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Drink from those waters to be satisfied and bathe in them
to be pure....
Dear **** *** *****,
We are living in age of divine disfavour. This period we are now in has been
spoken of many times by the prophets.
"For a small moment have I forsaken you" (Isa. 54:7)
"And the nations shall know that the House of Yisrael went into exile for
their iniquity; because they dealt treacherously against me, therefore I hid my
face from them, and gave them to the hand of their enemies; so they all fell by
the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions
have I done to them, and I hid my face from them." (Ezek. 39:2324)
During this period of divine disfavour many will go a stray, "And many
among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be trapped, and be
taken." (Isa. 8:15)
This does not mean that there is no hope during this era of divine disfavour,
for YHWH is not a cruel god who would leave his children no hope. There is hope
and that hope is found in the pages of the very Tora that he gave to us,
"Bind up the testimony, seal the Tora among my disciples. And I will wait
upon YHWH, who hides his face from the House of Ya'akov, and I will look for
him." (Isa. 8:1517)
Every day of my life, I feel the presence of YHWH, I know that he is near and I
know that he can be reached. I see the hand of YHWH in every day events, the
fact that there is another day, birds in the sky, children laughing, this is
what I call the miracle of life. On many an occasion my life has been saved by
divine intervention. The fact that my middle child is a live today is evidence
enough that YHWH smiles upon me. You see my wife's waters broke at 25week
gestation and my daughter Hanna's heart stopped at birth. Each day, as she was
on life support the doctors believed it would be her last, but disbelieve struck
them all. That was seven years ago and she is still with us, a bright happy
child. This is only part of my personal relationship with YHWH.
We are living in a society where people say, "Speak to God." However,
if you turned round to the very same people that tell you these words and say to
them, "I took your advice, I spoke to God and God answered back", they
would regard you as insane. You see YHWH does speak to use, all the time. The
problem is we have forgotten how to listen. As I hinted at in another email,
YHWH is not found in the grandiose, pomp and ceremony nor does he boom with a
loud voice and announce, "here I am", YHWH is found in that still
small voice.
The reason why the Temple has not been rebuilt is because we are not yet ready
for it. Jews all over the world pray for the rebuilding of the Temple, but do
they really mean it? Who amongst them truly wants to bring sinofferings and
offerings of accidental guilt? For they realise that if the Temple was there
they would be bringing sin and guilt offerings every day! The Temple can only be
rebuilt when the nation is ready for the commitment to such an institution as
sacrificial procedure.
As the old saying goes, "Our actions speak louder than our words." The
Exodus from Egypt and the love that it embraces are not just theoretical
concepts locked up in the recesses of our minds, but they are living words shown
by our very actions, by the keeping of the Passover, the Shabbath, by helping
others and of course by fulfilling the Tora. The Tora is the most precious
inheritance there is, a gift from YHWH to be cherished not by placing it on a
shelf to be admired from a far, but by fulfilling its very words, turning its
pages and gleaning instruction from it so that it resembles a well used book. We
observe the Tora because YHWH said, "You shall do..." and not if we
desire to do so. We learn to love YHWH from the very pages of the Tora; he
created all that there is. The Tora was given by a benevolent God who gave us
laws for our well being for the Tora is life itself, "I call as witness
against you today the heavens and the earth; life and death I place before you,
blessing and curse; and you shall choose life, in order that you shall live, you
and your seed. For loving YHWH your God, for hearing his voice, and for holding
fast to him, for he is your life and length of your days, to be settled on the
soil that YHWH swore to your fathers, to Avraham, to Yishak and to Ya'akov, to
give to them." (Deut. 30:1920)
YHWH would not have revealed his Tora to Yisrael if it were impossible to keep.
YHWH would not play a sick practical joke by ordering Yisrael to keep a Tora
that was impossible to keep and then punish them for not being able to do so.
YHWH is not a human despot. Our love for YHWH should be pure untainted by
external philosophies and alien religions.
The Tora states, "For this commandment which I command you this day, is not
hidden from you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say,
Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and
do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea
for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very
near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have
set before you this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command you
this day to love YHWH your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his
commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that you may live and multiply;
and YHWH your God shall bless you in the land which you are entering to
possess." (Deut. 30:1116) From this passage, we can see that the Tora
states that its commandments do not depend upon some form of esoteric teaching
and that it is not a closed book that is only comprehensible to a select few.
The Tora is for all, its words are clear and anyone can read and understand what
it demands from us.
We wear a badge that shows our loyalty to YHWH and affiliation to his Tora that
badge is the sisith. To be a Jew is to be a part of the Children of Yisrael the
Chosen People, chosen to fulfil the Tora and to spread its teachings to mankind
the sisith is the badge of the Jew a symbol of the task of the Chosen People. We
ourselves are capable of changing our own hearts to love YHWH and to observe his
Tora, "sin crouches at the door and to you shall be its desire yet you
shall rule over it." (Gen. 4:7)
In the words of the prophet, "YHWH is a fountain of living waters," (Jer.
17:13) Drink from those waters to be satisfied and bathe in them to be pure.
May Yihweh be with you.
Hakham Meir Y. Rekhavi
Tenu'a Mikraith 'Olamith
World Karaite Movement (R.A)
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