The Faithfulness of God

If you don’t spend at least some time reading Torah and particularly the Book of Numbers, you might not realize how “quickly” the 40 years of wandering pass for the Children of Israel in the Sinai desert. The majority of those 40 years is covered in Numbers 19:1-25:9, a mere six chapters. When I was a new believer and unaware of how to study, I imagined those 40 years were what consumed all of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and this thought may be a common misconception in Christianity. Nevertheless, those six chapters, which are encased in the Torah portions Chukat and Balak (a “double-portion”, read as a single unit on the Shabbat of July 4th this year), contain not only the 40 years of wandering, but some very important and tragic events…events that shape not only the generation who dies in the desert, but the generation that will inherit the Land of Canaan. They are also events that, if we’ll let them, can help shape us.

However, the “core” tragedy is the one that triggers the 40 years of wandering in the desert for the Children of Israel. Through numerous trials, many of which were of their own making, the Children of Israel had done all of what God said, established the Holy Priesthood, constructed the Tabernacle, and had God living among them. After finally leaving Mt. Sinai, it was only a few short days walk before they came to the border of the Land of Canaan. They were guided to the very threshold of the realization of a dream at the banks of the Jordan River, only to throw it away.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest article by Rabbi Haim Levi of the International Federation of Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews (IFSAJ).

LASHON HARAH Slander, Rechilutz gossip, and SINAT CHINAM hatred without a cause are sins unto death. A better definition for LASHON HARAH is a demonic tongue.

LASHON ha Rah, or slander has been the main sin that have destroyed nations, families, marriages, ministries, along with destruction of the reputation of good men throughout the countless ages, among these men who have been destroyed in this manner we find the prophet Isaiah , who according to tradition was sawed in two by King Ammon and later the prophet Jeremiah. Each one of these men suffered because people did not like what they stood for and the message they preached.

In the Bible slander is equated with murder, because once a person’s name reputation has been killed, it can never be restored. Anyone who is guilty of this sin is already cast out and will eventually suffer some type of cancer, known in ancient times as leprosy.

King David by the Holy Spirit asks this question.

Who is the man who desires life and loves length of days that he may see good? Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. -Psalm 34:12-13

Read the rest of this entry »

And you are to love the stranger, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt. -Deuteronomy 10:19.

This commandment was given to the Children of Israel by Moses at the direction of God when the Israelites were camped at the banks of the Jordan, shortly before they were to cross and take possession of Canaan; the Land flowing with milk and honey. The passage, put back in context, describes how God champions the cause of the widow, the orphan, and the defenseless. When issuing this type of commandment, God often reminds the Children of Israel that they were once defenseless slaves in the Land of Egypt and that “…I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt to be a God to you”. Thus God connects the original plight of the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, how they should use that experience to kindle empathy for strangers in their own midst, and that God is the God who defends all of the helpless; the Israelites and anyone else.

Keep in mind that the Children of Israel are about to enter a dominant position as conquerors in Canaan and possessors of the Land of Israel. They also have among them the offspring of the “mixed multitude” of non-Jewish people who originally left Egypt along with the Jewish people. These people have no tribal affiliation and thus no direct inheritance in the Land of Israel once it’s conquered. When the Israelites were slaves and wanderers, defenseless against the forces around them, God was their protector and made sure that justice and mercy was provided them in abundance. Now that the Israelites themselves are a powerful army and about to enter the Land in force, God is directing them to also offer justice and mercy to the stranger; that is, the non-Jew who attaches him or herself to the nation of Israel; the covenant people (a different commandment is given to the Children of Israel regarding the treatment of the indigenous people of Canaan).

In the 613 Commandments class I teach, we recently began to study the collection of commandments that have to do with the treatment of the “stranger” or the “Gentile” in the midst of the covenant community. How does this operationalize to those worshipers of Yeshua (Jesus Christ), both the born Jews and grafted-in members of the covenant? Who is a “stranger” or “Gentile”? How are we to treat the “stranger” in our midst and to share the Good News of the Messiah? First, some background on the class.

Read the rest of this entry »

This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven, holy be Your Name,
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food that we need.
Forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.
And lead us not into harsh testing,
but deliver us from the evil one.
for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
-Matthew 6:9-13

As believers in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Christ), we know that we can ask God to forgive us our sins; our disobedience to His will. If we admit to what we’ve done wrong to God and to our fellow human being and repent; turn away from our disobedient thoughts and behaviors, we can confidently know that our sins are forgiven. But is that the end of the matter? In one sense, the answer “yes” but in another sense, the effects of sin can continue. We’ll take a look at the Israelites and their 40 years of wandering in the desert as our lesson but first, let’s consider the former matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

With President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo, there has been a surge of interest in the so-called “two-state solution”; that is, surrendering portions of Israel to the Palestinian Authority, including East Jerusalem, for the creation of a Palestinian nation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced subsequent to President Obama’s speech, that he would support a Palestinian state within Israel’s borders under “certain conditions”. These conditions aren’t likely to be palatable to the Palestinians because they include total disarmament of the Palestinian “state” and recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation.

The world in general sees a two-state solution to the “Israel/Palestine problem” as the only viable option and this course has been supported by the United States as policy for several Presidential administrations. Up until this point in history, each American President has failed to broker the establishment of such a solution. President Obama’s efforts are the latest and, from some people’s point of view, the most likely to finally construct a lasting peace, built on the foundations of Israel and Palestine, co-existing on adjoining pieces of real estate. Human opinions aside, what does God think of this solution?

The answer isn’t particularly elusive, but for those who do not believe in the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and the God of the Christian church, the answer, along with God, is irrelevant. To those of us who are people of faith however the answer is vital, not only for the present age, but for the age to come; the Messianic age.

Read the rest of this entry »

“If a man so deserves, his wife is his ally; if he does not deserve, she is his enemy”.
-The Babylonian Talmud

“If you treat your husband like a King, then you are a Queen. If you treat him like a floor mop, then you’re a wet rag”.
-Yiddish Folk Expression

I say “revisited”, because I wrote the original version of this article a little over 2 years ago. I thought of it again as I studied Parashot Naso, the Torah reading for this coming Shabbat, and specifically Numbers 5:11-31:

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, and a man has intercourse with her and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and she is undetected, although she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act, if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has defiled herself, or if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has not defiled herself, the man shall then bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall not pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of memorial, a reminder of iniquity. ‘Then the priest shall bring her near and have her stand before the LORD…
-Numbers 5:11-16 (NIV)

This “test for adultery” seems rather odd, but then I don’t know everything. It presupposes that only a wife may be unfaithful (she had to sleep with some man to be unfaithful, of course). Where is the analogous test for men? It hardly seems likely that men are always faithful in marriage and women are more likely to stray. As I pondered writing my teaching for Shabbat, I started to wonder if this were just a test of female adultery. What if it was a test of male jealousy as well? Jealousy isn’t exactly described in glowing terms in the Bible…

Read the rest of this entry »

Since last fall, I’ve been teaching a class that I don’t think gets taught in Messianic circles often, much less in Evangelical Christian circles; a class on the 613 Commandments. According to Judaism 101, the 613 Mitzvot (Commandments) “…is based primarily on the list compiled by Rambam in the Mishneh Torah”. These are the commandments in the Torah (Five Books of Moses) that Judaism believes are given by God to form the basis for righteous living.

I previously published Part I of this report on the conclusions of the class on the first portion of the commandments we studied. This second part adds more of our conclusions, but doesn’t contain as many entries. I have much more material available, but it isn’t yet organized in a way that would be suitable for a blog post. This is an ongoing project, so I’ll be adding to this series as I have time available.

Christianity says that “the Law is dead” and was replaced by Grace. Messianics traditionally believe that Torah and Grace are two sides of the same coin, and that they have always co-existed in God’s Kingdom and have always been available to the Children of Israel and to the rest of us. I had previously taught an elementary class called Understanding the Torah or Torah 101. This is a primer for Evangelical Christians and people new to the Messianic movement on why Torah isn’t dead and why it plays a role in the lives of all believers in the Messiah today. After going through a couple of “semesters” of teaching this, I felt that we needed to dig deeper into our understanding of Torah for Jewish and Gentile believers.

If we believe that Torah is the preferred lifestyle for the redeemed community, how are we supposed to live it out? Rather than let Messianic theology or the modern Jewish synagogue service dictate our worship practice, what does the Bible actually say to do? In attempting to answer that question, I thought that a detailed examination of the 613 Commandments might yield an answer (Rambam established the most recent and popular version, but these commandments have been available in some form or another a thousand years before he was born).

Read the rest of this entry »