King Cyrus of Persia was used by God to deliver the Jewish people from their Babylonian captivity. They returned to Yerushalayim and rebuilt their city and the second Temple. With the help of a modern-day King Cyrus, Yerushalayim is acknowledged to be, by the largest nation in the world, the eternal capital of Isra’el. This modern-day King Cyrus has also called for the rebuilding of the Temple. When that happens, the greatest exodus of Jewish people from the nations will follow (Jeremiah 16:14) along with a great apostasy and a false messiah in sitting in the Temple (2 Thessalonians 2).
Year: 2017
Bubbe’s Hanukkah Poem
In the Jerusalem Temple the killing of pigs
Left an ugly mess that was very, very big
The Levite priests went to work that day
To clean the whole place until they could say
The Holy Temple was ready to worship Yahweh.
Modeh Ani – I Thank You
These words are said immediately upon waking from sleep. In them we thank God for life itself, renewed each day. Sleep, said the sages, is ‘one sixtieth of death” (Berakhot 57b). Waking, therefore, is a miniature rebirth. Despite its brevity, this sentence articulates a transformative act of faith; the recognition that life is a gift from God. Expressing gratitude at the fact of being alive, we prepare ourselves to celebrate and sanctify the new day.
The Alef, the Ox, and the Manger
In the Hebrew alphabet, the first letter alef coincides with the first commandment in Exodus 20:2-3: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.” א Alef has the Hebrew word picture of an Ox meaning ‘first, strength.’…