Category: A Drash to Start the Day

Let’s Know the REAL 10 Commandments

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Do you know the 10 Commandments? Most of us can tell you all ten, but the problem is whether or not those are the Real 10 Commandments.

Specifically, it’s the first commandment I am talking about.

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

I have found many different versions of the Big 10, depending on whether you are looking at a Jewish Bible or a Gentile Bible.

Here are some blatant examples of what I mean (Exodus 20):

Complete Jewish Bible (the Hebrew letters stand for “1” and “2”)-

“Then God said all these words:

א  “I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the abode of slavery.

ב  “You are to have no other gods before me.  You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or in the water below the shoreline….”

The Church of Jesus Christ Internet site –

The following review of the Ten Commandments includes brief explanations of how they continue to apply in our lives today:

1. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me…”

2. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…”

Google search (first hit)-

“The 10 Commandments

  • You shall have no other God’s before me.
  • Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images. …”

Do you see what I am talking about?

If you are a Gentile, the 10 Commandments you most likely have been taught (to be fair, not all Gentiles were taught incorrectly) that the first commandment is not to have any other Gods before the true God. It ignores the first commandment from the Torah, which God, himself, dictated to Moses, essentially rejected that he is the God who brought us out of Egypt.

In other words, many Gentiles have never been taught that it is God who is truly our Savior.

Oh yes, it references that God brought us out of Egypt in the regular text, but it is NOT listed as a commandment.

Now, why would a Gentile Bible ignore this commandment?

(I haven’t looked at every different version, but my experience justifies my statements)

Why leave out what God considers to be the very first thing that people who worship him should know and remember?

Well, the answer seems obvious: the Gentiles who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob- the TRUE God- weren’t taken out of Egypt, so they can ignore that first commandment.

Simple. Easy to understand, and quite frankly…it makes sense.

But, as Dick Tracy detectives would say before calling him on their wrist-radio,

“HOLD EVERYTHING!”

(If you’re not older than 65 then you probably don’t understand this reference)

If you are a Believer, someone who has accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as your Messiah, then according to the New Covenant writings, you are a member of Israel and an adopted child of Abraham (Ephesians 3:4-6).

In other words, when you accept Yeshua as your Messiah and are “Born Again”, then you are also a member of the tribes that came from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

That means that you, too, were taken out of slavery from Egypt!

Now, maybe the “Egypt” for Gentiles is more spiritual than it was physically for the Jewish people back then; i.e., Egypt representing slavery instead of a country, which is a metaphor often used in the Tanakh.

But the idea that God is the one who saved you from an “Egypt”, which could be either physical slavery to people or spiritual slavery to sin, is just as meaningful and important for Gentiles as it is for Jews!

So, here is my message for today: The first commandment, which identifies the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the one who took us out of slavery is important for Jews and Gentiles: representing to Jews the freedom from slavery to men, and representing to Gentiles their freedom from slavery to sin.

Of course, for all of us now, this is only available through the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, who has also made it possible for Gentiles to become adopted children of Abraham.

The real first commandment identifies God as the one who is our savior from sin.

Gentiles have been taught that Jesus is their Savior, which is true him being the instrument through which we can receive forgiveness of our sins.

BUT…Jesus doesn’t forgive sins now, so he isn’t really the one who saves us: the one, and only one, who forgives our sins, thereby saving us from spending eternity out of the presence of God is…G-O-D!

Yeshua (Jesus) is our Intercessor– he sits at the right hand of God, pleads our case, asks his Father to answer our prayers sent in his name, and tells God that we are one of his flock.

If you pray to Jesus, your aim is off- he never said to pray to him. He is the Intercessor of our prayers, not the Interceptor of them.

So, if you want to learn the real 10 Commandments, remember that the first one is:

God is the one who saved you from slavery by bringing you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Whether that “Egypt” was the country or representative of slavery (as in, to sin) doesn’t matter: what does matter is that you know God is your true Savior.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to this ministry, on both my website and my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules); please comment on these messages and let’s drash it out, together.

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

Did Eve Really Do Something Wrong?

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I am back from a week-long cruise in the Caribbean, which was restful and allowed me to catch up on  some reading.

So now, it’s back to work…

I know, I know…I am taking a risk that I might destroy the belief system founded on the idea of Original Sin by even suggesting that Eve did not really do anything wrong. 

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

But having just read (again, for the umpteenth time) the story of Eve and the serpent, I have to wonder if Eve really should have been held accountable.

Why would I think that? After all, she was told not to eat from that tree, right? That was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, right? That fruit would give her the same understanding that God has of good from evil, right?

And THAT is why I started to wonder: if the fruit of that tree gave her the knowledge of good and evil, then before she ate from the tree, she must not have known good from evil. So, that begs the question: how could she have been held accountable for doing wrong (i.e., evil) if she was incapable of knowing good from evil?

That’s when the judge said, “Hmmm…that is an interesting thought, Counselor; please, continue to make your case.”

In Judaism, we believe that children are born with the Yetzer Hara (evil intention), and it isn’t until they are (at least) 10 years old (some say 13) that they develop the Yetzer Tov, the Good Intention (Tanchume, Genesis 7). 

In other words, when we are too young to know the difference between good and evil, which I believe I can make a reasonable argument is equatable with right and wrong or righteous and sinful, we really don’t know what is what, which is which, or who is who when it comes down to what to do, what to say, who to believe or what to obey. 

The only thing we know is our innate desire to sin, the Yetzer Hara, and until we are able to understand the difference between right and wrong, is it really justice for us to be held accountable for our actions? 

When you see toddlers, maybe 5 years old or less, playing with toys, when they all go for the same toy, whichever one has it first doesn’t want to relinquish control. Do we think that is an evil child and punish him or her? No, we explain they need to learn to share, and we do so because we understand they don’t know any better. 

God clearly says in the Torah (you can find this in the first chapters of Leviticus) that even if someone sins unknowingly, that person is still guilty. Once they are made aware of the sin, they must then observe the sacrificial system requirements in order to be forgiven.

Now, if you ask me, I do not believe God is talking about young children here, but only those people who are old enough to know that what they did was wrong. 

I feel the same way about Christian baptism: when the kid is only a month or so old, do you really believe that God will send an infant to suffer in Hell for all eternity if it dies without being baptized? 

To me, during a Christian baptism, when the Godparent (by answering for the child) commits that child to a system of religious doctrine that has been created by men, not God, that is not helping the child in any way, whatsoever. 

Jews don’t baptize their infants. We do have baptism (after all, where do you think John the Baptist got the idea?), which is called a T’villah. This is not the same as a Mikvah, which is a ritual cleansing; the T’villah is a physical representation of a spiritual change, such as was done when John baptized people, when Cornelius and his family were baptized by Kefa, and when the Ethiopian was baptized by Phillip. 

And we do not do it with anyone not yet old enough to know what they are doing! 

So, going back to Eve and that nasty so-and-so, the Serpent, if Eve really had no idea of the difference between what was right and wrong, and she ate because the serpent told her it was okay to do so, then should she really have been held accountable for that action? 

Good point- God did tell them not to eat from that tree; no doubt about that! But- and, again I say, BUT- if Eve was incapable of knowing that she did something wrong, why should she be punished?  

The same goes for Adam, when Eve told him to eat, also. 

Before the lightning strikes me, I want to make it clear I am not saying God was wrong in doing what he did- heaven knows (actually, he does) I believe everything that God does, he does for the ultimate purpose of teaching us how to protect ourselves from ourselves. 

For example, what happened to Job seems totally unfair and cruel, yet the lesson we all learn from it is valuable in that we better understand who God is, and that we cannot always understand why he allows things to happen. But, when we trust in him to see us through, we will come through it. 

So, maybe, even though Eve didn’t understand right from wrong and maybe she really wasn’t responsible for disobeying God, the lesson we learn from this is that when God says to do, or not to do, something, he means it. Whether or not we understand God’s purpose, it is not important or even relevant- there is obey or reject; there is either gathering with or spreading; it comes down to is you, or isn’t you, my Baby? 

If I may, I would like to share what I do on a daily basis, which I decided to do a long time ago. 

Because God does hold those who know good from evil accountable for what we do and say, whether we mean to do wrong or not, every day I pray for forgiveness of any and all sins I have or may have committed against God. 

As I have already mentioned, in the first chapters of Leviticus, God says absolutely that whether we know we did it or not, when we sin we are guilty. Period; end of line; close the door; das ist alles!  That is why I ask for forgiveness all the time, whether I know I have done anything wrong, or not.

I recommend it for everyone.

So, nu?  After all this discussion, what is the bottom line: did Eve (and Adam) really deserve to be punished or not?  

Well, the serpent definitely deserved what he got, so we can close the book on that one. 

As for Eve, maybe my original contention that not knowing good from evil is the same as not knowing right from wrong, is wrong? If so, then she defiintely did know what she was doing, and punishment was deserved. 

If, on the other hand, I was right in thinking right from wrong and good from evil are the same thing, then maybe what God did, in a human view, wasn’t really fair or justified, but I will say this (and this statement can only be made by reason of my total and absolute faith in God): 

Whether or not I understand why, and whether or not I agree or not whether something God does is justified, I believe that if God does it or allows it, then it must be for a good purpose. 

Furthermore, I also believe that it is not wrong or sinful to question God (respectfully, of course) because God is big enough to be able to handle a few questions. 

Of course, because he is God, he doesn’t have to answwer them if he doesn’t want to, but we can always ask. 

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

And while you are on the website, buy my books: if you like what you get here, you will like my books. Hey- they aren’t expensive.

One final thing- please do not ever hesitate to make comments: agree, disagree, drash it out with me…I can handle it.

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

PS: Please pray for the quick and complete recovery of my wife, who is suffering with sever pancreatitis. It hit her the day we came off our cruise, which was all last week, and she has been hospitalized and in pain for 4 days now.

Do You Ask God, or Do You Tell Him?

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We are told that whatever we ask for, in Yeshua’s name, we will receive (John 14:13).

Yet, I have heard so many people, so many times, not just ask God for what they want, they actually tell him what to do and how to do it!

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

Haven’t you heard people pray for God to help someone, and instead of asking God to heal the sickness or resolve the problem, they outline the things God should do:

“Oh Lord, take away the pain and destroy the sickness in their body.”
“Oh Lord, excise this disease and destroy the illness.”
“Oh, Lord, provide them a job that will give them financial security, with good promotability and close to home, and with vacation and sick days. Oh, yes, and don’t forget they should have a good 401-K plan!”

I have to tell you there are two things people do when they pray that I just cannot believe need to be done: first off, they go on and on…and on…and it seems they think the more they say, the better a job God will do. And I’m not alone feeling this way, because Yeshua (Jesus) says the same thing in Matthew 6:7.

Not only that, but they tell God what he should do, as I exemplified above.


I don’t know about you, but I would never profess to know what to do better than God does, and because I have faith in God, I trust him to know exactly what needs to be done. I really don’t think, if praying for healing, that anyone needs to tell God how he should go about the business of healing that person.

And, again, I am not alone in feeling this way because Moses demonstrates this same faithfulness in Numbers 12:13.

You may recall that Miriam and Aaron spoke up against Moses for taking a Cushite wife. God called them to the Tent of Meeting and chided them both for speaking against his servant. As punishment, he infected Miriam with tzara’at (leprosy). When Moses saw this, he prayed for God to heal her:

“So Moses cried out to the LORD, “Please, God, heal her!””

Just 4 words! His sister is white as death and will be forced out of the camp, yet he didn’t go through an entire treatise of how God should make her skin pure and clean, or how he should not turn her white as death, or any of the literary euphemisms that we associate with tzara’at. No, he simply asked God to heal her, knowing that God knew what he meant and what to do.

So, when you pray for someone, please don’t try to sound like some fancy-schmancy preacher at the pulpit, trying to make an appeal that is more of a political speech; but just ask God simply, and concisely, for what you want.

Believe me, whether you pray for healing, for help, for health, for joy, or whatever you need, God knows better than you do what to do, how to do it, and when is the best time to do it for you.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry continue to grow. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules), and remember that I always welcome your comments.

I have written a book on Prayer, which is available on Amazon- there is a link to it on my website.

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

PS: Thank you for the prayers you have sent- my back surgery went very well and for the first time in almost a year I can walk and move without nerve pain down my legs.

Praise God!

God’s in Control…and so are You

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We all know that God is capable of doing anything he wants to. It’s not even hard for him- he created the entire universe with a word, so making things happen in your life isn’t much more than a fleeting thought.

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

But does that mean that he is the only one in control?

Or, let’s put it a different way…because God is in control, does that mean you have none? Does God’s control over events in your life make it impossible for you to have your own way?

Now we’re getting into something deep- free will vs. predestination. These have historically been considered mutually exclusive, but not for Jews.

I heard, a long time ago, that Judaism has been able to explain how predestination and free will can be mutually inclusive. This is how I remember it:

God is the captain of a ship that is going to a specific port. This trip is a long one, and there are reefs and storms and such that cause it to sometimes take a detour, but eventually it will make the desired port, exactly when the captain wants it to land.

In the meantime, it makes many stops along the way, and people can freely get on or off, as they choose.

If they get off at a certain port, because the ship is not turning back, they won’t be able to get back on. When they get on, they are expected to do their share of the work (i.e., obey the captains orders). If they constantly refuse to obey, the captain will have them placed in jail and they won’t be freed to disembark when the ship lands at the final port.

The idea is that what God wants to accomplish he will, and we have the choice to either work with him (obey his commandments) or refuse to comply and end up in jail, which we call “hell”.

What many don’t realize is that by following man-made traditions, rites, ceremonies, and holidays, none of which are the ones God told us to celebrate, they are, in reality, rejecting God’s commandments.

Christianity has taught that when you accept Yeshua (Jesus) as your Messiah you are exempt from the “Jewish” laws and commandments, but that is simply not true. Yeshua never once said anyone is exempt from obedience to the Torah- never! Those lies have been promulgated by men- men who created their own religions.

And these man-made religions have separated themselves from the Jews, both by creating their own system of worship and lifestyle.

Here’s the scary part…because God appointed the Jewish people to be his cohanim (priests) to the world (Exodus 19:5-6), when these man-made religions taught their people to reject the Jewish system of worship and lifestyle, they taught them to reject God.

You do have control over your life- you can get on the ship which has God as captain, or you can get on a ship with a different captain. I chose to get on God’s ship about 25 years ago, and have worked my way up through the ranks (I am proud to say) to the level of teacher, which God has anointed (or, since we’re using a naval metaphor, I should probably say commissioned) me with.

And today’s lesson is that you should get on the ship that has God as the captain because it is the only one that will make that far-away port. And, while on the ship, obey the captain to receive his blessings and be allowed to enter the port when we get there.

God is in total control of everything, but you are still in control of yourself, so you can choose to board the ship God is steering, or a ship someone else is steering; but remember this- whichever ship you sail on, you will be expected to obey the captain or you’ll end up in the brig.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to both my website and YouTube channels. Also, please join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules) and buy my books.

Also, share these messages with everyone you know.

I would appreciate your prayers today as I am having back surgery done this afternoon.

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

Have You Seen These Types of Posts?

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I have been seeing more and more posts on Facebook, mostly shared by friends, that say something to the effect of ” There are riches waiting for you, so pray to receive them and you will”. 

This sort of post has the appearance of being Godly and edifying, but it is really nothing more than some form of Christian fortune cookie.

When you pray to God, your prayers should be from your heart and you should ask God for whatever you want, but not what others tell you is waiting for you.

I can’t believe that God will send you worldly riches if you pray for them because someone posted on Facebook that they are waiting for you. 

I have blocked the people that send these to me; not my friends, but the original poster. Why? Because I am certain that they are not of God but from the Enemy, and are designed to weaken our faith.

How can a Facebook post weaken my faith?

I’ll tell you how: anyone who really believes that God has told someone to post on social media that God is waiting for you to pray to him so he can give you money or blessings is gullible enough to be disappointed when those prayers aren’t answered. 

And, because this will happen every time they fall for this lie, eventually they will become untrusting and their faith will weaken. Maybe even to the point of apostatizing!  

Am I reading too much into this? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Maybe…but we are told that it takes only a little chametz to spread through an entire batch of dough (Galatians 5:9), so maybe I’m not overreacting, after all. 

You can do whatever you want to do, and if you like these pseudo “prayerful” postings, then go ahead and do what they tell you to do, but please understand that it isn’t God who is behind those posts. 

It’s the people who write fortune cookies.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages to help this ministry grow. Subscribe to my website and my Youtube channel, as well, and when on the website please buy the books I have written. There’s one about prayer, which will help you to recognize proper prayer from the phony-baloney drek I am talking about today.

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

We’re Told Sincere Lies

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How can anyone lie and be sincere about it? After all, the definition of sincere is to be “honest, not deceitful” (Webster), and lying is, by definition, dishonest because you are hiding the truth.

So you can’t be sincere if you are dishonestly trying to fool someone… can you?

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

I believe the answer is “Yes”, you can be sincere when lying to someone; that is, when the lie you are telling is something you believe to be true.

For instance, a traditional Christian teaching, which has been taught by Seminary to the students for centuries, students who will be priests and pastors and teaching these lessons to their congregations, is that Jesus did away with the law and that the Old Covenant is just a Jewish Bible which Christians don’t need to know.

They teach that when you accept Jesus as your savior (they don’t even use the term “Messiah” because it is too “Jewish”) you don’t have to obey the kosher laws, not to observe the Saturday Shabbat, and not to celebrate any of the Holy Days God commanded to be celebrated because all that stuff is just for Jews.

And in the Yeshiva (Rabbinical school) they teach that Jesus created Christianity and that he was only a man who was considered a Rabbi; sometimes they teach he never really existed!

I am here to tell you that these are all lies- Jesus did NOT ever do away with or even suggest doing away with any of the laws his father commanded us to follow (Matthew 5:17). In fact, he followed them and said that if we loved him, we would obey him- the only way to obey him is to do as he did, which was to obey his father’s commandments. And God never said anything in the New Covenant- God tells us what he wants us to do in the Torah.

Most of the things that Christians believe are valid forms of worship are not from God or from Yeshua (let’s use his real name) but misinterpretations of instructions from Shaul (Paul) to his newly believing congregations of Gentiles. What he wrote in his Epistles aren’t commands from God but instructions from a man.

The purpose of Shaul’s letters was to help get these neophyte Believers back on the proper track as their faith and behavior was waning due to problems they were encountering with Believing Jews, their pagan communities, and their interpersonal relationships.

The people lying to us don’t know they are lying, which is why their lies are sincere- they think they are helping us when in reality they are directing us to damnation.

So, how do we tell the lies from the truth? It’s actually very easy- read the Torah. That is the only place in the entire Bible (Genesis through Revelation) where God tells us, directly, what he wants us to do so we can earn blessings.

You can never earn salvation- that is why God sent Yeshua to be our Messiah. But, you can earn blessings (read Deuteronomy 28).

The only way to recognize a lie is to first know the truth, and the truth is that God tells us in the Torah how we should worship him, how we should treat each other, what we should eat, the way we should conduct business, our system of penal laws, and which Holy Days he wants us to celebrate.

When you know what God says you should do, then when someone tells you differently you will know it is a lie, even when they are sincere.

People who you trust and who love you don’t mean to misdirect you; but, in the end, many times what they tell you is proper obedience to God is a sincere lie. When anyone tells you to ignore any of God’s commandments, even when they really think they are helping you to find salvation, unfortunately they are not helping you, at all: what they are doing is condemning you to Sheol.

For my Jewish brothers and sisters, the lies you have always heard about Jesus are not only untrue, but Jesus isn’t the Messiah that God sent- he is the creation of Constantinian Christianity. Yeshua is the Messiah, and he never told anyone to do anything other than obey Adonai, as he did (perfectly) throughout his lifetime.

I am not saying to reject everything anyone has ever told you to do, because there are many correct things being taught in every religion. What I am saying is that there are many lies, sincerely and ignorantly presented, but lies all the same, and they come from people who think they are helping you. It isn’t their desire or aim to lie to you- they are just repeating the lies they were taught.

The only way to protect yourself from sincere lies is to know what God says, and that can only be found in the Torah.

Look- you have a choice to just go on doing whatever your religious leaders, family and friends have told to do, or you can protect your salvation by knowing what God said you should do. That’s really the only way you will be able to tell the difference between the truth and the sincere lies.

PLEASE!!! Don’t be lazy about this because what you do, or don’t do, determines where you spend eternity.

Thank you for being here and please share these message with everyone you know. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and website, and while you are on the website please buy my books. If you like what you get here, you will like my books- guaranteed!

And remember that I always welcome your comments, which you can make here or on my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word.”

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

Passover 2022 Message

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(No video today; sorry, but you’ll have to read this one)

As I write this it is the beginning of the 14th day of Nisan 5782, which is the same as the evening of April 14, 2022.

In the morning Jews all over the world will be engaged in preparing for the Seder, and Christians will be preparing for their Good Friday activities. In my house, Donna and I will also be preparing for our Seder, which will be blessed with the addition of a friend of mine from my high school days who lives close by. She is a Gentile and was happy to be invited to join us.

Donna and I have been inviting friends to join our Passover Seder for almost as many years as we have been having one, which is close to some 26 years now- maybe more- and every one who has joined us has been impressed and happy they came.

We use a Messianic Hagaddah, so our Gentile friends, many of whom aren’t “Born Again” get to see how Jesus and Passover go together.

Speaking of which, some will be celebrating Good Friday by having their own version of the Last Supper, but they will not be performing it as Yeshua did. And come Sunday, they will be celebrating his resurrection from the dead, most likely eating the ever-popular Easter Ham, which Yeshua would consider to be an abomination on his table.

Yeshua is often referred to as the Passover Lamb of God, but in truth, he wasn’t the Passover lamb, per se’, because his sacrificial death was a sin sacrifice, and the Passover lamb was not a sin sacrifice- it was a Peace, or Thanksgiving offering.

Read the first 7 chapters of Leviticus, where God gives us the rules for the different sacrifices. The only sacrifice where the person bringing the sacrifice shares in eating of it is the Thanksgiving sacrifice. A portion of the lamb that is sacrificed for Passover is taken home and eaten at the Seder, so this is not a sin or guilt or cleansing sacrifice- it is a Thanksgiving sacrifice.

And that makes sense: after all, having the Angel of Death pass over your house is certainly something to be thankful for, isn’t it?

Yeshua’s sacrifice is more akin to the Yom Kippur sacrifice.

Actually, Yeshua’s sacrifice acts as both the Thanksgiving and sin sacrifice. By means of his substitutionary sacrifice, we no longer need to bring an animal to sacrifice at the Temple, which the Torah required, in order to be forgiven of sin. And, by means of the cleansing blood of the sacrifice, we can be forgiven of our sin and, thereby, draw near to God to commune with him. That is what the Thanksgiving sacrifice was all about, and that is why we shared the meat of that sacrifice, and only that sacrifice; and, not only that, but it was to be eaten in the presence of the holy place.

When archeologists discovered shards of plates and cups all around a high place at a dig in Shiloh many years ago, when they told a Rabbi about it he danced with joy. When they asked why he was so happy, he said that they found the place where the Tent of Meeting had been. He knew that because the broken pieces of plates and cups all around the area, but not on the high ground, meant that sacrifices were eaten there, which meant that had to be the Tent of Meeting (I heard this story from the Israeli guide we had when I was in the Holy Land.)

The Torah, as I mentioned, required the people to sacrifice only where God placed his name, which he commanded in Deuteronomy 12:13-14:

“Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.”

That is why it was so devastating to Jews when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed- that was where God placed his name, and as such was the only place where the sacrifice to remove our sin could take place. With no temple, there was no means of having our sins removed.

That is why Yeshua is now our only means of removing sin: his sacrifice replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple.

Passover always falls on a different day because Jews use the lunar calendar, and Good Friday and Easter are also based on the moon, but in a different way. To determine when Passover begins, the new moon for the month of Nisan (it used to be called Aviv, which means “spring”) is when we start to count. The evening of the 14th day (which begins after sunset of the 13th day) is when we have the Seder, and that is also when we begin Hag HaMatzot, or Festival of Unleavened Bread, which lasts for 7 days.

For Christians, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after 21 March (a fixed approximation of the March equinox). Often Passover and Easter come very close to each other, but rarely ever fall on the same day.

The one significant difference between the Jewish Holy Day (meaning God-commanded) of Pesach and the man-made holiday of Easter is just that- Passover is a Holy Day that God created and Easter is something men created.

God tells us we must celebrate the Passover; in fact, it is one of the three pilgrimage festivals when the people had to go to the temple in Jerusalem. The other two are Shavuot (which Christians celebrate as Pentecost) and Sukkot. That is why, when you read in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2 about the giving of the Spirit to the Apostles, there were thousands of people in Jerusalem.

They weren’t Christians, they were Jews who were there for the commanded appearance for Shavuot. Often when they came for Pesach they just stayed there another 50 days to wait for Shavuot.

There are many people who have been Born Again, especially Gentiles, who have rejected Easter and all the traditional Christian holidays, and celebrate the ones God tells us to celebrate- you can find them in Leviticus 23.

There are many more Christians, Born Again or not, who say that whatever is in the Old Covenant is just for Jews. They seem to ignore the fact that Jesus was, is, and always will be a Torah-observant Jew.

It’s sad that so many people wearing that WWJD bracelet (What Would Jesus Do) have been taught by their religion to do anything BUT what Jesus would do.

I think what pleases God (which would also please Yeshua) more than anything is to do as he said we should do, so I leave it up to you to celebrate what God says to celebrate, or to reject God’s commandments and instead do what men tell you to do.

הג פסח סמח

Hag Pesach sameach! (Happy Passover)

What Happened to the First Commandment?

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The 10 Commandments were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, also called Mount Horeb. These commandments, which are often referred to as “The 10 Words” are the keystone for every religion that falls under the general title of Jewish or Christian.

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So, if God gave these 10 commandments to everyone who worships him, why is it that within Christianity, when they list the 10 Commandments, the first commandment that God gave is missing?

“What do you mean, Steve? The first commandment is there, and it says that you shall have no other gods before me.”

You’re right, that is what it says, but that isn’t the first commandment!

I did an Internet search for “What are the 10 Commandments” and this is what I got on the first “hit”, which are the first 2 commandments:

I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. You shall not make to thyself any graven thing; nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. You shall not adore them nor serve them.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

In fact, I went through the first 10 or so results and not even one of them- NOT ONE! – had the first commandment listed.

So, what is this missing, mysterious first commandment? Am I telling you that it isn’t “Thou shall have no other gods before me?”

Yes- that is EXACTLY what I am saying!

Here is the listing of the first commandment, directly from the Torah, which is what God told Moses to write down (Exodus 20):

After searching far and wide on the Internet, I finally found this when asking for the Hebrew commandment from the Torah.

The first commandment that God gave to Moses is NOT about having any other gods before him- that is in the second commandment. The first commandment, the very first thing that God, himself, thought to be the most important thing to learn is that he is the LORD, our God, who brought us out of slavery!

So why is it that Christianity, which is supposed to be worshipping the same God Jews worship, have not just rejected, but totally erased from God’s commandments the first one he gave, and replaced it by splitting the second commandment into two different ones?

The probable answer, if you ask me, is that by the end of the First Century the original Messianic Jews who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah had died off, and the number of Gentiles accepting Yeshua (at that time being called Jesus) overwhelmed the Jews within this movement, which was being transformed into a totally new religion.

You see, because of the political issues the Jewish population was having with Rome, these new Gentile Believers did not want to be associated with the Jews. As Roman citizens (supposedly) worshipping the Roman gods, they were safe; however, worshipping as the Jews did meant they would probably be considered by Rome as Jews, and that put them in a tenuous position.

So, the Gentile leaders of what was now called Christianity started to change their form of worship, beginning with celebrating the Shabbat on Sunday (which was a Roman day of celebration) and rejecting most of the Jewish lifestyle, such as kosher laws and the Holy Days. Later on, by the time Constantine got involved, Christianity became a totally different religion.

Knowing the history, we can understand why these Christians wanted to seem separate from the Jewish population, and the best way to do that was to remove any reference to being God’s chosen people. By removing the first commandment and replacing it with the first part of the second commandment, they completely disassociated themselves from the God of the Jews.

Later, when they decided that Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit were really all the same entity, they could justify worshiping Jesus as God without violating their first commandment.

The result is that today, Christians have no relationship at all to the God of the Jews and within most of the different Christian religions, they have replaced Adonai completely with Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but from what I have read in the Gospels about Yeshua (Jesus’ real name) and his devotion to his father, I would guess that what modern Christianity has done probably doesn’t go over very well with Yeshua, and especially not with God.

I can’t speak for either of them, but I am pretty sure that God doesn’t like the idea that men changed his commandments, and I’ll also bet the farm that Yeshua is teed-off that men have replaced worship of his father with worship of him.

I have often seen or heard Christians saying that when a Gentile accepts Jesus as their Messiah, they are now a spiritual son or daughter of Abraham, yet in the very same breath they reject the God of Abraham by rejecting his Torah worshiping Jesus.

Worse than that, if you can get any worse, they profess to follow the 10 Commandments but have deleted the first commandment, which is the one that tells us who is our God!

How can anyone say they worship God by deleting the commandment that tells us who he is?

That’s a question I really can’t answer.

Oh, yes, we know that they didn’t want to be associated with Jews, but that doesn’t excuse removing one of his 10 commandments.

In Matthew 7:21-23, Yeshua says that many who call him “Lord” will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. More than that, Yeshua will say he never knew them! How can that be?

Well, maybe it’s because they erased a commandment God gave, replaced God’s Holy Days with man-made holidays, and worship him instead of his father?

Maybe Yeshua will reject those who are totally obedient to whichever sect of Christianity they follow because by doing so they reject nearly everything God said to do?

Maybe God will reject Jews obedient to the Torah but who have rejected Yeshua as their Messiah?

It’s not my call who God will accept or reject; but, based on what God tells us in the Torah, on what Yeshua taught, on how mainstream Judaism has taught us to reject Yeshua, and how Christianity has rejected God’s commandment and (within many Christian religions) even replaced him with his son, well…I believe it safe to say that those things ain’t gonna please either God or Yeshua.

And when the Acharit HaYamim (the End Days) are upon us and we find ourselves in front of God on his Throne of Judgment, when we say “But, Lord, that is what they told me I should do!”, I believe he will say something to the effect of:

“I understand that is what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts!”

When we come before God for judgment, and Yeshua is standing to the right of God, he will either say “This one is mine, Father” or “I never knew you.”

So, you can choose to follow the religion of men, or you can choose to obey God, and that decision will determine which one of those statements you will hear.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to my website, my YouTube channel, and on Facebook “Like’ my page and join my discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules).

And while you are on the website, explore the website- there are some nice pictures and teaching series that I am sure you will find interesting. And buy the books I have written- if you like what you get here, you will like my books, as well.

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

The Difference Between Legalism and Obedience

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If someone was to ask me which New Covenant epistle talks about ignoring the Torah, I would have to say the letter to the Galatians.

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The reason I say this is because in that letter, more than any other letter, the main topic is obedience for the sake of obeying, specifically dealing with circumcision. The Believing Jews were trying to get the Believing Gentiles to undergo b’rit milah (ritual circumcision) in order to be considered “righteous” in God’s eyes.

Shaul (Paul) is adamant that undergoing b’rit milah is useless to anyone, and makes it even harder to be righteous, because if you try to do just one thing the Torah requires, you are then expected to do everything the Torah requires, and no one can do everything.

Now, if that doesn’t sound like Shaul saying it is better to ignore the Torah than try to obey it, I don’t know what else it could possibly mean.

BUT…that is not what he meant.

Shaul, in his usual roundabout fashion, was telling the Gentiles that doing what is in the Torah only in order to earn righteousness was impossible.

He said that if anyone gets circumcised just to be obedient to the Torah, by wanting to obey one mitzvot (law) they are required to obey every mitzvot. James confirms this in his letter: James 2:10 says that a person who obeys every law in the Torah, but at some point breaks just one law, becomes guilty of breaking them all.

They are both saying the same thing, but coming at it from different sides. What they are sayin is that the Torah is an All or Nothing thing.

So, what Shaul is saying is that when someone tries to obey every law in the Torah TO EARN SALVATION, they will fail, so it is best for them to not even try.

Does that mean we can ignore the Torah? No way! What it means is that we must be obedient but not in order to earn salvation.

Obedience to the Torah because we faithfully believe God gave us the Torah to help us is different from just going through the motions so we aren’t in trouble.

Legalism is a works-based salvation, and that will never work. Why? Because no one can be totally obedient to the Torah.

But…obeying the Torah as a child obeys- trustingly doing what will please God just as a child wants to please its parents- is the kind of obedience that God wants.

God gave the world the Torah so that his children could save themselves from self-destruction, and even when we continually fail to do what God wants, if we repent from our failure and try again, I believe God is pleased.

God tells us in Ezekiel 18:23 that he wants everyone to be saved, and gets no pleasure from seeing the sinful punished.

Legalism is a perversion of the Torah, teaching that we must perform the actions the Torah requires in order to gain God’s acceptance.

Obedience to the Torah comes from wanting to please God and faithfully trusting that when we do as God says, we will be blessed as he promised (Deuteronomy 28).

The Torah is the ultimate User Manual for salvation. It is what God wants from us with regards to worshiping him and treating each other. Yes, “love thy neighbor as thyself” is the foundation which the Torah is built on, but it doesn’t replace “love the Lord, thy God with all thy strength, heart, and soul.” Yeshua said these two commandments are the most important.

Doing what the Torah requires in order to gain acceptance is legalism; doing what the Torah requires to please God is faithful obedience.

God is clear throughout the Tanakh that going through the motions is not what he wants, and even though he made the rules that say not doing what the Torah says is a sin, he provided us the ultimate “Get Out of Jail” card, which is the Messiah, Yeshua.

Not that we can ignore the Torah because we have Yeshua- that is not why God sent him.

The bottom line is God expects everyone who worships him to obey the Torah- he gave it to the Jews to learn, then as God’s nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) to teach it to the Goyim (nations), so they could learn it.

God knows that as hard as we may try, no one will ever be totally obedient to the Torah, which is why he created the sacrificial system (which he explains in the first 7 chapters of Leviticus) so we could avoid the eternal consequences of our sins.

When Solomon completed building the Temple in Jerusalem, that was the only place we could bring our sacrifices. After the destruction of the Temple, Yeshua became the only means for receiving forgiveness of sin.

That is why he says the only way to the father is through him (John 14:6).

Do you now understand the difference between legalism and obedience?

Legalism is just going through the motions, whereas obedience is the result of faithfully trusting that God gave us these laws for our benefit, and we try to do them as best as we can in order to please God.

God, Yeshua, James, and every original Apostle never ever said that we can disobey the Torah, and even though Shaul seems to say that, he never meant it that way.

I believe if Shaul was alive today, and could see how people have so misinterpreted and misused his letters, he would be furious.

Here’s today’s message in a nutshell: if you know the difference between doing something just to stay out of trouble, and doing something as a labor of love, then you know the difference between legalism and obedience.

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

I welcome your comments, and when you are on the website, please check out and buy the books I have written- if you like what you get in these messages, you will like what is written in my books.

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

Paul, The Patron Saint of Guilt Trips

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How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?

“That’s OK, you go and have fun, I’ll be fine sitting here in the dark, all alone with no one around to help me. I don’t mind, so long as you are happy.”

Did you like that joke? It is representative of what we call a Guilt Trip.

Those of you who read my messages know that I have a lot of issues with the Epistles from Shaul (Paul); not so much with what he says, but how what he says has been so badly – I will even go as far as to say sinfully!- misinterpreted and misused in order to turn Gentile Believers away from the Torah.

And this is the first time I will point out another issue I have with Shaul’s letters, but one that helps me to prove, once and for all, that he was Jewish, to a fault.

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

Shaul was an expert with regards to laying a guilt trip on his congregations.

Let’s start with Corinthians Chapter 9. He tells about how it is biblically correct for those spreading the good news to receive payment, but not him! He has never received payment and won’t because he wants to do it for free, as the Messiah has told him he should.

Bragging? Not really, it’s more like

Look at me! I am not taking what is owed to me, even though I know you
want to give it to me.

which could easily make the people feel guilty if they don’t do something for him. Subtle, but effective in getting them to perform tzedakah (charity) for others, not so much because they want to, but in order to feel better about themselves because it will make Shaul feel better.

He follows up this guilt trip in his second letter, in Chapter 8, where he tells them about how Macedonia was so poor yet they gave generously, and he is sure that the Corinthians will do even better.

And if that wasn’t enough, he really pours it on in Chapter 9, when he says he hopes that, after telling everyone how wonderful the Corinthians are, that he won’t be embarrassed by them if they don’t give more than the Macedonians did.

Do what you want to do, and don’t worry if you make me look like a liar.

But those Corinthians aren’t the only ones he lays a guilt trip on.

In his letter to the Philippians, the second chapter is about the problems they are having working together in the congregation. So, he tells them how he will feel so much better, and it will bring him such joy, by knowing that what he has taught them will be demonstrated by their getting along with each other.

In other words, if you guys don’t start working together, you’ll make me feel like I failed, and then I’ll feel terrible!

In Chapter 4 of this letter he tells them how wonderful it was that in the past they wanted to help, but poor them- they couldn’t. However, if they could help now (by sending what he needs) that would be a real blessing to him, but it’s OK if they don’t- he can get along alright. He has learned to be happy without food or clothing, or even when in jail…

It’s OK, I’ll just sit here in this cold, damp cell with no clothes or food; I know
you would help if you could.

The really big guilt trip I see in all his letters is the one to Philemon! He tells Philemon how well Phil’s escaped slave, Onesimus, has been to him and that he is now sending him back (which is what the law required), and that he is asking Phil to be nice to Onesimus and accept him back without punishment.

THEN, after asking this “favor” he says that he won’t mention, of course, that Philemon owes him his very life.

You don’t have to do anything I ask of you, but you do owe me your life,
which I won’t mention because I know you will do more than what I ask.

GUILT! GUILT! GUILT!

And in general, throughout his letters, he constantly asks the people to do as he says in order not to embarrass him in front of the other congregations, because he has boasted about them so much.

And he constantly talks of his trials and tribulations, all on their account, which is fine because he does it voluntarily; but, the underlying guilt trip is that he is suffering for them, so they should do as he asks.

He does tell them about the rewards of living righteous lives, but there is always that subtle guilt trip that they should do this also for his sake because of all he has done for them.

Look, there is a lot of good stuff in the Epistles Shaul wrote, but that good stuff has to be filtered out from the guilt trips he lays on them.

So, if there is any meaningful value to my message today, it is this: when reading the Bible, you need to remember that it is written by people, and except for the Torah parts where Moses is writing exactly what God told him to write, or the Prophets prophesizing what God told them to say, everything else was written by human beings who had their own way of saying things and their own personalities which could never be removed completely from their writings.

Just reading the Bible isn’t good enough. Oh, sure, you can always count on the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, to guide your understanding, but you still need to take some level of control.

Read the Bible with an open mind, learn the cultural and historical usage of the words and phrases in there so you understand what you are reading the same way that the ones who wrote it meant it. Never take any one or two verses by themselves, but always work within Circles of Context: the sentence within the paragraph, the paragraph within the letter, and who wrote the letter, to whom, and why.

Always be critical of what you read: there is no conflict between faithfully believing what is in the Bible is true and testing it. The truth can stand up to critical analysis, and the truth in the Bible will be clear enough, even when you test it.

Being critical and fairly testing what is in the Bible isn’t a bad thing, but always maintain steadfast and unwavering faith that God is God, that Yeshua is the Messiah who was raised from the dead for our sakes, and that the promises of God are absolutely trustworthy.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to both this website ministry and my YouTube channel. Share these messages to help this ministry continue to grow, and buy my books to read and then share with others.

On second thought, just tell others how much you like the books and let them buy their own.

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!