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

Instructions (in progress), almost Nisan 1~~!!!

Today God asked me to wear a worship dress when I make challah.
He has never asked me to do that before!!

And my Shalom apron!!

So I will obey and begin to make the challah now.

Oh wait, but first, clear the table and the room have the Shabbat candles prepared on the table.

This Shabbat, He reminded me to check, is ......Shabbat HaChodesh.

Oh!! LORD, thank you !! That means it will soon be the new month of Nisan!!! Nisan, the month of springtime, the month of Deliverance and Redemption.

This is one of the holiday Shabbat between Purim and Pesach.   I still have all my Purim decorations on the table, and I hear its time to clear them and prepare my heart and myself for Passover and the Spring Feasts.

I also just realized this Shabbat we are finishing the book of Exodus!! Chazak, Chazak, V'nit Chazek!! Be strong, be strong and let us strengthen one another!!

Blessings to all and Shabbat Shalom!!♡

(Photos:  first cherry blossom this year seen at the "root" of the tree, and first butterfly(photo to follow, seen earlier this week)!

Parsha and Holiday readings for this Shabbat HaKodesh:

HaChodesh  The Month (Nisan begins civil year on the Hebrew calendar)

Exodus 12:1~20

Ezekiel  45:16~46:18 

Parsha VaYakhel and Pekudei

Exodus 35:1 ~45:38

1Kings 7:13~26 (Seph.), 40~50 (Ash), Hebrews 8:1~12, 9:1~11

Nissan 1!

Nissan 1

I took a bicycle ride to the park to see if the cherry blossoms were blossoming.
I knew they probably weren`t quite yet, so I took a cherry blossoms ball with me to bring some pink.
The trees were dotted with buds, buds, buds!

I stood on the grass and threw the cherry blossoms ball 

into the sky! 

Maybe the pink would profusely pour down on the trees and the buds would blossom!
This is what happens around now in the month of springtime.
Everyone is looking up!  To see if there is a blossom yet!
Birds are busily finding them first.

People ask each other, did you see any blossom?
Not yet, not yet!
Anticipation is in the air!

A little girl joined me, and we both took turns throwing the cherry blossoms ball up to the sky!  She saw it was fun, and when she threw the ball up, it landed on the tree!  The tree now had pink!! A pink cherry blossoms ball in the cherry tree.  She jumped up to try to reach it, but it was too high.  She ran and got her jump rope to use it to move it and loosen it and get it down.  It worked! 

The ball was set free, but now the jump rope was in the cherry tree!

She pulled on it and it came down too.
Whew!

We played a little more with the ball, throwing it up to the sky!
She told me her name, smiled,  and when it was time we said,
good bye.

Happy Nissan 1! ＊

＊The first day of the first month, Nissan, of the Hebrew calendar

Ve Ahavta

Happy `Nissan 1`!

Nissan 1 is the first day of the first month on the Hebrew calendar, as commanded by God to the Children of Israel (Exodus 12:2).  It is the `head` of the year, the Rosh Chodesh, the day that everything begins a new.   Nissan 1 is the day that, as we read in the last chapters of the book of Exodus, the Tabernacle was complete and ready for God to dwell with the Children of Israel.

Then ADONAI spoke to Moses saying, "On the first day of the first month, you will set up the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting."   ---Exodus 40:1~2

Nissan 1, the first day of the first month on the Hebrew Calendar,  is also today!
       

Nissan 1, 5777;  March 28, 2017

This morning I put on a Messianic-pink skirt to dress for the day.
Its my first time of knowing that this day existed, as I never lived in the cycle of Torah and followed the Hebrew calendar before this past year.  Probably no one else that I would meet during the day today would know what this day is on God`s calendar.    I knew it was special, and wanted to acknowledge it. So I dressed in my new pink skirt, filled with joy to be with Messiah Yeshua in my heart.  If anyone asked, or if the opportunity was opened, I would tell them.

＊

Everything in the day felt bathed in the new light of Nissan 1.  

A friend had invited me to go to a park with her family and to drink matcha,  green tea in Japanese style setting.  I went with her and her daughter and granddaughter.  Her granddaughter is so precious, just a little over one year old! We sat on the tatami floor of the temporary tea room set up in the park for an event welcoming spring.  The person making the tea poured the water and performed all the rituals of making the tea.    A  very pretty and delicate pink and green Japanese sweet  was served.  Its colors, shape, and tastes,  are made to bring together the taste and feeling of the season.  My friend explained how we  first eat the sweet Japanese wa-gashi and it prepares our taste for the bitter green tea. 

 This year I am feeling a deep Messianic connection with things Japanese, so it somehow seemed the perfect taste for this day.

＊

To my great surprise, I also saw the very first cherry blossoms in the park !! All of the trees were starting to bud.  Expectation is in the air, but only a very few were open into blossoms.    As exciting as full bloom is, there is something truly special about seeing the first blossoms.  In the season of re-birth to see new life coming forth!!

(note for those readers who are following my reports, yes I did a post (HERE) about seeing cherry blossoms a little earlier this year, but those were the `pre`-firsts!, the cherry blossoms-before-the-cherry blossoms, you could say, preparing the way!)

By the way, I did have a chance to tell someone the great story of it being Nissan 1, and the reason for my wearing my Messianic-pink skirt!!

So to everyone,
May we grasp a hold of the tree of life, the Torah of Adonai, the Word made flesh, Yeshua our Messiah, and Have a Happy Nissan 1 !!!

Matcha, Japanese Green tea, and a sweet taste of spring

Living water

A three blossom cherry blossom--- announcing Nissan 1, and everything new!!

This month will mark the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year for you.

---Exodus 12:2

 

 

 

*Nisan 1 is also the day that some believe to be the "birthday" of Messiah Yeshua, or rather the day He came from Heaven to earth to live in human form. Please see Messianic Rabbi Jonathon Cahn`s talk on Nisan and the gospel  

 

 

#nisan, #nisan1,#japanspringtime, #challahandcherryblossoms, #messianicjapan

(almost) Nissan 1!

               As we finish reading a double portion Parsha, we come to the end of the book of Exodus in the Torah cycle.  In the place where Exodus finishes, it is Nissan One and the Tabernacle is completed.  God`s dwelling place is completed and the Israelites are commanded to begin /open the Tabernacle. 

The amazing thing is, on March 28th 2017, it will be....Nissan 1! The first day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, Tuesday in this coming week.

The Torah cycle and our lives once again and in an ever repeating cycle, come together.

God made the seasons and He made springtime to burst into blossom just around now.  He planned the Tabernacle and that it would also be ready for Him to dwell with the Children of Israel on the first day of Nissan in spring.  The whole Torah cycle and Feasts are all perfectly planned so as we celebrate each Shabbat we enter more and more into His time.   The Passover is coming up.  Spring springs to life and bursts with excitement as the spring feasts are about to begin.

His plans are so immaculate and perfect.  We get a view of that in the reading of the parashiot the past week about the details of the Tabernacle.  And then we see in its repetition that it was all carried out to a T.   T for Tabernacle.

How amazing and even more wonder-ous to the Mth degree to see how the birth, death, and Resurrection of Messiah Yeshua are revealed through the Passover and all of Creation, the giving of the Torah, and the making of the Tabernacle.   All the events leading up to this Spring Feast of ADONAI.  We are commanded to remember these days and to observe the feast in perpetuity throughout the generations.

How lovely are Your tabernacles,

ADONAI-Tzva`ot!  

---Psalm 84:2  TLV

Dear Heavenly Father,  We thank you for this spring.  As the blossoms will soon burst from seemingly `dead` trees that come to new life!! Spring is the season of the birth of lambs.  Spring is the season of new life.  You give us the  Hebrew calendar which  starts in Nissan, and tell us that Nissan 1 is the Head of the Calendar for the whole year.  Could it be that this is also the time when Messiah is born?  Everything begins in this time, and You plan everything to Your specifications and to fit in with your great Plan.  Yeshua is the Head of the body of Messiah.   In this Nissan 1 may we celebrate and eagerly anticipate all things new and re-newed.  In Japan people will soon be celebrating in a great merry making, the spring under the cherry blossoms.  How wonderful it will be when the Japanese people come to know Messiah Yeshua. May it be soon! May the cherry blossoms bursting forth over the island nation remind us of the Resurrection Power of Yeshua.   Baruch Haba Hashem ADONAI.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.

No wonder the cherry blossom season feels like heaven on earth!!

ADONAI, I love the House where You live,

the place where Your glory dwells.

---Psalm 26:8