For the week of July 4, 2026 / 19 Tammuz 5786

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Pinchas
Torah: B’midbar/Numbers 25:10 – 30:1 (English 25:10 – 29:40)
Haftarah: Jeremiah 1:1 – 2:3
Originally posted the week of July 26, 2008 / 23 Tammuz 5768 (updated)

Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 1:6-8)

A saying I have often heard is “You can do anything you want, as long as you set your mind to it.” However, this only works when it does; otherwise, it doesn’t. It seems to me the purpose of this saying is usually to motivate someone to do something they really want to do but fear they can’t. Fear is certainly an obstacle to accomplishing something, and difficult tasks require that we do our best to see them through to the end. But it is ridiculous to think that setting one’s mind on something is in itself a guarantee of success.

The prophet Jeremiah faced the difficult task of being God’s spokesman at a crucial time in the nation’s history. When God called him to this task, we don’t know if he understood the implications of his vocation, but what we do know is that he didn’t feel up to the job.

God’s response to him was not in the form of the kind of motivational speeches common in our day. God didn’t tell Jeremiah that if he would set his mind on being a prophet, he would be a prophet. Nor did God challenge him to visualize success and strive for greatness.

What God did do was first, he told him not to put himself down. Jeremiah felt that his youth somehow undermined his ability to accomplish the task at hand. This may sound like a “don’t be negative” pep talk, but it is deeper than that. It wasn’t as if a positive frame of mind would automatically enable him to do what God was calling him to do. It was simply that when God calls us to do something it doesn’t matter how old we are. Young people can be prophets too, if God so calls them.

Second, God said that Jeremiah would go where God would tell him to go and he would speak to those whom God would command him to speak. That may sound like, “You are going to do it, because you’re going to do it.” But that’s not really what God said to him. God said that Jeremiah would go where God sends him and speak what God commands. God determined that he would take charge of Jeremiah’s life, directing him and inspiring him. There is nothing we can’t do when God takes charge like that.

Third, God told him not to be afraid. But this wasn’t God just telling him to calm down as if he had no reason to be afraid. What God was telling him to do was truly intimidating. The reason Jeremiah was not to be afraid, was because God promised to personally take care of him.

God was not challenging Jeremiah to find power within himself to overcome the obstacles to his personal dream. Rather, because God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, God would also enable him to do it.

Whenever God calls us to do something, he enables us to do it. That doesn’t mean that everything God calls us to do will be easy as we see from the rest of Jeremiah’s life. Still, no matter how difficult a God-given task may be, we can do it.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

For the week of June 27, 2026 / 12 Tammuz 5786

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Hukat-Balak
Torah: B’midbar/Numbers 19:1 – 25:9
Haftarah: Micah 5:6 – 6:8
Originally posted the week of June 27, 2015 / 10 Tammuz 5775 (updated)

Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” (B’midbar/Numbers 20:10-12)

Moses is one of the greatest people to have ever lived. It’s hard to believe that after trying so hard to avoid God’s call on his life, he successfully led his people out of Egypt and right up to the border of the Promised Land. Once he was on board, he remained faithful until the end of his life. He boldly confronted Pharaoh with God’s demand for the release of his people from slavery, even though he knew that Pharaoh could have imprisoned, tortured, or killed. He also faced severe criticism from his own people, both before and after the exodus, all the while settling their disputes. Moreover, he bore the burden of waiting upon God for direction step by step and was responsible for receiving and transmitting the Torah.

One of the remarkable things about the Bible is how it doesn’t gloss over the failings and foibles of its key characters, and Moses is no exception. Long before God spoke to him at the burning bush, he tried to stand up for his people with disastrous results, having murdered an Egyptian and then running away for fear of his life. There were also two other negative incidents that occurred during his leadership. Both appear to stem from uncontrolled anger. The first is when he came down Mt. Sinai and saw the people engaging in great immorality. He reacted by smashing the two tablets upon which were written the Ten Words (see Shemot/Exodus 32:15-20).

The other incident is recounted in this week’s parsha. It’s a confusing story about the people complaining about not having water. God instructs Moses to take his staff, but unlike the previous time a similar thing occurred (see Shemot/Exodus 17:1-7), he was not to strike the rock but rather speak to it. Why God specifically told him to take the staff, but not use it, we don’t know. It’s also difficult to discern what Moses did that was so wrong. What we have is God saying, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel” (B’midbar/Numbers 20:12), but note that God doesn’t say that the error was the striking of the rock. It could have been the way Moses talked to the people, by distancing himself from them and overly associating Aaron and himself with God. This might explain the reference to not upholding God as holy. Whatever he did precisely, he lost it. After decades of patiently putting up with the people, he lost it.

Moses lost control and let his anger get the better of him.  Note that I said his anger got the better of him. The emotion of anger is so misunderstood. Moses’ anger itself was not the problem; it was that he lost control of it. Moses had been in similar situations many times before. Whenever the people complained about something, he went to God; God told him what to do, and he did it. That we are not told how he felt doesn’t mean he had no feelings. In those forty years in the wilderness, there was so much to have feelings about—not good feelings, I am sure. That Moses might have felt angry at times is to be expected. But for the vast majority of those forty years, he controlled his anger. Not this time, however. This time, his loss of control cost him. It cost him the privilege of entering the Promised Land.

It’s too easy to dismiss the seriousness of this. When we look at all Moses accomplished, not entering the Land might seem like a small thing. He was probably going to die soon anyway. Readers of the New Covenant Writings might point out that he eventually made it in when he appeared to Yeshua along with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1-8), but that misses the point.

Put yourself in Moses’s sandals. To go through all that he did and not be allowed to reach the God-ordained goal is devastating. If you don’t believe me that this is how Moses saw it, check out what he told the people later on – how he pleaded with God to permit him to even briefly enter the Land (see D’varim/Deuteronomy 23:26). Most of us would feel the same way. That is why it’s so important not to lose it. In the grand scheme of things, our loss of control may not completely undermine God’s plan for our lives, but it can cause considerable damage to ourselves and others.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

For the week of June 20, 2026 / 5 Tammuz 5786

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Korach
Torah: B’midbar/Numbers 16:1 – 18:32
Haftarah: 2 Shmuel/2 Samuel 11:14 – 12:22

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die” (2 Shmuel/ 2 Samuel 12:13-14)

The biblical story of David and Bathsheba is one of the most troubling, grievous, complex, and profound in the entire Bible. Within the overall biblical narrative, David plays a central role. No one else in Scripture is described as a man after God’s own heart (see 1 Shmuel/1 Samuel 13:14). It is David who is established as God’s model king, with whom other kings are compared. It is he who is the eternal reflection of the Messiah, known as “Ben David,” the son of David. It is his songs that serve as the core examples of godly prayer and worship for literally billions of people from his time until today.

And yet, it is this same man who takes advantage of his royal position to sexually violate a woman, resulting in pregnancy. Then, following his failed attempt to cover up the affair, he directs his general to create a situation whereby the husband, a most loyal member of David’s army, is placed in an extremely vulnerable situation, making his death in battle inevitable.

People seem to like to try to figure out the various factors that led to all this, including why David was hanging out in his palace at that time. Why was Bathsheba exposed like she was? But these questions miss the main point: what David did was horrible, which is why he was confronted by God through the prophet Natan/Nathan.

What happens next is astounding, given the abundance of immorality and deception that preceded it. David confesses his wrongdoing without qualification, saying to Natan: “I have sinned against the Lord.” But even more astounding is Natan’s response to David’s confession: “The Lord also has put away your sin”. I would suspect that people familiar with the Bible are very aware that the God of Israel is a forgiving God. Did he not reveal himself to Moses, saying he is a God, “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Shemot/Exodus 34:7)? We must not miss the depth of such undeserved love that is available not only to David, but to us, by our Creator, the Master of the Universe.

Now, I know that a lot of biblically literate folks have the forgiveness thing down pat, not that we don’t need regular reminders or could ever plunge the depths of such a remarkable act of grace on God’s part.

At the same time, I wonder whether our understanding of God’s amazing forgiveness is missing something. Check out what Natan says next. In Hebrew, the very strong contrastive word “efes” is used, which is difficult to fully convey in English. It marks a very hard line between what is said before and what comes after, which explains why, among a great variety of English versions, two common translations are “nevertheless” and “however.” While both capture a sense of a change of direction in what is being said, they lack the sharpness of simply saying, as many translations do, “but.”

God forgives you, but? Does that bother you? Does that go against your certainty that faith in Yeshua completely obliterates in every way anything and everything you have ever done wrong? Do you think that faith in Yeshua provides you with the ultimate “get out of jail free card”? If so, you don’t understand biblically based forgiveness. You are actually missing the profound depth of God’s forgiveness as reflected in this story.

Biblical forgiveness is about establishing and maintaining a right relationship with God. For about a year, David was out of sorts with God, but once he confessed his wrong, he was forgiven. But God’s forgiveness doesn’t necessarily annul the consequences of our wrongs. Fines must be paid; restitution must be made; time must be served. Thankfully, God’s mercy may reduce the severity of the consequences but not necessarily annul them as it was in David’s case.

Tragically, we often confuse personal forgiveness with societal justice. If I wrong someone, it’s wonderful to maintain a good relationship by being personally forgiven by them, but that doesn’t get us off the hook for whatever we may be liable for due to our misdeeds. It’s the same with God. Because of all that Yeshua has done, we can be assured of his forgiveness, but there still may be consequences to deal with.

I know a person to whom someone confided that he had committed several acts of child abuse. After helping the confidant find forgiveness in God for his heinous acts, he lovingly walked him over to the police station to turn himself in.

“God forgives you, but” isn’t a way to say that God doesn’t really forgive you, but rather that God’s forgiveness is just the beginning of discovering the fullness of restoration God desires for us all.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

For the week of June 13, 2026 / 28 Sivan 5786

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Shela Lekha
Torah: B’midbar / Numbers 13:1 – 15:41
Haftarah: Joshua 2:1-24
Originally posted the week of July 1, 2000/28 Sivan 5760 (updated)

Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (B’midbar/Numbers 14:3)

Is it possible to believe in God and yet not really believe in him? That’s exactly what it was like for the vast majority of the people of Israel who came out of Egypt. These people had seen God act and heard him speak. Whether or not God existed and whether he was involved in their lives was not an issue for them. What they had difficulty with was whether he could do what he said he would do.

The same God who delivered the people from bondage in Egypt also planned to bring them into the Promised Land. But when the people heard the report of those who went ahead to scout out the Land, they lost heart. Ten out of the twelve scouts said, regarding the Land’s inhabitants: “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are” (B’midbar/Numbers 13:31). The people responded as follows:

And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (B’midbar/Numbers 14:2-4).

Notice they didn’t doubt that God had brought them thus far. What they feared was that he could not take them any further. This just goes to show that experiencing the reality of God does not ensure that we will have faith. These people had experienced God far more than most of us ever will. Yet they couldn’t trust him for their current circumstances.

We see in this story that faith in God is not just about believing in his existence. These people may have accepted the concepts of the reality of God, that he is the Creator, and that he interacts with our lives. It looks like they even believed that he was in control of the situation. We can surmise this from their statement: “Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword?” Moses later quotes them as saying, “Because the LORD hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.” (D’varim/Deuteronomy 1:27). It appears that they thought that God was doing this to them out of spite or something. So we see that even though they believed in God, what they believed about God was all messed up.

I wonder how many of us have a belief in God that is messed up. Or there may be aspects of our faith that are messed up.

What was it that warped their view of God? It appears that what led them to begin thinking of God in the wrong terms was their overwhelming sense of the great opposition they faced. The scouts’ bad report was mostly true. Naturally speaking, the people of Israel had no chance of taking the Land. They couldn’t do it without supernatural assistance. But instead of focusing on God and who he really is, they were fixated on the difficult circumstances they faced.

Caleb and Joshua, who alone trusted God in spite of these circumstances, did so because what they knew of God was derived from God himself and not from the obstacles. It was not that they were out of touch with reality; they were just not going to allow anything to contradict what they already knew of God.

I suggest we take a good look at how we have allowed circumstances to shape our understanding of God rather than knowing him for who he really is.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version

For the week of June 6, 2026 / 21 Sivan 5786

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B’ha‘alotkha
Torah: B’midbar/Numbers 8:1 – 12:16
Haftarah: Zechariah 2:14 – 4:7 (English 2:10 – 4:7)
Originally posted the week of June 22, 2019 / 19 Sivan 5779 (Updated)

If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness. (B’midbar/Numbers 11:15)

Some time ago, I was chatting with a waitress at a restaurant about some weaknesses in the overall service there. It was exactly what I had read in an online review and thought she should know. She wholeheartedly agreed with me, but felt she could do little about it since she was new at her job. So, I suggested she pray. She looked at me funny for a moment. So I repeated myself, having no idea what she thought of the subject. I told her that praying was simply talking to God and that not only does he have infinite resources at his disposal, he is also generous. She made it clear to me that I gave her something to think about.

As believers in Yeshua, we know this (though I imagine some may want to discuss the theology of prayer and whether it is appropriate to describe prayer as I did to this stranger). Be that as it may, what I shared with her included an essential dynamic. I offered no formulas, and I didn’t tell her exactly what to say. I also gave no guarantee as to what God’s answer might be. All I did was encourage her to start the conversation. The conversation would be on a particular topic, in this case, helping her resolve a need she could not resolve on her own. Since right at the beginning I defined prayer as talking to God, the conversation had to start with her personally and purposely talking to him. There’s so much more we can say about prayer, of course, but without this dynamic, I don’t know if much of what we call prayer is actually prayer at all.

Moses knew how to pray. That he did is vividly illustrated in the brief verse I quoted from this week’s parsha (Torah reading portion). Moses found himself being a waiter extreme. The whole nation of Israel whined like children for food. He had seen God do so much, yet the pressure of the people’s demands had completely overwhelmed him. He was done, and he told God so in no uncertain terms. Talk about a prayer from the heart! Moses held nothing back and told God exactly what he thought and how he felt. Thankfully, however, answered prayer isn’t always about getting all the items on our list. It’s about God meaningfully engaging us in response to our requests and desires.

I don’t know about you, but the best way I can describe some of my prayers is muddled. Even though I set aside some time each day to pray, am I really praying? To be honest, it’s not too unusual for me to do some sort of combination of wondering, thinking, wishing, and muttering. I’ll catch myself daydreaming about who knows what before I realize what I am doing. At that point, I try to focus and really pray, which sometimes I do. When I do, it’s as if I shift from muddled to clear. I know who I am talking to and what I am trying to say.

This is why I remind myself what I encourage others to do: pray out loud. While I cannot discount all silent prayer, there is very little Scriptural basis for it. Even if there were, attempting to project thoughts to God from our heads is very difficult, if not impossible. How do we differentiate thinking from praying when attempting silent communication? Praying out loud reminds us that we are truly speaking to another being who is not us.

Many years ago, when I was in Bible college. I had a roommate from Africa. He would wake up before me and have a time with the Lord at his desk. I would hear him whispering in prayer. I thought he really believes he is talking to someone! That encouraged me to do the same.

Realizing we are truly talking to God makes all the difference. And that’s just the beginning. Unless we intentionally do so, then whatever else we may be doing, we are not praying. Why not start right now?

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version