Author: Steven R. Bruck

Parashah Beshallach 2021 (It came to pass) Exodus 13:17 – 17

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The Israelites are free, and instead of taking the quickest route to Canaan, God has Moses lead them away from that route and places them between the Red Sea and the desert.

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Pharaoh, after having had time to reconsider, sends his entire army after the slaves. The people become afraid and cry to God while accusing Moses of bringing them into the desert to die. Moses calls out to God, who tells him to stop being afraid. God opens the Red Sea so that the Israelites can walk through the sea on dry ground, while the Egyptian army is held back by a pillar of fire.

After Israel was mostly through, the fire disappeared, allowing the chariots to go after the people. God caused the wheels to get stuck in the muddy ocean bed, and when Israel was through and the army in the midst of the sea, God closed the waters on them and the entire army of the Pharaoh was drowned.

The people came to a place called Marah (bitter) where the water was not potable, but God had Moses throw a certain tree into the water, and then it was safe. Next, after two months or so, the people complained about the lack of bread and meat and said they should never have left Egypt (this becomes the standard kvetch for them throughout their journey). God tells Moses that the people will have meat and that he will provide them bread, as well, and he sends manna and has millions of quails land, literally, at their feet.

Immediately, the people rebel against God’s commands, taking more manna than they needed (which turned to worms the next morning) and gathering on the Shabbat.

The people travel on, coming to a place where there was no water, and again they complain. God tells Moses to take the Elders and his rod, with which he will strike a rock and water will flow from that rock. Moses, in his anger, asks the Elders, “Do you expect me to bring water from this rock?” He then strikes the rock twice, after which water comes out.

But God is angry with Moses for not giving God the credit for the water, and this one sin is enough to prevent Moses, despite all he does for the 40 years he leads the people, from entering the Land.

This parashah ends with the battle against Amalek, who came out and attacked the weak and defenseless Israelites who were at the rear of the marchers. In this battle, Hur and Aaron held up Moses’ arms, for when his arms were upheld, the Israelites prevailed, but when his arms got tired and he dropped them, the Amalekites prevailed. After they are defeated by Israel, God states that he will blot out the remembrance of Amalek.

Before I talk about this parashah, I would like to share some interesting information about Amalek and the Torah. God says he will blot out the remembrance of Amalek, which happens in Deuteronomy 25:19, and to honor that mitzvah, when the Sofer (the scribe who writes the Torah) is testing the ink or the quill pen, he writes “Amalek” down on a piece of parchment and then crosses it out several times to perform the very thing God said would happen, namely that the name of Amalek will be blotted out.

What I find interesting every time I read this part of the Torah is that when the army of the Egyptians comes out to the Israelites, they immediately assume it is to kill them. Why would they think that?

The Pharaoh didn’t want to let them go because they were serving as slaves- if there were no Israelites, then the Egyptians would have to do all that work. And, if he killed them all, then the Egyptians would have to do all that work. The Israelites were essential to the Egyptian economy, especially now that Egypt’s economy has suffered destruction. So, if anything, Pharaoh wanted to recapture the people, not kill them, but the people all cried to Moses that it would have been better for them to die in Egypt.

This makes no sense until we consider the one most important condition of these people- they were faithless. Hundreds of years of slavery created a slave mindset in all of them, and as such, they were unsure of themselves and had no faith in God. Even after the plagues, their faith was so weak that with each new challenge, they immediately felt lost and doomed.

The sad thing is that nothing has changed in the 3500 years or so since then. And not just with Jews, but with all people.

I’ll bet that when you read Facebook posts, or Tweets, or whatever, you see so many people who only see the worst possible solution. And not just with non-Believers, but within the body of Messiah, as well. Too often people only see the dark, the doom, the worst-case scenario, and those people are the ones who are, not surprisingly, also the most depressed, fearful, and sad.

I believe there is so much anger, fear, and depression in society today because we have kicked God out of his rightful position as king and savior. We reject his authority as creator, we remove prayer from school, we kiss-up to the godless who want to destroy Israel so that we don’t offend them, and we not only condone, but support sinfulness within the society, from gender-related issues to the murder of children as they are ready to leave the womb.

Instead of a society that honors God and his Messiah, we are a society that sacrifices to Molech (abortion) and emulates Sodom and Gomorrah.

Our government, schools, and (consequently) our society has rejected God and he will, as he has done throughout history, eventually reject us. In truth, I believe God has already rejected the United States, and we can’t expect any more blessings from him.

Now, don’t accuse me of being faithless, because I am not seeing a worst-case scenario: I am making a judgment based on how we have treated God and what has happened throughout history, which we read in the Bible. When God is rejected he waits, patiently, for those rejecting him to repent, but at some point, only God knows when (no pun intended), he decides the waiting period is over and it is time for judgment. I believe that given the state of things in America right now, we are entering into the judgment we deserve.

We have gone out of our way to be politically correct by not offending people who are, by their actions, themselves an offense to God, so when we side with those who offend God, well…what do you expect to happen?

The narrative of the Israelites traveling through the desert is a perfect lesson for any society, and that lesson is when you are faithless, you will never be happy. The books of the Prophets, Chronicles, and Kings demonstrate that when we are faithful and show that faith through repentance and obedience (James says faith without works is dead), then we are blessed and the people are secure. But, when we are faithless and show that faithlessness through disobedience, we become mired down with problems that we cannot solve, become subject to others, and live in fear.

There is little that we can do to change an entire society, although one person can make a difference- what about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Castro, to name a few. If you ask me, the reason they were so influential was that they used the fear and faithlessness of the people to create a new god for them, one that did what they wanted it to do instead of the One who tells us what we should do for him.

This is one of the biggest lies that modern religion tells its followers: “God will do so much for you because he loves you, just as you are.”

God WILL do so much for you, and God DOES love you, just as you are, but there are two sides to the covenants he made with us, and the other side is that God will do these things AFTER we demonstrate our faith in him through obedience.

Salvation is free for the asking, but blessings have to be earned, and (for the record) the gift of salvation won’t be taken away from you, but you can throw it away.

Work on having faith, even in the darkest places, and temper faith with a bit of reality. God is faithful, one thousand percent, but that faithfulness means not only can we count on him for salvation, but we can also count on him for judgment and punishment for our sins. Remember this lesson from the Bible: we will be forgiven on a spiritual plane, but sin always has consequences in the physical world.

Faith in God doesn’t prevent tsouris in life, it helps us to persevere through that tsouris fearlessly, without losing our joy.

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That’s it for now: L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

God Can’t Really Have a Name

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I know what you are going to say, “But God DOES have a name- he told it to Moses!”

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Yes, he told Moses his name, but let’s look more closely at that verse, which is Exodus 3:14-15… (The terms in parenthesis were added by the editor)

God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [I am/will be what I am/will be],” and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am or I Will Be] has sent me to you.’”  God said further to Moshe, “Say this to the people of Isra’el: ‘Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai], the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered generation after generation.

What was that last command to Moses? Wasn’t it that God said this is my name and how I am to be remembered, forever? And what was that? Was it by a word? Was it a specific title or name? No, it wasn’t: it was by a description of who he is.

The Internet Dictionary defines a “name” as a word or words by which something is known, addressed, or referred to. So, in this respect, a name might not be like Steven, or John, or Henrietta, but as a description of who and what something is. That is the way God commanded us to know and refer to him- not with a single name but by the description of who he is.

Yes, we call him Lord, Adonai, Yahweh, Jehovah, God, and many other names, all of which are used to refer to him whether in writing or speech. But that is not how God, himself, said we are to remember him, is it?

A name, as we humans use it, is to identify someone who is like everyone else, i.e. a living creature, as separate and distinct from other similar living creatures. In a society of people, the women have different first and last names and the men, as well. Given the multitude of people, there will always be some duplication, but for the most part, the names we have are what identifies us from everyone else who is the same as we are.

But God has no equal- there is no thing that is like him, so a name is irrelevant, really, because he is the epitome of unique. That is why, I suppose, he uses terms of reference to explain who and what he is when he uses the word “name” to describe himself.

A good example of this is in Deuteronomy 16:11, which is where God states we are not to sacrifice anywhere except the place where his name lives. Again, he doesn’t say the place named after him, or the place with the same name he has, but the place where his name LIVES!

God is telling us that the reference to him is not a static and unique set of letters, but it represents who and what he is. God’s name is a living thing because it is God- he is The Father, The Creator, The King, The Judge, The Savior! He is too much to be restricted to something as confining as a name.

When he changed the name of Abram to Abraham (Genesis 17), it wasn’t like someone getting a legal name change, but it was to represent who Abram had become- from a father to the father of many. He did the same when he said Sarai would now be called Sarah (from mockery to princess.) And in Genesis 35:10, he changed the name of Jacob to Israel, again representing not so much a change in what to call him, but a change from who he was to who he is now.

Throughout the Tanakh, we can see the usage of the term “the name of the Lord” or “call upon his name” not meaning to use a specific title or word, but more so to reference who and what God is. It represents the reputation and power, the renown, and the authority of God.

Again, a name is just inappropriate for God because he is so much more than what we can contain in a simple identifier.

So, what does this all boil down to? It boils down to this: there is no one, right name for God because God is more than just one thing. Any name or title or reference which we might use to identify him is incomplete. Therefore, if you call him Jehovah, Yahweh, Adonai, Lord, God, Master, Father, Creator, Judge, Savior, Shield, Provider, or any other word that represents who and what he is, you are not doing anything wrong.

There is a group of people known as the “Holy Namers” who insist that there is only one true name for God, and if you use anything else you are praying to a false idol or a pagan god. These people, in their zealousness to know and respect God, are, in fact, insulting him by implying that God doesn’t know who you are praying to; and, even worse than that, they are actually sinning by rejecting what God has told us to do, i.e., remember him as he told Moses we should.

God never says he has only one name but tells us many different ways to refer to him; he even tells Moses, at one point, that his name is Jealous (Exodus 34:14), so should we be praying to “Jealous”?

Of course not!

God is beyond anything we humans can comprehend; he is a multifaceted spiritual entity that is not any single thing at any one time. God can’t even be referred to as an “is” because he isn’t just an “is”- he is, he was, and he will be, all at the same moment in time. To us, things happen in the past, present, and future along a linear, chronologically defined line, but to God, it is all happening now.

To conclude: Please don’t listen to the “Holy Namers” because God can’t really have a name, so call upon him using whatever name(s) you know him by, none of which will ever be adequate but all of which he knows we use. Trust me, he will hear you.

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Remember that I always welcome your comments.

So, that’s it for today: L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Does the World Really Hate Jews?

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You might think this a silly question, what with the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Palestinians, the KKK, and any number of United Nations countries which have been vilifying Israel while vindicating those who are really the trouble-makers in the Mideast.

I mean, c’mon! Really? It’s so obvious that the world hates Jews.

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But, still and all, I don’t think the world really hates Jews, I believe that they do hate the fact that the Jews have been so wonderfully blessed.

And what blessings do we have, you might ask?

Of all the Nobel prizes ever given out, Jews have been awarded nearly 28% of them, while representing less than .002% of the world’s population.

Israel leads the world in technology, from medical to technical to agricultural. In fact, according to the Bloomberg Tech Innovation Ranking (Brussels, Belgium), Israel is placed 5th worldwide, putting it ahead of both the United Kingdom and the United States. It would take too much time to list all the technological blessings that Israel has given to the world, but if you are interested, here is a link to the Wikipedia site that lists a number of them, in a number of different categories:
Israel Technological Achievements

The saddest thing about Antisemitism is that God said he would bless the world through the Jewish people (Genesis 22:18), so those who act against the Jewish people are actually, pardon the expression, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Even here in America, Jewish people have been strengthening and helping this country since the colonial days. Did you know that it was Jewish financial aid to the colonial army that helped to keep them going? And what about Albert Einstein? Eddie Cantor and Bob Dylan? Ruth Ginsburg and Sammy Davis, Jr.? Alan Greenspan? There have been Jews in nearly every field that have contributed to America over the centuries.

Did you know that Spain used to be a world power because the Jewish bankers and businessmen were the foundation of their economy? After Queen Isabella deported all the Jews at the beginning of the Inquisition, Spain lost its standing in the world and has never recovered.

Did you know that even today, an Israeli company (Sonovia) has developed a face mask that is guaranteed to kill the coronavirus? It is reusable and good for an entire year.

It isn’t really the world hating the Jews, as much as it is the Enemy of God leading the world into doing hateful things to the Jews. Let me explain…

The plagues God sent on Egypt were not mainly to destroy Egypt (which they did) but to show his superiority over the Egyptian gods (I have been discussing this lately on my Friday messages- check out the Parashot Teachings tab on the website.) In the same way that God showed he was more powerful than the Egyptian gods, Satan wants to do that by destroying the Jewish people because they are God’s chosen, and he promised to protect them. If Satan can destroy the Jews, then he can prove he is more worthy of worship than God, which has been his agenda since Day One.

Literally, Day One!

So, since we know that Satan was thrown to the earth (Revelation 12:7) and is the ruler of the air (Ephesians 2:2), he is the ruler of the earth, at least to the extent that God allows it, and Satan easily gets people to do as he wants.

And it isn’t just the non-Believers- many Christians also are easily duped by satanic propaganda, given out by the leaders of many Christian churches and sects.

“How can that be?” you may ask? It is through changing the Sabbath day, it is through teaching that the Torah is done away with, it is through ignoring God’s Holy Days, it is through teaching Replacement Theology, it is through…well, you get the idea.

As stated earlier, God told Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to the world, and he later told Moses (Exodus 19:6) that the Jews will be his nation of priests, and since priests teach the people how to worship God, anything done against the Jews is against God. If Satan can make people reject the Jews, then they are rejecting God and thereby worshiping Satan because either you are with God or you are against God.

Like it or not, that’s the truth.

There are always people who really do hate others, Jewish or whatever, because they are ignorant and covetous sheep, easily led astray. Sometimes they are even following what they believe, in many cases, to be godly ways but in the long run, they are worshiping Satan.

Whether people know it or not, when they come against God’s chosen people they may not be doing it because they hate the Jews, they just don’t know that they are being led to love Satan.

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L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Bo 2021 (Go) Exodus 10 – 13:16

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As we continue with the plagues against Egypt, God sends locusts, three days of darkness, and the final and most terrible plague, the death of the firstborn.

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Before the angel of death passes, Pharaoh tells Moses that the next time Moses sees his face, he will die, and Moses says that is fine with him, but since Pharaoh has changed his mind all these times and still refuses to let the Israelites go, the final plague will be the death of all the firstborn of Egypt, from the lowliest animal to the son of the Pharaoh, himself.

God gives Moses the instructions regarding the lamb’s blood and how the Seder is to be performed. He tells Moses this is the first day of their year from now on, and that when they leave they are to ask for jewels and valuables from the Egyptians, who were more than happy to give so long as the people leave.

After the firstborn die, and Pharaoh tells Moses that all the people and all they have are to leave his land, God tells Moses that from now on every firstborn child or animal is to belong to God, as redemption for all the firstborn God took away from the Egyptians. Later we will see that this redemption was made through a tax.

I wanted to talk about how God kept his word to Moses when in Exodus 12:12 he said he would bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt, as well as Pharaoh, but as I read through the parashah something else “hit” me, so I will talk about that, but first, it is really interesting to see how God judged the false gods through the plagues.

Some of you may already know this, but I will present it quickly for those that aren’t familiar with the many gods the Egyptians have worshipped.

Egyptian godRealmPlague
Ra / AtumSunDarkness
OsirisAgricultureLocusts
SethStormsHail
GebSnakesMoses’ staff
ApisCattle / NileNile turns to blood
Cattle Blight
HequetFrog-headed goddessFrogs
Isisprotection from diseaseboils
AnubisUnderworld / deathdeath of the first born
PharaohDivinely empowered to protect and maintain orderAll the plagues

As you can see, these gods of the Egyptian polytheistic religion were, in one way or another, shown to be less powerful than the God of the Israelites.

That is interesting and of value for study, but there was something, as I mentioned earlier, that I find to be a spiritual message in what God told the Israelites to do, specifically regarding the feast of unleavened bread (Hag HaMatzot.)

As most of us know, chametz (leavening) represents sin and the feast of unleavened bread begins on the night of the Seder, lasting seven days. Seven, the number of completion, is also a special number with regards to the cleansing rituals which are described in Leviticus. When becoming unclean due to a discharge or after a woman’s’ time of Nidah (menstrual cycle) or after a skin disease clears up, the waiting period from the time of becoming unclean until being declared clean, after being inspected by the Cohen, is seven days.

I believe that God decreed Hag HaMatzot is to last seven days because it is representative of them being cleansed of the sin of Egypt that was on them all, for many of them had adopted the Egyptian lifestyle, diet, and even their religion. Now, this shouldn’t be a big surprise because they had been slaves for 400 years, but still and all, now they were being brought back into a relationship with the God of their Fathers, and he didn’t want any of the spiritual stench of slavery on them. By removing the chametz from their diet, they were undergoing both a physical and spiritual cleansing of the sin they had become accustomed to while in Egypt.

The Passover sacrifice is a thanksgiving sacrifice, not a sin sacrifice, and the purpose of this type of sacrifice is to bring us back into a relationship with God. The fasting of anything with chametz cleanses us, spiritually as well as physically, so that our communion can be complete.

Passover is coming around, again, and when you have your Seder and spend the next week eating matzabrie, matzo sandwiches, and other matzo recipes (my favorite is matzo with butter and salt), remember that you are not just obeying God, but you are cleansing yourself of both physical and spiritual chametz.

One last thought: generally, before the Seder, the Rabbi will inspect the home to ensure that all the chametz is removed, which reminds me of the Cohen’s inspection before someone was allowed back into the camp.

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Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

Is Hate Stronger than Love?

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I know, I know- love conquers all. Yeshua and God are love, and nothing is stronger than they are, so the obvious answer is that love is stronger than hate.

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We are told in the Bible that even sinners do good things for the ones they love (Luke 6:32) and that we should love each other as ourselves. So, since sinners love, and righteous people love, then love must be stronger, right?

Fine. But, if that is true, then how come there is so much hatred in the world?

And if we are to love others as we love ourselves, what about those people who actually hate themselves? You know who I mean- people who do things that are harmful to their health and refuse to stop doing it; people who purposefully say and do things that ostracize them from the general population (but not by being holy); people who reject friends and family in order to hoard animals until their homes are a health hazard. These people don’t love themselves, so how can they really love others?

There are many people who often prefer to hate and keep hatred in their hearts by refusing to forgive others. And, as much as I hate to say it (no pun intended), I count myself as one of that crowd.

I know the importance of forgiving, and I am much better at it than I ever was, thanks be to God and Yeshua, but I am still angry and sometimes feel the need for vengeance on some who have been unfair and very hurtful to me in the past.

We all know there is a very thin line between love and hate: these have got to be the strongest emotions humans have. If you want to see how thin that line is, go ahead and watch a couple of episodes of the old TV show “Love Boat”: no matter how much the couple hates each other when the cruise starts, in the end, they are all lovey-dovey and the world is wonderful.

Seriously, hatred can stem from love, but I don’t think it works the other way around. That old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt” is based in truth. Sometimes, what we love about someone is not enough, and that love can turn into hatred: maybe not the “I need to kill you!” kind of hatred, but the kind where one no longer loves the other and must get away from the other person because the relationship has become poisonous.

Maybe the issue is not whether hate is stronger than love, or love is stronger than hate, but that they can be equally strong, and one needs something extra to overcome the other?

The quickest way to generate hatred in someone is to do them harm, either physically, emotionally, or socially. And, I believe (maybe you’ll agree) when we hate we leave less room in our heart for love. It’s as James says in James 3:11, where he says a well cannot give forth both fresh and salty water. The more we hate, the less we are able to love, and the more we love, the less we will hate, but in the long run, I believe that hatred will fill a heart faster than love will.

Why do I say this? Because I observe the world, I see people, I study history, I read the Bible, and I am not so naïve as to wish for something that is obviously not true.

But let’s go back to what I just was thinking, about that something “extra” that might give the edge to one or the other. I think I know what that is…it’s forgiveness!

I have seen how forgiveness can overcome hatred. In fact, in those “Love Boat” episodes, it was often enough forgiveness that changed their hearts towards each other.

Actually, now that I think about it, forgiveness is an expression of love, isn’t it?

Hatred is pretty much a simple thing, but love is complex. I don’t think we can love something about someone we hate, but I know, for a fact, that we can hate something about someone we love. And how is it possible to hate something about someone without it turning into hating them?

Because of forgiveness!

So, I have come to the conclusion that forgiveness is the thing that makes love stronger than hatred. Hatred is a part of who we are and must continuously be fought against. It is, like sin, crouching at our door always there, waiting to take us over, and when the Enemy comes (as he has done in the past) he will not take over through love but through hatred. He did it with the Crusades, the Inquisition, in Nazi Germany, and today he is doing it right here in America!

Throughout history, when people were strongly bonded together, it has been hatred that is the glue the Enemy used to form that bond.

God hates sin but loves the sinner, and he is not just willing to forgive, but he desires to do so (Ezekiel 18:23), so to overcome hatred, which only reduces our ability to love, we need to exercise forgiveness.

Hatred is the weapon of the Enemy and love is the defense; but, without forgiveness, love isn’t enough. Maybe that’s why we are commanded to forgive because God knows that without forgiveness, love cannot conquer hate.

Thank you for being here and please don’t forget to subscribe (click the button in the right margin) and also use the link above to go to my YouTube channel and subscribe there, too (click the Messianic Moment icon) because these are different lists. Subscribing only means you will be contacted when I post- no selling of names or anything like that.

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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!