Rabbi Barry Marks: Mother s Day reflections
State Journal-Register
Mother’s Day is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the place of the biblical matriarchs in Jewish tradition and also to honor the memory of my own mother, the 40th anniversary of whose passing occurs this year.
The four matriarchs of the Torah – Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah – have an honored place in Jewish tradition and especially in the spiritual literature written for Jewish women, an area of Jewish history that has been sadly neglected. In the Hebrew Scriptures, mothers are portrayed as grieving figures who mourn the misfortunes that befall their children and also as comforters offering consolation to their offspring. Is there a more poignant depiction than that of Rachel wailing and weeping bitterly for her children who have gone into exile and being reassured by God: “Restrain your voice from weeping, your eyes from shedding tears; for there is a reward for your labor?” (Jeremiah 31:16). To
The next few months were nothing like what we had imagined when dreaming about our new life in Israel.
The reality of living in this land hit hard. My sister and I stayed with my grandmother at the immigrant absorption center so that my parents could go out and build us a life, having barely any money and not knowing the language. This was
not the modern, spotless, organized, or perfect land of their dreams, but looked and felt more like a wilderness.
After a miserable experience looking for an apartment in the South of Israel where we had some distant relatives, my parents saw an ad about affordable houses in the North by the beautiful Sea of Galilee, where we were told there may be job opportunities for new immigrants. Nothing could have sounded better at the time, and we found ourselves living by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where we live to this day.
Yahweh Ropheka The Lord Who Heals Ann Spangler Ann Spangler is an award-winning writer and speaker.
The Hebrew word
rophe means “heal, “cure,” “restore,” or “make whole.” Shortly after his people left Egypt for the Promised Land, God revealed himself as
Yahweh Ropheka, “the LORD who heals.” The Hebrew Scriptures indicate that God is the source of all healing.
The verb from which
Rophe is derived occurs sixty-seven times in the Old Testament. Though it often refers to physical healing, it usually has a larger meaning as well, involving the entire person. Rather than merely healing the body,
Yahweh Ropheka (yah-WEH ro-FEH-ka) heals the mind and soul as well. This Hebrew verb is also used in other ways for example, God “heals” water, land, and nations, and he “repairs” an altar. Significantly, God also heals sin and apostasy. The Hebrew Scriptures, in fact, link sickness and sin by presenting sin as the cause of illness just as i
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This blog article is different from all my previous ones. I am going to be personal and share one of my spiritual experiences. Sharing this is risky because I am giving you a chance to scorn something that, for me, is sacred. Yet, people already slander our Creator and ridicule that He even exists, no one is safe from mockery. Someone told me recently that I need to let God protect what I saw, instead of trying to do it myself, so I decided to take that good advice and write this for my blog.
Marriage And Divorce In Hosea s The Hebrew Scriptures
458 Words2 Pages
Hoseaâs use of the marriage metaphor in relation to the nature of YHWH and Israelâs relationship was ingenious in the sense that it gives us a special insight into the divine-human relations. However it raises some serious problems for those concerned with the texts that may be interpreted as excusing violence against women. In the case of the Hebrew Scriptures, the image of the husband physically retaliating against his wife is almost unavoidable, and his right to do so unquestionable, to the extent that divine retribution is based on the notion that the deity has the right to punish the people. The first task of the prophet is to capture the imagination of their audience, in order to persuade the gravity of oneâs message to their listeners. Hosea convinced Israel of her urgent need to repent by using a plethora of beautiful and poetic images to capture the nature of YHWHâs affection and cla