Parsha Vayikra--Entering the book of Leviticus, Matzah Challah-cast, and Cherry Blossoms Peek!

When you present an offering of meal baked in the oven, (it shall be of) choice flour:  unleavened cakes with oil mixed in, or unleavened wafers spread with oil.  
Leviticus 2:4

וְכִי תַקְרִב קָרְבַּן מִנְחָה, מַאֲפֵה תַנּוּר--סֹלֶת חַלּוֹת מַצֹּת בְּלוּלֹת בַּשֶּׁמֶן
וּרְקִיקֵי מַצּוֹת מְשֻׁחִים בַּשָּׁמֶן.

As my blog has a theme of  "challah"  and I like to find connections between Challah and Torah, you may not be surprised that I got excited when reading about the "grain offering" in this week's parsha.  This time its the first time I noticed the word "Challah" in the scripture above. 
Unleavened wafers (cakes)  in the English is "Challot Matzot" in Hebrew!!!

If you can find it in your heart to share in my enthusiasm, please do read on !!!

Making Matzah!

In the recipe for making matzah, after it is baked there is the instruction to "anoint the matzah"!

I never read that in a recipe before, and I must say it helped me to "draw near" to the LORD in this matzah-making time!!  If you have never made matzah before, be encouraged to try!!! First, its much simpler than challah, and technically (halachically, according to the Jewish tradition) has to be done from start to finish in 18 minutes for Passover purposes!! So if you have a little time and want to try it for this year, please do!!

I'm hoping  to be able to get  a box or so of Matzah  for Passover, but just in case am "practicing" making Matzah!!

Of course, The Children of Israel didn't have the luxury of "practicing",  and had to just to it and prepare the dough right away and carry the dough with them on their Exodus!!

Passover amazingly always comes at the time of the Cherry Blossoms!! This year Nissan 1,  the first of Nissan, was also just when the first blossoms opened!! I find that amazing, as the day is always different on the Hebrew calendar, and there is not a "set day" that cherry blossoms open, and yet the past few years that I have been "living on the Hebrew calendar" I have noticed that each year!!

It feels very Messianic that God's commanded first day of Springtime and first month of the year is announced in His creation with the opening of the first cherry blossoms!!  I always say I look forward to the day when the people of Japan will know their Messiah Yeshua and the glorious time under the blossoms will be a time of worship and celebration of Him!!! May it be swiftly and in our day!!

This year it may be a little quiet for cherry blossom picnics, but thankfully the blossoms blossom and the fragrance of resurrection and renewal is in the air!!  And who knows, maybe it will be just this year when the people of Japan look up to a salvation Sky and receive their Saviour as  the "sakura" blossom all throughout Japan.

Nissan, as you know, is a month of miracles!   

As a friend wrote in a message to me, I will share this:

"Get ready to pass over!"  

That message encouraged me tremendously!!

This is the Matzah recipe I used HERE  if you'd like to try it!!

And this (below) is my Matzah Challah-cast for this first week of Nissan!  

The Challah-cast is a little under 11 minutes if you are moved to watch it and  to make matzah, you can try it!! I also share some of my "drash" (related discussion!!") in the upload, so I'll keep the text here in this post brief as the photos are many!!

Time to start removing the "hametz", and change the header to "unleavened" bread!!

 Much Love and blessings all!!

Shayndel (dba Joanne's Challah-cast)

Notes:  The recipe also calls for salt to be sprinkled on the matzah.  I love this recipe! Anointed with oil and sprinkled with salt!

Yeshua, the anointed One, tells us we are to be salt (Matthew 5:13)!! I found that connection so interesting to read this scripture in Leviticus in light of Yeshua's words, as  we ourselves are  to be the salt.

You shall season your every offering of meal with salt; you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; will all your offerings you must offer salt.    Leviticus 2:13

Shabbat Shalom!! (not Passover yet, but making "unleavened cakes" to prepare, in this week of parsha Vayikra!

Anointed, salted "challot matzot"-- Matzah!-- on the Shabbat Table in this week of Parsha Vayikra--entering the book of Leviticus

Cherry blossoms first blossoms so perfectly calling in the month of Nissan,the month of springtime

The matzah is "Pierced" and calls to us to remember Messiah Yeshua who was pierced for our transgression

And by His stripes we are healed!

Take, and eat!  

This is my body, given up for you.

Matthew 26:26

♡

Subtitle:

Messianic Japan!!

Welcoming Messiah Yeshua to Japan!!

Yeshua, Japan welcomes you!!

xoxo Declared with Love, 

by Shayndel

Challah Diary, Ein Od Milvado

The LORD is God--there is none other besides Him.

from Deuteronomy 4:35

In a recent weeks parsha reading (again, I am talking about a few weeks back as I am still catching up on posting!), Parsha Va`Etchanan, we find the words that in Hebrew say,

אֵין עוֹד, מִלְּבַדּוֹ

Ein Od Milvado

It means there is no other besides Him.

The challah book I use* that my sister gave me as a present has a section called "Challah Meditations" that comes after the recipes.  One of the meditations is these words!  The writer shares of meditating on God's word when making the challah.   One of the verses she shared is Ein Od Milvado,  and I started saying that verse when I knead the dough.

 But I hadn`t realized exactly where  in the Torah it came from until I was reading in the weekly portion and noticed them (Deuteronomy 4:35) when I heard them spoken!  Out of many words that I didn't understand, at once I heard those words!

I love this meditation and it makes the challah making time a special time to focus on the LORD and to meditate on His word and on Him as we prepare for the Shabbat.   Another scripture that she mentions as part of this meditation is from Isaiah 11:9.  This one I say in English!

The earth will be filled with the intimate knowledge of the LORD 
as the waters fill the seas.

These words then stay with me like waves through the week.

Ein Od Milvado.

             Ein Od Milvado.

                            Ein Od Milvado.

Lord there is none like You.  You are the only source and the Oneness of all creation and all sustenance.

Blessings and Shabbat Shalom and  a blessed week to all.  Love, Shayndel

*reference:   Rising, The Book of Challah by Rochie Pinson

Spying the Land, Flowers and Grapes--＊ some notes on Parsha Shelach Lecha

Big Grapes! (above), "small" grapes below.  All a matter of perspective!!

They went up and scouted the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at Lebohamath.

They reached the wadi Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes--it had to be borne on a carrying frame by two of them---and some pomegranates and figs.   That place was named the wadi Eshcol because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down there.   

---Numbers 13:21, 23~24

 Friday late afternoon.
Coming home with flowers for Shabbat,
I begin to think about the Parsha Shelach Lecha, this week`s Torah reading.

In the reading this week Moses, by the Lord's command (Numbers 13:3) sent the tribal chiefs to scout out the land, in the famous or infamous story of the sin of the spies.  They came back with a report about the produce in the land--exemplified by the huge grapes carried on a pole by two persons!  But about the people, they expressed fear,  and showed their lack of trust in ADONAI . Only two, Joshua  and Caleb, gave a positive report and would be able to enter the Promised Land.

There are times of testing in our lives, maybe every day, when we have a chance to doubt or trust, to fear or go forward.  I know I am still a huge coward in so many ways, and often my fears give way to doubt or lack of trust.  When I read this I see how it was so terrible to God, and see the sin it is when we do not trust His promises and plans.   What were the reasons that they gave a bad report?  Was it they lacked faith in God and the confidence in themselves so much that they gave a bad report?  Was it that they feared the "reality" of entering the land of Israel, and couldn't see into God's vision and  beyond their small perspective, thus seeing themselves as grasshoppers?  Whatever it was, it was clear in God's eyes that their whole generation, except for Caleb and Joshua, would not enter the land.

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 Spying out the land before Shabbat, I enjoyed taking some photos in the green light after the rain cleared.  I noticed how beautiful the greens are after the rain, and what an amazing job the gardeners have been doing this week to make it shine.

  We have officially entered into rainy season!  I was inspiretd to take pictures of  the grapes, somehow setting them up (photos above) was fun to try to imagine the parsha.  Some even landed onto the ground when I was finishing and taking them down,  grapes in the land.

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Allow the yeast to blossom

 Other notes on the parsha:  In Numbers Chapter 15, after the sin of the spies is described, there is the section about  the fragrant offerings to the LORD in the land of Israel.

Included in these verses is the offering of Challah !! As you can see in THIS POST, it was an amazing discovery one year ago to read this Torah portion the first time.    I believe that reading on the Torah cycle gives us a special perspective to see one year to the next as we read the same portions and seek new revelation in each new reading on God`s eternal cycle!

Note:I also like the words in the challah recipe that say to allow the yeast to `blossom`.  

One more thing in this week`s reading  is about the tzitzit and the color blue that is mentioned in verse 16:37,  hence, I chose this blue tall flower this week!  And added the rose, a blossoming complementary hue to the beautiful and harmonizing Israeli blue.

There is a lesson in this parsha, about "perspective" when we look at the great difference in how 10 of the spies gave the negative report, and only Joshua and Caleb were sure that "we will surely overcome it" (Numbers 13:30).  They all saw the same thing, but there was such a difference in perspective. When 10 scouts saw the people in the land they saw the people as huge giants and  themselves as small as grasshoppers.  Whereas Joshua and Caleb understood that to trust in the LORD makes all the view much different and from their perspective of confidence in God and in themselves as going with God, they said "Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it." (Numbers 13:30)

And what about the man who was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day and was put to death, as the Lord had commanded Moses.  What are we to learn from this?  There is so much in this parsha, but for now I will finish my report here.

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So that is my report this Friday afternoon as the sun is still  high in the sky.   I don`t know if I told you how much I love the time at the end of the week, as the day starts at night---There was evening,and there was morning,---and begin to enter into the appointed time and Shabbat delight.

Dear Father, Help me this Shabbat to see You and to know that we can overcome all that is in the world because He who lives in us is so great!! Help me to know and trust in You in the deepest recesses of my soul so that nothing outside of me will look like a giant to fear.  May the things we once feared  become little as grasshoppers and may they hop away as we learn to trust in YOU and not to fear.  May we see shift to a heavenly perspective and see see from the lens of the LORD most high.

Blessings and Shabbat Shalom! Shavu'a Tov!  Have a blessed week!

♡When you enter the land to which I am taking you and you eat of the bread of the land, you shall set some aside as a gift to the LORD:  as the first yield of your baking, you shall set aside a loaf as a gift; you shall set it aside as a gift like the gift from the threshing floor.  You shall make a gift to the LORD from the first yield of your baking, throughout the ages.  --Numbers 15:17~21

Grapes a must for Parsha Shelach Lecha!!



related post on this blog for Parsha Shelach Lecha HERE,   finding the meaning of Challah in the Torah, and where the word Challah comes from !!

Blessings and Shalom, Love, Shayndel

Bread of the Presence

 

Also you are to take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it, with two tenths of an epah in each cake.  Then you are set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before ADONAI.  Set pure frankincense on each row, as a memorial portion for the bread, an offering by fire to ADONAI.  Every Yom Shabbat he is to set it in order before ADONAI continually, it is an everlasting covenant on behalf of B' nei Israel.

---Leviticus 24:5~8

To a person who makes Challah, the Parsha this week really came alive.
For one thing, Challah, the Hebrew word itself, is mentioned twice in the scripture (verses above, from Parsha Emor, where the word "cake" is in the English).
For another, there is just so much expressed through the Bread of Presence and God just really spoke to me through it.

Whatever is your passion, I believe that God speaks to us in His word through that, as well as in countless other ways.  What you will hear or see or perceive or learn or be drawn to in the same scripture will be different for each person, as God is the same, but He speaks to us each differently through His marvelous, living word.   I realized in reading the parts in Leviticus about the show breads, that I just needed to express them and have them  "present" this Shabbat.

Without putting it into too many words,  the pure experience of setting this up brought such joy and ushered in His Presence.  It was a  special time of worship, together with my new friend Mayim.  Like David, we hungerly ate the Bread of presence, and like David, we Danced!

Blessings and Shalom.  Shavu'a Tov.  Have a blessed week in His great Presence.

Love,
 ♡
Shayndel

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I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice--holy, acceptable to God--which is your spiritual service.  Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God---what is good and acceptable and perfect.

---Romans 12:1~2

This is Challah!

The first of your dough, challah, you shall offer as a gift....

--Numbers 15:19~20

To start this series of posts about the week of making Challah for the bread shop, I want to share something about Challah.

We think of Challah as meaning the loaves of Challah, which is the way I use it too, but there is a scriptural mention of Challah that goes all the way back to biblical times. In the scripture above from the book of Numbers, the word Challah appears in the Hebrew scripture.

There it refers to the first part of the dough that was to be offered as a gift to God when the Children of Israel fist enter the land of Israel.

You shall make a gift to the LORD from the first yield of your baking, throughout the ages.

--Numbers 15:21

Since making challah, I have known that even though this scripture applies to bread that is offered in the land of Israel, many  Jewish women in their homes and bakers in other parts of the world make a remembrance of this by  taking a first piece of the dough and refer to this as `taking challah`. In the Jewish observance there is a specification that you have to make a large enough quantity of dough to take challah, and as I only make a small amount, I have never done it.

 But when I realized that the amount of flour I would be using every day to make the loaves would be large enough to `take challah` and make a `bracha` blessing I felt that I wanted to do this observance which comes from the rememberance of when the `challah` commandment was given.

The opportunity this week to make challah  came as  a gift from God, so  it seemed that taking challah in this way would be a way to offer my thanks. 

I became excited to `take challah` for the first time!

My sister gave me a beautiful Challah book for my birthday this past December, and in the book, in addition to recipes, there  are explanations and significance in the steps of making challah.  It also shows with simple explanations about when you are to `take challah`, and make the blessing.  So this week when I made enough loaves with enough flour to take challah, I separated the piece and make a blessing.

 When we take a small part of the dough off the big whole dough, it is like a tithe, an acknowledgement of giving the first of everything we do to God, the one who provides us with everything.

I offered of the first dough, and raised it up to the heavens with the blessing.

From there started the adventure week of the 20 loaves!!  Hope you enjoy a few photos and a little of the story in this series of posts.

I  included a little card  with the Challah, with a message in Japanese on the front about how we make Challah on Shabbat, and on the other side the above scripture from Numbers.
And then I set off down my street with four loaves each morning for the shop....

 


related post: CHALLAH, here

Challah

חַלָּה

ADONAI spoke to Moses saying, "Speak to Bnei-Yisrael.  Say to them:  When you enter the land to which I am taking you, and you eat some of the food of the land, you are to offer a portion to ADONAI.  You are to offer a cake from the first of your ground-up meal as an offering from your threshing floor--so you are to lift up.  Throughout your generations to come, you are to give this offering from the first of your ground-up meal.

--Numbers 15:17~21 TLV

This week`s Torah portion ( parsha Shelach Lecha)  is  very exciting for a person who makes Challah.

In this week`s reading we see one of the places* the word `Challah` is mentioned in the Torah!

It comes after the episode of the sin of the spies, where only Joshua and Caleb get to enter the land and the other ten and their generation are banned from entering the Promised Land. (Numbers Chapters 13 and 14).

Events in each weeks parsha and how they are set together give us amazing `lessons` to study in each week`s Torah.  And for each person, the Torah portion speaks to us in different ways. 

For me, in the middle of all the intrigue of the spies, the tears, and the knowing about this great sin, how was it that all my eyes could see was those three Hebrew letters that spell Challah! I got so excited to see the word Challah (חַלָּה) in the Hebrew text of the Torah.

You can see the word Challah in the scripture below.  It refers to the `cake` in the English translation.

כ  רֵאשִׁית, עֲרִסֹתֵכֶם--חַלָּה, תָּרִימוּ תְרוּמָה:  כִּתְרוּמַת גֹּרֶן כֵּן תָּרִימוּ אֹתָהּ

20 Of the first of your dough ye shall set apart a cake for a gift; as that which is set apart of the threshing-floor, so shall ye set it apart.   --Numbers (Bamidbar)  15:20

 and from there comes the mitzvot of continuing in all the generations to come,

כא  מֵרֵאשִׁית, עֲרִסֹתֵיכֶם, תִּתְּנוּ לַיהוָה, תְּרוּמָה--לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם.

21 Of the first of your dough ye shall give unto the LORD a portion for a gift throughout your generations.  --Numbers (Bamidbar) 15:21

I was intrigued to see the word challah  here as the first offering `cake` of bread, the first part of the dough, and to see where in Torah the word comes from.  The word challah appears before this, as,  when talking about the showbreads,  where it says `cakes` in English (as in Leviticus 24:5).  In that case and in other places in Exodus it was for the special priestly offering.
In this case in the Scripture in Numbers 15, it is an offering to be made from each household.

There are rules in Jewish Rabbinic law for `taking challah`, which come from this scripture.   My challah doesn`t qualify because I don`t use a large enough quantity of dough and I am not in the Land of Israel.

But I can `take` away a lesson from this and see the challah itself as an offering to ADONAI in each week, and lift it up to Him, as the first food (reminiscient of the first fruits offering we make on Shavuot) that we will bless for our Shabbat meal!

And speaking of `first`, the other word in Hebrew that I notice in this scripture is `reshit` and means  `first`.  It  is the same root as Bereshit, which means In the Beginning.  Bereshit is the name of the first book of Torah, Genesis.  Bereshit is the very first word in the first line of the Torah.

Returning to Numbers 15:20 where `challah` appears, can you see the word `reshit`, or first, beginning.  It is the word I highlighted in pink:

כ  רֵאשִׁית, עֲרִסֹתֵכֶם--חַלָּה, תָּרִימוּ תְרוּמָה:  כִּתְרוּמַת גֹּרֶן כֵּן תָּרִימוּ אֹתָהּ  

21 Of the first of your dough ye shall give unto the LORD a portion for a gift throughout your generations. *

It is the same word that is in the beginning of the whole Torah.  Can you see it there, Be-reshit, In the beginning, again I will just highlight where you read `reshit` :

א  בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. 

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  *

The flour that we use for bread is from G-d, and from the earth that He created.  In a sense, as we offer the challah, we are taking something from earth --from Him!--,   and offering it to heaven--to Him, through this act of creation (the `last` act of creation in the week!),  each week, as we prepare to enter into His time and His rest.

 As I write this I am reminded that once Shabbat begins, we are to cease from all acts of creation, and rest in His presence, to remember that He rested and ceased from the work of Creation on the Shabbat!  The bread always seems to come alive in those hours of rising and anticipating!  When we eat the bread on Shabbat, we see indeed that it is good! It is His goodness that we taste and see!!

 טַעֲמוּ וּרְאוּ, כִּי-טוֹב יְהוָה;    אַשְׁרֵי הַגֶּבֶר, יֶחֱסֶה-בּוֹ.

9 O consider and see that the LORD is good; happy is the man that taketh refuge in Him.

---Psalm 34:9

And now to come full circle and `round out` this post, back to the sin of the spies.  It is said that the reason the commandment for taking challah and the commandment for wearing tzitzit (fringes on the garment) come in this same parsha, is because these commandments are to remind us to keep His commandments.  When we sin we are far from G-d.  We don`t believe in His promises, and take hold of our own beliefs rather than see His Greatness.  That separation is the great sin.  We can shake our heads at the spies, but rather may they help us to see our own sins and learn from them. (I recall Yeshua`s words in Matthew  7:5 when I judge another for their sin, first I have to look at the `plank` in my own eye).  So it is interesting that separating the Challah in a sense brings us back to ADONAI!! This act of taking the first part of the dough is a reminder each week that says, YES, I will do all that You command!  I will return to You ! It  is also an acknowledgement of the Land, the Promised Land that the ten disobedient spies did not enter.  They spoke badly about the Apple of G-d`s eye, the Land of Israel.  For me this is a lesson in going deeper in my heart to learn about Israel, to know it from G-d`s heart of Love, and to acknowledge the real promise of entering the Land.  Israel Is real! (that is not a line from the Torah, those are words that came to me recently!).  

How did the Parsha speak to you in this week? (*For the weekly readings, see `Link to the weekly readings` on the right sidebar!)

My prayer in this post is this... Like Matriarch Sarah, whose Challah was said to stay fresh from Sabbath to Sabbath because of the divine light that she contained from her Righteousness and Faith, may we too yearn to deepen our Faith and  Righteousness as women of G-d.  May we feed people with the `bread`  that comes from our Messiah Yeshua who lives in us, and may it nourish many!!!

Love to you!
Blessings and Shalom!

Shayndel

For more about the Mitzvot and Meaning of Challah,  Here is one Link I referred to, and it also tells about the specifics in Jewish practice of taking Challah from the first part of the dough.

welcoming the sabbath light



*note:  The Hebrew scriptures in this post and their English translations are referenced from HERE, Mechon Mamre 

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Other references to the word Challah in the Scriptures include:
Exodus 29:2, Exodus 29:23,
2Samuel 6:19 (below!), King David giving out `cakes` to celebrate the return of the Ark of the Covenant!!

 Please let me know others as well!  

יט  וַיְחַלֵּק לְכָל-הָעָם לְכָל-הֲמוֹן יִשְׂרָאֵל, לְמֵאִישׁ וְעַד-אִשָּׁה, לְאִישׁ חַלַּת לֶחֶם אַחַת, וְאֶשְׁפָּר אֶחָד וַאֲשִׁישָׁה אֶחָת; וַיֵּלֶךְ כָּל-הָעָם, אִישׁ לְבֵיתוֹ.

19 And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, both to men and women, to every one a cake of bread, and a cake made in a pan, and a sweet cake. So all the people departed every one to his house. 

2 Samuel 6:19