Category: Torah Portions

111514tp by Rabbi Paul Falk.

If you are reading the first line from the scroll:  (Hebrew reading ) would translate “To the years of Sarah’s life was one hundred and twenty seven.”

Finding Isaac a wife;  it says this:  When Abraham was old well advanced in age and Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things, so Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house who ruled over all he had, please put your hand under my thigh so that I make you swear by…  The eldest servant ruled over all he had, you hear that phrase again when Joseph is in charge and he ruled a number of houses, he ruled over all the person had.  As a part of the responsibility.

We read that again in revelation in regard that there will be those who will have thrones and be in charge, servants of Yahweh who will be in charge.  Right?  Servants of Yahweh in charge of all he has.  Genesis 24: 3-4.  And I will make you swear by Yahweh the Elohim of Heaven and Elohim of earth.  That you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of Caananites among whom I dwell, but you shall go to my country, and to my family and take a wife for my son Isaac.  He is very emphatic, “You shall Not”…(continued in audio)

110114tp by Rabbi Paul Falk.  Yahweh said to Abram get out of your country. We are going to start at genesis 15, verses 17 to18. “And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch.” Basically, you have two basic torches that are going to pass between the animals. To pass between those pieces on that same day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram saying “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” To the question of How will attain to all of this? Go and get these animals cut them in half, split them up, and I will make covenant with you. And the point of the covenant is that we would both walk between those animals, and if either of us did not keep the covenant we would wind up like one of those animals. …So what does covenant mean? (continued on audio)

101814 TP by Rabbi Paul Falk.  So as we open the scroll this is what you would see.  “Yahweh made the heavens and the earth”  He created them.  There are number of things I wanted to focus on, is seems the focus today is boing to be on Cain and Able and specifically sin.  So, Chp4 verses 3-5.

092714trick  By Rick Ortiz.   It is the song of Moses and Moses was commanded to die on Mt. Nebo. It is quite an interesting Torah portion in that if you look at each of the Torah parts, it very much reads like a court document and as a trial, it is very matter of fact in its words and it’s beautiful words. Most of it I’m going to let the words speak to us themselves. But I do want to point out how it is like a court document. And I want to look at the following questions. And this one in particular kind of reads like last week’s bulletin in relaying how God’s word is compared to the rain. Why is God’s word compared to the rain? What is the purpose of calling heaven and earth to hear the words? And what message is God trying to give to His people? So those are the three (3) questions we are going to look at…

091314t.pat By Patrick Shannon

Ki-Tavo, it means, when you enter, when you come into the [land] Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8     A lot of folks refer to this as the blessings and curses section, because this is where there is a big section near the end of the Torah about the blessings and a list, long list of curses. This blessings, If you obey the commands of Yahweh, it starts off, and they are wonderful things, blessed in the city, blessed in the field, you’ll be fruitful, growth, prosperity, more than you can have, your storehouses will be full, blessings in all you do, victory in war. Lending, never having to borrow, and being the head among the nations, not the tail, not having to follow other super kingdoms. IF you obey the commands of Yahweh. The curses, we don’t like to think about these, they are scary, we cringe when we read through the section, we kind of, that we don’t have to go through that , cursed agriculture, the plants dying, and not yielding fruit. Drought, cursed livestock, pestilence, barrenness, diseases, every disease, debt, losing in war, starvation to the point of cannibalism, exile, slavery, and being the tail to other nations.   A little clarity here, we don’t quite know if these apply to us….or we know we don’t keep the commands perfectly so do we really deserve that list. We know we aren’t really experiencing that today, so maybe not hopefully, we wonder how Yahweh can be so seemingly cruel. Is it over? Since the Israelites were exiled? The clarity to all of this is here in Ki Tavo. I tend to see these Torah portions in a graphic form like this. From the beginning of chapter 26, to 29 verse 8, I have four columns with colored blocks. And the first column under 26, which starts when you come into the land, is the section about the basket of first fruits and that is verses 1 to 11. And then it’s a section about your tithe. And then there’s a today, you are becoming Elohim’s people and he will be your God. 27 has two major sections the twelve (12) stones and the altar that they are commanded to build when they cross the Jordan and come into the land. Mt. Gerazim and Mt. Abel, ceremony in which six (6) tribes will stand on one side of one mountain and six (6) tribes will stand on the other side of the mountain and the Levites shall cry out certain curses, the thirteen (13) curses, and all the people shall say “Amen.” Imagine that, two whole mountains full of just hundreds of thousands of people yelling “Amen” to these curses. Chapter 28, the thirty (31) blessings and then long list, the rest of chapter 28 of the curses. Very interesting comparison there…(continued in audio).

090614tp by Rabbi Paul Falk.  …which would translate, “When you go to war against your enemies and Yahweh your Elohim delivers them into your hands.”  So, some of you may have read, “Various laws,”  Yahweh Has His teachings, Yahweh has His word, and quite often it’s set together on a concept.  This weeks concept is the idea of valuing that which most don’t value.  They seem to be like little details.  Oh, we can discard little details– they are not important,  we can discard the people, like the orphan the widow and the stranger, they are not important, these are little details.  No, no, no, no, there is no such thing in the Kingdom as little details.  So my focus today is this idea of details to Yahweh, and you notice the heart, we’ll get to the heart later in that regard why it’s a heart.    But its important too, in this picture, that it is a puzzle. Yahweh puts His truth throughout the scripture, and you have to find the puzzle pieces, and they may fit, but not all of them, because you know what?, they are not meant to fit here, they may fit with other verses and other places in scripture.  But you know what? That means you have to go looking.  You have to study, you’ve got to dig– you’ve got to spend time.  Today I’m going to give you the lessons before we start.  Usually I do that at the end.  So, the first lesson is that scripture is not always literal.  We have to be very careful about that, because a lot of us are very concrete thinkers.  We think about things about what we can feel and touch and smell.  But Yahweh tries to give us, metaphors, pictures of things so we can understand Him.  Because you know what, Yahweh is a spirit.  He doesn’t have eyes, He doesn’t specifically have a face, He doesn’t have arms, He’s a spirit so why does he speak of Himself with those metaphors? Because we see them in the people around us and it helps us understand Him.  There is no scriptural detail too small to be important.  Doesn’t exist.  Yahweh could have edited it.  He could have omitted it.  If He didn’t omit it, it is important to know.  And the scriptures are an amazing beautiful puzzle to put together, …(continue in audio)

083014t.pat By Patrick Shannon.  Our Torah portion this week is Shofetim. It means Judges. Deuteronomy 16:18 thru 21:9.

And I’m about to share one thing that if you listen and obey this one command it will completely change your life. It’s something you eat, it guarantees success and prosperity, it will completely transform you into a totally new person, perfectly pleasing to Yahweh, asking whatever you wish and it will be done, One thing.   Let’s look up Deuteronomy 18:9-12. When you come into the land which Yahweh your Elohim is giving you, do not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. Let no one be found among you who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices divination or a user of magic or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, which involves chemicals and mixtures, or one who conjures spells or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up the dead for whoever does these is an abomination to Yahweh, and because of these abominations Yahweh your Elohim drives them out before you. Be perfect before Yahweh your Elohim. In context a better translation of perfect, (I looked up) is entirely.

For these nations whom you are possessing do listen to those using magic or to diviners, but as for you, Yahweh your Elohim has not appointed such for you.

We are spiritual creatures, we love the spiritual, we love the miraculous, we are fascinated by the supernatural, we fantasize about having superpowers, from the times that we’re children and some of our most popular movies are about superheroes, and little wizards, and people with superhuman power, but we are not to indulge in the spiritualism of the world. What Yahweh has for us is far, far more powerful. Yahweh, your Elohim shall raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brothers, listen to him. (continued on audio)

082314trick By Rick Ortiz.   …We will begin with the high level summary of chapter 11, and the blessings and the curses of course, start off chapter 11.  They were instructed to put the blessings on Mt. Gerazim, and the curses on Mt. Ebol.  This is pertinent because you see, because as they would enter the land these were two mountains on opposite sides of each other, they would be able to see the blessings and they would be able to see the curses.  In past teachings we’ve had images that showed the stark differences between the mountains.  Mt Gerazim with the greenery and life, and Mt. Ebol with its bareness.  That in essence where God tells his people to keep all the rules and laws that he sets before them.. Now Going forth to chapter 12, God tells them to destroy all of the high places….

081614tp by Rabbi Paul Falk   (Sound starts at 1 min 15 secs).  Torah portion as a whole talks about his judgments.  Then it shall come to pass because you listened to my judgments.  It’s going to happen because you listened.  Shema.  Listen.  Whenever Messiah said, “He who has ears to hear let him hear”, what he was saying in Hebrew was shema.  It had nothing to do with literal ears.  What he was saying was, Listen so intently that when I’m done you won’t have to ask me any questions.  You can realize how much concentration went into listening that intently.  What I am going to cover today is this concept, the heart, remember in the heart, don’t forget in the heart.  In fact Deuteronomy is one of the books in the scriptures specifically where heart is mentioned more popularly than most other books…