Check Yourself!

0:01 Well, mazel tov. Congratulations, Esther, on making aliyah to the Torah. You did fantastic. You made me relive some of my own mental trauma. Because I'm pretty sure some of those verses were the same verses even that I did as a bar mitzvah boy. Ah. This is an occasion... By the way, this is a little bit different. Man, I realize how out of routine I am in terms of a bar or bat mitzvah. It's a little bit of different service,

0:46 for those of you who this is regular or not regular. Today, I'm going to be talking to Esther, and Esther and I have both agreed to permit you to listen in. But we're going to be talking about some things, but here's the crazy thing. This week's Torah portion, I don't think you could pick a more awkward Torah portion for a 13-year-old boy or girl. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or girl. It's the most awkward Torah portion, I think perhaps in the entire Bible, in the entire Torah. So we're going to get into this here in a few minutes. But today, and in reality, Esther and I have

1:32 already talked about most of what I'm going to talk about. But there's a few things that we haven't, but you'll have an opportunity to listen in, and if you need some notes to keep you awake, you're welcome to raise your hand. We forgot to put them out this morning, so they're walking around. But today, this opportunity to come and make aliyah to the Torah, to read from the Torah, this is a mile marker in a young person's life. So here in particularly Esther's life, this is a mile marker in your journey with the Lord, and this is your opportunity to go ahead and click the download icon to save, for the rest of your

2:18 life, this memory. It's important for us to have mile markers to refer back to as we get older. These mile markers, if you were a hiker, they're called cairns. That's what I call them. But if you go along on a mountainside and you see little stacks of rocks built up into kind of like a little tower, that's a marker designating the path that you're on. Sometimes they'll even have a color on it if you're on a particular route. But it's a marker that notes two things.

3:07 Well, I'll be like the Lord, not two things, but three things. Notes two things and three things both. Number one, the marker lets us know that we are not alone on this journey. Though we may pass it by ourselves, we are not alone. Why do I say that? Because the marker is there because other people have gone and built the marker ahead of us. So we have the opportunity to look at this as a communal opportunity to follow this path. Others have tread the ground before us and others will come after us.

3:55 It's a given. But right now, as we're on this path, and we're going to refer back to this path a couple times today. As we're on this path, we have the opportunity to be a witness, a faithful witness concerning the faithfulness of the Lord, both those who have gone on ahead and those who will come behind. So again, Parashat Tazria and Metzora. What a lovely, just beautiful gift from God- ... for a young man or a young lady to have as their bar or bat mitzvah Torah portion.

4:43 The reason I, again, I've already hinted at it. The reason I could fully empathize with you. If you know people very close to me, people very close to me realize I don't have a whole lot of empathy. But I can 100% empathize with you because literally 19 years ago. 19 years, less one week, because mine was on... Oh, no. Wait, what's today's date? 18th. 18th. Less one day, excuse me. Mine was April 19th. But 19 years ago, I had this portion, the Metzora part of it, element.

5:30 It is extremely difficult, and honestly, I don't know, maybe anybody was watching me. Hopefully, you weren't watching me while she was canting. But I'm sitting here reading the English as she's reading the Hebrew, and I'm chuckling because of how difficult and awkward these situations are. Not even in her Torah portion, but literally the moment, the sentences that she read. And more power to youYou are walking through the doorway of adulthood. As you walk through the doorway, I say this at every bar or bat

6:16 mitzvah, my father said it at every bar or bat mitzvah. As you walk through the doorway, we often think that the doorway is adulthood. But it's not. The doorway is the entrance into adulthood. So it's from this point where you'll begin to notice new duties and responsibilities for yourself. You may even notice that they change even in your own household. I was talking, hmm, I think to my wife last week or the week before, and I was telling, communally one of the... I don't know how far spread this rule is actually known.

7:01 But communally, one of the benefits of becoming a bar or bat mitzvah or at least turning 13, is you can go to the bathroom by yourself. Below that, a parent or an adult has to accompany you every time you go to the bathroom. Now the funny thing is, girls, once you turn 13, all of you go to the bathroom together. And it's like a party in there. But you may, as you are learning new responsibilities and new duties, you may begin to think that the world is beginning to shift beneath your feet. The reality is, this is true for every teenager that has ever lived.

7:50 The shifting of decision-making responsibility from your parents to you is beginning to happen. It doesn't all happen, but it's beginning to happen. It will continue at least for the next 10 or 15 years. There are some things that don't switch to you until they're passing. So you may actually have this transference of duties for the majority of your life. But the transference over the next 10 to 15 years, you'll receive most of the duty change from your parents to yourself. You'll become responsible to grocery shop

8:38 for yourself. And you're like, "Oh, no. I've got to grocery shop?" Even worse, you have to determine what to eat. Right now your parents are like, "Oh, tonight, guess what? We're having chicken pesto pasta. We're having hamburgers. We're having all of the..." And you may go, "Oh, I love this one. Oh, I hate this one." Guess what? It's not your choice. But soon it's going to be your choice, and then you're going to figure out how hard it is mentally to decide what to eat. And then, once you decide what to eat, then you've got to go to the grocery store and fight the other thousands of people who are there trying to get the same food. But this will continue for the next 10 to 15 years of your life.

9:27 This Torah portion addresses cleanliness versus uncleanliness. And it goes through these different circumstances, again as I've mentioned, at least twice now, but I will continue to mention how awkward it is for teenagers or for young boys and girls to talk about cleanliness versus uncleanliness in relative to bodily emissions. It's like the most awkward topic ever. But it seems the topics in this week's Torah portion seem simple. Clean, unclean. That's it. It's a simple thing. But even you pointed out it's actually not as simple

10:14 as it presents itself. Why? Because someone has to come, and in the case that you mentioned with Sara At, someone has to come and look. So there's an examiner. Okay, with this, it's the situation are you clean or unclean? But they have to look closely. You even mentioned this. They have to look closely to the point that it actually may not even be rooted in the body. It may be rooted within us. I don't mean within us like in our stomach. I mean within us spiritually, if that makes sense.

11:08 I had a whole section, I think I'm just going to skip that, regarding teenager relationships. But understand this. No, I won't skip it. I won't skip it. Every teen that has lived, is living, or will live, so that's all teens, that's all people, has experienced the issues that are present in this week's Torah portion. The ones that we think are the most awkward things to ever talk about is the one thing that everyone alive has experienced or will experience. But at the point of experience,

11:54 there may be an element of shame that becomes attached to the individual by the group. They go, "Ooh, look, somebody's is different." I'm telling youThat shame has both positive and negative effects in a communal setting. So be careful in these moments in the lives of yourself and your friends when you or when you do not attach shame to a particular element of life. That's as much as I will spend on that because I'm going to do what you did and take the softball out of this and talk about leprosy. It's funny because we're like, we would much rather talk about leprosy,

12:41 sara'at, which is by the way, in and of itself an awkward conversation, than we would talk about anything else in this week's Torah portion. Leprosy is how most versions of the Bible translate this Hebrew term, sara'at. You opted to utilize the term, and I will also, sara'at, because in Jewish tradition, there's a difference between what we call today leprosy and what this text is indicating in terms of a skin disease. Over time and through textual observation, Jewish tradition has come to understand a deeper connection, which you talked about, between sara'at and an internal

13:28 deficiency within the person. I say deficiency. You could call it a deficiency of character, or you could call it an abundance of another element, a negative element, which we'll get to in a minute. You made the connection when you mentioned Miriam and her jealous conversation concerning Moses. Jewish tradition connects sara'at with evil speech or with gossip. And gossip is such a fascinating thing. Gossip, by the way, if it hasn't happened in your life yet, well, you should be lucky and thankful because for some reason it starts, I don't know, right around that 11, 12,

14:16 13-year-old range, and then it just begins to grow. And gossip exists everywhere where there's more than one person. In fact, maybe it's more than two, but I can make an argument for one person. Gossip is an attempt by one person in a group setting to... What is the term? I'm going to make up a word because I can't remember the word. To de-elevate. So to bring someone down from their position within a group by speaking negative things about them.

15:03 It's an attempt actually to elevate one's own status by bringing someone else down. So it makes an assumption that one person's going down has to be tied with another person's rise in group status. But I can tell you actually from experience, rise in group status is purely dependent upon oneself. It's never dependent upon anyone else in the group either going up or down. It's only dependent upon the character that you have within yourself developed and your ability to stand strong to truth, honesty, and those elements that the Bible instructs us in concerning group dynamics.

15:52 So gossip essentially boils down to an attempt to separate or isolate one person in a group from the rest of the community. And the rabbis tell us this is why the person who's afflicted with sara'at, their punishment or the way to address the illness, they're separated from the community. In other words, they have done to them what they've attempted to do to someone else. They're experiencing the consequences of their actions. The person with the sara'at is instructed to go see the Kohen. You made mention of this, the

16:38 priest. And the priest is to inspect the sore and to evaluate it and see if it goes deeper than the surface. It would indicate, as you so rightly noted and observed, that if I'm the one being afflicted, I should examine myself to see if there's a root within me that might be causing said affliction. Is there something within me? Have I searched within myself to make sure that this is not arising out of something else? In fact, I was drawn to this passage. It's a well-known passage.

17:25 In the Book of James, chapter 5 says this. Chapter 5, verse 9 says, "Do not grumble." This is, by the way, some of that element of communal dwelling together is there's always a grumble, if you notice in the scriptures, within the community. "Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the doors. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord." And we're going to fast-forward just a little bit to verse 13. "Is there anyone among you suffering? Let him pray."Is anyone cheerful?

18:10 Let him sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of Messiah's community. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So confess your offenses to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous person is very powerful. Even this text in James acknowledges that there may be a connection both between sickness or illness and sin in our own personal lives. Jacob or James, Yeshua's brother, indicates or tells us it is good to start by examining

18:58 ourselves to make sure that there's not something rotten within us. In other words, you have to check yourself before you wreck yourself. Your parents are the right age. I was so close. I actually entitled the message "Check Yourself." I was so close to entitling it "Check Yo'self." But I just did this whole presentation to show you that there may be a connection between sin and sickness. However, does that mean if you're sick, you have sin in your life?

19:47 Not necessarily. Yeshua addresses this question. By the way, I went a different direction than you, but I liked your reference to the man afflicted with tzara'at that comes to Yeshua for healing. He comes to Yeshua for healing. Let me just say as an aside before I read my text, he's been outside of the community, and he recognizes that Yeshua is his way back in. And so he comes to Yeshua for healing, and Yeshua says, "You're healed." But Yeshua doesn't abrogate the process.

20:32 He doesn't do away with the process that the Torah tells us. He says, "Go present yourself to the priest." And he also says, "Also, don't tell anybody on the way." What does the man do? He tells everybody. It's quite funny. We don't listen very often. Let me rephrase. We don't follow even when we are hearing what is being told us, because sometimes it's just too astounding to be quiet about. Okay. In John chapter nine, here's Yeshua, and the text says, "As Yeshua was passing by, he saw a man who had been blind since birth." You probably know this story. His disciples, Yeshua's very

21:20 disciples, asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" You see, they're making the immediate connection from this week's Torah portion that he sinned or someone sinned, which is why he's blind. It's not a bad connection to make, by the way, because there is some truth behind it. But Yeshua says, Yeshua answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be brought to light in him. We must do the work of the one who sent me so long as it is day. Night is coming when no one can

22:08 work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Let me distill that just a little bit for you. Yeshua healed this man of his blindness. The disciples are thinking that he's blind because he has sinned, and Yeshua says it's not him or his parents who sinned. Rather, it's for the sake of the glory of God. In other words, Yeshua knows that when he heals this man, glory will be ascribed to the Lord. And in fact, the amazing thing is the man doesn't know what Yeshua looks like.

22:59 He's blind. He's there asking for healing. Yeshua spits in some mud, if I remember the text correctly, and rubs it on his eyes, and then says, "Now go wash it off in the Pool of Siloam." And he does, and by the time he's able to see, Yeshua's gone. So when he comes before the ruling authorities of the time, they said, "Who healed you?" And he says, "Some guy, but this is God who healed me." He goes, "I don't know what he..." They're like, "What did he look like?" "You know, tall, blonde, blue hair, straight blonde hair." "Did he look like a Norwegian Viking?"

23:45 No, I'm just playing. "No." "Was he kind of shorter, swarthy, curly hair?" "Oh, yeah, it could've been that guy." "Oh, you mean, like all-- Which one?" He doesn't know what he looks like, but he does know what he sounds like. You see, we also don't know what Yeshua looks likeI think I could make some guesses as to what he doesn't look like. But we don't know what he looks like, but we can listen for his voice. Amen. And if we're attentive and we do what He says, He'll bring restoration in our lives. It's an amazing thing.

24:31 But you've got to be careful to listen to His voice and not someone else's. Yeshua responded to this process of thinking that this man had sin in his life by telling them that he didn't, and then showing them that it was for the sake of the glory of the Lord, that the glory of the Lord might be revealed. So what does this mean for you? I did a short message today. What does this mean for you and really for all of us in our community? First of all, this is a marker in your life, personally.

25:16 This marker in your life is a memory that you can revisit in the future, and you can remember the Lord's faithfulness. But also, it's a moment that you can connect because of so many people... Let me make sure this isn't my next point. Yeah. There's been so many people who have gone ahead of you and walked life ahead of you. You can connect with them with this commonality, and you can connect with those yet to come because you have a moment of commonality. I chose this tie on purpose to wear, partially because it's white, looks good against the pinkish.

26:02 But on this tie are different markers. I don't mean markers that you draw with, but locations. I got this tie 24 and a half years ago. Twenty-four years, six months, I think almost to the day. I was with my mom in England, and on this tie it's the different tube lines that run through London. And this is maybe one of my first tie purchases, I think. But when you have a map with the different locations, you can tell where you're going, and where you've been, and where you'll end up.

26:48 If you don't, for me, it's kind of like walking in a mall. I know girls, y'all have this internal sense with malls. I look at my sister and my wife, and I'm like, "Once we walk in the doors, you are the GPS, because I don't know where I'm going." I need the stars and the sky and the moon and the sun. You put me in the middle of the wilderness in Texas, I'll tell you, I can get anywhere. Well, I can get most places. You put me in the middle of a mall with a blindfold, spin me around, and then say, "Get out of here," I'm super lost for the rest of the day. You get in the London Tube system, if you're underground, you don't know where

27:35 you're going, you get super lost. But if you know where the map is, and you know where you've been, and you know where you are, it will help you understand where you're going. So you now know where you've been, and you know where you are today, and it will help you know where you're going in the future. You are entering through the doorway... Oh, by the way, the question really, this is less a question for you because today you're caught up in the excitement of today, more a question for everyone else. What is the marker in your life where the Lord was clearly faithful to be near to you and to walk with you? Because all of us have it. If you ever question, all of us have that opportunity to

28:21 remember there's a moment where the Lord was very clearly walking with us, even if we're in the moment of being in a mall and we don't know which way is up. But here, now you are entering through the doorway into adulthood. It is now time for you to learn to embrace small choices and decisions in front of you. They will help you prepare for bigger decisions down the road. If you can begin with the little ones, the big ones end up being nothing. In fact, the big ones end up being really easy because you've made 25 little decisions along the way. So for everyone else, what are some small decisions

29:09 either that you made this past week or that you can make this upcoming week that will help prepare you to make larger decisions in the future? It happens every week. It happens every day. What's the choice that I'm going to make today? There's a little choice. Am I going to wear shoes or am I going to wear flip-flops? That may be your choice. Who knows what the choice is. I got so many other choices in my mind. I'm going to make the choice to not give them. Let me encourage you, even as you mentioned, Esther, to learn to look past the surface ailment and see the whole person before you. This is what the priest has to do. The priest sees the ailment, but has to look

29:56 past the ailment to see the entirety of the person. It's important that you do that, and most people in society do not. Most people see, oh, you're this way or you're that way or you're weird or you're not weird or insert whatever adjective you want, but learn to look past the surfaceAnd to see the whole person for who they are. Have you experienced a situation this week where you had to look beyond the surface and to better understand the person and what they're going through? One thing I was told is always when you see someone else, however your interaction goes, understand that they're dealing with at least

30:43 one major thing that you have no idea is going on in their life. And if you can do that, then you can have greater grace and compassion for the way that they behave in the moment. Next, inspect yourself to see if there's anything that the Ruach Hakodesh is revealing within you that needs to be removed. This is incumbent upon all of us. It's not just you. But now, as you're entering through the doorway of adulthood, now this is one of the small decisions that is incumbent upon you, is you join the rest of us in that we have to inspect ourselves. Have you asked the Ruach... By the way, this is for everyone. Have you asked the Ruach anytime recently to eliminate, to

31:29 shine a flashlight within you and remove anything within you that He doesn't want to be there? If you ask, He is faithful to do it. By the way, the inverse is also true. If you don't ask, He might leave you to the consequences of your own decisions. Those consequences often are worse than if He just shined a little flashlight within us and we said, "Oops, I didn't know that was there.

32:15 Can you help me get that out?" Finally, Esther, allow the Lord to be magnified in all situations. For everyone else, and for you even, in what ways this past week, or you can prepare yourself for what ways this upcoming week, in what ways has the Lord been magnified in your life this past week? And if you can share that with others, all of a sudden you're magnifying the Lord with someone else and you've deepened your relationship with them. And then it prepares them for what happens to them this next week and they say, "Oh, the Lord did that with me in my life this week. Thank you for sharing last week. It prepared me so that I could even see it." Some

33:02 of us, we can't see it. Some of us, we think that our waking up and being alert in society occurs because of a little cup of black water that we drink. Coffee. The reality is opening our eyes and getting out of bed is a gift from God. Amen. The coffee just helps. Amen. But the gift from God is the fact that we can awaken and be a part of society. It's so common for us to forget that this is a gift from God and that, oh no, today

33:48 I made the choice to wake up. It's not our choice. That's God's choice. We can choose to glorify Him because of His choice. But that is something that we have to do. We've got to find the moments where we can glorify God, and we can recognize that He is alive and working in our lives. And if you can do that, the more often you do it, I'll tell you, the better quality of life you will live. I don't mean you'll be wealthy. I don't mean that you're going to have everything that you ever ask for. But you will have the most quality life because you have a quality relationship with the Lord. And He can walk with you through anything,

34:35 and you can walk with Him. And as long as you're with Him, you can walk through anything. That's the reality. So congratulations, Esther, on a job well done. May today be a moment that you can go ahead and file away in your mind as an opportunity to remember the Lord's faithfulness to get you through all of the stuff that you did today. By the way, you did a fantastic job. You should definitely thank the Lord and acknowledge that you did a lot of hard work to do it. But it's the Lord who got you through.

35:22 But also, this is you joining... How can I say this? You have entered into a communal marker within the rest of the Jewish community. Even as your parents were talking about and even as you said, this is an opportunity that you can join the rest of the Jewish community and recognize God's provision for you and His faithfulness to the Jewish community and to you. Just because He's faithful to the Jewish community and faithful to you doesn't make you Jewish, but it's okay. This is the beauty of things. I know you've spent time down in the children's wing, but for those of you who haven't, if you go in the children's

36:08 wing and you look down at the very end of the hallway, Esther, do you know what's at the end of the hallway? Yeah, yeah. So down near the restrooms, if you're looking at the doors, do you remember what's on the doors? I wasn't supposed to quiz you, but- A tree ... there is a tree. Do you remember anything about it?I'll give you a hint, it's an apple tree. Do you remember the color of the apples? No? Anybody? They're red and green apples, but it's the same tree. When you put green apple branches onto a red apple tree, it doesn't make them red

36:53 apples. It makes them green apples with red apple life support. I don't know what you call it. They're still green apples. But now by coming up and partaking in this element, you have joined the red apple tree. But you're making a green apple. It doesn't make any sense logically. But you know what I think Paul tells us, and the rest of the scripture tells us? Man's ways, we may think we're wise, but to God, they're foolish. And the things that we consider to be foolish, that's the way of the Lord. Not all foolish things are the way of the Lord. I've partaken in many foolish things in my life that were definitely not God.

37:40 And my daughter's sitting next to you with her mouth wide open. No, I'm not telling them right now. So congratulations, Esther, on a job well done. Now you can go and celebrate for the rest of the day. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Yevarechecha Adonai ve'yishmerecha.

38:28 Yair Adonai panav elecha vechunecha. Yisa Adonai panav elecha ve'yasem lecha shalom. Bashem Yeshua Hamashiach. In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua. Shabbat shalom. Mazel tov, Esther.