Most people, even non-believers, have heard the story of the woman accused of adultery who was brought before Yeshua.

Without saying anything, he bent down and began to write something on the ground; getting up, he said that the one who was without sin was to throw the first stone. He wrote some more on the ground, and then the accusers just walked away.

So…what did he write that caused the accusers to leave?

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First off, whether or not anyone had sinned was irrelevant because the Torah states the adulterer is being tried, not the accuser. What Yeshua said reminds us that no one is without sin, but still and all, it wasn’t really relevant to the situation.

I’m sorry, I have to take a moment because I just remembered an old joke:

The adulteress is brought before Yeshua, and after writing in the sand, he gets up and says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
The men all look around at each other, then suddenly from the midst of the crowd a stone is flung, hitting the woman in the head and knocking her down.
Yeshua looks around, and as the crowd opens up to reveal the one who threw the stone,
Yeshua says, “Aw, gee, Ma- I’m trying to work here!“

Alright, let’s get serious, again.

The Torah is strongly against adultery: first and foremost, it is a violation of the 7th Commandment. That identifies it as a sin, but does not tell us the what the punishment is for that crime. That comes later, in both Lev. 20:10, and again in Deut. 22:22.

Here’s an important fact: the Torah calls for both the woman AND the man to be stoned to death.

OK, so here’s the first sign Yeshua had that he was being set-up: they only brought the woman, saying she was caught in the very act of adultery, but where was the man? It seems if she was caught in the act, red-handed (so to speak), then the man was certainly present at the scene of the crime.

But they only brought her.

So, I believe that what Yeshua wrote the first time was the 9th Commandment, which states no one should bear false witness. If these men brought only one of the guilty parties, they neglected to act correctly and it is sort of like accusing someone of murder, but not having the dead person’s body to prove a murder was committed.

Because there was no partner to a crime that requires a partner, the charges being brought are similar to bearing false witness. One person cannot commit adultery, and without both parties there, it is a baseless charge. A false witness.

Reminding them of that sin, it seems to me that might start them thinking, “Hey, wait a minute here! Are we sinning by doing this?”

Next, Yeshua continued to write and after that, they all began to leave. So, what else did he write?

I think the next thing he wrote was the punishment for bearing false witness, which is defined in Deut.19:15–21. Essentially, it says that someone who brings false charges against another person is to receive the same punishment the accused was to receive.

That had to get some of them thinking, “Oy veys mir! If we are guilty of bearing false witness because we all know this is a set-up, then we’re gonna get stoned to death!”

Of course, if this is what happened, it is not surprising that they all began to leave. I’m surprised they only wandered off, and didn’t run for their lives.

Finally, why did Yeshua let the woman go with just a warning?

Again, it is because the laws in the Torah regarding capital punishment state that no one is to be punished solely on the witness of a single person, and that especially in the case of a capital crime (which adultery was), there must be at least two or three witnesses. When all the accusers left, there were no witnesses, so Yeshua- being 100% Torah observant, 100% of the time- had to let her go.

Well, that’s what I think happened, especially considering that Yeshua wrote something twice, with just a little bit of time in between for the accusers to think about what they were doing.

Again, I really don’t think saying that the one without sin should throw the first stone had any significance here, because (as I said before) the Torah doesn’t require a sinless person to make a charge.

I think he said that to let the accusers know that he was on to them.

I really believe I have been given an insight as to what happened, answering a question that people have asked for centuries. I think it makes total sense, being both in accordance with the Torah and showing Yeshua’s ability to know what the men were thinking.

So, nu? What do you think?

Thank you for being here, and please don’t forget to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. After all, you can never tell how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Today, being the 12th day of December, means that there are only 13 days left for those who accuse Christmas of being a pagan holiday to kvetch over it.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

I want to mention, first and foremost, that I am Jewish and never celebrated Christmas, Easter, or any of the traditional Christian holidays, so I am not defending anything. In fact, I am attacking- I am attacking ignorance, I am attacking misinformation, and I am attacking zeal that is definitely misplaced.

Over many years, I have heard people who have rejected much of the traditional Christian teachings because they have come to realize that to truly follow Yeshua (Jesus), they must turn from Christian teachings that reject the Torah, and become more Torah observant, which is the way Yeshua lived.

But in some cases, they go from one end of the spectrum to the other, from loving to celebrate Christian holidays to hating them, calling then pagan.

You know what? I have heard that term, pagan, thrown around like a hot potato, and I really wonder if anyone actually knows what it means. So I went to the Webster Dictionary, and there were two different definitions that I think are apt:

This one had a warning it might be offensive and was old-fashioned:
a person who is not religious or whose religion is not Judaism, Islam, or especially Christianity.

There was another definition, this one categorized as being literary:
one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : a non-religious hedonistic person.

I asked Google (our friend) how do I recognize something as pagan, and some of the ways it said were:

1. anything other than Jewish, Christian, or Muslim;
2. there is worship of gods and goddesses (polytheism);
3. events tied to seasonal changes;
4. magical practices; and
5. focuses on nature
   

So, there are definitely some elements of Christmas that we could say are similar to pagan practices, such as a Christmas tree being a focus on nature (but it isn’t the same thing Jeremiah talked about), and there is a lot of talk about Christmas miracles (like in my favorite Christmas movie, “Miracle on 34th Street”) and it is seasonal, in that we celebrate it on a winter solstice.

But what about polytheism? Other than the argument about the Trinity (three gods in one is still three gods, which is polytheistic by definition), Christmas is really all about Yeshua, one person, and his father, Adonai, one and only one God.

Pagan things are not in the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim religions, so Christmas must be OK. After all, Christians created it!.

Just because something isn’t in the Bible or is celebrated at the same time ancient peoples celebrated a pagan event, doesn’t mean that holiday is pagan.

What is pagan is something that celebrates paganism! DUH!

So when we celebrate the birth of the Jewish Messiah, is that pagan? NO!

When we celebrate the resurrection of the Jewish Messiah, is that pagan? NO!

When we reject and accuse Christian made holidays celebrating and giving thanks to the one and only, true God- the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob- for sending his son to save us, is that pagan?

No, it is just misplaced zeal and misplaced hatred of having been lied to.

That’s right- I believe much of the zeal against Christmas (and Easter, for that matter) is misdirected hatred for having been lied to for so long, by so many, including religious leaders, friends, and family.

Really, how can giving thanks to God be wrong?

Honestly, how can celebrating the existence of the Messiah be a bad thing?

In fact, if we reject the holiday that celebrates the birth of our Messiah, isn’t that the same as rejecting the Messiah?

Yeshua said if we reject him, we reject the one who sent him (Luke 10:16), so if we reject the holiday created specifically to celebrate his birth, then aren’t we also rejecting the event of his birth? And if we reject celebrating the birth of the Messiah, isn’t that the same as rejecting the Messiah?

Think about this: if we wanted to, we could proclaim some Holy Days, those commanded by God (in the Torah) as pagan because they are definitely seasonal: Shavuot is based on the wheat harvest, and Sukkot on the barely harvest, and Passover is always in the springtime.

I know, what I just said sounds ridiculous, but really not any more ridiculous than saying Christmas is pagan because it is on the same day Saturnalia occurred.

Look, it’s like I said at the start, I am not defending Christmas or any Christian holiday. What I am defending is the right of those who celebrate Christmas not to be insulted as being paganistic, or to insult God and Yeshua by saying events created to celebrate them are pagan just because they happen to fall on the same day an ancient pagan event was celebrated. And because a holiday may have some of the same characteristics of a pagan celebration, that doesn’t make it pagan.

Celebrating the Messiah and giving thanks to God can never be a bad thing, but denying others the right to do so just might be.

Thank you for being here and please don’t forget to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. After all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

I was going through the Book of Leviticus, and came upon some interesting rules I had seen before, but this time I paid closer attention, and this is what I found out: you are not always guilty when you sin.

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In Leviticus 4 (I always quote from the CJB), God starts off by explaining what must be done when anyone sins inadvertently against the mitzvot (laws) of Adonai. Now, isn’t this interesting? God doesn’t say when someone sins, but when they do so inadvertently, i.e., by accident.

It seems to me that God expects us to want to obey him, and when we don’t, it must be by accident.

God goes on to say that if the community sins, but is unaware of it, they are still guilty. It is when their sin becomes known that they are expected to perform the sacrifices to be cleansed, and forgiven. The same rule applies to a community leader.

Now, what is again interesting is when we get to Chapter 5, and it talks about when a person is unclean but unaware of it. If they become unclean by an unclean animal, they are guilty right away, but if it is an unclean human, they are not guilty until they learn that the person was unclean. This makes sense to me- you know which animals are unclean (Lev. 11) and that we aren’t to touch dead animal carcasses, etc., so when you do, you have to know what you did.

But who can tell if a person is unclean or not, unless they tell you?

Also, if someone says something sinful but doesn’t remember doing it, he is not guilty until he is made aware of what he said.

Here is something you may not know: the male members of an Orthodox Jewish sect are sometimes accused of being misogynistic because they refuse to shake hands with a woman, or to give her change from a dollar, or anything that involves touching. The truth is that they never know when a woman might be unclean due to her time of Niddah (menstruation). Since woman today don’t go around proclaiming in a loud voice, “Unclean! Unclean!”, a person who is obedient to the Torah really shouldn’t shake hands or touch a woman, or anything she touches.

And, if a woman offered her hand to an Orthodox Jew, I think it goes without saying that he won’t ask her, “By the way, are you menstruating?”

The Torah goes on to say that when someone is made aware of these “not guilty yet” sins, then they are considered guilty, must confess their sins and perform the cleansing activities.

I see these conditions of guilty immediately, or not until made aware, like the difference between committing a federal offence or a local misdemeanor. You are guilty of doing it, but God knows that you may not be aware and, as such, waits until you are made aware, after which you will then be considered guilty and must do what needs to be done to be forgiven.

Ultimately, we are always guilty when we sin, no matter which sin it is, and whether we know it or not, but (for lack of a better term) with the lesser sins, we have some leeway, in that we aren’t considered guilty until we know what we did.

Ignorance is not freedom from the law, but it does give us a chance to do what is right when we learn of it. The important thing, I believe, is to know what is a sin and what is not, and the only way to know that is to become very familiar with God’s Torah.

If I may share what I do, every morning when I pray, I ask God to forgive me of whatever sins I may have committed that I am not aware of. I do this as my system of CYT (Cover Your Tuchas), and ask not only that God forgive me, but also that he strengthen me through his Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to sin less in the future.

I am not sharing this with you to appear holy or anything like that, but because I think it is a really good idea, and that everyone should do it.

Finally, I just want to remind you all how compassionate and understanding God is, in that he knows we are weak and that we might do something wrong, without really meaning to or even knowing that we did. When he says, in Ezekiel 18:23, that he doesn’t want to see anyone die, but rather do t’shuvah (turn from their sins), and live, he made that possible through these rules, way back at Mt. Sinai.

One last point… when we sin against the mitzvot, i.e., the major commandments which incorporate the Big 10, the ones specified in Leviticus 11 and 23, as well as most every other law regarding how to worship God and how to treat each other, we are guilty immediately. I suppose that should resonate with those who sin, knowing they are sinning, and are still unrepentant.

And if your religion teaches you that you don’t have to obey the Torah, that is a sin, and not an inadvertent sin. The Torah came from God, and was given to the Jews as his nation of priests (Ex. 19:6) to teach to the world, so if your man-made religion (which, in case you didn’t know, is every Christian denomination that exists today) tells you it is OK to ignore God’s laws, then you are guilty.

Not down the road, not until someone tells you that you are, but right NOW!

Thank you for being here, and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. After all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

We hear a lot about legalism, but does anyone really know what it means?

The typical answer is that it means obeying the Torah, also called “The Law”, but if we do not follow the law, then we are- by definition- lawless, and didn’t Shaul tell the Thessalonians that God will kill the lawless?

How can I be saved by ignoring the law if God kills those who ignore the law?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

My definition of legalism is that it is a performance-based system for salvation. What that means is that salvation comes not from faith, but from performing the instructions in the Torah, perfectly.

To date, the only human capable of doing that was Yeshua, which is why his sacrifice was accepted by God. And how do we know that it was accepted? Because Yeshua was raised from the dead and is now in the presence of the Lord.

Now here’s the kicker…Yeshua followed the Torah, perfectly, which is why he received salvation.

You see, the Torah is more than just a set of laws and regulations- it is the ultimate User’s Manual for how to live a righteous life, and by doing so be able to receive salvation.

I’ll bet that is confusing a lot of people, but the truth is undeniable- Yeshua lived a “legalistic” life and yet he was saved. But my religion tells me that I can only be saved by faith, and not the Torah. Oy gevalt! Which is it?

It’s both, but don’t fret, folks!

The good news is that you still need to be saved by faith; the bad news is that faith without works (that means obeying the Torah) isn’t enough.

I was raised Jewish, so I haven’t been conditioned to believe that all you need is faith (by the way, most people I talk to don’t have any idea what “having faith” really means). My conditioning, so to speak, was that the Torah has all we need to know in order to live a righteous life, and that we are to be faithful to God, and God, alone. I was also told that the Messiah has not come yet.

Over the past 25+ years, I have come to the understanding that faith is a choice: we choose to believe that God exists, we choose to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, we choose to believe that he lived a righteous life and sacrificed himself so that, by means of his innocent blood that was spilled, we can receive forgiveness of sin.

And after making those choices, we can now choose to live our lives by God’s instructions in the Torah, which includes which Holy Days to celebrate, which foods to eat, and a whole set of business ethics and penal laws that are also in the Torah (didn’t know that, did you?)

OR

we choose to live our lives by man-made tenets and ceremonies, celebrate man-made holidays, and (for the most part) reject pretty much everything that God said to do, which means we also have to pretty much reject how Yeshua lived his life.

Gee, that sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? I thought legalism was just following the law, and – to be truthful- of course it is! When we follow the law, we are acting legally. DUH!

But, since the New Covenant doesn’t have any laws or commandments in it, by not following the Torah, one is living – by definition- without law.

Time Out: if you are thinking that there is a new commandment in the Gospels, it’s when Yeshua said he was giving a new commandment in John 13:34, that isn’t really new. It’s from Lev. 19:18.

The bad form of legalism is what the Pharisees taught: they said if you would just obey the letter of the law, even if you were faithless, you would be saved. But, in reality, that won’t do it, and we know this because God, himself, said so! He told the people, through more than one prophet, he would reject their sacrifices because their hearts weren’t in it, and also because they didn’t demonstrate real repentance.

Here’s the proper formula, as I see it- you need to make those choices to faithfully believe in God and Messiah Yeshua, and you also need to act faithfully by obeying what God said to do, and reject any religion that tells you to ignore the Torah.

I know this is a hard word for all you “good Christians” out there, especially the ones who have told me I am not saved because I do all that “Jewish” stuff.

Well, surprise! Doing all that Jewish stuff is why Yeshua’s sacrifice was accepted, why he was resurrected, how you can please God and ensure receiving blessings on earth (read Deuteronomy 28), and one more thing… being obedient to the Torah is how you can secure your salvation.

Please remember to subscribe and share these messages with everyone you know, even unbelievers because you never know how fertile the soil will be until you put a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot, and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Yeah, I know you were expecting some Thanksgiving Day message, but there are so many of them out there, I didn’t want to get lost in the crowd.

So let’s talk about God’s (alleged) name …or maybe we shouldn’t mention it, at all?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.
(This one is a little longer than usual).

What is God’s name? Is it Jehovah? Yahweh? Adonai? HaShem? Lord? God? Harry? Oy-ving?

Maybe what we should be asking, before trying to figure out how to pronounce

יהוה

is whether or not we are supposed to figure out how to pronounce it, at all?

The third commandment says: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain”, so what does it mean to use it in vain? According to the Internet dictionary, the term “use in vain” means…”without success or a result.” I guess that means that if we ever use God’s name, we should only use it in a way that produces something, or has some result.

Before we figure out how to use God’s name where it results in, or produces, something, how about we see what God said his name is?

In Exodus, Chapter 3, verses 14-15, God tells Moses what his name is (CJB):

God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [I am/will be what I am/will be],” and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am or I Will Be] has sent me to you.’” God said further to Moshe, “Say this to the people of Isra’el: ‘Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai], the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered generation after generation.

So God says his name is “I Am“, but he adds that the way we are to refer to him is as “the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”.

Hmmm… not Jehovah, not Yahweh, not Adonai, not any of the typical names that we see being thrown around like a hot potato, without any respect or admiration shown for the majesty and power of the entity that name represents.

God really doesn’t give a name, anywhere, to himself, but rather he refers to himself in terms that are descriptive of who and what he is, and I believe that is because he is above the need for a name.

What do I mean by that? Well, simply enough, we give each other names to identify ourselves as someone who is uniquely different from everyone else. Many people have the same first name, so the addition of a middle and/or last name separates them: for example, there are many Stevens in the world, and some Steven Roberts, as well. But there is only one, or (at least) very, very few Steven Robert Bruck’s in the world.

But how many gods are there? To be honest, as many as people want to create. According to the Bible Gateway site, there are about 8,747 false gods. Besides the ancient names, such as Amon, Molech, Dagon, Ashtoreth, Ba’al, etc., there are other gods from other religions, such as the many gods in Hinduism, there is Buddha, the many Roman and Greek gods, and they all have a real name. Each one of them is uniquely identified by a name, but the one, true God has no name, to speak of, but tells us who he is by referring to a title and a description.

And what does it mean when, in the Bible, someone refers to “the name of the Lord”? Most of the people I have met and read posts from are adamant that they MUST use whatever pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (that’s the fancy term for those 4 letters God said to Moses) they have been taught represents the God of our fathers, the God of… well, you know who I mean. But I am certain, from reading the Bible many times, that “the name of the Lord” doesn’t mean an actual name, like Steve or Harry or Oy-ving (you have to pronounce that last name with a Jewish accent to really get the humor in it), but rather it represents his reputation and his renown throughout the world.

When God referred to himself in Exodus 34, passing by Moses, he announced himself this way (CJB):

Adonai passed before him and proclaimed: “YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH!!! Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh  is God, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace and truth;  showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents’ offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations.

He did mention the Tetragrammaton, but then told us about himself in descriptive terms. He always refers to his name in a way that refers not to a specific pronunciation, but what that “name”, those 4-letters, represent! The Y-H-V-H is not to be pronounced, but to be recognized as God, the one who is the God of our fathers; as God, the one who brought us out of Egypt; as God, the one who promised we would dwell in the Land he told Abraham about; as God, the one who will send the Messiah; as God, the one who created the earth and the heavens; as God, the one and only.

When God mentions himself, he doesn’t dwell on the 4-letters, he specifies who and what he is, what he has done, and what he is capable of doing.

God doesn’t need a name because he is defined by what he has done!

There are those who are called “Holy Namers” (not meant to be complimentary), and they are so adamant about how to pronounce the 4-letters that they throw God’s alleged “name” around like it was your name or mine, without the proper respect for who and what that name represents.

I am sorry, but God is not my drinking buddy or someone I can just scream “Yo, Yahweh! Over here, Man!” when I want to get his attention in prayer. He is the one and only true creator of everything, and he is so holy that the angels call him the holiest of all holies!

And when was the last time you read in the Bible an angel calling God by his “name”?

I know that there are many who will say I am wrong, and that it isn’t a sin to use the 4-letters anytime we want to, pronouncing it any old way we want to, and that – in fact!- it would be a sin not to pronounce God’s name, and using any other name (than the one they like) is praying to a false god.

Yeah, I have seen many take it that far off base, refusing to remember that we are saved by faith, not pronunciation.

I use God or Adonai (Hebrew for “Lord”) because it is what I have used my whole life, and as a Jew I also have great respect for God’s Holy Name, so I don’t use it.

I almost forgot to mention how we use God’s name in a way that produces a result or has a purpose, which is, after all, the definition of not using it in vain. You know what? I am not sure about how to do that! If I use it when swearing or cursing, that should have a result, for sure, but then again, doesn’t the bible tell us not to do that? (Matthew 5:34-37 and Deuteronomy 5:11)

I suppose the only way to use his name which would have a purpose and/or result in something, would be in prayer. But that means when we are writing or talking about him, or referencing him in a story or post, we should NOT use the Tetragrammaton because the purpose or result of what we are writing about doesn’t need to have the Holy Name of God used in order to get the point across. What I mean is that the point of my message can have the same exact purpose using “God” or “Adonai” or even “HaShem” (Hebrew for “the name”) as it would if I used the 4-letters. And because of this, I believe using a pronunciation of those 4-letters, other than in prayer, is a violation of the 3rd Commandment.

I hope this message causes some of you to reconsider just how you refer to God in the future. Think of it this way: if you met the President of the United States, would you shake his hand and say, “Hi, Donnie, How are ya?” Or, if you met the King of England, would you say “Yo, Chuckie! How’s it hangin’?”

No? Then what makes you think you can refer to God using his first name?

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even the non-believers- you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!