Supermoon completes tetrad
This year the night of September 27-28, which heralds the start of the biblical celebration of Sukkot (the “Feast of Tabernacles“), will bring another “blood moon.” To skywatchers, the dramatic term refers to the copper color the moon takes on during an eclipse, but to some observers, this event – the fourth and final eclipse in an unusual tetrad of four consecutive total lunar eclipses coinciding with major biblical holidays, each separated by six lunar months – will fill a biblical prophecy of the apocalypse. The first three in the series took place on Passover...
Read MorePesach/Passover 2015
The festival of Passover, or Pesach, will begin on Friday as Jewish communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of the Israelites from slavery, in one of the important festivities in the Jewish calendar. According to the Book of Exodus in the Torah, Moses called for the Pharaoh to free the Israelites, warning that if he failed to do so, Egypt would be struck by terrible plagues – the last one of which would be the death of every Egyptian first-born male. The Pharaoh refused to do so, despite the onslaught of plagues of frogs, flies, the death of livestock and total darkness. To avoid...
Read MorePurim, the PM, and the President
Twenty-five hundred years ago Queen Esther violated protocol and appealed to the king to intervene against a threat to annihilate the Jewish people. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu violated protocol and appealed to the United States Congress to intervene against a threat to annihilate the Jewish people. In both cases, the enemy threatening the people of Israel was Persia (today, Iran). In the days of Esther, the deliverance of the Jewish people led to the institution of the holiday known as Purim. Today, just one day after Netanyahu’s speech, it is Purim again. Truth...
Read MoreHappy Hanukkah!
A common understanding of the December holiday season is that Christmas is the holiday for Christians and Hanukkah is the holiday for Jews. Few Christians relate to Hanukkah since it is not one of the biblical feasts of Israel. But, the fact that Jesus celebrated Hanukkah should make Christians curious enough to investigate the possible importance of the festival to their faith. It is no exaggeration to say that had it not been for Hanukkah, there could have very well not been a Christmas. Hanukkah prepared the way for the birth and ministry of Jesus. Therefore, Christians may want to not...
Read MoreSukkot
The High Holidays or “Days of Awe” and Rosh Hashanah have just concluded this weekend with the solemn fast and deep contemplations of Yom Kippur, and we are about to embark this week (click here for a calendar and brief explanation of this fall’s events) on one of our faith’s most lasting celebrations, Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles. Every biblical holiday given to the Jewish people has these three aspects: Israel was commanded to observe the holiday in the present in order to remember something God had done in the past, and because of some future prophetic purpose hidden within each...
Read MoreWho Was Jesus?
As we meditate on the events of Good Friday, we often wonder Who was this man? Coming from a Western cultural background, our mind fills with images from our childhood of what Jesus might have looked like and how He behaved, often forgetting that He was of humble Middle Eastern background, a young Hebrew man deeply steeped by His own choosing in the teachings, traditions, and worldview of his heritage. What we call the “Last Supper” was really a Passover Seder in which the bread of life was the Aphikoman and the cup was a cup of Redemption and Acceptance at the culmination of the...
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