FYI - This time my lack of posts has been due to some sort of website problem (WordPress problem). This is the first time I’ve been able to post in a long time. I am in the process of upgrading WordPress and revamping the site completely. If you use an RSS reader, or read my blog through any kind of RSS syndication, please note that in the next week or so this may break and you might have to come back to the site and manually grab the new RSS feed. I’ll try to avoid this if possible, but it may be inevitable. I would appreciate your prayers in getting this done. I’ve ran into several walls already, but hope to have this finished soon, b’ezrat Hashem.

blessings & Happy Hanukkah!
-darren

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.

FFOZ’s new online resource—TorahPortions.org—is now live. It is going to be a really great resource for weekly Bible study.

At a glance, you can see the weekly reading from the Torah, the Prophets and the Gospels, as well as:

• A topical outline for the current readings
• A summary of the weekly Torah reading
• Messianic commentary with insights on the weekly reading
• A preview of next week’s reading
• Any specific weekly reading throughout the year
• Downloadables & resources with more to come

Be sure to check it out and pass it along to anyone who you think would appreciate it. We really want to get the word out on this valuable online tool.

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

Another article related to my post Jewish Resurrected Messiah Text Causing Buzz can be found on the Biblical Archaeology website here:

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=34&Issue=5&ArticleID=14

I don’t have a lot of time to post, but I wanted to share a quick thought…

In this week’s parasha (Re’eh) we find the following:

You shall not do like everything we do here today, every man what is proper in his eyes. For you will not yet have come to the resting place or to the heritage that Hashem, your G-d gives you (Devarim 12:8-9)

According to a midrashic approach to this passage, when we are all approaching the Scriptures and living out Torah through our own interpretations and traditions, we are not entering into the resting place of Hashem, nor the heritage that Hashem wants to give us. Not only are we causing confusion and anarchy among our family and brethren, we are being “wise in our own eyes.”

My family is constantly working to make slow, calculated steps towards greater observance of the mitzvot as spelled out by greater Judaism in order to do exactly this. No, we are not swallowing anything blindly, but neither are we presumptuously trying to reinvent the wheel in areas that have long been defined within historic Judaism. Please keep in mind that steps such as these have to be done with great humility and showing of grace to others. This is not a message of condemnation to those who are outside of this paradigm. I would love to see the greater Messianic community one day reach the place of becoming somewhat homogeneous in our approach to living out Torah, b’ezrat Hashem (with the help of Hashem). However, we must be gracious to those who are not on this particular fork of the road on which we are traveling. We must all work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Just as Boaz shared this past weekend at the The Commandment to Bless seminar, we have to set a high personal standard for our families, while at the same time being gracious to others as they progress in their journey. There is no room for elitism or intolerance. Let’s raise the bar as well as help people to get over it, rather than beating them with it.

Let us seek to enter into the resting place of Hashem, and into the heritage that He wants to give us.

Simchat Torah of Arkansas will be hosting a very special weekend with Boaz Michael, Founder and President of First Fruits of Zion on August 23-24. It will be a great time to meet messianic believers from all over the state of Arkansas as we come together to fellowship, to worship the 
Lord and to experience The Commandment to Bless seminar.

Community-wide Shabbat Service

Our weekend will begin Shabbat, August 23 at 9:30 am with a community-wide Shabbat service, hosted by Simchat Torah of Arkansas. Our Shabbat schedule will be as follows:

• 9:30 am - Shacharit (liturgical prayers, reading of Torah, Haftarah & Apostolic Writings)
• 12:00 pm - Potluck lunch (see www.joyoftorah.com/food for food guidelines)
• 1:00 pm - Music & Singing
• 1:30 pm - Drash (Teaching) by Boaz Michael and B’nei Torah Class (for children)

The Commandment to Bless seminar

The Commandment to Bless seminar will be held the following day, Sunday, August 24 at 3:00 pm. There will be three sessions lasting approximately 45 minutes each, with breaks between the sessions. We will close out the day with finger foods and fellowship after the seminar during which time we invite you to participate in the experience of blessing according to the commandment, as well as getting to know other fellow believers. Please spread the word to friends and family so we can make this event a success!