Fairy Tales And The Bible

Do you believe that the Bible is nothing but a bunch of fairy tales?  I ask this, not because I think that, but because a surprising number of people do. I will grant you that many modern scholars don’t take a lot of the bible seriously or literally and many see no historical value, though from an archeological point of view much of what is written has been proven to be accurate as they uncover artifacts, but still many biblical scholars as well as Christians and Jews alike don’t take much of what was written seriously, instead suggesting it is more of an allegory or poetry to tell a story of the people of Israel. One author that I had read some years ago even suggested that Moses made the whole thing up for the purpose of uniting the tribes in a common ancestor. Let’s take a look.

In the first 11 chapters of Genesis you have a few stories, creation, giants and the flood that, in all fairness, might seem to be a bit over the top in believability. If the bible was the only source for that information I could understand the skeptics   yet in just about all cultures, in ancient times, they have variations of the same stories. Whether or not they actually happened in the manner described by the Native peoples here in America or whether or not it happened as the epic of Gilgamesh suggests is not really the point, the fact that these stories exist at all is enough to convince me that something happened and it affected the collective consciences of the ancient peoples to the point where they all wrote their own versions of the events.

The prophet, Ezekiel, saw what he described as “a wheel inside a wheel” while having a vision from G-D. Some have suggested that what he is describing a UFO, while others, going back to the fairy tale theme would suggest that he was hallucinating. I would argue that his vision was quite real and he was doing the best he could to describe things that he didn’t begin to understand. Imagine someone coming to our time from 200 years ago and that person seeing an airplane. That person would have no real good description for what they saw so they would describe it as best they could based on what they know. It wouldn’t be that the plane wasn’t real; they would just be hard pressed to describe it.

After that the rest of the bible, and I am only referring to the Tanakh or OT, is the Story of Abraham and his decedents, the laws that G-D gave them and eventually how they screwed up. It’s also about redemption as G-D promises to redeem His people despite their collective failure and a promise of better days to come.

What truly makes this so believable to me is because the warts on the main characters are all included. Think about it; if you were going to write a bunch of fairy tales about your ancestors wouldn’t you want to write it in such a way as to make them look good? I would. I would want every one of my ancestors to be the smartest, brightest, best looking people on the planet without a single flaw, yet this is not what the writers of the bible did, they left the flaws. You have Abraham, being afraid and lying about his wife being his sister. You have Jacob who had two wives and two concubines and family in fighting. His sons, not to be out done, did everything from selling Joseph into slavery, to sleeping with prostitutes. It’s not a pretty picture. Once you get to the book of Judges, you have everyone doing their own thing and the various stories of the rulers who led them either into evil or back to G-D, but no matter how you look at it was ugly. Even the great heroes of the bible, Samson, Moses, David and Solomon, just to name a few, all screwed up badly and none of those facts are hidden as you read the stories. So for me I accept the stories, with all the warts and ugliness as being true. If that’s a fairy tale then it’s one I will gladly believe.

New Beginnings

Last night at sundown marked the beginning of the Jewish New Year, commonly known as Rosh Hashana or Feast of Trumpets, and it marks the first day of what is known as the days of awe.  The Days Of Awe is a  10 day period of time were people search their hearts and seek forgiveness from those that they have wronged as well as seeking forgiveness from G-D. It is a time when people reflect on their actions of the past year and seek to improve that which they can. It is literally a time for new beginnings. It is a time when people petition G-D for a good and sweet new year full of blessings because it is believed that during this time, leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, that G-D is literally deciding the fate of all peoples and nations.

It is the idea of a new beginning and forgiveness that I would like to address.

Over the past year I have offended some of you rather badly, it was not my intent to do so but I have none the less. In some cases I have tried to reconcile the differences only to make matters worse and in other cases I have sought out forgiveness from those I have offended only to be ignored or scorned. In these cases I have done what I can and I have to leave it in G-d’s hands. I can only pray that those people will find forgiveness in their hearts.

In at least one case I have offended an entire group of people, Muslims, based on their religion or, more precisely, some of the radicals, never once equating what I was doing, with what has been done to me and my family because we believe differently than Christianity. So to anyone who is a Muslim who is reading this, I am sorry for my ignorance and near hypocrisy in passing judgment on you based on radicals with in your religion. There are crazies in every religion and I have no right to judge all by the actions of a few.

So starting today, for me at least, I am going to seek a new beginning. I am going to try to be more open minded and try to sift more carefully, that which is being fed to me by the media, in all its forms, and focus more on the things of G-D. That is not to say that I won’t screw up from time to time but it is to say that it will not be my intent.

So to my friends and family who may be reading this, Have a happy new year and may it be filled with sweetness and joy.

Shana Tova

God Says Be Happy!

Today I am a happy man. There is just something about fall that brings it out of me. I can be in the worst of humor or not feeling well and yet bring me out into a beautiful cool fall day and everything else just kinds of fades away. The wind blowing through the trees is like healing balm to my soul, the cool air wraps around me like willowy gauze, and my spirit and soul breathe a sigh of contentment.

One of the definitions of being happy is “Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment." So I guess, for today, at least, I have found happiness because my soul in indeed content.

I think that probably all of us can think of things or times when we have felt happiness and contentment. The birth of a child, our wedding day, seeing old friends or perhaps, like me, nature, is what does it for you, but I am willing to bet that most people would not associate their house of worship with the idea of happiness, this is not true of everyone, of course because I have met some really enthusiastic people in my time in churches, but really how many of you would say that your Synagogue or church service makes you happy? I have heard some hair raising or tear jerking sermons from time to time but many times I have sat in houses of worship where it felt more like a funeral service than a celebration of G-D, though in all fairness I have also been in places that their services keep you rocking and praising G-D for hours afterwards, and that is really the point G-D actually commands that we are happy when worshiping Him.

Deuteronomy 16 says it three times. Verse 11 “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite in your communities, and the stranger, the fatherless and the widow in your midst, at the place where the Lord your G-D will choose to establish His name. Verse 14 adds “You shall rejoice in your festival “and at the end of verse 15 “you shall have nothing but joy.”

Perhaps the reason that there are so many people, who don’t believe in any kind of G-D, is because we are not following His command to be happy when we are celebrating or worshiping Him. Too many religious institutions are filled with pomp and circumstance and pageantry, but they also seem to be lacking any kind of joy. Why should an atheist believe that there is a god when those of us who claim to worship Him, or Her ,depending on your point of view, are unhappy miserable people? Why should they believe when we fight each other over differences in religious points of view or form? We need to be happy ourselves, accept others differences, no matter their faith, and then we can project that happiness on to others who don’t believe. If they never come to a place where they believe in G-D, they might at least get to see G-D through us, and that alone might make a difference.

Shalom

Cycles Of Life

Have you ever noticed just how many things in our lives, things we pay attention to, and things we don’t, run in cycles? Most people, because we have all been taught this way, tend to see time and seasons as being linear, that is going from one point to another, in a straight line, rather than it being circular or more of a repeating cycle, yet the evidence for it being circular are all around us. Take something simple as the daily cycle; the sun comes up in the morning, and as the world slowly turns on its axis, crosses the sky and then sets, evening follows and in the morning the process starts all over again. The moon, not to be out done, also goes in cycles. If you follow the Jewish calendar, you can always guarantee that the moon will be full in the middle of the month, in fact if you pay close attention you can mark your calendar by the phases of the moon and it will always be the same year after year. The weather does the same, we have spring followed by summer, followed by fall then winter, some winters are colder than others, some summers hotter, but always the seasons follow each other. Watch the trees, every year they do the same thing during the appropriate seasons, the leaves bud and then bloom and eventually die, fall off the trees and then, after a winters rest, they start all over again.

Even nations tend to rise and fall in cycles. All around the world you can see evidence of powerful nations that once were here. Those nations rose to power from nations that had come before them and eventually lost their power to others that came after. There are even some places where they don’t know who the original people or civilizations was because the more they dig the more they find and the more they realize that they are just scratching at the surface of what once was. But no matter how you look at it even this goes in cycles.

What about our lives? Do they run in cycles as well? Certainly we all know, that we are born, we live and then die, but what about after that? Does our spirit, our souls, carry on into another realm or dimension? Do we go on to live in another body here on the earth? Do we just die and become worm dirt? It’s probably one of the most difficult questions to answer because what you believe tends to be based on what you were taught. When you read the stories in the bible of when someone died the common phrase was that “they were gathered to their people”.  Judaism and Christianity both believe that when the Messiah comes that there will be a physical resurrection of the dead while in places such as India they believe that how you live your next life will be determined by the life you are living now and still other religions believe that you reincarnate until you reach perfection and become a “god.” The truth of the matter is that none of us really know. Some will point to their sacred scriptures and say but we do know because it says this( pick your this) but the fact remains no one knows for sure. I personally tend to believe that just as everything else in nature recycles, our spirits either return to G-D who gave us the breath of life in the first place, or we move on to another life  but I really don’t know either.

I think Solomon in Ecclesiastes sums it up pretty well.

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, See this is new? It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. Eccl. 1: 9-11

So I guess if even Solomon in his wisdom could see that everything that has happened before will happen again and there is nothing new and he could see that there also would be no remembrance of those things as well, then I guess that it’s OK if I don’t have all the answers. I will instead just be thankful to G-D that I can see the cycles that go on in nature and that in seeing those cycles it gives me hope of new life and renewal, whether it be in the kingdom to come, or in another life.

Shalom

Wally World And The Messiah

I was in Wally world the other day and, as my habit is, I was people watching. After my time in Iraq I have found that being around large numbers of people tend to make me nervous, so my eyes are always moving and my head is always in motion as I try to keep an eye on everything that is going on around me. On this particular day though, for some reason, I found myself really looking at the people that were there. It was busy and there was every type of person that you could imagine there. Young couples carrying babies, older folks shuffling along, rather rotund farmers, biker types and old hippies. It’s not that this is an unusual experience to see such a variety of people; it was that for once I found myself making judgment calls based on appearances. Usually I see people as just being people, but for some reason, I was actually basing my opinion of total strangers on nothing more than their appearance. This is so wrong and it’s not like I am some sort of stud monkey. I’m toothless, tattooed and  bald, not to mention somewhat rotund, as some of those that I was judging.

I wonder what would happen if we started treating others, not based on appearance, but as if they were the embodiment of the Messiah. Instead of looking at the dirt and grime, clothing ,tattoos, all things external, we actually started treating people  the way the actually deserve , rather than what we judge that they deserve, I wonder how different things might be.

Maybe that thought is a bit too utopian for the reality of the world we live in today, yet it seems to me that the goal, of both Jews and Christians, is to help usher in the Messianic age, to bring about a time of universal worship of G-D and an end to all suffering. Jesus told his followers that they were to Love G-D with all their heart, mind soul and strength, and to love their neighbors as themselves. Jewish teaching says that it is not enough to just wait for the Messianic age or the Messiah, but that we must act to make this world a better place, to bring about the age of the Messiah and of universal peace.

How do we do that? Treat everyone as if they were the Messiah.  If you believed that the person sitting next to you on the bus, passed out from too much booze, or the tattooed bald headed guy smelling of grease and dirt was the potential Messiah or that the Messiah lived in them, how would you treat them? With disdain and hatred?  No you would treat them with love and compassion and never even consider the outward appearance. So if you treat all people that way , no matter who they are, with love and compassion, you are, by default, making the world, even just your part of it, better and you are helping to usher in the Messianic age.

Hummingbird Warriors

There are warriors living in the trees behind my house. At least two tribes, though there may be more, and they are in a state of war. One of those tribes, and more specifically their leader, is clearly the more dominate of the two but the fighting, none the less, has been fierce. We have watched their leader use tactics of stealth and camouflage that would make any Marine smile. My wife and I have literally watched pitched battle after pitched battle between these combatants right in front of our faces. In fact some of the fighting has been so close to us that we could have reached out and touched them. Despite this there have been no casualties that I am aware of, and our house remains undamaged.  Did I mention that these warriors are only about 2 inches long?

These fearsome warriors are in fact Hummingbirds. I had never realized just how tough and tenacious these birds can get over food and territory or how little fear they have of humans. In the course of dive bombing each other they have literally been inches away from us and have shown no fear. I remember the day we put up the feeder and flowers for them because even before we had the rod secure in place they were landing six inches from my head and calmly drinking the mix.

The dominant males’ tactics seems to have come straight out of a military handbook. He hides in the trees, remember he is small and green, and he waits for the “enemy” to be fully engaged in the drink before he dive bombs them. Doesn’t matter if it’s a male or a female, he charges them and you can hear them make contact at high speed. It hurts me just to watch it, but it doesn’t seem to slow them down much. There is one female that he is sweet on though, you can tell because he only drives her away a couple of times before he sits back and watches her drink, she generally doesn’t go far when he tries to scare her off and she has been the one who has come so close to us that we could have touched her. Yesterday, as I was watching them, three females ganged up on him and drove him away! It was funny because I could see where he was hiding, and every time he tried to approach they would chase him off.

What is really amazing though is that they don’t kill or even seriously hurt each other over it. I would imagine that there must be some pain involved as they smash into each other at Mach one, but the facts remain that they don’t kill each other on purpose over territory or food and in the end they all still manage to survive.

The thing I really like about them though is their tenacity. They keep coming back determined to get some of the food regardless of how many times they get batted away by the alpha male. They know that there is food there and they are going to have some regardless of the cost.

There is a lesson to be learned.  There are many issues going on in this country right now and while I hear many say that we need to change things, there seems to be a lack of people who are willing to actually do something to change things. The excuse I always hear is that the problem is too big and we are just too small to accomplish anything. What were the founding fathers of this nation if not small in the eyes of the biggest and most powerful nation on the planet at that time? They knew things had to change, they also knew that there were a whole lot of people that weren’t terribly excited about their plans, but despite all those huge obstacles they went ahead with Declaration of Independence and prevailed after many dangers and trials.

My hummingbirds seem to know that if you are going to eat you are going to have to take a chance at getting slapped around and dive bombed in order to do so, yet they don’t cower in fear and they don’t make excuses as to why they can’t get to the feeder they just simply keep at it until they succeed.

Be a Hummingbird.

Confessions of Nehemiah

What would happen if all of us who believe and fear G-D were to come together every day for prayer and confession before G-D? I’m not talking just confessions of our own sins before G-D, but the sins of our ancestors as well? What do you think would happen? What if we took it even further than that and not only confessed their sins, but took them upon ourselves, as if we had participated in those sins of our ancestors and confessed them as if we were the ones guilty of those sins? What would happen?

The book of Nehemiah gives us an idea.

Nehemiah was one of the exiles of Israel living in Babylon, there is not much said about him personally except that he was the kings’ cupbearer, but in the beginning of the book you get an idea of the kind of man that he is. He hears a report of a badly destroyed Jerusalem and is upset to the point of mourning, fasting and prayer before G-D. Starting with verse 4 of chapter one you read his first prayer but its verse 6 that I want you to pay attention to “….. I am praying to you now, day and night, on behalf of the Israelites, Your servants, confessing the sins that WE Israelites have committed against you, sins that I and my father’s house have committed.” Verse 7 starts off with the word WE, again confessing that they had not been faithful to G-D. He was so visibly upset and so full of grief that even the king noticed and asked him what was wrong, He told the king about the condition of Jerusalem, after saying a quick prayer to G-D, and in the end the king granted that he be able to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls and the temple. There were those that tried to stop them and those that tried to intimidate and threaten them but through his persistence and much prayer he was able to complete the building in 52 days and even their enemies realized that G-D was with them.

In Chapter 9, after the people celebrated the feast of tabernacles, they came together again fasting and in sack cloth, with dirt upon them, and they confessed their sins and the sins of their fathers just as Nehemiah had. Verse 2: “Those of the stock of Israel separated themselves from all the foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.” Verse three says they did this for a quarter of the day! Can you imagine praying and confession on such a large scale for 6 hours?

The bottom line for them is that the city was rebuilt, as well as the walls and the temple, and all because one man prayed for forgiveness of not only his sins but the sins of his nation and his ancestors. G-D honored his prayer and later all of the people followed his example and did the same and they, once again, were blessed by G-D.

So what would happen if we did that here? What if all of us, who are followers of G-D, no matter the denomination or religion, took time every day to do the same as Nehemiah did? I am not talking about some halfhearted confession of our own sins or pointing out, what we believe to be, the sins of our brothers and sisters. No I am talking about true confession were we pour our hearts out to G-D for forgiveness of our sins and the sins of our ancestors and plead with G-D to bless this nation once again as He has done in the past. We, as a nation, have much to seek forgiveness for, but especially for ignoring and disregarding Him. What makes us think that we are any more special than Israel?  Israel is G-Ds chosen, make no mistake about that, but we are also G-Ds children so doesn’t it stand to reason that just as he punished Israel, that he would punish us as well, when our sins are just as bad?

Some of you will disagree with this, that’s OK, in my world you have that right, but I humbly submit to you that unless we confess our sins, and the sins of our ancestors, the same way that Nehemiah and the people of Israel did, we will never be blessed again. We might have some shining moments, but nothing like we could have with the blessings of G-D.

Shalom