B'nai Chayim/Children of Life Fellowship

04/16/2024

This year, the Passover Seder will be celebrated from 6-9 p-m on Monday, April 22. The Festival of Unleavened Bread goes from Tuesday, April23 until Tuesday, April 30. I am late in posting this, but as I get stronger, I will get back to more regular posts.

Shalom,

Tabbi Mike

08/01/2023

The Fall Feasts are just weeks away. I will try and figure out how to post our service schedule. There is nothing wrong with being old school as long as the youngsters help you when you get stuck.

Tomorrow, in our Yeshiva Bible Study (7 pm in our home 11634 111A avenue). We will be studying the Book of Lamentations, which was written by Jeremiah, who is often called the weeping prophet. He was a priest (Aaronite) and lived through the final spiritual decline of Judah which led to the Captivity.

He would have rejoiced under the short reign of the righteous King Josiah and would have gotten progressively sadder under the wicked kings who followed. When Jerusalem fell, he was allowed to stay with the survivors who were not taken in captivity. They were mostly very poor, but since the Babylonians did not destroy the crops they could immediately begin to recover and rebuild their lives.

The survivors did not listen to Jeremiah when he told them YHVH wanted them to stay in the land. When the leader set up by Babylon was murdered, they were afraid that Babylon would severely punish them. They fled into Egypt with Jeremiah as their hostage. Jeremiah's scribe, Baruch, recorded the sad story and Jeremiah added his dirge (sad song) and we now call it Lamentations.

It is very poetic and full of amazing imagery. Join us as we study this amazing document and as we discuss the events that he is describing.

Shalom, campers

07/25/2023

Shalom Friends. I have not posted for too long due to health issues which are slowly getting better. So thank you for your prayers and your patience.

We have a new praise initiative at 7 PM on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. We call it a jam session and we invite people to come and sing with us as we explore Messianic music which is now become a very rich source of inspiration that will move your soul!

We are starting to see younger people come to shul and it is this new generation we want to reach out to as the old guard begins to hang up their tools. We would even like you to bring your own music so our celebration of all things messianic can be infused with new blood and new talent.

It will be held in the chapel and not the sanctuary. It has amazing acoustics and we want to rock the building with sacred music that is distinctively messianic.

Join us. We might even let a few older people in, if they behave. LOL

12/21/2022

12/21/2022

Before I got married, I was really into bridge and played whenever I could. My wife is not fond, so farewell card game! In my bridge days someone shared a news item about a German husband who shot his wife because she trumped his ace. My instant reaction of horror: "She trumped his ace?"

12/21/2022

This week, from Sunset on Sunday December 18 until Monday, December 26 is the Festival of Chanukah. A lot of myths and legends have changed the original celebration into something people in the first Century would not recognize.

When the Seleucid Greeks took control of the Holy Land, they embarked on an aggressive campaign of forced assimilation, both to the Greek culture and to the Greek religion. At first most Jews resisted, but after some major military setbacks, many of the surviving Jews assimilated.

Reading the Torah became a capital offence and Sabbath observance was outlawed. Many people hid their Torah scrolls in caves, but when the assimilated Jews found a Torah Scroll, they burned it. In the small village of Modi'in an old man who was an Aaronite (priest), was enraged when he saw a man sacrificing a pig on the village's pagan altar. He killed both the Jew making the sacrifice and the soldier who was guarding him.

Mattathias then fled into the hills with his five sons and embarked on a vigorous guerrilla campaign against the assimilated Jews. The forces of the Maccabees drove the assimilated Jews out of Jerusalem. They cleansed the temple and continued fighting until all of the Holy Land was liberated. It took some 20 years of vicious fighting.

The year that the temple was cleansed, the people had been able to celebrate the 8 day festival of Sukkoth, so a second Sukkoth was mandated and originally called the Festival of Sukkoth of the month of Kislev . The bravery of Judah Maccabee was remembered and the people began to feel that just a Judah came into the temple and cleansed it, so Messiah would come into the temple and declare Himself. Yeshua did go into the temple during the second Sukkoth festival and He proclaimed His equality with the Father.

At first the rabbis hated Chanukah, which also became known as the Festival of the Dedication, because false Messiahs would come into the temple and gather some followers and fight until the false Messiah was killed.

So, they removed any reference to the Messiah during Chanukah, added a bunch of songs and rituals and even came up with a special nine candle candelabra, which is now called a chanukiah.

There are now special prayers and people light one more candle a day, until all of them are lit. The festival was morphed into a celebration of Jewish bravery in the face of forced assimilation. It is a traditional celebration of the cleansing and rededication of the temple.

None of the facts about the origin of Chanukah are remembered in Jewish communities. What was a festival of Messianic expectation, became a celebration of bravery which refused to assimilate. The rabbis forced this modified version of Chanukah on the people.

I am glad that the sons of Mattathias liberated the temple and regained control over the Holy Land. I like the dreidel game and latkes can be delicious, but I do not observe the festival from a rabbinic perspective.

We never talked to our kids about Santa Claus and have always made Christmas a celebration of the Messiah's birth. Many Christmas traditions have pagan roots, but not all of them.

I am going to prepare my annual Christmas address for this coming Saturday. I am going to talk about the Jewish origin of Christmas. I will talk about the real date for Christmas and how as Messianic Jews and Gentiles we should celebrate the season when over 40% of retail sales occur.

I am not a Chanukah grinch and I do celebrate Christmas, minus the paganisms which have crept in.

So Happy Chanukah, campers as we celebrate the Sukkoth of the month of Kislev

08/03/2022

Here is a second copy of my original post which also exists as a Word document which they cannot delete.

This coming Saturday August 6th) is Tisha B’Av (The Fast of the ninth of Av). It commemorates the destruction of both the first and the second temples. When the besieging Babylonian army breached the walls of Jerusalem on the 17th of Tammuz, our people fought on for another 22 days before the city was subdued and the temple was burned.

In Talmudic (traditional) synagogues, when a fast falls on the Sabbath, they move it to the next day. We don’t do that, nor do we engage in elaborate mourning rituals to prove that these catastrophes sadden us. I am truly saddened by the loss of so much innocent life whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Psalmist records that they took babies and smashed their heads against rocks.

The saddest thing for me is that neither of these disasters needed to happen. In both cases our people violated a covenant oath (promise) made before G-d not to rebel. In their midst there was also a righteous core of people who still walked with G-d. They went into captivity with the oath breakers and our people survived. This same righteous core exists in both Judaism and in our world at large. Which core do you belong to?

We are all called to walk on the bumpy straight and narrow and to be the salty light the world keeps ignoring. If we lose everything but our faith in G-d and our walk with Him, we have not lost anything of any real value. But when people and nations turn their back on their own conscience for profit or for revenge, this is the greatest tragedy in our lost and darkening world.

Everything in both temples was a symbolic representation of eternal, spiritual values. When the Presence of YHVH left the temple, it became just a box with no more spiritual significance. When the Romans penetrated the walls of Jerusalem and burned down what was then the biggest building in the world, they did not thwart the purposes of YHVH.

Human history has been a long, complicated tug of war between the two cores which make up our species in all of its races. You have the righteous core and you have the wicked core. The universal flood came in the days of Noah because the righteous core had shrunk to just eight people. At various times in our subsequent history, both cores have been locked in perpetual conflict. In our digital age of communication gadgets and weapons of mass destruction, the righteous core is shrinking again at an alarming rate. We slaughter children in the womb and have made deviant sexual orientation a basic human right. We are destroying our world both from the inside and from the outside.

On Tisha B’Av I mourn for the real tragedy and I will keep on walking on the water as our society sinks deeper into the blackness of sin, until it drowns their soul. Seeking the Messiah and walking according to His Word is the only way to avoid becoming a personal disaster.

Whatever crashes through my life, I want to face it with faith in the King and obedience to His Word. If our people had done this, neither temple would have been destroyed. The destruction deeply saddens me, but it is the reason for the destruction which saddens me more. Be blessed with peace and joy, campers.

08/03/2022

Wow, just got crashed a fourth time. The first time, I had finished what I wanted to share and was proof reading it so I could also share it on our community announcement list.

I am not being paranoid when I realize that I am being negatively scrutinized because of my biblical perspective on things.

A few months ago, it was happening every time I tried to post anything on Facebook. Why are other people not being affected by the supposed technical difficulties? Maybe I had better get off line for a while, so they can go and bug someone else

07/25/2022

Another hot summer to enjoy! The real question we need to ask is what is the weather like in our hearts and lives? I call the ups and downs we have to navigate, the seasons of the Spirit. sometimes we are dancing with joy and sometimes we weep with great sadness. It does not really matter what is travelling through our lives. It is how we deal with them that counts.

David had one of the most tumultuous lives in the Bible and yet the peaceful wonder of Psalm 23 is where he lived. Jeremiah also encountered almost endless trials and died in exile, but he never lost confidence in the protection and provision of G-d (Lamentations 3:22, 23).

I always want to be aware of what is going on around me, but only from a perspective of faith and confidence. I do not miss the snow (yet), but shoveling a sidewalk takes less time than mowing a lawn and there are no mosquitos in the winter.

I am not saying that we should always look at the bright side of our lives. We need to look both at our destination (Our Father's Home in Glory) and at the One who walks with us, protecting and providing.

The Fall Feasts are coming. The cycles are turning. I want to remain firmly rooted in the rock and I want to fill my heart and life with the treasure of the Spirit and not with the folly of the world.

Honestly, spiritual stability and spiritual abundance is all about the choices we make. May we learn to see things His way and learn to walk according to His Word.

Blessings and shalom, campers

06/29/2022

I have not posted in quite awhile. I have had health issues that are finally being resolved. I find that I can do only one or two things a day. But my joy in the Messiah is still strong ass is my love for His Word. We are currently studying our way through the Book of Numbers. YHVH was full of mercy and Moses interceded for the guilty people more than once.

This week's Torah portion deal with the people's final attempts to avoid going back into the wilderness to do laps around the mountain for forty years.

In the previous portion they refuse to go into the land and only relent to avoid the wilderness wandering. Without the Presence of YHVH they are hewn to pieces. The same is true of our lives. Faithful obedience is the key to spiritual victory and spiritual stability.

The ten cowardly spies die from a plague and the entire generation of fighters (above 20 years old) are told that since they wished to have died in the wilderness, that is what i going to happen. Making His Word the foundation of our live and the source of our responses to the happenstances of life, will prevent us from doing lap around the mountain of issues we refuse to resolve and the carnal habits we refuse to relinquish.

A Levite, Korach (bald) teams up with three Reubenites to try and usurp Mosses leadership because they did not like what he was saying and where he was going to lead them. Too many spiritual leaders have too frequently encountered this kind of attempted coup.

A group of 250 men whose job it was to assemble the people, assemble the people and join in the challenge to Moses leadership - and to what YHVH was doing. They claim that all the people are holy and Moses and Aaron should quit lording it over the people and give everyone access to the Tent of Meeting.

The four leaders are swallowed alive with their entire families and possessions. The 250 who put fire in the incense burners are incinerated and their incense burners are beaten into a cover for the altar and act as a warning to anyone who would try and usurp Moses' authority.

The people try and push Moses and Aaron aside to take possession of the Tent of Meeting, after they have accused Moses of murder. They are struck with a plague as the Presence comes out to meet them. Aaron quickly creates a wall of smoke between the survivors and the Presence. 14,700 rebels lose their lives.

To prevent any more attempts to usurp the leadership which YHVH had established. The leader of the people bring their staffs and the name of their tribe is written on it. Along with Aaron's staff, they are taken into the holy place and placed before the L-RD.

The next day, the people see that Aaron's rod had buds and flowers and almonds. They are terrified because they see the folly of their rebellion and are convinced that YHVH will strike them all down because they challenged both Moses' leadership and the 40 year wandering verdict. There are no more attempts to overthrow Moses' leadership.

During their wandering years, they had a cloud by day and a fire by night. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. They always had enough water for themselves and their flock. They kept the Sabbath and followed the dietary laws, butt did not circumcise boys born during their wandering.

Once the years were over and the new generation crossed the Jordan, Joshua circumcised those boys born during the wandering. He was helped by those who had been under 20 years of age (and who were now between 40 and 60 years of age.

The apostle Paul warned the Corinthians not to follow the negative example of the wandering generation and he warned Timothy not to participate in the sins of other. The wandering years must have been hard on Moses ass he watched the rebels die one by one, but even if walking with the Messiah means we have to wander in the wilderness for forty years, in YHVH, there is no better place to be and no better way to live.

On Judgment Day, we will not be judged for the things that happened to us, be they ever so good or ever so bad. We will be judged on how we responded to the happenstances of our lives.

I became a believer over 50 years ago and have seen some pretty amazing and pain things wander through my life. But YHVH has never left me nor forsaken me and in all my challenges, He has always provided a way of escape. Even when I have fallen into sin, He ha always welcomed me back and forgiven me AND even cleansed me from all unrighteousness.

As we wander through the wilderness of this life, may the protection and provision of YHVH be the place where we live as we refuse to abandon the bumpy straight and narrow. May we cultivate the fruit of the spirit and w**d out the works of the flesh. May we learn to forgive ourselves, even as we learn to forgive others. Set straight paths for your feet in order that what was wounded can get better and not worse.

Pray for me that I can post more often as I return to good health a I let His Word, the Sabbath and the Festival Cycle be the foundation of my life and the centre around which it revolves.

Blessings and shalom from the old rabbi!

02/16/2022

I made it through four crashes! Never give up! Expect spiritual resistance, but never let it define how you live.

Shalom,

Rabbi Mike

02/16/2022

For the sermon, I will be dealing with the second part of Ephesians chapter six, which talks about our Heavenly armor. Some have tried to draw parallel between this armor and the Torah scroll or even the priestly clothing. Paul uses the example of a regular soldiers armor and emphasizes that we are being equipped to overcome, so that after each successful battle with the forces of spiritual wickedness, we will be able to stand (and move on).

As we walk with our King, we will not always be under relentless attacks, but we will experience constant attacks. Ps. 23 outlines the peaceful tribulation which David experienced and we can apply it to our onw lives as well.