Revealed Secrets

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Well, the Jewish people have returned home to their ancient homeland and are working

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hard to uncover artifacts left over from the biblical time period.

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One such find is so exciting and it confirms a story we just read in Deuteronomy.

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But you know, the Bible itself is full of hidden gems of wisdom that if we just care

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enough to spend time in its pages and dig a little deeper, we also will uncover hidden

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gems and be blessed.

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Moses told the people that the secret things belong to the Lord, but what he has revealed

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to us is to be cherished and passed on to others.

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So welcome to this week's Shabbat Shalom devotional, when I seek to share a little inspiration

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and bring a little piece to the close of your very busy week.

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This week's Torah portion, we're going to cover two weeks' worth from Deuteronomy 29

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through 32.

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This is because next week we're going to begin talking about the fall feast of Israel.

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But before we get started in today's reading portion, I do want to talk about something

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from last week's reading.

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You know, the Jewish people love the Bible and they are working so hard to uncover archaeological

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remains from the stories that are contained in the Bible.

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And they have found many artifacts from the Second Temple period, which is the time of

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the ministry of Jesus.

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And as they dug deeper, they then uncovered a good number of things from the First Temple

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period.

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And they've kept digging even deeper.

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And they're finding things from even older time periods.

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Now I love it when they uncover something from the time of the conquest of the land.

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That's 3,250 years ago and more.

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And there's not a lot of remains left from that time.

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So when they find something, I find it particularly exciting.

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And that's one recent find.

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They found it on the top of Mount Ebal, which corresponds beautifully to the story that we've

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read last week in Deuteronomy 27, where Moses instructed the 12 tribes that after they enter

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the land, they were to go to this area and divide into two groups, one on Mount Gerizim,

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the mountain of blessing, and one on Mount Ebal, the mountain of cursing.

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And from there, they were to recite the blessings and the curses found in God's covenant with

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them.

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Well, some years ago, an archaeologist claimed that he found the altar of Joshua that had

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been built on the top of Mount Ebal.

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They found other things.

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And one was a little lead amulet.

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An amulet is something that, like what we would call a locket today, where you open

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up the locket and inside you may see a couple of pictures or a little poem or something.

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They had this thousands of years ago.

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And in their amulet, they had found, sometimes writing, scripture verses.

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And in this one, though, was so old and so fragile, they couldn't open it up to see what

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was inside.

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And now, through the advanced x-ray imaging technology that's available, they were finally

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able to x-ray and see what was written inside this little lead amulet.

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And it was the following words.

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It says, you are cursed by the God Yahweh.

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Cursed, you will die.

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Cursed, you will surely die.

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Now this sounds like very bad, right?

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It's a curse.

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But that's exactly what they were supposed to recite from Mount Ebal was the curses

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that would be on the people if they disobeyed the law.

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And here they find a written curse.

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You know, the other astounding thing about this find is that it had the name of God in

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it, what we call the tetragrammaton, the Y-H-W-H.

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We try to pronounce it.

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We don't know how it's pronounced.

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And to the Jewish people, they avoid pronouncing that name.

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But it's the oldest known written script of the name of God, which proved the Israelite

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worship of that God way back then.

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I think that's so astounding.

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So now let's move on to this week.

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Moses tells the people to accept the terms of the covenant that he has presented to them.

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And then he says this very interesting thing in Deuteronomy 29, 29.

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The secret things belong to the Lord our God.

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But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.

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That we may do all the words of this law.

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So I'm just going to close with one lesson this week, one life lesson, is that we don't

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know it all.

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There are some secret things that God has reserved as secret and only he knows them.

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When you and I were young, we thought we knew it all, didn't we?

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The older we get, the more experienced we are, the more we see, we realize how little

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we actually know.

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So the important thing isn't what we don't know.

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And there will always be things we don't know and don't understand.

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What's important is what God has revealed to us because we are responsible for that,

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to cherish it, to pass it on to our children, to future generations, to pass it on to others.

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So the Bible doesn't tell us everything we need to know, but it does tell us a lot.

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And God gave it to us.

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So if we are not reading it and learning from it, then we are at fault.

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We are to cherish it and to pass it on to others.

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No excuses.

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It doesn't matter what we don't know.

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Or the secret things that God has chosen not to reveal, you are responsible to cherish

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and nurture that which he has given to you and pass it on.

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And with that, I wish you Shabbat Shalom.