By My Spirit

“So he said to me, ‘This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the LORD Almighty.’”—Zechariah 4:6

The Torah portion for this week is Behaalotecha, from Numbers 8:1–12:16 and the Haftorah from Zechariah 2:14–4:7.

David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, once said: “In Israel, to be a realist, you have to believe in miracles.” Ben Gurion recognized that the creation of Israel and her ability to survive was nothing other than miraculous. Israel is a living testimony that God – not politics or armies – controls the world. Our world is not a product of strength; it is a reflection of spirit.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the menorah, the seven-branched lamp that the priests would light in the Temple. In the Haftorah, we read a portion from Zechariah that includes his vision involving a menorah. This is also the Haftorah read on the Shabbat of Hanukkah, the holiday when we light our own menorahs in memory of the miraculous defeat of the Greek oppressors by the Jewish Maccabees.

Living Prophecies

"'…and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,' says the LORD your God." — Amos 9:14-15

The Torah portion for this week is a double reading, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim,from Leviticus 16:1–20:27 and the Haftorah from Amos 9:7–15.

In 1867, Mark Twain visited the Holy Land. This is what he saw: “A desolate country … given over wholly to weeds … a silent mournful expanse … a desolation … we never saw a human being on the whole route … hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.” The land that Mark Twain saw was the way that the land looked for more than two thousand years. As foretold in the Bible, once the children of Israel were exiled, the land ceased to blossom.