(c) Rabbi Paul L. Saal

It is no wonder that Americans grow ever more cynical regarding organized religion. I think few people are totally surprised by the recently exposed sexual abuses that have been going on within Catholic parishes, since the rumors have flown around for years. But I believe that which appalls most people is the high degree of cover-up that was perpetrated by those in authority within the Church. But despite the recent falling from grace by Catholic clergy, we cannot place the entire responsibility of soiling the name of the Creator upon their collective backs. Decades cannot erase the memory of Jim Bakker and Jim Swaggart. And from Jim to Jim there was none like Jim Jones, who was willing to subsume the souls and eventually the lives of thousands to feed his hydra-like megalomania. The recent fall of Ted Haggard and the allegations of financial impropriety brought by the board of Oral Roberts University against some of its highest level administration serve as a reminder that the problems surrounding institutionalized religion are not all in the distant past.

by Rebbetzin Malkah Forbes
Seattle, WA

"On many paths, I have walked,
To search for truth.
I did not hesitate to feast on the delicacy of sin.
We did not find ourselves, the lies have no more taste.
This culture is not for us, for there is fire in our hearts.
For I am the smallest and lowest of all, standing here trembling and amazed....
For You are holy,
And Your name is holy,
Holy ones praise You all day,  Amen."  

"Atah Kadosh" by Adi Ran

Countless expeditions have been made around the Sinai Wilderness, searching for and claiming the mountain that is Sinai.  But even if we find it and we climb the rocks, rest ourselves on it and contemplate its meaning, will it really matter?  Will it stir up some special emotion and fill us with overwhelming holiness and motivation?  Will we feel the quake under our feet as it quaked so long ago when the Torah was imparted to our people?  Probably not.  And even if it did, the sensation would only last for a while.  Instead, we need to realize that, regardless of where Mount Sinai truly is in the wilderness, we need to hitch up the essence of the Mount Sinai experience and drive it around daily.  What is that essence?  Holiness.

by Rabbi Russ Resnik

Parasha for conclusion of Passover: Exodus 13:17-15:26

Imagine living through the original night of Passover in Egypt. In obedience to Moses' instructions, you chose a perfect, unblemished lamb from the flock, guarded it for four days, and then took it aside to slit its throat, catching the blood in a basin. You smeared some of the blood as a mark on your doorway and roasted the lamb whole over a fire. That evening, the whole family gathered in your hut with instructions not to go outside for any reason, until the word was given. You all ate the roasted lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, an unusual meal, made even stranger because you ate it hurriedly, dressed for a long journey, and ready to get going at a moment's notice. But the notice did not come for quite a while. As the evening wore on, you began to hear cries and screaming in the distance, from the direction of the Egyptian city nearby. You felt dread and awe and a sense of hope at the same time, throughout the long night.

By J. Michael Terrett
Spiritual Leader B'nai Chayim / Children of Life Fellowship (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) www.bnaichayim.com

In a world where all and any spiritual understandings about the origin and the purpose of reality have been undermined and relegated to the whimsical realm of myth and make believe, we can see that for most people, the morality which derives from a faith understanding of life has also suffered a similar fate. Not only has the biblically based religious worldview of the western world effectively succumbed to the ravages of evolutionary materialism and humanistic relativism, but so have many of the traditional moral and ethical values which derive from our theistic perspective.

by Rabbi Russ Resnik 

In honor of Passover, I'd like to share a message I wrote a few years back.

Moses begins his Torah not in Sinai, but in Egypt. The sons of Israel receive the first of the revealed teachings while they are still in bondage to Pharaoh. Most of these initial instructions cover the regulations of Passover that continue to provide the framework for our seder to this day, even though the Passover lamb itself has not been sacrificed for nearly two millennia.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill."

Yeshua's saying in Matthew 5:17 is foundational to our Messianic Jewish vision. Here Messiah upholds the continuing validity of the Hebrew Scriptures and places himself at the heart of Jewish messianic expectations as the one who fulfills Torah. He goes on to teach this fulfilled Torah in detail through the rest of what we call the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD

In this week's haftarah, as so often, the Word of G-d comes to correct those who have a name for knowing but know not. The Bible is far too penetrating to simply correct our opinions: a newspaper column can do that. Scripture goes beyond that to exposing and correcting the thoughts and intents of the heart, as in this week's passage where Hashem reminds Israel that "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came." Reflexively self-centered, our default assumption is that G-d's acts of redemption are triggered by his love for us, but this is not always nor sufficiently the case. Although he loves us, his saving acts are not about us, but about G-d vindicating his great name which has been tarnished through the well-deserved but tarnished and imperiled state of the Jewish people. In this chapter, as elsewhere in the wider context, we are reminded that it is not about us: it is about Him, his purposes, his power, his honor, and his glory.