A Sinaite’s “Thanksgiving” Liturgy – 4th Sabbath of November

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KINDLE THE SABBATH LIGHTS

As we kindle these two Sabbath lights,

embracing this visual symbolic Jewish tradition,

we relate one to Your servant Israel,

Your light to the nations, to us gentiles.

We relate the other to Your Revelation on Sinai,

which the recipients and custodians

have enshrined in the Torah,

a way of living Your Way,

a source of spiritual illumination and divine wisdom

for all peoples and all nations,

for each individual who discovers You

in it and through it.

We thank You, YHWH, God of Freedom,

for returning remnant Israel

back to the Promised Land in our times.

“Who has heard such a thing?

Who has seen such things?

Can a land be born in one day?

Can a nation be brought forth all at once?

(Isaiah 66:8/NASB)

Yet, You have brought them back

to the very same Land You promised to their Patriarchs,

to which You Yourself led them

after You liberated them from Egyptian bondage

and lived among them at the beginning of their nationhood.

What an awesome God You are,

O Lord YHWH,

and how fortunate and blessed could a chosen people be,

to have You as their God,

their Liberator, Law-Giver, Defender, and King!

Truly, Israel’s existence and survival is a living testimony

that there is a God Who has spoken

through the prophets of Israel

of marvelous things yet to be,

which we in this day and age, witness in amazement!

Yet, we discover in the Hebrew Scriptures

that You are not only the God of Israel

but God of all the Nations!

We bless You for blessing us,

and thank You for including us—

Gentiles who are not of ethnic Israel—

for bringing us out of our own ‘Egypt’

where we in our ignorance were also in bondage;

lacking in understanding of Your True Scriptures,

the TORAH.

We thank You for redeeming us from our own slavery

to false doctrines and false teachings,

false beliefs, false religions, false churches,

false gods.

We thank You for Your Torah

where we have discovered

all the commandments

You intended for all mankind,

to regulate our conduct in community,

to direct us to always do what is right and just,

to be Your instruments in dispensing

lovingkindness, goodness and mercy toward others,

in this our journey through life.

May that day arrive

when all peoples from all nations

will see these two reflections of Your Light

and finally embrace You

as the One and Only True God!

May they, as we all, hearken to and heed

the life-giving words of your Torah,

for it is only when we live Your Way

that this earth will be as You envisioned it,

truly a heaven on earth.

Image from heartwhispers.weebly.com

Reading from Isaiah 40:10-26 [JPS]

Behold your God!

¹⁰ Behold, the Lord God comes in might,
And His arm wins triumph for Him;
See, His reward is with Him,
His recompense before Him.
¹¹ Like a shepherd He pastures His flock:
He gathers the lambs in His arms
And carries them in His bosom;
Gently He drives the mother sheep.

¹² Who measured the waters with the hollow of His hand,
And gauged the skies with a span,
And meted earth’s dust with a measure,
And weighed the mountains with a scale
And the hills with a balance?
¹³ Who has plumbed the mind of the Lord,
What man could tell Him His plan?
¹⁴ Whom did He consult, and who taught Him,
Guided Him in the way of right?
Who guided Him in knowledge
And showed Him the path of wisdom?

¹⁵ The nations are but a drop in a bucket,
Reckoned as dust on a balance;
The very coastlands He lifts like motes.
¹⁶ Lebanon is not fuel enough,
Nor its beasts enough for sacrifice.
¹⁷ All nations are as naught in His sight;
He accounts them as less than nothing.

18 To whom, then, can you liken God,
What form compare to Him?
¹⁹ The idol? A woodworker shaped it,
And a smith overlaid it with gold,
Forging links of silver.
²⁰ As a gift, he chooses the mulberry —
A wood that does not rot —
Then seeks a skillful woodworker
To make a firm idol,
That will not topple.

²¹ Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Have you not been told
From the very first?
Have you not discerned
How the earth was founded?
²² It is He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth,
So that its inhabitants seem as grasshoppers;
Who spread out the skies like gauze,
Stretched them out like a tent to dwell in.
²³ He brings potentates to naught,
Makes rulers of the earth as nothing.
²⁴ Hardly are they planted,
Hardly are they sown,
Hardly has their stem
Taken root in earth,
When He blows upon them and they dry up,
And the storm bears them off like straw.

²⁵ To whom, then, can you liken Me,
To whom can I be compared?

— says the Holy One.

²⁶ Lift high your eyes and see:
Who created these?
He who sends out their host by count,
Who calls them each by name:
Because of His great might and vast power,
Not one fails to appear.

BLESSINGS

Image from www.comtodovino.com.br

From seed to vine to grape to wine,

This drink brings joy, a delight and a sign

that we started as seeds, matured into vine,

bore fruit like grapes, ripened into wine.

We continue to age gaining wisdom and truth,

What more could we ask from our gracious Lord?

More life, long life, Your Life,

O Giver of Life. L’Chaim!

From seed to stem to grain of wheat,

from flour to dough and baked in heat,

this bread is food that came from seed,

just like the drastic change we need,

from phase to phase of life indeed.

As it is Your Will for all humanity

that You will be known by all,

may it be the will of our loved ones,

most specially our family —

[name them]

parents, siblings, children, extended kin —

that they all will come to know You,

YHWH, the One True God,

while they have breath and life,

during their time on earth.

May the book of life

that each one of us has lived

and written for ourselves,

be in harmony with Your Book of Life.

May those who read our ‘book of life’

be led to Your Tree of Life, the Torah.

And in our end of days,

may our names be written

in YHWH’s Book of Life.

Amen.

SABBATH MEAL

Image from toriavey.com

Image from www.haruth.com

THANKSGIVING at HAVDALAH

[Source: GATES OF REPENTANCE,

Songs and Transliterations]

We gratefully acknowledge that

You are our Eternal God

and God of our people,

the God of all generations.

You are the Rock of our life,

the Power that shields us in every age.

We thank You and sing Your praises:

for our lives, which are in Your hand;

for our souls, which are in Your keeping;

for the miracles which are daily with us;

and for Your wondrous gifts at all times,

morning, noon, and night.

You are Goodness:

Your mercies never end;

You are Compassion:

Your love never fails.

You have always been our hope.

For all these things, O Sovereign God,

let Your name be forever exalted and blessed,

and let life abundant

be the heritage of all the children of Your covenant.

O God our Redeemer and Helper,

let all who live affirm You

and praise Your name in truth.

Eternal God, whose nature is Goodness,

we give You thanks and praise.

Image from www.brainyquote.com

Greetings to Sabbath-keepers

all over the world,

to our Jewish friends,

and to all Gentile Truth-seekers

who have given us a ‘hearing’

by visiting this website frequently!

We embrace the American tradition

of celebrating Thanksgiving this week;

we are thankful to YHWH

for all and each of you.

Shabbat shalom,

NSB@S6K

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

NSB@S6K

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