25th of Elul! on the first day of Creation!

This day, making round challah (above), when the doorbell rang and a `sukkah` package arrived from Abram the tent maker

Today is the 25th of Elul, in Jewish history this day marks the first day of creation

Just as I was starting to make a round challah to practice for Rosh Hashanah, I remembered that Elul 25th is said to be the first day God created the world, and I thought, oh, I better check what day today is, and I looked, and I saw on the Hebrew calendar...!! It is Elul 25th.  

On Friday sundown it will be Rosh Hashanah--called Yom Teruah or Day of Trumpets in the Biblical Feasts, and known as the New Year on the Jewish calendar.  We celebrate the anniversary of when God created the world, by honoring Him, the creator and King! It is also the day of the coronation of the King and of course will be the Coronation of the King and Messiah upon His return.  Every year there is this Coronation celebration honoring the King of Glory, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

 I hadn`t realized though until this year, that this anniversary of  creation, is actually day 6, when God created mankind! 

Of course we, mankind, were banished the next day from the Garden, but if not for that, we wouldn`t have this amazing time of Return!  All a part of God`s great plan of redemption.

I`m starting a little early on the Rosh Hashanah round Challah!!!   We make a round challah at this time of year shaped like a crown.  The round shape also could be said to represent the cycle of time.  Our  Eternal Creator is without beginning and without end! 

As I was starting the challah---and yes, a new challah-cast--- the doorbell rang!! A delivery of the building materials for the succah!! Sent from Abram!! Abram, the tent maker.  Yes, this is all true!! 

Praise God!! The Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Master of all things!!

Stay tuned for more on the round challah (challot!!) for Rosh Hashanah!! Back to the making, and hopefully there will be a challah-cast to follow as well!!!

Many blessings to you on this day

Love and Blessings,

Shayndel/Joanne

 PS officially my first post (in progress) on the `new blogger`!!!  Thank you friends for the encouragements in your postings!! xoxo

Challah journal---continuing in the new year, echoing Creation

A round challah, pomegranate seeds, apples, honey, and even yogurt--milk and honey!  are all symbolic of the Biblical New Year!! Happy and Sweet 5780 to you!  May we honor our Creator all the days through! 

Let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and everything moving in them.

Psalm 69:35

A sweet and exquisite first day of the Year 5780 to all!

Rosh Hashanah morning. Before going to synagogue with my Dad, I took a bicycle ride down to the beach with a New Year's round challah (*note, it is a challah from the bakery)  in my back pack!  A challah adventure of the New Years kind.  When I was growing up on Long Island, my family always walked to the synagogue.  My Dad always said that it never rains on the Jewish Holidays!! So there is a kind of weather I associate with the High Holidays, and it was just that weather this New Year.

There would be feasting with the congregation later, but in the morning, a quiet time.  The ocean was High tide, and the sky was like it might have looked on the first day of Creation!!  Today the day, yes, the day the Big Shofar is blown.   When I set the round challah down on the beach blanket, immediately its shape echoed the sky and the sun rising already up above the horizon.  It is also an echo of "Return".  The High Holidays are about "Teshuvah", which means to return, as in to return to God our Father.  Not only personally, but nationally as a people as well.   The  circular shape,  it goes around and around, a reminder of the shape of His days, always bringing us closer and closer to Him,  the Creator of all things, welcome O welcome to the King of all Kings.

Shabbat Rose! Daily Bread Postcard Challenge Report & Thanks!!!『ポストカードのチャレンジ』のレポート

I was so happy to get back two colored postcards (see postcard challenge post below)!
Colored so beautifully and in golden light! With watercolor the color of roses floating around the girl with the rose! 

Thank you K-san and thank you Natsumi!

先週の『ポストカードのチャレンジ』から、二人が参加してくれました。嬉しかったです！
一枚は、金色で光り輝く、素敵な色で塗られていて、もう一枚は、バラ色の水玉と女の子がバラで作った王冠とが、優しい感じで調和しています。

K−さんとなつみさん、参加してくれてありがとうございました！
今度また『ポストカートのチャレンジ』をします。
みんなさんの参加を楽しみにしています！

Thank you to all readers for your encouragements on the Daily Bread Postcard Feature at Challah and Cherry Blossoms these first seven weeks! and for  for participating in the Postcard Challenge!!  The Daily Bread Postcard Posts will resume on Thursdays again from next week! Blessings and Shalom!  love, Shayndel

Daily Bread Postcard(s)!

1. 

2.

It`s week 7 of my Daily Postcard series.  Thank you for sharing in the new feature.  I hope you have enjoyed them.   I am happy to have been able to give them out to people in my days!  The `challenge` I took on during this time was to print them and give them out, 7 of each, to people in my days.

As I went along I had many special meetings with people I would not otherwise have met, because I needed to approach people to fulfill the challenge!!  Some of the people were people I knew, but most of them were people who I met through the postcards.  Now as it is the seventh week, I am not sure whether to keep on going with it or if it was just a seven week feature.  Meanwhile, in week 7  I would like to `double the ante` and put forth two postcards.  Uncolored.  They are numbered, 1. and 2.  And ask the recipients to color them.  I also didn`t put a scripture on the second one, and so this too I will leave open and seek a scripture in this week!!

And now the fun part!!
I invite YOU to participate in this week`s challenge!!

The postcards above are for you!  Please take the one you like, your choice! And color it in your colors!  And if you would like, to add a scripture or words to the second one!
You can also add text to the first one as there is a scripture in Hebrew, but if you can`t read it, please feel free to put words that the picture speaks of to you!!

So I hear you asking, `I`d love to, but...how do you play?`
Well, since we are on the blog, I thought it would be fun to play through the blog!!
There are a few ways...

1.
You can just share in the comments and `describe` which one you would choose, and tell a little about the colors you would use, any words you would add, etc!!

and/or,  2.
You could actually drag the image of your choice onto your desktop, Print it as a postcard, then color it, and then scan it or take a picture and send it back to me using your virtual know-how.  Then I will post it next week to follow up!!!

and/ or 3.
You could write me an e-mail with your postal address and I will send a postcard to you the `old-fashioned` way to you by mail anywhere in the world!

Please join in the first Challah and Cherry Blossoms Daily Postcard challenge!
It will be one week long, 7 days of course!

I also thought this was a fun way to celebrate almost one year of Challah and Cherry Blossoms, this blog will be "1" next month! 

Be creative!  Share your colors!!

Blessings and Shalom!!

♡

Shayndel

To see the Daily Bread postcards `history` of the past 7 weeks, click HERE!or just click on the `Daily Bread` label in the labels list below.

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!!