Nourish Your Biblical Roots

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Schalem from here in the Holy Land. Welcome to the
Nourish Your Biblical Roots podcast. I'm your host, ya el Estein,
President and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
Each week, we'll explore the Jewish roots of your Christian
faith and nourish those roots with inspirational insights and ancient

(00:29):
teachings that are so relevant to our lives. Today, let's
get started. Have you ever had a bad day, a
day when it seemed like nothing was going your way,
or maybe you've had a week like that, or a
year or maybe a decade. We've all had times when

(00:53):
it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong does
go wrong. But on today's episode, we're going to talk
about how in reality, everything is always going our way.
We will focus on the biblical story of Balam Belem,
who set out to curse the Israelites but was blocked
by an angel of God. We'll discover how whenever things

(01:17):
don't go our way, God is actually helping us in
ways we would never imagine. Balach, the king of Moab,
sent a delegation to a man named Balam, a powerful sorcerer.
Balach's plan was to enlist Balama's help in defeating the
Israelites who were camped near Moab. Balac knew that the

(01:39):
Israelites were too powerful for his army, so we planned
to have Balam curse them in order to weaken them.
At first, as many of you might remember, Balam refused
to go along with the plan. He explained to Balach's
men that it wasn't possible to curse the Israelites because
they were a blessed people. But eventually Balam agreed to

(02:01):
go along with Balak's men and at least try to
curse the Israelites. According to Jewish tradition, Balam harbored a
deep hatred for the nation of Israel and wanted nothing
more than to simply destroy them. The Bible tells us
that when Balam began his journey towards Moab and the Israelites,
God was very angry with him. God sent an angel

(02:24):
with a sword drawn in order to block his way.
Balam couldn't see the angel, but the donkey that he
was riding could. When the donkey saw the frightening image
of God's angel, it tried to turn away, but Balam
beat the donkey until it returned to the path. This
happened two more times along Balam's journey. The verses that

(02:46):
we will focus on today tell us what happened after
the third time that the angel blocked Balam's way. They
are from Numbers chapter twenty two, verses thirty one to
thirty three, and i'll read them to you now. Then
the Lord opened Balam's eyes, and he saw the Angel
of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn.

(03:09):
So he bowed low and fell face down. The Angel
of the Lord asked him, why have you beaten your
donkey these three times? I've come here to oppose you
because your path is a reckless one. Before me, the
donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times.
If it had not turned away, I would have certainly

(03:32):
killed you by now, but I would have spared your donkey.
God opened Balam's eyes so that he could see the
angel that has caused his donkey to go off course
three times. When Balam saw the Angel of God, he
immediately bowed down before him. The angel explained to Balam

(03:53):
that he was sent by God to stop him from
going to curse the Israelites. The Angel all so told
Balam that had it not been for his donkey who
turned to wage time that it saw the Angel, he
would have killed Balam already. We can only imagine, my friends,
how terrifying the Angel of God with his sword drawn

(04:17):
must have looked to Balam. According to Jewish tradition, the
supernatural being that appeared to Balam looked like the Angel
of Death, but in reality, God had sent the Angel
of Mercy to him in his infinite love and mercy.
God was trying to stop Balam from doing something that

(04:39):
he shouldn't have been doing. He's trying to stop Balam
from getting himself into trouble. There's a powerful lesson that
we can all learn from this. When things don't go
our way, we need to remember that sometimes God will
stand in our way, not because He is out to
get us, but because he loved He's not sending his

(05:02):
Angel of death after us. He's actually sending his Angel
of mercy to protect us. Have you ever felt that
God was dealing harshly with you and keeping you from
something you thought you needed or wanted. Did you ever
have your heart set on a certain job but then
the job fell through? Or maybe we're looking for a

(05:24):
home to rent or buy and you thought you found
the perfect place, but no matter how hard you tried,
you just couldn't get it. Or maybe you thought you
found the person that you wanted to spend the rest
of your life with, but that person didn't feel the
same way about you. It's hard when we want something
so badly but we just can't have it. It's really hard,

(05:50):
but we need to remember that sometimes when things don't
go away, it's actually the best thing to ever happen
to us. It's just hidden. God will send his Angel
of mercy to block you from something that would otherwise
harm you. And no matter how things may seem, everything
that God does is truly for our very best. He

(06:15):
loves us, He wants the best for us. This idea
is inherent in Judaism's most important prayer. You might have
heard of it, the Shema prayer Shmai sra El Hashem
Ilokenu Hashemagrad. You may be familiar with this prayer, which
comes from Deuterotomy, chapter six, verse four. Here Israel the Lord,

(06:37):
our God. The Lord is one. This is such a
central prayer in Judaism that we say it twice a day,
once in the morning and once at night. And because
It is such an important prayer. It is the first
prayer we teach our kids, and the first ones that
we learn to say ourselves. I remember when I was

(07:00):
a child, my father put me to sleep at night.
He would rub my back, he would sing, he would
tell me how much he loved me, wish me good night,
tell me sweet dreams, and all the other sweet things,
and then he would stop, with a lot of intention
and say this prayer with me. I fell asleep with
this prayer on his lips and its words in my soul.

(07:24):
And now when I put my own kids to sleep,
I do the same thing. I lay with them, I laugh,
I rub their back, I tell them how much I
love them. I hear about their day. And then when
I see they're really getting tired, I take a second
to be with intention, to show them that this is
the most important thing we're about to do, and I

(07:45):
say samai istra el Hashem elcano hashm chad. It's the
last thing that they hear before going to sleep, and
the last words that I say before I go to bed.
The Shema prayer is the cornerstone of every monotheistic faith.

(08:06):
It declares our faith in one God, but the idea
of one God doesn't only mean that we reject paganism.
It also means that God is the source of everything
that happens in our lives and in the entire world.
And since we believe that God is good, we believe

(08:27):
that everything that happens must also be good. When we
declare our faith that the Lord is one, we declare
our faith that everything, and I mean everything that happens
is from God. And if it's from God, then it's good.

(08:49):
I remember the first time that I really internalized this lesson.
It was right before the holiday of Sukkote, the Feast
of Tabernacles, and I was a young girl living in Chicago.
Every year one of the most exciting times of year
was that my sisters and I would help my father
single handedly basically build Arska. We would pass him the

(09:12):
different screws and the hammer that he needed to put
together this temporary hut that the Bible directs us to
live in during the holiday, and this was no easy feat. First,
my father lugged the huge wooden walls and beams from
our shed onto our patio. Then he would carefully line
up the pieces that everything was ready for assembly. I

(09:35):
remember him looking for the one and the two and
making sure they were next to each other and not
upside down. Wow, so much work went into that, But
the hardest part was joining the first two boards in
order to form a corner which would hopefully stand on
its own. From there, my father worked tirelessly to stabilize

(09:57):
the structure while my sisters and I watched with b breath.
It was always such a joyful moment when the sukka
was finally complete, when the hut was finally standing ready
for the holiday. But one year there was a very
powerful storm on the first night of Sukkote. In the morning,

(10:18):
we were devastated see that our sukka had completely blown down.
We wouldn't be able to eat in it. My father
could see how sad me and my sisters were, and
I saw on his head he was thinking about how
to respond, and with a lot of thought and a
lot of love, he said, girls, we will rebuild oursuka

(10:41):
and the rest of the holiday will be just fine.
But I want you to know that God just taught
us a very important lesson about life. We can make plans,
and we can work hard, even with the intention of
doing a mitzvah, a positive commandment for God. In the end,
it's only God who decides what will happen, even when

(11:05):
we don't like how things turn out. He told us
we trust God that everything is for the best. Looking
back now, it's clear to me that God allowing our
soka to fall was truly for the best. Because from
that experience I gained one of the most important life

(11:25):
lessons I ever received. I saw my father work hard,
I saw him wanting to build a souka. I saw
him wanting to succeed, and then I saw him and
his eyes when he saw that soka that we built
so hard on the ground, and the way that he
responded taught me that when things don't go according to

(11:50):
my plans, it doesn't mean that God is not in control,
and it doesn't mean that God doesn't love me. I
learned that I don't have to under stand God ways
to know that He is always good and that everything
is always for the best, and that God always loves us.

(12:13):
In Hebrew, there's a phrase that expresses this idea beautifully.
We say gamzu litova, which means this too is for
the best. It was coined by a Jewish rabbi that
lived in the first century BCE named nahumh Gamzu, and

(12:34):
he was defined by this saying so much so that
it became part of his name. I want to tell
you a story about a student of Nahum ish Gamzu
named Rabi Akiva, who truly lived by the words Gamzultova.
This too is for the best. Rabbi Akiva lived about

(12:54):
two thousand years ago, and whenever he traveled, he always
brought three things with him. A candle so that he
could study the Bible at night in the dark, a
rooster and wake him up in the morning for his prayers,
and a donkey to help him get from place to place.
One time, when Rabi Akiva was traveling, he stopped at

(13:15):
the nearest village in order to find a place to
spend the night. He stopped at an inn, but there
were no available rooms. The sun was almost setting, so
Akiva began to knock on the doors of the houses
in the little village. At each house, Akiva asked if
he could spend the night and offered to pay for
his room, but not one family was willing to host him.

(13:39):
Instead of getting upset and feeling bad for himself, Akiva
did what his teacher had taught him to do. He
thanked God and said everything God does is for the
best gamazu litova. He pitched a tent in the nearby
forest where he would spend the night, and he was
totally content. After the sun went down, Akiva lit his

(14:02):
candle and began to study the Bible. But a gust
of wind came out of nowhere and blew the candle
out completely. Akiva had no way to relight the candle,
and now he couldn't continue reading the Bible as he
usually did at night. But Akiva thanked God and said
gom zultova, everything that God does is for the best. Next,

(14:29):
a lion suddenly appeared and ate Akiva's donkey. Now Akiva
had no way to travel and nothing to help him
carry his belongings, but Akiva didn't get angry or anxious.
He thanked God and said everything that God does is

(14:49):
for the best. After that, a hungry cat so Akiva's
rooster and came and ate it up. Now Akiva had
lost all three of his most important possessions, but still
Akiva wasn't upset at all. He thanked God and said,

(15:10):
Gama zoo litva, this too is for the best. The
next morning, Akiva saw how everything that God does really
is for the best. Listen to this. He learned that
during the night, a band of robbers raided that nearby village,
this same village that Akiva had tried to sleep in.

(15:32):
The robbers killed the villagers, stole their possessions, and then
escaped to the nearby forest, the same forest that Akiva
was sleeping in. Had Akiva slept in the village, or
had the robber seen the light of his candle, heard
the neighing of his donkey, or heard the crow of

(15:53):
his rooster, Akiva would have suffered the same awful fate
as those villagers. God has saved Akiva by making the
villagers refuse him lodging, and by getting rid of Akiva's candle, donkey,
and rooster. But indeed, at the end he saw what

(16:15):
he was saying all along was exactly true. Gamzulatova, Everything
God does is for the best. I love this story
and I relate to it all the time in my
life because it's a powerful reminder that we all need
sometimes that even when it seems like everything's going wrong

(16:38):
for us, the reality is that everything is always working
in our favor. It is so empowering to know that
we are never a victim, but always the recipient of
God's abundant kindness and goodness. There's an ancient Jewish teaching
that says one should thank God for the bad just

(17:01):
as he blesses God for the good. In other words,
even the things that seem bad to us are really
for the best, and so we need to thank God
for them, because Gamzulitova that to us for the best.
In Judaism, we have blessings for just about everything, including

(17:25):
for things that seem bad to us. Whenever a person
hears bad news, including the death of a loved one,
the first thing we say is bahruch diane emmet, which
means blessed is the true judge. We recognize that even
though we might perceive what happened as bad, God is

(17:48):
the true judge of what is good and what is bad,
and he runs the world perfectly. Like Rabbi Akiva, we
need a thank God for everything that happens, because even
if we can't understand how, we have to know in
our heart it's all for the best. The rabbis explain

(18:10):
that our world is like a tapestry. Every tapestry has
two sides, the front, where everything is neat and orderly,
in the backside, where threads are cut and tied. Even
though both sides are made with exactly the same threads,
the pictures they produce are completely different. On the front side,
there's a beautiful design. All of the colors and patterns

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come together to produce a beautiful picture. But the other
side is a complete mess. The threads are unruly and
the picture makes no sense. Although there is only one tapestry,
the side you're looking at makes all the difference in
how you see it. Do you see the connection? Do
you get where I'm going with this? In the same

(18:56):
exact way, Our lives and the entire history of mankind
are part of God's magnificent and divine tapestry. In our lifetime,
we only see the backside, the ugly, the chaotic side,
where nothing seems to make sense. But there is another
side to the tapestry that's yet to be revealed. On

(19:20):
that side, nothing is out of place, and every thread
is exactly where it should be. The picture is clear
and perfect, and if we could see it, we would
stand in awe at its beauty and brilliance. As people
of faith, we need to look at the tapestry of
life from the backside and say, I know how it looks.

(19:44):
It's confusing, it's not very pretty, but I know that
on the other side there is a beautiful picture in
the making, and somehow it all makes sense. Somehow, all
these hard things that are happening to me are all
for the best. Gama zou Litova. Most of the time

(20:08):
we don't get to see the front side of the tapestry,
but every once in a while God gives us a
glimpse at it, and those precious moments can strengthen our
faith when all we see is the messy side. Have
you ever had an experience where you couldn't understand what
God was doing, but later on it all made sense.

(20:33):
Can you think of a time in your life when
something that seemed like one of the worst things to
happen to you ended up being one of the greatest blessings.
I want to share with you one more story about
a time when it seemed like the worst thing in
the world happened, but then it became clear that everything
that happened was truly for the best. The story happened

(20:56):
in Israel and was all over the Israeli newspapers. Daniel Cone,
a thirty one year old father of five, was waiting
at a bus stop when he was attacked by a terrorist.
Daniel struggled with the terrorist, but was stabbed multiple times
in his jaw, shoulder, chest, and stomach. Daniel knew that

(21:16):
he was seriously injured, and while he hoped for the best,
he prepared for the worst by praying making peace. The
paramedics brought him to the hospital where he underwent a
four hour emergency surgery, and this is where Daniel's story
gets interesting. During the surgery, the doctors found a life

(21:38):
threatening tumor inside of Daniel's colon. Daniel had noticed some
pain in that area for days, but he didn't have
the time to deal with it. He rationalized the pain,
not knowing that he was in great danger, and he
ignored it. The doctors only found the growth because of
the surgery that Daniel needed following the terror attack. Since

(22:00):
they found the dangerous growth, they were able to remove
it and save Daniel from what might have otherwise killed him.
When Daniel woke up from the surgery and learned what
had happened, he said, the terror attack I underwent saved
my life. The Creator brought me this operation in order
to save my life. In the end, what looked like

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Daniel's worst day at first became his best day. What
looked like an end to his life actually saved his life.
Like Ballam, at first, it seemed to Daniel like God
has sent his angel of death, but in reality God
had done just the opposite. He sent an angel of

(22:44):
mercy to save Daniel's life. And like Daniel, we also
go through extremely painful and difficult times, but ultimately they
too are for our very best. Now I've learned firsthand
that it's not always easy to remember that everything is
for the best, especially when it feels like we are

(23:05):
going through the worst. This is why in the Jewish
faith we remind ourselves twice a day when we say
the Shemah prayer that no matter what happens, the Lord,
our God, the Lord is one. We remember that everything
comes from God and so everything must be for our

(23:28):
greatest good. And we can all create reminders and habits
that remind us that everything is for our greatest good.
When something doesn't go your way, can you make it
a habit to say, as Rabbi Akiva said, Gamazulaitova, This
too is for the best. When it seems like God
is blocking your way like he blocked Baalam, can you

(23:50):
remember that God will send his angels to keep you
from what might otherwise harm you. You can also try
keeping a journal of the stories in your own life.
We're like toaniel you were able to see how it
seemed like something bad turned out to be good for you.
Or maybe you can add a reminder in your daily
prayers by saying the Shimah prayer or a different Bible

(24:14):
verse or words of your own that inspire you that
help you approach each day with the perspective that everything
is from God and everything is good. When we have
faith that everything that God does is good, we will
eventually see God's goodness manifest in everything in our lives.

(24:39):
In Isaiah fifty five nine, God says, as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
We can't understand God's ways, but we can know, beyond
the shadow of it out that His ways are good.
This week, every time something seems to not go your way,

(25:03):
instead of getting upset or complaining, thank God tell him
thank you. You can say thank you Lord that I'm
stuck in traffic, or to say thank you God that
my child is really trying my patience. You can also
say thank you God that I forgot my wallet at home.

(25:24):
Nothing too big, nothing too little. To declare our faith
in one God, the God of good. The more we
praise God for the good and the bad, the more
we will see that it's really all good. Chevoaev my friends,
have a wonderful week from here in the Holy Land.

(25:49):
Thank you for listening to the Nourish Your Biblical Roots podcast.
If you like what you have heard, visit me at
my biblicalroots dot org for my teachings, videos, blogs and books.
You can also follow me on Instagram at yah Elle
underscore Xtein or on Facebook at yeah l Xtein. Chalom

(26:12):
and see you next week.