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By Arlene Bridges Samuels 

The world marked another International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers just a few weeks ago on February 12. Yet the Palestinians repeatedly violate this worthy United Nations and UNICEF-sponsored goal in their textbooks.  

Shaping young minds with erroneous history and facts is a mental “blunt instrument” that diminishes the bright minds and futures of Palestinian children. How does that happen? By filling these impressionable students with hatred against Israelis—using deliberate misinformation in textbooks—they hope to influence them to become human weapons against the Jewish population. 

Responsibility for such disturbing activity lies at the feet of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). Instead of training children to grow up in peace, these two entities call for them to “defend the motherland with blood” and to “annihilate the remnants.” 

Israel’s Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) pioneered what they call textbook analysis, not only in Palestinian textbooks but those in other cultures and nations. After studying more than 150 Palestinian textbooks, this non-governmental organization published a recent report finding evidence of incitement and violence against Israel and the Jewish people. UNRWA, which promised by September 2020 to remove all the dangerous teaching, has not completely kept their word. 

In fact, UNRWA has been distributing home study materials to Palestinian families that do anything but promote peace. Special packets were disbursed during the coronavirus shutdowns. In fact, they were found to violate UN standards, UNESCO guidelines, and UNRWA’s own stated principles. They claimed it “mistakenly” gave children textbooks calling for jihad. 

But clearly, the PA and UNRWA are still setting children on a path of bitterness and danger. 

As part of its study, IMPACT-se has compiled examples that promote martyrdom and violence against their “enemy” Israel. For instance, a reading comprehension story describes a Molotov cocktail on a bus full of Jewish civilians, calling it a “barbecue party.” 

The UNRWA books also include distorted maps in a seventh-grade textbook. The maps remove Israel—calling it only “Palestine”—with its borders listed as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. In reality, while many nations view “Palestine” as a country, under international law it is not yet legally a state since it has not met all the prerequisites.

IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff pointed out about UNRWA: “It does not appear that the organization is institutionally capable of fulfilling its basic duty of care to the children in its schools. Donor countries need to start asking much more pointed questions of UNRWA if they want to stop financing this ongoing hate teaching.”

Donor countries are doing just that—including Canada, Norway, the European Union, and others. For the last few years, many have already reduced their donations to UNRWA. Since the IMPACT-se report came out, member nations are again questioning, reducing, or stopping their financial aid altogether. During the Trump presidency, U.S. funding was stopped. However, the Biden administration is set to reinstate donations to UNRWA and the PA.

Other organizations are also tracking vital facts. Added investigations from the non-governmental Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) have, since 1996, translated Arabic into English to monitor what is really being published and broadcast. In 2012, PMW reported a shocking post on a Lebanese Facebook page. What you read here is not an isolated attitude: 

“My mother dressed me in a strange belt [i.e., a suicide belt]. I asked her: ‘What is this, mother?’ She said: ‘I will put it on you, and you will go to your death!’ I said to her: ‘Mother, what have I done that you want me to die?’

“She shed a tear that hurt my heart and said: ‘The homeland needs you, son. Go and blow up the Sons of Zion.’ I said to her: ‘Why me and not you?’ She said: ‘I will stay in order to give birth to more children for the sake of Palestine.’ I kissed her hand and said to her: ‘Keep it up, mother, for you and for Palestine I will kill the impure and the damned.’”

More than a quarter-million Palestinians live in Lebanon. Who knows how many have seen this appalling post?

As a non-profit Israeli research organization, PMW has educated legislative bodies and leaders worldwide with the troubling truths. PMW was the first to expose and report the financial rewards paid to families of Palestinian “martyrs” (terrorists)—a diabolical reward system called “pay to slay.” The PA pays hundreds of millions of dollars to families—and even Palestinian prisoners—to glorify and reward terror. The PA fills its terror coffers every year using donations from many nations, including the United States. 

PMW’s research opened the door in the 115th Congress to significant legislation to pass the Taylor Force Act in 2017-2018. Taylor, a 28-year-old U.S. army veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was murdered in a Tel Aviv terror attack in March 2016. Bottom line, the bill bans “certain financial contributions lasting from 2018-2023 that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority.” In other words, the Act prohibits paying terrorists and their families for murder until they stop “Pay to Slay.”

In a heartening bipartisan vote on the Taylor Force Act in 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 256-167, followed by the Senate’s 65-32 vote. The Force family was represented by Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder and CEO of Shurat Hadin—the Israel Law Center. She remarked, “It will lead to the end of the Palestinian practice of ‘rewarding murder and terrorism.’” With IMPACT-se, Palestinian Media Watch, and other organizations diligently monitoring the facts—and governments acting on those facts—we must pray that her words will come true. Israel also passed “Anti-Pay-for-Slay” laws, along with many other countries, which set out to end the common practice by the PA to reward terrorists for killing innocent Israelis. 

With less money donated to the PA, it is difficult to understand why Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA, would keep his deadly financial policies. The Modern War Institute at West Point offers these reasons about maintaining Pay to Slay—that it is “politically useful to the PA. It ensures that Israel, as well as other nations, take Fatah seriously due to the threat of violence. It also serves to keep a restive Palestinian populace focused on an external enemy instead of on the cronyism, authoritarianism, and corruption inherent in the PA. After decades of occupation, Palestinians likely feel convinced that the only way to obtain independence is through violence, and the PA is all too happy to help them continue to feel that way.”

Mahmoud Abbas’s 16th year (of what was supposed to be a four-year term) qualifies him as a dictator, for other reasons as well. We cannot forget that Palestinian hate-laden textbooks and media also fill children’s minds with the responsibility to become martyrs. The following quote from Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) is profound. This Russian nuclear physicist, dissident, Nobel laureate, and activist for disarmament, peace, and human rights stated:

“A country which does not respect the rights of its own citizens will not respect the rights of its neighbors.” 

Sakharov’s quote expertly explains long-time Palestinian opposition to peace with Israel and ill-treatment of its citizens—men, women, and children. 

Join CBN Israel to pray with thankfulness for facts emerging from reliable organizations that expose the mind-altering abuse of Palestinian children:

• Pray that more dangerous indoctrination policies to come to light. 
• Pray with gratitude that many nations have changed their policies as they continue to learn the facts. 
• Pray that UNRWA and the PA will respond to the shrinking donations by finally abandoning their destructive policies and removing all hateful lies that damage their next generation. 

I leave you with this sobering and troubling statement by IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff: “UNRWA is complicit in radicalizing schoolchildren through the glorification of terrorists, encouragement to violence and teaching of blood libels to Palestinian schoolchildren.”

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. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited by Artist Pat Mercer Hutchens and sits on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

Working as accountants in Kazakhstan, Sergey and his wife Alina are a Jewish couple who felt drawn to live in Israel. They finally immigrated with their two children. They also had a passion for the world of beauty and hair styling and used the move to change careers. 

Arriving in Israel, the couple cleaned buildings for a living, and attended beauty school at night. He studied hair styling, while she did facials and beauty treatments. It was a busy year of work, school, caring for their kids, and learning Hebrew. But they graduated, opening a salon in their own apartment. It was so successful that soon they were able to relocate it to a rented space. 

Then, COVID-19 struck—with all beauty salons in lockdown. Although Sergey and his wife were frugal, they still had to pay the salon’s rent, bills, and loan payments, even while it was closed. With no income, their savings ran out, and their debts began piling up. 

Thankfully, CBN Israel’s business development department reached out to Sergey and Alina, who shared their plight. We offered them timely economic guidance, along with crucial financial aid that helped this family survive. They were finally able to reopen, and Sergey said, “If it weren’t for CBN Israel… we would have had to close our business and wouldn’t have been able to put food on the table. We are so thankful!”

And CBN Israel is helping many more during this global pandemic—including desperate immigrants, Holocaust survivors, young families, and more. Your support is urgently needed, as the cries continue across the Holy Land for groceries, housing, and more.

You can bless so many in need. Please join us in offering a lifeline to those who are vulnerable and struggling!

GIVE TODAY

By Marc Turnage

The Sea of Galilee is the lowest freshwater lake on earth. It sits 600 feet below sea level. It is a lake, and not a sea; thus, the Evangelist Luke correctly describes it often as a lake (5:1; 8:22, 33). 

The Lake of Galilee sits in the Jordan River Valley, which is part of the Syro-African Rift Valley. The Jordan River flows through the lake from the north where its three headwaters converge south of the ancient site of Dan to form the Jordan River and flow south into the lake. The river continues out of the south end of the lake on its southward journey towards the Dead Sea. The modern exit of the Jordan River on the south end of the lake is not the ancient exit of the river; the modern exit was created for the damn used to regulate the flow of water out of the lake.

Hills surround the lake on its western, northern, and eastern sides. To its south, one finds the continuation of the Jordan River Valley. On its northwest and northeast corners sit two fertile valleys into which water runoff from the surrounding hills flow. The northwest valley is known as the Gennesar Valley, which the first century Jewish historian Josephus says was the name given to the lake by the locals (see Luke 5:1). The valley on the northeast side of the lake is the Bethsaida Valley, so called for the ancient site of Bethsaida, the home of Jesus’ disciples Peter, Philip, and Andrew, which was located in the valley along the shoreline of the lake. 

The Bethsaida Valley, while fertile, has three large water tributaries, including the Jordan River, flow through it, which made it more challenging for travel by foot. Two of these tributaries flow out of the Golan Heights feeding the water of the lake along with the Jordan River. Between the Gennesar Valley and Bethsaida Valley ninety-five percent of Jesus’ ministry recorded in the Gospels took place. He fed the 5,000 in the Bethsaida Valley (Luke 9:10). Within this area, one finds the villages of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida, which Jesus cursed (Luke 10:13-16). 

South of the Gennesar Valley sits the modern city of Tiberias, which was built by Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, in the year 19-20 A.D. Antipas moved his administration from Sepphoris to Tiberias, which was where he resided during the ministries of Jesus and John the Baptist. 

The lake itself provided a fishing industry for the locals. The water off the Bethsaida Valley provided excellent fishing, especially for the local tilapia. People used the lake not only for fishing, but also for travel. Both Josephus and the Gospels indicate that people traveled around the lake by boat much more than they did by foot.

The Gospels record the sudden storms that occur on the lake. The topography of the surrounding hills and canyons create wind funnels across the lake, particularly the northern part of the lake. Storms on the Lake of Galilee are serious, especially the wind storms that blow in from the east off the Golan Heights down onto the lake. The easterly wind storms that hit the land of Israel are quite severe, and even in the present day, can cause damage to property and agriculture, even the loss of life. These easterly winds are known as sharkia, from the Arabic “shark” (east). They are most prevalent from October-May. They turn the lake’s waters into churning, violent swells, easily 10 to 12 feet high. 

The Lake of Galilee provides the setting for many of the stories in the Gospels, sayings and actions of Jesus. On its shores, he taught the people about the kingdom of Heaven and performed many miracles. 

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’” (Luke 19:37-38 NKJV).

Jesus came to Jerusalem riding a wave of popularity and redemptive expectations. As He ascended toward Jerusalem, Luke tells us that those traveling with Him were anticipating that the kingdom of God would appear immediately (19:11). We hear in the voices of the disciples on the road to Emmaus the redemptive hopes many had pinned on Jesus: “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel” (24:21 NKJV).

Their hopes were not misguided. After the resurrection, the disciples asked Jesus about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6), but Jesus did not rebuke them for failing to understand God’s redemptive plans and purposes. Rather, He affirmed their hopes but said that now is not the time. When He came to Jerusalem, the time of redemption for the nation of Israel had not yet come. Instead, God had other immediate plans for Jesus—a path of suffering, the path of the cross.

Jesus came to Jerusalem riding on a donkey, surrounded by the rejoicing of His loyal disciples. Their song of praise, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest,” echoes the angelic proclamation at Jesus’ birth, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men” (Luke 2:14 NKJV). The jubilation of Jesus’ disciples during His entry into the city and the announcement of the angels both herald God’s redemption through Jesus. At His birth, it referred to the hopes carried by the newborn baby; as He rode into Jerusalem, it pertained to hopes deferred. Jesus had things to accomplish.

We do not always understand what God is doing and where He is taking us. Yet do we have the confidence to trust that He will get us there? We want to know the future, understand the signs of the times, but Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority” (Acts 1:7 NKJV). Can we trust God even when the times of His plans and redemption are not fully known to us?

The New Testament affirms and declares God’s faithfulness to His promised redemption; it has dawned and has come near. But can we remain faithful knowing that the loving Father who promised redemption, who led Jesus to the cross knowing that the empty tomb stood on the other side, stands with us, and He will accomplish what He promised?

May we echo the jubilation of Jesus’ disciples as they entered Jerusalem, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

PRAYER

Father, our lives are in Your hands. We trust in You. Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven. Amen.

By Mark Gerson

The word “spirituality” has become rather common in American English. It is often, but not always, used in the context of someone who says he is not religious but “spiritual.”

The Bible does not have anything to say about spirituality specifically. Perhaps this is because the concept would not have been prominent or even extant in the world of Abraham and Moses. However, a Jewish teaching from the great 18th-century Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa (in what is now Poland) offers an instructive perspective. The Rebbe Reb Bunim, as recently recounted by the remarkable Rabbi YY Jacobson, once remarked that the true definition of a spiritual man is he who always imagines his head lying in a guillotine, his evil inclination hovering above it—ready to chop off his head at a moment’s call.

One of his students asked, “What if one does not have that feeling?”

“In that case,” the Rebbe responded, “his head has been chopped off already.”

This conception of spirituality is not exactly what one might receive during a “spiritual experience” while doing yoga or in the mountains—and that’s the point. Spirituality is embedded within a religion whose function is to help us improve ourselves en route to building a dwelling place for God here on earth. This is a serious calling, with the high expectations and substantial responsibility that comes with being God’s partner.

George Foot Moore, a Presbyterian minister in the 19th and 20th centuries, was also one of the great scholars of Judaism in his era. I do not think the term “spirituality” was used then as it is now—the idea was probably expressed in the word “philosophy.” And Professor Moore captured the distinction between the two. “The difference between philosophy and religion,” he said, “is that religion does something about it.”

How does religion “do something about it”? The answer is revealed in the four parashot—Torah portions—that constitute mid-Exodus (18:1-30:10): Yitro, Mishpatim, Terumah, and Tetzaveh. The main event of Yitro is also the main event in the history of the world. Moses ascended Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments from God. The people waited at the foot of the mountain in a display so spectacular and an experience so powerful that the Bible tells us they “saw the sounds.”

This once-in-human-history religious high is followed by Parshat Mishpatim, which is composed of dozens of civil and criminal laws governing everything from the distinction between murder and manslaughter to the responsibility of a property owner who has not covered a pit to the rules of collateral. A religious high—a spiritual experience, perhaps—must, we learn, be grounded in a structure that enables real people to live the faith together in an always-complicated world.

This grounding, we see in the two parashot that follow, is so important that God expands it beyond the laws through which the religious experience at Sinai will be expressed. Parashot Terumah and Tetzaveh are, like Mishpatim, concerned with solidifying the religious experience in Yitro—but in a very different way.

Parshat Mishpatim is full of detail, but in the way all laws are. In order to govern behavior, laws need to predict and describe that behavior—and the only way to accomplish that is with an abundance of detail. But Terumah and Tetzaveh come with entirely different details. These details govern the precise measurements of the Temple, the exact specifications of the priestly clothing, and other such things. There is so much detail about so many things that one is led to ask: Isn’t religion supposed to transport us above such things? And why would the Bible, in which every word is precious, devote so much space to, for instance, the length, width, height, and ring placement of and on the Ark? Who cares if the ark was three cubits instead of two and a half? Even if God wanted two and a half cubits, which He apparently did, why would its measurement have warranted a place in the Torah? Everyone agrees that most of what happened in the world of the Torah—from the weather at the Covenant Between the Parts to why Moses and Zipporah divorced—is not recorded there and is left to our imagination.

The answer: Because God knows us and loves us and, therefore, is willing to meet us where we are, not where He is or where He might wish us to be. Where are we? The answer is revealed in Genesis 9:20, in the biblical description of the man God chose to survive the flood and recreate the world: Noah, the Torah tells us, was a “man of the soil.”

We are people of the soil. Although every individual is given a special mission and called to divine service, we are people who live firmly in the world. Even though God is infinite and we are created in His image, we are place-bound. This truth is magnificently illustrated in a story about the young Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin, the 18th-century Rabbi who became known as the “Seer of Lublin.” When he was a child, he would wander into a nearby forest every afternoon and stay there for a long period of time. His parents, concerned about their son spending so much time alone in a forest, asked him why he went there so frequently.

“I go to the forest to find God,” he said.

His parents, presumably happy to hear about the searching piety of their son, gently reminded him that he does not have to go to the forest to find God, as God is the same everywhere.

“God is,” the boy responded, “but I’m not.”

Indeed, we might—in one sense—be “the same” everywhere. But we feel very different when we are at a ball game than we do when we are in church or synagogue, when we are in a courtroom or when we are in the shower, when we are in a funeral home or when we are at an amusement park, when we are at an upscale restaurant or when we are at the local diner. We even, organically and without much aforethought, develop regular places within special places—whether they are season tickets at an arena, a seat on the couch in front of our television, or a specific pew in church.

God tells us, in Exodus 25:2, He is good with all of that and that He, too, wants a place. But of  course, God does not need a singular place—the very notion is ridiculous. However, God says in verse 8 that the place shall be such “that I may dwell in them.” It will be God’s place, insofar as we will find divinity there. We will find it in a carefully constructed edifice that we build with our hands and that we will use to gather regularly for prayer, for justice, for service, and for community. And it works. The stories of the Torah in the passages before and after Tetzaveh are full of disputation and conflict within families, between brothers, between the Jewish people and God (especially at the Golden Calf), and even lead nearly to civil war (Korach’s Rebellion). But when people are working together to build something in the service of God, all we see is harmony and peace.

This is by no means limited to the construction of the singular Tabernacle at that time and place. Many Rabbinic commentators interpret the expression “so shall you do” at the conclusion of the verse ordering the Tabernacle to refer to generations of Jews in the future. The Tabernacle, where God showed such care to its every detail, should therefore be a model for our homes. And therein lies a divine message. “Fine,” God is saying, “you can be place-bound. But make it a place I want to visit. Design your place in such a way that it is conducive to holiness and brings out the divine spark in you and all else who enter it.”

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 Julie Stahl

Before the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, if you said the word “masks” in Israel many people would think about the holiday of Purim! It’s a festive time of celebrating, where children dress in costumes to celebrate the Jewish people’s rescue from—and victory over—a wicked government minister who wanted to destroy them thousands of years ago, as recorded in the book of Esther in the Bible.

“And Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters to all the Jews … that they should celebrate yearly the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar, as the days on which the Jews had rest from their enemies, as the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from mourning to a holiday … because Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to annihilate them, and had cast Pur (that is, the lot), to consume them and destroy them; but when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letter that this wicked plot which Haman had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. So they called these days Purim, after the name Pur” (Esther 9:20-26 NKJV).

And although Esther is the only book in the Bible where the name of God is not mentioned at all, His fingerprints are all over it!

“The book of Esther is kind of about the end of the world—Jerusalem’s destroyed, there are no more prophets, God has stopped speaking to people and you can’t see Him anywhere. The kingdom is gone, the armies are gone, the glory that was Jerusalem and Israel is gone and the Jews are scattered throughout the Persian Empire,” said Yoram Hazony, author of God and Politics in Esther.

“And the question of the book of Esther is, can there be any hope in this kind of world of despair?” Hazony added, “Something that ought to be able to speak to us today?”

Haman—an evil advisor to King Ahasueres (Xerxes) with a Hitler-like desire to wipe out the Jewish people—conspired to kill them all throughout the ancient Kingdom of Persia (modern-day Iran) on a single day. Since the King trusted Haman, he agreed.

But, unknown to the King, his beloved Queen Esther was Jewish. She and her cousin Mordechai exposed the plot and turned the tables. So, instead, the Jews were rescued from and became victorious over their enemies—and that’s what they celebrate at Purim.

Hazony says there’s a deep lesson here.

“We all like favor, we all like political favor, we love it when people love us and Esther does, too. She loves being queen,” says Hazony. “But the question is, when it comes down to it and you need to do something to throw away that favor—throw away political favor in order to do the right thing—do you have it in you?”

At the Western Wall and in synagogues in Israel and around the world, Megillat Esther, or the scroll of the Book of Esther, is read on Purim. But this reading is unlike any other. Parents and children dress up in costumes—at one time it was to imitate the biblical characters, now it includes popular costumes, too. They cheer when the names of heroes Mordechai and Esther are read and boo and use noisemakers when the name of Haman, the villain, is mentioned.

According to Rabbi Welton, there are two possible reasons for the costumes: to symbolize either how Esther concealed her identity until the last moment or how God was a “concealed force behind the salvation of the Jews.”

Sending financial gifts to the poor and food gifts to others are traditions. Some Jews have a Purim feast. A special treat called hamentaschen (Haman’s hat in Yiddish) or oznei Haman (Haman’s ears in Hebrew) is a triangular cookie filled with dates, chocolate or nuts that’s eaten at the holiday.

In most Jewish communities the holiday is celebrated on the 14th of Adar, but in walled cities or those that were at one time like Jerusalem, the holiday is celebrated a day later and known as Shushan Purim.

Hazony summed up Purim like this: “The Persian Empire. One Jewish Woman. Guess Who Wins?”

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN—first as a graduate student in Journalism at Regent University; then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91; and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. She is also an integral part of CBN News’ award-winning show, Jerusalem Dateline, a weekly news program providing a biblical and prophetic perspective to what is happening in Israel and the Middle East.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Queen Esther is beloved in the pages of biblical history. Her story reflects how one ordinary person responded to God’s call—and how her courage and obedience resulted in an extraordinary rescue of her Jewish community during King Ahasuerus’ reign (486–465 B.C.). God used an ancient beauty contest to save His chosen people, and for centuries the Jewish community worldwide has annually celebrated Purim, which commemorates the saving of the Jews from their Persian conquerors. Beginning at sunset today, February 25, the two-day celebration is a joyous one where the sacred and secular coexist, with solemn Scripture reading and exuberant parties. 

Purim begins after a day of fasting. The sacred Scripture, the entire book of Esther, is read in synagogues. (It’s also called the Megillah Scroll, which Esther herself asked scribes to write by hand on parchment.) Then the secular kicks in as parties get underway. In Israel, it’s not a day off, but fanciful costumes are worn to schools and offices. Adults and children alike dress in an amazing array of costumes, a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. Their traditions also include giving gifts to friends and the poor and, of course having a feast. The meals include a special cookie-like dessert called hamantaschen, which is fashioned in the shape of a three-cornered hat. When the book of Esther is read, noisemakers called graggers are wildly rattled every time the evil Haman’s name is mentioned.

Persia is the nation of Iran today. However, in Esther’s day the Persian Empire was the largest ever, stretching across three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. Estimates suggest a population of 50 million—44 percent of the world’s population. While the numbers are lost to antiquity, some scholars estimate that Jews comprised 20 percent of the population. 

Four main characters fill the book of Esther: the Persian King Ahasuerus (Xerxes in Greek); Haman, the King’s minister; Mordecai, a Jew; and Queen Esther (Persian for “star” or Hadassah in Hebrew). Esther’s name is fitting for a woman who rises to such prominence. And it is clear that Esther, although an orphan in Jewish exile during the Diaspora—truly shone in her day. Interestingly, none of Esther’s 10 chapters mentions God’s name, yet His fingerprints are an indelible part of her story.

Esther steps onto the runway of history when the King decides to hold an ancient beauty contest to replace the disobedient Queen Vashti. The queen had displeased him for refusing to appear one evening during his six-month-long banquet extravaganza held for the princes and nobles of his empire. He angrily dismissed her and sent his messengers to search the empire for a replacement. 

Esther is chosen to participate. Imagine for a moment: Esther has been living quietly, in relative obscurity, under the protection of her cousin Mordecai, who adopted her when her parents died. Yet she is about to be thrust into the spotlight.

Described as quite beautiful, Esther is chosen for the beauty contest held in Susa, one of the King’s capitals. The story heats up after the King chooses Esther as his new Queen. Then Mordecai overhears the deadly plot of Haman—a wealthy high official in the King’s court—to kill all Jews. Previously, the two men had had an encounter where Mordecai refused to bow to Haman—which was against the king’s command. As a result, a fire of hatred lit in Haman against the Jews as a whole. 

Haman persuaded the King to issue an edict to kill the Jews. His anti-Semitism showed in full force in Esther 3:8: “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them.” Ahasuerus sent soldiers to carry out the death sentences while Mordecai hastened to tell his well-placed cousin the dreadful news. He asked a reluctant Esther to appeal to the King. 

Esther’s first response was fear. We can easily assume that when Esther instructed Mordecai to ask all the Jews to fast along with her, their prayers resulted in God giving her courage and the right strategy to lobby the King.

Through Mordecai, we hear God’s words spoken in Esther 4:14: “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” 

In the following verse, a transformed queen agrees to Mordecai’s request and says, “If I perish, I perish.” 

Haman was already building 75-foot-tall gallows to execute Mordecai. In the meantime, God was working out His rescue plans behind the scenes, making sure the King learned about Mordecai—that, in the past, Mordecai had informed the King’s guards about a plot to assassinate Ahasuerus. The King decided to honor the informant and called Haman in, asking, “What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?” Of course, Haman thought, “It’s me.” 

Haman advised the King to clothe the man in royal robes, seat him on a horse, and lead him through the streets with shouts from adoring crowds. Imagine Haman’s shock and humiliation when he learned the King meant Mordecai. And to make Haman’s mortification worse, the King asked him to lead Mordecai’s horse through the streets. 

Part of Queen Esther’s strategy involved taking the risk of going to the King without being invited to do so—a risk that could mean death. But Ahasuerus received her warmly, asking what she wished. She requested a banquet where Haman would be a guest. The King made it clear that he would grant Esther her heart’s desire. Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated” (Esther 7:3-4). Esther identified Haman as the perpetrator. 

King Ahasuerus left the banquet to order his soldiers to act. At this point, Haman accosted the Queen, begging for mercy. Ahasuerus, thinking Haman was about to molest his wife, became even more enraged—and ordered Haman to be hung on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. He sent out another decree across the empire commanding the Jewish community’s rescue. 

Queen Esther’s brave advocacy—strengthened with prayer and strategic plans—resulted in saving her people. This remarkable series of events is now celebrated at Purim, reminding the Jewish people that God saved them using an orphan who had won the favor of a king and bravely grew into her influence to change the course of history. 

How has Queen Esther taught us, the Christian community, to advocate for Israel and the Jewish people today?

God placed Esther in her position. She is, in essence, a role model for Christians to be involved in political advocacy. She prayed for a strategy, appealed to her leader, made her case, and asked him to save her people. Consider what the fate of the Jewish people would have been if Esther had not taken the case to her King. Esther—along with Moses, Daniel, and Jeremiah—are biblical political activists who made a lifesaving difference for Jews by appealing to their leaders. Again, where would the Jewish community be without these role models? Evidence of Esther and Mordecai’s ancient tombs are in Hamadan, Iran, and we can honor their legacy today by following their examples.  

In today’s political climate, many believers are opposed to political advocacy. Nevertheless, if we take Scripture seriously, political activism is affirmed—and directed—by God through willing vessels. Advocacy opportunities await us. Iran, the site of ancient Persia, has been ruled since 1979 by theocratic Imams who are modern “Hamans.” The Imams are dead-set on obtaining nuclear weapons and destroying the Jews, whom they call “the little satan.” They call the United States “the big satan.” Their goal, as the largest terror-instigator nation in the world, is to destroy the Jews and their ancestral homeland of Israel. 

Using Mordecai’s inspired words—“at such a time as this”—as our guide, we first pray as Esther did, then act. Iran’s leaders know that the U.S. has millions of pro-Israel believers and Christian and Jewish organizations that oppose their terrorism. It’s time to add the practical action through politics so that Iran’s goals can be thwarted. We pray, embracing the fact that we also live at “such a time as this.” While we are not royalty like Queen Esther, we are royalty, adopted into God’s family through our own King of Kings, Jesus. 

Several organizations are absolutely critical in the global fight against rising anti-Semitism and hostility toward the Jewish state as well as to the provision of humanitarian aid and relief to vulnerable families and communities in Israel. CBN Israel and International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) are two excellent examples, among many others.  

It is also critical for Christians to be politically involved. For instance, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are especially focused on political advocacy for Israel. Responding to their action alerts and special petitions takes only minutes. Both organizations are indispensable gateways for helping you contact your members of Congress and make your voice heard. Silence is not an option, and this is one of the main ways you can help guarantee Israel’s safety through the political process.

In fact, it is the U.S. Congress that votes every year to supply security aid to Israel. That aid is indispensable, as threats and anti-Semitism strategies mushroom from Iran and its proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Aside from prayer, it’s the main way that you can help guarantee Israel’s safety.

Recognizing the importance of ensuring Israel’s security on the occasion of Purim, I’d like to share with you a news item disseminated by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 1945. It reported an inspiring Purim celebration in a castle formerly owned by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s infamous Minister of Propaganda. It took place a week after Purim, as the American soldiers had been fighting on the front lines and couldn’t stop for the annual observances. The big room they gathered in was packed as the chaplain, Captain Manual Poliakeff of Baltimore, “carefully arranged the candles over a swastika-bedecked bookcase in Goebbels’ main dining room.” He and two Jewish soldiers told the Purim story to their fellow Christian soldiers. They compared the Nazis, whom the soldiers had defeated, to Haman. Chaplain Poliakeff declared, “It is so fitting that Purim services should be held in a castle belonging to Goebbels.” 

As we pray and take up advocacy action, we hope for the day when our Jewish friends will experience full freedom and liberation from all anti-Semitism and violence. 

Here are a few prayer points for “such a time as this.” Please add your prayers from the Lord’s prompting and what you hear from CBN News based in Jerusalem: 

• Pray for God’s protection for Iran’s 82 million citizens oppressed by their dictator Imams. Many are secretly coming to Christ through an Iranian TV program backed by CBN. 
• Pray that sanctions against Iran will not be dropped, since pressure is needed against that rogue regime.
• Pray that the Biden administration will keep commonsense caution in dealing with Iran’s predatory goals against Israel, the Jewish people, Arab nations in the Middle East, and the United States.  
• Pray for your own decision to become a modern “Mordecai,” that Israel’s intelligence operations will continue to expose Iran’s deadly plans and design more “Esther strategies” to stop them.

As we recall how one woman’s courage not only prevented her people’s annihilation but turned evil into triumph, let’s acknowledge what a powerful example she is for us today, more than 2,500 years later. 

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. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited by Artist Pat Mercer Hutchens and sits on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Marc Turnage

The Bible identifies Dan as the northernmost point of ancient Israel (Judges 20:1; 1 Samuel 3:20). The site of Dan sits at the southern base of Mount Hermon, in the upper portion of the Jordan River Valley, at the juncture of the ancient north-south and east-west caravan routes. Its location at the Dan springs, one of the three headwaters of the Jordan River, meant that the site experienced an abundance of water and vegetation.

Within the Bible, the site was originally called Laish (or Leshem; Genesis 14:14; Joshua 19:47; Judges 18:29). Its name changed to Dan when the tribe of Dan had to relocate due to their inability to remain in their tribal territory, which lay in the Plain of Philistia. The Danites migrated to the north of the land, conquered Laish, and renamed it Dan (Judges 18:11-31).

After the death of King Solomon, the kingdom of Israel divided between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, which remained loyal to the house of David. The first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam I, set up a golden calf at Dan, establishing there a high place, and appointing priests of a non-Levitical line (1 Kings 12:29-31). Dan remained a cultic place of worship throughout the period of the Israelite kingdom (2 Kings 10:29; Amos 8:14) and even into the Hellenistic and Roman periods (4th century B.C. to 1st century A.D.). Archaeologists digging at Dan found a Greek inscription that read “To the god who is in Dan,” which actually confirmed the identification of the site as the biblical site of Dan. Although not mentioned in the Bible, the Assyrians destroyed Dan when they conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.

Excavations at Dan have uncovered a number of significant finds that illuminate the world of the Bible. Around the 18th century B.C., the people of Dan constructed a large city gate out of mudbricks on the eastern side of the city. The gate has four towers, a pair on each end. The entrances to the gate, which were only used for a few generations before it was sealed, is in the shape of a triple arch. This gate complex dates to the period of the biblical Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).

Excavators also uncovered the Israelite high place of Dan. This offers the largest excavated monumental temple complex from the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam I wanted to keep the Israelites from making pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. He feared the religious allegiance of the people would also draw their hearts to the house of David that ruled the southern kingdom of Judah (1 Kings 12:25-30), so he established two central cultic places of worship in Israel at Bethel and Dan. The author of Kings views Jeroboam’s actions as the “sin of Jeroboam” from which the northern kingdom never recovered.

The high place at Dan has three phases of development. The first dates to the period of Jeroboam I. This phase was destroyed by a conflagration, which excavators suggest happened due to the attack of the Aramean king Ben-Hadad (1 Kings 15:16-20). The second phase dates to the 9th century B.C. This phase enlarged the area and used finely cut limestone ashlars. It also included chambers erected around the temple podium and altar to serve the priests in their duties. This phase the excavators date to the reign of King Ahab. The final phase dates to the reign of Jeroboam II, with minor alterations to the previous phase. The high place continued to be used into the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Excavations also revealed a large gate complex dating to the 9th-8th centuries B.C. This gate complex contains a dais where the king or local governor could sit to adjudicate the requests of the people (see 2 Samuel 19:9). In the area of the gate, archaeologists discovered the fragments of a stela written in Aramaic likely placed there by Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus. The inscription mentions the king of Israel and a king of the “House of David” (see 2 Samuel 7), possibly Ahaziah, who was killed along with Joram, king of Israel, in the revolt of Jehu (2 Kings 9-10).

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth” (Number 12:3 ESV).

Our modern culture, even our Christian culture, celebrates strong, bold, and yes, even arrogant, leaders. Moses wouldn’t have fit. Yet God selected Moses as the vehicle of His redemption of the children of Israel—as their leader to the land He promised them.

The Hebrew word translated as “meek” also means “humble.” Meekness is not weakness; it’s humility. What made Moses so humble? He learned how to lead by being a shepherd.

We do not connect shepherding with leadership in our modern culture, but the ancient world saw shepherds as an ideal model for leaders. Gods and kings were often described as shepherds, and many leaders, like Moses and David, came from shepherding. How did being a shepherd make one a meek and humble leader?

Shepherds followed a nomadic lifestyle. They pastured their flocks wherever they could find land that provided grass and scrub. They lived on the periphery of agricultural society, as farmers did not want sheep and goats crossing through their cultivated fields. Thus, the wilderness became the home of shepherds, alone among the flocks. The wilderness areas of the Middle East, which can include deserts, pose innate dangers to a shepherd.

First, they have to deal with harsh climates that can produce scorching heat in the day and cold at night. The harsh terrain poses another set of problems, as the shepherd must navigate his or her flocks to safe places of pasture. Third, predators—both animal and human—reside in the wilderness, and it falls to the shepherd to defend the flock. Such an environment develops a number of leadership qualities.

You can almost imagine how a person surviving in such conditions could develop a self-image as a self-made individual. But the opposite is actually the case. Why? Because there are no self-made individuals in the wilderness.

The conditions prove so formidable that without the help of God and others, one cannot survive. So, how did Moses learn true humility? Through his experiences as a shepherd.

Our world does not value genuine meekness and humility, but God does. The psalmist promises that “The meek shall inherit the land” (37:11 ASV), a sentiment echoed by Jesus in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:5). Paul identified meekness as a Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Do we learn humility through our life circumstances? We should.

Following God often requires us to value things not valued by our culture, to cultivate behaviors counter to the world in which we live. Moses learned lessons by shepherding flocks, a very common practice in the ancient world.

We need to allow our common, everyday circumstances to help us develop godly behaviors and attitudes in our own lives.

PRAYER

Father, may we grow in genuine meekness and humility before You and others today. Amen.

By Mark Gerson

Parshat Mishpatim, the Torah portion that spans Exodus 21-24, immediately follows Parshat Yitro, in which God appears at Mount Sinai and gives the Ten Commandments to Moses in a scene so spectacular that the people “saw the sounds.” This greatest of all religious moments is followed by Parshat Mishpatim, which begins with the word “and.” The connection—what lives on the other side of “and”—are dozens of laws. These laws, covering both civil and criminal matters, account for circumstances that include intentional and unintentional killings; the different levels of responsibility that different kinds of watchmen have; differences in penalties that the owner of an ox that attacks another ox has, depending upon the previous behavior of the first ox; and much else.

The “and,” as numerous Jewish commentators have noted, puts into real and daily life the extraordinary religious moment at Sinai. The laws of Mishpatim, which might seem pedestrian, are really a continuation of the religious high experienced in Yitro. The vision of Yitro needs the execution of Mishpatim, and vice versa. There is no “either,” there is no “or”—there is only “and.”

Rabbi David Wolpe, a great Jewish scholar, thinker, and leader based at Temple Sinai in Los Angeles, has another remarkable observation about Mishpatim. Mishpatim, he observes, prepared Jews for success in the modern world. Mishpatim, which of course was written thousands of years before any of the realities of modernity were birthed, is all about the pursuit of justice through the creation and crafting of distinctions. It is the skill in the otherwise arcane practice of making distinctions—exercised by professionals as diverse as accountants, medical ethicists, botanists, appellate lawyers, engineers, chemists, and physicians of all kinds—that has emerged as the most important in the information age and the knowledge economy.

This art of making distinctions also informs Jewish biblical politics, with resonance into the present day. For instance, take a general question: How should we regard the stranger in our midst? It entirely depends, as Parshat Mishpatim says, upon the distinctions we must make.

One example is given in Exodus 22: “If the thief is discovered while tunneling in, and he is struck and dies, there is no blood-guilt on his account.” This is the modern stand-your-ground law. A homeowner is entitled to defend his property and to act with the presumption that the thief coming surreptitiously (“tunneling in”) will inflict maximum physical harm. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, drawing from ancient Jewish sources, said this applies even if a homeowner is on the second floor and the burglar is on the first floor and the homeowner is not in immediate danger. The homeowner need not allow the thief to rob his house and can defend his property with lethal force. Rav Soloveitchik explained, “The covenantal community is not a community of meek ones.”

The treatment of the tunneling thief is, within Parshat Mishpatim, completely distinguished from how we must treat another kind of stranger: “You shall not taunt or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not cause pain to any widow or orphan. If you dare to cause him pain … if he shall cry out to me, I shall surely hear his outcry. My wrath shall blaze and I shall kill you by the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children orphans” (Exodus 22:20-24).

The language is as relentless as it sounds and is meant to jar us. If you mistreat the vulnerable, God says, your death will just be the beginning of your suffering. The same relentlessness that is directed against the tunneling thief is now directed toward the vulnerable and against those who make the mistake of mistreating them. 

Moreover, the “you” in “You shall not cause pain” and “If you dare to cause him pain” is in the plural. The “you” applies to each individual in the community, regardless of whether he is the person who caused the pain. If we stand idly by when the vulnerable are mistreated, then each of us is eligible for divine wrath. Compassion, in the biblical imagination, is an individual and collective obligation. And it is given abundantly or not at all, depending on the circumstances.

The insistence of this distinction between the thief and the vulnerable is amplified in the next passage. This passage, Exodus 22:25-27, establishes a rule governing the collateral that a lender is able to require from a borrower. A lender is entitled to accept collateral. However, if that collateral is “your fellow’s garment”—the shirt off his back—the lender must return it to him before sunset. The Torah does what it rarely does, which is to offer its own commentary on its rule: “For it alone is his clothing, it is his garment for him—in what shall he lie down?”

The Torah is telling us yes, it’s your collateral, but it is the shirt off of his back! You can’t let him go cold; what is wrong with you?

The next verse brings us to another telling distinction. Exodus 23:5 says, “If you see the donkey of someone who hates you crouching under its burden, would you refrain from helping him?—you shall repeatedly help with him.”

The first interesting part of this verse is the clause “would you refrain from helping him?” This is the Torah’s acknowledgment that the natural response to seeing someone who “hates you” suffering is not to help. And that’s okay. One of the strangest ideas in the moral life is that the “natural” is what is good. In fact, the Bible—and perhaps all of moral striving—is about conquering the natural in order to achieve the good. While it is natural to not want to help one we hate, the Bible is instructing us to do so—but with a crucial distinction.

This distinction exists in the word “with”—as in, “you shall help repeatedly with him.” We are under no obligation to help alone or to do the entire job ourselves. If we see one who hates us struggling with his animal, then we must offer to join forces with the other person in order to alleviate the burden of the donkey. What if the other person does not want to work with us? Perhaps he hates us too much to collaborate with us or perhaps he is just the kind of person who insists on doing everything by himself. In that case, we are not obligated to help. Perhaps this is because the act of working with someone toward a productive end is probably the best way to mend a broken relationship and turn “hatred” into something better. Or perhaps this is because we are just not required to help someone who is unwilling to help himself by accepting our assistance.

In either case, the distinction stands. If a person agrees to help with us, we help. If not, we don’t.

It is the education in distinctions from Parshat Mishpatim that teaches us how to distinguish and differentiate between the vulnerable widow and the tunneling thief—between the person we must help and the person we need not assist—that has prepared us to live in our complex modern world.

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