Moving Day

This is a little sooner than I thought it would happen but I've been pondering creating my "next-phase-of-life" blog, I read a quote this morning from Rabbi Freeman titled Morning Meditation and then suddenly, I was on WordPress.com creating my new blog.

Welcome to Morning Meditations.

I hate "hello world" first blog posts, so I replaced the generic WordPress "verbage" with a blog thanking God for His abundant faithfulness to me and to all of us.

Although I'm not formally leaving my congregation and the life it represents until June 18th, my transition is happening in stages. Moving from the blog you're on now to my new blog is one of those stages.

At first, my content on the new blog will probably be fairly close to what you're used to reading here, but eventually, as my transition progresses, those changes will be reflected in what I write. I've already changed the wording of the "about me" page at the new blog to illustrate my evolving perspective:

I’m just a guy humbly walking a path of faith and trying to understand my relationship with God. I’m a Christian husband married to a Jewish wife. Part of this blog has to do with the joys and challenges of being intermarried. A lot of this blog has to do with how a Christian can look through a Jewish lens and get a better perspective on life, love, and the God who made us all.

How things will look after a month or a few months or a year, I can't say. All I can say is that I'm slowly closing the door on one part of my life and at the same time, opening the door on another. That doesn't mean I'm closing the door on the people. I want you to come along. I want you to participate. If we are friends (and I really want my friends to continue to talk with me and share my experiences) or if you just consider me kind of interesting, please, follow me along the path and see what happens next.

I decided to leave the current blog up rather than deleting it. I won't post any new content here. This is the very last post for "Searching". However, there are quite a few blog posts that receive a lot of hits, so apparently folks out there are interested in some of the things I've written. As long as those stories are useful, then they should remain available.

Leaving this blog active does bother me a little, since I've changed since last July and some of the ideas and angst I expressed in my early writings no longer quite tell the tale about who I am. On the other hand, they are mileposts along the road, marking my progress from who I was to who I am becoming in faith, grace, and trust.

For those of you who are following this blog via blogger and for anyone who just peeks in occasionally or happens to surf in, if you're interested in what I'm going to be doing or how my journey is progressing, please bookmark Morning Meditations or put the URL in your favorite RSS reader.

Feel free to comment here on my last blog post if you like or better yet, comment on my Meditations blog, since that's where I'll be "living" from now on.

Thank you. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read what I've written. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time, the energy, the thoughtfulness, and the passion to comment about something I've chronicled. As a writer, what I put in a blog doesn't mean much unless someone reads it, though I do get some benefit from the writing. Of course, feedback is like gold, even if it's to say "I think what you said is totally wrong". I'm not here just to spew out thoughts and feelings, I'm here to communicate, interact, and learn.

Thanks most of all to God who is faithful and who has been with me, even when I've felt alone, traveling in the dark. May He continue to travel with me on my journey to draw closer to Him and may He be with you all.

When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness.

Are you looking for me? Find me at Morning Meditations.

The Mysteries of Truth and Faith

There is no Truth without Faith. There is no Truth unless first there be a Faith on which it may be based.

-Milton Steinberg
As a Driven Leaf

The Torah was given to us in the barren, ownerless desert to emphasize that no man may claim any superior right to the word of G-d. It is equally the heritage of every Jew, man, woman, and child, equally accessible to the accomplished scholar and the most simple of Jews.

-Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory
As related by Rabbi Yanki Tauber at Chabad.org

Ben Hei Hei would say: According to the pain is the gain.

-Pirkei Avot 5:21

What is truth and where do you find it? I suppose the answer to that depends on the individual. In Yossi Halevi's book At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, we learn that holiness can be found in many unexpected places. It was certainly surprising to Halevi, the son of Holocaust survivors and an Israeli (he made Aliyah from New York in 1982) journalist to find holiness equally displayed among Muslim sages and Christian monks. Each of us, in our own way, searches for the Divine, some by gazing into the cosmos and others by searching the core of our souls.

I am seeking the part of God that dwells in me. Each person is created in the image of God and encapsulates a mystic spark from beyond the limits of Creation. It's as if that spark is continually trying to return to its Source. Jewish mystics believe that when we die, the animal or earthly part of our souls dies with us but the spark of the Divine flies upward and rejoins God.

Milton Steinberg says that we can find no truth unless it is based on faith. This crashes head-on into the typical secular understanding of "truth" based on facts and the belief that faith is irrelevant (or at least unspoken), but there can be no relationship with God without faith. Only God holds the truth of our existence in His hands.

When Rabbi Schneerson says that the Torah was given to us in the barren, ownerless desert to emphasize that no man may claim any superior right to the word of G-d, he is specifically speaking of the Jewish nation and that the Torah belongs equally to the Prince and the pauper; to the Priest and the woodcutter, yet it is also said:

Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. -Isaiah 2:3

Listen to me, my people;
hear me, my nation:
Instruction will go out from me;
my justice will become a light to the nations. -Isaiah 51:4

If we can believe the words of God as related through the prophet Isaiah, then we can add another meaning to Rabbi Schneerson's comments and say that the giving of the Torah in the desert may apply also to all of humanity. I'm not contradicting my position on how the Torah applies in a different manner to the Jew and the non-Jew, but I am saying that God is One and His Word is One. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and He is the God of Adam and Noah, too. He is the God of the Jewish Messiah, of the Apostle Paul, and of all the Jews and non-Jews to whom the Apostle taught the way of salvation and the path of Jesus.

How the Torah is applied to the Jewish people may seem obvious, depending on your viewpoint and tradition, but how the nations are supposed to understand the Torah as it "goes forth from Zion" isn't always clear. Certainly not all of you reading this blog will agree on how or perhaps even if the Law or any part of it is accessible to the non-Jewish nations:

Any dispute that is for the sake of Heaven is destined to endure; one that is not for the sake of Heaven is not destined to endure. Which is a dispute that is for the sake of Heaven? The dispute(s) between Hillel and Shammai. Which is a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and all his company. -Pirkei Avot 5:17

While discussions between Jews and non-Jews over matters of Torah may not be accurately compared to the debates between Hillel and Shammai, I will be so bold as to say that our exchanges are still "for the sake of Heaven". While many Jews will agree that Hashem is the God of both Jews and Gentiles, they will apply the Noahide Laws as the obligation the nations are bound to in relation to God. Yet as I confirmed recently, from the teachings of the Jewish Messiah, we can allow the non-Jewish disciples to access more. How much more is a point of conjecture, but part of my personal journey is to pursue these questions and to attempt to live out the answers.

To paraphrase Ben Hei Hei, "it won't be easy".

Yet I don't believe my interest in the wisdom of the sages or the teachings of the man some have called "the Maggid of Nazeret" is the result of a random collision of interests. God is purposeful and His Creation is designed; nothing is truly irrelevant.

You ask me, “Why did G-d allow it to happen?”

You recognize that everything in this world has purpose and meaning. Examine any aspect of His vast Creation, from the cosmos to the workings of the atom, and you will see there must be a plan.

And so you ask, where does this fit into the plan?
How could it?

I can only answer, painfully, G-d alone knows.

But what I cannot know, I need not know.

I need not know in order to fulfill
that which my Creator has created me to do.

And that is, to change the world
so this could never happen again.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Chabad.org

Tragic events, such as the horrible effects of the recent storms in the midwest, the ongoing nuclear reactor crisis in Japan, and the struggle to serve the needy in Haiti are all a part of God's plan that completely eludes us. We live in a broken world where people are scared and hurt and dying.

My modest seeking of God's "face", so to speak, from the writings of such men as Maimonides and Steinberg and Schneerson is just as much a part of God's plan, perhaps just as mysterious, and completely purposeful. I live a human life in a broken world, but I'm seeking the means by which I can repair my small corner of it.

Soon, I will launch a new blog (I'll provide a link) and begin a new journey. I invite you all to join me.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought." -Matsuo Basho, Japanese poet

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Getting in the Wheelbarrow

There are two words often lumped together and commonly perceived as synonymous, when in reality they are not.

The two are Faith and Trust. In Hebrew, emunah and bitachon.

One way of explaining the difference between these words is that the former is the belief that G-d exists. The latter is the knowledge thereof, or, more accurately, the result of that knowledge, in mind, heart, and deed.

Rabbeinu Bechaya (in his book Kad Hakemach) puts it this way: "Anyone who trusts has faith, but not anyone with faith trusts."

-Mendel Kalmenson
"The Real Answer to the Question, Who Moved My Cheese?"
Chabad.org

This could be a useful answer to a lot of people's difficulties in their relationship with God. It could be a useful answer to your relationship difficulties with God. It could be a useful answer to my relationship difficulties with God. We tend to think of having faith in God and trusting God as the same thing, but they're not. Because they're not, we're expecting certain things to happen in our lives that aren't going to happen. It's like being married. If we believe in our spouse but don't trust him or her, what kind of a marriage is that? Is it even a relationship at all?


Here's another example from the same source:

This point can be further illustrated by a parable:

Long before the entertainment industry boomed, tightrope walking was a common form of amusement and recreation.

Once, a world-famous master of the sport visited a particular region. Word spread quickly, and many people turned up for the show. All was quiet as the master nimbly climbed the tree from which he would begin his dangerous trek.

But just before beginning his routine he called out: "Who here believes I can make it across safely?"

The crowd roared their affirmation. Again he asked the question and was greeted by the same response.

He then pulled out a wheelbarrow from between the branches and asked, less boisterously, "Which of you is willing to get inside the wheelbarrow as I cross?"

You could hear a pin drop.

Faith is the roaring response of the crowd; trust is climbing into the wheelbarrow.

It's easy to have faith in God but not to trust Him. It's easy to say "God exists and I believe in Him" as long as we don't have to become personally involved in performing the weightier matters of Torah. We can have an incredible faith that the tightrope walker will make it to the other end of the rope as long as we don't have to climb into his wheelbarrow.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. -James 2:14-24

When James (Ya'akov) says "that a person is considered righteous by what they do", he's talking about trust or bitachon. Our problem, is that we "think" about God, and we "feel" all warm and fuzzy about Jesus, but we don't "do" anything about changing our lives to conform to our thinking and feeling. Here's another example:

Maimonides is one in a long line of Jewish commentators who have proposed rationalistic interpretations of Scripture. Thus, words denoting place, sight, hearing, or position (of God) are interpreted as mental properties or dispositions. In our own vocabulary, it could be said that Maimonides has attempted to demythologize biblical narrative.

from Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed
by Kenneth Seeskin

Maimonides tends to see Biblical interpretation as either literal or allegorical and his strength as a theologian, philosopher, and sage is in his rational approach to the Tanakh (Jewish Bible). However there is a significant gap in his vision. We can also interpret the Bible and God through a mystic and experiential lens. The mystic seeks to encounter God in an extra-natural realm; meeting Him outside the boundaries of our physical universe, but we can also experience God in our day-to-day life by experiencing ourselves. We can "do" God and not just "think" or "feel" God. We can be the answer to prayer. We can have and live out faith and trust.

We can get in the wheelbarrow.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Seeing God

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. -Deuteronomy 6:4

Many people, without realizing, end up with two gods:

One god is an impersonal one, an all-encompassing, transcendent force.

But then, at times of trouble, they cry out to another, personal god, with whom they have an intimate relationship.

Our faith is all about knowing that these two are one. The same G-d who is beyond all things, He is the same one who hears your cries and counts your tears. The same G-d who is the force behind all existence and transcends even that, He is the same G-d who cares about what is cooking in your kitchen and how you treat your fellow human being.

G-d cannot be defined, even as transcendent. He is beyond all things and within them at once.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Two Are One"
Chabad.org

Observant Jews say the Shema twice a day in obedience and devotion to God. In saying the Shema, a Jew declares that God is One and there is no other God but the God of Israel. This can be a bit of a challenge for some Christians who relate to God the Father as God, but also relate to Jesus, the Son of God as God, and to the Holy Spirit of God as God. Jews tend to see Christianity's conceptualization of the Trinity as polytheism; worshiping three "gods".

Yet, as Rabbi Freeman points out, even strict ethical monotheists can fall into the trap of worshiping two gods. Rabbi Freeman is talking about people who tend to conceptualize the One God in two different ways, depending on their needs, but Jewish mysticism also relates to more than one aspect of God.

As in Freeman's analysis, we tend to conceive of two "gods"; the God who manifests Himself to us in our universe, which we think of as the Shekhinah, and the invisible, eternal, immortal, infinite, all-powerful, Creator God who is far, far beyond all human understanding, which we call Ayn Sof. In doing this, is mystic Judaism creating polytheism?

I seriously doubt it. The problem isn't God, it's us. God isn't something we can subdivide or compartmentalize as we would any other thing in our experience. God is One. We just don't have the means by which to comprehend, let alone experience the "oneness" of God. Rabbi Freeman makes this point thus:

Faith is not the result of experience.

On the contrary, faith is an act that comes from within and creates experience.

Things happen because you trust they will.

The world, the universe, all of Creation simply exists. It doesn't have categories or types or organizations as such...not until we apply an order upon things. We do this to try and understand our world and our experience. God even approves of this activity when we perform it:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field... -Genesis 2:19-20

Part of humanity taking dominion over the world God created for us was to impose our organization upon everything in that Creation.

But God is not part of Creation. God is unique and He presents a unique challenge and puzzle for human beings. What do we think of God? How do we relate to Him? How do we use our human senses, and our human brain, and our human feelings, to understand and connect to God?

In Christianity, the answer is simple (or so it seems): love Jesus Christ as lord and savior. He lived, died, and lived as a human being, so the Jewish Messiah makes God a much more relatable "object" than God the Father.

Oops. Now we're back at "God is Two": God the unknowable, unreachable, Father, and God the Son, who we have imagined to be ultimately reachable, relatable, connectible, and all too human.

Really?

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. -Revelation 1:12-17

Not exactly the warm and fuzzy teddy bear many churches have turned the King of Kings into in modern times. Sure, the rest of verse lets Jesus tell John to not be afraid, but as we see, John had every reason to be afraid.

So can we relate to God as God? Do human beings have the "equipment" to even perceive God as He is and to honor and worship God as One. Jewish mysticism and just about every other mystic tradition is devoted to connecting to God in His realms as He is, but there's also a more straightforward and simple approach, again, as presented by Rabbi Freeman:

Belief is not enough - you need Trust.

A believer can be a thief and a murderer.

Trust in G-d changes the way you live.

James says it this way:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder. -James 2:19

Normally, you get to know someone through a series of experiences and eventually learn to trust them. We can't do that with God because we can't experience Him as we experience a human being. Both James and Rabbi Freeman tell us that faith and trust are the doorway by which we must reach God. We don't need to understand Him, although we may want to. We don't need to conceive of Him in all his eternal and majestic glory, although we may desire it. We need to have faith and to trust Him. This isn't blind trust. We can see. Our eyes are wide open. It's just that, like John in his Revelation, like Ezekiel in his vision, and like those others who have been privileged to have a mystic encounter in a world beyond our own, we don't always comprehend what and who we see. However, He is God and He is One and we can trust in Him, though He is as far beyond us as the heavens are beyond the earth.

Trust is how we can see God.

In the early part of the twentieth century, another Jewish philosopher, Hermann Cohen, suggested that the essential feature of monotheism is not that there is only one God but that the one God is unique. By unique he means that God is unlike and therefore not comparable to anything else in the universe; in short, God is and will always remain in a category by Himself. As Isaiah says in 40:25, "To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal?"

from Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed
by Kenneth Seeskin

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

The Moon is Torn

"I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late, I'm already torn"
-Natalie Imbruglia
"Torn"

"If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him in all his glory
what would you ask if you had just one question?"
-written by Eric Bazilian
"What If God Was One Of Us?"

Go out on a clear night and see the moon reflected in the water of a lake. Then see the very same moon reflected in a pond, in a teacup, in a single drop of water. So the same essential Torah is reflected within each person who studies it, from a small child to a great sage.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Multiple Reflections"
Chabad.org

If you believe in God or at least if you believe there is something more to the universe than what you can detect with your five senses, sooner or later you're going to encounter an existential question. Who am I? Is this all there is? Is there nothing more? What does it all mean?

Conversely, there are so many people inhabiting the various faith groups, theologies, and philosophies on the earth who are perfectly satisfied and content regarding who they are and what it all means. Certainly, there are many in the church who have no doubt that Jesus loves them, they are saved by grace, and they are free from sin and the law. There are many Jews in the synagogues who are absolutely secure they are sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah and that in the merit of the Patriarchs, they have a place in the world to come. It seems like one of the primary functions of any faith community is to provide its members with a safe and secure environment in which they are protected from existential questions and the horrors that they bring.

I found this person's comment in response to Judah Himango's blog post Is it a sin for Christians to break the Torah indicative of this function (and all the errors in the following quote belong to the original commenter:

I like your blog and all, and have learned a few good things however from time to time it just digresses into pure nastiness. I go to a very stable Baptist church where the fruits of the spirit are evident we have a deep love for Israel, the Jewish people and each other. What do you have to offer that would better my life as a disciple of Christ? Seriously all I see is fighting and division Paul warns harshly to expel those who cause division..

Also why are some people on this forum so vile? I noticed in the disagreement between Gene and Dan Dan calling Gene a Shmuck? (a word I found out means penis in Yiddish) is this what your idea of serving Christ looks like? Out of the mouth the heart speaks.

I think for now I will just stick with my church it's stable, dynamic and we are all trying to serve Christ the best we know how. I feel much safer there.

I'm kind of envious and it kind of bothers me. Everyone wants to feel "safe" from whatever threatens or bothers them, both in the environment and within the confines of their own spirits. I want that. You probably want that, too. Yet, when you're safe and protected, what are you experiencing and what are you learning? If we always feel safe and reassured that nothing is wrong, the world is an OK place, and everyone loves us, does that really mean anything? Does that bring us closer to God? Do we find out anything about why we are who we are if we stay in the comfort zone?

When I was reading today's missive by Rabbi Freeman online, I saw the following comment in response:

I am not a Jew, yet I have and still do enjoy reading the Daily Dose. I find a lot of the daily messages have a similar aspect in other religions. This one, I felt, this one was very Zen in its statement-as soon as I read it.

The "Messianic" movement is full of non-Jews like this person; people who have no real reason to be attracted to the Torah or the wisdom of the Jewish sages, but who nevertheless are irresistibly drawn in to something that transcends the ethnic and covenantal boundaries that isolate our various groups from one another; boundaries that in part exist so that we can feel safe.

I wrote yesterday that the purpose of the nation of Israel is to protect Jews in a hostile world and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, God mandated the Jewish state as the inheritance of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so it is not only enlightened self interest that prompts the Jews to build a nation of their own, but it is a mitzvah for them to do so. However, there is another mitzvah from God to consider:

Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The Torah will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. -Micah 4:2

It's clear from this that the Torah, or at least some part of it, was not meant to be entirely and eternally contained just within the boundaries of Israel and Judaism. Some of this wisdom of God was meant for mankind. When we hear it; some of we who are not Jewish respond as if the Word of God is the missing piece to the puzzle of our lives.

I'm standing on the path looking toward the horizon about six weeks into the future, when I will end one part of my life and begin another. I have no idea what will happen. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or not. I think I am, otherwise I wouldn't do it, but how can I be sure?

I'm looking at the reflection of the moon in a cup of cold coffee. I'm awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn. I'm looking for something real. I'm a little late. I'm already torn.

If you were faced with God in all His Glory, what would you ask if you had just one question?

Unintended Goodness

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. -Matthew 7:9-12

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. -James 4:3

Sometimes it happens that you set out to do something with the best of intentions - and you end up with what appears the opposite.

Know with absolute certainty - because this is a tradition of our sages - that if your true intent is good, then from it only good can emerge.

Perhaps not the good you intended - or care for - but good nevertheless.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
from "Detoured Good"
Chabad.org

I read Rabbi Freeman's words yesterday, which I quoted above, and thought about my own situation. I've recently commented on both Judah Himango's and Derek Leman's blogs regarding my intention to formally leave the world of "Messianic" worship, and specifically the "One Law" branch of this movement. I no longer believe that God intends for Gentiles and Jews to live absolutely identical lifestyles, with Christians performing all of the mitzvot in every detail, precisely like their Jewish brothers and sisters, thus obliterating any covenant difference between Jew and Christian.

My intent, among other things, is to do good. My purpose, or at least one of them, is to honor the chosen people of God (not that we all can't be chosen in our own ways); the Children of Israel. My motivation is not just Jews in general but my Jewish wife in specific. She has been very patient with me, but I can only imagine how she sees me, her Christian husband, when I go to worship with my congregation on Shabbat, knowing that I will be praying with a tallit, using a siddur, and reciting the Shema.

My intention is to do good in the action of leaving my congregation, but Rabbi Freeman makes me wonder. If my intention is good, can only truly good things result? After all, we have a common saying that goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" (thought to have originated with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux who wrote, "L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs" or "hell is full of good wishes and desires").

Could bad things come from good intent? They probably do all of the time, but if Rabbi Freeman and the Lubavitcher Rebbe are right, I can hope for a good, but not necessarily expected outcome from my intentions and actions. I sometimes think of prayer that way. I'd like to think that my intentions in prayer are always good ,but as James (Jacob), the brother of the Master, says, I can mess that one up, too.

However Jesus (Yeshua) also seems to say something we find echoed in Rabbi Freeman's teaching. Even though we are evil, we know how to give good gifts. If prayer is like an incense offering; a gift to God (Psalm 141:2, Revelation 5:8, Revelation 8:4), then maybe even my attempt to extend myself outside of my own skin and my own thoughts and to connect, however tenuously, with God, will yield something of His goodness, even though I can't anticipate the exact result of my "offering".

I haven't tendered my resignation to my congregation yet, but the time is coming all too soon. We are small and our resources are limited. I'm a significant resource for my community, not only as a teacher, but as a blog writer, and the person who maintains our website. In soothing my conscience and attempting to reconcile the faith portion of my relationship with my wife, what do I do to the congregation?

Another saying we have is "He who hesitates is lost". I can't simply do nothing, continue on with the status quo, and hope for the best. I've been praying and waiting for an answer to this puzzle for almost two years and I'm still waiting. While God can provide miracles completely outside of human actions, I know we aren't supposed to depend on God doing so. With all this going on, what does God want and what will He do?

Today, my email quote from Rabbi Freeman contained the following:

Every moment,
every human activity
is an opportunity to connect with the Infinite.

Every act can be an uplifting of the soul.

It is only your will that may stand in the way.

But as soon as you wish,
you are connected.

In seeking God and His will, I'm like a blind man trying to find a sunny patch of ground on which to stand. The weather is partly cloudy, and I only have a feeble sense of warm or cold to tell me if I've reached my goal. Rabbi Freeman says that any time I truly wish to be connected to God, I am, but like that blind man, I can't always tell if I'm already standing in the light of day. Like a man driving his car on a lonely stretch of freeway in the middle of the desert at night, I can only see as far as my headlights can pierce the darkness. In order to reach my destination, I must continue driving through the vast obsidian wastes and hope for the dawn.

A rebuke impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes a fool. -Proverbs 17:10

Choices

We are not Jews by choice. We are not circumcised by choice—they do it to us before we can be asked. Neither did anyone ask us if we would like to be obligated in all these mitzvahs—not since Mount Sinai. Even the one who joins us does so because something propels him from inside.

If we were Jews because our minds and hearts told us so, then our Judaism would take us only as far as our minds and hearts can know. But we are not. And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Not by choice
Chabad.org

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. -Ephesians 1:3-6

Do we have a choice? I mean, about who we are...do we have a choice?

Logic would say "yes", at least up to a point. We don't have a choice about who our parents are, our hair or eye color, how tall we'll be, and a lot of other things. But we were given free will and the power of decision. We can choose where to live, what kind of work to do, who to marry, what to read, how to spend our free time. We can choose.

But if you're a Jew, you don't get to choose. As Rabbi Freeman states, except for those people who choose to convert to Judaism, you do not choose to be a Jew (more on this later). You are "born that way", to quote a popular song by Lady Gaga. Of course, a Jew can choose to comply to his or her obligations to the commandments and what sort of lifestyle to live. There are Jews who experience being Jews by virtue of their genetics, but who otherwise live a completely "goy" lifestyle. There are Jews who relate to being Jews in terms of a social identity, but who do not acknowledge the religious and spiritual reality of being a Jew. There are Jews who embrace all there is about being Jewish including the Torah and the Talmud, and who embrace God.

Even if you're a Jew who chooses to reject your Judaism, just like in Nazi Germany on Kristallnacht in 1938, when they come for you, it won't matter if you say you're a Jew or not. You are a Jew and they will take you away.

But what about Christians? No one is born a Christian. Even if you are born into a Christian family, it's not a foregone conclusion that you will become a Christian or, if as a child you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, there's no guarantee your faith will endure into adulthood. Many kids raised in Christian homes lose their faith upon entering college and never regain it. You can choose to be a Christian and later you can quit. When they come for the Christians, you can deny your faith convincingly and with credibility, unlike the Jew.

There's a story about a teenage girl named Cassie Bernall who was murdered during the Columbine High School massacre on April 21, 1999. According to popular media reports, including news sources in Evangelical Christianity, Bernall was asked at gunpoint by one of the assailants if she was a Christian. She said "yes" and was immediately shot as a result. The church considers her a "martyr" for her faith and she has been much touted (or perhaps exploited) by organized Christianity as an example of a young person of faith who would even die for Jesus.

The facts of this event are somewhat in dispute and there are those who say the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall never happened, at least not in the way we've heard it reported. But fact or myth, the story of Cassie Bernall does highlight that Christians have a choice about acknowledging or denying Christ.

Don't we?

But if that's true that we have a choice, what did Paul mean when he said that "he (God) chose us in him before the creation of the world" and "he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ"? Paul is clearly addressing non-Jews who came to faith in the Jewish Messiah and who were adopted "to sonship" through the Messiah. Did we have a choice?

Free will says "yes", but Paul throws that choice into doubt.

Converting to Judaism for a non-Jew is a choice, isn't it? That choice is one of the reasons Judaism is hesitant to offer conversion as an option since converted Jews can more easily deny their "Judaism" when the going gets tough, just like Christians. Rabbi Freeman says, "Even the one who joins us does so because something propels him from inside...And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars." This is applied even to Jewish converts...people who have been destined by God to be Jewish before the creation of the world, even though they weren't born that way.

I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. -Leviticus 26:42

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. -Acts 12:13

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. -2 Peter 3:9

In Judaism, the merit of the Patriarchs is applied to every Jew and it is in that merit that Jews are considered by God. Of course John the Baptizer did say that God could raise up sons of Abraham from stones (Matthew 3:9), indicating that the merit of the Fathers has limits. But God has remembered and God will continue to remember His covenant with the Jewish people and, as Paul states (in Romans 11:25-32), all of Israel will be saved.

But Peter says that God does not want anyone to perish. If Jews, not by their own choice, are members of the covenant, and Christians were chosen by God from before the creation of the world, where does choice figure in? I don't really know the answer, but there is this:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. -Genesis 1:27

Choice or not, all human beings everywhere are special just because we were created in God's image. That doesn't mean arms and legs and such, but the part of us that, through no will of our own, seeks out something greater than ourselves. For some that means seeking science, for others some form of spirituality, and for those who try to block out that "image", it means immersing themselves in the things of the world including sex, drugs, alcohol, and whatever other pleasures they can find.

For those of us who try to answer "the call" and seek out that thing within us that wants to reconnect to its origin, we are taken places we don't want to go, we ask questions we don't want to ask, and we hear answers we don't want to hear. Yet we cannot stop seeking that missing part of ourselves, we cannot stop asking troublesome questions, and we cannot stop listening for disturbing answers.

The deepest longing, therefore, of the genuine Chasid is to become a "living Torah." The keeping of the Law is to him only a means to an end: union with God. For this reason he tries to keep the Law scrupulously, for "God's thoughts are embodied in it."
Paul Phillip Levertoff
Love and the Messianic Age

I suppose I'm cheating when I say that we do and don't have a choice. We don't have a choice about being created by God and we don't have a choice about who God created us to be, Jew or Gentile. We don't have a choice in that God seems to have created us with a built-in "homing signal" and, at some point our lives, He activates it and compels us to seek out that which we don't understand.

We do have a choice how we respond to that signal. Jews, though they can never stop being Jews, have a choice about how to respond to God. The rest of humanity, regardless of their religion including claiming no religion, have a choice about how to respond to God. Responding to God is challenging, even frightening. God calls us into worlds we don't always understand and probably wouldn't choose to enter, even if we did understand. We just know that, having answered God, we have only our faith to help us do what God has called us to do:

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” "Hineni" (Here I am), he replied. -Genesis 22:1

Dory: Come on, trust me on this one.
Marlin: Trust you?
Dory: Yes, trust. It's what friends do.
-from Finding Nemo (2003)

Trust. It's what Abraham did when God asked him to sacrifice his son, his only son, the son he loved, Isaac. Trust. It's what we have when God asks us to respond to Him. We don't have a choice in being the person God created us to be. We do have a choice in what we do with that person.

To quote a favorite expression of the Zohar: "The impulse from below (itharuta dil-tata) calls forth that from above." The earthly reality mysteriously reacts upon the heavenly, for everything, including human activity, has its "upper roots" in the realm of the Sefiroth.
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
by Gershom Scholem
quoting Zohar I, 164a and Zohar II, 34a

And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Searching for Easter Morning

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. -John 3:16-18

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. -1 John 2:1-2

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures... -1 Corinthians 15:2-4

Sounds like pretty good news, doesn't it? Christ died for our sins. He paid the price for our faults and failures before God so we wouldn't have to. All we have to do is accept the free gift of Jesus Christ, believe, and we will be saved. We are forgiven.

Aren't we?

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. -Romans 8:1-2

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9

So we do that. God forgives our sins. Right? Good news.

What about people? Do they forgive us? Not always.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. -Romans 12:17-18

To me, this implies, if not outright states, that I can try to live at peace with others but that doesn't mean others will want to live at peace with me.

Sometimes, I don't blame them.

I'm not a perfect person, far from it, actually. I guess I'm safe in saying that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes, but it doesn't make my mistakes any easier to live with. I've hurt people. I've let people down. I've tried to make those things right again, as best I can, anyway.

That isn't always enough.

What happens when you've wronged a friend, tried to make it right and they don't forgive you? What happens if you've wronged your child or your spouse, tried to make it right, and they don't forgive you? Sometimes, you can only do so much to try and fix the past. Some people say to let the past be past, let it go, and move on, trying to be a better person today than you were yesterday.

Not everyone "forgives and forgets".

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. -Matthew 6:12

This is part of what we call "the Lord's Prayer" and the Master was instructing his disciples how to pray to God. He was also illustrating here that there is a relationship between our forgiving others and how (or if) we receive God's forgiveness.

Maybe that's the key. Why should we expect God to forgive us of our sins if we don't forgive others when they wrong us? But does that mean God doesn't forgive us if human beings don't forgive us? If even one, single person won't forgive us for how we've wronged them, even when we've tried to make it right, to turn from our sins, and make amends, does that mean God will refuse to forgive us too?

I doubt it. Otherwise, the forgiveness of our sins in front of the Eternal God would be dependent on the emotions and even the whims of a human beings and some of them (us) aren't very forgiving.

But there is something else to consider.

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. -Leviticus 19:18

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. -Mark 12:31

We should love our neighbor as we love ourselves? Love ourselves? That's quite an assumption. Here's another one:

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church... -Ephesians 5:28-29

Loving yourself. Loving your own body. I guess Jesus and Paul never heard of low self-esteem and depression. There is a considerable amount of information in the Bible about forgiving others and asking for forgiveness when we've done wrong, but as far as I can tell, there isn't an instruction regarding forgiving yourself. That brings up an interesting question.

Based on the Lord's Prayer and God's forgiveness being contingent upon our forgiving others, if we don't forgive ourselves, does God forgive us? If I don't or can't forgive myself, will God refuse to forgive me?

It would be rather ironic, especially in light of the hope engendered by the week of Unleavened bread as celebrated by Jews, and the joy generated by this Easter Sunday as commemorated by Christians, to realize that the plan of God to provide for the forgiveness of the world could be stymied by a person's inability to forgive himself. But even if by some miracle God forgives you anyway, does it matter if the people you love can't or won't do the same? Does it matter if you can't forgive yourself?

I respond to Easter pretty much the way I respond to Christmas. Both are Christian holidays where the assumption is you are supposed to feel happy and joyous, no matter what. In fact, if you don't feel happy and joyous on Christmas and Easter for any reason, there's something wrong with you. I really don't like it when holidays and human expectations impose their required emotional or affective states on me.

By the way, in looking up the various scriptures I wanted to reference for this blog post, I came across a discussion board thread at All About GOD called How do i know if i am really forgiven when i ask for it. The original poster never came back after making his initial query, but there were numerous answers provided. Many of the responses he got I'd consider somewhat empty platitudes and a few were just plain guilt trips, but one poster named Shari Burgess gave what I thought was a very honest answer:

I am sorry I don't have that answer for you but I will tell you that a lot of the forgiveness you seek starts within you. I don't know it seems that sometimes we are just programmed to continue with self hate self doubt not realizing that this is the trick of the "enemy" he wants you to be confused and not feel that you have been forgiven. Anything or anyone that makes you feel guilty or sad or hurt is not of God. Yes God does allow us to have guilt when we have done wrong but his word says that he forgives you and what ever you have done in the past is not a part of his memory. We are our own worst critics I know I suffer with the same problem I cling to all the hurt and the wrong I've done but we got to dig deeper into ourselves and understand if we were that bad we would not have the unique blessing to rise each and every day honor God in our actions and live to see another day.

Telling a depressed or upset person that Jesus makes life all sunshine and lollipops isn't helpful and usually communicates to the person who is struggling that you haven't the faintest idea what it's like to wrestle with real-life problems, let alone with faith. I don't know the answer to the conundrum but I suspect Shari is on the right track. However, I do know that it hurts when you think a wound is healing and it gets ripped open again.

This is Easter morning and the Christian and Messianic blogosphere abounds with joyous messages of resurrection, salvation, and hope. Never being one to fit in with the crowd, this is what I bring to the table for Sunday breakfast. The sun has risen and with it, the Son of God. Yet the road before me is still shrouded in darkness. I continue on my journey and await the dawn.

The road is long and I continue to travel in the dark.

Freeing Sparks

From this life and light proceeds the divine "spark" which is hidden in every soul. Not all men succeed in rising to this close union with God at prayer, because this spark is imprisoned in them. "Yea, even the Shechinah herself is imprisoned in us, for the spark is the Shechinah in our souls.
-Paul Philip Levertoff
Love and the Messianic Age

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.
-Psalm 27:8

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls...
-Psalm 42:7

There's something of God in each of us. I don't mean the "indwelling of the Holy Spirit", but after all, every person was created in God's image. We each have a soul...something of the divine in every person. In Judaism, it's thought that man has two spirits: the nephesh and the ruach. The nephesh is our "animal" soul or the type of spirit any living creature possesses; our "personality". The ruach is a "spark" of the divine within each person and is only possessed by human beings.

When we die, it's believed that our nephesh goes with our bodies into the ground and perishes with us. Our ruach, on the other hand, rises up, like sparks from a fire, seeking to return to the source; to God.

When we pray, we have the potential of connecting the spark of holiness within us directly to God, but this doesn't always happen. As Levertoff has already said, we can imprison our spark, the living Shechinah, within us. The Vine of David commentary on this passage explains more:

Although every man has the divine potential of a godly soul planted within him, this is not a guarantee that every man will enter into a relationship with HaShem or even that every soul will be redeemed. Instead, the soul is separated from God by a wall of partition - sin and guilt. HaShem removes the wall of partition between man and Himself through the work of the Messiah. When the wall is removed, then the soul can connect with HaShem. Then He can "use it for the gathering of these 'sparks'."

Through sincere and heartfelt prayer, we can breakdown the wall separating us from God and let our spark connect to the flame of God, but it is our faith in the Messiah that provides the conduit for our prayer. I wonder if the Vine of David commentary has given us the true meaning of the following event?

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” -Matthew 27:50-54

This passage is often quoted by traditional Christianity as "proof" that, with the death of the Messiah, that the Jewish sacrificial system was destroyed, that the Law was replaced by grace, and that Judaism was replaced by Christianity. Given Levertoff's point of view on Jesus, prayer, and the divine, perhaps what was really torn down was not what God had instituted, for after all, God established His Temple (and will do so again as recorded in Ezekiel chapters 40-48), but rather, the barriers that all men create between themselves and God. Through the Messiah, humanity has been given a unique opportunity to connect to God in a way we never had before. We can set our sparks free.

However, the process isn't completed automatically. The removal of the wall is like opening a door. Entry is now available, but we still must walk through to the other side.

God is waiting for us to have faith and to pray; to release the sparks trapped within us, so that they can rise up again and be gathered by God.

Is that joy?

Good Shabbos.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Proceeding Hopefully

I was having lunch with a guy who was telling me about a struggle he had been having for a while. He said he knew he was a sinner and that he was fallen and that he would keep committing this one sin, and he knew he was going to keep committing this one sins because he was a sinner and his nature was evil and there was nothing he could do about it because of what a sinner he was...

Do I have to go on?

I was so depressed I wanted to bang my head on the table. His question was basically, why do we struggle like this?
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
by Rob Bell

If we have no joy in our hearts, we deny the love of God. We should not say, "Our heart is a dwelling place of lust, jealousy, anger; there is no hope for us." Let us realize that we have another guest in us who desires to give us life and joy, notwithstanding our sin. Even if we are disturbed by worldly thoughts during our most intimate converse with God, we should not lose courage and joy.
Love and the Messianic Age
by Paul Philip Levertoff

Jacob wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32:22-32) and we wrestle with what it means, especially to us. We wrestle with our sin and we wonder if God even hears us sometimes. We behave as if we're our own worst enemy and yet we're commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:31, Leviticus 19:18).

Isn't that crazy?

Probably not.

Yesterday, I talked about struggling between despair and joy, experiencing disturbing emotions in the immediate situation and striving to find my joy in God as an enduring state. Where do we find this? How do we do this?

I don't know. It's not easy.

I sometimes get really tired of moral or religious platitudes that we hear from religious leaders who are preaching or writing books, saying that we just need to do "this" in order to achieve "that". It's as if they don't live in the same universe as the rest of us. It's as if they don't have real, personal lives like the rest of us. What the heck are they talking about?

Of course these people have the same struggles as everyone else. Being a Pastor or a Rabbi or a whatever doesn't suddenly mean that you aren't human anymore, or you're not vulnerable to the same human struggles as everyone around you. It sometimes means that religious leaders try and pretend they're not human because they think their "flock" needs a superhuman shepherd.

It's one thing to "suck it up" and put your own concerns to one side when someone else needs a shoulder to cry on, but it's another thing entirely to project your self-expectation of being "perfect" onto the people around you, especially the people who depend on your compassion.

It's OK to want to bang your head on a table sometimes. It's OK if, during prayer, some rotten, guilty little thought creeps in between you and God. That doesn't mean you have to cave in to either temptation, and it doesn't mean you're a horrible person or a failure. However, if we give in to despair and we give up on ourselves, we're also giving up on God.

He's convinced he is a sinner, he's convinced he is going to sin, he has no hope against sin, he believes his basic nature is sin, and then he wonders why he keeps sinning.

Rob Bell pretty much nails it as far as his lunch companion is concerned, and he maps out the danger Levertoff has warned us against (see the quote at the top of the page). While Jesus chided his disciples for their lack of faith, in fact, they had faith. They struggled with faith. They really struggled with faith when their Master was executed by the Romans, and their faith was restored when Jesus was resurrected. Their faith was strengthened and they were empowered when the Spirit came to them on the Festival of Shavuot (Pentecost). They kept their faith. They kept their hope. They were not abandoned. They were sometimes afraid, but they were never alone.

It's not a crime to struggle with faith. It's not a sin to struggle with God. The only real failure you'll face is if you give up on Him...and on you.

Sometimes we get tired and it's tough to get up and walk after a fall.Take it slow. Put your weight on one foot and then the other. Stand up. Then take the first step...

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

The Discordant Army

Regarding one's spiritual development, the Netziv provides a terrific insight when commenting on the verse, "Follow the path of your heart" (Ecclesiastes 11:9). He states that each individual Jew must find their own way of serving God. Some people carry out their divine service through study or prayer, while others focus more on charity or acts of kindness. Of course, a person can engage in all of these at different times, but it's important to find a specific focus through which you can personally find meaning and fulfill your mission in life. Whichever particular path happens to attract you most, work on it. Every single one of us has the ability to cultivate the divine spark God has given us and achieve greatness.
-from The Power of the Individual
Lev Echad blog

It's Friday morning again and time to reflect upon the state of community (or lack thereof) in the Christian and particularly the "Messianic" world of faith. I was intrigued that blog writer Asher at Lev Echad would be writing on a theme that has been one of my favorites lately. I previously wrote about how an individual can be the answer to prayer and Asher also comments that each of us has something unique to give.

Joshua Brumbach also discussed this theme in relation to this week's Torah portion, Parashat Pekudei as illustrated by one man, Moses, completing the work on the Mishkan in the desert and opening the door for the Divine Presence to dwell among His people. While Joshua sees the act of Moses as a leader humbling himself to "get his hands dirty" and finalizing the Mishkan's construction, I see Moses representing each of us as we do our part to repair the world and prepare for the coming of the Jewish Messiah.

However, Asher touched on a very important point that I think needs to be drawn out:

This can be taken one step further when it comes to a person's career. Although it's terrific for any man or woman to pursue their professional dreams, if they decide to become a stay-at-home parent, for instance, they should also be proud of their work. It always bothers me when women say something like, "I'm just a housewife." In my opinion, that's the most important job on earth. You're raising a family, being gracious to guests, and maintaining a peaceful home, among other things. What's more important than that?! Great things tend to be accomplished by people who embrace what they do and give it everything they have - no matter who may denigrate them from the outside. Never let anyone undermine the passion you give to what you believe is your calling in life.

When I'm in services and reciting and singing prayers, I'm sometimes very aware of how poorly I speak Hebrew and how badly I sing (something like a frog with a sore throat). I could practice diligently and probably improve my Hebrew somewhat (though languages aren't among my talents), but nothing will ever make me a better singer. I also must admit (with some embarrassment) that although it is a kindness and a commandment to visit the sick, I feel sort of creeped out in hospitals. It's not that I can't go in a hospital to visit someone, it's just that I don't look forward to doing so. Gee. I don't look forward to obeying God and making someone's life a little happier. That sounds bad.

It's easy to look at what I can't do and to feel lousy about the holes in my faith, my deeds of kindness, and my personality. I don't know. Maybe you feel the same way about yourself or maybe you don't. Most people in the religious blogosphere tend to emphasize how terrific they are and showcase the areas where they are well accomplished, so it's hard for me to tell.

I have to struggle to remember that, as Asher says, I should never "let anyone undermine the passion you give to what you believe is your calling in life." Of course, not all denigration comes from the outside. Often, our worst enemy is the person inside our head. If you are (if I am) not skilled in many areas, there is still likely at least one thing you have to offer:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? -1 Corinthians 12:12-17 (NRSV)

What's the one thing I do obsessively? What's the one thing I can't seem to go a day without doing? C'mon, it's not hard to guess. In fact, you're reading it now.

God "wired" me to write. I don't know if it does any good to anyone besides me (and I sometimes wonder even about me), but like a billion other people, I hop on the Internet, fire up Blogger, and spew my thoughts and feelings onto the web for someone or no one to read. I named my very first blog A Million Chimpanzees in "honor" of the phrase, "It's been said that if you give a million chimpanzees a million typewriters, they'll eventually reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare", essentially making fun of the importance of blogging (and in a world where anyone can create a blog, is there any significance to blogging?).

But whether it's worth it or not, here I am, a soldier among an infinite army of bloggers, marching to the drummer's beat I hear in my head and occasionally tripping over my own two feet, dropping my rifle, and falling into the mud. Sometimes, I even get stepped on. Sometimes I step on others. It's a mess.

Moses completed the Mishkan and ushered in the single most important event in the history of the Jewish people: bringing the living God into the community of Israel. Rabbi Jerome Epstein writes on the importance each, individual Jew has in repairing the world in order to summon the Messiah to rescue the Jewish nation and to "fix" humanity. Yet in both of these pictures, we see the individual acting within the context of community. Moses was the Prophet of the Children of Israel and each Jew acts within the context of overall Judaism, and it is Israel that the Messiah will save as a nation.

Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall settle on their own soil that I gave to my servant Jacob. They shall live in safety in it, and shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall live in safety, when I execute judgements upon all their neighbours who have treated them with contempt. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God. -Ezekiel 28:25-26 (NRSV)

Although we are all gifted by God so that we may serve him, both Jew and Gentile, we don't act in isolation, even if we are alone. Certainly no one Jew can be separated from Judaism and even if a Jew isn't religious; even if a Jew doesn't believe God exists, he or she will always be a Jew. What about Christians? Our connection is by choice, not by birth. We can choose to quit. We can choose to fail. Do we operate in community or, like the endless stream of bloggers in cyberspace, do we march discordantly to a million different beats, each charting our own confused and aimless course, a parade of one without a leader or goal?

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel: From the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed,from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand,from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand,from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand,from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand,from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand,from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand,from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand,from the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand sealed. -Revelation 7:4-8 (NRSV)

We see again in the apocalyptic Christian text that 144,000 members of each of the 12 tribes of Israel will be "sealed". But is there anyone else?

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ -Revelation 7:9-10

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. -Revelation 22:1-4 (NRSV)

Yes, the rest of us, at least some of us, will be there at the end. Just as the Master prophesied:

When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven... -Matthew 8:10-11 (NRSV)

So here I am and tonight the Shabbat enters the world once again. Some of us will welcome her into our home and we will attempt to taste a brief moment of the sweetness that will come when the Messiah reigns. The Shabbat is a day of worship and community and we can shine as a part of the body of Messiah. But the body is not whole. We have this congregation and that doing what they think best. Small collections of people spinning away from the other groups or disastrously colliding with them. We are together and we are apart. Within our own groups, we are sometimes together but we are apart. As I continue on my own individual path, I can feel myself pulling away from my group and charting my own course. But how can I be sure that I'm following God on the path and that the Messiah walks with me?

How can any of us?

But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you. -Batman Begins (2005)

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark, alone.