Light In Torah

One of my favorite expressions in life is to always view people from the finish line and pour into them accordingly. In other words, look at people as they are going to be when their journey is completely finished with success (Phil. 1:6; 2:12–13). The way you treat people is the way you are going to be treated (Matt. 7:12). That sounds familiar, doesn't it? In this week's Torah portion, we are going to find out a lot about names. We are also going to find out that, in spite of having all the pieces of the puzzle, our perspective on "the matter" may be completely inefficient if not wrong. One of the challenges that we all face is taking new information and processing it with old programming. This leads to disaster for each detail involved in building the puzzle of life. As with computers in the early days, sometimes programs had to be uninstalled and new ones put in their place. In modern vernacular, we don't need to try to force pieces of the puzzle into the puzz...

  Yesterday was   Shabbat Shirah —the Sabbath of the Song; the Song of the Sea and the song of Miriam (Ex. 15). And though we did not spend any time on this section, our belated birthday celebration highlighted amazing truths of Miriam's leadership. Within our morning study, however, we uncovered why the Israelites—who had witnessed ten miraculous signs acknowledging that the Lord God is the only God—had to be driven out ( beshalach ) of Egypt (Ex. 10:2; 11:7; 14:4; which leads to 31:13). And why would 80% of God's people choose to stay in Egypt (Ex. 13:18)? Very puzzling. Puzzling until we begin to consider our own lives and how we get comfortable in our misery. Why would God declare that He did not want Israel to go the way of the Philistines, lest they see war and want to return to Egypt, when the Torah portion is bookended with war at the sea and war with Amalek? "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land...