A Sinaite's Liturgy – Sabbath during the Season of Joy, Sukkot – Israel's Feast of Booths

KINDLE THE SABBATH LIGHTS

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O YHWH,

 

just as You ceased from work and set apart day 7 of Creation week,

and in obedience to your 4th commandment as given on Sinai,

we join Your chosen people, O God of Israel,  

as they welcome Your Queen of days, Your blessed Sabbath.

 

We delight in their ‘season of joy’ – Sukkot –  the feast of Booths, 

when they commemorate Your providence during their 40-year wandering through the wilderness of the Sinai peninsula.

 

This feast reveals to us Your faithfulness to Your promises and pronouncements—

 regarding a nation that You Yourself formed

through three generations of Patriarchs,

then birthed on Sinai, unique in its chosenness, 

whose only protection for forty years was Your Presence and Power, visible to Israel as well as the nations, 

when You dwelt among them in shekinah glory by day and pillar of fire by night.

 

Truly, how blessed could a nation be  

to have the Creator of the universe as their Liberator, 

their Lord, their King, their Provider and their Protector!

 

We are inspired by the thought that possibly,

Your Omnipresence inhabits every celebration 

of those who obey Your fourth commandment,  

who faithfully and expectantly meet with You at this appointed time,

O Lord of the Sabbath.

 

We bless You for blessing us with more knowledge and wisdom,

with the joy of knowing You and learning that Your guidelines for living,

your Tree of Life, Your Torah, is for all humanity and not just for Israel.

We are privileged and honored to declare Your Name and live Your Torah life,

as gentiles belonging to the ‘nations’,  O YHWH, God of Sinaites.

 

We kindle these Sabbath lights

to remind ourselves to bless Israel for being Your light to us,

Sinaites who have been much enlightened by the Hebrew Scriptures which led us to You, 

O  YHWH, Creator God, Revelator on Sinai,

One and Only True God.

 

We bless Israel  for preserving and transmitting Your Torah 

from the time of their ‘wilderness wandering’ to their conquest of Canaan,

through their settlement in the Land of Promise, 

and even through their successes and failures to live the Torah

that earned them blessings or curses in the course of their history,

becoming a people in diaspora until they were reborn as a nation

and are now back in portions of Your promised land.

 

We are grateful to Israel for making Your revelation accessible to  earnest seekers of Truth 

and to unrelenting searchers after the  One True God  such as gentiles like ourselves.  

For truly in unexpected ways, 

even as Israel’s narratives record its struggle to obey Your Torah, 

suffering the consequences for disobedience, 

Israel continues to fulfill its mission even in this day and age, 

catching the attention of a clueless world that now watches in wonder and amazement

at Israel’s continuing survival despite all odds stacked against it, 

with hostile neighboring nations threatening its very existence, 

ever the focus of the world’s curiosity 

if not controversy and undeserved antisemitism.

 

We join believers of other faiths who pray for peace to finally reign supreme in the Holy Land:

 

 “O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls

and prosperity in your palaces.”[Psalm 122:6-7]

 

May peace extend as well

to all parts of this troubled world in these disturbing times,

plagued by conflicts and pandemic threats,

man-caused evil and natural disasters.  

May Your Peace, Protection and Providence

be extended to us and our loved ones who are not of Israel, 

amidst the turbulence we witness around us.

 

 

May Israel’s servant light

continue to shine brightly for Your sake,

O YHWH, God of Israel; 

and may we as mere reflectors of Your light 

succeed in our endeavours to be image-bearers of You, 

the God we embrace and love and worship, 

Whose Name we proudly proclaim:

Wonderful Counselor,

Almighty God,

Everlasting Father— YHWH.

 

 

Scripture Reading:  Zechariah 14:1-21

 

¹ Lo, a day of the Lord is coming when your spoil shall be divided in your very midst! 

² For I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for war:

The city shall be captured, the houses plundered, and the women violated; and a part of the city shall go into exile.

But the rest of the population shall not be uprooted from the city.

³ Then the Lord will come forth and make war on those nations as He is wont to make war on a day of battle. 

⁴ On that day, He will set His feet on the Mount of Olives,

near Jerusalem on the east;

and the Mount of Olives shall split across from east to west,

and one part of the Mount shall shift to the north

and the other to the south, a huge gorge. 

⁵ And the Valley in the Hills shall be stopped up,

for the Valley of the Hills shall reach only to Azal;

it shall be stopped up as it was stopped up as a result of the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah.

— And the Lord my God,

with all the holy beings,

will come to you. 

⁶ In that day, there shall be neither sunlight nor cold moonlight, 

⁷ but there shall be a continuous day —

only the Lord knows when —

of neither day nor night,

and there shall be light at eventide.

⁸ In that day, fresh water shall flow from Jerusalem,

part of it to the Eastern Sea and part to the Western Sea,

throughout the summer and winter.

⁹ And the Lord shall be king

over all the earth;

in that day there shall be one Lord

with one name.

¹⁰ Then the whole country shall become like the Arabah,

from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem.

The latter, however, shall perch high up where it is,

and shall be inhabited from the Gate of Benjamin to the site of the Old Gate,

down to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. 

¹¹ Never again shall destruction be decreed,

and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.

¹² As for those peoples that warred against Jerusalem,

the Lord will smite them with this plague:

Their flesh shall rot away while they stand on their feet;

their eyes shall rot away in their sockets;

and their tongues shall rot away in their mouths.

¹³ In that day, a great panic from the Lord shall fall upon them,

and everyone shall snatch at the hand of another,

and everyone shall raise his hand against everyone else’s hand. 

¹⁴ Judah shall join the fighting in Jerusalem,

and the wealth of all the nations roundabout —

vast quantities of gold, silver, and clothing — shall be gathered in.

¹⁵ The same plague shall strike the horses, the mules, the camels, and the asses;

the plague shall affect all the animals in those camps.

¹⁶ All who survive of all those nations

that came up against Jerusalem

shall make a pilgrimage year by year

to bow low to the King Lord of Hosts

and to observe the Feast of Booths. 

 

Psalm 122

A Song of Ascents; of David:

 I rejoiced when they said unto me: 

‘Let us go unto the house of the LORD.’ 

² Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem; 

³ Jerusalem, that art builded as a city that is compact together; 

⁴ Whither the tribes went up, even the tribes of the LORD,

as a testimony unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD. 

⁵ For there were set thrones for judgment, the thrones of the house of David. 

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; may they prosper that love thee. 

⁷ Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.

 ⁸ For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say: ‘Peace be within thee.’ 

⁹ For the sake of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good.

 

BLESSINGS

 

For countless ways that You manifest in our lives—through many blessings in disguise that we take for granted —

the air we breathe, sunshine and rainfall,

the nightly spectacle of the heavens which indeed declare Your glory;  

daily providence and protection, 

lovingkindness, mercy and grace that flow from Your heart,

and especially for the forgiveness that affords us peace

upon heartfelt repentance for our transgressions,

granted on Yom Kippur and every occasion

when we repent, confess and ask for forgiveness

and turn our lives around—-

For all these and more, O YHWH, we are humbled and deeply grateful!

 

For the blessing of family —

for the gift of special people who have loved us and whom we dearly love back— [name them]

parents and siblings,

spouses and children,

extended kin, friends, special people—

we are thankful for all these relationships that have graced our life on earth; may we be reunited in the world to come.

 

For the joy and delight we experience each Sabbath celebration,

for our ‘fellowship in faith’ with Sinaites wherever they are all over the world,

for nameless  and unknown seekers of Truth

who sincerely wish to know You, YHWH,  the One True God,  who visit the website which links us beyond all boundaries and limitations,

for each one of them — we seek the blessing of progressive knowledge and accompanying wisdom that rewards all who discover the path that leads to Your Sinai Revelation.

 

As we partake of the symbols of our joy—

this bread, this wine,

we join our Jewish and Gentile brethren in saying

“to LIFE” — “l’Chaim” “mabuhay”!

And may our names and those of our loved ones

be written in YHWH’s Book of Life,

as we each live the Torah life 

in obedience to our Lord and King,

and proclaim His Name, YHWH.

 

HAVDALAH

 

As we mark the end of our Sabbath celebration,

we look forward to counting the next six days,

until the next Sabbath.

 

We join Israel in praying:

 

“Blessed art thou, YHWH, our Lord,

King of the Universe,

Who distinguishes Holiness from the everyday,

Light from dark,

Israel from the nations,

the seventh day from six workdays.

Blessed art thou, Lord YHWH,

Who distinguishes holiness from the everyday.”

 

As Gentiles, we proclaim:

 

Behold, YHWH is the God we serve,  

YHWH is the Name we call upon,

we will trust YHWH and not be afraid,

may Your blessing rest upon people who choose You,

blessed are those who trust in You, 

O YHWH,  our Lord and our God.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shabbat shalom Israel & Gentiles of the nations,

& Sinaites!

NSB@S6K