Well, I’m finally losing weight and it didn’t require an appetite suppressant to accomplish it. Instead, I’m simply starting to reduce my calories to about 1000 to 1200 a day.

It was hard at first; I’d been massively overeating. Like, 3000 calories a day or thereabouts. So it took a couple days for the diet to take hold.

But it’s producing results. In my first week, without extra exercise (which isn’t necessarily good, because you’ll need more food if you exercise a lot), I’ve lost about four pounds. You can lose anywhere from a half-pound to a full pound per day.

The trick is to get a lot of 100-calorie snacks and some Progresso soups that are about 200 calories for a full can. I typically eat twice in the morning… a piece of fruit and a 100-calorie granola bar, spaced out by a couple hours … and then have the soup as lunch. Then, and here’s the real help for me, a 100-calorie popcorn in the afternoon.

No pop, no juice; just sparking water like H2O, or maybe a 25-calorie VitaminWater that contains no artificial sweetners. (Cuz those are poison.) Then in the evening, I have a normal, but sensibly portioned meal of about 500 calories. And if I get hungry before I hit the sack, I can do a piece of fruit for about 50-100 calories, or another granola bar or popcorn of 100-calorie size.

It’s working. I’m already below 250! In a couple months, I hope to be below 225 and closing in on 200. My goal is to get below 180 by spring and then up my calories to a more generous 1500-1800 per day as a “maintenance mode” approach.

Hopefully, my high blood pressure, cholesterol and such will go away with the extra weight and I won’t be out of breath after carrying around the Torah scroll on Shabbat anymore.

And with my commentary on B’resheet, I get about a one-month break from writing a Torah commentary every week! While the respite will indeed be a welcomed one, I am already studying for my next turn.

Normally that would come on November 7 with VaYera; this year, however, it will not be until November 28 with VaYetze. That’s because we’re having a combined service on November 7, so I won’t need to write one that week.

That means I have close to five weeks off now; time I can devote to other writing ventures. And then come back to Torah commentaries fresh and eager in about three weeks. The time to really study and pray deeper on one parashah will also be welcome!

The only down side is by the time I give my next Torah commentary, all of Minnesota will be likely covered in artificial Christmas trees. Not a happy prospect for a Hanukkah celebrator such as myself, but oh well!

There was no modern furniture for Adam and Eve to enjoy back in the Garden of Eden, but then, there was also no sense of modern versus old, since all things were newly-created by the L-RD. Anyway, here’s my commentary for this year on the parashah known as B’resheet. Or listen to it!

Shabbat Shalom.

Our parashah for today is B’resheet, which means “in the beginning,” and covers Genesis chapter 1 through chapter 6, verse 8, and what I’d like to focus on today is the episode related in this Torah portion commonly referred to as “The Fall of Man.” Now you’re probably wondering, what is there that could possibly be found in the fall of man that’s new and interesting, right? I mean, after all, it’s one of the most told and re-told tales in all of Genesis. And the basics of the story are actually pretty simple and almost universally accepted.

As commonly told, the story goes like this: after God created Adam, he realized it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone, so he made Eve from Adam’s rib and, some time after that, the serpent tricked Eve into eating the forbidden Honeycrisp apple, bringing sin into the world, and then Adam appears, sees what Eve has done and, in an act of selfless love for his wife, decided to eat it right along with her so they could be together. Then they all blame each other and God casts them out of the garden. That about the size of it?

Well, let me just say right now, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about this story of life in paradise, and I threw a few of the most common errors into that little summary. Now, let’s back up and see what B’resheet really teaches us about the fall of man, shall we?

One of the most important elements of the story of the fall happens before Eve is even in the Garden. We read this in:

Genesis 2:16-17
And the L-RD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

In another translation, that last phrase is rendered, “it will become certain that you will die.” I think that will be a helpful translation as we continue our study, so keep that in mind. Now, in the very next verse, we begin the account of how the L-RD formed Eve from one of Adam’s ribs; so let’s remember that this command about not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil came before Eve was even formed. Sure, Adam and Eve were of one flesh and were together in the Garden with the L-RD for an unspecified period of time prior to the fall; but for now let’s just keep in mind that she wasn’t created yet when the original command was given.

So now, let’s take a closer look at the temptation and fall.

Genesis 3:1-3
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the L-RD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Now, most people pay a lot of attention to the serpent’s question, trying to paint the ways in which he manipulated Eve. But that’s not what I want to focus on today. I want to focus on Eve’s response.

It’s a little different from the command the L-RD just gave, isn’t it? Remember, the L-RD said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” But here, Eve states it slightly differently, doesn’t she? She says, “‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” Now, there are two major differences here, at the minimum. First, we get some new information; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is located in the middle of the garden. But the L-RD’s original command was simply not to eat of the fruit of that tree. Yet when Eve recites the command back to the serpent, what happens? She adds something. “You must not eat of it, or touch it.” Hold on! Where did the “You must not touch it” come from?

To be completely honest, no one is sure. It’s not written about in the Torah. There is no indication in the Word of the L-RD. All we do know for certain is that when Eve recites the command of the L-RD to the serpent, it comes out differently than the way the L-RD actually said it.

Well, who can blame her, right? I mean, Eve wasn’t even there when the L-RD spoke the original command. Of course, Adam and she are echad once she is created as his wife, and they did have that time in the Garden with the L-RD before the fall. So what could have happened that the command of the L-RD became twisted and inaccurate? How could this extra phrase, “you must not touch it,” come into the picture? Well, there is a theory. Granted, a theory is not as reliable as Scripture by any means, but this one may be useful to us. We read this tradition in:

Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, vol. 1, p. 72
[Eve] spoke thus, because in [Adam’s] zeal to guard her against the transgressing of the Divine command, Adam had forbidden Eve to touch the tree, though God had mentioned only the eating the fruit.

So, according to this tradition, Adam had passed on the command of the L-RD to his wife himself; it did not get transmitted to Eve directly from the L-RD. And Adam chose not to trust his wife with the command exactly as it was given to him; instead, he did what? He added to the words the L-RD Himself had spoken.

Now, any parent will understand Adam’s motivation here. He was being protective. We do it to our own children all the time. We have a pot boiling on an open flame on the stove. We don’t want the child to burn their hand on the open flame, so we tell them, “Don’t touch the flame or you’ll burn your hand.” But then we think, wow, even letting them near the stove is dangerous. So them we tell them, “Don’t touch the stove.” But hey, we know how curious little kids are, so even letting them in the kitchen at all is risky. So we say, “Don’t come into the kitchen while I’m cooking.” Before you know it, we have grounded the child to his or her room because we’ve built so many protective fences around the actual threat. The worst part is, they don’t even know why they’re grounded to their room anymore.

But, Eve wasn’t a child, was she? She was supposed to be a suitable helpmate to Adam, and therefore he should have given her the command exactly as the L-RD had given it to him. But hey, Adam’s intentions were good, right? Well, let’s see if it worked! Let’s see if adding to the actual command of God produced a good result. We read this in:

Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Now, there’s a lot to deal with here. Let’s start with why Eve ate the fruit. The same tradition I read earlier from Ginzburg suggests that while he was beguiling her, the serpent pushed Eve into the tree and, when she didn’t die, the seed of doubt began to grow in her. I also think there’s a hint in the text of the Torah here that Eve touched the fruit before eating it, because how else could she “see that it was good.” Either way, once she touches the tree and does not die, doubt springs to life and she then has cause to doubt the rest of the L-RD’s command. After all, she had been taught that she could not even touch it and live, right? So when she does touch the fruit and there’s no lightning bolt from above… well, the door to deception is wide open, isn’t it?

But that’s not what God said. If you remember what I said was a preferred translation, the L-RD said that if they eat of it, it would… what? It would become certain that they would die. That doesn’t sound like immediate judgment, instant keeling over or the cliché lightning bolt from above. That’s not in God’s nature! He’s patient with us, wanting all of us to come to repentance.

One more point on the fall. Most people, when asked about the fall of man, will say, “Oh yeah, Eve really messed us up.” But is that what’s really going on here? Not at all. Remember how it was worded in the last part of verse eight. It reads, “She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” See that? “Who was with her.” Adam didn’t show up after the fact. He was there the whole time. And they are echad. So they fell together, but that’s not how it’s remembered. People remember that Eve bit first and create this whole scenario about Adam showing up after the fact – but it’s not there in Scripture; just the opposite is written.

And Adam’s responsibility is, in some ways, even greater. He has the burden of headship in the marriage and it was his place to speak up in the middle of the serpent’s efforts to deceive, and put a stop to it. He didn’t do that. Adam could have stepped in and pointed out that touching the fruit was not part of the L-RD’s original command; for whatever reason, he also did not do that. And so we know how the story goes from there.

So let’s consider this idea of adding to the words of the L-RD. Does this remind you of anything else? Does it sound familiar at all? It should. For one thing, it should remind you of rabbinics. That is exactly what rabbinics is, what it does. This is testified to directly in the:

Babylonian Talmud, Avoth 1
Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the great synagogue. The latter used to say three things: be patient in [the administration of] justice, rear many disciples and make a fence round the Torah.

Now, we’ve all heard Stan use this quote and teach on it as the origin of the Oral Torah. If anyone has any doubt that how we interpret this passage is correct, one need look no further than a footnote in the Soncino Edition of the Babylonian Talmud regarding this very passage. It reads this way:

Babylonian Talmud, Avoth 1, footnote
The Torah is conceived as a garden and its precepts as precious plants. Such a garden is fenced round for the purpose of obviating wilful or even unintended damage. Likewise, the precepts of the Torah were to be ‘fenced’ round with additional inhibitions that should have the effect of preserving the original commandments from trespass.

You see, in their tradition about Adam adding to the words of the L-RD, the rabbis attempt to make Adam a hero of rabbinics. Even he, according to their teachings, saw the value in adding additional commands to the L-RD’s, to prevent violation of the actual command. But they overlook Adam’s results; the fall of man, the necessity of shedding blood for the remission of sins, the necessity of a Messiah to mend things between God and man. Why on earth would one want to continue doing something that didn’t work?

Yeshua Himself points this out, calling the Oral Torah a burden no one can bear, and saying that His burden, by comparison, is light. And what is Yeshua’s lighter burden? It is pure and simple obedience to the written Torah of God – the Word of God alone, and nothing more. Which is exactly what the Father had in mind from the beginning.

Shabbat Shalom.

Some folks like to write about causes they feel passionately about, such as a disability appeal. I don’t know if Torah and the Messiah Yeshua are a cause exactly, but there’s plenty about both to get passionate about. Here’s my Torah commentary for Simchat Torah on B’resheet. Or listen to it!

Shabbat Shalom.

Our parashah for today is B’resheet, which is a Hebrew word that means “in the beginning.” This portion covers Genesis chapter 1 through chapter 6, verse 8. This is perhaps the most well-read and familiar of all the parashahs of the Torah; yet it is also the focus of more questions and mysteries than any other parashah. For those who believe, the foundation of their faith often starts with the words, “In the beginning, God created.” Yet for those who do not believe, their questions and doubts begin with the very same words.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created. He created it all. While it may seem like a simple insight, it is also important. It is so important, in fact, that this is why so many Hebrew prayers and blessings begin with the words: baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech haOlam, which means, “Blessed are You, O L-RD, our God, creator of the universe.”

That is who God is. Our creator. Not only our creator, but the creator of everything, of all life. The L-RD is the creator, to borrow a book title from the late science fiction author and humorist Douglas Adams, of life, the universe, and everything.

The L-RD spoke, and everything that is came into existence, by the very power of Him speaking them. The L-RD utters ten phrases, and all that is, is. The interesting thing is, He did not need ten sayings to create it all; according to the Sages, as we find in:

Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 49
With ten sayings God created the world, although a single saying would have sufficed God desired to make known how severe is the punishment to be meted out to the wicked, who destroy a world created with as many as ten sayings, and how goodly the reward destined for the righteous, who preserve a world created with as many as ten sayings.

While this insight into the ten sayings is interesting, what I believe is far more helpful is to realize that the first mention of Messiah comes not in the L-RD’s promises to Moses, nor his promises to Abraham, nor to Noah. The first mention of Messiah in the Torah comes as early as verse three, as we read:

Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Where is Messiah in that verse? Why, in the reference to light! But don’t take just my word for it. Let’s take a look at this tradition from:

Weekly Midrash, vol. 1, p. 18
The Torah tells us, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ to reveal that God will ultimately illuminate Israel with the light of the Mashiach, of whom it is written, “Arise, shine forth, for your light has come.” (Jeremiah 60:1) – the light being, of course, the Mashiach.

So, as we can see, the gospel writer John was not alone when he suggested that the Messiah and the Father were one eternally, present at creation and in the mind of the Father before time even began. In fact, there’s a striking similarity between how Moses begins Genesis, and how John begins his gospel, as we read in:

John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing made had being. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not suppressed it.

Notice that John starts out with very much the same word as the book of Genesis… In the beginning, or, in Hebrew, b’resheet. So Genesis is indeed a book of beginnings. The beginning of the promise of Messiah; the beginning of time; the beginning of the world.

In this beginning, the L-RD labors for six days and then establishes the seventh day as a day of rest. It is not, as some would suggest, that the L-RD needed to rest. He was setting an example for us, and commanding us to observe the Sabbath day from the very beginning of time. More importantly, he was setting an example of Adam. And it’s important to realize that the Sabbath is here, commanded by the L-RD’s example from the beginning of time as a festival of the L-RD to be held on seventh day.

Now some people might say, “But the Sabbath belongs to the Jewish people!” In fact, I know of a Messianic teacher who promotes that very idea; he teaches that there are ten commands for those who are Jewish, and only nine for non-Jews because the Sabbath is for the Jews alone. Yet here we are in Genesis, nearly 2,000 years before the L-RD called out Abraham, long before Isaac and Jacob, long before there was a “children of Israel,” and even longer before Moses received the Torah on Sinai, and here is the L-RD setting the example of the Sabbath day for an audience of one – Adam.

And this seven day pattern, as it turns out, will repeat over and over again; it has a prophetic component because it is a shadow of the L-RD’s plan for His creation. Did you know that the Bible teaches, and even the rabbis teach, that there are only seven thousand years of time in God’s plan?

Now, of course, like so much of this parashah, that goes against the conventional wisdom of the world, against science, which teaches, as Carl Sagan once said, that the universe is “billions and billions” of years old.

Yet that is not what God teaches. Let’s look at this tradition from the:

Babylonian Talmud 97a
The school of Eliyyahu teaches: The world is to exist six thousand years. In the first two thousand there was desolation; two thousand years the Torah flourished; and the next two thousand years is the Messianic era,

And what of the last thousand years? That is also spoken of in the:

Babylonian Talmud 97a
One thousand years out of seven shall be fallow, as it is written, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day,’

So you see, just as the work of God was over in six days, followed by a Sabbath day of rest, so too will the work of mankind last six thousand years, followed by one thousand years of Sabbath rest in which Messiah will reign and the L-RD will be exalted. We are given the key to unlocking this mystery in the word of:

II Peter 3:8
Moreover, dear friends, do not ignore this: with the L-RD, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day

Now, some people get hung up on the details. They will zealously pour over this verse, for example, and try to extract a hidden meaning from the word “like” versus the word “is.” Or perhaps they will look too closely at Genesis 1:1 through 2:3, as well as Genesis 2:4 and what follows, and they will buy into the claim made by some teachers that there are two creation accounts in Genesis. Or maybe they’ll listen to someone on the radio, or read some Web site that claims to be Messianic – until you read what they teach, anyway – and they’ll try to determine between which two verses of Genesis the war in heaven occurred.

And the truth is, a lot of that stuff can be fascinating. But the truth is also this: none of that stuff is actually in Genesis. I’m concerned about teachers who have so much time on their hands that they have to dream up theories about what happened between the verses of the Torah, rather than prayerfully wrestling with the Torah itself. I’m concerned about teachers who study Torah so little that they would assume there are two creation stories in Genesis, rather than recognizing the style of Hebrew literature, which is not always linear and chronological as we think of it, but is often organized in more of a point-by-point way. First the L-RD, through Moses, gives us a broad summary of the creation, then he delves into the detail, repeating part of it.

This sort of carelessness in study and teaching is what leads to bad theology. It’s what leads to people putting more stock in myths than they do into the text of the Torah itself. In fact, it could almost be considered a form of idolatry, an idolatry of ideas rather than images or gods. The Torah is the Word of the L-RD, after all, and if we’d rather spend time debating whether Adam had a wife before Eve, rather than appreciating all the rich Messianic significance, instruction by example, and prophetic symbolism of the account of the creation of all that is, then perhaps our time is being invested in the wrong area.

That’s idolatry. We should be investing our time, our study and our prayer in the words of the L-RD, and not some fringe teacher’s flights of fancy. Anything else leads people astray from not only the Word of God, the Torah, but also the Living Word of God, Messiah Yeshua.

That’s what it’s all about, right? I know that’s what the study of Torah is all about for me.

Shabbat Shalom.

Some people might expect me to be disappointed. After a year of doing a commentary every week, soon I’ll be writing one only every three weeks or so.

Hey, put me on a nice, comfy exam table if you want to, but I’m thrilled. Not only are the other guys in the rotation good friends and part of my men’s Torah study, but more time away from writing commentaries means I’ll have more time for my other writing.

Maybe I’ll finally get some real progress made on that novel of mine. Hey, stranger things have happened!

OK, you may need some weight loss pills if you eat this too often, but here’s my beef stew recipe, which is full of flavor and goodness and is exactly the way I make it for myself, secrets and all.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Craig’s Satisfying Beef Stew

• 5 lbs. of beef chuck roast (or round roast), koshered
• 1/4-lb. stick of real sweet cream butter
• 1 full 8 oz. jar of Better Than Bullion Beef Base
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 3 bundles of green onions
• 2 large white onions
• 1 leek
• 3-4 whole cloves of garlic
• 2 lbs. baby red potatoes
• 2 lbs. yukon gold potatoes
• 3 lbs. russet potatoes
• 3 large red peppers
• 2 small red jalapeno peppers
• 4 lbs. Roma tomatoes
• 2 lbs. greenhouse/hydroponic tomatoes
• 1-2 bags of really good, fresh green celery
• 1 package of aromatic cooking herbs and spices (rosemary, basil and sage)
• 1-2 tbsp. paprika
• 3 1-lb. bags of Alberto extra-wide egg noodles

Okay, here’s how to make it.

First, get a huge soup kettle… the largest one you can find because we’re cooking large. Fill it only about half-way with water. Get it on the stove and start heating it up… but only just above simmer. Put the entire jar of Better Than Bullion in there and stir occasionally so it doesn’t clump up and burn to the bottom of the kettle.

At the same time, ready a cast-iron skillet, also very large… large enough to hold your five pounds or so of beef. Again, put it on a low heat.

Toss the stick of butter into the skillet to get it melting. Then start chopping the aromatic spices. I’m not talking dried stuff; I’m talking the fresh, green, leafy stuff you can find in the produce section. Chop ‘em up, preferably by hand, and toss ‘em in the melting butter.

Now get to work on chopping up the other aromatics; the green onions, white onions, leek and garlic. Get them all in the butter as soon as you can. The good smells are on the way.

Now start cubing your beef. Make sure to trim most of the fat away… personally, I like my beef lean; some people may prefer to keep a little fat in to help flavor the soup, but with my recipe, you don’t need to.

As you cut it down, toss the cubes in the skillet and get it to browning in that butter among all those aromatics. You won’t need to marinade this beef, because the butter and aromatics will do that for you. Once you’ve cubed all the beef, keep an eye on it and keep mixing and turning the beef so nothing burns. Remember, a SLOW simmer… this isn’t a race.

Oh, and with those green onions, chop them up most of the way up the green stalks… those are your scallions, and they add tons of flavor. Don’t do that as much with the leek, though.

Once your skillet is full, now it’s time to turn your attention to the kettle again. Time to start on the celery, which should go in first. Cut off the leafy parts on top, as well as the thick white base. Toss those parts and chop the rest of the celery up as you like. I prefer my celery smaller, so I cut it up pretty good.

Now get to work on the potatoes, which take a long time to cook right, also. I wash them all thoroughly, but I prefer to keep the skin on the Yukon Gold and the Baby Reds. Dice ‘em to your preferred size and get them in the water with that celery. Don’t forget to stir the beef on occasion.

With the Russets, remove the skin and dig out the root-pits and then dice ‘em up. Add ‘em into the kettle now, too.

Next up are the peppers. On the red peppers, I prefer to remove the white core and the green stem. Then I slice them up into nice squares. With the red jalapenos, I cut the tops off, cut in half and slice ‘em into somewhat narrow ribbons. Put the peppers in the kettle with the potatoes and celery.

On to the tomatoes. I like to deal with the hydroponic/greenhouse tomatoes first, because they’re bigger but trickier to cube. Messier, too. Then cube up the lovely Roma tomatoes, which are so much firmer and nicer. Get it all in the kettle.

By now your kitchen should smell good enough to eat! And the beef and aromatics should be ready, fully browned.

The first tricky part is to drain off the excess butter and fat. Then move all the aromatics and beef into the kettle. Get it all cooking together now. Bring up the heat on the kettle a bit, to just below boiling. If you’re in a hurry, you can cut some time off by putting it on a slow boil, but you’ll need to stir more often because you have something like twenty pounds of food in there and it’ll start burning to the bottom if you get careless cooking it on a higher heat or open flame.

Last step for now is to add in that pint of heavy cream and stir one more time. If you’re into rabbinic kosher, you can leave the heavy cream out… but it really makes the broth so if you’re like me and only concerned with clean and unclean, use the cream! Oh, and if you’re into rabbinic kosher, you can substitute Extra Virgin Olive Oil for the butter when browning the meat, also.

Then put the cover on the kettle and let it slow cook. If you’re cooking at a slow boil, you might have it ready in about two to three hours. At a nicer, leisurely pace, just below boiling, we’re talking about letting it simmer for more like five or six hours. Make sense?

Stir the contents about every 20-30 minutes. A bit more often if you’re cooking at a higher heat.

A couple hours in, go ahead and add in the paprika powder to your own personal taste preferences. I use a bit more than some people, but I like a little kick to my stew.

At the same time, add in all those lovely noodles. They’ll help soak up the extra broth and keep it from being a soup. And there will be plenty of flavor cooked into the potatoes and noodles. If it’s Passover season, substitute matza balls or matza-meal noodles instead.

Let it cook at least another hour… minimum of three hours cooking time total, even at a slow boil. Then start tasting the broth and the trying a potato cube or celery slice. When they’re nice and firm, but no longer crunchy, you’re pretty much ready to start serving. I like my potatoes and celery a little softer, but definitely keep cooking until all the crunch is gone, because nothing ruins a good stew like half-cooked potatoes or celery. I hate “raw spots” in my veggies!

This should be enough to serve at least 20-30 people, or to make many, many meals. Anything you’re not going to eat in the first couple days should be stored in Glad bowls and frozen… it’s still great even weeks later, once you thaw it and reheat on the stove. Don’t microwave if you can avoid it.

And that’s it! It’ll be the best, richest stew you’ve ever had. Mazel tov!

NOTE: I hate carrots, and that’s why there are none in this recipe. With all the peppers, you shouldn’t miss them. However, if you can’t live without carrots, go ahead and add in about a pound of them, sliced or cubed… but don’t blame me if you don’t like how the stew tastes after adding them. Yuck!

Tonight, my wife threw me a nice, quiet, somewhat belated birthday celebration. It was just a few close friends, no RV insurance sales people or anything like that.

We went to the excellent kosher deli in Saint Paul, Cecil’s, and I enjoyed their brand-new pastrami and schmeer (cream cheese) sandwich along with some raspberry lemonade. I had hoped to try their pineapple lemonade, but they were out. Oh well, maybe next time.

At any rate, it was mostly men from my Torah study and their wives. It made for a lovely evening and a very thoughtful event planned by my beautiful and talented wife.

I have some Messianic friends who don’t believe in celebrating birthdays because they’re not commanded by the L-RD. But I have a different view.

The feasts of the L-RD are commanded by the L-RD, and they are His special times to spend with us. If God’s relationship to us is to be our model for a healthy marriage, than we need special times between a husband and wife as well. God doesn’t command any of those specifically, but what better time for a husband and wife to celebrate as a marital “appointed time” than celebrating with each other on the day we reach another “new year” of life?

Makes sense to me.

Now that I’m tipping the scales at 252, I have once again looked at the best diet pills in hope of some help. Unfortunately, virtually none of them are caffeine-free and since I have high blood pressure, that’s not a workable route for me. Guess I’ll have to control it through smaller portions, fewer calories and more exercise. Anyway, here’s my commentary for Sukkot Day 1. Or listen to it!

Shabbat Shalom.

Our parashah for Sukkot Day One, covers Leviticus 22, verse 26, through chapter 23, verse 44, as well as Numbers 29, verses 12 through 16. This week’s portion focuses on the L-RD’s commanded feasts; His appointed times that we are to set aside as special, as times to spend with our Creator in worship, study and sacred assemblies. And of course, there is a special focus on the festival that begins today, Sukkot.

Now, the celebration of the L-RD’s appointed feasts is one of the elements that helps define us as a Messianic congregation. And most of us who come here from Christian church backgrounds know that not all believers are convinced that observing the feasts of the L-RD is something that applies to them. But what you may not know, unless you come here from a Jewish background, is that not all rabbis believe the feasts of the L-RD, God’s appointed times, are for everyone either.

As a matter of fact, I know of one Messianic teacher at least who teaches if you are Jewish, there are 10 Commands, but if you are a non-Jew, there are only nine commands you are to observe because observance of the L-RD’s Shabbat is only for the Jewish people. Yet is that what the Torah teaches? Let’s take a closer look at this week’s reading, from:

Leviticus 23:3
There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the L-RD.

Pay attention to that last part and how it’s worded. Wherever you live it is a Sabbath to the L-RD. Wherever you live. Not just in Israel, not just in the Promised Land, but wherever you live, you are to do no work and observe the Sabbath. Does that sound like a command that is intended only for the Jewish people? No, of course not.

And in the feasts the L-RD commands to be observed, that is how he phrases it throughout the rest of this chapter. Wherever you live, do this. He often goes on to add, “this is a lasting ordinance for you, throughout all of your generations.”

So the case that is made that the festivals are not for non-Jews isn’t looking very good already. But especially with this week’s festival, with Sukkot, the case against non-Jewish believers not observing these feasts appointed by the L-RD breaks down entirely.

You see, to open up the meaning of this festival is to see clearly that the L-RD had more than just the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in mind. Let’s take a closer look at what the L-RD commands concerning Sukkot, starting in:

Leviticus 23:33-36
The L-RD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the L-RD’s Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. For seven days present offerings made to the L-RD by fire, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present an offering made to the L-RD by fire. It is the closing assembly; do no regular work.

So here the parameters of the festival are made clear, but let’s look as the details of the sacrifices required during the festival, which we read about in:

Numbers 29:13
Present an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the L-RD, a burnt offering of thirteen young bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

Now, each day of Sukkot, this offering is to be the same, with one exception: the number of young bulls required reduces by one every day of the festival. So on the second day, twelve bulls are to be offered, eleven on the third day, and so forth. By the time Sukkot is over, a total of 70 young bulls have been offered.

Why is this significant? Well, first we must understand who these bulls represent. When Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt, the sons of Israel are listed in Genesis and if you count them up, there are 70 in all. The L-RD also numbered the nations after the sons of Israel, and so at that time, there were 70 nations on the Earth. Obviously, there are many more than that today, but the numbering was done at the time of the migration of Israel into Egypt, so there are 70 nations.

We find this in Jewish tradition:

These seventy oxen corresponded to the seventy original nations of the world who descended from the sons of Noah, and who were the ancestors of all the nations till this day. Israel brought these sacrifices as an atonement for the nations of the world and in prayer for their well-being as well as for universal peace and harmony between them.

So here, we get our first confirmation about what the offering of these seventy bulls were about; it was an atonement for the nations of the world, and a prayer for peace and harmony between them. You know, another name for Sukkot is The Festival of Nations. Sukkot, in part, is about Israel making atonement to God on behalf of all the other nations on Earth! Now, granted, there are many levels of meaning to the festival of Sukkot and this is only one of them; however, I believe this makes clear the idea that the festivals were not declared by God to be only “by, about and for” the Jewish people alone.

Of course, it’s not as if involving the nations in this festival was repaid to the Jewish people by extra kindness or deference to them as a whole. As we read in:

B’midbar Rabbah 21
The Sages have said: ‘In place of my love they hate me, and I pray (for them), (Tehilim 109): You find that during the Festival, Israel offers You seventy oxen for the seventy nations. Israel says: Master of the Universe! Behold, we offer You seventy oxen in their behalf, and they should have loved us…instead–’in the place of my love they hate me.’

And that’s as true today as it was in the time of Jacob, isn’t it? How many of the nations today do you see lining up to bless Israel? How many of the nations today do you see lining up to curse Israel, or at least, to turn a deaf ear when others utter curses against her? Even our own country is now falling in line with this unfortunate tendency.

At a recent UN summit, Iranian President Mahmoud Achmadinijad spoke of Israel’s time “being short” and predicting Israel would “soon disappear off the map.” Yet did our government speak out against this rhetoric? Sadly, no. As the old saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Or, there’s Rabbi Stan’s version: “You have to pay for your good deeds.” This truth was also acknowledged by the sages, such as when:

Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi said
‘If the nations of the world would have known the value of the Temple for them, they would have surrounded it with fortresses in order to protect it. For it was of greater value for them than for Israel.
I believe that what this shows is that even some rabbinic traditions line up with what the Torah clearly states; that the feasts of the L-RD are to be observed as “eternal celebrations for you, through all your generations, no matter where you live.”

It also shows that Yeshua was not alone when he taught that we should love our enemies; after all, that’s what the feast of Sukkot essentially is – praying blessings and peace over the nations of the world, even when those nations are hostile toward Israel. It underlines the consistency of the message of the written Torah, and the Living Torah, Messiah Yeshua.

So we who are believers today, whether we come to Messiah from a Jewish or non-Jewish background, can have confidence that we are allowed, and even commanded by the L-RD, to observe His appointed times. The feast of Sukkot makes that clearer than perhaps any other festival, since a large part of the ceremony – the sacrifice of young bulls – is clearly dedicated to blessing the nations outside of Israel.

If the nations of the world had any sense, they would bless Israel in return, and seek for her the same sort of peace and blessing they are receiving as a result of the feast of Sukkot.

So as we begin this week of Sukkot, let us make this a part of our dedication to observing the L-RD’s festival. Let us pray not only for the peace of Jerusalem, but for a change of heart among the nations of the earth, that they would repent and seek to bless Israel as Israel blesses them, that they would pray for the peace of Israel as Israel prays for their peace. While that day has not yet come in fullness, may it come soon. If not in this world, then in the World to Come.

Shabbat Shalom.