Author: Steven R. Bruck

The Only Reason to Obey

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We all know God gave many different commandments to Moses during the 40 years in the desert, but have you ever considered that God never gave any other commandments, anywhere else, throughout the rest of the Bible?

I think that’s because God figures that when he says to do something, we should do it. Do you agree?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

If you do agree, then can I ask you this question: do you try to do what God said to do, or do you do what your religion tells you to do?

For example, God says to rest on the 7th day, which is Saturday. Even the Gregorian (Christian) calendar has two starting days: Sunday for the non-business week and Monday for the business week, so the standard calendar used by most everyone in the world starts on Sunday, which means the 7th day is Saturday.

Yet most every Christian sabbath is on Sunday, the first day of the week, not the 7th, which is a rejection of what God said to do.

Here’s another example: in Leviticus 11, God tells us there are certain animals that he considers unclean and that we should not eat, but nearly every Christian I have ever known, even within Messianic Jewish synagogues and Hebraic Roots Churches, totally ignore that rule.

I hate to say it, but many Jews do, as well.

And, just for the record, as far as God is concerned (hey, this is not my opinion but is stated in the Bible), when we ignore or refuse to do what God says, he sees it as rejecting him. Remember what God said when the people called for a king (1 Samuel 8:7) (CJB):

Adonai said to Sh’mu’el, “Listen to the people, to everything they say to you; for it is not you they are rejecting; they are rejecting me; they don’t want me to be king over them.”

You know, I hear so many excuses why it is okay to reject God’s Torah, but most people have no idea that there are different commandments, rules, laws, ordinances, etc. that are in there, which go beyond the Big 10.

Did yo know that the Torah has a penal code defining which crimes deserve what punishments? Did you know that it covers interpersonal relationships, defining what is proper and godly and what is perverse and sinful? The Torah tells us how God wants us to worship him, defining which days to celebrate and how we should act on those days. And most important of all, it tells us how to live in order to please God and how to be holy, as he is holy (which is, by the way, another Torah commandment).

God has rules he gave to us Jews to teach the world. How do I know? Because he said so!

Read Exodus 19:6– God tells Moses the Jews are to be his (meaning God’s) nation of priests, and since we already had our own priests, the Levites, then the other 11 tribes must be priests to whoever else there was, which was the Goyim, the nations… in other words, everyone else in the world.

There are many good reasons to obey God: to please him, to be a worshipful believer, to earn blessings (Deuteronomy 28), or to show that we trust him; but the bottom line is this: obedience demonstrates the level of our faithfulness.

If someone you love asks you to do something, won’t you do it for them?

Yet so many people say they love the Lord and in the same breath say that they don’t have to obey his Torah because his son did away with it.

Yeshua, however, often said that he does everything his father in heaven tells him to do. So if Yeshua was faithfully obeying his father, how can he then tell everyone else they don’t have to?

There can be no argument that ignoring the Holy Days specified in Leviticus 23, the rules for food in Leviticus 11, the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20, or any of the other commandments God gave throughout the entire Torah is a rejection of God.

I don’t give a hootenanny what you priest or pastor or minister or even your rabbi tells you- if God said to do it, do they outrank God?

Despite all the arguments why we should obey the Torah, and all the excuses why we don’t have to, it really comes down to this: if you believe that God is the ultimate authority and power in the Universe, why would you not obey him?

If you want to call yourself “faithful”, then that faith (as James said) MUST be demonstrated through what you do, and that really means how you worship God in your everyday activities throughout your life.

Worship isn’t what you do in church or shul, but how you live your life outside of those places.

I am going to finish with something I write very often, and pray that it will get through to at least someone, someday:

When you meet God at Judgement day, and we all will, and you tell him that you only did what they told you to do, I can’t speak for the Big Guy in the sky but I believe he might say something to this effect:

“I understand that you did what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts!”

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment or like these messages to help me get more exposure on the Internet. And also share these with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so L’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

How Can a Perfect God Who Knows Our Heart Make So Many Bad Choices?

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The question, “How can a perfect God make such imperfect beings?” has been raised any number of times.

I believe the answer is that he made us perfectly imperfect for a reason.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Let’s see what might be considered some of the “mistakes” God made.

How about mankind? It is a lot to deal with all the bad things mankind has done throughout history, so let’s deal just for the moment with the pre-flood group.

God made Adam and then Eve, and gave them pretty simple instructions: don’t eat from those trees. And, of course, we all know how that ended up. But it got even worse when they started to reproduce, and by the time the earth was filled with people, they were all sinful and hedonistic, criminal and perverse.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that was really in God’s original plan.

After the flood, when the righteous Noah and his wife, along with his three sons and their wives, got busy to repopulate the earth, we didn’t even have to wait for a new generation before things went south. Don’t you remember? Ham was disrespectful to his father (this sin later to be listed as one of the Big 10) and so things started downhill, again.

How could God have not known this would happen?

We read of Jonah, a man who God called to save thousands of lives, but who rejected his calling and fled. Again, how could God, who knows our hearts and minds, have called a man that he should have known would not cooperate, causing (in the short haul) the loss of all the cargo on that ship which could have ruined many businesses?

And what about Shaul, the first king of Israel? Oy! How could God have chosen him?

We read how Shaul didn’t even want to be found, hiding off to the side, when Sh’mu’el called for him to be anointed as king in front of the people? Why would God choose him? And to make things worse, he not only disobeyed God right from the start, but even broke not just God’s Torah, but his own law to find a Necromancer to call Sh’mu’el up from the dead when he faced a large army of Philistines.

I wonder what I would have done if someone from the dead told me that I was going to be in their golf foursome the next day?

Here we have three well-known examples of God making a “mistake”, so we are back to the original question: how can a perfect God, who knows our hearts and minds, ever choose these people who, pretty much from the start, were obviously the wrong choices?

My answer is that they were not the wrong choices. I believe God chose them to prove themselves worthy of the honor he was giving them.

God has given every one of us the opportunity to choose what we will do and say, how we will act, and who we choose to worship.

We call this Free Will.

When we read these stories in the Bible, they don’t all tell us of the life these chosen “mistakes” lived prior to their introduction to us. Why would God call Shaul or Jonah when he knew, in their hearts, they were weak and afraid?

I believe he did it because God saw their potential and wanted to give them the chance to develop into the best person that they could be.

In other words, God didn’t make a mistake calling them, they failed to live up to their own potential which God (knowing their hearts and minds) saw in them.

God doesn’t want automatons; he doesn’t want us to love him because he created us that way. God wants us to CHOOSE him over the other temptations (I should say obstacles) that direct us away from righteous living.

The truth is that God doesn’t make mistakes, he provides us with the opportunity to raise ourselves up, or to screw up.

Like it or not, no matter what happens it isn’t God’s fault: it falls directly into our laps.

Even if you are being punished, it is because of what you have done, what you have chosen, and what you have brought on yourself.

Yes, God tests us, and it seems unfair that we are never given the chance to study.

Or, am I wrong about that?

You know what? I am wrong- we do know what to study and the text book has been around for nearly 3,500 years!

You guessed it! The Torah is the textbook God gave us so that when he tests us, we can pass every time. And what is the lesson in that book which prepares us to pass God’s tests?

It is to trust in God.

God will give us all we need to live a righteous life, and if we live based on God’s textbook (as best as we can because we are, still and all, humans and weak and self-absorbed and sinful from birth) then when the test comes, we will be prepared.

Basically, God didn’t make a mistake choosing Shaul or Jonah, or creating Mankind… it was simply that they all failed to study.

So, nu? … Are you doing your homework?

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and like these messages to help them get more exposure on the Internet. Also share them with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

The Torah is a Mirror

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How many understand the message about looking in the mirror in James 1:22-24?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

It is a fundamental principle of Jewish study that the Torah is a mirror reflecting one’s own life, soul, and spiritual journey. 

The Book of James was written specifically to those believing Jews who lived in the Diaspora, and since Yacov (James) was Jewish, he knew about this teaching and so when he used it, he knew that his audience would understand, as well.

But how many Christians know what he was actually referring to?

Let’s see what he said (CJB):

Don’t deceive yourselves by only hearing what the Word says, but do it!  For whoever hears the Word but doesn’t do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror,  who looks at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

The only “Word” that existed when he said this was the Torah. That is not an opinion, it is historical fact, so what Jimmy was telling these messianic Jews was that they need to remain Jewish to stay on the right track for salvation. He did this because of the ever-growing influence of the Gentiles who were taking over this Jewish movement and teaching to reject much, if not all, of the Torah.

The Gentile introduction to salvation through Yeshua is considered to have begun with Kefa’s (Peter) conversion of Cornelius around 37-40 AD (Acts 10), and by the end of that century (after all the Jewish leaders had died or had been martyred) the now Gentile leadership of what was now a mostly Gentile sect was already separating itself from its Jewish roots.

Consequently, the further this movement got away from its Jewish roots, the further it got away from Yeshua.

The Book of James is considered to be one of the earliest written messages, sometime around 40-50 AD, and as such was written a little after the time that Gentiles started to come into (or should I say, infiltrate?) this evolving Jewish sect of Jews who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah. However, there was never any conversion because these Jewish believers continued living a Torah observant lifestyle, which is also how Yeshua lived and what he taught.

Sometime around 98 AD, Ignatius of Antioch stated that the Sabbath will be on a Sunday for (those who were now being called) Christians, and by the Council of Nicene, Christianity was not only totally foreign to its Jewish roots, but was anti-Jewish.

So, the idea that the Torah should be a mirror, meaning that when we see how God says to worship him and to treat each other we should recognize that this is what we do every day, has been lost to Christians.

The real new Covenant, Jeremiah 31:31, says that God will write his Torah on our hearts. This also reflects back on the analogy of the Torah being a mirror (get it? Reflect, Torah as a mirror, get it?).

OK, back to being serious… it is atsuv me’od (Hebrew for “very sad”) that because traditional Christian teaching is that the Torah is only for Jews, by rejecting the Torah Christians are excluding themselves from being able to partake in the new covenant. Why? Because you can’t have something you reject written on your heart.

Yacov wrote to believing Jews who were being influenced by Gentiles who accepted Yeshua, but were teaching to reject the way he lived and worshipped. That is why Yacov used this well-known analogy of the Torah being a mirror when he “drashed” about one who doesn’t do as God said is like someone who forgets what he looks like.

What he was saying was to really be who God wants you to be, the Torah has to be a mirror.

So, nu?… what do you see when you read the Torah?

Thank you for being here and please remember to like and comment on these messages, which helps me to get more exposure on the Internet. Also share these with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so L’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!


Worship in the Synagogue is Just the Start

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What is worship? According to Google Dictionary, it is the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.

But how many of us only express that in prayer while at services in synagogue or church? Or alone in prayer?

Shouldn’t worship be evident in everything we do, everything we say, and how we treat others?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

God tells us how he wants us to worship him and how he wants us to treat others. These instructions (or commandments, if you will) are found only in the Torah- after Deuteronomy, God never gives any new instructions, and that goes triple for the Christian teaching about some “Law of Christ”.

Yeshua (Jesus) was the innocent lamb of God because he was sinless, and the only way he could be sinless was to be in perfect obedience, all the time, to the Torah. The Torah was the ONLY scripture that existed then. His worship was evident through his obedience to his father’s instructions 24/7/365!

So, whatever you may have been told is some “Law of Christ”, if it isn’t what God said to do in the Torah… it is a false law.

Do you want to follow in the footsteps of the Messiah? Do you want to do as Yeshua did? Do you want to be in proper worship of God, all the time?

Then do as Yeshua did, which was living in accordance with God’s instructions for worship and relationships, which are (again) only found in the Torah.

That means praying or acting worshipful in your chosen house of worship is just the start because REAL worship of God is validated by everything you do OUTSIDE OF YOUR HOUSE OF WORSHIP!

Worship of God is how you speak to your friends, it’s how you react to being insulted, it’s how you contribute to charities, and it’s how you do not make a big deal of it, like some gantse macher (Yiddish for a “big shot” who is boastful or acts self-important) who does things to please people.

The greatest compliment I ever received was when someone once asked me if I was a believer because they noticed something about the way I acted. I am ashamed to confess that it happened a long time ago, and hasn’t really happened since- definitely not often enough for me to think I am worshipping as well as I should.

So, there is an old Jewish saying that when we look into the Torah, we should see ourself. That fits in very much with the promise God made through Jeremiah (31:31) when he said he would write his Torah on our hearts. If we are truly living examples of God’s Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) indwelling in us, then we should be living and breathing Torah.

Not some religious drek (Yiddish for garbage) about doing whatever we want so long as we “believe in Jesus”, are good people and love our neighbors. That will never get you anywhere, especially since every demon in Hell believes in Jesus (and they aren’t saved), and Yeshua himself said no one is good except his father in heaven ( Mark 10:17 and Luke 18:19), and Yeshua also said that even sinners love others (Luke 6:32).

If you truly want to worship God in a way that pleases him, and at the same time is living as Yeshua lived, then you need to live as best as you can (since no one can be 100% obedient) in accordance with the way God said to live, which is how Yeshua lived.

And, just to be sure we are on the same page, the only place where God said how he wants you to worship him is in the Torah.

Real worship is not a religion- it’s a lifestyle.

Oh, yeah- one more thing: Yeshua worshipped his father and if your religion tells you to worship Yeshua, then it is pointing you in the wrong direction. Yeshua came to do his father’s work, not to replace him.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and “Like” these messages to help this ministry continue to grow, and share them with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Antisemitism Isn’t Growing

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I know you may be thinking that I am wrong saying antisemitism isn’t growing because there is so much antisemitism occurring all over the world.

But is this really something new?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Antisemitism isn’t new, and it isn’t growing- it’s just coming out of the closet.

Have you noticed here in America that the newest and most popular catchwords regarding our current President and his administration are Nazi, Authoritarianism, Dictatorship?

The people who are supporting the Democratic Party and leftist interests, who have turned against American values (and, yes, even against Americans by supporting illegal invaders who commit heinous crimes against us) are doing what they believe to be helping these poor, persecuted underdogs in the Middle East.

They have no idea how wrong they are because they are totally ignorant of the facts!

And their ignorance is being fueled by the media (again, controlled by the left) to see Hamas and the Gazans, as well as illegal settlers in Israel (just for the record, that would be the Arabs, not the Jews) as people trying to protect their property and family from being taken away from them.

What they refuse to see is that these people are terrorists, killing, raping, destroying and acting completely against the laws of God, anarchists who want nothing to do with the land.

Let’s talk a little geography and history: surrounding Israel we have Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest. Additionally, there are the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are Arab controlled and also border Israel. 

Now, before Israel was formed in 1948, all the land that is now Israeli was barren desert, undeveloped by any of those nations surrounding it. What does that mean? It means that they do not want the land- they never have and they never will because all they want is the Jews on that land- OUR land!- to be gone, preferably by genocide.

And while they are trying to eradicate all Jews from Israel, they are also going after the rest of us throughout the world. According to some demographic studies, Europe might be a majority Muslim continent by the next century. Given that they are almost 14% of the population now, and accounting for the low or negative birth-rate of the indigenous people with the extremely high birth rate of the Muslims, well.. you do the math!

The previously hidden hatred of Jews by many Americans is coming out into the open because now it is socially acceptable (as it was in Nazi Germany) , and the level of their ignorant stupidity is demonstrated by the fact that they actually believe that Hamas, ISIS Hezbollah, and all those terrorists want anything whatsoever to do with the land the Jews are legally inhabiting.

These terrorists don’t want the land, they just want the Jews on the land to be dead.

What the heck do you think “From the river to the sea” means? It is a call for genocide!

And all this antisemitic activity here in America, such as preventing college students from entering the campus, protesting for Hamas and holding signs that say “Free Palestine” shows how comfortable these people are openly hating Jews.

By the way, there is no such place as Palestine, so how can you free something that doesn’t even exist?
How stupid can you be?

Let’s face it, we are seeing the End Times coming to fruition in one of the last countries in the world you would expect such hatred and bigotry to exist, especially against one of our oldest and most beneficial allies.

In Ephesians 6:12, that nice Jewish tent-maker from Tarsus tells those people that the battle is more than just what they see. He says:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Bigotry and hatred of a people stems from ignorance, and the only way to overcome hatred is with love. But where love is not a reasonable alternative (as is the case with most people), at least we can try to get those idiots on the right side with knowledge and facts.

We can try, but another sad truth is that the truth is impotent when you try to teach those who refuse to listen because they just don’t want to know.

And that is what is behind the current overt hatred of Jews: people are controlled by people who are controlled by Satan.

My friends, hatred of us Jews has always been there: it’s just that now it is allowable to show it.

Thank you for being here and please like and comment on these messages as it helps this ministry get more exposure. Also share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, and I will be taking off all next week, so I will be back with you on February 10. Until then, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

We Are Not Saved by Faith or Works.

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How often have you heard people tell you that you are saved by faith, and faith alone? Then someone else tells you that James said faith without works is dead. Then someone else tells you that works are useless.

Then someone else tells you all you need to do is ask God because the Bible says that all who call on his name will be saved.

For Pete’s sake, make up your mind- which is it?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Now here’s the kicker: works and faith do not save you, but they keep you saved.

Now that you are really confused or upset, let’s step back a bit and start with what does it really mean to be “saved”?

From my nearly three decades as a “saved” person, to me being saved means that when the Acharit haYamim, the End Days, are over and we all come before God when he is sitting on his Throne of Judgement, that we will be judged as righteous, i.e., without sin, and thereby allowed to remain in his divine presence for the rest of eternity.

But, since none of us are righteous, our “righteousness” being nothing more than filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), the only way we can be viewed as righteous is by means of the righteousness of Yeshua the Messiah. And that is possible only by accepting him as our Messiah.

So, what saves us is being sinless, and since the Bible is clear that no one is without sin, only because of Yeshua’s sinless life and his sacrifice can his blood, which is forever available to us, cleanse us and allow us to come before God as sinless, which is what saves us.

We are not saved by faith or works or anything else other than the way God said we are to be saved from the very beginning, which is through the sacrificial system defined in Leviticus, which shows us that forgiveness of sin must be through the shedding of innocent blood.

Now, as for faith and works, they are essential to stay saved. It is faith in Yeshua being the Messiah God promised to send that allows us to ask forgiveness through Yeshua’s sacrifice, and it is doing as God said to do, not some religion, that demonstrates the truth of our faith.

Christianity calls these acts of obedience “works” and we Jews call them “mitzvot”, but what is important is that whatever you call them, they are the things that God said to do and not what some religion tells you to do.

Within Judaism we have different levels of obedience, from secular Jews who are more interested in Jewish heritage and identify with Jewish culture, history, and peoplehood rather than religious belief or ritual observance to Chasidic Jews, living strictly by Halacha (as outlined in the Talmud) and calling all other sects of Judaism “Goyim”.

(Goyim in Hebrew means “nations”, but in modern language
it is used as a derogatory identifier of non-Jews).

In Christianity, sadly, nearly everything any one of the many, MANY different Christian religions tells you to do is almost always in complete opposition or totally ignoring what God said he wants us all to do, which is found only in one place in the entire Bible and that is in those first 5 books called the Torah.

That’s it, Folks- the only thing that saves us from eternal damnation is to be forgiven of sin, and the only way you can be forgiven of sin (now that the temple is gone) is through accepting Yeshua as your Messiah, and obeying what God said to do in the Torah.

Now, you may ask, “Are you saying that even if I faithfully accept Yeshua as my Messiah, call on the name of the Lord for forgiveness of my sins by means of Yeshua’s sacrifice, but don’t obey the Torah I will be damned, anyway?”

I can’t answer that because I am not God, who makes the final decision.

What I can say is that I believe your faith in God and Yeshua is demonstrated through how you live your life and is an intregal part of God’s decision about your eternal future.

Let me leave you with this: I believe because no one can be 100% obedient to the Torah, it isn’t how successful we are at obeying all of God’s mitzvot, but how hard we try that God will take into consideration.

The ones who should be worried are the ones who know what God wants them to do, but refuse to even try because they just don’t want to.

Thank you for being here and please remember to like and comment on these messages, which helps me get better exposure on the Internet. And please share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Is There No Forgiveness for Certain Sins?

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The Torah outlines, quite clearly, what is sin and what is not. And we all know that God provided a system for being forgiven from sins we commit, and through the Messiah Yeshua, we don’t even need to bring a sacrifice to the temple in Jerusalem anymore, which is what the Torah required.

But the Torah also tells us that there is sin for which we cannot be forgiven, so what is it? Can we be forgiven or not?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Lets’ see what God says about this, in Numbers 15:30-31 (CJB):

But an individual who does something wrong intentionally, whether a citizen or a foreigner, is blaspheming Adonai. That person will be cut off from his people.  Because he has had contempt for the word of Adonai and has disobeyed his command, that person will be cut off completely; his offense will remain with him.’”

We read about someone who sins being “cut off from his people”, and according to the interpretations in my Chumash, that is meant to be a spiritual event, and not necessarily a human condition.

Researching Karet (pronounced Kar-rate), the Hebrew word for being cut off from the people, the general understanding is that it results in early death, lack or death of the children, or possibly exile from the community. The Talmud specifies a number of sins that result in Karet, most of which are sins dealing with sexual relationships or failing to observe ritual requirements. Examples would be having intercourse with a woman during her time of Niddah (Menstruation) or eating leavened products during Hag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread, starting with the Passover Seder).

But what really scares me is the idea that God says these sins are always going to be on us- in other words, there is no forgiveness. And Yeshua states that any blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is also unforgivable (Matthew 12:31).

Although these seem to be separate issues, I believe they are one and the same because the common problem is that someone is willfully disobeying God’s commandments.

When someone who knows the word of God yet willfully rejects it, or even worse, says it is the work of HaSatan (Satan), that is a blasphemy that is unforgivable.

Purposefully opposing God’s commandments is, if you ask me, like saying that what God wants is not as important as what I want.

What is remarkable is that the passages leading up to Numbers 15:30 cover how someone can be forgiven for accidentally breaking a commandment; that seems to imply that God assumes we sin by accident.

I believe that is why God is so strict with someone who sins on purpose, the assumption then being that the person knew the law, and still decided to ignore it. And that is why Yeshua called blaspheming the Holy Spirit is unforgivable; again, there is an assumption that the person knows God’s word and still ignores it.

After one has been saved and had the Ruach HaKadosh (Holy Spirit) indwell, to reject that spirit’s leading is a blasphemy.

Now this also scares the heck outta me because I know I have the Holy Spirit in me- I felt it come in! And there are many times I know I did something that was against the Torah; for instance, this past Shabbat I went to Home Depot to buy something we needed for the garden. So, am I doomed?

Every morning I ask God, by means of the blood Yeshua shed on my behalf and through his (Yeshua’s) righteousness to forgive the sins I have committed. Even when I don’t know any specific thing I did that was sinful, I still ask because I’m pretty sure I should assume that I did something wrong. Yet, because I spent money on Shabbat- willfully- knowing that we aren’t supposed to buy or sell, again I ask this question: despite my relationship with Yeshua, reading God’s word every day, support I send to believers in Uganda to help them and others through this ministry… am I doomed, anyway?

The Talmud states that this passage applies only to those who fail to repent, which gives us all hope; however, the Talmud is rabbinic interpretation of the Torah but it is not the Torah.

So am I still in trouble, even though I felt bad that I did wrong and do repent? I have been trying to do nothing that is against the Shabbat regulations (from the Torah, not from Halacha), but I fail at times. If it is really nice weather, sometimes on Shabbat I like to ride my bicycle because it relaxes me and makes me feel good that I am doing something healthy, but is that “work”?

So many questions with just one definitive answer- what the Torah says.

In Yeshua’s teaching on prayer (Matthew 6), he say if we forgive others their sins against us, God will forgive us the sins we have committed against him. But if we fail to forgive, we will not be forgiven.

Oy! There is it is, again- we will not be forgiven.

What is the truth? Can we find forgiveness through Yeshua or not?

Are there sins for which we will never be forgiven?

Even if we are forgiven, will we remain cut off from the people?

I wish I could give you a biblically sound and absolute answer, but I do not have one, and I apologize for that. I am sorry that I am bringing this up without being able to give you an answer you can depend on.

What I will share is what I hope is the truth, because hope is all I can offer.

I trust in the mercy of God to forgive my sins (of which I repent) that are, according to the Torah, unforgivable and result in cutting me off from my people (and being Jewish, they are MY people).

I trust in the compassion of God who knows human beings are weak and selfish, stiff-necked and rebellious by nature, to forgive those who come before him humbly with a broken spirit and an honestly heartfelt prayer for forgiveness (by means of Yeshua’s sacrifice).

I trust in God’s desire to forgive that even though there are sins which we are told are unforgiveable, God will forgive us because he says in Ezekiel 18:23 that he doesn’t want anyone to die.

There have been times in the Torah where God was determined (at least, it seems so) to destroy the people but Moses was able to get him to relent. I keep that in mind when I read that some sins are unforgiveable because there have been times when God did relent and forgive that which he had no intention to forgive.

And so, in the end, given his compassion, mercy, and desire to forgive I have to hope that when I come before him, being truly repentant, humble, and especially having Yeshua as my Intercessor, that he will relent from doing what he has said and not judge me as I deserve.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and like these messages, and share them with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so L’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Is God Alive?

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The world needs scientific proof in order to believe in anything. As such, to consider if God is alive or not, especially for those atheists or agnostics in the crowd, we need to look at what science identifies as being “alive”.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s work with what Google Ai describes as being alive:

“In science, being alive isn’t defined by one single trait but by a collection of characteristics, including being cellular, organized, metabolizing energy, maintaining homeostasis (stable internal state), growing, responding to stimuli, reproducing, and evolving over time, essentially a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. While non-living things might show one or two of these, only living organisms display all of them as an integrated system. “

First off, let’s ignore the non-biblical element that Google states as part of being alive, specifically the reference to “Darwinian evolution”, and just redefine that as being able to evolve.

For the world to believe something is alive, it must meet all the above requirements. So, nu? Does God meet those requirements for life?

God never changes so he certainly meets the requirement for maintaining homeostasis, and he also is very organized (I mean, he created everything to work in harmony: that represents an A-level of organization), and he definitely responds to stimuli, such as prayers and sin.

But he isn’t growing; in fact, he can’t grow because he is omnipresent, and as such is already everywhere at once, so growth is impossible because he is already as large as everything that exists.

He is not cellular because he is spirit, and as such also does not qualify under the idea that he metabolizes energy because he IS energy!

And he is the one and only God; as such, he does not reproduce because… he is the one and only (sound familiar), and since he never changes, he cannot evolve.

So, there you have it- according to science, God is not alive.

Back in the 1960’s, there was actually a Christian movement stating that God is dead (yes, this was radical but still and all, Christian), proposing that traditional belief in a transcendent God was obsolete in a secular world, urging Christians to find meaning through human action and secular life. This was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s phrase “God is dead,” and championed by theologians like Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton. 

But if God is dead, then he must of, at one point, been alive and being God, since we know that God is omnipotent, he can’t die. So to be dead, he had to be alive, and if God was alive, being God, he couldn’t die.

So what is it: is he alive or is he dead, or was he ever really anything?

The answer to all this is simple: God is not alive or dead because he is not flesh, he is an eternal spirit.

One of the conditions for life was metabolizing energy, but God is energy. His existence is beyond the confines of physics or science, which are the only way mortal beings (that’s you and me) can understand their surroundings.

God is not alive or dead, he just IS!

In Exodus 3:14, God tells Moses exactly what I just said when he describes himself:

“God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” (I am what I am) and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am] has sent me to you…’

God is not alive and he is not dead: as he states, he IS.

In Hebrew we say: הָיָה (hayah), הוֹוֶה (hoveh) ויִהְיֶה (v’yihyeh) (he is, he was, and he always will be).

This is why it is so difficult for human beings to understand him, or to believe in him because he does not fit into anything we can understand. That is also why we continually try to reduce him to something we can understand, reducing his omnipotence, his authority, and even interpreting from the Bible what we want him to be saying, instead of taking what he says for what it is.

That is why there are so many different religions all professing to worship the one, unchanging God- we have continually tried to pigeon-hole him into what we want him to be instead of accepting him for who and what he is- beyond human understanding and above our rules for existence.

Only those who faithfully accept that we cannot understand God will be able to believe in his existence, and thereby find joy in obedience to his Torah.

Now, that doesn’t mean people who are zealous for their own religion can’t ever find joy, but what they think is joy in obedience to God is really a joy in obedience to their religion (which more often than not is in opposition to God). They are misled by their devotion to a religion instead of devotion to God because they don’t really know what God says to do (in the Torah), and as such their ignorantly joyful rejection of God will turn to sorrow when they meet him at Judgement Day.

And that is truly sad, and a disaster for everyone who thinks they are saved, but can’t really be saved because they follow a religion and not God.

But that is for another discussion.

So, if anyone asks if God exists, you can say he does but not on the same plane of existence we humans are on. He can interact with us, and we can interact with him, but only at his discretion.

God is not alive or dead, he just IS. That is hard to wrap our mortal heads around, that is what it is: accept that fact and you will be on the right track.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and “like’ these messages. Also, please share them with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Is Every Commandment Still Relevant?

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There are some 613 commandments in the Torah, and according to the brother of the Messiah, Yacov (James 2:10), to violate even just one of them is the same as having violated the entire Torah.

But in modern times, are all the Torah commandments still relevant?

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The answer is that every commandment in the Torah is still valid, still relevant, and still required by every single person who professes to worship the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.

And yes, that means you Born-Again Christians, as well!

However, what we need to consider is also that these commandments were written thousands of years ago, and to a people who were just learning how to live after some 400 years of having no options at all, as to what they can or can’t do.

Consequently, the Torah was written to identify right from wrong to a people who were a new-born nation. But what about now? We are some 3500 years older, so is every commandment still valid, especially considering we live in countries that have a constitution and their own penal code and civil laws?

For example, the Torah says a child who curses his parents should be stoned to death, but if Junior tells Daddy to get lost, and Dad stones him to death in view of the entire neighborhood, I don’t think the judge at his trial will let him go free because the Torah said what he did was acceptable.

So, do we take the punishments in the Torah literally, and potentially spend our lives in jail for obeying God, or do we “adjust” those punishments to fit into the modern world?

We also have to understand the purpose behind those commandments: for example, the “eye for an eye” commandment has been considered by the Rabbis to be a figurative statement and not to be taken literally. The idea is that the punishment should fit the crime, so stealing bread may get be punished with time in jail or making restitution, while murder will have a much more severe punishment, possibly death.

I couldn’t find anything that states absolutely how the Torah is redefined with regards to whatever society the Jewish people are living in at any given time. What I did find is that the Torah text is considered to be unchanging, but what can be flexible is the interpretation of those laws and regulations with regard to how they are applied, and that is found in the Talmud (also known as the “Oral Law”).

The Talmud is a very old and important book, composed of two main sections , the Gemara and the Mishna. The Mishna was the first compilation of rabbinic commentary on how to obey the laws in the Torah, and the Gemara came later to explain how to apply the Mishna.

Another way to define the difference between the two is that the Mishnah is the foundational text of Jewish law, a concise compilation of rabbinic legal discussions, while the Gemara is the extensive commentary, analysis, and debate on the Mishnah.

Together they form the Talmud (there are two versions, the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud); the earliest version of the Mishna dates back to around 200 CE, and the combined texts, forming the complete Talmud, was finalized sometime between the 5th and 6th Centuries CE.

Studying the Talmud is something that Jewish children begin almost as soon as they are old enough to understand it, around 7-8 years of age. And it is good that they start that young, because the Talmud has 2,711 double sided pages, and to learn 1 page a day (using the Daf Yomi cycle), it takes over seven years to complete.

The Talmud codifies Halakha (The Way to Walk), which is where we go when we have a question regarding how to apply the Torah. Halakha is an essential part of Orthodox and Chasidic Judaism, and in many ways Halakah is considered as important as scripture by Orthodox Jews.

So, the Torah text never changes, and the Talmud text never changes, but the interpretation of those texts does change, adjusted to whatever society and times the people are living in.

That’s a hard thing to wrap one’s head around: what the Torah says is absolutely the word of God, and the Talmud reconciles Torah laws to man-made laws through how those Torah commands are interpreted.

In other words, what God says is absolutely true and to violate any of his laws is to violate the entire Torah, yet we can obey what some Rabbi’s say in applying those laws and God will be OK with that.

I’m sorry, but that sounds like a cop-out to me.

On the other hand, we can’t really kill someone for sleeping with our spouse and get away with it just because the Torah says that is what we are supposed to do.

I wish I had an absolute answer, but I don’t.

I guess it comes down to this: we need to know the Torah so we can’t be taught false doctrine, and we need to know the Torah so we can understand who God is and how he wants us to worship him and treat each other. And we need to do our best to obey God’s word within the laws of the land we live in.

If adultery is against the law where we live, and the courts require the death penalty, then that is fine and in accordance with the Torah. But, if where we live finds adultery not to be a violation of any civil laws, then we have to live within those laws.

Maybe we could interpret the Torah to mean what must be killed is the marriage, and not the person who ruined it by committing adultery?

I know that sounds a little silly, but we are in unknown territory here, caught between obeying a law first created in a society that had no real system of jurisprudence and modern society, with a very defined system of jurisprudence.

I believe that God recognizes man-made laws, and as long as they are in relation to his laws, even if some of those Torah laws have to be “toned down” a bit (i.e., divorce instead of death), I think God will be okay with that.

From what I know of God, he is more interested in understanding and living with in the spirit (Remes) of his law, which is what Yeshua was teaching us.

I think it comes down to the punishment should fit the crime, and the interpretation of what punishment fits, well… that will be based on what the Torah says, what Halakha says, and what the society in which we live says.

It will be up to us to reconcile those three as best as we can, staying within the spirit of the Torah and the literal laws of the society.

I have to figure that would be OK with God, otherwise someone in total obedience to the Torah might end up spending their life in jail.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and “like” these messages, as well as share them with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so L’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Why Do We Need to Know Why?

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When God gave people Free Will and a superior intellect compared to his other creations, something else came along with that: curiosity.

And curiosity is a two-edged sword, able to be both useful and damaging, all at the same time.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Now we all can figure out how curiosity is helpful; I mean, without it we would never learn beyond what we were born knowing.

The way it becomes dangerous is when we do things out of curiosity that are designed to not just understand about God, but to be able to duplicate what God does (think Frankenstein’s monster).

For example, from the very start of humanity, curiosity got us in trouble when Eve wondered what that apple would taste like. And, being encouraged by the snake saying that eating it would make her like God, she not only found out but enticed Adam to join her because he was, most likely, also curious about it.

Alfred Nobel was curious about how to make nitroglycerine safe for industrial use, and we all know how that turned out.

But this is a ministry, so I need to point out how curiosity detrimentally affects our spiritual condition.

The main way in which curiosity has been causing dissension and separation within the body of those who believe in God is trying to understand why God does what he does.

Why are some foods okay to eat and others not okay to eat?

Why is the 7th day a Shabbat and not any other day?

Why does he kill entire civilizations while telling us it is a sin to kill?

What is his real name, and how do we pronounce it?

I am sure that you can come up with many other questions about God and why he does or doesn’t do this or that, but the point is that curiosity is something that causes us to question the one thing we should never question: why God does what he does.

Now, I am not saying we should never question God. After all, I believe he is “big’ enough to handle a few questions, but the questions we ask shouldn’t have to do with him justifying his commandments or laws.

When it comes to curiosity about why God gave us those instructions for how to worship him and how to treat each other (all of which are found in the Torah), those need to be accepted and obeyed without question. Why? Because he is GOD, that’s why!

Curiosity is the main reason we have so many different religions, each one professing to worship the one God who never changes, yet each religion having different ways to worship him.

How does curiosity come into this? Simple: people want to know why God gives us certain commandments, and when we can’t answer those questions because we NEED to know, we create our own answers.

The best examples of this I can think of are the epistles Shaul (Saul) wrote to congregations he formed throughout Asia and the Middle East who were having issues with their faith and interpersonal relationship conflicts.

Much of what he wrote needs to be understood from a Jewish mindset, but he was writing mainly to Gentiles so it was hard for them to know what he meant. Even Kefa (Peter) said his letters were hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16), so what did the leaders of what was quickly becoming a new Gentile religion do?

They made up their own answers, not based on God’s Torah but on their own desires. The one thing that came out to be the most popular answer was that Shaul was telling them they did not have to follow the Torah, anymore.

God tells us what he wants us to do in the Torah, but being curious why he told us that, along with the confusion about how to follow the Torah in Shaul’s letters, led to making up an answer that was pleasing to these neophyte believers in Yeshua. And being able to ignore the laws of Kashrut (Kosher), for one, was a very acceptable answer.

Changing the Sabbath to a different day, ignoring kosher, ignoring Holy Day sacrifices which required having to travel to the temple in Jerusalem, and many other Torah laws regarding tithing, restitution for being a poor trustee, relationships within family, etc. were answered in a way that was more comfortable to Gentiles leaving a hedonistic religion.

I should state that these are my opinions, not anything I can validate with historical source documentation. I believe these represent (at least) some of the motivating factors for the creation of so many man-made religions.

Going forward, knowing that we are always curious, how do we know when to draw the line?

I can’t give you an absolute answer to this, and I am not sorry for posing questions to which I don’t have an answer, but isn’t that the beginning of knowledge?

Confessing we do not know and trying to learn the answer is how we grow, intellectually and spiritually.

I will give you one guideline, an “Acid Test” question I ask myself when curious about why something is what it is, and this is that question:

“How does this affect my salvation?”

If knowing why something is what it is, and that knowledge will help me to remain on the pathway to righteousness, then it is something I will delve into and try to resolve. If, on the other hand, it is just a nice-to-know thing, I can either let it go or (as with everything regarding God), trust in God that whatever he says to do is for our benefit, and just do it without having to know why.

For example, the biggest issue I have seen is about being kosher- Jews keep kosher and (most) Gentiles do not, and there are many reasons, from both camps, why they should and why they don’t need to anymore. Generally, they revolve around health issues.

For instance, pork carries Trichinosis and so since cooking vessels were often re-used for all the food, that parasite might be spread. On the other hand, now that we have the USDA and better cooking appliances, there is no need to worry about this parasite, so it is OK to eat pork.

As far as I am concerned, parasite or not, healthy or not, if God said don’t do it then just don’t do it!

Does knowing why God said what is clean and what is not affect my salvation? No, it doesn’t, and does eating pork or not eating pork affect my salvation, well… if we confess our sins but don’t try to stop doing them, I believe that will affect our salvation. You see, it isn’t easy to question why and determine the answer because sometimes what doesn’t affect our salvation (why pork and not beef) might lead to another aspect that does (rejecting God’s laws).

My advice is to know the Torah, and do your very best to be obedient because, whether you understand why or not, when in doubt or curious always do what God said to do and you can’t go wrong.

Remember that guy Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)? He said that trying to understand anything about God was just chasing the wind, and after a lifetime of trying to understand why God does what he does, he ended up concluding that we should just appreciate what we have and fear God (which means worshiping him as he said to do), for that is the beginning of wisdom.

So, let’s conclude with this: being curious is OK, but overall you are better off just trusting in God. Remember what Yeshua said in Mark 10:15:

Yes! I tell you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it!

Children ask a lot of questions, but they also believe what we tell them. Believe that what God says is all you need to know, and you are on the right path.

Thank you for being here and please remember to subscribe, comment and “Like” these messages, both here on YouTube and on my website, Messianicmoment.com. And share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so L’hitraot, and Baruch HaShem!