[First posted November 11, 2013.    A national God who regulates every aspect of His chosen people’s life—that is the God of Israel.   Imagine including in the No-No’s such practices as transgender dressing, interweaving two different thread sources, sowing different seed species, and the like.    In the case of ‘transgender dressing’, most likely it […]

[Imagine . . . the last book of the Torah of YHWH was closed with the final warning about adding to or subtracting from the Sinai Revelation. The Israelites were reminded over and over about keeping the Law, choosing Life, motivated by the blessings for obedience, and passing on to the future generations all that […]

 [What does it matter where the ‘remains’ of the earthly part of man ultimately rests?   Bereshiyth 3:19 says:  for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.  Ecclesiastes 12:7: the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. We tend to hang on to the material […]

[And so the great prophet of Israel concludes his final discourse to 2nd generation Israel with blessings upon each of the 12 tribes descended from Jacob’s 12 sons.   They have kept their tribal lines in tact for the four centuries of slavery in Egypt; each tribe is identifiable and recognizable through the census taken […]

[Just as Miriam broke out in song during the exodus, here Moshe does the same. This song, says the commentator, is a ‘didactic ode’.     Man oh man, what a cultured and educated leader was Moshe and why should he not be?  After all he grew up in the Pharaoh’s palace, was a prince of […]

[It is encouraging to hear these words:  you are about to lie beside your fathers.     The Hebrew Scriptures are not ‘other-life’-centered.  The religion that sprung from it—Judaism—therefore focuses on what man can do in his lifetime, not to earn points for the next life or be assured of making it into ‘heaven’, but […]

[Having come from Christian/Messianic ROOTS, it is difficult NOT to keep connecting what we have been taught by man-made religion, and what we have learned —not from ‘religion’ but from the Revelation given on Sinai, the Torah.   Truly, how does one reconcile the declarations of YHWH in this chapter with the Christian teaching that —- […]

[This chapter ends with one of the ‘OT’ verses we used to commit to memory as Christians/Messianics; we should continue to keep it in mind, now that we have seriously taken YHWH’s TORAH as the one and only ‘very words of God’.     The Revelator on Sinai has given humankind only the instructions relevant […]

[First fruits:  specifically, wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olives, and date-honey” — who would have guessed that even the kind of fruit is regulated for offerings?  Couldn’t you just bring apples and strawberries and mangoes? If you did not have the specific ‘fruits’ on the list but truly wanted to bring an offering, would God not […]