Parashah Vayyishlach 2019 (He sent) Genesis 32:4 – 36

Jacob is on his way back to the land of his father and he hears that Esau is coming to meet him, with 400 men! Jacob assumes that Esau is still peeved about the firstborn rights thing, so he creates three groups of animals, each group separated from the other, to be a gift to Esau in the hope that it will appease his anger.

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Jacob comes to the Jabbok River, which is by Shechem in the Jordan Rift Valley, and everyone crosses over while Jacob remains as the last one to cross, making sure everyone is safely on the other side. As night comes, he wrestles with a man until the morning, when the man (who we learn is an angel) strikes Jacob in the hip, partially disabling him. Jacob holds on and the man asks to be released, but Jacob won’t release him until he blesses Jacob. The angel gives him a new name, Israel (one who wrestled with God.)

With Esau coming, Jacob sends his gifts and splits his camp into two, leading off with the handmaidens of his wives with their children, then Leah with her children, and in the rear, Rachel and Joseph.

Esau comes and they reconcile, with Esau going back to his land (Edom) and Jacob staying behind, settling in Shechem on a plot of land he buys from Hamor, the king of Shechem.

Later, after Jacob is settled, Shechem, the son of Hamor sees Jacob’s daughter Dinah alone and rapes her. Afterward, he falls in love with her and asks his father to get her to be his wife. Jacob and all the family, especially Levi and Shimon (who are her brothers by Leah) are disgusted by this vile act, but they agree to allow Dinah to become Shechem’s wife under one condition: all the men in the city must be circumcised. Hamor convinces the men to undergo this painful and debilitating operation (they didn’t have packages of frozen peas to act as a cold compress) because then all the possessions of Jacob will be theirs.  The men undergo the operation and on the third day, the most painful when they can’t even walk, Levi and Shimon attack the village and slaughter all the men, taking all their goods as booty.

Jacob is afraid the surrounding tribes will attack him for this evil act, and God tells him to go to Beth-El. On the way, Benjamin is born to Rachel, who dies in childbirth and is buried outside Bethlehem.

This parashah ends with the death of Isaac and the lineage of Esau.

So far in this book of the Torah, we know that Abraham purchased land in Hebron and that Jacob purchased land in Shechem (where, eventually, Joseph will be buried.) Did you know that these two places which are legally owned by the descendants of the Patriarchs (i.e., the Jewish people) are forbidden to Jews?

When I was in Israel in 2016, our guide told us that Jews going to the Cave of the Patriarchs was a dangerous trip, as it was surrounded by Arab towns and they have attacked Jews trying to visit the cave. As for Shechem, it is still under Arab control and here is the warning sign that is on the fence surrounding the territory:

If Jews want to visit the burial place of Joseph, they may be killed and there will be no legal action taken against the killers!

These aren’t the only places where Jews/Israeli’s are being kept from the land they legally own. The West Bank, which is really the section of Israel called Shomron (also known as Samaria) has historically been possessed by the Jewish people. Yet, the Jews that are now settled there and have built homes and cities are under attack by the Palestinian people, claiming that the land is their land and the Israeli’s are invaders!

For the record, there are no such people as the “Palestinian people”- this is a term that Yasser Arafat created and is propaganda. Before Israel was created in 1948, the North Syrian shepherds would often cross the boundary with their flocks and, after denuding the territory, return to their own country. That is the full extent of their “claim” to be inhabitants.  The only “real” Palestinian people, if we want to get technical, were the Jewish people living there after the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 73 AD and renamed Judea to Philistia (after the Philistines, the ancient enemy of the Jews.)

There was never any Arab interest in any part of the land that the Israeli’s have settled in until AFTER they were there and making the land economically feasible. There has never been a permanent Arab settlement in that part of the world. It wasn’t until after Israel was declared to be a separate state that the surrounding Arab nations made claims of ownership.

God promised that land to the descendants of Abraham, and he confirmed that promise to Isaac and Jacob. When God says something once, you can be pretty sure it will be. When he says it twice, there can be no doubt at all that it will happen that way. But if God says something three times, then you can bet your life on it! In fact, God repeats the promise to give the land to the descendants of Abraham to Moses, as well, and gives Joshua the boundary lines of each tribe and orders him to take the land from those who were already there (Joshua 15-20.)

The only way to be certain of the ownership of all the land which God promised to give to the children of Israel is to start with the belief that God exists, that he created everything in the universe, and that everything on, in, around, under, and above the earth belongs to God. When we accept that as truth, then ownership of the land cannot be contested. God gave that land to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac: this is an important point- God did not promise this land to the descendants of Ishmael but to the descendants of Isaac and Jacob. God told Moses that the all the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River belongs to the Children of Israel (Exodus 23:31.)

The British promised Israel almost all the land that God said we should have in their Balfour Declaration (1917) but by the time Israel actually got the land, the size was only a fraction of what had been promised to them. Yet, God has strengthened his people and they have expanded, taking back much of their ancient boundaries.

One day God will make sure that his promise is completely fulfilled, and when that day comes only those who have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and have stood by Israel will be able to see God’s promise come to fruition.

Thank you, as always, for being here and please don’t hesitate to subscribe and make comments, if you want to.

I wish you all Shabbat shalom, and until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch Ha Shem!

What Makes a Jew a Jew?

This is the eternal question: is a Jew someone who was born of Jewish parents? Is a Jew someone who follows the traditions and practices of the Jewish religion? Is a Jew anyone from Israel? Is a Jew….well, you get the idea.

One of the websites I use for information I can depend on regarding Judaism is the (Orthodox) Judaism 101 website, and this is their definition of a Jew:

A Jew is any person whose mother was a Jew or any person who has gone through the formal process of conversion to Judaism. It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship

So, a Jew would be anyone born of Jewish parents, without any regard to what they believe. Supposedly.

Now for my real-life experience: I have been told, more than once, by Conservative, Reconstructionist and Orthodox Jews, that because I believe Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah, I am a Christian and no longer a Jew. Period!

My mother and father were Jewish, our family history is that my mothers Zaydeh (Grandfather) was a Cantor at some synagogue in Kiev (her father came over here just before the Pogroms made it to their town.) So, according to the Jewish 101 site (and most of what I have heard growing up Jewish, in my Reform synagogue) I am a Jew, and no matter what I believe or how I worship, my Jewish heritage cannot be taken away from me.

The really ironic part is that since I accepted Yeshua as my Messiah (disqualifying me as a Jew), I have been more “Jewish” than I ever was growing up! I worship the festivals of the Lord (Leviticus 23) and I celebrate Shabbat every Friday night and Saturday (although I am not as strict about the Talmudic regulations regarding travel and spending money); I also have been very active in my place of worship, whether it was a messianic synagogue or my current place, which is a Hebraic Roots church. I was on the Council at Temple Beth Emanuel in Philadelphia, acting as Rabbi for about 18 months while we were looking for a new Rabbi, and I am currently an officer on the Council for my church, the Zionist Revival Center (that is the name of our website: it is a dot ORG.) I have only worshiped in two places for the past 20 years- when I find a place that I feel is correct, I stay. I don’t play the field, as many Christians do.

I also have taken correspondence classes and have a Certificate of Messianic Studies (equivalent to an Associate degree); have written and published two books on God’s word and Prayer, and I teach, help lead liturgy and give the message when the Senior Pastor is unavailable.

I am not telling you all this to brag, but simply as a resume, so to speak, to demonstrate that I have been living a very, very Jewish lifestyle. In fact, for over 15 years Donna and I have hosted a Passover Seder for people who have never been to one, to introduce them to the Last Supper as it really happened.

Yet, despite all this, when I was talking with a woman who is an Israeli, an Orthodox Jew and a Director with a Christian based organization that supports Jews living in the heartland of Israel, when I asked if Israel might ever open it’s doors to Messianic Jews (we are not welcomed there), her answer was not what I was hoping for. I expected a compassionate, “I don’t think they are ready for that yet”, or a simple, “Probably not for a while”, or even a “I doubt it.” What I got was an immediate and definitive, “NO!”  Not only that, but she went on to tell me that I was a Christian, not a Jew. I told her she cannot say that, but she asked if I believed Jesus is the son of God (an immediate disqualification for any Jew, because Judaism totally rejects the Trinity) and that if I believe in Jesus (another term for which Jews really have no idea what it means) then I am a Christian! Period!! End of job; bye-bye; don’t let the door hit your tuchas on the way out.

You see, for a Messianic Jew, it is like being between a rock and a hard place: Christians tell us we can’t be saved if we are still obedient to Torah (because that means we are legalistic), and Jews tell us we aren’t Jewish if we believe in Jesus (no matter what our birthright or how we worship.)

Why is this? The answer is simple: bigotry fostered through ignorance.

Christians are taught the Torah is for Jews, and to justify not having to obey Torah they have decided that obedience is legalism, which disqualifies someone from really having “the Spirit” and being Born Again- to most Christians, being Born Again means not having to worry about rules, and if you have decided that the Torah is God’s commandments for everyone, you aren’t really “saved.”

On the Jewish side of the fence, Jesus is a traitor to Judaism and anyone who follows Him is a traitor, also. The Gentiles worship Jesus as God and they worship the Holy Spirit, so they are not obedient to the Shema (one God). That is immediate disqualification for being Jewish. Another is bowing to idols (check out any Catholic church), and ignoring Torah (as stated above), so they don’t care who your parents were and what lifestyle you live: to Jews, believing in Jesus is the definitive definition of a Non-Jew.

I wonder if that means that everyone who rejects Jesus is a Jew? I mean, if accepting Jesus means I am not a Jew, no matter what, then rejecting Jesus should, at least, allow me to be considered a non-Gentile, which is pretty much not-every other religion, so I would then be, by default, a Jew, right?

Wrong. Jews are Jews by birthright. The way one worships God, if at all, is an indicator of how “good” a Jew that person is, but if you are born from Jewish parents, you are a Jew: now and always.

It will be a very unpleasant surprise when these bigoted people (on both sides) learn the truth at Judgment Day. Actually, having believed as they do for 2/3 of my life, I feel bad for them. They’ve been poisoned since the moment they were a child. We see the horrible way the Palestinians, ISIS and other Mideast terrorist organizations indoctrinate their children with hatred, and not only authorize, but encourage, murdering Jews, and they start this as early as when they are still in kindergarten. It’s disgusting to us.

Yet, we do the same thing between Christianity and Judaism: Jews teach their young that Christians worship Jesus (and they have good reason to say that, too) and hate Jews, and that Jesus was a Jew but that He created and converted to Christianity. Totally wrong, but what does a 5 year old know about it? And their parents, grandparents, friends, and Rabbi all tell them the same thing. And from the Gentile religions, it is the same thing for their kids; they teach Jews killed their Lord, Jews have Torah as their salvation and not Christ, and in some cases they teach God has rejected Jews and they aren’t the Chosen people anymore, but they Christians are.

Both of these teachings are lies from the pit of Sheol.

So what do we do about this? The only thing we can do: suffer through, persevere, try to preach and show the truth in how we live that all are one in Messiah, that the “Jesus” most Jews think they know is not the real Yeshua, and that the Torah is valid and necessary for all people, Jew and Gentile, because God has no religion and the commandments He gave the Jews are really for everyone.

The last thing to add is: good luck to us! We will need it.

Parashah V’Yechi (and he lived) Genesis 47:28 – 50:26

We come to the end of Genesis, when Jacob blesses the two sons of Joseph, essentially adopting them into his family, and then blessing all his sons. He is carried back to the burial cave of his fathers and buried there. Then Joseph also dies and is embalmed.

The biblical account of the burial place for the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is in Hebron.  This is an Arab-controlled area, with a very small, completely surrounded Jewish section. Many Orthodox Jews will have Shabbat services in the cave at Machpelah (Hebron) that is accepted as the actual burial place for the Patriarchs.

However, Joseph is supposedly buried in Shechem. In fact, there is a Tomb of Joseph building in Shechem, which is totally off-limits to anyone Jewish.

Here is the “welcome” sign as you enter Shechem:

warning sign outside Schechem Valley entrance

So, two of the most important and holy of all Jewish locations in the land of Israel are off-limits to Jews. Yes, they can go to Hebron, but it is a dangerous route to travel, in both directions.

This is not a political blog, it is a ministry, but part of what ministry is, at least to me, is to tell the truth about the world and the spiritual battles that are occurring, every day, within it. One of these battles is that the Church is supposed to be grafted into the state (both spiritual and political) of Israel. It does NOT replace it!!  Believers are supposed to be supportive of Israel and the Jewish people because they are God’s chosen Priests, and you don’t double-cross your priest.

The Arab world has stated, over and over, that it’s only desire for the Jewish nation is that it be totally destroyed- not a very friendly “How do you do” campaign slogan. They have lied about their “rights” to the land they have occupied (yes, they occupied these lands  AFTER the nation of Israel made the land economically desirable); they have planted trees because that gives them ownership, even though the trees they planted are the only thing on the mountainsides they planted them on. There are thousands of trees, olive trees (which only need to be reaped once a year, otherwise there is nothing you need to do to them with regards to care-taking) all over the “disputed” West Bank, which is the Jordan Valley Rift area. The shanty towns that Israel is accused of causing are actually Arab creations because the Arabs have nowhere else to go- their own country will not allow them back in.

In Shechem there are bare, cinder-block buildings we would call “Projects” that house Arabs wanting to enter Israel but are not allowed- by the Arabs- to do so. And- they are not allowed back into Syria, either. In truth, none of them really want to go back to Syria…I mean, would you? So, Jewish people are kept out of Shechem, and the Arab people in Shechem are kept in there.

Truth be told, those Arabs that do live and work in Israel have no problem with  the Jewish people, and the Jewish people, the Israelites, have no problem with any Arab who wants to live and work with them, so long as you don’t try to kill me. The Arabs that work in Israel have the same pay, same benefits, and same opportunities as the Israelites- can we say that in America when it comes to minorities?

The Jewish people only want to live in peace, and be left alone. The Arab political powers want them destroyed. This is an age-old, sibling rivalry that goes back to Abraham. God tells Hagar that Ishmael with be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against his brothers and his brothers hands against him (Genesis 16:12), and we can see that has been true since then. History shows us that the Arab world has been nothing more than one political assassination after another, with family against family and people against people. The “Palestinian People” have nothing to do with Palestine- they are North Syrians, nomads, who used to take their herds and feed them on the hills of the Jordan Rift, then go back to Syria when the grass was gone. If you travel along that road you can still see the Arab shepherds along the way with their goats and sheep. It wasn’t until Israel became a nation and started to clear out the mosquito infested swamps, irrigate the land and make it a viable farming community that suddenly now, this is “historically” land that these “Palestinian” peoples owned, and Israel was invading their territory!

Horse-apples!

The only “Palestinians” that have “historically” lived there were the Jews. The North Syrians were dubbed with that title as a propaganda program by Yasser Arafat; and it was as good as anything that Joseph Goebbels could have come up with. Both Arafat and Goebbels had the same goal- to bring the world against, and ultimately destroy, the Jewish people, whose only “crime” was wanting to live peaceably on their own land.

One day we will have complete access, safe and open to all, to the burial places of our Patriarchs. This will come about because, when you read the bible, you know how it will all end. It would be nice if the Arabs would just get off their hate wagon. Isn’t it about time that ISIS and ISIL and all the other terrorists in the world leave Israel alone and concentrate on taking care of their own people; you know, not abuse and rape their own women, not kill themselves, not attack innocent men, women and children in countries that take them in only to try and help them?

The world has never really been a nice place for people- Adam and Eve had it made, but they blew it, and not just for themselves but for everyone. Now we live in a world that is cursed and fallen, and it is only going to get worse. It seems all this week I have been on an apocalyptic bent, but with all that is happening, natural and man-made disasters everywhere, how can I not see the end coming? How can anyone not see the end coming?

Keep reading the bible, keep praying to God for peace in our time- we know how things will end, we just don’t know when, so praying for the peace of Jerusalem and peace in our time is fine. It isn’t against God’s plan, it is just asking for a reprieve for the time being.

If you call yourself a “Believer”, say you have been “Born Again” and profess to worship God- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- then you MUST support and help the Jewish people. There’s no real choice about it: God said that is what you are to do, and Shaul (Paul) also says that we need to be one new man (Ephesians 2:15), meaning that the Jewish people and Christians need to worship the one Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) and work together. Christians are grafted in, and when you graft a branch onto the tree the branch now belongs to that tree, not the other way around.

So draw from the root of the tree to which you have been grafted in, do not denounce it, do not ignore it and do not work against it- you will only be killing yourself.