Category: Parashot Teachings

Parashah Vayyetze 2018 (and he went out) Genesis 28:10 – 32:3

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We begin this Shabbat’s reading with Jacob on his way to his uncle Laban. He sleeps on the way and is visited by God, reconfirming God’s promise to take care of Jacob and return him to his country, which will belong to his descendants. Jacob names the place Beit-El (House of God) and when he arrives in Haran, he meets Rachael. Rachel gets her father, who comes out to meet Jacob and takes him into his home.

Jacob agrees to work 7 years for Rachel to be his wife, but after the 7 years Laban cheats Jacob and gives him Leah, the older sister as his wife, which Jacob doesn’t realize until the next morning. Upset, Jacob asks Laban why he cheated him and Laban replies this is how they do things where they live. He offers Rachel for another 7 years of work once Jacob completes the marriage week with Leah, and Jacob agrees.

Leah produces sons but Rachel is barren, so she has Jacob lie with her handmaid, which Leah then does with her handmaid, as well. Finally, Rachel produces a son (Joseph) and at that time Jacob wants to leave and return to his own home. However, after 14 years Jacob has nothing of his own so he agrees to continue watching over Laban’s flock and as his payment will be all the unwanted goats and sheep (mottled, streaked, etc.) Despite Laban’s attempts to cheat Jacob, Jacob manages to outwit Laban and ends up with the hardier flocks. Sensing the frustration in Laban and his sons, Jacob sneaks away (after Rachel steals the household gods from her father) but Laban catches up with him. However, God intervenes and tells Laban not to do anything against Jacob, so Laban and Jacob agree not to harm each other, and Laban goes back to his home.

I used to think that Jacob worked 7 years after his marriage to Leah before he was married to Rachel, but now I know better. Jacob spent his one week with Leah, then immediately married Rachel by taking her to bed (which apparently was the marriage ceremony- otherwise, how could Laban have fooled Jacob if there was a ceremony before the wedding night?) even though he hadn’t paid the full bride price.

That made me think- was this marriage to Rachel really valid? After all, in those days you paid the dowry, or bride price, before the wedding. Having relations with the intended prior to her being purchased was not “kosher”, yet this is what happened with Jacob and Rachel. Then I started to count how many sons were given to Jacob through Leah before Rachel had any, and guess what I found?

Rachel didn’t have any of her own children until after the 7th year of her marriage to Jacob, which was when the bride price was fully paid and their marriage was “legal.”

I came to this conclusion by accepting that gestation is 9 months long and (generally) a woman isn’t cycling regularly until 2-3 months after birth. As such, we can expect a woman to have one child per year. I also assumed that Leah and Rachel would have continued having sexual relations with Jacob while their handmaids were pregnant.

Leah gave birth to (1) Reuben, (2) Simeon, (3) Levi, (4) Judah, then stopped. Rachel, through her handmaid Bilhah, has Jacob produce Dan, then Naphtali. Now Leah does the same with her handmaid, and through Zilpah, Jacob gives birth to Gad and Asher. The Leah gives birth to (5) Issachar and (6) Zebulun. After these 6 sons from Leah, she bore a daughter, (7) Dinah, making it (at least) 7 years since their marriage night.

After these 7 years since Jacob first lay with Rachel, she is now “legally” his wife and only now does she conceive and give birth to Joseph (Genesis 30:24.)

The very next line in the Torah, Genesis 30:25, says that right after Joseph was born Jacob went to Laban and asked to be allowed to return to his home. This is further evidence that Jacob waited until the entire bride price for Rachel had been paid before going back to his own country.

I asked myself, “What significance does this have? Is it important to realize that Rachel did not have any children until after she was Jacobs “legal” wife?”

My answer to myself was it might be if we consider that God blesses those that do what is right in his eyes. Even though Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah, he agreed to work 7 years more for Rachel. But, he married her before the agreed bride price was paid so, in a way, he was living in sin with Rachel. And if we are in sin, we cannot expect the blessings that God will give to those who obey his commandments. Even though the Torah wasn’t written down, we can see from other references in this first book of the Torah that many of God’s instructions (the real meaning of Torah) were well known to people long before God gave them to Moses to write down for posterity.

So, while living as a married couple but not being legally married, Rachel was not blessed with children whereas Leah, legally Jacob’s wife, was being blessed.

Does this mean that those who are living in a non-marital relationship will be barren? Just a quick look at our society will answer that question with a resounding, NO! The Torah does state, in Leviticus 20:19-21, under certain conditions sexual relationships will result in childlessness. Jacob and Rachel did not fall into any of these forbidden relationships, but the point is that God will cause childlessness in a relationship that is not holy or right in his eyes.

I believe, given the future God had in store for Joseph, he wanted to make sure that Joseph wasn’t in any way a Mamzer (illegitimate) child so prevented his birth until after the marriage between Jacob and Rachel was “legitimate.”

As such, it can have some importance to us in our understanding of how God works, and that we may not know what his plans are until after they have reached fruition.

So, our lesson today is that seeing how God arranged for Rachel to be barren until her marriage was legitimately completed, we must remember that even in the midst of our Tsouris (troubles), which Jacob and Rachel suffered for 7 years, God has a plan for us. We need only trust in him and continue to be obedient and patient and eventually, we will see his plans for us come to completion.

 

Parashah Toldot 2018 (These are the generations) Genesis 25:19 – 28:9

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Today’s Torah reading is one of the better-known stories- the selling by Esau of his birthright and the “stealing” of his first-born blessing.  We start out with Isaac praying for Rebecca, who is barren. God gives her twins, Esau and Jacob, who he promises will grow into two nations, which become Edom and Israel. Jacob is the younger, and the difference between these fraternal twins couldn’t be greater: Esau is a hunter, a man of hedonistic qualities and rash, emotional decisions whereas Jacob is a quiet, studious man who is a shepherd.

To me, the spiritual difference is evident in the physical means of how they each survived: Esau made his living by the taking of life and Jacob by the fostering and caring for life.

We all know the story: Esau comes out of the field, hungry to exhaustion, and Jacob has stew cooking.  Esau asks for stew, Jacob offers it in exchange for the birthright of the firstborn, which Esau easily surrenders to him. Later, when it came time for Isaac to bless his sons, prodded by his mother, Rebecca, Jacob dresses up as Esau and fools his father into giving him the blessing of the firstborn. Esau comes to his father directly after Jacob leaves, and they both realize what has been done. With Esau crying bitterly, Isaac finds a blessing for Esau, who lets it be known that once his father dies, he will avenge himself on Jacob.

Rebecca, in order to protect her son, tells Isaac that she can’t stand the Hittite wives Esau has taken and asks Isaac to send Jacob to get a wife from their own people, which Isaac does by sending Jacob to his uncle Bethuel’s to get a wife from Jacob’s maternal grandfather’s house, the house of Laban.

The point I make often regarding this parashah is that Jacob didn’t really steal the blessing. We have to remember that he deserved the blessing of the firstborn because Esau sold it to him.

We see throughout the life of Jacob, whose name means to supplant, a tendency to lie. He lied to his father to receive the blessing, then later Laban lies to him to receive a wife, then lies to him regarding his payment, and finally, Rachael lies to her father about the household gods she stole when they left. One lie leads to another lie, which leads to more lies.

I would really like to take a ride with Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the Way-Back Machine    to see what would have happened if Jacob had come clean with Isaac about this whole blessing and birthright thing.

What if Jacob had just gone up to his father and said, “Father, your son Esau sold me his birthright so I am here to ask for the blessing of the firstborn, which is now rightly mine.”? Would Isaac have honored that sale? Would the blessing have been different, and would Isaac have saved a little something better for Esau knowing what had happened?

These are interesting questions that we will never know the answer to, but the point remains that because Jacob owned the birthright of the firstborn, he also owned the blessing that goes with it. So, even though he received it through trickery, it was, still and all, his by right.

The Chumash comment on the selling of Esau’s birthright is that Jacob knew Esau wouldn’t die without the stew and was really only testing him to see how important his birthright was to him. In those days, the firstborn was the spiritual leader of the family, and as such should be compassionate, wise and patient. Esau was none of these, and when Jacob had the opportunity to see if Esau really was able to make sound decisions, and Esau failed to do so Jacob took up the mantle of the spiritual leader of the family by buying that right from his brother.

How many times have we let our emotional state of mind influence our decisions? If you are a leader, either in a business, family or a religious environment, do you have the qualities of leadership that are needed for that position? And if you aren’t in charge, just as with Jacob, if the opportunity comes up for you to take charge of a leadership position, are you willing to take on that obligation?

You may be asking where you can find what these leadership qualities are, and I submit to you they are in the Bible. In Exodus, Titus, 1 Timothy and many other places we can find references to what qualities a leader should possess. In general, they are patience, wisdom, a lover of justice, a person not influenced by money, compassionate, able to manage his own family (well-behaved children) and a lover of God’s word.

In the past, the firstborn was entitled (by birth) to lead the family, economically and spiritually, but today that no longer holds true. Today we are all able to take positions of responsibility in our family, as well as in our careers. Some people are placed in positions of authority by reason of their work history, some by their actions in battle, and others simply because they stayed out of trouble long enough to be promoted by the system.

I know of people who have stated they don’t know why they don’t receive more responsibility, and when I suggest they show they are capable of handling more, they say, “Why should I do more work without getting more pay?” Here they are, refusing to demonstrate their ability to do more, and complaining that they aren’t promoted! They just don’t get it- who will put someone in a position of authority without that person first showing they are able to perform in that position?

The lesson today for each of us, those who believe in God, Messiah and who honor the Torah, is that we must first demonstrate the qualities of holiness before we can expect anyone else to want to follow us by accepting God and Messiah so that through them they can attain salvation.  We cannot run a ministry, or a business, a department or our own family if we do not live up to the standards of behavior God expects of us.

Jacob demonstrated the qualities that the firstborn should have, qualities which Esau did not have, and he took it upon himself to place himself in that position. And we know that God accepted this because God shows himself to Jacob and confirms that he will bless Jacob with the same promises he made to Abraham and Isaac.

We each need to know what God expects from us by reading the Bible and shaping ourselves into the image of what God wants a leader to be. Even if we aren’t in leadership now, we won’t ever get the chance if we don’t show that we are able to do the job. I have been blessed by being asked, in both places where I have worshiped, to be on their Council of Elders. That position, as I am sure most of you know, is not one that is solicited but one that is offered because the existing Council members recognize the leadership and spiritual abilities of someone. I don’t say this to brag but as an example of why being the best we can be in how we honor God will result in our being honored by godly people, and allow us to receive a “blessing of the firstborn” in our own right.

Know what God expects of you and do what you can to live up to that image of a godly person. When we do what God wants of us, everything else in our life falls into place and we receive the blessings that God has for us.

Parashah Chayei Sarah 2018 (The life of Sarah) Genesis 23:1 – 25:18

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This parashah begins with the end of Sarah’s life. Abraham buys a burial cave and after the mourning period, he has Eliezer, his servant and guardian of all he owns (like Joseph was for Potipher’s household) go back to Abrahams’ old village to find a wife for Isaac from amongst Abraham’s own family. God goes ahead of Eliezer and Rebekah, the daughter of Abraham’s brother, Nachor, is the one God has chosen. After she is brought back and joined with Isaac, the parashah ends with a note about the other sons Abraham had through his second wife, Keturah- 6 more sons. Finally, we are told of Abraham’s death and burial. The last lines of this parashah give us the names of the sons of Ishmael, who become 12 nations.

I need to confess some pridefulness on my part in that I have always thought that the numberless amount of descendants that God promised Abraham would beget (Gen. 15:5) are the Jewish people. I never really thought of anyone else that came from Abraham’s loins as being part of that number. Oh, yes- I recognized that the Arab peoples were brothers, way, way back somewhere since they also came from Abraham, but I always thought the descendants that counted were just the Jewish people.

Lately, I have had discussions with other people who claim they are one of the tribes sent into the Diaspora and are just now tracing themselves back to their Israelite tribe. The 10 tribes that have been dispersed throughout the world have also lost their origins, having been assimilated into the culture and bloodlines of the geographical locations to which they went. And these locations are worldwide, from Asia through Africa, in Europe- all over!

We all know that Abraham had 2 sons, Ishmael and Isaac- one became the Arab nations and the other the Jewish nation. But do you recall that in this parashah we are told of 6 other sons that Abraham had? He gave them all gifts and sent them on their own way, and since his first two sons grew into nations that numbered (and still do) in the millions, it only seems reasonable to believe that God’s promise to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens would also be fulfilled through these other 6 sons. That means that we know of at least 24 tribes from Ishmael and Isaac, alone, and who knows how many more tribes from the other 6 sons?

Over the past 5 Millennia, that’s a heck of a lot of people! Even when we consider that some of the Semitic tribes have been destroyed, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, that still leaves plenty of descendants.

My point is that God’s promise to Abraham may not have been restricted to just the Jewish descendants. There may be more “sons and daughters of Abraham” around than I ever thought there were. My “special” condition, being a Jewish descendant of Abraham, may not really be oh-so-special, after all. And I confess I felt a little let down by that realization; on the other hand, after I thought it over a bit more, I started to think this is a good thing.

God promised Abraham his descendants would be more numerous than the stars, more than the grains of sand on the beach, and when we think about that promise as including the adopted children of Abraham, that fits in perfectly with what we are told in the Bible.

John 10:16– “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice, and they will become one flock with one shepherd” 

Gal. 3:29– “For if you belong to Messiah, you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” 

Isaiah 56:6-8 –“Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants, everyone who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast My covenant; even those I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” 

Psalm 86:9– All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and they shall glorify Your name.

Hosea 2:23– “I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, and I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘You are my God!'”

That verse in Hosea is, contextually, dealing with the regathering of Israel, but the adopted sons and daughters will be the regathered, as well.

There are many other verses throughout the Bible, Old and New Covenants, which indicate God’s plan to bring all the nations- not just those that are the direct descendants of Abraham- into his salvation.

I have met many people over the years, especially those that have seen my testimony, who have stated they wished they had been born Jewish. Others have come to me or have posted that they are just now finding out that their grandparents were Jewish (many European and Sephardic Jews hid their Jewish lineage for fear of being persecuted or killed.)

The truth I have now accepted is that being a “Jew” is not so special, after all, since I have many brothers and sisters who are all children (either directly or adopted) of Abraham, throughout the world. And they are, indeed, as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

The conclusion I have come to is this: being a Jew by birth is not what is special. What is special is to accept Yeshua as my Messiah and to live my life as my Messiah did, worshiping the Holy One of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through obedience to his Torah.

Parashah Vayyera 2018 (And he appeared) Genesis 18-22)

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This parashah has so much stuff in it we could review it for months! It starts with the three angels coming to Abraham and telling him that Sarah will give birth to a son the following year and that they are there to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  The next event is how Lot protected the angels and they saved him and his family, although his wife turned back to look and turned to salt. His two daughters plied their father with wine and slept with him, each becoming pregnant and giving birth to the Ammonite and Moabite nations.

Next, we read about Abraham and King Abimelech, where Abraham (for a second time) lied about his relationship with Sarah to protect his life. After Abimelech took Sarah to wife, his entire family was cursed with infertility, and only after he returned Sarah (and Abraham prayed for them) did their fertility return.  Later Abraham and Abimelech make a pact regarding a well and form a treaty between them.

Then Sarah bore Isaac and when Ishmael, about 13 years older, began to pick on Isaac Sarah had Abraham eject Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. However, God took care of them and Ishmael grows into a mighty hunter and father of nations.

The parashah ends with one of the most important chapters in the Torah: we call it the Akedah. Abraham’s faith is tested by God, who demands Isaac be offered up as a burnt sacrifice to God. Abraham immediately obeys and only at the last second does God call out to Abraham to stop, and a ram caught in a bush is the sacrifice used instead of Isaac. This is why we use a ram’s horn for the shofar, to memorialize the ram that was substituted for Isaac. This chapter is one of the most Messianic chapters in the entire Bible.

There is one part of the Akedah that I want to talk about today, the one line that represents so much in our worship of God and our desire to know him better. That line is Genesis 22:2:

And he said, “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” 

Abraham does so immediately. He leaves not knowing exactly where he is to go, is shown Mount Moriah (I could go on and on about the importance of this mountain, but that is for another time) and builds an altar there. He binds Isaac and places him on the wood, then raises his hand to kill the boy before burning him up completely. It is only when he is about to strike that God tells him to stop.

I checked a number of different Bible versions, such as the NIV, KJV, CJB, JPS Tanakh and even an old Dartmouth bible I have, and every one of them, except the NIV, use the word “offer”. The NIV is the only one I found that uses “sacrifice” instead of the word “offer”, or “offer up.”  We all know that God is hateful of human sacrifice, especially of the child sacrifice that was practiced by the Semitic peoples at that time. The hard-to-answer question that is always posed when reading the Akedah is why would God tell Abraham to sacrifice his son?

An answer may be found when we really read the command God gave to Abraham: to offer up his son as a burnt sacrifice. Now, it is important to be careful when interpreting the Bible that we use proper context, not just of the words within the sentence and sentences within the paragraph, but also of the meaning of the words. We must not use current definitions, but the definition of the word(s) at the time it was written. So, when we read the word “offer”, what did it mean to Abraham? Did it mean the same as it means today? The Wikipedia definition is: “present or proffer (something) for (someone) to accept or reject as so desired.” That means we present something to someone, and then wait to see if they will accept it or not.

I would like to submit that when God said he wanted Abraham to offer up his son as a burnt sacrifice, he never intended to accept it. This was a test- we all know that. But Abraham (apparently) did not know it was just a test. If he did, I suspect that after tying up Isaac and laying him out on the wood, he would have taken the knife, raised his hand and held it there himself, praying to God to please show a sign that this offering is acceptable to him. Then if God showed it was, he would have completed that act. But Abraham did not hesitate to kill Isaac- only God’s calling out to him stopped Abraham’s hand.

So what went wrong? Did Abraham miss the point? Did God purposefully mislead Abraham into thinking he had to go through with it? The fact is nothing went wrong- God intended to test Abraham’s faith, he told Abraham that he only wanted Abraham to offer up Isaac but Abraham, in his zeal to be obedient, took it one step further than God intended it to go, which is why God had to call out to him to stop.

The question for us is: do we go too far sometimes? Do we act out our own idea of what God is telling us to do? I have had experiences with many people were insulting and accusatory, telling me that I am spiritually empty and don’t know God’s word at all simply because we disagreed on a biblical interpretation. When I pointed out they weren’t acting very “Christian” with their attacks and attitude, they told me God commands us to be truthful with each other and they were just telling the truth. In my opinion, what they are doing is going further than God wants regarding how we tell the truth to each other. They aren’t being truthful, they are being prideful- their angry and insulting remarks are not the result of knowing the truth of God’s word, but of their frustration with me because I don’t agree with them. They know they are right!- and they can’t stand someone not agreeing with them.

God told Abraham to offer up Isaac, and Abraham took it one step further because that is what he knew “to offer up” meant. It was a natural mistake and thank God that God corrected him before it was too late. We also often take things one step too far, innocently or on purpose, and like Abraham’s mistake, it is because we are overtaken by our own desire to please or obey. God looks more to our heart than he does to what we actually do. We can obey a commandment, but if we do so without the desire to please God or are just going through the motions, God will not accept that. On the other hand, if we sin by disobedience, but not on purpose or through abject rejection of God, then he is willing to forgive us, which he has proven throughout history.

We need to listen to God and to listen carefully. If something seems a little “off” like Abraham must have thought when God told him to offer up Isaac, ask God for clarification. I am not suggesting you delay or ignore what you believe God is telling you to do, simply that if it doesn’t feel “right” in your spirit you should ask God to help you understand exactly what he is asking you to do.

And remember, as Job learned, that we don’t always know why God does what he does and we are to always trust God to do the right thing. But because we all have human frailties and pridefulness within us and we are born with iniquity, even the most spiritually mature person can make a mistake or misunderstand God.  When we think God is telling us to do something, we should always make sure we know exactly what he wants of us.

God is gracious, patient and understanding; I believe that if your heart’s desire is to obey and serve the Lord, to ask for clarification will not be a problem.

Shabbat Shalom!

Parashah Lech Lecha 2018 (Get yourself out) Genesis 12-17

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Abram (he’s not yet called Abraham, but soon will be) is told to leave Haran (his father has recently died) and take everything and everyone with him. He leaves Haran and settles in the area around Shechem. He did have to go to Egypt due to a famine, where he sins by lying about Sarai, saying she is his sister so he isn’t murdered by Pharaoh to take Sarai from him. This happens twice, and each time God intervenes to protect Sarai, in the end making Abram wealthy from the gifts he received from those kings that took her to be their wife.

Eventually, he and Lot have to separate because there isn’t enough pastureland for both of their herds, so Abram gives Lot first choice. Lot goes to the Jordan Valley near Sodom and Abram goes west of the Jordan.

Sodom and Gomorrah are attacked by the surrounding kings, and Lot and all his possessions and family are also captured, but when Abram hears of it, he takes a small force of some 300 men and using guerilla tactics attacks the larger force at different areas simultaneously, making them think they are being attacked by a much larger force and defeats them. He returns the possessions and people and tithes 1/10th to Melchizedek.

The parashah ends with God renewing his covenant with Abram, renaming him Abraham and Sarai Sarah, and promising not only that he will become a great nation but that all the land he sees will belong to his descendants forever.

This message is going to be one of those that is all about the Torah and the laws and commandments within it still being valid, even to this very day and beyond. It may seem a little off-topic, but it isn’t.

At the very beginning of this parashah, God promised Abram that he will become a great nation and the whole world will be blessed by his descendants in Genesis 12:2-3:

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

God says that all people on the earth will be blessed through Abraham, but he doesn’t say how. We can go through the number of blessings the world has received through Jewish art, music, scientific discovery (even today Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world in both technology and medicine), but that is not all there is. The blessings to the world through the Jewish people have been numerous- if you want to get a small sample, do a search on the Internet for “number of Nobel prizes won by Jews” to get just a taste of the ways in which God has blessed the world through his people.

And I believe these things, as wonderful as they are, are not the most wonderful blessings the world has received.

I know what you are probably thinking right now:

“He must be talking about the Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) who came from the Jewish people, who came through Abraham!”

Well, you are correct about the Messiah being the greatest blessing the world has ever received, and that he did come through Abraham, but that is not the blessing I am talking about.

The blessing I am talking about came long before the Messiah: I am talking about the Torah.

The Torah was given to Moses for the Jewish people to learn so that they could become a holy people unto God. But that’s not all it was to be used for: the Jewish people are to be a nation of priests for God. God tells this to Moses in Exodus 19:6:

Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine. And unto me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.

To recap, first God promises Abraham the world will be blessed through him, and then the Torah is given to Moses so that the Jewish people (from Abraham, of course) can be a nation of priests. I say that they are a nation of priests to the world because as God’s people, when we consider that the entire earth and all that is on it belongs to God, his priests would, naturally, teach and lead what belongs to God. So, naturally, as a nation of priests, the Jewish people would teach the rest of the people on earth how to worship God and how to treat each other, which is what the Torah is all about.

Finally, the Torah promises us blessings for obedience in Deuteronomy 28:1-12. These blessings deal with nearly every aspect of our life.

God said he would bless the world through Abraham, and that was done with two things: the Torah and the Messiah. The Messiah did not overrule or do away with the Torah but confirmed and enhanced it by teaching more than just the written word (P’shat)– Yeshua taught us the spiritual meaning (Remes) behind the written word through the use of a drash, or parable. The Torah is God’s blessing to the world that preceded Messiah, and Messiah is the ultimate blessing to the world. However, Messiah did not overrule or do away with the laws in the Torah, he confirmed and demonstrated how to live them the way God intended for us to do, both physically and spiritually.

To finish today’s message I will leave you with this advice: if you want to receive the blessings that God promised to the world through Abraham, consider Deuteronomy 28.

 

Parashah Noach 2018 (Noah) Genesis 6:9 – 11:32

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Who doesn’t know the story of Noah and the Flood? That’s right- everyone knows it, so I don’t need to review it now.

I do wonder about one thing, though: do any of you also think that it seems awfully cruel of God to have killed so many innocent animals? He took only one male and one female (for each species) of the millions upon millions of animals that existed. Yes, for the animals that were known to be “clean” he took 7 of each gender, but still and all, the odds for being picked to survive were pretty enormous against you. How would you have felt if you happened to be a cow in the pasture, eating the grass and waiting to be milked, then suddenly you find yourself drowning? Sometimes what God does seems to be unfair or even cruel, as in this case, but what can we do about it? After all, he IS God, right? That is an interesting study in itself, but not the one for today.

Back to the Flood: with regard to the (possibly) millions of humans that were alive at that time, we are told that only Noah was righteous. Did any of you notice that Noah’s sons and their wives are not mentioned as being righteous?  Only Noah found grace in God’s eyes, but God saved the immediate family of Noah. Of course, if only Noah had survived and his wife, sons, and daughters had perished, that would have been the end of humanity. So, naturally, unless God intended to change the whole gender dynamic for humans he would have to also save (at least) Noah’s wife, and by also saving the sons and daughters he made it easier to repopulate the earth.

Which brings us to an interesting and (I believe) important question: was Noah “unevenly yoked,” and if so, did his righteousness save his family?

There is nothing specifically stating that Noah’s family members were as sinful as the rest of the world, but there is also nothing to denote they were as righteous as Noah. I think we are safe to assume that Noah’s righteousness “saved” his family. After all, if Noah hadn’t been righteous then they would all have been destroyed with the rest of humanity and we wouldn’t be here discussing this. And we can be sure that one son wasn’t the most righteous of people.

We read in Genesis 9:20-27 that Ham was a disrespectful son. Because of his disregard for his father’s “exposure,” he and his descendants were cursed by his father to be a slave to the other brothers and their descendants. Add to this the fact that God had stated in Genesis 8:21 that people were evil by nature. The Bible tells us that although Noah was righteous and remained so throughout his lifetime, the offspring of his children weren’t any better than the people God destroyed. In this section of the parashah, we are told the names of the descendants of the sons of Noah, in which we recognize the tribes and peoples that became sinful and idolatrous, many of which were (and still are) enemies of God’s Chosen people.

So was this whole Flood thing just one big waste of time? It seems so, doesn’t it? God rid the earth of all the evil people, yet within just a few generations they were at it, again. The end of this parashah tells us about the Tower of Babel, which was intended to reach heaven so that the people could make a name for themselves.  When referring to a “name”, they meant to create a reputation that would exalt them. In other words, they wanted to become powerful by their own actions and able to do as they wanted with no regard for God. That is why God frustrated their plans.

Let’s finish by getting back to the question: can an unevenly yoked person save an unsaved spouse or child? My answer is Yes….and No.

Yes, we can eventually save them by showing them the blessings we receive from God for having faith in him, his Messiah and being obedient to his word (Torah.) By being a good example of a faithfully obedient Believer in God and Messiah we may generate an interest or even a jealousy within them to have what we have (this is what Shaul talks about in Romans 11:11.)  In fact, this jealousy is what saved me- God placed many spiritually mature Believers in my life and I wanted to have the peace and joy that I saw they had, even in when they were having as much tzuris as I had.  On the other hand, because God has given everyone free will to choose whether we accept or reject him, even the best of all examples may not have the effect we want it to have. Just like with Noah and his children.

Here is the point of today’s message: we can help to bring others to salvation by our example, but it is always up to them to choose life. Noah was a great example to his sons and their sons and daughters after them, yet look what happened. We cannot force people to choose God, and threats of fire and brimstone and death won’t do it, just as the Flood did not really change anything.  Each of us must choose for him or herself whether to be faithfully obedient to God or not.

The best any of us can do is show the world, starting with our own family, the blessings and joy we receive from God for being faithfully obedient to his word and accepting his son, Messiah Yeshua, as our Messiah. And when the world floods us with persecution and name calling, we need only remember that God brought Noah through a much bigger flood, and he will do the same for us.

Parashah B’resheet 2018 (In the beginning) Genesis 1:1 – 6:8

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In the beginning, there was nothing anywhere except for God, who (of course) has no beginning.

We are told about how God made the earth and everything in it, finishing with man and woman. The serpent fools the woman into eating the apple, she fools the man and they are all punished. The man and the woman have children, and the brothers are at odds with each other, ending up with the first murder. Sadly, this killing of one human by another is just the beginning.

The earth becomes populated and the evil of mankind is of such a terrible stench that it rises up to the heavens and God, seeing only one righteous man in all the world, Noah. This parashah ends with God informing Noah of his plan to destroy mankind and start over.

So much to talk about and so little time to do it.  As I was reading through this, something caught my attention that I didn’t really think about before. It is right at the beginning, Genesis 1:14-20:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.  God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.  God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

I would like to sidestep for a second to add an interesting note: before the sun, moon, and stars were created to give light to the earth, the plants were created. Scientists will tell you that this couldn’t be possible since plants need sunlight to perform the photosynthesis which feeds them. But there is a greater and more powerful, nourishing light that existed before the sun- and that takes us to today’s message.

As I read this verse in Genesis, it reminded me of a verse at the far end of the Bible, in Revelation. You may know what I am thinking about…Revelation 22:5 where we are told:

There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. 

I think we can all agree that the term “light” is used in different ways, identifying something that can be either a physical thing or used figuratively. It can be illumination, something that removes darkness and allows us to see with our eyes. It can also be something that we see with our minds, as “seeing the light”, like the picture of a light bulb flashing on over someone’s head.

We also know that sunlight has life-giving substances within it, as well as deathly rays that can burn us. And isn’t God sort of like that, as well? He can give us nourishment from heaven, life from death and warmth to fend off the deathly cold. At the same time, he can burn us with the light of his truth.

God was the light that provided the nourishment for the plants he created before he ever made the sun, and when all things are done and God’s plan of salvation is complete he will, again, be the only light that will be needed.

The Bible identifies a definite beginning for Mankind, but there is no end. The world and pretty much everything God created will come to an end, but Mankind (those who remain faithful to God and Messiah) will have no end. And just as life was first created with only the light from God, his Shekinah glory, so we will again bask and be nourished by the Shekinah glory of God throughout all eternity.

Here at the beginning we already know what to expect at the end- living for all eternity nourished and illuminated by the light of God. No more sun, no more moon, no more stars to guide us because we won’t need them. We will never again be in darkness, physically or spiritually.

What a great thing to look forward to!

Sukkot 2018 Intermediate Shabbat Reading

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This Shabbat is known as the Sukkot Intermediate Shabbat. The Torah has already been read to the end, but we don’t turn it back and restart until the 8th day of Sukkot, which is called Sh’mini Atzeret. It is also known by another name, Simchat Torah, which means Joy of Torah.  

This reading takes place right after the sin of the Golden Calf has occurred. God told Moses that he would no longer dwell with this people because they are stiff-necked and rebellious, but Moses intercedes (as he did all the time) and convinces God to stay with them; otherwise, says Moses, how will the rest of the world know that they have been chosen as God’s unique and select people? God relents to Moses’ request, and then Moses takes it one (big) step further and asks God to show his Glory to Moses. God, confirming that he knows Moses well, agrees but states that his face cannot be seen. He places Moses in a cleft in a rock and as he passes by he pronounces himself to Moses while covering Moses’ face with his hand allowing him to see only his back. 

This part of the Torah (Ex. 34:5-7) is known as the 13 Attributes of God, which God proclaims to Moses as he passes by him (I am paraphrasing from my Chumash):

  1. The LORD– God reveals his “name”, which the Rabbi’s state is his character;
  2. The LORD– this repetition is explained in the Talmud as meaning that God is the same merciful and forgiving God before a person sins as he is after a person sins;
  3. God– the all-mighty Lord of the Universe, ruler of nature and mankind;
  4. merciful– full of affectionate sympathy for the sufferings and misery of human frailty;
  5. and gracious– assisting and helping, consoling and raising up the oppressed;
  6. long-suffering– slow to anger, not hastening to punish the guilty but giving them time to repent;
  7. abundant in goodness– plenteous in mercy, granting gifts and blessings even when underserved; 
  8. and truth– eternally true to himself, rewarding those obedient to his will;
  9. keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation– remembering the good deeds of one’s ancestors and reserving reward to the most distant descendants;
  10. forgiving iniquity– bearing with indulgence the failings of people;
  11. transgression– evil deeds from malice and rebellion against the Divine;
  12. and sin– shortcomings due to heedlessness and error; 
  13. but will by no means clear the guilty– he will not allow the guilty to go unpunished. 

Do you realize how amazing this sentence is?  It is God telling us all exactly who he is and explicitly what he wants us to know about him so we can know how he wants us to behave. After all, how many times does he tell us to “be Thou holy, as I am holy?”  Well, right here are the instructions for how we can accomplish that goal.

And you know what I think? I think they aren’t all that difficult to do. 

Obviously, we aren’t the LORD, the Lord God and if someone was good to us we won’t be around to remember their kindness to their thousandth generation.  Other than those two things, though, I think we are all capable of emulating these other qualities of God. 

The reason this specific reading is done now is to demonstrate that God wants to be with us- the whole idea of Sukkot is to remember the way God dwelt with and cared for our ancestors in the desert. It is a way of bonding with them and God. God always wants us to be in his presence. In fact the festival of Sukkot, according to Leviticus 23: 33-36 is to be seven days long, and the 8th day is a Shabbat rest.  The Rabbi’s explain in the Talmud (somewhere) the 8th day was added by God because he so enjoyed dwelling with his people that he extended Sukkot for another day.  I know that is unsubstantiated by the actual scriptures, but it is such a nice thought and it does fit in with what we know of God and his love for his children, that whether it is absolutely the truth or not, it is not dishonoring to God and a wonderful expression of God’s love.

We can never be as God is, but we can always be closer to how he wants us to be.  He tells us in this section of the Torah exactly what we need to know about him, and as far as I am concerned, that is all I need to know. Frankly, for me (at least) just trying to emulate these attributes of God is more than enough of a challenge for me. 

Are you up to the challenge? 

May your remaining days of Sukkot be a blessing to you.

Parashah VaYelach 2018 (And he went) Deuteronomy 31

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God informs Moses that he is about to die and has him bring Joshua before all Israel to the tent of Meeting. God appears in a cloud and Moses tells Joshua (and the people) that even though he is now going to die, God will still be with them and Joshua will lead them over the Jordan into the Promised Land. God will be with them just as he has been in the past, to defeat those peoples that are now in the land, so Joshua and all the people should not be afraid but have courage because although Moses won’t be with them, God always will be.

God also tells Moses that in the future the people will disown God and break his covenant, and he will then hide his face from them. They will be ravaged by the surrounding peoples and the country will be taken over. God tells Moses to write down a song (which I believe means that God dictated this song) so that when this happens, the song will testify on God’s behalf that it was the people who caused this Tsouris to come upon themselves. 

You may ask why God, knowing all that is to happen and the terrible things that his people will have to suffer through, would allow that to come about.  After all, isn’t God all-powerful? All-knowing? Couldn’t he easily make sure the people don’t turn against him and suffer? Doesn’t he love them? 

Yes, he does love them, but he is God. He knows that loving means to allow freedom of choice. He gives us Free Will so that we can choose to love him, which is the only real way to love- by choice. He never uses his punishment for disobedience as a means to force us to love him, but rather as a means to get us to return to his protection. We are protected by God when we are in his will, which means living in obedience to his commandments. God is all about love, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t about justice, fair judgment and following the rules he establishes. 

God is as subject to his commandments as we are- when he says we must do something, if we reject his words and ignore him, he must judge us as we deserve. He told us that the commandments he gave us are to be obeyed “throughout your generations”, which means forever. Fortunately for us, God’s judgments are filtered with mercy. Still and all, they are terrible when we have forsaken him. The worst thing is that he just lets us “do our own thing”, which means we are then left to defend ourselves against the world with no divine help. That is a no-win situation. 

If you find yourself in the midst of trouble, you can blame the Enemy for attacking you. But unless you are doing something that is very godly, that probably isn’t the real reason. The devil doesn’t care about you unless you are doing something that furthers God’s kingdom. So, back to you are having troubles: what you should NOT do is look to God or to the Devil until after you have first looked in the mirror. I think that in the majority of cases when we find ourselves in a teapot full of Tsouris, the real reason is something we have done or failed to do.

God will always judge those who disobey him and do so with the intent to bring them back to his protective love and divine intervention in their life.  God judges us constantly throughout our life in order to get us to change our ways when we walk away from him. He is patient and always will try to get us to protect ourselves by obeying his Torah. However, when we come before him at the Final Judgment it will be too late to change. So make sure you get your head on straight before that time comes, which may be at any moment during your life. None of us knows how or when we are going to die, so we better be prepared to meet our Maker every moment of every day. That starts with doing Teshuvah, accepting Yeshua as your Messiah and asking forgiveness of your sins through his name. From that point on, you must try to live in accordance with the Torah God gave to all people, through the Jews to the Nations.  Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, whatever- God is the only God and we are to worship him as he said we should. 

God has no religion- he gave us his laws and commandments and statutes so that everyone would know what he expects of them. And he will judge you not according to what a clerical leader has told you to do, but what HE has told you to do!

Parashah Nitzavim 2018 (You are standing) Deuteronomy 29:9 – 30

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The previous parashah ended with the blessings and the curses, and this one continues from there. Moses advises the people that everyone listening to him is subject to this covenant and he then prophecies that when the people turn to their own desires and sin, all the curses will fall upon them and they will be a byword to the other nations, asking “Why has this happened?”, to which the answer will be because they rejected God and his commandments.  

But as with all prophecies of destruction for disobedience, Moses assures the people that once their hearts turn back to Adonai, no matter how far he has scattered them, he will bring them back to their own land and bless them. 

Moses ends with the decree that these laws are not too hard to do, and he offers them the options of live or die, blessings or curses, and the suggestion that they take the blessings.

My message today is regarding what Moses says about those that bless themselves in their heart (Deut. 29:18-20), meaning those that hear the word and purposefully disobey, thinking that because God promises to regather the people they will be selected with the others. Moses assures that person that this will not happen; indeed, the one who persists in indulging himself (or herself) in evil will certainly not be blessed or forgiven. That person will be cut off from the people and all the curses of the covenant will fall on his head. 

When I read this I thought of all those that have been taught that once they are saved, they are always saved. Shaul (Paul) refutes this in his letter to the Romans. In that letter he says (Romans 6:15-16):

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness?

The sins we commit can be forgiven through the Messiah’s sacrifice, but that is only those sins we have committed to that point, i.e. to the exact moment we confess, repent and ask forgiveness in Yeshua’s name.  Whatever sins we commit after that are on our head until we repent of that sin and, again, ask for forgiveness. 

If we sin and continue to sin, without asking forgiveness, then we are- by definition- unrepentant. There is no doubt in my mind after reading the Bible over and over for 20 years and more that God will not forgive an unrepentant sinner, whether they know they are unrepentant or not.  We may feel sorrow in our heart for doing something wrong, but if we do not confess that wrongdoing and ask forgiveness, it is NOT automatically given. We need to have a contrite and humbled heart when we repent and ask forgiveness, but we need to do it all: heartache, repentance (T’shuvah), request for forgiveness (in Yeshua’s name.)  

I also thought of all those who have been taught that Yeshua did away with the law; all those poor souls who blindly follow the blind. Even if they think they are obeying God, they are not. And this is a form of blessing themselves in their heart and they WILL be held accountable. The covenant Moses made was not just with who was there, but those who were not there, as well (Deut. 29:13-14). In other words, this covenant is for all who claim to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Not just the Jews, but all people: those there at that time and those who are not there. 

What this means for you is that you need to make sure you read the entire Bible- Genesis through Revelation- and accept that if you worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob then you are also under this covenant. You may not like hearing that, you may want to argue (as if it will do you any good with God) that God didn’t mean Gentiles who accept Yeshua as their Messiah ( remember that Yeshua taught the Torah) or that Believers aren’t under the law but under Grace (remember what Shaul said to the Romans) or even that Yeshua did away with the law. 
Which is a total lie: Yeshua is the living Torah, the Word that became flesh so how could he have done away with himself? Duh! 

The Torah is still valid: God said these commandments were to be throughout all your generations. That means forever. And those that join themselves to God’s chosen people are not only able to enjoy all the rights of natural born Jews, but they are also subject to all the laws natural born Jews are subject to, and that means the Torah. 

What it boils down to is this: God gave the Jews the Torah to learn and teach the rest of the world, and those that obey are blessed while those that disobey are in BIG trouble. 

The Pharisees were teaching performance-based salvation, and Yeshua gave us faith-based salvation. We obey God’s commandments as a love-response to God’s goodness and because we are obedient children.

Grace is not a license to sin, it is the means by which we can avoid the eternal consequences of our sin; however, faith doesn’t overrule obedience.