Category: A Drash to Start the Day

Religion is the True Parochet

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The parochet, for those who aren’t familiar with the Hebrew word, is the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Tent of Meeting Moses had built in the desert, in accordance with the instructions God gave him.

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According to the Talmud, it is a sign of respect for the Torah scrolls kept inside the aron kodesh, the holy ark.

In the Tanakh (Exodus 40) we are told that after placing the tablets God gave Moses into the Ark, the curtain was placed between the Ark and the rest of the area.

In essence, the parochet is a type of barrier between God and the people.

When Yeshua gave up his spirit, which was the means for us to receive forgiveness of sins and, thereby, come closer to God, the parochet in Solomon’s temple was torn, from top to bottom, representing that now there was no barrier between us and God.

When the parochet was torn after Yeshua’s death, the Cohanim replaced it, but not too long after that a new parochet was created. This wasn’t one with blue and purple yarn, and it wasn’t one we could see or feel or smell, but it became a barrier between the people and God that is more difficult to pass through than any cloth curtain ever was.

This newer parochet, this invisible and impassable parochet, this impenetrable barrier between God and people is called…religion.

As I have said over and over, God has no religion. God gave instructions to Moses that were to be passed along and taught to the world. These instructions teach us how to worship God as he wants us to worship Him, and also how to treat each other as God wants us to treat each other. They are found in the Torah and we were specifically told that they are to be valid throughout our generations.

That means forever.

Religion, on the other hand, is the creation of mankind and its sole purpose is for people to have power over other people.

Every Judeo-Christian religious sect or denomination professes to worship the one, true God, whose name is spelled Y-H-V-H. And all these different religions agree that he is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow, never changing.

Yet, they all have different ways to worship him and different ways of following his instructions.

The one thing that all religions have in common is that they have developed their own rules, doctrines, laws, traditions, and rituals, most of which have no basis or requirement by God in his Torah, and many of which actually ignore God’s instructions in the Torah.

And what justification do they give for ignoring what God said to do? They blame it all on his son, the Messiah, who they claim told them they don’t have to obey God anymore.

This same son whose testimony throughout his ministry on earth was that he does only what his father in heaven tells him to do!

The Cohanim replaced the torn cloth parochet, but later men like Ignatius and Constantine, followed in turn by the Popes and organizers of new religions like Luther, Young, et.al. , created their own religions, which acts as a parochet separating those who followed them from God by replacing God’s instructions with their own.

So, what are we to do?

My suggestion is that you find out what God said you should do and compare it with what your religion tells you to do, then choose who you want to obey: God or men?

I might add one last thing: before you choose who to follow, you might want to consider that at the final judgment it won’t be the originator of your religion who will be sitting on the Throne of Judgment, it will be God, and he might be a little perturbed with anyone who chose to ignore his instructions.

Just a little something to think about while you still have the time.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share these messages out with others, and remember that I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Why the Good Die and the Evil Live

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One of the questions regarding the existence of God I often hear is “Why would God allow evil people to live long and thrive while so many good people die young?”

The answer I give isn’t hard to understand, but it’s a tough one to accept for a person who doesn’t have faith in God.

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Before I give you my answer, I should say that I don’t have a lot of scripture to back this up and that it is based on my understanding of the nature of God.

I believe God has a purpose for everyone and a plan for their life. We are, each of us, allowed to do whatever we want to do so we can follow God’s plan for us or reject his plan and make our own. And even if we reject God’s plan for us, there is always an opportunity for us to change course, as I did when I was in my early 40s, which has led me to this ministry and writing the books I have written, and (best of all) by accepting God’s plan for me I was able to receive salvation and his Holy Spirit.

That is how I changed course, but most people do not accept God’s plan for them and do evil instead of good. So why does God allow that? It is because they still serve a purpose; what that purpose is we may not know or realize during our lifetime, but I believe, faithfully, that when someone refuses to do as God says, he will find a way to use their rejection of him to bring someone else closer to him.  We can see evidence of this in the Bible, many times when God used Pharaoh, the Philistines, and the kings of Assyria and Babylon to do evil things that brought the Israelites back to him.

So, if that explains why evil people are allowed to prosper, why do the good die so young, so often?

Again, I believe because God had a specific purpose and plan for them and once they have fulfilled that purpose, he calls them to their reward.

Remember, dying is only a sad thing for those of us left behind- for the ones who are saved by God’s grace and their belief in Messiah, they leave a fallen and cursed world to come into the eternal joy of God’s presence! Instead of being sad, we should rejoice in their victory.

But we are sad because we will miss them, and that is OK.

We all have a purpose and a part to play in God’s plan for humanity; often the ones who are godly suffer and die too soon while the ones who reject God, do evil, and abuse others are allowed to thrive and succeed in life.

This is where it becomes hard for those without faith or understanding of God to make sense of it all: the reason we are here, the reason for this existence, is to choose where we will spend eternity. Eternity is what matters, and God gives us enough time to choose where we will go after we die. That is why we often see good people die early- they’ve done what God wanted them to do.

The evil people get to live longer not as a reward, but because God is giving them extra time to change their decision.  That is part of what Grace is about- he will patiently allow evil people to continue in order to give them time to repent. God doesn’t want the evil to die in their sin (Ezekiel 18:23) so when we see evil thriving and think it unfair, in reality, they are doomed and running out of time to save themselves.

The answer to why evil people thrive and good people die young is that the evil ones need more time to repent, and the good ones have fulfilled their purpose and are receiving their reward of eternal joy.

When you think about it, the ones who die early have it better than the rest of us who have to stay behind and keep working.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, buy my books, and share these messages with others.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

The Rose in the Manure

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There is so much going on in the world today that stinks.

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There is a contagious disease that has been hyped into a world-wide panic by the media.

There is a political polarization within the United States that has been exacerbated by the media and one of the political parties to the extent that this country is as divided as it was during the mid-1800s when the argument about slavery tore us apart.

There is continual racial animosity that has (again) been so exacerbated by the media that it has caused nation-wide rioting, looting, and deaths.

Antisemitism is on the rise (again) and we have three Congresswomen who no one can understand how they got elected: two hate America and democracy and the third has demonstrated such a fierce lack of understanding about the economy, government or history that she has become an embarrassment to her own party.

And our economy is in the toilet as a result of the over-reaction to the Covid-19 virus outbreak.

Folks, if ever this country was in the middle of a pile of you-know-what, it certainly is now!

Yet, in the midst of all this tsouris, we see there are still people coming together in peaceful protest; we see people freely giving food and other supplies to those who are economically in trouble; we see churches and synagogues that have been told by the government to close their doors using the Internet to stay in touch with their congregations and to continue to spread God’s message.

In the midst of the manure in which this country is immersed, there is a rose growing. Because of what it is surrounded by, we can’t smell it right now, but we know that it smells nice and we can trust that as soon as the manure dries up and dissipates, we will be able to smell that sweet scent of the rose.

Often our lives seem to be completely out of control, and we are suffering from troubles that overwhelm our senses. It becomes hard to maintain faith and remember that God is still in charge, and sometimes we even wonder if God is punishing us. We can become unsure of ourselves and doubt that things will ever get better.

But, somehow, they always do get better, and that is because God IS in charge, and even if he is punishing you, he will also help you to get back on your feet so long as you maintain your faith and believe that he is doing all this for your good.

In this life, there are animals that defecate on the roses, but that doesn’t stop the rose. No, in fact, when a rose is defecated on, it uses that manure to grow. It ignores the stink and finds the nutrients that will make it even stronger so that when the manure is gone, the rose will continue even more beautiful and aromatic than before.

That is what we must do, now and anytime our lives are drowning in drek. The gold won’t be purified until it goes through the fire, and when God allows the fire to consume us, it is up to us to accept the heat, remember that it won’t last too long, and patiently continue to faithfully trust in God to make it all right at the end. And, when we come through it, we will be stronger and able to handle even more stress than before.

Now here is the part no one wants to hear: after you go through the fire, there will be a next one and that one will be even hotter!

But don’t let that cause you worry or concern because you have history to look back on and to give you confidence.  Hey! You have been through this before; it was hotter last time than the time before that and you are even better now, so the hotter the fire, the better you will be.

So c’mon, world: bring it on!! I’m ready to take whatever the world throws at me; I know I can get through it because greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). 

Let me finish today with this: I hate watching commercials that insult my intelligence; it drives me crazy to see people driving alone in their cars with the windows closed and wearing a face mask; I am really upset that so many small businesses are closing and people suffering because of the media hype over a disease that kills less than 2% of the total population; and it kills me, especially as a former active duty Marine, to watch this country being torn apart at the seams because our leaders are so obsessed with destroying each other that they are taking the country down with them.

And on top of all this, there is brutality in the streets with people looting, rioting, and killing others all in the name of fair treatment. What a lie!!

I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated I am that I can’t do anything about it.

So, nu? What are we to do?

We should wait patiently on the Lord and maintain our faithful trust that he will see us through this, or (if you ask me, better still) he will continue to allow it as part of the final days when the world will be judged and the Messiah will return to bring lasting peace.

That’s how I deal with all this tsouris in the world: I wait on the Lord and look for the rose in the middle of all this manure, knowing that soon I will be able to enjoy its wonderful scent again.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages to help this ministry grow, and don’t forget to check out my website and my books.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

I Just Don’t Know What to Say

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Here’s the problem: I usually take a long bike ride two to three times a week, and while riding I pray. During these prayers, I often get inspiration for a topic to discuss. However, it has been raining for almost two weeks straight and in Florida, if there is even a chance of a thunderstorm, you do NOT want to be caught out in the rain, especially on a conductor like a metal bike.

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Consequently, I have been missing a lot of prayer time, because (good or bad) I am somewhat conditioned after many years of a long commute in my car and now long rides on my bike, of praying when I am doing those things, and not sitting quietly and praying when I am not.

So, here I am, trying to think of what to talk about with you today, and I got nuthin’!

If you follow my ministry, you might recall that this is a situation that has occurred more than once, and I always seem to come up with something once I get started, but today I don’t feel much like starting anything. Maybe that’s because I am so disgusted with what is happening in the world.

I have recently talked about the signs of the coming judgment, and won’t go into that again. If you missed those posts, they are available on the website. And I don’t think political statements are appropriate in this forum, although there are sometimes exceptions.

You wanna know what really pisses me off? It’s when people say they want to be treated like everyone else is treated, but claim that they are deserving of special treatment. They don’t seem to see how hypocritical that is. If I want to be like everyone else, and treated like everyone else, then I need to be willing to do and act and live like everyone else. When I insist that I should have my own subculture, or dress differently, or redefine my gender, or whatever and that is not the way people within that society normally act or think, then I am not assimilating with the people, I am actually estranging myself from them.

And if I choose to be estranged, then how can I justify asking to be treated as a member of that society which I am estranging myself from?

We who call ourselves God-fearing people, are called to be estranged. We are to be holy, which means to be separate, but then again, Yeshua said that a lamp is useless if it is placed under a cover or hidden, so we are also called to be among the people who are not holy. This is a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it? Be separate from yet amongst the people: hmmm…. how do we do that?

We do it by living our lives with society but as an example of righteousness, hoping that this will lead others to do what is righteous, eventually resulting in what was first the estranged behavior becoming the norm.

You may ask, “How is that any different from having a different culture or gender identification or religious belief? We can also be an example to the people to lead them to OUR definition of righteousness.”

And you wanna know something? Your question is valid.

The difference is what we consider to be righteous.

God told us how to be righteous in his Torah, which he gave to Moses to separate the Jewish people from the rest of the people living in that part of the world; the Torah was to transform the Israelites into a lamp, making them light in the darkness. The darkness was itself also a social and religious system. When we read the Bible, it shows us that the darkness more often than not, blocked out the light.

Let’s face it, Folks…sin is often much more fun than righteousness. The problem with sin is that it only feels good for a short time, then the truth sets in, which is that righteousness is necessary for eternal joy. Too many people choose to reject their opportunity for eternal joy by choosing the temporary pleasure of sin.

When we see what is happening in the world today, we see unrighteousness abounding. And it will only get worse, which is what God has been warning us about for millennia. Every social or religious system believes it is the standard to be followed, and in that, we all have the right to choose which system we will assimilate into. Don’t fool yourself into saying you shouldn’t have to choose how to behave, because you do. Within every society there are rules and if you don’t obey those rules, you are out of that society and will be treated with disdain, prejudice, and persecution.

Don’t you dare cry about it- it’s by your own choice! If you aren’t one of us, you are against us- that saying goes back a long way, and it is true.

Each of us has to choose which society we will be a member of; righteousness as defined by God or righteousness as defined by those who reject God. As Yeshua said, no one can be a slave to two masters, and I suggest that when you choose your master, you don’t think about immediate gain or pleasure but consider, instead, the eternal consequences of your choice.

It’s your choice: always has been and always will be, and when you face God, he won’t accept your excuse that someone else told you you were acting righteously because it is what HE said is righteous that counts.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with others, as well as subscribe to the YouTube channel and this website.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

What Should We Do Now?

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I just saw a video taken by a man driving down 5th Avenue in New York City.

If you aren’t familiar with 5th Avenue, it is where many of the high-priced retail stores are located, such as Tiffany and Co. The video showed block after block, on both sides of the street, with plywood over all the windows.

It looked like the houses I would see when driving through slums.

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I read about the Antifa movement, which professes to hate racism while practicing anarchy, and I believe that we all know those who cry out for justice do not practice injustice. But, still, it is happening and there are so many who are so blinded by their political beliefs that they can’t see what is happening. The world is coming to an end and these politically blinded idiots applaud those destroying the most wonderful things about this country.

So, what can we do? My answer is this: nothing.

That’s right, there is nothing we can do about it except protect ourselves and make an effort to tell everyone we care about that if they aren’t right with God and Messiah, to get their tuchas in gear because the fecal matter is about to hit the air circulation unit. And all this tsouris we are seeing, this political and social mishigas, is just the beginning.

It won’t get better until after it gets worse.

Don’t believe me? Think I am one of those nutcases who screams, “REPENT!! The end is near!!”  Well, you’re right, because that is exactly what I am doing (sans waving a sign in one hand and a Bible in the other.)

I read the Bible, I read what the Prophets tell us God told them would happen, I read what Yeshua warned us would be the starting signs, and I read Revelation.

(I still have no idea what most of Revelation is about, but I know enough of it to recognize what is happening.)

I see so many people posting about how we should pray for peace, but I think it would be better to accept that this is God’s plan for the world and pray instead for a quick resolution to these days, and also for a speedy return of the Messiah.

I hate what I see happening to my country, to our system of government, to people of all races, and to the world, in general. People are being led to their own destruction, and on the way, they are cheering about it. Political opposition has reached the point where those who are responsible for making the laws are paying people to break the laws for their own agenda, which is (in and of itself) treasonous.

Anarchists are spreading violence, civil injustice, and social unrest across our nation, and it is spreading out of the cities and into the suburbs.  Soon we will be living in the apocalyptic world that we have only seen in movies and TV shows. There won’t be brain-eating zombies coming after us, but considering how brainlessly people have been acting, those zombies would starve, anyway.

Hmmm….since a zombie is already dead, can it actually starve to death?

Anyway, the thing that I am doing, and what I recommend others to do, is to protect myself. Not from germs or political opponents, but from physical harm and most of all, from the pandemic of stupidity and fear that is the real danger in the world, today.

Maintain your faith and know that this is not really social upheaval, racially motivated riots, or germ warfare (which, for the record, it is all of these things), but that this really is the beginning of God’s plan of redemption. It is the judgment of the nations God said would happen before the return of Messiah Yeshua.  We all need to realize this is not a religious rant but is a fact, and by accepting that be emotionally prepared for the rest of the tribulation that is yet to come.

The end IS near, much closer and more tangible than it has ever been before, and we need to get right with God and Messiah before it is too late. Pray not for peace, but for your family and friends who have not accepted Messiah and God’s instructions in the Torah, because they are the ones who will suffer the most.

The suffering of the righteous will be temporary, but the suffering of the unrighteous will be eternal, so let’s pray for them while they still have time.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe and check out my books, which can be found on the website.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Should We Pray for America?

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Before I start, let me inform those of you who may not know, I served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, 3 1/2 years active service and a year in the reserves, and because I served this country I have the right, as do all Americans, to talk about what is wrong with it.

And there is a lot wrong with it.

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We have kicked God out of our courtrooms and schools, (almost) made it a crime to pray in public, gone out of our way to prevent Godly worship because it offends those who reject and hate God, and our youth are not only ill-prepared for adulthood, but they are being taught anarchy and disrespect for authority by the very examples of authority within our culture -their teachers, professors, and political leaders.

Not to mention that in the very heart of our democracy we have elected officials who are against democracy, against Israel, and against the system of government that made this country the greatest example of freedom in the world.

Notice I said “made” not “makes”: we used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but today we are the land of the frightened and the home of the cowardly.

So should we pray for America?

I am sure most every person who professes to be a worshipper of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will say, “Yes, of course, we should!” because prayer is what we do when we need God to intervene.  But have you considered this: does God want to intervene? Maybe, just maybe, this is all part of God’s plan.

We read in the Tanakh about the Acharit HaYamim, the End Days, and in the book of Revelation, we are given the most detailed account of what to expect. Of course, there have been doomsday warners since the first report of doomsday, but I can’t help to think that we are really close this time.

Logically, since the End Days are still to come, every day brings us closer, but today there is so much distress, fear, and anxiety in the world that it seems ready to explode.

So, nu? Should we pray for God to intervene and save America? I say don’t bother because this is all part of what God has planned for us. He told us about it, he’s making it happen, and to pray for him to stop and change his mind is almost like refusing to cooperate.

Yes, I know Moses intervened for the Israelites, more than once, to ask God to change his mind about destroying the people, but this is different. They were a newly freed people who did not know their God; we have had thousands of years of God showing us who he is and what he wants us to do, so we don’t have that excuse.

The very last request being made of God in the Bible, which we find at the very end of the book of Revelation, is for Yeshua to come. I think just about everyone looks forward to that, but I also think too many ignore what must happen before he comes. That part no one wants to deal with, but it is here, now, and we have to deal with it.

I feel such sorrow for those who do not know the LORD, God, or Yeshua. My own people, the Jewish people, God’s chosen, have not really rejected Yeshua as much as they have been conditioned to reject anything about him. They have been taught to reject him, and as such, they don’t really reject him from knowledge but from training and conditioning.

But, to God and Yeshua, rejection is rejection, no matter what the reason, so I pray for my own people and my family, loved ones, and friends who do not know who Yeshua really is to be made aware of him before the shoe drops. That is why I have written the books I have written- so that people can make an informed decision about where they want to spend eternity.

The reason we are here, the reason we are given this time on earth, is to decide where we will spend eternity; and the time left to decide is running out.

So, if you want to pray for America, as far as I am concerned, don’t waste your time, or God’s, praying for peace or for relief from disease because we are past that point. However, you can pray for the repentance of the people. Ask God to spread a spirit of repentance, so that the people will realize what they have done, how they have rejected and disrespected God and his instructions to us, and for them to do T’shuvah, to turn from their sins.

Peace will not come to an unrepentant people, so if you want to pray, pray for America to repent, for that is the only way God will forgive us.

Learn the lesson from the book of Jonah: God relented of his destruction of Assyria only after they repented, truly repented, of their sins. America has become a sinful and Godless society, and until we change that we will not be spared the destruction that God will send to all who reject and deny him.

Personally, I don’t think America is going to get out of this one unscathed: God is taking aim, the safety is off and his finger is on the trigger. My friends, I really think the hammer is about to drop!

Thank you for being here, and sorry about the bad news I had to spread today. No one likes to talk about destruction, but if we don’t then aren’t we ignoring God’s warning?

Until next time, (God willing we are all still here)…L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

Shavuot Message 2020

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Today is Shavuot, the second of the three pilgrimage festivals that God decreed we should celebrate. The instructions regarding this Holy Day can be found in Leviticus 23:15-21.

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There is a difference, in my opinion, between a Holy Day and a holiday; the former is decreed by God, and the latter is man-made. Shavuot (Hebrew meaning “weeks”) is a Holy Day, but the way Shavuot is celebrated today (and has been since around the Third Century C.E.) is really a holiday.

According to the information in “The Jewish Book of Why” (which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn about the Jewish lifestyle and Judaism in general), in the Talmud, Rabbi Eleazar said that we should celebrate this day as the giving of the Torah to Israel (Pesachim 68b), and from then on Shavuot was no longer a divinely decreed harvest festival but became a man-made holiday.  The justification for this change was that the country no longer was exclusively an agrarian economy and bringing the first fruit of the harvest to the temple was no longer something being done, so to keep the day alive in Jewish life, they made it into a celebration of the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai.

You might ask how anyone who studies the Bible, especially Torah-observant Jews, would ever accept that redefinition of what God said we should do. It doesn’t even come close to what the Bible says, from the timeline in Exodus, because we are told in Exodus 19 that it was the first day of the third month when the Israelites arrived at the Sinai Desert.  Shavuot is 50 days after the first Shabbat after the Seder, and since that first Seder was while still in Egypt, there is no way that Shavuot could have been at the time they arrived at Sinai, which was nearly 90 days later.

But, the Rabbis won out and since that time, Jews have celebrated Shavuot as the giving of the law, and I believe most Jews today don’t even know that they are celebrating incorrectly.

This day is also known as Pentecost, which almost everyone believes to be a Christian holiday, even though the word Pentecost means 50 days. It is clearly a Jewish celebration, based on the counting of the Omer after Passover. In the Book of Acts, we are told there were thousands of Jews in Jerusalem, from all over the world, when the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) was given to them. The reason there were thousands of Jews in Jerusalem is that it was a pilgrimage Holy Day! Pentecost is a Jewish Holy Day that was renamed and re-branded to become a Christian holiday.

Seems that the Rabbis and the Church leaders had something in common- they thought they could remake what God said to do to be what they want it to be.

But, there is some good that comes from this. I think that the physical slavery to sin, which the Torah can free us from, and the spiritual freedom from sin, which the giving of the Ruach can lead us from, is a good thing to teach at this time of the year. The Torah teaches us how to live a life free from sin (as Shaul tells us in Romans) by defining sin, and the Ruach helps us to know what is right and lead us to righteousness. The law defines sin, and the Ruach leads our actions by giving us divine guidance to keep us from sinning.

Of course, the weak link in this whole process is that humans are self-serving and sinful by nature, but with knowing what the law says and listening to the Ruach, we can become greater than what we are.

I don’t like it when man-made creations overrule what God has decreed, but in the case of Shavuot being turned from a harvest festival to the celebration of the giving of the Torah, and how relating that with Pentecost can be used to bridge the gap between Jewish and Christian understanding of God and his Holy Spirit, well… I am OK with it.

Besides, with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, we can’t celebrate Shavuot as God decreed, just the same way we can’t celebrate Passover as he decreed, either. Yet, we DO celebrate Passover in our homes to keep the commandment as best as we can. I would think that to celebrate Shavuot in a different manner in order to fulfill the commandment as best as we can, just might be acceptable to God.

If you go to Shul on this day, keep the tradition of bringing a loaf of bread with you. This is one of those rare times when the bread being offered is baked with leavening, and enjoy this day because it is a joyful day.

We are not celebrating it exactly as God decreed, but we are celebrating the instructions God gave and are gratefully worshiping God, thankful and obedient to Torah as best fits the world today. Personally, I don’t think God will have a problem with that.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with others, and check out my books; if you like what you read in these messages you will like my books, as well. And remember that I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!

How to Interpret the Bible Correctly

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Let me start off by saying I am not professing to be an expert on Biblical exegesis (although I do know some of the fancy words), and that I am not saying this is the absolute and only correct method of Bible interpretation, but I have seen and corrected many wrong interpretations and know that what I am going to talk about is valid and necessary.

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Something happened just recently which made me think it might be a good idea to (at least) give a small lesson on how to properly interpret what we read in the Bible.

Two methods I always incorporate when interpreting the Bible are PaRDeS and Hermeneutics. PaRDeS is a Jewish form of exegesis and is an acronym for the following:

P=P’shat, the literal meaning of the written word (i.e., what you read is what it means);

R=Remes, the deeper, more spiritual meaning (as Yeshua demonstrated in his Sermon on the Mount);

D= Drash, a story or lesson which has a spiritual meaning (such as the parables Yeshua told); and

S =Sud, a mystical meaning that no one can fully comprehend.

That is one method I use, and the other is Hermeneutics, which is defined as:

The purpose of Hermeneutics is to bridge the gap between our minds and the minds of the Biblical writers through a thorough knowledge of the original languages, ancient history and the comparison of Scripture with Scripture.

What that means, in simple language, is that we must have a thorough knowledge of the entire Bible, that is, Genesis through Revelation,  and that whatever is written in any part of the Bible should mean the same in any other part of the Bible.

Too often we read or hear someone who has taken a number of passages from the Bible and put them together to form an idea or interpretation. This is not wrong, per se’, unless the passages are taken out of context and used to create the interpretation someone has formed, instead of forming an interpretation from what is written.

Here’s an example of what I am talking about, which happened the other day:

I was reading an article someone posted about the use of the Hebrew word “Seraph” in the story of the snakes sent to punish the Israelites when they were in the desert (Numbers 21.) The writer wanted us to believe that the bronze statue Moses made wasn’t of a snake but of a seraph, an angelic being. This was confirmed when I looked in the Torah to see what word was used in the original Hebrew and saw that it was, indeed, the word seraph, which is what God told Moses to make an image of. The people asked Moses to pray for the removal of snakes (Hebrew word Nachush) and God told Moses to make an image of a seraph.

So, it looks like the writer was correct! But when we use hermeneutics to confirm the interpretation, we find out that this isn’t the case.

I looked at the different uses of the word seraph, to see if it was used anywhere else to represent a serpent, and did not find anything. I then looked through the Bible for other places where nachush was used and found another use in 2 Kings 18. 

In 2 Kings 18, we read how the serpent Moses made in the desert was being worshiped by the people, and they called it Nehushtan, which is a form of the Hebrew word for snake. This confirms that the bronze statue was not a celestial being but a snake, otherwise the people would not have named it “Snake.”

There have been many, MANY times I have corrected people’s attempts to make the Bible say what they wanted it to say, such as how the Kosher laws were removed, or how the Torah was done away with, or how the Jews have been replaced by Gentile Believers. All of these traditional Christian teachings are based on misinterpretation and taking passages out of context, stringing them together and making what appears to be a proper interpretation, but it is really nothing more than a lie.

We must take whatever God says and interpret it in relation to everything else God says, and if there seems to be a contradiction, then one or both interpretations are wrong. God does NOT contradict himself; likewise, what Yeshua taught he told us was only what God told him to say, and this is evident throughout the Gospels (especially in John), so any teachings that indicate Yeshua said something in the Old Covenant isn’t valid anymore is not hermeneutically valid.

What we read in the Epistles are not the words of God but the lessons that the Talmudim (disciples/students) of Yeshua were teaching to the Jewish and (mostly) Gentile Believers, more so to Gentiles who did not understand the instructions the Jews already knew. The letters from Paul to the congregations he started were not meant to change anything, but to teach these Gentile Believers how to live according to God’s instructions, a little bit at a time.

Of course, the Epistles are a totally different lesson, but it is important to know how they fit into today’s lesson because of all the misinterpretations within the Bible that I have seen over more than two decades, the majority of them come from the letters Paul wrote.

God has made his instructions to all the world, which we find in the Torah, pretty simple to understand, and what we can’t fathom we can study and try to understand; or, what I consider to be the better path, we can just accept that God knows best and follow the way of life that God has laid out for us.

Always use these two methods to objectively study the Bible, and when I say objectively, I mean to not just accept what someone tells you; rather, listen and then verify everything, especially before you repeat it to others.

Just like with Hebrew National hotdogs, teachers of God’s word are held to a higher standard, so make sure what you teach is biblically correct.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, check out my website, and share these messages with everyone you know (after verifying, of course, what I say is accurate and biblically correct.) And if you have a comment or correction, please do not hesitate to let me know: I welcome them all.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Revelation About Revelation?

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If you have been following my ministry, you know that I rarely talk about anything dealing with Eschatology, which in Hebrew we call the Acharit HaYamim (End Days.) Different narratives of this event are found throughout the writings of the Prophets in the Tanakh, and in the great detail in the Book of Revelation.

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

But today I thought I might go a little far afield for me and discuss something that I was thinking about. I am not saying this is a definitive understanding or a new “revelation” regarding Revelation, but I think it is interesting.

We read about the 7 seals that are broken and the 7 bowls of God’s wrath which are released upon the earth and its inhabitants.  There is a pattern I noticed that we could use to ascertain if these seals and bowls are being put into practice at this time.

By the way, you don’t have to agree and can certainly disagree with whatever I am saying; I am no expert on this topic, by any stretch of the imagination. I welcome any comments or corrections from those who have made a deeper study of this topic.

The order of events with the seals is that there is an authority established throughout the world, perhaps meaning the one-world government? Next, there will be wars and the economy will suffer. This is followed by plagues and famine, and the 5th seal states those who have been martyred ask for justice, which they are told is coming soon. This might mean that the previous events will create an environment where the government declares martial rule, for the “protection of the people”, but in fact establishes a totalitarian state where people will be placed under arrest and incarcerated without due process, being denied justice by the government. Sounds reasonable, right?

The 6th seal results in ecological disasters and with the opening of the 7th seal, nearly 2/3 of the earth, plants, animals, and people are totally destroyed.

I don’t know about you, but that does not sound like fun to me. Not at all.

The bowls of wrath seem to be in a similar order, but they concentrate more on the ecology. First, there is disease released upon the people, which is followed by the oceans becoming polluted.  The 3rd bowl pollutes the freshwater sources, and this is interesting because the freshwater sources feed the oceans, not the other way around, yet in God’s plan it will be the oceans that are first affected.

The 4th bowl will burn people, and I think that might be caused by the loss of the Ozone layer around the earth, which would allow the sun’s damaging rays to penetrate our atmosphere. After these disasters, we read how the 5th bowl will affect the non-Believers worse, and with the 6th bowl the Middle East rivers, especially the Euphrates, will dry up completely.

Finally, there is a total ecological disaster, with the earth and everything in it being nearly totally destroyed.

In Revelation these seals and bowls appear to be released upon the earth in order, starting with the seals and ending with the bowls, with other events occurring between them. I am not sure, though, if the bowls and seals are different, or just another way of announcing within the vision what is to come. We have to remember that this is a vision, which means it isn’t literal all the time and also may not be in any chronological order.

I think the main thing to understand is that there will be a single authority established in the world, which should be the signal that these events will begin. These events will affect people, animals, and the environment. We will see our natural resources disappearing or becoming unusable, which will lead to disease, leading to unrest, leading to conflict for resources (wars), leading to government take-over, leading to rebellion, leading to destruction, death, and disorder on a worldwide scale. Eventually, given the destructive weaponry that nearly every country has available to them, the nearly total destruction of the earth and everything in it will be accomplished.

We read that God instructs the angels to release these terrible events upon the earth, but (again) this is a vision, and the angels may represent us! God promised Noah he would never again destroy the earth, but he never said he wouldn’t allow mankind to do it.

God allows sin to continue not because he is weak or unwilling to punish, but because he is giving us time to repent. Once we reach the limit of his allowance, he will act! We have seen this happen to the tribes that were outside Israel (Gad, Rueben, and Manasseh), later to Israel (the Northern kingdom), then to Judah (the Southern kingdom), to the enemies of God’s chosen people living in the Middle East (Assyrians, Babylonians, Philistines, etc.), to Spain after the Inquisition, and most recently to the Nazi’s. There are plenty of reasons to expect this will happen to all the nations of the earth, as well, once God decides to drop the hammer.

And given the rise in anti-Semitism that we are seeing throughout Europe lately, the red flags should be waving and the bells should be ringing.

I don’t know if what I am sharing with you today is anything new; most likely, my revelation about Revelation is no real revelation to anyone.  But I believe the logic behind the order of how things will be destroyed may help us to realize what is happening because once the fecal matter hits the air circulation unit, it will be very hard to stand back, observe, and reconcile what it all might mean because the world will be a total mishigas.

Thank you for being here. Please, subscribe to my YouTube channel and my website so that you can be notified when I post; and also share these messages with others.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!