Oy searchers, need help? – October 2016

Image from www.stlucasucc.org

In keeping up with the “spirit” of the end of the month from Halloween to the beginning of next month opening with the Christian celebration of All Saints and All Soul’s Day, we’re reposting a series of articles that focus on the UNKNOWN, what lies beyond this life, and all the imaginary creatures spawned by belief systems, religion-sourced or not, that are not based on the TRUTH of the TORAH, the Sinai Revelation. Truly, ignorance is a choice and when people would rather remain in that mental state, then spooks and devils and reasons for celebating the DARK FORCES is part of the culture. Sometimes, we do know better (like us Sinaites) but we simply go along with the merrymaking and the commercialization of it, for that is truly who benefits from such — the businesses that promote them (malls, shops, restaurants, party-organizers, costume makers, candle industry, etc.).

10/30/16 “Do Sinaites celebrate Halloween?”

Revisit: A Hollow Win

10/29/16 “ghosts and spirits, evil creatures” –

TNK” ha satan” vs. OT “Satan”/NT “Devil”

10/21/16 Shabbat Shalom! Sorry to disappear for a day, but Typhoon “LAWIN” (hawk) blew us off the web for 24 hours . . . . If our visitors could not access http://sinai6000.net since Tuesday evening this week, that’s because a super cyclone hit our region and knocked out electrical and digital connections. Indeed, who ever said “man proposes, God disposes?” A bit of trivia from https://www.englishclub.com

Origin: This proverb is a translation from “The Imitation of Christ” by the German-born Thomas à Kempis (c.1380-1471):

“For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand. For man proposes, but God disposes; neither is the way of man in his own hands.”

This may be a reflection of a verse in the Bible (Proverbs 16:9): “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.” Shakespeare, too, had a similar message in Hamlet by Hamlet: “There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”

Man can strive to build its many versions of ‘Babel’ but once Mother Nature shows up with all her fury and power to dismantle the best of human efforts and genius, we’re at her mercy. Whose NAME do we call on at such times? Not Mother Nature, but YHWH — Creator, Designer, Provider, Protector and ever-Benevolent Merciful and Gracious God. We’re back to normal, just in time for SHABBAT! So enjoy your musical liturgy, dear Sabbath keepers from all over the world, let us enter His Sabbath Sanctuary at sundown.

Here’s the link:

A Sinaite’s Musical Liturgy – 3rd Sabbath of October

10/17/16 ” Lunar Sabbath? 12 hour Sabbath.? Do you think its possible that the Sabbath really starts at dawn and ends at dark and not sunset to sunset?”

In Genesis at the culmination of Creation week, the Creator-God sets apart the seventh day as a day to cease from work, for rest of mind, body, spirit. Imagine, no less than the Lord of the Sabbath Himself models a day off from his ‘workweek’ at the beginning of earth time! This precedes the 4th commandment later given at Sinai, so no one should conclude that only Jews are required to observe Sabbath on Saturday. We presume that since the first man and woman (representative humanity, no Jew, no Gentile) were created on day 6, they followed their Creator’s lead and in fact most likely celebrated the first Sabbath of earthly time.

As for the “12-hour Sabbath” — recall that for 6 days before the 1st Sabbath, the Creator set the definition for “yom” (24-hour revolution of the earth, day side exposed to the sun, night side in the dark).“And there was evening, and there was morning”and each day is counted as day one, day two and so forth. From the Genesis account, the custodians of the Torah, Israel, the Jewish sages, take their cue that the biblical day is from sundown to sundown, or sunset to sunset.

Now why is this the best way to reckon “yom” or “day”? Because the Creator is so wise and so smart as to cue humans toward visual signs in His created universe to mark the progress of time. Clocks/watches were non existent then, so how does one reckon the passing of time? Visually! That is why the Israelites are taught to look at the heavens and observe the signs there —sun, moon, stars, etc. How could anyone then have known when a new day had begun if a new day begins at midnight like it does in our day?

Use simple logic in your Torah study, because the Creator/Revelator is VERY logical and scientific and reasonable and VISUAL.

As for lunar Sabbath? Well, the Jewish calendar/biblical calendar is ‘lunar’ while theGregorian calendar is “solar”. Again, the God of Israel taught His people to reckon their month through the first sighting of a sliver of the moon, so they know how to progress through their month as the moon grows to full, then wanes. The Jews go by a different calendar, a lunar calendar; in fact they have just celebrated Rosh Hashanah, their new year and their biblical year is 5777, no countdown to year 0 and count-up to 2016.

Here are posts about the Sabbath

10/12/16 “meaning of uncircumcised lips” – ah, one of our most frequently recurring search terms. It is indeed intriguing why the Hebrew Scriptures use the terms “circumcised” and “uncircumcised” beyond the medical procedure performed on the male sexual organ and that is why we used the scriptural text on the title of the chapter where it occurs. In fact, in Everett Fox’s translation which is what we use, the word is “foreskinned”. The commentary on the chapter itself, Exodus 6, addresses this issue from the Rabbi’s point of view (Midrash), so please go there:

Exodus/Shemoth 6-b: Do you have “uncircumcised lips”?

0/10/16 – “sacrifice” –This word is used by Christianity in connection with the self-sacrifice, death and resurrection of the Christian Savior, Jesus Christ. Since they claim that NT is rooted in OT, and that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22) , it is only proper to check out if there is indeed an OT basis for this and to find out what was YHWH’s original intention for the requirement of animal offerings at the Tabernacle/Temple.

In the context Leviticus 23, such offerings were required for one kind of offense or “sin” — and that is UNintentional sin, meaning, offenses we committed out of ignorance or we had not intended to hurt but caused harm and hurt to our fellowmen nevertheless. Even unintentional killing (not murder) was provided a way out of lex talionis, a life for a life, where offenders who accidentally took a life were offered “sanctuary” in “cities of refuge”. What does the LawGiver and Judge of humanity require for intentional sin? True repentance, a 180 degree turning away from any specific sin; no blood needs to be shed for that.

We are approaching the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, one of the 7 “MY feasts” commanded in Leviticus 23, one of the 3 feasts that is universally relevant, to Jew and Gentile alike and thus, listed among a Sinaite’s MUST OBSERVE. (The other two are the weekly Sabbath and the anniversary of the giving of the Torah on Sinai, in Hebrew “Shavuot”.) October 12, 2016 is the day in the biblical calendar, also the Jewish liturgical calendar. Here are some posts relevant to this feast:

10/05/16 -“yahweh is not the author of confusion” – Yay, our first search entry and it’s not just a ‘term’ but a whole phrase, in fact a quote from one of our posts that a visitor remembered and came back for. But then, which post does that phrase come from? Like the searcher, the way to know is to enter it in the slot that says “Search for . . .” with a magnifying glass beside it and that leads to posts that use the word “confusion” except that in this case . . . none of the posts shows the exact phrase! This isn’t helpful at all, is it? Will get back to you soon as we find the post!

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Welcome October! While we’re waiting for entries in “search terms” which is the purpose for this post, ask us ‘whatsup’ this month?

For one, most of the fall festivals of Leviticus 23 are scheduled the first two weeks of October this year. So observant Israel (and Torah-educated Gentiles) have just welcomed Rosh Hashanah (biblical new year) and immediately following, the nine days of self-examination specifically on horizontal relationships; that is, before our vertical relationship with our Creator/Law-Giver YHWH, for transgressions against Him on Yom Kippur. Then five days after that Day of Repentance comes the Feast of Tabernacles which is celebration time.

Here’s a link for those who want to learn more: http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm.

What non-Jewish celebrations are listed for the month of October? Well, if you got a clue from the image, ‘yours truly’ is a ‘vegetarian’/’vegan’ (is there a difference? Yup!). This month is awareness for the original diet prescribed by the Creator to the first couple while in lush Eden:

Genesis 1:

9 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 2:

2 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Of course meat was added to the human diet in the instructions to Noah after the flood and why not, all vegetation were soaked in water for 40 days and 40 nights and another 150 days thereafter. With animal flesh allowed for human consumption, we then learn about two categories of meat: clean and unclean and for this, you’d have to check out Leviticus 11 plus all our posts on the biblical diet:

What other designations

for October are there?

Well, there’s the

‘spooktacular

phantom-astic

Halloween’

occasion for kids of all ages

have an excuse to ‘costume-ize’. Would you believe we actually have a post about this ghostly-day? Check out: Revisit: A Hollow Win

And of course there’s Oktoberfest where beer-drinkers and sausage-lovers feast till they bellyache.

Here’s a short list of this month’s focus:

Health issues: breast cancer, lupus & diabetes, mental health, pregnancy-infant-loss, down syndrome, ADHD, autism, dwarfism,

Food focus: fair trade, pizza, popcorn, seafood, ham, apple jacks, cookies

Awareness: pharmacists, clergy, sarcasm, and adopt-a -shelter-dog, community safety, music history, energy, computer learning, disability-employment, , longevity, bullying, domestic violence, etc.

For the October born, do you fit this profile?

Image from www.pinterest.com

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.

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