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God’s mercy offends us. When God forgives our sins and we do not receive the reward of our disobedience, we revel in His mercy toward us, and we may even desire such for those like us. But what about those we don’t like, or even our enemies? That is more problematic.

God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of the brutal kingdom of Assyria. Jonah went the opposite way. God tracked Jonah down. As a result, Jonah found himself inside a fish. Jonah then cried out to God for mercy, and God heard him and gave him a second chance.

Jonah went to Nineveh and preached its impending doom in forty days. At least, he’d now be able to see the destruction of this wicked city of the Assyrians. But the people believed in God, and they repented. And when they did, so did God. “Then God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster He had threatened to do to them. And He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10 HCSB).

You would think Jonah would be elated. The people listened to his message, and the city was safe. Shouldn’t Jonah, who recently tasted God’s mercy in his life, welcome God’s mercy to others? He didn’t. God’s mercy displeased him greatly.

We want God to be “merciful and compassionate … slow to become angry, rich in faithful love” (4:2) to us. But we want to keep those blessings for ourselves and those we deem worthy of receiving it. You would imagine that by this point, God would have reached the end of His patience with Jonah, but He hadn’t.

He provided shade for Jonah in the form of a plant, as the prophet awaited the destruction of the city. God still wanted to teach Jonah a lesson. He also appointed a worm that caused the plant to die. Once again, Jonah complained to God, “I’d rather be dead than alive!” (4:3 NLT). God now had Jonah where He could teach him.

“You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?” (4:10-11 HCSB).

Too often we think of ourselves as special and as more deserving of God’s mercy than others. To Him, we are special, but so is everyone else, even those we don’t like or agree with—even our enemies. We find ourselves displeased and offended when God shows His mercy to those we deem unworthy of it.

We usually focus upon one aspect of Jonah’s story—him inside the fish. When we do, we miss the point of the book—God’s mercy comes in ways that may displease us, to those we do not like because God is gracious and merciful and cares for everyone.

PRAYER

Father, may we walk more like You showing mercy to those we may not like, those who have hurt us, but those You care about. May we be more like You in every way. Amen.

By Mark Gerson

Last week, Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli became the latest two people to be sentenced for their crimes in the college admissions scandal—where parents cheated in a variety of ways in order to get their kids into high-ranking universities. Dozens of parents—all wealthy, sophisticated and intelligent—risked (and received) the destruction of their careers, the diminution of their fortunes, the loss of their freedom, and the ruination of their reputations. 

Moreover, the odds of this being the outcome were always exceptionally high. This scheme involved dozens of untrustworthy people—from William “Rick” Singer, the mastermind, to young men posing as teenagers to take the tests, comic ridiculousness (a photo faking being a rower), and the developing consciences of lots of teenagers. If only one person in this theater of the absurd was caught or cracked, the whole system and everyone in it would be destroyed. 

If, somehow, the system did not crack, then the parents would have lived in fear that a phone’s ringing was from someone about to tell them they’d been caught. And even if they never were caught, surely their children would have developed a serious and deserved case of imposter syndrome—while learning that the way to accept privilege is to use it to cheat and get more.

If there was ever a lose-lose proposition—if there was ever a dynamic where there was no possible way to benefit, regardless of how one valued the potential outcomes—this was it.

So why did these parents—all of whom had demonstrated a lifetime of thoughtfulness and intelligence and had at least intuitively mastered the calculus of risk and reward—even engage with Rick Singer?

It is very simple. They were just enacting what so many parents have told their children: I would do anything for you. Even simpler: They loved their children.

But wait! The Beatles (the best rock musicians this side of Elvis Presley) told us, “All you need is love”—a sentiment that has been effectively reiterated by songwriters, poets, preachers, and bumper stickers everywhere. 

To assess that statement, we have—as we always do, with any word or deed—the ultimate source: the Torah.

One very helpful way of understanding the Torah is through the “law of first mention.” This teaches us that the best way to comprehend a word in the Bible is to examine its initial use. And the first mention of “love” in the Torah is not Abraham/Sarah, Isaac/Rebecca, Jacob/Rachel, or any other romance. It is in God’s instruction to Abraham: “Please take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac … [and] offer him as a burnt offering.”

We are introduced to love, therefore, through the parent-child relationship. Imagine Abraham walking up the mountain with the beloved son he has been instructed to slaughter—and hearing John Lennon in the background: “All you need is love.” Love, he likely would have concluded, is a lot of things—but it is certainly not “all I need”!

We are introduced to an intense parental love, again, at the end of Genesis—that of Jacob (whose name had been changed to Israel) toward Joseph. “And Israel,” we learn in Genesis 37:3, “loved Joseph more than all of his sons.”

Israel had made no attempt to hide the preeminence of his affection. Joseph’s brothers took note of this and “hated” him for being the favored son. They threw Joseph into a pit, and he survived and thrived only as a consequence of divine providence and his extraordinary intelligence.

Fast forward to Deuteronomy. The parsha (“portion” of the Torah) Ki Teitze is largely about the seats of love, family, and then community. Several parshas mention songs and poems, but not this one. This parsha contains a discussion of what to do with the children of two wives who are loved differently, the cause of wayward children, the treatment of a brother (or neighbor) whose animal collapsed in the road, divorce, and a variety of other topics. 

And it is loaded with rules and laws—adding to those throughout the Torah governing love between parents and children, spouses, siblings, people and the stranger, and man and God.

This is discordant to the modern ear. We are accustomed to thinking of rules as necessary to compensate for the absence of love. There are rules governing how to take medicine, where to park in cities, how to pay taxes, and what one can carry onto an airplane. All are important for individual and societal health, but none is enhanced by a Frank Sinatra ballad setting the mood.

Moses, in making the parsha on Deuteronomy so rule-laden, is guiding us toward a realization. First, most people think of themselves—and want to think of themselves—as fundamentally good. Most people also have outcomes that they deeply desire. Sometimes, the outcome or the only pathway to the outcome is obviously bad. So being good should be easy. One might desire to do something bad, but—wanting to be good—won’t. 

For instance, let’s say that a married man is attracted to another woman. He knows adultery is wrong and, like most people, wants to be a good person. Therefore, he won’t do the wrong thing. Consequently, there must be few, if any, affairs—and the same for other kinds of sin.

But wait! There is plenty of adultery, and sin is common. So, what happened?

We have, using our God-given creativity, discovered how to both preserve our morally positive ambition and pursue outcomes that seemingly contradict with it. This is the ability to use our intelligence to justify and overrule anything that gets in the way of simultaneously reconciling our need to be good and our desire to achieve a particular outcome. This sometimes means convincing ourselves that bad things are actually good, that a bad act is a “small price to pay” for achieving a desired outcome that will benefit lots of people, burying the badness of an act in its prevalence (“everyone does it”), maintaining that it is impossible for our goodness to manifest (“it’s a hard world out there”), sideswiping the question (“nobody is perfect, including me”), strategically contextualizing the badness of the act (“I do so much good that this act barely shows up on my register”), and lots more.

These rationalizations, which seem convincing to the one conjuring them, usually sound ridiculous to everyone else. And that is where rules come in: to align our principles with our actions and to vanquish the rationalizations that would create a gulf between them. The areas where we have the deepest affections, the most intense passions, and the greatest impartiality generate unique and ripe opportunities to make mistakes. The Torah’s answer is to provide rules governing all kinds of love, thus protecting us from making mistakes in the situations where we are most vulnerable to catastrophic consequences in their absence. 

Mark Gerson, a devoted Jew, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who (along with his wife, Rabbi Erica Gerson) is perhaps the world’s largest individual supporter of Christian medical missions. He is the co-founder of African Mission Healthcare (AMH) and the author of a forthcoming book on the Haggadah: The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life.  

Website: therabbishusband.com
Twitter: @markgerson
Podcast: The Rabbi’s Husband

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

“We will get slaughtered if we are not defended,” warned Security Chief Elan Isaacson in summing up the daily terror reality for Jews living near Gaza. “We are stopping two million Palestinians from infiltrating.”

Hamas—Iran’s terror surrogate—has ruled Gaza since 2007, when the enclave’s 2 million Palestinian Arabs elected them. Since that time, Israeli civilians along the Gaza/Israel border have already endured 15,000 rocket attacks. The country has been infiltrated by well-equipped terror tunnels that used Palestinian children to dig into Israel. They have faced weekly border riots and the stench of burning tires as thousands of Arab protesters riot in the “Great March of Return” demonstrations—uprisings staged to let Palestinians overtake Israel.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, whom I have met several times, is the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) international spokesman. He explained, “Hamas organizers are trying to use the riots as a diversion to open up the fence and then to insert terrorists into Israel.” That means thousands of Palestinians with murder on their minds would overrun nearby Jewish communities and towns—some a mere block away from the fences.

Currently terrorists are going under while weaponized balloons are going up aware that Israel’s leaders are deciding a range of defensive measures. For Hamas’s military and political terror leaders, who know that Israel will not attack civilian locations and institutions, going “underground” means hiding in mosques, schools, and hospitals. Terror bosses also hide, sometimes in luxurious five-star hotels in other Arab countries. They leave behind a poverty-stricken population to do the dirty work of terror—using rockets plus balloon “bouquets” to set fire to Israeli crops next door.

Such border disturbances have been going on for years. Hamas terrorists first used kites and then switched to fire balloons, escalating their violent tactics into another form of intifada in 2018. The word “intifada,” which is of Arabic origin, is defined as “to shake off” or “get rid of.” It is an apt definition that embodies the Gazan uprising of hatred. While Americans and Israelis often celebrate happy occasions with balloons, Hamas has transformed this symbol of delight into one of devastation and destruction. The terrorists celebrate knowing their balloons have set fire to thousands of acres of Israeli crops—a kind of environmental terrorism.

Years before, during the Al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000–2004, Israel lost more than 1,000 citizens—murdered by suicide bombers in restaurants, hotels, and on buses. Those devastating losses were then capped on August 15, 2005, when a series of decisions came to a head. After the murderous Al-Aqsa Intifada—along with a succession of rejected peace overtures—former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Knesset, and the IDF enacted one of the most painful episodes in their modern history. Under the “Unilateral Disengagement,” the IDF removed 8,000 Jewish men, women and children from 25 settlements in Gaza, never to return. These Jewish families left behind their homes, schools, businesses, and synagogues and were transplanted to other parts of Israel—all in the hope that peace might be achieved by their absence.

Unfortunately, that outcome never materialized. The day that the IDF completed this agonizing evacuation, they closed the gate behind them. Israelis hoped that Palestinians would establish prosperous lives, a “Singapore by the sea,” while maintaining the detailed agreements engineered in order for peace to reign. Instead, the Palestinians rushed to destroy thriving greenhouses and other businesses that Israelis had left behind to help Arabs. Thus, this hopeful peacekeeping effort proved fruitless.

Since that exceedingly controversial and painful disengagement in 2005, only Arab Palestinians have lived in Gaza—no Jews whatsoever. Therefore, Jews do not “occupy” Gaza. The more than 1 million Israelis who presently live within a 30-mile danger zone could have never imagined even in their worst nightmares the barrages of rockets and weaponized balloons that would be launched against them.

Those barrages have been so relentless that Israelis now suffer from epidemic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Frightened young children often cannot potty train until they are six years old. Kindergartens are situated either underground or behind thick, rocket-resistant walls. If only one parent is home, they are afraid to take a shower in case an alarm goes off, worried that they cannot get their children to a safe room in time. When one’s Red Alert phone app or an outdoor alarm sounds, it signals incoming rockets. Families have just 15 seconds to take cover or go to safe rooms. When they are out and about, they hope that one of the 500 bomb shelters is nearby. During briefings on trips to Israel, my Christian Leadership groups and I packed like sardines into a shelter for briefings. Designed for 12 to 50 people, the bomb shelters have saved many thousands of lives. 

In 2006, Operation Lifeshield (OLS) began manufacturing Israel Defense Forces-approved portable bomb shelters via private donations from Christians and Jews. OLS Executive Director Shmuel Bowman explains, “Hamas terrorists have improved their weapons’ accuracy and distance. Around 30 to 60 fires per day rage in the Israeli communities nearby Gaza. Farms, forests, nature reserves and homes have been destroyed. In the past two weeks, over 500 fires were caused by arson terror. Operation Lifeshield firefighter trailers and ATVs have been in full force. The victims are traumatized by the realization that the horrors of last year are back again—and more violent than ever.”

Against this background of near-constant terror attacks, it’s nothing short of remarkable that Israelis maintain their culture of celebrating life at weddings, bar and bat mitzvas, synagogues, and schools. On several of my visits to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, only feet from the Gaza border, longtime resident Chen Kotler Abrahams has briefed my Christian Leadership groups. Chen declares, “We have fought for this land to be ours for so many years. In my lifetime, we have had a country for the first time—and we’re not leaving.” Chen also showed us the “Red Alert” board game developed for children, to teach them what to do when the alarm sounds.

While Israel is almost always blamed for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, the truth is that Israel has allowed thousands of tons of food, medicines, and necessities into Gaza for years—even during times of conflict—at the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Hamas, on the other hand, uses Iran’s donations to purchase and store weapons in apartments and hospitals and has even attacked Israeli workmen who are attempting to repair electrical lines into Gaza damaged by Hamas’s rockets. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls out Hamas, saying, “It has systematically been committing a double war crime, by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians while using the Palestinian civilian population for cover.”

When praying for Israelis near Gaza, embrace this reminder in Isaiah that God has preserved a remnant of the Jewish people from ancient to modern times. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you” (Isaiah 43:1-2 HCSB).

Join with CBN Israel in praying for Israeli communities on the front lines of terror:

• Pray for Israelis suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for strength, endurance, and healing.
• Pray for children who are growing up with Red Alerts, running to shelters, and with disrupted school days. Children born around 2005 are now teenagers, so they have always dealt with the threat of violence. 
• Pray for Israel in real time by downloading the free app Red Alert: Israel—which notifies you, along with Israelis, about incoming rockets.
• Pray for Israel’s military to employ the most appropriate defensive measures to safeguard their civilian population.
• Pray that true facts about Israel will increase and that slander will decrease.

Together, may we remember the promise in Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.”

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is now an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel 25 times. By invitation, she has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit twice. She hosts her devotionals on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

They are widowed, divorced, or abandoned. They are Israel’s single mothers, making up over 95% of the 130,000 single parent families there. Many are in crisis situations, relying heavily on government assistance. When COVID-19 hit, survival became even harder.

Thousands lost jobs. Others struggled to find childcare during school closures—often forcing them to stay home and lose their paychecks. These hardworking mothers have enough challenges making ends meet in normal times. But the recent lockdown robbed many of income, childcare, and the mobility to seek new options. Where could they turn?

Thankfully, friends like you were there through CBN Israel. Since the pandemic began, we have distributed more food packages, plus extra food vouchers and many other forms of aid. We have also helped with medical care, medicine, and care for special needs children requiring 24/7 supervision.

Arik, the head of our family department, is in constant contact with many single mothers, offering emergency relief, financial planning, and encouragement. Caring friends like you have made it possible for him and our volunteers across the country to shop for house-bound mothers and desperate families—and deliver groceries, diapers, and medicine to their homes.

Arik says gratefully, “We are making such a difference in so many people’s lives… Thank you for blessing Israel and her people in need.” Your support can make a tremendous difference in these challenging times. Please join us in reaching out!

“For the High and Exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy says this: ‘I live in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the oppressed.’” (Isaiah 57:15 HCSB).

We live in a culture that frequently gravitates toward the cult of personality. Most often, we get star struck, either with our star or someone else’s. This is true even in the church. How often are we more likely to position ourselves to be closer to the greatest among us rather than choosing to share life with the humble and lowly among us?   

The prophet described God, however, as “high and exalted,” inhabiting eternity. Yet He also dwells with the contrite and humble. God resides in both places—in the highest heaven and with the lowly and oppressed. If you’re looking for Him, that is where you’ll find Him.

The Bible describes God as the defender of the “fatherless and the widow” … and “the foreigner” (Deuteronomy 10:18). These were three classes of people that did not have an advocate within ancient Israelite society, yet God identified with them and continually came to their defense.

He dwells on high and with the contrite and humble. Amazing. He resides among the lowly and oppressed to revive them, to strengthen them, and to sustain them.

People in our world get caught up in their position, power, and press. But the God and Creator of the universe, who lives in a high and holy place, is never beyond the lowly, the humble, the widow, orphan, and foreigner.

Humility and contriteness are both characteristics that we can control. “He mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed” (Proverbs 3:34 NIV). We choose how we posture ourselves. Do we humble ourselves and make ourselves contrite? Or do we do the opposite and become arrogant and proud?

If God, who resides in the high and holy place, can stoop to dwell with the humble and lowly, then none of us has anything to be proud and haughty about. God is our model. He not only commands us how to live; He behaves in that way, too.

We should resist the temptation of our cult-of-personality society and remember that the One who dwells in eternity resides with the lowly. And so must we.

PRAYER

Father, may we be where You are. May we always walk in humility and contriteness to experience Your presence. Amen.

By Mark Gerson

Jews and Christians are accustomed to think of God in conjunction with “love.” But the author of the Torah, who taught us to think of God this way, occasionally injects something that is discordant and thus causes us to consider deeply the source of and reason for this discordance. This is when the Torah tells us that God “hates” someone or something—particularly when that person or practice is obviously evil, like a murderer of innocents. 

One of those examples is in Deuteronomy 18, when the Torah tells us that God “hates” the practice and practitioners of “divination,” including “an astrologer, one who reads omens, a sorcerer, an animal charmer…or one who consults the dead.”

There are forbidden practices in the Torah that we confidently say are of little relevance, at least in their literal sense. For instance, the prohibition immediately preceding the one about “diviners” concerns causing one’s “son or daughter to pass through the fire.” That prohibition, thankfully, has worked. But astrology has made up for it. In 2019, Vice magazine reported “We’ve hit peak astrology”—and there is plenty of evidence, from surveys to app downloads, that this is correct. The data is unambiguous that this popularity is universal, from secular millennials to adherents of every traditional religion. Indeed, it seems as though the one commonality among people of the most divergent philosophies is a belief in, and devotion to, astrology and other forms of divination.

Why? Why would people who profess belief in scientific rationalism and/or the sovereignty of an almighty God also rely on palm readers, tarot cards, astrology apps, and fortune tellers? Similarly, why would the belief in the latter be so persistent? It obviously existed in the time of the Torah and subsequently in the ancient world (despite the prohibition within Judaism and Christianity; the common Hebrew expression “Mazel Tov” does not mean “good luck” but “good constellation”) and, per Vice, it is more popular than ever today. The persistence of the belief in divination despite its religious prohibition, ignorance of any scientific principle, and immunity from any rational claim is so astonishing that it must have something profound to teach us. 

I am not sure that I know what it is. Perhaps it is just that the future is a terrifying place. We all know that our lives could be transformed at any instant by disease, natural disaster, man-made catastrophe, the loss of a livelihood, the disappointment in a partner, or the sadness of a child. It could be later today or in many years that we face the ultimate uncertainty.

Of course, the future could also contain plenty of good things. But as animals conditioned by evolution, we are trained to be “loss avoiders”—which means, in the words of psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “The response to losses is stronger than the response to corresponding gains.” Even if the chance of a good event is equal to the chance of a bad event, we will focus on and prepare for (correctly or incorrectly) the bad event. It is no wonder that people are unified around their commitment to anything—even the most prohibited and ridiculous things—that could help them control or at least understand the terror that lies ahead.

So why would God, as we are told in the Torah, “hate” these practices? They are not necessarily opposed to any of the core tenets of ethical monotheism. One could believe, without any contradiction, that God is the ultimate and only sovereign and that He, by exercising His omniscience and omnipotence, dictated the future in our palms and His stars. 

However, there is a significant contradiction, and it is not only logical—it cuts to the very nature of God’s project in the world. God may be omniscient in that He knows everything that we are doing, thinking and feeling, but the God of the Torah gives people—most importantly Abraham and later Moses’ Pharaoh—“tests,” indicating that God does not know what people will do. In fact, the God of the Torah is often surprised—at Jews who worship the Golden Calf, at spies/scouts who produce a negative report of the land, at the daughters of Zelophehad who demand to be able to inherit in the land, and at nameless men who tell Moses that their inability to celebrate Passover just because they were in a state of impurity is unjust. 

In each of these instances, God changes. After the Golden Calf, God fires the firstborn and gives their authority to the Levites (who did not participate in idolatry). After the spies/scouts incident, God delays our entrance into the land by several decades. After hearing from the five daughters of Zelophehad, God changes the laws of inheritance and hence decrees a new system of gender justice. After considering the complaint of the nameless men, God institutes a new holiday, “Pesach Sheni,” which provides those who were impure or “on a faraway journey” the opportunity to celebrate the most important Jewish occasion.

If God changes, how about those created in His image? In an iconic moment in Genesis, Jacob wrestles with an angel—or was it a man? Jacob, after a long struggle, tells his assailant that he will not let him go. The assailant changes Jacob’s name to Israel—from “heel” to “you have struggled with God and men.” And then Jacob lets him go. 

Rabbi David Wolpe reminds us that Jacob says he would not end the encounter without a blessing—but Jacob ends the struggle without receiving a blessing. What happened? Jacob did receive a blessing. In the changing of his name, Jacob receives the seminal human blessing: the ability to transform himself.

This, perhaps, is why God hates all forms of divination. Card readings, astrology, and fortune- telling all share one heresy: They presume that the future is set, and thus that change is impossible. Accordingly, there would be no point in trying to improve oneself or to enact social change. Divination embodies one of the worst philosophies: nihilism.

This would explain what immediately follows God’s condemnation of divination. Moses, channeling God, tells us to pay special attention to prophets. We might regard this as confusing. After all, the Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the word “prophetic” means, “accurately describing or predicting what will happen in the future.” This is completely wrong. The biblical prophets warn us what will happen if we behave—or, more frequently, keep behaving—in a particular way. As with anyone who warns, they want us to change so that their prediction does not come true!    

With God’s help, we can all be prophets by identifying what is good, how we are falling short, calling attention to the consequences of right and wrong, and calling us to change personally and socially en route to a more sacred place. That task is much more difficult than learning the “future” from a palm reader—but it is our highest task, gifted to us by God.

Mark Gerson, a devoted Jew, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who (along with his wife, Rabbi Erica Gerson) is perhaps the world’s largest individual supporter of Christian medical missions. He is the co-founder of African Mission Healthcare (AMH) and the author of a forthcoming book on the Haggadah: The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life.  

Website: therabbishusband.com
Twitter: @markgerson
Podcast: The Rabbi’s Husband

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Ancient history is once again surfacing in modern times. Several generations have passed since the first of a series of world-changing events occurred—when Israel was reestablished as a modern state in 1948. Later, the Israeli-Arab peace treaties of 1979 and 1994—followed by the U.S. Embassy’s move to Jerusalem in 2018—also marked significant moments in history. Now the Abraham Accord of 2020 takes its place as part of God’s design for the world in His redemptive plan of love, with Israel as His centerpiece. 

The Abraham Accord traces its roots to Father Abraham. He loved both his sons: Ishmael, his first-born, and Isaac, his son of promise. In Genesis 17:20, God assured Abraham that He would not forget Ishmael. “As for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation” (NIV).

God fulfilled promises to both sons. He granted Ishmael vast tracts of land and the promise of becoming the father of the Arab nations. God deeded the Jewish homeland with His engraved commandments and eternal covenants through Isaac and his 12 grandsons. Since Judaism birthed our Christian faith, the Abraham Accord connects three monotheistic faiths. While Christians use the name “Abraham,” for Muslims he is “Ibrahim” and is called “Avraham” in the Jewish faith.

The Abraham Accord announced by President Trump last week enshrines a modern-day version of God’s promises kept for the “Semitic cousins.” The Accord formalizes diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel. The nations will exchange embassies and ambassadors. Wide-ranging collaboration will ramp up many sectors, such as tourism, education, and healthcare. Flights will take to the skies between Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Tel Aviv. The positive implications of God’s plan through His ancient friend Abraham are once again manifesting in the 21st century.

The historic breakthrough comes after years of a behind-the-scenes relationship between Israel and UAE, during which Prime Minister Netanyahu and Crown Prince Bin Zayed have held many common interests and concerns. Chief among them is the threat posed to the region by Iran, the biggest terror-supporting nation in the world. The Prime Minister and Crown Prince both disagreed with the Obama administration’s Iran deal and also wanted financial and defense interests to increase in the region. Then, under the Trump administration, negotiations jumped onto a fast track after the U.S. President won the trust of Arab nations in the Middle East, already matched with his clear, supportive policies toward Israel.

In the past six weeks, the deal reached its zenith with President Trump’s announcement on August 13th after a three-way call between President Trump, Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Zayed. The Crown Prince stated, “This is the best news of 2020.” President Trump, who brokered the accord, tweeted, “This is a HUGE achievement.” It is expected that other Arab countries will follow UAE’s lead. We can also look forward to an official ceremony welcoming Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed to the White House, which promises to be a memorable celebration.    

On Sunday, in his remarks at the Knesset, Netanyahu reflected on the Abraham Accord: “It is different from its predecessors because it is based on two principles: ‘peace for peace’ and ‘peace through strength.’ Under this doctrine, Israel is not required to withdraw from any territory and together the two countries openly reap the fruits of a full peace: investments, trade, tourism, health, agriculture, environmental protection and in many other fields, including defense of course.”

Only two peace treaties existed prior to the Abraham Accord. Egypt signed a formal peace treaty with Israel in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter. Then in 1994, Israel and Jordan reached a peace agreement during the Clinton administration. In the United States, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers are applauding the Abraham Accord brokered by President Trump. 

Since 9/11, many Americans have looked at Muslims with suspicion. Yet the UAE has been a friend to the United States with military-related agreements for several decades. The Gulf nation is also serious about combating terrorism.

In addition, the UAE shares many values with the U.S. and Israel. UAE’s Constitution provides voting rights for women along with religious freedom, including for its 13-percent Christian population. Like Israel, though, they frown upon proselytizing. Humanitarian aid is national policy; they gave $173 billion to 178 countries between 1971 and 2014.

This nation—formed by seven emirates in 1971—has a fascinating history. From the 1770s to the late 1930s, diving for pearls was their main livelihood. Oil surveys, beginning in the 1930s, swelled into huge liquid “black pearls” when oil was discovered in the Persian Gulf under an old “pearling” location. Oil shipments commenced in 1969, and today the UAE is the third-largest oil-producing nation in the Persian Gulf.

UAE’s capital is Abu Dhabi, and its largest city, Dubai, sports the world’s tallest building, the glamorous Burj Khalifa. More than 5 million citizens live in the UAE and, along with oil exports that have enriched and transformed their nation, they enjoy vigorous global tourism, finance, and retail activity. The literacy rate is over 90%.

The official website states: “The UAE includes more than 200 nationalities that enjoy a decent life, respect, and equality. It is also an incubator for the values ​​of tolerance, moderation, and acceptance of others.”

Join CBN Israel to pray for the Middle East at this momentous time:

• Pray that other Arab nations will soon formally join the alliances between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and now the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• Pray that the UAE will reap practical and spiritual benefits from the Abraham Accord, thus fulfilling Scripture.

• Pray for Iran, a Persian nation, where thousands are coming to Christ. Pray that Iranian leaders will not achieve nuclear capability, which threatens the entire region and the United States. 
• Pray with thanksgiving for the leaders of all three nations and their governments, that their commitment to the Abraham Accord will drive a stake of peace into the ground.
• Pray that the United Nations refusal to extend the Iran Arms embargo will not deepen Iran’s threats to the region in their unrelenting quest for nuclear weapons.   

As we pray, let us remember God’s long-ago promise to Abraham: “I will surely bless him … and make him into a great nation.”

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is now an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel 25 times. By invitation, she has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit twice. She hosts her devotionals on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

It’s tragic that so many of Israel’s elderly survived World War II and the Holocaust—only to face the deadly COVID-19 virus. It hit this group the hardest, with almost all of Israel’s coronavirus-related deaths occurring in nursing homes. And it left the survivors feeling completely helpless.

Unlike the rest of the population, Israel’s seniors were quarantined in their apartments, and IDF soldiers made sure no one went in or out. With no visits by family or friends allowed, their only contact was by phone or video chatting—and many don’t own a computer, tablet, or smartphone.

A great number live in government care homes, which offer good medical attention—but lack other amenities of the better private homes. And residents often can’t afford the extra items they need. Most aging Holocaust survivors have no family to look out for them and could not leave their rooms. But thanks to compassionate friends like you, they were not forgotten—CBN Israel was there!

We found out that many of the residents desperately needed small appliances, including microwaves, stoves, and kettles. When the stores reopened, we immediately bought and delivered these items, to their great joy!

Arkadi is a World War II veteran and Holocaust survivor, who lost his family during the war. He shared, “I was so lonely and reached out for help many times, but I was told there was nothing that could be done due to COVID-19. Then you arrived and provided me with the things I needed the most right now. Thank you so much!”

And your gift to CBN Israel can share God’s love beyond this health crisis, bringing a lifeline of food and essentials. Your support is crucial as the cries for help increase. You can provide hope to families struggling to survive in the Holy Land. Please let us hear from you today!

We refer to the parable that Jesus tells in Luke 8 as “The Parable of the Sower.” The problem, however, is that the sower is not the point of the parable, neither is the seed. The parable is about the soil and the question: What kind of soil are you?

The point of the parable is to be the good soil, to have a “good heart” (8:15), which means to be receptive to God and to live out His will. However, we need to pay attention to the third type of bad soil—the thorns. They choked the seed as it tried to grow.

Jesus likened the thorns choking the seed trying to grow to people who are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of life; therefore, they cannot bear fruit to maturity.

Our lives are often filled with stuff or the pursuit of stuff. Stuff isn’t necessarily bad. However, it has the possibility of taking our eyes and focus off the things that truly matter.

Jesus saw life as having the potential to create worry and anxiety in us. We find ourselves concerned about what we will eat, drink, and wear (Matthew 6:25-34). And those cares can choke us from producing fruit or bringing it to maturity.

Cares, riches, and pleasures. When you take them out of the critical context of Jesus’ words, they form the core of what many in our world pursue. They are the secret to a happy and fulfilled life. How many of us want to be carefree? How many of us want the “good life”?

Jesus noted a connection between these forces and anxiety, which He connected with paganism (Matthew 6:32). Even more, they have the power to severely hinder the growth and development of the fruit God wants to produce in our lives.

The foundation of Jesus’ instruction not to worry and not to allow the thorns to choke our growing seed, is based on the vital realization that God cares for us. He takes care of us and has a responsibility to us. For that reason, and that reason alone, we should not worry.

Thorns can take over a field very quickly if we are not careful. So, too, can the cares of life invade and affect the growth of the fruit God wants in our lives. The question, then, is what kind of soil are we going to be?

Will our hearts and lives be receptive to what God is wanting to accomplish in and through us?

PRAYER

Father, help us not to lose sight of You or bearing the fruit You desire. May we never cease to realize that You take care of us. Amen.

By Mark Gerson

In Deuteronomy 11:26, God announces what might be the foundational statement of human responsibility: “See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse.” This is the great biblical assertion of free will. The word “present” in the Hebrew is in the present tense, and the “you” is in the singular. The responsibility is personal, and the opportunity is ongoing. 

One of the important dynamics about choices is path dependency and the other choices that they create. One who chooses a spouse will face a set of subsequent choices that are entirely derivative of the first choice. One who chooses a profession will subsequently make decisions that are only presented because of the first choice. One who chooses to devote himself to a faith will have to exercise his free will in ways that are solely a consequence of that decision. 

God’s great declaration of free will in Deuteronomy leads us to ask: What is the foundational decision for all of us, for all time? There are, as is common with Torah passages, many right answers—each true, none contradictory. But the one I would suggest is captured in a story about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. 

Born in Poland in 1907, Rabbi Heschel narrowly escaped the Nazi death machine that killed much of his family and later moved to New York in 1940. In the United States, he wrote several seminal works, was a legendary teacher at two Rabbinical schools, and was an ally and confidant of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

As Rabbi David Wolpe recounts, Rabbi Heschel was walking to synagogue one Shabbat morning in New York when he was stopped by a man who was not going to the same place. The man explained that he had no need to do so because he regarded himself as a good person. “I envy you,” Rabbi Heschel responded. “I don’t feel so good—I am always saying or doing the wrong thing, hurting someone by words or by silence. I need God, and I need prayer.” 

Rabbi Heschel and the interlocutor were not, fundamentally, discussing synagogue attendance. They were discussing two views of what might be the fundamental question each of us faces: Is the moral life easy or hard?  

The interlocutor thought that the moral life was easy. This view manifests itself when people say that all religions are really the same because they all boil down to treating others well. It is manifested when people select a verse from Scripture and say that a political position or even a philosophy flows naturally and purely from it. It is manifested in the position (stated or, more frequently, just lived) that the abundance of laws, rules and stories in the Torah are unworthy of one’s time and devotion. If the moral life is easy, then the Torah and all subsequent commentary are just an exercise in needless, if sometimes interesting, complication. 

Rabbi Heschel thought that the moral life was hard. This view is manifested in Proverbs 3:6, which instructs us to “Know God in all your ways”—with the emphasis on “all.” It is manifested in the statement of Maimonides that “every human being should regard himself as if he were equally balanced between innocence and guilt” and that his salvation will be determined by his next decision. It is manifested in the belief that the infinitude of the Torah must be related to its purpose as revealed in Deuteronomy 10:13—“for your [our] benefit.” Accordingly, all of its complexity purposefully exists to guide us through difficult decisions. 

The Torah itself addresses the question of whether the moral life is easy or hard through one word. In Numbers 16, Korach leads the most sustained rebellion against Moses—out of many. He stages this rebellion—or even revolution—by issuing very few words. He says simply, “You have taken too much! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”

His central complaint: “The whole community is holy.” It is a magnificently constructed sentence, as it leads right to the author’s intended invitation. Such a seemingly nice statement of religious egalitarianism, set against the fierce response in the Torah and subsequent commentary, leads one to ask: What could possibly be so wrong with it? And the answer, the Torah effectively says in interpreting itself, is: Everything.

In Exodus 19:6, God declares the seminal purpose for the Jewish people: “You shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” There is an existential difference between God’s “You shall be” in Exodus and Korach’s “is” in Numbers. In God’s construction, our purpose is to constantly be yearning, striving, working, and attempting to be that Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation—while never actually getting there. In Korach’s construction, we have arrived: We are holy. 

The problem with Korach’s philosophy is revealed in his name. Korach means “bald.” On a bald head, nothing grows. And when one already believes that he is holy, there is no need to grow. When one believes that the whole congregation is holy, there is no opportunity for the society to improve. For building a politics around that philosophy—and for articulating it in a way that is so appealing—Korach is reviled in the Jewish tradition and is perhaps the worst Jew in the Torah. 

One need not aspire to lead a populist and nihilistic revolution to share in Korach’s philosophy. Rabbi Heschel’s interlocutor, who was probably a nice guy on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, did—surely without knowing it. In believing that the moral life is easy—and that he had, consequently, mastered it—he rendered himself incapable of improvement. It is that improvement of self and of society that is the real “benefit” that the Torah, through the challenges, opportunities, subtleties, and consequences it surfaces, offers us. 

The choice of whether to regard the moral life as hard or easy has implications that are political, societal, religious, psychological, and personal. If one regards the moral life as easy, then some of the most pleasant feelings are available and accessible—especially tranquility and satisfaction. The Jewish tradition has a lot to say about both. The late legendary scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, upon surveying the widespread criticism of the biblical Jacob for settling down to “dwell,” reflected: “God bestows many favors and gifts upon the righteous … but tranquility is not one of them.” 

The late President of Israel, Shimon Peres, had an important insight as well. President Peres was a champion of Jewish innovation, as he saw the dynamism of the Israeli economy as the way to both prosperity and peace. When he was asked to name the seminal Jewish contribution to mankind, he had an abundance of medical, technological and political achievements to choose from. Yet this famously secular man had a very different answer—one that is religious in nature, even though he might not have identified it as such. He said, simply, “Dissatisfaction.” 

Dissatisfaction: the result of believing that one has not and will never arrive, the consequence of recognizing that there are aspects of one’s personality and society that demand improvement, the effect of acknowledging God’s expectation that we show our love for Him in “all our ways,” the outcome of confronting the truth that every moment presents the responsibility to create a blessing or a curse, the inevitable disposition of one who believes that the moral life is hard.

Mark Gerson, a devoted Jew, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who (along with his wife, Rabbi Erica Gerson) is perhaps the world’s largest individual supporter of Christian medical missions. He is the co-founder of African Mission Healthcare (AMH) and the author of a forthcoming book on the Haggadah: The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life.  

Website: therabbishusband.com
Twitter: @markgerson
Podcast: The Rabbi’s Husband