Rabbi’s Reflections – Thursday, October 3, 2024
L’Shana Tovah,
Yom Teruah 5785, may you be blessed throughout the year.
Psalms
Psalm 18:26, 27(25,26) – Part 26
Psalm 18:26(25) With the loyal You deal loyally. With the blameless You are blameless. 27 With the pure You are pure, and with the crooked You are shrewd.
Have you heard it said, “What goes around, comes around?” Here are four biblical examples of what that saying means in God’s kingdom. In the first three examples, God becomes to us the identical favorable quality mentioned. This is done to accentuate loyalty, blamelessness, and purity. However; with the “crooked,” it is not so. God doesn’t become crooked. The Hebrew word is transliterated “Tit’patal.”
Let’s unpack that word for a minute. The Shoresh is “Patal”(Pey-Tav-Lamed). It is the same Shoresh as the tribe Naphtali. Genesis 30:7 Then Rachel’s female servant became pregnant again and gave birth to a second son for Jacob. 8 So Rachel said, “I’ve surely wrestled greatly with my sister—also I’ve won.” So she named him Naphtali.
So, while “Patal” is used for wrestling, it comes from “twisting” or “twisted.” (Wrestling is a “twisted struggle.”) Our Tree of Life (TLV) translation uses the word “shrewd,” which is a fair adaptation of the Hebrew word. It can also mean tortuous or perverted. The lesson here is to avoid being crooked.
Aside from the obvious (being crooked is prima-facie a bad idea), we can see the advantages of being “upright” or “straight,” which in Hebrew is “Yashar”(Yud-Shin-Resh). When we are straight with God, He begins a work to straighten every area of our lives. 1Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may lift you up at the appropriate time. And, when God lifts you up, you will be straight straight. Shalom shalom.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
1 Tishrei Thursday 3-Oct-24 Rosh Hashanah I
Genesis 21; Numbers 29:1-6 1 Samuel 1:1-2:10 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18