Author: Steven R. Bruck

Parashah Kedoshim 2019 (Holiness) Leviticus 19 – 20

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The Hebrew word “Kadosh” means “Holy.”  If you were to ask people what it means to be holy, most everyone will say something along the lines of to “be like a saint”, to be “serious”, or to be “pious and religious.” The one thing you most likely will not hear is “to be separated,” yet that is really what being holy means- to be separated from the common.

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Holiness is a state of being which is identified by the way we act towards each other and the way we obey God’s instructions. Too often, this means the instructions given by people in the name of the Lord, which we call doctrine or traditional worship. Most of the time these aren’t exactly what God told us to do. Christian holidays and worship practices, for instance, or Talmudic (also referred to as rabbinic) Halacha (the Way to Walk) are good examples of this. The traditional teachings of any Judeo-Christian religion usually have their foundation somewhere in God’s instructions, but they add to or (sometimes) over-rule the instructions God gave us, which are found in the Torah.

This parashah gives us, in clear and easily understandable terms, God’s instructions telling us how we are to be holy. They boil down to respect for people, honesty, honoring the Shabbat and following the instructions regarding sacrifices, and (finally) prohibitions against following the religious and social practices of the surrounding people at that time. Those prohibitions include sexual perversities and inter-familial sexual relations, as well.

God tells us (more than once) to be holy as he is holy. Even at the very beginning of this parashah, Leviticus 19:2 he has Moses tell the entire congregation that they are to be holy, for he is the LORD, their God and he is holy.  The problem we have with this is that we cannot be holy as the Lord is holy because, well…he is SO holy. He is perfectly holy, and we are woefully inadequate, so how can God expect us to be as holy as he is?

The answer is he doesn’t expect that of us- he expects that because he is our God, and because he is holy, we should be holy, as well. We are not to be as holy as he is, but holy meaning separated from the unholy. That means not doing what the unholy do, such as to treat each other with disrespect and take advantage of people. We are not to use unequal weights (cheat each other), we are not to use divination or sacrifice our children. We are not to have sexual relations with close family members, or with others of the same gender.  We are to honor the elderly, honor the Shabbat, be considerate of the less fortunate and treat strangers with respect and equality under the law.

To be holy doesn’t mean to walk around like some monk or religious fanatic; it doesn’t mean to talk in spiritual ways (so that no one can understand what you are saying), and it certainly doesn’t mean you can’t joke around, dance, drink or have fun with others. It means you are to live in a way that is separated from the unholy- that is all.

Holy people do not gamble their rent money away; holy people do not drink themselves into a stupor; they don’t act mean and unforgiving. Holy people do not cheat others, gossip or allow anyone else to pick on the weak and helpless. Holy people help others, even if the others hate and disrespect them.

To be holy as God is holy means to act in the way God (or Yeshua, for that matter) would act if they were in the same place at the same time you are.

It means to be separated from the rest of the world, not so much physically but spiritually and demonstratively. We who are holy are to show the unholy how they are to be; we are to be an example of what God wants from everyone. That is a two-edged sword because when we say we are holy as God is holy, then if we screw up and act unholy it reflects poorly on God. I am guilty of this, and more often than I care to say, but I have to confess that I often do not act as one who is holy should act. When that happens, I ask forgiveness from God because I have damaged his reputation. I really hate it when I do that, too. Fortunately, I am able to say that I am making fewer mistakes as I continue to work towards being holy. It is a life-long activity.

Be thou holy by remembering God’s instructions and trying to live up to them. We hear people say “It is all about the Lord!” but when it comes down to it, they are really concerned with what God will do for them and not what he wants them to do for him. It isn’t about us, it IS about him, and the way to show that is to be what he wants us to be, which is separated from the unholiness in the world.  Not in a physical way, meaning to shun and stay away from non-Believers, but in our spirit and in our actions so we can be examples to the non-Believers.

God instructed us how to worship and how to live with others, and when Yeshua was on the earth he showed us exactly what that looks like. The world doesn’t see the spiritual, it sees the physical, so no matter how holy you may be in your spirit if you don’t demonstrate that in the physical world, then you won’t be holy the way God wants you to be holy.

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Tonight begins the Shabbat so Shabbat Shalom, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

Why I Get Angry Playing Golf

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Before I start today’s message I am excited that later today Donna and I will get to see Avengers: Endgame. I promise no spoilers in my next message.

 

 

Now for today’s message.

I play golf in a league on Monday (9 holes) and a full game (18 holes) on Wednesday. I get to play with the same guys on both days.  I too often get really angry with myself when I screw up a shot (or maybe more like two or three in a row) and would like to say that this explosive anger I demonstrate is not typical for me in the other areas of my life. Normally, I am pretty patient with most things. Golf, however, gets under my skin in an instant, and before I know it I am thrown out of the cart, and my evil, twin brother Skippy takes over my game.

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Shaul (Paul) tells us in Ephesians 4:26 that we should not sin in our anger. The anger he is talking about is not being pissed off when I follow a great drive with a duffed chip. That is not the kind of anger that Shaul was talking about; however, that doesn’t justify throwing a club, or (what I have forced myself to do instead of throwing the club) wham my golf bag with the club.

Yesterday I bought some cookies and placed them in a pocket of my golf bag for the turn-around. During the front nine, I got angry at messing up and swatted my bag a few times. When I went to eat the cookies, I discovered that I had smashed the cookies and now had a bag full of crumbs. Karma.

I have prayed, really I have, asking God to help me to take away this stupid, energy-wasting anger, but he hasn’t really done anything. Not that he should, because this is something that I do and therefore is something I need to stop doing. My golf buddies understand, and they are all much better at maintaining their composure than I am. That just makes me feel even worse about myself.

So why do I get so mad when the way I am playing golf is the way I should be playing golf? I mean, really- I am not on the PGA tour and never will be. I am a Bogie-plus golfer (that means I will normally score one or two strokes over the par for a hole), so my normal score for 18 holes is in the mid-nineties. Most of the time I will get mad, then relax, then get mad, then relax and do this during the game, and at the end find out my score was what it should be after 18 holes. It then I have to ask myself: what did I get so mad about? I played my normal game!

Here is where God helps me: he uses that still, quiet voice talking to me in the back of my head telling me the reason I get mad is that I am prideful. I think I should be a better golfer than I am, and I know I can be, so when I am not doing as well as I think I should, my pridefulness takes over and I get frustrated (at myself) and that results in anger.

Right now my friend Frank is bobbing his head up and down in agreement with me (aren’t you, Frank?)

So, nu?  Now that I know what the problem is, I should be able to fix it, right?  WRONG!!

Knowing what is wrong is a good start, but that is all it is- a good start. I know where to begin walking humbly with my God (Micah 6:8), but how far can I walk humbly before I backslide? With people I can go miles and miles…with golf, not much past the third hole!

Here’s the worst part…I know it is only a game! My life will not change if I score over 100, or if I score under 90. I’m sure if I don’t get mad my friends will feel less intimidated and I will feel much better if only I can get a handle on this anger thing. I do NOT want to manage it- I want it to go away, completely!

I always pray for self-control, and God keeps telling me this is something I need to learn on my own. I understand that- it isn’t that God isn’t willing to help me, but he won’t do it for me. God has taught me that I must find the strength to overcome my sinfulness, and I can do that by calling on the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) NOT to change me, but to remind me I need to change and to warn me when I start to wander off the path of righteousness.

It all comes down to Free Will- our God-given right to choose. I can choose to get mad or I can choose not to get mad. God leads me, he shows me the way, he tells me how to act and instructs me what to do. But in the end, I am responsible for my actions and that is why God will not control me. The same goes for you.

Our God is a God of action: he wants us to walk with him not sit around waiting for him to do it for us. If I want to be less prideful I need to walk in humility- I need to keep myself in check, and I need to remember to work on it. God will help me by reminding me, by having people in my life help me, and by letting me screw up and embarrass myself so (maybe) I will think twice the next time before I do the same, stupid thing again.

I don’t think I am the only person with trouble managing anger in one way or another, and I am thankful that I lose control mostly only with my golf game.  But that is no excuse to allow it to continue.

What makes you angry? Is it godly or is it prideful? We all, each of us, need to ask ourselves this question when we feel the rage starting; and then we must try to stop it before it is noticeable. This is what I have to do more earnestly for myself, and I will still pray for God to help me.

It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Just don’t get mad. If only it was really that easy.

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I welcome comments, suggestions, and even disagreements- all I ask is that you be nice.

L’hitaot and Baruch HaShem!

 

Does God Keep Secrets?

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Gnosticism. Many of you have heard of this, and many of you probably have a better definition than the one I am going to give, but essentially it is the heretical idea that the world was created by an imperfect spiritual being, and there is a hidden, special knowledge we must find in order to be saved.

Too many people who are NOT Gnostic still try to figure out what special meaning, or hidden messages there may be in God’s Word.

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We see this all the time: people use the numerical value of the Hebrew letters to create some quirky relationship or algorithm to show what something really means (there are some numerological relationships that are legitimate), or they pull passages out of context to form a message that doesn’t exist on its own, or sometimes they just interpret something the way they want to in order to justify that it means what they want it to mean.

The Bible does confirm that God has secrets: we are told in Deuteronomy 29:29 that

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

And Yeshua told us in Matthew 24:36, regarding the End Days:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” 

So clearly there are things God doesn’t want us to know, which begs the question: “If God doesn’t want us to know something, should we try to figure it out, anyway?”

If you’re asking me (and even if you’re not), I would not want to try to figure out something that God doesn’t want me to know. If for no other reason, it is disrespectful to God. If you have a secret, and a friend or acquaintance keeps bothering you to find out what it is, doesn’t that tend to piss you off a little?  Don’t you feel somewhat insulted that they ignore your feelings and keep trying to get you to do something you don’t want to do? Don’t you think God might, even with his compassionate understanding and tremendous patience, get a little impatient with people that keep trying to get him to reveal that which he doesn’t want to reveal?

In the Gospels, now and then Yeshua told things straight from the shoulder (especially when chiding the Pharisees), but he also taught using parables very often, which confused many people. Why would he do that? Is it possible that God wanted to keep secret the things of the Kingdom so that people wouldn’t understand what he was saying to them?

I believe that Yeshua talked in parables because we have Free Will; let me explain what I mean. Having the ability and opportunity to make up our own minds inherently requires us to think about what we do. Of course, so many people do without thinking, but that doesn’t change the fact that God allows us to decide for ourselves, and we are so easily led astray (just like sheep, right?) that he didn’t just give us a simple and easily understood lesson about the Kingdom of God, but instead he is making us think about it. God wants us to decide to be a member of his kingdom, and not because someone told us we have to be or we should be. He wants us to decide, for ourselves, that we want to be in his kingdom.

The warnings about following Yeshua are plain enough- if you want to join with Yeshua you need to deny yourself and pick up your execution stake, then you can walk with him (Luke 9:23.) In other words, being a follower of Yeshua is no walk in the park.

If you find yourself asking many questions, that is fine. I also like to know as much as I can about the Bible, God and what he wants from us. and I have nothing against the study of the Bible, which should be accompanied by a study of the historical and cultural mores of the times to properly understand what is written. We need to know the cultural and historical meaning of the words used, and their connotation at that time.

But I stop asking when it comes to things that are not clearly stated. The clearest statements we have and all we really need to know is what Yeshua said (love God and each other) and what God had Micah (6:8) tell the people what he expected from them- to love mercy, to act justly, and to walk humbly with God.

When we start dissecting passages and using numerology to justify what we think God is saying, we are treading a dangerous pathway that will only lead us to Gnosticism, which is the express route to faithlessness. Yes- Gnosticism is, to me, the path to faithlessness because the more we try to understand what we aren’t told, the less we are accepting of what we have been told. 

Read the Bible every day; learn what God wants from you; study the people, the times, the languages in order to better understand what is written; but do not try to learn what God has kept hidden for himself, and that would be anything that isn’t written down. If God wants you to know something that isn’t clearly stated, he will give you a revelation.

We should all just trust God to tell us what we need to know, and we shouldn’t pry into his personal business.

Thank you for being here, please remember to subscribe on this website and also my YouTube channel (use the link above to get there), and please share me out. If you like what you see here, please buy my books as you will enjoy them, as well.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Acharey Mot 2019 (After the death) Leviticus 16 – 18

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Chapter 16 begins after the death of Aaron’s two sons. God gives Moses the instructions regarding the Yom Kippur worship, sacrifice and how to perform the ritual regarding the two goats.

Chapter 17 deals with how to properly present a sacrifice, which must be done at the door to the Tent of Meeting and the order to not eat blood, which is the life of the animal.

Chapter 18 outlines the restrictions on improper marriages (intermarriage between close relatives) and a warning that child sacrifice and the religious practices of the Egyptians is prohibited.

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Leviticus 16:8-10 gives the instructions for the handling of the two goats for the Yom Kippur sacrifice, and has been a source of confusion over the centuries. Here are the instructions God gave to Moses and Aaron (Chumash):

And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one for the LORD, and the other for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat for which the lot fell for the LORD, and offer him for a sin-offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell for Azazel, shall be set alive before the LORD, to make atonement over him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness. 

 

The confusion that this passage has caused is because no one really knows who Azazel is, or even what it is. I have found the explanation that my Chumash has to be the most logical and reasonable one I have seen, and that is what I would like to share with you now.

Time Out: The Chumash I use is the book called “Pentateuch and Haftorahs“, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz and published by Soncino Press, London 1965. The term “chumash” comes from the Hebrew word for five (chamesh, pronounced kwah-masyh), representing the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. Now, back to the message….

The Chumash tells us that in the Septuagint, the Hebrew word “Azazel” means “the one sent away”, which agrees with the Mishnah use of that word. The Vulgate uses the word “scapegoat.” However, we are told that the Hebrew word “Azazel” is not a proper name; rather it is a noun, which is rarely used in Hebrew and means “dismissal’ or “entire removal.”

This ancient technical term is used to describe the entire removal of the sins and guilt from the people, symbolized by the sending of the goat into the wilderness.

Many years later, the Azazel goat was hurled off of a steep cliff because the Talmud translated Azazel as “steep mountain”, so to send the goat to Azazel was to throw it off a steep cliff or mountain. I don’t know how they could have thought that was OK since the Torah is clear that God commanded it was to be left alive.

At an earlier period, the word Azazel was personified, meaning given a life of its own. This also happened with the descriptive words Sheol (underworld) and Abaddon (destruction), which were originally meant as adjectives but later given their own identity as a noun. From this personification of Azazel (also called Azalzel) arose legends and theories. For instance, one such traditional belief is that Azazel is foremost among the fallen angels who taught unrighteousness to the children of men. This is from the Book of Enoch. This belief that Azazel is a demon living in the desert was actually shared by Ibn Ezra and the great Nachmanides, as well.

However, when we think about it, it seems untenable that God would command we send a goat as an offering to a desert goat-god. In fact, in the very next chapter (Lev. 7:7) God specifically forbids making an offering to any goat demon. Therefore, the idea that sending a goat as an offering to Azazel, a satyr demon, is just ridiculous.

The idea that something God commands us to do later becoming something idolatrous is not so far-fetched as you may think. In fact, it happened with the bronze snake God told Moses to make in Numbers 21:8-9. God sent snakes to kill the Israelites as punishment for their rebellion (yes, they were still rebelling even after years in the desert.) When they repented, the bronze snake God told Moses to make and place on a stake was a symbol that they could look to if they were bitten, so they wouldn’t die. Many centuries later, we read in 2 Kings 18:4 how that symbol was turned into an idol, called Nehushtan. Here we have another example of how what God gave us as a symbol of his holiness and forgiveness was turned into an idol, i.e. a thing personified into a being. The same thing happened with Azazel; and that was by learned, pious men of the Torah!

So what does this have to do with us, today?  The lesson is that anyone, learned or unlearned, pious or sacrilegious, can make something out of nothing and use it to turn people away from God. Sports figures, Hollywood celebrities, political power mongers, or even something as simple and seemingly innocent as a lottery ticket can cause us to fall into sin and idolize a thing as if it were a person or entity.

Remember this: anything that comes between us and God is an idol.

Another warning is that extra-biblical documents must be read with care, not given the same importance as accepted scripture and always compared against the Bible to make sure that it is hermeneutically accurate.

The personification of Azazel over the centuries has turned it from a symbol of God’s forgiveness to a symbol of idolatrous goat-worship. This is not the first or only example of this happening. For this reason, we need to remember that anything can become an idol if we are not careful.

Thank you for being here, and please share me out, subscribe to both the website and my YouTube channel (you can get there by clicking on the link, above) and always feel free to make comments and let me know if you agree or not. All I ask is that you be nice.

This is Friday, so I wish you all Shabbat Shalom, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

What Does it Mean to Strain Out a Gnat and Swallow a Camel?

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In the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 23), Yeshua is chastising the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and false teachings. One of the things he accuses them of is straining out a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:24.)

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The use of this hyperbole was to show the people that although the Pharisees were knowledgeable and well trained in Torah, while they did things in a legally correct manner they taught (by example) to do things that were not in accordance with what the Torah really wanted. Whereas they gave their tithe carefully measured out, they neglected the spirit of the law with regards to how they treated others.

I see this same straining/swallowing problem in the Messianic and Hebraic Roots movements, mostly from Gentiles, and not from ignorance or hypocrisy, but from a misdirected zealousness to know God better and be obedient to the Torah.

I see arguments, passionate and even hateful at times, regarding how to spell and/or pronounce God’s Holy Name, the Tetragrammaton. God never said that our salvation was based on our pronunciation.

I see people arguing over exactly which day Yeshua was raised, and was it at night or in the light of dawn? When Thomas doubted Yeshua’s resurrection, at the time Yeshua met him he didn’t tell him what the time was when he left the tomb to prove he was raised.

I see people arguing over the calendar days, solar or lunar, and even within the lunar calendar, they argue over which day a certain festival really starts on. Don’t they know that in the ancient days no one knew when the days started or ended until they saw a signal fire? There was a 2-3 day “grace period” for every important festival simply because they had to have 3 witnesses in Jerusalem agree that the moon phase was verified. If that was OK with God then, why would it be any more important now?

I see people arguing over topics that have absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with their salvation- it is just biblical trivia. And the worst thing of all is the biblically knowledgeable people arguing over these irrelevant and non-salvation issues as if they were as important as faith in God and trusting that Yeshua is the Messiah!

What do you think this does to neophyte Believers? I have read posts by people complaining that they joined a “Believers” discussion group to get answers and help and all they see are arguments, where people are nasty to and insulting each other, and are now more confused than ever.

If you think you are biblically knowledgeable and want to help others know the truth about God and Yeshua, and also about the Torah, then PLEASE stick to the important things. What are the important things?  They are the things that God told us we need to do, which are the same things Yeshua taught about.

God taught us how to worship him and how to treat each other, and Yeshua taught us the deeper, more spiritual meaning of the instructions God gave us, which he discussed in the Sermon on the Mount. Neither God nor Yeshua are into minutia, but they are very much into compassion, trust, faith, love, forgiveness, and just living humbly and with treating each other with respect.

God and Yeshua were never concerned with how to pronounce The Name, or when the moon is really in phase, or even whether you tithe from gross income or net.  All God or Yeshua cares about is how you treat others and your faithfulness, which is demonstrated by obedience and accepting that what God said we need to know is all that we need to know.

We don’t need to know when the End Times will start; we don’t need to know when Yeshua will return; we don’t need to know if ducks are kosher or not (yes- I have seen that question); and we don’t need to know “Why” about anything!

All we need to know is that God wants us to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with him (Micah 6:8.)

And if you aren’t sure what walking humbly with God means, it means to stop asking so many useless questions in order to poof up your own pride and to show off how knowledgeable you are. It means to accept that all you need is to be faithfully obedient, faithfully trusting (without asking why) and faithfully treating each other with respect, love, compassion, patience, and forgiveness.

If you find yourself asking things that are not directly related to salvation, think about whether or not you really need to know the answer.

I know what I am talking about because I have always been the “Duty Expert” in every job I have worked; I have been the one with the technical knowledge of every detail. I still want to know everything about everything, but when it comes to God, Yeshua and my own salvation I have learned what the writer of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) learned the hard way: trying to know everything about everything is like chasing the wind.

I have taught myself to be satisfied knowing that God exists, that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised, that I am to do my best to obey the Torah (which I read every day, along with the rest of the Bible), and that I can learn about the culture and history of the people in the Bible but when it comes down to it what matters is to trust God to do as he said he would, if I do as he said I should.

That is all you need to know to be- and to stay- saved.

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I welcome your comments, even if you disagree: all I ask is that you be nice.

Until next time…L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!