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Our Distinctives

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Bamidbar: "In The Wilderness" (in English "Numbers", too boring at title) 27.13-18 You know how the Rabbi will introduce an interesting or important visitor to the synagogue and have them stand or even say a few words?  Well lucky me, I got to introduce two folks visiting our service from the planet Neptune!   They came to earth researching “faith”, a hard concept to reconnoiter from their spaceship and they want to know about Messianic Judaism and its relationship to traditional Judaism (whatever that might be) and faith in general.   They told me if they don’t like what they found out, they would wipe out life here on earth. Seemed a bit judgmental. Aliens! In my humble opinion, the practices of Messianic Judaism more resemble the patterns in Jewish scripture than any other strain of Judaism.   Here in this portion, the commissioning of Joshua as future leader of Israel, we see some of these Messianic Jewish distinctives practiced in specific.    (Numb...
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Innovation vs. Imitation. Numbers 3

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Now these are the records of the generations of Aaron and Moses at the time when the LORD spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai. These then are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priests, whom he ordained to serve as priests. But Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD when they offered strange fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of their father Aaron. Numbers 3:1-4 I wasn't sure what to make of this “ strange ” story, when I was asked to read it in services. Half of the first-generation priests died in God’s presence because of offering a “strange fire”.    Now, I think I know what happened.  It's the difference between faking it and making it, even in the highest of callings. Tonight begins Shavuot , the anniversary of the giving of the law, one of the lasting innovations a...
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Ruth and Boaz, Odd Couple / God Couple

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  Boaz and Ruth, Rembrandt - 1643 Is the Book of Ruth about a romance or a marriage of convenience?      I think it's more of an arrangement that turns into a romance.  Maybe.  But that’s the wrong question. The right question is "why do they matter?" Their union is the two poles of the faith of Israel.  It blends Ruth’s personal relationship with God, and her personal choice to follow God, so well known here… where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.” Ruth 1:16-17 …complimented and completed in the Boaz’s adherence to the traditions, laws, and enduring principles of scripture.  Their marriage results in the start of the line of King David and Yeshua the Messiah. That is not a quirk of fate. The setting Like the story of the "Akeidah...
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The Wings of Eagles, Revisited

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  2/14/2004 Parashat “Yitro” Exod. 19:3-6 Isaiah 6:1-8 1Pet 2:9,10 In January of 2021 I was scheduled to read this very same parashah I am reading today:  Exodus 19:3-6. The Eagles were ending a miserable 4 -11-1 season, played in the isolation a Covid-emptied stadium.   My wife of 38 years had just had extensive emergency surgery to remove cancerous tumors.   Due to Covid no one was allowed to even visit their loved ones in the hospital.   The sick were dying in forced isolation.    I was about to leave for services to read from the Torah, when the hospital finally answered my dozen calls with the worst possible news: the beginning of the end.   I cancelled my Torah reading.   Of course.   Linda passed away six brave and gruesome months later, full of faith, at peace with God.  But for us, a great loss.   I wrote an article about the experienced that was front paged in the Times of Israel. I felt I knew the meaning of t...
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