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The Purpose of Torah in New Testament Judaism, Part 3

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world-to-comeRabbi Simeon said: If a man looks upon the Torah as merely a book presenting narratives and everyday matters, alas for him! Such a torah, one treating with everyday concerns, and indeed a more excellent one, we too, even we, could compile. More than that, in the possession of the rulers of the world there are books of even greater merit, and these we could emulate if we wished to compile some such torah. But the Torah, in all of its worlds, holds supernal truths and sublime secrets…

Thus the tales related in the Torah are simply her outer garments, and woe to the man who regards that outer garb as the Torah itself, for such a man will be deprived of portion in the next world.

-Zohar, III.152 as quoted in
The Garments of Torah by Michael Fishbane
Chapter 3: The Garments of Torah – Or, to What May Scripture be Compared?, pg 34

(If you haven’t done so already, please read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.)

I mentioned previously that there is a strong temptation to take the Torah into mystical and spiritual realms since it seems that’s where it comes from. I also previously mentioned that Pastor Randy believes there is a pure and perfect Word of God that exists in the Heavenly Court and that the Bible we possess in our world, while it contains the Word of God, is not, in fact, the Word of God (ProclaimLiberty commented that indeed this isn’t a correct way to look at the Torah, though). As the Zohar states, we may consider our Bible to be merely a garment, an outer covering, but not the essence of its Holy contents.

Fishbane, in Chapter 3, compares and contrasts Torah as mystic vs. mundane, if I can apply such a word to Torah. This is his response to the current trend in Bible studies to address and consider the Biblical texts from a purely literary perspective. This is the sort of viewpoint we find in Richard Elliott Friedman’s book Who Wrote the Bible?.

Friedman carefully sifts through clues available in the text of the Hebrew Bible and those provided by biblical archaeology searching for the writer(s) of, primarily, the Pentateuch. He does so with clarity and engaging style, turning a potentially dry scholarly inquiry into a lively detective story. The reader is guided through the historical circumstances that occasioned the writing of the sources underlying the Five Books of Moses and the combining of these diverse sources into the final literary product. According to Friedman, the most controversial part of his case is the identification of the writer and date of the Priestly source. This book is neither comprehensive nor unduly complex, making it a good introductory text for beginners and nonspecialists. Recommended for all academic libraries. –Craig W. Beard, Harding Univ. Lib., Searcy, Ark.

Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

-as quoted from Amazon.com

Many modern Bible scholars are in love with the “JPED” theory of Old Testament (Tanakh) authorship, but in this approach, said-scholars all but remove God from the equation and reduce the Bible to a book written for political, religious, and personal motivations, rather than to impart the history and message of God’s interaction with human beings.

However, mysticism is an equally difficult realm in which to thrust the Bible as it far exceeds mere “inspired Word of God” and goes into structures of comprehension that are supposed to transport us into the upper chambers of the Almighty. I personally know some people in the Hebrew Roots movement who immediately become offended and incensed at the mere mention of the “K-word” (Kabbalah) and the quote from the Zohar above is not likely to earn me any points with them.

I’ve admitted before that I’m not mystic. I appreciate and enjoy some of the Jewish mystic writings as metaphors for certain spiritual truths, but I don’t take them as literal experiences. In fact, in an effort to understand something of the Christian mystical perspective, I recently read John A. Sanford’s book Mystical Christianity: A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John, however Sanford’s attempt to analyze this gospel from the perspective of Carl Jung and Jungian psychology seemed anachronistic and distracting rather than spiritually revealing.

I do agree though, that if we look at the Bible just as a book, even a Holy and inspired book, and see only the nuts and bolts narrations, our understanding of the message God is trying to deliver to humanity will be extremely limited. The problem is, digging any deeper than the literal meaning of the text presents the danger of getting lost in either mystical byways or just our own imaginations.

I started writing this series as an effort to explain what “keeping the Torah” means to the Jewish disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) but the “question behind the question” is “What is Torah?” That’s an amazingly difficult question to answer.

But if we lack wisdom by considering a mitzvah as just a text on paper narrative (the commandment to visit the sick) or as a simple behavioral act (visiting a sick friend in the hospital), do we gain wisdom and insight and the deeper meaning of Torah by considering the study and performance of a mitzvah as a transcendent act that intimately connects us to God?

“Such a man,” says another Zoharic text (II.99a-b). “is…a ‘bridegroom of the Torah’ in the strictest sense…to whom she (divinity as beckoning Bride) discloses all her secrets, concealing nothing.”

-Fishbane, pg 35

transcendent-shechinahHere, I see a poetic image of the Torah in her “garments,” chaste before her bridegroom, and approaching the act of intimacy, she sheds her clothing, revealing herself to her beloved and finally, she holds back no secrets from the spirit of her cherished one. Fishbane, in discussing the bride, presents both the narrative or legal form of the Torah, the bride in her garments, and the expression of divinity, the inward truth of God, the veiled body of the bride in the process of disrobing as the groom not merely studies Torah but occupies himself (“osek”) fully in Torah:

Said Rabbi Joshua the son of Levi: Every day, an echo resounds from Mount Horeb, proclaiming and saying: “Woe is to the creatures who insult the Torah.” For one who does not occupy himself in Torah is considered an outcast, as is stated “A golden nose-ring in the snout of a swine, a beautiful woman bereft of reason.” And it says: “And the tablets are the work of G-d, and the writing is G-d’s writing, engraved on the tablets” ; read not “engraved” (charut) but “liberty” (chairut)—for there is no free individual, except for he who occupies himself with the study of Torah. And whoever occupies himself with the study of Torah is elevated, as is stated, “And from the gift to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to The Heights.”

-Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) 6:2

As Fishbane progresses in his writing, he temporarily sets aside the mysticism of Torah to “put matters in a fuller historical and hermeneutic perspective.” (pg 36) Fishbane characterizes the Torah being viewed in ancient Israel as “the divine voice” spoken directly or indirectly through a number of “filters” (Prophets or more indirect signs and wonders). God’s revelations are expressed in the text as legal and ethical teachings presented across an epic narrative of the history of Israel and her relationship with God.

However, if the text is treated too much like “text,” there is a danger of swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction and stripping the Torah of its divine origins and worse, reducing it to a set of anachronistic tribal laws that do not “travel well” going forward in time.

Of considerable importance in the sanctification of Scripture is that the prestigious literary canon of divine teachings had become a “closed literary corpus” – one culturally reopened only through human textual exegesis.

-Fishbane, pg 37

This leads us to Fishbane’s commentary on the early Pharisees and their comprehension of the “paradoxical and dialectical” nature of the scriptures. According to Fishbane, their resolution to the ambiguities presented in the Bible and in an effort to prevent Torah from becoming a “dead letter,” was to search the text “in every possible way for every possible prolongation of the original divine teachings in new times,” thus making “the old written Torah (into) a ‘living Torah.'”

So we stand between preserving the divinity of scripture as a romanticized mystical text and hermeneutically extending the Torah in order to adapt its divine truths to a constantly changing environment.

I can imagine that neither perspective will be particularly appealing to most readers.

I once criticized John MacArthur because I mistakenly believed he said that, in defining “Biblical sufficiency,” the Bible was literally the only book anyone would ever need to understand any topic.

I’ve since learned that “sola scriptura” doesn’t quite work that way, though I’m still not a big fan of this method of considering the Bible. Fishbane however, explains that Rabbinic commentary takes the idea of “the Bible contains all there is” to a level that would make even MacArthur balk.

…the early Pharisees revealed unexpected possibilities in the original divine communication. It was gradually claimed that “all is in it” (Mishna Abot v.25) – or better, that all could be recovered from it if one but had the appropriate hermeneutic key.

-ibid, pg 38

heurmenutic-keyIn considering my commentary on Boaz Michael’s teaching “Moses in Matthew,” I can only believe that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Matthew “had the appropriate hermeneutic key” in extracting and applying portions of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings to the life of Messiah in ways that had not originally been presupposed (Hosea 11:1 to Matthew 2:15 for instance). However, unless we assume that the Pharisees and the later Rabbinic Sages also had access to the same influences of the Spirit, can we believe that their “hermeneutic key” is just as “appropriate” as Matthew’s, and that it unlocked the same doors?

I previously wrote a multi-part commentary based on the paper “Matthew 23:2-4: Does Jesus Recognize the Authority of the Pharisees and Does He Endorse their Halakhah?” written by Noel Rabbinowitz for the Journal of the Evangelical Society (PDF). In his paper, Rabbinowitz concluded that not only did Jesus recognize the halachah of the Pharisees but he acknowledged that they had the authority to establish valid halachah in Israel!

This may be a bit of a stretch for most of you reading this, but if we allow Matthew 23:2-4 to act as a bridge between the inspired authority of the gospel and other New Testament writers and the subsequent Rabbinic authorities in Judaism, we may somewhat reasonably conclude that halachah established after the New Testament canon was closed was still tacitly approved from Heaven.

This interpretation has tons and tons of problems (Rabbi Carl Kinbar posted a wonderfully insightful comment on this matter), not the least of which are the pronouncements of the Rabbis which are in direct opposition to Jesus and faith in him as Messiah, however dismissing this perspective out of hand denies not only the stated word of Messiah in the Bible, but the opportunity to view post-exile Judaism as possessing leaders who indeed did speak to and hear from God (which is historically what Christianity has done in the development of supersessionism for the past nearly twenty centuries).

Returning to Fishbane and connecting him (temporarily) with Matthew, I believe that Matthew “encoded” certain information in his gospel that could only be decoded or unpackaged by an audience with the “appropriate hermeneutic key,” one that provided the traditional associations and interpretations to older sections of the Holy text. In addressing scripture, the Pharisees and the Jewish sages who followed them attempted to continue to unlock the pages of the scriptures using (inspired?) hermeneutic keys and amazingly, Fishbane acknowledges that Christianity has done the same thing.

Surely you will have caught here more than a faint Jewish echo of the well-known “interpretatio Christiana,” by means of which Virgil and other pagans were accommodated by the Church Fathers into the normative Christian fold insofar as their writings were shown to “anticipate” the real good news — albeit through a glass darkly.

-ibid, 39

OK, so it doesn’t sound like that much of a compliment, but it does compare the interpretative activities and methods of the Pharisees to the early church fathers conferring, if only by inference, the authority to said-church fathers to develop valid Biblical interpretations. Of course, I have to deliver the same caveat for some of their hermeneutic gymnastics (especially those that discount Israel and denigrate the Jews) as I do certain conclusions, rulings, and pronouncements by the Rabbinic sages that discount the Messiahship of Yeshua.

So where does all this leave us?

…and thus to regard the uniqueness of Scripture as its capacity to teach simultaneously at various cognitive levels; the esoteric tradition of Judaism was concerned to encounter the presence of God, and thus to see the special sanctity and uniqueness of Scripture in its being at once a hieroglyph of the divine Logos and divine Reality itself. God is not merely present in Scripture through a kind of verbal displacement. God and Scripture are, in fact, one mysterious and inseparable Truth.

-ibid, pg 42

simhat-torahWhat is Torah and how is it applied in the lives of New Testament Jews, both in the first century CE and today? The answer seems to travel in different directions. Torah is a bride and the Jewish people are the bridegrooms, and at the intimate urgings and involvement of the bridegroom, the bride begins to doff her garments and reveal her deeper mysteries and truths. Torah is a multi-layered, encapsulated, encoded set of pronouncements that at once present the details of moral, ethical, and legal standards and that, properly read, reveal the divine meaning lurking behind the words on the page, allowing the performance of each mitzvah not simply to be a “good deed” but an act of loving intimacy and devotion of the Jewish people to God.

Mystic or hermeneutic pathways both leading to the same goal: the desire to draw nearer to the Creator.

In this, I don’t mean to say that only Jews desire intimacy with God or that Christians cannot deeply occupy themselves in Torah and benefit from the experience, but the focus of this series has to do with the purpose of Torah in the lives of the Jewish disciples of Messiah. Thus, my focus must be on Torah as applied specifically to Jewish people.

Part 4 of this series should return to this topic and confront something a little less “mystical.”

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The Purpose of Torah in New Testament Judaism, Part 2

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mentorAnd whoever occupies (“osek”) himself with the study of Torah is elevated, as is stated (Number 21:19), “And from the gift to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to The Heights.”

-Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) 6:2

What is Torah?

I hear people speak about “Torah study” and “the power of Torah,” etc. But I’m not clear what exactly they are referring to with the term “Torah.” Is that more than the Five Books of Moses?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The word “Torah” literally translates as law or teaching.

Torah is the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Each book is one-fifth of the Torah. In Hebrew, this is collectively called the Chumash (literally: fifth).

It is called the Five Books of Moses because G-d dictated the text to Moses, who then wrote it down. Moses also plays a central role in the Torah.

Sometimes you will see the Five Books referred to by the Greek word, Pentateuch, which means “Five Books.” (“Pent” means five, and “teuch” means book.)

The second, more colloquial use of the term “Torah” includes the entire body of rabbinic literature – the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets and Writings, the Midrash, the Talmud (the compilation of rabbinic teachings explaining the biblical commandments), and even any teaching today based on these sources.

In this regard, Torah is the “constitution” of the Jewish people, covering the totality of law and lore, including lifecycle, business and medical ethics, holidays, family life, etc.

So when someone says, “I’m going to a Torah class,” or shares a “Devar Torah” (word of Torah), it is usually meant in the broader sense, not the Five Books in particular.

“What is Torah?”
-from the “Ask the Rabbi” column at Aish.com

Since I’m in pursuit of the answer to the question What is the purpose of Torah in New Testament Judaism,” which I first asked in Part 1 of this series, the question asked of the Aish Rabbi couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s the question behind the question, the very center of my ongoing discussions with my Pastor about why I believe that Jews who have come to know Jesus as the Messiah are still obligated to the Torah mitzvot.

To say one is obligated to Torah begs the question, “What is Torah?”

But that’s not an easy question to answer, though the Aish Rabbi did a pretty good job. However, that one answer isn’t the only answer. I know my Pastor wouldn’t consider any extra-Biblical sources as “Torah” because he considers only the Bible as containing the inspired Word of God. Midrash and Talmud, not so much.

But if we must necessarily turn to Judaism to answer the question, the answer won’t be palatable to most Christians, especially Biblical literalists.

Another Aish Rabbi answers the same question differently:

The accurate meaning of “Torah” is twofold. Firstly it comes from the word “hora’ah,” which means teaching. More precisely it means “teaching with direction,” i.e. the type of teaching which enables and empowers one with a direction to proceed. The same word could be used in Hebrew with such teachings both in spiritual and secular realms.

The second meaning is from the word “orah,” which means light. One example of this reflected in the verse which states, “A mitzvah is a candle, and Torah is the light” (Proverbs 6:23). This can be understood on multiple levels:

One thought is that the Torah is the source of spiritual illumination in the world. Besides it being the source of Judaism, through it and its teachings we serve as a light unto the nations. As such the Torah serves as the foundation of much of Christianity and Islam.

The Torah also, more importantly, serves as the source of illumination for our own lives. Like the Clouds of Glory which guided the Jews for 40 years in the Desert, providing illumination and direction at night, the Torah lights our paths and provides the Jewish people with direction throughout our long period of exile, even through the darkest of times.

The Torah also provides direction in each Jew’s personal life. In business, family life or interaction with others, the Torah offers the ethical and moral compass by which to navigate the most complicated and tempestuous, thorny issues.

tallit_templeThis takes a giant step back from the document of the Torah and presents it as a two-fold principle or a “service” that is offered. Torah provides education and Torah provides spiritual illumination.

But then what do you do with commandments like this?

You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.

–Deuteronomy 22:11

Is that Torah? It’s certainly located within the Five Books of Moses. Do observant Jews perform that mitzvah today? Some do. Why don’t all Jews observe it, even those who may observe other mitzvot, such as wearing tzitzit or keeping some form of kosher? Is there more than one way to “do” Torah?

The answer to a simple question such as “What is Torah” seems multi-leveled and elusive. It’s further complicated by the fact that different streams of religious Judaism observe the mitzvot in different ways or observe some but not all of the codified mitzvot. I know Reform Jews who will go out to lunch at a restaurant on Shabbos but who maintain a tab so they can pay their bill (handle money) on a different day. Orthodox Jews couldn’t imagine themselves doing such a thing, even in their worst nightmares.

Another example: as far as I can tell, there are multiple forms of kosher, one being glatt kosher. If kosher is kosher, why different or varying standards?

This all goes back to my statement to my Pastor asserting the believing Jews are obligated, for instance, to “keep Kosher.” Yes, but “What is kosher?”

I mentioned in another blog post that my concern with looking to Christian sources for the answer to these questions is that the response will be biased by the assumption that Jesus “fulfilled” the Law so that all or much of it is no longer required for the believing Jews. However, looking to Judaism for the answer introduces a bias in the opposite direction, especially if part of that answer states that all of the midrashim and Talmud must be considered as Torah and thus infallibly inspired (or at least authorized) by God.

I also mentioned in my previous blog post that my Pastor believes there is a perfect and permanent Torah in Heaven that is never-changing, but that idea takes us immediately into mystic realms best left for another time (the upcoming Part 3 of this series). However, my Pastor also said that he would never tell a Jewish person who came to faith in Messiah that they had to give up their Torah observance because that’s who they are in terms of covenant, ethnicity, culture, and as a lived-Jewish experience. Part of being a Jew is Torah, even for Jews who have never studied Torah.

For instance, another Aish Rabbi answered the question of a sixty-six year old Jewish man who had never studied Torah before and was feeling as if he had “come to the party too late,” so to speak; that he was too old to begin to learn Torah.

When it comes to Torah study, there is no time like the present.

Maimonides writes (Laws of Torah Study 3:7):

“Perhaps one will say: ‘[I will interrupt my studies] until after I make money, and then I will return and study; [I will interrupt my studies] until after I buy what I need and can focus less on my business, then I will return and study.’

“If you think like this, you will never merit the Crown of Torah. Rather, make your work provisional and your Torah study permanent. Do not say: ‘When I have free time, I will study,’ for perhaps you will never have free time.”

Some people use the excuse, “I’m too old to begin learning.” But we know that Rebbe Akiva didn’t even learn the Aleph-Bet until he was 40 years old. This is the same Rebbe Akiva who became the greatest sage of his generation with 24,000 students!

Some people are hesitant to learn Torah because they can’t imagine ever becoming a scholar – so therefore why even get started? But that is faulty thinking. Every drop of Torah study is precious and eternal.

The story is told of Rabbi Yosef Kahaneman, who lived in the Lithuanian town of Ponevich. In the 1930s, when the Nazi threat grew grim, he escaped and made his way to Palestine. Arriving on the shores of Tel Aviv, he proudly proclaimed: “I have come here to establish a Yeshiva.”

Those who had come to greet the rabbi were perplexed: “Apparently you are not aware,” they told him, “that Rommel’s troops are now stationed in Egypt, and planning a total invasion of Israel. The Jewish Agency is destroying its records; the rabbis are distributing thousands of burial shrouds throughout the country. Our annihilation is imminent!”

“That will not deter me,” replied Rabbi Kahaneman. “Even if I am able to spread Torah learning for only a few days, that in itself would be of eternal significance.”

Rabbi Kahaneman built the Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and named it after his Lithuanian town of “Ponevich.” Today it is the largest Yeshiva in Israel with thousands of students.

the-divine-torahI don’t know if you consider this “Biblical,” but for me, this is one of the most powerful arguments as to why all Jews, believing and otherwise, should zealously pursue studying and observing the mitzvot. Because Torah (however you define it) is at the heart of what it is to be a Jew. Not that secular, non-observant Jews aren’t Jewish…they certainly are, but something incredibly wonderful happened at Sinai when Hashem gave the Torah through Moshe. A people were brought together and united “as one man” before God in a way that had never happened previously in human history. It’s arguable that such a thing has ever happened since.

Although Christians have blessings without end through Israel and through Messiah, we never stood at the foot of Mount Hor and watched it burn in Divine fire and smoke. According to midrash, God spoke all the words of Torah simultaneously, in all of the seventy languages of the nations. It was truly wondrous and terrifying. Whether that happened literally or not, the point is that an event occurred at Sinai that forged and fused the Jewish people into a nation in a way that has never happened before or since.

I believe that Jesus is the prophet greater than Moses but salvation comes from the Jews, as the Master said himself (John 4:22). If we say that all or at least a whole lot of Torah (whatever that is) has gone the way of the Dodo bird, then all or at least a whole lot of what happened to the Children of Israel at Sinai went with it.

What is Torah? If Pastor is right and Torah, the whole Word of God, actually, exists in a perfect and immutable form in the Heavenly court, then it cannot be annulled, deleted, edited, altered, folded, spindled, or mutilated in any way. If that is true and if the “earthly” Torah was given as a sort of copy or model, just as the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the desert was a “scale model” of the Heavenly Court of Hashem, then both the original and the model are Holy.

One does not desecrate the altar of the Tabernacle (and later, the Temple) without desecrating God. If we say that parts of the Torah can be removed, minimized, and deleted for the inheritors of the Torah at Sinai, the Jewish people, what are we saying about the Holy original? What are we doing to God?

What is Torah and what are the Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah supposed to do about it?

This is an exploratory series, so I’m not going to try to answer all of the above right now. I’m just setting the scene and inviting the players to take up their roles. Answer for me, if you will, the questions about Torah in a way that our brothers and sisters in the Christian church can comprehend and see how Torah is an ideal and a goal for the Jewish people, even as is the Messiah who is in Heaven and who will return.

The world is a place of constant change and unrest. Each point in time is distinct from the point before and the point after. Every point in space is its own world, with its own conditions and state of being. It is a world of fragments constantly rushing like traffic in anarchy.

Look at your own life: You do so many different things, one after the other without any apparent connection between them.

Inner peace is when every part of you and every facet of your day is moving in the same direction.

When you have purpose, you have peace.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Inner Peace”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

More questions and another perspective on the purpose of Torah coming up in Part 3 of this series on Monday.

Torah Portion

Balak: Disciples of Abraham and Bilaam

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Moses at NeboThis week’s portion is one of the most fascinating psychologically-revealing portions in the whole Torah! Bilaam, a non-Jewish prophet, was granted a level of prophecy close to Moshe’s level of prophecy. The Almighty gave Bilaam these powers so that the nations of the world could not say at some point in the future, “If we had a prophet like Moshe, we too would have accepted the Torah and would have lived according to it.” Bilaam is an intriguing character — honor-driven, arrogant and self-serving. Unfortunately, not too unique amongst mankind.

-Rabbi Kalman Packouz
“Shabbat Shalom Weekly”
Commentary on Torah Portion Balak
Aish.com

Interesting commentary, but don’t the Gentiles also have a prophet in Jesus Christ? Well, not exactly. Not as a “stand-alone” Gentile prophet. However the Jews have a greater prophet than Moses, and therein lies a tale:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.

–Deuteronomy 18:15 (NRSV)

Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets. Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.’

–Acts 3:19-22

Moses announced that a prophet like him would arise in later days and Peter announced that Yeshua (Jesus) was that prophet. That is good news, very good news for the Jewish people, but what about the Gentiles? Don’t we still have the right to say that if we had a prophet like Moses, we too would have repented? How can you compare Bilaam to Moses? Rabbi Packouz characterizes Bilaam as “arrogant and self-serving” while we know that Moses was the most humble of all men (Numbers 12:3).

The Talmud gives the characteristics of the disciples of Abraham: a benevolent eye, a humble spirit and a meek soul. The traits of the disciples of Bilaam are: an evil eye, an arrogant spirit and a greedy soul.

–Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 5:2
from Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski’s Dvar Torah on Balak

If Jesus was the prophet and Messiah for the Jewish people only, then we Gentiles have no hope. The best we can aspire to is being God-fearing Gentiles or Noahides, non-Jewish people who adhere to the seven laws of Noah as codified by Orthodox Judaism.

But what more can we say for ourselves?

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

–Romans 4:9-12

Apostle-PaulSo Abraham was the father of the circumcised and the uncircumcised, the Jews and the Gentiles, and all through faith, not works. Does this not make us sons of Abraham even as the Jews are his sons? Do we also not have faith, though we are not Jewish?

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

–Matthew 28:19-20

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

–Acts 9:15-17

It seems fairly straightforward then, that the “prophet greater than Moses,” the Jewish Messiah King is also the prophet to the Gentiles, specifically assigning Saul (Paul) to take the good news which is good news to the Jews, and declare it also good news to the Gentiles.

Yes, there were prophets among the Gentiles, and depending on how you view Abraham pre-circumcision, you may think of him as a Gentile, but we are sons of Abraham by adoption and disciples of Messiah, the great Jewish tzaddik and prophet and Moshiach, not of such men like Bilaam…that is unless we choose such a path, Heaven forbid.

Even Bilaam could not disobey the word of God by speaking ill of Israel, but his heart was not pure and where is “magic” failed, his evil schemes succeeded. But he spoke with God. Balak talked and God answered him. How can such a thing be?

“Bilaam spoke up and said, ‘Whatever God puts in my mouth, that I must take heed to speak” (Numbers 23:12). Are these not the words of a tzaddik (a righteous person)? Anyone hearing Bilaam might conclude that he is a very God-fearing person.

-Rabbi Twerski

The Almighty allowed Bilaam to go to Balak (cautioning him to only say what God told him). The Almighty gives every person free-will and allows us to go in the direction that we choose. Three times Bilaam tried to curse us and three times the Almighty placed blessings in his mouth. Balak was furious! So, Bilaam gave him advice with hopes of collecting his fee — “If you want to destroy the Jewish people, entice the men with Moabite women and tell the women not to submit until the men bow down to an idol.” Balak followed the advice and consequently the Almighty brought a plague against the Jewish people because the men fell for Bilaam’s plot.

-Rabbi Packouz

Though a prophet, Bilaam was wholly evil and disobeyed God whenever the Almighty would permit such a thing. Although Moses was not a perfect man, he was dedicated to preserving the Children of Israel and obeying God in guiding them through the wilderness for forty years and making sure they arrived at the Jordan and the threshold of the promise.

ancient_jerusalemWhat can we learn from all this? The important lesson is that we Gentiles, those of the nations who are called by His Name, have no entry into the Kingdom of Heaven or relationship with the God of Israel without Israel, her promises and her prophets and especially the prophet, the Holy One, the Tzaddik, Yeshua (Jesus), the Messiah. There is no “Gentilized” allegory or process that paints us into God’s picture. We enter the Kingdom through Israel or we enter it not at all.

To say that we accept Jesus while disdaining Israel makes us disciples of Bilaam and not Moshiach.

And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

–Genesis 12:3

If we curse Israel, even as we bless Jesus, we are also cursed. Maybe those Christians who curse Israel are among the following:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”

–Matthew 7:21-23

Good Shabbos.

96 days.

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The Purpose of Torah in New Testament Judaism, Part 1

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creative-torahJewish tradition holds that “Moses received the Torah from Sinai,” yet there is also an ancient tradition that the Torah existed in heaven not only before God revealed it to Moses, but even before the world was created.

“The Written Law: Torah”
Jewish Virtual Library

Last night was my regular Wednesday evening meeting with Pastor Randy in his office at church. Often our conversations take various twists and turns (last night was no exception) but we tried to stick to our task of discussing D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians

Between last week and last night, we managed to cover chapters 6 and 7, but we keep running into a wall based on our different perspectives.

Paul had an ulterior motive for this trip to Jerusalem. He intended to use the opportunity for a private meeting with the apostles, those reputed pillars of the assembly under James the Righteous, the brother of the Master. James presided over the assembly of Messiah as the steward of the throne of David, so to speak. Paul wanted to present his unique interpretation of the gospel to James and the apostles – namely the version of the gospel that God-fearing Gentile believers need not become Jewish in order to inherit salvation, enter the kingdom of heaven, and obtain citizenship in the people of God; rather that faith in the Master was sufficient for even Gentiles.

-Lancaster, Sermon 6: The Big Meeting (Galatians 2:3-5), pg 60

One of the problems Paul had encountered was hearing of “false brothers” (Galatians 2:4) coming into the Messianic communities in Galatia, and convincing some of the Gentile believers that they could only be saved if they were circumcised and converted to Judaism. This was contrary to what Paul believed, but he needed his understanding of the Gentile role in Messianic Judaism confirmed by the Council of Apostles in Jerusalem (which it finally was in Acts 15).

Pastor Randy agrees with me that non-Jews don’t have to convert to Judaism and take on the full weight of Torah as the Jews in order to become disciples of Jesus. However, he believes the “false brothers” were not just convincing the Gentiles to be circumcised, but the Jesus believing Jews as well!

The underlying belief is that both Jews and Gentiles were being taught by Paul that no one must “keep the Torah” once they have come to faith in Jesus because Jesus fulfilled the Law (This contradicts Paul’s own testimony that he never broke any of the laws of Torah, which he repeated many times starting with Acts 21, including what he says in Acts 25:8).

(Note that I’m using the New American Standard Bible – NASB – for quoting Bible verses unless otherwise indicated.)

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

–Matthew 5:17

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

–Romans 10:4

According to the Greek (according to Pastor Randy), the word “fulfill” in Matthew 5 gives the sense of to fill up, to complete, rather than “fulfilling prophesy” as in simply meeting the qualifications.

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

–Galatians 3:24

Pastor interprets this verse the way you might expect, that the Torah had one primary purpose and that when Jesus came, that purpose was completed and the Torah, for the most part, is no longer valid or at least not currently valid.

temple-prayersThis actually is a little complex because there are whole sections of Torah that have to do with the Temple and Priesthood that cannot currently be performed for obvious reasons. However, both Pastor Randy and I believe that there will be a third Temple and when it exists, some or all of the laws related to Temple worship will be re-established. We also agree that what Christianity calls “the moral laws” of the Torah remain, such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, and these are laws that apply to Christians and (believing and non-believing) Jews. You can’t eliminate all of the Torah without eliminating Christianity.

My assumption is from the opposite end of the telescope, so to speak. I believe that the Jewish believers including James, Peter, and Paul, would not have automatically assumed that the coming of Moshiach would have meant their Torah-observant lifestyles would have been changed or diminished in any way. In fact, I believe that their faith in Messiah would have given them a renewed sense of purpose and meaning in Torah.

You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law…

–Acts 21:20

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

–Romans 7:7-12

There seems to be a duality in how the Torah is addressed in the New Testament, so we can each make a case for the Law being considered “good” or “bad” but what we are trying to determine is if the Torah retained a purpose for the Jewish believers after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. In order to do that, Pastor Randy and I need some sort of definition for “Torah” or more likely, a mutually agreed upon answer to the question, “What is the purpose of the Torah?”

Pastor believes that there is a purpose to certain portions of the Torah after the ascension but that those portions apply equally to both Jewish and Gentile believers, since believers are defined by faith in Jesus as the bottom line. I disagree and believe there is an additional differentiation between Jewish and Gentile believers based on Sinai and that the Jewish believers remain distinct, even among the larger body of Gentile disciples of Messiah.

My project is to try to investigate the purpose of Torah for Jewish people who are in Messiah. Pastor is going to approach it from his perspective starting with Calvin’s Purposes of the Law in the New Testament. While I think it’s necessary to look at such a viewpoint, my concern is that by definition, it will not take the possibility of continued Jewish Torah observance into account.

I think it is completely reasonable to say that believing Jews and Gentiles can still have differences in obligation and duty under the Torah, just as Levites and Kohens have different duties under Torah than other Jewish people. They are all Jewish and yet specific Jews have certain additional obligations based on who they are. In a community of Jewish and Gentile believers, they (we) are all believers, but the Jews have certain additional obligations based on who they are.

Even a casual Google search on the string, “What is the purpose of the Torah” turned up a vast number of what seems to be very compelling sources, too many to review and summarize in a single blog post. I know this conversation with Pastor Randy will go beyond next week’s meeting, but we both agree that we need to, if not settle the matter, at least have a better handle on it than we do now (we’re also covering Chapter 8 in Lancaster for next week).

torah-tree-of-lifeI may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, so to speak, but I’m not the dullest either. I know how to do my homework. On the other hand, I’m still only one person and as such, have the limitations of a single perspective. If anyone has something useful or can point me to a resource that can assist me in looking at the purposes of the Torah for believing Jews, both in the time of Paul and in the present age, I’d certainly appreciate you giving me a “heads up.”

Oh, Pastor Randy reads my blog every day, so it’s not like I’m trying to pull a fast one or something.

One more thing. At the beginning of this blog post, I quoted from Jewish Virtual Library on part of the “identity” of the Torah. It’s interesting that Pastor Randy pretty much agrees with that definition. That is to say, he believes there is a “Word of God” that is independent of the physical object we call a “Bible.” There is a pure, refined, holy, transcendent Torah in Heaven that no man has access to. The Bible contains the Word of God, but the Bible isn’t actually that Word.

That belief lends itself to some very interesting possibilities about what happens when we study the Bible, but I’ll stop at this point rather than try to explore such a vast territory.

The Torah is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace. Lengthy days are at its right; at its left are wealth and honor. Hashem desired for the sake of its [Israel’s] righteousness, that the Torah be made great and glorious.

-from the Siddur

I hope to continue contributing to this project on my blog with some regularity, not only because of my conversations with my Pastor, but for its own sake. I suppose I’m “reinventing the wheel,” and perhaps some knowledgeable scholars have already done some or most of the work for me. If that’s true and who know where I can access that work, don’t be shy. Let me know.

More questions and another perspective on Torah coming up in Part 2 of this series.

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Learning God

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davening_morningIn the early period of his leadership the Alter Rebbe taught: “The footsteps of man are directed by G-d.”(Tehillim 37:23) When a Jew comes to a particular place it is for an (inner Divine) intent and purpose – to perform a mitzva, whether a mitzva between man and G-d or a mitzva between man and his fellow-man. A Jew is G-d’s messenger.

Wherever a messenger (shaliach) may be, he represents the power of the meshalei’ach, the one who sent him. The superior quality that souls possess, higher than the angels (who are also “messengers”), is that souls are messengers by virtue of Torah.

“Today’s Day”
Tuesday, Tamuz 10, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe; Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

If you know something worthwhile, share it. By reaching others, you will reach yourself.

Whatever you learn – from books, lectures, or life experience – do so with the goal of sharing with others. If it was fascinating, how did it change you? What did it teach you about living? And how can you transfer that insight to others?

-Rabbi Noah Weinberg
“Way #46: Learn In Order To Teach”s
Aish.com

Sharing life experiences? Rabbi Weinberg is talking my language.

The past two “morning meditations” were my commentary on a teaching given by First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) President and Founder Boaz Michael called Moses in Matthew. One of the essential points I tried to get across is that not all of the information “encoded” in the gospels (or the rest of the Bible for that matter) can be accessed and understood apart from a Jewish context. That context includes not only understanding the original languages and the cultural and historical framework of the time in which the Bible writers were operating, but the philosophical, religious, and midrashic material that would have been in the minds of those writers and their immediate audiences.

While the Bible is truly the inspired word of God, the Bible writers most likely had no idea that what they penned would be translated into hundreds of languages and consumed by nations and cultures all over the planet, two-thousand or more years into the future. In their intent, they were writing to people like them, people they knew or knew about, a specific and contemporary  readership.

Localization, when applied to language, is the process of writing a document in one language with the specific purpose that it be (more or less) easily translated into other languages. That requires the original document be written as “generically” as possible, employing no slang, idiom, or other language forms that are difficult to translate literally into other languages.

But one of the things we know or should know, is that the Bible writers used a lot of word play, symbolism, imagery, idiom, slang, and nicknames that were extremely specific to not only the original languages but to the time and culture in which these writers were living. To make matters worse, the Greek of the New Testament can seem extremely awkward at communicating thoughts and ideas that the Hebrew thinking/speaking writers were attempting to communicate.

My Pastor, who is fluent in Hebrew, agrees that some of the New Testament phrases written in Greek are worded in a very difficult manner, but they become much clearer when “retro-translated” into Hebrew (which is one of the reasons why the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels are extremely helpful).

man_risingThe quote from “Today’s Day” at the top of this blog post says in part that “A Jew is G-d’s messenger. Wherever a messenger (shaliach) may be, he represents the power of the meshalei’ach, the one who sent him.” That’s quite true but as disciples of the Jewish Messiah, even we Gentiles are messengers of God and we also represent the one who sent us.

Rabbi Weinberg says that the purpose of learning is to teach, not that we must all take on the role of a formal teacher, but any time we communicate something we have learned to another, we are teaching them what we learned. That’s what I’m doing with this blog.

The interesting thing is that, based on everything I’ve written over the past several days (and long before that), as Christians, we can’t really learn the Bible beyond a certain point until we learn to read it “Jewishly.” Therefore, we can’t really teach what we’ve learned about the Bible beyond a particular limit until we’ve learned to teach it “Jewishly.”

This isn’t to say that we Gentile Christians will ever learn to conceptualize the world in the same way as someone who was born into a Jewish home, raised and educated within a fully cultural and religious Jewish context, and as someone who lives a life that is halachically Jewish. I live with a Jewish wife and have three Jewish children and I don’t come anywhere near understanding my world from the Jewish perspective, let alone writing from that perspective.

But hopefully I’ve learned enough to add a bit of an “accent” to my language…to communicate from a different perspective, presenting my understanding of the Bible (limited though it may be) in a way that appears new or at least different from what most Christians teach and comprehend.

According to Rabbi Weinberg, you don’t have to be perfect to teach. That’s a lesson I know all too well:

The best teachers make mistakes; more at the beginning, less later on. It’s like riding a bike or driving a car – the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Nobody ever became a great teacher without flopping a few times.

The first time, you’ll probably be laughed at. But don’t be discouraged. (Be glad they didn’t curse you!) Try again. The second time they’ll argue with you. That’s a good sign already; you’ve got them engaged. The third time they’ll thank you. That makes all the previous efforts worth it.

The same way a budding artist needs to study under the masters, a teacher needs to study the methods of great educators. If you have a favorite teacher (or journalist, actor, etc.) be conscious of their techniques for communicating the message.

But don’t wait until you’re perfect – because that’s a long way off! Just get started and teach as best you can. It will do wonders to help clarify your own viewpoint.

Of course, no one will ever become a perfect teacher and some people are more naturally gifted in that role than others. One of the reasons I write is to clarify what I’m learning within myself. Sometimes presenting that to others helps me learn as well. If the Jewish people were called to be a light to the nations, then Messiah has taught us that we need to be a light, too. We are learning things from our Master that are well worth sharing, but as he said, a light cannot shine if it is hidden under a basket.

GardeningLearning and teaching is a living, organic process. We know we’re alive when we are interacting, not only with other human beings, but with God. We are fulfilling the purpose of our existence. We are exercising the reason for our design.

We don’t have to be perfect and we don’t even always have to be all that good. We do have to do, though. If we are sincere, and motivated, and acting in His Name, we will move forward, we will learn, we will teach, and with the help of God, a few people will actually understand, then learn, and then teach too.

People think that to attain truth you have to pulverize boulders, move mountains and turn the world upside-down. It’s not so. Truth is found in the little things.

On the other hand, to move a mountain takes some dynamite and a few bulldozers. To do one of those little things can take a lifetime of working on yourself.

You do what you can: Learn and meditate and pray and improve yourself in the ways you know how—and He will help that what you do will be with Truth.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Small Truths”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

-Helen Keller, American writer and political activist

The Master said (Luke 21:15), “…for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” While that may not always seem true given the amount of ridicule believers receive from various members of our society, we are not abandoned and alone, either. Learn and keep on learning, but information kept to yourself only helps you. You are only serving God when you share it and Him.

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Blogging from the Ashes

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drowning-in-ashesI am but dust and ashes.

–Genesis 18:27

As far as my blog is concerned, I need to have things settled and digested in my own mind, before I impose them on others! I am not saying that this is what you do, as I view your blog more of an exploration of the spiritual and perhaps encouragement for fellow “travelers”, instead of a place for doctrinal pronouncements and apologetics.

-from a private email conversation

Ironically, this is almost exactly what Pastor Randy said to me about the difference in how we write during our most recent Wednesday night conversation. In talking to him and recalling my previous conversation with Rabbi Carl Kinbar about how and why I blog, I realized just how different I am from most people who write on the web, or even just most people who write.

If you’ve read the last few blog posts I’ve published, then you know that I’m backing away from the idea that anything I write, say, or do is any sort of rip-roaring big deal. I keep catching myself in mistakes. No, that’s not right. Other people keep catching me in mistakes. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s arrogant to think you’ll never make a mistake, but it’s still no great honor, either.

I like the idea of being an explorer and I tend to think of myself and this blog in that light, but lately, I’ve been feeling like less like an explorer and more like a rat in a maze…and I keep finding all the dead ends instead of the cheese.

But in talking to Pastor Randy and turning everything over in my mind, I realized that my purpose in writing this blog isn’t to get things right all the time or to strive to conquer other people’s differing opinions of me and what I think about. Sure, I try to do that sometimes, and that’s when I start getting discouraged.

But while others may only publish their words in print (or electrons) once they’ve fully digested a topic and have come to what they believe is a rock-solid conclusion, that’s not what I’m trying to do. If that were my purpose, it would take me a lot longer to come up with even a single blog post, and these would become weekly or even monthly meditations, not every morning missives.

I’ve said before that as of 2011, there were an estimated 181 million blogs on the web. That makes any one blog (and blogger) seem pretty insignificant by comparison. Whenever I think about “winning,” I start feeling pretty insignificant as well, not just in terms of the blogging population on the Internet, but as far as people, friends, family, and God goes too.

dark_tunnelI’ve thought about quitting. I’ve thought about throwing in the towel because I can’t come up with “perfect” ideas or “perfect” ways to describe them in my blog. I’ve thought about quitting because people can shoot holes in everything I say or do all day long.

Then I realized that of course people can shoot holes in my thoughts. I’m not arriving at conclusions, at least not very many of them. As you read my blog posts, it’s important that you understand how they come into being. How do I write a blog post?

I start with a quote or an idea that has spawned some sort of interest in me. I have an amorphous thought of how I want to pursue my inspiration, but I don’t really have an endpoint in mind. That’s right, even as I’m keyboarding this, I really don’t know how it will end, which is why some of my posts are from 1000 to 1500 words long, and others exceed 3000 words. No outline, no pre-conceived structure, no bullet points or notes (well, sometimes I use notes) to guide me.

What you are reading is my mind in operation moment by moment, or at least as fast as I can type.

I don’t know anyone else who blogs like this. I explained to Pastor Randy that, based on the feedback I get, what I do is appreciated, at least by some folks, because lots and lots of people are processing the same sort of questions I am. It’s just not visible because no one blogs about “half-baked” thoughts. No one likes to serve up raw food unless its sushi, which is the finished product. The way I write is like watching someone trying to develop a recipe for something they’re going to cook in the near future, but you only later get to see some of the cooking and you may never taste what finally comes out of the oven.

I think that’s called “living.” We do it day by day and each day is a little different. God may never change, but our experiences with Him do, because if we’re growing spiritually, we change. Even if there are areas where I’m not changing, what’s reflected in my blog posts are the continuing struggle and engagement with that “stuck” place in my life. I think lots of people have a stuck place in their lives, too. I know a few people who have a hard time letting go.

Yesterday (as I write this), I felt pretty insignificant, very small, especially without purpose. But in talking to Pastor, I came to rediscover that I have a unique perspective or at least a unique way of expressing it. The point of my writing is not to sell you on my perspectives as being “right.” I’m not giving you answers. I haven’t come to many conclusions. I’m not some self-appointed guru out to sell you some form of enlightenment based on my “specialness” as teacher, or leader, or scholar, or any of that.

Well over three-hundred years ago, French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes famously said “cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore, I am.” In my case, it’s “I think/feel/experience/live, therefore I write.” That’s really the whole of it. What you see (read) is what you get.

If I had to know every thing and be right all the time, I’d be horribly trapped in a steel box, shackled in chains, imprisoned in my own need to have a carefully designed system that explained everything I write about. But writing as I do, just because I am, just because I live, is very liberating.

soaring_hawk

Being transparent is like flying, soaring up through the clouds. Like a phoenix at the keyboard, I’m blogging from the ashes and rising into the sky.

Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles.

–Isaiah 40:31 (NASB)

Thanks, God. I needed the lift.