Teaching Letter

The Return to Zion—Aliyah in God’s Plan for Israel

{image_1}We are living in a special time in history! It is a time when God is fulfilling His Word to Israel in the sight of the whole earth. He is bringing the Jewish people back to Israel—over one million in the past 15 years. We are seeing Bible prophecy being fulfilled with our own eyes. Those of us who live in Israel not only read about Bible prophecy, or see it being fulfilled on the daily news, but also reach out and touch it, as we hug new immigrants from around the world. The prophet Jeremiah talked about this day when he said, “‘Therefore behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that it shall no more be said, “The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,” but, “The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.” For I will bring them back into their own land which I gave to their fathers’” (Jeremiah 16:14–15).

Standing with Israel, Is Standing with God

The Heart Of A Faithful Jew

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Editor's note:
At our annual Bridges for Peace International Representative Institute, one of our speakers, Moshe Kempinski, who is a religious and faithful Jew, shared his heart with our Christian audience. Moshe and his brother own the Shorashim gift shop and bookstore in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and are in constant communication with Christians in an effort to create better understanding between Christians and Jews. There are certain assumptions we Christians make when communicating with Jewish people, which do more to close doors than open them.

Lamed- The Tallest Letter

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The largest letter in biblical Hebrew is the lamed. This letter is positioned at the very center of the aleph-bet (Hebrew alphabet), towering over all the other characters. It is the only letter that ascends above the top line. For this reason alone, it stands out and is instantly discernible in all texts. The lamed, therefore, has been the cause of much reflection by Israel’s sages through the millennia. Since God does nothing by happenstance, they reason, there must be significance in the fact that the lamed is so tall.

Lessons from Nehemiah

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Editor's note: Cheryl Hauer, Deputy National Director for Bridges for Peace (BFP) in the United States, delivered a wonderful study on Nehemiah in relation to BFP as we look to the future. You, our many bridge builders, are a part of this plan, and so I asked Cheryl to write out her notes so that I could share them with you in this month's Israel Teaching Letter.

The Source of Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, and Anti-Zionism

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Heresies, Hurts and the Holocaust

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When a Christian becomes more involved with Israel, the Jewish people, and learning about the Jewish roots of our Christian faith, we discover that a dark evil lives in our Christian closet: a legacy of hatred toward the Jewish people that culminated in discrimination, persecution, exile, and death, and included horrific events such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Pogroms, and the Holocaust.

God’s Law and the Christian

{image_1} One of the most misunderstood words in the entire Bible is the one we Christians translate as “law “or “the Law.” In Jewish terms, it is understood as Torah, or halachah, a Hebrew word whose root meaning is “walk” or “way.” Remember, Psalm 119:105-106 says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

Tithing

“Tithe” meant “tenth” both in Hebrew and Greek and was referenced two thousand years before Yeshua was crucified. Abraham brought tithes to Melchizedek before there was a Temple (Gen. 14). 

God’s Lamp, Man’s Light – Mysteries of the Menorah

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Often I invite guest authors to contribute to my Israel Teaching Letter series. This month I am excited to introduce Dr. John D. Garr, founder of Restoration Foundation and editor of Restore! magazine. Let’s see what Dr. Garr has to teach about the menorah: