The Love of God

(the first picture from the book of Exodus!! Much Love!!)

♡

In days to come Jacob will take root,
Israel will blossom and bud and fill 
the face of the world with fruit.

--Isaiah 27:6, first line from this week`s Haftarah reading

Diary--Parsha Terumah, and a Bee in the Ume tree

And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.  
Exactly as I show you--the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of its furnishings---so shall you make it.  
--Exodus 25:8~9, from Parsha Terumah

I walked by the Castle garden, smelled the blossoms on the ume tree.
A bee came by and did the same, so I moved out of the way, as he, the bee,
had work to do.

Then I saw there was not just one but two, no three,
there were many bees
buzzing around the ume tree!!  The first bee got most of the honey (pollen?) and so the next one to come had to try another blossom.

Things were busy at the ume tree, and then some men came and said it was a construction site and I would need to move outside the limits of the construction.
They had work to do.

So I moved outside the fence and did a little sketch.
This scene with the workers and  wood beams beneath the Ume tree reminds me of this week we are reading in Parsha Terumah about the Tabernacle and the description of the materials, all the acacia wood to make the various structures, everything laid out,  and what is to be done to make the sanctuary where God will dwell.  The descriptions about the menorah are so wonderful, and the design of the menorah is patterned with almond blossoms, and its branches are like a tree.

The description of the menorah starts out,

You shall make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be made of hammered work; its base and its shaft, its cups, calyxes, and petals shall be of one piece.   --Exodus 25:31

and continues, 

Six branches shall issue from its sides; three branches from one side of the lampstand and three branches from the other side of the lampstand.  On one branch there shall be three cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals; so for all six branches issuing from the lampstand.  --Exodus 25:32, from Parsha Terumah

I noticed that one construction worker's hat was spray painted gold.
And they were painting the beams with a roller dipped in gold paint.
 Unusual details.
And they were all dressed in camoflauge.

(I am struggling to write the last sum up line here, something about the way we receive our instructions from our Boss up in heaven.  I will see if I can get a good sentence to follow, leaving this in parenthesis for now)

Note well, and follow the patterns for them that are being shown you on the mountain.  
---Exodus 25:40

Blessings and Shavua Tov!!

Have a great week.
Love,
Shayndel

Note:  Ume Tree, Ume = Plum, so the Ume tree is the Plum tree.  Ume is pronounced oo-may and written like this in Japanese: 梅　or  phonetically, うめ.  Can you see the bee, and the man with the gold construction hat?

You shall make bars of acacia wood; five for the planks on the one side wall of the Tabernacle, five bars for the planks of the other side wall of the Tabernacle, and five bars for the planks of the wall of the Tabernacle at the rear to the west.  The center bar halfway up the planks shall run from and to end.  Overlay the planks with gold,                                                                            ---from Exodus 26:26

Names--Shemot

"For I know the plans that I have in mind for you," declares ADONAI, "plans for shalom and not calamity---to give you a future and a hope.

"Then you will call on Me, and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me, when you will search for Me with all your heart.      --from Jeremiah 29:11~14

you may recall this Second Challah Cover, for the book of Exodus.  In  Hebrew it is  the book called Shemot, which means Names.  I took it out again to use as we are beginning the book of Exodus.

My name, Shayndel, is there in pink under the pink dalia

On a white cloth, I put my name, Shayndel, in the middle of the names of the twelve tribes.  There beneath a pink dalia and between it`s green leaves.

When I read all the names of the tribes in this weeks Parsha, I think of each blessing that Jacob bestowed upon his sons in the ending of the book of Bereshit.  Each one so different, yet each with a specific purpose. 

For we too each have a name that is precious to God, and each of us a unique purpose in His Kingdom.

As we enter a new year on the calendar year, and read anew in the book of Exodus, which in Hebrew is called Shemot,  and means Names, I wonder what that special purpose is for me and how it will manifest in this year.

And what it is for you.

As we exit from Shabbat into a new week, may the purposes that He has for each of us become a little clearer.  May we experience God's great Love for us and and believe in the plans He has for us.  May we give that love back out into the world through our lives.

Shavu'a Tov! Have a great week!

PS related posts HERE.

Love,
Shayndel

＊

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

JOHN 3:16

First Sunrise, Second Sunrise, and Sunlit Bush

Now Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.  So he led the flock to the farthest end of the wilderness, came to the mountain of God, Horeb.  Then the angel of ADONAI appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush.  So he looked and saw the bush burning with fire.  Yet it was not consumed.  Moses thought, "I will go now, and see this great sight.  Why is the bush not burnt?"

                                                                                                              ---Exodus 3:1~3

Every year since I came to live in Japan and since my daughter was born 18 years ago, we have always gone to visit my husband`s family on the New Year, and every year I always get up to watch the first sunrise of the year.

This year, the 18th year, was no exception.

Each year the number of people who gather to watch the first sunrise--a tradition on New Years day in Japan--- gets smaller and smaller, and this year I was surprised there were just two other people, a couple there.  I asked where is everyone and they said, its cloudy so everyone probably already went home, or saw that it was cloudy and didn`t come.

Then once a tiny piece of sun peered out from a cloud, they too left, and it was just me.

I too got a little discouraged for a moment by the clouds, but then told myself, you know Shayndel, God speaks to us in those times.  Those times of cloud are times when he desires to meet us.   Those are the times when we can call out to Him and say, Please O God, please move the clouds and reveal more of Your light!

With all the people gone, I felt even more His presence and that is when my eye caught the `bush` and I remembered where we are in the Torah readings, in Parsha Shemot, where Moses first encounters the Angel of God at the burning bush.

When ADONAI saw that he turned to look, he called out of the bush and said, `Moses, Moses.`

                  ---Exodus 3:4







 That was the amazing beginning of their encounter, when Moses turned to look, and the `negotiations` between God and Moses for Moses` assignment to deliver the Children of Israel and bring them out of Egypt.

So then I watched the green of the bush and the drama of the sky behind it and the way the streak of sun lit it from behind.  Even though on the first sunrise the perfect round ball of a a sun that we `expect` to see didn`t appear, God manifested His light in ever dramatic ways and He reminded me of stopping to observe, of turning to look, and of seeing His consuming power in the miracles that we see as they are in front of us.

The next day, I did something I haven`t done in all my years of watching the first sunrise.

I got up and went out to watch... the second sunrise!

Amazingly the couple from New Year`s day was there too!

And there God gave us a sunrise, a perfectly round ball of sun appeared over the horizon.

Again I looked at the bush, and stayed a while, as the sky was lit up and revealed the brilliance of the Great `I AM`.

 Blessings and Love!
♡
Shayndel

God answered Moses, "I AM who I AM."

--Exodus 3:14 

The Torah portion readings this week are in the first chapter of the Book of Exodus.  If anyone is resolving to start in this year, or for those who are continuing the Torah readings, referred to as `Parashiot`(plural), or Parsha (single)these are the readings --Torah, Haftarah, and Brit Chadashah---for Parsha Shemot:

Exodus 1:1~6:1

Isaiah 27:6~28:13, 29:22~23

Jeremiah 1:1~23

1Corinthians 14:13~25

by Joanne Yoshida

#ParshaShemot

#Japan

#burningbush

Related post on this blog:
HERE, Parsha Shemot, Burning Bush, Daffodils and Ume Tree

Finishing the Book of Exodus, and The Second Challah Cover!!

Placing the second challah cover over the challah.  Shabbat Shalom!!

Can you see how the Challah Cover has something of a `tent`-like feeling?!

Blessed art thou, LORD our God who brings the Light of Yeshua to the world!

Blessed art Thou, King of the Universe, who bringest forth fruit from the vine.

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad, Asher, Dan, Naftali, Yosef, Benjamin

         Shabbat Shalom!

Names, Second Challah Cover in Process

Now these are the names of Bnei-Yisrael who came to Egypt with Jacob, each man with his family:  

Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;

Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

The souls that came out of the line of Jacob numbered 70 in all, while Joseph was already in Egypt.

---Exodus 1:1

As I spread out the 12 squares on the tatami mat and arrange them for my second challah cover, I think of this book we are in, which is Exodus, or Shemot, which is translated as `Names`...

It is the first time I have written the names (of the 12 sons of Israel)  in Hebrew.  It is exciting to learn the letters that go together to make each one. 

As  I look at the 12 squares all set out,  getting ready to embroider the letters onto the squares,
I think of our amazing Maker, the Creator of all things, and that He set out everything from the beginning. 


"For I know the plans that I have in mind for you, declares ADONAI, "plans for shalom and not calamity---to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call on Me, and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me, when you will search for Me with all your heart.  Then I will be found by you," says ADONAI," and I will return you from exile, and gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says ADONAI, and I will bring you back to the place from which I removed you as captives into exile."   ---Jeremiah 29:11~14

Please stay tuned as the challah cover continues.  I hope to have it done before we leave the book of Exodus.  Blessings and Shalom!  Shavu`a Tov!

This week`s Torah portion is Parshat Bo, Enter!

The readings are:

Exodus 10:1 ~13:16

Jeremiah 46:13~28 (Haftarah)

Romans 9:14~29 (Brit Chadashah)

Va`era--and I appeared

Psalm 36:6

Your love, ADONAI, is in the heavens,

Your faithfulness up to the skies.

God is so beautiful and beyond words, He is worthy of our Praise beyond words and even beyond how much ever we could praise Him.  Look how Full of Love He is. 
Something special is happening.*

I wrote that the other day, I can`t remember exactly what the context was, but it was something in response to learning new things about God in these new weeks of the Exodus (Shemot, which means Names in Hebrew) Torah portions.  This weeks Parsha is VaEra--which translates as, `and I appeared.'

In the first book of Genesis, God lays the foundations as he created the world and all that is in it, brings in the people and we get to know of His promises.  The forefathers never get to see the fulfillment of the promises in their earthly lifetimes, but they live their lives in great Faith in the God who gave them.  Then in the book of Exodus, the forefathers and the 12 sons of Jacob have died, but their descendants live on and are increasingly numerous and filling the land of Egypt.  Remember the promise, the descendants of Abraham would be countless as the number of stars!! Already there is a sense of the countless number and the promises from the beginning being carried out as set forth in the first chapter of Exodus. God prepares to bring the Children of Israel, led by Moses, out of slavery and out of Egypt so they may worship Him.

God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am ADONAI."

--from the start of this weeks Parsha Va`era, Exodus 6:2

As we read the Torah together with people all over the world who are reading the same portions the same weeks, I start to feel the presence of God, up in the Heavens, and also  here to meet us and reveal new things about who He is in each reading.  Why do people read the Torah and the exact same portions year after year?? Because God is a living God and there is always new revelation.   His Word is alive.  We are changing and hopefully becoming more and more open to new revelations in them each time we read them.  He stays the same, just waiting for us to draw near to Him and to desire to know Him more.

I will instruct you and teach you 

in the way you should go. 

---Psalm 32:8

 When I saw the cloud front and center above the road, it was coming closer to me, and then poof! a few seconds after I took this photo, it separated。。。 like a fluffy challah！ Then the two halves receded right and left, leaving again a clear expanse of sky.  When when we glimpse that God is there, here, in our midst, the Maker of creation, it sometimes seems as if He even moves His creation closer to us, as He asks us to notice, to keep our paths straight, and to live by His word.

PS did anyone else notice?  I just noticed that the shape of this cloud loosely resembles a challah!

I hope you might like to join in reading the weekly parsha!!
You can find the list of weekly readings,   here. 
You will see that as you start your heart will become lighter, your soul will be lifted, and the heavens will seem closer than they did before!!

Blessings and Shalom!!

Show me your ways, ADONAI.

Teach me your paths.

Guide me in Your truth, and teach me,

for You are God, my salvation, for You I wait all day.

---Psalm 25:4

Parashat Shemot, Haftarah

In days to come Jacob will take root,

Israel will blossom and bud and fill

the face of the world with fruit.

---Isaiah 27:6

(from this weeks Haftarah Portion in Parashat Shemot)

Parashat Shemot, Burning Bush, Daffodils and Ume Tree

Then Joseph died, as did all his brothers and that generation.  Yet Bnei-Yisrael were fruitful, increased abundantly, multiplied and grew extremely numerous---so the land was filled with them.

---Exodus 1:6~7

In this weeks Parshat Shemot, oh my goodness there is so much happening, as the world shifts from Genesis and the story of the sons of Jacob, ending where Joseph saved the nations as ruler of Egypt next to Pharoah,  to the next book of Shemot (Exodus),  where the ruler of Egypt no longer `remembers` all that Joseph did and decides there are just too many of the Children of Israel in Egypt, and he makes them all to become slaves and attempts to wipe them out by drowning all the male babies.  It gets pretty terrible.

But enter Moses.  In this weeks parshat Moses is born.  He is ordered to die along with all the male babies of the Children of Israel.  But as we know, he doesn`t die, he is hidden by his mother. (see Exodus 2:1~4)

Then after three months she  set him in a basket on the Nile and it is seen and found by Pharoah`s daughter and the child, Moses, is  raised in the palace of Pharoah until he grows up and discovers the injustice done to his people.  He noticed a Hebrew, one of his own people, was being beaten by an Egyptian.  He kills the Egyptian, and when he realizes his deed had become known, he flees to Midian.

In this weeks parshat Moses also meets and is chosen by ADONAI to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt.  Their first encounter occurs at the sight of a burning bush.  Moses notices it, he sees that it is on fire but is not burnt.

When ADONAI saw that he turned to look, He called to him out of the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!"  

So he answered, "Hineni.*" 

---Exodus 3:4

*Hineni=`Here I am",  answering a call 

Scene switch, to Friday afternoon in my life.  A flower shop in Oita.  When I went to buy flowers for the Shabbat I looked into the case and wanted to get flowers that would somehow express the burning bush, as this image and encounter stood out so strong in the parsha.  Maybe something orange, or fiery looking.  Something noticable, and light like a flame.

The flowers that caught my eye in the case were the daffodils.  Although daffodils are not the dramatic flower I envisioned, when I saw the colors they were bursting with light and passion, and the center orange was burning flame inside the yellow petals.  There were also branches of cherry blossoms in the shop that day, the first of this year! So I had an inspiration that if the daffodils were in front of the branches, the branches could be like the bush and the flowers like the fire.

It also expresses somehow the literal `season` we are in, approaching spring where the bushes are still not yet full of the flowers, so the daffodils seem to `ignite` the expectant branches making it like they could represent the consuming fire.

So that is what I chose! Then on the way home I passed the budding ume (ume = Plum)  tree.  I took out the daffodils and did a little photo shoot with them.  Then some women who were walking their dogs stopped and liked the way I was posing the bright flowers in front of the almost blossoming, expectant ume tree.  We chatted a little about the plum blossoms (ume no hana) and how they are earlier than cherry blossoms (sakura) and they showed me how the ume, plum blossom, petals are different from cherry blossoms.   I told them when I first came to Japan it was hard to tell what is different between  ume blossom and cherry blossom.  Now I have come to know and especially since the ume blossoms bloom earlier, it is easy to know which are ume.

The sun was getting lower in the sky so I had to hurry back to light the Shabbat candles before sundown.

Again I imagined the burning bush and Moses` encounter with ADONAI, and where God says to Moses to tell the Children of Israel his name is `I AM WHO I AM` (Exodus 3:14)/

Moses, who should very well have drowned in the Nile with all the other boy Hebrew children, didn`t drown.  He was taken from the water---it says in the parsha that his name means drawn from water---years later meets God in an encounter with fire, and then is lead by God to bring His people to freedom through water!!!  What a mighty God we serve!  What a dramatic encounter between Moses and the Burning Bush.   It is a good time to remember how our first encounter with God was, how did he approach each of us?  Or if you haven`t yet encountered Him in your life, it is good to read this parsha to see what happens in that life changing and world changing encounter, how Moses turned to look, and how when God called Moses` name he responded right away with `Hineni`, Here I am.  In addition to all the great meanings and interpretations of this parsha on the grand scale, I think this scene also has this lesson in our lives about looking, turning to see,  keeping our eyes open to meet God in even the most unexpected places. And to notice if something that is getting our attention might just be the Great I AM asking us to notice, to draw closer , to turn to look at Him and to listen to what it is He has in purpose for us.

Blessings and Shabbat Shalom!!

Therefore, thus says ADONAI,
Redeemer of Abraham,
concerning the house of Jacob:
"Jacob will no longer be ashamed,
no longer will his face grow pale;
for when he sees his children,
the work of My hands in his midst,
they will sanctify My Name:
They will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
and stand in awe of the God of Israel.

---Isaiah 29:22~23
(from this weeks Haftarah portion for Parsha Shemot)



For the full list of readings, see, Weekly Readings link on the right sidebar.
For the Whole Wheat Challah recipe, see my favorite Challah links on the right sidebar.
Blessings and Shabbat Shalom!