From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com> Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 03:52:21 +0000 Subject: Hanukkah Booklet On-Line !!
From: "HaY'Did" <shalom@haydid.org> Reply-to: shalom@haydid.org Organization: HaY'Did Learning Center To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com Subject: Hanukkah Booklet On-Line! Dear Mishpachah (family): Happy Holidays! On our website we have the entire 158 pages of our book HANUKKAH: THE LIGHT IS MESSIAH. In it you will find stories, recipes, party ideas, how to light the candles, blessings, and much more! Come to our site and copy the whole book off FREE! Its our Hanukkah gift to you! Another wonderful stop on our site is our "Teaching Articles" section. We have included 5 new articles by Dr. Brad Young of Gospel Research Foundation and a link to his new website at http://www.gospelresearch.org/ so you can learn more about his work. Be sure to bring your three ring binder to our site so you can copy off lots of FREE materials. We love sharing with you and do appreciate hearing from you. Locally we start our Hanukkah parties tonight. Its been very exciting of late as a Jewish believing doctor has found our little synagogue. He got saved about 3 years ago in a Baptist Church, and was a friend of one of our members. How excited he was when he discovered that our services were within the setting of an Orthodox synagogue! We do the prayers in Hebrew and then say them in English right afterwards. He loves the music and the Hebrew folk dancing that we have incorporated into the service, too. As a result he has been sharing sabbath with us and bringing other Jewish friends of his to our sabbath dinners. Our group is growing and soon we hope to have our siddur/prayer book ready to put on our site where you can see what our services are like. He feels right at home now, and is excited about worshipping HIS Jewish Messiah within the framework that it was intended. Funny story: After about three visits to our services, he asked, "So when do you give the altar call for salvation?" I replied, "Are you saved?" He said, "Yes." I said, "So is everyone else that is here. Was there an altar call in your old synagogue?" He replied, "NO!" "Well, we don't need one. We believe in a non-coersive synagogue where people can come and just worship without fear of being converted against their will. As we become friends with people then we are open to discussions about Jesus/Yeshua as the Messiah." And believe me, the discussions do insue! But in the meantime, everyone is fellowshipping and excited about being together. Needless to say, the Jews that are coming to visit us on sabbath feel comfortable with us as we have learned how to cook, and fellowship within their framework. NOW the discussions can begin. Baruch HaShem! We are also working on the next edition of our magazine THE TREE OF LIFE to go out in mid January to our membership. If you are NOT a member, now is the time to consider joining. For your $15 membership support you receive 4 issues of our magazine (cost $8 to produce), a membership packet ($2 just for postage), and the other $5 per member helps keep us online, and cover our other operating expenses. You also receive discounts on books and materials that you may order and discounts at some seminars. Two dates to mark on your calendars: February 7 ---Oklahoma City Conference with Randy Felton and Dr. Doug Wheeler. The information is posted on Potter's Clay website at http://www.haydid.org/potter.htm If you can come, please let Randy know as soon as possible. It is only a one day meeting, but you will enjoy the day. Tom and I plan on being in attendance with a table full of HaY'Did materials. April 3-5, 1998 will be a conference in Tulsa hosted by Dr. Brad Young. Needless to say you don't want to miss this event either as there will be an opportunity to hear the best scholars and meet others of like-mind. Check Brad's website at http://www.gospelresearch.org for more information as it becomes available. We will also keep the newsgroup informed on this information as it becomes available. But if you need to ask for time off from work for a conference, please do so! Now, I would like to share a Hanukkah Testimony that is an excerpt from our book HANUKKAH: THE LIGHT IS MESSIAH: Stories to Share Big Shiny Chocolate Eyes By Grammy Holeman Several years ago when we made the decison to give up Christmas it was culture shock all around. We always had the biggest Christmas tree that we could afford, and one year when I worked for a local plant farm, we had fifty-two poinsettias in the house! Talk about looking like the perfect Christmas around here! The house was full of Christian friends from church and we did it up right. Or did we? One day as I was walking through the house I suddenly came upon the idea that God was going to have priests and kings in The Kingdom, and that it would be a Jewish kingdom---not a Kansas style kingdom. The real shocker was when I realized that the priests and kings probably needed to know something about the Jewish ways in order to enter His Temple. What would the non-Jew have done? What would I have done? Could I just nonchalantly walk through the gates, and cozy right up to the priests and ask, "What are you doing? Can I watch?" So, I cried out very loud that day in my living room, "God, if I'm reading this right, and I need to know something about these Jewish things, could you please send a teacher by to help me?" Within the week, I had found a teacher on television and was off and discovering the rich biblical Hebraic heritage that I had been robbed of all those years of pew sitting. ...And then, the changes started coming! "Oivey!" So, after we "pigged out on Christmas" that one year, I went on a soul search. Over and over again I was seeing new things in the scripture. What would Jesus and his disciples have celebrated and why? Did they do Christmas? I went to the library and looked that one up, and was shocked to find out that Christmas was considered pagan! Pagan? No one had ever discussed "paganism" or "Hellenism" with me in church? So I was off and tracking down the first century pagan practices. I wanted to sit at Yeshua's Feet---not at some gnostic or saturn god's feet. Where was Yeshua in Hanukkah? Then I started putting the pieces together, and our hearts changed towards HIM. He was Yeshua HaMashiach---or Jesus the Messiah. We wanted HIM to feel perfectly comfortable if HE should drop by our house, right? Well, I didn't think a pagan tree in the corner would cause My Savior to rejoice, do you? So, we didn't put one up. Our families felt slighted as our house was not going to have the biggest and best Christmas tree, and they sure weren't willing to listen to "Well, in John 10:22 we see Jesus in the Temple at Hanukkah" routine. So, we decided to go to our daughter's home out of state--in Texas. The most precious thing in our lives is our grandchildren. We wanted to share our findings with them. All grandparents agree that grandchildren are much more fun than their kids ever were, right?Anyway, it's easier to be the Hanukkah authority out of state---or at least it was in our case. My husband and I arrived with the hanukkiah and simple gifts, and a prayer that the son-in-law would go for it, too. The daughter is a real student and had been into our Jewish roots studying as long as I had, but the son-in-law was in the Navy and didn't have much of a Christian upbringing in his past. But when we arrived, he shrugged and said, "Let's give it a shot." Whew! That was a relief! So the daughter, toddlers and Grammy all headed for the store to fill the house with blue and white decorations, buy ingredients for latkes and simple gifts. The scotch tape came out of the drawer and former Christmas lights were now hung from pegs around the walls instead of a tree. The grandson, age 4, and the granddaughter, age 3, had never seen a Christmas tree, so that simplified everything. We didn't know any of the traditional songs, so we invented them! We had found a music tape which helped, but after years of "Here Comes Santa Claus" or "Away in the Manger," it took some relearning on our part to get the toes tapping. The first day of Hanukkah was also my granddaughter's birthday. I had brought out the perfect dress for the perfect granddaughter and whisked the grandkids off to the photo studio for the perfect picture. Daughter is game, and the men are still hanging lights as we go out the door. When we got to the studio the photographer pulled down the typical Christmas tree background, and we were face to face with "it" once again. Daughter looked at me, and I looked at her, and said, "I will be right back." I went home, grabbed the Hanukkiah (Menorah) and nine candles and headed back to the studio where the kids had now topsy-turvied the entire studio! Toys were everywhere, and the photographer looked exasperated. So, I triumphantly pulled out the Hanukkiah. Daughter quickly grabbed the kids and straightened the hairbows, trousers, and tie while the photographer quickly asked which background did we want? We chose just a plain blue one, and set the hanukkiah up in front of the kids.The grandchildren smiled sweetly, and finally the photographer shot the perfect Hanukkah picture. As we were finishing the session, I looked down at my granddaughter. I thought that these eyes looked especially trusting today. Then it dawned on me that her eyes were a particular color of brown---chocolate! Lori looked at me with those big chocolate eyes and trusted me to tell her the truth about Her God and her life, and not to lie to her.Yeshua was Truth. We had made the decision to look deep into her eyes and tell her that Yeshua wasn't born on December 25, and that a man in a red suit named Santa Claus wasn't coming to her house. Her eyes would not see a Christmas tree, or the big pile of presents either. But what she would see and know, is that just as the Shammash candle shone brightly as the servant to all the other candles in the menorah, that her Savior Yeshua would shine forth each night of Hanukkah. And that He came to serve her and her brother, and that HE would always be the light in their eyes. Truth and the Torah would abound on Hanukkah from this house that year and every year since. We would struggle many times through this holiday, but somehow those chocolate eyes would know that Yeshua loved her, cared for her, and died for her from the light of each Hanukkah candle. Was it worth it? YES! As she walks into my office today singing songs from Shalom Sesame Street about the dreidel, and asks me to dance with her, I know that He will be reflected again in our home this year. The line dance forms to the right, and let's celebrate with a one, and a two, and a three.... The end...Happy Holidays! Tom and Cheryle Holeman HaY'Did Learning Center PO Box 804 Independence, KS 67301 1-316-331-7712 (credit card orders) http://www.haydid.org shalom@haydid.org ********************************************************************** From: David Penrose To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com Subject: Chanukah Reading Guides Eddie, I am sorry for noting sooner, but I have published Chanukah Reading Guides for each of the eight days. The guides are simple. They contain the scripture readings both Torah/Haftorah for the appropriate days and the Blessings (English/Transliteration/Hebrew) to be recited. Each has its own cover and is intended for copying. They are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader. http://www.bisman.com/shofar/intro.html David Penrose ***********************************************************************