Seize the day

 Another version of this idiom is "make hay while the sun shines"

Obviously, for this farmer (above), that time is over! Fortunately for him (or her), the hay has been harvested and bailed, ready for any weather!

    So should we be in life. We should prepare for any coming storm or lack of good weather by burying the Word of God in our hearts where no-one or nothing can take it from us when we are in difficulty. This is done by making the Torah our compass in life.

    In these increasingly harrowing days we live in, this is all the more true. We really need to do what Yeshua told us to: Love God and love your fellow man as yourself. Quite a tall order if one is relying on one's own human abilities. All the more reason to cleave to the God of the universe through His only begotten son, Yeshua the Messiah.

    What does it mean to love one's neighbour as oneself? Or, as someone interpreted that command, to love one's neighbour as one loves God. Wow! That's an even taller order!

    Basically, I believe it means to see everyone as God sees them, no matter how badly they behave. (I'm not talking about rapists or child molesters, only about normal human beings who have an intact moral compass).

    How does one do that? I'm glad you asked!

    The sages of Israel say that every Jewish soul that ever lived was at Mount Sinai for the receiving of the Torah, although some of them not in their physical form. When I stand facing north in my kitchen in front of the picture of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and say the Sh'ma, I often cry, which I take as evidence that I, too, was there. How so, as I am not a natural-born Israelite? 

    When one understands that all human souls are intimately connected to each other, it's easy to grasp that we are truly supposed to feel each other's joy and pain as though it were our own. This is what Sha'ul was talking about when he said that when one part of the body suffers, every part of it suffers. Yeshua Himself taught this through various stories and parables.

    This week we start וַיִּקְרא , the book of Leviticus. It is the practice in Judaism to start teaching 3-year-olds the book of Leviticus along with their Alephbet, so that by the time Jewish children are four years old, they already know the book inside out. 

    Since the book is the middle book of the Torah with the first two books looking at it and the last two books of the Torah looking back at it, the sages decided it must be the pillar of the Torah. Thus it is taught to all three-year-olds. For me, as a 60-year-old non-Jew, it seems impossible that one as young as three can possibly comprehend this book of the Torah. The sages said it is the purest book of the Torah and is thus suitable for the purest people: children.

    The Hebrew name of the book, וַיִּקְרא, means "and He called".

    Just as God called to His people then, He is still calling to us today. Calling to us to draw near to Him, calling us to love Him with all our heart and soul and to love others in the same measure. How are we responding to His call?

    Let us not let us be like the first Adam who did not respond positively to his Maker. Let us respond by answering "Hineini!" (Here I am LORD) and let us all follow the great example Yeshua has given us.

    Did I ever answer the question about how I, a non-Jew from 2024, could even think I was at Sinai all those thousands of years ago? Well, when one realises we are all one big soul, joined together through the entire history of mankind (Adam), it explains for me the depth of emotion I encounter when I pray the Sh'ma facing Jerusalem. It is very real. Coming to the knowledge of how it is real simply sets the experiential reality in cement.

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  לַיְלַה טוֺב