Homo Religiosus

“Pray, then in this way:” Matthew 6:8 Pray – “Prayer is the deepest activity of the human spirit.  It satisfies the universal human yearning for direct contact with the Divine.  It is found in all religions in various forms, and corresponds to a religion’s understanding of God.  If God is the end . . ….

A Larger Vocabulary

“Yet have regard to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which Your servant prays before You;” 2 Chronicles 6:19 (NASB) Prayer/ Pray – English has one word.  So does Greek.  But Hebrew has more than a dozen different words…

Shabbos 104a

Bring us back, our Father, to Your Torah, and bring us near, our King, to Your service, and influence us to return in perfect repentance before You. Shemoneh Esrei hashivanu Influence – You aren’t going to find this verse in the Bible.  It’s from the Amidah, the Shemoneh Esrei, the morning prayer of the Jews. …

Cultural Imperatives

Today I received an email (forwarded) that contained some pictorial representations of the Passion story.  At the end was this message: All you have to do is: 1.   Simply pray for the person who sent this message to you: Lord, you know the life of _________. I ask You to bless him/her in all things and make him/her…

Principle #6

For it is written in the Law of Moses, “YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? 1 Corinthians 9:9 Is He? – Does God care about oxen? Of course He does! Doesn’t the general principle (remember #5) apply here? God loves His creation, therefore…

Quiet Time

and being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground Luke 22:44 Very Fervently – “Prayer is not ‘quiet time’ but a time of wrestling and passion.” So says Peter Leithart. He goes on to say that the contemporary worship experience of prayer,…

The Details

How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God. Psalm 146:5 Is In – It’s certainly commonplace for us to say we hope in the Lord, but we might be surprised to find the Jewish prayer book doesn’t render the thought this way. The same…

Divine Karaoke

Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to YHWH Exodus 15:1 Sang – shiyr is the Hebrew verb, “to sing.” Most of the time the word is used in connection with worship. The pictograph tells us that the word is about deeds or work that consumes the person. In other words, singing…

Abraham Lincoln on Humility

One of our community submitted this article to me.  I thought we all needed to read it. A Message from Abraham Lincoln  Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen  In an article on religious trends in America during the 1980’s, Newsweek wrote:  “A group affirmation of self is at the top of the agenda, which is why some…

A Hebrew Perspective on Prayer

  With all the pressures and frustrations of life facing us every morning, it might be useful to consider for a moment the Hebrew perspective on prayer.  The shift in focus helps us to see that the answer to our usual questions are not as far away as we might think.   Fundamental to all…