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Save Me!

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falling-save-meA guy is riding his motorcycle down a mountain road when suddenly he loses control and goes hurtling off the cliff. As he’s sailing through the air, he shouts out: “God! Please make a miracle! Save me!”

Within moments his shirt gets caught on a protruding branch – and he is left dangling thousands of feet above the ground.

There’s no way out, so he looks heavenward and shouts: “God! Please save me!”

“Do you trust Me, my beloved son?” calls the voice from heaven.

“Yes, God, I trust you. Just please save me!”

“Okay then,” says God. “Let go of the branch and I’ll catch you.”

The man thinks for a moment, looks around, and calls out: “Is anyone else out there?!”

“Recognizing God”
-from “Ask the Rabbi”
Aish.com

I’ve been writing a lot lately on topics that seem to inspire not only conversation (which is good) but emotional disagreement (which isn’t always good). I thought I’d back off a bit and discuss something that we all have in common: trusting God. I say we all have it in common (assuming you have faith in the living God of Israel), because trusting God isn’t always easy. The little story I quoted above is a joke but jokes are funny because they contain a truth we all understand.

Not only is trusting God difficult but the worse the situation is we find ourselves in, the more difficult of a time we have in trusting. Hence the punchline, “Is anyone else out there?”

Trusting God isn’t a matter of how well our lives are going. If we trust God only when things are doing well with us, it’s not trust. Trusting God is about the relationship we have with Him and to some degree, who we are as an individual personality.

The Aish Rabbi continues:

The key to forging a relationship with God is to trust Him. God is not some vindictive, punishing old man in the sky. God is our loving Creator, who wants only our best. Sometimes that calls for Him to “test” us with difficulties; but the intention is only to bring out our very best.

When we are children, we think we are the center of the universe. Then, through experience and trials, we become increasingly aware of the fact that there are things in life beyond our control. Whether it’s earthquakes, cancer, the rise and fall of fortunes, circumstances of our birth – and even birth itself… this can only be ascribed to a Higher Power.

Maimonides writes that there are two primary ways to attain recognition of God: by observing the wonders of Creation, and by performing mitzvot. Through nature, we see the beauty, splendor, and perfect unity of the world. Through mitzvot, we see how humanity can likewise attain unity and perfection.

trustingIn a way, we learn to trust God by acting the way we want Him to act (speaking of mitzvot). If we live a life that is upright, generous, charitable, merciful, compassionate, and wholesome, we will tend to think of God in that way. If our natures (which are sinful and thus very bad) are stingy, mean-spirited, cruel, hard-hearted, base, and immoral, we tend not to think of God that way, but we think we are going to be struck down any second by God. We expect, when hard times come, that we deserve it and we can’t trust God to help us out.

Trusting God depends on how well we can trust ourselves and how well others trust us.

Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky at Torah.org has a commentary based on last week’s Torah reading that also illustrates this point.

My dear friend Rabbi Benyamin Brenig of Golders Green, London recently related this wonderful story to me: Reuvain and Shimon were two men, who lived on opposite ends of town. They each inherited a fortune of gold. Each of them decided to bury their fortunes in their backyards. They wanted to make sure that they would have something to sustain them in their old age. On their respective properties, they each picked a landmark, paced twenty steps due north and dug a large hole.

Reuvain, the more nervous of the two, was careful to make sure that no one was watching. Every other second he glanced furtively over his shoulder to make sure that no one saw him bury the treasure. No one did.

Shimon, by nature, was trusting and carefree and he was not so careful. He was not worried that anyone would steal his fortune. But he was wrong. He was spotted by a nosy neighbor, who was also a thief.

In the middle of the night, the thief dug up the fortune. Out of mercy, he left few coins at the bottom of the pit, and removed the coins. He refilled the hole and packed the ground perfectly as if nothing was disturbed. Then he took off with the fortune.

Reuvain’s fortune, however, remained intact. But he was, by nature, a worrier. And so, the next day he decided to dig up the hole to make sure that the gold was still there. Accidentally, he counted only fifteen paces from his landmark and dug. There was nothing there. Reuvain was frantic. Someone must have seen him dig the pit, he figured. For the rest of his life, he worried. On his property, he had a pit filled with gold coins, but all Reuvain did was worry!

Shimon on the other hand had nothing but the remnants of a few coins. Everything else was stolen. But he never checked the fortune, and was merrily content, assured that when the time would come he could dig up the pit and retrieve his fortune. Reuvain, the millionaire, died heartbroken and frantic. Shimon, the man with but a few coins left for his old-age lived his life content as if he was the wealthiest man in the world.

The Torah tells us about the different types of blessings. For the faithful, Hashem says, “I will command my blessing in the sixth year,” in which Rashi assures us that even a bit will feel like a bounty. But we must acknowledge that despite Heavenly assurances, there are those who always worry. They need to see the money! They ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year? Behold! We will not sow and not gather in our crops!” Hashem must assure them that he will increase their bounty in a way that is visible to them.

Some of us can believe without seeing immediate results. We can sleep well, with full satisfaction on empty stomachs. The greatest expression of faith is when we do not see the blessing, but we feel it in our hearts and even in our stomachs. That blessing transcends tangibility, and the fear of deficiency. I think that is a noble goal.

For the rest of us, those who keep looking over their shoulder and check their fortunes every day, they need a different type of blessing. Sometimes we dig for tangible salvation, even though the treasure is sitting undisturbed in our own backyard.

waiting-for-mannaI know that was a long quote, but I think it’s a good story and it tells us something about God and who we choose to be in God. Once you bury gold in the backyard, you can no longer see if it is there or not unless you dig it up. You can be like Shimon who lost most of his gold but because he trusted in something more precious than gold, lived his life in security and happiness as if he were a wealthy man. Reuvain, by contrast, didn’t lose a dime, but because he thought he had lost everything due to his untrusting nature, he could not trust the One who is worth far more than gold coins, and thus he lived out his life, though wealthy, as if he were a pauper dressed in rags.

We can’t control the circumstances of our lives with any certainty. Yes, we can invest in IRAs, spend cautiously on personal comforts, give generously to the poor, treat the lonely and grieving with kindness and compassion, but like the residents of New York and New Jersey, we cannot anticipate when the next superstorm Sandy will come and wipe all of our material possessions away like a sandcastle on a beach.

Like Job, we can learn to trust in God whether he grants us much or little. And we can strive to learn to trust God as did Paul.

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

–Philippians 4:11-13

I’ll freely admit that I sometimes have trouble with matters of trust, but that’s my problem, not God’s. God is not only immensely trustworthy but infinitely so. And even if I were to lose everything, I could only try to aspire to be like Job when he said, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face” (Job 13:15). The part about “argue my ways” may seem a little off base, but if I trust God, then I can trust Him with my heart, which includes all of my emotions, my disappointments, and my anguish, even my problems of trust in Him.

But in the end, we all will arrive at the same destination. In the end, we must all trust God and cry out to Him, “Save me!” Will we “let go” and let Him catch us?

141 days.

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Lost Beyond Eden

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Inner light“Do not despise any person and do not disdain anything for there is no person who does not have his hour and there is no thing without its place”

-Ben Azzai
from Pirkei Avot 4:3

Just as the soul fills the body, so does G‑d fill the world.” Our bodies are vitalized by our souls, but our souls themselves are invisible. Yet, through seeing the life in the body, one can appreciate the soul within. G‑d enlivens and creates the worlds, yet He is invisible. But He is evident in every creation.

-Talmud, Berachot 10a.

I don’t know what to write about for today. I know that’s pretty strange for me, since it seems that most of the time I can’t “shut up” in the blogosphere, but as I reviewed my “resources” for today (as I started to write this) and looked for inspiration, I didn’t find any.

Well, that’s not exactly true, hence the quotes above. But what do they mean and how can we apply them to our lives as people of faith (or as people in general)?

A few days ago, I related another problem I have with religious people. I lamented how hard-hearted we can be, some of us at least. How can anyone call themselves a disciple of Christ, and yet deliberately and with malice, kick a father when he’s down over the recent suicide of his son?

Yet in reviewing the comments on Dr. Michael Brown’s article Enough With the Mean-Spirited Words Against Rick Warren (And Others)!, I found both the good and the bad.

The good:

Thank you Michael Brown, thats maturity talking. I dont understand why people cannot have compassion. When Jesus saw the people he was moved with compassion. We can agree to disagree but personal attacks especially in an emotional time like this is horrible.

The bad:

While I agree with most of your article, I suppose that vitrolic “bashers” are thinking it is pay back time for Warren; not that I support this idea or their behaviour. Rick Warren has assumed the limelight and as any celebrity is exposed to the dangers of that. While the behaviour is indeed unmerciful, Rev. Warren must have expected it and must know how to insulate himself. He is after all a professional.

Well, the bad wasn’t horrible, but the comment writer still assumes that Pastor Warren should “suck it up” so to speak, since he’s a professional.

He’s also a father, a fellow Christian, and a human being, and he, like the rest of us, was created in God’s image. When we desecrate another human being, we desecrate the image of God.

Lakanta (played by Tom Jackson): What do you think is sacred to us here?
Wesley Crusher (played by Wil Wheaton): Maybe the necklace you’re wearing? The designs on the walls?
Lakanta: Everything is sacred to us – the buildings, the food, the sky, the dirt beneath your feet – and you. Whether you believe in your spirit or not, we believe in it. You are a sacred person here, Wesley.
Wesley: I think that’s the first time anyone’s used that particular word to describe me.
Lakanta: You must treat yourself with respect. To do otherwise is to desecrate something that is holy.

–Star Trek: The Next Generation
from the episode Journey’s End (broadcast date 26 Mar. 1994)

That’s probably one of my favorite quotes from any Star Trek TV show, both because it expresses a rare spirituality for modern television, and because it speaks a rare truth. Each of us is sacred to God and we should be sacred to each other (most of the time, we’re not). If we could see all other human beings, including ourselves, from God’s point of view, we would see a planet populated by sacred, holy people; all of us being in God’s own image.

The statement that we are created in the image of G‑d means that we were formed as a reflection of our Creator’s attributes and characteristics. This cannot be taken to mean that we literally look, feel or think like G‑d does, because He has no form and is not limited in any way. Rather, we are like a one-dimensional reflection of a real object. From the reflection we can have an inkling of the original, but the reflection is literally nothing in comparison to the original.

-Rabbi Menachem Posner
“What is the ‘Divine Image’ in Man?”
Chabad.org

This week’s double Torah Portion Tazria–Metzora relates an important lesson about how we treat God’s image.

“He (the person afflicted with tzora’as) shall be brought to Aharon the priest or unto one of his sons the priests.”

–Leviticus 13:2

The Dubno Magid said that many people speak loshon hora because they are not fully aware of the power of the spoken word. How often people rationalize, “I didn’t do anything to him, I only said a few words.” The metzora, who has been afflicted with tzora’as because of his speaking loshon hora, is taught a lesson about the power of a single word. He must go to a priest who will decide if he is a metzora or not. Just one word by the priest (“Unclean!”) will completely isolate him from society. No more will the metzora minimize the destructive capability of words.

Words can destroy. They can destroy someone’s reputation. They can destroy friendships. They can destroy someone’s successful business or someone’s marriage. Therefore, we must be careful with them as we would be with explosive material.

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

Adam-and-Even-Expelled-from-ParadiseYou must go no further than the religious blogosphere or Christian discussion boards to find the worst examples of loshon hora (the “evil tongue”) among us. Periodically, most of us who write religion-based blogs are victims of such behavior, almost always from our fellow believers. I’m rarely “picked on” by atheists or people from other religious disciples. It’s always from the people with whom I share a nearly identical view of God, Jesus, and the Bible.

More’s the pity.

Adam trudged past the gates of Eden, his head low, his feet heavy with remorse and pain.

Then he stopped, spun around and exclaimed, “Wait a minute! You had this all planned! You put that fruit there knowing I would eat from it! This is all a plot!”

There was no reply.

Without failure, Man can never truly reach into the depths of his soul. Only once he has failed can he return and reach higher and higher without end. Beyond Eden.

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

The irony is that the minute we lower ourselves to claim superiority over a brother or sister of Christ, we have failed. Participating in gossip and “badmouthing” others drags us down…it never lifts us up. While, according to midrash, Adam “trudged past the gates of Eden, his head low, his feet heavy with remorse and pain,” most people committing loshon hora hold their heads up high and feel superior in “bringing down” a “false teacher” or some Christian who they perceive (within their own imaginations sometimes) has “fallen from grace.”

News flash: blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make your burn any brighter and in fact, the very light you are extinguishing is your own.

We all fail. By even in pointing out how Christians fail, in some sense, I’m failing. I’m being critical of my fellow believers. I am speaking ill of them. I should be trudging past the gates of Eden, my head low, my feet heavy with remorse and pain.

And I do. I do, even if I’m not personally guilty of misusing my tongue or, in this case, my fingers, because I am a Christian. I am a member of the body of believers. One of the other parts in the body I share has failed. That means the body I inhabit is tainted and since the outside world can’t tell the difference between one body part and the next, that means we’re all tainted. Christianity (or whatever you call your version of the disciples of the Messiah) is disgraced whenever even one of us behaves poorly. God’s Holy and Sacred Name is dragged through the foul mud and muck. In trying to bring down “false teachers” by criticizing them over the untimely death of their children, we actually bring down God and bring down ourselves.

The Image of God is sullied and soiled, all thanks to us.

walking-home-to-edenBut as Rabbi Freeman also says, “Without failure, Man can never truly reach into the depths of his soul. Only once he has failed can he return and reach higher and higher without end. Beyond Eden.” Like the prodigal son from Luke 15:11-32, we too must fail completely before the path of repentance and return is open to us.

Rabbi Freeman also speaks of this:

Return is the ultimate act of self-expression.

Nobody returns because he is commanded to do so. The ability to return comes from you alone.

And that itself is the evidence that you were never truly torn away: The outer garments of the soul may have been severed, but the core remained at every moment in intimate union with its Source. And from there came the message to return.

It is possible to redeem the Name and Image of God, but we must be willing to admit when we fail. We must be willing to return to God humbled and even humiliated. If men like Pastor Rick Warren have faults, they are completely beside the point right now. The Christians who have truly failed are those who took advantage of the suicide of his son Matthew to attack Pastor Warren and his family. They (we) are the prodigal sons. If we are wise, we will return to God in submissiveness. There is a way back.

Or we can continue to walk away from Eden and away from God forever, even as we operate under the illusion that we are His and He is ours through Messiah.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is 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 mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

–Matthew 7:21-23

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

–Proverbs 16:18

We can remain arrogant and lose ourselves in the darkness beyond Eden, or return and walk back home in humility and to the service of the King. Which choice will we make?

“Saints are sinners who kept on going.”

-Robert Louis Stevenson
Scottish novelist, poet and essayist

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The Transcendent Path

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Tree of LifeIf you find yourself affixed to a single path to truth—the path of prayer and praise, or the path of kindness and love,or the path of wisdom and meditation,or any other path of a singular mode—you are on the wrong path. Truth is not at the end of a path. Truth transcends all paths. Choose a path. But when you must, take the opposite path as well.

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

As human beings, we have a tendency to compartmentalize and specialize our lives. This comes as no surprise to me, since organization of the different elements of life into “categories” is how we understand ourselves. We have an order and a set of habits to what we do. We also have an awareness of what we’re good at and what we aren’t; a set of “gifts” to which we lean upon and if we are kind, offer to others. Organizing our lives by categorization is necessary so we can conceptualize events, circumstances, and objects and make sense of the world around us.

But it can also be a limitation if we believe we are only defined be these categories. Saying, “I’m only good at this, so I won’t try that,” may rob someone who needs you to do “that” for them rather than “this.”

I’m as guilty of this sort of thinking and behaving as anyone. I’m a writer, both professionally and “for fun.” I find that I can clarify my own thinking and understand better what some people are saying to me if I write about those experiences. My Wednesday night meetings with Pastor Randy are a perfect example. He might say a few sentences to me on Wednesday that will fuel my blog posts for an entire week, because I use writing to continually process what he has been teaching.

But I cannot allow writing to be the totality of my identity and my activity. Someone who needs me to give them a lift to a doctor’s appointment because their car broke down won’t be helped if I only write about their need. I should offer them a ride to and from the appointment in my car. I should do something that I’m not accustomed to considering as an “expertise” of mine in order to meet another human being’s need.

Earlier today, I was writing about giving chesed to the stranger, showing someone who needs you a kindness, not because they are your friend or neighbor, but just because they need you.

In the world of “religious blogging,” most of us have a tendency to write about what we’re interested in, and again, I’m no exception. We often write about the theological or doctrinal specifics with which we identify. Jews write about Judaism and Christians write about Christianity. Nothing strange about that. Even within a particular religious structure, we tend to write about those areas of which we are particularly fond or in which we are interested.

I’ve written lately on Divine Election because I was processing that information. For another person, that might be a rather meaningless topic. I’ve read blogs recently about the Leviticus 11 kosher laws, Bibles limited to the New Testament and the Psalms, Shomer Negiah, Good Friday, and other religious subjects. Nothing wrong with writing about any of those religious topics…

…unless they limit what else we should be doing.

We tend to choose a path and then walk it, but then we only walk that path and no other. According to what Rabbi Freeman said above, that’s not the right path. If we are on the path of prayer and praising God but a homeless person on the street needs us to give them something to eat, then we are on the wrong path, at least for that moment. If we are busy donating our time at a shelter or food kitchen, but God needs us to read and meditate upon His Word, then we are on the wrong path, at least for that moment.

The individual’s avoda must be commensurate with his character and innate qualities. There may be one who can drill pearls or polish gems but works at baking bread (the analogy in the realm of avoda may be easily understood). Though baking bread is a most necessary craft and occupation, this person is considered to have committed a “sin.”

“Today’s Day”
Friday, Nissan 25, 10t day of the omer, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

white-pigeon-kotelAvoda is a Hebrew word that is commonly translated as “work,” but among the Chassidim, it “generally refers to Divine service (or worship). For example, it’s part of the Divine service to serve God with joy.” Is who we are as servants of God limited to our theology or our religious identity, or is there something that transcends all that information, and unites us as living, human creations of the Most High God?

We often drone on and on and on about our insights into the Bible, our own theological pet peeves, or about how people with different theological pet peeves annoy us and are guilty of “false teaching,” but do we take the time to transcend our categories, our pigeon-holed lives, and realize that truth is much, much larger than the box we’ve put ourselves in?

And if your brother is not close to you and you do not know him.

–Deuteronomy 22:2

Perhaps the reason that other people are not close to you is because you do not know them.

The Chassidic master of Apt said: “As a young man, I was determined to change the world. As I matured, I narrowed my goals to changing my community. Still later, I decided to change only my family. Now I realize that it is all I can do to change myself.”

Some things in the world are givens, and others are modifiable. The only thing we can really modify is ourselves. All other people are givens. Unfortunately, many people assume the reverse to be true. They accept themselves as givens and expect everyone else to change to accommodate them.

(There is one limited exception. When our children are small, we can teach and guide them. When they mature, however, we can no longer mold them.)

Trying to change others is both futile and frustrating. Furthermore, we cannot see other people the way they truly are, as long as we are preoccupied with trying to change them to the way we would like them to be.

The people we should know the most intimately are those who are closest to us. Yet it is precisely these people whom we wish to mold into the image we have developed for them. As long as this attitude prevails, we cannot see them for what they are. How ironic and tragic that those we care for the most may be those we know the least!

Today I shall…

…try to focus any desires to change on myself and let other people determine for themselves who and what they wish to be.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Nissan 20”
Aish.com

light-of-the-worldTo extend Rabbi Twerski’s metaphor, we can only change the world by changing ourselves. We can only serve God and change the world, by accepting that others will always be different from us and then realize that’s not always a bad thing. We, in the end, are only responsible for who we are. God will not judge us on what other people have done but only on what we have done with our lives. If we have treated others kindly, our theology, doctrine, dogma, or any of the other boxes and pigeon holes we’ve used to categorize and identify ourselves in this world will be worth less than who we are in Christ.

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

–Philippians 3:4-8

Paul isn’t saying that his being Jewish is literally worthless, and I’m not suggesting that how we study and understand the Word of God is meaningless, either. What I am saying is that, like Paul, there is something much, much greater. The Master taught us that loving God to our fullest extent and loving other human beings as ourselves are the essence of everything in the Bible. He also taught that we would be known as his disciples specifically by our love of one another, a love that goes so far that we would be willing to give up our lives for another if required.

If anything can be said to transcend all of our paths, our categories, our religious posturing, it is love…even love for the unlovable and the unlikable ..especially love for those who otherwise make us feel hurt and angry and aggravated. If we can authentically show them love, then we are better than all of the sermons and blog posts about theology that we could ever produce. Then, we are written in His Book of Life because we have loved.

“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”

-Abraham Joshua Heschel

We must be more.

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On Choosing God

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TrustNegate your own will in favor of God’s will.

-Ethics of the Fathers 2:4

If I surrender my will and turn my life over completely to the will of God, do I not thereby abrogate my power of free choice?

Certainly not. Take the example of a child who receives money for his birthday. An immature child may run off to the toy store or candy store and spend the money on everything his heart desires. He may indeed have several moments of merriment (although a stomach ache from indulging too heavily in confections is a possibility). Without doubt, however, after a short period of time those moments of enjoyment will be nothing but a memory, with the candy long since consumed and the broken toys lying on the junk heap.

A wiser child would give the money to a parent and ask that it be put into some type of savings account where it can increase in value and be available in the future for things of real importance.

Did the second child abrogate his prerogative of free choice by allowing the parent to decide how to invest the money? Of course not. In fact, this was a choice, and a wise choice as well as a free choice.

We can choose to follow our own whims or we can choose to adopt the will of an omniscient Father. We are wise when we make the second choice.

Today I shall…

…turn my will over to God, and seek to do only that which is His will for me.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Nisan 23”
Aish.com

How much is this like the choice Jesus made on that last night?

saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

–Luke 22:42

Last week, I started talking about free will and Divine Election and how that describes the nature of man and our relationship with God. I still don’t think that we are wind up toy soldiers, pre-programmed by God in all our responses, including the most important response, accepting or rejecting the Almighty.

I don’t think this issue comes up for Jewish people, but then, all Jews are born into a covenant relationship with God just by virtue of being Jewish. Still, the recognition and acceptance of Messiah is a vital task that remains hidden from most Jews, largely due to how Gentile Christianity has “morphed” the Jewish Messiah into a Goyishe King. Still, many Jews see God, not as a harsh overseer with a whip controlling the gates of life and death, but as a teacher, gently but firmly guiding us in the lessons of life as we walk the path with our companion.

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

–Luke 23:13-27

Imagine having this conversation with the Master along the road, but imagine it being a picture of your entire life.

Jewish in JerusalemRabbi Twerski paints for us an image of giving our lives over to God by conscious choice. Even if a Jew is born into covenant, he or she can still completely reject God, and many Jews have done so. The majority of the Jewish population of Israel is secular, so even in the Holy Land, which contains Jerusalem and the Holy Temple Mount, most of the Jewish inhabitants choose not to connect to God.

Both Easter and the Week of Unleavened Bread are now done. Religious Jews continue to Count the Omer, but Christians just “coast” into April and for most of the church, Pentecost (Shavuot) is hardly a little blip on our radar. This is why it is so important for those few of us who are conscious of the season to remind everyone else.

The presence of Mashiach is revealed on Acharon Shel Pesach, and this revelation has relevance to all Israel: Pesach is medaleg, “skipping over” (rather than orderly progress), and leil shimurim, the “protected night.” In general the mood of Pesach is one of liberty. Then Pesach ends, and we find ourselves tumbling headlong into the outside world. This is where Mashiach’s revealed presence comes into play – imbuing us with a powerful resoluteness that enables us to maintain ourselves in the world.

“Today’s Day”
Wednesday, Nissan 23, Issru chag, 8th day of the omer, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

After the week of Matzot, we see that beyond the Omer count, some Chassidic Jews carry forward the revealed presence of the Mashiach into the outside world with them. How much more should we, who know for certain that Messiah is revealed in Jesus Christ, should carry him forward into the world with us?

Any Jew alive on the face of this planet today is a walking miracle. Our mere existence today is wondrous, plucked from the fire at the last moment again and again, with no natural explanation that will suffice.

Each of us alive today is a child of martyrs and miracles.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Walking Miracle”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

I can only imagine that just seeing a Jew walking the streets of the old city in Jerusalem, buying falafel for lunch, davening at the Kotel, must all be miraculous. Who would have thought such a thing possible a scant six decades before? Yes, of course it is a miracle of God that there are any Jewish people left alive today in our world and that they live in a Jewish nation.

But it is also a miracle that there are any Christians, for who of his own free will and in his nature of sin, would choose the Almighty, to come to Him through His Son, unless the Spirit of God were not whispering in our ear, urging us, pleading with us, exploring our heart?

And once Moshiach Rabbeinu has opened our eyes to God, and our minds and hearts to the scriptures, and we choose Him, and we learn of Him and who we are as His sons and servants, what would we not do, from the wisest among us to the most simple, to serve Him who is the author of our story and the lover of our soul?

Choose Love. Choose God. Choose Life.

Uncategorized

The Terrible Living God

7 Comments

terror-keepers-of-the-faithMany people express gratitude to the Almighty for being saved from desperate and problematic situations. But surely they’d have preferred that the problem would have never have arisen in the first place!

This, however, is not the proper attitude. The purpose of all problems is that they should serve as a means for a person to become closer to the Almighty. Both the problems – and the solutions – are part of the Divine plan to help elevate you.

The next time you are faced with a problem, think for a moment: “This problem enables me to become closer to my Creator.”

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Daily Lift #756: Problems Bring Us Closer”
Aish.com

The world is not obstructing you. It is challenging you.

It knows its deepest treasures can be revealed only by the deepest faculties of your soul, and it taps those powers by providing isometrics for the soul.

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

Gosh, that all sounds so reasonable, so wonderful, so illuminating, so wise. I bet there are plenty of Christian writers who give similar advice. Just reading the words, I can imagine many other religions and philosophies also offer such an outlook and I don’t doubt that there are just tons and tons of books, including secular self-help books, that say more or less the same thing.

But when you’re actually having real problems, you may not immediately think in a cheerful inner voice, “Gee, this is a challenge God is giving me to help elevate me and bring me closer to Him.” You more likely are praying to God something like, “HELP!”

I’m not saying that Rabbi Pliskin and Rabbi Freeman are wrong, just that such enlightened perspectives (and the vast majority of self-help aids on the market) fail to take real human beings with real worries, fears, and anxieties into account. They don’t consider the actual, lived experience of a person who is recovering from a serious accident or illness, who has just heard the news that a loved one is terminally ill, who has just had their house foreclosed, who has just had…

…you get the idea.

My father said: Truth is the middle path. An inclination to the right, to be overly stringent with oneself and find faults or sins not in accord with the truth, or an inclination to the left, to be overly indulgent, covering one’s faults or being lenient in demands of avoda out of self-love – both these ways are false.

“Today’s Day”
Thursday, 27 Adar I, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

Life, like truth, runs a middle path. Most of us aren’t incredibly holy and elevated people and most of us, if we have a spiritual awareness at all, aren’t feeding on the bottom of the river with the catfish either.

But people with a spiritual awareness can often drift off center, and when hard times come, we can either treat ourselves harshly, like we must have done something horrible to deserve this tragedy, or we may think that it’s totally unfair of God to let bad things happen to us and that He should cut us some slack. I’ve experienced both and “lived in” both places, and in my experience, hitting that “middle ground” is a very hard thing to do. It seems to be more reasonable and takes a lot less energy to just let yourself go emotionally and spiritually “limp” and throw yourself on the mercy of the court, which in this case is God.

But then Rabbi Freeman says:

There’s no such thing as defeat.

There’s always another chance. To believe in defeat is to believe that there is something, a certain point in time that did not come from Above.

Know that G‑d doesn’t have failures. If things appear to worsen, it is only as part of them getting better. We fall down only in order to bounce back even higher.

failureKind of makes me wonder if Rabbi Freeman has ever been in a situation where he’s felt defeated. Probably so, but one doesn’t successfully write motivational missives by admitting to such a thing.

You may gather from the topic in today’s meditation that I’ve been having a bad time lately, but that’s not actually true. However, I do sometimes react when I read advice articles or columns that I think are overly “perky.” I’m not sure that “religious people” always know how to cut someone enough slack to be compassionate without being so “mushy” that they (we) become enabling.

On the other hand, I think that there are times when we need to be confident in our faith and, in spite of the problems that are kicking us in the teeth, we need to persevere and push on. Certainly people like Brother Yun have had to do just that over and over again while being tortured, while being in prison, while being on the run from the law, while being hungry, while being homeless, and all of his other experiences as a Pastor and an Evangelist in Communist China.

But I also think there are times when the weight of a thousand, thousand problems, pressures, hurts, injuries, depressions, and hopeless situations land with a solid “thunk” on our chests and threaten to smash us flatter than a hockey puck and all we can to is cry out to God. Sometimes we can’t even do that and as we feel faith and even life oozing out of us, the only thing left is to give in and say, “God, do as You will,” and then let whatever’s going to happen, happen.

The trick is to know the difference. Neat trick. I wish I could learn it.

Or maybe I don’t. I’ve noticed that those people who have sincerely asked God to use them in a powerful way often experience trials and circumstances that were and are a lot tougher than they anticipated. Brother Yun made such a request of God and if you’ve read my review of his book (see the link above), you’ll know that he suffered tremendously.

For that matter, look at the lives of Paul, Peter, John, and the other apostles. Most of all, look at the life of Jesus.

During a sermon a few weeks ago, my Pastor told a story. The story was about a Pastor who was giving a preaching series on discipleship. The series took many weeks to complete and was very thorough. When the Pastor finished his series, one of the long-time church members approached him and said:

Thank you Pastor for giving such an informative and insightful sermon on discipleship. Now that I understand what a disciple is and what it takes to be a good one, I don’t want to be a disciple anymore.

That’s supposed to inspire a “knowing” chuckle from the audience.

heavy-burdenWe always say that we’ll pick up our cross and follow Jesus anywhere, but how true is that? Do we put limits on how far we’ll go for our faith? Do we ever ask Jesus when we’re following him, why the territory seems to be getting so gloomy, scary, and dangerous looking?

Probably. Expecially in America and other Western nations, Christians aren’t used to having to work too hard at that “picking up cross and following” thing. Frankly, we should be afraid of it because we don’t really understand the implications, and if we did, we wouldn’t want them.

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”

–Luke 22:31-34 (ESV)

I think we all know how that one turned out. Actually, in an ultimate sense, it turned out well, but not in the short run.

So what does that mean for us? Should we limit what we do for God because of the potential consequences? Should we stiffen our spines and just take what God gives us, no matter what, and be happy about it? I’d like to say the latter, but it scares me. I know faith demands the latter, but what will happen?

Becoming a Christian is like getting married. When the idea comes up and even as you approach the wedding day, everything seems great. You look forward to it. You see only the rewards. Then the big day comes, there’s the ceremony, all of your friends and family are there, you have the reception, you get lots of gifts and attention, sure there’s stress involved, but it’s hardly noticable in the whirlwind of activity.

Then there’s the honeymoon, setting up housekeeping, everything seems wonderful at first, you see only the good.

Then you have your first fight. A year passes, children a born, other years pass, you change, your spouse changes, and something interesting happens.

Stuff that you never, ever imagined would happen, happens. It could be stuff people, your parents, your Pastor, a counselor, tried to tell you would happen, but you didn’t listen or figured it would be no big deal. It could be stuff that you never imagined would occur in a million years. Stuff that only happens to other people. Stuff that you didn’t even think was possible.

But all that stuff makes your marriage hard!

You even think of divorce.

Actually, lots and lots of people get divorced and lots and lots of people stop being Christians and leave the church. End of story. It was too hard to be married. It’s too hard to be a disciple of Christ.

But then there are many, many other marriages that last thirty, forty, fifty, sixty or more years. Some of these marriages have managed to retain the love and devotion that the couple felt from the start, although the “magic” comes and goes periodically throughout the relationship. And then there are many, many other marriages where the relationship lasts just as long but the couple have drifted apart. Maybe some big problem forcefully inserted the initial wedge between them and then they traveled in different directions or maybe the initial “disconnect” was so subtle that neither husband nor wife noticed.

And now they live in the same house, eat the same meals, maybe even sit on the same sofa and watch the same TV shows, but they are actually living two separate lives. They never fight. They never argue. They never cuddle. They never make love. They’re just there.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

–Revelation 3:15-22 (ESV)

goldilocksThat probably describes a lot of Christians and a lot of Christian churches. The real tragedy is that these folks actually want it that way. A lukewarm bath is comfortable. Kind of like Goldilocks and the porridge. Not too hot and not too cold.

And not too demanding, stressful, or dangerous.

Lots of Christians describe themselves as “on fire for the Lord.” But fire burns out. Coals grow cold. Fuel turns to ashes.

How do we respond? First off, we should be careful what we ask for. Secondly, we should ask to be built up, so when God really does ask for something outrageous and spectactular from us, it doesn’t come as a complete shock. We’ve been prepared.

We should ask for mercy. Paul asked three times that his “thorn” (whatever it may have been) be removed from him, but the Lord said that his grace was all Paul needed. Pray that when the moment comes, we can let the Lord’s grace be all that we need as well.

And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

–Hebrews 10:30-31 (ESV)

Each of us is fighting a hard battle in our lives. Pray that God will show compassion and mercy to us all, for if we haven’t realized it yet, we have all failed and will all fail…and then fall into the hands of the living God.

Torah Portion

Mishpatim: Law and Spirit

8 Comments

tzitzit1There was once a Jewish girl who stopped in Israel on her way to India to seek spirituality. Friends suggested that she go to Neve Yerushalayim to take a class and give Judaism one last shot before seeking other pathways to spirituality. The one class happened to be studying the laws regarding returning a lost item — when is an item considered lost, what if the person gave up hope of its return, what constitutes a legitimate identifying mark to claim the item, to what extent and cost of time and money are you obligated for returning the item… The girl was furious! This is NOT spirituality. She left in a huff and headed off to India.

Six months later she and her guru were discussing a philosophical matter while walking through the village. They came upon a wallet filled with rupees. The guru picked it up, put it in his pocket and continued with his point. The girl interrupted him and asked, “Aren’t you going to see if there is identification in the wallet to return it?” The guru replied, “No. It was his karma that he lost it; it’s my karma that I found it. It’s mine.” The girl implored, “But, he might have a large family and that might be his monthly earnings … they could starve if you don’t return it!” The guru responded, “That is their karma.”

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

You may be wondering what all this has to do with this week’s Torah study. Consider that, according to Rabbi Packouz, Mishpatim is one of “the most mitzvah-filled Torah portions, containing 23 positive commandments and 30 negative commandments. Included are laws regarding: the Hebrew manservant and maidservant, manslaughter, murder, injuring a parent, kidnapping, cursing a parent, personal injury, penalty for killing a slave, personal damages, injury to slaves, categories of damages and compensatory restitution, culpability for personal property damage, seduction, occult practices, idolatry, oppression of widows, children and orphans.”

For most Christians and probably many Jewish people, reading Mishpatim can seem like not only an incredible bore, but completely irrelevant to leading a life of spirituality and holiness…

…until you read the commentary about the Jewish girl seeking spirituality, which I quoted above. Let’s “cut to the chase” and see what the Jewish student in India concluded about her experiences.

The young lady then remembered the class she took in Jerusalem — and realized that spirituality without justice, kindness and concern for others is just a false spiritual high, corrupt emotion. She returned to Jerusalem and ultimately returned to her Torah heritage.

I imagine there are a lot of people who believe spirituality is a rather “warm and fuzzy” and “feel good” state of being where one contemplates self, God, and the nature of the universe, and through this, the wear and tear of daily living can be put to the side as if it were a cast off garment. And yet, as the Jewish student learned, it is nothing of the sort. Spirituality is a “lived” experience that permeates our day-to-day lives. There is not one aspect of what we do, from the moment we wake up until the instant our heads hit our pillows at night where God is not present (and He’s present when we sleep as well) and we are not acting either within his will our outside of it.

This past week, I’ve been commenting extensively on Acts 15 and the implications of admitting non-Jewish disciples of the Messiah into a wholly Jewish religious sect. There is a single sentence within that chapter which has caused much confusion among Christian and Jewish commentators and scholars.

For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

–Acts 15:21 (ESV)

I’ll give that statement more treatment in my Return to Jerusalem series in the next few days, but we can take a look at it now from the perspective of this Torah Portion commentary. What did James and the rest of the Apostles expect the Gentile God-fearing disciples to learn by going to the synagogue each Shabbat and hearing the Torah read, especially if, as I’ve said previously, the Apostles never desired that the Gentiles convert to Judaism and thus be obligated to the full yoke of Torah?

karmaWhat was the Jewish student supposed to learn by “studying the laws regarding returning a lost item?” When she was in India following the path she thought she really wanted, she discovered the answer.

While there is much in the Torah that has to do with the specifics of living a Jewish life, there is also much more that teaches us, all of us, how to live an ethical and moral life within a spiritual and material world context. The student in India didn’t have to be Jewish to learn that lesson, it could have been learned by anyone. Hopefully, it is being learned by everyone who reads the Bible and studies the mitzvot delivered by God to humanity through Moses and the Prophets.

The “Law” isn’t boring (unless you let it be). It’s all “God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Studying scripture is like spending time with God in prayer. It is an act of intimacy. It is like this:

On the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. Now the Presence of the Lord appeared in the sight of the Israelites as a consuming fire on the top of the mountain. Moses went inside the cloud and ascended the mountain; and Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

–Exodus 24:16-18 (JPS Tanakh)

Good Shabbos.