Mar 22, 2009
Posted on Mar 22, 2009 in Apostolic Writings, Torah, Yeshua | 3 comments
Yesterday, for my drash, I spoke on what I called, “The Divine Disconnect.” To me it is the crux of Yeshua’s ministry, and all of Scripture for that matter. The focus of my discussion revolved around Yeshua’s teaching in Matthew 5:20, which says,
“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Traditionally, this has been interpreted as meaning that the righteousness of the scribes & Pharisees was based on keeping the Law, but our righteousness must be based on faith in Yeshua, and this latter righteousness surpasses the previous. However, this interpretation doesn’t hold any water, particularly in relationship to the context of Yeshua’s teaching, either broadly throughout the Gospels or more narrowly within the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). The immediate context of this statement seems to make a clear case for the way it was to be understood. The statements that immediately this are:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19, ESV)
From this we see that Yeshua’s topic was the importance of the mitzvot. However, his emphasis was not on the mere adherence to the external strictures of mitzvot. His point, I believe, was well taken when he contrasted his expectations in regard to Torah against the known practices of some of his contemporaries within Pharisaic leadership. What is the heart of this warning against? In a nutshell, hypocrisy. There were many in the day of the Master who believed what we believe today: That it is fair to judge others by their actions, while judging ourselves by our hearts. But Yeshua calls us to a higher standard. He calls for both our hearts & actions to be joined together in the service of the Creator. Whereas the Pharisees of which Yeshua spoke had either the heart or the actions, there remained a disconnect between the two. How many of us have fallen into this trap?
We are quick to decry any kind of “works” based on our misunderstanding of Paul’s polemic against the topic. However, how many of us can truly say that we haven’t tasted the “leaven of the Pharisees?” It seems that as human beings, we are caught in the middle of a juggling act, constantly trying to find a balance between our love and our response to that love. It seems we are constantly settling for one or the other. There are those who are holed into the polar extremes of this, but most of us are somewhere right in the middle. On one extreme, there are those of us who smugly assert our theological creedos of how much we can’t “earn grace,” and therefore are completely devoid of any righteous fruit in our lives. On the other, there are those of us who are so focused on bringing back the mitzvot which have been all but lost over the last two millennia that we tend to forget the weightier matters of Torah—love, mercy, compassion, etc. But most of us fall somewhere in between. We tend to struggle with maintaining a balance between what we know and feel, verses how we respond to that. There is somehow a “disconnect” between our flesh and spirit, and we are inevitably making corrections & adjustments along the way.
But such is life. If we ever get to the point that we are settled in our relationship to the Almighty, something has grown cool. Until we shed this mortal coil, I believe we will constantly battle to serve the King of the Universe “בכל לבבך” (b’chol levav’ka)—”with all your heart.” Because in order to serve Him whole heartedly, it requires a death—the death of the one giving service. For unless we die, our service will ever be tainted. But a one-time death will not suffice. Thus, we hear the message of the Master echo in our ears: “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” Therefore, let us repent and die today, in order that we will live tomorrow as a whole person.
“Repent one day before your death.” (Rabbi Eliezer, Avot 2:15)
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Yeshua, Matthew 4:17)
Mar 17, 2009
Posted on Mar 17, 2009 in Feasts & Holy Days, Pesach, Shop, Yeshua | 3 comments
My Cup of Redemption Passover Haggadah is now available for purchase. The price is $12 per copy or $10 each for a 5-pack, and includes the following features:
- Full color cover & back
- 52 pages
- Spiral bound (to lay flat when reading)
- Messianic implications of Passover
- English, Hebrew & Transliteration for key blessings
- Easy-to-read typesetting & layout
This year, the first Seder will be Wednesday night, April 8 (5769/2009). Order today to make sure you have yours in time for Pesach!
Mar 2, 2009
Posted on Mar 2, 2009 in FFOZ, Yeshua | 0 comments
Rambam/Maimonides
Recently, Daniel Lancaster posted a great article on how the rejection of Yeshua/Jesus in large by the Jewish community can be compared in some ways to the same rejection Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century Spain, known for his monumental codification of Jewish Law, and 13 Foundational Principles of the Jewish Faith) written by Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein. It’s too good not to share. You can read up on it here: http://tinyurl.com/c6yafm
Nov 3, 2008
Posted on Nov 3, 2008 in Miscellaneous, Personal, Torah, Yeshua | 0 comments
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply…”
(Genesis 1:28)
This passage gives us what the sages identify as the very first commandment in the Torah: And although we do not negate the literal meaning of the commandment, our Master gave us a similar commandment just before he departed this earthly existence, saying:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:19,20, ESV)
Making disciples of the Master is a means of bearing fruit and multiplying. In order to be a fruit-tree, the tree must produce fruit, which is capable of producing other fruit-bearing trees. A disciple is not a true disciple, unless he is giving birth to other disciples, who in turn will give birth to other disciples. Disciples do not bear sterile fruit. Disciples bear other disciples who have the ability to reproduce exponentially.
There are several reasons my posts have been lacking over the last few months. However, one of them has been that I have been investing my time into trying to figure out a plan of how to make disciples for the Master in my local community. As a means of starting to fulfilling this mitzvah, I thought about starting a weekly study of the parasha at an introductory level, gearing it towards people who didn’t know anything about Torah, and were still plugged into their local churches. I immediately thought of Torah Club, Volume 1 from First Fruits of Zion as the perfect methodology to facilitate this. It’s organized, well-written, thought-provoking and intentionally geared towards those newly coming to an understanding of Torah. Although this won’t necessarily “make” disciples, this will prepare people to become disciples as they study the Scriptures with a fresh understanding.
A couple of months back, Boaz Michael shared with me his vision of beginning to share Torah with non-messianics on a local level. He had a plan to develop local Bible studies across the country called “Torah Portions,” based off of the weekly Torah portion. This immediately sparked within me, and I knew this was an affirmation of what I had in my heart.
This past week, I started this weekly Torah study, introducing people to the Torah, some for the first time. We meet at an office building in the middle of town, making it accessible to everyone and keeping it from having any sort of denominational association. Tonight will be our second meeting. I’m finding out that this is a great way to fulfill a deep desire within me to share Torah with others, and help to nurture disciples of the Master.
I want to encourage you to do the same and share Torah with your community. Start a Torah Club group and teach from your heart the things the Father has been showing you in your studies, gently allowing the eyes of others to be opened to the wondrous things of the Torah. Don’t wait for the “right time” or for someone else to do it. Step out and begin cultivating an environment for discipleship within your city, community or church.
Sep 9, 2008
Posted on Sep 9, 2008 in Midrash, Pirkei Avot, Torah, Yeshua | 5 comments
Yesterday’s reading regarding the sending away of the mother bird (Deut 22:6-7) gives us insight into the nature of Torah. The sending away of the mother bird is considered the “least of the commandments.” We fulfill all of the mitzvot, rather than only the “greater” ones because we do not know the reward for any of the mitzvot, save two (actually three…see Deut 11:20,21) the “least” and the “greatest.” And they both carry the same reward. Here are some texts to illustrate the point.
R. Abba b. Kahana said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: ‘Do not spend time weighing up the precepts of the Torah, as Scripture hath it, And weighed the mountains in scales- [Based on the word ba-peles] (Isa. 40:12); and do not say, ‘Seeing that this precept is a great one, I will perform it because its reward is great, and seeing that the other precept is a minor one, I will not perform it.’ What did God do? He did not reveal to His creatures the reward for each separate precept, so that they may perform all the precepts without questioning. Whence this? For it is said, ‘Her ways wander, that thou canst not know them.’ It is as if a king hired for himself labourers and brought them straight into his garden without disclosing what he intended to pay for the various kinds of work in the garden, lest they should neglect the work for which the pay was little for work for which the pay was high. In the evening he called each one in turn and asked him: ‘ At which tree have you worked? ‘ He replied: ‘At this one.’ Thereupon the king said to him: ‘This is a pepper tree and the pay for working at it is one golden piece.’ He then called another and asked him: ‘At which tree have you worked? ‘ And he replied: ‘ Under this tree.’ The king thereupon said: ‘This is a white-blossom tree and the pay for working at it is a half a golden piece.’ He then called yet another, and asked him: ‘At which tree have you worked?’ And he replied: ‘At this one.’ Whereupon the king exclaimed: ‘ This is an olive tree and the pay for working at it is two hundred zuz.’ Said the labourers to the king: ‘You should have informed us from the outset which tree had the greater pay attached to it, so that we might have worked at it.’ Thereupon the king replied: ‘ Had I done this, how would the whole of my garden have been worked?’ So God did not reveal the reward of the precepts, except of two, the weightiest and the least weighty. The honouring of parents is the very weightiest and its reward is long life, as it is said, Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long (Ex. XX, 12); and the sending away of the mother bird is the least weighty, and what is its reward? Length of days.
—Devarim Rabba 6:2
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”
—Matthew 20:1-16, ESV
Rabbi [Judah the Prince] said: …Be as scrupulous about a light precept as of a weighty one, for you do not know the reward allotted for each precept.
Avot 2:1
Ben Azzai said: Be eager to fulfill the smallest mitzvah and flee from transgression; for one mitzvah induces another and one transgression leads to another transgression. The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, the reward of one transgression is another transgression.
Avot 4:2
