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Prayer Request (for site updates, see below)

I was laid off from my full-time job several years ago when -- after a lot of prayer, soul searching and discussion with my wife -- we decided to operate the Hebrew for Christians ministry entirely by faith in God's provision through the love and kindness of His people. I am not paid for doing this work, and therefore I ask you to consider supporting us. If you can help, please offer a donation or purchase some of the Hebrew study materials offered here.  Encouraging other web sites to link here also helps us become more visible on the web. Above all, agree with us for the Lord's will to be done in our lives. Todah, chaverim.

        

Note:  My wife and I have have three young children (Josiah, Judah, and Emanuel David ). The LORD has graciously provided for us as Adonai Yireh (יְהוָה יִרְאֶה), "the One who sees [our need]."  We are living one day at a time by the grace and mercy of God, and I want to publicly praise Yeshua and acknowledge His faithful love in caring for my family -- despite the trials during this time.  The LORD God of Israel is faithful and true! And to those of you who have sent us a word of encouragement or donation during this difficult time, please accept our heartfelt appreciation! Your chesed truly helps sustain us.

יהי שׁם יהוה מברך - "May the Name of the Lord be blessed."
 

I want to offer a word of thanks for all your kindness and encouragement over the last 20+ years, chaverim... I could not be in ministry apart from the grace and love you have shown to me and my family. Thank you so much and may the great and unsurpassable blessings of the LORD God of Israel be upon you always.  -John

 

Jewish Holiday Calendar

Note: For site updates, please scroll past this entry....

The Torah divides the calendar into two symmetrical halves: the Spring and the Fall, indicating the two advents of Messiah.  The Biblical year officially begins during the month of the Passover from Egypt (called Rosh Chodashim, see Exod. 12:2), and the spring holidays of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits both recall our deliverance from Egypt and also our greater deliverance given by means of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah, the great Passover Lamb of God. Yeshua was crucified on erev Pesach, buried during Unleavened Bread, and was resurrected on Yom Habikkurim (Firstfruits). The holiday of Shavuot (i.e., "Pentecost") both commemorates the revelation of the Torah at Sinai as well as the revelation of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) at Zion, in fulfillment of the promise given by our Lord....

The intermediate months of summer end with the advent of the sixth month of the calendar, called the month of Elul, which recalls the time Moses interceded on behalf of Israel after the sin of the Golden Calf. To commemorate this time of our history, we likewise focus on teshuvah (repentance) in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah and especially in anticipation of Yom Kippur, the great "Day of Atonement." In Jewish tradition the 30 days of Elul are combined with the first ten days of the seventh month (called the "Days of Awe") to set apart "Forty Days of Teshuvah" leading up to the Day of Forgiveness for Israel. Immediately following Yom Kippur, the mood changes as we begin preparing for a joyous week-long celebration called Sukkot (i.e., "Tabernacles") that concludes with the holiday of Simchat Torah. 
 

The Fall Holidays:


 

The fall festivals prophetically indicate the Day of the LORD, the second coming of Yeshua, the great national turning of the Jewish people, and the establishment of the reign of the Messiah upon the earth during the Millennial Kingdom in the world to come.

Note that in accordance with tradition, holiday dates begin at sundown. Moreover, some holidays may be postponed one day if they happen to fall on the weekly Sabbath:

1.  Month of Elul (Mon. Sept. 2nd [eve] - Wed. Oct. 2nd [day])

• Four Sabbaths: Shoftim, Ki Teitzei, Ki Tavo, Nitzavim
• Forty Days of Teshuvah (Elul 1 until Yom Kippur [Mon. Sept. 2nd - Fri Oct. 11th])
• Leil Selichot - Sat. Sept. 21st eve (penitential prayers before Rosh Hashanah)
• The Day of Creation - Elul 25 (Tues., Sept. 24th)
   
• Anticipating Rosh Hashanah and the Fall Holidays: 
   

2.  Month of Tishri (Wed. Oct. 2nd [eve] - Thur. Oct. 31st [day]) - Fall holidays begin

• Four Sabbaths: Vayeilech, Ha'Azinu, Sukkot, V'zot Haberakhah-Bereshit
• Rosh Hashanah / Yom Teru'ah - Tishri 1 5785 (Wed. Oct. 2nd [eve]) - Seder
• Tzom Gedaliah - Sun. Oct. 6th at dawn (Tishri 4, 5785)
• The Ten Days of Teshuvah: Wed. Oct. 7th - Fri. Oct. 11th [day]
• Shabbat Shuvah - the Shabbat that occurs during the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Fri. Oct. 4th)
• Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) - Tishri 10 (Fri. Oct. 11th [eve] - Sat. Oct 12th)
• Sukkot ("Tabernacles") - Wed. Oct 16th - Wed. Oct. 23rd
  
  
  
  
• Hoshana Rabba - Tues. Oct 22nd (Tishri 21, 5785)
• Shemini Atzeret - Wed. Oct. 23rd (Tishri 22, 5785)
• Simchat Torah - Thurs. Oct. 24th - Fri. Oct. 25th (Tishri 23, 5785)
  
  
   

3.  Month of Cheshvan (Thur. Oct. 31st [eve] - Sat. Nov. 2nd [day])

• Five Sabbaths: Noach, Lekh-Lekha, Vayera, Chayei Sarah, Toldot
• Yom Ha'Aliyah - Honoring Israel's immigrants (Thur. Nov. 7th; Cheshvan 7)
• Sigd - 50th day after Yom Kippur; Ethiopian Jewish holiday (Tues. Nov. 26th)
   

4.  Month of Kislev (Sat. Nov. 2nd  [eve] - Mon., Dec. 30th [day])

• Four Sabbaths: Vayetzei, Vayishlach, Vayeshev, Miketz
• Winter Solstice: Fri. Dec. 20th, Kislev 20)
  
  
    
  
• Dates for Chanukah 2024 (5785):
• 1st Chanukah candle - Wed. Dec. 25th [i.e., Kislev 25] Christmas
• 2nd Chanukah candle - Thur. Dec. 26th [i.e., Kislev 26]
• 3rd Chanukah candle: Fri. Dec. 27th [i.e., Kislev 27]
• 4th Chanukah candle: Sat. Dec. 28th [i.e., Kislev 28]
• 5th Chanukah candle: Sun. Dec. 29th [i.e., Kislev 29]
• 6th Chanukah candle: Mon. Dec. 30th [i.e., Kislev 30]

5.  Month of Tevet (Mon., Dec. 30th [eve] - Wed. Jan. 29th [day])

• Dates for Chanukah (continued):
• 7th Chanukah candle: Tues. Dec. 31st [i.e., Tevet 1] 
• 8th Chanukah candle: Wed. Jan. 1st 2025 [i.e., Tevet 2] Zot Chanukah
   
• Secular New Year: Wed. Jan. 1st, 2025 (Tevet 1, 5785) 
• Four Sabbaths: Vayigash,  Vayechi, Shemot, Va'era
• Asarah B'Tevet - Fri. Jan. 10th (dawn); fast over the seige of Jerusalem
   

Note:  For more about the dates of these holidays see the Calendar pages....
 

November 2024 Site Updates
 

Note:  If any page content appears to be missing, please refresh the page or press F5...


The Torah of Abraham...


 

When R' Bunam was lying on his deathbed, his wife wept bitterly. Thereupon he said, "Why are you weeping? All my life has been given me merely that I might learn to die."

11.21.24  (Cheshvan 20, 5785)   Shalom chaverim. Recently we read about Abraham's greatest trial of faith when God asked him to take his promised son and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. How are we to understand this test, and what might we learn from it? Abraham's obedience is a central lesson of course, and his willingness to sacrifice his son demonstrated his faith in God. But this willingness reveals the utmost level of surrender, a "faithful crucifixion" of his life that bore witness to the coming lamb of God who would be sacrificed to bring healing for the whole world.

The story of Abraham's "walk of faith" is one of testing and great perseverence. Though he had heard God's call to "lekh-lekha" (לךְ־לְך), "to go" to an unseen land of promise and blessing, there were many troubles along the way. After he made the long journey from Ur of the Chaldees and came to the land as directed by God, he immediately encountered a severe famine which forced him leave the land and go to Egypt in search of food. Unfortunately while in Egypt his wife Sarah was abducted into the Pharaoh's harem to be a concubine. After God plagued the king's house and warned him to "let my people go," the pharaoh hastily summoned Abraham and told to take his wife and go back to the promised land (prefiguring the later Exodus from Egypt under Moses). When Abraham and Sarah returned to the land of Canaan, his nephew Lot separated from them and moved to the Plain of Jordan, near Sodom and Gomorrah, to find more pastureland for his growing cattle and herds. Some time later a war broke out in the Plain and Lot and his family were taken captive by the conquering kings of the area. Abraham marshaled his clan and rescued his nephew from captivity. After this he was met by the mysterious "Malki-Tzedek," the king and priest of Shalem, who brought out bread and wine and blessed Abraham in the name of the Most High God, the Possessor of heaven and earth (אֵל עֶלְיוֹן קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ).

Some time later God appeared to Abraham in a vision to reaffirm his promise to make him into a great nation. After showing him the vast sweep of the stars in the night sky, God said "so shall your offspring be." Despite his years of apparently fruitless wandering, Abraham believed God and God accounted his faith as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). The LORD then renamed Abram, meaning "exalted father" to Abraham. meaning "father of a multitude." He also renamed Sarai (meaning "princess") to Sarah, appending the letter Hey (ה) to indicate his blessing and presence. God then made covenant with Abraham to inherit the land of Canaan forever; Abraham was 75 years old when he had this vision.

After he had lived in the land of Canaan for some time, Abraham began to wonder how God's promise to make of him a great nation would be realized. The years were passing by and he and Sarah remained childless. Perhaps Eliezer of Damascus, his chief servant, was to be his heir?  Sarah, also eager for a child, decided to take matters into her own hands and ordered her servant Hagar, given to her by the Pharaoh in Egypt to be his concubine. Hagar became pregnant but Sarah soon became jealous. She treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away but later returned after she was met by an Angel who promised that her child would also become a great nation. Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born (Gen. 16:1-16).

Nearly 25 years later, after the vision of the stars, when he was 99 years old, God appeared to Abraham using the name El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי), "the All-Sufficient One," and reaffirmed his promise that he would be the father of a multitude of peoples by establishing the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17). Soon after this revelation Abraham was visited by the three angels, one of whom was the Angel of the LORD himself, who told Abraham that Sarah would indeed have a son within a year. Sarah laughed at the announcement, but the LORD affirmed his words (Gen. 18:1-15). The other two angels then left to go to Sodom, to determine whether it would be condemned to judgment, while Abraham spoke with the Angel of the LORD and interceded on behalf of the city. Nevertheless Sodom and its surrounding area was destroyed by fire and brimstone, though Lot and his daughters escaped (Gen. 18:16-19:20).

When Abraham was 100 years old, Sarah indeed gave birth to a son! They called his name "Isaac" (i.e., Yitzchak) as directed by the Lord (Gen. 17:9), a name which means "he laughs"– a play on words that expressed the great joy of Abraham and Sarah over the miracle of their son (Gen. 21:1-7). Abraham circumcised his son when he was eight days old, as God had commanded. After Yitzchak was weaned, however, Sarah demanded that her servant Hagar and her son be removed from the family so that there would be no controversy about who the promised heir of Abraham truly was. In sorrow Abraham sent them away, though God told him that Ishamael would survive and become a great nation. The LORD reaffirmed to Abraham, however, that Yitzchak alone was the chosen heir through whom his descendants would come. "In Isaac your seed shall be called..." (Gen. 21:12).

The Torah is silent about the early years of Isaac, but many years later, when Abraham was 137 years old (and therefore Isaac was 36), he faced his greatest trial of faith when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering on a mountain... Wait, what? Is this for real?  After all his years of hope and struggle, would it all come down to this: the sacrifice of his beloved son? a "whole burnt offering" of his dreams, the holocaust of his vision?

And what about Isaac? When was he asked to become the sacrificial victim? Did he understand what was being asked? Did he have some earlier premonition? He was no longer a child but a grown man. Abraham needed Isaac to agree to become the sacrificial victim, but how could he explain all this to him without sounding insane? Apparently he did not object, though it must have greatly alarmed him. This test was not just for Abraham but for his son Isaac, too, and it was to Isaac's great credit that he willingly submitted to the request of his father to die on his behalf...

Perhaps you are tempted to think all this was a "charade" of sorts? That Abraham knew all along that Isaac wouldn't die, that God wouldn't allow this to really happen, and therefore he went along with just to play his part in the macabre drama?  But there is no such indication given in the Torah. God's instructions were clear enough and unambiguous. Abraham would sacrifice, that is, slaughter his son upon an altar and then burn his body as a whole burnt offering. I do not think it was meant to be a "prophetic parable," because what sort of a test would that be? What sort of sacrifice? For his part, Abraham was ready to do God's will, no matter what was asked of him. The very next morning after God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac, Abraham saddled his donkey and got things ready for the offering (Gen. 22:1-3).

Recall that the first "lekh-lekha" (לךְ־לְך) was a call to go to the "promised land" of God: "Go from your homeland (מֵאַרְצְךָ), and from your kindred (וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ), and from the house of your father (וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ), to a land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1), and the second "lekh-lekha" was a call to go and annihilate the vision the promise of becoming the father of the nation: "Please take your son (קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּנְךָ), your chosen son (אֶת־יְחִידְךָ), whom you love (אֲשֶׁר־אָהַבְתָּ), namely Isaac (אֶת־יִצְחָק), and go to the land of Moriah (וְלֶךְ־לְךָ אֶל־אֶרֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּה) and offer him there as a burnt offering (לְעֹלָה) upon one of the mountains which I will show you" (Gen. 22:2). Go away from all you were - your history, your birthplace, your father's house ... and come to the place that transcends all that is natural and of this world, a place of resurrection and the world to come. In both cases there is a call to the unknown and the test to believe that God would lead him to the place of blessing, despite everything he faced (Gen. 12:2, Gen. 22:17). In the climactic test, however, God showed Abraham the cross of Messiah, the place where his Son would be bound and offered as a sacrifice for the healing of the nations. It reveals the heart of the Father who would give up everything, including his beloved Son, so that we may have eternal life.

According to the author of the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament, Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead after he completed the sacrifice: "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be called.' He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back" (Heb. 11:17-19). Imagine Abraham binding Isaac's arms and feet while saying, "After the sacrifice, I will see you again: you will be brought back to life!" No matter how we may try to rationalize this, it is clear that Abraham accepted God's will - even if what was asked seemed terrifyingly preposterous, even insane...

They followed the cloud. After three days they reached the mountain, the place of the sacrifice. They left the others behind as they began their ascent. Isaac carried the wood that would burn his body. Abraham carried the knife and the torch. Together they built an altar of stones and arranged the wood for the fire. Abraham then asked Isaac to lay himself down on the altar as he bound the hands and feet of his son.

As Abraham silently looked upon the knife, all of his history, his hope, and his struggle was refracted back in the glint of the blade's edge. Was he willing to go through with this? Even if God would bring Isaac back from the dead, would he be able to plunge the knife into the heart of his promised child, the heir of his life? He steeled his resolve and carefully lifted the knife above his waiting son. Their eyes met and both took a deep breath just as Abraham was about to thrust the knife down. At the very last instant, the Angel spoke: "Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Gen. 21:11-12).

After a moment of utter shock, Isaac was released, unbound from death, and raised up to new life. For the Angel testified before heaven and earth that the sacrificial act was "fait accompli," an accomplished fact, and that Abraham had indeed offered up his only begotten son who had been raised from the dead. It was just then that Abraham saw the "ram caught in the thicket" that was to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. But why a ram instead of a lamb? Because when Abraham had said, "God will provide for himself a lamb" (אֱלֹהִים יִרְאֶה־לּוֹ הַשֶּׂה) this referred to the coming of Yeshua, the great Lamb of God, but the ram was provided for Abraham in place of Isaac for the sacrifice. The ram was not the lamb that God would provide "for himself" to atone for the sins of the world and reconcile his justice with his love, but rather a sacrificial ram that was provided for Abraham in place of Isaac. This seems to be the right understanding since later Abraham called the place of the altar at Moriah "Adonai Yireh" (יְהוָה יִרְאֶה), in reference to the Lamb God to come who was to be provided for by God himself in fulfillment of the prophecy (Gen. 22:8, Gen. 22:14).

The ashes of the sacrificed ram represented the dust and ashes of Isaac, and of Abraham as well. The "ashes of Yeshua" came from his passion upon the cross, and represent the atonement and exchange he made for the resurrection from the dead. God did indeed provided the Lamb - Adonai yireh ha'seh - and we will see this when we "ascend to the mountain" (Gen. 22:14). Yeshua later told the rabbis of his day, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." When they objected by saying that he was too young to ever have seen Abraham, Yeshua answered: "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM," which provoked them to try to stone him for blasphemy (see John 8:56-59).

Allow me now to consider whether Abraham might have been traumatized by the (near) sacrifice of his son. The sages say that when Sarah later understood what had happened, her heart gave out and she died. And Abraham's relationship with Isaac may also have been fractured as well. Did Isaac hear the voice of the Angel? The Torah does not indicate that he did. Perhaps Isaac was also deeply traumatized by the ordeal and needed some time apart from his father. Later on, after Abraham commissioned his chief servant Eliezer of Damascus to find a bride for his son, there is no recorded dialog between the father and son, and while Abraham bequeathed everything he had to Isaac, the last time Isaac saw his father was at Abraham's burial at Machpelah (Gen. 25:9). At any rate, the sacrifice at Moriah must have haunted Abraham during his remaining days, yet he pressed on in faith, later remarrying and having other children. Like the story of Job, from the whirlwind God's blessing will come...

Recall at the outset that I had wondered whether Abraham might have been tempted to protest God's will for life, and that leads to the related question of whether you have ever found yourself protesting the course of your life and inwardly wrestling to accept God's will... Do you struggle with the call to "take up the cross" as did Abraham - and follow Yeshua?

How much do you "need" to understand before you are willing to let go and surrender? Do you put God in the test - subconsciously demanding that he justify himself to you before you will obey? How did Abraham find the paradoxical strength to die to himself?  How do we?

So much is beyond our control and we understand so little. We can either abhor all that happens that we cannot understand, or we can trust that God has a plan that, although inscrutable to us and sometimes seemingly cruel, is nevertheless the ordained way of our lives. Yes, "ordained," for nothing happens in our lives due to "random" forces or by chance, for the LORD God Almighty knows the beginning from the end, and all of reality is His story to tell.  God is the Central Character of the thing called "life," and indeed He is the creative force and Author of all that exists. Faith believes that the story is about his vindication of love despite all the darkness, evil and shame that seeks to deny its fulfillment.

Reinhold Niebuhr's well known "Serenity Prayer" expresses the balance we need to walk in the present ambiguity and "already-not-yet" fulfillment of God's story. It begins, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." That's most things of life.  Nearly everything. "Who among you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" "Serenity," or inner peace (שָׁלְוָוה פְּנִימִית), first comes from "acceptance" (קַבָּלָה), that is, receiving whatever is the case (קבלה של הכל), and not fighting it, not lamenting over it, not negotiating with it - just willingly accepting it as something God has allowed. "Thy will be done." Whatever bothers us is likely out of our hands anyway, and it is tragically foolish to "play God" in any circumstance.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change," yes, that makes sense, but the prayer continues, "and [grant me] the courage to change the things I can." Though many things are indeed beyond our control, such as who our parents and ancestors were, when and where we were born, the state of the world we inhabit, and so on, some things are not. There are genuine choices we must make in life for which we are responsible and from which we cannot abstain. "Ought implies can" which means there is a moral order to reality and that we have the ability to make meaningful choices. We are born with a conscience; we have intuitive awareness of right and wrong, of good and evil. Choosing not to chose is itself a choice; saying you "can't help it" and making excuses by blaming circumstances is "bad faith." To decide means to "cut away" other options, and that requires courage because we don't know the effect of our choices with certainty. We are nevertheless accountable for whatever we choose, and our judgments and reasons that justify our choices imply that we are responsible for how we think, for our attitudes, our values, and so on. Faith provides the courage to trust in the unseen good rather than to allow fear to devour our souls.

The Serenity Prayer ends with the phrase, "and [grant me] the wisdom to know the difference." This is very practical. Some things you can't change and must accept; other things you can change and must choose.  Wisdom is understanding what's in your power and what's not, and therefore knowing what you must accept (for the sake of inner peace) and what you must actively fight (for the sake of duties of your heart). Acceptance is based on necessity whereas courage is based on possibility; knowing the difference is wisdom.

Surely it takes wisdom to relate to God - for that is what we are talking about, really -- how to find peace by surrendering to his will, and how to find courage to take responsibility for whatever you decide to do. The life of faith is not easy and tests are inevitable. God designed it that way and we must accept that. Yet we must choose to keep hope alive despite our finitude, brokenness, and inability to fathom much of anything. At times we will experience respite and calm; at other times we will struggle and fight. Either way we need wisdom.  As Job said Adonai natan, v'Adonai lakach: yehi shem Adonai me'vorakh: "The LORD has given, the LORD has taken away; let the name of the LORD be praised" (Job 1:22). Whatever happens, however, we call out to God for his blessing and help. We seek His face. We will not give up, even if we don't understand. And that is the Torah of Abraham, who courageously accepted everything and was set free by choosing to believe in the truth of God's love.


Hebrew Lesson
Jeremiah 29:11 reading (click for audio):

 

• Jer. 29:11 Hebrew page (pdf)
  
   

God's Pursuing Love...


 

11.21.24  (Cheshvan 20, 5785)   Where it says, "Surely goodness and kindness (טוֹב וָחֶסֶד) shall follow me all the days of my life" (Psalm 23:6), note the Hebrew verb translated "shall follow me" (i.e., יִרְדְּפוּנִי) comes from a root (i.e., radaf: רָדַף) that means "to pursue," as a hunter chases after his prey. In this connection the Baal Shem Tov once asked, "But why the need for pursuit? Does anyone flee from goodness and kindness so that these must pursue him?" And he answered: "Indeed they do. A person may flee from something he thinks is harmful, not knowing that it is heaven-sent and intended for his advantage."

This interesting interpretation suggests that we may try to protect ourselves even at the expense of receiving a blessing. Do we allow fear to rob us of the chance to grow? The sages comment that if we flee from what is good because we mistakenly regard it as evil, we should pray, as David did, that the hidden good should pursue us relentlessly. Amen. As David also prayed: "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults" (Psalm 19:12). The tragedy is that our secret faults often make us our own worst enemy.

At any rate, given the context of this beloved Psalm, it is clear that King David was sure that God's kindness would "hound" him as he made his way through this world - even in the dark places, even in "the valley of the shadow of death" (בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת) - where God's rod and staff would comfort him and direct his way (Psalm 23:4). Amen, thank God for Yeshua our Good Shepherd (ישׁוע הָרוֹעֶה הַטּוֹב שֶׁלָנוּ) who lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11). Praise God that He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 23:6 Hebrew reading (click): 


 

• Psalm 23:6 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Our Times in His Hand...


 

The following is related to our Torah reading for this week, Chayei Sarah...

11.20.24  (Cheshvan 19, 5785)   Do you understand that in God's sovereign design and plan for creation, He breathed out a part of his very heart, soul, and strength to create you in his own "image and likeness," a reflection of his own self-existence and reality?  This is the essential blessing each of us has been given.  Rene Descartes' intuitive awareness of the inner witness of the soul: "I think therefore I am," echoes the  אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, "I am that I am," within our hearts. The LORD is the "God of the spirits of all flesh" (Num. 16:22) for "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

The moments of our lives, the ups and downs of our goings, the length of our days - and especially the purpose and end of our existence - are all in the hands of God, as it says: "In you I put my trust, O LORD; I said, 'You are my God; my times are in your hands" (Psalm 31:14-15). A person may "devise his own way," but it is the LORD that directs his steps.

If we consider our lives apart from God, however, all we see is wretchedness, limitations, shortness of days, and the absurd specter of death at the end of it all. Life always seems too short; the days fly past us like a dream, soon we are "cut off" and gone. When the moment of death occurs, many are lost to its eternal significance... They die unprepared.

On the other hand, when we trust that our lives are under God's providential direction, and we realize that our Heavenly Father "numbers the hairs on our head," then we can quiet our hearts and abandon ourselves to his care (Isa. 46:8-10; Psalm 103:19). As it is written: "Those who trust in you know your Name; for you do not forsake those who seek you, O LORD" (Psalm 9:10). And as the Apostle Paul preached to the Athenians, "God, who alone is Creator, the Lord of heaven and earth, has given life and breath to all people, and from one man has made every nation of people to live on the earth, having determined prescribed times and the boundaries of their habitations" (Acts 17:24-26).

For the believer there is no greater comfort than to trust that the LORD will work "all things together" for our ultimate good (Rom. 8:28). "Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:26). Yet there is a veil, an ordained obscurity. "God has made every thing beautiful in his time, and he has set eternity in people's hearts, so that no one can find out what he has ordained from the beginning to the end" (Eccl. 3:11). So while we know only "in part," as through "a glass darkly," we believe that the LORD goes before us and will always be with us (Deut. 31:8). And one day we shall see him "panim el-panim," face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). "Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as He is; and everyone that has this hope in Him is purified, even as he is pure" (1 John 3:2-3).

Χάριτι δὲ θεοῦ εἰμι ὅ εἰμι - "by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). This is a radical axiom that should be foundational to our faith, namely that nothing occurs in our lives apart from God's will for our ultimate blessing. From small matters to big, from the seemingly insignificant to the momentous, from what seems hopelessly undone to the sheer miracle and glory of existence itself -- categorically everything, in every conceivable world, is under the sovereign hand of the One who works all things together for his glory and for our good. Amen. Yeshua "upholds all things" (φέρων τε τὰ πάντα) by the word of his power. "All things were created by him, and for him, and in him all things hold together" (ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν). He is the "Magnetic Center" of reality, its beginning and its end (Col. 1:16-17).

How could it be otherwise? For who can overrule the will of God our Creator and the LORD over all?  "From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done" (Isa. 41:13). "For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?" (Isa. 14:27).

Therefore do not be afraid. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jer. 29:11). As Yeshua said: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 9:10 reading with commentary (click):


 

• Psalm 9:10 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Thirst of Hope...


 

11.20.24  (Cheshvan 19, 5785)   It's been difficult time over the last few years, and I appreciate your prayers. There have been family problems as I've told you before. My kids need your prayers. I have been waiting for the LORD through sleepless nights, the banality of gray days, punctuated by pain, sighs of heartsick hope, fearful whisperings, and loneliness. It sometimes feels like the "samsara" of the desert, a place of exile. There is no place I want to go anymore... I walk with a limp, friends. The sages say that our father Isaac went blind because the angel's tears fell into his eyes as he lay bound upon the altar... I wonder if he might have later asked himself what use is there to see any more of this world? But (surprisingly) God used his blindness to allow the blessing to be given to Jacob, after all.

Some wounds are incurable in this present life... I have felt swallowed up in grief and inexplicable sorrow from days before I knew my right hand from my left.  Shame has been a constant companion; melancholy my muse. I cannot outrun myself. "Cursed be the day wherein I was born!" exclaimed both Job and Jeremiah (Job 3:3; Jer. 20:14). "If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me -- if I have found favor in your eyes -- and do not let me face my own ruin" said Moses (Num. 11:15). Elijah likewise prayed that he might die: "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors" (1 Kings 19:4).

Of course personal suffering in this life is common enough, and no one is immune to it,  though it is especially poignant, I think, to souls that seek God's presence and love above all things, for these people are bound to be misfits in this world of vanity and conceit. Soren Kierkegaard is such an example, and he once wrote: "What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful."

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke of the loneliness that results from Modern society, which he called an "It-world" that is marked by the prevalence of "I–It" rather than "I–Thou" relationships. The realm of the "institution" objectifies or "thingifies" people, and this bureaucratic "system" creates a sense of existential angst. Trapped in the "It-world," people begin to feel that life is meaningless, as they are numbered among the "faceless crowd" and are enthralled in a Kafkaesque prison of loneliness... The way out for Buber - and this is surely right - is to be in a life-transforming relationship with God, the ultimate "I-Thou" connection that will sustain our way despite the hardness of the "It-world."

Our Lord said: "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... 

"Blessed art Thou, LORD our God, who never leaves nor forsakes us, and who draws us close through hunger and thirst." Amen.  We are truly blessed when we ache with heartfelt longing for the Divine Presence... This is not some form of masochistic spirituality. Feeling content, unconcerned, satisfied, numb, etc., may be a sign of a dreadful condition of heart. "You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1).

Well I didn't intend to make this a long post, so I will close for now. I hope I didn't come across as being full of self-pity, friends. I know we all struggle and hurt at times. But please remember me in prayers, for I truly need them. And I pray that Hebrew for Christians will not be an "I-it" relationship for you, but one that helps you draw closer to the LORD and the "I-Thou" blessing of knowing him better. Amen.


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 42:2 reading (click):


 

• Psalm 42:2 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Truth of the Heart...


 

11.19.24  (Cheshvan 18, 5785)   When Yeshua proclaimed, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them" (Matt. 5:17-20), he was actually amplifying the message of both Moses and the prophets, though his interpretation was contrary to various "traditional" views of his day. "You have heard that it was said [in the law, or by your sages...] ... BUT I SAY unto you..."  Wait. What did he say?

As a good Jewish teacher, Yeshua continually affirmed the inner meaning of the Torah, especially the Shema and the related obligation to love others (Matt. 22:36-40). In that regard His doctrine was surely a continuance of the Torah's foundational message.  However, Yeshua clearly extended the reach of the Torah to include the inner heart attitude of the person.  Observing the law was not a matter of adhering to various external codes of conduct but involved the rigorous self-examination of the heart and soul.

The law forbade murder, for example, but Yeshua extended the scope of the law to reach the intent of the heart: "You have heard it said (i.e., by Moses himself as he quoted the words of YHVH) 'You shall not murder...' but I say unto you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause is liable to excommunication; whoever insults his brother is liable to punishment, and whoever calls his brother a fool is in danger of the fires of Hell" (Matt. 5:21-22). As someone once put it, murder is just anger "communicated really well..."

Likewise, the law forbade the act of adultery, but Yeshua did not focus on the external action but rather the condition of the heart: "You have heard it said, (i.e., by Moses himself as he quoted the words of YHVH) 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart."  When Yeshua explained that the law's intent was to prevent even looking with lust upon a woman, then for all the more reason it should be obvious that we refrain from physical acts of adultery or fornication. They eye sees through the heart.... Dealing with the heart attitude behind the lustful look therefore obviates the need to forbid the outer practice of the flesh (and therefore fulfills the intent of the law against adultery).

In matters relating to 1) divorce (i.e., Deut. 24:1-4), 2) the taking of oaths (Deut. 6:13; 10:20; Num. 30:2; Exod. 20:16), 3) the exercise of retribution (Exod. 21:23-24, Lev. 24:19-20; Deut. 19:21), and 4) the obligation to hate one's enemies (Deut. 7:2, 13:15-17, 20:16, Psalm 137:9, etc.), Yeshua actually circumvented the written words of Torah by denying matters that were technically permissible according to the "letter of the law" (Matt. 5:31-47). We see this clearly in the case of divorce, for instance.  When the Pharisees asked him whether it was permissible to put away one's wife (Deut. 24:1-4), Yeshua answered: "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). Note that this was a "concession" added by Moses that was not genuinely God's will, and indeed the rigor of Yeshua's interpretation superseded that of Moses himself, who permitted divorce as a concession to human frailty and evil. Indeed, in each of these examples (divorce, taking oaths, retaliation, tribal loyalty), Yeshua's interpretation was more demanding and rigorous than the laws written in the Torah of Moses.

By expounding the requirements of the law with such rigor, Yeshua was claiming equal authority with YHVH Himself (יהוה). After all, each antecedent clause, "You have heard that it was said..." referred to an explicit utterance made by God Himself at Sinai. Yeshua then authoritatively extended the reach of the commandment by identifying its underlying ethical intent.  This is what he meant by "fulfilling" the Law, or reaching the goal of the Torah's message. The time of "circumcision of the heart" was at hand (Deut. 30:6). The message of the law was to be written on hearts of flesh, not tablets of stone (Jer. 31:33, 2 Cor. 3:3,6).

Like a flawless mirror, the law of God reflects back to us the truth of our moral and spiritual condition, and thereby reveals our need for deliverance from ourselves (that is, if we are willing to truly look and to be honest with ourselves).  The "problem of the law" is that it is "weak" on account of human "flesh," and therefore remedy had to be sought through other means (Rom. 8:1-4). This is the ultimate gospel message itself - that God sent His Son to both save us from the just verdict of the law (through Yeshua's substitutionary sacrifice) and to provide the heart's means to serve Him in the truth (through the agency of the Holy Spirit, given to those who trust in Him).

Let's consider again Yeshua's thinking about adultery: "You have heard it said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The sin has to do with how the eye is used to see. The "way" of seeing is the crux of the matter, for that exposes the illicit desire hidden within.    According to Yeshua, no thought is trivial or without spiritual importance. Every word we speak is a form of confession (Matt. 12:36-37). "To the one that has, more shall be given" is a spiritual law. The more you entertain evil thoughts, the more evil thoughts will be given, and the converse is true as well: the more you entertain good thoughts, the more ennobled you shall become. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." These are matters about our inner life. Yeshua teaches righteousness that "exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees," the inner meaning of the "law" of God...

Some "religious" people want to measure their actions according to the "letter of the law," supposing that if they do not contradict the "legal language," they are innocent, regardless of their "private" thoughts or feelings which are deemed to be irrelevant to matters of fact. They approach the law of God like a tax accountant seeking to avoid an audit.

This legalistic approach lends itself to minimizing the responsibility we have for our inner thoughts and motivations, and thereby suppresses the deeper reason for the law itself. Someone may be technically innocent from committing an act of adultery though his heart be filled with lustful desire and infidelity, yet it is the evil desire that is impetus for the law in the first place. Intuitively we understand that evil thoughts and intentions lead to evil actions. This is called "premeditation," meaning that the person has at first thought about doing the action before it was done. It is a matter of cause and effect. To deny this is almost the definition of insanity.

A person may not literally steal from others but his heart be filled with covetousness and greed; another may say they would never murder someone, yet they refuse to forgive others, they allow anger to fester within them, and by means of resentment they effectively "destroy" others by cutting them off.  You can think of other applications of these principles, but this should suffice to indicate that the inner life of the mind and heart really do matter, and that God is not indifferent to the moral character and integrity of our lives...

It is our duty, then, to control ourselves, to think clearly, and to focus on the good, true, beautiful, loving, and honorable. "Think on these things" (Phil. 4:8). Positively this means using the "good eye" by looking for what is healing and life-giving, while negatively this means repudiating evil and ugly thoughts, resisting the insinuations of the devil, and taking every thought captive to the truth of Messiah. In order to respect others, we must respect ourselves, and that means understanding that nothing is trivial and everything matters.


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 51:6 reading (click):

 

• Psalm 51:6 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

We have a moral and spiritual duty to think clearly and not to abuse our minds (Phil. 4:8; Rom. 12:2). The LORD our God will help us to do this, as Yeshua said: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you a Helper (παράκλητος, someone "called to one's side"), to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth (רוּחַ הָאֱמֶת), whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him" (John 14:16-17). The Spirit of Truth helps us "discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect" (Rom. 12:2) and empowers us to take "every thought captive" to the reality of the Divine Presence (2 Cor. 10:4-5).

Followers of the Lord are commanded to love the truth and to think clearly about their faith. The ministry of reconciliation itself is defined as "the word of truth, by the power of God, through weapons of righteousness" (2 Cor. 6:7). Indeed, the word of truth (τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας) is a synonym for the "gospel of salvation" itself (Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5; James 1:18). We are saved by Yeshua, who is the "way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). God commands all people to believe this truth (Acts 17:30-31; 1 Tim. 2:4). People perish because "they refuse to love the truth and so be saved" (2 Thess. 2:10-12). Therefore we see that the issue of truth -- and by extension thinking truthfully - is essential to salvation itself...

Finally, friend, a closing thought.  Let us not despair by thinking that we will never change. We must simply "enter into" the presence of God in Yeshua. That is what "self-denial" really means: Turning to God to know his heart. And when we do, we receive a heart to know him in return... Let us "believe to see" the goodness of the LORD in our midst. Amen.
 

Making the Dead Alive...


 

11.18.24  (Cheshvan 17, 5785)   We must be careful not to confuse cause and effect in the realm of the spiritual. After the original transgression of Adam and Eve, death became the root problem of the human condition, so to speak, with indwelling sin as its fruit (i.e., the "works of the flesh"). It is this inherited "spiritual death" that causes sin. To focus on outward behavior without first of all dealing with the underlying problem of spiritual death is therefore a misstep. It is to clean the outside of the cup or to wash the outside of a tomb in a vain attempt to disguise the truth about our unclean and dead condition. The good news is not that God wants to make bad people good, but rather wants to make dead people alive... The cure for spiritual death is to be spirtually reborn and to partake of the resurrected life of Yeshua.

Following Yeshua is not a sort of "moral reformation" or self-improvement program to make us acceptable to God. Yeshua did not die on the cross so that we would become entangled in the old ways of being... No! He is Lord and Master and we find new life in His acts of deliverance done on our behalf and for our benefit. The temptation is always to go back to the law of sin and death (i.e., the principle of self-justification), but as Luther once said: "The sin underneath all our sins is the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and that we must take matters into our own hands."

"LORD, I need Thee every hour..." There never will be a time when we "get past" the need for God's grace given in Yeshua, since the only antidote to power of indwelling sin is the greater power of God's redeeming love within our hearts (1 John 3:8). The gospel is - not was - "the power of God for salvation (δύναμις θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν) for everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16); it is an ongoing source of power for our lives... Our identity is made secure in the finished work of the Messiah - we trust in His strength, not our own; it is "Messiah in you" that is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). Just as we are given a new life entirely by means of God's grace, so we are also sanctified as we walk in that newness of life... "As you received Yeshua the Messiah the LORD, so walk in Him" (Col. 2:6). The focus is always on Yeshua and His righteousness and obedience... Every step of the way is a miracle and a wonder when we walk "in Messiah."

We walk "in Him," that is, in His strength, in His power, in His love... we don't walk "to" Him or attempt to climb the "stairway to heaven." Yeshua is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Bridge - sha'ar hashamayim (שַׁעַר הַשָּׁמָיִם) and the Divine Ladder upon whom the angels of God ascend and descend. We look to Him, not to ourselves for life. Because of the life of Yeshua within us, we are now able to bear fruit of the Holy Spirit as the Torah is written upon our hearts (Jer. 31:31). We are enabled to keep the Torah of Yeshua (תּוֹרָה יֵשׁוּעַ) because the life of Yeshua empowers us to do so...


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 138:8 reading (click for audio):

 

• Psalm 138:8 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Biblical Hebrew Wordplay...


 

11.18.24  (Cheshvan 17, 5785)   Shalom chaverim. The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with various kinds of wordplay. In addition to some humorous play on words (i.e., puns), you will discover alliteration, acrostics, parables, similes, metaphors, theophorisms, hyperboles, gematria, and other literary devices present in the Hebrew text. Some scholars even suggest that the first two words of the Torah (i.e., בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא / bereshit bara) were intentionally spelled using the same initial three letters (בּ.ר.א) for the sake of "alliteration" (i.e., repetition of sound). At any rate, examples of wordplay often appear on the surface-level of the texts.  For example, "Adam" (אָדָם) is a play on the word adamah (אֲדָמָה, "ground"); Chavah (חַוָּה, "Eve") is a play on the word chai (חַי, "life"); Kayin (קַיִן, "Cain") is a play on the verb kanah (קָנָה, "to get"), and so on (see Gen. 2:7, 3:20, 4:1). Even the name "Jesus" (i.e., Yeshua: יֵשׁוּעַ) plays on the Hebrew word for deliverance or salvation (i.e., yeshuah: יְשׁוּעָה). Many other examples could be cited.

Of particular relevance to our recent Torah readings is the name Yitzchak (יִצְחָק, "Isaac"), which plays on the verb tzachak (צָחַק, "to laugh"). Some have said that tzachak is "onomatopoeic," that is, it imitates the sound of laughter itself. Appropriately enough, the root appears a number of times in the story of Isaac, though often with different connotations.  The simple stem (kal) of tzachak conveys the idea of laughter, whether in joy or incredulity, though the stronger stem (piel) suggests more intense expressions, for example rejoicing, playing, and making love -- or (negatively) mocking, scorning, and deriding. In other words, the motive for laughter is only contextually understood. After all, there's a big difference between laughing at someone and laughing with them.

At any rate, God Himself named Isaac in response to Abram's laughter over the prospect of having a child in his old age. Here's some of the "back story." God originally called Abram to leave Ur of Mesopotamia for the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:1). When he arrived there, God appeared to him and promised that his descendants would inherit the land (Gen. 12:7). Abram was 75 years old at this time. Abram wandered through the land waiting for God's promise to be fulfilled. Some time later (but before the birth of Ishmael), God came to him in a vision and reaffirmed his promise that he would have a son "from his own loins" (Gen. 15:1-5). Abram "believed in the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6). The LORD then made the "covenant of the pieces" to seal the agreement to give the land of Canaan to Abram's descendants (Gen. 15:7-20). Ten more years passed, however, and Abram and Sarai were still childless. In a lapse of faith, Sarai urged Abram to sleep with her Egyptian maidservant, Hagar, in order to produce the family heir.  Ishmael was born when Abram was 86 years old (Gen. 16:16).

Another thirteen years passed before God appeared to Abram to renew his earlier promise that he would become a "father of a multitude" (Gen. 15; 17:7). Abram was now 99 years old. To symbolize Abram's changed status, God changed his name from Avram ("exalted father" [from אָב, "father," + רָם, "exalted"]) to Avraham ("father of a multitude" [from אָב, "father" + המוֹן, "crowd"]). (Note that some scholars regard Avraham's name to mean "father of mercy" (from אָב, "father" + רחם, "womb"). Likewise God changed Sarah's name from Sarai (שָׂרַי, "princess") to Sarah (שָׂרָה) -- the exchanged Hey (ה) for the Yod (י) was given to indicate that the Divine Presence was to replace of the "hand" of Sarah's design. (Indeed, the root of Sarah's name (i.e., שׂר, "prince") later reappears when her grandson Jacob was renamed "Israel."  The wordplay occurs in the phrase "for you have striven (sarita) as a prince (sar) with God and with men and have prevailed" (Gen 32:28)).  God reaffirmed his promise to make Abram into a great nation and then gave him the commandment of brit millah (בְּרִית מִילָה, ritual circumcision) as a token or "sign" of the agreement. (There's another play on words here: Abraham's male descendants who refuse to "cut off" their foreskins would be "cut off" from the terms of the covenant).

Getting back to the wordplay on Isaac's name, when the LORD repeated his promise that Abraham would sire a son in his old age, he "threw himself on his face and laughed (וַיִּצְחָק) as he said to himself, "Can a child be born to a man a hundred years old, or can Sarah bear a child at ninety?" (Gen. 17:17). When Abraham attempted to recommend Ishmael as his heir, God said "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Yitzchak (יִצְחָק, "he laughs").... (Gen. 17:19). After this vision of the LORD, Abraham promptly circumcised himself along with his son Ishmael (Gen. 17:23-26).

Rashi says it was the third day after Abraham's circumcision when he was visited by the Angel of the LORD (מַלְאַךְ יהוה) accompanied with the two other angels. When Sarah overheard the Angel of the LORD say, "I will certainly return to you next year, and your wife Sarah shall have a son" (Gen. 18:10), she laughed (וַתִּצְחַק) within herself (lit, "at her insides") and thought, "Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment, my husband being so old?" (Gen. 18:12). The LORD (יהוה) then asked, "Why did Sarah laugh (צָחֲקָה)? Sarah denied it (לא צָחַקְתִּי, "I didn't laugh"), but the Angel of the LORD said, "No, but you did laugh" (לא כִּי צָחָקְתְּ).

Jewish tradition maintains that Abraham laughed in joy at the prospect of becoming a father, whereas Sarah (initially) shook her head in disbelief. Sarah underwent teshuvah, however, even before her conception (see Heb. 11:11), and after the miraculous birth of her son exclaimed in heartfelt joy: "God has made laughter (צְחק) for me; everyone who hears will laugh for me (יִצְחַק־לִי)" (Gen. 21:6).

After Isaac was weaned, however, Abraham held a celebration, but Sarah saw Ishmael mocking (מְצַחֵק, i.e., the piel participle of צָחַק, "to laugh") her son and demanded that he be sent away. This grieved Abraham greatly, but God reassured him that Ishmael would nevertheless become a great nation with numerous descendants (Gen. 21:11-13). The promise of being Abraham's heir belonged to Isaac alone, who was the miraculously given son that would bring laughter to the hearts of all those who believe...

A further example of wordplay on the name "Isaac" occurs when the Torah records how he fled to the Philistine city of Gerar to escape a famine in the land. Like his father Abraham, Isaac lied by telling people that his wife Rebekah was his "sister." The Torah records that his deception was detected when Abimelech saw him "playing" with Rebekah: יִצְחָק מְצַחֵק אֵת רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ / "Isaac was 'sporting' with his wife Rebekah" (Gen. 26:8). The verb translated "sporting" is the intensive (piel) form of tzachak (צָחַק, "to laugh"), and clearly suggests the idea of caressing and fondling -- i.e., making love.

Hebrew wordplay was also applied to Isaac's sons.  When the twins were born, the first came out hairy and was named Esau (עֵשָׂו), perhaps from the word esev (עֵשֶׂב), "grass" or "weed" of the field), whereas the second came out with his hand on his brother's heel, and was named Ya'akov (יַעֲקב, "grappler," from the word עָקֵב, "heel"). Later, when Esau learned that Jacob had taken away his blessing, he exclaimed, "Is he not rightly named "heel holder" (i.e., יַעֲקב)? For he has taken me by the heel (יַּעְקְבֵנִי) these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing" (Gen. 27:36).


Hebrew Lesson
Isaiah 7:9b reading (click):


 

• Isa. 7:9b Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Blessing of Confession...


 

[ "Nothing sets a Christian so much out of the devil's reach than humility." - Jonathan Edwards ]

11.18.24  (Cheshvan 17, 5785)   "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Not just this or that particular sin, mind you, but rather the whole constellation of attitudes, assumptions, and wayward thinking that brought us into exile in the first place.  The Greek word "confession" (i.e., homologia: ὁμολογία) means bringing yourself naked before the Divine Light to agree with the truth about who you are.  Indeed, the verb form "homologeo" (ὁμολογέω) means "saying the same thing" - from ὁμός (same) and λόγος (word). In biblical Hebrew teshuvah (תְשׁוּבָה) means turning back to God by turning away from what makes you lost in unreality and painful exile. God's love for us is the question, and our teshuvah – our turning of the heart toward Him – is the answer. Teshuvah is one of the great gifts God gives each of us – the ability to turn back to Him and seek healing for our brokenness.


Hebrew Lesson
Proverbs 28:13 reading (click):

 

• Prov. 28:13 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Life of Sarah... חיי שרה


 

11.17.24  (Cheshvan 16, 5785)   Shavuah tov, chaverim. Our Torah reading for last week (i.e., parashat Vayera) told how God was faithful to Abraham and Sarah by miraculously giving them a son (Isaac) in their old age. Nonetheless, Abraham faced his greatest test of all by being asked to offer up his promised child as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah, the place of the future Temple. On account of his willingness to obey, God blessed Abraham and promised that He would multiply Abraham's offspring as the stars of heaven and that in his seed (singular) all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

This week's Torah portion is called Chayei Sarah (חיי שרה), the "life of Sarah," though it begins (paradoxically) with the account of her death, and it tells how the first great matriarch of the Jewish people was buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, a burial site which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite (Gen. 23:1-20). Since the account of Sarah's death is given just after the account of the near-sacrifice of Isaac (i.e., the Akedah), some of the sages link the events together, suggesting that the shock of the near loss of her beloved son at the hand of her husband was just too much for her to bear.


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 23:1a Hebrew Reading (click):

 

• Gen. 23:1a Hebrew page (pdf)
   

After Sarah was buried in Hebron, Abraham sought a wife for his son by commissioning his faithful servant Eliezer (whom Abraham had once thought would be his heir), to go among his relatives living in Mesopotamia to seek a bride for Isaac. Eliezer (i.e., אֱלִיעֶזֶר, lit., "My God will help") then set out on the 550 mile journey to Haran (also called the City of Nahor and the place where Abraham's father died), taking ten camels laden with gifts in search of a suitable woman. In answer to his prayer, as soon as Eliezer reached the city of Nahor he encountered Abraham's grand niece Rebekah drawing water at a well, where she graciously provided water for him and for his ten camels, thereby confirming that she was God's choice for Isaac.
 

• Chayei-Sarah Torah Summary pages...
• Shabbat Table Talk for Chayei Sarah (pdf)
• Chayei Sarah audio podcast (SoundCloud here)
   

Faith and Surrender...


 

The following is related to our Torah reading for this Shabbat, parashat Vayera...

11.16.24  (Cheshvan 15, 5785)   Have you ever met a truly "surrendered" person?  Someone who is completely yielded to God, happily unconcerned with their own will, delivered from all earthly fears and fully at peace with whatever happens?

I once knew such as person years ago when I was attending seminary. He was a missionary to Japan, soft-spoken, gentle, and fully awake to God's presence.  You could sense his surrender in the little things, the petty inconveniences that come up -- not so much by what he said but by what he let pass him by. To an outsider he might mistakenly have been construed to be a shy or passive person, or a perhaps a man of Stoic resignation, but going deeper than superficialities it revealed that he was alive and awake to God's presence -- not in some self-serving way -- but the depths of quietness and serenity that attended his spirit.

Now let's consider the patriarch Abraham, surely the ideal example of a surrendered soul in all the Torah. Behold the man. Imagine the depths of his surrender! What was his secret of his strength? Everything he wanted in his life was embodied in his son who lay bound upon the altar. Isaac was Abraham's world. His dream. His hope. His religion. All of the promises of God were bound up in Isaac as the leather ropes that tightly bound his hands and feet. Abraham's life flashed before his eyes. His mind was spinning as he remembered the starry night sky and the promise, "So shall your seed be...."

It was all so incredible, impossible, and surreal. And yet it all led to this moment. The call to leave everything behind and go to an unknown land; the various tests he faced over the long years; the moments of unspeakable joy, of seeing God, hearing his promises, his laughter, his song; and moments of sorrow, loss, and fear. After it was all said and done, there was nothing left of him other than who he was in relation to the Lord, and nothing else -- not even his dearest hope and dream - mattered in comparison.

There was no fear in his heart as Abraham lifted up the knife that would slay all his worldly hope and dreams, no fear, because he had seen the LORD, he was already as one dead yet made alive in the presence of God, and that presence spoke a deeper truth than whatever worldly any circumstance could say (Rev. 1:17). Abraham "hoped against hope" because the deeper hope was beyond any worldly hope that might have been imagined. Abraham was lifted up into the countless stars again, in another realm, beyond the pale of whatever might be seen, and it was that vision that gave him courage to believe despite the apparent insanity of the situation.

But let's not forget the great surrender of Isaac, too, who willingly allowed himself to be bound by his father, their "hineini" love uniting them in God's presence.  The midrash portrays Isaac asking his father to tighten the bonds that held him as their eyes locked in love for one another. The tears of Abraham fell from his eyes into Isaac's eyes; their well of tears filled by an unspeakable yearning.

We perhaps tend to pass by the story too quickly and "read back into" what had happened, how the Angel of the LORD intervened to stop the sacrifice and to provide the lamb to take Isaac's place, and we are surely amazed that God provided the lamb which Abraham lifted up for a burnt offering "in place of" his son (Gen. 22:13). It was then that Abraham was rejoined with "resurrected" Isaac, as if receiving him back from the dead (Heb. 11:17-19). Recall that Abraham reflected and called the place of sacrifice "Adonai Yireh" (יְהוָה יִרְאֶה), "the LORD who sees," or "the LORD who provides," and Moses commented that it is so called to this day: "In the mountain of the LORD it shall be provided" (Gen. 22:14), prophetically referring to the place where Yeshua was lifted up as the true Lamb of God. 

This is of course the "gospel" of Moses, and we take note that Abraham offered there his "only begotten" son, the one whom he especially loved, for the sacrifice, and we further note that this is the first place in the Torah where the word "love" (אהבה), meaning "he will give" (א + הב), appears.  There is a great peace when we let go of everything in our hearts (everything) and give ours lives over to the care of God.

But is it possible for mere mortals, those frail human beings among us who are filled with fear, doubt, and shame, to do such things? Some people trivialize the idea by thinking of surrender as a sort of "diet," or the self-abnegation of practiced denial. And while it's true there is a sort of denial involved in true surrender, it is not the self-denial of a Hindu yogi nor the resolve of a Stoic philosopher who gives up all worldly desire in order to find the courage to face one's fate.

Surrender is a paradoxical sort of "work" in that it is accomplished in the repose of trust, not in the strivings of the physical body. It is believing that whatever you really are is a witness to something Wonderful, beyond your understanding, and utterly worthy of your full attention. It is the "shalom from above," given freely as you look away from yourself to encounter something so strikingly beautiful and glorious that everything else becomes as "dust and ashes."

But what is surrender in practical terms?  Is it an attitude of mind and heart that gives up whatever it may otherwise want? Well that may be a "negative" aspect or side of surrender, the "giving up" or "letting go" side, but full surrender goes beyond the idea of self-denial to enter into the truth of God's presence, and that marks the resurrection of heart to newness of life. So on the other side of denial, death, and harrowing loss is acceptance, life, and unspeakably great gain!

Surrender is a letting go of our illusions, our worldly desires, our attachments, and indeed whatever and however we may regard ourselves, in order to know God's love, strength, and sufficiency. It is really a form of "teshuvah," turning away from the darkness to the light, forgetting yourself in order to know yourself in relation to God's blessing and presence.  Such surrender releases you from all manner of worldly fear as you are "transported" into the realm of divine beauty and truth. You are reborn by God's Spirit - the breath and atmosphere of God's love and grace suffuse your heart and inner life.

If you find yourself "stuck" to your attachments, whether they are ideals or dreams or even your vision of what God is like, you can pray and ask the Holy Spirit to release you from what holds your heart captive. When by miracle you surrender your will to God, letting God to be God, you will sense perfect peace that passes all your understanding. Amen, and may the LORD help us all find ourselves in the truth of his heart and will for whatever we may be.


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 73:25 reading (click for audio):


 

• Psalm 73:25 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

A Quick Postscript:

We all struggle with surrendering fully to God, and if it were so easy Abraham would be otherwise unremarkable. Yeshua regularly admonished his disciples to have faith, and sometimes chided them for their unbelief: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?" "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Matt. 8:26; Matt. 14:31, etc.). This is a lesson of great contrast. Abraham's faith was so steady that he obeyed the call of God even when it seemed to make no sense... "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform" (Rom. 4:20-21). For this reason the Scriptures extol Abraham by calling him "the Father of the faithful" (Rom. 4:16-18).
 

The Work of Faith...


 

11.15.24  (Cheshvan 14, 5785)   Our Torah for this Shabbat (i.e., Vayera) gives the account of the terrible test given to Abraham when God asked him to offer up his son as a sacrifice (see Gen. 22). The apostle James later said that Abraham was "justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar" (James 2:21), whereas the apostle Paul seemed to say just the opposite, that Abraham was not justified by works (see Rom. 4:1-3). So is there a contradiction here in our Bibles regarding the idea of "justification"?

To answer this first understand that when James said that Abraham was justified "by works" he was referring to the work of faith and certainly not to the works of the law (מַעֲשֵׂי הַתּוֹרָה), since the Torah explicitly prohibited human sacrifice (Gen. 9:5), and furthermore the Angel of the LORD restrained Abraham's hand during the great test of faith (Gen. 22:12) thereby indicating that it was not God's will (i.e., Torah). On the other hand, the apostle Paul's seemingly contrary statement that Abraham was not justified by works refers to Abraham's unwavering trust in God's promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens (Gen. 15:1-6). There is no real contradiction, then, since the two apostles were referring to two different episodes in their discussion of justification. Faith and works are two sides of the same coin: true faith will show up in your life and character. As Yeshua said, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the One whom He has sent" (John 6:29).

The life of faith is inherently paradoxical, as Kierkegaard noted: "Ethically speaking, what Abraham planned to do was to murder Isaac; religiously, however, he was willing to sacrifice Isaac. In this contradiction lies the very anguish that can indeed make anyone sleepless. And yet without that anguish Abraham is not the one he is. Neither would faith be what it is." Although Abraham understood that God must be obeyed, he also understood that human sacrifice was immoral, and hence his struggle represented the collision between the imperative of reason and the imperative of faith. Choosing to heed the voice of reason (i.e., the "ethical," the "universal") over the personal voice of God created a state of "fear and trembling" and a sense of being unable to communicate his passion and mission to others.
 

"God cannot stand good works in the sense of earning merit. Yet good works are required. They shall be and yet shall not be. They are necessary and yet one ought humbly to ignore their significance or at least forget that they are supposed to be of any significance. Good works are like a child giving his parents a present, purchased, however, with what the child has received from his parents. All the pretentiousness which otherwise is associated with giving a present disappears when the child understands that he has received from his parents the gift which he gives to them." - Soren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling).
 

As Kierkegaard further commented: "Faith's conflict with the world is not a battle of thought with doubt, thought with thought. It is a battle of character. The person of faith is a person of character who does not insist upon comprehending everything. Now comes the conflict. The world insists that to believe what you cannot comprehend is not only blind obedience but obscurantism, stupidity, and so on. The world wants to alarm the believer against such foolishness. This is precisely why faith is a task for the person of character."


Hebrew Lesson
Isaiah 26:12 reading (click for audio):

 

• Isaiah 26:12 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Note:   In the Book of Hebrews we read: "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." Abraham considered that God was able even to raise Isaac from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back" (Heb. 11:17-19). The Greek text for "from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back" (i.e., ὅθεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἐν παραβολῇ ἐκομίσατο; Heb. 11:19b) seems to suggest Abraham believed (beforehand) that God would do a miracle and bring his son back from the dead after being sacrificed, though, of course, saying this does not mean it was therefore "easier" for him to go through with the sacrifice or that it required anything less than a complete surrender of his will to do God's will... The key phrase in 11:19b, however, has to do with receiving Isaac back, and the language here means that he did receive him back from the dead "symbolically" or "figuratively" (i.e., as a "parable").
 

The Sins of Sodom...


 

11.15.24  (Cheshvan 14, 5785)   From our Torah reading this week (i.e., parashat Vayera) we read: "And the LORD said, 'The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave...'" (Gen. 18:20). But what was the grave sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Why did God destroy the two cities? Was it because the people there refused to show hospitality to the angelic visitors (as claimed by some), or was it because of some ongoing sin of the people?

Though the sin of Sodom undoubtedly included practices of sexual perversion (called "strange flesh" (σαρκὸς ἑτέρας) in the Book of Jude), such behavior was symptomatic of a nihilistic culture that glorified violence, despised moral authority, perverted spiritual truth, and condoned the exploitation of others. Throughout the Scriptures "Sodom" symbolically represents gross immorality, depravity, and inevitable judgment from heaven. For example, the prophet Ezekiel later wrote of Judah: "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abomination (תּוֹעֵבָה) before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it" (Ezek. 16:49-50). The New Testament refers to the fate of Sodom as "a fearful example of the everlasting fire of retribution" (Jude 1:7) -- the destructive result of spiritual anarchy, lawlessness,  perversion, and the violence of indifference (2 Pet. 2:6-10).

There is real hope for those who seek to escape from the wrath to come by turning to God and trusting in his healing power of salvation, though it is only a "remnant" that will genuinely seek such deliverance (Matt. 7:14). Speaking of the final salvation of Israel, the Apostle Paul quotes Isaiah: "If the LORD of Hosts hadn't left us a few survivors, we'd be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah" (Isa 1:9; Rom. 9:29).

In this connection it should be noted that the word "sodomy" involves any form of violence, perversion, exploitation, or lawless expression of sexuality regardless of gender... In general, it is more helpful to think of it as a code word for egregious sin, "in-your-face" spite toward God, and defiant immorality that celebrates spiritual anarchy, moral nihilism, and death... Adultery, fornication, sexual perversions, viewing pornography (i.e., the lust of the eyes), covetousness, gluttony, arrogance (idolatry), unbridled anger (rage), sloth, worshiping the values and ideologies of this world (i.e., political activism, godless scientism, the world's value system), and so on, all may be called "sodomy." Whenever we consider such things, it is better to look at how we are healed rather than what makes us sick.... The answer to the trauma of a sinful heart is to turn to God and ask for deliverance in the name of Yeshua.


Hebrew Lesson
Jeremiah 7:14 Reading (click):

 

• Jer. 7:14 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The world and its "group-think" always calls for the abolition of the individual conscience. Like the people of ancient Sodom that repudiated God's moral authority so that they would be "free" to their indulge their selfish desires and "autonomy," so the world system today repudiates a person of real conviction and conscience. Indeed, the only thing regarded as "intolerable" in the devil's world is the objection that people have the supposed "liberty" to sin in whatever way they please. This godlessness is "anathema" to one who truly fears God, of course, since tolerating sin in a world ripe for judgment is a cowardly form of "collaboration" with the enemy (James 4:4). "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and who are shrewd in their own sight!" (Isa. 5:20-21).

The "original sin," that is, eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, meant that man sought to transcend God's will to determine what is valuable, true, beautiful, and so on. Man became autonomous, "the measure of all things." Such was the "logical" method of the German idealism of Kant and Hegel, which led to way for Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Adolf Hitler (and some present day politicians) to unleash their nightmares upon the earth. Understand that the deep untruth that lies behind cynical "postmodernism" expresses little more than the godless desire to control the world... Today, more than ever before, the world is like "Sodom," and therefore ripe for judgment from heaven.

And the judgment of God indeed came upon the moral anarchy of that realm... After the angels rescued Lot (and his immediate family), we read "then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground" (Gen. 19:24-25). The sages note the word translated "overthrew" is vayahafokh (וַיַּהֲפךְ), which means "overturned," suggesting that besides the fire and brimstone that rained down from the sky, an enormous earthquake engulfed the plain, forming a crater filled with salt that became known as the "Dead Sea" (ים המלח).

For more on this see, "The Sins of Sodom: Further thoughts on parashat Vayera."
 

God's Sovereign Love...


 

"He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will" (Psalm 115:3). - A.W. Pink

11.15.24  (Cheshvan 14, 5785)   The Scriptures teach that in Messiah "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined (προορισθέντες) according to the purpose of the One who works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Eph. 1:11), which is to say that salvation is a gift from God (יְשׁוּעָתָה לַיהוָה) and not the result of our own efforts (Eph. 2:8-9; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5). The LORD said to Moses, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy" (Exod. 33:19), a phrase the Apostle Paul quoted from Torah when he said: "So then it (i.e., salvation) depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Rom. 9:16, John 1:13). In light of these things, examine your heart. Does this offend you? Does it bother you to think that you are essentially helpless to draw near to God by your own best efforts? "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63). Our Lord said that no one can come to Him - and therefore to the truth of reality – apart from divine intervention: "No one is able to come to me unless he is "dragged away" (ἑλκύσῃ) by the Father" (John 6:44; Matt. 16:17).

How could it be any other way? Could we make a "stairway to heaven" to find God?  No, God's love reaches out to us, seizes us, takes us captive, and then leads us to the Savior. The LORD chooses each one who are his; they are called the "elect" (ἐκλεκτός), and their faith is always a response (i.e., "teshuvah") to God's intervention. Now this may seem offensive because it seems to suggest that God chooses some people but not others, but that misses the point. You are given the real choice to believe in Yeshua to find life, and you are promised that whoever believes in Messiah will never be put to shame (Rom. 9:33; John 6:37; John 5:24, etc.). "Whoever will believe" means just that, and all who are invited may indeed come (2 Pet. 3:9; 1 Tim. 2:4; Ezek. 18:23). Therefore the Spirit of God cries out: "Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isa. 55:6-7).

Our great Savior calls out to all who are willing to hear, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 10:28-30). Though it is a mystery, we are warned to "work out" (κατεργάζεσθε) our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who "works in you" (ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν) both "to will and to work" (τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν) his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13).


Hebrew Lesson
Exodus 33:19b Hebrew reading:

 

• Exod. 33:19b Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The gospel is "the power of God for salvation" (δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν) to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Rom. 1:16).  It is a miracle of being in a right relationship with God.  We are pursued by his love, and he haunts us until we surrender to his will... During the High Holidays we read from the Book of Jonah, which is appropriate because like Jonah, we first must be "swallowed up" in the consciousness of our own helplessness before we realize we are undone, and that we are without remedy apart from God's gracious intervention and deliverance. We start there - in the "belly of the fish" - and later we are resurrected to go forth by God's mercy and grace. As we look to Yeshua, as we lean on him, God reveals more of himself to us. He gives us the grace and strength we need; he is always enough...
 

Abraham's Three Visitors...


 

11.15.24  (Cheshvan 14, 5785)   Shalom dear chaverim. Our Torah portion for this week, parashat Vayera, begins: וַיֵּרָא אֵלָיו יהוה / Vayera elav Adonai: "and the LORD appeared to him (i.e., Abraham) by the oak trees of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day" (Gen 18:1). The midrash Bereshit Rabbah colorfully states that the phrase "by the oak trees of Mamre" (בְּאֵלנֵי מַמְרֵא) could be read as "in the oak trees," suggesting that God manifested Himself "as a tree," perhaps to recall Abraham's arrival into the land when he camped before a "teaching tree" (אֵלוֹן מוֹרֶה) in Shechem (see Gen. 12:6).

Rashi says it was the third day after Abraham's brit millah (i.e., circumcision) and God came (in a vision) to inquire as to his friend's welfare (this is regarded as a divine example of bikkur cholim (בִּקּוּר חוֹלִים), "visiting the sick"). During the vision, Abraham suddenly saw "three men" (שְׁלשָׁה אֲנָשִׁים) standing "above him."  Who were these strangers? According to the Jewish sages, they were the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael disguised as Arab wayfarers. Each angel had a distinct mission. Michael came to announce that Sarah would give birth to a son; Raphael came to heal Abraham from his circumcision; and Gabriel came to overthrow Sodom (Bava Metzia 86b). After Abraham made a hasty (but doubtlessly sumptuous meal for his guests (and note, despite what the rabbis have said, meat and dairy surely may be eaten together, as it is written: "And he (Abraham) took butter and milk and the meat (חֶמְאָה וְחָלָב וּבֶן־הַבָּקָר) he prepared and set it before them (the angels, including the Angel of the LORD) and they ate" (Gen. 18:8).  Yum! kosher cheeseburgers!).

According to Jewish tradition, when Abraham said, "My Lord (אֲדנָי), if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant" (Gen. 18:3), he was not speaking to the three visitors (as might be inferred from casual reading of the text) but rather was addressing the LORD Himself.  (As a point of Hebrew grammar, Rambam notes that the Hebrew vocalization of the word Adonai (אֲדנָי) with the qamets vowel refers to God; whereas if it's vocalized with a patach (i.e., אֲדנַי) it refers to others, i.e., "sirs.")  In other words, when Abraham saw the three strangers, he is said to have interrupted the vision of God and asked permission to take leave of the LORD: "My Lord, if you would, please do not go away from your servant." This interpretation has led to the Talmud's statement that showing hospitality to strangers (i.e., hachnasat orechim / הַכְנָסַת אוֹרְחִים) is more important than even welcoming the Shekhinah (Shabbat 127a). On the other hand, Rashi notes that the literal flow of the narrative suggests that Abraham was addressing the angels by requesting that they (plural) stay. In this case, the verse would be rendered, "My lords (אֲדנָי), if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant" (Gen. 18:3).

The most accepted Christian interpretation has been that the chief Angel was a pre-incarnate appearance of Yeshua the Messiah (i.e., a "theophany"). Understood in this light, the first verse of the portion, "and the LORD appeared to him" is immediately connected with the vision of the three archangels.  In other words, the LORD appeared to Abraham as one of these angels, namely, the Angel of the LORD (מַלְאַךְ יהוה) accompanied with two others (Michael and Gabriel). This explains why it is written that the LORD (יהוה) stayed back with Abraham after the other two angels left for Sodom (Gen. 18:22). (Note that the patriarch Jacob later referred to the LORD (יהוה) as מַּלְאָךְ הַגּאֵל אתִי מִכָּל־רָע / "the Angel who redeemed me from all evil" (Gen. 48:16), just as he earlier had wrestled with a "Man" whom he later identified as God (Gen. 32:30)). 

The dialog gets somewhat confusing, however, since it is unclear at times just who is speaking in the narrative. For instance, after graciously providing the three guests with a meal (meat and dairy!), the visitors (plural) asked where Sarah was (וַיּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו / "they asked him..."), but then then the Angel of the LORD said, "I will certainly return to you next year, and your wife Sarah shall have a son" (Gen. 18:10). Most of the Jewish sages (i.e., Rashi, Maimonides, etc.) understand this to be the Shekhinah "Voice of God" that was interjected into the conversation, though the text suggests this came directly from one of the angels, not from a "disembodied Voice" among the oakes of Mamre. At any rate, the purpose of the question was to confirm God's promise (originally given to Abraham in Gen. 17:16) to Sarah herself.... When Sarah heard this, she laughed within herself (lit, "at her insides") and thought, "Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment, my husband being so old?" (Gen. 18:12).

When the LORD (יהוה) repeated Sarah's inward thoughts to the others present, however, He omitted some of her words so that Abraham would not feel ashamed: "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?" (Gen. 18:13). The midrash says that the LORD overlooked her reference to Abraham being "too old" for the sake of shalom bayit (family harmony) and to refrain from lashon hara (evil speech). Perhaps some of this exchange was meant to reprove Sarah for disbelieving her husband's faith about a having future son. The sages note that when Abraham first heard the news about an heir "from his own loins," he laughed joyfully, but Sarah later laughed derisively...  The Angel continued: "At the appointed time I will return to you (אָשׁוּב אֵלֶיךָ), about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son" (Gen. 18:14). It should be noted here how the miraculous conception of Yitzchak - the promised "only begotten" son (בֵּן יָחִיד) who was to be sacrificed at Moriah - was meant to foreshadow the miraculous conception of Yeshua and His later sacrifice for our sins....

After reaffirming the promise of the coming heir to Sarah, the angels set out to finish their mission. Abraham escorted them on their way. The chief Angel (i.e., the Angel of the LORD) then rhetorically asked his angelic companions, "Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do (i.e., go to Sodom), seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him (כִּי יְדַעְתִּיו), that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD (דֶּרֶךְ יהוה), to do charity and justice (לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט); that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him" (Gen. 18:17-19). Note that this is the only place in Torah where the "way of the LORD" (i.e., derekh Adonai) is explicitly defined.

Abraham was destined to be the father of a multitude of nations (אַב־הֲמוֹן גּוֹיִם) - and the land promised to him included the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the adjacent plain. Moreover his nephew Lot dwelt in Sodom with his family. The LORD went on to say that "because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know." The "outcry" has been interpreted to mean the cries caused by violence, and in particular, of the brutal murder of a young girl who dared to help a poor man by giving him bread. According to midrash, it was this girl's cry that "broke through" to heaven and moved the LORD to investigate the matter personally. The LORD's "going down to see" has been interpreted to mean descending from the attribute of mercy to that of judgment. The midrash (citing Ezekiel 16:49) states that the sin of Sodom was primarily because of their pride and their refusal to give charity.

According to midrash, Abraham was perplexed about the generation of the Flood and thought it was impossible that there were not ten or twenty righteous people on the earth at that time.  Because of this, he felt compelled to question and to negotiate with the LORD.  Would God destroy the righteous along with the wicked? Perhaps Noah thought the decree of the world's destruction was irreversible, but in this case, God told Abraham that His verdict was not sealed, and that emboldened him to intercede on behalf of Sodom. Abraham's chesed (חֶסֶד), his goodness and compassion, prompted him to "draw near" to the LORD as an advocate on behalf of others. Would God's anger cause Him to indiscriminately stamp out the righteous along with the wicked? May it not be so! The wrath of God is the manifestation of His attribute of justice, but what about his attribute of mercy? Surely the Judge of all the earth will do what is right (הֲשֹׁפֵט כָּל־הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט); surely the reputation of the LORD was at stake!

Abraham began his plea bargaining with 50 righteous (10 for each of the surrounding cities) and went down to 10. Some of the sages say that he did not fulfill his mission since he did not beg that no matter what the circumstance, Sodom should not be destroyed. As it is written in Proverbs: צַדִּיק יְסוֹד עוֹלָם / "The righteous (even one) is an everlasting foundation" (Prov. 10:25). Moses had interceded on behalf of Israel after the sin of the Golden Calf, even asking God to take his life for the sake of God's pardon of his people. Likewise Yeshua went to Cross and died for the sinful and wicked. Abraham appealed to God to spare the righteous. After learning there were none, he no longer negotiated on their behalf.... A midrash, however, states that Abraham did not pray for fewer than 10 righteous men because he believed that if there were less than this, God would destroy the entire world (as He did with Noach and his family, which totaled eight souls).  Ultimately, however, God saved Lot and his daughters on the merit of Abraham's intercession ("God remembered Abraham" - Gen. 19:29). In other words, though God might judge the world, He always makes a way of escape for those who are righteous.


Hebrew Lesson
Gen. 18:25b reading (click):


 

• Gen. 18:25b Hebrew page (pdf)
  
   

Love's Reason for Being...


 

The following might seem a bit "out there" in terms of ideality, but gather what you can glean and, with God's help, may you apply its message to your own inner life...

11.14.24  (Cheshvan 13, 5785)   During an intense bout of sickness that nearly took her life, Julian of Norwich said that God showed her a "little secret" about an ordinary hazelnut. As she considered the vision of the hazelnut, she wondered, "What may this be?" and God answered her heart's pondering: "It is all that is made..."

Julian then realized that the secret of the thing was not found in what it was, but in how it had its being. "In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, and the third, that God keeps it." She then reasoned that if something exists, it is because God loves it into being, and therefore everything that exists is what it is because of the love of God who sustains and upholds it. What makes something real is God's love, for love is the ground and context of all that exists.

This simple yet profound thought applies to our own lives as well. "What is he indeed that is Maker and Lover and Keeper?" We can only know who we really are in God's love for our souls. And we see God's love for us in the passion of the Lord Yeshua who clothed himself in our likeness to touch and to mediate the cry of our hearts before the Father. Amen, Yeshua is the one who brings us into God's heart, "Between God and the soul there is no between."

"I saw that He is to us everything that is good: God is our clothing that wraps, clasps and encloses us so as to never leave us, being to us everything that is good." Amen. God loves us with an everlasting love; his love draws us unto his heart.


Hebrew Lesson
Deut 33:27a reading (click for audio):


 

• Deut. 33:27a Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Shepherd of your soul...


 

11.14.24  (Cheshvan 13, 5785)   Whenever you feel oppressed by sorrows, heartache, or fears, affirm with solemn assurance: "The Lord cares for me." Cast your burden upon Him and he will hold you up. Refuse to stagger beneath the weight of earthly fears...

God cares for you. This is the message of the gospel, after all; this is the meaning of the cross itself: God Himself cares for you...

Consider the one who personally bore your very sins and terribly suffered in anguish for you to be fully forgiven and accepted by Heaven: This beloved one will never forsake you, but indeed forever lives to make intercession for you (Heb. 7:25). Be bold, therefore, to avail yourself before the throne of mercy, where we are given grace to help in time of need.

The Lord has not forgotten you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. He who feeds the birds of the air and tends the lilies of the field will surely provide for your needs. All who belong to him are forever made secure by the indomitable glory of his perfect love.

Let us then resist the whispers of despair.  Affirm the greatness of God who watches over your way as the Good Shepherd of your very soul. Even if you are in distress, affirm the greatness of God and confess the truth of His love for you. Overlook the present moment to find refuge in his promise.Trust him to bind up your wounds and heal your broken heart. God is your strength and song! Do not countenance any thought that his grace is not present for your need and troubles. God is forever faithful; his promises are sure; the one who has begun a good work in you will perfect it: press on in confidence of your Shepherd's care...


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 23:1-3 reading (click):

• Psalm 23:1-3a Hebrew page (pdf)
• Psalm 23 Hebrew Reader page (pdf)
   

The Heart of Sacrifice...


 

Undoubtedly Abraham's most dramatic test revealed the heart of a father willing to give up his beloved son, and the heart of the beloved son willing to be sacrificed on behalf of his father's will... Together they walked on, united in resolve and one in their passion.

11.13.24  (Cheshvan 12, 5785)   "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together" (Gen. 22:6). Isaac was about 37 years old at this time and needed to understand what was being asked of him: "And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Gen. 22:7). This is the first word of dialog recorded over the three day journey... It is hard to imagine Isaac's pathos during this exchange. Abraham replied, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together (Gen. 22:8). Notice that the Hebrew could be read: "God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering -- my son!" (ירְאֶה־לּוֹ הַשֶּׂה לְעלָה בְּנִי) - making it plain that Isaac would be offered upon the altar. The Torah then repeats the phrase, "and they both walked on together," indicating that Isaac had accepted his sacrificial death in obedience to his father's will...

"And when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son (וַיַּעֲקד אֶת־יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ) and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood" (Gen. 22:9). According to the Talmud, Isaac asked his father to make the knots on his hands and feet tighter - not out of fear that he would change his mind and begin to resist - but in order to encourage his father to offer the sacrifice properly (Bereshit Rabbah 56:8). Like the Suffering Servant who would come after him, Isaac "set his face like a flint" to fulfill God's will (Isa. 50:7).


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 22:8 reading (click for audio):

 

• Gen. 22:8a Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Isaac kept his eyes directed toward heaven as he lay tightly bound and motionless upon the altar. He awaited the final blow and wanted it to fall with trust and obedience within his heart. It was to be a shared sacrifice between the beloved son and his father. Finally "Abraham stretched out (שׁלח) his hand and took the knife to slaughter (i.e., לִשְׁחט, from shechitah) his son" (Gen. 22:10). The Talmud says that when Abraham "stretched out" his hand, he briefly looked at the knife to determine if it was ritually fit, and this delay was the precise moment when the Angel of the LORD (מַלְאַךְ יהוה) called out to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" (Gen. 22:11). (Note the repetition of the name "Abraham" during this second call.) According to various midrashim, when Abraham put his knife to his son's neck, Isaac's soul departed from him, but it returned when the Angel of the LORD said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Gen. 22:12). Abraham then immediately released Isaac and recited the blessing, "Blessed are You, LORD, who revives the dead" (בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה מְחַיֶּה הַמֵּתִים).

"I believe in You, O Holy One, though at times there no longer seems any reason for believing..." Here is Abraham, who counted the stars in hope, who trusted God for an heir, a promised son - and from this son another, and from that another, and another, until he envisioned his descendants "as the dust of earth" (Gen. 13:16; 15:5-6), and yet here is Abraham lifting up his knife to sacrifice his son, his beloved child, his promise, his future, his dream. Remember that Abraham did not know the end of the story before it began, and therefore his faith attested: "Though he slay me, I will trust in him."

Some people tend to "explain away" the passion of Abraham and Isaac by quoting the New Testament verse: "He [Abraham] considered that God was able even to raise him [Isaac] from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back" (Heb. 11:19) -- as if this would make the sacrificial act any easier! Again we must bear in mind that neither Abraham nor Isaac knew "the end of the story" before they chose to obey God. As I've mentioned before, simply "knowing about" God is not the same thing as personally trusting Him with your life... This is the distinction between emunah (אֱמוּנָה) and bittachon (בִּטָּחוֹן). Simply knowing about God can lead to a sense of "distance," to theological abstractions, to dogmas and creedal formulas. Rabbi Bechaya put the distinction this way: "Everyone who trusts has faith, but not everyone with faith trusts." Bittachon is an intuitive awareness of the personal love of God for your life, coupled with complete trust that He cares for you (Rom. 8:28). It is an expectation that the love of God is for you, too, despite the test.

For more on this crucial subject, see:
 

• The Sacrificed Seed: Further thoughts about the Akedah
   

The Call from Above...


 

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now..." - C.S. Lewis

11.13.24  (Cheshvan 12, 5785)   It is said that the tzaddikim (righteous ones) are "doubly called" by God: "Abraham, Abraham" (Gen. 22:11), "Jacob, Jacob" (Gen. 46:2), "Moses, Moses" (Exod. 3:4), "Samuel, Samuel" (1 Sam. 3:10), "Saul, Saul" (Acts 9:4), and so on, to indicate that the LORD calls to both the soul in this world but also to the soul in heaven. When God told Abram to "get out of your land," he called him to focus on heavenly places – to find his identity there. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God..." (Matt. 6:33). Thus David says, "I shall walk before the LORD in the land of the living" (Psalm 116:9), which means all his deeds would be done for the sake of heaven. The earth then becomes the "land of the living," or "the land that I will show you," as Abram was told (Gen. 12:1). Likewise, followers of Yeshua no longer find their identity in this world but rather through their spiritual union with the resurrected LORD (Gal. 2:20; 6:14; Eph. 1:3; 2:6)... Therefore we are told to "seek the things that are above (τὰ ἄνω ζητεῖτε) where the Messiah is seated at the right hand of God; focus your thoughts on the things above - not on things here on earth - for you have died, and your life has been hidden (κέκρυπται) with Messiah in God. Then when the Messiah, who is your life, appears, you too will appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:1-4).

So have you heard the "upward call of God in Yeshua the Messiah" (Phil. 3:14)? This "upward call" (τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως) is the invitation from above, the sound of the heavenly Voice, beckoning you to enter the "high country" of the world to come. As Yeshua said, "I am from above (ἐγὼ ἐκ τῶν ἄνω)." Our true identity is not found in this world and its vain philosophy. The cross brings these things to an end, as we "cross over" from the realm of the dead to the realm of life (Gal. 6:14). Can you say: "I have been crucified with Messiah. It is no longer I who live, but Messiah who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20)?

The great commandment is always Shema - listen - and heed God's Voice: "And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left (Isa. 30:21). At any given moment of our day, then, we can attune ourselves to hear the "upward call" and come "boldly before the Throne of Grace" (Heb. 4:16). The world knows nothing of this realm and is enslaved by appearances and the delusions of this realm, olam hazeh. As Yeshua said, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given" (Matt. 13:11). The Spirit always says, "Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you" (Isa. 26:20). The LORD beckons: "Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known" (Jer. 33:3). And I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up here, and I will show you..." (Rev 4:1). The repeated or "double call" of heaven is the voice of love. The Beloved calls out to the beloved: "Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away" (Song 2:10, 2:13).


Hebrew Lesson
Isa. 30:21 reading (click for audio):


 

• Isa. 30:21 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Healing the Divided Self...


 

11.12.24  (Cheshvan 11, 5785)   There's an old story of the ancient philosopher Thales of Miletus who fell into a well while he was contemplating the heavenly bodies. All his grand intellectual aspirations resulted in a pratfall of humility. Kierkegaard likewise tells the tale of notable professor who, in the pontification of grand ideas of the cosmos, was oblivious to a drop of sweat that dangled from his nose.  And there have been times in my life when I have meticulously studied Scripture and was so engrossed in theological matters that I somehow forgot that God was really present! In such moments, if I were suddenly interrupted, I would likely fall into a moment of peevishness and irritation. It would be comical if it weren't so sad and disappointing, and yet there is a message in the pain that should not be missed....

What do we do with our inconsistencies, those "lapses" of faith that expose what we are actually believing at the time? These are gaps or incongruities between what we might say is true and what our behavior otherwise reveals. For instance, we may say that we trust God with our lives, and aver that we believe that the Almighty works all things "together for our good," but inwardly we are filled with impatience, anxiety, and even dread. We are vaguely conscious of our dissimulation at times; we feel the tension that something is not right about us; we sense that we are not who we want to think we are. We may even suspect that we are inwardly divided, unstable, and afraid of what is hidden within our deepest hearts. But we tolerate our pretenses. We may ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" and then find reasons to excuse ourselves; we may affirm: "When I am weak, then I am strong," and then "think twice" in fear over circumstances that we do not understand...

So how do we deal with this contradiction between what we are and what we ought to be? How do we reconcile what "is" with what "ought" to be? In other words, how do we "practice what we preach?" We all experience the "gap" between the real and the ideal not only in the social and political world around us, but also - and more profoundly - as duplicity within our own hearts. Alas, how can we no longer be "two-souled' or double minded? How can we be set free from the influence of the "shadow self"?

These are not questions about theology or doctrine, but about emotional and spiritual maturity, that is, they are matters of personal character. When Yeshua said that the truth would set you free, he didn't mean that you would find freedom by studying theology as much as by undergoing transformation of the heart. Theology is important, of course, but primarily as a means to the greater end of knowing God "bekhol levavkah," with all your heart, "bekhol nafshekha," with all your soul, and "bekhol me'odekha," with all your might. The essential reason for learning about God is be in heartfelt relationship with him, after all, and that will lead to transformation of the way we live - that is, how we think, talk, and make decisions. Spiritual truth is "existential." How we live life reveals what we truly believe.

When we are born from above, we are given a new nature, and the "seed" of eternal life is implanted within the soul. Heart transformation, however, comes through time, as a matter of undergoing "reproof" and "correction." This is sometimes called the process of "sanctification," which means walking uprightly in the way of holiness. The Lord is likened to a potter and we are as clay in his hand (Isa. 64:8). As I mentioned the other day, life on the "potter's wheel" can be messy, unsettling, and sometimes excruciatingly hard, but it is God's sovereign work to form your life according to his design and purposes....

God gives us the Scriptures to help us know his heart, as it is written: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). Here we note that the Hebrew word for "reproof" is tochechah (תּוֹכֵחָה), from a root (יכח) that means to test or judge the quality of something. God's reproof reveals the gap between our behavior and his standard of moral and spiritual truth, and when we are reproved by God, we understand how we fall short of his will. The Hebrew word for "correction" is mussar (מוּסָר), from a root (יָסַר) that means to chasten or punish, though always with the aim of developing godly character. God will sometimes allow us to undergo affliction, for instance, to teach us patience or humility. "Training in righteousness" means being instructed, as a child, in what is upright, true, and honorable.

Narrowing the gap between what we say that we believe and how we actually live is an ongoing process for us in this life. The world, the flesh, and the devil are forces that weigh us down to keep us profane and fallen, but God provides his Spirit and he instructs us to walk in the victory of faith.  If we ignore or rationalize the gap, however, that is, if we allow the inner conflict and dissonance to become deeply rooted within our souls, we run the risk of becoming either self-deceived or embittered over the struggle. Bitterness is especially dangerous because it can result in abandoning the life of faith altogether (Heb. 12:15).

The test of faith is a matter of the heart more than the head. Things such as fear, pride, or ungodly desire can overrule our profession of faith, and we "forget" our calling before the Lord. The battle is found within the heart. Courage and moral allegiance is more powerful than intellectual conviction regarding matters of temptation.

The inner conflicts are real.  The battle is for our souls. Many of us have truly felt or experienced the glories of God's love, and we want to believe and to walk in the light of that love...  So we try various things to know God or recapture our hope. We study, read, think hard, pray, attend services, and so on. But as we try again to be spiritual or religious or self-assured, we may become bound, weary, and feel like a failure... We suspect that we have failed God, failed ourselves, and failed others. We go dark, ashamed, and anxious, but we try yet again, and again, until we are distraught and in agony of heart.

Yet this cycle or undulation is part of the test of faith, this agony of trying and failing, encountering our shadowy duplicity of heart, descrying yet again what we really are on the inside, and crying out for deliverance from our faithlessness, our hypocrisy, our fecklessness, and our despair... Paradoxically, because we cannot help ourselves, we continue trying, lamenting, confessing, and persevering - despite ourselves - and in the lament of the struggle to be who God says we are, we begin to surrender to a deeper heart or way of being - broken, humbled, brought face to face with our powerlessness and need - and it is then that we discover the healing hand of God is at work...

"You do not know what spirit you are of..." (Luke 9:55). Yeshua's words imply that each of us has the responsibility to know ourselves (γνῶθι σεαυτόν), and to learn to endure (and overcome) the natural motives and focus of our hearts. We collide with the truth of our spiritual condition in the midst of our daily frustrations, as we experience conflict, opposition, and the inner groan that arises from pressures and disappointments. Spiritual growth means learning to transcend our negative reactions, to stop cursing our conflicts, and to awaken to the blessings that surround and pervade our way. It requires a miracle.

If we are able to find the courage, our failures and brokenness may be used by God to purify the intentions of the heart by helping us to be more honest with ourselves. We begin to realize that we are more vulnerable than at first we thought; that our faith is not as strong as we imagined, and that our motives are often mixed and unconscious. Illusions are striped away; idols crumble; deeper levels of selfishness are uncovered; and the gap between our words and our deeds is exposed yet again... It is one thing, after all, to intellectually think about faith or to idealize spirituality, but it is quite another to walk out faith in darkness. Yet it is only there, in the rawness of heart, that we discover what we really believe and how our faith makes traction with reality...

There is a "hidden blessing" (ברכת סוד) that comes from our troubles. When we learn to accept that we are accepted despite ourselves, we find God's Presence and can breathe in his peace and love, despite the sorrows and grief of our lives. When we come to the light, and do not deny the truth about our condition, we can honestly ask the Lord for healing (Heb. 4:16). When we seek for the good - and even bless the struggle - we express our trust that God is using our trials to help us grow and to bring beauty from our ashes (2 Cor. 7:10). "O Lord, I need you for everything, every last thing. Please meet my great need for You, for without you I am nothing." Amen, "turn us back to you, O LORD, so shall we be turned..." (Lam. 5:21).

Contrary to the assumption that the life of faith should always be triumphant, we all inevitably will experience various setbacks, pratfalls, troubles and challenges in our lives. This does not mean that God does not care for us however, because on the contrary, this is by his design; a plan supervised by God's love and blessing, and the afflictions we therefore encounter are part of his work for our good (Rom. 8:28; Heb. 12:6). We descend in order to ascend. It make seem counterintuitive, but the heart of faith gives thanks for all things - the good as well as the evil (see Job 2:10). We affirm: "This too is for the good," yea, even in the midst of our struggle, no, even more -- precisely in the midst of our struggle -- for this, too, is for our good. Faith is the resolution to trust in the reality of God's goodness even during hard times when we feel abandoned or lost (see Isa. 50:10). The Lord uses the "troubles of love" (יִסּוּרֵי אַהֲבָה) for our good - to wake us up and cling to him all the more, since this is what is most essential, after all...

God forbid we should give up now, friends. Faith "sees the unseen" and believes that the day of our ultimate healing draws near. You are in good hands as the Lord forms your soul for the glory of his purposes... Stay strong and keep your hope alive. !מחיל אל חיל


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 86:11 reading (click for audio):


 

• Psalm 86:11 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Forget not His Love...


 

"We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard, lest at any time we should drift away..." - Hebrews 2:1

11.12.24  (Cheshvan 11, 5785)   If something is truly worth saying, it is worth saying more than once... We learn by repetition. Consider how Yeshua retold his parables and messages throughout his ministry. God knows we are dull of heart and full of ourselves and therefore he says: וזכרת את־יהוה אלהיך- "Now remember the LORD your God!" and "Take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life" (Deut. 4:9). Likewise the Shema teaches us to rehearse Torah "diligently" - again and again - so that our lives are imbued in its language and its significance (Deut. 6:4-9). When we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up -- in every place and at every time -- we are to remember the truth and thereby walk before the Living God.

"Take heed to yourself..." This warning underscores the danger we face of "forgetting" God, of losing sight of the truth of reality, and thereby lapsing into the realm of the profane... We must, therefore, foster within us a state of ongoing vigilance that regards the greatness of God in the midst of our daily lives. "Give us this day our daily bread." Your life, your being, and your very existence come from God, but forgetting this leads to "tohu va'vahu," a life of vanity and chaos. Therefore practice God's presence; believe to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. The language God uses bespeaks his imperative passion for us: "Do not forget me! Keep your heart open to my Presence! Know me in all your ways..."


Hebrew Lesson
Deut. 4:9a reading (click): 


 

• Deut. 4:9a Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Eyes of the Heart...


 

"Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all." - Buechner

11.11.24  (Cheshvan 10, 5785)   Yeshua told us: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). Despite the struggle of this life - our sorrows, pains, and even death itself - we believe in God's love and promise for us, even if we do not presently see the fulfillment of our hope, just as Abraham believed the promise that he would be the father of an innumerable multitude long before he saw any sign of its fulfillment. Abraham "believed the impossible" and "hoped against hope" (παρ᾽ ἐλπίδα ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι), meaning that hope moved within him even though there was nothing to see in the realm of the natural -- he believed in an unseen good; he trusted in the One who gives life to the dead and who "calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Rom. 4:17).

The Scripture comments: "He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not stumble over the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith, and gave glory to God, fully persuaded that God was able to do what he had promised, and that is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness" (Rom. 4:19-22).

Likewise we are called to believe in an unseen good, an unimaginably wonderful destiny for our lives, as it says, "Things no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Cor. 2:9). Faith does not use natural reason or the evidence of the senses to see the unseen, but it "believes to see" through "eyes of the heart" to know the hope of God's calling and to attain the blessing (Eph. 1:18). Faith in God's love comes from a different source and has a different means of apprehension than human wisdom, so that no matter how things might appear in this fallen world, the LORD God may be known and trusted to work all things for our ultimate good. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  Amen.


Hebrew Lesson:
Psalm 27:14 reading (click):

 

• Psalm 27:14 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Parashat Vayera (וַיֵּרָא):
God Provides the Lamb...


 

11.11.24  (Cheshvan 10, 5785)   Our Torah reading for this week (Vayera) is very dramatic and extraordinarily prophetic. Among other things (including the miraculous birth of Isaac, the fiery judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the fate of Hagar's son Ishamel, and so on), the reading includes what I have called the "Gospel according to Moses," that is, Moses' account of how the patriarch Abraham was tested by God to offer his "only begotten son" (בֵּן יָחִיד) Isaac as a whole-burnt offering sacrifice on Mount Moriah -- the place of the future Temple.  This astonishing story is referred to as the Akedah (עֲקֵדָה), or Akedat Yitzchak (עֲקֵידָת יִצְחָק) - the "binding of Isaac" (Gen. 22:1-18). As Abraham lifted up his knife to slay his beloved son, at the very last moment, the Angel of the LORD (מַלְאַךְ יהוה) stopped him from going through with the sacrifice, and a ram "caught in a thicket" was offered as the vicarious substitute. Upon offering the sacrifice Abraham named the sacred location Adonai-Yireh (יהוה יִרְאֶה), "the LORD will provide/see" (from the 3ms imperfect of the verb ra'ah (רָאָה), "to see").

The binding of Isaac perfectly illustrates both the principle of sacrificial love and the principle that we must first unreservedly believe in that love in order to understand the ways of the LORD.  Those who believe in Yeshua further understand the Akedah as a foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice the heavenly Father would give on our behalf. Unlike Abraham, God the Father actually offered His only begotten Son (בֵּן יָחִיד) at Moriah in order to make salvation available for all who will believe (John 3:16-18; 1 John 4:9). As Abraham himself confessed: אֱלהִים יִרְאֶה־לּוֹ הַשֶּׂה / Elohim yireh-lo haseh ("God will provide for himself the lamb").  Later Yeshua told the leaders of Israel that Abraham had "seen His day" and understood the deeper meaning of the Akedah sacrifice (John 8:56).


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 22:8a reading (click):

 

• Gen. 22:8a Hebrew page (pdf)
   

As I've mentioned over the years, the very first occurrence of the word love in the Scriptures (i.e., ahavah: אַהֲבָה) refers to Abraham's love for his "only" son who was to be sacrificed as a burnt offering on Moriah (the very place of the crucifixion of Yeshua), a clear reference to the gospel message (Gen. 22:2; John 3:16). Some scholars have noted that the word ahavah comes from a two-letter root (הב) with Aleph (א) as a modifier. The root means "to give" and the Aleph indicates agency: "I" give (i.e., the Father gives). Love is essentially an act of sacrificial giving... The quintessential passage of Scripture regarding love (αγαπη) in the life of a Christian is found 1 Corinthians 13: "Love seeks not its own..."

Whereas the Akedat Yitzchak foreshadowed God's provision for the coming Temple, the Akedat Yeshua (i.e., the crucifixion of Yeshua at Moriah) was the altar where the justice and chesed (love) of the Father fully met (Psalm 85:10). For more on this incredibly rich subject, please see the articles, "The Passion of Isaac" and "The Sacrificed Seed."
 

• Vayera Torah Summary page...
• Vayera Torah Reading (English)
• Torah Table Talk for Vayera (pdf)
• Vayera audio podcast (SoundCloud here)
• The Gospel According to Moses...
• The Passion of Isaac (article)
• The Sacrificed Seed (Akedah article)
   
   

Hebrew Lesson:
Genesis 18:1 reading (click): 


 

• Gen. 18:1 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Promised Son of Abraham...


 

This entry continues from last week's Torah portion, Lekh-Lekha. I share this to connect with our Torah reading for this coming week (Vayera) in order to make evident the larger themes and threads of the Torah and how they are connected with the blessing of our Messiah Yeshua....

11.10.24  (Cheshvan 9, 5785)   In the "Gospel in the Garden" I considered the very first prophecy given in the Torah, namely, God's promise that through the "seed of the woman" would come one who would slay the serpent and crush the kingdom of Satan (Gen. 3:15). This prophecy is sometimes called the proto-euangelion ("first gospel"), since it constitutes the starting point of all subsequent redemptive history revealed in the Scriptures.  In a sense this promise forms the "womb" for the whole course of God's redemptive plan for the human race. The first prophecy of Torah clearly anticipated the coming of the Savior of mankind and a cosmic battle between good and evil: "... he (i.e., the Savior/Messiah) will crush your head (ראשׁ), and you (i.e., the serpent/Satan) will crush his heel (עָקֵב)."

It is likely that Eve initially believed that her firstborn son Cain (קַיִן) was the promised Seed himself. After all, the miracle of birth surely came as a great shock to her, and Eve's faith in God's promise that through her seed would come the deliverer was doubtlessly upon her heart at this time.  When Eve called her son "Cain" (wordplay from the verb kana (קָנָה), "to get"), she was expressing her faith in God's promise: קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת־יהוה / kaniti ish et-Adonai, "I have gotten a man - namely, the LORD" (Gen. 4:1). Eve's faith was obscured by the translators, however, who rendered the Hebrew as "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD" (i.e., they inserted the idea of "help" and translated the particle et (את) as "with" rather than as the direct object marker for the verb). The ancient Jewish targums, however, agree with the original Hebrew.  For example, Targum Yonatan reads: "I have gotten a man - the Angel of YHVH." Surely Eve, the first mother of humanity, was endowed with great wisdom from God, especially after she turned to Him in repentance after her disobedience. The straightforward reading of her words, then, expressed her hope that the LORD Himself would be made a man....

Despite her hope that Cain was none other than the God-Man and promised Deliverer, Eve's hopes were dashed when it became clear that her son was of the seed of Satan (1 John 3:12). His younger brother Abel (הֶבֶל) was a shepherd who evidenced faith in the promise of the coming redeemer by offering blood sacrifice (Gen. 4:3-5). Abel was persecuted and finally murdered by his brother Cain "because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." Their spiritual conflict is indicative of the ongoing warfare between the "sons of darkness" and the "sons of light."

The murder of Abel necessitated that the coming seed would descend through another child, and therefore the Torah describes the birth of Seth (שֵׁת, lit. "appointed"), the third son of Adam and Eve.  The Scriptures further state that it was the descendants of Seth who "began to call upon the Name of the LORD" (לִקְרא בְּשֵׁם יהוה), indicating that they had faith in God (אֱלהִים) as the Compassionate Covenant Keeper (יהוה) who would redeem humanity by means of the coming seed.  Seth called his firstborn son Enosh ("man"), perhaps in the hope that his child would be the promised Savior (interestingly, bar enosh (בַּר אֱנָשׁ), or "Son of Man," is the name for the Savior (Dan 7:13).

The Torah then traces the genealogy (toldot) of Seth through ten generations (from Adam), until his descendant Noach (נחַ) is described as the only tzaddik (righteous man) remaining in the earth (for more on the genealogy, see parashat Noach). The promise of the coming seed would therefore come through Noah, since his family alone survived the great flood.  Now Noah had three sons, but it was through Shem (שֵׁם) that the "line of the Messiah" would come.  According to midrash, Noah announced his blessing near the end of his life. When he said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem" (בָּרוּךְ יהוה אֱלהֵי שֵׁם), he prophesied that the coming redemption would come through the line of Shem, not through Canaan or Japheth.  Notice that the phrase, "he shall dwell (יִשְׁכּן) in the tents of Shem," is often thought to refer to Japheth, though the Hebrew grammar is ambiguous. Does the "he" in this case refer to Japheth or to the LORD?  A viable translation would be "and He (i.e., the LORD) shall dwell in the tents of Shem," meaning that the LORD would dwell among the Shemites, and by extension, that the promised Seed would come from this line. In this sense, Noah's blessing to Shem was a prophecy of the coming Redeemer through Shem (similar to Jacob's blessing of Judah as the chosen tribe). Since the LORD is the "God of Shem" (יהוה אֱלהֵי שֵׁם), and the prophecy states that one day He (i.e., God) would "dwell in the tents of Shem," the Torah indicates that the coming Redeemer (הַגּוֹאֵל) would come from the Shemites, of whom the great patriarch Abram (אַבְרָם) descended.

The Torah identifies Abram as the tenth generation from Noah (including Noah), and therefore the twentieth from Adam. God called Abram out of Ur of Chaldea to begin a pilgrimage of faith to the land of promise (Heb. 11:8-10). The story of Abram is highly prophetic of the coming Messiah, and the promises given to him foretell of the advent of Yeshua in unmistakable ways.  After the Akedah (i.e., the sacrifice of Isaac), God promised that "in your seed (זֶרַע) shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice" (Gen. 22:18). In light of the New Testament, the faith of Abraham - and especially the faith demonstrated by the Akedah - prefigured the justification of the nations through faith. Therefore we read: "And the Scripture, foreseeing (προοράω) that God would justify the nations by faith, proclaimed the gospel (προευαγγελίζομαι) beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed" (Gal. 3:9). It is noteworthy that Abraham received this promise as a Gentile, since he was yet given the commandment of brit milah (circumcision) as a token of Jewish identity. Abraham was therefore uncircumcised when he believed the good news of the coming redemption of mankind (Rom. 4:10-12). Therefore the Apostle calls Abraham the father of faith for those Gentiles who would later believe the good news of redemption in Yeshua. "So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith" (Gal. 3:9; Rom. 4:16).


 

Genesis 22:18 clearly states that the blessing would come through Abraham's "seed" (זֶרַע). The Apostle Paul clearly identifies this seed with Yeshua: "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Messiah" (Gal. 3:16). In other words, the promises were made first to Abraham but also to the coming Messiah.  This is yet another example of a "dual aspect" prophecy, since it pertains to Abraham and his chosen offspring (i.e., Isaac (not Ishmael), Jacob (not Esau), Judah (not Reuben), David (not Jesse's firstborn), Solomon (not Adonijah), etc.), but also to the coming Messiah who would redeem fallen humanity from the curse brought about through Satan (John 8:56). Abraham was chosen by God, in other words, to "deliver" the promised Savior to the world. "Salvation is from the Jews," of course (John 4:22), but the blessing of Abraham's promised Seed was ultimately meant to be bestowed upon all people, so that one day the Kingdom of God would be manifest within the sons and daughters of Adam (Gal. 3:14). This is also why Malki-Tzedek, the "priest of the Most High God," was the one who was appointed to bless Abraham, since he prefigured a priesthood that predated the one given later to the Levites through the office of Moses (Heb. 7:1-21).

The original curse of death and the division symbolized by Babel would be reversed through the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah: "And they sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth" (Rev. 5:9-10).


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 22:18 reading (click for audio):

 

• Gen. 22:18 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Father of the Faithful...


 

11.10.24  (Cheshvan 9, 5785)   Abraham is called the "father of all who believe" in the miracle of the Promised Seed (הזרע הבטיח), that is, in the Coming Deliver who would bring redemption and healing to the whole world (see Gal. 3:16; Rom. 4:1-5:1). The Torah states that God chose Abraham because he would faithfully teach his children to guard "the way of the LORD" (דֶּרֶךְ יְהוָה), by trusting in God's acts of "righteousness and justice" (צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט) that He would perform according to his promise (Gen. 18:19). God regarded Abraham as faithful to retain His promise, and therefore He would manifest salvation (יְשׁוּעָה) through his descendants.

The "way of the LORD" refers to Yeshua, who is "the way and the truth and the life" (הַדֶּרֶךְ וְהָאֱמֶת וְהַחַיִּים), the Promised Seed that would crush the head of the serpent in the battle for our redemption (Gen. 3:15). Abraham's faith was directed toward the Deliverer to come, as Yeshua said: "Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). Likewise we guard the way of the LORD as our father Abraham did – namely, by trusting in God's promises given to us in Yeshua our Messiah.

We are chosen to embody the same heart, vision, and mission of Yeshua our LORD, to exist as "extensions of his presence" in this world, and therefore we are also called to walk uprightly, as he walked... Indeed, the Hebrew word derekh (דֶּרֶךְ), usually translated as "way," metaphorically refers to the journey, manner, or course of your life. Because God is tov v'yashar (good and upright), he teaches his children to be yesharim (יְשָׁרִים), i.e., those who walk uprightly.  Indeed, the way of the LORD (דֶּרֶךְ יהוה) is "to do acts of charity and justice" (לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט) (Gen. 18:19). This is the "straight way" (derekh ha-yashar), or the "narrow path" that leads to life (Matt. 7:14).
 

טוֹב־וְיָשָׁר יְהוָה
עַל־כֵּן יוֹרֶה חַטָּאִים בַּדָּרֶךְ

"Good and upright is the LORD
therefore will he teach sinners in the way." (Psalm 25:8)

Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 25:8 reading (click):


 

• Psalm 25:8 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Note that the verbal clause "he will teach" (i.e., יוֹרֶה) used in this verse comes from the root yarah (ירה) -- the same root used in the word "Torah" (תּוֹרָה). Because the LORD is good and upright, He gives us Torah (direction) for our lives. God educates us for eternity by imparting to us moral and spiritual truth. As King David taught, "Happy is the man who delights in the Torah of the LORD and meditates upon it day and night" (Psalm 1:1-2).
 

Blessing the Jewish People...


 

The following is related to our Torah portion for this Shabbat, parashat Lekh-Lekha...

11.09.24  (Cheshvan 8, 5785)   Do you have a Jewish heart?  If you say that you love the "LORD God of Israel" (יהוה אֱלהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) -- and it's clear that the LORD God of Israel loves the Jewish people -- it follows that you likewise will love the Jewish people (see Deut. 7:6-8; 14:2; 2 Sam. 7:23-24; 1 Kings 8:53; 10:9; 1 Chron 17:20-21; Isa 43:1-3; Jer. 31:31-37; Ezek. 36:24-28; Rom. 11:1-2;11:28; Hos. 11:1-11, etc.). After all, the LORD Yeshua is called מֶלֶךְ הַיְּהוּדִים / melech ha-Yehudim: the "King of the Jews" (Matt. 2:2, 27:11, etc.), and the very term "Mashiach" [i.e., "Christ"] is a regal term denoting the anointed King of Israel.

Christians who pray to "Jesus Christ" are really praying to Yeshua as the anointed King of the Jews...  And one day (very soon) Yeshua will indeed return to Jerusalem, the "City of the Great King" (Matt 5:35), to assume the throne of David and complete the redemption originally promised to the Jewish people (Zech. 12:1-13:1; 14:1-9, Ezek. 37:12-14, etc.). God will prove faithful to ethnic Israel, friends, and to deny this is to radically question God's faithfulness to the "Church."  Indeed, let me say this as plainly as I can: Churches or teachers who claim that God has abandoned ethnic Israel are directly impugning the credibility of the Gospel message itself. Yes, it's that serious of an issue...

Note the verse in our Torah reading that says, "I will bless those who bless you, but the one who discounts you will be cursed" (Gen 12:3). Why is this the case, chaverim? The answer is found in the second half of the verse: "For in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" [i.e., through the advent of your Seed, the Messiah]. We cannot impugn the promises of God given to the Jewish people without likewise impugning God's promises given to us in Messiah. To say that God is "done with the Jewish people," or to consign them to a dark fate, is to disregard them, to curse them, and that results in reciprocal judgment from heaven.


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 12:3 reading with comments (click):


 

• Gen. 12:3 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The physical descendants of Abraham are called בָּבַת עֵינוֹ (bavat eino), the "pupil of God's eye" (Zech. 2:8), a term of endearment that the LORD uses for no other nation on earth. Indeed the very habitations of the nations were established based on the number of the children of Israel (see Deut. 32:8). The Scriptures declare that the LORD will never abandon His original covenant people but will yet choose them for His Name's sake (Isa. 14:1). The church has not replaced Israel in God's redemptive plan but is merely "grafted in" to the original "root" of Israel. "Remember," Rabbi Paul warns, "it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you" (Rom. 11:18). "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel From everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, "Amen!" (Psalm 106:48).

Note:  Please don't regard the "curse" mentioned in Genesis 12:3 to suggest that God is somehow vindictive, petty, etc.  No, the reason the curse befalls those who reject God's plan for Israel is because Israel was the means God chose to bring salvation to the world: Yeshua was born the King of the Jews who came to ransom all those who trust in him from the curse of spiritual death (Gal. 4:4, Rom. 3:2, John 4:22). The reason God can't bless people who hate the Jewish people or Israel is because that would mean he would bless those who hate the truth, who spurn salvation, and who love darkness... The same God who promises us life and healing in Yeshua is the one who promised never to cast of Israel or to eternally disown the Jewish people. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, God cannot give us a good apart from himself, since there literally is no such thing.






Related Topics:
 

• Blessing the Jewish People (article)
• To the Jew First...
• The Promised Seed of Abraham...
• Israel and the Church: What's the Relationship?
• Is Christianity Anti-Jewish?
• Having a "Jewish Heart..."
• Ignorance and Christian Anti-Semitism...
• Yom HaAtzma'ut - Israeli Independence Day
• The Lost Passion for Zion...
   

Righteousness of Heart...


 

11.09.24  (Cheshvan 8, 5785)   From our Torah reading for this Shabbat (i.e., Lekh-Lekha) we learn about the resolute faith of Abram who, despite his old age, trusted that God would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky: "And the LORD brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to number them." Then the LORD said to him, "So shall your offspring be. And he trusted in the LORD, and He regarded it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6).

Abram "staggered not" at the promise of God, and therefore God imputed to him righteousness (צְדָקָה), a term understood here to be divine esteem and grace. After all, what could Abram do in the face of seeming impossibility? There was nothing he could do to bring about such a miracle.  The New Testament comments: "He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb" (Rom. 4:19). It was in a state of utter powerlessness and complete helplessness that Abram retained hope and thereby received the promise by faith. "For he was beyond hope, yet in hope he trusted that he would indeed become a father to many nations, in keeping with what he had been promised, 'so shall your offspring be'" (Rom. 4:18).

Understand that 400 years before the law was given at Sinai, the LORD regarded the faith of Abram as the essence of the righteousness later prescribed by the laws of Torah. Therefore the very First Commandment of the Ten Commandments is simply: Anochi Adonai Elohekha (אָנכִי יְהוָה אֱלהֶיךָ): "I AM the LORD your God" (Exod. 20:2), which repeats the call to trust God before everything else, since it is complete surrender to the love and grace of God that justifies us, as it is written: "to the one who does not work but trusts in the One who justifies the ungodly (i.e. the helpless), his faith is counted as righteousness" (Rom. 4:5).

Where the LORD says "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to number them," we note the Hebrew word "count" (סָפַר) may also mean "recount," "interpret," or "explain"... This is the same word used in the famous verse, "The heavens declare (מְסַפְּרִים) the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1).  The idea here would be not merely that Abram would have lots of descendants, but they would shine in brilliance against the backdrop of the darkness. Abram's children would be lights upon the earth, declaring the truth of God and enlightening the darkness of mankind. "And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever" (Dan. 12:3). In the same way, Yeshua said: "let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16; 13:43).

O precious LORD, may your light shine within us always....


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 15:1b reading (click for audio):

 

• Gen. 15:1b Hebrew page (pdf)
   

God as El Shaddai...


 

11.08.24  (Cheshvan 7, 5785)   In this week's Torah reading (i.e., Lekh-Lekha), the LORD referred to himself as "El Shaddai" (אֵל שַׁדַּי), often mistranslated as "God Almighty." In Genesis 17:1, YHVH said to Abram: "I am El Shaddai. Walk before me and be perfect." But why did the LORD choose to reveal Himself to Abram using this distinctive name?

Most English translations render El Shaddai as "God Almighty" because the translators of the Septuagint (i.e., the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) thought the Hebrew word "Shaddai" came from a root verb (shadad: שָׁדַד) that means "to overpower" or "to destroy." The Latin Vulgate likewise translated Shaddai as "Omnipotens" (from which we get our English word "omnipotent"). In other words, the translators regarded this term to suggest that God is so overpowering that He is considered "Almighty."
 

אֲנִי־אֵל שַׁדַּי
הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים

a·nee ·  El · shad·dai
heet·ha·leikh · le·fa·nai · ye·he·yeh · ta·meem
 

"I am El Shaddai:
walk before Me and be wholehearted." (Gen. 17:1)

Hebrew Lesson:
Gen. 17:1b reading (click): 

 

• Gen. 17:1b Hebrew Page
   

According to the Jewish sages, however, Shaddai is a contraction of the phrase, "I said to the world, dai (enough)" (as in the famous word used in the Passover Haggadah, Dayeinu -- "it would have been sufficient").  God created the world but "stopped" at a certain point. He left creation "unfinished" because He wanted us to complete the job by means of exercising chesed (love) in repair of the world (tikkun olam).

Jacob's blessing given in Genesis 49:25, however, indicates that Shaddai might be related to the word for breasts (shadayim), indicating sufficiency and nourishment (i.e., "blessings of the breasts and of the womb" (בִּרְכת שָׁדַיִם וָרָחַם)).  In this case, the Name might derive from the contraction of sha ("who") and dai ("enough") to indicate God's complete sufficiency to nurture the fledgling nation into fruitfulness.  Indeed, God first used this Name when He referred to multiplying Abraham's offspring (Gen. 17:2). Understood in this light, the name El Shaddai provides a picture of God's nurturing love for our lives: God sustains us and loves us, like a mother loves her newborn child...



 

El Shaddai is used almost exclusively in reference to the three great patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and (according to Exodus 6:2-3) was the primary name by which God was known to the founders of Israel (the name YHVH given to Moses suggests God's absolute self-sufficiency, whereas the name Elohim suggests God's soverign power). The word "Shaddai" (by itself) was used later by the prophets (e.g., Num. 24:4; Isa. 13:6, Ezek. 1:24) as well as in the books of Job, Ruth, and in the Psalms. In modern Judaism, Shaddai is also thought to be an acronym for the phrase Shomer Daltot Yisrael - "Guardian of the doors of Israel" - abbreviated as the letter Shin on most mezuzot:

 

In connection with the Name El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי), we note that Abraham has more identifiable descendants than any other person in history... From the line of Isaac would come the twelve tribes of the Jewish people (as well as all those Gentiles who have been grafted into the covenantal blessings of Israel, i.e., the "church"), and from Ishmael would come the twelve tribes of the Ishmaelite people. Abraham also later married Keturah who bore him six more sons that became founders of six other nations of the Arab world, including the Midianites. To signify Abram's status, God changed his name from Avram ("exalted father" [from אָב, "father," + רָם, "exalted"]) to Avraham ("father of a multitude," a homonymic wordplay from אָב, "father" + המוֹן, "crowd").  Notice that some regard Avraham's name to mean "father of mercy" (from אָב, "father" + רחם, "womb").

Note: While the name El Shaddai presents a "feminine image" of the LORD, this is assuredly appropriate, since God created both genders as a reflection of His image, as it is written: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female (זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה) he created them (Gen. 1:27). However, some people have made the dubious suggestion that El Shaddai should further be translated as "the many breasted One," even though such language suggests the abominable practices and idols common in various ancient fertility cults - customs that were later subject to the most severe judgment of God upon the seven Canaanite nations. It should be clear, in light of the overall context of the revelation given in the Torah, that the name El Shaddai is directly connected with the sanctity of the promise given to Abraham regarding the future growth of his family, and ultimately of the coming of the promised Seed, the Messiah...



 

קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ
The Owner of the Castle...


 

11.08.24  (Cheshvan 7, 5785)   There is an old midrash called "Abram's Castle."  In the story, Abram traveled from place to place and came upon an imposing castle that was "doleket," or burning. As he gazed upon the destructive conflagration, he said, "Can it be that this castle has no owner? Why then is it on fire?" And just then the owner of the castle looked out at him from a window and said, "I am the owner of the castle." This is the end of the midrash.

The sages comment that Abram had been perplexed by the suffering and destruction of the world, and the vision of the burning castle evoked questions within his heart. Where is the owner of the world?  Why is he letting things burn?  When the Man at the window said he was the owner of the castle, Abraham understood he was saying "I, the Holy One, am the Owner of all things" (בעל הכֹּל). The castle, then, represents God's handiwork and design, yet he nevertheless allows it to burn, both to hide his presence but also to awaken the wicked to do teshuvah. Another interpretation of the midrash is that the burning castle is like the burning bush Moses encountered that revealed that God has complete mastery over the flames of the fire and are used by Him to serve as illumination.

I like this short aggadah (story) because it poses interesting questions about the heart of Abram and how he might have reconciled the collision between the ideal and the real.... Abram was called a "Hebrew" (אַבְרָם הָעִבְרִי) from the Hebrew root "avar" (עבר), meaning to pass through, and therefore a Hebrew is a sojourner in in this world (Gen. 14:3). What do we pass through but the flux and shadows of this world? The collision of what "is" with what "ought to be" creates a sense of fracture that haunts us as we walk from place to place in this realm, and we are often disappointed whenever we see the ideal "consumed" by the real, and therefore it is important for us to hear the "Lord of the Castle" say (as he said to Abram in the story), "I am the Owner of the world, and the dissolution of whatever exists is under my sovereign control and design."

The entropy of the universe is by God's design. The apparent lack of order does not mean there is no purpose or overarching reason for the creation. Though the laws of natural physics predicts the eventual "heat death" of the universe, the opposite it true: the worlds and the universe will one day melt away as by a cosmic refining fire. "The heavens above will melt away and disappear like a rolled-up scroll. The stars will fall from the sky like withered leaves from a grapevine, or shriveled figs from a fig tree" (Isa. 34:4). Or as the apostle Peter wrote: "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth that He has promised, a world filled with God's righteousness" (1 Pet. 3:10).

"What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, the creation was subjected to God's curse of vanity and decay. But with eager hope, the created order looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay" (Rom. 8:18-21). Amen, faith believes that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him.

Meanwhile the "entropy of the universe," or the appearance of "the castle" that is on fire, helps us let go of the things of this world by calling us to see beyond the immediacy to the deeper plan and purposes of God. The LORD is koneh shamayim va'aretz, the "Possessor of Heaven and Earth." The flames of the castle will be transformed into the everlasting light and glory of the Heavenly Jerusalem. All tears shall be wiped away. Everything will be healed. The LORD our God will be "all-in-all" and we will celebrate his redemption and glory forever.


Hebrew Lesson
Jeremiah 29:11 reading (click for audio):


 

• Jer. 29:11 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Heeding the Call...


 

11.08.24  (Cheshvan 7, 5785)   I had mentioned that "lekh-lekha" (לך־לך) can be understood as a command to "come to yourself," that is, to turn and reconnect to your spiritual essence, though it can also be understood as a command to "go out of yourself," that is, to escape from the bondage of your carnal ego... This corresponds to teaching in the New Testament where we are commanded to both "put on" our new spiritual identity as God's beloved, and to "put off" the old self by being revived in our minds (Eph. 4:22-24). Both "movements" are the heart are necessary: we must turn to the Lord and receive his blessing (inward), and we must turn away from what has previously defined us (outward). We die to ourselves and come back to life; we cross out the old and walk into the new...

The Jewish philosopher Emanuel Levinas said that the reason it is hard to "go out of yourself" has to do with an overwhelming sense of inertia that collapses into passivity of the soul. We get "comfortably numb" and resist waking up. When the heart miraculously becomes "elected," however, as when Abraham heard and believed God's promise, it comes alive before the Divine Presence, and by extension, it is empowered to go out of itself in blessing others. The process of sanctification puts away the old self that is lost within itself by consciously turning to spiritual reality and truth.

There has to be a starting point, however, a "conversion" of the heart that marks the transition from old to new. Abraham is our model. He did not simply make a journey away from home that eventually circled back to what he knew before - the security and history that had defined him. No, his break from his former life was radical and changed his direction forever. It was a "crossing over" into newness of life.  Beyond the dimension of the physical world, Abraham's journey was one of inner transformation, and therefore it was a journey into the unknown. He was made a "stranger" and a sojourner in this world.  Unlike the Aristotelian view that sees an "end" or telos (purpose) embedded within natural processes, God revealed to Abraham the glory of the transcendental world, incalculable in its beauty, depth, goodness, and holiness. Being "elected" or "chosen" by God is to bear witness of the sanctity of life by "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead," striving to attain the high calling of God in the Messiah.


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 4:3 reading (click):
 
 

• Psalm 4:3 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Sanctified by Grace...


 

In the midst of my darkness and sorrows I am comforted that it is all of grace, that God's hand is upon me, and that therefore I can rejoice from the depths of my heart. Amen.

11.07.24  (Cheshvan 6, 5785)   Yeshua said: "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Note that the spiritual life of Messiah flows from our connection with him, though the very possibility for that connection is the blessing of grace...

We cannot create the new birth by means of moral reformation, since the divine life is a miracle from above and not the result of human agency or aspiration (John 1:13; John 3:6). If we "live in" Yeshua we will bear fruit - our spiritual connection or "union" with him is sufficient for every good work, but only fruit that derives from the life of Messiah will abide (1 John 2:17). Good works are a necessary consequence of regeneration in Messiah, but by themselves they are insufficient and something more is needed (Matt. 7:21-23). Therefore the Scriptures point to the salvation of God and his grace as the efficient cause for the miracle of newness of life: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us..." (Titus 3:5); "for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves (τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν), it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8); "so if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace" (Rom. 11:6).

Grace and human effort are mutually exclusive when it comes to life from above: "It is the Spirit that gives life (τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν τὸ ζῳοποιοῦν); the flesh (i.e., human nature) is no help at all" (John 6:63). There is a new "center" of identity within the heart: "I is no longer I who live..." (Gal. 2:19-20). We do not appeal to God for mercy based on our best efforts, but like father Abraham we believe that God brings life to the dead. In short we believe that "salvation is of the LORD" (יְשׁוּעָתָה לַיהוָה), that is, that God justifies the ungodly and performs the inner work of salvation on our behalf and for our healing (see Rom. 4:1-5:2).

As C.S. Lewis once said in this connection: "The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or -- if they think there is not -- at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it" (Mere Christianity).  Nevertheless we must not confuse cause and effect. The work of God is to believe in Yeshua (John 6:29) and we then learn to "work out" what God has "worked in" to our hearts by faith, as it says, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13). God who has performed a good work in you will "confirm you to the end blameless in the Day of our Messiah Yeshua" (1 Cor. 1:8; Jude 1:24-25).
 

יהוה תשׁפת שׁלום לנו
כי גם כל־מעשׂינו פעלת לנו

Adonai · teesh·poht · sha·lom · la'·noo
kee · gam · kohl-ma·a·sei'·noo · pa·al'·ta · la'·noo
 

"O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have indeed done for us all our works." (Isa. 26:12)

Hebrew Lesson:
Isaiah 26:12 Hebrew Reading (click):

 

• Isaiah 26:12 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Angel of the LORD...


 

11.07.24  (Cheshvan 6, 5785)   In Hebrew, an "angel" is called malakh (מַלְאַךְ), a word that basically means "messenger" or representative (from the root לאך, meaning "to send").  God created many angels, of course (Psalm 68:17, 103:20), but there there is one malakh who stands out from all the rest of the malakhim (angels) as a King stands above his subjects. This "King of Angels" is called Malakh Adonai (מַלְאַךְ יהוה), or "the Angel of the Lord." Unlike the other angels that function as emissaries of God, Malakh Adonai is the supreme representation or Message of God Himself.  His Word/Voice is "one" with the Person of God, just as the Spirit of God is "one" with the Person of God. Since the glory and power of God's infinite Being is incomprehensible to finite creatures, the Angel of the LORD is a form of God's condescension in a visible or audible manner so that an angel or a human being can apprehend His message. This is sometimes called a "theophany" in theological jargon.

This unique King of the Angels (מלך המלאכים), or "Angel of the LORD," is named in about 50 verses of the Tanakh (i.e., "Old Testament"), though he is alluded to in various other places as well (e.g., Gen. 18:1-ff; Gen. 48:16, Exod. 23:20-23, etc.). He is first mentioned in our Torah portion for this week (Lekh-Lekha) where He is clearly called God (Gen. 16:7-13). After he spoke with Hagar in the desert, she called him "the LORD" (יהוה) and identified Him as El-Roi (אֵל ראִי) -- the "God who sees me" (Gen. 16:13). He later appeared to Abraham in the grove at Mamre (Gen. 18:1-ff) to reaffirm the promise of his coming heir, and later still, during the most terrifying moment of the sacrifice of Isaac, he cried out to stop Abraham from bringing down the knife upon his son (Gen. 22:11, see also Gen. 22:15-ff). And note further that it was the "Angel of the LORD" who appeared to Moses in the "burning bush" and identified himself as YHVH, the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (see Exod. 3:2-ff).

Other examples from the Tanakh should be noted. The Angel of the LORD helped Gideon deliver Israel from Midian (Judges 6:11-13); He prophesied regarding the birth of Samson (Judges 13); He led Elijah to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19); He commanded David to build an altar which later became part of the Holy Temple (1 Chron. 21:18), and he is mentioned in Psalm 34:7 ("The Angel of the LORD camps around those who fear him") as well as in Psalm 35:6-7. In light of all this, it is clear that that Malakh Adonai is nothing less than a manifestation of the LORD Himself.  Indeed, the prophet Isaiah calls him the "Angel of His Face" (מַלְאָךְ פָּנָיו, Isa. 63:9). And since Yeshua is the "radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, who upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3), it is clear that He is the Angel of God's face -- the "Message of God" -- that was "sent" (לאך) in human flesh (John 1:1,14). Yeshua is the one and only "King of Angels" (מלך המלאכים), the LORD God who assumed angelic form, the theophany to man and the myriads of angels.  Amen! Yeshua is none other than Melekh Ha-kavod (מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד) the King of God's Glory (Psalm 24) and Adonai Tzeva'ot (יהוה צְבָאוֹת), the LORD of the heavenly host.


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 34:7 Hebrew reading (click):

 

• Psalm 34:7 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Tree of His Life...


 

11.06.24  (Cheshvan 5, 5785)   The "Tree of Life," etz ha'chayim (עֵץ הָחַיִּים), is mentioned ten times in the Scriptures. It first appears in the Torah as the center of the paradise of Eden (Gen. 2:9; 3:22-4), but it is soon lost to humanity because of Adam's transgression.  In the book of Revelation, it reappears in the center of the Paradise of God (Rev. 2:7, 22:2), resurrected on account of the faithful obedience of Yeshua as mankind's "last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45). Those who have washed their robes by means of His righteousness are given access to this Tree in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 22:14). The paradise lost by Adam has been regained by the greater ben-adam, Son of man, Yeshua the Messiah.

In the book of Proverbs, the Tree of Life is a metaphor for the life of wisdom (chokhmah), which is the implied subject of our verse above (see Prov. 3:13). Traditional Judaism identifies talmud Torah (the study of Torah) as the Tree of Life, promising wisdom to those who "lay hold of her" (a Torah scroll has wooden rods called atzei chayim – the "trees of life" – used to roll the parchment). According to the Rabbis, the eternal life that was lost in Eden was restored to humanity with the giving of the Torah at Sinai.

A midrash says that in the paradise of olam haba (the world to come) there stands the Tree of Life, with the tree of knowledge forming a hedge around it. Only the wise one who has cleared a path for himself through the tree of knowledge can come close to it (which is said to be so enormous that it would 500 years to walk around it). Beneath the Tree flows forth the water that irrigates the whole earth, parting into four streams, the Ganges, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. In mystical (i.e., gnostic) Judaism, the Tree of Life is depicted as an elaborate symbol, the meditation of which is said to "clear the path" back to paradise.

Followers of Yeshua understand that He (alone) is the Tree of Life, the Center of the true Paradise of God (Rev. 22:2). He is the Seed, Root, Trunk, Branches, and Fruit that comes from heaven. The first Adam lost access to God by means of his transgression (eating from the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil"), but the "Greater Adam" reclaimed our access by means of His obedience, resisting the power of evil even to the point of death upon the "tree" of the cross (Phil. 2:8). The resurrection of the life of Yeshua is the "firstfruits" of all who put their trust in Him (1 Cor. 15:20; Jas. 1:18). Yeshua is the "Tree of Life in the center of the Paradise of God," and all who retain Him are forever blessed indeed.  Say ye Amen.


Hebrew Lesson:
Proverbs 3:18 Hebrew Reading (click):
    

• Prov. 3:18 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Seeing by Faith...


 

11.06.24  (Cheshvan 5, 5785)   "And the LORD appeared (וַיֵּרָא) to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land" (Gen. 12:7). Note that this was the first time God actually appeared to Abram, since earlier he had only "heard" God say to him, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). In other words, it was only later - after Abram had obeyed God's voice by making the move to Canaan - that the LORD appeared to him and an altar was established (Gen. 12:7-8). As long as he remained with his father Terach in the City of Haran (the last outpost of Mesopotamia), he was in a place of delay, unable to behold the Divine Presence. Abram first had to act on what he knew before he was given confirmation by God (John 13:17). Perhaps that is why the very first place Abram came to in the promised land was the "Oak of Moreh" (אֵלוֹן מוֹרֶה), or the "Teaching Tree."  Abram was taught to believe in order to understand, not to understand in order to believe....

Notice, however, that Abram was immediately tested once he arrived in the promised land. After building another altar and calling upon the name of the LORD (Gen. 12:8), a severe famine tempted him to look for food in the land of Egypt. After leaving the land of promise, Abram willingly forfeited his identity (i.e., he denied he was Sarai's husband) and found himself powerless as his wife was abducted into Pharaoh's harem. The LORD intervened on his behalf, however, and plagued Pharaoh and his household with great plagues, which surely prefigured the future time of the great Exodus during the time of Moses...

In this connection we further note that the next time the Torah states that the LORD appeared to Abram was after he had returned from Egypt, after rescuing Lot from the kings of the east, when he encountered the mysterious Malki-Tzedek (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק) in Salem. After this dramatic encounter, Abram separated his clan from his nephew Lot and returned to the first altar he built in the promised land (Gen. 13:4).


Hebrew Lesson:
Proverbs 3:18 Hebrew Reading (click):


 

• Psalm 51:6 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Father of all who believe...


 

The following is related to this week's Torah reading, parashat Lekh-Lekha....

11.06.24  (Cheshvan 5, 5785)   Abraham is traditionally regarded as the first Jew, but understand that he began life as a "Gentile," the son of an idolater (Josh. 24:2), who later heard God's voice and then began his pilgrimage of faith into the realm of promise (Heb. 11:8-11). Moreover, God personally chose Abraham and promised to make him into a blessing while he was yet uncircumcised, and it was only later, after he sacrificed his beloved son Isaac (i.e., the Akedah) that he was promised that in his Seed (זֶרַע) would all the nations of the earth be blessed (Gen. 22:18). It was the faith of Abraham - especially as demonstrated by the Akedah - that prefigured the justification of the nations through faith. This is the "Gospel of Moses" which Yeshua alluded (John 5:46). Therefore we read: "And the Scripture, foreseeing (προοράω) that God would justify the nations by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed" (Gal. 3:8-9). In other words, God's great plan of salvation was from the beginning for all the nations of the earth to be redeemed. Abraham is therefore rightly called the "father of all those who believe."

If you understand Jewish thinking on the subject (as opposed to Gentile thinking), Abraham was regarded as the first Jew because he received the rite of brit millah (circumcision). That was the Apostle Paul's understanding as well, as well as the point he made that Abraham was the father of faith for both Jew and non-Jew: "He [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised" (Rom. 4:11-12). As Paul further said regarding this topic, "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision manifest in the flesh (φανερῷ ἐν σαρκὶ). But a Jew is one inwardly (κρυπτός), and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God" (Rom. 2:28-29). "For neither the rite of circumcision counts for anything, nor does uncircumcision - but בְּרִיאָה חֲדָשָׁה - a new creation" (Gal. 6:15).

In this connection it is helpful to remember that the word "Jew" (יְהוּדִי) comes from a root (יָדָה) which means to "thank" or to "praise" (Gen. 29:35). The Apostle Paul alluded to this by saying that a Jew 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 that you are "chosen" to receive blessings and grace to live in holiness for the glory of God and for the welfare of the world. The performance of various commandments are for the greater purpose of tikkun olam, the "repair of the world," in order to reveal God's goodness and love. Doing so makes someone a Jew, not some external rite of brit milah (circumcision). God is the source and the power of what makes a true tzaddik. 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 Abraham (Gen. 12:3). "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...

The first shall be last, and vice-verse (Mark 10:31; Matt. 8:11). "And Yeshua called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:42-45). May it please the LORD to give us all Jewish hearts, full of His praise and the desire to help others in His Name.


Hebrew Lesson
Isaiah 64:8 reading (click for audio):


 

• Isa. 64:8 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Note:  You are a new creation who has "crossed over" from death to life in Yeshua... Therefore you have been circumcised inwardly by the Spirit and are grafted into the covenant promises given to ethnic Israel. You are no longer a stranger but a fellow heir and member of God's household (Eph. 2:11-13). In the end of days, "all Israel will be saved," which implies that the Jewish people will be restored to God in Messiah. The great day of Zion comes!
 

The Original Priesthood...


 

The following entry is related to this week's Torah reading, parashat Lekh-Lekha....

11.05.24  (Cheshvan 4, 5785)   Our Torah reading for this week reveals that the very first "priest" (i.e., kohen: כּהֵן) was neither a Jew nor a Levite nor a descendant of Aaron, but rather Someone who is said to have "neither beginning of days nor end of life" but was made like (ἀφωμοιωμένος) the Son of God, a priest continually (Heb. 7:3). This priest, of course, was Malki-Tzedek (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק), the King of Shalem (מֶלֶךְ שָׁלֵם) to whom Abraham offered tithes after his victory over the kings (see Gen. 14:18).

The author of the Book of Hebrews makes the point that the priesthood of Malki-Tzedek is greater than the Levitical priesthood and is therefore superior to the rites and services performed at the Mishkan, or "Tabernacle" (Heb. 7:9-11). It was to Malki-Tzedek that Abraham (and by extension, the subsequent Levitical system instituted by his descendant Moses) gave tithes and homage -- and rightly so, since Yeshua is the great High Priest and Mediator of the ultimate covenant based on God's eternal life (see Heb. 8:6).


Hebrew Lesson
Genesis 14:18 reading (click): 

 

• Gen. 14:18 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

In a sense, Malki-Tzedek revealed the perfected or "Final Adam" (אדם האחרון) because just as Adam's original priesthood was to mediate God's Presence on the earth, though he failed, Yeshua was born to "undue the curse" resulting from the transgression by means of the greater priesthood given in his own body and blood. Yeshua offered up a far better sacrifice upon the altar of the Cross in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 15:45). He is humanity's great High Priest (Kohen Gadol) of the New Covenant with God, and like Malki-Tzedek, his priesthood was ordained and abides forever- unlike that given through the Levitical rites.  Our Lord Yeshua "ever lives to make intercession for those who trust Him as their Advocate" (Heb. 7:25).


Hebrew Lesson
Gen. 14:19b reading (click):

 

• Gen. 14:19b Hebrew page (pdf)
   

For more on this subject, see the article, "Exploring the Identity of Malki-Tzedek."
 

The Great War for your Soul...


 

"For our struggle is against spiritual forces of evil..."  Ephesians 6:12

11.05.24  (Cheshvan 4, 5785)   If the LORD is God, then that changes absolutely everything, and nothing is unaffected by this all-pervasive truth. As Abraham Heschel once said, "God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance," and this is eminently true because "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Since reality turns on God, reasoning from another set of assumptions is really a form of delusional thinking that ultimately leads to insanity, that is, unsoundness of mind derived from folly or unreasonableness. The fool has said "in his heart" there is no God (Psalm 14:1). "The wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek Him; all his thoughts are, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 10:3-4). The suppression of the truth necessarily implies an exchange for the lie, and with the lie comes deranged reasoning, slavery, darkness, and fear....

Ultimately we are living in the midst of a great spiritual war -- the war for truth. This has been the battle from the beginning. The very first recorded words of Satan (הַנָּחָשׁ) questioned God's truth: "Did God really say...?" (Gen. 3:1). In the end there will be found two types of people: those who love the truth and those who love the lie. These are the children of light (בְּנֵי הָאוֹר) and the children of darkness (בְּנֵי הַחשֶׁךְ), respectively. Followers of Yeshua the Messiah are told to "walk as children of light" / ὡς τέκνα φωτὸς περιπατεῖτε (Eph. 5:8). The children of light are called to be am kadosh - a holy people - separate from the evil engendered by the fallen world and its forces, just as the very first creative expression of God was the separation of light from darkness (Gen. 1:3-4). The children of light "hate evil and love the good," and conversely, the children of darkness "hate the good and love evil" (Psalm 34:21, Prov. 8:13, Amos 5:15, John 3:20-21). Regarding the heavenly Zion to come, it is written: "nothing unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or practices falsehood (lit. "makes a lie"), but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Rev. 21:27).

We must stand for the truth, because the truth is what sets us free (John 8:32). As Yeshua said, "For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world -- to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice" (John 18:37). We must turn away from the lie to embrace the truth. One day all that is hidden will become manifest. "As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; His throne was ablaze with fire and its wheels were all aflame. A river of fire was streaming forth and proceeding from his presence; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; court sat in judgment, the books were opened" (Dan. 7:9-10).

If the devil can't kill you, he will try to make you insane... He will lie to you about who you really are; he will attempt harass you and vex your soul.  He will whisper fearful things in your ear... He will make what is small seem big and what is big seem small. He will raise dark suspicion within your soul, causing you to walk in mistrust. He will remind you of your sins to make you feel ashamed and dirty. He will hiss that you are unlovable and unworthy. He will argue on behalf of your flesh that you deserve better than this... He will tempt you to seek relief in cisterns of emptiness and futility. Most of all, he will try to cast a spell to make you forget that you are truly a prince or princess of God Almighty... The devil seeks to drive you into the exile of loneliness and despair. Resist him in the Name of the LORD!

Fret not, therefore, because of evil doers, for they shall soon wither away (Psalm 37).  The Great Accounting is coming: "For there is nothing created that is hidden - אין יצור נסתר - but all things are naked and open to the eyes of the One to whom we must render an account" (Heb. 4:13). Every thoughtless word shall be accounted for in the Day of Judgment to come (see Matt. 12:35-37). Recompense is indeed coming, though it is reserved for the LORD God alone, who is ha'shofet ha'tzaddik (השופט הצדיק) - the Righteous Judge (Psalm 7:11). "According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; to the coastlands He will repay recompense" (Isa. 59:18).


Hebrew Lesson
Proverbs 28:1 reading (click):

 

• Prov. 28:1 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Be not afraid of their faces...


 

"Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you..."

11.05.24  (Cheshvan 4, 5785)   Da lifnei mi attah omed: "Know before whom you stand!" As the prophet Elisha said to his servant Gehazi, "Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kings 6:16). We are surrounded by an innumerable multitude of angels, with the LORD of Hosts who rules over all.  Ask the LORD God Almighty to give you the "strategic advantage" over the enemy -- for you to see his wiles, but not for him to see you.... Ask God for the armor of light that blinds eyes accustomed to darkness (Rom. 13:12). How else can we fight this archenemy of our souls? We cannot fight "fire with fire," but we can appeal to the One who fills heaven and earth "with horses and chariots of fire all around" (2 Kings 6:17). "Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Adonai Tzeva'ot" (Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of the armies of heaven); "melo khol-ha'aretz kevodo" (the whole earth is filled with His glory" (Isa. 6:3).

God admonished the prophet Jeremiah, "Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD" (Jer. 1:8). Likewise Yeshua says to us, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you" (Luke 10:19). We need the courage and boldness that comes from the Holy Spirit to overcome the "giants in the land." We need the confidence of young David who beheaded Goliath in the Name of the Living God.  Ask God to empower you to serve Him now... Just as salvation is "of the LORD," so is the battle of faith: "Not by might, nor by power - but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).

 

• Psalm 27:1 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Divine Presence...


 

11.05.24  (Cheshvan 4, 5785)   God told Moses that his Name means that He is Present (הֹוֶה) in every moment - past, present, and future (הָיָה וְהוֶה וְיָבוֹא). The Name YHVH (יהוה) is "shorthand" for "I AM with you always" (אָנכִי אֶהְיֶה עִמָּכֶם). There is no moment in time, just as there is no place, where God is not "there" for you. This includes times of testing, darkness, and even death itself (Psalm 23:4).

The LORD our God does not abandon us, even when He may seem hidden, powerless, or unwilling to intervene. Faith trusts that He is present just then - in moments when we are vulnerable, weak, afraid, and seemingly all alone, and yet affirms that somehow all things are bound up in his love and good will toward us... Faith receives God as near to us in our struggles, the loving One who is always with us, and the substance of all our hope for true healing and eternal life. 


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 23:4 reading (click for audio):


 

• Psalm 23:4 Hebrew page (pdf)
   
   

Crossing Over to Life...


 

11.05.24  (Cheshvan 4, 5785)   Our Torah portion this week (i.e., Lekh-Lekha) begins: "Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go (לֶךְ־לְךָ) from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). The Book of Hebrews comments, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν μὴ ἐπιστάμενος ποῦ ἔρχεται - "not knowing where he was going" ... for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God" (Heb. 11:8,10).

Abraham closed his eyes to this world and was given the inner light of truth that would reveal his way to God. The Sefat Emet says that every person of faith is likewise commanded daily to "lekh-lekha," to "go for yourself" by crossing over from the world and its deadening habits to live as an exile with God.

Paradoxically, we find ourselves when we lose ourselves - when we leave behind the labels, roles, ideologies, and identities this world foists upon us and instead resolve to seek the promise of God's Kingdom. As Yeshua said, "For whoever will save his life shall lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 16:25).


Hebrew Lesson:
Psalm 25:12 reading (click): 

 

• Psalm 25:12 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Note:  In a sefer Torah (i.e., a handwritten Torah scroll), Hebrew words are written without vowels, so "lekh lekha" (לך־לך), often translated as "go forth," could be read as "go, go!" - emphasizing the importance of the mitzvah: Get moving! Start walking! Begin your journey!
 

The Narrow Gate...


 

11.05.24  (Cheshvan 4, 5785)   There is a great danger today of fearing the wrong things, and despairing over that which trivial in light of eternity. However honest despair is a gift from God, if it is received as a message to wake up and to take heed of what is most important. "And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce" (Kierkegaard).

As I've mentioned druing Yom Kippur, like Jonah we first must be "swallowed up" in consciousness of our own hopelessness before we realize that we are without remedy apart from God's intervention and deliverance. We start there - in the "belly of the fish" - and later are brought forth by God's mercy and grace. This is the place of the cross, the "narrow gate" that leads to life.  As we look to Yeshua, as we lean on him, he reveals more of himself to us.


Hebrew Lesson:
Psalm 86:13 Hebrew Reading (click):


 

• Psalm 86:13 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Hillel the Elder had said, "If I am not for myself then who will be for me? (אם אין אני לי מי לי); But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" (Avot 1:14).  Hillel points out here that the language of "I am" (אָנִי) and "for me" (לִי) reveals that we have a relationship with ourselves that must be sanctified and ordered before God. As Soren Kierkegaard once wrote: "The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self," that is, the self is always in a state of dialog. A healed self relates itself to God as the Ground of existence, since otherwise irremediable despair will result, eternal lostness within, an everlasting sickness of soul...

The remedy for being a lost self, relating only to itself without any center or ground, is to turn to God and to find your place in God's love and blessing.  As we come to believe that we are accepted and loved despite our many imperfections, inadequacies, and character defects, we find courage to accept ourselves, to "let go" in trust. As Yeshua said, "whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it" (Luke 18:17).
 

Reasons of the Heart...


 

"God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart... The sweetest prayers God ever hears are the groans and sighs of those who have no hope in anything but his love." - Charles H. Spurgeon

11.04.24  (Cheshvan 3, 5785)   When I don't understand why God sometimes allows suffering to occur, I'm careful to review who God is before surrendering to feelings of despair. After all, when you are convinced that the Lord is your Good Shepherd who faithfully guides your way, you can trust in his good will for your life, even if you are in darkness and have no light (Isa. 50:10; Prov. 3:5-6).

Who before why... First know God's heart and then (perhaps) you will be able to seek understanding. In cases of great tragedy and loss, however, no rationalization or explanation will likely suffice, and we are therefore left with the raw decision of whether we will trust in God, even in our darkness, and in our sorrows, and apart from understanding...

Thomas Aquinas once wrote: "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary; to one without faith, no explanation is possible."  This is because, as Blaise Pascal said, "the heart has its reasons that reason knows not. " Amen, seek first the Kingdom of God and then you will know. We must believe in God's heart first of all...


Hebrew Lesson
Isa. 50:10 reading (click):


 

• Isa. 50:10 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Shadows and Reality...


 

[ "Whether evil or good events betide, let it be the same to you, since you are a stranger and sojourner on this earth. Why have anxiety over a world that is not yours?" - Sassover ]

11.04.24  (Cheshvan 3, 5785)   Sometimes we seem to forget that we are not home yet... The ancient thinker Socrates argued that philosophy, when done correctly, was "practice for death," since the passing shadows of this world pointed to an unchanging good, our true end. Likewise Yeshua our Messiah taught us to take up the cross and die daily (Luke 9:23). We are to "set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth," for we have died and our life is hidden with Messiah in God (Col. 3:2-3).

It is difficult for us to die, to let go, however, because we are deeply attached to this world, and we often abide under the worldly illusion that we will live forever, that tomorrow will resemble today, and that heaven can wait...  History is littered with crumbling monuments offered to the idols of this world. The Scriptures are clear, however: "The present form (τὸ σχῆμα) of this world is passing away" (1 Cor. 7:31), and the heart of faith seeks a city whose Designer and Builder is God Himself (Heb. 11:10). "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day... For the things that are seen are turning to dust, but the things that are unseen endure forever (2 Cor. 4:16-18). Because of our sin, creation was made "subject to vanity," though God has overcome the dust of death by giving us an unshakable hope (Rom. 8:20).


Hebrew Lesson:
Psalm 144:4 reading (click):

 

• Psalm 144:4 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The metaphysical truth that ha'kol oveir (הַכּל עוֹבֵר), "everything passes" like a shadow, should help us keep our perspective regarding the various moments of testing we all face in this life.  As Nachman of Breslov once said, "The whole earth is a very narrow bridge, and the important thing is never to be afraid" (כָּל־הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ גֶּשֶׁר צַר מְאד וְהָעִקָּר לא לְפַחֵד כְּלָל). Yeshua is the Bridge to the Father, the narrow way of passage that leads to life.  He has overcome the meretricious world and its vanities.  He calls out to us in the storm saying, "Take heart. It is I; be not afraid" (Matt. 14:27). When Peter answered the call and attempted to walk across the stormy waters, he lost courage and began to sink, but Yeshua immediately took hold of him, saying, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt (lit., think twice)?" Resist the false assumptions that surround common worldly consciousness: Keep focused on the reality of Yeshua and the way he reveals...
 

The Journey of Faith...


 

11.04.24  (Cheshvan 3, 5785)   Each of us has been created by God for a sacred purpose. There is a deep reason why you were born. This explains why we sometimes feel lost and alone in this life. Our discontent, the fracture we sense both within and around us, our sorrows, suffering, and inevitable losses, all of it together, presents a "message" to our souls, a "basso profundo" groan of the heart, a visceral yearning for healing, for eternal life, for heaven... God has created us for himself, yet we find no lasting peace apart from him (Eccl. 3:11). Or as Augustine of Hippo famously put it: "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee" (Confessions). Therefore our Lord cries out to those who are hurting, troubled, and afraid: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matt. 11:28-29).

Our Torah portion for this week is called "Lekh-Lekha," which can be translated as "come to yourself," that is, turn and reconnect to your spiritual essence, your identity, your heart. We have to start the journey there, because ultimate reality is intensely personal, being grounded in the "who-ness" of God. It is within the consciousness of our own "I am," our deepest identity as a personal, thinking, and feeling being, that we are able to relate to the person and heart of the great "I AM" of the LORD.

Abram is an exemplar of faith for us; indeed he is called the "father of faith" (Isa. 51:1-2; Rom. 4:16; Gal. 3:29). Abram courageously searched for God in his emptiness, and God graciously answered the cry of his heart. He left everything behind as he journeyed into the realm of promise - regarding himself as someone chosen to know God's blessing and grace. Abram was able to walk by faith because he stopped listening to the voices of the ego - the worldly and unbelieving parts of himself - and therefore was able to hear God's truth.

According to the classical sages, Abram was tested ten separate times in the course of his life. In the first test, Abraham was asked to "go to a land that I will show you" only to find it a place of famine and trouble. In the very of the tests, Abraham was asked to "go to the land of Moriah, to the place that I will show you," and there to offer up his promised son Isaac as a burnt offering... In each case the temptation was to give up hope in God's promise, since at the time of each test Abram did not know the outcome as a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless Abram walked in faith, in fear and trembling, yet fear contextualized by the deeper strength found in God's love and presence. Abraham had to close his eyes to this world and walk in the darkness of faith to see the divine light that transcends this realm; he had to "believe to see" that God's promise was sure.

So the journey is one of faith and the inner transformation that comes from trusting in God (בִּטָּחוֹן). "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" is the call of teshuvah - turning away from enslaving habits that deaden our consciousness - and to come alive by believing that which transcends own understanding. The Greek word for repentance, "metanoia" (μετάνοια) describes the process well, since it means going beyond ("meta") the habitual categories of the mind ("nous") to believe and apprehend the miracle of God.  Faith discerns the unseen good that is at work behind the realm of appearances. God is the "Father of Lights" who supervises the ebb and flow of creation. He is always working to direct all things according to his purposes and will. This is the "land that I will show you," that is, the realm of blessing and eternal life. 


Hebrew Lesson
Proverbs 4:18 reading (click):


 

• Proverbs 4:18 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Meaning of "Hebrew"...


 

[ The following entry is related to this week's Torah reading, parashat Lekh-Lekha.... ]

11.03.24  (Cheshvan 2, 5785)   In our Torah for this week (Lekh Lekha) Abram, the great patriarch of faith, is called ha-ivri (הָעִבְרִי) - "the Hebrew," a term that means "one who has crossed over" (עָבַר) from another place.  Rashi literally identifies this "other place" as Ur Kasdim (אוּר כַּשְׂדִים), located east of the Euphrates River, though the midrash (Genesis Rabbah) spiritually identifies 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 worshiping 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. That's the true meaning of the word...

Various midrashim tell the story about how Abram came to understand the truth that there is only one God who is Creator of all. For instance, when he was born, Abram's mother hid him in a cave. She was afraid that the evil king Nimrod would kill her son because prophets had warned that he would triumph over Nimrod. Guarded by the angel Gabriel, young Abram first worshiped the stars as gods until they were obscured by the Sun. Then he declared that the Sun was god until it set and the Moon took its place. Clouds then covered the Moon, showing Abram that the Moon was not a god either. At last, Abram understood that there was one supreme God would ruled over all the forces of the universe. (Later, after the danger had passed, young Abram rejoined his family.)

A midrash relates that Abram's father Terach sold idols for a living in the city of Haran. But Abram had long since realized that idol worship was foolishness. One day when he was asked to watch his father's store, Abram took a hammer and smashed all the idols - except for the largest one. His father came home and demanded to know what happened.  Abram explained that the idols all got into a fight and the biggest idol won.  When his father objected that this was impossible, Abram said, "Aha! So you agree with me that idols are powerless! My father, there is only one true God, and this God cannot be shaped with human hands..." Terach was angry but understood that his son had discovered the great truth of ethical monotheism.

Lekh lekha (לך־לך) literally means "go for yourself" (lit. "walk [הָלַךְ] for yourself [לְךָ]"). Rashi states that it means "Go for your own benefit," though the Chassidic teachers interpret it as "Go to yourself" (i.e., begin your own journey back to God). At any rate, it's clear that the phrase is an invitation by God to venture ahead -- to go forth in faith... Go forth and risk everything for the sake of God's promise.

"Go forth ... I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). Note that the LORD spoke to Abram and invited him to forsake his ancestral homeland for the promise of God.  But note further that it was only after Abram made the long journey to the unknown land of Canaan that God appeared to him to him by the oaks of Mamre saying, "To your offspring I will give this land" (Gen. 18:1). Abram did not believe the promise because he saw God; he was only able to see God after he had walked in faith. First Abram heard the message, and later -- after he acted on his faith -- was he enabled to see more... מַעֲשֵׂה אֲבוֹת סִימָן לַבָּנִים / ma'aseh avot siman labanim: "The deeds of the fathers are signs for the children."  The pattern is therefore given: First Abram heard the message, and later - after he acted on his faith - was he enabled to see more. This is the deeper meaning of being "Hebrew," one who crosses over from the realm of the dead to the realm of the Living God...


 

As a matter of textual gematria, regarding the promise to make Abraham's name great (Gen. 12:2), the sages note that the total number of Hebrew letters in the names of the three patriarchs Abraham (אברהם), Isaac (יצחק), and Jacob (יעקב) is 13. Likewise the total number of letters in the names of the three matriarchs Sarah (שׁרה), Rebecca (רבקה), Leah (לאה), and Rachel (רחל) is 13. Furthermore 13 is the numeric value for the word echad (אחד), a word that means "unity" and represents the 13 attributes of God's Mercy (Exod. 34:6-7). The combined letters of the patriarchs and matriarchs therefore totals 26, the same numeric value (in gematria) as that for the Name of God (i.e., YHVH: יהוה).


Hebrew Lesson:
Psalm 27:13 reading (click): 

 

• Psalm 27:13 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

 


Parashat Lekh-Lekha...


 

11.03.24  (Cheshvan 2, 5785)   Chodesh tov, chaverim. Last week's Torah portion (i.e., parashat Noach) introduced us to Abram (אַבְרָם), the descendant of Noah's son Shem, who was the great-grandson of the patriarch Methuselah - a man who who personally knew Adam and Eve and upheld the original promise of redemption given in the Garden of Eden. Just as there were ten generations from Adam to Noah, so there were also ten generations from Noah to Abram (see Gen. 11:10-32). And just as Noah became the father of 70 nations, so Abram (through Shem) would become the father of the Jewish people, through whom the Promised Seed - the Messiah and Savior of the world - would eventually come.

In our Torah portion for this week (Lekh-Lekha), we read that Abram was 75 years old, married to (his half-sister) Sarai, and guardian of his nephew Lot (his deceased brother Haran's son) when he received the promise of divine inheritance: "And the LORD said to Abram, "Go from (i.e., lekh-lekha: לך־לך) your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.  In Hebrew, the phrase lekh lekha means "go for yourself" (lit. "walk [הָלַךְ] for yourself [לְךָ]"), though it can be interpreted it to mean "go to yourself," that is, "look within yourself" in order to begin walking out your own journey into the promises. The realm of divine promise is only attained when we venture out in faith. Like our father Abraham, we are called to "cross over," leave everything behind, and take hold of God's glorious promise for our lives.
 

• Parashat Lekh-Lekha Summary Page
• Shabbat Table Talk for Lekh-Lekha (pdf)
• Lekh-Lekha audio podcast (SoundCloud here and here)
   

Hebrew Lesson:
Genesis 12:1a reading (click): 


 

• Gen.12:1 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Blessed Disappointment...


 

11.01.24  (Tishri 30, 5785)   We naturally seek life on our own terms, yet this mercifully and inexorably leads us to disappointment, sorrow, and loss. God calls us to change our direction and turn to him because he knows that what we really need is only found in relationship with him.... Since the blessing is found by connecting with him, he calls us away from the vanity of our idols to know him as our ultimate concern, our highest good, our deepest love...

Like walking upon a plank that stretches out before the fathomless sea, teshuvah is an abandonment of yourself to God's care - the surrender of all that you are - the good as well as the bad, in trust of his love for you (Psalm 139:8).  It is not about reforming your character or becoming a "good" person; indeed, it is really not about you at all.  Turning to God means losing sight of yourself altogether by being caught up in the glory of the Divine life.

Of course life is a messy business for us. We are weak. We are tempted, and we regularly fail. We are filled with ambivalence; we contradict ourselves; we struggle; we falter, we sin. At times we may even feel lost and inconsolably alone. But faith is a gift from heaven - the gift of God's presence, and as such the miracle attests that "God is with us," even in our times of darkness, in moments of sadness, heartache, confusion, anger, and fear.  Where is God in our sorrows, our losses, our nightmares? He is with us. Despite the blindness of our hearts, the Spirit whispers: "I am with you."  Yea, God never leaves us; he never forsakes us. He cares. His heart spans "the breadth and length and height and depth" of all that we are, expressed in his eviscerated groans for our deliverance, in drops of blood sweat out in his passion, in the forsakenness and utmost anguish of the cross... Faith believes then sees.

God is with us, yet in the busyness (and forgetfulness) of the everyday we often lose sight of him. We forget. We go dark. We go into exile. And then in "the mercy of our misery" we sense the call of his heart once again: "Come unto me, you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest..." We slow down and again seek his "hidden" Presence, remembering his greatness and turning our thoughts back to what is ultimately real... What we thought was so big -- the dramas of this world -- suddenly seems small and insignificant. We remember the LORD our God; we revisit what matters most of all. And as we do so, the Spirit of God begins to flow within us as we reconnect with our true identity as God's beloved child. We come back to the open arms our Savior. He is alive; Jesus is real; we belong to him and he will lead us into the depths of his love forever and ever... Amen.


Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 63:3 Hebrew reading (click):


 

• Psalm 63:3 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

The Light of Conscience...


 

"For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are nevertheless a law unto themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness..." - Rom. 2:14-15 

11.01.24  (Tishri 30, 5785)   In the Torah we discover a special verse that identifies the struggle we all have with sin in our lives.  It appears early in the book of Genesis concerning God's appeal to Adam and Eve's firstborn son Cain, who was envious of his brother Abel.  When Cain was upset that God had "looked upon" (i.e., accepted) Abel's offering of a lamb but had overlooked his own offering of fruit, he was angry and became "downcast." We then read: "So the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? and why is your face fallen?  If you do well, will you not find acceptance?  But if you do not do well, sin lurks at the door; its desire is for you, yet you must rule over it" (Gen. 4:6-7). Sadly Cain did not learn how to rule over the anger that lurked at the door of his heart, and later murdered his brother Abel...

God makes the same appeal to each of us: "Why are you so angry? Why are you downcast?  If you do well, will you not find acceptance?  But if you do not do well, sin lurks at the door; its desire is for you, yet you must rule over it." Amen, we say, but how are we to understand this admonition?  How can we learn to overrule sin within our own hearts?

Let's think this through a bit.  First of all we know that sin is doing what is contrary to God's will (1 John 3:4), and we also know that God has endowed the soul with a "conscience" that convicts us when we do something wrong (Rom. 2:15). When we realize that we have sinned we feel down, or have a "fallen face" (פָּנִים נָפלוֹת). When we feel ashamed if we do something wrong, we should understand that this painful feeling is meant to correct us and turn us back to the good.

The conscience is a great gift from heaven because it serves as an intuitive or inner guide that instructs us about what is right and what is wrong -- and how we should live our lives. Indeed, both the Hebrew word for "conscience" (i.e., matzpun: מַצְפוּן) and the word for "compass" (i.e., matzpen: מַצְפֵן) come the root idea of a hidden source of guidance (צפן) that will direct the way we should go.  The Greek word for "conscience" used in the New Testament is "sun-eideisis" (συνείδησις), a word that means perceiving something in relation to a known standard of measurement, particularly knowing the rightness or wrongness of an action in light of God's moral law that is revealed within the heart (Rom. 2:15). Conscience is the awareness of moral truth; it is part of the image of God within us that is grounded in divine logic and reason. The Apostle Paul testified that he relied upon the "inner light" of conscience to guide his behavior: "And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men" (Acts 24:16). The conviction of the conscience bears witness to the spirit of truth (Rom. 9:1).

Conscience serves as an inner witness of the LORD God our Creator, who demands that we live as righteous people according to the direction (i.e., torah) of his moral authority. All people intuitively know they are morally accountable for what they do, but not everyone lives consciously before the divine Presence, in dialog with his or her conscience. Disregarding the voice of conscience is to disregard God, and conversely listening to its voice is to related to him. In this connection Kierkegaard said: "To have a conscience is to have a relationship in which you, as a single individual, relate yourself to yourself before God," by which he meant that our consciousness of moral reality, and our inner dialog within ourselves, is the mode by which we come to know ourselves before God.

When moral truth is suppressed or denied, however, or when conviction for sin is dismissed or ignored, a terrible thing begins to happen. The soul itself goes into exile and becomes deranged. If one good deed leads to another, so one sin leads to another, but a life of ongoing sin that is repeatedly denied or suppressed produces a spiritually lethal state wherein God may "give the soul over" to its godless desires and its chosen inner darkness. A "seared conscience" is one that is no longer able to detect the prompting of the inner voice of moral truth. Such a conscience is "cauterized" and made dead to the truth.

Tragically we see the effect of a seared conscience in our world every day. Hatred, rage, acts of murder; mass shootings, sexual perversion and violence, addictions, obsessions, and so on, are all prevalent in a godless world that has lost its ability to know what is right and what is wrong. The practice of sin is a life of insanity. The ongoing deception of political, educational, scientific, and other leaders inevitablly evokes divine judgment on cultures that scorn the need for godly virtue. It is hardheartedness and inner depravity that seeks to justify the extinguishment of shame at the price of honesty and truth... The Bible warns us of false teachers who are mouthpieces of evil, and the world system is filled with such teachers who suppress the truth for the violence of the lie. Think of the deceptive mass media and its systematic practice of disseminating lies... Since they implicity refuse the truth of God in their thinking," they are false teachers who deceive others.

Sin "lurks at the door" waiting for the heart to open to its lying seductions. In Jewish thinking, the inner urge to sin, what Christians sometimes call the carnal "sin nature," is personified as an alien force that desires access to your soul. This evil impulse to do what is wrong is called the "yetzer ha'ra" (יֵצֶר הַרַע), or the imagination of evil. The sages came up with the term as they discussed the phrase "the imagination of the heart of man [is] evil" (יֵצֶר לֵב הָאָדָם רַע) during Noah's generation (Gen. 6:5, Gen. 8:21). The phrase "yetzer lev" is a general term that refers to the imagination that inclines the will, whether to do good or to do bad.  For instance, yetzer lev can refer to both the imaginative urge of a potter before he forms a vessel, and it can refer to the form of a graven image or idol. The Jewish concept of yetzer ha'ra is often thought to be a weakness of the soul that is liable to the urge to do something evil.  This is similar to the Christian idea regarding our inherited "sin nature," or the indwelling desire to sin, that must be "mortified" by faith in God's deliverance.

In the New Testament, however, the struggle with evil goes beyond the Jewish idea of inner wrestling with the yezer ha'ara, for therein we learn that the devil (השטן) walks about as a roaring lion, seeking to "devour" human souls (1 Pet. 5:8), and this picture goes beyond the idea that evil is the result of fallen sinful nature alone. Recall that our verse reads: "sin lurks at the door; its desire is for you, yet you must rule over it," and this personification suggests that there exists an alien force that seeks access to the human heart in order to entice its sinful nature in contempt of God's moral law. "It's desire is for you" can also be read as "his desire is for you" (אֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ), and that is what the devil does, after all: he "devours souls" -- he hungers for them to join him in his lost estate of perdition...

The Lord promises us victory over both our own inclination to sin as well as the outright temptations of the devil if we will sincerely yield to him: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you" (James 4:7-8). Put on the armor of God (Eph. 6:11-18). "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man, but God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above what you are able to bear; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape (τὴν ἔκβασιν), that you may have strength (i.e., δύναμις) to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13).

If a "seared conscience" is one that is unfeeling and dead to moral truth, a godly conscience is one that is tender, sensitized, and fully alive to moral reality. We can learn to heighten our awareness of moral truth by means of the study of Scripture, as it says "All Scripture is given by the breath of God (i.e.,θεόπνευστος) and is profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16). Of course Yeshua is our Lord, our Master and our guide, and therefore we should study his words about the righteousness of the law, the rule of the kingdom, our duty to practice works of love, and so on.  The traditional study of Jewish ethics, called "musar," can also provoke us think about how to live our lives as tzaddikim, or righteous people (Psalm 1:1-3).

The Hebrew word "chinukh" (חִנּוּךְ), "education," shares the same root as the word "chanukah" (חֲנֻכָּה), meaning "dedication." Unlike the Greek view that regards education as a pragmatic process of improving one's personal power or happiness, the Jewish idea implies dedication to God and the willingness to be partners with Him on the earth.  Disciples of Yeshua are therefore called "talmidim" (תַּלְמִידִים) -- a word that comes from "lamad" (לָמַד) meaning "to learn" (the Hebrew word for teacher is "melamad" (מְלַמֵּד) from the same root). In the New Testament, the word "disciple" is μαθητής, a learner or a pupil of a διδάσκαλος, or a teacher. I mention all this because true education is foundational to being a disciple of the Messiah, and moral education is a large part of that education.

Let us go back to where we started: "If you do well, will you not find acceptance?" The Hebrew for "do well" here (i.e., yahtav: יָטַב) means to be glad or joyful, to have inner peace and confidence because our conscience attests that we are approved of God. We will then find "acceptance," or she'eit (שְׂאֵת), a word that comes from the verb "nasa" (נָשָׂא) meaning to be lifted up or elevated. When we honor God's truth, we will experience true self-acceptance because God himself will lift up our hearts. And that is the source of our power to withstand temptations of sin, namely knowing that God has accepted us and gives us his shalom. We turn to God and know Him as the "friend of sinners" who loves us with everlasting love and calls us to live in the truth of that love...

O precious Lord, "cause me to me hear your lovingkindness in the morning, for in You do I trust; cause me to know the way I should go, for I lift up my soul to you." Amen.

Hebrew Lesson
Psalm 143:8 Hebrew reading (click):


 

• Psalm 143:8 Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Olam Malei - An Entire World...


 

"The day you were born is the day God decided the world could not exist without you." - R' Nachman

11.01.24  (Tishri 30, 5785)   God made you entirely unique, and no one else was created for the special role that you have in the overarching plan of Almighty God...

Jewish tradition says that God created Adam alone as "olam malei" (עוֹלָם מָלֵא), "an entire world," to teach that each individual is of great value and significance. "Thus anyone who sustains one individual has sustained the world; and anyone who destroys one individual has destroyed an entire world" (Sanhedrin 37a). In addition, God created man as a solitary creation to remind all people that they descend from a common source: No one has a greater or better lineage or "pedigree" than anyone else.

Each of us is created with a sense of "aloneness," a built in "hunger" for relationship and especially for God's presence. "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee," said Augustine. Therefore the very first commandment to Adam and Eve comes in the form of a blessing: "And God blessed them and said, פְּרוּ וּרְבו / pru urvu: "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). People were created to be in fellowship with others and with God, and when this is lacking, there is a sense of incompletion, a profound soul hunger and need....

When you feel discouraged or anxious because of difficult times, remember how the LORD God created the world and sustains it for the sake of the revelation of his love for you...  You may not understand the present moment, though you can assuredly trust that God's salvation given in the Messiah Yeshua heals you forever and ever (John 5:24). Declare at all times, then: "The world was created for my sake, though I am but dust and ashes." God is faithful, the great Amen of the human heart's cry. Your inner being is redeemed by God for you to experience and know the blessing of eternal life (John 17:3). Amen.


Hebrew Lesson
Isaiah 43:1b Hebrew reading (click):


 

• Isaiah 43:1b Hebrew page (pdf)
   

Alphabet and Creation...


 

11.01.24  (Tishri 30, 5785)   The Torah begins with the letter Bet (בּ) rather than the letter Aleph (א) to denote God's humility. The letter Aleph is the first letter, the king of the alphabet, and the letter that begins "I AM" (i.e., אנכי) - the first word of the Ten Commandments.  The letter Bet, on the other hand, is the second letter that means "house" or "home" (בּית). This suggests that the Torah begins with the focus not on the "I" but on creation, the household of God.  And though God did not wish to be the center of attention, so to speak, Aleph and Bet together spell the word "father" (אב), that is, the One who oversees the household of the world in love. As it is written, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (אֲבִי הַמְּארוֹת) with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (James 1:17).

Aleph is a silent letter, representing God in His ineffable glory and life (אֶהְיֶה) that forever precedes all things (Isa. 44:6, cp. Rev. 22:13). Yeshua described Himself as the "Aleph and the Tav, the First and the Last" (הָאָלֶף וְהַתָּו הָראשׁ וְהַסּוֹף), the One who encompasses all Reality and gives out its strength (Aleph) before the house (Bet) of creation in sacrificial love.


Hebrew Lesson:
Isaiah 44:6b reading (click):


 

• Isaiah 44:6b Hebrew page (pdf)
   

It may be wondered why we would say that God is humble... Well, it is certainly true that the LORD is self-effacing, self-forgetting, utterly unselfish, absolutely noble of heart, and so on. Moreover we are commanded to emulate God, who is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, etc. (Exod. 34:6-7). Most of all we are to follow the example of Yeshua, YHVH in the flesh, who willingly "emptied Himself" (κενόσις) and took the role of a humble servant (Phil. 2:6-7). Yeshua himself said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matt. 11:29).
 

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