God is the God of beginning again!
Over the past eight years or so I have been bringing you teachings that differ from most synagogues and religious groups. I have called myself anti-religious. The word religious can be misunderstood; for some people it means something good and for others, something negative. As a young man, I was a leftist and an admirer of one of our own, Karl Marx who defined religion as the opiate of the masses. I still believe that today. How can someone who is a rabbi believe such a thing? It is all a matter of semantics. I inaugurated a system which I call “the Paradigm Shift” where I teach that we need to get out of the boxes in which the religious systems have placed us and be open to our Creator who reveals Himself to us through the Words He gave to us at Mount Sinai. He told us that these Words were not only for the people at that time but that they would also be applicable for us today. These Ten Commandments make up the basic constitution for Israel. God has given us the gift of free will, making us different from any of other creature. Not even the angels are as free as we are to the point that we can even choose to disobey God. We have taken this freedom and confused it with being libertine. Our Creator has not only given us “free will” but also a conscience which causes us into to have a constant struggle about what to do in each situation. We continuously fail but He is always there to pick us up when we acknowledge what we have done wrong. Today we are drowning in a sea of correctness—political, sociological and theological. We can no longer say things for what they are. The lobby for the minorities are imposing their way of thinking upon the rest of the world which in turn bows down to them. It is one thing to disagree but quite another to kill those who don’t agree with them. This is not about being judgmental since no one is better than anyone else. A true Israelite follows the Torah as a daily way of life. It is not a series of religious rules and regulations.
Yeshua’s goal was to bring his people back to the Torah. He was a rabbi, a teacher and in his Sermon on the Mount he brought us beautiful teachings. A group of Scribes and Pharisees came to challenge him as he spoke and they asked him which the most important verse in the Torah was. He said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your might (which he took from the Shema in Deut.) and love your neighbor as you love yourself (from Vayikra 19:18).” This response was not new. Many years prior to Yeshua, Rabbi Hillel had quoted something similar. Yeshua warned us that the religious fanatics were destroying the Word of God. This is still happening at this moment. Although Yeshua came to bring us back to the Torah, religions accuse him of saying that the Torah is no longer valid or that he abolished the Torah. This could not be further from the truth. He was made to be a culprit instead of being honored as a hero. Many people will defend these wrong positions even to the death. I am calling for a total restoration of the true meaning of the torah according to the times, not to be taken literally but for us to see its intention. Our Messiah Yeshua told us, you shall know the Truth and the truth shall make you free. God is Truth (not knowledge) and He does indeed make us free. Knowing the Creator has nothing to do with gathering facts or following traditions, rather it is about having an intimate relationship with Him. When we go to him, He sets us free and removes all the things that hold us back from living a full and rich life. I always say that our God is the God of the beginning again.