The good fruit

Last shabbat I taught on the parables of the fig tree and the barren trees, looking at the parables from a Jewish point of view.  I mentioned that a plant in order to give good fruit, it needs to be planted in good soil  with water access and that the fruit produced is a source of nourishment. This morning on my routine commute to the city centre I started to ponder on the issue of fruit and a comment I made in the teaching.  I said that in our congregation we try our best to refrain from becoming fruit cakes.  That is an expression I normally use to describe people that go all weird and hyper spiritual, out of context and on non Torah base practices, that abound in Christianity and “messianism” and Hebrew Roots and Judaism, no one is free from this craziness.

So as I was driving I could not help to make the parallels on a fruit that is picked from the tree when its ripe, there is nothing like a fruit that has ripen in the tree its sweeter more filling and carries more nourishment and essential natural components for our well being. Just try to google search on this and you will find plenty of evidence in the intergoogle.  I know the difference in tomatoes ripped in the plant and camera ripped tomatoes, same with mandarines and oranges, pomegranates, and my favourite fruits, figs and pineapples.  I can tell a ripped pineapple in the plant from outside the fruit shop, it permeates its aroma all over.  The extra facet of the teaching that came to me in the car is: Just as fruit ripens in the tree and it nourishes you, so are the fruit of the spirit.  At the right time at the right place when you share the fruit of the Spirit it brings life to those partaking from it.  

However, if you take the fruit and add other ingredients such as sugar, flour, eggs, yeast, spices etc you end up with a fruitcake.  As the fruit is cooked and processed it looses its value, its vitamins are oxidised and become non effective the same for its natural sugars they loose their flavour.  Components that can be tasted in the natural fruit are lost as you heat them up in processing it and these essential volatiles are lost.  This is the same in the Spirit, take the word of the Torah and  working of the Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, mix it with Greco-Roman practices and human thought process. Add to it a pinch flowery speech and you get new dogma and teachings that no longer bring nourishment, they may taste good but are not life giving. Repeat this process several times and it becomes a truth and the norm, however it is still a fruit cake no matter how you present it.

As I mentioned earlier, that a plant in order to give good fruit, it needs to be planted in good soil, we are the plant, the good soil is the Torah, the living water is Yeshua and the light that allows the good soil and water to produce good fruit is the Ruach.  The chemistry that puts it all together, walking in the spirit of HaShem, He is the source of the good fruit.  The good fruit does not need processing it should be enjoyed as it is given at its season.

Shalom

Parasha Vayikra 2015

Leviticus 1:1- 5:26, Eze 45:16-46:18 and Markus 7:1-30

Here we are March 17th , yesterday I blinked and six months have gone by, since Simcha Torah. And we are at parasha vayikra, well, traditionally I would engage in the Torah portion  full on, but this time I will deviate from the norm and the tradition, and will look at what the Apostolic writing has to say.  This weeks portion is found in Markos 7:1-30.  As a Messianic Jew that believes that Yehoshua (Yeshua) is the true Jewish Messiah, then I find it fitting to break with tradition and look at the Apostolic writings that deal with tradition.

The whole chapter starts with a description of those present in the narrative, we  have the Prushim, that is Pharisees, and scholars of the Torah. No doubt they came to argue Torah, a very Jewish pastime, we argue we scream at each other and then we eat and celebrate a successful torah study group.  From the outside and for those not of Jewish DNA it will seem that a war just being declared and a fist fight is about to break, but not so.  All was going well but as soon as they saw that Yeshua’s talmidim were not acting according to the traditions passed down from generation to generation, things went down hill from there.  The tradition equated the washing of the hands to spiritual purity, and on seeing eating without washing hands they spoke up, it was only natural, they are the keepers of the traditions and the Torah.  However Yeshua had a few things himself to say about the whole scenario.

Where we as human beings, mere mortals, that only see the external, will always worry about that which is external and perceptible to our senses.  Yeshua a man endowed with a special soul and anointed by HaShem to fulfil the role of Messiah, saw things a little bit deeper, in fact so much deeper, that he saw the heart as if it was in pure mid day sunlight.  He then begun to excoriate them because their hearts were not pure and clean, that tradition had superseded Torah, and as result their hearts were far from HaShem, and love and the real mitzvots.  Our Master saw fit to bring the dross out for their hearts and begun to teach everyone present the true nature of whom we are.  The heart is devious and deceitful to one self, we are talking about the nature of the human being, the evil inclination that we are born with pass down from generation to generation.

What an insight, he went onto say-'That which is coming out from the man, that doth defile the man; for from within, out of the heart of men, the evil reasonings do come forth, adulteries, whoredoms, murders, thefts, covetous desires, wickedness, deceit, arrogance, an evil eye, evil speaking, pride, foolishness; all these evils do come forth from within, and they defile the man’ was this a new concept? Sukkah 52a:34 - The Holy One, blessed be He, called it Evil, as it is said, “For the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). and Sukkah 52a:36

3) David called it unclean, as it is said, “Create me a clean heart, O Lord,” (Psalms 51:12), which implies that there is an unclean one. One last one - Mishneh Torah, Repentance 2:4 Anyone who confesses verbally and does not commit in his heart to abandon [sin], this is like a... person who immerses [in a purity pool] while holding an unclean creature in his hand, so that the bath... is not effective until he sends away the unclean creature, and so it says, One who admits….

The whole idea was known all along, but as you well know , knowledge is not the issue, obedience is.  One cannot say today I did not know this or that, the information is freely available , a few strokes of the keyboard and we have access to over two millennia of knowledge and writings of the sages and great Tzadikim (righteous ones), for us to learn and apply to our walk.

Here is the key, for this week consider your life , your walk, your thoughts and your actions.  The evil inclination in you how strong is it? does it need feeding does it thirst? Yeshua said if your enemy hungers feed him, if he thirst give him drink.  Who is our enemy, our evil inclination our own selves, we need to feed the evil inclination bread and give it water.  I know what you thinking, “The rabbi lost his marbles!!” Not really, well truth be told yes a long time ago, but the reality is that yes our worst enemy is ourselves and our evil inclination.  In Judaism bread  equates to Torah and so does water, but water also equates to Messiah.  So bread and water to our enemy subdues him Torah and Messiah in our lives, subdues our evil inclination and strengthens us.  Your chose like in Mt Sinai choose life or choose death, your choice, I urge you says HaShem choose life!

Parasha Yitro

The more I study and prepare Parashas the more I realise that the depth of hidden gems within each of the them is beyond comprehension.  Your has so much from the reason why it is named Yitro to the last sentence in the parasha.  Exodus 20:23 - You should most certainly not make alongside of me gods of silver, or gods of gold for yourselves.  This verse alone could d have us writing and discussion for quite some time, the subject gods alone is substantial.

Let us address something entirely different though, and if you come to this shabbat service I will even go deeper talking about pottery, vessels and kilns.  However what I want to address here is something very important, and they point I want to focus on is on the subject of covenant.  It is in this Torah portion that HaShem enters into covenant with B’nei Israel, traditionally translated as children of Israel.  First of all it cannot be children as we know as children are under the control and authority of their parents and are too small to make decision for themselves.  However B’nei should be better translated as “sons of," HaShem specifically instructed to count B’nei from 20 years and above, men that can judge for themselves and can be men of war, part of the tribes.  

That’s just for starters, and contrary to popular belief the covenant that HaShem made with the sons of Israel, is not the law, actually that is also a badly translated word, Torah is not Law.  No, the Torah and the mitzvots are not the covenant, not even the ten commandments.  Ask anyone to name the covenant and they will probably say the ten commandments.  What the actual covenant that B’eni Yisrael entered into was the following , Exodus 19:8 And all the people answered together, and said, All that the YHVH hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the YHVH. That is it that is the covenant, to do all that HaShem commands and instruct, the Torah describes the conditions and terms, it is the contract, sort of speak, but the covenant is obedience, pure simple and unadulterated. Obedience is the covenant, no frills, no bells and no whistles.  

Then as Yeshua said the core of the Torah is Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad and love your neighbour as yourself. So keeping the covenant we were given a table of contents, the ten commandments, these in turn encapsulates 613 mitzvoth, 245 +ve (positive) and 365 -Ve (negative).  The most interesting part of all this is that even the ten words, can be further condensed to love your neighbour as yourself! That is the whole Torah the rest is commentary go and learn it, these were wise words from our sages.

One point to ponder on this parasha, when we surrendered to, and came into covenant with Yeshua, did the covenantal requirements changed from that of Mt Sinai?

Parasha Beshalach

As I was reading this weeks parasha we are remembering the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a generation that no longer is with us.  This event is very pertinent because it is tied to many events described in the Torah, Pharaoh tried to destroy Israel, Amelek tried to destroy Israel, so many other villains have tried. This puts me at a place where I saw myself in front of the sea of reeds, literally I have been there it is a nice place, it was warm full of tourists, just like most resorts.   However in life we come face to face wit a situation where we are faced with an insurmountable situation a sea in front of us we cannot cross nor overcome.  Additionally we have a pursuing enemy in our backs and every time we turn back to look we see our impending doom.  So far the picture is bleak and not very encouraging, your mind must be saying, where are you going with this rabbi?

Follow me for a second and I will try and explain my thoughts, you see I am aware that many of us are almost willing to give up.  I’ll just sounder and let it be, but sometimes our enemy is way too cruel, and its not death that it wants from us but extreme suffering.  What comes to mind is that today I was reading about a prominent Christian rock leader that did just that look around and gave up, now he decries the existence of HaShem, all because he looked around and looked at what others were doing.  He gave up on G-d and it sounds absurd and even obtuse, its like saying  I give up on air and renouncing its existence therefore there is no wind.   You see this individual stood at the edge of his sea and looked back and gave up, better a slave in Egypt that a free man in the wilderness.

You see perception is everything, in the case of this individual that gave up on G-d and looked to science to reject G-d, I look at science and I see G-d everywhere.  Its about perception, we perceive according to our circumstances, if we are alone and our vision of the world is dim then our perception is small and dim. n However if we stand on the foundation of HaShem and Torah, then our perception is limitless.  The Sons of Israel were looking from a dim perception, even though they had seen miracles, however, they were miracles at a distance and not yet at a personal level.  

As you stand like Israel did in front of a sea, do not look at the sea from your perspective but try your hardest to look at it from HaShem’s perspective, then your perception is limitless.  Then you will see, the sea part open and you will walk in dry land and your enemies will drown in the sea that was trapping you.  Not only that as we cross over the sea we enter the wilderness, where the bitter waters become sweet, mana is given and even quail, but above all Torah is given, Instruction for eternal life, the living torah is given and comes to live in you.

What is my sea in front of me?

Who is my enemy perusing me?

What is my perception based on?

Am I ready to enter the wilderness?

What’s in a name?

As I study this parasha I cannot but stop and wonder , what’s on a name.  We are so accustomed to today’s regimes to labelling everything we do and see.  in our tendency of labelling everything we come up with names such as, old trusty, thumper, swifty just to name a few. even our congregation we like to identify ourselves as Aleph Tav, meaning we are followers of Messiah Yeshua, he was the Aleph and the Tav, encompassing the whole of creation.  The reason behind I suppose is that it gives us a certain degree of comfort, as we can then identify ourselves which that surrounding us.

In this parasha HaShem takes particular care to reveal to us, that the new Pharaoh did not know Joseph, I guess history was not his forte.  So I stated whats in a name, well, in ancient times the name represented the character of the individual, it described the person as well as his character, it was common also that a person would go through name changes as he lived life and influential events took place in their lives.  To this day some of these customs still applies, in Judaism and Catholicism is the case.  For example a new pope always undergoes a name change, and at this stage you are probably thinking whats the pope got to do with parasha, everything and nothing, its just an illustration on how ancient customs still remains.

So the new ruler of Egypt did not know or did not wanted to know, what is evident is that he feared the Bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel. The saviour of Egypt no longer relevant, and now his family are being persecuted due to fear.  additionally this teaches us that perception of one self can make a big difference on our outcome, and as in this case the overseers over the children of Israel were in most cases Israelites themselves, as it was thecae during the holocaust. Fear drives men to do unspeakable things. Not knowing whom we are causes us to fear, to move our focus from our dependance, HaShem, and into self, our own strength and ego, thus fear creeps in and leads us into the path of destruction of self as the individual, and self as a whole.

In Messiah’s time a similar theme occurred, the leaders of Israel, the Sadducees, and some Pharisees rejected and falsely accused messiah Yeshua, they went as far as instigating and handing over Yeshua to Gentiles for his execution.  You they did not know HaShem and had forgotten his name, His character.  To the point that the high priest was no longer of the Aaronic blood line, and the status of high priest was bought and sold as a commodity, to the highest bidder.

Two thousand years have elapsed since Yeshua came, gave his life, as atonement for the whole of humanity, ascended to the right hand of the father and we await his return, the question now remains, are we like pharaoh have we forgotten his name, his character.  Are we willing to place a burden on His children, to execute his young, enslave his people out fear of our own self inflicted ignorance?  These are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves.

Miketz ‘at the end’

Well this week has been rather heavy for our nation, we’ve seen innocent people taken from our mist.  From what we are told both of these brother and sister, acted with courage and bravery, putting their lives in the line in order to save others.  I believe that is befitting to remember them and their families, as this parasha deals with the life of one placed in front of the life of many.  All heroes in my eyes no matter what people may say, the bravery and unselfish acts speaks what this nation was based on, Torah.   As Australians we call ourselves Christians, in terms that we understand in Judaism we say we are founded in messianism, with Yeshua at the very core of our foundation.

In this parasha we find that there are so many foreshadows of being displayed by Joseph, about the one that was to come and redeem all from our sorry state of despair.  You see Joseph was falsely accused of impropriety and was thrown into jail, two years went by and he was still there waiting for someone to speak favourably about him and released from his confinement.  All the suffering and isolation, the rejection and the fact that at anyone time Joseph would have thought, I will never see my father again nor my family etc.  Yet he had the assurance that whatever his situation, HaShem was in control.  Joseph’s two years is a foreshadow  of what Messiah had to go through, He, Messiah too was rejected by his own kind his hebrew brothers, the people of Israel.  

How He, was falsely accused and handed over to the enemy, the non people  and they in turn imprisoned him and eventually executed him with a gruesome death.  At this stage I have to say this is my own interpretation from what I read in the Torah and the Apostolic writings.  You see HaShem says one year is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one year.  It has been approximately two thousands years since messiah ascended to the right hand of the Father, and and if the pattern, as its usually the case,  repeats its self, we then come to the realisation that just as the brothers of Joseph met him and did not recognise him, so too the Jewish nation do not recognise Yeshua the Messiah.  

You see, Joseph, was assimilated into the Egyptian culture and people, to the point that he no longer looked , acted, nor sounded Hebrew.  Right now in the Western world, the same can be said of Yeshua, He is no longer recognised by His own people, Yeshua is considered the Gentile Messiah, and not the Jewish Messiah.  In our current times the Jesus that is presented to the the Jewish people is a foreign man, not Jewish at all, a Hellenistic figure or character, one that fits the description of Deuteronomy 13.  One that comes to test, to proof, the children of Israel to see if they will leave and follow after other’s peoples gods.

How we present Yeshua (Jesus) to the Jewish people makes a significant difference, whether He is going to be accepted or rejected.  Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah, the one that teaches us how to observe and keep Torah, the way it was meant to be.  As Joseph ended up being the one that rescued and saved his family from certain deaths, so is Yeshua, the one that saves us from certain spiritual death, a far more serious case at hand.  As a Jew I feel more complete, knowing that Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah, my aim is to be a better chassid than the Chassid's.  As Messianic gentile, one that has been grafted into the vine the root of Israel, your aim is to also learn from the root of vine and its people, to be a chassid, to act as the people, that you are now, part of one of tribe, to bring honour and glory to HaShem, by living Kiddush HaShem.

Questions to ponder

How do I live Kiddush HaShem

What does it mean to be Grafted in

What other foreshadow do we find in this parasha

Looking at Joseph’s life. What is my purpose in this life

Miketz, at the end have we lived our purpose?

Parasha Vayetze

Parasha Vayetze

So here we are, rushing through life one appointment after another. Is life getting the best of you?  Well it should, this week’s parasha is jam packed with goodies, we have so much that it will be impossible to study all of it in one week. Take for example my wife, she is still stuck two parasha’s ago with her reading, as she slowly progresses through it she is unravelling it one word at a time and savouring every spiritual morsel she can.  So what does that have to do with this week’s parasha, you may ask? Well a lot, this week’s parasha starts with the statement  that Yaakov left his house and was on his way to Haran, to his relatives.  

We all know the story, he rests his head on rock and has a dream, where as some of us rest our rock on a pillow.  The story continues that Yaakov arrives and greets his relatives, waters the flock and falls in love.  He agrees to work for his love and is deceived, his love is so great that he is prepared to work a further seven years for his love.  In the meantime, the two sisters have a small competition running, who is going to bless Yaakov the most with sons.  

The contest is even, greater as to who Yaakov will show the most attention. Further to this he now sees his blessing and how his house and everything he does is being blessed, so he strikes another deal to work for wages and to see the hand of God deal plentifully with him.  He worked hard, used unusual methods and had increase in the number of flocks, that would be his wages.  So much so that his relatives started a campaign of disinformation, and libel accusations.  It is at this stage that I make this connection with how my wife is dealing with her parasha reading, you see I can observe her growth in knowledge by the time and effort, she puts in her Torah study.  

Prosperity is a biblical concept that is sometimes misunderstood; the way one prospers according to this passage is through hard work.  Yaakov was promised a blessing and an inheritance, but if he just sat there by the rock, then he would be minus the wives, the children, the flock, the servants and the wealth acquired.  For one to prosper there needs to be obedience, commitment, trust and hard work. 

This leads us to another interesting part of this parasha; we see that when HaShem told Yaakov that it was time to return his land and his family, trust waivered, first in telling his father in-law, then when it was time to meet his brother.

He may have had cause to fear his brother but he had more cause to trust his God, our God that will keep His promise to prosper and care for him.  He was promised the inheritance and the land and the blessing of all nations to be blessed in him, same as father Abraham, Yitsak.  He had also promised God that upon his return he would give a tithe of all that he was given by HaShem.  This is crucial because he failed to do just that, instead he gave his tithe to his brother Esau for fear of being killed and losing his family.  Yet even though he failed to do what he promised, HaShem kept his promise and protected him.  However he had to pay for his non-compliance and was therefore banished from the land of his promise to Mitzrayim (Egypt), not forcibly by vanquishing enemy but by the hand of HaShem.  Yaakov had two  evictions from the land both of them at the hand of HaShem, Similarly his children have had two diasporas, I am a child of the dispersion, as are so many more that don’t know it yet. A heavy price to pay for lack of trust and disobedience and or a combination of both.