Author: Steven R. Bruck
Being in Control Doesn’t Mean Always Controlling
We all know that God is in control of everything, but that doesn’t mean God is controlling everything.
There is a word I am thinking of that relates directly to this message, and if anyone has ever been in a position of authority over others, you might be thinking of the same word. And that word is… delegation.
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We read often throughout the Tanakh, especially in Kings and Chronicles, how God used the Semitic kings of the Middle East to be his means of punishing both the Israelites (Northern Kingdom) and the Judeans (Southern Kingdom) when they rejected God and sinned. He was not always controlling what those pagan kings did to his chosen people, but he allowed them the freedom to do as they wanted.
Yet, even though it may seem somewhat unfair since God gave them a free hand, he also held them accountable for what they did when they exceeded what he had intended. We know this by reading about it in the Tanakh. Two examples are Isaiah 10:5-34 and Nahum 1-3, both about Assyria and how even though God used them to punish the people, they went beyond what God had wanted them to do and boasted about their own strength, not giving glory to God who made their victory possible.
I have held many positions of authority in my life: I was in charge of a department in Marine Midland Bank that processed over $60 Billion dollars of securities daily; I was the Operations Manager of the Fidelity Discount Brokerage Services office on Wall Street; just 3 years out of college I was a First Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps and the Executive Officer of a company of United Stated Marines that numbered over 350 men.
I am not saying this to brag, so please don’t think that, but I am telling you this so you can understand that when I talk about being in charge and delegating, I know what I am talking about.
I was in charge, it was all me, I ran it all, but I did not control everything because in order to develop my people I had to let them make their own mistakes and learn by doing. I trained, I instructed, but I also had to let them go off on their own.
Delegating one’s authority is not being relieved of the responsibility, it is just giving some of what you have to others for them to do the work. No different than when God told Moses he would take some of the spirit on Moses and give it to the ones Moses chose to be judges under him (Numbers 11:16.) Even though there were judges under him, Moses was still the ultimate authority and in control.
If you are wondering what my point is, it is this: don’t automatically blame God for whatever happens in your life, whether good or bad. Even though he is in control, more often than not he might be allowing you to go out on your own. He is watching and allowing, which means he hasn’t ceded control to anyone, such as the Enemy, but he has just delegated authority for the moment to you so you can grow.
Think about this: if God wanted us all to be perfectly sinless, because he is in total control of everything that happens we would all be sinless. Easy! But where’s the fun in that, right?
No, God can control everything in the universe, but he doesn’t because he knows that for us to grow in spiritual maturity and in spiritual power, we must be making the decisions. We must be the ones in control of what we do so that we learn by both suffering the consequences and reaping the blessings for what we decide.
So be comforted in knowing that no matter how much you screw up, God can always make it right, or at least get you back on track, but that doesn’t mean every time something goes wrong, God is behind it. He may be, but to be safe and fair, you should always do a self-check when things are constantly going wrong. Don’t ever automatically assume that God is doing anything, or for that matter, that the Enemy is attacking you.
This may be what is happening, but in my experience, it is just that when you live in a cursed and fallen world, stuff happens. Too often I hear people blame God because they say since he is in charge of everything, he must be doing it. That is wrong; God may punish, and he may reward, and he may just do neither and let you run the show, yourself.
I think the best way to go through life is to be comforted that God is in charge and can do whatever needs to be done; yet, for the most part, he allows us the authority over our life to make our own decisions and just like a good parent, he allows us to screw up so that we learn.
It is as I often say: If I should happen to do something really good, it is only because God is working through me; when I screw up royally, that’s when I can take full credit.
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That’ll do it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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Parashah V’Etchanan 2021 (I pleaded) Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11
Moses continues his first discourse, pleading with God (again) to allow him to cross over the Jordan, to which God refuses but tells Moses to climb Mount Pisgah and look at the land. God tells Moses to charge Joshua to take the people into it.
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Moses reminds the people of all God did to bring them to the land, how his glory was seen at Mount Horeb but not in any physical form so do not make statues or any representation of God. He tells them, in a prophetic way, of what will happen when they abandon God and serve other gods.
Moses tells the Israelites they are representatives of the living God, and how as such when the nations see them live in accordance with God’s commandments they will remark how wonderful our God is because of the wonders and splendor of Israel. On the other hand, when Israel abandons God and they are destroyed and scattered among all the nations, how the people will see Israel as the representation of what happens when they abandon the God of their fathers.
In other words, Israel is to represent to all people how God wants all people to live.
Moses then begins his second discourse of the foundations of the covenant, reviewing the Ten Commandments and other laws that God has decreed. In Chapter 4, verses 4-9 Moses recites the Shema, the very watchword of our faith, the essence of monotheism, the declaration of the oneness and uniqueness of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The Shema is then followed by the V’Ahavtah, the prayer that tells us to love the Lord, which my Chumash noted is the first time in human history when a religion required love of God.
This parashah ends with Moses warning the people to remain separate from the nations around them, who God will remove, or they will fall into sin with them and be expelled from the land.
What I am going to say today may sound very prejudicial, and even like bragging, but it is based on what Moses says.
Moses tells us throughout the Torah that one thing the Israelites are to be is an example to the world: not of how great, or how strong, or how intelligent we are, but how all these blessings demonstrate how wonderful our God is.
Recall that God told Moses way back when they received the commandments that God chose Israel to be his nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) and as such we are to be an example to the entire world how to live in accordance with the way God wants us to live.
The greatness of Israel is not its’ people but its’ God!
In John 14:9, Yeshua said that when we see him, we see his father, meaning that as the image of God he demonstrates God’s wonder, power, and holiness. In this same way, the Israelites are also to be an image of God. When we see the wonders of this nation of priests, how they work together, how they worship, how they are blessed, their strength, and their wealth, it demonstrates the greatness of the God who chose them as his own.
Every person who professes to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and especially those who have accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah, are obligated –no, we are commanded!– to demonstrate the goodness and holiness of God in everything we do and say.
This is why the V’Ahavtah prayer not only tells us to love the Lord our God with all our heart (representing the mind), all our soul (spirit), and all our might (how we act in the physical world) but to also teach this to our children. We are to have God’s instructions before our eyes and on our hands (which is the tefillin), on our doorposts and gates (which is the mezuzah), and to speak of them when rising and going to bed, which are the daily prayers.
* The three daily prayers Jews recite are the Shacharit (morning), Mincha (afternoon),
and Maariv (evening). Each prayer is only 10-15 minutes long, as defined and
instructed by Halacha, which is found in the Talmud.
It is the responsibility of the Jewish people to show the world how God wants everyone to live, and as that example to remain steadfast in their worship and lifestyle. Unfortunately, we have rarely lived up to that standard, but still, we have demonstrated the power of God, as well as his unwavering desire and ability to forgive those who repent.
I have occasionally posted how the Jews have truly been a blessing to the world, just by looking at all the Nobel prizes won by Jews compared to the other religions. Jews represent about 4/10 of one percent of the total population, but since the Nobel Prize has been awarded, they have accounted for nearly 28% of all Nobel prizes given out. Besides that, today Israel is a world leader in cyber technology, agriculture, and medicine, all of which help everyone.
Did you know that Israel developed a facemask that is guaranteed to kill the Covid-19 virus? It can be washed up to 55 times and is still guaranteed to protect you for 1 year.
God has placed on the Jewish people an enormous responsibility to represent him, just the same way that within any religion the religious leader is required to act and live to a higher standard of righteousness. Overall, Jews have done this, but we have been as unstable as the ocean, shifting from righteous to sinful, then back again. In today’s world, where sin is becoming more prominent than ever, as God’s chosen representatives of his power and glory, the Jewish people are being accused of crimes and human rights violations by the ones who are the REAL violators.
And the world hates to hear the truth but loves to accept the lies, promulgated by the media, the United Nations, and even by members of our own government!
But, in the end, God will win and the Jewish people will continue to fulfill their calling to be priests to the world, with the High Priest (Cohen Gadol) being the greatest Jew who ever lived, Yeshua the Messiah!
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That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!
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Are Cheeseburgers Kosher?
The answer to the question, “Are cheeseburgers kosher?” is a resounding NO!…and a resounding YES!
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If you ask any “mainstream” Jewish person, their answer will be “No” because their rabbi has taught them that any mixture of dairy and meat consumed within a certain number of hours is a sin (the time between eating one and the other is different depending upon whether you are Sephardic or Ashkenazi Jew.)
If you ask a Christian, born again or not, they will tell you it is a sin but only for the Jews because Christians are under Grace and the need to obey the Mosaic Laws is done away with when you accept Jesus as your Messiah.
Lastly, if you ask me, I will tell you that it is not a sin to have a cheeseburger because all God told us in Leviticus 11 (and a few other places within the Torah) is that we are not to boil a calf in its mother’s milk.
There is nothing, at all, anywhere in the Torah that says you cannot have dairy and meat together: that is strictly a Talmudic requirement.
If you aren’t familiar with the Talmud, it is considered by many Jews, especially within the Orthodox sects, to be as important as the Torah. This is because the Talmud is called the “Oral Law”, which is the many other commandments God gave to Moses that were not written down, but instead passed orally from Moses to Joshua, and so forth down through the centuries until it was finally written down in the Mishna, composed circa 300 CE. Later, the Gemara was added around 500 CE. There are two separate Talmud’s, the Babylonian Talmud and the Palestinian, or Jerusalem Talmud. The Talmud contains Halacha, which means “The Walk” or “The Way to Walk”, which is how Jews are to worship and live their lives. Everything from how far you can walk on Shabbat, to what kinds of dishes to have, to how hot your dishwasher has to be, to what lights to leave on Friday before Shabbat, to what you can wear, to how to groom yourself, to …well, you get the idea.
So if Jews say cheeseburgers aren’t kosher, and Christians say kosher isn’t required for people who believe in Jesus, why do I, a Jew who believes in Jesus, say that cheeseburgers are kosher and the kosher laws are still required?
I’ll tell you why: because God never said don’t mix dairy and meat together in the same meal and Yeshua never said any of the Mosaic laws, which include the kosher laws, are no longer necessary when you follow him.
Let’s get this straight: I do not condone or even suggest that we should change God’s commandments because of the difference between how people lived then and how we live today, but rather that we should know how they lived then and account for how we live today to ensure we follow not just the letter, but the spirit of the law.
God was clear when he spoke through the Prophets that he wants obedience, but obedience from a desire to please him and not as a means of earning salvation.
In other words, just going through the motions (what we call Legalism) is not enough.
I say cheeseburgers are kosher because when we consider what the culture and society were like when God gave that command, we know that back then you most likely owned the cow that gave the milk and birthed the calf, so you knew which calf belonged to which cow and which cow gave what milk. Knowing who belonged to whom, you could easily avoid using the milk that came from that calf’s mother to cook that mother’s calf.
God only knows why he gave this specific commandment, but it seems obvious there is spiritual importance in what God said. To me, this clearly indicates some relationship with child sacrifice, and the hideousness of parents eating their own children, which is often brought up as the epitome of horror resulting from being under siege.
Maybe being “under siege” doesn’t have to relate only to being surrounded by an enemy, but to being surrounded by sin? Such as when we live in a sinful and fallen world?
So, back to cheeseburgers: the meat in the cheeseburger comes from the beef cattle industry and the milk comes from the dairy farm industry: these are two totally different animals (pardon the expression), and in dairy farming the cows aren’t killed until they are no longer able to produce milk. And that isn’t part of the beef industry.
Calves are born in both the beef and dairy industries, but they stay within that industry. To violate the kashrut (kosher) commandment regarding boiling the calf in its mother’s milk, you would have to buy milk from the grocery store that was from the same cow that gave birth to the veal you bought from the grocery store, then boil that veal in that milk.
The milk production from United States dairy farms is about 21 billion gallons a year, and the meat Americans eat is not mainly from America, but the top four producers of meat sold in America are Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and Hong Kong. Considering these statistics, it seems pretty safe to say that there is no way in the world that anyone would ever be boiling a calf in its mother’s milk.
Unless you owned the cow and did it all on purpose.
So there you have it: if you want to live “rabbinically” kosher, obeying what men say which overrides what God said, then you will never eat any dairy with any meat product, ever. At least you won’t be sinning.
Or, you can ignore the kosher laws altogether, as Christians have been taught they can do, thereby always sinning: not just by violating the cow/milk/calf thing, but by pigging out on pig and having a shell of a time eating shellfish.
There is a third option: you could do as I do and be “biblically” kosher, eating what God said is OK to eat, and not eating what God said is not OK to eat.
This ministry is not here to tell you what you should do but to teach you what you need to know in order to make an informed decision, and now that you have been informed it is up to you to decide what you will do.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry grow. Please subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel, and don’t forget to also check out my books and Facebook page.
And remember that I always welcome your comments.
That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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Truth or Compassion?
The truth about heaven is that most people you know or have ever known will not be there. Actually, you won’t either: heaven is where God lives, and when the Apocalypse is over, the Enemy and his servants are forever in the Lake of Fire, and Yeshua rules over the new earth, the “saved” will be living on the new earth.
Yet, when someone loses a loved member of their family or friend, they almost always say something like, “Well, they’re in a better place now.”
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How do you know? How can anyone be certain that someone else’s heart was truly for God, that they lived according to God’s ways, and that they had accepted Yeshua/Jesus on their own merit and not just because someone told them they had to?
On the other hand, if we know someone lived a sinful life, rejecting God, Yeshua, and all his instructions, can we really be certain that he or she is in hell? How do we know whether or not in their last moment of clarity they repented of their evil and asked for forgiveness?
We can’t, and we will never know if they made it or not until we are there, too.
My family recently suffered such a loss. A sibling who had been depressed and didn’t take the medications he was supposed to be taking, allowed himself to become so sick that he passed away. We all tried to help him, but what he wanted was not possible from any of us, so here we are, frustrated, upset, angry, and missing him.
But is it right to console ourselves by saying he is in a better place, even if we aren’t certain that he is?
The truth of God’s word is that anyone who lives an unrepentantly sinful life will suffer eternally out of the presence of God, and we know that as much as God loves us all, even those who reject and hate him, he would rather not see anyone die, but turn from their sin and live, eternally, in his presence, joyful throughout time (Ezekiel 18:23).
But, on the other hand, we also know that because God is holy, trustworthy, and said he will not allow the guilty to go unpunished (Exodus 34:7), well…
So what do we say to those grieving the loss of a loved one who we know, absolutely, did not live in accordance with God’s instructions? I mean, not even close! When they say he is better off now, do we deny that and tell them the (probable) truth that he will forever suffer? Or do we go along with their hope (against hope) that he will be happy now that he is in heaven?
For me, I think that truth is paramount, but not always more important than love. Shaul (Paul) once told his congregation in Corinth that without love he is nothing, and if a “nothing” tells you something, then the best value it can have is…nothing! So I believe that loving compassion and understanding trumps truth when it comes to the feelings of someone in emotional pain over the loss of a loved one.
Maybe later, when the initial shock and depression is over, we can approach that person with the truth regarding their own life, never saying their loved one is in trouble but giving a general understanding of how things work with God, and (hopefully) they will figure it out for themselves.
In Catholicism, the living are told to light candles and say prayers for those in Purgatory so that they will be forgiven and allowed to enter heaven. Even though the Roman Catholic Church has admitted there is no biblical justification for the idea of purgatory, which could kill all the money they make from Mass Card sales, yet many “good” Catholics still buy them. And what good can it do?
God gives us our entire life, down to our last breath, to do what is right in his eyes, even if that is just confessing our sin and asking forgiveness through Messiah Yeshua. That is all there is to it; of course, you have to mean it, but I believe anyone on their deathbed or realizing that this is IT will be honest.
Too many times I read in discussion groups or postings between people someone being cruelly straightforward about the word of God and how wrong the other person is.
Even if the one being terse and discompassionate is correct, they won’t make any “points” with anyone else by being so heartless and cold. The truth is that the truth won’t mean anything if someone can’t hear it because they are too emotionally deafened by the other person’s anger, pridefulness, and lack of love in telling that truth.
There is an old saying in the Sales industry: No one cares what you know until they know that you care.
So when you are in a situation where you know someone suffering the loss of a loved one is lying to themself when they say the dead person is better off now, go along with it. Even if you are pretty certain that the one who has passed is most likely not going to go through that narrow gate, let it be for the moment.
Love doesn’t conquer all, as the divorce rate proves, but it is always better than not being loving. Acknowledge their pain, show loving compassion, and let the truth sit on the sidelines for the time being. The truth never changes, so it will be there for them when they are ready to hear it.
God is the epitome of love, and love is better than truth in some cases; so, when you feel you just have to tell the truth to someone, if you can’t tell it with love then you should just keep quiet so that you don’t waste God’s truth by telling it in an ungodly way.
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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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Parashah D’varim 2021 (Here are the words) Deuteronomy 1 – 3:22
We reach the final book of the Torah, which is a review of the past 40 years.
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Moses reviews the travels, and travails, of the Israelites from when they refused to enter the land until that moment. He wrote this book in three separate discourses: the first being a review of their journey and events during that journey. The Second Discourse reviews the covenant God made with us and the 10 Commandments, as well as other aspects of the Mosaic Laws. Moses recites the Shema and reviews all the laws that God gave us during the 40 year travels in the desert, such as Kashrut (Kosher), the penal code, the Moedim (Holy Days), and miscellaneous laws such as marriage, removing landmarks, laws for warfare, cutting down of trees, etc.
The Third (and final) Discourse from Moses regards the enforcement of the law. He reviews how the laws are to be enforced throughout the tribes, and in this last discourse is one of my favorite chapters, Chapter 28, which we refer to as the “Blessings and Curses Chapter.” This is where God gives us his promise of the many blessings we receive for obedience to his Torah, as well as the warning and specification of all the curses that will befall us if we reject his instructions, which is tantamount to rejecting God.
The Torah is the ONLY place in the entire Bible where we can read that God tells Moses exactly what he is to tell the people; we aren’t talking about Moses’ interpretation of a vision, but dictation directly from the Almighty, himself!
Yet, despite the fact that the Torah is the direct word of God, the Torah is one of the first things that Christianity rejected in lieu of its own holidays, dogma, rituals, and laws. They kept the 10 Commandments as part of their religion, but that was about it.
Even though I know the history behind the separation of the “mainstream” Jews and the followers of Yeshua in the First Century, and how that schism developed into totally different religions composed almost exclusively of Gentiles with totally different laws, I still can’t understand how anyone could have so easily rejected God’s instructions. Especially when he warns us so vividly in Deuteronomy 28!
And looking back through history, we can see that God didn’t mislead us about what will happen when we ignore him.
If you want the “Reader’s Digest” version of the Torah, then this is the book for you. Everything that is essential to know about the first 4 books is in this one book, and to demonstrate how complete it is, Moses tells us that we shouldn’t add or subtract anything from this book. In fact, it is such an important thing that Moses gives this instruction twice: once at the beginning (Deut. 4:2) and again in the middle (Deut. 12:32).
The final act of leadership from Moses is to teach Israel what we call “The Song of Moses”, which is really the song of God since God told Moses to teach it to the people as a testimony against them when they turn away from the Torah in the future (Deut. 31:19); and finally, before ascending Mt. Nebo to die, Moses blesses the people.
As we go through this book over the next few months, until we come to Simchat Torah at the end of Sukkot when we turn the Torah back to Genesis to start reading it all over again, we will be able to relearn the most important of all the instructions God gave to us through Moses, which are the only ways (according to God, himself) by which we can earn as many blessings as God can give us.
And let me tell you something: God will never run out of blessings!
Thank you for being here and please subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, as well as share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry grow.
My latest book, Parashot Drashim, is a commentary and bible study of each of the parashot in the Torah, so if you are interested you can get it through my website, or order it directly through Amazon books.
That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!