Saturday, May 16, 2015

CHUCK KOLB 05/15/2015

Shabbat Shalom - Parasha Behar-Bechukotai - On the Mount - By My Decrees  !!!

Previously posted ...
Centrifigal Force - Trains Boats Planes !!!

http://conpats.blogspot.com/2015/05/chuck-kolb-05142015.html

Welcome to this week’s Torah study, Behar-Bechukotai (On the Mount-By My Decrees),
two Torah readings that are combined to accommodate the number of Sabbaths in this calendar year.
 
Please read along with us, and enrich your understanding of the Bible by discovering Torah truths
in this portion of Scripture that will be read in synagogues around the world this Shabbat (Saturday).


Behar-Bechukotai (On the Mount-By My Decrees)
Leviticus 25:1–27:34; Jeremiah 16:19–17:14; Matthew 21:33–46

The LORD said to Moses at Mount Sinai, Speak to the Israelites and say to them:
Leviticus 25:1–2
 
Last week, in Parasha Emor, God called the Kohen (priests)
to live lives that expressed a greater measure of holiness. 
It also described seven essential festivals that are
fundamental to Israel’s walk with the Lord.
 
In this week’s Torah portion,
God gives to Moses the laws concerning the Shemitah or Sabbatical year.


The Year of the Shemitah
God commands Israel to observe the Shemitah every seventh year, a Sabbath
for the land.  According to these laws, crops are not to be planted, tended, or
harvested, and all agricultural activity is prohibited, although anyone can eat
what the land produced naturally.
 
Israel observes this commandment today, and this year happens to be a Shemitah. 
While traveling down the highway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, we observed signs
posted in several unkempt and overgrown fields along the side of the road saying
(in Hebrew), “We observe the Shemitah year here.”
 
Of course, this rest parallels God’s rest after creating the universe, as well as the Shabbat.
In Judaism, “seven” signifies a completion as well as holiness.  It is considered the
“all-encompassing number that celebrates the sacred purpose of a Jew to infuse
holiness into the whole of Creation.”  (Jewish Wisdom in the Numbers)

We are only residents on this land that God has given us to live in as pilgrims and strangers.
That means the leaders of Israel have no right to sell off portions of the Land to the enemy
in exchange for false promises of supposed peace.

The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you reside
in My land as foreigners and strangers. - Leviticus 25:23

The Year of Jubilee
Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. 
It shall be a jubilee [יוֹבֵל Yovel] for you; each of you is to return to your family property
and to your own clan.”  - Leviticus 25:10
 
After every seven cycles of seven years, in the fiftieth year, the shofar is to sound and the
Yovel (יוֹבֵל) or Jubilee year is to be celebrated.  Not only is the land to lie fallow, but also all
debts are to be cancelled and all indentured servants are to return to their land and family.
 
We serve a God of kindness and mercy, and His laws are for the good of all
- even for the land itself. In Judaism, 50 is the number of transcendence. 
It indicates a return to God and the emergence of a new creation.
 
Under the Brit Chadashah (New Covenant ), which was sealed with the giving of
the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) on Shavuot (Pentecost) 50 days from Passover,
Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) became our spiritual Jubilee.  In Him,
all debts are cancelled.  He has redeemed us from slavery to any kind of oppression
and empowered us to walk in holiness with our heads held high. 
Halleluyah !

You can view this Parasha on our new website, click here
http://free.messianicbible.com/parasha/behar-bechukotai-exile-living-blessings-holy-land/
✡ ✡ ✡
Yavoh ~ He is coming !
Yahweh - Yeshua -  Ruach Ha-Kodesh
Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה  
BREAKING NEWS FROM ISRAEL
Minute by minute updates here ... 

http://www.kolbonews.com/
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3089,00.html
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/
http://www.israpundit.org/
http://pamelageller.com/
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
http://www.joyofkosher.com/
http://prophecyupdate.blogspot.com/
Watching for Yeshua Ha-Mashiach

★ ★ ★

Tsarnaev death sentence expensive justice
by James Alan Fox

... But in the end, I wonder if the death sentence was worth all the time, effort, anguish and expense of the trial. Was reaching for the death penalty worth subjecting the 10 women and eight men, who were fulfilling their civic duty as jurors, to heart-wrenching testimony and disturbingly graphic exhibits that no doubt will impact them for years to come? We can add 18 more to the list of victims in this case. The troubling fact is that none of this, neither the financial cost nor the emotional toll, was necessary. After all, the defense team, long before admitting their client's responsibility for the bombings on the very first day of trial, was willing to enter a guilty plea if the government agreed to take the death penalty off the table in favor of life without parole. Would that have been so bad?

... Arguably, a stronger message would have been sent had the outcome been life imprisonment: Not only does the United States not tolerate terrorism, but it does not need to kill in order to make the point. There is nothing about a life sentence without the possibility of parole that suggests otherwise.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/05/15/verdict-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-column/27383637/

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern University
and co-author of Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder.
He also is a member of the USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.


★ ★ ★

Oh Lord, what a putz ...

The Persian Gulf Summit, Part II 
by David Jackson

pResident Obama continues meetings with six Persian Gulf nations on Thursday, talks devoted mostly to regional worries about another country: Iran. After hosting a dinner Wednesday for leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, Obama and his guests meet Thursday at a different venue: Camp David. Obama and his guests from the Gulf Cooperation Council have three working sessions at the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains. The president called the summit as he announced the framework of a nuclear agreement with Iran. Under the proposal, the U.S. and allies would reduce sanctions on Iran if it gives up the means to make nuclear weapons. The Arab nations at the summit are skeptical that Iran would comply with such a deal. They also want U.S. help against what they call Iranian aggression throughout the region. The United States and its Arab allies are talking about assistance that includes joint military exercises and missile defense systems. The summit ends with an Obama news conference at Camp David in the late afternoon. Obama then returns to the White House.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2015/05/14/obama-gulf-cooperation-council-saudi-arabia-qatar-united-arab-emirates-kuwait-oman-bahrain/27288993/
http://www.usatoday.com/search/David%20Jackson/



Banana Walnut Pancakes with Fresh Fruit Medley
http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/banana-walnut-pancakes-with-fresh-fruit-medley/

Pizza Pot Pie
http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/pizza-pot-pie/

Our Favorite Cheese Blintzes Recipes Plus Variations
http://www.joyofkosher.com/2015/05/our-favorite-cheese-blintzes-recipes-plus-variations/

Chocolate Cheese Blintzes
http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/chocolate-cheese-blintzes/

Creamy Mock Crab Salad
http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/creamy-mock-crab-salad/

How To Serve Your Own Grilled Cheese Bar
http://www.joyofkosher.com/2015/05/the-ultimate-grilled-cheese-experience/

Dry Rubbed Double Cut Veal Chop for Two
http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/dry-rubbed-double-cut-veal-chop-for-two/

Try These Healthier Shabbat Recipes
Chicken in Coconut Milk Detox Broth

http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/chicken-in-coconut-milk-detox-broth/ 

Can I ask a big favor? Well, it’s big for me but small for you.
Can you please subscribe for FREE to my new Jamie Geller YOUTUBE Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChxA1V9pzrzj-_5vTG6wu8Q
for special, soon-to-be-released, videos focused on food, family and beyond ?
The first 500 subscribers will be entered to WIN a copy of my new cookbook
JOY of KOSHER Fast Fresh Family Recipes. (Open to US and Israel)
Thanks a bundle, I really appreciate it. Can't wait to see who wins,
I just love giving away gifts !!! 
vid Subscribe To My Channel 
https://youtu.be/cua0Iw7HGjw (0:41)

Joy of Kosher w Jamie Geller
http://www.joyofkosher.com/
http://joyofkosher.com/joyofisrael
https://www.youtube.com/user/joyofkosher
new Jamie Geller YOUTUBE Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChxA1V9pzrzj-_5vTG6wu8Q

Verily, Beloveds, I can scarcely take this all in while here on
the Lord's Earth, when we are all finally home, please, do
stop by to see Jamie and those beloveds within her given house ...

Beautiful ... http://luvaton.com/



As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child:
even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 KJV



Shabbat Shalom - Parasha Behar-Bechukotai - On the Mount - By My Decrees  !!!




 
Shabbat Shalom !
 
Welcome to this week’s Torah study, Behar-Bechukotai
(On the Mount
-By My Decrees),
two Torah readings that are combined to accommodate the number of Sabbaths in this calendar year.
 
Please read along with us, and enrich your understanding of the Bible by discovering Torah truths in this portion of Scripture that will be read in synagogues around the world this Shabbat (Saturday). 
 
Behar-Bechukotai (On the Mount-By My Decrees)
Leviticus 25:1–27:34; Jeremiah 16:19–17:14; Matthew 21:33–46
 
“The LORD said to Moses at Mount Sinai, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them:” 
(Leviticus 25:1–2)
 
Last week, in Parasha Emor, God called the Kohen (priests) to live lives that expressed a greater measure of holiness.  It also described seven essential festivals that are fundamental to Israel’s walk with the Lord.
 
In this week’s Torah portion, God gives to Moses the laws concerning the Shemitah or Sabbatical year.
 
 

Men reach out to pay respect to the Torah as it is raised at the
Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem.  (Photo by opalpeterliu)
 
The Year of the Shemitah
God commands Israel to observe the Shemitah every seventh year, a Sabbath for the land.  According to these laws, crops are not to be planted, tended, or harvested, and all agricultural activity is prohibited, although anyone can eat what the land produced naturally.
 
Israel observes this commandment today, and this year happens to be a Shemitah.  While traveling down the highway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, we observed signs posted in several unkempt and overgrown fields along the side of the road saying (in Hebrew), “We observe the Shemitah year here.”
 
Of course, this rest parallels God’s rest after creating the universe, as well as the Shabbat.
 
In Judaism, “seven” signifies a completion as well as holiness.  It is considered the “all-encompassing number that celebrates the sacred purpose of a Jew to infuse holiness into the whole of Creation.”  (Jewish Wisdom in the Numbers)
 

Harvesting pomegranates in Israel
 
The Land of Israel is to be the Holy Land.  Our behavior toward one another should portray a holy people living in the Holy Land.
 
God warns His people not to cheat, defraud or take advantage of one another and forbids them to charge interest on money loaned to a fellow Israelite.  God wants us to deal fairly with each other and practice business integrity.
 
“Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God.  I am the Lord your God.”  (Leviticus 25:17)
 
God also makes it clear that He holds the title deed to this land and does not give us the authority to sell it permanently.
 
We are only residents on this land that God has given us to live in as pilgrims and strangers.  That means the leaders of Israel have no right to sell off portions of the Land to the enemy in exchange for false promises of supposed peace.
 
“The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you reside in My land as foreigners and strangers.”  
(Leviticus 25:23)
  

The Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem (Israel Photo
Gallery by Noam Chen)
 
The Year of Jubilee
“Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.  It shall be a jubilee [יוֹבֵל Yovel] for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.”  (Leviticus 25:10)
 
After every seven cycles of seven years, in the fiftieth year, the shofar is to sound and the Yovel (יוֹבֵל) or Jubilee year is to be celebrated.  Not only is the land to lie fallow, but also all debts are to be cancelled and all indentured servants are to return to their land and family.
 
We serve a God of kindness and mercy, and His laws are for the good of all—even for the land itself.
 
Although some among the Jewish People might have endured a time of servitude, they were not to permanently remain in that situation.  It is because God brought His people out of slavery in Egypt that no Israelite was to become a permanent slave of another.  In the year of Jubilee, all were to be redeemed and released.
 
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.”  
(Leviticus 26:13)
 
In Judaism, 50 is the number of transcendence.  It indicates a return to God and the emergence of a new creation.
 
Under the Brit Chadashah (New Covenant ), which was sealed with the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) on Shavuot (Pentecost) 50 days from Passover, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) became our spiritual Jubilee.  In Him, all debts are cancelled.  He has redeemed us from slavery to any kind of oppression and empowered us to walk in holiness with our heads held high.  Halleluyah!
  

The Pentecost Sermon, by Gebhard Fugel
  
Living in the Blessings in the Holy Land
In the Bechukotai (In My Statutes) portion of this week’s reading, God promises a blessing upon the people if they obey His commandments in the Torah—but He warns of punishment, persecutions and even exile for disobeying them.  He says:
 
“If you walk in My statutes [Im bechukotay teileichu], I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase.”  (Leviticus 26:3–4)
 
We must keep in mind that God does not willingly afflict or grieve us; He only does so when it is absolutely necessary to get our attention so we can see the error of our ways and, through His mercy, put our feet back on the right path.
 
“For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.  For He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.”  (Lamentations 3:32–33)
 
One of the reasons that the Jewish People were sent into exile and the land lay barren was because they failed to keep the Sabbatical years.  Therefore, God forced the people out so the land could finally enjoy its Sabbaths and make up for those it did not have when Israel lived there:
 
“I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you.  Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.  Then the land will enjoy its Sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.  All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the Sabbaths you lived in it.”  (Leviticus 26:33–35)
  

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man prays at the Western (Wailing) Wall.
(Photo by opalpeterliu)
 
We, too, must be diligent to keep the Sabbath of the Lord and to rest on every seventh day, lest our bodies wear out and need an extended time of rest to make up for all the rest it missed by our failing to keep the Sabbath day holy.
 
Despite there being severe consequences to not keeping God’s statutes, He promises to have mercy on the Jewish People even in exile; to remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and to remember the Land:
 
“Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking My covenant with them.  I am the Lord their God.  But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God.  I am the Lord.’”  (Leviticus 26:44–45)
 
Twenty-five hundred years after God brought back the Jewish exiles in Babylon to the Land of Israel, He is doing it again.
 
But some claim that the modern state of Israel is a nation made solely by the efforts of the League of Nations and the United Nation and not by the hand of God.
 

A woman holds up the Israeli flag and her new
Israel identification after making Aliyah.  (Jewish
Agency photo by Brian Hendler)
 
Yet, we know from history that no one can bring God's people out of exile until God makes it so.
 
He brought them out of Egypt despite the hard heart of Pharaoh.  He released the exiles in Babylon through the decree of King Cyrus after a specified time, which were both prophesied
(Isaiah 44:28–45:1; Daniel 9:2).
 
In the 20th century, He brought His people home through the Balfour Declaration and the creation of the State of Israel in one day, which was also prophesied (Isaiah 66:8).
 
And God is continuing to enact a modern-day revival of Israel that has included miraculous victories in the 1948 War for independence in 1948, the Six Day War in 1967, and the Yom Kippur war in 1973.
 
Despite anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israelism, Israel is still alive and vibrant.  And it continues to be a blessing to the world despite the social, political, and physical attacks by her neighbors and by the world since her rebirth.
 
When we examine all the "independent" events culminating in the formation of an independent Jewish state, we see that God will never allow the Jewish People to be destroyed completely, nor will He ever break His covenants with them.
 

Crowds gather at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem.  Above
the Wall is the Temple Mount.  Just to the left of the Western Wall
is the Muslim Dome of the Rock, which is thought to occupy the spot
where the First and Second Jewish Temples were located.
  
Prophetic Portion: Trust in God Alone for Your Blessings
 
The Haftarah (prophetic portion) for this week
(Jeremiah 16:19–17:14)
continues with the theme of promised blessings for obedience and punishment for disobedience.
 
Because God alone is the One who grants freedom and blessings according to His covenants, the Prophet Jeremiah promises that those who place their trust in man will become desolate and alone:
 
“Cursed is he who trusts in man, who makes mere flesh his strength, and turns his thoughts from the Lord.  He shall be like a bush in the desert.”  (Jeremiah 17:5–6)
 
On the other hand, “blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”  (Jeremiah 17:7–8)
 
There is a sense of accountability in these blessings and curses; we are accountable for our actions, which have consequences.  We are responsible, and this knowledge informs our choices and helps us move forward in our daily walk with the God of Israel.
 
This Haftarah ends with the beautiful proclamation that God alone is the hope of Israel, source of life-giving water, healer and Savior.  When we rely on and obey God, He will not fail us, and we will walk in the blessings.
 
“LORD, you are the Hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame.  Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water.  Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.”  (Jeremiah 17:13–14)
  
  
Please help us bring the Good News of Yeshua to the Holy Land.
 
"On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity."  (Zechariah 13:1)
 
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from your idols."  
(Ezekiel 36:25)
 
 

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