Subject: [ETI Informal pdf 1AD.02.01.31] A Grapevine Grows in Tzfat - A Message of Hope
From: "James@End Time Issues" <[email-masked]>
To: "Lists@ End Time Issues" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 09:07:31 +0200

Greetings

In September last year, shortly after the destruction of the Twin Towers i received the following email.

This morning, while before Yah, He reminded me of it and asked me to sent it to the list as a change of pace from the relatively heavy messages of recent weeks and ALSO as "a message of hope" (Yah's words").

>>> FORWARD BEGINS <<<
A GRAPEVINE GROWS IN TZFAT
By Avi Davis September 17, 2001 

As we head into the Jewish New Year, many of us, no matter where we live, bear a sense that the world we have known is gone.

It was a world, which was a stable, vital, and protected pocket of civilization, a world of certainties built on the assumption of American hegemony and invulnerability. Those of us who grew up as children in the 60s and have never known the devastation of an attack on a city, can now only look back sadly on our innocence as something out of a dream.

The questions that force themselves upon us, fog our worldview: How can we have imagined that we were immune? What kind of complacency gave us the right to consider ourselves outside the current of history?

Indeed, life now seems to be divided into the pre-bombing and post-bombing eras, much as an earlier generation had their lives divided between Pearl Harbor and everything thereafter. Perhaps it is unfair to repeat, but the terrorist incursion into our lives did not end with the assaults on Washington and New York. The terrorist arsenals are, in fact, loaded with far more deadly forms of attack, responses for which we may be woefully unprepared.

But while we may all harbor fears for the future, it is worthwhile to remember that it is not always weaponry or even deterrence that protects a population or wins wars. During the Blitz of London, as the city looked likely to be pulverized into dust, CBS announcer Edward Murrow asked one of the residents of a heavily bombed area of East London how he kept going. The Londoner answered with typical cockney buoyance: "I look out the window and there's still flowers growin' in me backyard." 

I couldn't help thinking of those words during my recent visit to Israel.

On a stopover in the Old City of Tzfat, where we own a home, I looked into our courtyard and noticed something I never thought I would see again. Four years earlier, a grapevine that had stood in that courtyard for five hundred years and had produced some of the city's sweetest grapes, had been inadvertently uprooted and cemented over during renovations.

When I found out, I was furious but there was nothing I could do. It was gone. The next year I returned to Tzfat and noticed what looked like a small weed sprouting from within cracks where the grapevine had once stood. As I bent down to uproot it, a friend stayed my hand and said: "Don't. You are being given a message." 

He was right. A year later, I returned to see that a new shoot of the grapevine had emerged. A year after that, the stalk had turned into a trunk. At the end of August this year, we harvested one of the most bounteous crops of grapes ever seen in the Old City. 

On that night, I shared Shabbat with old friends and their seven children. I had admired them for years and they had become something of role models.

Thirty years before, the father had bought a ruin in the Old City and rebuilt it with his own hands. Through doggedness and commitment he had raised a family and in the process introduced hundreds of young Jews to the beauty of their heritage. But two years earlier this family had been in crisis. The two oldest boys, teenagers who had been raised in a national religious household, had dropped out of school, and seemed to be uninterested in further education, Judaism or military training. The third boy was showing signs of following the same pattern. I could see the hurt in my friend's eyes, but in his typically resourceful way, he carried on with life. 

I was therefore surprised, upon my arrival, to find the two younger boys, bronzed and full of strength and vitality, helping their father to add a new story to the house. As I climbed down from the roof, I met the oldest boy who was now married, wearing a kippa and a sergeant in one of the IDF's most elite units. His brother was training to be a navy seal. 

That night, as we sat around the Shabbat table, I thought about the quiet coincidences that interlock to form our experiences. We shared the grapes from my courtyard and I remembered the vital young men sitting across from me as little boys, clambering on stools and ladders to help me harvest. When I tasted the sweetness of the grapes, I wondered how many other times would I have the opportunity to witness such powerful examples of hope and renewal. 

Last week's terrorist bombings coincided exactly with the 30th anniversary of my own bar-mitzvah. When I remember that day I still feel a pang of sadness since my grandfather, who had dreamed of the day his oldest grandson would be called to the Torah, had died suddenly before it took place. Now as I sat before the television screen and watched the collapse of not just buildings but part of my own world, I recalled some of the rabbi's words spoken to me on that day: 

"Don't think that anyone has taken away your grandfather's dreams. Live to fulfill them through Judaism and the words Chadesh Yameinu Kekedem - 'Renew us, as in days of old' - will guide you through life." 

May we all merit such renewal and live to see our own shoots cracking through the concrete - reclaiming for us the tree of life that is our privilege and our heritage. 

Shana Tovah.

>>> FORWARD ENDS <<<

Yah says that "even as this grape vine was cut down to the ground that it appeared that it no longer existed, so shall the body of true believers, the "remnant" be cut down in the days ahead.

"However, as this grape vine broke through the concrete and flourished, so shall the body of true believers break through the oppression and destruction of these days and will again flourish and bear fruit on the earth."

All readers are encouraged to draw as close as possible to Yah and to Yahshua, to the very ROOT of the vine, for that is where the place of safety, survival and renewal is.

Those branches that seek to be about in the wind and sun of this world in these days shall surely be destroyed by the turmoil and destruction in the SPIRIT REALM that is even now upon the earth, those that turn to Yah in His most SECRET PLACE 

Psalm 27:4-6

4 One thing I have desired of Yah, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of Yah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Yah, and to inquire in His temple. 5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle he shall hide me; he shall set me high upon a rock. 6 And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to Yah." (NKJ, Names adjusted)

Psalm 31:19-21

19 Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You in the presence of the sons of men! 20 You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the plots of man; you shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. 21 Blessed be Yah, for He has shown me His marvelous kindness in a strong city!" (NKJ, Names Adjusted)

Please notice that this ONLY applies to those who fear (reverence, esteem, adore, obey, etc) Yah and who trust in Him.

It does NOT apply to those who walk in presumption, used names of their choosing, hold doctrines which they are comfortable with, etc.

There IS an ENORMOUS REWARD and a COMMENSURATE PRICE! :)

That price is set out in Deuteronomy 4:29 ""But from there you will seek Yah your Mighty One, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." (NKJ, Names adjusted)

Confirmed by Yahshua in Matthew 22:37-40
37 Yahshua said to him," 'You shall chesed [covenant love] Yah your Mighty One with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 "This is the first and great commandment. 39 "And the second is like it: 'You shall chesed {love} your neighbor as yourself.' 40 "On these two commandments hang all the Torah and the Prophets." (NKJ, Names adjusted)

IF we will do this, THEN the promises of the covenant apply in full!

Psalm 91:1-16
1 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of Yah, "He is my refuge and my fortress; my Mighty One, in Him I will trust."
3 Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence.
4 He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; his truth shall be your shield and buckler.
5 You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day,
6 Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you.
8 Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked.
9 Because you have made Yah, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place,
10 No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;
11 For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.
12 In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.
13 You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot.
14 "Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.
15 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation." (NKJ)

Notice the last phrase "show him My [Yah's] Salvation"

The word salvation is 3444  yeshuw` ah- salvation, deliverance  a) welfare, prosperity b) deliverance c) salvation (by Yah) d) victory (Brown, Driver, Briggs)

In other words "show him My Yahshua"

This is the REAL reason why we need to use the correct names Yah, Yahshua, etc - suddenly the Scriptures come to life in a whole new way! :)

Warm regards and blessings

James Robertson