:24).

 

 

 

The fact that God knows the number of hairs on your head means that he knows you better than you know yourself… Your heavenly Father “sees in secret,” and that also means that he can and will save you from whatever is hidden within you that still resists his love and touch… We have to trust in God’s power to heal us, even when it seems that healing is not forthcoming, even when we still find ourselves divided, troubled, and anxious. We have to believe that God’s help is always present. “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who hope for the LORD” (Psalm 31:24).

God sees what He does within us, His “it-is-finished” work, the effect of His great salvation within our hearts, even if at this present hour this may be hidden from our eyes… There is appearance, and there is reality; and only God sees what is ultimately real. We have to trust in His promise to be transformed into the divine nature, even if today we find ourselves sinful, needy, and in disrepair… By God’s grace we are what we are. So don’t give up. We are saved by hope (ἐλπίδι ἐσώθημεν, Rom. 8:24), a hope for you today.

 

 

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Note:  Some of what I share here is intended for those who are hurting, struggling, etc., so if you are not dealing with those issues, then ignore the post…. I am trying to reach out to many people in many different places in their lives. Unlike the idea that there is some “one-size fits all” medicine for everybody irrespective of their unique biochemistry, etc., in matters of the spirit every person is an individual with unique heart needs. Thank you for your understanding.

The Significance of Rosh Hashanah…

John J Parsons

Let me begin this entry by quoting a passage of Scripture from the New Testament that admonishes us to remember our shared heritage with the Jewish people:

“Brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Messiah. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the desert. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Messiah, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:1-12).

Amen.  “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).

The very first word of the Bible — the very first utterance of revelation — is the Hebrew word “beresheet” (בְּרֵאשִׁית), which is commonly translated as “in the beginning” (Gen. 1:1). Note then that the Bible begins the account of creation using a word about time… That might seem a bit unsurprising or even trite, a little bit like saying “Once upon a time…” but it clearly indicates the significance of time in relation to the divine revelation given to us…

As we learn Torah, which is the foundation of the other Scriptures of the Bible (including the New Testament), we repeatedly are instructed to sanctify (i.e., honor) certain occasions throughout the year. These are called “appointed times,” or mo’edim in Hebrew, from a root word (יָעַד) that means to assemble together, to meet, and even to betroth… The first occurrence of the root occurs in the account of the creation when God said: “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons (i.e., mo’edim), and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14).

These appointed times were designed by God to be special occasions for human beings to have fellowship with him. Indeed, after God created Adam and Eve in the orchard of Eden, he explained that the Sabbath day was to be set apart in honor of the creation. God also regularly met with Adam and Eve in the “wind of the day” (i.e., לרוּחַ הַיּוֹם, Gen. 3:8) to instruct them about their responsibilities as his stewards of creation. God’s teachings to our primordial ancestors were later preserved as traditions within the godly line of Seth who had observed the “new moon” of the months and commemorated seasonal transitions. Similarly, the earliest forms of Passover celebrated the beginning of spring, Pentecost celebrated the first spring harvest, Sukkot (i.e., Tabernacles) celebrated the fall harvest, and so on. During these special times sacrifices to God were offered and feasts celebrated.

Moses did not write in a vacuum, of course, and he was quite familiar with the heritage of the godly line of Seth handed down through Noah’s son Shem and his descendants. The ancient appointed times were later codified and sanctioned by God when Moses wrote the Torah during the years of the Sinai revelation. Therefore we note the Torah’s calendar is divided into 360 days, 54 weeks, 12 months, 4 seasons, and 2 half-years.

There are two distinct “new years” on the Torah’s calendar: one in the spring, on the first day of the month of Nisan, called “Rosh Chodashim” (Exod. 12:2; Deut. 16:1), which marks the season of the redemption from Egypt, and the other in the fall, precisely six full months later, on the first day of the month of Tishri, called “Yom Teruah” (Num. 29:1), a day to be celebrated by shouting (teruah) and the sounding of shofars and trumpets (Lev. 23:24).

Now the new year in the spring remembers the Exodus from Egypt (Passover) and the crossing of the sea, culminating in the 49 day (seven week) countdown to the giving of the law at Sinai (Shavuot / Pentecost), whereas the new year in the fall remembers God as our Creator, our Judge, the one who purifies us from sin (Yom Kippur), as well as the one who restores us to fellowship and surrounds us with his love (Sukkot / Tabernacles). (Note that the eight days of Passover in the spring correspond with the eight days of Sukkot in the fall.)

It has been said that the liturgy of the Jew is the calendar, and the two new years, then, serve as two “axes” upon which turn the theme and tone of the calendar year. For instance, we begin getting ready for the Passover every year just after the holiday of Purim. We then plan our house cleaning, the removal of chametz, and we review the story of the exodus from Egypt to ready ourselves for the Passover. During Passover we abstain from leaven and begin the countdown for seven weeks until we reach the jubilee of Shavuot, or “Pentecost” – recalling how God gave us the law at Sinai and made covenant with us to be his holy people.

The intervening summer months offer time for reflection, recalling the various tragedies that befell the Jewish people, such as the incident of the Golden Calf (Exod. 32:4) the tragic “Sin of the Spies” (Num. 14:22-34), and (later) the destruction of the Holy Temple (2 Kings 25; Jer. 52:12-16). The summer culminates in the sixth month of the calendar, called the month of “Elul.” During this month we focus on “teshuvah” or turning back to God in repentance… Sermons are given admonishing us to repent; our Torah portions warn of the “great rebuke” (i.e., tochachah) that Moses warned would come if we turned away from God, and so on.

Because of this, Rosh Hashanah (another name for Yom Teruah) became associated with the time of divine judgment – the advent of Yom Adonai (יוֹם יְהוָה), or the “Day of the LORD” – wherein each soul would be examined by God in relation to his or her teshuvah and the decree established whether their soul would live or die in the forthcoming year…. Customs arose about making amends with others and joining in corporate confession of sin at this time.

According to Jewish tradition, on Rosh Hashanah the destiny of the righteous, the tzaddikim, are written in sefer ha’chayim, the Book of Life, and the destiny of the wicked, the resha’im, are written in sefer ha’mavet, the Book of Death. However, most people will not be inscribed in either book, but have ten days — until Yom Kippur — to repent before sealing their fate. Hence the term “Aseret Yemei Teshuvah” (עֲשֶׂרֶת יְמֵי תְּשׁוּבָה) – the Ten Days of Repentance arose in the tradition. On Yom Kippur, then, everyone’s name will be sealed in one of the books.

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­ Read more “The Significance of Rosh Hashanah…”

Written in the Book of Life…

John J Parsons

The Scriptures teach that every word we speak and every choice we make are infallibly recorded in “heavenly scrolls,” and one day these scrolls will be opened as a testimony about what we did with our lives (Dan. 7:10; Matt. 12:36-37; 1 Cor. 3:13, 4:5). “And I saw the dead, both the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book (סֵפֶר אַחֵר) was opened, which is called the Book of Life (סֵפֶר הַחַיִּים). And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done” (Rev. 20:12).

Read more “Written in the Book of Life…”

Through a glass darkly…

John J Parsons

In this present world it is a struggle not to be afraid… We see through a glass darkly; our heart’s desire is often thwarted; we frequent times of uncertainty; our prayers may seem to go unanswered. There are many tribulations, sorrows, and pains; we are grieved and often feel lonely; we sometimes struggle to hold fast to our confession and hope; we feel alarmed over the insanity and depravity that pervades the culture around us; we feel powerless to stop the juggernaut of unrestrained evil, yea, we lament over the battle within our own hearts — our own inner fears, outrage, and wretchedness.

We may wonder why God does not directly intervene to help in the midst of our plight; we may pray anguished prayers beseeching heaven’s intervention to deliver us from evil. Many of our brothers and sisters around the world are undergoing persecution, being murdered for the sake of their faith; others languish in prison or “reeducation” camps, being labeled as “enemies of the State,” brutalized, ostracized, marginalized, rejected, and forsaken of the common welfare of others. We shed tears over the burning of churches; we are repulsed by acts of violence against God’s people; we protest that Christians are regarded as political enemies for honestly questioning the logic and veracity of governmental mandates. We are often misunderstood, or worse, vilified for honoring the truth. We are made outsiders, segregated outside the camp, maligned as lepers and deplorables… Indeed, the world system hates us, and for the sake of our faith “we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Psalm 44:22; Rom. 8:36).

So where is God in the midst of our alienation and tribulation? As followers of Yeshua we are called to walk in the truth, to do justice, and to walk humbly with our God. More: we are to die to ourselves, love our enemies, and be faithful to God even in martyrdom. In these darkened days, however, this means walking through the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death, for it is apparent that worldly culture has decisively rejected the truth of God and regards those who esteem it as its enemies. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel against the Lord, and against his Messiah, saying ‘Let us break their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us'” (Psalm 2:3-4). Prophetically, we know what is on the horizon; we foresee the terrors of the “End of Days.”

The test of faith in our circumstances, as has always been for God’s people, is to remain steadfast in our conviction of God’s love despite the darkness that surrounds us (Isa. 50:10). The test is summed up by C.S. Lewis this way: “We’re not doubting that God will do the best for us; we’re wondering how painful the best will turn out to be” (Collected Letters). We can’t stay in the limbo of such questioning forever, however; we must shake off our misgivings and find settled determination to press on in faith: Our Lord has a crown and a kingdom prepared for us, and he will give us what we need in the way to attain unto it.

There is a difference between knowing about God in your head and knowing God in your heart… Unlike a merely intellectual idea of faith that passively assents to theological propositions or creeds, trusting in the Lord (i.e., bittachon: בִּטָחוֹן) is an emotional commitment to God’s presence in the midst of the sorrows of our lives; it is the struggle of hope that affirms we are not truly alone, abandoned, helpless… Trust goes beyond the “head knowledge” to engage God personally, existentially, and from within the whirlwind of harrowing pain and pain’s fearful loneliness. Authentic theology is “dialogical” — a conversation of the heart with God – seeking, yearning, protesting, lamenting, and struggling with life’s inscrutabilities and unfathomable questions as it appeals to God for the assurance and comfort of the Holy Spirit. Trust finds courage to voice to our sorrow and fears, inviting God into the midst of our brokenness, often yielding to tearful silence in unknowing expectation. As Dorothy Soelle wrote: “Prayer is an all-encompassing act by which people transcend the mute God of an apathetically endured reality and go over to the speaking God of a reality experience with feeling in pain and happiness” (Soelle: Suffering). This is perhaps the deepest meaning of the Shema – to listen for God’s heart in the midst of your struggle; learning to encounter God’s love in the place of your brokenness and need (Job 13:15).

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

 

Reflecting on the role of suffering in the heart of faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) – who was murdered by the Nazis – once wrote: “Here is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the deus ex machina [i.e., “quick fix”]. The Bible [on the other hand] directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering: only a suffering God can help” (Letters and Papers from Prison). Bonhoeffer’s comment alludes to the difference between an “Elohim” (אֱלהִים) conception of God as the omnipotent power and Judge of reality, and the “YHVH” (יהוה) conception of God as the compassionate Source and Breath of life – the Suffering God who empties himself to partake of our condition – to know our pain, to bear our sorrows, to heal us from the sickness of spiritual death, and to touch us in the loneliness of our exile… The Spirit enables us to “groan” in compassion, directing us away from the impulse to “kill the pain” to accept it as part of our lament and need for connection with God.

 

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Anticipating Yom Teruah…

John J Parsons

The “Feast of Trumpets” (i.e., yom teruah: יוֹם תְּרוּעָה), otherwise known as Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה) in Jewish tradition, begins Sunday, Sept. 25th at sundown in Israel this year (Num. 29:1). There are worldwide tremors, engineered plagues, nation rising up against nation, men’s hearts failing them for fear, worldwide apostasy and godlessness, and the love of many now runs cold… A time of testing is approaching. Look up, for the day of redemption draws near, chaverim.

 

 

Yom Teruah Meditation:

Luke 13:1-9 is a timely section of Scripture to meditate upon during the last two weeks of month of Elul…

“There were some present at that time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

 

The Prophet like Moses…

John J Parsons

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen” (Deut. 18:15). So who was this “prophet like Moses”? Islam claims it was Muhammad, though that is certainly false, since the true prophet to come would be a Jew who would be from the people Israel, not from another nation, and particularly not from the descendants of Ishmael. So what characteristics were to mark this extraordinary Jewish prophet to come? To answer that question intelligently, we must first consider the life of Moses so that we might detect the foreshadowing of the one who would be “like” him, that is, a prophet who would serve as an analog to his mission and life. Consider, then that after being chosen by God to deliver Israel from bondage during the time of the Exodus, Moses became 1) the mediator (priest) of the covenant between God and the Jewish people, 2) the legislator the various commandments of the Torah, and 3) the prophet who received the vision of the Mishkan (the Altar), the future exile, and the ultimate destiny and glory of Zion. Moses was extraordinary because as the mediator of Israel, he instituted various sacrificial rites before the laws of sacrifice were enacted. For example, he instituted the Passover sacrifice in Egypt (Exod. 12:1-11), and when the people later reached Mount Sinai, he offered blood sacrifices to ratify the terms of the covenant (Exod. 24:8). As the great legislator of Israel, Moses declared the terms of the covenant, serving as its voice of authority. And finally, Moses ascended the mountain and received the prophetic vision of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) before the priesthood had been instituted in Israel (Exod. 25:8-9). And even after the laws of the priests were proclaimed and the Mishkan was set up, Moses went before the very Holy of Holies to hear the Voice of the LORD, even though technically speaking this was forbidden, since he was not a kohen (i.e., descendant of Aaron). Indeed our Torah portion this week (i.e., parashat Naso) concludes, “And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the Voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat (i.e., kapporet: כַּפּרֶת) that was on the Ark of the Testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him” (Num. 7:89).

“A prophet like unto me…” (Deut. 18:15). I mention all this because some people stumble over the fact that Yeshua, who was from the tribe of Judah, served as Israel’s High Priest of the New Covenant. Of course this issue is addressed in the Book of Hebrews, where the role of the Malki-Tzedek priesthood is ascribed to King Yeshua (Heb. 5:6-11; 7:1-19), but it is important to realize that Moses himself foresaw the coming of the Messiah as Israel’s great prophet, priest and King (Deut. 18:15-19; John 5:36). Indeed, just as Moses himself was “outside” the law by serving as Israel’s priest but nevertheless was commissioned by God Himself, so also with Yeshua, who instituted the sacrifice of His blood as the Lamb of God and who went directly before God’s Throne to intercede on our behalf.

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

 

For more on this subject, see “Moses’ Prophecy of the Messiah.”

Created for a Purpose…

John J Parsons

It’s been said that God sends each soul into the world with a special message to deliver, a revelation that only he or she can disclose… No one else can bring your message to this world – only you can do this. And since God is entirely unique, you are called to be who you were created to be, not someone else. On his deathbed Reb Zusya said, “I am not afraid that the Holy One will ask me, ‘Zusya, why were you not more like Moses?’ Rather, I fear the Holy One will say, ‘Zusya, why were you not more like Zusya?’

I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”
– George MacDonald

There are no “little people” in God’s eyes, since each soul has been created by Him for His glory and purposes… As C.S. Lewis wrote, “There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors” (The Weight of Glory). Life is a miracle and nothing is trivial. In the world to come you will be shocked to understand that everything you thought, everything you said, and everything you did was given to you from above, and therefore has tremendous significance (Matt. 12:36-37). Therefore may it please the Lord to open our hearts and eyes to truly come alive… Amen.

 

By the grace of God I am what I am.”
(xάριτι δὲ θεοῦ εἰμι ὅ εἰμι)

Hebrew Lesson:

 

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“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev. 4:11).

Wounds of Loneliness…

John J Parsons

The late Henri Nouwen said that there are two great fears (or wounds) that we all face. The first is the fear that we were not wanted at the time of our birth into this world, and the second is that we will not be wanted at the time of our death. “Not being welcome is your greatest fear. It connects with your birth fear, your fear of not being welcome in this life, and your death fear, your fear of not being welcome in the life after this. It is the deep-seated fear that it would have been better if you had not lived” (Inner Voice of Love). If you carry a wound of abandonment within your heart – if you live in dread over your worth as a human being, seriously wondering whether it would have been better had you never been born, then you know the taste of hell itself – the emotional prison of feeling lost, defective, rejected, shameful – unable to love or to be loved…

Is not the lament of the lonely heart to find a sense of welcome, or acceptance, or peace within? Is it not the heart’s cry for connection? Yet even the very gospel message cannot make traction within a heart lost to its own shame… Therefore the miracle of salvation is profoundly connected with faith that you are loved and lovable – despite yourself – and that this love derives from the core of all that truly exists. Is this not “home” in the spiritual sense? Is this not “Zion, the perfection of holiness?” That God prepares a table for you in the presence of your enemies, yea, those enemies of self-rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame? And that there – in the midst of your lost and forlorn condition you are found, treasured, and celebrated? Is not that “place” God’s very heart – Jesus dying upon the cross, gasping for each breath – knowing everything about you and loving you anyway?

In our Torah reading this week (Eikev), Moses asks us to “soften our hearts” by remembering that we are beloved of God (Deut. 10:12-16). He reminds us that the though Lord is “the God of gods” (אֱלהֵי הָאֱלהִים) – the power that transcends the gods of our idolatry (i.e., our fears, our disordered attachments, our shame), and the “Lord of lords” (אֲדנֵי הָאֲדנִים) – the Center and Authority of what is most real, he nevertheless cares for the lowly orphan and the grieving widow – he reaches out to the needy and the abandoned – and he desires to console the “stranger,” the one shattered of heart, who has no sense of belonging, no pride of tribe, nor place to lay his head (see Deut. 10:17-18).  God cares about those who are lost, hurting, and alone: He came to save all such from their despair.
Read more “Wounds of Loneliness…”

The End of “Karma”…

John J Parsons

Human suffering, as opposed to that of animals, transcends the realm of the “phenomenological” to that of self-conscious interpretation. The purely animal mind is immersed in the present moment, and its suffering (though real) is experienced without context, without a story, with no sense of meaning or ulterior cosmic purpose.

When Job was tested by God, he was immersed in a religious philosophy that provided a “map” for ordering the temporal circumstances, or phenomena, of human life. Good and evil were descriptive categories grounded in God’s approval or disapproval of a person’s character and choices. If evil things happened, then, God was expressing his disapproval of the behavior or character of the person; if good things happened, God was expressing his approval…

This was the rather crude idea of “karma” that lay behind much religious superstition and nonsense of that time. If a person suffered, then God disapproved of the person (or ignored him), and conversely, if God approved of the person, suffering would not occur. And it was sometimes unclear exactly what pleased God or offended him, ideas of “luck” and “chance” blended in with superficial notions of moral cause and effect. Superstitious religiosity thus sought to improve a person’s spiritual condition by “bribing” God through flattering words or rituals, or by seeking his approval by doing good deeds….

Meister Eckhart once said that we need God to deliver us from “God,” by which he meant that we need the revelation of truth to deliver us from our illusions of who God is and what God is like. After all, people tend to make God in their own image, and yet the LORD forbids all such forms of idolatry. We need God to know the truth about God.

This might explain Job’s wife’s response to the loss of her home, her children, and the tortuous suffering of her husband. “Curse God and die” she counseled, which might mean: “Everything you’ve believed about God is an illusion – you have been ‘religious,’ you have been pious of heart, you have been a good man, and yet all this woe has befallen us… You seek for answers using terms of a religious philosophy to get us through life, and for awhile that map seemed to work, but now it has shown itself to be untrue, or at least it is powerless to help you. Forget the map! Forget the attempt to decipher why you (and me) are suffering – for the map itself has led you astray, and there is nothing left but to let it all go – to die to all that….”

On the face of it we tend to condemn Job’s unnamed wife for being faithless, but just imagine what she was going through at the time, alongside her husband…. Her words of exasperation were unsettling, to be sure, but they were the words of someone who was greatly suffering and in need of grace….

The religious philosophy of karma runs deep within the human heart, even among the Jewish people. The law itself is karmic. How else could the “good Pharisee” pray: “I thank you God, that I am not like other men…” His gratitude was based on his comfort that he had played the “game” of religion better than others. Is that the best that legalistic Judaism can offer?

Among other things, the Book of Job “deconstructs” the religious idea of God as strictly karmic to be something more than we can fathom, as King Solomon later said during the dedication of the Holy Temple, “Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).

And yet is this not the very thing we must do, to “make a place” for God within us? “Let them make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them” – וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם (Exod. 25:8). Moses’ instruction to build a Mishkan was symbolic, of course, for the people were acquainted with the vast glories of the Egyptian temples, pyramids, and so on. By contrast, the Mishkan was small, humble, and nearly inconspicuous; it represented God’s Presence in disguise, unseen by proud eyes, but the very place of the Spirit of God and truth (Isa. 45:15). “Building a Mishkan” then meant “enshrining faith, hope, and love” within our hearts, beautifying and magnifying the greatness of God within us. It is an idea of God that goes well beyond “mechanical karma” to that of deep heart relationship with the Lord…

God spoke to Job from the midst of the whirlwind (סְעָרָה), and it was from the midst of the head-spinning revelation that he heard God speak…. But how did Job get there? Was it not only after he had rebuffed the religious philosophy or “map” that his friends sought to justify his sufferings? Job was adamant, however: that map didn’t work – “God” had failed him; “God” had hurt him unjustly, etc. All this “God-talk” was just that – ignorant blather used to justify the old news of karma – but something more else was going on – truth was beginning to be revealed. Using Eckhart’s terms, God was delivering Job from his illusions about “God.”

How did Mary Magdalene come to know the truth? How did the unnamed tax collector at the Temple who dared not lift up his eyes toward heaven? How did Jonah? How did you? Indeed, how can anyone come to know God apart from having their “world” crumble into dust and ashes before them? And in the midst of the implosion, in the eye of the whirlwind that churns overhead, God then speaks words to the heart…

Whatever the words are – divine poetry of the sort Job heard or something else, it doesn’t matter so much what is being said but who is saying the words, that is, who is looking upon you in all your frailty, brokenness, and ruin – whatever the words, then, what is crucial is that the person hears, the person believes, the person is wholly engaged before the One who is beyond all our understanding, and the One who is beyond all our understanding then condescends and speaks into our tears, imparting peace that is beyond all our understanding – peace that is essentially ineffable, incommunicable – an inner sense of knowing that (despite everything) “all is well, and all manner of thing shall be well…”

Did God answer Job’s question, then? Yes he did, for he gave Job what his heart needed most of all. Like the distinction between the “good Pharisee” and the “bad tax collector,” God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts, and therefore his Spirit “cuts through the soul and the spirit, and the joints and the marrow” to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12). We are whatever we are by the grace of God, and faith is the “substance of hope” that affirms that this story, our story, is a good one, no matter what may happen. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind.

“For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:7-8). Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16). “In me is darkness, but with You light; I am lonely, but You do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with You is help; I am restless, but with You is peace. In me is bitterness, but with You is patience; I do not understand Your ways, but You know the way for me” (Bonhoeffer). “Let me seek you in the darkness of my silence, and find you in the silence of Your light, which is love shining as the sun, flowing like the river, and joying like the heart” (Meister Eckhart).

“The whole world sighs…” (Apostle Paul). “It is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning” (Merton). Amen, the final word is found in the resurrection life of our Lord, the one who emptied himself, clothed himself in our frailty, and overcame the sickness of death on our behalf.

God is both infinitely just and infinitely loving, and both of these “attributes” are inseparably a part of who he is. God is One. Nonetheless, the cross of Yeshua proves that “love is stronger than death, passion fiercer than the grave; its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame, the very flame of the Lord” (Song. 8:6). Amen, and shalom to you, chaverim.

 

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