Based on:  Lev 11:7  while the pig is unclean for you, because, although it has a separate and completely divided hoof, it doesn’t chew the cud.

Here is probably the most problematic verse in all the scriptures for new Believers. While they can readily connect with themes like redemption and resurrection, abandoning pork is unfathomable to them. New believers will point to technological advances, “Well, we have refrigeration now and they didn’t back then, so it’s OK now.” Or they will point out that blessing it and thanking YeHoVaH for it will make it acceptable. They will pout and firmly assert that, “The Law was nailed to the Cross when Christ was crucified. He fulfilled the Law so we don’t have to do it.” Even some fairly observant Jews will sneak a bite of BBQ ribs once in their lives.  It is just too tempting!

YHVH says specifically in Is. 65:4 and 66:17 that He hates pig eaters, and that ultimately He will destroy them. Since these two chapters in Isaiah deal with the millennial reign and life in New Jerusalem, may I submit that Yah is the same yesterday, today and forever, so the mandate against pig still stands!

Ironically, the world is trying to get us to eat pig, so that they can in some measure, spit in Yah’s face. They put pig blood in cigarettes, in certain vaccines, and use pig parts to repair human hearts because their size and function is so similar. There are a vast number of diseases and parasites that are transmitted from pig to human, which is reason alone not to eat them. So many, many items contain pork, such as heart valves, insulin (a synthetic known as humulin is now available to those who want to get away from pig insulin), glue (don’t lick your envelopes!) cement, matches, plastic, cellophane, cake mixes, candy such as Skittles, pet food, medications, clarifying of beer, wine and vinegar, antifreeze, chalk and crayons. It’s also in cosmetics, so if it is not going in you, it is going on you! Hog brains are usually the source of D3 which is a vitamin routinely added to milk and hog thyroid is used to make thyroxin a drug used to treat thyroid conditions. The hog’s pineal gland is used to make melatonin which treats personality and mental disorders.  Heparin, used to treat blood clots and gangrene, is made from pig intestines. Hormones taken from pig intestines is used to test humans for pancreas disease. Catalaze is not a lazy cat, rather, it is the enzyme from pig liver that is often used to make cheese. Relaxin, used in childbirth, is made from sow ovaries. Fetal pig blood is used in the manufacture of vaccines and skin grafts.  You might contain pig fat if you’re: cosmetics, dyestuffs, explosives, fabric conditioners, foodstuffs,  lacquers, leather and paper goods, linoleum, lubricants, metal, soaps, mining, mineral oil additives, plastics, road making, rubber, bar soaps, synthetic  resins,  tobacco, textiles, varnishes, and washing and cleaning agents. Water filters, china plates and glass may all have pig fat and bone meal in them. Pig’s skin is used for gloves,  wallets,  handbags, brief  cases, toiletry cases, tobacco pouches, book bindings, leggings, dance shoes and skin grafts. Glue made from pig bones or blood is  used  in  sizing paper;  in  the  manufacture of wool, silk, and other fabrics; in sizing straw hats; in sizing walls that are  to  be  painted;  in sizing barrels or casks that are to contain liquids; on the heads of matches to make an air-tight cap over the phosphorus;  in  the manufacture  of  sand and emery paper to hold the abrasive on the paper; in the manufacture of dolls, toys, and ornaments;  in  the making  of  picture  frames,  mirror  frames,  rosettes, billiard balls, composition cork, imitation hard rubber,  printing  rolls, mother-of-pearl,  gummed tape, paper boxes, calcimine, automobile bodies, caskets, leather goods, and bookbinding; and  many  other products.  Pig bristles  is used in making hairbrushes and buttons. Indeed, everything but the squeal permeates every part of our lives! http://www.animalgenome.org/edu/PIH/128

The mandate about avoiding pig is in Leviticus, the book of the bible having to do with the priesthood. Its placement there indicates to me, that as a nation of priests, we are bound by the same rules. So what is a believer who wants to be a pure vessel for our Father’s use to do?  First of all, the whole world is polluted. Pig stuff is everywhere!! Until Messiah returns and the whole earth is cleansed, all we can do is all we can do. Do what you can to keep your body, your Temple, clean and undefiled by pig meat. Keep in mind that eating pig was an offering to pagan deities (that is why it angered YHVH so much), so don’t copy the ways of the pagans. DON’T change out any medications without your health care professional’s advice and approval. Monitor your cats’ and dogs’ food, not to keep them ‘holy’ but to keep their food off your hands and out of your kitchen. I know it sounds picayune but I changed brands of dance shoes because the original ones were made of pig leather. I found a brand made in Mexico that was bovine leather. (Very comfortable and longer lasting too!) It was the right thing to do, for ME, MY walk.

And that’s the whole point: It is not my wish to criticize or control, rather, it is my deep desire to help; to expose the stumbling blocks and to spur on to excellence; and to help us all deepen and strengthen our walk; to help us get both the inside and the outside of the cup clean.

May it be for a blessing!

Based on the bible passage from Shemot / Exodus 33:12 – 34:26 —

Not only is this passage the traditional passage for the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but I really connected with the concept of what did it mean and what would it require for YeHoVaH’s presence to go with us? What were the conditions to a happy marriage between us and the BrideGroom of our souls? What was / What IS expected of us? How could we give our all to the One who has it all?

Our wedding under the chupah of cloud at Mount Sinai some 4000 years ago joined us, Am Segula, the Chosen People, to El Elyon, the Elohim Most High. We are now in the midst of the omer count, the 50 days counting up to our wedding anniversary. Counting the Omer is a rehearsal to the counting of the years for the Yovel, the Jubilee year. On the Jubilee, the slaves are set free, the debts are cancelled and lands are returned to the rightful owner. Consider, dear brothers and sisters, that the next Jubilee is not far off. Although brother Y’hudah counts from 1948, the year that the land of Israel became a state, there is increasing evidence that the next Jubilee year is 2017, considering that the Balfour Declaration which acknowledges that the sliver of Middle East real estate is the Land of Israel was signed in 1917 (thereby returning the land to its rightful owner).  Fifty years later in 1967, the Temple Mount and east Jerusalem were relinquished by the Jordanians (again, the land was returned to the rightful owner.) What awaits on 2017 is anybody’s guess, but it seems that the sun, the moon and the stars are gearing up for quite the display of signs (if you’ve been following the appearances of the eclipses, blood moons and the potential for Planet X) and the politics of the Middle East is quite volitile at the moment. Of course, there is One who does know the whole story and its timing and He, for the time being, is keeping quiet.

So again, the question: What can we do to assure that YeHoVaH’s presence goes with us as we move through time to our Ultimate Redemption?

Let’s consider some of the directives of this reading which is a recap of the Parashah 21 Ki Tissa. We are to keep the Shabbat set apart. Guard it, is what the Torah actually says. It is difficult to flip the switch from mundane thoughts of laundry, cooking, dog washing, working, grocery buying, bill paying, etc and suddenly try to fill our minds and hearts with thoughts of our Creator and the Shalom that the Shabbat is supposed to embody. How do we flip the switch?? For me, naps are a great way to transition. When I wake up, the old busy-ness from earlier in the day isn’t as consuming as it was. So, on preparation day, I scurry all morning and then about 3 pm take a nap. It’s delightful. I hope you try it. Lighting the candles is commanded NOWHERE in the scriptures, BUT a ceremonial routine such as lighting the candles or ceremonial hand washing is a visual clue that something about this day is different. And indeed, it is. It is the one day, set apart since the week of Creation, to be Holy. No other day bears this distinction.

Again in this passage in Exodus, Abba also instructed us to keep the Passover and eat matza for 7 days. We are on the 7th day of this feast of Unleavened Bread which will end at sundown today. After 4000 years of experience, matza is not the dreaded cardboard bread we imagined it to be. There is matza pizza, lasagna, s’mores, cakes, granola, brittle — you name it. One of the highlights of the feast this year was sharing matza downtown with the homeless. Before we distributed the lunches this past yom reve’i / w’day, I explained what they were going to eat and how this humble, tasteless little cracker pictured Messiah. Several of them made the effort later to thank us for the lesson. It is a great reminder for us as well.  Y’shua, like the matza, was pierced. He was pierced for our transgressions. Like the matza, He bears stripes. By His stripes we are healed. A matza must be kept leaven free, so no  more than 18 minutes elapse between adding the water to the flour and taking the finished product out of the oven. The number 18 is significant. It is the gematria of the word chai, the chet (8) and the yud (10), which mean life. Y’shua is the Bread of Life. The Matza has 4 corners. In Hebrew, the number four is the letter dalet. Dalet is also the Hebrew word for Door. He is the Door; He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. Matza has no leavening. As a representation of sin or arrogance, the leavening is missing in Messiah as well. He is sinless, He is humble, riding on a donkey’s colt to the feast, not a horse.

We are also told to observe the feast of Shavu’ot at the time of the wheat harvest and the feast of ingathering, Sukkot, at the turn of the year, in the fall. These feasts, these appointed times, are signs that we are His people. When we demonstrate that we are His people, His presence is welcomed and goes with us because we are going with Him! So on Shavuot, we will wave our two leavened loaves, Ephraim and Judah in our puffed up state: Here we are, we are Yours, our Father, King and Husband!! On Sukkot, we will celebrate by sleeping in tents as a reminder of our wilderness journies on the way to the Land of the Promise as we, in this day and age, step by agonizing step leave our Egypt behind and move forward to the Land of Promise and living like the Redeemed People we are.

Here is a condition that is not quite so easy to meet: Twice, YeHoVaH says, do not make a covenant with the surrounding nations. In the VERY, VERY STRICTEST SENSE, our drivers license, voter ID, and draft cards are all contractual agreements with this nation’s government. Am I saying we are all going to hell because we drive to work or vote? No, of course not! But I am saying we are in this web called the Diaspora and it is very easy to get trapped by it. We must work hard to define our boundries as Torah compliant Israelites and maintain our personal borders so we don’t get sucked into the local customs, culture, morals and mores. For as long as we think of the lives of the nations around us as normal or righteous, we can never understand Yah’s words or His Ways. We must hold onto the teachings of Torah and be delivered from the ‘stinkin’ thinkin’’ of the nations whose righteousness is as filthy rags to the One who sits on the Throne and laughs in dirision as Psalm 2 says.

Lastly, we are told not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk. In our various discussions throughout the years, we have come to understand this has nothing to do with cheeseburgers but was actually a pagan fertility rite of the time. We are also told don’t participate in pagan meals and sacrifices. We are also told to demolish the sacred poles and standing stones. The sons of Esau are currently doing this in the nations they occupy. We see it on the news as they take sledgehammers to valued, ancient artifacts and destroy entire museums full of historical evidence of other civilizations and cultures.  We certainly despise their cruelty and want nothing to do with their deity, but we must admit, the world marvels at their devotion and gives them great deference because of it.

What about us? Will we of 21st century western / American culture have the right stuff to win the heart of our Creator so that His Presence goes with us? How bad do we want it? Are we willing to deny ourselves and fast for 40 days as did Moshe? Are we willing to go to the execution stake as did Mashiach? Will we be as fastidiously attentive to YeHoVaH’s wishes and commandments as we are to building our hobby car models, measuring ingredients for the bread machine, or adjusting sparkplugs?  Will we make the focused effort to count the omer? Day in and day out … will we set an alarm to remind us or just haphazardly TRY to remember. We remember our birthdays. We remember our anniversaries (or should, if we desire domestic tranquility). How about the omer? How about putting forth the effort to be YeHoVaH’s set apart people? We have been bought with a price. Don’t let Y’shua feel like He got a bad deal. Invest in your redemption. Be the devoted Bride and surely His Presence will go with us, now and eternally.

Shabbat Shalom.

As I am reading through the next Torah Portion, Vayikra, Leviticus 1:1 to 5:26, my attention focused on the following verse:

Vayikra / Leviticus 2:13 And every meal-offering of thine shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meal-offering; with all thy offerings thou shalt offer salt. 

Just previous to these verses, YHVH tells His people that they may bring unblemished sacrifices from the herd, such as cattle; or from the flock, such as unblemished lambs and goats. He also cautions the new nation that although honey and fruits are suitable as donations to the Levite priesthood, these items are not fit to be placed on the altar. Only the designated parts of the specified animals or finely ground wheat can be burnt on the altar. Then – we come to the salt.

To understand this strange command, I believe we need to understand the complex nature of salt and its uses in the ancient Middle East.

• Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride  (NaCl)
• Salt comes from the sea and from underground
• Table salt is heated to 1200 degrees F
• Table salt = 97.5% NaCl (sodium chloride) and 2.5% aluminum
• Sea salt = 85% NaCl + Ca (calcium) Mg (magnesium) K (potassium), S (sulfur)
• Sea salt has 84 trace minerals, 0 in table salt
• Salt is antibacterial and preserves from decay
• Worldwide, salt intake averages 10 grams daily
• In USA, 2.4 grams daily is recommended. (A level teaspoon is 6 grams.)
• Salt stabilizes heartbeats
• With water, salt regulates blood pressure
• Proper salt intake removes excess acidity from cells, especially brain cells
• Salt regulates blood sugar in diabetics
• Salt is needed to generate energy between cells
• Salt is vital to nerve cell communication and information processing
• Vital to the absorption of food in the digestive tract
• Clears sinus congestion
• Salt clears lungs of mucus and phlegm especially in asthma and cystic fibrosis
• There are clinics in salt mines to relieve asthma and allergies in Poland, the UK and Israel.

Salt, Medically Speaking:

• Salt is a natural antihistamine
• Salt prevents muscle cramps
• Salt is vital to make bones firm (Theoretically, salt shortage contributes to osteoporosis)
• Salt is necessary for good, sound sleep
• Salt on the tongue will stop a cough instantly
• Salt is necessary to prevent gout and gouty arthritis
• Salt maintains healthy libido
• Salt prevents varicose veins
• Amniotic fluid is virtually identical to sea water

Salt Uses Throughout the Scriptures 

• Health: Ezekiel 16:4, rub salt on newborn (kills germs;stimulates them to breathe; and promotes circulation)
• Healing: 2 Kings 2:21, healed water which in turn healed the people
• Destruction: Deuteronomy 29: 22(23) plants cannot grow salted land (it is a herbicide); Judges 9:45; Psalm 107:34; Zephaniah 2:9
• Grace and prudence encouraged: Colossians 4:6 (Let your speech be seasoned with salt.)
• Have a beneficial influence: Matthew 5:13 (We are salt of the earth)

Salt in Middle East Tradition

• Arabic saying:  There is salt between us. It is a way of saying we have a covenantal relationship.
• Covenants were sealed with salt (salt exchanged)
• Both ancient and modern wedding ceremonies included a salt covenant ceremony.
• The word “salary” comes from the word salt, because that is what some cultures used as money.
• A bad worker was ‘not worth his salt’ for the same reason
• In Leonardo DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’, the salt cellar is overturned in front of Judas Iscariot, showing that the covenant had been broken between him and Y’shua

Salt in Covenant

When engaging in a Salt Covenant, both parties pour salt into a single vial. The concept being that the covenant can be broken ONLY when the individual parties can identify and separate their own salt. (It’s not fair to use black salt from Hawaii and pink Himalayan salt!!) Entering into a Covenant of Salt means binding oneself to another in utmost loyalty and truthfulness, even suffering death, rather than breaking the covenant.  For this very reason a Covenant of Salt was never done lightly or haphazardly – it deserves serious respect.

Prime Example

2Chronicles 13:5 ought ye not to know that the LORD, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?

My Conclusion

• Salt, like Torah, is necessary for life.
• Salt preserves; Salt cleanses.
• Salt is necessary for every thought, every heartbeat.
• A Covenant of Salt, then, is not only eternal, it fully sustains us – heart, mind, body and soul.
• When YHVH made the Salt Covenant with us, He was saying that He will purify, sustain and preserve us — FOREVER.

How Does This Apply to Us Today?

The Temple lies in ruins and in the control of those who will not let Jews or Christians pray or worship there. Our only worship is offering our selves, our lives, as a living sacrifice. We can bring sacrifices of praise, worship, and service to our fellowman, as a sacrifice to our Father in Heaven.

We were given a covenant of salt — a forever covenant of sustenance, protection and preservation.  We are to not only declare YHVH as the Maker of the covenant with our words, but with our actions.  As His covenant people, we are to season this world with His essence, His Torah, His Teaching and Instruction and with the Good News of His once-and-for-all sacrifice of reconciliation, Y’shua, who said, “Matthew 5:13 (CEBA) “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? It’s good for nothing except to be thrown away and trampled under people’s feet.”

So, ultimately, nowadays,our lives are the sacrifice and the salt on us is the the seasoning we bring to this world.

May it be for a blessing.

Life is challenging. I know … I have a past.

But in living for over half a century I have learned this: For every person, there is an ultimate truth. Some people find it in religion; some in self expression.  Some get lost in a bottle of booze or at the end of a joint or a line. But ultimately, the time comes when the question gets asked, “Is that all there is?”

For me, the Ultimate Truth, timeless and endlessly applicable is the Word of YHVH / the almighty God / Creator of all. Torah is the safety net, the lifeline to abundant living. There are those who may feel that it is restrictive and confining. But for me, it is like a toddler’s playpen. Within the confines of the playpen there is safety and freedom. The real pressure is beyond the boundaries of the playpen, having to constantly be on guard against the dangers of life.

Have I oversimplified? Many will think so. But I will tell you that for me, the pages of the Scriptures bring answers, confidence, direction, security, and freedom from many of life’s pressures. My plan is to read Scripture every day and share the gems I find along the way. I pray it is a blessing to you.