Day 81

Day 80

Day 79

[Text from image: Be strong and courageous, BUT the people will disobey]

Day 78

[Text from image: When you enter the land God is giving you: Blessings for obedience! Curses for disobedience!]

Day 77

[Text from image: Justice + Generosity = God's law]

Day 75

[Text from image: Set apart as holy]

Day 74

[Text from image: What does God require of you? Only that you fear Him, live to please Him, serve Him with all your heart and soul. Our Reaction: Only? Come on now! There's nothing left! That's all I have! Reality: Oh...right. I keep forgetting there's a lot more in this universe than just me.]

Day 73

[Text from image: Do not forget God]

Day 72

[Text from image: You have heard these commandments before, but I am repeating them so you will REMEMBER and OBEY.]

Day 71

[Text from image: Do not forget how God brought you here.]

Pound for pound (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

So I just recently got back from from a 10 day trip in Israel, so I foresee several Israel related posts in your future.

One of the biggest surprises to me when we traveled around the area is how small the country really is. When I read about it in the Bible, I imagine all these fairy tale landscapes of vast proportions, but in a tour bus it took us about 3 hours to get from the northern tip of Israel to it’s near geographic center in Jerusalem. Statistically among all countries, Israel ranks 97th in population size and and 152nd in land area.

As a display of my nerdy side, today’s picture is a graphical representation of the population sizes of the 15 largest nations in the world (their flags are strung across the rafters) as compared to Israel (in the hand of God). I did some rough calculations to make each flag comparatively as large as it’s population. Israel is basically the size of the tip of one of the stripes in the U.S. flag (in actuality it’s roughly the same land area as New Jersey).

The amazing thing is how successful such a “small” country has been in just 63 years since its formation. Israel’s economy ranks 50th in the world when comparing GDP. It ranks in the top 20 in the Human Development Index (a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living). Israel ranks 4th in the world in scientific activity based on the number of scientific papers per person. Their high-tech industry region has been nicknamed Silicon Wadi (wadi being the Arabic translation for valley) because Israel is second in importance only it’s cousin in California. Israel has produced six Nobel Prize-winning scientists since 2002 (and that’s not including the Jews from other countries). The point that is becoming clear to me is that God is still blessing his people just as he promised in the Old Testament.


If you drive a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport at top speed from the northern most point of Israel to the southern tip (meaning you make the drive in a little over an hour):

Staying Power (Deuteronomy 6:20-23)

It's difficult for me to talk about Pesach (something like PAY-sock), commonly known as/translated to Passover, because I feel so under qualified. The short version is that it's a celebration and remembrance of the Israelites freedom from slavery in Egypt. Of course that's about as descriptive as calling Christmas Jesus' birthday. It is the simplest description yet it barely scratches the surface.

Historically speaking, “pass over” refers to the final plague on Egypt where God killed the first-born of all Egyptians but passed over the Israelites who were unharmed. As part of Pesach there is also the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” (unleavened meaning without yeast which means the bread won't rise creating the flat matzah bread). On that night, the Israelites were instructed to eat with all there stuff packed up and ready to leave the next day. In Exodus 12:39, the bread was without yeast because they got out of Egypt so fast they didn't have time to prepare food for themselves.

I spent a lot of time reading up on all different traditions and customs of Pesach trying to figure out what to write down here. When I took it at face value Pesach was all about the Exodus, but I couldn't help but feel I was missing the big picture. It's hard to overlook the fact in the 3000+ years after they ran out on pharaoh, Jews have had to endure much worse than slavery. If the only example of antisemitism you know of is the Holocaust, you are sadly misinformed. Despite all this hatred, the Jewish culture has survived. This is where I read between the lines to take a stab at an underlying purpose of Pesach. Every part of the festival seems to symbolize endurance in the face of persecution with a focus on passing the knowledge on to the next generation. Although I've never had the pleasure of attending a Pesach seder, second-hand accounts seem to collaborate with my conclusions. I believe Pesach goes beyond the remembrance of a single historical event towards a celebration of Jewish culture as a whole. 

If you knew that the revival of the Hebrew language starting in the 19^th century is the only example of an extinct language becoming an official national language with millions of first language speakers: