Congregation Shema Yisrael

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD, as in days of old and as in previous years. -Malachi 3:2-4

I used to think that “refiner’s fire” metaphors were all over the Bible, but when I went to look, I didn’t find many…at least not direct references. I always understood the metaphor. The idea is that various trials burn off impurities and leave a better, more pure product. Applied to people of faith, it means that even those really uncomfortable experiences in our lives train us to be better believers and servants of God, while the weaker, more secular, less disciplined portions of our personalities fall away. There was a piece I was missing, however.

Read the rest of this entry »

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” -Luke 18:9-14

Most Christians and Messianics are very familiar with this parable of the Master. We can sometimes recognize an individual or a group associated with the Pharisee in question and, let’s face it, most of us relate more to the tax collector because we want to be humble and go “home justified before God.” Unfortunately, it’s all too common in the community of faith to find individuals, small groups, and whole congregations who behave the way we see the Pharisee behaving in the parable and tragically, being completely blind to the fact. Even worse, the Messianic movement is uniquely vulnerable to this sort of self-delusion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now — if I have found favor in your eyes — and do not let me face my own ruin.” -Numbers 11:10-15

I’m a little disappointed in whoever wrote the commentary for this week’s Torah portion over at First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ). OK, to be fair, I truly believe the person’s intent was good, but the way the article The Shortened Arm (you’ll need an FFOZ login to read the page) reads, it certainly seems as if people who suffer from doubt and depression are being accused of a weakness or even a total lack of faith…at least in the writer’s opinion. Here’s an example:

Read the rest of this entry »

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. -John 5:13-15

The longer version of this episode in the life of the Master was that he found a man who had been an invalid for 38 years lying by the Bethesda pool near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. Custom had it that if you entered the pool while the waters were disturbed, you would be healed of your ailments. When Yeshua (Jesus) asked the man if he wanted to get well, the man complained that he was unable to get into the pool while the water was agitated. Someone always managed to get in ahead of him.

Usually we find that a person has to ask Yeshua for healing and once the healing has been accomplished, Yeshua tells the person something like your faith has healed you…go in peace. This time, all Yeshua said in response to the man’s complaint was Pick up your mat and walk. No preamble, no impassioned plea. Just “get up and go”, which the man does.

That in and of itself is an act of faith, especially after having been disabled for 38 years, but what about the words the Master tells the man later on? What do they mean for him…and for us?

Read the rest of this entry »

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. -Ephesians 4:29-30

I’ve been following with interest a discussion on Judah Gabriel’s blog Kineti L’Tziyon in response to his article Internet fights – why do we do it? The article, and the comments posted by readers in reply, outline the nature of both the Internet and of the Messianic movement, at least as far as how our discussions go sometimes.

It seems that there’s a lot of arguing and disagreement going on. Messianics argue among themselves. Messianics argue with traditional Christians. Messianics argue with traditional Jews. I know. I make us sound like we’re hard to get along with. It’s not like we go out looking for a fight (at least not most of us), but because our theology and interpretation of the Bible doesn’t quite fit into anyone else’s accepted pigeon hole, we are in a position of having to offer a “ready defense” for just about everything we say and do.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear. -Deuteronomy 22:9-12

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? - -2 Corinthians 6:14

It seems that both in the Torah and the Apostolic Scriptures, the “mixing” of unlike things, including unlike people is at least strongly discouraged if not outright forbidden. Consider how that applies to marriage. I read two articles written from a Jewish perspective some time ago, addressing Jewish intermarriage with non-Jews. While this practice is almost always associated with Jewish assimilation into Christianity or at least the complete loss of Jewish identity into secularism, the write ups by both Julie Wiener and Paul Golin were encouraging. It seems that a Jew and a non-Jew can marry and raise children together without reducing the Jewish population of the world. I also recently read Julie Wiener’s write up on children of mixed marriage called The “Half-Jewish” Glass: Half-Full Or Half-Empty? At least some of us in the Messianic movement face similar, if not identical issues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do or do not…there is no try -Yoda

I know this may seem rather odd compared to my usual writing topics, but it occurred to me this morning that we can learn a bit from Yoda’s advice to the young Luke Skywalker about our own walk of faith with God.

I was reading one of those lists you see on Internet news sites yesterday. I can’t find the list I was looking at, but I found one that is close enough: 9 Words You Shouldn’t Say at Work. One of the words is “try”. The idea is that when the boss asks you to do something, you shouldn’t say, “I’ll try”, usually because, unless the request is extremely unreasonable, the boss is asking you to do something within your job description and your skill set.

“Try” is a “weasel word”, according to the article I read yesterday. We usually say it when we aren’t going to put our full effort into fulfilling the request and expect that we won’t succeed. Let’s see how Luke and Yoda’s transaction went more in detail and then find out what it has to do with us.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Chassidic masters explain that the final day of a righteous person’s earthly life marks the point at which “all his deeds, teachings and work” achieve their culminating perfection and the zenith of their impact upon our lives. So each Lag BaOmer we celebrate Rabbi Shimon’s life and the revelation of the esoteric soul of Torah. -What is Lag BaOmer?

I periodically ask myself the question “Why me?” Actually, I periodically ask God the question. The thought usually occurs to me when I’m creating a teaching for Shabbat or even when I’m writing for this blog. I had this thought yesterday morning as I was preparing for Shabbat services. Leah, one of the other members of the leadership board, and Dottie her daughter, who organizes the music and teaches the children’s class, were out of town, so I found myself in the position of “picking up the slack” so to speak.

Our congregation is small but the responsibility to write, teach, and sometimes even lead is no small thing, particularly in the eyes of God. Yet when I look at myself; consider my thoughts, emotions, and other evidence of my personal presence in this world, I find just an ordinary, imperfect human being. As I consider all of the spiritual luminaries both past and present, by comparison, I seem quite meager in the shining of my own light, at least as I see myself. Who am I to be teaching others? Why does anyone read my missives on this blog? Why me?

Read the rest of this entry »

Judaism: the monotheistic religion of the Jews having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Torah and in the Talmud.
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh, and explored in later texts such as the Talmud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism

Judaism: A world religion tracing its origin to the Hebrew people of the ancient Middle-East, as documented in their religious writings, the Torah or Old Testament.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/judaism

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. -Acts 11:25-26

There seems to be a tremendous effort being generated by a number of Messianic organizations to try and get our movement accepted as a “Judaism”, by the other more traditional Judaisms (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform). The question is, since the Messianic movement is the only “Judaism” containing a large number of non-Jews who feel no requirement to convert, can we say we are a sect or subset of the larger Jewish world? Further, if the Messianic movement started out Jewish, at what point did the world stop viewing the movement as Jewish?

Read the rest of this entry »