We have been asked by numbers of people if we had any video of the Shabbat Morning Service to accompany our Shabbat Siddur, Tehillot HaMashiach. We decided to put one together, just to give those of you who are interested an idea of how we conduct our Shabbat Morning Service. This 45 minute video, on DVD, combines video clips from several of our services to help give a general sense of what a Shabbat Morning Service looks like. Coordinated with page numbers from our Shabbat Siddur, this video will introduce you to some of the liturgical melodies we incorporate in our service, including the Shema, Amidah, and others. We also put together a short trailer to give you an idea of what the DVD contains.
Click here to see the short trailer.

Cost: $10 plus s/h • Click here to purchase and Enter Discount Code Disc408 to receive 15% off this month

Having completed our online Yeshiva class, "The Biblical Doctrine of Salvation" (taught by Tim Hegg), we are now able to offer the complete Syllabus (130 pages) and Audio recordings (on CD in mp3 format) of the 16 class sessions. Beginning in Genesis and the fall of mankind into sin, this study of the central theme of the Scriptures seeks to answer the question, "How does a righteous God save sinners?" This course is an introduction to the field of theology called "Soteriology," and incorporates a study of the covenants (Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New), showing how God revealed His plan of salvation through them. All of the major topics dealing with salvation are covered: depravity, divine election, divine calling, regeneration, atonement, redemption/deliverance, reconciliation, justification, and sanctification.

Syllabus & Audio CD – $35 plus s/h Enter Discount Code Disc408 to receive 15% off this month (good only on the purchase of the complete Syllabus & Audio CD)
Syllabus alone (no Audio CD) – $30 plus s/h
Audio CD alone (no Syllabus) – $10 plus s/h

The Letter Writer – Tim is still working on the edits for a second printing of his book The Letter Writer. While making minor corrections and updates in the text, he is also making completely new indexes which should enhance the overall usability of the book. We hope to have it to the printers soon.

Shabbat Siddur – We have obtained price quotes from various printing firms for printing our Shabbat Siddur, Tehillot HaMashiach (Praises of the Messiah) in a hard-cover edition. We will be moving forward on this project and plan to have this to the printer sometime in May. We hope to have the hard-cover edition available by June or July.

New Web Host – In the past months we have been experiencing some problems with the web servers that house our site. Primarily the problem has been latency (overall slowness), and particularly in the Forums. As a result, we started looking at other alternatives and decided to begin moving our site, including the Forums, to a new web host. We apologize for the fact that our site and our online store has been "up and down" during the past week or so, as we are still working to rebuild the site completely. As we do rebuild the site, we are also rebuilding databases to streamline their workability for greater overall speed of the site. By the time you receive this Newsletter, we should have the site fully rebuilt on new web servers, and hopefully (bezrat HaShem – "with the help of HaShem") this will enhance the overall speed and reliability of our website, especially the Forums. Thanks for your patience in this endeavor!

Other projects we hope to complete in the near future are:

1. Publishing Tim's notes on the Torah – these are notes, thoughts, and commentary compiled over the past 12 years on each of the Torah parashot, following the triennial cycle of Shabbat Torah readings. We plan to publish these in five volumes.
2. Editing and publishing A Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Galatians – Besides editing the written commentary, we plan to edit the audio recordings (57 sessions) of Tim's teaching through Galatians, editing out unnecessary class discussion and enhancing the recordings for better audio clarity.
3. Publishing our Daily Siddur – We are still working on our Daily Siddur to accompany our Shabbat Siddur. We have the Daily Morning Service complete now, and are working on the Minchah (afternoon) and Ma'ariv (evening) services. We still do not have a projected date for when the Daily Siddur will be ready, but we are making progress.
4. Editing and publishing Tim's Commentary on The Epistle to the Hebrews – Many of you have asked for material on "The Epistle to the Hebrews." Unfortunately, there are very few commentaries written from a Messianic Perspective on this important book of the Apostolic Scriptures. So we have decided to edit and update the commentary Tim wrote nearly 15 years ago in order to make it available to the wider messianic community.

This week is our final week of preparation as we anticipate celebrating Pesach and Chag HaMatzot (Festival of Unleavened Bread). There are always many questions about what exactly constitutes chameitz (leaven) as we rid our homes and shelves of that which is prohibited during the festival. I have put together a short study on what leaven is and what it is not. Perhaps this will help you as you do your final house cleaning in preparation for the Festival.

Pesach & Leaven – A Short Study (pdf format) - click to download

Please understand that this short study is just one approach to the question of what constitutes "leaven." If you are part of a local congregation or synagogue, be sure to follow the halachah set down by the leaders of your community.

The Passover Seder, which opens the Pesach Festival, is held in the evening of the 14th of Nisan, that is, as the day is coming to an end. This year, however, the 14th of Nisan falls on a weekly Shabbat, which raises a number of questions. First, how can we celebrate the weekly Shabbat with traditional Challah (Shabbat bread) when by the evening of the 13th of Nisan (i.e., Friday evening this year) all of the leaven in our homes is to be gone? A number of solutions have been suggested by the Sages down through the ages, but the one that makes the most sense is simply to use Matzah for the erev Shabbat meal. Some people will use egg Matzah for the erev Shabbat meal in order to distinguish it from the plain Matzah that many use throughout the week of Passover. But what about preparing the food for the Seder meal? How can we do this on Shabbat? Actually, Exodus 12:16 gives us the answer: "On the first day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be prepared by you." This is speaking directly of the Festival Sabbaths, that is, the first and last days of Unleavened Bread. But we may make an analogy from this: if it is allowed to prepare food on the Festival Sabbaths, then by extention, it would likewise be permissible to prepare the food of the Festival on the weekly Shabbat. However, we should try to do the majority of preparation before the Sabbath and leave only the final preparations for the Seder to be done on the afternoon of the weekly Shabbat.

Second, how are we suppose to end the Shabbat (Havdalah) and then begin the Pesach Festival with the traditional lighting of candles? Since the Shabbat is ending quite late by now, does this mean that we won't be able to start our Seder until well after 8:00pm, since we do not kindle a fire on the Shabbat? Here are some suggestions: 1) Nothing in the Torah indicates that the Shabbat has to be concluded before the Passover meal can begin. 2) Since it is a rabbinic tradition to light the Havdalah candle at the conclusion of Shabbat, and to light candles at the beginning of the Yom Tov (Festival), these can be postponed until later. For instance, why not insert into the Seder (after the sun has set) the Havdalah ceremony followed by the lighting of the candles to mark the beginning of Pesach/Chag HaMatzot? Since these ceremonies are a matter of tradition and not biblical commandment, there is flexibility as to their observance.

Finally, in the midst of all of our preparations, such as removing the leaven from our homes, getting everything ready for our Seder, and so forth, we should not forget other very important aspects of this wonderful festival time. Foremost in this regard is the fact that our celebration of Pesach has not only our deliverance from the slavery of Egypt in view, but also our salvation from the penalty and slavery of sin. Yeshua our Messiah was slain as our Pesach Lamb, and it is by His blood that we have been set free. All too often we speak of this as merely a theological fact rather than the life changing reality that it is. Celebrating Pesach should surely cause us to reflect more deeply upon the greatness of our salvation. Second, removing the leaven from our homes should be a very obvious reminder to examine our own lives to see where leaven (here, a symbol of sin, cf. Matt 16:6) remains. Making a full examination of our own lives (cf. 2Cor 13:5), turning away from unrighteousness, and seeking to submit to HaShem's righteous standards is surely one of the most important emphases of this Festival. Third, we should recognize the high value of the liberty we have in Yeshua. If the glory of HaShem was seen in our miraculous deliverance from Egypt, how much more is His glory, love, and power seen in bringing about our eternal redemption!

This emphasis upon a personal recommitment to cleanse our hearts before HaShem is the point of Paul's words in 1Corinthians 5. As he writes to the Corinthian believers, he is aware that an egregious sin has taken place within their community, a sin of immorality. Apparently they had tolerated this sin and allowed the transgressor to remain among them without dealing with the situation. Like a pinch of leaven, which when added to the dough leavens all of it, so the presence of sin within their community threatened to defile others: "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?" (1Cor 5:6). But why had the Corinthian congregation allowed this to happen? Why had they tolerated such sin without dealing with it? Paul gives us the reason: "Your boasting is not good" (v. 6). In what were they boasting? Apparently they were proud of how open and accepting they were—how their toleration was an expression of their love. But tolerating sin is actually no expression of love at all. And this is Paul's point. Helping each other obey God and live according to His commandments is, in fact, a true expression of love. The soon approaching Festival of Pesach therefore lent itself as a fitting metaphor. Even as God commands us to separate between what is leaven and what is not, and to banish all leaven during the Festival, so we are to distinguish between what pleases God and what does not; between what is righteous and what is unrighteous. Thus, in the next verse (v. 7) Paul writes: "Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened." Those who are born from above are truly characterized by lives that have been transformed—made new, as Paul writes in v. 17: "Therefore if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." And what is the basis for having the old taken away and being made new? He tells us in the final phrase of v. 7: "For Messiah our Passover also has been sacrificed." This reminds us that the death of Messiah did not make salvation possible, but made it inevitable. All of those who died with Him have likewise risen with Him to newness of life (Rom 6:4). Paul therefore concludes the paragraph this way (v. 8): "Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." The fact that he speaks of "the Feast" makes it clear that he has Pesach in mind. As the Corinthians prepared to celebrate Passover, Paul reminds them that cleaning the heart of leaven is all important. The same is true for us. If we only clean our homes of leaven and fail to do the hard work of ridding our hearts of leaven, we miss an all important point. But as we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1Jn 1:9).

May this Pesach celebration, therefore, be marked by our renewed commitment to live out who we truly are in Yeshua—to be lights in a dark world, lights that point to the glory, majesty, and love of God expressed in His Son, our Messiah. Chag S'meiach!