Shalom. I trust that you are well and that you thank G-D that you are that way. It is good to Thank G-D.
In my own evaluations of the events in the Books Written by Moses(Torah), I have found a common theme.
Trust G-D enough to follow HIS LAWS without question!
This seems to be THE LAST THING ALMOST ANYONE WANTS TO DO. O.K. enough of the emphasis in the text. But, truly it is what we, individually must perform.
Let us see who we see doing this "Trust and DO" task.
Adam and Eve are to just not touch or eat of a particular tree. They know GOD personally, and fail.
Cain is warned by G-D personally that he is in danger of a great sin, he does not listen.
Noah is told by G-D, when NOAH is 500 years old, build an ark because G-D is going to take the life of all the earth, save those on the ark. Instead of discussing or negotiating or arguing with G-D, he builds an ark. It took 100 years to do this, but he did it.
Abram, who is later Abraham, is called by G-D in Genesis 12, with promises if he will leave his family, friends, town and go where G-D takes him --No Discussion takes place, Abram just goes. He is 75 years old when this happens. From then on Abram/Abraham kind does what he is told without negotiation or deciding that G-D needs help performing HIS Promises. Near the end of Abraham's story, comes the Binding of Issac. Again Abraham does not say anything to G-D, NO back-talk or negotiation this time either. The result is that the blessing now is for the Children of Abraham. He is not tested anymore and lives another 50+ years to die a 175 years of age, having had another wife and more children. He just did what he was told to do, in the end.
Moses, argues with G-D, not wanting to be the messenger or prophet, at the Burning Bush, where G-D does get a bit annoyed but convinces Moses to do the job. After that G-D defends Moses against everyone, and it is Moses who defends sinners from G-D. Except at the second Water form the Rock incident where G-D tells Moses, Numbers 20:12 And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron: 'Because ye trust not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.' The word 'trust' is sometimes translated 'believe', whoever in this place TRUST is a better translation from the Hebrew('aman {aw-man'} Strong's {0539} CLICK HERE FOR THE CONCORDANCE Definitions: a primitive root; properly, to build up or support; to foster as a parent or nurse; figuratively to render (or be) firm or faithful, to trust or believe, to be permanent or quiet; morally to be true or certain; once)[from "Aleph Mem Nun" to be reliable, faithful or trustworthy; to believe in, trust, have trust in, put trust in.] For me - trust is something you give when you have evidence that you should trust, while believe is without evidence being required. Moses has many events demonstrating G-D trustworthiness.
Next time I will take up the evidence of punishment for not trusting G-D.
Shalom, Shalom
Friday, December 17, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Because thou hast hearkened to My voice!
Genesis 22:18 “... because thou hast hearkened to My voice.”
This phrase and similar phrases are several times in the Tanach by GOD, which is very interesting and worth other writings. However, this particular instance and the result created is of greater interest as subject matter for this writing.
The event is the result of the “Binding of Isaac” story in Genesis, and is the result of Abraham doing precisely what GOD told him to do.
Let us review the issue:
Genesis 22:12 And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou art a God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.'
Genesis 22:
15) And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven,
16) and said: 'By Myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son,
17) that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
18) and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast hearkened to My voice.' “
Please note Verse 12 “...seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.” and Verse 16 “seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.” --these are repeats of a cause or a reason for something to happen.
The above blessings in 15..18 are new, in that these are for Abraham's seed
while the original blessing in Genesis 12 reads as:
1. Now the LORD said unto Abram: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee.
2) And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing.
3) And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'
These are blessing for Abram, who became Abraham. Both of these blessings require us to NOT question or argue or bargin with GOD for our own desires.
In Genesis 12, To leave one's family and all that you have known to go somewhere you don't know and to do so without argument requires a great trust. So too, when Abraham is told by GOD to “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 have an advantage on this last test of trust, in that Abraham knows that Issac was a gift from GOD and GOD has kept all of HIS promises to watch over, protect and bless him(Abraham).
Proof Text:
Genesis 17:19 And God said: 'Nay, but Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
Genesis 21:12 “...for in Isaac shall seed be called to thee.”
Bottom-line: In the first place Abram did as G-D told him, in the last test Abraham did as G-D told him, both without extra words. I too seek to Trust the G-D of our fathers as Abraham did. You maybe asking why would you want to do that? My short answer is that, when Abraham questioned G-D, we got slapped. When Moses did not TRUST G-D enough to give credit before the children of Israel, he did not go in to the Promised Land. G-D Says Trust ME, I will protect you. So I will trust HIM.
Shalom
This phrase and similar phrases are several times in the Tanach by GOD, which is very interesting and worth other writings. However, this particular instance and the result created is of greater interest as subject matter for this writing.
The event is the result of the “Binding of Isaac” story in Genesis, and is the result of Abraham doing precisely what GOD told him to do.
Let us review the issue:
Genesis 22:12 And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou art a God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.'
Genesis 22:
15) And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven,
16) and said: 'By Myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son,
17) that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
18) and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast hearkened to My voice.' “
Please note Verse 12 “...seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.” and Verse 16 “seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.” --these are repeats of a cause or a reason for something to happen.
The above blessings in 15..18 are new, in that these are for Abraham's seed
while the original blessing in Genesis 12 reads as:
1. Now the LORD said unto Abram: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee.
2) And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing.
3) And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'
These are blessing for Abram, who became Abraham. Both of these blessings require us to NOT question or argue or bargin with GOD for our own desires.
In Genesis 12, To leave one's family and all that you have known to go somewhere you don't know and to do so without argument requires a great trust. So too, when Abraham is told by GOD to “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 have an advantage on this last test of trust, in that Abraham knows that Issac was a gift from GOD and GOD has kept all of HIS promises to watch over, protect and bless him(Abraham).
Proof Text:
Genesis 17:19 And God said: 'Nay, but Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
Genesis 21:12 “...for in Isaac shall seed be called to thee.”
Bottom-line: In the first place Abram did as G-D told him, in the last test Abraham did as G-D told him, both without extra words. I too seek to Trust the G-D of our fathers as Abraham did. You maybe asking why would you want to do that? My short answer is that, when Abraham questioned G-D, we got slapped. When Moses did not TRUST G-D enough to give credit before the children of Israel, he did not go in to the Promised Land. G-D Says Trust ME, I will protect you. So I will trust HIM.
Shalom
Saturday, October 30, 2010
the sermon of all sermons
er kumpt = he comes
this is a wake up call for all AMERICANS!
Subject: Fwd: the sermon of all sermons
This (Jewish) New Year's sermon was forwarded to me by a friend. It is long and troubling, but it is definitely worth reading to the end. It is not inflammatory... it is truthful. It is not "politically incorrect" ...it is truthful. It is not apologetic ... it is truthful.
It is time to speak truthfully !
________________________________________
Written and delivered as a sermon by Atlanta Rabbi Schlomo Lewis, this is the most cogent look at the world's plight, and that of the Jews
EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Many years ago a Chasid used to travel from shtetl to shtetl selling holy books. On one occasion he came to a wealthy land owner and asked if he would like to purchase a book of Torah teachings. The banker agreed and not only purchased the book, but paid for it with a hundred ruble note. He then began to chat with the Chassid and offered him a cigar, taking one also for himself. The Chassid noticed that the banker proceeded to rip a page from the holy book he had just bought and holding it to the open flame on the stove, used the page to light his cigar. The Chassid said not a word but simply drew out from his pocket the 100 ruble note he had just received from the banker, held it over the stove as well and used it to light his cigar.
This simple, little tale reflects a profound divergence of values. Our sympathy clearly and instinctively is not with the banker but with the pious Chassid. None of us would come to the defense of the banker. None of us would claim moral supremacy for the banker. None of us would justify his boorish deed. As the sages of the Talmud would say – “P'shita – It is so obvious.” Sadly though our planet is immersed in perversity where morality is not so manifest – where the book burner is a hero and the pious one, a villain.
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” “Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.
I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.
Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?
Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew. We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea, China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.
“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade.
Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for a Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.
That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber.
“EHR KUMT.”
this is a wake up call for all AMERICANS!
Subject: Fwd: the sermon of all sermons
This (Jewish) New Year's sermon was forwarded to me by a friend. It is long and troubling, but it is definitely worth reading to the end. It is not inflammatory... it is truthful. It is not "politically incorrect" ...it is truthful. It is not apologetic ... it is truthful.
It is time to speak truthfully !
________________________________________
Written and delivered as a sermon by Atlanta Rabbi Schlomo Lewis, this is the most cogent look at the world's plight, and that of the Jews
EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Many years ago a Chasid used to travel from shtetl to shtetl selling holy books. On one occasion he came to a wealthy land owner and asked if he would like to purchase a book of Torah teachings. The banker agreed and not only purchased the book, but paid for it with a hundred ruble note. He then began to chat with the Chassid and offered him a cigar, taking one also for himself. The Chassid noticed that the banker proceeded to rip a page from the holy book he had just bought and holding it to the open flame on the stove, used the page to light his cigar. The Chassid said not a word but simply drew out from his pocket the 100 ruble note he had just received from the banker, held it over the stove as well and used it to light his cigar.
This simple, little tale reflects a profound divergence of values. Our sympathy clearly and instinctively is not with the banker but with the pious Chassid. None of us would come to the defense of the banker. None of us would claim moral supremacy for the banker. None of us would justify his boorish deed. As the sages of the Talmud would say – “P'shita – It is so obvious.” Sadly though our planet is immersed in perversity where morality is not so manifest – where the book burner is a hero and the pious one, a villain.
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” “Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.
I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.
Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?
Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew. We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea, China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.
“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade.
Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for a Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.
That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber.
“EHR KUMT.”
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
What have you done with your soul?
This seems like a off the wall question, but have you thought about it? What did your father and mother teach you about morals?
Manners? Your mother probably told you something like: “Don't to talk with your mouth full, you will choke!” or “Don't talk with your mouth full it is impolite!” or “Nobody wants to see your food!”. My dad told us “Stand up straight”, “Give a firm hand shake and look them straight in the eye when you are talking to someone”, “If you give your word, make sure that you do what you have promised.” --for every word you say, you should be ready to standby. These are simple examples of values you may have been given. I know that I have heard them before.
The point is that we have a set of values by which we live our life. Some of these values are given by our parents, the people we grow up with, the schools we go to, any religious up bringing we receive and by what we tell ourselves about right and wrong.. The most important is what we tell ourselves. Everybody else is influence, but when we are old enough to decide right from wrong, we are responsible for what we do to our soul. No one can damage my soul except me, likewise you are the only one who can damage your soul. G-D is the only one that can forgive you and clean your soul. Please don't get made that I brought G-D into this. HE is after all where you get your soul from. It is HIS rules and laws we are to live by.
By the way, if this bothers you, maybe you will tell me “why, it bothers you?” Most of the people on this world identify themselves by a faith that is based on the “Writings of Moses”, First Five Books of the Bible or Tanach, the Torah in the Arc, and even the foundation of Islam is found in the Writings of Moses. So I continue to seek an answer to this question: “Why is it so important for Mankind to RUN AWAY from G-D, the Creator the of the Heavens and the Earth?”, What is so hard to do, in the Laws written in those Five Books? I don't understand this!
Ok, back to the subject at hand, --Only you can damage your soul, only you can get forgiveness for your soul. You can find this in the Five Books of Moses. You damage your soul when you chose other than G-D. For example, We are commanded to Keep the Sabbath(Seventh Day) as a Holy Day, a day of rest. This, G_D started and sanctified in Genesis chapter one. When we do, any manner of work, on HIS day we chose against G-D. It is the same if we do something we consider fun and healthy, like going to the gym, because we make someone else work for our enjoyment. You can read this for yourself, my paraphrase is: You shall do not work on the Sabbath, You nor your son, your daughter, your male or female slave, the stranger in your midst, nor your ass, your ox. It is a day of rest.
G-D seems very serious about this Sabbath rest. It is HIS Law, and I find that I like the rest I get and it makes the week more bearable. And even if I don't always enjoy it, it is HIS LAW, so I will try my hardest to do what is right. But when I mess up and I make a mistake, I can turn to G-D and apologize sincerely with the intent of not doing this again, and know that I will be forgiven. A Clean Soul is Mine, until I make a mistake, when I must seek forgiveness again. If your body dies with a sin on your soul, it appears that your soul also DIES. Fortunately, it is not that hard to keep the Laws written in those Five Books of Moses. And G-D is ready to take you back when You Repent to HIM.
This works really well as long as your body is alive, You can Repent and seek forgiveness. Last point, Face the place HE Placed HIS NAME, this is Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel. G-D promised that HE would hear prayers placed towards that place.
So, what have you done to your soul?
Shalom, Shalom
Yaakov
Manners? Your mother probably told you something like: “Don't to talk with your mouth full, you will choke!” or “Don't talk with your mouth full it is impolite!” or “Nobody wants to see your food!”. My dad told us “Stand up straight”, “Give a firm hand shake and look them straight in the eye when you are talking to someone”, “If you give your word, make sure that you do what you have promised.” --for every word you say, you should be ready to standby. These are simple examples of values you may have been given. I know that I have heard them before.
The point is that we have a set of values by which we live our life. Some of these values are given by our parents, the people we grow up with, the schools we go to, any religious up bringing we receive and by what we tell ourselves about right and wrong.. The most important is what we tell ourselves. Everybody else is influence, but when we are old enough to decide right from wrong, we are responsible for what we do to our soul. No one can damage my soul except me, likewise you are the only one who can damage your soul. G-D is the only one that can forgive you and clean your soul. Please don't get made that I brought G-D into this. HE is after all where you get your soul from. It is HIS rules and laws we are to live by.
By the way, if this bothers you, maybe you will tell me “why, it bothers you?” Most of the people on this world identify themselves by a faith that is based on the “Writings of Moses”, First Five Books of the Bible or Tanach, the Torah in the Arc, and even the foundation of Islam is found in the Writings of Moses. So I continue to seek an answer to this question: “Why is it so important for Mankind to RUN AWAY from G-D, the Creator the of the Heavens and the Earth?”, What is so hard to do, in the Laws written in those Five Books? I don't understand this!
Ok, back to the subject at hand, --Only you can damage your soul, only you can get forgiveness for your soul. You can find this in the Five Books of Moses. You damage your soul when you chose other than G-D. For example, We are commanded to Keep the Sabbath(Seventh Day) as a Holy Day, a day of rest. This, G_D started and sanctified in Genesis chapter one. When we do, any manner of work, on HIS day we chose against G-D. It is the same if we do something we consider fun and healthy, like going to the gym, because we make someone else work for our enjoyment. You can read this for yourself, my paraphrase is: You shall do not work on the Sabbath, You nor your son, your daughter, your male or female slave, the stranger in your midst, nor your ass, your ox. It is a day of rest.
G-D seems very serious about this Sabbath rest. It is HIS Law, and I find that I like the rest I get and it makes the week more bearable. And even if I don't always enjoy it, it is HIS LAW, so I will try my hardest to do what is right. But when I mess up and I make a mistake, I can turn to G-D and apologize sincerely with the intent of not doing this again, and know that I will be forgiven. A Clean Soul is Mine, until I make a mistake, when I must seek forgiveness again. If your body dies with a sin on your soul, it appears that your soul also DIES. Fortunately, it is not that hard to keep the Laws written in those Five Books of Moses. And G-D is ready to take you back when You Repent to HIM.
This works really well as long as your body is alive, You can Repent and seek forgiveness. Last point, Face the place HE Placed HIS NAME, this is Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel. G-D promised that HE would hear prayers placed towards that place.
So, what have you done to your soul?
Shalom, Shalom
Yaakov
Monday, September 20, 2010
My Path to Judahism
This is a sample of what is in the PDF file.
It is my hope that my story will have relevance for you and your choices.
*****************************
On November 29, 1973, we were headed to the Indian Ocean, as a result of a Sheik in Oman declaring that the oceans would run red with American blood if America came to the Gulf of Oman. The USS Oriskany, CVA-34 was preparing to transit the straits of Singapore. Today was payday, and I was feeling very good.
We would be going south of the equator on this trip, Flight Ops4 were almost over and it was only 1:00 P.M. local time, an early day. As a Blue Shirt, I went to walk chalks (5), meaning to take the chalk from the Fly 1 Blue Shirt and walk the aircraft toward the Fly 3 area (aft). I thought, “the sooner this aircraft goes to Fly 3 the sooner I am off duty.” But this blue shirt was high on drugs, and had a mean attitude. He declared that he would walk the chalk all the way to Fly 3. I was then free to go, off early, but when I stopped walking with him, something had my left foot! I looked down and saw that the aircraft wheel was starting to roll over my foot. Then I realized that he had been walking in front of the wheel and by the
fuselage. Many things went through my head when I realize what is happening.
“Don’t pull on the foot. You cannot get out. Don’t shout or the plane will stop on you, just wait.” I started to talk to G-D, and waited. When the plane left my foot, I shouted, and the aircraft stopped just past my foot. My foot was flattened, and the steel from the toes was sticking out of the sides. The F-8 Fighter Jet weighs 32,000 pounds at launch weight, fueled and armed. This one was a defensive alert fighter which is ready to launch in 15 minutes. I could see where the aircraft appeared to have slid up my foot, almost to the shin. They came with a stretcher to haul me down to sick bay, six decks below. This has already been a long story, so I will tell the end now. There was no operation, and the Doctor had no idea what to do. The steel toe of the boot was flattened and the soft tissue was mashed, but the bones were all right except for some bone fragments that have floated in my foot ever since. The foot has healed, as evidenced by my being able to walk on my own two
feet.
Praise G-D.
It is my hope that my story will have relevance for you and your choices.
*****************************
On November 29, 1973, we were headed to the Indian Ocean, as a result of a Sheik in Oman declaring that the oceans would run red with American blood if America came to the Gulf of Oman. The USS Oriskany, CVA-34 was preparing to transit the straits of Singapore. Today was payday, and I was feeling very good.
We would be going south of the equator on this trip, Flight Ops4 were almost over and it was only 1:00 P.M. local time, an early day. As a Blue Shirt, I went to walk chalks (5), meaning to take the chalk from the Fly 1 Blue Shirt and walk the aircraft toward the Fly 3 area (aft). I thought, “the sooner this aircraft goes to Fly 3 the sooner I am off duty.” But this blue shirt was high on drugs, and had a mean attitude. He declared that he would walk the chalk all the way to Fly 3. I was then free to go, off early, but when I stopped walking with him, something had my left foot! I looked down and saw that the aircraft wheel was starting to roll over my foot. Then I realized that he had been walking in front of the wheel and by the
fuselage. Many things went through my head when I realize what is happening.
“Don’t pull on the foot. You cannot get out. Don’t shout or the plane will stop on you, just wait.” I started to talk to G-D, and waited. When the plane left my foot, I shouted, and the aircraft stopped just past my foot. My foot was flattened, and the steel from the toes was sticking out of the sides. The F-8 Fighter Jet weighs 32,000 pounds at launch weight, fueled and armed. This one was a defensive alert fighter which is ready to launch in 15 minutes. I could see where the aircraft appeared to have slid up my foot, almost to the shin. They came with a stretcher to haul me down to sick bay, six decks below. This has already been a long story, so I will tell the end now. There was no operation, and the Doctor had no idea what to do. The steel toe of the boot was flattened and the soft tissue was mashed, but the bones were all right except for some bone fragments that have floated in my foot ever since. The foot has healed, as evidenced by my being able to walk on my own two
feet.
Praise G-D.
Monday, September 13, 2010
So, What is the deal, I'm a Jew? Now What?
Blessings and Curses, but for whom and how can I get this? Verse 10 says how!
Deuteronomy Chapter 30 דְּבָרִיםד
ח וְאַתָּה תָשׁוּב, וְשָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקוֹל יְהוָה; וְעָשִׂיתָ, אֶת-כָּל-מִצְוֹתָיו, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ, הַיּוֹם. 8 And thou shalt return and hearken to the voice of the LORD, and do all His commandments which I command thee this day.
ט וְהוֹתִירְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכֹל מַעֲשֵׂה יָדֶךָ, בִּפְרִי בִטְנְךָ וּבִפְרִי בְהֶמְתְּךָ וּבִפְרִי אַדְמָתְךָ--לְטֹבָה: כִּי יָשׁוּב יְהוָה, לָשׂוּשׂ עָלֶיךָ לְטוֹב, כַּאֲשֶׁר-שָׂשׂ, עַל-אֲבֹתֶיךָ. 9 And the LORD thy God will make thee over-abundant in all the work of thy hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good; for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as He rejoiced over thy fathers;
י כִּי תִשְׁמַע, בְּקוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, לִשְׁמֹר מִצְוֹתָיו וְחֻקֹּתָיו, הַכְּתוּבָה בְּסֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה הַזֶּה: כִּי תָשׁוּב אֶל-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכָל-לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל-נַפְשֶׁךָ. {ס} 10 if thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law; if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. {S}
Deuteronomy Chapter 30 דְּבָרִיםד
ח וְאַתָּה תָשׁוּב, וְשָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקוֹל יְהוָה; וְעָשִׂיתָ, אֶת-כָּל-מִצְוֹתָיו, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ, הַיּוֹם. 8 And thou shalt return and hearken to the voice of the LORD, and do all His commandments which I command thee this day.
ט וְהוֹתִירְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכֹל מַעֲשֵׂה יָדֶךָ, בִּפְרִי בִטְנְךָ וּבִפְרִי בְהֶמְתְּךָ וּבִפְרִי אַדְמָתְךָ--לְטֹבָה: כִּי יָשׁוּב יְהוָה, לָשׂוּשׂ עָלֶיךָ לְטוֹב, כַּאֲשֶׁר-שָׂשׂ, עַל-אֲבֹתֶיךָ. 9 And the LORD thy God will make thee over-abundant in all the work of thy hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good; for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as He rejoiced over thy fathers;
י כִּי תִשְׁמַע, בְּקוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, לִשְׁמֹר מִצְוֹתָיו וְחֻקֹּתָיו, הַכְּתוּבָה בְּסֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה הַזֶּה: כִּי תָשׁוּב אֶל-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכָל-לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל-נַפְשֶׁךָ. {ס} 10 if thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law; if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. {S}
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Why Genesis 18 and 19 are needed:
Preface: I know that G-D caused Moses to write these Five Books of Law, History and Teaching. –
{The quotes used here are According to the Masoretic Text and the JPS 1917 Edition}
Numbers 12:
6) The Lord said 'Hear now My words: if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD do make Myself known unto him in a vision, I do speak with him in a dream.
7) My servant Moses is not so; he is trusted in all My house;
8) with him do I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD doth he behold; wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?
I also know that there is no wasted space in the Five Books, So every story, every event presents something for US to learn about G-D, our role, reward and punishment, so anything which seems ordinary means I must look closer and strive to understand that which is placed before me, or Us.
Condition of Abraham prior to this story: Abraham and Lot are no longer together, their wealth being so great with livestock, servants, household members and possessions that these two men went different directions. Lot went to the plains where Sodom and Gomorrah are located. Lot chose this after seeing how fertile the ground was and the water there. Abraham, for his part, continued on with G-D watching over him and his house. Abraham has been so blessed, that when the Kings of the Plains were defeated and spoils(including Lot and his possessions) were taken by other kingdoms, Abram took his men and some allies and recovered all of the spoils.
This is presented as a reminder, lest we forget that Abraham and his possessions have grown with G-D's blessing.
Genesis 18
We learn that Abraham receives three visitors, who tell him and Sarah that will bear a son this time next year.(abbreviated) Then we are presented with G-D's thoughts regarding Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, and what is about to happen. Then we are told the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Questions:
Are these Representatives of Hashem? Yes – the evidence is a follows: 1) Abraham is sitting in the door to his tent, looks up, and they are standing over against him. This is not a city or a town, it is a relatively open area with a few people. So unless Abraham was asleep, he would have seen them coming from afar. This did not happen. 2) Abraham acted as though he knew this was G-D. How so? At his advanced age of 99 years, I do not believe that Abraham would have bowed down to the earth for every stranger who passed by, neither would he have given the best of what he had to three unknown strangers --he would have nothing remaining to give Ishmael within the year had this not been a rare event.
Are they really just passing by? This also seems strange and so this is not a casual passing. G-D did not need to pass by Abraham to get to Lot in Sodom. {Note that when Lot saw THEM in the city gate, he fell on his face before THEM – supporting the previous answer.) One of them also checks and asks “where is Sarah?” G-D already Knows, but in asking this question we learn that Sarah is not visible and we are meant to know this as well. When Sarah laughs to herself, Abraham does not perceive this event, so Sarah is meant to know that G-D knows her inner thoughts and that therefore that the statement about the child is true.
What happens if Sodom and Gomorrah are omitted from Abraham’s story?
The best answer to this is only found when we seek all of the issues covered in the Story presented in Genesis 18 and 19. Here is a list of what I find in these two chapters, but mostly in Chapter 18 at this time:
1) Abraham sees three strangers suddenly, while he is sitting in the doorway of his tent, during the heat of the day.
2) Abraham assumes they are representatives of G-D, and entreats them to stay with him.
3) He offers a wash of their feet and a piece of bread to refresh themselves before they depart.
4) Abraham then tells Sarah to make bread with the best mix.
5) Abraham runs to select the best lamb, to server as Their food.
6) Abraham then oversees the service of these Guests.
7) Abraham has done all of this in great haste, so that They will not leave before he has provided the banquet, which They did not agree to but did eat.
8) At some point One of Them asked about Sarah –This action draws attention to Sarah and gets Sarah's attention, so she will listen.
9) It is then announced that this time next year she will have a son.
10) Sarah laughs to herself which is noticed by the Visitors, and questioned. This is not noticed by Abraham, and is therefore for Sarah and US to notice. Note --previously when Abraham was told that he was to have a son, he also laughed. We should note, as Sarah should have noted, that these Visitors Know what she says in her heart, therefore they are Special Messengers sent on missions for G-D.
11) The Visitors of G-D had many tasks to do, which explains why They waited. When this portion of the tasks are finished, They depart with Abraham traveling a distance on their journey with them.
12) On this little journey G-D said(Gen. 18:17)... 'Shall I hide from Abraham that which I am doing; 18) seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19) For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.' For whom is this text, if not for those seeking to know G-D? We are presented in this short text with: Abraham's special Status, because of the prophesy in Genesis 12 and that being a deal between G-D and Abraham. The deal here is stated as a known outcome, fulfilled during time of man. The inclusion of this story elevates Abraham in the Torah, restates the job of teaching his children and household after him about G-D, so Abraham is to learn to keep the way of G-D, thereby fulfilling the original Covenant.
13) Now the LORD declares the issue regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, and that HE will seek out the truth of the matter. Note --Two or more witnesses are required so that the Truth may be known, hence there are Three Strangers here.
14) Abraham now attempts to negotiate with G_D over how many righteous G-D will destroy along with the bad. This section and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah demonstrate how far G-D will go to save the righteous when the evil is too great. At no point did G-D change HIS MIND, only Abraham was negotiating. Note --that before destruction could take place, four people must be made safe [Lot, His wife and two daughters, Lot was unable to get any other family to come away – Genesis 19:14 And Lot went out, and spoke unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said: 'Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy the city.' But he seemed unto his sons-in-law as one that jested.] other examples of G-D's mercy in similar fashion: Noah and the Ark, and the Prophet Jeremiah in (Jeremiah 5:1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth; and I will pardon her(Jerusalem).) Here for only one,(Just man who seeks the truth,) G-D will forgive them all, G-D is truly merciful.
Did G-D change HIS mind? No, but we learn about HIS mercy during Abraham's efforts in negotiation, which demonstrate that we are to seek to be merciful as well as to seek mercy. Although we are not able to be as merciful as the G-D of Abraham, we are meant to try.
Leaving the Abraham portion out of the Sodom and Gomorrah story, what happens to the story? All that has been presented above, and it is a lot, but there is even more: Abraham is elevated in this chapter, for the treatment of strangers, defense of the righteous. This portion also adds to the story of Abraham significantly in volume, context and interactions with G-D.
If G-D did not cause this to be written(as some believe), Who benefits from any of this story? This is about G-D and our potential relationship with our CREATOR.
{The quotes used here are According to the Masoretic Text and the JPS 1917 Edition}
Numbers 12:
6) The Lord said 'Hear now My words: if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD do make Myself known unto him in a vision, I do speak with him in a dream.
7) My servant Moses is not so; he is trusted in all My house;
8) with him do I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD doth he behold; wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?
I also know that there is no wasted space in the Five Books, So every story, every event presents something for US to learn about G-D, our role, reward and punishment, so anything which seems ordinary means I must look closer and strive to understand that which is placed before me, or Us.
Condition of Abraham prior to this story: Abraham and Lot are no longer together, their wealth being so great with livestock, servants, household members and possessions that these two men went different directions. Lot went to the plains where Sodom and Gomorrah are located. Lot chose this after seeing how fertile the ground was and the water there. Abraham, for his part, continued on with G-D watching over him and his house. Abraham has been so blessed, that when the Kings of the Plains were defeated and spoils(including Lot and his possessions) were taken by other kingdoms, Abram took his men and some allies and recovered all of the spoils.
This is presented as a reminder, lest we forget that Abraham and his possessions have grown with G-D's blessing.
Genesis 18
We learn that Abraham receives three visitors, who tell him and Sarah that will bear a son this time next year.(abbreviated) Then we are presented with G-D's thoughts regarding Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, and what is about to happen. Then we are told the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Questions:
Are these Representatives of Hashem? Yes – the evidence is a follows: 1) Abraham is sitting in the door to his tent, looks up, and they are standing over against him. This is not a city or a town, it is a relatively open area with a few people. So unless Abraham was asleep, he would have seen them coming from afar. This did not happen. 2) Abraham acted as though he knew this was G-D. How so? At his advanced age of 99 years, I do not believe that Abraham would have bowed down to the earth for every stranger who passed by, neither would he have given the best of what he had to three unknown strangers --he would have nothing remaining to give Ishmael within the year had this not been a rare event.
Are they really just passing by? This also seems strange and so this is not a casual passing. G-D did not need to pass by Abraham to get to Lot in Sodom. {Note that when Lot saw THEM in the city gate, he fell on his face before THEM – supporting the previous answer.) One of them also checks and asks “where is Sarah?” G-D already Knows, but in asking this question we learn that Sarah is not visible and we are meant to know this as well. When Sarah laughs to herself, Abraham does not perceive this event, so Sarah is meant to know that G-D knows her inner thoughts and that therefore that the statement about the child is true.
What happens if Sodom and Gomorrah are omitted from Abraham’s story?
The best answer to this is only found when we seek all of the issues covered in the Story presented in Genesis 18 and 19. Here is a list of what I find in these two chapters, but mostly in Chapter 18 at this time:
1) Abraham sees three strangers suddenly, while he is sitting in the doorway of his tent, during the heat of the day.
2) Abraham assumes they are representatives of G-D, and entreats them to stay with him.
3) He offers a wash of their feet and a piece of bread to refresh themselves before they depart.
4) Abraham then tells Sarah to make bread with the best mix.
5) Abraham runs to select the best lamb, to server as Their food.
6) Abraham then oversees the service of these Guests.
7) Abraham has done all of this in great haste, so that They will not leave before he has provided the banquet, which They did not agree to but did eat.
8) At some point One of Them asked about Sarah –This action draws attention to Sarah and gets Sarah's attention, so she will listen.
9) It is then announced that this time next year she will have a son.
10) Sarah laughs to herself which is noticed by the Visitors, and questioned. This is not noticed by Abraham, and is therefore for Sarah and US to notice. Note --previously when Abraham was told that he was to have a son, he also laughed. We should note, as Sarah should have noted, that these Visitors Know what she says in her heart, therefore they are Special Messengers sent on missions for G-D.
11) The Visitors of G-D had many tasks to do, which explains why They waited. When this portion of the tasks are finished, They depart with Abraham traveling a distance on their journey with them.
12) On this little journey G-D said(Gen. 18:17)... 'Shall I hide from Abraham that which I am doing; 18) seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19) For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.' For whom is this text, if not for those seeking to know G-D? We are presented in this short text with: Abraham's special Status, because of the prophesy in Genesis 12 and that being a deal between G-D and Abraham. The deal here is stated as a known outcome, fulfilled during time of man. The inclusion of this story elevates Abraham in the Torah, restates the job of teaching his children and household after him about G-D, so Abraham is to learn to keep the way of G-D, thereby fulfilling the original Covenant.
13) Now the LORD declares the issue regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, and that HE will seek out the truth of the matter. Note --Two or more witnesses are required so that the Truth may be known, hence there are Three Strangers here.
14) Abraham now attempts to negotiate with G_D over how many righteous G-D will destroy along with the bad. This section and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah demonstrate how far G-D will go to save the righteous when the evil is too great. At no point did G-D change HIS MIND, only Abraham was negotiating. Note --that before destruction could take place, four people must be made safe [Lot, His wife and two daughters, Lot was unable to get any other family to come away – Genesis 19:14 And Lot went out, and spoke unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said: 'Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy the city.' But he seemed unto his sons-in-law as one that jested.] other examples of G-D's mercy in similar fashion: Noah and the Ark, and the Prophet Jeremiah in (Jeremiah 5:1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth; and I will pardon her(Jerusalem).) Here for only one,(Just man who seeks the truth,) G-D will forgive them all, G-D is truly merciful.
Did G-D change HIS mind? No, but we learn about HIS mercy during Abraham's efforts in negotiation, which demonstrate that we are to seek to be merciful as well as to seek mercy. Although we are not able to be as merciful as the G-D of Abraham, we are meant to try.
Leaving the Abraham portion out of the Sodom and Gomorrah story, what happens to the story? All that has been presented above, and it is a lot, but there is even more: Abraham is elevated in this chapter, for the treatment of strangers, defense of the righteous. This portion also adds to the story of Abraham significantly in volume, context and interactions with G-D.
If G-D did not cause this to be written(as some believe), Who benefits from any of this story? This is about G-D and our potential relationship with our CREATOR.
Friday, August 27, 2010
More about Free Will
Yesterday I showed Dictionary and Encyclopedia entries to display common though regarding Free Will.
It is possible to decide to take the stance of “what I don't know won't hurt me”, which is a bad idea.
First if you know G-D and you deny G-D, the Tanach(Old Testament) gives many examples of G-D's anger to those which have done this thing. If you know the Law you must do the Law or you have gone against G-D, again.
So what happens if you do not know any of this? Ah that is what I forgot to input last time!
Isaiah 27:11 “….it is a people of no understanding; therefore He that made them will not have compassion upon them, and He that formed them will not be gracious unto them.” This is only a partial verse, and I know that it is custom to seek the background on a subject and then identify the context of the matter. Here I will tell you that I have been concerned about the number of people that seem to have no knowledge of what they do. Or, the evil they create.
I have talked to G-D about the conditions of the world and that I think so many people are not evil they are brain washed and so have no understanding. What happens to them? I then found this verse Isaiah 27:11. It seems that if they have no faith, no knowledge and reject G-D, they will never miss what they have denied or rejected.
This is also very sad for me, so WAKE UP, SMELL THE COFFEE AND SEEK TO UNDERSTAND THE G-D of Abraham, G-D of Issac and the G-D of Jacob before it is too late.
Shabbot Shalom
Yaakov
It is possible to decide to take the stance of “what I don't know won't hurt me”, which is a bad idea.
First if you know G-D and you deny G-D, the Tanach(Old Testament) gives many examples of G-D's anger to those which have done this thing. If you know the Law you must do the Law or you have gone against G-D, again.
So what happens if you do not know any of this? Ah that is what I forgot to input last time!
Isaiah 27:11 “….it is a people of no understanding; therefore He that made them will not have compassion upon them, and He that formed them will not be gracious unto them.” This is only a partial verse, and I know that it is custom to seek the background on a subject and then identify the context of the matter. Here I will tell you that I have been concerned about the number of people that seem to have no knowledge of what they do. Or, the evil they create.
I have talked to G-D about the conditions of the world and that I think so many people are not evil they are brain washed and so have no understanding. What happens to them? I then found this verse Isaiah 27:11. It seems that if they have no faith, no knowledge and reject G-D, they will never miss what they have denied or rejected.
This is also very sad for me, so WAKE UP, SMELL THE COFFEE AND SEEK TO UNDERSTAND THE G-D of Abraham, G-D of Issac and the G-D of Jacob before it is too late.
Shabbot Shalom
Yaakov
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Free Will --What is it?
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 20100824 says: “Free will is the purported ability of agents to make choices free from constraints. Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has been the metaphysical constraint of determinism. The opposing positions within that debate are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus that free will exists; and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus that free will does not exist.”
Answers.com 2010824 says: Dictionary FREE WILL
“n.
The ability or discretion to choose; free choice: chose to remain behind of my own free will.
The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.”
This is only a couple of the 7,000,000 hits that Google found in 0.12 seconds. It seems obvious to me that this is a really big question. Some of the areas this question is found included: Philosophy, Astrology, Religion, Anti-Religion, Moral responsibility, ….
20100824 --Encyclopedia Britanica eb.org presents Free Will as: “in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints. Free will is denied by those who espouse any of various forms of determinism. Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion, and on the universal supposition of moral responsibility for personal actions that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive. In theology, the existence of free will must be reconciled with God’s omniscience and goodness (in allowing people to choose badly) and with divine grace, which allegedly is necessary for any meritorious act. A prominent feature of existentialism is the concept of a radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), for example, spoke of the individual “condemned to be free” even though his situation may be wholly determined.
It has also been heard “I can do what I want and you cannot stop me!”.
That concludes presentation of the foundation for this paper.
I have heard these types of explanations for free will most of my life. I even thought that they were reasonably true, except now I am know otherwise.
Simply put, “We are to chose Right from Wrong every time there is a choice to be made, and we are accountable for every choice, to G-D.” That is our Free Will, our only free will. The power to chose to be for G-D or Against G-D.
Explanations or examples:
G-D evicts Adam from the Garden of Eden with “'Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee ….”(Gene. 3:17) – Adam chose to obey Eve when G-D spoke to Adam, giving him HIS rule, which Adam turned away from G-D in his actions. BAD CHOICE.
Moses is not allowed to go to the promised land, 'Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.' (Numb. 20:10) –The translation of the word as BELIEVED also means Trust, of “Because you did not TRUST ME , to Sanctify ME....” Moses has at this point had G-D defend him many times without Moses even needing to ask G-D. This time Moses gets angry with the Israelites, he is not given the opportunity to complain, not even to G-D. The end result is that he(Moses) complains that he and Aaron must get water from the rock. If Moses had remember that G-D would protect him and everything would be o.k., he –Moses would have been fine, instead to insulting G-D. This one is not as directly stated as a “choose G-D or be against G-D” scenario. Do not worry, there are many more examples.
Leviticus chapter 26 is the match to Deuteronomy chapters 28-30. These tell the end times because they tell us when all of the curses will stop and how this will happen.
Levi. 26:14 “But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments;”
26:15 “and if ye shall reject My statutes, and if your soul abhor Mine ordinances, so that ye will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant;” Here begins the the cursing and checking and if we still walk against G-D more curses and more checking until we LEARN THE G-D IS G-D.
Duet. 28:15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. ….
Duet: 30:15 “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, 16 in that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances; then thou shalt live and multiply, and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest in to possess it.”
Duet. 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; 20 to love the LORD thy God, to hearken to His voice, and to cleave unto Him; for that is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
1 Kings Chapter 11:4 For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not whole with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.
Chapter 11:9 And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice, 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he kept not that which the LORD commanded.
[i]King Solomon, credited with being the wisest of any human, let himself be swayed away from the G-D of his Fathers. He chose his own comfort and pleasure in his old age, therefore turned away from G-D[/i].
These stories and so many more fill the Tanach(Writings of Moses and the Prophets) and then there are the examples of repenting and then again turning away from G-D by some, while others live all of their life doing that which is right in G-D's eyes. Bottom line Isaiah 56:2 “Happy is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that holdeth fast by it: that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.” [i]We are to Love G-D, Know the Law, Keep the Sabbath, Keep our hands from doing evil[/i].
QUESTIONS??
Shalom, Shalom
Yaakov
Answers.com 2010824 says: Dictionary FREE WILL
“n.
The ability or discretion to choose; free choice: chose to remain behind of my own free will.
The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.”
This is only a couple of the 7,000,000 hits that Google found in 0.12 seconds. It seems obvious to me that this is a really big question. Some of the areas this question is found included: Philosophy, Astrology, Religion, Anti-Religion, Moral responsibility, ….
20100824 --Encyclopedia Britanica eb.org presents Free Will as: “in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints. Free will is denied by those who espouse any of various forms of determinism. Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion, and on the universal supposition of moral responsibility for personal actions that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive. In theology, the existence of free will must be reconciled with God’s omniscience and goodness (in allowing people to choose badly) and with divine grace, which allegedly is necessary for any meritorious act. A prominent feature of existentialism is the concept of a radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), for example, spoke of the individual “condemned to be free” even though his situation may be wholly determined.
It has also been heard “I can do what I want and you cannot stop me!”.
That concludes presentation of the foundation for this paper.
I have heard these types of explanations for free will most of my life. I even thought that they were reasonably true, except now I am know otherwise.
Simply put, “We are to chose Right from Wrong every time there is a choice to be made, and we are accountable for every choice, to G-D.” That is our Free Will, our only free will. The power to chose to be for G-D or Against G-D.
Explanations or examples:
G-D evicts Adam from the Garden of Eden with “'Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee ….”(Gene. 3:17) – Adam chose to obey Eve when G-D spoke to Adam, giving him HIS rule, which Adam turned away from G-D in his actions. BAD CHOICE.
Moses is not allowed to go to the promised land, 'Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.' (Numb. 20:10) –The translation of the word as BELIEVED also means Trust, of “Because you did not TRUST ME , to Sanctify ME....” Moses has at this point had G-D defend him many times without Moses even needing to ask G-D. This time Moses gets angry with the Israelites, he is not given the opportunity to complain, not even to G-D. The end result is that he(Moses) complains that he and Aaron must get water from the rock. If Moses had remember that G-D would protect him and everything would be o.k., he –Moses would have been fine, instead to insulting G-D. This one is not as directly stated as a “choose G-D or be against G-D” scenario. Do not worry, there are many more examples.
Leviticus chapter 26 is the match to Deuteronomy chapters 28-30. These tell the end times because they tell us when all of the curses will stop and how this will happen.
Levi. 26:14 “But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments;”
26:15 “and if ye shall reject My statutes, and if your soul abhor Mine ordinances, so that ye will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant;” Here begins the the cursing and checking and if we still walk against G-D more curses and more checking until we LEARN THE G-D IS G-D.
Duet. 28:15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. ….
Duet: 30:15 “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, 16 in that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances; then thou shalt live and multiply, and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest in to possess it.”
Duet. 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; 20 to love the LORD thy God, to hearken to His voice, and to cleave unto Him; for that is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
1 Kings Chapter 11:4 For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not whole with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.
Chapter 11:9 And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice, 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he kept not that which the LORD commanded.
[i]King Solomon, credited with being the wisest of any human, let himself be swayed away from the G-D of his Fathers. He chose his own comfort and pleasure in his old age, therefore turned away from G-D[/i].
These stories and so many more fill the Tanach(Writings of Moses and the Prophets) and then there are the examples of repenting and then again turning away from G-D by some, while others live all of their life doing that which is right in G-D's eyes. Bottom line Isaiah 56:2 “Happy is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that holdeth fast by it: that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.” [i]We are to Love G-D, Know the Law, Keep the Sabbath, Keep our hands from doing evil[/i].
QUESTIONS??
Shalom, Shalom
Yaakov
Monday, August 16, 2010
Why should we follow the Five Books of Moses --The Law?
We are told in the Five Books of Moses, to Love G-D, Know the Law and Keep our hands from doing evil. It seems that these Laws and Rules are generally not followed, unless we happen to understand and agree that they are acceptable to us.
The World is a harsh place to live in and the people are worse. This leads us to seek what is beneficial to our own welfare first and foremost. Later if we get around to it, we will work on these other things like: Love G-d, Know the Law(HIS LAW), make sure that we do them(if we think about it). It seems that way when I look at the world and the people around me. We are also quick to find fault and justifications not to listen or accept that which is written in the First Five Books of the Bible or Tanach. Surprising as I believe that most have NOT read them, or even attempted to really understand what they read. However, we are ready to agree and accept those that give a opinion of "I'm OK, You're OK, Everybody else needs to change" type of speech. But, are we OK? Is the World we live in getting Better or Worse?
So back to the original question: Why should we follow the Five Books of Moses --The Law?
What is your opinion, question or comment?
Shalom
The World is a harsh place to live in and the people are worse. This leads us to seek what is beneficial to our own welfare first and foremost. Later if we get around to it, we will work on these other things like: Love G-d, Know the Law(HIS LAW), make sure that we do them(if we think about it). It seems that way when I look at the world and the people around me. We are also quick to find fault and justifications not to listen or accept that which is written in the First Five Books of the Bible or Tanach. Surprising as I believe that most have NOT read them, or even attempted to really understand what they read. However, we are ready to agree and accept those that give a opinion of "I'm OK, You're OK, Everybody else needs to change" type of speech. But, are we OK? Is the World we live in getting Better or Worse?
So back to the original question: Why should we follow the Five Books of Moses --The Law?
What is your opinion, question or comment?
Shalom
Monday, June 14, 2010
Re: H''EM's Question to Miriam and Aaron
Let me paraphrase question presented in Numbers 12:8 "why were you not afraid to speak against MY servant Moses?"Some starting points which I know to be true:
-- Questions by H''EM are not random nor chance events in the Writings of Moses.
-- H''em already knows all of the answers
-- Therefore the question is being presented to the read/student and for US.
The implication of this question requires the contexts of: when, where, who is present, condition of the environment and what happens next, these are the talking points today. I am not attempting to answer the question. However, I am going to use examples from the Writings of Moses to demonstrate what happens to those that act in manner that justifies need for the Question along with those that follow them.
My synopsis of the story: Miriam is talking to Aaron, with Moses nearby. She in belittling Moses, her brother and his wife which is Midianite/Cushite woman. With no resistance from her audience(Aaron) she places herself and Aaron at the same level as Moses for authority and service to H''em. Aaron says nothing but lets Miriam do the talking. H''EM shows anger a this event and orders the three in to the Tent of Meeting, a cloud covers the doors to prevent escape and intrusion -- like a Management Reprimand. The event it is written in the Book, so that we may also understand what they are being told. H''EM tells of Moses special relationship with H''EM, (which is also demonstrated by H''EM in this very act of Defense of Moses)then asked the question just prior to leaving the Tent of Meeting, whereupon Miriam receives punishment. Aaron begs Moses for help, Moses pleads with God on Miriam's behalf.... This was Chapter 12.(A rebellion against Moses by Miriam with Aaron listening to gossip.)
In Chapter 13 & 14, Ten spies return from spying in the Promised Land and the people turn away from H''EM, Moses and the Land --Moses pleads to save the lives of the Rebellers(the children of Israel) and Israel is made to wander the desert 40 years, instead of being utterly destroyed .(This is a rebellion against H''em and Moses)
Chapter 15 One Law for Israel and the Stranger that attaches themselves to Israel.
Chapter 16 Another rebellion, this by Korah and his followers. These also want to lift themselves above Moses and Aaron. These are even going to take over the worship in the House of H''EM, O.K., the Mobile Temple of H''em. H''EM declares that HE will destroy all of them. Again Moses prays to not harm those which are not directly involved. H''EM is merciful, and still must 14,700 more die the day after the Korach matter.(H''em acts for HIS Honor and to defend Moses, without Moses request for asistance.)
Patterns: Rebelling against Moses is the same as rebelling against H''EM.
H''M takes an active role to defend HIS servant against all comers
While Moses prayed for salvation of the wrong doers, in the end, all that were saved continued to rebel and died for they would not learn.
How will up answer the question "why were you not afraid to speak against MY servant Moses?" Will H''EM even ask it of you? Of was this the time of the question?
Shalom,
Yaakov
H''EM is The One Most High, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the G-D of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.
-- Questions by H''EM are not random nor chance events in the Writings of Moses.
-- H''em already knows all of the answers
-- Therefore the question is being presented to the read/student and for US.
The implication of this question requires the contexts of: when, where, who is present, condition of the environment and what happens next, these are the talking points today. I am not attempting to answer the question. However, I am going to use examples from the Writings of Moses to demonstrate what happens to those that act in manner that justifies need for the Question along with those that follow them.
My synopsis of the story: Miriam is talking to Aaron, with Moses nearby. She in belittling Moses, her brother and his wife which is Midianite/Cushite woman. With no resistance from her audience(Aaron) she places herself and Aaron at the same level as Moses for authority and service to H''em. Aaron says nothing but lets Miriam do the talking. H''EM shows anger a this event and orders the three in to the Tent of Meeting, a cloud covers the doors to prevent escape and intrusion -- like a Management Reprimand. The event it is written in the Book, so that we may also understand what they are being told. H''EM tells of Moses special relationship with H''EM, (which is also demonstrated by H''EM in this very act of Defense of Moses)then asked the question just prior to leaving the Tent of Meeting, whereupon Miriam receives punishment. Aaron begs Moses for help, Moses pleads with God on Miriam's behalf.... This was Chapter 12.(A rebellion against Moses by Miriam with Aaron listening to gossip.)
In Chapter 13 & 14, Ten spies return from spying in the Promised Land and the people turn away from H''EM, Moses and the Land --Moses pleads to save the lives of the Rebellers(the children of Israel) and Israel is made to wander the desert 40 years, instead of being utterly destroyed .(This is a rebellion against H''em and Moses)
Chapter 15 One Law for Israel and the Stranger that attaches themselves to Israel.
Chapter 16 Another rebellion, this by Korah and his followers. These also want to lift themselves above Moses and Aaron. These are even going to take over the worship in the House of H''EM, O.K., the Mobile Temple of H''em. H''EM declares that HE will destroy all of them. Again Moses prays to not harm those which are not directly involved. H''EM is merciful, and still must 14,700 more die the day after the Korach matter.(H''em acts for HIS Honor and to defend Moses, without Moses request for asistance.)
Patterns: Rebelling against Moses is the same as rebelling against H''EM.
H''M takes an active role to defend HIS servant against all comers
While Moses prayed for salvation of the wrong doers, in the end, all that were saved continued to rebel and died for they would not learn.
How will up answer the question "why were you not afraid to speak against MY servant Moses?" Will H''EM even ask it of you? Of was this the time of the question?
Shalom,
Yaakov
H''EM is The One Most High, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the G-D of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Seeking understanding regarding a question by H'shem.
Tue Jun 08, 2010 12:37 am
There are some basic thoughts on the best ways to learn from the Bible(x-tian) or Tanach - Jewish.
--First, read a section at a time. i.e. If you are reading about the flood, read all of the story of Noah, then you will have the contexts and a better chance of understanding what is written.
--Second, if you have read a section before, and something this time seems "out of place" try to understand that something until you KNOW the truth of it. Don't give up, you can do it.
--Third, when you have finished the the Bible, do it again. I like to find a new way to read the Bbile. I mean one time I read it as a good story --after all many people I have heard call it just that. I have read it looking a GOD as Father and seeking clues to being a great papa himself.
The question that I have today is: Numbers 12:8 "...How then did you not shrink from speaking against My Servant Moses?"(JPS version 2000)
That question is truly misplaced in general terms. **This section I call the Sedition of Miriam, as only she is punished, only she spoke before GOD took up the defense of Moses, most of what GOD says is hidden from the Israelites in camp, but not from us.
First, it is GOD's Question.
Second, I know that GOD knew all of this before HE said "Let there be LIght!" ....So I must assume that it is not Moses, Aaron of Miriam to answer GOD.
My conclusions so far. Everything is done for a reason, as to me there seems to be no frivolous of unnecessary discussions or instructions. So I know that the conversation was not for those in the desert but for us to gain wisdom from.
Do you have an insight regarding this question? Please post your thoughts here.
Shalom,
Yaakov
There are some basic thoughts on the best ways to learn from the Bible(x-tian) or Tanach - Jewish.
--First, read a section at a time. i.e. If you are reading about the flood, read all of the story of Noah, then you will have the contexts and a better chance of understanding what is written.
--Second, if you have read a section before, and something this time seems "out of place" try to understand that something until you KNOW the truth of it. Don't give up, you can do it.
--Third, when you have finished the the Bible, do it again. I like to find a new way to read the Bbile. I mean one time I read it as a good story --after all many people I have heard call it just that. I have read it looking a GOD as Father and seeking clues to being a great papa himself.
The question that I have today is: Numbers 12:8 "...How then did you not shrink from speaking against My Servant Moses?"(JPS version 2000)
That question is truly misplaced in general terms. **This section I call the Sedition of Miriam, as only she is punished, only she spoke before GOD took up the defense of Moses, most of what GOD says is hidden from the Israelites in camp, but not from us.
First, it is GOD's Question.
Second, I know that GOD knew all of this before HE said "Let there be LIght!" ....So I must assume that it is not Moses, Aaron of Miriam to answer GOD.
My conclusions so far. Everything is done for a reason, as to me there seems to be no frivolous of unnecessary discussions or instructions. So I know that the conversation was not for those in the desert but for us to gain wisdom from.
Do you have an insight regarding this question? Please post your thoughts here.
Shalom,
Yaakov
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
God's Complaint
There are many ways of looking at the Tanach(Old Testament or Jewish Bible or G-D's Instructions), some of them I have performed. I have taken a look in this different fashions, because I have heard many reasons that this body of knowledge should not be accepted. For example: "It was just written by man.", "It is just a document about the Jews trying to lift themselves above everybody else.", "It is the Word of GOD, recorded at HIS command and written by Moses". An one that I did when I knew I was going to have a child, "What kind of example is GOD as the Father of all?"
I now purpose to seek in this body of work: "What exactly is GOD'S complaint and what can I to do about it?"
Any thoughts on this?
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
I now purpose to seek in this body of work: "What exactly is GOD'S complaint and what can I to do about it?"
Any thoughts on this?
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
Thursday, April 1, 2010
"So many arrows and so much trouble in my life!"
What to say, what to say?
If you know the GOD of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, --it is a start. Adam started with more than you or I, because he KNEW GOD and talked with him in the Garden, where he lost his biggest test. So many choose to read the test as "whether or not to eat of the Tree", I seriously, find that the test was not to turn away from GOD. This can only be seen when you are seeking GOD and HIS WORD, because of the subtle way in which it is written: "because you listened to your wife(Eve) and did eat of the tree when I told you, . . . .the ground is cursed . . . ." Every translation I have seen puts this text in almost the exactly the same words and yet we see everything but GOD'S complaint.
The point is every soul on that has ever lived or will live is tested by being: rich, poor, lame, athletic, man, woman, of any race, of any color and circumstance, ailing or vigorous in mind, body, or spirit . . . .
Hold on to GOD with all of your Heart, Soul and Being. Keep HIS Sabbath and keep your hands from doing evil. This is the minimum required by GOD, but never turn away or ignore HIM, what ever HE brings to test you. (For he created the good and the evil.)
I know that this is not a good pep-talk, but it sounds to me that you should be reminded of, what we must do for our own soul is at risk and a prise much greater than possession of the whole earth. If this were not true, I can find no reason for GOD, who knows all and created all for HIS purposes to then create evil on the earth or even to create mankind who has the inclination to do evil at all times. HE would have made US all good without a choice. There for HE is seeking those that hold on and do not turn away completely, but if we slip and fall, if we sin, and then being still alive in the flesh, shall turn back to HIM and seek HIM and HIS forgiveness, it is promised to be given and we will be Righteous again.
All of this is for HIS Honor and HIS Glory, Amen.
I hope that this helps you, it is some of what I hang on to myself.
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
If you know the GOD of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, --it is a start. Adam started with more than you or I, because he KNEW GOD and talked with him in the Garden, where he lost his biggest test. So many choose to read the test as "whether or not to eat of the Tree", I seriously, find that the test was not to turn away from GOD. This can only be seen when you are seeking GOD and HIS WORD, because of the subtle way in which it is written: "because you listened to your wife(Eve) and did eat of the tree when I told you, . . . .the ground is cursed . . . ." Every translation I have seen puts this text in almost the exactly the same words and yet we see everything but GOD'S complaint.
The point is every soul on that has ever lived or will live is tested by being: rich, poor, lame, athletic, man, woman, of any race, of any color and circumstance, ailing or vigorous in mind, body, or spirit . . . .
Hold on to GOD with all of your Heart, Soul and Being. Keep HIS Sabbath and keep your hands from doing evil. This is the minimum required by GOD, but never turn away or ignore HIM, what ever HE brings to test you. (For he created the good and the evil.)
I know that this is not a good pep-talk, but it sounds to me that you should be reminded of, what we must do for our own soul is at risk and a prise much greater than possession of the whole earth. If this were not true, I can find no reason for GOD, who knows all and created all for HIS purposes to then create evil on the earth or even to create mankind who has the inclination to do evil at all times. HE would have made US all good without a choice. There for HE is seeking those that hold on and do not turn away completely, but if we slip and fall, if we sin, and then being still alive in the flesh, shall turn back to HIM and seek HIM and HIS forgiveness, it is promised to be given and we will be Righteous again.
All of this is for HIS Honor and HIS Glory, Amen.
I hope that this helps you, it is some of what I hang on to myself.
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
I am not to keep the Sabbath and I don't know where to turn for truth
Trust in the Word of GOD! In Genesis 2:2 "On the seventh day GOD finished that work which HE had been doing, and HE ceased on the seventh day from all the work that HE had done. (3) And GOD BLessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it GOD ceased from all of the creation that HE had done." IT is GOD'S Holy Day, --not man's. Keep the Sabbath(Seventh Day) for it is HIS Day, even the ground gets a Sabbath.
Payment for sins, Repent to the GOD Most HIgh and seek HIS Mercy for HIS Name Sake and His Glory, --I believe that we are in the End of Days, so there are special rules for these times. First, when you pray face HIS Holy Mountain (Zion) in Jerusalem, HE Promises to hear prayers sent to that place. Second, trouble will be for the Righteous as well as for the sinner at that time, But if you seek GOD with all of your Heart, your Soul and Being, and Keep HIS LAW and Keep your Hands from doing evil, GOD will take care of you. For it is your SOUL that counts not the body. The difference between a A righteous person and a sinner is ONE SIN or ONE TRUE REPENTANCE to GOD. (Ezekiel 18 --Your answers are here.) Keep in mind that if you repent, you need to strive with all that you are to not do it again. I know of no perfect people in the Bible(Tanach), only sinners and those who repented and tried harder to walk before GOD. --Don't Stop Trying! You don't need lots of books, Study the Writings of Moses with an open heart, and you will go a long way. If that is not enough, Read the Tanach also. Seek the Truth, Always. In Jeremiah, GOD chose him in the womb to be GOD'S Prophet and told him of all the suffering that Israel was going to receive. Jeremiah argued with GOD, not wanting to do this thing. GOD told him to go into the streets of Jerusalem and find a man that executes justice and seeks the truth, if he could find ONE such, GOD would forgive ALL of Israel, --for the righteousness of ONE. In all Jerusalem not one was found. So a King wanted a horse, GOD made a deal for ONE Righteous man, both have been denied success.( The first part, about the King is not in the Tanach but is in Shakespeare's is writings.)
Before the Chosen One Comes to do his job in Jerusalem, all Israel's Children will turn back to GOD and declare will all their Heart and Soul, that GOD is GOD, and follow HIS ways truly. This has never been, even Moses complained about this in Deuteronomy 29, we have the worse pain the world has ever seen coming, in order to make us turn to GOD and Acknowledge HIM as OUR GOD and Follow HIM. JUST TRY HARDER, you can do it, --I know you can if you want to. Take to GOD about it, with you whole heart.
For additional confirmation of what I have written to you prior to this,
you must read Isaiah 56! Even if you are a stranger, you are acceptable to GOD.
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
Payment for sins, Repent to the GOD Most HIgh and seek HIS Mercy for HIS Name Sake and His Glory, --I believe that we are in the End of Days, so there are special rules for these times. First, when you pray face HIS Holy Mountain (Zion) in Jerusalem, HE Promises to hear prayers sent to that place. Second, trouble will be for the Righteous as well as for the sinner at that time, But if you seek GOD with all of your Heart, your Soul and Being, and Keep HIS LAW and Keep your Hands from doing evil, GOD will take care of you. For it is your SOUL that counts not the body. The difference between a A righteous person and a sinner is ONE SIN or ONE TRUE REPENTANCE to GOD. (Ezekiel 18 --Your answers are here.) Keep in mind that if you repent, you need to strive with all that you are to not do it again. I know of no perfect people in the Bible(Tanach), only sinners and those who repented and tried harder to walk before GOD. --Don't Stop Trying! You don't need lots of books, Study the Writings of Moses with an open heart, and you will go a long way. If that is not enough, Read the Tanach also. Seek the Truth, Always. In Jeremiah, GOD chose him in the womb to be GOD'S Prophet and told him of all the suffering that Israel was going to receive. Jeremiah argued with GOD, not wanting to do this thing. GOD told him to go into the streets of Jerusalem and find a man that executes justice and seeks the truth, if he could find ONE such, GOD would forgive ALL of Israel, --for the righteousness of ONE. In all Jerusalem not one was found. So a King wanted a horse, GOD made a deal for ONE Righteous man, both have been denied success.( The first part, about the King is not in the Tanach but is in Shakespeare's is writings.)
Before the Chosen One Comes to do his job in Jerusalem, all Israel's Children will turn back to GOD and declare will all their Heart and Soul, that GOD is GOD, and follow HIS ways truly. This has never been, even Moses complained about this in Deuteronomy 29, we have the worse pain the world has ever seen coming, in order to make us turn to GOD and Acknowledge HIM as OUR GOD and Follow HIM. JUST TRY HARDER, you can do it, --I know you can if you want to. Take to GOD about it, with you whole heart.
For additional confirmation of what I have written to you prior to this,
you must read Isaiah 56! Even if you are a stranger, you are acceptable to GOD.
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
Monday, March 29, 2010
Things I became aware of while preparing for Passover 2010.
Things I became aware of while preparing for Passover 2010.
Yom Paesach
Yaakov
- Behind the command to love the LORD GOD with all of my heart, all of my soul and all of my being, is the to keep and perform Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
- The first example of becoming a Israelite(conversion) is in Exodus in the Commandments(Laws) regarding keeping the Passover Feast.
- The Law:
- (Genesis 17:10) This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. (17:11) And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.(King James Version) ;; (Genesis 17:10) Such shall be the covenant between ME and you and your offspring to follow which you shall keep: every male among you shall be circumcised.(17:11) You shall circumcise the flesh of the foreskin, and that shall be of the covenant between ME and YOU.(Jewish Publication Society 1999)
- (Exodus 12:43) And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: (12:44) But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.(KJV);;(Exodus 12:43)The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: This is the LAW of the Passover offering: No Foreigner shall eat of it.(44) But any slave a man has bought may eat of it once he has been circumcised.(Jewish Publication Society 1999).
- (Exodus 12:48) If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the Passover to the LORD, all his males must be circumcised, then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall be a citizen of the country. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it. (KJV);;(Exodus 12:48) If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the Passover to the LORD, all his males must be circumcised; then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall be as a citizen of the country. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.(JPS 1999)
- (Exodus 12:49) There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.(KJV);;(Exodus 12:49) There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.(JPS 1999)
- (Genesis 17:10) This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. (17:11) And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.(King James Version) ;; (Genesis 17:10) Such shall be the covenant between ME and you and your offspring to follow which you shall keep: every male among you shall be circumcised.(17:11) You shall circumcise the flesh of the foreskin, and that shall be of the covenant between ME and YOU.(Jewish Publication Society 1999)
- I read this as a conversion process going back to Abraham and the making of the Covenant.
- The Law:
- In the Commandments given prior to the Exodus, regarding Passover, is the Bind upon the Hand, and a symbol between the eyes.
- This understanding takes more explanation, and a couple of questions.
- The Law:
- (Exodus 13:9) And this shall server you as assign upon your hand and reminder on your forehead(between your eyes), in order that the Teaching of the LORD may be in your mouth --: that with a mighty hand the LORD freed you from Egypt. (KJV);;(Exodus 13:9) And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead –in order that the TEACHING of the LORD may be in your mouth –that with a mighty had the LORD freed you from Egypt. (JPS 1999)
- (Exodus 13:16) And it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes: for by strength of hand the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt.(KJV);;(Exodus 13:16) And it shall be as a sign upon your hand and as a symbol on your forehead that with a mighty hand the LORD freed us from Egypt.(JPS 1999)
- (Deuteronomy 6:8) And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.(KJV);;(Deuteronomy 6:8)Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on you forehead(between your eyes-JPS note d)(JPS 1999)
- (Exodus 13:9) And this shall server you as assign upon your hand and reminder on your forehead(between your eyes), in order that the Teaching of the LORD may be in your mouth --: that with a mighty hand the LORD freed you from Egypt. (KJV);;(Exodus 13:9) And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead –in order that the TEACHING of the LORD may be in your mouth –that with a mighty had the LORD freed you from Egypt. (JPS 1999)
- What I have come to know about this is: Between your eyes is to KNOW or REMEMBER, Up on your hand is that this must control what you do, perform, act upon. (Isaiah 56) 2:Happy is the man who does this, the man who holds fast to it:Who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it. And stays his hand from doing evil.(JPS 1999) I will use the KJV now because I have it in digital form and I must Observe Passover very soon. (Isaiah 56:6) Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; (7)Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.(8)(Isaiah 56:8) The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him. (KJV)
- The Law:
- This understanding takes more explanation, and a couple of questions.
Yom Paesach
Yaakov
Law, Proof Text or Prophecy, middle of discussion.
It is a good to praise GOD, I think it is questionable to use them(Psalms) as Law, Proof Text or Prophecy. I do find that Prophets speaking in the NAME of the LORD are to be referenced, as long as what was said comes true or does not conflict with the Written TORAH(GOD'S LAW). A lot is made of this in the Tanach.
re: What do you mean " A lot is made of this in the Tanach."(referring to prophecy)
Prophets speak in the Name of GOD, like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah,... God calls the prophets, prophetesses.
Speaking of Abraham as a prophet(Genesis 20:7) Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.
Aaron a prophet(Exodus 7:1) And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.
Miriam (Exodus 15:20) And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.
According to Moses, (Numbers 11:29) And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!
So how does being a prophet work?
(Numbers 12:6)(GOD Speaking) And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
(Numbers 12:7) My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
(Numbers 12:8) With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? ***This is the sedition of Miriam and Aaron in Numbers 12.***
How are we to know who is a prophet?
(Deuteronomy 13:1) If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,(Deuteronomy 13:2) And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
(Deuteronomy 13:3) Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
(Deuteronomy 13:4) Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
(Deuteronomy 13:5) And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
***This chapter is our responsibility to know GOD'S Law and to be lead astray, to go against GOD'S Law for anyone else, It Is Our Life(Soul) that is at stake.***
(Deuteronomy 18:18) I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.(Deuteronomy 18:19) And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.(Deuteronomy 18:20) But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.(Deuteronomy 18:21) And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? (Deuteronomy 18:22) When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
(Deuteronomy 34:10) And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
***This is just in the Writings of Moses(Torah), and prophecy is a very serious thing. The First Rule is Someone speaks against or contrary to GOD'S WORD, do not listen(Deuteronomy 13:3) you are being tested. I personally am afraid of leading by word or deed any person from GOD'S Path, and so it is the MAIN reason for seeking the TRUTH in Writings of Moses(Torah) and the Prophets which GOD Appoints. Others can speak prophecy or what seam to be prophecy, but maybe they are only the words quoted from Moses. King David tells King Solomon to hold to the writings of Moses; King Solomon at the dedication of The TEMPLE ask GOD to PLACE HIS NAME THERE, and that the Lord should always hear prayers towards this place, no matter where they are in the world, if they will face this place.
(1 Kings 8:29) That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place.
(1 Kings 8:30) And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou hearest, forgive.
....(1 Kings 8:33) When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house:
....(1 Kings 8:48) And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house... ***It is a very long prayer, and refers to many prophecies found in the Writings of Moses(Torah). King Solomon did listen some to what King David instructed him. King Solomon did know that to ask GOD to listen to this place, for even the Curses or Prophecies about being scattered amongst the nations and that GOD would not listen when they cry out in prayer because of their deeds, he knew to get this concession, that GOD would always listen to the prayers offered toward this place.****(1 Kings 9:3) And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. ...
(1 Kings 9:6) But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them:
(1 Kings 9:7) Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: ***Concession given, but GOD says that we will not hold to HIS LAW and so the need for the place GOD Placed HIS NAME is of GREAT Importance to those who would speak to GOD in these days.
Who is a prophet? Anyone that GOD chooses, and they will speak in HIS NAME and at HIS COMMAND.
Am I understandable? Am I answering the question in a way you can hear? What else should I explain?
Shalom, Shalom,
Yaakov
re: What do you mean " A lot is made of this in the Tanach."(referring to prophecy)
Prophets speak in the Name of GOD, like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah,... God calls the prophets, prophetesses.
Speaking of Abraham as a prophet(Genesis 20:7) Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.
Aaron a prophet(Exodus 7:1) And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.
Miriam (Exodus 15:20) And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.
According to Moses, (Numbers 11:29) And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!
So how does being a prophet work?
(Numbers 12:6)(GOD Speaking) And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
(Numbers 12:7) My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
(Numbers 12:8) With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? ***This is the sedition of Miriam and Aaron in Numbers 12.***
How are we to know who is a prophet?
(Deuteronomy 13:1) If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,(Deuteronomy 13:2) And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
(Deuteronomy 13:3) Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
(Deuteronomy 13:4) Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
(Deuteronomy 13:5) And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
***This chapter is our responsibility to know GOD'S Law and to be lead astray, to go against GOD'S Law for anyone else, It Is Our Life(Soul) that is at stake.***
(Deuteronomy 18:18) I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.(Deuteronomy 18:19) And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.(Deuteronomy 18:20) But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.(Deuteronomy 18:21) And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? (Deuteronomy 18:22) When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
(Deuteronomy 34:10) And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
***This is just in the Writings of Moses(Torah), and prophecy is a very serious thing. The First Rule is Someone speaks against or contrary to GOD'S WORD, do not listen(Deuteronomy 13:3) you are being tested. I personally am afraid of leading by word or deed any person from GOD'S Path, and so it is the MAIN reason for seeking the TRUTH in Writings of Moses(Torah) and the Prophets which GOD Appoints. Others can speak prophecy or what seam to be prophecy, but maybe they are only the words quoted from Moses. King David tells King Solomon to hold to the writings of Moses; King Solomon at the dedication of The TEMPLE ask GOD to PLACE HIS NAME THERE, and that the Lord should always hear prayers towards this place, no matter where they are in the world, if they will face this place.
(1 Kings 8:29) That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place.
(1 Kings 8:30) And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou hearest, forgive.
....(1 Kings 8:33) When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house:
....(1 Kings 8:48) And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house... ***It is a very long prayer, and refers to many prophecies found in the Writings of Moses(Torah). King Solomon did listen some to what King David instructed him. King Solomon did know that to ask GOD to listen to this place, for even the Curses or Prophecies about being scattered amongst the nations and that GOD would not listen when they cry out in prayer because of their deeds, he knew to get this concession, that GOD would always listen to the prayers offered toward this place.****(1 Kings 9:3) And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. ...
(1 Kings 9:6) But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them:
(1 Kings 9:7) Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: ***Concession given, but GOD says that we will not hold to HIS LAW and so the need for the place GOD Placed HIS NAME is of GREAT Importance to those who would speak to GOD in these days.
Who is a prophet? Anyone that GOD chooses, and they will speak in HIS NAME and at HIS COMMAND.
Am I understandable? Am I answering the question in a way you can hear? What else should I explain?
Shalom, Shalom,
Yaakov
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Why is this night different from all other nights?
This night is to honor the Living G-D of Israel, for what He did for me in the land of Egypt when He freed me. We are told these three times to tell what the LORD has done for us.
Exodus 10:1) Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and that of your sons’ sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them –in order that you may know that I am the LORD."
Exodus 12:26) "And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ 27) You shall say ‘It is the Passover Sacrifice to the LORD, because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses’."
Exodus 13:8: And you shall explain to your son on that day, "it is because of what the LORD did for me when I went free from Egypt".
Thus the story begins: When Abram was very old in years, he told the LORD that because he had no Heir yet, his man server would then be my heir. The LORD knowing that Abram needed reassurances that he would have a heir, told Abram to create the common ritual for sealing a covenant(split animals). This Abram did and then he waited, at about evening time a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a great dread descended upon him. Genesis 15:13) And He said to Abram, " Know well that your children shall live in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth." Abram went to sleep and the LORD completed the ritual HIMSELF.
Abram’s, now Abraham, grandson Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt when Joseph was 17 years of age. A few years later G-D uses Joseph to save All this people and his father’s family.
As reported by Joseph to his brothers that sold him into slavery. Genesis 50:18) Now it is a 413 years later. That which the LORD told Abram has happened, and it now time for the family to be redeemed. And so, a man named Moses sees a burning bush while tending sheep for his father-in-law, Jethro High Priest of Midian. From this bush G-D tells Moses that he is to go and be the mouth piece of the LORD to Pharaoh. Each step of the events that transpire are explained by G-D to Moses, and the responses of Pharaoh.
Moses to Pharaoh upon returning to and Egypt is struck by 9 plagues, there are Blood, Frogs, Lice, Flies, Death of Livestock, Boils, Hail that burns as Fire, Locust, Darkness. Still Pharaoh had a hard heart and would not let the people go.
One last plague is sent to Egypt. This one requires preparation by the people before the event. ADONAI sets this as the First month of months, a command, on the First Day of the Month and continues to give the process for handling the night of PassOver(Pesach). The Hebrews were required to eat a whole lamb in one night for each house hold and to mark the Door Post and Mantels with Blood from the Lamb, in this way the Angel that was coming would not touch my house, or PASS OVER it. When G-D gave the instructions to Moses and therefore to the Hebrews, He said that we are to keep this feast and tell this story throughout our generations.
After the tenth plague, the Death of the First Born, Pharaoh order the Hebrews to leave NOW! There were very, very many Hebrews to get underway. Because of this plague G-D has declared that the first born on the Hebrews, children and animals belong to G-D. It is stated in Exodus 12:40) "The length of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years, at the end of the Four Hundred Thirtieth year, to the very day, all the ranks of the Lord departed from the land of Egypt.
On the First day of the Year, Moses instructs the Hebrews, in the preparation for the Feast of Passover. Also, the people are instructed to borrow from their Egyptian neighbors, silver, gold and other valuables. The LORD sets the Egyptian hearts to give their valuables to the Hebrews. Thus when Pharaoh ejects the Hebrews from Egypt, the LORD has fulfilled the statement to Abram. ((Genesis 15:13) And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; (Genesis 15:14) And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.)
This is how we were freed from Egypt, but the story continues.
Shalom for now,
Yaakov
Exodus 10:1) Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and that of your sons’ sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them –in order that you may know that I am the LORD."
Exodus 12:26) "And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ 27) You shall say ‘It is the Passover Sacrifice to the LORD, because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses’."
Exodus 13:8: And you shall explain to your son on that day, "it is because of what the LORD did for me when I went free from Egypt".
Thus the story begins: When Abram was very old in years, he told the LORD that because he had no Heir yet, his man server would then be my heir. The LORD knowing that Abram needed reassurances that he would have a heir, told Abram to create the common ritual for sealing a covenant(split animals). This Abram did and then he waited, at about evening time a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a great dread descended upon him. Genesis 15:13) And He said to Abram, " Know well that your children shall live in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth." Abram went to sleep and the LORD completed the ritual HIMSELF.
Abram’s, now Abraham, grandson Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt when Joseph was 17 years of age. A few years later G-D uses Joseph to save All this people and his father’s family.
As reported by Joseph to his brothers that sold him into slavery. Genesis 50:18) Now it is a 413 years later. That which the LORD told Abram has happened, and it now time for the family to be redeemed. And so, a man named Moses sees a burning bush while tending sheep for his father-in-law, Jethro High Priest of Midian. From this bush G-D tells Moses that he is to go and be the mouth piece of the LORD to Pharaoh. Each step of the events that transpire are explained by G-D to Moses, and the responses of Pharaoh.
Moses to Pharaoh upon returning to and Egypt is struck by 9 plagues, there are Blood, Frogs, Lice, Flies, Death of Livestock, Boils, Hail that burns as Fire, Locust, Darkness. Still Pharaoh had a hard heart and would not let the people go.
One last plague is sent to Egypt. This one requires preparation by the people before the event. ADONAI sets this as the First month of months, a command, on the First Day of the Month and continues to give the process for handling the night of PassOver(Pesach). The Hebrews were required to eat a whole lamb in one night for each house hold and to mark the Door Post and Mantels with Blood from the Lamb, in this way the Angel that was coming would not touch my house, or PASS OVER it. When G-D gave the instructions to Moses and therefore to the Hebrews, He said that we are to keep this feast and tell this story throughout our generations.
After the tenth plague, the Death of the First Born, Pharaoh order the Hebrews to leave NOW! There were very, very many Hebrews to get underway. Because of this plague G-D has declared that the first born on the Hebrews, children and animals belong to G-D. It is stated in Exodus 12:40) "The length of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years, at the end of the Four Hundred Thirtieth year, to the very day, all the ranks of the Lord departed from the land of Egypt.
On the First day of the Year, Moses instructs the Hebrews, in the preparation for the Feast of Passover. Also, the people are instructed to borrow from their Egyptian neighbors, silver, gold and other valuables. The LORD sets the Egyptian hearts to give their valuables to the Hebrews. Thus when Pharaoh ejects the Hebrews from Egypt, the LORD has fulfilled the statement to Abram. ((Genesis 15:13) And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; (Genesis 15:14) And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.)
This is how we were freed from Egypt, but the story continues.
Shalom for now,
Yaakov
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
What must we do for PassOver?
Thank you for the question regarding celebration of Passover, how to celebrate.
Before I start, let me explain that this post is longer than normal, even for me. This is due to the subject and its importance, had GOD(source) and the Hand of Moses(writing) not commanded multiple times, there would not be so many verses involved here. Notice that this particular event is placed near the top of GOD's List of things we need to learn and do. In no other place have I seen so many commands, along with giving reasons for observing; definintions who can observe, and exactly what is to be done. --On with the article -Yaakov
1) Passover starts at evening(end of day) on the 14th day of Abib(this is the HEBREW name for the first month, the current Jewish calendar uses the Babylonian name of NISSAN).
Exodus 12:27 ". . . .It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, for that He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.' And the people bowed the head and worshipped."
2) We are to retell the story of our redemption from Egypt by the LORD our GOD.
3) We are not to work on the First day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which begins with the Passover Feast.
4) We are to answer "What do you mean by this rite?" when asked by children, "It is the Passover to the LORD, because HE passed over the houses of Israelites in the land of Egypt when HE smote the Egyptians. but saved our houses."(JPS 1999, Exodus 12:26)
5) The Deuteronomy 16 passage presents that a sacrifice is required, but only at the place GOD Places HIS NAME. This was the House that King Solomon built for the LORD, there GOD placed HIS NAME. Performed in 1Kings 9:3 this is where the account of the event starts. A great read for many reasons. It should also be noted that Anyone may create an alter of stone, by hand with no tools, as a place to sacrifice unto GOD, as was accomplished by all prior to the Temple. If you are going to do that, you must make sure that you find the laws of GOD regarding the handling of all components of a sacrifice, if you wish GOD to give it respect (Cain vs Able story.) This personal alter is not a LAW or requirement in the Torah, but a personal thing between you and GOD when there is no HOUSE OF GOD. Be aware that the Passover Sacrifice unto GOD, is not to be had by an uncircumcised, none is to remain until morning, no bone is to be broken, take only what you can consume before morning. I believe that you will find commands regarding these in the texts below.
We turn to Torah to discover:
I have copied from a digital copy of the King James, while reading from a JPS 1999 copy of Tanach, there are minor differences between these translations. I have modified this copy of Exodus to be JPS 1999 version(Jewish Publication Society)as I have worked through this question. More question have emerged during my study, and I will address them later. I did comment on some things I noticed during this study. –Yaakov
(Exodus 12:14) This day shall be unto you for a remembrance you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as institution for all time.
(Exodus 12:15) Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses: for whosoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul(person) shall be cut off from Israel.
(Exodus 12:16) You shall celebrate a scared occasion on the first day and a sacred occasion on the seventh day, no work as all shall be done on them; only what every person is to eat, that only may be prepared for you.
(Exodus 12:17) And you shall observe the (Feast of) Unleavened Bread; for on this very day, I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution (ordinance) for all time.
(Exodus 12:18) In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at evening.
(Exodus 12:19) Seven days shall there be No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats that which is leavened, that person(soul) shall be cut off from the community(congregation) of Israel, whether he is a stranger, or a citizen of the country.
(Exodus 12:24) You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and to your descendants.
(Exodus 12:25) And when you enter the land that the LORD will give you, as HE has promised, you shall observe this rite.
(Exodus 12:26) And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’
(Exodus 12:27) you shall say, ‘It is the Passover Sacrifice to the LORD, because HE passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when HE smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses.
(Exodus 12:43) The LORD said unto Moses and Aaron: This is the law of the Passover offering: No foreigner eat thereof:
(Exodus 12:44) But any slave a man has bought may eat of it once, he has been circumcised.
(Exodus 12:45) No bound or hired laborer shall not eat of it.
(Exodus 12:46) It shall be eaten in one house: you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house; nor shall you break a bone of it.
(Exodus 12:47) The whole community(congregation) of Israel shall offer it.
(Exodus 12:48) If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the Passover to the LORD, all his males must be circumcised, then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall be a citizen of the country. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
(Exodus 12:49) There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.
(Exodus 13:3) And Moses said unto the people, “Remember this day, in which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how the LORD freed you from it with a mighty hand: no leavened bread be eaten.
(Exodus 13:4) You go free on this day, in the month Aviv(Abib-there is no difference in the Written Torah between the b and v, Nisan).
(Exodus 13:5) So, when the LORD has brought you into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shalt observe in this month the following practice:
(Exodus 13:6) Seven days you shalt eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day shall be a festival to the LORD.
(Exodus 13:7) Throughout the seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten; no leavened bread be found with you, and no leaven shall be found in all your territory.
(Exodus 13:8) And you shall explain to your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I went free from Egypt.’
(Exodus 13:9) And this shall server you as assign upon your hand and reminder on your forehead(between your eyes), in order that the Teaching of the LORD may be in your mouth --: that with a mighty hand the LORD freed you from Egypt.
(Exodus 13:10) You shall keep this institution as its set time from year to year.
Regarding the Sacrifice of the first born male of every womb.
(Exodus 13:16) And it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes: for by strength of hand the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt.(Why do we not hear about this pair of Laws? Has this too been over looked?)
(Exodus 23:14) Three times you shall hold a festival for ME.
(Exodus 23:15) You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread –eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you –at the set time in the month of Aviv(Abib, Nisan), for in it you went forth from the land of Egypt; and none shall appear before me empty handed;(Bring something to the feast.)
(Exodus 23:17) Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign, the LORD.
Note –Following on the heels of Sacrifice Laws, commanded by GOD, Exodus 23:19 and Exodus 34:26 -- “you shall not boil the kid in it’s mothers milk” ...this seems a ritual performed in the worship of other g’s and not a prescription of eating habits as no other eating is near this law.
(Exodus 34:18) You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread –eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you –at the set time in the month of Aviv(Abib, Nisan), for in the month of Aviv, for in it you went forth from Egypt.
(I will leave these in the KJV)
(Leviticus 23:4) These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
(Leviticus 23:5) In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD'S passover. (Leviticus 23:6) And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
(Leviticus 23:7) In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
(Leviticus 23:8) But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
(Deuteronomy 16:1) Observe the month of Aviv, and offer a Passover Sacrifice to the LORD you GOD: for in the month of Aviv, at night, that the LORD your God freed from Egypt. (Deuteronomy 16:2) You shall slaughter the Passover Sacrifice for the LORD thy God, from the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to establish(place) HIS name. (Deuteronomy 16:3) You shalt not eat anything leavened with it; for seven days thereafter you eat unleavened bread, bread even the bread of affliction; for you came forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that you mayest remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
(Deuteronomy 16:4) And there shall be no leavened bread seen with you in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which you sacrificed the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning.
(Deuteronomy 16:5) You mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth you:
(Deuteronomy 16:6) But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there you shalt sacrifice the Passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Egypt.
(Deuteronomy 16:7) And you shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and you shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents.
(Deuteronomy 16:8) Six days you shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD thy God: you shalt do no work therein.
Discussions are also on: http://www.ask-james.com/TruthintorahBB/
Shalom for now. I will continue to work on this and post it on http://truthintorah.blogspot.com when completed.
Before I start, let me explain that this post is longer than normal, even for me. This is due to the subject and its importance, had GOD(source) and the Hand of Moses(writing) not commanded multiple times, there would not be so many verses involved here. Notice that this particular event is placed near the top of GOD's List of things we need to learn and do. In no other place have I seen so many commands, along with giving reasons for observing; definintions who can observe, and exactly what is to be done. --On with the article -Yaakov
1) Passover starts at evening(end of day) on the 14th day of Abib(this is the HEBREW name for the first month, the current Jewish calendar uses the Babylonian name of NISSAN).
Exodus 12:27 ". . . .It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, for that He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.' And the people bowed the head and worshipped."
2) We are to retell the story of our redemption from Egypt by the LORD our GOD.
3) We are not to work on the First day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which begins with the Passover Feast.
4) We are to answer "What do you mean by this rite?" when asked by children, "It is the Passover to the LORD, because HE passed over the houses of Israelites in the land of Egypt when HE smote the Egyptians. but saved our houses."(JPS 1999, Exodus 12:26)
5) The Deuteronomy 16 passage presents that a sacrifice is required, but only at the place GOD Places HIS NAME. This was the House that King Solomon built for the LORD, there GOD placed HIS NAME. Performed in 1Kings 9:3 this is where the account of the event starts. A great read for many reasons. It should also be noted that Anyone may create an alter of stone, by hand with no tools, as a place to sacrifice unto GOD, as was accomplished by all prior to the Temple. If you are going to do that, you must make sure that you find the laws of GOD regarding the handling of all components of a sacrifice, if you wish GOD to give it respect (Cain vs Able story.) This personal alter is not a LAW or requirement in the Torah, but a personal thing between you and GOD when there is no HOUSE OF GOD. Be aware that the Passover Sacrifice unto GOD, is not to be had by an uncircumcised, none is to remain until morning, no bone is to be broken, take only what you can consume before morning. I believe that you will find commands regarding these in the texts below.
We turn to Torah to discover:
I have copied from a digital copy of the King James, while reading from a JPS 1999 copy of Tanach, there are minor differences between these translations. I have modified this copy of Exodus to be JPS 1999 version(Jewish Publication Society)as I have worked through this question. More question have emerged during my study, and I will address them later. I did comment on some things I noticed during this study. –Yaakov
(Exodus 12:14) This day shall be unto you for a remembrance you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as institution for all time.
(Exodus 12:15) Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses: for whosoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul(person) shall be cut off from Israel.
(Exodus 12:16) You shall celebrate a scared occasion on the first day and a sacred occasion on the seventh day, no work as all shall be done on them; only what every person is to eat, that only may be prepared for you.
(Exodus 12:17) And you shall observe the (Feast of) Unleavened Bread; for on this very day, I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution (ordinance) for all time.
(Exodus 12:18) In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at evening.
(Exodus 12:19) Seven days shall there be No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats that which is leavened, that person(soul) shall be cut off from the community(congregation) of Israel, whether he is a stranger, or a citizen of the country.
(Exodus 12:24) You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and to your descendants.
(Exodus 12:25) And when you enter the land that the LORD will give you, as HE has promised, you shall observe this rite.
(Exodus 12:26) And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’
(Exodus 12:27) you shall say, ‘It is the Passover Sacrifice to the LORD, because HE passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when HE smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses.
(Exodus 12:43) The LORD said unto Moses and Aaron: This is the law of the Passover offering: No foreigner eat thereof:
(Exodus 12:44) But any slave a man has bought may eat of it once, he has been circumcised.
(Exodus 12:45) No bound or hired laborer shall not eat of it.
(Exodus 12:46) It shall be eaten in one house: you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house; nor shall you break a bone of it.
(Exodus 12:47) The whole community(congregation) of Israel shall offer it.
(Exodus 12:48) If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the Passover to the LORD, all his males must be circumcised, then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall be a citizen of the country. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
(Exodus 12:49) There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.
(Exodus 13:3) And Moses said unto the people, “Remember this day, in which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how the LORD freed you from it with a mighty hand: no leavened bread be eaten.
(Exodus 13:4) You go free on this day, in the month Aviv(Abib-there is no difference in the Written Torah between the b and v, Nisan).
(Exodus 13:5) So, when the LORD has brought you into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shalt observe in this month the following practice:
(Exodus 13:6) Seven days you shalt eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day shall be a festival to the LORD.
(Exodus 13:7) Throughout the seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten; no leavened bread be found with you, and no leaven shall be found in all your territory.
(Exodus 13:8) And you shall explain to your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I went free from Egypt.’
(Exodus 13:9) And this shall server you as assign upon your hand and reminder on your forehead(between your eyes), in order that the Teaching of the LORD may be in your mouth --: that with a mighty hand the LORD freed you from Egypt.
(Exodus 13:10) You shall keep this institution as its set time from year to year.
Regarding the Sacrifice of the first born male of every womb.
(Exodus 13:16) And it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes: for by strength of hand the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt.(Why do we not hear about this pair of Laws? Has this too been over looked?)
(Exodus 23:14) Three times you shall hold a festival for ME.
(Exodus 23:15) You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread –eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you –at the set time in the month of Aviv(Abib, Nisan), for in it you went forth from the land of Egypt; and none shall appear before me empty handed;(Bring something to the feast.)
(Exodus 23:17) Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign, the LORD.
Note –Following on the heels of Sacrifice Laws, commanded by GOD, Exodus 23:19 and Exodus 34:26 -- “you shall not boil the kid in it’s mothers milk” ...this seems a ritual performed in the worship of other g’s and not a prescription of eating habits as no other eating is near this law.
(Exodus 34:18) You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread –eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you –at the set time in the month of Aviv(Abib, Nisan), for in the month of Aviv, for in it you went forth from Egypt.
(I will leave these in the KJV)
(Leviticus 23:4) These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
(Leviticus 23:5) In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD'S passover. (Leviticus 23:6) And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
(Leviticus 23:7) In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
(Leviticus 23:8) But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
(Deuteronomy 16:1) Observe the month of Aviv, and offer a Passover Sacrifice to the LORD you GOD: for in the month of Aviv, at night, that the LORD your God freed from Egypt. (Deuteronomy 16:2) You shall slaughter the Passover Sacrifice for the LORD thy God, from the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to establish(place) HIS name. (Deuteronomy 16:3) You shalt not eat anything leavened with it; for seven days thereafter you eat unleavened bread, bread even the bread of affliction; for you came forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that you mayest remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
(Deuteronomy 16:4) And there shall be no leavened bread seen with you in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which you sacrificed the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning.
(Deuteronomy 16:5) You mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth you:
(Deuteronomy 16:6) But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there you shalt sacrifice the Passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Egypt.
(Deuteronomy 16:7) And you shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and you shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents.
(Deuteronomy 16:8) Six days you shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD thy God: you shalt do no work therein.
Discussions are also on: http://www.ask-james.com/TruthintorahBB/
Shalom for now. I will continue to work on this and post it on http://truthintorah.blogspot.com when completed.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Israelite, Hebrew, Jew, whats the difference?
The question of what is the difference between:
Israelite or Israeli --"Children of Jacob or Israel" the Twelve Tribes, all the King David's and King Solomon's Nation.
Hebrew --A Hebrew were Abraham, Issac and Jacob, as well as those that left Egypt in the Exodus by Moses in Exodus 5:3 "the God of the Hebrews ...", then taken to Mount Horeb. Later they are referred to as the Children of Israel, or Israelites. The Old Meaning in Genesis refers to those that came from the other side, of simple the Others. Being separate, and worshiping only One GOD. I have considered my self a Hebrew for more than 20 years (and a Jew in May 2009), as I accept that GOD IS GOD and the Covenants give at Mt. Horeb and Mt. Sinai, as written. Example:
"(Deuteronomy 29:10) You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
(Deuteronomy 29:11)Your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water:
(Deuteronomy 29:12) That you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day:
(Deuteronomy 29:13) That he may establish you to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he hath said unto you and as he hath sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
(Deuteronomy 29:14) Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; But with him that stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:" --Now The Nation of Israel crossing the Jordan with Joshua.
Jew -- A Jew is from the tribe of Judah and a member of the Southern Kingdom, which was created as a result of King Solomon's actions against or by turning away from Our GOD. See 1Kings references below.
(1 Kings 11:11) Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, because this is done by you and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from you, and will give it to thy servant. (1 Kings 11:12) Notwithstanding in your days I will not do it for David your father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of your son. (1 Kings 11:13) Although I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to your son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen.
Later:
(1 Kings 11:31) And he said to Jeroboam, Your take ten pieces: for this says the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to you:
(1 Kings 12:22) But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, (1 Kings 12:23) Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying,..." So it was done.
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
Israelite or Israeli --"Children of Jacob or Israel" the Twelve Tribes, all the King David's and King Solomon's Nation.
Hebrew --A Hebrew were Abraham, Issac and Jacob, as well as those that left Egypt in the Exodus by Moses in Exodus 5:3 "the God of the Hebrews ...", then taken to Mount Horeb. Later they are referred to as the Children of Israel, or Israelites. The Old Meaning in Genesis refers to those that came from the other side, of simple the Others. Being separate, and worshiping only One GOD. I have considered my self a Hebrew for more than 20 years (and a Jew in May 2009), as I accept that GOD IS GOD and the Covenants give at Mt. Horeb and Mt. Sinai, as written. Example:
"(Deuteronomy 29:10) You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
(Deuteronomy 29:11)Your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water:
(Deuteronomy 29:12) That you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day:
(Deuteronomy 29:13) That he may establish you to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he hath said unto you and as he hath sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
(Deuteronomy 29:14) Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; But with him that stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:" --Now The Nation of Israel crossing the Jordan with Joshua.
Jew -- A Jew is from the tribe of Judah and a member of the Southern Kingdom, which was created as a result of King Solomon's actions against or by turning away from Our GOD. See 1Kings references below.
(1 Kings 11:11) Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, because this is done by you and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from you, and will give it to thy servant. (1 Kings 11:12) Notwithstanding in your days I will not do it for David your father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of your son. (1 Kings 11:13) Although I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to your son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen.
Later:
(1 Kings 11:31) And he said to Jeroboam, Your take ten pieces: for this says the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to you:
(1 Kings 12:22) But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, (1 Kings 12:23) Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying,..." So it was done.
Shalom Shalom,
Yaakov
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
