Oh, if only problems in one’s 40s were as simple as they were in the teenage years, when solutions to the most pressing problems lay in a jar or two of acne cream.

I know of a person who is dealing with a debilitating illness and is in deep pain; the only thing that helps is narcotic-level prescription drugs. And yet, such drugs are highly addictive.

What a terrible position to be in; either attempt to endure an incredible amount of pain, or risk addiction for some temporary relief! All I know about a situation like that is, this is not how life in this world was meant to be.

Some problems can be solved with something practical, like a new HDMI wall plate; other problems are less oriented to the material world.

Take for example an anonymous friend of mine (not anonymous to me, but I’m maintaining confidentiality here). Like me, this friend is going through a time of grief. It’s amazing how, once you are grieving yourself, you begin to find out how many around you are also part of that club.

Anyway, while this person’s grief is not centered around a parent, it is centered around loss. The thing this person requested was simple: prayer. I can relate to that. Words fail to be of much use at times of great loss. All the cliches in the world, meant to comfort, are actually of little use or real comfort.

That’s why prayer is so effective; we don’t need to know what to pray about specifically to be effective or for Adonai to know how to respond. All we need to do is direct our prayers toward Adonai and ask Him to intervene, comfort and be Himself.

What could be more effective than that?

After working hard on my commentary for Shof’tim, my next task is to concentrate on my next turn on commentary, which is coming up in only a couple-three weeks, Va Yelekh. Considering it is the thirty-first chapter of Deuteronomy and deals with the end of the life of Moshe, I can only imagine how personal and difficult this could be, in light of my mother’s recent death. However, I also believe it could be a healing time for me, as well.

While most people would rather ponder happy thoughts like Outer Banks rentals than ponder their own mortality, there is wisdom to be gained by realizing our time in this life is not infinite; the older we get, the more we become susceptible to sickness, disease, discomfort and weakness.

We must pass through this life to overcome it; and an eternity with Adonai and his messiah is certainly not morose. I know both Moshe, and my mother, understood that when the time came.

When my mother came up sick and we knew her time was short, my wife and I were glad we’d set some emergency funds aside in our savings accounts.

Here’s the rest of my Shof’tim commentary. Or listen to it!

When you think about it, why would the L-RD need to declare something as simple and obvious as, “You are not to distort justice or show favoritism, and you are not to accept a bribe?”

Easy! Because it is not in our nature to be selfless and pursue justice at ADONAI’s perfect standard, or even at the Torah’s minimum standard. As any parent knows, you teach your children what they do not already know, not what they already know. You teach what they are supposed to do, not what they are already doing.

So the answer to my question of how we got stuck dealing with all this mess of determining truth and justice may have begun in Genesis, but it is also explained in this week’s parashah.

Deuteronomy 18:15-19
“ADONAI will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay attention to him, just as when you were assembled at Horev and requested ADONAI your God, ‘Don’t let me hear the voice of ADONAI my God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will die!’ On that occasion ADONAI said to me, ‘They are right in what they are saying. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I order him. Whoever doesn’t listen to my words, which he will speak in my name, will have to account for himself to me.”

This passage is one of the key messianic promises ADONAI makes to us, and he makes it precisely because he knows that no matter how many regulations he lays down for priests and judges and kings, none of them can ever live up to it completely, not to a standard that meets not just the compromise of Torah, but the perfect standard of ADONAI.

That could be accomplished only by the promised messiah, Yeshua. He is the one who me must, at last, allow to rule us, as only He is able to do so perfectly and free from selfish interests. We pushed God out of His role as justice-giver in the Garden, and rejected the restoration of ADONAI to that role by asking at Horeb not to hear His voice directly. Therefore, we must struggle to achieve justice and mercy, and to keep our land and our lives and our households and our families free from wickedness, free from injustice, free from the shedding of innocent blood. Yet ultimately we are not the solution to the problem, because ultimately we all fail. There is one solution, and it is found in the person of Yeshua the Messiah.

While some people believe Ephedrasil Hardcore is one of the most effective fat-burners, I know the most effective burner of spiritual fat is time spent in prayer.

Here’s more of my Shof’tim commentary. Or listen to it!

I once had a social studies teacher who was of the opinion that the most perfect and efficient form of government was what he called a “benevolent dictatorship.” The “one person decides it all” aspect of the dictatorship, in his mind, delivered efficiency because there would be no time spent on debate; and the benevolence aspect would, in his mind, guarantee that no one was treated poorly or unjustly.

The flaw in his theory, however, is the assumption that any of us could be benevolent and unselfish enough to handle the responsibilities of such a dictatorship. History is full of examples of dictators and, ultimately, none of them proved to be benevolent, certainly not benevolent enough to meet ADONAI’s perfect standard of justice.

Matthew 12:34-35
You snakes! How can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what overflows from the heart. The good person brings forth good things from his store of good, and the evil person brings forth evil things from his store of evil.

We must remember, too, that Yeshua’s definition of what is good and evil is not like the world’s definition of those words. This is why a king is required by ADONAI in this week’s reading to write and constantly study a scroll of the Torah, for the only path to “good,” is through the study of ADONAI and His word. Any other path leads to selfishness, not ADONAI’s brand of justice. Indeed, the Psalmist confirms that the opposite of obedience to God is selfishness.

Psalms 119:36
Bend my heart toward your instructions and not toward selfish gain.

So, I think it’s now clear that there is only one who is unselfish enough that He could be a truly benevolent dictator, and that is Yeshua the Messiah; and it is not in His nature to play the role of a dictator, since in this life we are created with the ability to either follow in obedience or rebel against his perfect will. A dictator allows no rebellion.

While I look at my waist and sometimes wonder if fat burners might help, one thing I know I need to eliminate is the spiritual flubber surrounding my life. Nothing’s better for that than prayer and digging into the Word of the L-RD.

Here’s more from my Shof’tim commentary. Or listen to it!

While I could go into detail on any of these teachings, as I studied and prayed through this passage, my overwhelming question to ADONAI was, “L-RD, how did we get into this mess? Why must we be so involved in the messiness of setting such high standards for leaders of various types and such harsh punishments for various crimes? Why must we deal with so much death and bloodshed?”

As I studied and prayed, however, I was reminded of where it all began. In fact, it goes all the way back to the Garden.

Genesis 3:4-5
The serpent said to the woman, “It is not true that you will surely die; because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This was the line that the serpent used to tempt Adam and Havah; the desire to know good and evil. Unfortunately, like all the lies of the Adversary, we did not receive what we thought we were getting. It is true that we became aware of knowing the difference between good and evil, but by doing so, we were actually replacing a role in creation that ADONAI had reserved for Himself.

We were not meant to decide right and wrong, and the testimony to the truth of that is all around us in the world. Because, unlike what the world would have us believe, we are not born as inherently good. We are born inherently selfish and self-serving, because since the fall, we are born not in the glorified and sin-free bodies Adam and Havah possessed at first in the Garden, but in finite, temporary bodies marred by sin and selfishness.

One of the nice things about doing a Torah commentary is that you don’t have to be an expert in weight-loss or the benefits of Fenphedra; all you need to know about is the Bible. Which is a huge task in and of itself.

Here’s more from my Shof’tim commentary. Or listen to it!

The closing verses of chapter 17 contain instructions for how Isra’el is to appoint a king, if they decide they desire to have a king rule over them as their neighboring nations do, and basic principals for how that king is to conduct himself in office. The most important requirement is found at the end of the chapter.

Deuteronomy 17:18-20
“When he has come to occupy the throne of his kingdom, he is to write a copy of this Torah for himself in a scroll, from the one the cohanim and L’vi’im use. It is to remain with him, and he is to read in it every day, as long as he lives; so that he will learn to fear ADONAI his God and keep all the words of this Torah and these laws and obey them; so that he will not think he is better than his kinsmen; and so that he will not turn aside either to the right or to the left from ADONAI’s mitzvah.

Chapter 18 concerns regulations for the priests and how they are to live. It also contains a very important passage that we’ll come back to shortly.

Chapter 19 covers how to deal with accidental deaths as opposed to murders, and the setting up of sanctuary cities, which we recently heard a very good commentary about. It also covers how to deal with witnesses who lie in their testimony to the judges of Isra’el. This is the passage that recommends such a liar should be punished in the same manner as the crime the accused was charged with, had he been found guilty. It is the passage Yeshua is referring to when He says, in Matthew 5:38-39:

Matthew 5:38-39
“You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you not to stand up against someone who does you wrong. On the contrary, if someone hits you on the right cheek, let him hit you on the left cheek too!

Chapter 20 instructs the people on how to conduct war against their neighbors, by always offering first terms of peace, in order to prevent the unnecessary shedding of innocent blood. And the first part of chapter 21 concludes Shof’tim with instructions on how to deal justice out in the case of a murder victim where there are no witnesses and the case is likely to remain unsolved.

While some people identify their profession through company logo shirts, for sometime who is pursuing ordination, it is the Word of God that is our identifier. Here is another passage from my commentary on Shof’tim. Or listen to it!

And what is justice in the eyes of ADONAI? First and foremost, it is a pursuit of discerning the truth, and then acting on it. There are several safeguards for discerning truth set up throughout the rest of the parashah.

For example, when speaking of crimes punishable by death, such as worshipping false Gods in the land of Isra’el, we read in Deuteronomy 17:6:

Deuteronomy 17:6
The death sentence is to be carried out only if there was testimony from two or three witnesses; he may not be sentenced to death on the testimony of only one witness.

The judges themselves are another safeguard established here, as are the Levitical priests. On controversial matters, we are told, the people are to bring their cases before an assembly of the priests and a judge, and they will render a verdict:

Deuteronomy 17:9b-11
Seek their opinion, and they will render a verdict for you. You will then act according to what they have told you there in that place which ADONAI will choose; you are to take care to act according to all their instructions. In accordance with the Torah they teach you, you are to carry out the judgment they render, not turning aside to the right or the left from the verdict they declare to you.

This pattern of establishing a system of human authority based on the Torah and ADONAI’s teaching is repeated throughout this week’s reading.

The Torah portion I covered for my first commentary was Shof’tim, or “Judges.” It’s a portion that’s packed with some of my favorite passages from Deuteronomy, and although I was wearing shoes at the time, I appreciated the home theater carpet that spreads out over the floor of our sanctuary.

Here’s a portion from my commentary. Or listen to it!

Our parashah today is Shof’tim, or Judges, and begins with the rules and regulations for establishing a system of judges to help settle disputes among the people of Isra’el, when they enter the land. Shof’tim covers D’varim 16:18 through 21:9, and covers a wide variety of topics, but there is an overriding theme or two and that is the establishment of a system of authority in the land, and the purpose of that system of authority is to prevent the spread of wickedness, especially the shedding of innocent blood, in the land the L-RD God is giving to the people of Isra’el.

Now, it is important to remember that Moshe is giving the people a reminder of everything they have been through since leaving the land of Egypt, and summarizing all the teachings ADONAI has given them, so that when they enter the land, they will not forget how they are expected to live, if they want to continue to receive the blessings ADONAI has promised them.

The passage begins with instructions on how these judges are to rule in the land:

Deuteronomy 16:19-20 (CJB)
You are not to distort justice or show favoritism, and you are not to accept a bribe, for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of even the upright. Justice, only justice, you must pursue; so that you will live and inherit the land ADONAI your God is giving you.

Here, God is emphasizing the need to discern justice, rather than acting by other motives.

Less than 24 hours after putting my mother in the ground on Friday, I delivered my first Torah commentary at my messianic shul. It seemed odd, but not uncommon, timing.

Not uncommon because a friend of mine, Shi’mon, had the same thing happen to him the week before he delivered his first Torah commentary. In his case, it was not his mom; but just having a death close to you before such an event is enough of a common bond to help me feel not along in this.

My heart was going probably over 100 bpm, but apparently I came across well, as someone asked me afterward how I managed to be so calm up front. That was an encouragement to hear!