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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Zion Oil and Gas, Inc. - The Joseph Project Part 1-2



49:1 The Zion Story - Movie Trailer 2010

Rabbi Wein - Parshas Bo

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Rabbi Berel Wein
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Parshas Bo

It is Up to Us
People who are released from bondage or any other type of incarceration usually find their adjustment to freedom difficult if not even very problematic. More often than not the look on their newly freed faces is one of bewilderment – of being in a dazed condition – rather than one of pure joy.

Past unpleasant and painful experiences are not easily forgotten, or sublimated and assigned purely to one’s subconscious. When the Exodus from Egypt finally occurs in this week’s parsha, the Jewish people leave “with a high hand” but with weakness of spirit. They will despair of their future.

When Pharaoh continues to pursue them to the shores of the Yam Suf sea and throughout their forty year sojourn in the desert of Sinai, they are always on the verge of abandoning their special mission and returning somehow to the accustomed bondage and servitude of Egypt.

In the past generation of our people, many of the survivors of the Holocaust faced enormous challenges after being liberated from Nazi tyranny. The adjustment of most of them to freedom and to their ability to rebuild their lives is a testimony to the greatness and resilience of the Jewish spirit. But it was not an easy journey back to normalcy in a free society.

The Jewish people after leaving Egypt would require forty years and a new generation of Jews before they were ready and able to undertake the task of building a free Jewish society in their own land and under their own rule and sovereignty. As the old paraphrase goes “You can take the Jew out of exile and bondage but it is much more difficult to remove the mentality of exile and bondage from within the Jew.”

The Torah seems to indicate to us quite clearly that the Lord has the ability to save us from bondage and destruction. Beginning with the Exodus from Egypt throughout the generations, God has performed this miraculous task for us many times over. But it is also clear from the Torah that once that has been accomplished, the Lord intends for us to take over and finish the task.

He will supply us with food and water, physical sustenance and spiritual and temporal leadership but what we do with those blessings is purely up to us. We are taught that “when the Lord returns the captivity of Zion we will be as dreamers.” A dreamer is in a dazed state of being. But once being awakened we are bidden to act and build and accomplish – to be bold and courageous and of optimistic heart.

The great Rav of Ponivezh, Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Kahaneman told me numerous times that “I am a dreamer but I do not allow myself to sleep.” The Exodus from Egypt is not the end of the story of the Jewish people or of Moshe. It is only the beginning, for freedom is a never ending challenge fraught with difficulties, naysayers and doomsday pessimists.

The Lord took us out of Egypt forcibly for we would have remained there – as we say every year in the Hagada of the Pesach Seder. But then it was up to us. That remains the same situation in today’s Jewish world as well.

Shabat shalom,
Rabbi Berel Wein
To Support Project Genesis- Torah.org
Rabbi Berel Wein, Copyright &copy 2011 by Rabbi Berel Wein and Torah.org

Crash course in Jewish history

Rabbi Berel Wein- Jewish historian, author and international lecturer offers a complete selection of CDs, audio tapes, video tapes, DVDs, and books on Jewish history at www.rabbiwein.com

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Perceptions - Parshas Bo

Can we do תפילות prayers for:

Rabbi Pinchas Winston and torah.org?

That also through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?


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Perceptions

by Rabbi Pinchas Winston

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Parshas Bo

Different Missions in Life for Men and Women
God told Moshe and Aharon in Egypt, “This month will be for you the beginning of the months; it will be the first month of the year for you.” (Shemos 12:1)

One of the most controversial blessings has to be the one that women make each morning: “Blessed are you, Hashem, our God and King of the world, that He made me according to His will.” For, if men bless God saying, “… that He did not make me a woman,” why do women not bless Him by saying something similar like, “… that He didn’t make me a man”?

Furthermore, the implication from the blessing that women do make is that men were not created according to His will. Some women might argue that this is indeed true since given how some men act, could God really take responsibility for such creations? They think not, even though nothing can exist if God does not approve of its being part of Creation.

An answer to the question posed above can be extrapolated from this week’s parshah. In this week’s parshah, the Jewish people get their first mitzvah, which is to sanctify the new moon, even though they would not be able to perform it until reaching Eretz Yisroel, and after conquering and dividing the land and establishing a Sanhedrin, which eventually took 14 years altogether.

The question is why, since so many other mitzvos seem to be more fundamental to Judaism, and therefore the redemption from Egypt. Secondly, why not give a mitzvah that is immediately relevant, rather than one that could and did take decades to first perform it? What is so central to being Jewish about sanctifying the new moon each month?

Everything, of course. As the Talmud explains, the moon represents the Jewish people, who like the moon, have waxed and waned throughout history. But, more importantly, just as the moon does not emanate its own light, but rather it reflects the light of the sun to the world, likewise are the Jewish people meant to reflect God’s light—Torah—to mankind in order to rectify it. Wrapped in the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people is the entire mission statement of the nation.

In more Kabbalistic terms, the moon, which is considered to be feminine, and associated with the Shechinah—the Divine Presence—is a mekabeles—a receiver. It has no light of its own to interfere with the light of the sun; if it receives none then it has none, and that is the way it should be for a Jew with respect to God. Avodas Hashem—Service of God—is primarily about working on oneself until one becomes this way.

Women are naturally set up this way. They are constantly receiving and then giving to others. The most obvious representation of this idea is the entire process of childbirth, during which a woman receives from a man, allows for the development of what she has received, and then gives birth to it in a far more complete form.

This is very similar to the Torah-learning process. The original ideas must come from God via His Torah, but once received, we must think about them and work with them, until we have developed them to the point that we can express them in a way that is novel and yet consistent with the original concept. This is a feminine-like procedure, crucial for grasping Torah and for the educational process.

I once heard a story of two great rabbis who were very close. However, one was older than the other, and presumably wiser as well. At the eulogy of the older one, the younger rabbi recounted a story where the two of them were walking home together discussing an important point. The elder rabbi, after trying several times unsuccessfully to have the younger rabbi understand his point finally told him, “You are not being a listener.”

In other words, the younger rabbi was hearing him, but not listening to him. He heard the words, but they were not registering on the level for which they were intended by the elder rav, and therefore lacked the necessary impact. Apparently, the younger rabbi recounted, his own perspective blocked him from seeing the perspective of his mentor; it blocked him from being a proper mekabel—a receiver.

That is a naturally male thing to do. It seems, in general, more natural for men to be givers rather than receivers, usually because of pride. There is something about the male ego that demands that a man do things on his own, without the help of others. Men seem to need independence more than women do, which is why my wife is ready to ask directions the moment we are lost, and I won’t until I have made every effort to solve the dilemma on my own.

It’s an issue of hisbatlus—self-nullification. Sounds bad, right? I mean, who would want to nullify himself? Only someone who wants to live with true freedom. For, in truth, what is being nullified is not the person, but his ego that interferes with his becoming a proper mekabel. Hisbatlus is a spiritual house cleaning that rids a person of all those extraneous ways of thinking and habits that prevent the person from becoming a full member on God’s team.

In fact, this is the entire point of exile in the first place, which is why great rabbis like the Vilna Gaon used to impose it on themselves, something I can personally relate to a little when going on speaking tours. While traveling, you live out of context, staying in places that you cannot call home, working out of a suitcase. It all makes life seem quite transient, and tends to make you more aware of your surroundings than of yourself. You feel more like a spectator than spectated.

This is even though when going on speaking trips, I get enough attention. Not only that, but everywhere I have ever gone I have been treated very well, quite respectfully. Yet, by being a guest in someone else’s home, I feel less at the center of my world than I do at home, even though I get less attention there, and less respect, being only ‘Abba’ and just one of many in my community. Just having a fixed location I can call my own, and a schedule that I can control (for the most part), gives me context and makes me self-conscious.

In fact, I found out this last trip, that most of the pleasure I have while traveling does not come from the success, thank God, that I have while abroad, though that certainly makes the trip more worthwhile. It comes from being out of context for a while, and becoming less aware of myself, and less concerned about self-image. It results from the automatic hisbatlus that comes from being away from home, from going from manhood to moonhood.

In an ideal world, one in which roles do not get mixed up and men do not act like women and women do not act like men, a woman would have no problem relating to what I am talking about. Her natural sense of hisbatlus and moonhood make her a natural receiver, which is why the women did not fall for the trap of the Spies and entered the land 40 years later, after all the men who died in the desert.

This is also what made Moshe Rabbeinu the great leader that he was, as the mishnah points out:

Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it Yehoshua. Yehoshua transmitted it to the Elders … (Pirkei Avos 1:1)

It only mentions ‘received’ with respect to Moshe, but not with respect to Yehoshua and the Elders, for they were not mekablim on the level of Moshe Rabbeinu.

Hence, God says regarding Moshe:

The man Moshe was extremely humble, more than any man upon the face of the earth … “My servant Moshe is the most trustworthy in My entire house.” (Bamidbar 12:3-7)

However, this can worded differently: Moshe is the greatest mekabel in My entire world. Loyalty and trustworthiness is completely a function of how much one accepts about another, and from another. The more accepting someone is of another, the more that person will stand behind the person to whom he is loyal.

When it comes to human beings, that can be a problem sometimes. Sometimes, people can be loyal to others to a fault, ultimately resulting in their own betrayal by the person whom they trusted so much. People can be selfish and greedy, and use another person’s loyalty to their own gain, causing much destruction along the way.

However, when it comes to God, you can never go wrong by being completely loyal and trustworthy. God has none of the human traits that can make a person take advantage of another person’s trustworthiness. On the contrary, the more loyal one is to God, the more loyal he is to himself. For, the more loyal one is to God the more God can do for him.

It’s like a son who dutifully gives his father a portion of his weekly paycheck, unaware of what his father does with the money. All he knows is that his father asked him for the money, and that he trusts his father implicitly. And, if he ever wonders what his father does with the money, he simply tells himself, “It must be for some family good.”

Unlike his brother, though, who trusts his father less. As a result, the second son, one day, opts out of his obligation, and chooses not to give anymore of his paycheck to his father. For months his father continues to ask him for the money, and for months the son refuses, until eventually, the father gives up and ceases to make the request anymore.

Years go by, and the time comes for the boys to marry. When the first son gets engaged, his father surprises him with a gift of a check for a lot of money. All of a sudden, the son’s financial position changes for the better, and he is able to get married and make a down payment on a new home that he and his wife had only dreamed of buying one day far into the future.

When the second son gets married, the father also presents him with a check, but for a lot less money. Anticipating at least the same amount of money as brother received, his face drops and angrily, he asks his father why he favors the other son more? How would he be able to afford a new house for his new family like his brother?

The father explains, “It was not my money that I gave to your brother, and it is not my money that I am giving to you now. The money I gave to your brother was his own, saved up from the weekly deposits I made in his name from the portion of the paycheck he gave me each week. Plus the interest, of course. The same is true of your check: it is you money, plus the interest, up until the time you stopped making your payments.”

Selfishness and mistrust have a way of backfiring on us in the long run. That is the way we were born, but not the way that we were made. We were created in the image of God, and therefore, ‘according to His will.’ We were selfless, and trusting, until we made the mistake of acting differently, and eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then we became more physical, as we are today.

The process of growing and developing throughout life is the process of becoming selfless once again, until we exist only to receive the light of God, and to share it with others. It is the process of increasing hisbatlus, in the pursuit of moonhood, which marriage and family raising can certainly promote as they make and increase demands on family members’ time and energy, while at the same time the person is trying to live a life of Torah and mitzvos.

But, how else can a person arrive at the wonderful point of being happy with one’s own portion, the opposite of Western ideology? When one achieves this holy level of living, then he can finally say that he is as the will of God intended him to be.

Until such time as a man reaches this level, women will make the blessing that they do, while struggling to maintain such a holy approach to life, which is a major struggle, since society is bent on pulling them completely in the opposite direction. And, men will make the blessing they do, to at least acknowledge their difference, to make clear their mission in life, and to state their commitment to it.

To Support Project Genesis- Torah.org
Perceptions, Copyright &copy 2011 by Rabbi Pinchas Winston and Torah.org.

Questions or comments? Email feedback@torah.org.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week. Visit http://torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Permission is granted to redistribute, but please give proper attribution and copyright to the author and Torah.org. Both the author and Torah.org reserve certain rights. Email copyrights@torah.org for full information.


Torah.org: The Judaism Site
Project Genesis, Inc.
122 Slade Avenue, Suite 250
Baltimore, MD 21208
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learn@torah.org
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[RTM Torah Portions] - Restoration of Torah Ministries' Messianic Think Tank - New Audio Visual Content Uploaded!

Can we do תפילות prayers for:

Tony & Tina Robinson?

That also through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?


Shalom,

Just want to inform you of more Messianic Think Tank audio/visual content that was uploaded recently . . .

The Beauty of Parashat Shemot Part I -
This is Part I of a three part teaching I'll be doing on Parashat Shemot. My goal is to investigate the literary structure of this Torah portion, suggest a reason for it's start and end at Exodus 1:1 - 6:1, investigate a subtle clue found in the story of the enslavement of Am Yisrael (the people of Israel), explore a Jewish midrashim pertaining to the passage, suggest a basis for the midrashim and then demonstrate why, in some instances, Jewish midrashim are so close to the reality of Messianic truth! Whew! That was a mouth-full.

http://restorationoftorah.org/AudioVisual/TheBeautyOfParashatShemot/index.html

This teaching will be permanently located on the Think Tank web page under the Torah Portion entitled Shemot, under the drop down menu for the book of Exodus.

Remember that RTM has audio/visual presentations available on our Messianic Think Tank web page. I will be uploading material regularly. The RTM Messianic Think Tank web page can be found at . . .
http://restorationoftorah.org/ThinkingThematically/ThinkTank.htm

You will find the following categories:

  • Teachings on the Weekly Torah Portions
  • Teachings on the Festivals
  • Teachings on Miscellaneous Topics
  • Teachings Loaded Onto YouTube

Shalom, Shalom,

Tony Robinson

______________________________
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Who is Yahweh ?

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Who is YHWH?
TEACHING AND EVANGELISM BROCHURE
This teaching is a concise but touching explanation of the Sacred name of YHWH and the path of salvation.  Read the article below AND click to download a pdf brochure of the article that can be easily printed to pass out in your community.

When you download the file, you can then edit the brochure to add your personal contact information for distribution.  This brochure makes sharing the Name of Salvation easy!

It is our desire that this teaching brings glory to YHWH's name by helping people understand and know its power.

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Who is YHWH  hwhy ?
hwhy - these strokes of ink are more than just ancient Hebrew letters. Together, these letter's spell the Almighty's name given to man in Exodus Chapter 3. This name reveals the path to a life of meaning.
 
At the burning bush, the Almighty said, "I AM that which I AM, 
hwhy / YHWH is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."

Do you personally know
hwhy?
Do you call Him by His true Name?
hwhy
is found hidden behind the capitalized terms "LORD" or "GOD" in most English Bibles. However, YHWH's name was not intended to be hidden by translators. hwhy Himself gave us His name a sign of His existence and as a means of personal relationship. This is similar to how a you introduce yourself on a first name basis when you want to get to know someone. hwhy gave us His personal name so we could approach Him with intimacy. The Name hwhy is spelled from right to left, using four Hebrew letters - yod, hey, vav, hey. Put together, these letters can be pronounced "Yah - way." These four letters reveal much about the Creator and His plan for man.

The Hebrew language resembles hieroglyphics more than it does English, in the sense that each Hebrew letter is full of meaning and symbolism. In English an "a" is an "a" and nothing more. Yet in Hebrew each letter is associated with a certain word picture based upon ancient scripts. Hidden secrets within Hebrew words can be found by comparing how Hebrew letters relate to each other. It is no surpise then that the name of the Almighty is highly symbolic. The plan for man to experience a meaningful life is found in the name of YHWH / 
hwhy.
The first letter used in YHWH's name is the "yod" or y
 The yod resembles a cama suspended in the air. The actual Hebrew word "yod" means "arm or hand." The "arm" or "hand" of hwhy is often spoken of in the Bible as being a source of strength and deliverance. It was the arm of  hwhy that conquered Pharoah when the Hebrews left the bondage of Egypt. "You scattered Your enemies with your mighty arm," Psalm 89:10. The 'yod' is also symbolic of YHWH's essence. hwhy is love. hwhy loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The hand of hwhy is upon you to lead you towards blessing, healing, prosperity, and peace.

The next letter of the Sacred Name is the "hey" or 
This letter is found twice in YHWH's name and means to "behold." In ancient Hebrew, the "hey" was a picture of a man with his hands raised. This word picture resembled someone waving to get attention. To "behold" is to really pay attention, like an artist that beholds every crack and crevice of his masterpiece statue. We need to see - to hey - that selfish desires separate mankind from
hwhy. After Adam sinned in the garden, He "saw that he was naked." Years have passed, but not much has changed.   Because of sin we are still naked before hwhy and without protection. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of YHWH," Romans 6:23.

The "vav" or  w is the last letter in YHWH's name.
This letter resembles a hook and actually means "nail." In Israel today, a nail is called a "vav." The Psalmist prophesied of the Savior when he wrote that the Messiah's hands (yod) would be pierced by a nail (vav). Psalm 22:16, "The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They have pierced my hands and my feet." The letter "vav" symbolizes how 
hwhy has provided salvation through His son. The Messiah died to pay the price for sin. "The wages of sin is death but the gift of YHWH is eternal life," Romans 3:23.
Together, the letters of YHWH's name unlock the mystery of salvation. The word picture found in the name of YHWH reveals the only path to life eternal. Yod
y- the hands, Hey h- behold, Vav w - the nail, Hey h- behold !

By examining the name of 
hwhy we see the message to "Behold the nail scarred hands. Behold!" Notice the hey - the command to "behold" - appears twice. Many have heard the gospel message. Millions know how the Saviour was crucified, placed in a borrowed tomb, and then resurrected 3 days later. It is not this knowledge alone that changes a life. You need to "behold" the Savior and pay attention to His words.
Accept the Messiah as the master of your life today and then walk after Him. "Whoever who calls upon the name of 
hwhy will be saved," Romans 10:13. A wonderful life of peace and blessing awaits you as you follow hard after hwhy

Emet Ministries

Emet Ministries Mission:
· Strengthen families worldwide
· Teach the Hebrew roots of the faith
· Expose pagan practices of religion
· Experience true worship