Tag Archives: Hashem

Do You Hear What I Hear?

October 2, 2023 By in Lightning Juice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I tend to get in the middle of a task and suddenly needing something I can’t reach or forgot to grab in the first place. No problem. My husband, Will, is usually in the house, so I yell for him.

This exact scenario happened the other day, and fortunately, Will called back to ask what I needed thus expressing a willingness to retrieve said item. I told him exactly what I needed and exactly where to find it. The search was on.

I know, because I was the last person to use the item and/or the one who purchased it and placed it where it belonged, that it was exactly where I said it would be. But Will could not find it.

Now, if your home is anything like the Gibson Household, at this point, a conversation bellowed between rooms takes place because why would you walk into the room where the person in need is located? And now stuck in many ways! No help in locating the desperately needed item was forthcoming.

Except for a continued description of the item in the minutest detail shouted across the house in a voice somewhere between panic and rising anger. Quite possibly through clenched teeth.

And then, most unexpectedly and with great enthusiasm, Will’s shout of, “I found it!” rang throughout the house. Sighs of relief were enjoyed all around and life resumed with some sort of normalcy.

Upon parting, however, he made a strange comment. “I couldn’t see it because I expected it to look like that other thing you have.”

What? I described what I needed in precise detail. Slow dawning came. “You weren’t really listening, were you?” At this point, I could allow my annoyance to boil over into anger, but HaShem has taught me to pause and look at the situation because there is usually a lesson involved.

Because Will expected the item to look like something else, he literally could not see what I needed on the shelf in front of him. My verbal description, i.e., what he heard, was useless because his brain saw what he wanted. He was blinded by his expectations.

How many times have we done the same thing with Adonai? We humbly petition for something we need, and when the answer doesn’t arrive looking exactly as we expect, we cannot see it. Or worse, we claim our prayer wasn’t answered.

The same thing applies when reading scripture. Believers claim that HaShem is still speaking to them, but when His words on the page don’t match our image of Adonai based on our religion, doctrine, theology, or traditions, we cast Him, His character, and his Word aside. We’re not hearing, and what’s worse, we’re not listening.

Believers who don’t or won’t listen cannot see what’s right in front of them. They cannot perceive HaShem’s truths. Their spiritual sight weakens because their ears are not listening, and they begin to trust what they see more than what they hear. In short, they aren’t obeying.

Obedience begins with hearing, progresses to listening, and grows into action.

Now don’t hear me say that my husband wasn’t obeying me. The point of this post is not to criticize men or husbands. I turned Adonai’s brilliant insight back on myself and learned that my expectations will be satisfied to their utmost when they look like HaShem’s will for me. I’ll know His will for me when I listen to His Word and act upon it.

Only then will I find Him, only then will I see Him.

Say My Name, Say My Name

June 5, 2023 By in Lightning Juice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After reading this week’s Torah portion, Naso, I continued my studies by reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s essays found in his book series Covenant & Conversation, Numbers: The Wilderness Years. The essay What Counts? discussed the census at the beginning of the book of Numbers, B’midbar in Hebrew.

As always when reading Rabbi Sacks’s works, they are so infused with a passion for Torah and a love of Hashem that I must often remind myself that he passed on. I cannot believe this brilliant man is gone. Fortunately, and with much gratitude to Adonai, the Rabbi’s works live on.

One point Rabbi Sacks made in this essay was the importance of the individual to Hashem. He quoted one of my favorite Psalms (147:4) which says that Adonai “counts the number of the stars and calls them each by name.” He went on to say:

A name is a marker of uniqueness. Collective nouns group things together; proper names distinguish them as individuals. Only what we value do we name. God gives even the stars their names. All the more so does this apply to human beings, on whom He has set His image. When God calls, He calls our name, to which the reply is simply, “Hineni,” “Here I am.”

And that’s when it hit me.

Hebrew is an amazing language with a message for all humanity encoded into the very letters themselves. Learning to read and speak Hebrew will only enhance one’s Biblical studies, so I strongly encourage digging in as soon as possible. But this time, English came through, and not just the words but a smidgeon of punctuation, too.

What first leapt off the page at me was the fact that with the simple addition of a comma, one could render the response, “Here, I am,” or even better, “Here, I AM.” The focus is taken off the person and placed with much respect on Adonai Himself. The reply acknowledges Him by name in the same way a student might say, “Here, Mrs. Smith” when being called on by a teacher or other authority figure.

The second way I saw and understood the reply “Here I am” was as a bridge between myself and our Father, Avinu, who is also our King, Malkeinu. This perspective enabled me to see that while Adonai the King often seems to be over there because He is so vast, there is nothing else, and “in Him we live and move and exist” (CJB), Adonai the Father is also right here because He breathed into humanity, and I am a living soul. In other words, what many call the divine spark resides within me.

It’s as if Adonai said, “There I AM, here I AM, and everywhere in between I AM because where could you possibly go that I AM not?” We are in Hashem, and He is in us. Please do not hear me say that I am in any way equal to Adonai; I am merely a conduit through whom He speaks. But it is because He is in me that I, created in His image, can answer “Here I am” knowing that “here He is.”

Lastly, as Rabbi Sacks mentioned in a footnote included in the passage above, when Hashem calls our name, He often does so twice. It is done as an expression of love, an endearment. My favorite instance of this is when Yeshua spoke Martha’s name twice thus elevating this humble woman to the level of the patriarchs. But that’s a discussion for another time.

May Adonai call on you, and when He does, may you remember to simply say, “Here I am.”

Avinu, Malkeinu

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Sacks, Jonathan. “What Counts?” Numbers, The Wilderness Years, First ed., Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, New Milford, CT, 2017, pp. 76–77.