April 24

OT – Judges 2:10-3:31
Rashi makes the statement that it was not the fault of the generation who grew up not knowing the Lord. It was their PARENTS’ sin. Which is why the Lord did not kill them as he killed some of the idol worshippers during the time of Moses. It is the first duty of Jewish parents to do what? Teach the Shema to their children: Deuteronomy 6:4-9
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

But the Children of Israel did not do that and so they fell into idol worship – specifically of Baal and Asteroth. I will talk more about them in a few days.
Today, I want to talk about Judge #2 – Ehud.
Ehud, the scriptures tell us, was left-handed. Being left-handed in a Semitic culture is a huge problem. Children who use their left hand over the right, were routinely bound so that the left was unavailable. If that was ineffectual, there was always the beating route. Left-handedness was associated not only with uncleanliness but also shiftiness, non-trustworthiness. You wanted to be on the ‘right side’ of the king. That was the top spot.
The bottom line reason for this is the lack of water. Cleansing after a bowel movement was done with the left hand. And so it became truly unclean. Since water was a scarcity in this part of the world, it was a true problem. Even today, left-handedness is an undesirable trait and children are ‘discouraged’ from using the left.
Ehud, however it happened, escaped the ‘bounds’ of childhood with his handedness intact. This allowed him to use his left hand to stab the king of Moab mortally. The scriptures say the king was so obese, the fat closed in around the hilt. After killing the king, Ehud escaped with subterfuge and routed the Moabites. The peace lasted 80 years. Ehud, the left-handed, was STRONG!

NT – Luke 22:14-34
Oh, oh, oh, my heart always turns on that little verse: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.”
My mother had a sifter that we used to sift the flour before we baked. (Here is an admission of how very far I have fallen from my mother’s teachings. I DO NOT EVEN OWN A SIFTER. I bake all the time.)
We always used bleached White Lily flour except for the pound cakes which used Swan’s Down cake flour.
Occasionally, we would find a rock or husk in the flour. Maybe the odd looking hard stuff. But not normally. This is not the type of sifting that Jesus is talking about.
Jesus is talking about the threshing of the wheat from the stalks. You literally beat the stalks until the wheat kernels are released from the stalks. Then you take pitchforks and throw the stalks into a fire. The leftover wheat kernels are pounded again, to release the chaff. Then the pile is placed in huge baskets with small slotted holes and the wheat is tossed into the air. The chaff is blown away and the wheat is kept back.
Sifting involves beating, burning, pounding and throwing away. No one was going to bake a cake for Peter. *He* was the wheat kernel.



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Proverbs 14:1-2
The Wise Woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears hers down.
This is from Rashi:
“In truth, the oneness of the house is more dependent on the mother than on the father. A wise mother can, if her husband be dead or neglectful of his duty, always keep the house together; but if the house-wife has neither understanding nor good-will for her calling, then the best will of the house-father cannot hinder the dissolution of the house, prudence and patience only conceal and mitigate the process of dissolution - folly, viz., of the house-wife, always becomes more and more, according to the degree in which this is a caricature of her calling, the ruin of the house. “
Selah