A LOOK AT - IYAR

The Ancient of Days created the heavens and established the earth. He is the creator of time.  He was the first to "count time." The sun is used to count the days and the moon is used to count the months. The laws of the Universe are true and they are mathematical. 

God doesn't name the months in the Torah. The months are numbered, like the days are numbered. The Hebrew calendar months were adopted during the babylonian exile.  

Genesis 1:14-16 The Fourth Day—Sun, Moon, and Stars

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the sky. These lights will separate the days from the nights. They will be used for signs to show when special meetings begin and to show the days and years. 15 They will be in the sky to shine light on the earth.” And it happened. 

16 So God made the two large lights. He made the larger light to rule during the day and the smaller light to rule during the night. He also made the stars.

Genesis 1:19 There was evening, and then there was morning. This was the fourth day.

The Hebrew calendar month of Iyar began at sundown on April 16, with Rosh Chodesh (the new month) observed on both April 17 and April 18. As the second month of the religious calendar, Iyar follows the month of Nisan and is historically known as a time of transitions and counting. 

Iyar (Hebrew: אִייָר) is the second month of the Hebrew religious calendar and the eighth of the civil year, usually falling in April–May. It is known as the "month of radiance" or "healing" (related to the acronym for Ani Adonai Rofecha—"I am G-d your Healer"). 

Iyar is called the "Month of Radiance" (Chodesh Ziv) because it is a spring month characterized by bright blossoms and increasing light. It is known as a month of "healing" because of the spiritual rectification (Tikkun) following Passover and the specific healing of the "bitter waters" at Marah, often seen as a time for both physical and spiritual restoration. I imagine many Christians can relate to these concepts. 

The Israelites departed Succoth in the first month of the Hebrew calendar, which is called Nisan (also known as Abib). The Shekinah Glory (pillar of cloud/fire) moved on from Mount Sinai on the 20th day of the 2nd month of the second year after the Exodus [Numbers 10:11]. 

Key Hebrew associations:

Healing & Growth: Iyar is associated with physical and emotional healing, considered a spiritually opportune time to ask for healing.

Significant Days: Includes Pesach Sheni (14th), Lag BaOmer (18th), and modern Israeli holidays Yom HaZikaron (4th) and Yom HaAtzma'ut (5th).

Mystical Symbolism: In Chassidic thought, Iyar is associated with the constellation Taurus (the bull), symbolizing the taming and harnessing of the animal soul. 

BASHERT VERSUS ABORTION

Bashert at the Integra Dinner: Hearing Two Women, Hearing God

Tonight I attended the annual Integra Pregnancy Services fund raising dinner. Two women gave testimony about the struggles with deciding how to handle their unplanned pregnancy.  As I listened to them a Yiddish word from another world began to echo in my mind. The word was "bashert."

Bashert (pronounced buh-SHARET) is a Yiddish word. In Jewish vernacular it means: "destiny," "fate," "meant to be" or "given." It specifically refers to a divinely destined soulmate or a profoundly "meant to be" occurrence. It represents the idea that God orchestrates crucial life matches and circumstances, though it often requires personal effort to realize. 

“For sure” and the ache for certainty:

One woman told her story of discovering she was pregnant and facing the real possibility of abortion. She didn’t sanitize the struggle. She spoke about fear, pressure, and uncertainty. She ached to know “for sure” that her baby was meant to be. Both women yearned to believe the baby growing in them was not just an accident or a mistake. 

That little phrase, “for sure,” carried more than logic. It carried the ache for assurance: the desire to know that her pregnancy would somehow be inside God’s purposes and not outside of them.

As I listened, I realized: this is the emotional terrain where "bashert" usually lives. In colloquial Jewish speech, calling something bashert is basically saying, “This is from God,” that the invisible Hand was intimately involved in its coming about. The woman never used that word, but everything in her testimony was circling that same yearning: Is God in this moment, and in this decision, or am I alone with a random event and an impossible choice?

The sense that God is “in” the decision:

We often talk about God’s will as if it were only a plan written in heaven—some hidden blueprint we are supposed to discover. What struck me in this testimony was something different: a sense that God was not just over the situation, but in the moment itself.

She described a growing awareness that God was present in her wrestling, not just in the outcome. “Meant to be” for her did not sound like fatalism—as if she had no real choice—but something deeper: that her choice mattered precisely because God was there, listening, accompanying, and caring about both her and the child.  

That, to me, is the heart of bashert at its best: not a denial of human responsibility, but the awesome awareness that my life is taking shape inside a larger, loving Providence. It is the sense that God is not absent while I decide, but mysteriously present in the very act of deciding.

Sonograms and being known in the womb:

I’ve heard more than once that when a mother first sees her unborn child on a sonogram, something shifts. The abstract becomes particular. A “pregnancy” becomes a "child."  And with that recognition often comes a powerful sense: this child is meant to be.

That moment of seeing is more than biology. It’s an unveiling. It is as if the curtain lifts and the mother steps into a knowing that, biblically speaking, God has had all along. Reflection on Scripture regularly points to verses that describe God’s knowing and calling of a person even in the womb, emphasizing that the unborn are not anonymous to Him. One of the clearest examples is Jeremiah 1:5:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,  and before you were born I consecrated you;  I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Here, God does the knowing first. Before anyone else sees the child, before any ultrasound, before any mother feels a kick, God says: "I knew you. I formed you. I set you apart." The verb “knew” implies a profound, intimate personal knowledge and intention, not bare awareness.

So when a mother looks at that grainy image on the screen and suddenly realizes, “This is my child; this one is meant to be,” she is, in a small and creaturely way, entering into God’s own prior knowing. Her recognition is catching up to God’s recognition. That is a kind of maternal bashert: the child as given, bestowed, not just statistically possible but personally intended.

Like God, who knows us in the womb:

This is where my observation from the Integra Dinner crystallized.

We, who are made in God’s image, are allowed to share in God’s way of seeing. God sees the hidden person in the womb; we see the fuzzy outline on the screen. God knows the full story from before the first cell divides; we only glimpse the smallest beginning. Yet in that moment, our seeing aligns with His. We begin to know the child as God has always known the child—personally, not abstractly.

So the sonogram becomes a sacrament of sorts. It acts as a visible sign of an inward, divine grace and spiritual reality. It does not create the child’s worth, but it awakens our awareness of it. Seeing one's baby growing in the womb lets us feel that bashert‑ness in our bones.

The primary Hebrew word for womb is rechum (רֶחֶם). The root is racham, which relates to compassion, mercy, and tender love, highlighting the womb as a place of protection. The womb also has the compassion to know when the fetus is not viable. Who are we to decide? Wow!

Holding together destiny and responsibility:

Of course, language like “meant to be” can be dangerous if it slips into fatalism. It can be used to excuse our choices rather than to dignify them. Bashert, at its worst, can sound like: “I had no choice; it was destined.” Some Jewish thinkers and teachers explicitly warn against using bashert that way, insisting that divine providence must not erase human freedom and moral responsibility.

The woman’s testimony at the Integra Dinner refused that shortcut. She did not pretend the decision was automatic. She agonized. She weighed. She feared. And then she chose life. Her sense that the baby was “meant to be” did not obliterate her responsibility; it intensified it. If this child is truly given by God, then my response to that gift is morally and spiritually significant.

That, I think, is where a more mature understanding of bashert belongs: not in cancelling human agency, but in framing it. I am not a puppet. But I am not abandoned, either. My choices are real, and they unfold before a God who knows me, knows this child, and holds both of us in a providence deeper than my understanding.

A word to women and men in this place:

If you find yourself where those Integra testimonies began—staring at a positive test, or a sonogram, or a complicated relationship—and you are asking whether this is “for sure,” whether this is “meant to be,” I want to speak gently to both women and men.

First, you are not crazy for wanting more than biology or statistics. The desire to know whether this child is “meant to be” is really a desire to know whether you are still held in the hands of a God who knows you, who has not lost track of you, who is not indifferent to what you choose. 

For women, that may mean hearing that you are not just a “situation” to be managed. You are a person known by God, carrying a person known by God. Your fears, limits, and questions matter to Him as much as the tiny unseen one within you. The God who forms children in the womb also promises to be near to the brokenhearted and to supply wisdom when we lack it.

For men, it means you are not a spectator or a ghost in the story. You, too, are called to look at this life—at mother and child together—with something of God’s own way of seeing. You are invited away from disappearance, blame, or passivity and into a costly, faithful presence that says, “If this child is given, then I will stand here as one given as well—given to protect, provide, and love.”

I won’t tell you, in a neat slogan, “Everything happens for a reason,” because in the middle of crisis, those words can feel cheap. What I will say is this: you are not standing in a godless void. The God who knew Jeremiah in the womb, who knits together every unseen life, is also present—right here, right now—as you wrestle. Your decision is real. And you do not make it alone.

I encourage you to support a woman who is scared and unsure by supporting Integra Pregnancy Services. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRUTH

“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’  when there is no peace.”   — Jeremiah 6:14  

A Truth Social Tweet of an AI Image Caused a Firestorm of Judgment. Righfully so! 

My observations can be summed up with this statement: The Pope is at war with the wrong enemy. Vatican moralism is shielding Islamist violence and undermining the West.

The Image That Forced the Issue

When President Donald Trump posted a single AI‑generated image on Truth Social, he acted with a clear instinct: this picture would say more about the current pope than any policy paper or polite homily ever could. He understood that an image, shared to millions in an instant, could cut through the fog of deference surrounding the papacy and expose contradictions insiders tiptoe around.  

Far from being a careless stunt, Trump’s post was a calculated act of truth‑telling in the language of our age: one shocking image to say out loud what bishops, diplomats, and Catholic intellectuals have been whispering for years.

Precision Against the West, Vagueness About Islamism

The firestorm that followed was officially about “respect for the papacy” and “fake images.” In reality, it was about something far more serious. Trump’s meme forced into the open what many already knew but feared to say: this pope speaks with striking precision against Western leaders who resist Islamist aggression, while retreating into vague generalities about the Islamist regimes and movements that drive it.  

When pressed about Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas, he issues sweeping condemnations of “war,” “escalation,” and “idolatry of money and power”—but rarely a sustained, concrete naming of the ayatollahs’ regime, the IRGC’s terror apparatus, and the decades‑long strategy of surrounding Israel with rockets and proxies.  

Yet when he turns to the United States and Israel, his language suddenly sharpens. The Iran war is “unjust” and “atrocious.” Western leaders are scolded in direct terms. Any resort to force is framed as morally illegitimate, no matter how many missiles and terror campaigns Tehran and its clients unleash.  

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in his rhetoric, the problem is not the long, calculated march of Islamist violence, but the fact that anyone dares to resist it with something more than words.

Migration Without Reckoning

On migration, the imbalance is just as stark.  

The pope has become a tireless champion of large‑scale migration into the West, especially from crisis regions shaped by Islamist ideology. He speaks almost exclusively of migrants’ rights, dignity, and “global solidarity,” insisting that they are “not a danger, but in danger,” and condemning “mass and indiscriminate deportations” as incompatible with Christian faith.  

He urges expanded legal pathways, castigates “nativism,” and portrays border enforcement as a symptom of fear and selfishness. Yet he says virtually nothing about the social, cultural, and security fractures unleashed by these flows: overwhelmed systems, enclaves of radicalism, imported hatreds against Jews, and increased vulnerability to terrorism and crime.  

Speaking from within a walled city, which guards it's security along with it's secrets, the pope is explicit and detailed when condemning Trump‑style border walls, travel bans, and deportation policies as “inhuman” and “built on force.” He is almost silent about the Islamist barbarities that drive people from their homes in the first place—jihadist campaigns in Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and beyond that deliberately target Christians and Jews.  

In practice, he urges Europe and America to absorb the human fallout of regimes and movements he will not clearly name, let alone decisively oppose. He promotes policies that entrench the consequences of Islamist violence while condemning those who seek to confront its causes.

The Historical Echo

The pattern grows darker when set against history.  

During the Holocaust years, the Vatican spoke movingly about “war,” “persecution,” and “racial hatred,” yet largely refrained from a sustained public assault on Hitler and Nazism even as Jewish communities were rounded up and extermination camps devoured the innocent.  

Archives now show that Pius XII had detailed information about the ongoing slaughter. He chose to address it in generalities, fearing a more direct confrontation would trigger even bloodier reprisals.  

Today’s papacy risks the same moral failure under a different banner. Once again Rome laments “atrocious war” and “suffering peoples” in high moral language, but hesitates to identify and denounce by name the Islamist regimes and ideologies that have systematized terror against Christians and Jews.  

Once again the Church finds its voice most fully when condemning the collateral damage of evil and loses its nerve when called to expose the engine that creates that damage. The circumstances differ, but the structure of the failure is chillingly familiar.

Walls, Wealth, and Credibility

The credibility problem is magnified by a pattern of hypocrisy that ordinary people see instantly.  

This pope thunders against border walls, warning that those who build them will become “prisoners of the walls they construct,” while residing in a walled city guarded by armed men, with strict controls on who may enter. He scolds nations for wanting secure frontiers even as the Vatican enforces secure perimeters and enjoys well‑armed security services.  

He denounces corporate greed, the “economy that kills,” and the hoarding of wealth, while his cardinals process through gilded basilicas, under gold‑lined ceilings, past altars and art worth more than many nations’ annual health budgets. Defenders counter that Vatican walls are historical, its treasures are non‑liquid patrimony, and the Church is also one of the world’s largest charitable providers.  

All true—and yet the optics remain brutal: “bridges, not walls” preached from behind stone ramparts; prophetic poverty proclaimed from within opulence. It looks like a hierarchy far more eager to condemn other people’s defenses and wealth than to examine its own.

The Silence About Christian Suffering

Meanwhile, Islamist horrors against Christians and Jews continue with little papal scrutiny at the level of causes.  

The pope is quick to condemn “genocide,” “collective punishment,” or “occupation” when speaking of Israeli or Western actions. He is far quieter about the decades of indoctrination, clerical incitement, and state‑sponsored terror that have formed populations to hate Christians and Jews and to glorify martyrdom through murder.  

Persecuted Christians in places like Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Middle East are acknowledged as generic “victims of extremism.” But Islamic doctrine, Islamist preaching, and Iranian funding are rarely named as the deliberate machinery behind their suffering.  

The result is a moral inversion: the West is lectured in concrete terms about its sins, while Islamist regimes are addressed in abstractions about “dialogue” and “misused religion.” Once again, the danger is that history will record a Church that spoke often and movingly about victims, but refused to clearly identify the persecutors.

The Meme That Broke the Silence

Into this confusion strides President Trump, who—with a single AI‑generated image and the tweet that launched it—deliberately forced into the open a debate almost everyone else has been too timid to touch.  

He was not stumbling into controversy; he was aiming straight at the Vatican’s double standard, knowing the image would highlight, in one glance, what pages of argument have failed to make stick.  

By mocking the pope’s posture in a way that could not be ignored, he drew a bright red circle around Rome’s softness toward Islamist regimes and its ferocity toward those who resist them, and around its habit of preaching “no walls” and “no wealth” from behind walls and in the midst of wealth.  

That it took a brash American president and a provocative meme to expose these contradictions says less about Trump than about the culture of deference surrounding the papacy. Bishops, diplomats, and Catholic intellectuals have known these tensions for years, but lacked the courage to say so plainly. Trump saw the truth, trusted that an image could reveal it, and pulled the trigger—putting the pope’s failures at the center of the conversation where, for the sake of both the Church and the world, they can finally be judged.

The Burden of the Office

The papacy is not just an office; it is a unique claim to moral authority in a world drowning in lies and cowardice. That authority does not cling automatically to the man who wears the white cassock. It must be earned, and it can be squandered.  

When a pope refuses to name evil plainly, when he softens his words toward regimes that traffic in terror while lashing out at those who resist them, when he preaches open borders from behind walls and rails against greed from within splendor, he discredits not only himself but the moral weight of the role he holds.  

In the language of Jeremiah, he risks “healing the wound of the people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace”—offering a false peace to the aggressor and a false guilt to those who resist.  

The world has a right to expect the successor of Peter to speak the truth without fear or favor. When he will not, others—however unlikely, and however blunt their methods—step in to say aloud what he was entrusted, and failed, to say.

The pope issuued a bold statement that "he does not fear president Trump. That may be so, because what he really fears is the truth! 

LEARNING TO PRAY A NEW WAY

From Nicodemus to New Birth: Learning to Pray “Your Kingdom Come”

For a long time I have struggled with how to pray. I know that prayer is not about getting my will done in heaven, but about God’s will being done on earth. Yeshua taught His Jewish disciples to pray exactly that: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That line has shaped my sense of prayer more than anything else.

When I look at the Scriptures’ picture of the kingdom, I see a world with no death, no mourning, no crying, and no pain, because the old order of things has passed away. In other words, in the kingdom there is no sickness. So when I pray about sickness or brokenness, I am not trying to force God to do what I want; I am consciously asking that His kingdom reality touch this present need, that His will be done here the way it is already done there. If it is His will to heal in that particular case and moment, then bringing the kingdom to bear on that situation will mean real healing. If He chooses not to remove the sickness now, I am still aligning myself with His will and trusting His future promise where all sickness will be gone.

This struggle for understanding has driven me back to the Scriptures. I began to search out what it really means to see the kingdom, to be born again as a child of God, and to pray in line with God’s will. That search is what I am putting into writing here.

Starting with Nicodemus: Seeing Something, But Not Yet Seeing the Kingdom

When I read about Nicodemus, I recognize myself. As a Jew, he comes to Yeshua at night and starts with what he can see:

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” (John 3:2)

Nicodemus has already reached an important conclusion. He knows Yeshua is “from God.” I also began there. I could see that the works of Yeshua in the Gospels, and in people’s lives, did not fit inside a merely human explanation. God had to be involved.

But Yeshua does not stay at that level with Nicodemus, and He did not allow me to stay there either. Instead of explaining the signs, He goes straight to a deeper issue:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again [or ‘from above’], he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)

This verse slowed me down. Nicodemus sees enough to say “God is with you,” but Yeshua says that to actually see the kingdom, something more is required: a different kind of birth. That forced me to ask myself: am I just admiring what God does, or do I actually see the kingdom Yeshua is talking about?

Nicodemus is confused, and I have been, too. He asks how a grown man can be born again (John 3:4). Yeshua clarifies:

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6)

Here I began to notice a pattern. “Flesh” includes everything that comes by natural birth—family line, culture, even religious training. “Spirit” points to a life that comes directly from God. It is not an upgrade of what I already have by nature; it is a new source.

When I set this beside John’s opening words, it became clearer:

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12–13)

Here John names three things that do not make someone a child of God:

- Not “of blood” – not simply by ancestry.  

- Not “of the will of the flesh” – not by natural strength or effort.  

- Not “of the will of man” – not even by another person’s decision or arrangement.

The positive statement is simple: “but of God.” This helped me hear Yeshua’s words to Nicodemus differently. He is not giving a slogan about being “born again.” He is saying that seeing and entering the kingdom requires a birth whose source is God Himself.

For me, this raised a new question: if this birth is “of God,” how does it relate to the Torah that Nicodemus already knew so well, and that I am learning to love?

Rediscovering Torah: More Than Law, a Living Way and Truth

To answer that, I went back to the Psalms. Psalm 1 describes the blessed person this way:

“His delight is in the Torah of YHWH, and on his Torah he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1:2)

This is not the language of mere obligation. It is delight and constant meditation. That forced me to reconsider what I meant by “Torah.” I began to notice how often Torah is described as a way and as truth:

“Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Torah of YHWH.” (Psalm 119:1)  

“Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your Torah is truth.” (Psalm 119:142)

Here Torah is not just a list of commands. It is God’s path, His truth, His instruction. The word “Torah” itself carries the sense of teaching and direction, not merely statute.

As I paid attention to that language, Yeshua’s own words sounded different to me:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

The Psalms say “walk in the Torah,” and “your Torah is truth.” Yeshua says, “I am the way… I am the truth.” John adds:

“For the Torah was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Messiah.” (John 1:17)

Slowly I began to see that to receive Yeshua is to receive the living Torah—the embodied way and truth that the written Torah was already revealing. That means that being “born of God” is not a move away from Torah, but a move into its deepest intention: walking God’s way from the inside out.

The Spirit and the New Covenant: Torah Written on the Heart

At this point I still had a problem. If Torah is God’s way and Yeshua is its fulfillment, how do I actually walk in that way? I know my weakness too well.

The prophets helped me here. Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant:

“I will put my Torah within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

Ezekiel adds more detail:

“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you… And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26–27)

These promises explain how a person can move from Torah on stone to Torah lived out as a way of life: God Himself writes His instruction on the heart, and He puts His Spirit within. The result is not that we become perfect overnight, but that we gain both inner clarity about the righteous path and real power to walk in it.

Paul’s contrast between “letter” and “Spirit” fits here:

“[God] has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6)ǰ

Without the Spirit, even God’s good Torah can become a dead letter to me—something I know about, argue over, or fear, but do not truly live. With the Spirit, the same Torah becomes a living word that feeds me, corrects me, and leads me.

Yeshua promised this help:

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13)

That is exactly what I have been asking for when I go back through Scripture and pray, “Open my eyes, open my ears. Let me see what Nicodemus did not yet see.”

Inner Conflict: Yetzer Hara, Yetzer Tov, Flesh and Spirit

As I looked at my own heart, I could not avoid the inner battle. Jewish teaching names this struggle very plainly:

- Yetzer hara – the evil inclination present from youth.  

- Yetzer tov – the good inclination, awakened and strengthened by Torah and obedience.

I find this language honest. I know what it is to feel pulled in two directions inside. The prophets’ promise of a new heart and Spirit within helped me understand how that battle might actually change.

When I look back to Genesis, I see that Scripture names this “contrary” pull of sin very clearly. With Cain, God warns him before he acts: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. (Genesis 4:7). In some translations that middle line is “its desire is contrary to you,” and that wording has helped me. Sin is not neutral; it wants what is opposite to my true good, and it pushes against the path God sets before me. Later, after the flood, God says, “the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). Put together, these verses tell me that there is a real, inward bent (an early yetzer hara), and that sin’s desire runs against me, not for me. That is why I cannot treat sin as something harmless at the edge of my life; it stands at the door, wanting to master me, and I need God’s help to “rule over it” rather than be ruled by it.

The apostles speak in similar terms but with different labels. Paul uses “flesh” and “Spirit”:

“Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16–17)

He goes further:

“Those who belong to Messiah Yeshua have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24)

This is not a technique of self-improvement. It is the result of belonging to Messiah, of being “born of God” and indwelled by His Spirit. In those terms, the good inclination (yetzer tov) is strengthened and led by the Spirit, and the evil inclination (yetzer hara) is no longer allowed to rule.

With the Spirit, I begin to have real discernment about the righteous path and the ability to walk in the ways of the Lord. I do not always do this perfectly, but I am no longer a slave to the desires of the flesh. This connects directly to how I now read Psalm 1.

Psalm 1 and Revelation 22: The Tree by the Waters and the Tree of Life

Psalm 1 gives a simple but profound picture:

“Blessed is the man… whose delight is in the Torah of YHWH, and on his Torah he meditates day and night.  

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” (Psalm 1:1–3)

Here is a life rooted in God’s instruction, constantly nourished, bearing fruit at the right time, with leaves that do not wither. When I read this in light of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, I see a person with Torah written on the heart and the Spirit as the underground water source.

Revelation 22 takes this image and enlarges it to the scale of the new creation:

“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… On either side of the river, the tree oex²f life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:1–2)

Psalm 1 shows me one tree by streams of water. Revelation 22 shows the river of life and the tree of life at the center of the renewed world. What is individual and partial in Psalm 1 becomes corporate and complete in Revelation 22.

For me, this means that when I am born of God, rooted in His Torah and led by His Spirit, I am already a small preview of that final tree. My life is meant to bear fruit in season and to be a source of healing, even if only in limited ways for now.

Returning to Prayer: Asking for the Kingdom to Break In

All of this brings me back to my original struggle with prayer. Yeshua taught us to pray:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

If the kingdom is the reality pictured in Revelation 21–22—a world without death, mourning, crying, pain, or sickness—then to pray for the kingdom to come is to ask that this reality begin to appear here and now in foretaste. When I pray for healing, I am asking God to let the river of the water of life and the healing leaves of the tree touch a particular situation.

The Scriptures also speak of confidence in prayer:

“This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14–15)

James links this directly to healing:

“The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” (James 5:15)

These verses do not promise that God will always heal exactly when and how I expect. But they do teach me that when I am praying in line with His will, He hears, and He acts. As someone born of God, with His Spirit within, learning to walk in His ways, my aim in prayer is not to push my agenda but to agree with His.

So my confidence in praying for healing is not based on my own power or on a formula. It rests on who God is, what His kingdom is like, and what He has already begun in me through the new birth. I am a child of God, learning to see the kingdom, rooted in His Torah, led by His Spirit, and invited to ask, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done,” even in the places where sickness and brokenness still seem strong.

A Simple Conclusion: Meditating, Writing, Understanding

As I look back over this study, I don’t feel like I discovered something brand new. Instead, I’ve come back again to something I already knew in practice: I need to meditate on the word if I want real understanding.

Psalm 1 describes the blessed person as one who “meditates day and night” on the Torah of the Lord. That is not theory for me. Over the years I have seen the difference it makes when I actually stop, read slowly, and stay with a passage instead of rushing past it.

This is also why I write. When I write, I think. Much of my “writing time” is really time spent turning the Scriptures over in my mind. I trace patterns, I ask questions, I bring my confusion into the text, and I pray for my eyes to see and my ears to hear. Often there is a long, quiet stretch before any sentences come. Then, at some point, the words begin to flow, and I realize that my understanding has shifted a little.

That is how this whole line of thought formed for me. I did not sit down with a system. I sat down with questions about prayer, about the kingdom, about what it means to be born of God. I returned to John 3, to Psalm 1, to the prophets, to Revelation’s final pictures. I kept reading, meditating, and asking for understanding.¹

If there is any simple point I would leave with the reader, it is this: take time to meditate on the word. Let the questions you already have drive you back to the text. Ask God for understanding as you read. In my own experience, this is how the scattered pieces begin to come together, and how the answers Yeshua gave to Nicodemus slowly become answers we can receive for ourselves.

Epilogue:

The most widely used Jewish prayer for healing is the Mi Shebeirach (“May the One who blessed…”).  Here is a standard English form:

Mi Shebeirach – Prayer for Healing
May the One who blessed our ancestors —
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah —
bless and heal the one who is ill:
[name], son/daughter of [mother’s name].
May the Holy Blessed One
overflow with compassion upon him/her,
to restore him/her,
to heal him/her,
to strengthen him/her,
to enliven him/her.
The One will send him/her, speedily,
a complete healing —
healing of the soul and healing of the body —
along with all the ill,
among the people of Israel and all humankind,
soon,
and let us say: Amen

This prayer was put to a beautiful melody by Debbie Friedman:

GIVEN OVER TO EVIL

Genesis 4:7 – “Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”  If we don't rule over it, it will rule over us. 

According to the Torah, Human's have evil desires. Genesis 6:5 tells us that “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The Torah also tells us in Genesis 8:21 that “The intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” We have an ongoing bent toward evil desires. 

Judaism calls this tendency toward evil the "Yetzer Hara." Yetzer (יֵצֶר) is a Hebrew term referring to an innate inclination, impulse, or urge within humanity. Yetzer comes from the root (y-tz-r) meaning "to form." Hara (הָרָע) is a combination of the Hebrew definite article ha (the) and the adjective ra (evil or bad).

In Jewish thought, yetzer hara is not merely a "bad" force but a creative, self-serving drive that is necessary for life—such as for building homes and starting families—but must be managed, channeled, and balanced to avoid immoral actions

According to Jewish sages and tradition, the Yetzer Hara exists from birth, Whereas the Yetzer Hatov (good inclination) enters a child the moment the child becomes a legal adult in Jewish law and is formally obligated to keep the mitzvot (commandments) of the Torah. This is known as their Bar or Bat Mitzvah (age 13 for boys and 12 for girls). The Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony is a celebration of that inner transformation it is a public declaration of the acceptance to follow the way of the Torah.

Satan Exploits Our Desires

Desires of the heart have gotten people in trouble since Eve took the forbidden fruit in the Garden. 

Genesis 3:1-6— Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate,

The bible depicts a struggle over who will exercise rule. Psalm 81:12 (echoed in Romans 1:24) shows God “giving them over” to their stubborn hearts, implying that what we desire eventually rules us when God ceases restraining it. 

JUDAS ISCARIOT IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF BEING GIVEN OVER

Why did Judas Iscariot betray Yeshua? It is NOT as simple as "for the money." That's the convenient reason on the surface. If we look deeper we find the real reason. 

The deeper reason with Judas has to do with the enormous desires of the Jewish people in that time period for the messiah—a messiah that would over throw the Romans. I wrote about this just the other day in a blog post I called "Betrayal? Look Deeper!" Here is a link to the post:

https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/betrayal-look-deeper.html

In "The Chosen," a film series about the ministry of Yeshua (Jesus), the motives of Judas are stated by his character. If you fast forward to 20 minutes into this episode you will hear Judas's motives. 

The Complete Last Supper|The Chosen 

Jesus looking at a broken piece of matzah.
He knows what he must face.

GIVEN OVER - PROTECTION WITHDRAWN

In the story of the original passover in the book of Exodus, God protects the homes of those who have the blood of the pure lamb on the doorposts of their house. The others are given over to the destroyer.

Commentators note that the blood is a visible sign of obedient trust in God’s word, and the LORD himself actively restrains “the destroyer” from entering those homes.

The Last Supper episode above beautifully depicts the moment this concept is mirrored at the last meal Jesus shares with the 12 Disciples. 

Fast forward to 28 minutes into this episode. Notice Yeshua telling John to his right. Then listen carefully to what He says to Judas to His Left after that.

This scene is depicting John 13 and the battle over who rules the human heart. John 13 takes place in the Passover meal context, the very setting that recalls blood on the doorposts and God not permitting “the destroyer” to enter certain houses in Exodus 12.

John notes that “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot…to betray him” (John 13:2), showing the seed of betrayal first as an inner suggestion lodged in the heart.

A few verses later, “after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him” (John 13:27), marking a grim climax: what began as a thought in the heart becomes a dominating power that now uses Judas as its instrument.

In Exodus, houses under the blood are protected from the destroyer, while the rest are exposed; in John 13, Judas hardens into his choice and is effectively handed over to the destroyer’s rule, in contrast to the others who remain under Jesus’ care.

From there, Judas will go quickly to the High Priest to betray Jesus for a particular price. Don't overlook the meaning in the amount Judas sells Jesus's identity for. That amount also reveal's Yeshua's true identity. Again, read what I wrote in BETRAYAL? LOOK DEEPER! 

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Photo of the church where the
Shroud is stored in Turin, Italy

 

Jews and Christians both celebrate the Passover, albeit in different ways. We both rejoice in freedom from bondage, albeit from different types of bondage. We both celebrate First Fruits and begin counting the days until Pentecost, even though the Pentacost takes on different meanings for each. Keep in mind that all original disciples and the apostles were Jewish. So was the man they called their "rabbi," and ultimately the Messiah (the Christ). 

It is the resurrection that changed everything. Otherwise, ~2000 years ago, it would have just been another Passover and there would be no "Gospels." Even if Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified, without the resurrection there would be nothing to celebrate. The Christian faith would be in vain. In effect, all of Christianity, hangs on the resurrection.

Do you believe Yeshua (Jesus) suffered a horrific torturous death? Do you believe he was crucified and died on a Roman cross? Do you believe he was buried in a tomb for three days, as Jonah was in the belly of fish for 3 days and nights? Do you believe he passed through the linen clothes that he was buried in? Do you believe he rose from the dead? 

There is proven scientific evidence that all these things happened. I have been following the story of the Shroud of Turin for several years. 

My wife Mary and I made a trip to Turin Italy last year to visit the museum and church where the Shroud is kept. 

The shroud is the most researched religious and historical artifact in the world. That stands to reason since one can make the case that, regardless of whether one believes that it happened, the Resurrection is the most significant and consequential event in history.

Over the years, I have learned a lot about the Shroud, and I have written multiple blog articles to collect my findings and thoughts. Each post approaches the story and evidence from a different standpoint. Below are links to all my Shroud posts in the order I wrote them.

Love Letter from Yeshu'ah - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-love-letter-from-yeshua.html 

The Perfector -https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/07/perfector.html 

The Keter  - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-keter-on-shroud.html 

Questions about the Image - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/08/asking-questions-about-image.html 

The Man In the Shroud  - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-man-in-shroud.html 

Credible Witnesses - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/09/credible-withnesses.html 

Have You Seen Him - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/09/have-you-seen-this-him.html

How Bright Are We Talking About - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/10/how-bright-are-we-talking-about.html 

Brought Together  - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/modern-technolgy-reveals-what-apostle.html 

Nicodemus Knew - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2024/12/nicodemus-knew.html 

The Sign of Jonah - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-sign-of-jonah.html 

Why the Romans? - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/why-romans.html 

Mary was an accomplice  - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/mary-was-accomplice.html 

What AI Found on the Shroud - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-ai-found-on-shroud.html

"I Will Never Believe?" - https://bobritterblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/i-will-never-believe.html

BETRAYAL? LOOK DEEPER!

LAMED: The 12th Hebrew Letter. Value is 30.

Judas Iscariot betrayed his beloved friend and rabbi, Jesus, for thirty pieces of silver. That’s the surface story. But the more we pay attention to the names, the numbers, and the metals, the more it becomes clear: Judas did not simply betray Jesus "for money." He sold Jesus’s identity, yet the amount he took actually reveals who Jesus is.

Joseph’s shadow: evil, good, and the two twelves

Joseph gives us the key pattern:  

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.”

His brothers really did mean evil. God did not erase their sin, but He took the very same betrayal and turned it into a path of preservation. That’s the first thing Joseph teaches us.

The second thing is the setting: Joseph belongs to the first twelve—the twelve sons of Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel. Betrayal happens inside the twelve. 

In the Gospels, Jesus gathers a new twelve around Himself—the twelve disciples. The connection is deliberate. The first twelve tribes, the new twelve disciples, and the betrayal of one from within each circle all line up:

- Joseph: one brother among twelve betrays, yet God uses it to save the twelve.  

- Jesus: one disciple among twelve betrays, yet God uses it to bring salvation to all.

And right between these two twelves stands the 12th Hebrew letter: Lamed.

Lamed and 30: the Shepherd over the Twelves

Lamed is the 12th of the 22 Hebrew letters, with the numerical value 30. It is drawn like a shepherd’s staff, rising higher than all the other letters. It's Hebrew root connection is to "lamad"—to learn, to teach. Lamed is the letter of the shepherd, the teacher, the one who stands above to guide.

Put that together:

• 12 tribes / 12 disciples.  
• The 12th letter, Lamed, is worth 30. That is it's gematria value.
• The letter Lamed is shaped like a shepherd’s crook. In my mind even appears somewhat like a man hanging from the cross—Shepherd and Teacher raised up over both twelves.

So when “thirty” appears in the betrayal of Jesus, we are already in the world of Lamed: the Good Shepherd, the lifted‑up Teacher of the twelve, standing in continuity with Israel’s twelve tribes and now betrayed, like Joseph, by one from within.

Thirty pieces of silver: selling His identity

Now look at what he takes: thirty pieces of silver. Silver, in Jewish imagination, speaks of holiness, refinement, and Chesed—grace and kindness poured into the mundane world. It is the metal of purity and redemption. The Temple's ritual objects are made of pure silver. 

So the “Judas from Kerioth” accepts:

- Thirty – Lamed, the Good Shepherd lifted up, the Teacher with His twelve.  

- Silver – the metal of holiness, spiritual refinement, Chesed, and grace. 

He isn’t just pocketing some coins, The price reveals Jesus's true identity. The 30 pieces of  silver silently spell out who Jesus really is.

(Click here for more thoughts on Lamed.)

Judas’s name: the Judah‑man from Kerioth

Now to Judas Iscariot himself. The only disciple named for a location outside the Galilee. 

“Judas” is simply the Greek form of Yehuda—Judah. The tribe of kings, the tribe of David, the tribe of messianic expectation. “Iscariot” is best understood as "ish‑Kerioth"—“man from Kerioth,” a town in southern Judea.

So his full designation points in two directions at once:

- He is “Judah” – carrying the name of the royal, messianic tribe. Judas delivers Jesus up.  

- He is "of Kerioth” – not a Galilean. In the southern area where Judas was formed, messianic and nationalist expectations ran especially strong.

That is a clue in plain sight. Judas is the one disciple whose very name and origin are saturated with ideas of what Jews believe Messiah "should be"—strong, decisive, fitting southern Judean hopes for a messiah that would overthrow the Romans and restore political peace and the freedom to worship.

When Jesus insists on walking the path of the suffering Shepherd instead, that is precisely where Judas’s inner conflict gets the better of him. Judas cannot accept this kind of Messiah. Jesus chose Judas for a purpose, so if you want to blame any Jew, blame Jesus.  He willingly went to the cross! 

Caiaphas: words that betray and reveal

Caiaphas, the high priest, does with words what Judas does with silver. In council he declares:

“being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad."

On the surface, it’s pure political calculation: The high priest intends to justify a plot. God quietly turns his words into a prophecy. Just as God turned Balaam’s curse‑mouth into a blessing‑mouth, He turns Caiaphas’s killer‑logic into a confession of atonement.

Betrayal? Look Deeper

Put all the pieces together:

- Joseph: one of the twelve betrays, “you meant evil, but God meant it for good,” and many lives are preserved.  

- Balaam: a hired curse is forced to become blessing because God loves His people.  

- Judas: the man from Kerioth sells the Lamed‑Shepherd for thirty pieces of silver, and the very price reveals the identity he is rejecting—yet God uses that betrayal to reveal and accomplish true redemption.  

- Caiaphas: the high priest’s political sentence becomes an unintended prophecy of one Man dying for the people.

WHEN WE FOCUS ON HATE WE MISS IT

Betrayal is real, ugly, costly. But if we stop at “Judas loved money,” we miss the deeper story. 

Right there, in the darkest act of betrayal, Scripture invites us to see that identity more clearly than ever—if we are willing to look deeper.

Epilogue:

I shared further thoughts on this meditation subject: Link to "Given Over to Evil." 

"I WILL NEVER BELIEVE"

By the time one reaches chapter 20 in the Gospel of John, the apostle who also wrote the Book of Revelation, many signs and much testimony have been given about the ministry of Joshua (Yeshua), who the bible calls Jesus.

One of the disciples who has heard it all is famously known as "Doubting Thomas." Thomas remains unconvinced in the ressurection. Thomas embodies the stubborn unbelief that Yeshua rose from the dead. Thomas wants his own irrefutable physical evidence. He sets his own conditions and refuses the apostolic witness.

In many ways the disciple Thomas (Didymus) mirrors the characteristics and spiritual journey of the people of Israel as portrayed in the biblical narrative, particularly in his journey from doubt to faith, his need for tangible proof, and his ultimate commitment. Thomas represents humanity's tendency toward skepticism, yet also demonstrates a capacity for sincere devotion.

After the crucifixion, Thomas hears the others say, “We have seen the Lord,” and answers:

“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛 20:25

The amazing twist in the story is that Yeshua graciously grants Thomas’s requirements. In John 20:26-27 it says: 

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the

doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to

Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” John 20:26-27

Jesus confronts Thomas’s unbelief by meeting his conditions, providing the evidence, and draws out one of the strongest confessions in the Gospel. Thomas’s resistance collapses in a single sentence: 

“My Lord and my God!” 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛 20:28.

Thomas' words echo back to ten chapters earlier in John 10:30:

"I and My Father are one.” 

That verse echos back further still into the Tenach, Deuteronomy 6:4 the Shema:

"Hear, O Israel

The LORD our God, 

the LORD is one".

At the center of Jewish worship, the Shema declares the unity and uniqueness of God.

When Thomas says, "My Lord, My God!", the scripture does two things at once. 

First, it reinforces the "oneness" of Adonai. Second, it shifts the relationship with "Hashem" (the Name) from a communal relationship to a personal one. 

Then Jesus turns the conversation outward with the following profound statement of faith:

“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛 20:29

The evidence for the resurrection is compelling. Most Jews never stop to consider it at all. Minds are made up. Sentiment toward Jesus, particularly the claim that he is Messiah, let alone the "Son of God" is a lot to unpack, and I am not trying to do that in this blog post!  

By the same token, since today marks probably the single most significant event in world history, the "Resurrection," you might care to learn more about it, even if you will never believe it. 

  

Nathan Robinson was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and recieved an excellent Yeshiva education in NYC schools. As an adult he came to find the love he longed for in Yeshua. Today, Pastor Nathan Robinson gave an educational "Resurrection Day" sermon. 

This is his Ressurection Day sermon. 

At the start of Nathan's sermon is a little story about this picture. It captures the essence of Christianity. 

In terms of contemporary research into the validity and historicity of the resurrection, i would recommend two books:

1. "The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus" by Lee Strobel. Strobel, a former award-winning legal editor for the Chicago Tribune and a Yale-educated journalist, was an atheist who set out to disprove the claims of Christianity after his wife converted to faith.

2. The Jesus Discoveries, Dr. Jeremiah Johnston highlights 10 fascinating archaeological and historical findings that point to the truth of the New Testament and the identity of Jesus.

Conclusion

As I see it, faith in any religion is a matter of choice. Very often, that choice is made for us and we grow up in it. Judaism is rather unique in that there's also a cultural identity with a genetic component— one is born a Jew. 

All the apostles were Jewish and they made the choice to follow an individual you wish man whom they considered the rabbi, their teacher and there would be messiah. None of them, not even John or Peter, expected the resurrection. They did everything they could to keep Yeshua alive, and after witnessing his crucifixion and death on the cross, they all abandoned him.  So if there was no resurrection, there would be no christian bible. Pardon the pun, but, christianity, hangs on a tree. 

In my opinion, Judaism's promise hinges on the Sinai experience and is born out by the land of Israel. There is real tangible historical and archaeological proof, yet Judaism it's still a belief system that requires one to make a choice.

When it comes to hard evidence of the crucifixion and resurrection, it is hard to beat the Shroud of Turin. 

All belief systems require a choice, which begs the question, do you want to believe?  That question leads to another question: why would you want to believe?

Epilogue:

According to tradition, the Apostle Thomas was martyred in Mylapore, India, in 72 A.D.. He was killed by being stabbed with spears (or a lance), likely prompted by local leaders opposing his ministry. His death is believed to have occurred on a hill known as Little Mount (or Big Mount).

Traditional Martyrdom Accounts:

• Peter: Crucified upside down in Rome during Nero's persecution; he reportedly requested this because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus.
• Andrew: Crucified in Patras, Greece, on an X-shaped cross (now known as St. Andrew's Cross).
• Philip: Traditionally martyred in Hierapolis (Turkey), either by crucifixion (sometimes upside down) or by being hung from iron hooks.
• Bartholomew (Nathanael): Reportedly flayed alive and then beheaded in Armenia.
• Matthew: Tradition varies, but many accounts suggest he was martyred in Ethiopia, either stabbed with a sword or killed with a halberd.
• James the Less (son of Alphaeus): Thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and then beaten to death with a fuller's club.
• Jude Thaddeus: Traditionally martyred in Persia, often recorded as being killed with arrows or an axe.
• Simon the Zealot: Reportedly martyred in Persia alongside Jude, possibly by being sawn in half.
• Matthias (Judas’ replacement): Traditionally stoned and then beheaded in Jerusalem.Paul (The 13th Apostle): Beheaded in Rome under Nero.

John, the supposed author of the Book of John, lived to write the Book of Revelation around 95–96 CE, approximately 60 years after the crucifixion. It is based on a series of divine visions and prophetic revelations he experienced while exiled on the island of Patmos. 

MORNING LIGHT

Sunrise at Zion National Park

There is a notable scriptural and gematria connection between בוקר (bóker), “morning,” which carries a numerical value of 308 and חש (chash), a "listening silence," which also carries a numerical value of 308. 

There is a mysterious connection in the letters חש. Chet (ח) 8 is the "great eight" which has a supernatural nature that I blogged about a few days ago and the Shin (ש) 300 which is the crushing teeth just before the last Hebrew letter Tav, a cross, sign, mark. It is the letter of the Shema (Hear) and Shaddai on Jewish doorposts and gates.

In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light,” That first light filled the lifeless void and “God saw that the light was good (tov).” There is perpetual rejoicing in the "morning light." The gematria of בוקר reminds me that this is not random light; it is measured, intentional light. Morning Light has a special holy quality; it is a time to connect with the Creator of the primordial light. 

When we are חש (chash) “being quiet” in a chosen, focused, listening‑silence, it is what scripture means when it says, “Be silent before the Lord and wait patiently for Him,” “My soul, be quiet before God, for from Him comes my hope,” and “To You, silence is praise, O God in Zion.” 

The חש (chash) “being quiet” is not apathy, not zoning out, not blankness. It is the soul leaning forward. It is the inner posture. It is asking and listening in silence. It is a morning prayer. 

חש (chash) is what I believe these scriptures speak of: “In the morning, Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait expectantly.” I pour out my words, but I do not stop there. I step consciously into חש (chash). That is when the “308”  (chash) of listening‑silence meets the morning “308” (boker) בוקר. I pause. I wait. I expect. I listen for the quiet reply—the thought I did not generate, the Scripture that surfaces, the gentle correction or comfort that feels like it came from outside my own noise. I am listening for the קול דממה דקה (qol demamáh dakáh), the “still small voice. ” Elijah does not meet God in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in a voice of thin silence—a sound that can only be heard in חש. That voice is the God given Morning Light of day aleph, day 1, in our soul. 

Psalm 30.6  describe this 308: 

“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.” 

Like the morning watchman straining his eyes for the first light on the horizon; in חש, the soul strains its ears for the first whisper of God’s voice. 

Today is "Resurrection Day." It is the Chet day and Mary at the tomb shows this in story form. Before the rooster crows, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” Mary comes to the tomb in tears. She is standing exactly where this meditation lives: between night and morning, between not‑understanding and understanding. Her heart is in חש, grief‑softened, listening‑ready silence into which the risen Lord speaks. There, in the half‑light, she hears a single word—“Mary”—and everything changes. Her resurrection encounter begins not with seeing, but with hearing. The Voice is alive and it knows her name. Matching 308's. The pattern of Genesis 1 becomes personal. “Let there be light” is spoken again—not just over the world, but over our personal darkness. 

I like to think that when we say "Good Morning" (Boker Tov), in some profound way we are celebrating Creation. 

LIFTING UP MAN

This isn’t just a space story. This is a story about civilization and power.

Artemis II’s launch during Passover season, under the Paschal moon, has become an uncanny parable of the present struggle over world order. At the very moment when Jews remember the Exodus and Christians remember the lifting up of the Son of Man, humanity has “lifted up” four astronauts toward the heavens on a vehicle named for a pagan moon‑goddess and branded as the spearhead of a new civilizational era. The timing and imagery are not neutral. They dramatize a clash between two rival grammars of the cosmos: one in which power is secured by ascent, control, and technological reach, and one in which power is revealed through descent, self‑giving, and the blood of a Passover Lamb.

Exodus 7:5—The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

In Scripture, Passover is a political and cosmic event before it is a private religious one. Yahweh confronts Pharaoh’s world order, judges Egypt’s gods, and redraws the meaning of time itself by resetting Israel’s calendar around the night when blood on doorposts marked out a liberated people. Jesus steps into this feast as both firstborn and Lamb, enacting a second, deeper Exodus. John’s Gospel insists that when he is “lifted up” he will draw all people to himself, indicating the kind of death he would die. The Greek verb there, ὑψόω, names both crucifixion and exaltation. Behind it stands the resonance of the Hebrew verb "Nasa" (נָשָׂא) meaning: to lift, bear, and carry away. On Nisan’s Paschal full moon, the true center of world order is publicly enthroned on a Roman cross.

By contrast, Artemis II embodies a different soteriology (study of salvation). Artemis II's mission is heralded as “historic,” a step toward permanent human presence beyond Earth, a test of systems that will sustain bases on and around the moon. That project is not just technical; it is theopolitical and astropolitical. Whoever writes the rules for cislunar* space effectively scripts the grammar of a new phase of civilization: who may extract, who may settle, who may surveil, whose myths and flags and gods define the story we tell about our species. Artemis, China’s lunar ambitions, and other national projects are therefore not just about science or prestige. They are rival liturgies reaching upward, each an enacted prayer that its civilization’s vision of the good will be inscribed into the heavens.

The Gospel does not deny humanity’s calling to exercise dominion in creation or to explore. But it exposes the idolatry of any ascent that refuses the pattern of the Lamb. Babel is not wrong to build; it is wrong to build a name apart from God. Artemis is not wrong to reach; it is wrong insofar as it imagines that control of orbits and regolith can establish a just cosmos. At Passover, the Creator defines the world’s true order through a path the empires did not anticipate: liberation through judgment borne by Another, victory through apparent defeat, enthronement through crucifixion.

So Artemis II’s launch under the Paschal moon becomes a sign. On one side stands a rocket, a goddess‑name, and a coalition of states struggling to secure the high ground of a coming space‑faring order. On the other stands a Lamb, slain yet standing, whose blood once marked Hebrew doorposts and now marks a multi‑national people. The question is not whether humanity will go to the moon, or even to Mars, but under which lordship we will travel. Will our “lifting up” be another Babel—an anxious project to secure ourselves by grasping height—or will it be received as a gift, folded into the already‑accomplished ascent of the crucified and risen Son of Man, whose cross at Passover remains the one true center of world and cosmic order?

“God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.” Psalm 47:8

* Cislunar refers to the region of space encompassing Earth, the Moon, and the volume between them, extending just beyond the Moon's orbit. It acts as a springboard to the moon and other ventures.

EIGHT IS GREAT

How the Eighth Day Unlocks the Bible’s Supernatural Pattern  

This week’s Torah portion is called Shemini—“Eighth.” It opens, “And it was on the eighth day that Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel,” the day when the Mishkan finally comes alive and the glory of God appears. The sages say it straight: all that is numbered “seven” belongs to the natural order; “eight” is different. Eight is not normal. It’s not natural. It’s supernatural.  

You can see that principle running like a thread through the whole Bible. A child is born uncircumcised as part of the natural world; on the eighth day his body is marked with a covenant that lifts him into a different kind of relationship with God. Firstborn animals spend seven days with their mothers, then “on the eighth day you may give it to Me”—ordinary livestock becomes dedicated property of the Lord. The Mishkan has seven days of training, but only on day eight does fire fall from heaven and the Presence fill the sanctuary. Sukkot runs its natural seven days; Shemini Atzeret is the eighth day that doesn’t quite belong to Sukkot anymore, a day that stands on its own as intimate, “above‑nature” time with God.  

Later, Chanukah will rehearse the same pattern with eight lights of re‑dedication, and the Gospels will place Yeshua’s resurrection on the “day after the Sabbath”—the biblical eighth day, the first day of new creation. Again and again, Scripture waits until seven is complete and then uses the eighth to say: now this life, this house, this altar, this king, this world belongs to Me in a new way. Eight is great because it is the Bible’s built‑in code for that moment when the natural ends and the supernatural begins.  

The Mystics and the Letter of Life  

The Jewish mystics have been saying this for a long time. Seven, they tell us, is the number of creation, the rhythm of days and weeks, land and labor. Eight is what stands just beyond that closed circle—a number for transcendence, for the moment when God steps in and does what nature on its own cannot do.  

They even see this in the letters. The eighth letter of the Hebrew aleph‑bet is chet (ח). It carries the numerical value 8 and begins the words chai and chayim—life. Mystical writers call chet “the letter of life,” but not just biological existence; life that flows from devotion and covenant. In scribal tradition chet is drawn as a vav and a zayin fused under a single roof, a miniature doorway. Chassidic teaching compares it to a chuppah: two pillars joined under one canopy, with God as the third partner in the union. In other words, the form of chet already preaches the message of eight: a gateway where two ordinary things are joined into a new, dedicated life before God.  

The Mishkan’s story is built on the same timetable. For seven days Moses assembles, disassembles, and anoints; Aaron and his sons stay at the entrance of the Tent, eating their portions and not leaving the sanctuary. Then we read: “It was on the eighth day that Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel” (Leviticus 9:1). On that day the people bring offerings, the priests raise their hands in blessing, and “fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering.” Seven days of rehearsal; the eighth day of reality. Seven days of a tent that is still just a structure; the eighth day when that structure is dedicated and God moves in. That is chanukkat ha‑Mishkan in practice—the dedication of the dwelling place of God.  

The same rhythm shows up in story form. When Samuel visits the house of Jesse, seven sons file past him, and the Lord rejects them all. “The Lord has not chosen these,” Samuel says. Only then does Jesse remember the youngest, the one out with the sheep. The eighth son is brought in, and the prophet anoints him. David’s life becomes one long act of dedication—sometimes faithful, sometimes faltering—but Psalm 8 is his: “O Lord, our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth!” The pattern is familiar now. A full, tidy seven that looks complete; then the surprising eighth, the one God actually chooses and sets apart.  

By the time we reach the Maccabees, the word chanukah itself has become the headline. The Greek king has defiled the Temple, sacrificed pigs on the altar, and tried to erase the marks of Jewish dedication—down to building a gymnasium where men compete in the nude so you can see who is circumcised and who is not. The revolt succeeds, the altar is rebuilt, and the sages decreed eight days of celebration for the chanukkat ha‑mizbeach, the re‑dedication of the altar. Why eight? The historical reasons are debated, but the language and the symbolism are not random. There were already eight‑day dedication patterns in the Torah; there was already a number, eight, that meant “beyond nature; fully handed over to God.” The Chanukah lights plug into that current: eight days, eight flames, one more than the natural seven, shining with oil that should have gone out but didn’t.  

So when I say “eight is great,” I am not just being cute. I am naming a pattern the mystics saw clearly and the Scriptures quietly enact. Chet the letter, shemonah the number, chanukah the dedication with eight lights, the eighth day of circumcision, the eighth day of the Mishkan, the eighth son of Jesse, the eight days of Sukkot plus Shemini Atzeret—all of them line up to say the same thing: when seven is finished and something is placed into God’s hands on day eight, it enters a different category of life. It becomes chet‑life, covenant life, supernatural life.  

The Calendar Preaches the Same Sermon  

So far we’ve looked at eight in letters and laws. But the biblical calendar itself is built around eighth‑day time. The appointed times don’t just mark agricultural seasons; they trace out the same movement from seven‑day nature into eighth‑day dedication.  

Take Sukkot. For seven days Israel lives in booths, waves the lulav and etrog, and remembers God’s care in the wilderness. Then the Torah adds one more day: “On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work” (Numbers 29:35). That day has a name: Shemini Atzeret—literally “the Eighth Day of Assembly,” or “the Eighth Day of Gathering.” Is it part of Sukkot? Yes and no. It sits immediately after the seven days and is numbered as “eighth,” but the Talmud and later teachers call it “a festival in its own right.” The lulav is put down. The sukkah is on its way out. God says, in effect: Stay with Me one more day. Seven days are the natural feast; the eighth is intimacy.  

The same logic links Pesach and Shavuot. Rabbinic tradition calls Shavuot Atzeret—the closing assembly of Passover. Just as Sukkot has seven days plus Shemini Atzeret on the calendar, Pesach has its seven days, and then, seven weeks later, Shavuot as its “eighth‑day” conclusion. The days of the Omer (seven 7's) become like an extended chol ha‑moed between the opening of redemption at the Exodus and the “eighth‑day” gift of Torah at Sinai. Once again, the pattern holds: seven marks the completed act of deliverance; the eighth space is where God gives Himself more deeply to His people.  

Even the prayers fit this arc. On Shemini Atzeret, we begin to say Mashiv ha‑ruach u’morid ha‑geshem—“Who makes the wind blow and the rain fall”—the formal start of the rainy season in the Amidah. We keep mentioning rain from that eighth day all the way until the first day of Pesach, when we switch to the prayer for dew. The whole winter becomes an “eighth‑day window” bracketed by Shemini Atzeret and Passover: a long season of dependence in which we admit that our crops, our lives, our future are not in our control. Water itself gets pulled into this supernatural schedule.  

Shemini, Passover, and the Eighth‑Day Threshold  

This is why this week’s portion, Shemini, is such a perfect entry point. The word simply means “eighth,” but it is loaded with all of this background.

On the calendar, Pesach is the people’s birthday; Shemini is the Mishkan’s. Both are structured as seven plus an eighth.  

If we pull these threads together, Shemini Atzeret, Parashat Shemini, and Passover form a kind of eighth‑day triangle in sacred time:  

Each one stands at a threshold: the eighth day at the end of a seven‑day feast, the “eighth” festival after a seven‑week count, the eighth day when the Presence of God finally comes to dwell in the Tent. Together they preach the same sermon as chet: seven is the rhythm of creation; eight is the moment when God asks, “Now will you dedicate this time, this space, this people to Me?”  

The Eighth Day in the Gospels  

By the time we reach the Gospels, the stage is already set. The alphabet has taught us that chet is a doorway into covenant life. The calendar has taught us that seven‑day feasts keep spilling over into eighth‑day encounters with God. The Torah has trained us to expect that when the eighth day arrives, something that looked complete will be taken one step further and dedicated to the Lord. So it should not surprise us that the New Testament quietly places Yeshua right into that eighth‑day pattern.  

All four Gospels insist that He rises “on the first day of the week.” The early believers quickly learned to talk about that day in two ways at once: it is the first day of a new week and the eighth day after the Sabbath. If seven is the week of old creation, the day of His resurrection is day one of new creation and day eight beyond the old. On that first/eighth day, John tells us, the risen Yeshua appears to His disciples behind locked doors, speaks peace, and “breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” It is hard not to hear an echo of Genesis 2, when God breathes the breath of life into Adam, only now it is happening on the eighth day: the Second Adam breathing new‑creation life into a new people.  

John then adds a detail that most of us gloss over: “Eight days later, His disciples were again inside…and Jesus came…and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here…do not disbelieve, but believe.’” Thomas moves from doubt to the clearest confession in the Gospel—“My Lord and my God.” That shift happens on an explicitly counted eighth day. The pattern from Torah is still running: on day eight, something that was only potentially dedicated is actually handed over. A doubting disciple becomes a believing witness. A frightened group behind locked doors becomes a sent community with the Spirit’s breath in their lungs. The eighth day is when Yeshua’s resurrection life and Yeshua’s Spirit begin to mark out a people the way circumcision, firstborn offerings, and Mishkan fire did in earlier ages.  

When Eight Gets Hijacked  

Whenever God builds a pattern into creation, the occult will eventually try to hijack it. If eight really is “above nature”—if it really is the number of covenant, consecration, resurrection, and the Spirit—then of course dark magic and counterfeit spirituality will reach for the same symbol. You can see it in modern numerology and occult talk about 8 as a number of power, infinity, and “secret energy,” usually detached from the God who actually owns it. You can see it in how people treat any “mystical” number as a tool: a way to pull power down on demand instead of bowing before the One who gives power when and how He wants.  

The New Testament gives us a vivid picture of this impulse in a different form. In Acts 19, Luke tells us about itinerant Jewish exorcists who tried to use the name of Yeshua as if it were a magic spell. They went around saying to evil spirits, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” These were men who knew the covenant, knew the Scriptures, and had seen real apostolic power. But instead of surrendering to the Lord of that power, they tried to borrow His name as a technique. It did not end well. The demon answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” and the possessed man attacked them and sent them out naked and wounded. That story is a warning label for every attempt—religious or occult—to treat God’s name, God’s numbers, or God’s patterns as tools we can wield without actually yielding to Him.  

The same thing happens, in a much sillier way, with the number eight. The occult world loves eight: the lemniscate (∞), octagrams, Ogdoad traditions, endless talk about 8 as a “power number.” Popular culture turns that instinct into a toy. The Magic 8 Ball was born from a fortune‑telling gimmick in Cincinnati and then re‑cased as an 8‑ball to help sell pool tables. On the surface, it’s just a novelty: “for entertainment purposes only.” Underneath, it trains people—especially children—to treat the number eight as a little black oracle you can shake when you want insight into the future.  

I don’t say that to make you paranoid about plastic toys. I say it to underline the contrast. In Scripture, eight is not something we use; it is something we enter. It is God’s day, God’s number, God’s doorway. The eighth day is when He says, “Now it’s Mine”—the child, the firstborn, the altar, the king, the feast, even the Church filled with the Spirit. The occult turns eight into a handle: a way to grab at “infinite energy” or hidden knowledge. The rabbis in Acts tried to use the name of Yeshua like that. Magicians and marketers try to use the number eight like that. But the pattern of Shemini in the Gospels will not let us. The eighth day does not belong to us. It belongs to Him.  

So where does all of this leave us? 

With a simple line that I hope will ring in your ears—eight is great—but it is not ours. It is the Bible’s way of saying “this belongs to God now.”

Epilogue:

"An epilogue is a concluding section added to the end of a book, play, or film that wraps up the story, often revealing the future fates of characters or providing final context."

The bible is an incredible story from the beginning to the Shemini (the Eighth).

Revelation: The Bible’s Eighth Day  

If Genesis opens with the first seven days, Revelation closes with the Bible’s eighth. The sevens in Revelation are everywhere—seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls—each one a full cycle of history, judgment, or witness. They are the book’s way of saying, “This phase is complete.” But when the last seven has run its course and the last “It is done” has been spoken, John is shown something that does not fit inside the old week at all:  

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…” (Revelation 21:1–5).  

That vision is the true eighth day. The old creation has finished its seven‑day story. The Lamb who rose on the first/eighth day of the week now sits on the throne and says, “Behold, I am making all things new.” The river of the water of life flows from God’s throne; the tree of life bears fruit twelve times a year; there is no more curse, no more night, no more temple, because God Himself is the temple and the light. This is what all the earlier eighth days were pointing toward: one final “day after” when the whole world is handed back to God and transfigured.  

Even the "dark side" of Revelation underlines the point. The beast is called “an eighth king” and yet “of the seven,” a fake new beginning that only intensifies the old rebellion and then goes to destruction. The enemy can mimic the pattern of eight, but he cannot create a new creation. Only the Lamb can do that. Revelation is the Bible’s way of saying that the chet‑shaped doorway you have been tracing—from circumcision and firstborn offerings to Shemini Atzeret, from the Mishkan’s eighth day to Yeshua’s resurrection and the breathing of the Spirit—finally opens all the way, and the people of God step through it into a world that will never slip back into the old seven‑day order again.