Good and Light

 Taste and see how good the LORD is;

happy the man who takes refuge in Him!

Psalm 34:9

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

Something new is happening from making the Hebrew letters in challah.  I am drawing nearer to God through them.  When I recently made the word `chesed` (in challah! post to follow!) , which means lovingkindness, as soon as I picked up the `chet` ח (the first letter of `chesed` חסד) , I realized this is a letter to handle with care.  This is a word that is the signature of God`s attributes.

The Hebrew words in challah in this post`s upload are `good` and `light`.  

Good=  טוב  = TOV            Light =   אור  = OHR

I haven`t done an upload yet about `chesed`, (lovingkindness), but I just had that realization about the letters. His goodness and lovingkindness will pursue us all the days of our lives...

The word there too in Psalm 23 is `Tov`, the same `good` that He proclaimed when He made the world and said each thing that was `Good`...the world He made `Good` is the `good` or `Tov` that is His attribute. 

More than food for thought, we actually taste and see how good---Tov---  the LORD is!!

Enjoy! This is a light hearted upload with a story about the first words God said, Let there be ...Light!! אור

Have a good day and let your light shine and give glory to our Father in Heaven!! Much love, Shabbat Shalom! ♡Shayndel ,d.u.a. (doing uploads as) 

Joanne`s Challah-Cast channel!

 

Morning Glories, and a Challah for Abraham

I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.    

---Genesis 22:17

The morning glories on the verandah opened in late September this year, or maybe even early October.  I am a little off in terms of the seasons as I was away for all of September and the beginning of October.  I confess I was a little discouraged about the morning glories before I left for my travels in early September, that the morning glories on the veranda still hadn't opened.  But when I came back there were these beautiful blue flowers the color of the sky!!  Even as some of the leaves were starting to dry and turn to brown, the morning glories are still bursting open with the color of sky each morning into these late weeks of October.  And some of the other flowers too were unusually blossoming for this time!   I should mention, a thanks to my husband, who watered the plants when I was gone.

I love morning glories, and how it is a surprise to see them in the morning and how there are these flowers looking out on God's Glory while at the same time created by His Glory.   Everything speaks of His Glory.

About the Challah, I made a Red Bean Challah in connection with the Torah Portion we are in, Lech Lecha.  Where God tells Abraham to set out from his native land to go to where he knows not where.   Lech Lecha, which means go forward, yourself ! also has the meaning to go forth and into one's self.  Which is interesting as I always thought of the going out and setting forth, but the journey to God is also a great journey into our selves as well.

 I pray that from His glorious riches He would grant you to be strengthened in your inner being with power through His Ruach, so that Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith.                     --Ephesians 3:16~17

Shabbat Shalom!
Shavu'a Tov!

♡

To read about the Challah and Cherry Blossoms story of why a Red Bean Challah for Abraham, please see
HERE  Abraham's Journey and a Challah Tutorial 
 HERE  An Pan Challah and Lech Lecha Parsha, 
 HERE!  A Challah for Abraham,
and HERE  Challah for Abraham, cont'd!.  
(Or,  just enjoy the challah, without explanation!!! ) Thank you for making the journey and stopping by!  Enjoy!

To the Beginning

 בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

--Genesis 1:1

 We scroll back the Torah to the beginning.
When the earth was chaos and waste, and darkness was on the surface of the deep.

The Ruach Elohim was hovering on the surface of the water.  (1:2)

Then God said, "Let there be light!" and there was light.  (1:3)

God saw that the light was good. (1:4)

After each day of creation was completed, God said "so there was evening and there was morning", and then he counted the day, starting from one.

In this very day too we are entering a very new day and God is continuing to create a-new.
What number day is it?  I don't know but it it is the very same God who created that very first day, and He continues to give us a new day. Its like a new chance.  Every day.  He said every day that it was good.  And how good it is that He continues to give us a new day.  A new chance.  A day to be created a-new and to have the amazing chance to spend that day in acknowledgement of our Creator, and giving thanks and glory to Him in every living moment of that day.

So there was evening and there was morning...

As we start again from the beginning,
May we give thanks for ...today!!
Have a blessed one!

♡

Shayndel

God saw that the light was good.    ---Genesis 1:4

 The world is beginning to look like it came out of the Torah!

This morning I looked out the window and the sun at that moment through the trees looked like a day out of creation!
Well, of course it should be that way, the world is the Torah!
 God breathed and created everything, so everyday of course is a day out of creation!! But I never thought of it that way until very recently!!

There is a cycle of Torah just like there is a cycle of seasons.
This is something I never knew or thought of before this year, and I am already well into the seasons of life, so even though it is an eternal cycle, for me its new!

If its new for you,  I hope you will enjoy this time of the new start too whether you are just starting like me or a seasoned traveler through the Torah or even if you are just not knowing what I am talking about, please come along and enjoy the challah and rest in each Shabbat.

I have an idea to make the blog a place to share challah and testimony, scripture and sketches, while reading through this first year of the cycle of parashiot!

Starting with Genesis (and satsumaimo challah, see post below!)
We`re already
 in the third week!

Repentence and returning are from the root `Shuv` in Hebrew.
Surely the LORD is not just calling me back , He is calling us back, to His Torah.

This past few years have been a great turning back and returning in my life.
I can actually feel the momentum as I am turning back to God.
Moving onto His calendar which is calibrated by His Shabbatot, and corresponding to the readings of the Parashiot.    It`s movement and at the same time feels like everything stands still in a way too because He is doing the turning and bringing us into a cycle that has been repeating since the beginning.  He is the Aleph and the Tav, the beginning and the end!(Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet).

All the things that happened in the Bible and it`s teachings seem closer, as we make them a focus of our lives.   Where we are now then reconnects with Torah, the word of God, with God Himself. 

This week readings were from Noah, down the genealogical line through Shem
to Abram, who we know will become Abraham,
the father of all the line leading to Messiah and through to us!

Noah built the Ark with all his dedication and truly a one-track mind only obedient to what God asked Him to do, and rose above the floodwaters to safety.
Studying the Torah is similarly the way to stay afloat, to be brought to safety, and to live in God`s word, amidst the floodwaters of our day.

Noah`s day once seemed long ago, but now it seems near, as the words we read are the same Word Noah lived.  What it means to be righteous is the same as it was then, and God is the same today as He was yesterday and forever more!! 
Not only is the Word of God relevant to life,
It is Life!

And look at this, in Hebrew the word used in scripture for the Ark that Noah built is `Tevah`.*
I found out Tevah also means `Word`.
Just like Noah was lifted up on the floodwaters and kept safe in the Ark, we too are lifted up from the floodwaters of daily life and kept afloat by living in His Word!! It is the `ark` that protects us, that is our place of safety, that is our Salvation, just as Yeshua is the Word become Flesh, and is our Salvation!! Halleluyah!!

The picture below is of the harvest--season vegetables and fruits--- I received in exchange for challah this past Shabbat!!  Its funny I started with the purple potato (satsumaimo) to make the bread, entered into Shabbat with two loaves (see two posts below), and went out of the Shabbat with a mountain of seasonal produce!!

It was a great and fun surprise and reminds me how when we enter into God`s Shabbat it is a delight, full of surprises, as we keep our eye on Yeshua.

For "Everyone who calls upon the name of the LORD shall be saved."  ---Romans 10:13

God Bless you and have a great week!  Oh, and it`s Friday already, so time to get ready to enter a new Shabbat!

This weeks Torah portion is Lech LCha.

Aleph 
Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Torah of ADONAI

Tav
I long for Your deliverance, ADONAI, and Your Torah is my delight.

---Psalm 119, verse 1 and verse 174 

(all the verses in Psalm 119 are `numbered` by starting with letters from each letter of the Hebrew Alphabet.  You can read the whole Psalm here! )


Shabbat Shalom! 


*more on the word for ark, `tevah` on Messianic Revolution blog 

From the beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.   ---Genesis 1:1

In the fall (autumn) in some places the clocks are turned back this time of year for daylight savings time.  I just saw that in Israel this is done too, and it became one hour earlier just last night!

In the cycle of God`s calendar, it is the time of the year where we roll back the Torah.   Time to begin reading and study again from the beginning.

Like many of my posts this one also expresses something I am learning and doing for the very first time, as this fist year of celebrating the Fall Feasts*  in my life in Japan continues!  

As a child, even though I was raised Jewish and went to synagogue year after year for the holidays and attended Hebrew school,  I never  understood anything about the ongoing and repeating cycle of the Torah readings.   

The Torah is read in portions each week for one year from Genesis to Deuteronomy.  Then at the last of the Fall Feasts, Simchat Torah,  we read the last Torah portion, then proceed immediately to the first chapter of Genesis, reminding us that the Torah is a circle, and never ends.   On Simchat Torah there is rejoicing with the Torah, and a celebration of getting all the way to the end.  In the congregation people even dance with the Torah, though I am not sure if that was done in our Long Island reform congregation where I attended! 
It was done in Japan though!!

Then the Torah is scrolled all the way back to the beginning!

The first Parsha, or Torah Portion, is from Genesis, which is called Breisheet in Hebrew.  Creation.  As I was flying over water on the way to Tokyo to celebrate Shemini Atzerat just before Simchat Torah,  I was looking out the window the whole plane ride.  I sensed God wanted me to see the expanse in the midst of the water, and the way He separated the waters when he formed and named the sea and sky.  Connecting back to that second day of creation...

Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water!  Let it be for separating water from water."   So God made the expanse and it separated the water that was below the expanse from the water that was over the expanse.  And it happened so. God called the expanse "sky."   --Genesis 1:6~8

I looked down at God`s creation in awe of the way the sky and the water really are separated and the clouds even float on that line of separation.  Those thousands of years ago felt close as I was filled with a giddy excitement of this Torah cycle approaching and starting anew from the beginning.  In His creation, in Genesis.  

Then on what would be the third day He said let the water below the sky be gathered together in one place and let the dry ground appear.  And it happened so. (from Genesis 1:9). 

I watched the shapes of the islands and thought of how our island nation of Japan is one of the nations who wait in anticipation for His Torah. 

The islands will wait for His Torah.   ---Isaiah 42:4

I watched the shorelines in awe of how exactly the shapes are drawn, and how the water line is clearly calculated so the water stops when it reaches the land.

when I said, 'This far you may come, but no further'
here your majestic waves will stop. '   ---Job 38:11 

Turning back the Torah doesn`t turn back time but it reminds us of the precision and plans of our Precise Creator and how everything is divided and separated, formed and calibrated on His ...Torah time!!  God`s time.  When we are all in sync with His time, agreeing to His purposes, reading the same passages and celebrating His appointed days as He commands us to do, something clicks like those calibrated wheels that you see when you look into a time piece.  As we gear up for the new year of the Parashiot, it is like  getting synchronized on the circle that goes back to creation and forward to His coming!


If, like me, you have never read the Torah on a yearly cycle, this could be the perfect time to start!! This will also be my first time to start from the beginning, as the past year I joined in sometime around the Passover and it was already well into the Exodus.  I hope this post might inspire you to start this cycle and study together!

This weeks reading was Breisheet.  The coming Shabbat will be Noach from the story of Noah.  You can click on here  to get the listing of the Parshiot for 2016-2017.  In each set of readings we see how the prophecies from the Old Testament are fulfilled in the coming of Yeshua as we read and study the portions from the Torah, Haftorah, and including readings from the Brit Chadashah (The Good News, or New Testament). 

(then He, Yeshua said...)

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.                                                            ---Revelation 22:13

 May God look upon us from the heavens and see us returning to His Torah!! May he be pleased with us and say like He did at the time of creation when there was a separation between water and water, and when there was not yet a separation between people and God, and He said at the end of the each day, `it is good.`!!

So God saw everything that He made, and behold it was very good.     ---Genesis 1:31

Note:  all the photos in this post I took from the airplane from Oita to Tokyo In two trips over the Succot and Shemeni Atzeret holidays.

Note:  If you are interested to read more about this Torah portion from Genesis,  you can find many drash, or sermons about it if you look it up.  I will share one link below from a blog I came across, it looks at the Hebrew letter Beit that begins the Breisheet and first line of Genesis from a Messianic perspective.  The writer  explains how the first letter means house, and then goes on to connect it with Yeshua and our dwelling with Him from the very beginning.  I provided the link to that article below.  Or enjoy looking for other talks on the text as you begin the year of Torah Study from the beginning! Shalom and Enjoy!:
http://jewishjewels.org/Newsletter%20Archive/IntheBeginning-Jan2006.pdf

Note:  Until my eyes were opened to the truth of Yeshua, I always knew the Fall Feasts as the `Jewish` holidays, but important note:  they are not only for Jewish people but for all God`s children!! they are for all who call upon His name, all who call upon His name in truth, both in the natural and the grafted in, we are all brothers and sisters in Yeshua!!  Yeshua came to reconcile the Jew and Gentile in Himself.  It is  beautiful to see that living truth  in a messianic congregation, where Jewish and Gentile believers  worship, read Torah, and celebrate the feasts together!!