HUMILITY AND MOUNT SINAI

(Numbers 1:1-4:20)
The story is told of the great 19th century yeshiva in Europe called Novardok, where the students were known for their great humility. To reach such levels, they would sit for 30 minutes each morning in the study hall, rocking back and forth, chanting the mantra, "I am nothing, I am nothing."
One morning, a new student arrives at the yeshiva, and upon entering the study hall, is surprised to find hundreds of students muttering, "I am nothing." He checks the sign outside the door to make sure he has the right place, and then figures he might as well go in and join them. He finds an empty seat, sits down, and begins rocking back and forth, chanting, "I am nothing, I am nothing." Suddenly the student seated next to him turns and says: "The nerve of you! I was here an entire year before I was nothing!"
* * *
THE HUMBLE HILL
The Midrash says that when God was preparing to give the Torah, all the mountains stepped forward and declared why they thought the Torah should be given on them. "I am the highest mountain," said one. "No," said another, "I am the steepest mountain and therefore the Torah should be given on me."
One by one, they all stated their claims. But in the end, God chose Mount Sinai - not because it was the tallest or the grandest (because it's not, as anyone who's toured the Sinai Desert will attest), but because, says the Midrash, it was the most humble.
What is this notion of "humility" and what does it have to do with Torah?
First, let's clarify what humility is NOT. Humility does not mean a meek reluctance to speak up or be assertive. Humility is not slouching your shoulders and having low self-esteem. The Torah (Numbers 12:3) refers to Moses as "the most humble person who ever lived" -- and yet he aggressively confronts Pharaoh, fights a war against Amalek, and stands up to castigate the Jewish people.
* * *
HUMILITY DEFINED
Humility is to know one's place. In this week's Parsha, the Torah describes the arrangement of the 12 Tribes in the Israelite camp. After a long description of who will travel first, and who will travel last, the Torah says: "And the Jewish people did exactly as they were instructed" (Numbers 1:54).
What's the big deal that everyone camped where they were supposed to? The Midrash explains that when God suggested the arrangement, Moses began to complain, saying, "Now there will be disputes between the tribes." Moses reasoned that once he starts specifying who travels in the East and who travels in the West, who is in front and who is in back, people will start arguing. If the tribe of Yehudah is told to travel in the East, they will say they want to travel in the South, and so forth with each of the tribes.
God tells Moses: Years earlier, at Jacob's funeral, his 12 sons carried the coffin. The way the sons were arranged around the coffin is the same way the tribes will be arranged in the camp today. In this way, everyone is already clear as to his proper place. So don't worry, God tells Moses, because when someone knows their place, there is inevitably peace and calm.
This applies to our relationship with God as well. The higher a person becomes spiritually, the more humble he becomes. As we get closer to God, we become more realistic about our own limitations, vulnerability and mortality. We internalize the reality that every human's position is tenable and only God is eternal.
Moses was called "the most humble" because when he stood before God he knew his place. Anything else precludes room for God to fit in. That's why the Talmud likens arrogance to idol worship; both push away the presence of God.
* * *
NOSE IN THE AIR
In the secular world, the biggest personalities are usually the most arrogant. Picture the scene: A movie star walks into a party -- strutting, cocky, head raised. His mannerisms shout: "I am great and I don't need you or anybody else." The room is silent with awe. Charisma!
Judaism says this is counterfeit charisma.
True humility means living with the reality that nothing matters except doing the right thing. The humble person is not dependent on the opinion of others. Because sometimes doing the right thing is popular (and consistent with one's ego needs), and sometimes it's not. But the humble person can set his ego aside, if need be, in order to consistently do the right thing.
An arrogant person, on the other hand, is not con-cerned about right and wrong -- only about himself and how well things will turn out for him. He can appear to be smooth on the surface, but he's really just manipulating everything around him to suit his self-centered needs.
"Arrogance" = I'm all that counts.
"Humility" = What's greater than me is what counts.
In actuality, it is humility which guarantees charisma! The humble person has the ability to rise above his self-contained narcissistic envelope and embrace those around him. Since he confidently knows his place, he can leave space for others without having an ego crisis. He honors others and helps them find their place, too.
Isn't that true charisma?!
* * *
FORWARD OR BACK?
Humility is the ability to be objective about one's own position vis-a-vis everyone else. If I am in the position to lead, then I should lead. And if not, I should defer. I must know where I stand, and not take undo liberties. If I am in the presence of someone more knowledgeable, I should think twice before speaking. There is nothing more annoying than an accountant standing in a roomful of doctors and pontificating on medical science.
Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Pshischa (19th century Europe) always carried two slips of paper -- one in the right pocket and one in the left. On one paper was written the Talmudic statement, "The entire world was created just for me" (Sanhedrin 38a). On the other paper was written the words of Abraham, "I am but dust and ashes" (Genesis 18:27). In this way, he was reminded that there are times to step forward, and times to step back.
* * *
MODERN MODEL OF HUMILITY
Take for example Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l, the leader of American Jewry for much of the 20th century. In the introduction to Iggress Moshe, his monumental compendium of responsa, Rabbi Feinstein writes: "I would not have volunteered for the job of leading the Jewish people. But since this is the role that God has selected for me, I must accept it willingly."
One day in the study hall, a visitor picked up the pay phone, and the voice on the other end asked to speak with Moshe Feinstein. The visitor then walked into the study hall and began shouting: "Moishy! Phone call for Moishy!" Incredibly, he was using an informal nickname for the great sage! Rabbi Feinstein calmly raised his hand and graciously accepted the phone.
Rabbi Feinstein's sister was once asked, "What makes your brother so special?" She answered: "What makes my brother special is that he never looks at himself as being so special."
* * *
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
So how do we achieve humility? The first thing a Jew does upon awakening in the morning is to say the Modeh Ani prayer: "I acknowledge you, God, for graciously returning my soul for yet another day. Thank you!"
Step One to humility is to put our relationship with God into perspective. We feel the "We," rather than the self-indulgent, negative energy. We emerge more relaxed, calm and flexible. And this in turn trickles down to all our interpersonal relationships: business partnership, marriage, community and nation-building.
Step Two to humility is found in the opening verse of this week's parsha. "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert" (Numbers 1:1). The Sages ask a fundamental question: Why was the Torah given in a desert? Because a desert is empty. What this means is that to acquire Torah -- to receive God's wisdom -- we must first be willing to open up space inside.
The Maharal (16th century Prague) explains that the only way to teach anything is to first get the student to ask a question. Because a question creates a lack and a need -- a space that the answer can then come and fill. But without first a question, there is no room for the answer.
In this time of the Shavuot holiday and reliving the Sinai experience, the message for us is to know our place, make some space, and let the truth of God and His Torah enter deep inside.
Shabbat Shalom,Rabbi Shraga Simmons

THAT YOU MAY BE KNOWN

My Plagues To Your Heart

"... at this time I will send all My plagues to your heart... so that you [will] know that there is none like Me in all the earth. For at any time I [could] have put forth My hand and... struck you and your people with [a] plague and you [would] have been wiped from the earth. And yet, for this [purpose] I have caused you to stand, so as to show you My power, and for the sake of declaring My Name in all the earth...." Sh'mot 9:14-16
Adonai makes Himself known by allowing us to be part of His plans. He makes Himself known by setting His people apart, giving us a platform from which to shine. But He also makes Himself known by raising up and setting apart the wicked—not so they may triumph, but so that He may make an example of them. Adonai causes His enemies to stand "so as to show... [His] power, and for the sake of declaring [His] Name in all the earth."
For all time, the Mitz'riy (Egyptians) stand as an example for those who would presume to oppose the will of G-d. Let us, therefore, receive the warning in earnest and consider how we might fare should our hearts be hardened to the G-d of Yis'rael. For the sons of men, all Adonai has ever wanted was for us to know Him. May we know Him, then, not by His wrath, but by the patience and mercy He constantly displays... even as we constantly seem to forget that He alone is G-d.

P R A Y E R
That You may be known, Adonai, display Your glory and greatness! I praise You, Lord, for there truly is none like You in all the earth. Thank You, Hashem, for holding back Your hand, even though I am constantly taking You for granted. Show me Your ways, Adonai, that I may know You more, and never forget that You are G-d. I bless You, mighty one of Yis'rael, who sets apart the wicked and the righteous for the glory of Your great Name...

Ref. Messianic Devotional

"Until You Have Blessed Me"

Until You Have Blessed Me
"And Ya'akov was left alone, and [a] man wrestled with him until the ascending of the dawn. And [when the man] saw that he was not able to overpower him, he struck the socket of [Ya'akov's] thigh.... And [the man] said, 'Let me [go] away, for the dawn has ascended.' And [Ya'akov] said, 'I [will] not let you [go] away until you have blessed me.' And [the man] said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Ya'akov.' And [the man] said, 'Your name will no more [be] called Ya'akov, but Yis'rael, for you have persevered with G-d and with men, and have prevailed.' ...And Ya'akov called the name of the place P'nuel, for 'I have seen G-d face to face...'" B'reshiyt (Genesis) 32:24-31
What Ya'akov lacked in judgment, he made up for in tenacity. Though taking advantage of people was Ya'akov's strong suit, on this night—as he wrestled with the man—he was finally unable to get the upper hand. Not one for losing, Ya'akov instead held out all night, ultimately forced to settle for a draw. But was the contest worth the cost?
Though Ya'akov successfully wrestled a blessing out of G-d, it nevertheless left him limping from the mat. Like Ya'akov, we, too, often struggle with G-d, and come away from the match a little beat up. We fight with G-d as if we could win; we hold Him down as if we could force Him to stay. What are we thinking when we go in against G-d?
Too often, we contend with G-d for His blessing, rather than being content to just be with G-d. Like Ya'akov, then, let us hold onto Adonai and refuse to let go—but not just so that we can get the blessing. Instead, rather than fighting Him for what He already wants us to have, let us hold on to Him for dear life while He takes us wherever He wants us to go.

P R A Y E R
Adonai, I praise You, because even when I fight against You, You refuse to let me go. Lead me, Abba, and cause me to no longer resist, but to willfully follow in all Your ways. I bless Your great Name, O G-d, for You do not hold me so gingerly that I cannot feel Your presence. Bruise me, Adonai, if that's what it will take to get my attention.

Taken from Messianic Devotional

messianicdevotional.com

" True Love"

"I've never had such a clear mental image of him. I don't need a photograph, I can see him oh so well," she said.

As I read through this article the L-rd spoke in a still, small voice, not in the thunder but in the all-so small voice. "How beautiful it was that through the years Anne could still see Peter's face as though he was still standing there. Her love for him transended time and space, that is what true love will do. That is what I want from My children, to have such a love for Me that through all the trumoil of life you can see My face so clearly. I have been with you always, yet My children have forgotten what I look like... how I have loved My children through all time and space!"

Oh, that we would return back to our first love, never ever forgetting, even for an instant what our true love, Yeshua, looks like!




AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A photograph of the boy with the "beautiful brown eyes" who Anne Frank recalled as her "one true love" in the diary she wrote whilst in hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands is to go on display in Amsterdam.

The photo of Peter Schiff was donated to the Anne Frank museum by his former childhood friend Ernst Michaelis who realized after rereading Anne's diary recently there were no known pictures of Schiff, a museum spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Frank's Jewish family fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and settled in Amsterdam. During World War Two the Nazis occupied the Netherlands and began deporting Jews to the death camps in 1942, prompting the Frank family to go into hiding.

They lived in a secret annex in a canal-side house for more than two years before their hiding place was betrayed and the family sent to concentration camps.

Anne recorded her years in the attic hideaway in her diaries. A Dutch woman who helped the family found them in the annex after Anne's arrest and gave them to her father Otto who survived the Holocaust. They became famous around the world.

She writes in her diary: "I forgot that I haven't yet told you the story of my one true love."

"Peter was the ideal boy: tall, slim and good-looking, with a serious, quiet and intelligent face," Anne wrote of the 13-year-old she had fallen for in 1940 when she was just 11.

SCHOOL FRIENDS

They would collect each other from school and walk hand in hand through their local neighborhood.

"He had dark hair, beautiful brown eyes, ruddy cheeks and a nicely pointed nose. I was crazy about his smile, which made him look so boyish and mischievous."

Peter later died in Auschwitz, while Anne died in Bergen Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Michaelis, now 81, had attended a Jewish school with Schiff in Berlin in the 1930s before both families fled the Nazis. When they parted, the boys exchanged photographs.

"He read the diary in the 1950s and thought that Peter Schiff was very likely his friend. But it was only when reading it later that he saw there were no photos and so he contacted us," said a museum spokeswoman.

Anne last saw Peter a few days before she moved into the annexe, but wrote of him in her diary more than 1-1/2 years later after dreaming of him.

"I've never had such a clear mental image of him. I don't need a photograph, I can see him oh so well," she said.

"Forever Faithful"

I was at at blog recently, this wonderful women of the L-rd was talking about forgiveness and how hard it is to forgive people in whom we have issues. How we have to deal with gross injustices on a consistant bases, ones that keep on hurting us over and over without repentance or they have repented maybe not to are liking and so they keep on doing the same thing over and over.

The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) reminded of a time in my life when he told me to forgive my father for not staying in touch with us.

The story starts when I was 4 years old, my parents were young... very young. My father was in the Navy, my mother and father had three children by the age of 21.
They decided to divorce for what ever reason (young comes to mind), my father stayed on the east coast and she went back to west coast to live with my grandparents. My mother was married 5 times in the coarse of her life and one of those men molested me and my older sister when we were young. I always thought that had I had my father then all these bad things wouldn't of happened to us, we would have been safe, and we wouldn't have had to go through all my mothers disfunctions. Eighteen years later my father wanted to be apart of my life... as for me it was to late to be saved I thought I was doing just fine on my own or was I?... you have to know that this didn't go over real big. I never had any communication with him at all and I didn't want to.

I accepted Yeshua at the age of 14 and then came into a deeper relationship with our Savior at the age of 36 the Ruach HaKodesh(Holy Spirit) started talking very loudly, he wanted me to forgive my father and go and see him which was not in my plans at all. He then proceded to give me dreams and visions, scripture from the word as well as my pastor. The Ruauch HaKodesh told me I could not move to the next level of ministry until I made this right.

One of the dreams he gave me was me in the airport, I was waiting to come home from my fathers house and nothing had change, I had not forgiven him and actually hated him even more than I did before I left.

After getting in contact with my father and setting a time for me to go, I started to pray that the trip would be fruitful and that the enemy would not have this victory.

I had been taught that dreams and visions given by G-d were meant to change things. Well I prayed and pray for the month prior to my leaving, wanting things to be resolve between us... however it wasn't. I came home the same as I went and even worse.

My mother had passed away at the age of 58 just months prior to me going. My father was not repentant and did alot of mother bashing and oh poor me while I was their. I now know it was out of his own hurt for losing his girls. But I really didn't want to hear that at the time. I told him that even though my mom had done some terrible things at least she never abandonded us! It was horrible... I was coming home the same way I had left! I kept saying that if I met him on the street I would never want to know him. I hated him that much, I do relize that hate is a strong word but that is truly the only way to describe it.

The Holy Spirt told me that I needed to start blessing my father, because his word said so. I said NO! We wrestled back and forth for days, then I decided to start blessing him not because I wanted to but out of obediance. Yeshua had died and shed His blood to make it possible. It wasn't two day's later that I found myself truly longing for my earthly father, the one I had hated so much I now was crying on the phone and asking him to let me come back so we could try again, and so I turned right back around and flew back. This time all was different, the walls came down. Yeshua is truly the repairer of the breached!

I can't say it was all roses but we began to dialoge. It has been 10 years since then and I couldn't love my father any more than I do... at least I don't think so.
My father never changed... it was my obediance to the Father of light that changed my heart. G-d asks us to bless those who persecute us; bless and do not curse. Romans 12:14

Blessing my enemies has always turned my heart from stone to a heart of flesh!

How about yours?

"Olivia...A women of G-d"

I was looking at different blogs one day and came across Olivia...She has such a heart for G-d and a wonderful testimony. I would like to invite you to take a look and become part of her world... It will surely inspire you!

http://inspiredbygrace.blogspot.com/

"Lucky"

A picture speaks a thousand words!

Anyone who has pets will really like this. You'll like it even if you
don't and may decide you need one. Mary and her husband Jim had a dog,
Lucky. Lucky was a real character. Whenever Mary and Jim had company
come for a weekend visit they would warn their friends to not leave
their luggage open because Lucky would help himself to whatever struck
his fancy. Inevitably someone would forget and something would come up
missing. Mary or Jim would go to Lucky's toy box in the basement and
there the treasure would be, amid all of Lucky's favorite toys. Lucky
always stashed his finds in his toy box and he was very particular that
his toys stay in the box.

It happened that Mary found out she had breast cancer. Something told
her she was going to die of this disease...she was just sure it was
fatal. She scheduled the double mastectomy, fear riding her shoulders.

The night before she was to go to the hospital she cuddled with Lucky.

A thought struck her...what would happen to Lucky? Although the
three-year-old dog liked Jim he was Mary's dog through and through. If

I die Lucky will be abandoned, Mary thought. He won't understand that I
didn't want to leave him. The thought made her sadder than thinking of
her own death.

The double mastectomy was harder on Mary than her doctors had
anticipated and Mary was hospitalized for over two weeks. Jim took
Lucky for his evening walk faithfully but the dog just drooped, whining and
miserable. But finally the day came for Mary to leave the hospital.

When she arrived home, Mary was so exhausted she couldn't even make it up
the steps to her bedroom. Jim made his wife comfortable on the couch and
left her to nap. Lucky stood watching Mary but he didn't come to her
when she called. It made Mary sad but sleep soon overcame her and she
dozed.

When Mary woke for a second she couldn't understand what was wrong. She
couldn't move her head and her body felt heavy and hot. Panic soon gave
way to laughter though when Mary realized the problem. She was covered,
literally blanketed in every treasure Lucky owned! While she had slept
the sorrowing dog had made trip after trip to the basement and back
bringing his beloved mistress his favorite things in life. He had
covered her with his love. Mary forgot about dying. Instead she and
Lucky began living again, walking further and further together every
night.

It's been 12 years now and Mary is still cancer-free. Lucky? He still
steals treasures and stashes them in his toy box but Mary remains his
greatest treasure.

Live everyday to the fullest...because every day is a blessing from
God! He covers you with His treasures and His love!

Hugs,

May you always have work for your hands to do.
May your pockets hold always a coin or two.
May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.
May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you.
And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.