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

November 4, 2016 Leave a comment

No, I am not going to review the story- who doesn’t know about “The Flood”?

Some interesting points:

Noah did not bring in all the animals two-by-two: he brought in the clean animals seven-by-seven, and the unclean two-by-two;
He first sent out a raven, which could have fed on any carrion left but not indicate if it was safe for them to leave the Ark, so later he sent a dove which only would feed on vegetation, indicating the waters had receded;
the rainbow wasn’t necessarily created after the flood, but it was now used to signify the covenant that God made with Noah;
before the Flood mankind ate only fruits and vegetables, but now mankind is allowed to eat meat, so long as there is no blood in the meat;
this was (probably) the very first time that rain fell on the earth, as we are told that the garden and the earth was watered by a mist in the morning.

When Noah was lying drunk and uncovered (Gen. 9:20-28), Ham (as described in the Chumash) laughed about it with his brothers (was disrespectful) instead of covering his father, as his brothers did. The result is that Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham, to be a slave to his brothers.

God, on the other hand, swore (Gen. 8:21-22) that He would never again hold the entire human race guilty of the sins of the individuals. Noah cursed Ham by cursing Ham’s son, and that curse was for all the generations of Ham. In a way, God relented of cursing the multitude for the sins of the individuals, but Noah cursed the multitude (all descendants) for the curse of an individual. To me, this shows that even a righteous man, which Noah was, will be less generous and merciful than God in his actions towards his fellow man (and woman.)

The final story of this parashah is the Tower of Babel, again a story that almost everyone knows. Just a single thought today on this: if the tower had been built as an alter to God, and not a means to show mankind’s strength, maybe God would have allowed it. The tower was built so that people could show their power and authority, and because it was a monument to mankind and not to God, that is the reason God did not allow it to be completed. If the tower had been built for the right reasons, and we continued to work together, a single humanity with a single voice and a single purpose that pleased the Lord, who knows what could have happened? Maybe there would not have been need for Messiah because we could have made our own paradise?

Naaahhhhh!! Couldn’t be- God tells us, in Gen. 8:21, that the heart of every man is evil from the start (it is called the Yetzer Hara, which means the evil inclination) and so God will just deal with each person in accordance to what they deserve.

It is a nice thought though, isn’t it? That of the world coming together, everyone working in unity for a common goal that is pleasing to the Lord, if only I could buy the world a Coke, and we could all sing in perfect harmony? Well, ….don’t hold your breath!

We are what we are, and during our life the goal should be to end up a better person than the one we started out as. We start off as sinners, born into a sinful world controlled by sinful people, and we have the one lifetime God gives us to get our act together. Shakespeare was right when he said all the world is a stage, and we are merely players; what you need to understand, what we all need to understand, is that the bible is the script God wrote for us, and we really need to read it if we want to know our lines!

Life is a dress rehearsal for eternity. We have seen God create mankind, destroy all of it (except for a remnant) and build an entire civilization, for a second chance. There will be one more great destruction, with one final rebuilding from the remnant that survive.

This play is almost ready for the opening night: we’ve had our read-through, we’ve been rehearsing for hundreds of generations, and who knows whether or not our generation will be the ones who get the curtain call?

Are you prepared to go on stage?

Without Tsouris we wouldn’t know joy

May 9, 2016 Leave a comment

As lousy a situation as it is, the absence of tsouris (troubles) in our lives results in the absence of joy.

Joy is what we feel when we are relieved of stress, there are no problems, no “issues” to overcome…complete relaxation, physical, mental and spiritual.

But if we didn’t know about stress, if we never had “issues” to worry about and overcome, and if we never were sad, downtrodden, upset or stressed-out, then how would we be able to feel joy? It wouldn’t be anything other than the same old, same old. And even joy can be boring and useless if that’s all there is.

When a woman gives birth, the pains are remarkable (so I’ve heard- not being able to tell you from experience, of course) and the total joy after, when the baby has come out, is just as overwhelming. Not just because of the birth of your child, but because there is no more pain. The cessation of pain is, in and of itself, a joyful feeling.

We go through the fire to remove the slag, and we must be melted down to our basic elements for that to happen. We must be destroyed, so that we can congeal into a more pure form of ourselves. This is what Tsouris is all about- getting rid of the dross so that the purity can be realized. We need to call on the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) during these times to help us die to self so that God can more completely live in us.

The problem is, despite how wonderful the result, going through the process sucks! It sucks in every way: painfully, emotionally, physically, spiritually- every bad “ly” you can think of happens to us when going through the tsouris of life. And there isn’t much to do about it- you can’t run away from it, you can’t avoid it, and you have to wait until it runs it’s course. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and calling out to God may not help because God may be behind it.

Not always. Remember, we live in a cursed world, and sometimes that means having to deal with it. God isn’t always to blame. In fact, my personal opinion from reading about God all these years, is that He isn’t so petty as to cause your car to break down if you sinned, or the ladder to fall if you are working on the Sabbath, or have you suffer through “Montezuma’s Revenge” because you ate a ham sandwich for lunch when you knew you shouldn’t have. Maybe, sometimes, little things will happen that (as we look back later) we can see led us to something that was a Godly blessing or prevented us from tsouris, and yes- maybe, just maybe, God did make sure that little thing happened to protect us. Maybe the car did break down so that we didn’t get stuck in that 10 car pile-up on Interstate 95 that we would have been in. But, then again, maybe it just happened.

I don’t drive myself crazy (which, in my case, is a very short ride) with thinking about these things. God is very busy running the Universe, and although I know He happily makes time to hear my prayers, He is multi-tasking all the time. And I just don’t see Him going out of His way to cause something small to happen to me as a punishment for a sin. If that was true, at the rate I sin, He would have a full-time job.

Tsouris sucks- there’s no doubt about it. The only way to get through it is to understand it. By that I mean we need to remember we live in a cursed world, that we are separated from it, that the enemy does make time to do many, small annoying things to get us to curse the world and to curse God, and the enemy runs the world. He wasn’t thrown down to hell, but to the Earth, and he is the Prince of the Air (Ephesians 2:2.) What goes through the air? TV, radio, advertising, cell phone usage, Internet-all of these are controlled by the enemy, by definition of his kingdom, and we are bombarded by it constantly, day after day, year after year, until we think that, just like Mick Jagger says in that famous song, “He can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarette as me!” We compare ourselves to others instead of to what God says we should be. And often it seems, just like the song says, we can’t get no satisfaction.

But you can get satisfaction! The satisfaction of knowing that the tsouris is temporary and the joy tsouris allows us to feel will be eternal! I wrote a blog about SWISH– So What, I‘m Saved, Halleluyah! We need to remember not just that tsouris happens, but that it makes us better and that it is part of being alive. And more than that, we need to remember that the pain we feel now will allow us to feel the total and pure joy of salvation when that time comes.

Shaul tells us in Philippians 3:14:

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Messiah Yeshua.”

We need to keep our gaze focused not on what is behind, or even what is here now, but on what is coming. That is how we get through tsouris- not concerning ourselves with what is happening as much as looking forward to when it is over. Things always seem so far away when we wait for them, and when we look back it all seems to have happened so quickly. Keep focused on the future, remind yourself that this is going to be over and think about the joy you will have when that happens.

We need to make our own time machine, but one that only works in one direction- the future. When in the midst of tsouris, get into your time machine and travel to the future; don’t look back, just wait there. Before you know it, the present will be with you in the future and the tsouris will be over.

When the tsouris of life is over, your joy in salvation will be complete! That is a promise from God.

Keep that in mind when you feel down and you will be uplifted.

Stuff happens

March 21, 2016 Leave a comment

One of my coworkers has to deal with his wife passing away, suddenly. They are barely 40, and he has two young, low-functioning autistic children.

When such tsouris happens, we have to think about why. Is this a judgment from God? Is it an attack from the enemy? Is it just plain lousy luck?

I choose to believe that it is all of those things. God judged Adam and Eve, so yes- living in a fallen and cursed world where stuff happens is a judgment from God. And since the enemy attacks those who do God’s work on the earth, yes- it may have been that (although neither of them are Believers.) And does it just happen to people because these things just happen to people? Yes, of course.

Stuff happens.

God is in control of everything, but that doesn’t mean He does control everything. He is not a micro-manager. We live in a fallen and cursed world, and we sin. Many times, I would like to think most of the times, we sin because of our nature and not because we want to. I have said this many times:

I used to be a sinner that rationalized my sins; now I am a sinner who regrets my sins. Bottom line: I am still a sinner.

But that’s not everyone, and where sin is concerned, I believe there is always, always, always…collateral damage. The sinner isn’t the only one who suffers. In this physical plane of existence, we all suffer the sins of those around us.

Jews suffered the sins of Hitler (along with a lot of other religions); Jim Jones was a mass murderer, and the masses he killed (his own followers) suffered because of his sin; thousands suffered from the sins of the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. I could go on and on and on- just read the newspaper. Every single day, hundreds (if not thousands) of people who are innocent suffer because of the sins of others.

If you walk through a cow field, don’t expect to reach the other side with clean shoes. No matter how carefully you watch your step, you will step into something, sooner or later. And probably more than once.

That’s how life is in a cursed and fallen world. It sucks to be here, but there’s no where else to go right now. Of course, we could be with the Lord, but if you want to serve the Lord you can’t really do it when you are with Him- His work isn’t finished here on the earth so we who serve Him must remain here. That was the problem Shaul had (Philippians 1:21), and it’s the same one we all have, too- we want to be with the Lord but the Lord needs us serving Him here.

The good news is this: we who are Believers will be with the Lord, and when we are it will be for all eternity. The lousy lot we are stuck with here on earth is temporary. Yakov (James) says it is like a mist; this life that we suffer through. It seems to take forever, but it will be such a short memory throughout eternity we will barely even notice it. It will be as nothing once we are with the Lord, so suffer through it and be patient. As Shaul advises: keep your eyes on the prize.

Be compassionate, be loving, expect to have problems. You will. But don’ let them get you down. There will be people who harm you, physically and emotionally. Don’t let them hurt your spirit.

There will be people who hurt themselves, people you care about, and it will make you suffer to see them hurting themselves. Try to help them by showing them how much you care, and by treating them with understanding, but still maintaining a firm resolution to let them know that what they are doing to themselves is unacceptable, and that it hurts you. Ultimately, it is their choice to change or remain as they are, just as it is our choice to suffer with them or leave them to their own devices. Even Shaul, who said without love he is nothing, gave up on some people at times and had nothing further to do with them.

We all make choices, whether we want to or not; for instance, abstaining is not making a decision one way or the other, but it is, in and of itself, a decision. We always have a choice, and we always make a choice.

And we will be accountable for the choices we make. Like it or not, that’s the way it is. Get with the program.

I feel for my co-worker, I can’t begin to understand the stresses he is feeling. I am glad we work for a compassionate and family-oriented company who will work with him during this devastating time in his life. I also wonder how I will deal with the loss of Donna, if she should go first. I don’t think anyone who knows of someone suffering the loss of a loved one doesn’t immediately reflect on their losses, too. Life and death are natural to us; in fact, it’s to be expected, and even though we all know everyone will die sooner or later (hopefully later), it still feels like a punch in the stomach when it happens to someone we care about.

The worst thing there is, to me, is losing a loved one who has refused to accept Messiah Yeshua- that is the real loss. It’s bad enough losing the person’s company, but to know what that person is going to have to deal with when the Acharit haYamim (End Days) are done and the final judgment comes to us all, well- that is the most painful part of all.

The best thing to remember when someone close to you suffers a loss is that you need to let them know you are there for them, especially since everyone else is probably shoving their own losses down the poor persons throat. That’s what we do: we share our grief with people who are grieving, in the hope that we make them feel less alone. Trust me- they don’t feel as alone in their grief anywhere near as much as they feel like telling you to shut up!

Pray for people who are suffering, hold their hand, comfort them with silence, and when you talk with them tell them how much you loved and will also miss the one they lost. Honor the life of the lost person, and don’t share your losses. This person has enough loss- they don’t need yours, too. Talk with them normally because what they need is normality.

The loss of a loved one is hard, it is different, and it tears you out of reality. We need to comfort people suffering a loss by bringing reality back, just enough to make them feel comfortable, just by being a friend who is there.

Stuff happens; however, knowing that doesn’t make it feel any better when it does. All I can say is thank God I have God to help me though it.