For the week of August 30, 2025 / 6 Elul 57

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Shof’tim
Torah: D’varim/Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9
Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12 – 52:12
Originally posted the week of August 18, 2018 / 7 Elul 5778

And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes (D’varim/Deuteronomy 17:19)

When we think of the elite of society, whether it be in our day or in ancient times, we tend to focus on their perks and privileges. Their houses are bigger and nicer, their modes of transportation are the best of the best. Everything about their lives is above and beyond the comforts and pleasures of the rest of us. But that’s not the whole picture. You have most likely heard the saying that goes something like: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Many ascribe this to the fictional Uncle Ben of Spiderman fame, but it’s much older than that, probably going back to the time of the French Revolution (see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/23/great-power/). The truth contained in this statement is rooted in Yeshua’s words: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).

Positions of authority include more than privilege, power, and responsibility, however. It is this additional ingredient that makes all the difference between leaders successfully fulfilling their crucial roles and causing unnecessary destruction and harm. It’s the need of a good education. I am not talking about acquiring degrees from prestigious institutions. There are ways to do that while not learning anything useful along the way. I am also not talking about career skills, since those are relatively easy to acquire. I am talking about learning how to become a good person. Without that, all the prestige and skills in the world won’t amount to anything. This is especially the case for those called to positions of authority as their lives have far greater impact on others.

This is why God required kings of Israel to be life-long students of Torah. As a leader, he was not to regard himself as being above the law, but rather be subject to it. In order to do that, he was not to rely upon his advisors and teachers to know God’s written revelation. Not that he wouldn’t have teachers and advisors, but their role was to equip him to be able to read the Torah for himself. That would include not only learning to read the text but reading it intelligently.

Personal reading of Scripture would have been very rare. Not only were copies of the Torah not in abundance, the people wouldn’t hear it read that often. God directed the cohanim (English: the priests) to read the Torah to the people once every seven years during the Feast of Sukkot (English: Tabernacles or Booths) (see D’varim/Deuteronomy 31:10-11). It would be many centuries before the synagogue would provide weekly Torah readings within Israelite society. This meant that only certain people required the ability to read. Kings may have been the only non-cohanim to personally read the Books of Moses.

The greatest obstacle to having direct interaction with the divine writings was that access to books in general was highly restricted. Not because it was forbidden for common folks to read the sacred text, but because so few copies were available. It’s almost impossible for us, who live almost six hundred years after Gutenberg’s inventing the printing press, to imagine life without books. We have a hard-enough time remembering what it was like to not have ready access to much of the world’s writing in our pockets, let alone the pre-Gutenberg days when owning a copy of a book was the unique domain of royalty and the rich.

But these are not those days. Today we can all live like kings. God’s directive to kings regarding the reading of Torah was not a symbol of privilege or an initiation rite. It had no ceremonial function at all. It was practical. He was to read the Torah “that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes.” To be a good king required being a good person. To be a good person required reading the Torah. We all have the exact same need. The only difference between ancient Israelite kings and ourselves is access.

There’s nothing magical about reading the Bible. It is God’s equipment to enable us to live effective, godly lives. As one of the greatest Torah scholars of all time writes:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

To not take advantage of what was at one time the privilege of the few is to rob ourselves of God’s provision for living an abundant life. So, let’s pick up a Bible and live like kings!

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

For the week of August 23, 2025 / 29 Av 5785

Re’eh
Torah: D’varim/Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:11 – 55:5 & 1 Samuel 20:18–42
Originally posted the week of August 19, 2017 / 27 Av 5777

All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. (Isaiah 54:13)

This week’s Haftarah (selection from the Prophets) looks to a future age and the restoration of the creation. One of the central aspects of these wonderful days is shalom (English: peace). Shalom is a personal and societal condition much deeper than the lack of war and strife. It’s a way to describe life in perfect harmony, everything in its place, functioning as it should in right relationship to everything else.

The reference to children here is particularly interesting. The conditions of those days are to result in peace for children. When life is out of sorts, children are greatly impacted. Children suffer when their parents’ individual lives or marriage relationship is dysfunctional. Simply observing their parents, not to mention experiencing direct harm, has long-term, potential devastating effects on the young. Similarly, when the society at large is failing, children most often suffer the most. But one day according to God’s promise to ancient Israel, “great shall be the shalom of your children.”

But notice that their experience of shalom is not just an outcome of general peace upon the adults. It is the direct result of their being taught by God. We shouldn’t get distracted by attempting to figure out the details of what the Bible terms, “the age to come.” To do so would result in missing the point. What God through the prophet is saying is that the children’s peace would be a direct outcome of their being taught by God.

Parents have been mandated by God to be the prime educators of their children. Moses reiterates this at the end of last week’s Torah reading: “You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (D’varim/Deuteronomy 11:19). The educational content referred to is, of course, God’s commandments. But when we understand the broad nature of God’s directives in the Scriptures, it becomes obvious that they are designed to be at the core of all education, not just things spiritual, moral, or religious. Exactly how our children’s education is done, formally and informally, is a serious task every parent needs to address.

That said, no matter how well-meaning, diligent, or capable a parent may be, we live in a broken world, where things don’t work in the way God intends. That doesn’t get us off the hook. Whether it’s our children’s education or anything else in life, we need to do our best. The problem is our best will never be good enough. The taint of sin undermines our efforts to fully meet God’s standards. No matter how well we do regarding education, human dysfunctionality will continue to get in the way of lasting peace. But one day, the barriers preventing God’s direct access to his people will be completely removed and children will no longer be the victims of their parents’ dysfunctions. Instead, the instruction of God himself will be the guiding force for everyone, kids included.

The promised shalom is not only something for a far-off day, however. Through the coming of the Messiah and the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh (English: the Holy Spirit), God has made available to us now the resources of the age to come. This doesn’t only apply to children’s education, but it’s included. Parents who know the God of Israel through faith in Yeshua the Messiah have the opportunity to be conduits of his shalom. The reality of God present in the homes of true believers provides a foretaste of the great shalom to come. The effectiveness of educating our children is not solely due to our experience of God, but that of our children as well. As our children come to know Yeshua for themselves, the same Spirit directly works in their hearts too, thus making God their ultimate teacher. Our role, then, is to cooperate with what he is doing in their lives as he teaches them. The result? Our children’s peace.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

For the week of August 16, 2025 / 22 Av 5785

Ekev
Torah: D’varim/Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25
Haftarah: Isaiah 49:14 – 51:3

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (Isaiah 49:16)

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how troubled I was over the gross misunderstanding of the New Covenant Writings (the New Testament), in how it references Israel and the Jewish people. Historically, it has been assumed that God rejected the Jewish nation in response to their rejection of Yeshua. Further, antagonism on the part of some Jewish leaders toward the proclamation of the Messianic good news has been twisted into a general mischaracterization of all Jewish people for all time. These skewed views undermine the New Covenant Writings’ assertions of the key positive roles played by Jewish people and especially God’s unbreakable commitment to ethnic Israel.

Not only is the stereotype of the Jew as some eternal antichrist completely far-fetched, but the very essence of the New Covenant Writings is so very Jewish that it should make us wonder why non-Jews came to appreciate it at all.

I must admit, however, that a central, if not the central image of the New Testament, that of a crucified Messiah, is taken by most people, Jews or Gentiles, as anything but Jewish. This is mainly because the essence of what Yeshua came to do has been weaponized against the Jewish world from the early centuries of Church history. Yet, this is actually another case of vile misrepresentation of the Bible’s depiction of God’s relationship to the Jewish people.

This week’s Haftarah (weekly reading from the Hebrew Prophets) is the second of seven readings from Isaiah that follow the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the month Av), a day that commemorates the destruction of the first and second temples and many other disastrous events. These seven Isaiah passages were chosen to bring the people from mourning to hope.

No people group is as aware of their own historical failures and dismal consequences as my people, Israel. But thankfully, our sacred texts don’t just instill in us a sense of overwhelming failure, but are also a reminder of God’s love and faithfulness toward us. This week’s Haftarah includes these words:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me (Isaiah 49:15-16).

The day would come when the image of a crucified Messiah would be used to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish people. But who was it that he died for? Jumping to a universal answer like “everyone” or personalizing as in “He died for me” may be appropriate, but often misses how God’s story of redemption unfolded. The Messiah came first and foremost for the people to whom he was promised. Israel was the only nation expecting a Messiah, a God-sent deliverer who would not only rescue them from their enemies, but would also restore the entire world.

The Jewish people’s not understanding that messianic deliverance necessitated Yeshua’s giving of his life for sin takes nothing away from his mission being primarily a Jewish one. For it is God’s unfailing love as first expressed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers of ethnic Israel, that drives the scriptural narrative. It is Israel’s plight in particular that God determined to resolve through the Messiah, which set up the possibility for his blessing to come to the whole world. It is Israel whom God had engraved on the palms of his hands. It’s not a coincidence, therefore, that his love for them would be expressed through crucifixion.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

Va-etchannan/Nachamu
For the week of August 9, 2025 / 15 Av 5785
Torah D’varim/Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11
Haftarah: Isaiah 40:1-26

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (D’varim/Deuteronomy 6:4)

Perhaps the greatest comedy bit of all time is Who’s On First?, Abbot and Costello’s timeless routine of identity confusion. Now, you might be wondering, if not offended, that I would bring up a comedy sketch after quoting the Shema, one of the most key, not to mention sacred, of all Torah verses. In Jewish tradition, it is the first line of a thrice-daily prayer that continues through verse nine of D’varim/Deuteronomy chapter six, plus chapter eleven, verses thirteen through twenty-one, and B’midbar/Numbers, chapter fifteen, verses thirty-seven through forty-one.

However, there’s something relevant in Who’s On First?, as it provides a profound insight regarding communication in general and this ancient statement specifically. What makes Who’s On First? delightfully funny is that the confusion over the players’ names is understandable to the audience. Even though we know what’s going on, the supposed confusion borders on incredulity. The audience reacts with laughter, because we are privy to the joke.

The problem that the sketch playfully engages is the exaggeration of a common situation, where asking the wrong questions, especially having failed to understand the full context of something, leads to great misunderstanding. While the historical misunderstanding that has arisen over the Shema is no joke, it is interesting that it is due to confusing “who” with “what.”

You may not be aware that in Jewish history, the opening line of the Shema: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one (D’varim/Deuteronomy 6:4), became a statement of defiance. The reference to “one” became a retort to Christian trinitarianism, which the Jewish world took to be a pagan concept to be resisted at all costs. I am aware of attempts to find the concept of “complex unity” in the Hebrew word for “one” here, which is echad. And those arguments are worth considering to show that God never intended to instill in Israel unitarianism or absolute monotheism.

However, here’s where the traditional controversy gets into some, “Who, what, I don’t know” ala Abbot and Costello. It’s because the theological argument isn’t actually based on this scriptural statement. The Shema isn’t about what God is, but rather who God is. Moses wasn’t providing the people of Israel a defense against Christianity. Instead, he was calling the people to strict, exclusive allegiance to their God. The word echad, in this context, is about his being the only God. A better translation would be: “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God is the LORD alone.”

Tragically, in my opinion, historic Christianity has been more obsessed with what God is than who he is, despite the Bible’s being far more interested in “who” than “what.” But when the “what” became the question, the “who” became confused. Instead of a call to truth, the Shema became a misguided battle cry in a religious battle. And that’s not funny!

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version