Digging with Darren

Tonight will mark the 17th of Tammuz, which marks the beginning of the “Three Weeks” (from Tzom Tammuz to Tisha b’Av) which are said to be “between the strictures.” Tomorrow morning will begin Tzom Tammuz (the Fast of Tammuz), remembering the day when the Walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans prior to their decimation of our Holy Temple. Tomorrow morning at dawn the fast will begin and it will end after sundown that night. The fast is supplemented by prayers and reading the book of Lamentations. Please mark your calendar and do your best to remember this tragedy and mourn the destruction of Hashem’s Holy Temple, which we pray will be restored in our lifetime.

For more information on Tzom Tammuz and the Three Weeks: http://ow.ly/gM7A

Again, this year, we are spending Shavuot with FFOZ at their Shavuot Conference in Hudson, WI. We got in just a couple of hours before sessions began last night and were in a whirlwind to get settled before the first session.

The theme for this year’s conference is the Beit HaMikdash (The Temple). Boaz Michael opened up the conference with a discussion of the significance of Psalm 84 in relationship to the Temple as a segue into the next session, lead by Joseph Good of Hatikva Ministries. Mr. Good will be leading the bulk of all of the sessions this year, as his knowledge of the Temple is encyclopedic. His past and current work with the Temple Institute are a testimony of his extensive knowledge on the subject. (On a side note, he mentioned last night that he was going to have to go next week to tell the constituents of the Temple Institute that their placement of the new bronze Laver is incorrect. Do you know anyone else respected enough in this area to be able to do that? Wow…)

Mr. Good gave us roughly a two-hour introductory session last night an an orientation to the minute details involved in Temple Research. I was fortunate to meet a few people from Mr. Good’s congregation a few years ago, and their description for listening to his teaching is probably the best I have heard. They said it’s like drinking from a fire hydrant. This is definitely the case. At the end of the session last night he asked, “Does anyone have any questions?” to which the response was a hearty round of laughter. We all knew that there was no time to ask all of the questions that were necessary and we would just have to make due and try to take as many notes as possible.

Lastly, I am also looking forward to hearing another speaker which I haven’t heard in a while. Grant Luton, from Akron, OH, is scheduled to speak as well this weekend. My family and I were privileged to spend time with his family and congregation a few years back and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We look forward to this time as well. I’ll try to keep you posted here and there. Blessings!

As we’re counting the omer in anticipation of Shavuot, it is traditional to study Pirkei Avot each week. If you don’t have a copy of it, you can study it online for free at my other site where I plan on making more texts like these available.

Study Pirkei Avot here.

Quick post…

Last year we enjoyed our first “Moshiach’s Seudah” which is basically a mini-seder that revolves around the telling of stories about Messiah. This is a fairly recent tradition, done mostly in chassidic circles. I don’t have time to post details, but we had a great time last year and are planning on it this year as well. We used both rabbinic lore and narratives from the Gospels. I loved it when my then 3-year-old’s eyes got as big as saucers as I dramatically told the story of Yeshua walking on the water to meet his talmidim. Here are a couple of resources:

http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/days-of-destiny/24.htm#n1

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/151041/jewish/The-Eighth-Day-of-Pesach-The-Feast-of-Mashiach.htm

Invariably, no matter how hard and long we clean in preparation for Chag HaMatzot (the Feast of Unleavened Bread), somewhere around the middle of the week, we open a cabinet or the freezer and there’s a whole package of hamburger buns or something ridiculous like that. This year things are already a little different.

We’ve found a couple of small things that we had forgotten contained vinegar (a type of chametz/leavened food that we have chosen to remove during this time), such as our Ranch dressing that we had mixed up before we had started purging our home. Since it wasn’t labeled, all we thought about was what was in the mix contents. We didn’t think about the mayo that was added to it!

But there was something that was even larger that I, personally found. The actual day of Pesach, I found about three loaves of puffy, white bread in my heart. I allowed my zeal for observing the feast at a higher level than those around me spoil the spirit of the feast. The entire daylight hours of Pesach for my family ended up being a burden, and not a joy. I allowed a conflict of observance to get under my skin and sour our Pesach experience. Fortunately, I was able to work through this with my family prior to our second seder, confessing my sin and asking forgiveness from my family & friends. 

I am admitting this publicly, because we need to confess our faults in order to get rid of them, and I also need a reminder for the following years so that I don’t allow it to happen again. I need to remember that we must continually look into the “Law/Torah of Liberty” (James 1:25;2:12), not falling prey to the “leaven of the Pharisees”—hypocrisy. I wanted to be strict in the minor areas, while allowing the larger, more weightier matters of the Torah (love, compassion, etc.) to fall by the wayside. May Hashem use this as a life lesson to draw me (and hopefully others) to the heart of His commandments. I am thankful for a loving and gracious family. Truly love does cover a multitude of sins.

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!

Thanks to everyone who gave me input on deciding what to name my Messianic haggadah. Special thanks to Aaron Eby for choosing the “winning” title, “Cup of Redemption.” I wracked my brain with numerous options for titles, but landed on “Cup of Redemption” as the title, because it conveyed my point of connecting the Exodus and the Last Seder of our Master, Yeshua, plus it has great imagery attached to it. Thanks, Aaron for the great suggestion!

You have two options for getting your hands on this haggadah. You can either download it for free as a pdf doc (Adobe® Reader), or if you’re like me and want the “full effect,” you can purchase a physical copy, complete with a full-color cover and spiral binding—so that it lays flat at the Seder table as you are reading from it. I’ll have the physical version available this afternoon, but in the meantime you can download the pdf and check it out.

Update: Link has been fixed. Sorry for the trouble!

Download the pdf now.