Book review

 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The breadth of coverage is superb. I'm glad a church in Eastern Pennsylvania had this book on its recommendation list. Cutillo covers history, terminology, and medicalization, but my main takeaway continues to be making sure that all the data doesn't replace the need for personal care and treatment. Of course, as a patient, and not a medical professional, my job is to be humble and to listen to advice, to get the required tests and present myself for proper investigation, and to keep fit as much as possible. It's a good read.

His mixing of faith (religion) and science is very carefully written and easy to follow. In fact, I finished the book after a hospital colonoscopy the other day. This is a very good read and helpful to anyone living in uncertain times (which is always!).

I liked the quote, “A fatal mistake in pursuing health and practising medicine is thinking we have no destiny beyond this world. Although the church herself at times struggles to remember, no other institution is better able to remind us that hope does not lie in the nostalgia of the past, the realities of the present, or the certainties of a calculated future “ — Dr Bob Cutillo

Tragic Days and Glorious Days and today

 Some tragic human days include:

11th of September 2001 (Nicknamed 9/11) when four airplanes were hijacked and over 2,700 people were killed in the USA

7th of October 2023 when over 1,200 Israelis were killed at a music festival in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists, and raped, and another several thousand were injured or kidnapped

15th of April 1865 when the 16th president of the USA, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC

20th of April 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado when two teens killed another 15 students on the birthday of Adolf Hitler.

7th of December 1941, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, Japan attacked the USA to spread the Second Wold War into that region. 2,300 Americans were killed and another 1,100 were wounded.

22nd of November, 1963. Three famous people died: Aldous Huxley, CS Lewis, and John Kennedy. The last was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Another fatal tragedy in US history.

24th of August, 1814. Washington, DC was burned!

And the list could continue in country after country, decade after decade, and you might wonder why I'm writing about all these.

July 1931, China Floods. 4 million died.

1900, Galveston, Texas. Another hurricane. 

September 1887, Yellow River Flood, 2 million died.

After writing about all these and so many other tragic days, I began a list of glorious days, good days, and winning days, when people shouted, 'Hurray!' and pleasure finally trumped tragedy.  But some were only personal when I graduated from university or received my Master's degree. Some were related to my family like when my kids stepped into adulthood, one by one, and stepped out of the shadows. My wife's graduation with her Master's degree; my son's first television appearance, my daughter's dancing in the Nutcracker, and the list continues but to be fair, they are all personal.

OK, so what about 'corporate' glorious days? Would that be the back-to-back Super Bowl victories of the Kansas City Chiefs? Or beyond sports, my political favourite won that mayoral or presidential race.  Why is it so much easier to remember trauma than personal triumph?

Andrea Bonior wrote in Psychology Today last year (https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/friendship-20/202312/traumatic-memories-really-do-feel-different) "People who have experienced trauma have a different relationship to those memories than they would to memories of typical, everyday events. Even memories with negative emotional connotations, like sadness, still seem to be in a different category than memories of trauma—where shock and helplessness force the body into an extreme threat response. The intrusion that comes with re-experiencing traumatic memories often involves the entire body and can send people into devastating cycles of flashbacks, nightmares, and even dissociative states."

Bonior cites recent studies and concludes: "These memories are perhaps less akin to how we think typically of recalling an experience and instead are more like reliving that experience. Trauma therapists and trauma survivors have long conceptualized trauma this way, as the body truly revisiting the experience, but to have actual scans of brain activity conveying the difference in these concrete ways is an important step forward."

Last night was 7 October here in Australia and I attended a commemorative service and vigil on the Gold Coast. The mayor spoke; the rabbi spoke; a Christian pastor spoke; and we sang some songs of peace. "Never again is now" was cited by at least two of the speakers and the spirit of the gathering was peaceful and supportive of the Jewish people. 

Of course, one year ago in Israel, over 1,200 people were taken, slaughtered, raped, killed, and hundreds more were injured. Actually, all the people were injured as were most of the world's Jewish population. Tragedy launches the 'shock and helplessness' I felt again last night, which for many here in Australia is continuing.

We desperately long for peace. Or do we? As I sat in the crowd last night, listening to the powerful remarks by the mayor of the Gold Coast, I wondered if those who straddle the middle road are intent on real peace. The rabbi declared that the Greens are not interested in the environment, but are filled with hate. Many in the crowd agreed with those who oppose Penny Wong, our Foreign Minister, as she double talks about Israel and peace. 

How can we proclaim peace at this time?  

How will you proclaim peace?

Yes, tragedies are powerful, and PTSD is well documented. Can we find hope on 8 October? Can we find hope on 5 November? Can we find hope any day?

What will you do to make your world a better place?

The movie 15 Years and some thoughts on Yom Kippur

 15 Years: (15 Jahre) The movie with more on Yom Kippur

This is for some a review but maybe for others rather, some inspired thoughts after watching “15 years.”  What a tumultuous story of stories with Omar of Syria,  Harry and Dorothea Mangold, Fleischer or Gimmiemore, and of course the protagonist Jenny. Every character has some intersection with others and their backstories are often as complex as the mystery we are trying to solve.

 

Jenny was sentenced to prison for a murder she did not commit. In the framework of a love connection and a reality television show for people with disabilities, named Unicorn, Jenny deals with her pain and her desire for revenge, all in the matrix of the repeated message of Christianity: Jesus died to forgive us our many sins.

 

Mixed in is the troubled household of the religious ladies who deal in group therapy, and gain employment in odd jobs, cleaning at the airport or the conservatorium. They even sing an old favourite of mine and anyone who was born again in the 1970s, “Pass it on.” 

 

The head of the pseudo convent, Frau Markowski, has her own troubles and a visit by a celebrity to the home rekindles her past. It is at the conservatorium that all these worlds collide, and the iron pipe and a knife rear their ugly heads again and again.

 

For me it was a very real story of redemption and forgiveness, of revenge,  pain and suffering. Sometimes I go to the cinema and simply watch, sing along, or fog out. But this one, here on the airplane didn’t allow me to do that. What is my response to these challenging postulates and thoughts? What will be my response if I am falsely accused? 

 

At the outset, the screen shows a quote by Jack Kornfield which reads, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.”  (Even though Jack attribes this quote to “someone”)^[1] I wonder if the message of the cross, the simple death of the Jewish man Jesus, causes us to ponder this message of Kornfield.

 

Earlier this week I met with a Jewish man who well described the passion of Jesus as a horrible death, and his question to me, amid several questions, had to do with comparing the crucifixion to the deaths of others. Why the blood? Why so much talk about death? And if his death did something good, surely others who die more violently should produce other things?  

 

All good questions, and reasonable. 

 

The substitution of a ram in Genesis 22 when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son shouts ‘mercy.’ On Yom Kippur, we are told to sprinkle blood at the altar of the Tabernacle so that atonement could be made. You see, forgiveness is the oxygen we all need to make the past and the future merge today with real hope. Like the Yom Kippur sacrifice of the two goats (found in the Bible in Leviticus 16), one for the slaughter and the other, the scapegoat sent into the wilderness, we can have a substitute that lasts more than this German-made movie or an annually renewable contract. 

 

More review: Some lines of significance are: “Do you listen to the lawyers when they tell you to lie?” That prompted many thoughts in my head. 

“Talent knows no bounds”—that one made me ponder boundaries and that’s always a good thing. What else has no bounds?

“Killing two flies with one swat” is too brutal for Omar, so he tells Jenny the Syrian citation which is similar but “more peaceful”, “Lure two white doves with one kernel.” 

 

Mixed in are great pieces by Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt which always is enjoyable.

 

Whether this was a good movie or not, this was a good-to-talk-about movie. As we enter the Jewish High Holidays season, forgiveness, the main component promised but rarely totally embraced, is God’s overarching desire to extend to Jewish people, and really, to all people. Jesus, accused of wrong-doing, innocent on all charges, dies in our place, as a substitute, and his blood was spilled about 2,000 years ago. Why? To be the kipporah, the sacrifice for atonement, for each of us, and to bring God’s love to the planet. 

 

How will that happen? When will the far-flung peoples of the earth hear the Good News message of the cross of Jesus and the forgiveness that God wants to extend to each one?

 

Kurt Kaiser’s song “Pass it on” sung at the beginning, reminded me

 

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going. 

And soon all those around can warm up to its glowing. 

That’s how it is with God’s love,

Once you’ve experienced it. 

You spread his love to everyone

You want to pass it on.” 

 

You hear the message; you believe, you pass it on. Let’s share God’s love today with others. What do you say? Talent and forgiveness know no bounds.

———————————————

^[1] We have all betrayed and hurt others, just as we have knowingly or unknowingly been harmed by them.  It is inevitable in this human realm. Sometimes our betrayals are small, sometimes terrible.  Extending and receiving forgiveness is essential for redemption from our past.  To forgive does not mean we condone the misdeeds of another. We can dedicate ourselves to making sure they never happen again. But without forgiveness, the world can never be released from the sorrows of the past.  Someone quipped, “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” Forgiveness is a way to move on.

Identity... where do I find mine?

The Talmud says: "Everyone is responsible to be as great as Moses." But then the Torah tells us in Deuteronomy 34.10  "no one will ever be as great as Moses!" How can I be expected to be as great as Moses, if no one will ever be as great?!

The answer is that just as Moses fulfilled his personal potential, we are also expected to fulfil ours. Each of us is born with a unique set of talents and tools. Some of us are rich, others are poor. Some are tall and some are short. One person can sing, another can write, etc. But these qualities are not what determines your greatness. Rather, it's how you deal with your circumstances.

Imagine two people competing in a 100-meter dash. One runs a world record time of 9.3 seconds. The other crosses the finish line in 30 seconds.

Who would you say is the success? The record breaker of course!

Now what if I told you that the one who clocked 30 seconds had developed polio as a child, was unable to walk until he was 14 years old, and had invested years of painful, gruelling exercise until he was finally able to even traverse that distance?

We can never know the circumstances another person has to deal with; we cannot see whether he's naturally calm or whether he's had to struggle to control his temper; whether he was born with great intelligence or whether he's had to overcome learning disabilities; whether he's been handed the best of everything or whether he's had to surmount many obstacles.

That's why Judaism says: It's not important where you are on the ladder, but how many rungs you've climbed.

This is a crucial concept for parents and teachers. Consider: Which is the more important grade on a child's report card: "achievement" or "effort"?

The answer is effort. The reason we need grades for "achievement" is simply to have an objective gauge of how much material the child is grasping. But in ultimate terms, all that matters is the effort.

The story is told of Zusia, the great Chassidic master, who lay crying on his deathbed. His students asked him, "Rebbe, why are you so sad? After all the mitzvahs and good deeds you have done, you will surely get a great reward in heaven!"

"I'm afraid!" said Zusia. "Because when I get to heaven, I know God's not going to ask me 'Why weren't you more like Moses?' or 'Why weren't you more like King David?' But I'm afraid that God will ask 'Zusia, why weren't you more like Zusia?' And then what will I say?!"

So, in answer to your question, the Talmudic statement that "Nobody will ever be as great as Moses" means that nobody again will have that same potential. But you can maximize that which you do have. Life is not a competition against anyone but yourself. May the Almighty grant you the strength and clarity to be... yourself!

Cal Newport in his most recent book “Slow Productivity” cites a story from the beginning of the pandemic. Brinda Narayan writes in her review of Newport’s book the following:

 

In 2021, Jonathan Frostick of HSBC suffered a heart attack. And then put out a LinkedIn post about how he planned to change his life. The post went viral, gathering 300,000 comments. His first resolution was: “I’m not spending all day on Zoom anymore.” After the pandemic, workers found themselves in more meetings, responding to more emails and messages.

 

Besides the core work that you are responsible for, scheduling meetings and other activities often have an “overhead tax”. Then you try to catch up on actual work on off-work hours – on weekends or early mornings or late nights. You find yourself working longer hours and still falling behind.

 

Since all tasks have an associated “overhead tax”, it’s best to do fewer things. You must reduce not just professional and personal obligations, but also social ones.

 

Or what about Louie Zamperini, the 1936 Olympian in Berlin, from the USA, Italian American parents, who was shot down in the Pacific by Japanese soldiers in WW2?  He had some significant moments on a raft, during which the bad boy of LA prayed and vowed to God that Louis would dedicate himself to the Lord if God were to save him. You might remember that prayer from the book or the movie Unbroken by Laura Hillebrand (movie by Angelina Jolie). He didn’t get out of the Japanese POW camps and immediately attend church, but he did eventually make good on that prayer. 

 

Life and death decisions... those really matter. 

What is your life today? 

I drove by a funeral on my way home last week. The minister was frocked, and the pallbearers were hauling the casket down the stairs to the waiting hearse. Had that person made peace with God? Had that person knelt and cried to the Lord, “Father please forgive me in Yeshua’s name!” That’s when peace comes. That’s when forgiveness comes. That’s when life comes, no matter when death joins us.

 

What about you? Today. Have you said, “yes” to Jesus? Have you repented and received his love and grace? If not, do it now. 

 

Don’t wait until Yom Kippur. 

Don’t wait until you can attend a synagogue or church service.

 

Do it now. 

God’s love is for you. He wants to embrace you. His arms are not so short that he cannot save you. (Isaiah 59.1-2) Repent. And receive his love and grace.

 

Then write me, won’t you?

 

 For more on finding your identity: https://www.healthline.com/health/sense-of-self#checking-yours

Standing with and speaking to Israel

For the record, I'm a Jew. I was born a Jew; I'll die a Jew. When I was 11 I stood in a protest rally outside the Jewish Community Center on 82nd and Holmes in Kansas City, attesting to the plight of Soviet Jews and begging the world community to amend its ways and 'let my people go.' We sang Holocaust songs in Yiddish and my commitment to activism was born. 

Again when I was 15, we held a 24-hour rally to bring to the world's attention the plight of our Soviet family of Jewish people. This time even Christians joined us in solidarity. That was a surprise to me. 

So when I watched rallies across the world, here and there, in and around the horrors of 7 October 2023, and the continuing plight of Jewish people, most notably the hostages captured on that fateful morning, my heart aches to help and my activist streak wants to kick in. What can I do to help? What can anyone do to help?

A friend of a friend on Facebook posted a link to an Israeli news outlet that chastised an American political party for what they deemed as an improper response at their national convention held in Chicago last month. 

"But rather than side unreservedly with Israel, the Democratic Party and the Biden administration have chosen to take unprecedented measures against the elected government of a friendly nation. With unspeakable impudence and cynical exploitation of his Jewish origins, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer purported to know better than the Israeli electorate what is good for it. In a desperate attempt to kowtow to his party’s increasingly assertive radical wing, he accused the elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of being an “obstacle to peace,” calling for early elections to replace him, despite the fact that, even today, he is the most popular politician in the country."

This sentiment was written by the journalist Dr. Martin Sherman. The crowds this weekend, and for months now, that are telling the government of Israel to make a deal, that are not agreeing with PM Netanyahu, that are calling for his removal, are not in the view of Dr Sherman. 

The BBC reported after the weekend's protests, "Tens of thousands of people have rallied across Israel after the bodies of six hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip were recovered by soldiers, causing national outrage. Protesters - many clad in Israeli flags - descended on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities, accusing PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of not doing enough to reach a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks.

Sunday's protests were largely peaceful - but crowds broke through police lines, blocking a major highway in Tel Aviv. This comes as a major Israeli labour union, Histadrut, called for a nationwide general strike on Monday, pressing for a hostage deal."

 

I'm very much still 'for Israel.' I would still march when global opinion would turn away from her. Here is a great resource if you are 'for Israel.' I read it as well. If you want to follow the Australian Jewish Association and all the media watch they perform here is the link: https://jewishassociation.org.au/news-media/ . 

 

AT THE SAME TIME, I will not stand idly by and let a seemingly uncaring government have full power. As long as we live in democracies, and we do, we should speak up when we see/ hear injustice. I hear the words of the prophets decrying Israel's duly 'elected' or 'appointed' leadership whether it is Jeremiah (chapter 23) or Ezekiel (chapter 34), and the judgment which befell Israel was God's doing. Yes, He uses the nations around Israel to accomplish these disciplines, but in the end, it is our responsibility to turn to God, and to repent, and to ask Him for His favour to be on us. 

All that said, what Schumer said in calling out Israel's PM is what we do in democracies. Schumer is not anti-Israel. He's opposed to stonewalling. I wish the PM would have made a deal before the 6 bodies were discovered this weekend having only recently been executed by Hamas. Bring them home, PM. Bring them home, world government. Bring them home, UN. Let's get it right. The evil violence of the 7 October attack should be rewarded with world rejection and not world sympathy for Hamas. 

What would you do if you were still PM today?

 

The problem is...

Shomair Yisrael Congregation

 To see the video of this talk: 

https://www.youtube.com/live/dF5zvywRr3M?si=oAeBsNf52E7XrMbV&t=5474

Shabbat shalom to each of you both here in the congregation and online watching this morning. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to visit Knoxville and to spend time with you in worship and in the Word, so thank you to Rabbi Michael and his wife Jan both for hosting me for Shabbat dinner and in hospitality overnight, and for the invitation to be here; so, let’s get right into it.

This week’s parasha is Va’etchanan and I remember this sedra for several reasons, most notably my own failure and lying when I was in my early teenage years back in the 1960s. I was a ba’al k’riah, having successfully earned that in my Bar Mitzvah in 1964 and then helping with that ministry at our Orthodox shul in Kansas City for a couple of years. But as a young teenager, I had other considerations that captured my attention, especially in the fever heat of summer, and when it was my time to read, I was ill-prepared. After the Cohen’s reading with which I was successful, I pretended to have a sudden case of laryngitis and could not continue in any further public reading. What a scam! What a terrible action of pretention! And to this day, I feel badly about my lying. So, when I checked the calendar for this Shabbat and saw it was this parasha, I again felt that guilt and shame. Not a good place from which to start, but maybe what I share today will help us deal in a godly way with such feelings down the road.

As we ponder other calendar events, it’s a good time to think of that circle of life reality. For many of you, starting school is now in full swing. The summer ended (long before 21 September at the equinox) and fall began with kids going back to school and your rhythm of life got a new drum beat. For others of you, wearing an orange shirt and cheering the Volunteers on a Saturday afternoon adds to your rhythm and to your hopes and sometimes disappointments each weekend. Today in Knoxville you could be at the East Tennessee History Centre celebrating History Hootenanny or you could be at the Greater Smoky Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts learning NRA Basics of Shotgun Shooting. Events that matter make it onto our calendars including dentist appointments and anniversaries and so much more. I’m originally from Kansas City, so Chiefs football is part of my routine.

You might know that we Jews emphasize calendars with regularity. It’s part of our rhythm of life in religion. For instance, last Monday was Tisha B’av, the worst day ever in the Jewish memory and annual cycle. That’s the day we recall the destruction of both temples in Jerusalem, first the ruin of Solomon’s by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and then the rebuilt one of Herod, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Tisha B’av marks the end of the three weeks, this sad and mournful period each summer in which we are to ponder the dark eras of our Jewish history. Did you do that? Does the memory of the destroyed Temple teach us?

Then today, this weekend is supposed to bring a change for our people. Today is Shabbat Nachamu, and Va’etchanan is always the parasha for such. Why? Nachamu means comfort, and after the pondering of our losses in the week just past, it’s good to be comforted by the Lord. So, we read the Haftorah portions the next 6 weeks in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish civil new year, we read comforting words from the prophet Isaiah. This week chapter 40, then next week we read Chapters 49 and 50, then 55, 51.12-52.12, 54, 60, 61 and 62. OK, this might sound somewhat selective, right? Let me reorder those readings. Chapters 40, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 60, 61,62. Did you hear that? One significant chapter is missing; we will get to that later in this talk. 

Now when we think about comfort in the losses of both temples and the sadnesses of our lives over history, and the need for comfort, there seems to be something missing for many of our people. You might know that 315 days ago some madmen flew, and others drove into the Land of Israel, across our Southern border, attacked and mauled, murdered and ruined the lives of over 1,200 Jews. 7 October was a day that most commentators continue to highlight as the ‘worst day for Jews worldwide since the Holocaust.’  There have been other very bad days for Jewish people since 1945, but nothing on such a grand stage as what Hamas did to our people that final day of Sukkot last year. 

OK, you think, it’s hard to come to terms with October 7. It’s hard to come to terms with antisemitism which globally is on the rise in a very clear and present dangerous way. Nazi marches taking place in Nashville, swastikas adorning Jewish cemeteries and brazen verbal and physical attacks of our people on university campuses will probably increase as college classes reopen soon. Nowhere seems to be safe; what are we to make of all this, and where, honestly, where is our Nachamu, our comfort?

For that I want us to consider the words of the Torah this morning. Those 122 verses I pretended not to be able to read that memorable day in 1966 are still in our books today. What is included may well hold the answer to my questions this morning. I believe the answer is in that text. 

Hear these words from Deuteronomy chapter 5, the repetition of the 10 words, the commandments. Yes, it includes thou shalt nots with which even most unbelievers are familiar. No stealing, no adultery, no murder. Got it. Is that how we gain comfort today? No, most folks miss it that the First commandment is not a prevention or one of those “Keep the Sabbath” or “Honor your parents” mandates. Nope, Commandment #1 is a call to faith. Listen, here it is.

1.   “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

That’s it. I am the Lord. I’m your God. I brought you out in the Exodus. The first of the 10 words, the Aseret hadivrot is not a command at all. It’s a recognition. It’s a statement of identity and relationship. It’s not the 2^nd which is ‘don’t have any idols or make any such… no other gods.’ No, the First of the 10 words is a proclamation and demands my response. 

No wonder the rabbis zoom in on this one in their summations of the 613. You know that the rabbis have counted 613 commandments they find in the Torah. No more than 90 of those can be fulfilled in our days, but still they counted 613. And like you and I, they want to get that down to a more manageable size, the Readers Digest version, if you will. So, they narrowed it down to the 13 of Maimonides. Or the 10 of the 2 tablets. But how about the 3 of Micah 6: what is good? Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. OK, that works, all the Torah is summed up in those three. How about 2? You will know the 2 that Yeshua used to summarize the 613. Love the Lord your God with everything you have and love your neighbour as yourself. Great. Can you get it down to 1? The rabbis agree that Habakkuk 2.4 is the great summary. The apostle Paul agreed with them. What does the prophet say there? And what Paul quotes at least two times? The “Just shall live by his faith.”^[1]

Of note, and not without surprise, the rabbis and Paul have different translations of that word ‘faith.’ 

וְצַדִּ֖יק בֶּאֱמוּנָת֥וֹ יִחְיֶֽה׃

Emunato. His faith. The rabbis translate that to his ‘faithfulness.’ Do you hear the nuance of difference there? One, faith has to do with our confidence in the Lord of life and our beliefs towards him. The other, faithfulness, has to do with our activities, our enterprise, our works, our duties, our mitzvot. 

The apostle Paul makes clear that it was Abraham’s faith that gave him right standing with the Lord. And that we stand only by our faith. He even said, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” The reality is that we all fall short of God’s standards and our hope is not in our faithfulness. Our hope is in the One who initiated our relationship, our covenant, our being members of his family, the Lord himself. No wonder, the First ‘commandment’ is “I am.” 

I love the 12 steps of AA and all the other 12 step programs out there. The first of those 12 recognizes our inability to change our stripes and admits that. Publicly. Or at least to ourselves. We admit that we are powerless to change, and that our lives are unmanageable. The 2^nd step is a recognition of the Power beyond us who can make that change, and the 3^rd of the opening waltz is a surrender, a turning our lives and “our will over to the care of God.” That three-step formula is how this works. It’s how AA or SA or NA or all those programs work. It’s how I work! It’s how true religion works. 

That’s what Paul came to understand. He had plenty of credentials, even as Rabbi Michael and I have from our youth as ordinary Jews, but like Paul, we came to realize our unmanageability, our recognition of the Lord Yeshua, and our surrender in faith to his lordship.  That’s the First Commandment. 

But now, in case you wonder about the Shema, which is also in today’s parasha, and confused about the word ‘echad’ there in chapter 6, verse 4 of Devarim, let me give you my additional understanding of that, and it’s the exact same as the Aseret hadivrot. 

In chapter 6 of Deuteronomy, we read this from verse 1. 

Deut. 6:1   “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, ² so that you and your son and your grandson might ^afear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, ^ball the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. ³ “O Israel, you should listen and ¹be careful to do it, that ^ait may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Get it? God is saying, do you want good stuff to happen? Keep the mitzvot. OK. But don’t miss who is involved. Verse 1, the Lord your God told you. Verse 2, fear the Lord your God. Verse 3, the Lord, God of your fathers who promised. 

And just to make it very clear, verse 4 say, HEAR. Listen! Shema Yisrael! The Lord is our God. That’s the one I’m talking about. HIM. No other gods. No other philosophies or philosophers. I’m talking about THAT ONE. 

The passage continues, love him (verse 5), don’t forget him (verse 12), fear him (verse 13). Friends at Shomair Yisrael, today I’m telling you that our hope is not in our fulfillment of Torah’s 613 or even today’s 83. Our hope is not in our faithfulness. Our hope is in the Living God who calls us to remember him, to fear him, to love and honour him, and to share his love with one another. 

If you know yourself, and your own failures, whether in lying about what physical condition you have like I did that Shabbat morning 58 years ago or pretending to be some kind of holy Joe when deep down inside your sins are well known to you, if you know you, you will not stand on your faithfulness. You will admit your powerlessness to change. Your admission will include a recognition of THAT ONE, the Lord your God, and his capacity to make us his. And in one fell swoop, we will surrender and find eternal life. 

So, why am I speaking about all this today? It’s Shabbat Nachamu and we need real comfort, not only since 7 October, but throughout our days. And if we miss the First Step or the First commandment, we are destined to continue to miss the comfort that is sure to come.

I believe that we as a people suffered in the Holocaust due to our living godlessly in the 1930s in Europe. If you read the same Bible cover to cover that our people have read since Moses, you will hear Isaiah and Jeremiah, Joel and Hosea call us out. You will hear them decry our errors and our unwillingness to change. Moses predicted our falling away and every prophet in the Book did the same. 

And what will God do to her erring people? He will judge us. Why? To get us back on track. He built the system of righteousness, and he longs for us to live there. And if we don’t, he has no other recourse but to call other nations in to bring us to judgment so that we turn to him. 

The two temples were destroyed for our own sins. Solomon’s temple destroyed due to three things: idolatry, adultery and murder. The 2^nd Temple was destroyed due to ‘hatred without a cause.’ 

Modern Israel was formed in 1948, but even without a specific land mass, we were judged as a nation throughout our existence. Messianic Jewish leader Art Katz died 17 years ago and was a prophetic voice in our days. In his book “The Holocaust: where was God?” Art said that if God did not judge the Jews in Europe in the 1930s, that he “would have to apologize to the Jews of Jeremiah’s days.” 

Every one of our losses was due to our failures. Yes, other nations were involved, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the German republic, etc, and they were recompensed with punishment for their actions against our people. Still, don’t miss this, when we are met with a major catastrophe (that’s the translation of the word ‘shoah’ by the way), we must look up. We must search for God. Our hope is not in a treaty with our enemies. Our hope is not in the UN or the next election. Our hope as Jews is in the living God and anything less than that, is…well, less than that. It’s not hope at all. 

How do we experience that hope? By acknowledging our failures, our sins, our disregard of God and his plans, by admitting this triad: we cannot, he can, I surrender. 

And one more particular thing. Remember I mentioned the haftorahs and their apparent missing component this season? We tallied the readings as Isaiah 40, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54 and 60. What’s missing? Chapter 53! The very hope of the Jewish people is the Comforter of Israel. And he is depicted, announced, and showcased most clearly in the entire Tanach in the words of Isaiah chapter 53. 

“He grew up before Him like a tender shoot. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. He was pierced through for our transgressions, 

He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.

Friends here and online, if you are listening, really listening to my talk this morning, then you are hearing that God loves you enough to send troubles your way, so that you turn to him to repair your life, admit your failings and turn to the Only One who can save you. That’s Yeshua, the man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief. The punishment for our shalom fell on him and with his stripes we are healed. Healed of our misdoings and brought near through his sacrificial blood shed nearly 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. 

Let his plan find its way into your life. 

Turn to him and be saved.

Rabbi Mike, shalom to you and your wife, to your family and your family here at Shomair Yisrael. And to each of you, thanks for listening and being God’s people here today and throughout your days. Shabbat shalom.

 

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^[1] Rom. 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

 

Gal. 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

 

Gal. 3:11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

 

Heb. 10:38   But MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH,

                  AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.