I’m sitting here staring at my screen.  Writing feels a bit like blood letting. Yet, my brain is totally full and I have no idea where to begin, which string to pull first so the dam will beak.

For weeks, months even, I have been pondering the many facets of the restoration of kol Israel. One might call it a minor obsession because it is where my thoughts go when nothing else pressing is at the forefront.  Among those thoughts, I have been juggling the hot potatoes that few have the courage to touch, subjects that draw extreme ire and irrational unbiblical pushback. Post titles float across my mind, titles like Feminism and the Destruction of Western Culture, or Patriarchy, God’s Solution that Everybody Hates, or Where have all the Men Gone and Why don’t they Care?

Most whom I have conversations with concerning the restoration of Israel, the return of the whole House of Israel and what it will look like, have a lilting dreamy character to their voice until they understand that to be successful, we must divorce ourselves from Western Greek influences.  It is one thing for most to erase Christmas or Easter and the many unbiblical elements absorbed from the nations, but it is another matter entirely to realize that future Israel will not be some egalitarian representative republic.

Do we honestly think the Messiah will administer a Torah that does not adhere to the gender roles it defines?  Have we really read and pondered what the Torah actually says concerning the authority and responsibility a father has over his daughter or a husband over his wife?  Or, do we errantly think, as Western culture does, that we are more enlightened and have evolved beyond those rules and that (backward) culture?  Really?!  And, this is about where I have to put on the flame retardant suit.

The blame and the shame of it all begins with the men. And, speaking of men, where are they? In most places and most circles, entirely absent. If not in body, they are in mind.  And, standing up in their God-given role as leaders and headship at home is a rarity. This is a subject I need to tackle, too!  (Along with the whole resulting MGTOW movement…)

Women share the blame.  The same lie that Chava heeded in Gan Eden is the lie absorbed today, ‘Has God said?’  In fact, men and women commit the same sins…  Adam was not the head and did not take responsibility while Eve listened and followed voices other than the only one she was to obey.

If we are to truly walk as kol Israel, will restoration not need to begin at the family level with proper headship and followership roles? Do we really think we can carry the baggage of Western ‘enlightenment’ with us? Do we dare to research and reject the roots of thought processes that originate outside of the Torah and are opposed to God’s order?

Everything you just read was written and then lost in the abyss of unpublished drafts about a year ago. Resurrected yesterday while searching for something else, I am encouraged that the fire in my gut burns more hotly today than it did then. And, I am encouraged that indeed many of those ‘threads’ referred to in the first paragraph have indeed been pulled and shared here and elsewhere. Most encouraging is the number of men and women who I have encountered or begun to work closely with who share this same vision, each coming to this place separately, but now being woven together as a broader voice. Clearly, Yah is doing something that is amazing.

This morning, as I read Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, I was struck by a quote that should challenge every reader. This should set us on fire to evaluate our lives in the light of a burning planet.

[A point in a list of challenges to men and women]

That you develop a wartime mentality and lifestyle; that you never forget that life is short, that billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, food, hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for [Messiah] with all your might and maximizing your joy in ministry to people’s needs.

Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, p.57

Do we have a wartime mentality and lifestyle? Are we willing to pay the price, make personal sacrifice, lay our lives down, as it were, for the sake of the restoration of kol Israel? Are we so worried about what others will think? Do we not understand that the only path to the Promised Land, and thereby restoration, runs through the wilderness?

Dear brothers and sisters, it is time to get serious. The time of fishing is over, the hunters are coming. (Jer. 16:16) Cry out to the living Elohim and ask for Him to open your eyes and ears. Plead for Him to show you what you need to be doing, and then do it. Stop negotiating the price or setting limits on what you will allow Him to change in you.

A final note… and this deserves its own post, but I’ll preview it here… I was reading a draft paper a friend sent on a difficult subject and he quoted the first half of Leviticus 18. As I read the first five verses, bells and whistles were going off in my head. I had just read the draft of this post affirming that we do not get to take Western culture with us when we return to the Land. Read these verses and note what you do get to take and what you do.not.get.to.take:

18 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘I am the Lord your God. ³ You shall not do according to the deed that is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do according to the deed that is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. ⁴ You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to walk in accord with them; I am the Lord your God. ⁵ So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord

Lev. 18:1-5

LIFE is contingent upon walking in Yah’s statutes, not those of Egypt or Canaan.

May you seek Him with your whole heart and come into complete submission to His ways and will. Your survival depends on it. So does the restoration of kol Israel.

Shalom!