O Lord, Who are my power and my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble, to You nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Only LIES have our fathers handed down to us, emptiness in which there is nothing of any avail! (Jeremiah 16:19)
Fake News is not just a problem for our generation. The prophet Jeremiah is warning the people of the nations of a future time when they will realize the hollowness of their spiritual inheritance. Lies and false belief systems have restricted our power to make the right decisions about the identity of the Creator and what He expects from each one of us. The lies have prevented us from having the accurate and relevant information needed to make the true judgements.
So said the Lord of Hosts: In those days, when ten men of all the languages of the nations shall take hold of the skirt of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” (Zechariah 8:23)
The prophet Zechariah is foretelling of the day when Jews will fulfill their mission to be a light to the nations. All creatures who walk the earth will recognize and know who to turn to for the truth. The Torah has been preserved for the day when the nations would take hold of it .
The praises of a man are that he did not follow the counsel of the wicked, neither did he stand in the way of sinners nor sit in the company of scorners.
But his desire is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. :
He shall be as a tree planted beside rivulets of water, which brings forth its fruit in its season, and its leaves do not wilt; and whatever he does prospers. :
Not so the wicked, but [they are] like chaff that the wind drives away
(Psalm 1)
Your righteousness is perpetual righteousness, and Your Torah is true. Psalm(119:142)
Throughout the psalms , King David praises God’s Torah given at Sinai. He says Torah is the way of the righteous. It is the truth and the light. It brings life. It is for all generations.
Someone who disconnects from G-d’s Torah is defined as “wicked” (Psalm 1, Psalm 119)
This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.
(Jeremiah 9:23,24)
Our greatest goal should be to recognize -(acknowledge, ,confess, own, realize, be aware of, perceive, discern, appreciate) Almighty G-d.
“I am the L‑rd your G‑d, who took you out of Egypt, out of the land of bondage.” (Exodus 20:2)
G-d revealed Himself in a big way so that everyone could recognize and know Him.
Even though Western society typically associates religion with believing and having “blind faith”, the Torah obligates us to recognize and know.
Moses told his father in law about all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians on account of Israel, and about all the hardships that had befallen them on the way, and that the Lord had saved them. Jethro was happy about all the good that the Lord had done for Israel, that He had rescued them from the hands of the Egyptians. (Exodus 18:8)
Torah defines salvation as- When Israel is saved from her political enemies.
And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘So said the Lord, “My firstborn son is Israel.” ‘
So I say to you, ‘Send out My son so that he will worship Me. (Exodus 4:22)
Torah defines “son of God” as all of Israel. A large portion of the non-Jewish world worships an individual Jew, whom it calls “the son of God”.
Thereupon, Jethro said, “Blessed is the Lord, Who has rescued you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hand of Pharaoh, Who has rescued the people from beneath the hand of the Egyptians. יַּ֣
Now I KNOW that the Lord is greater than all the deities, for with the thing that they plotted, He came upon
them.” (Exodus 18:11)
Jethro came from the nations and attached himself to Israel’s narrative. He rejoiced in the salvation of God’s firstborn son. He recognized the God of Israel and renounced his former idols. Jethro offered aid to Israel and he was rewarded by having a Torah portion named after him.
I have seen the superiority of wisdom over foolishness.” (Ecclesiastes 2:13)
The greatest wisdom is that which only comes about as a product of having rejected its opposite. The fact that Jethro says, “Now I know,” indicates that there had been a time when he did not know.
Only after a lifetime of trial and error, did Jethro come to recognize and know the G-d of Israel.
It is thus written, “Things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deut. 29:38).
Just as God Himself does not change, so the Torah which is His eternal testimony to Israel, cannot be changed.
Moses thus said, “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor shall you subtract from it; you must keep the commandments of God your Lord, which I command you” (Deut. 4:2).
The Torah scrolls that we have today are exactly the same as the Torah given to Moses by God.
“Because he has despised God’s word… his soul shall be utterly cut off; his sin shall remain upon him” (Numbers 15:31).
A person who denies the divine origin of even a single word or variant spelling or reading in the Torah is considered a nonbeliever who has no portion in the World to Come.