In Judaism, the Heart is The Mind

June 30, 2022 Leave a comment

In a world where we try to be better at everything, where you can go to almost any media and find someone who will tell you how to be a better person, how to communicate better with others, how to be in better shape, how to…well, how to be better at just about anything.

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Of all the things we are trying to do to better ourselves, having both a healthy mind and a healthy heart is among the most desired conditions.

In Judaism, we believe that the heart and mind are actually one and the same thing.

The Hebrew word for heart is “leb” (לב), but although it is a separate organ from the mind, it is not separate spiritually.

In the prayer called the V’ahavta (You are to love) found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, we are told:

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Some versions of the Bible say with all thy heart and all thy mind, and in Judaic thought, these are one and the same. We are being told to love God with both our emotions and intellect.

In today’s world, you hear people advising others to make decisions with their mind and not their heart, because the gentile world sees the heart as emotion, and the mind as intellect.

In Jewish thought, the heart is the center of the intellect, directing us to make decisions based on our feelings as well as our sensibility.

In the Book of Proverbs, we read often of the mind and the heart as being the same thing. For instance:

The heart of the wise instructs his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips.” (Prov. 16:23)

That indicates that our heart is able to make wise decisions which enable us to better communicate our feelings and thoughts to others.

At the prelude to Proverbs, in Proverbs 2:10-11, the writer states that when Adonai gives wisdom, the wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be enjoyable to you.

The Chasidic Jews believe (at least, those of Chabad) that there is one mind, but two hearts. The outer heart is one that chases the worldly things, and the inner heart is the fire of the soul. The mind is the key to the inner heart, which is the more spiritually guided aspect of our personality.

If this sounds Freudian to you, it certainly does to me, too. The inner heart would be the Ego, the outer heart would be the Id, and the mind would be the Superego.

You know, Freud was Jewish- maybe what we now call modern psychoanalysis is really just what Jews have known about for centuries?

I believe we need to be led by our hearts and guided by our minds. The heart and mind need to work together, the heart allowing us to have an emotional connection to others, feeling compassion and empathy, with the mind reining us in from foolishly allowing others to take advantage of our kindness, or rushing into things that appeal to our desire for worldly things.

Mind and heart, heart and mind, both are necessary to gain spiritual understanding and wisdom. And if you ask me, I will agree with that Jewish tent maker from Tarsus when, in his first letter to the Kehillah in Corinth, he told them that he might have many gifts, but without love, he is nothing.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages, subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure to read and agree to the rules).

And remember: I always welcome your comments.

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

Does God Change His Mind?

June 28, 2022June 28, 2022 Leave a comment

Of course he does- he changed it for Moses more than once, right?
When the people sinned with the Golden Calf and God said he would destroy them, didn’t he tell Moses that he wouldn’t do that, after all, since Moses pleaded with him for the sake of the people? (Exodus 32:10-14; Deuteronomy 9:13-14)

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Even before that, when God sent angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, didn’t Abraham negotiate a deal with God, making him change his mind and promise not to destroy it if there were as few as 10 righteous men there?

(Of course, God kind of cheated on that one, since he already knew there were no righteous men there, to begin with. But I think he did it so that Abraham could feel helpful.)

And what about Nineveh? God decided he would destroy them, but he sent Jonah as a last-ditch effort to save them. Lucky for Nineveh, they listened, although in the long run it only delayed the inevitable.

So it certainly seems that God will change his mind. But that brings up a problem: if God will change his mind about things, does that mean he might change his mind about salvation?

Yeah, yeah, I know…we are told that salvation cannot be taken away by anyone (John 6:37-40, for one), but God isn’t just anyone- he is God.

Job tells us that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. In other words, that which God gives, he also can take away- it is up to him. After all, who can hold God accountable? Who can tell God “You can’t do that!”?

We are told that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Ecclesiastes 3:14; Malachi 3:6), but then we are also told about how he gives and takes away, how he changes his mind, so if he is the same, then how can he change his mind?

And, as I said earlier, if he can change his mind, then how can we trust in the promise of salvation? Or, for that matter, any of the promises he’s made?

I’ll tell you what I believe is the answer- God doesn’t change his mind, and his promises are so trustworthy, that whatever God says will be, has already been.

But, but, but…what about Abraham? What about Moses? What about the other times (you can find more examples in the Bible if you look for them) God said he wouldn’t do what he said he wanted to do.

Aha! As Shakespeare would say- “There’s the rub!”

The operative word in what I just said is that God said he wanted to do- not that he would do.

When God told Moses to go down from the mountain because the people had sinned (with the Golden Calf), he didn’t tell Moses he decided to destroy them. He asked Moses to leave him alone so that he could destroy them: in other words, he was asking Moses to allow him to destroy them and make a nation from Moses, but he didn’t tell Moses that he will destroy them.

A subtle difference but a significant one.

The same with Abraham. God’s angels said they were sent to destroy the cities, and all Abraham accomplished was to negotiate a cease fire, so to speak, based on something that (as I already pointed out) God knew wasn’t the case.

We need to remember something that I learned long ago when I was in Sales:

People don’t mean what they say, they mean what they do.

God, on the other hand, means what he says and does what he says he will do. He is 1,000% trustworthy and reliable to do what he says, which includes the promise of salvation. We may be confused by the wording in the Bible, which makes it appear that he will change his mind once he decided what to do.

But that is our misunderstanding, and not a case of God changing his mind.

The JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, recognized as one of the best interpretations of the Tanakh, tells us that God asks Moses to “let me be” so that his anger may blaze against the people and that he may destroy them. Later in that passage, it says God “renounced the punishment he had planned to bring upon the people.”

Planned to bring is not decided to do.

After all, plans are flexible, and when we decide to go another way because the original plan won’t do what we need, is that changing our mind?

Well, OK, yes- we can say we changed our mind, or we can say we changed the plan, never having really made up our mind, absolutely.

So, the final decision, which is a decision which I will not change my mind about, is that there is a difference between planning to do something and deciding to do it, and the only thing that determines the final decision is what is done.

God had decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and he did; God planned to destroy the people and make a nation from Moses, but that plan changed and the people were not destroyed.

God also planned to destroy them after they refused to enter the land (Numbers 14), but Moses explained why that would be a bad idea and God changed his plan. Instead of destroying all the people, he only destroyed the generation that came out of Egypt. He didn’t change his mind, he simply changed the plan.

So, you can see that where I may have introduced a reason to doubt God’s word, in the end it is our understanding (both linguistically and culturally) of what he said that might lead us to think he has changed his mind.

What God has said and what he has done over the millennia proves, beyond a doubt, that we can depend on him, always.

God may change his plans for you, based on what you do, but you can absolutely trust that every promise God has made, or ever will make, is a guaranteed done deal.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word’ (please read and agree to the rules).

And remember- I always welcome your comments.

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

Just How Many Pilgrim Festivals Are There, Really?

June 21, 2022 Leave a comment

If you were to ask most any American, “What is a pilgrim festival?” I’ll bet their answer will be “Why, that would be Thanksgiving, the fourth Thursday of November.”

But that isn’t really a pilgrim festival, is it?

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For us religious types, a pilgrim festival is one where we are required to congregate at our respective house of worship, be that a synagogue, a church, or a mosque.

You know, I have been reading the Bible for over 25 years, nearly every, single day, and have gone through it at least 2 dozen times, and what is wonderful about this book is that even when you have read it as often as I have, not to mention all the studies I have been involved with requiring me to research throughout the Bible, you can still read something you have read over and over, and see a new truth in it.

So, nu? What am I leading to? It’s this: I have always known that there are three pilgrim festivals in Judaism: Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

If you do an Internet search for “Jewish pilgrimage festivals” on Google, you will get any number of “hits”, from Britannica’s site to the one called My Jewish Learning to Wikipedia, and so on, and they will all tell you that the Jewish pilgrim festivals are Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

Now here’s the thing that hit me just the other day as my daily reading had me in Leviticus, Chapter 23…there are actually 6 pilgrim festivals in Judaism!

That’s right! Not 3 or 4 or even 5, but there are 6 times that God says we are to have a holy convocation, which translates to being physically at the Temple.

That means from the time after we entered the land, which was when the first Shavuot began, people were required to go to the Tent of Meeting (first at Gilgal, then Shiloh, then Jerusalem) until we had Solomon’s Temple. But, after 73 AD, when Roman soldiers destroyed the temple, we had nowhere to go to fulfill the commandments regarding pilgrim festivals.

Here’s an interesting side note: although Pesach (Passover) was celebrated before we entered the Land, Shavuot and Sukkot were not to be celebrated, and Habikurim (First Fruits) also had to wait until we were established in Canaan. God stated, specifically, that these were to be celebrated AFTER we entered the Land (see Leviticus 23:9).

So, this was quite a revelation to me- all these years I was teaching that there are three pilgrim festivals because that is what I was taught, but I was wrong.

Let’s go to the Book of Leviticus (CJB) and see what God says is to be a holy convocation:

Pesach is a pilgrim festival for two reasons: one, because all sacrifices had to be made at the place where God put his name (Deuteronomy 16:6), and secondly because we are to have a holy convocation on the first day of Hag HaMatzot.

It certainly looks to me that God wants us to congregate together on the first day of Hag HaMatzot (Festival of Unleavened Bread), then again on Shavuot, then again on Rosh Hashanah (originally called Yom Teruah, Day of Trumpets), then again on Yom Kippur, and finally on the first day and the eighth day of Sukkot, which is called Yom Atzeret, also known as Simchat Torah.

Now, some may say that some of these holy convocations were included with the required presence at the temple, so they don’t really count as a separate pilgrimage. Maybe there’s some truth to that, but God specifies 6 holy convocations, and for me, that means there are 6 separate and unique times we are to be at the temple.

So, this certainly begs the question: How could I have read and studied the Torah for so many years, and never seen, which has always been right in front of my face, that there are really 6 pilgrim festivals, not just three?

My answer is that I have been doing what so many people do, which is reading the Bible but only seeing what I have been told is there.

Most people, if you ask me, are at the height of spiritual ignorance because they don’t read the Bible at all. The next level down is those who hear others tell them what is in the Bible, but don’t bother to verify what they are told.

The level I was on all this time when reading Leviticus 23 and never noticing the true number of holy convocations was the level where I am reading the Bible but only seeing what I already know it says.

This is probably why so many people who do read the Bible miss so much of what is in there- we have blinders, blinders that were placed on our eyes by religion, which told us what the Bible says, So, even though we are looking right at it, we only see what we have been told is there.

This is why it is so important to pray to God and ask for Holy Spirit guidance each and every time we read the Bible, so that we can be freed of the blinders religion has placed on our eyes.

The scary thing is that now I have to wonder: How many other things in God’s word have I read and not understood properly?

The comforting thing, though, is that now that I know this has happened, I will be doubly careful and much more aware of what I am reading.

The bottom line for all of us is to recognize the potential that no matter how many times we have gone through the Bible, we may still be reading something but not seeing it.

Let me finish with telling you what I will be doing, and suggest you do the same: from this moment on, I am reading with both eyes open, and accept the fact that as well as I know the Bible, I may not know it all correctly.

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

Sometimes It’s Just Life

June 16, 2022 Leave a comment

There was this man I knew when I was attending a Messianic Synagogue in Northeast Philadelphia. He had a gentle disposition, a real heart for God, and one other thing, which we talked about now and then: he felt that everything that happened to him, good or bad, was from God.

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Now, we all know that God is in charge- no question about that.

I, myself, have been in charge of people most of my career, either through given authority as a Marine Corp Officer, or by assumed authority, meaning I was always the “Duty Expert”. And in that position, I learned long ago that being in charge doesn’t always mean taking charge.

(Off the topic: tomorrow is my 68th birthday, and now when I say “long ago”, it is much more literal than I care to think about.)

Back to the main point- what I am saying is that very often, when you have people under your authority who are expected to perform their duties, even though the “buck stops here” means in your lap, there are a lot of other people handling that particular buck before it gets to you, and it is just a part of life that sometimes the buck gets mishandled.

As a retired IT professional, one who started as a programmer and ended up on the hardware side of the house, I can tell you absolutely that in any system, the weakest point of that system will always be where there is human intervention.

Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people- that is not necessarily God, or the Devil- it is (I believe) more often than not just… what… happens.

Look at all the people who do not really know or worship God (even some who think they do) as they go through life. We know that God will allow us to walk away from him, and that he hopes we will repent and return, but in the meantime, when we do not do as God has instructed us, we are on our own.

God will allow you to remain unprotected by him if you chose to ignore his commandments. Yes, he will still bless those who reject him, and sometimes hold blessings from those who accept him- after all, he is God and knows what he is doing.

Job and his friends learned that, the hard way.

We are told that God will bless those who bless the Jewish people and who obey his commandments (Genesis 12:3 and Deuteronomy 28, resp.), yet we are also told that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy (Exodus 33:19), so when good or bad happens, you need to ask yourself “Is this God, or just life?”

If you ask me, I’d say it’s probably just life.

My friend, the one I told you about at the beginning, once had his car break down. His explanation? He went shopping on a Saturday because he was out of food, and so as punishment God killed the clutch on his car.

Maybe God did, but I have to say I really doubt that the creator of the universe, the Lord, God, Almighty, savior and forgiver, and Judge of the world, went out of his way to destroy that guy’s clutch because he had no food and went shopping on a Saturday.

That seems a little extreme, doesn’t it? I mean, God could have just made him wait for a long time in line (that is almost a form of purgatory, in and of itself, right?), or had him run out of gas, or something not quite so expensive.

Or maybe, and I think much more likely, the clutch was going to break, anyway, and it just happened, as so often does in life, that it just happened to break right after this guy went shopping on the Shabbat.

Just like yesterday, the hottest day of the year so far for us here in Melbourne, Florida, that the motor of our outside AC unit decided to rust out and stop working. Not God, not the Devil, just life. “Murphy’s Law” in action.

Didn’t Yeshua ask who wouldn’t lift their donkey out of a hole on Shabbat? (Luke 14:5)

Does anyone here (and please comment on this, if you don’t mind) think that God will punish every single infraction of the Torah, every single time we have one?

I don’t.

If my job has me constantly on the road (as my friend’s job did), and come one Saturday morning I find there is nothing to eat in the house so I go to get some food, I believe that God is compassionate enough to give me a break and not punish me for traveling and spending money on the Sabbath just so that I can eat.

And for the Devil, well- why would he attack me if I was being sinful? That just doesn’t make sense, as Yeshua pointed out when he talked about a house divided against itself in Matthew 12:25.

No, the Enemy of God will not bother you when you are sinning. In fact, he will help you! The only time you can expect Satan to come after you is when you are doing something wonderful for God’s kingdom and encouraging others to seek God.

And even then, whatever happens may just be life. I’ll go on record saying that, as far as I am concerned, things that happen to you or others is more likely the result of just being alive than it is some form of divine, or devilish, interference.

When something bad or good happens to you, don’t sweat it. If it is a good thing, thank God anyway. If it is a bad thing, don’t automatically think the Devil is out to get you or that God is punishing you. But…if it is bad and it continues to happen, well, then maybe you should practice a little self-reflection; you know, just to be sure.

As for me, when either good or bad things happen to me, more often than not, I believe it’s just life.

And I always welcome your comments.

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

Were the Egyptians Really Going to Kill the Israelites?

June 14, 2022 Leave a comment

We all know the story: God sends his 10 plagues upon the Egyptians, but not until the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, does Pharaoh give in to God and allow the Israelites to leave.

But then, what does Pharaoh do? He gives chase after them.

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And when the Israelites see the 600 chariots coming after them, what was their first reaction?

“And they said to Moses, ‘Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?’” (Exodus 14:11 JPS Tanakh)

I have always wondered why they would even think that?

I mean, c’mon- what was the only reason why Pharaoh wouldn’t let them leave in the first place? Wasn’t it because he needed them to be slaves?

Weren’t they the only labor force he had to build his own tomb, and to create the great edifices of Egypt?

Why in the world would he want to now slaughter them?

In the Torah (JPS Tanakh version), we read why Pharaoh went after the Israelites in Exodus 14: 5:

“And it was told the king of Egypt that the people were fled; and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned towards the people, and they said: ‘What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?‘”

Nu! Pharaoh never intended to kill them, just recapture them. But the people Moses led into the desert immediately assumed the worst possible situation.

Why? Later on, we read how they continually kvetched about everything- no water, no meat, no vegetables… yadda-yadda-yadda. Even when Korach rebelled, they didn’t want some other leader to take them to the land of milk and honey, but to take them back to Egypt!

Talk about wanting to stay in one’s comfort zone! Even when there was no comfort to be found in it.

Oy gevalt!

If you ask me, I think the reason they were so afraid is because of their lack of faith. And I am not talking about their lack of faith in God to save them, but their lack of faith in anything. Especially themselves.

I see this in people all the time, this general fear that they carry around with them like an albatross around their necks, but one that they refuse to let go of.

I read a book long ago, in a previous life when I was in a very bad marriage, that was called “The Dance of Anger.” In that book, the author pointed out how in an abusive relationship (either physically and/or verbally), when one of the partners tries to change it into something better, the other partner will refuse to cooperate, even going out of their way to resume the abusive relationship.

The reason the author says this happens is that the other partner is comfortable with the old relationship, even though it really isn’t comfortable, at all; it’s just what they are used to. The more one tries to “change the dance”, the more the other one tries to pull him or her back into the old relationship.

I lived that dance and no matter how hard I tried to change it, it was impossible for me to do that.

But that’s an entirely different story.

The Israelites had been slaves for 400 years, some 20 or more generations, and that was the only dance those people knew. Their mindset was one of conditioned slavery, and the idea that they would be free- even though they had been crying to be free- was so uncomfortable to them that when they were free, they would rather have gone back to slavery.

And we can still see this in so many Christian religions today.

Those who have been brought up with Christianity’s traditional teachings about which holidays are the ones to celebrate (consequently teaching which ones to ignore), what you are allowed to eat, when to rest, who to pray to, etc. all are attractive to the previously sinful lifestyle that the people lived.

I am sorry, but if you are thinking that Yeshua (Jesus) did away with the Law of Moses, let me fill you in on what being in your current comfort zone really is about:

The Law of Moses isn’t the law of Moses- it is God’s law! The instructions he gave to Moses, so that Moses could teach those who worship God, are the way God wants us to act. Nowhere, ever, did God’s son, Messiah Yeshua, say we should ever act differently.
The Christian religions we have today, which originally came out of Judaism, generally do not follow what God said to do. They have created their own holidays, their own Sabbath day, their own rituals, ceremonies, and tenets. And they are all man-made; and as I said, almost none of them are in accordance with God’s instructions.
Yeshua preached to love God and each other- in that order. And the way he said to show that love is to be obedient (John 14:15; 1 John 5).
Christians are told they should follow in Jesus’s footsteps, i.e., live and act as Jesus did. But Christianity has, over the centuries, rejected everything that Jesus did with regards to his worship of God and the lifestyle he led!

Sorry to burst your comfort zone bubble, but that’s the way it is, and if you don’t believe me, read the Gospels and show me where either God or Yeshua said to do any of the things that modern Christianity teaches people to do.

Show me where God said burying bones under the altar is a good thing to do.

Show me where Yeshua said to pray to him instead of to God.

Show me where God said he wants churches to be jam packed with statues of people and pictures of him and Yeshua, and that people should bow before them and pray to them.

Show me where God said to ignore the Holy Days he commanded us to celebrate.

Show me where Yeshua said people should celebrate holidays devoted to him, and not to God.

Show me where…well, you get the idea.

We are all born with original Sin, or as we say in Judaism, the Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclination), and until we are old enough to know right from wrong, or good from evil, we do whatever our evil inclination tells us to do.

That’s why sinning is so much more comfortable and easy to do than living a righteous life.

And when we learn of something different, such as how God really wants you to live, that is so far outside of our comfort zone that we rebel; God wants us to learn how to dance a waltz with him, but we prefer to dance alone.

Can you believe it? We feel better dancing alone than dancing with God.

The Israelites who left slavery in Egypt decided they felt better under Pharaoh’s harsh and abusive rule than living free under God’s compassionate and loving rule.

And, for the most part, people are no different today.

Yeshua said we are all slaves to something (Matthew 6:24), either to God or to money (meaning earthly things), so it is up to you which master you will serve. I can tell you, absolutely, that it is much, MUCH easier to serve earthly things than to serve God.

But, if you care about where you spend eternity, then you need to break out of your comfort zone and get a new dance partner.

When you’re dancing with God and let him lead, you will be led to eternal peace; but, when you dance with the Devil, he will let you think you are leading but in the end, he will lead you to hell.

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

Do You Believe in God or Do You Acknowledge Him?

June 7, 2022 Leave a comment

After reading the title of today’s message, you might be asking, “Hey, I believe in God, so what’s missing?”

What might be missing is the difference between being told “Welcome, good and faithful servant” or “Be gone from me- I never knew you!”

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I’m sure you are all familiar with the old saying, “In one ear and out the other”, right? That’s when we use selective hearing, and even though we heard what was being said, we never really paid enough attention to it to retain or even acknowledge what the other person was saying.

Aha! There’s that word, the very word upon which my entire message is based: acknowledge.

Many people believe in God, but that doesn’t mean you are saved.

Many people take the next step and believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah, but that doesn’t mean you are saved.

After all, every demon in Sheol (hell) not only believes in God and Yeshua, but they’ve seen them! Heck! They used to worship God at his feet.

But they’re not saved, are they?

The difference between believing in God and acknowledging God is how well we obey what God tells us to do. And, considering that God requires obedience (Isaiah 1:11), specifically obedience to his instructions in the Torah (which, for the record, Yeshua never-ever-even-once said could be ignored) means that if someone only believes in God but fails to even try to obey his Torah, then he (or she) doesn’t acknowledge God.

And what we do not acknowledge is, by definition, unimportant to us and we ignore whatever it is.

Do you like the idea that you might be ignoring God?

If someone is talking drek to me, I turn away from them and place my palm towards them and say, “Talk to the hand.” I believe the person is there, I believe the person exists, and I also believe the person is saying something to me that they think is important.

But I refuse to acknowledge them.

During my whole life I have seen people doing this to God, in Christianity, and even to some degree, within Judaism. People say they believe in God but they refuse to acknowledge what he says as important, choosing instead to obey their priests, pastors, ministers, or rabbis.

Christianity has taught that the Mosaic Law is not relevant to Christians, and in fact, some go as far as to say those who are trying to obey God’s Torah show faithlessness and are “under the law”. My experience is that nearly everyone who has ever thrown that in my face had no idea what they were talking about, especially when it came to what Shaul (Paul) meant when he used that term.

The rabbis have created Halacha, which means “the walk”, and it is composed of the rabbinical instructions regarding how to obey the Torah commandments. It is formed from what is in the Talmud (called the Oral Law) and, essentially, creates more work for Jews who are trying to obey God’s word. The ordinances against eating meat and dairy together, the distance one can walk on the Shabbat, the public reading of the Torah on certain weekdays, the lighting of the candles for Hanukkah, and many other requirements for everyday activities are all outlined in Halacha, which has been developed over centuries.

Halacha does acknowledge God, but takes it to a level beyond what God requires, and as such, in my opinion violates the Torah commandment against adding to or taking away from what God told us to do (Deuteronomy 4:2).

Let’s finish today’s message with this:

Do you believe in God?

Do you believe Yeshua is the Messiah?

If you do, either for one or both, here’s one last question:

“Do you acknowledge God?”

If you ignore what God said to do in the Torah then you do not acknowledge God or Yeshua, for that matter, because all Yeshua ever taught was what is in the Torah.

Here is the bottom line, people: if you follow the teachings of your religious leaders instead of what God said to do, then you may believe in God, you may believe Yeshua is the Messiah, but you’re thrusting your hand in God’s face while turning away from him.

That’s a hard word to hear, and I am sure right now there may be some of you thrusting your hand in MY face- refusing to acknowledge what I am saying- and that is your choice. I never tell anyone what they must do, but I will tell you what God says you must do, which he said through Moses and all the Prophets: you must obey God.

Not obey Paul, not obey John, not obey any of the Popes, not obey Martin Luther, not obey Charles Russell, not obey John Calvin, not obey the Rambam (Maimonides), or any of the people who have created their own religion or religious tenets, rites, ceremonies or holidays over the centuries since Yeshua went to sit at God’s right hand.

NO! We are not to obey human beings, we are to obey God, and God, alone. Yeshua taught everyone to obey God, the only difference between what he taught and what the Pharisees taught is that Yeshua taught God’s deeper, spiritual meaning of the Torah.

Those who acknowledge God and have received the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) by asking for it in the name of the Messiah, Yeshua, know what I am talking about.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, or you are currently showing me your palm, then I sincerely pray that you will retract you hand and reconsider your attitude.

Think about all you have been taught by your religious leaders as to how you worship God, who you to pray to, what you eat, which holidays you celebrate, and then compare that to what God said in his Torah, which is really your Torah, too.

I hope then you will see that throughout the entire Bible, the ONLY place where God instructs us how to worship him and how to treat each is in the Torah.

And throughout the Gospels, which are the only records of what Yeshua taught, Yeshua never said to ignore his father’s commandments.

Finally, after you do this, please ask yourself this important- this eternally important- question:

“If I want to be saved, should I obey people or should I obey God?”

How you answer that question will determine whether you will hear “Welcome, good and faithful servant” or “Be gone from me- I never knew you!”

Thank you for being here, and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

Shavuot 2022 Message

June 3, 2022June 13, 2023 Leave a comment

This weekend we celebrate Shavuot, which is one of the three pilgrimage Festivals (Pesach/Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot), so I thought we should have a lesson about this Holy Day.

Shavuot is closely associated with Pesach because we are commanded to Count the Omer starting with the first Shabbat after Pesach, that counting (50 days) ends at Shavuot.

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

Shavuot is known by a few different names. It is called The Feast of Weeks (Chag Shavuot), the festival of First Fruits (Chag Habikurim), and the Harvest festival (Chag Hakatzir).

It is even referred to as Atzeret, which means “assembly” and refers to the fact that this is a day when we assemble at the temple in Jerusalem.

(Avengers…Atzeret! Nah, that won’t work.)

Many feel Shavuot is the conclusion of the Passover celebration, which consists of Pesach (evening to midnight of the 14th of Nisan), Chag HaMatzot (Festival of Unleavened Bread, which lasts 7 days), and then Shavuot which occurs 50 days later, when we finish the Counting of the Omer.

The day Jews celebrate Shavuot is also called Pentecost (Greek for “50 days”), which is considered a Christian holiday.

The New Covenant tells us in Acts 2 about how at the Pentecost celebration (unless you are reading a Jewish version of the B’rit Chadasha, in which it will correctly call it during the Festival of Shavuot) the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, occurred.

One of the things the Jewish leaders have done over the years is to change the meaning of a Holy Day. For instance, Rosh Hashanah is considered today to be the Jewish New Year, but in the Torah God calls it a Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets), and it is not at all associated with a new year. In fact, in Exodus 12 God tells us that our year begins on the first day of Aviv (now called Nisan).

The rabbis have changed Shavuot, as well, redesignating it from its Torah definition as a harvest festival (an Omer is a measure of wheat) to associating it with the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

They came up with this idea by calculating that after the first Pesach, by the time the Omer counting was over, the Israelites were at the base of Horeb (Sinai), and that is when God gave us the Torah (give or take a month while Moses was on the mountain).

I have done the calculations myself, and it can work either way, with some saying they came to the mountain 90 days later, and others being able to show it was about 50 days.

This significant difference, being calculated from the same source (the Torah) reminds me of something I learned when I worked on Wall Street: figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.

In any event, I have come to accept that there is a good lesson for Messianic Jews in seeing both Pentecost and Shavuot as a “giving” event: for one, God gave us the Torah, which Shaul (Paul) says defined sin so that we could know-absolutely- the difference between what pleases God and what doesn’t. And, on this same day, God gave us the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) to be the fulfillment of the New Covenant God made with us in Jeremiah 31:31, which is to write his Torah on our hearts (by means of the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit).

You see, when we read in the Tanakh about the giving of the spirit, God would place his spirit on people, but then that spirit was taken back. The Holy Spirit was a temporary gift that God gave, sparingly, and once the purpose for giving it was accomplished, the spirit was removed.

Not so after Yeshua’s resurrection. Those who accept that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and who faithfully obey the instructions God gave in the Torah (not what Paul or James or a Pope or a Minister or any human being tells you what to do), we can receive the Holy Spirit and it will not just fall on us to be taken back later, but will remain.

The Torah is a written set of instructions that tells us how God wants us to worship him and treat each other, which has many deep, spiritual lessons for us that one cannot fathom without having spiritual insight. The Ruach HaKodesh, which we receive from God when we ask for it (after having accepting Yeshua as his Messiah) provides that spiritual insight, which allows us to understand God’s word at a level people without the Ruach will never have.

So when we look at these two events: the giving of the written law and the giving of the means to understand the spiritual meaning of that written law, we can see how Shavuot and Pentecost are really two sides of the same coin.

I feel that even though the rabbis changed what God said Shavuot is to be, and Christian leaders have removed the “Jewishness” of what happened at Pentecost, when we look at this from a Messianic Jewish perspective, it all works to the good.

There are many other Jewish traditions associated with Shavuot, such as the reading of the Book of Ruth, staying up the entire night before Shavuot studying the Talmud, Torah, and even the Zohar (this tradition was introduced by the Kabbalists), and there are some other things, none of which I will go into today.

If you are interested in these traditions, as well as many other items of interest regarding Jewish tradition and Jews, in general, I suggest you get both volumes of “The Jewish Book of Why”.

Shavuot 2022 will begin on the evening of June 4th; it is a very joyous day and so you should drink, eat, and be merry.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website, to my YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules).

That’s it for this week, so I wish you both Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!

Let’s Talk About Omnipresence, Trinity, and Unity

June 2, 2022 Leave a comment

Here is the first thing you need to know, and if this isn’t going to work for you, then please go to another post because this is the rule for today:

I am NOT arguing for or against either side of Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, and I do not want to see any comments or arguments for either.

This is strictly a discussion of how Omnipresence, God, the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), and Yeshua (Jesus) all work together for our salvation.

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

Now that I have established the rule, let me really shake people up with the following statement (and I will show why soon):

With regard to one’s salvation, it doesn’t matter if God, Yeshua, and the Ruach are one and the same, or totally separate and unique entities.

(Anyone still with me?)

Here is one thing I am certain we all agree on: God is Omnipresent, which means he is everywhere, at the same time, all the time.

That being accepted as an a priori truth, then whether or not God is a single entity appearing as multiple identities, or God, Yeshua, and the Ruach are totally separate and unique entities, God will always be everywhere he wants to be, in whatever form he wants to appear in; Yeshua is always sitting at God’s right hand on his throne interceding for us; and the Ruach can indwell in any number of people at the same time.

God, Yeshua, and the Ruach HaKodesh can be anywhere from three to hundreds, or even millions of separate places, all at the same time. Whether or not they are one entity or three.

Can you see my point?

Whether we have a single God in three identities, or three separate and unique entities, with regards to salvation, we need to have three identities: God the Father, Yeshua the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit, simultaneously available to us all the time.

Here’s how it works:

We seek forgiveness of sin from God, for that is his role in his plan of salvation.

2. We faithfully accept Yeshua as our Messiah, whose sacrifice made it possible for God to forgive us our sins because the Messiah’s blood fulfills the requirement for the shedding of innocent blood for the forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22).

3. We ask for the indwelling of the Ruach HaKodesh to help us see the deeper, spiritual meaning in God’s word and to guide us in our daily trials and tribulations to be more of what God wants us to be.

As far as how salvation works, we need God as God, Yeshua as the Messiah, and the Ruach HaKodesh as our guide.

So, whether or not they are actually one and the same, or totally separate, it doesn’t matter for you to be saved- what DOES matter is that we have God, Yeshua, and the Holy Spirit available to us which makes salvation possible.

The argument about Trinity vs. Unity is not from God, or from faithful believers, but directly from the Enemy of God, HaSatan, because all the argument does is provide a means for Satan to separate the members of the body of Messiah from working together to conquer sin.

Yeshua told us that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12:25), and when we all believe in God, and all believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, and all believe that the Holy Spirit is given to us to indwell and guide us in being faithful and understanding God’s word, when we argue about Trinity or Unity we become divided against ourselves.

And Satan scores a touchdown.

Since I am on a roll, and fairly certain I must be shaking things up for a lot of people, let me go one step further: when people pray to a saint or to Yeshua instead of praying to God… Satan scores the extra point.

We need to be together to fight Satan and overcome sin, and if we argue between ourselves, we are weakening our position. And what is worse is that this Trinity or Unity argument is, as I believe I have shown, irrelevant as far as salvation s concerned.

And the ultimate goal of life is to be “saved”- nothing else is anywhere near as important as that.

Here’s my view of this: whether or not we are talking about three in one, or three as three, all I care about is being saved, and the only relationship I see as important to my salvation is that God, Yeshua, and the Ruach work together as the means by which I can be forgiven of my sins so I can come before God on the Day of Judgement and have Yeshua as my Intercessor, claiming me as his own, thereby allowing me to be in God’s presence throughout eternity.

And you know what? When the new Earth is here, the new Jerusalem has been dropped from heaven and the third temple is in existence with Yeshua ruling from his throne over all the earth, that is when we will all know the truth about Trinity or Unity.

And one thing more: when that time comes, when we will all know, absolutely, the truth about Trinity or Unity, I guarantee that not one person there will care which is which.

Why?

Because it won’t matter then; just as it doesn’t really matter now.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books and share them out (after you’ve read them, of course), and on Facebook join my discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules).

And remember that I always welcome your comments (remember today’s rule).

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

God Destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem Because He Loves Us

May 31, 2022 Leave a comment

Without doubt, one of the most horrendous acts against the Jewish people was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 73 AD.

You see, God commanded that no sacrifice can be made except where he places his name (Deuteronomy 12:10-14). At first, that was the Tent of Meeting Moses built in the desert, then it was at Gilgal, then Shiloh, and finally the temple Solomon built in Jerusalem.

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

Without the temple, there could be no sacrifice, which meant there could be no forgiveness of sin.

Oy gevalt! Now what?

How could God have been so cruel, to allow the Romans to destroy the very place he put his name, the only place his chosen people could find forgiveness of sin? It was like God not only punished the Jews, but condemned them to hell!

It was spiritual genocide!

Or…was it?

Did you know that one of the traditional Yom Kippur activities was to tie a scarlet ribbon on the head of the goat chosen to be the sin sacrifice, and that ribbon would miraculously turn white to show that God accepted the sacrifice and forgave us our sins?

In the Talmud, Tractate Yoma 39b, it tells us that 40 years before the destruction of the temple, the ribbon no longer turned white, indicating that the sacrifice would not be accepted.

We who are believers in Yeshua (Jesus) find this to be clear evidence of God’s verification that Yeshua, who was crucified and resurrected about 40 years before the destruction of the temple, was, indeed, the Messiah God promised to send.

However, “mainstream” Judaism refutes this as indicating that Yeshua was the final atonement for sin; instead, they present the argument that it was the sinfulness of the First Century Jews that prevented God from accepting their sacrifice, which was the result of centuries of spiritual decline, starting from the death of the High Priest Shimon ha Tzadik (Simeon the Just, who lived during the Second Temple period).

Frankly, whether or not the ribbon thing was gradual and haphazard over centuries, as is argued by non-believing Jews, or all at once, it doesn’t really matter to me because I have stated, many times, that faith is not something that needs proof; in fact, proof is the antithesis of faith.

That being said, the destruction of the temple is certainly indisputable evidence to the fact that God allowed something to prevent people from atoning for their sins, and since God tells us (in Ezekiel 18:23) that he takes no pleasure in anyone dying because of their sins, the question remains:

If God doesn’t want anyone to die in their sins, then why allow the only place we can be forgiven to be destroyed?

My answer is that God allowed the destruction of his temple because he loves us, and that love was so great he gave his only begotten son to allow us to be forgiven of our sins without the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem.

Back then, the Middle East was where the Jewish people lived. No one was more than a few days travel to the temple, but by the middle of the First Century the world had gotten much bigger, and today Jews are widespread across the globe. For us to make the trip to Jerusalem every time we need to sacrifice would be tremendously difficult.

You know, I could even make an argument that for God to force us to travel to Jerusalem today to be forgiven of sin would be more than unusually difficult, it would be downright unjust.

That is why I believe God allowed the temple to be destroyed, so that we Jews would have no option for salvation other than to reconsider the truth about who and what Yeshua is.

Accepting Yeshua as the Messiah means being able to be forgiven of sin, anywhere and anytime, while rejecting him means being in a canoe in the rapids heading towards a waterfall without a paddle.

And not just that, but there is a big hole in the canoe, as well.

Can you now see why I say God allowed the temple to be destroyed because he loves us? God destroyed the temple so that we would have no choice but to accept his Messiah, Yeshua, and thereby be saved from ourselves.

What a shame that so many of my Jewish brothers and sisters are still stubbornly refusing to do that.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and my YouTube channel; buy the books I have written and then share them with people you know who have been lied to about God by their respective religion.

Join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules) and remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

Can You Fail If You Never Try?

May 24, 2022 Leave a comment

I was thinking about this while driving my car the other day, specifically regarding people who believe themselves to be Believers but don’t do what God said to do.

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

What I was thinking was that there are just so many people out there who follow their church’s or synagogue’s teachings, rituals, and holidays (or Holy Days, as in the case of the Jewish houses of worship), and think they are fine, spiritually, with God.

But, is that really trying to do as God said to do?

In the case of the synagogues, from Ultra-Orthodox down through Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Messianic (yes, we are a sect of Judaism, whether “mainstream” Jews like it or not) and Secular, there are so many Talmudic rituals, teachings, and requirements (called Halacha) that are not in the Torah, that I have to wonder if any of these are acceptable to God.

I mean, God said in Deuteronomy, more than once, that we are not to add to or take away from anything he said we should do in the Torah.

That seems pretty easy to understand.

Now, as for Christianity ( I don’t have the time or the space in my server to list all the different Christian sects), when it comes to doing what God said to do in the Torah, with all the rituals, teachings, and holidays they have created, well… I don’t have any doubt that these are not acceptable to God because, if for no other reason, Christianity (in general) teaches to reject all of God’s Torah.

I know he doesn’t feel good about that.

All their lives, Jews and Christians have done what men (and now women, also) have told them to do, which is effectively failing to try to do only what the Torah says to do. So, I’m asking will God see that as a sin he should hold against them, even though in their hearts (which God knows) they thought they were doing what God wants?

Whenever I have a question I am not sure of, I go to the Manual- the Bible.

In Leviticus 5:17, God answers this question:

If someone sins by doing something against any of the mitzvot of Adonai concerning things which should not be done, he is guilty, even if he is unaware of it; and he bears the consequences of his wrongdoing.

That goes for women, as well.

So there it is! No matter what our religious leaders tell us is fine with God, as far as God is concerned, the only proper worship of God is what he told us is the proper worship of God, and that is only found in the Torah.

There may be good stuff that qualifies in the Talmud, and maybe there are some things in Christianity that are the same as what God said to do (although, for the life of me, I can’t think of any. If you know of any, please tell me), then performing those things is a good thing.

This is my belief: so long as you are trying to do what God said to do, that is acceptable to God, even though when you fail that is still a sin. And it is because of God’s Grace, his desire that no one has to die (Ezekiel 18:23), that he sent Yeshua, the Messiah, so we can be forgiven of that sin.

Yes, even the sins we don’t know we are committing. That is why every day I pray for God to forgive any and all sins I have or may have committed against him, asking for that forgiveness in Yeshua’s name.

So, my friends, the answer to the question I posed in the title is YES– you can fail even if you aren’t trying, because try or not, God has told us (in the Torah) how he wants us to worship him and treat each other. Whether or not we try to do it the way God said we should (which is usually not the way religion tells us we should), we will always be accountable for what we do, or don’t do, in God’s eyes.

That is why God (mercifully) sent the Messiah, Yeshua, so we could escape the eternal consequences of our failures.

Of course, you really do have to try, and I have to believe that trying and failing will be looked upon more mercifully than not even trying.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to this ministry on both my website and YouTube channel. Share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry continue to grow, and buy my books. If you like what you get here, you will like my books, as well, and they are available through my website or from Amazon.

And remember that I always welcome your comments- please make them on my Messianic Moment Facebook page or in my Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (if you aren’t a member, please join- read and agree to the rules, too).

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