The Same G-d

Yesterday, Today and Forever

If you have ever felt that the G-d of the Old Testament and the G-d of the New Testament sound like two different characters, know that this impression is far more common than you might think. A fragmented reading of Scripture easily creates the sense that we begin with a stern and severe G-d and end with a gentle and gracious one. Yet, when the Bible is read carefully, a very different picture emerges. Above all, Scripture is a book about humanity – its failures, falls, struggles and attempts to walk with the Creator. G-d acts from Genesis to Revelation, but rarely describes Himself directly. He reveals who He is through His actions. And that is precisely why Exodus 34 is so remarkable: it is one of the few moments in which G-d explicitly declares His own character.

This revelation comes immediately after the spiritual disaster of the Golden Calf. Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving divine instruction while the people craft a glittering idol and present it as the god who brought them out of Egypt. The divine response is unsurprising: G-d declares that He will wipe out that generation. But Moses intercedes, and the impossible happens. G-d chooses to forgive, and more than that, He unveils His essential attributes.

The text reads: “The LORD, the LORD, a compassionate and gracious G-d, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty.” Here lies the heart of G-d – the same heart made visible later in the words and actions of Jesus. Jewish tradition identifies in this passage the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, a kind of inner map of the divine character. Below they appear with the original Hebrew beside each one:

1. ADONAI, ADONAI (יהוה יהוה – merciful before and after sin)

G-d is merciful before a person sins, fully aware of our tendencies and weaknesses, and He remains merciful after the fall, offering the opportunity for return and restoration.

2. EL (אל – The Almighty One)

The absolute power who governs nature and humanity with true justice, judging each person according to the reality of their heart and their choices.

3. Rachum (רחום – compassionate)

The G-d who bends towards human suffering, especially the weak, the poor and the oppressed. He is not indifferent to human pain but acts to relieve, rescue and protect.

4. VeChanun (וְחַנּוּן – gracious)

The G-d who offers grace even to those who do not deserve it, extending comfort, help and presence to the fallen, the undeserving and the broken.

5. Erech Appayim (אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם – patient, slow to anger)

G-d grants time for repentance and transformation. He does not react impulsively but waits, instructs, calls and offers new opportunities.

6. Rav Chesed (רַב חֶסֶד – abundant in kindness)

G-d gives more kindness than we ask for and more than we deserve. His generosity exceeds expectations and surpasses our limitations.

7. VeEmet (וֶאֱמֶת – truthful and faithful)

G-d keeps His word and His covenant. He never promises what He will not fulfil. His faithfulness stretches across circumstances and generations.

8. Notzer Chesed Laalafim (נֹצֵר חֶסֶד לָאֲלָפִים – preserves kindness for thousands)

G-d remembers the actions of the righteous and pours blessings upon their descendants, even when these descendants are not particularly virtuous. His memory of human goodness is long and deep.

9. Nosei Avon (נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן – forgives deliberate iniquity)

Iniquity is sin committed with full intention. G-d forgives even premeditated wrongdoing when genuine repentance is present.

10. Nosei Pesha (נֹשֵׂא פֶשַׁע – forgives rebellious transgression)

Pesha is transgression carried out in conscious rebellion. Even then, G-d opens a way back when a person decides to return.

11. Nosei Chata’ah (נֹשֵׂא חַטָּאָה – forgives unintentional sin)

Chet refers to mistakes committed without intention. G-d considers human frailty, ignorance and limitation, offering forgiveness and restoration.

12. Venakeh (וְנַקֵּה – purifies)

G-d cleanses and purifies those who truly repent. He removes the stain, restores the soul and rebuilds what was broken. Yet He does not purify the one who refuses repentance, for justice and mercy walk together.

These are 12 Attributes of Mercy

Forgiveness, patience, kindness, grace.

The dominant essence of G-d’s character is merciful. He is, in His very nature, goodness, forgiveness, restoration and patience. The entire Old Testament confirms this on every page: renewed covenants, prophets sent again and again, continual invitations to return. Jesus does not introduce mercy. He embodies ancient mercy.

There is 1 Attribute of Justice

Without repentance, there can be no purification.

Divine justice does not cancel mercy, nor is it cancelled by it. G-d does not suppress human freedom. He forgives the one who accepts forgiveness. He purifies the one who desires purification. Jesus echoes this principle repeatedly when He calls people to repent. It is the same spiritual foundation, simply revealed more clearly.

And there are 3 Types of Sin Forgiven

Premeditated, rebellious and unintentional.

This triad shows the breadth of divine mercy. G-d does not forgive only accidental errors. He offers forgiveness even for intentional and rebellious sins. Peter denied Jesus knowingly and repeatedly, yet he was restored. The persecutors of the Messiah acted with collective rebellion and ignorance, yet Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them.” The Old Testament teaches this; the New Testament displays it openly.

When we read this list attentively, the picture of G-d that emerges is not one of impatience or cruelty, but of a G-d deeply committed to mercy, kindness, patience and restoration. Justice is present, but always accompanied by grace. This is the G-d who reveals Himself at Sinai, and it is this same G-d who appears in Jesus.

Jesus does not introduce a new G-d onto the biblical stage. He reveals in human form the ancient G-d, the G-d who has always been. When He touches a leper, we see Rachum. When He forgives Peter before and after the denial, we see ADONAI repeated. When He is patient with disciples who fail to understand His teachings, we see Erech Appayim. When He multiplies food for a crowd that never even asked for it, we see Rav Chesed. When He says He came to fulfil the Torah rather than abolish it, we see VeEmet. When, on the cross, He extends forgiveness to the repentant thief, we see Nosei Avon, Nosei Pesha and Nosei Chata’ah all at work. And when He rises, making purification possible, we see Venakeh in its fullest expression.

When John says that Jesus was “full of grace and truth”, he is directly echoing Exodus 34. A first-century Jew would have recognised the parallel immediately. John is not inventing theology; he is declaring that the One who walked among them was the living embodiment of the attributes revealed to Moses. There is no contradiction between the G-d of the Old Testament and the G-d of the New. There is, instead, a perfect continuity.

This understanding challenges us to examine our own reflection. If G-d is patient, why are we so impatient? If He preserves kindness for thousands, why do we often struggle to preserve kindness for a single day? If He forgives iniquity, transgression and sin, why do we find it so difficult to tolerate even small mistakes in others? Perhaps the difficulty is not in grasping who G-d is, but in accepting that He is not like us. He is infinitely more merciful than we assume.

The Thirteen Attributes show clearly that G-d does not tire of broken human beings. He acts, forgives, restores and reveals Himself. Jesus does not create a new kind of divinity; He manifests the G-d who has always been present – the One who walked in Eden, who spoke at Sinai, who inspired the prophets and who entered human history through Jesus. The G-d of the beginning is the G-d of the end. The same yesterday, today and always.

Adivalter Sfalsin

A Meditation on Grief and Grace

It should have been the greatest day of celebration. The Tabernacle, Israel’s first collective house of worship, stood complete after months of painstaking labour. For seven days, Moses had performed the sacred inauguration rituals. Now the eighth day had arrived, the first of Nisan, and the priests, led by Aaron, were ready to begin their service before the Lord and all the people. Then tragedy struck with terrible swiftness.

Two of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, brought “strange fire” before the Lord, fire “which He had not commanded them” (Leviticus 10:1). In an instant, fire came forth from the presence of G-d, and they died. The celebration became a funeral. What followed reveals something profound about faith and grief. Moses, attempting to comfort his devastated brother, said: “This is what the Lord spoke of when He said, ‘Among those who are near to Me I will show Myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honoured'” (Leviticus 10:3). It was as if Moses said: “Aaron, your sons were not evil, they were holy. They died not because they were far from G-d, but because they were near to Him.”

But Scripture records simply: “Aaron remained silent.” His grief was too deep for words.

Later that day, Moses discovered that Aaron had burned the sin offering rather than eating it as prescribed. Concerned for the Law and the community, Moses confronted him. Aaron’s response pierces the heart: “Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, but such things as this have happened to me. Would the Lord have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?” (Leviticus 10:19). In other words: “I know I am the High Priest. But I am also a father who has just lost two sons. Would G-d truly want me to act as though nothing had happened?”

When Moses heard this, Scripture tells us, “he approved” (Leviticus 10:20).

Here we witness something remarkable: Moses represents the courage to continue in faith despite tragedy; Aaron represents the courage to grieve honestly. Moses speaks of G-d’s purposes; Aaron speaks of human pain. And both, Scripture suggests, are right. Both are necessary.

There is a curious paradox at the heart of the Christian life. We are told to “rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16), yet our Saviour is described as “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). We are commanded to “be anxious for nothing” (Philippians 4:6), yet we find ourselves weeping at gravesides, our hearts shattered by loss. Are we failing in our faith when we grieve?

C. S. Lewis, in his searing memoir “A Grief Observed”, written after the death of his wife Joy, confessed: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” Here was a man who had spent his life defending the faith with crystalline clarity, and yet in the face of death, he found himself undone. He did not lose his faith, not ultimately, but neither did he pretend that faith made him immune to the raw terror of loss. “Talk to me about the truth of religion,” he wrote, “and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.”

Faith does not anaesthetise us to suffering. If anything, it makes us more alive to it, more vulnerable, more human. When Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus, knowing full well that He was about to raise him from death, He wept (John 11:35). He did not offer platitudes. He did not rush to the miracle. He wept with those who wept, because love demands it. There is a kind of piety, well-meaning but ultimately destructive, that treats grief as a failure of trust. The friend who quotes Romans 8:28 “…all things G-d works for the good of those who love him…” before the tears have dried. The church member who suggests that prolonged mourning indicates weak faith. These responses, however kindly intended, ask us to surrender our humanity at the altar of theology.

But consider Paul himself, who wrote those very words about all things working together for good. Was he a stranger to sorrow? He speaks of being “perplexed,” “persecuted,” “struck down” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). He describes a “thorn in the flesh” that G-d refused to remove despite his repeated prayers (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). This is not the language of a man who has transcended pain. This is the language of someone who has learned to carry it.

The Psalms are filled with lament. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” cries the psalmist (Psalm 13:1). “My G-d, my G-d, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1), words Jesus Himself would echo from the cross. If lament is woven into the fabric of Scripture, then perhaps it is not the opposite of faith but rather its most honest expression. Yet grief, left alone, can become a prison. There is a second courage required of us: the courage to hope when hope seems foolish, to continue when continuing seems pointless, to believe in resurrection when all we can see is a tomb.

Here is where faith truly distinguishes itself, not in making us immune to sorrow, but in giving us a reason to rise from it. “We do not grieve as those who have no hope,” Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Notice he does not say we do not grieve. He says we grieve “differently”. Our tears are real, but they are not the final word.

Jesus tells His disciples something almost unbearably strange: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He does not promise the absence of trouble. He promises its defeat. The distinction is everything. We are not asked to pretend that suffering doesn’t hurt. We are asked to believe that it doesn’t win. This is the peculiar genius of biblical hope: it is “hope in the midst”, not hope “instead of”. It does not replace our humanity with something angelic. Rather, it redeems our humanity, hallows it, makes it capable of bearing weights that would otherwise crush us. “My grace is sufficient for you,” G-d told Paul, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). What an extraordinary claim, that G-d’s strength is most visible not in our triumph but in our fragility.

We are called to be, simultaneously, like Moses and like Aaron, to have the faith that carries on and the humanity that refuses easy comfort. This is not a contradiction to be solved but a tension to be inhabited. When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, He showed us both. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me”, this is Aaron’s voice, the voice of human vulnerability, the desperate hope that perhaps suffering might be avoided. But then: “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39), this is Moses’ voice, the voice of faith that submits to a purpose larger than personal comfort.

The Christian life is not about choosing between these two voices. It is about learning to speak with both. We do not dishonour G-d by grieving deeply. We dishonour our humanity, and the G-d who made us human, when we pretend we do not feel what we feel.

“Blessed are those who mourn,” Jesus said, “for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Not “blessed are those who pretend everything is fine.” Blessed are those who mourn, who allow themselves to feel the full weight of loss, “for they” will be comforted. The comfort comes, but it comes through the grief, not around it.

Lewis, in the end, found his way through. He had learned to let his wife to go, to trust that G-d’s love for her exceeded even his own. The pain remained, but it had been, somehow, transfigured.

This is what we are offered: not escape from suffering, but transformation through it. Not the abolition of tears, but the promise that “He will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4), which implies that the tears will have been real, will have been wept, will have been worth wiping away.

We live, for now, between hope and humanity, between the grief that makes us vulnerable and the faith that makes us victorious. And perhaps that is precisely where G-d intends us to be, not yet in the fullness of resurrection, but not abandoned to the darkness of the tomb either. Walking, as Paul describes it, “by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), but walking nonetheless.

When adversity comes, and it will come, we need not choose between tears and trust. We can bring both to the foot of the cross, where our suffering Saviour understands them equally. We can grieve, fully and honestly, and we can hope, stubbornly and unreasonably. We can be, at once, heartbroken and unbroken.

For this is the gospel’s great claim: that our humanity need not be sacrificed to our faith, nor our faith to our humanity. In Christ, both are redeemed, both are honoured, both find their true home. And in that strange, difficult, beautiful tension, we discover what it means to be fully alive.

Adivalter Sfalsin

The Lost Dimensions of Morality

Modern morality has become a careful curator of two prized virtues, kindness and fairness. If you listen to the way people argue about right and wrong today, particularly in the secular West, it rarely strays beyond these two concerns. Will this harm someone, and is this fair? These questions are not trivial, and the moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has shown how deeply they shape our ethical instincts. But you begin to wonder whether two virtues alone can hold the full weight of human existence. It is like trying to paint a sunrise with only two colours and telling yourself that the missing ones were unnecessary after all.

Something in us knows better. We sense that morality is richer, fuller, more textured than harm and fairness can ever express. The Bible certainly thinks so. It seems to assume that human beings are not only bodies that feel pain and not only minds that calculate fairness. We are also souls and spirits, creatures who inhabit meaning and mystery, longing and loyalty. When Scripture speaks about what is good, it speaks with a vocabulary deeper than the thin language of modern ethics.

Sometimes it becomes helpful to see the Hebrew words themselves, because they reveal dimensions of the moral life that our culture rarely names.

There is חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness), the active and generous goodness that goes beyond what fairness requires, found in Leviticus 19:18, Micah 6:8.

There is רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion or mercy), the tenderness that feels the wound of another so deeply that it becomes impossible to turn away. Psalm 103:13, Isaiah 49:15.

There is צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness), the conviction that the world must reflect not only what humans find convenient but what G-d calls just, as in Deuteronomy 16:20, Proverbs 21:3.

There is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, just judgment), the concrete application of justice in daily dealings and in the courts. Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 10:18.

Then there is אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness or covenant loyalty), usually translated as faith but closer to steadiness of heart, the quality that holds relationships together, whether between people or with G-d. Deuteronomy 7:9, Habakkuk 2:4, Exodus 17:12.

And overarching them all is קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness), the awareness that life is infused with the presence of the Creator, a truth woven through the whole of Leviticus. Leviticus 19:2, Exodus 19:6, Isaiah 6:3.

Once you see these dimensions, you realise that morality in Scripture is not trying to minimise pain or maximise fairness. It is trying to form a certain kind of person, someone whose inner life is shaped by love, compassion, justice, loyalty, and reverence. It speaks to the body, but also to the soul and to the spirit. It recognises that human beings are not flat creatures who respond only to harm and fairness but multi layered and richly dimensional beings who long for meaning, belonging, and sacred presence.

Jonathan Haidt (1) notes that pre modern and religious societies preserve these additional moral foundations. They value loyalty, respect, sanctity, compassion, and duty. They understand that communities cannot survive on kindness and fairness alone. Without loyalty, relationships fracture. 

Without reverence, life becomes trivial. 

Without holiness, the world loses its depth. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once observed that when societies abandon their sense of the sacred, morality collapses into a matter of personal preference. What feels fair to me replaces what is right before G-d.

This is where the deeper biblical vision speaks to our modern confusion. Scripture presents morality through three great voices that shape the human condition. One calls us to honour what is sacred, another calls us to pursue justice, and another calls us to seek wisdom. These voices do not compete, they complete one another. They form a moral ecology that reaches every part of who we are. When we hear only one or two of those voices, our inner world begins to shrink.

C. S. Lewis often warned that modern people live as if the world had been stripped of enchantment. We analyse everything but revere nothing. We measure harm and fairness but forget gratitude, humility, loyalty, and holy awe. We fear that words like righteousness or holiness might make us look strange, so we whisper them or hide them altogether. Yet something in us refuses to be satisfied. The ache for transcendence does not disappear simply because we have replaced the language of the sacred with the language of psychology. If anything, the ache grows louder.

When we read Scripture slowly, the moral landscape begins to widen again. You notice how often the text speaks of חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness) as something more generous than fairness. You see how deeply it values רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion) that softens the heart toward the suffering of others. You observe the seriousness of צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness), the insistence that our choices are not morally neutral because they either affirm or violate the order G-d has woven into creation. You recognise the weight of מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, just judgment), the practical execution of justice that protects the vulnerable. You begin to feel the steadiness of אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness), the refusal to abandon covenant commitments even when they become costly. And you learn to stand quietly before קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness), the awareness that every moment, every life, every breath carries the imprint of G-d.

This is a far cry from the simple question, does this harm anyone. It asks instead, does this honour the sacred. Does this reflect covenant loyalty. Does this act cultivate righteousness or fracture it. Does this lead my soul toward wisdom or away from it. In other words, it treats morality not as a system of avoiding mistakes but as the slow, faithful shaping of a person who walks with G-d.

Believers in Yeshua feel this gap between biblical depth and modern thinness rather sharply. Yeshua never restricted morality to harm avoidance and fairness. His compassion was deeper than harm prevention. His justice was richer than fairness. He welcomed the outcast not because He had calculated that it was equitable but because His heart overflowed with חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness). He confronted hypocrisy not because it was merely unfair but because it violated צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness). He healed with רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion), taught with the wisdom of the sage, lived with the loyalty of אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness) toward the Father, and moved in a constant awareness of קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness).

To imitate Him is to rediscover the fullness of the moral life. It is to recognise that the spirit within us must be shaped as much as the body and soul. It is to remember that morality asks not only how to prevent harm but how to become holy. Not only how to be fair but how to be faithful. Not only how to avoid cruelty but how to cultivate compassion. Not only how to balance rights but how to honour sacred obligations. This is a far more demanding vision than the modern one, and also far more beautiful.

If modern ethics feels small, it is because it has lost its tallest pillars. It has forgotten קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness) and אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness), and in their absence the structure shivers. But Scripture has not forgotten them, nor have the sages of Israel, nor have the disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) who continue to listen for those deeper voices. When we open ourselves to this wider moral vocabulary, something within us expands. We remember who we are, creatures fashioned in the image of G-d, called not merely to avoid harm but to reflect holiness.

Perhaps this is the task for believers today, not to rage against modern morality but to gently expand it, to reintroduce our world to the richer music of חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness), רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion), צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness), מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, just judgment), אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness), and קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness). If we allow these words to shape us, body, soul, and spirit, we may find that the flattened moral world begins to rise into something three dimensional again, something spacious and alive. And perhaps we will discover that this ancient moral architecture still stands quietly behind us, waiting for us to walk back in, not as strangers but as children returning home.

Adivalter Sfalsin

(1) Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (London, Allen Lane, 2012).

Among the most ancient words of the Torah, there is a phrase that still echoes today as a moral compass for humanity. It was spoken to Abraham, the first to hear the voice of a G-d who did not demand temples, but conduct. A G-d who desired not merely worshippers, but men and women capable of uniting faith with justice, love with truth, compassion with responsibility.

There are words in Scripture that do more than instruct; they shape entire civilisations. Among them, few possess such moral power as those the Eternal spoke concerning Abraham:

“For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken of him.”

(Genesis 18:19)

In this modest verse, the Creator reveals the heart of the covenant. Abraham was not called merely to be the father of a people or of many nations, but to be the founder of a vision. His mission was to build a path, a way of life in which the name of G-d would be honoured not only in words, but in deeds.

In Hebrew, the words used by G-d contain entire universes of meaning. Tzedakah (צְדָקָה) derives from tzedek, meaning righteousness, goodness, generosity, moral integrity. It is the desire to do good, not out of obligation, but out of love. It is to give, to forgive, to restore, to care, the divine heartbeat pulsing within human action. It is often inadequately translated in the New Testament as charity.

Mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט) comes from shafat, meaning to judge, to balance, to decide with equity. It represents order, truth, and discernment, the foundation that sustains justice among people. It is the sense of right and wrong, of responsibility and consequence.

Perfect justice is born when tzedakah and mishpat walk together, when law meets mercy and compassion is anchored in truth. A world that has only mishpat becomes cold and harsh; a world that has only tzedakah loses itself in emotion without direction. The balance between the two reflects the very face of G-d.

Abraham was chosen to teach this harmony. In a culture that sought to appease gods through blood and sacrifice, he was called to reveal a G-d who delights more in justice than in offerings, more in mercy than in power, more in truth than in appearance. Holiness, in its purest form, does not dwell in temples but in the conscience. The altar the Eternal desired was not made of stone, but of heart.

Yet even before hearing the divine voice, Abraham had already learned the language of justice. While the generation of the Tower of Babel sought to build a name for themselves, Abraham sought to preserve the name of his brother who had died. He married Sarah, the daughter of Haran, not out of ambition but out of compassion. His first tzedakah was a family act, silent, hidden among the sorrows of a grieving home. And perhaps that is why the Eternal chose him. For the one who guards another’s memory becomes a living memory of G-d’s own presence.

In Abraham, the calling began at home. The Eternal chose him so that he might teach his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. The movement is intimate, inward, familiar. Justice begins in the home, love blossoms in the tent, righteousness is learned among the children. From within arises the example that transforms what is around. The covenant with Abraham marks the birth of personal ethics, the man who learns to be just before trying to change the world.

But in David, the direction is reversed. “David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people.” (2 Samuel 8:15) Here the words are inverted, mishpat u’tzedakah, justice first, then mercy. The king begins with the social order, with law and governance. He rules, legislates, establishes mishpat, the rule of law, and only then allows tzedakah, compassion, to permeate the structures of the kingdom.

Why this inversion? Because Abraham speaks to the conscience, while David speaks to the crown. The first is the man of the tent; the second, the man of the throne. One is called to transform the family; the other, to reform the nation. Abraham represents the individual who radiates justice from within outward; David represents the ruler who brings justice from above downward.

In Abraham, faith shapes the home and, through it, the world. In David, leadership shapes society and, through it, the hearts of people. In the father of faith, the movement is personal and formative, building character. In the anointed king, the movement is institutional and public, building order. In Abraham, tzedakah precedes mishpat, for true justice is born of inner compassion. In David, mishpat precedes tzedakah, for true compassion needs order in which to flourish.

The first is the man who sows justice in the field of the heart. The second is the king who organises justice in the field of the nation. The first teaches his household; the second governs his people. And both reveal one divine truth: justice begins in the individual, but must reach the community; power is born of compassion, but is sustained only by equity.

And so, which path must we rediscover today? Abraham’s, awakening the conscience from within? Or David’s, reforming the world from above? Perhaps the challenge is to unite the two, to be people who build justice inwardly and extend it outward, leaders, even unseen ones, who transform structures through small and faithful acts.

The prophets understood this tension and turned it into a cry. Amos lifted his voice against religion without ethics and called for justice to roll like waters. Isaiah proclaimed that Zion would be redeemed not by ritual, but by righteousness. Jeremiah, with the tenderness of one who knows the heart of G-d, declared that there is no glory in being wise, strong, or rich, but only in knowing the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for in these He delights.

To know G-d is to imitate Him. And to imitate Him is to do good. True faith is not emotion or doctrine, but conduct. It is the union between altar and marketplace, between heart and tribunal, between prayer and action.

In the Gospels, Yeshua continued this same legacy. He criticised those who tithed meticulously yet neglected the weightier matters of the Torah, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. He did not abolish the Torah; He revealed its spirit. Justice without love is death. Love without truth is illusion. Faith without ethics is vanity. The way of the Lord is always the meeting of discipline that corrects and grace that restores.

And we, who live in a world where law becomes impersonal and love grows frail, what have we done with this calling? We speak of rights, yet forget duties. We seek compassion, yet fear truth. We long for freedom, yet flee responsibility. Still, the call of Abraham remains alive. What G-d expected of him, He still expects of us: to teach our children, to care for our homes, to walk in righteousness.

To do what is right and just is not a utopia; it is an act of spiritual resistance. It is to choose good when the world prefers convenience, to keep one’s word when silence would be easier, to share bread when instinct says to hoard, to defend the weak when the crowd turns away.

The world changes through small gestures. Each time someone chooses truth over lies, justice over vengeance, compassion over indifference, the legacy of Abraham is renewed. Every act of tzedakah is a seed of light; every gesture of mishpat is a stone in the rebuilding of humanity.

To keep the way of the Lord is to live with a heart aligned to His character. It is not to separate faith from conduct, prayer from responsibility, spirituality from humanity. The Creator does not seek perfection, but coherence. He does not demand purity without purpose, but faithfulness amidst imperfection.

Human history is a cycle of vengeance and power, yet the divine dream is to break that cycle with a river of justice. G-d does not desire a merely religious world, but one redeemed by the ethics of His Kingdom. The justice of G-d is not the sword that destroys, but the hand that corrects and heals. Righteousness is not the absence of error, but the presence of goodness.

And perhaps this is the final question that Genesis leaves us: will we be a generation that speaks of faith, or one that lives justice?

Every time truth and mercy meet, something of the Kingdom manifests among us. Every time a man or woman chooses what is right and just, Abraham once more becomes the father of many nations, and the dream of G-d breathes again among the children of promise. To do what is right and just is more than obeying a commandment; it is to share in the very breath of the Creator, to allow heaven to find a home on earth, to live so that, in looking at us, the world may perceive a reflection of the Lord.

Adivalter Sfalsin

Hearing the Call of the Small Aleph

When the Book of Leviticus opens, it does so with a single word that could easily go unnoticed: Vayikra וַיִּקְרָא – “He called.” Hardly the sort of word that makes fireworks explode in the reader’s imagination. Yet hidden in that one Hebrew verb is an entire theology of history, identity, and destiny.

Open a Torah scroll and you’ll see that the last letter of Vayikra – the aleph (א) – is written unusually small. That miniature letter, dangling at the edge of the parchment, has puzzled and fascinated readers for centuries. Why did the scribes shrink it? Did someone’s quill slip? The rabbis assure us it was intentional. They tell us that Moses, out of humility, wanted to write Vayikar וַיִּקָּר – “He happened upon.” He felt too unworthy to claim that G-d had “called” him personally. G-d insisted otherwise. The compromise was a small aleph, humility written into revelation. And that, dear reader, is where the entire spiritual adventure begins.

In Hebrew, the difference between Vayikra וַיִּקְרָא (“He called”) and Vayikar וַיִּקָּר (“He happened upon”) is one tiny letter, yet it separates meaning from accident, destiny from chance. To Moses, G-d calls; to Balaam, the mercenary prophet, G-d merely appears. One lives by vocation, the other by coincidence. In English we have a related word: vocation, from the Latin vocare, “to call.” Before it was hijacked by career counsellors and job boards, it meant precisely what Leviticus means – a divine summons to partnership. Life is not random existence; it is response. The modern world, of course, finds this embarrassing. We prefer careers to callings and options to obedience. We build apps to choose our lunch, then wonder why we cannot choose our purpose. Yet the Bible dares to whisper that history itself is not a collision of atoms but a conversation between G-d and humanity. Every “coincidence” might in fact be an invitation.

The small aleph of Vayikra is more than calligraphic curiosity; it is theology in miniature. It teaches that divine encounter does not inflate the ego, it humbles it. The voice that called Moses out of the Tent of Meeting was not a thunderclap but, as Elijah later learned, a still small voice. C. S. Lewis once joked that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. The Torah got there first. The small aleph is that very posture – the lowering of self so that the whisper of G-d can be heard. And if we’re honest, that whisper is often drowned by noise: our plans, our anxieties, our self-promotion. We long for G-d to shout, but He seems committed to gentle speech. Apparently, heaven prefers to be heard rather than forced upon us.

Long before Moses and the Tabernacle, another man heard a call: “Go from your country… to the land I will show you.” That “Go” (Lech-Lecha) is the seed of Vayikra. Abraham didn’t find G-d; G-d found him, and history bent around that encounter. Through Abraham, a people was called not for privilege but for purpose: to bless all families of the earth. Their survival through exiles, empires, and inquisitions defies every statistical chart. Chance would have erased them; destiny preserved them. And here is where we gentiles stumble upon our own small aleph. Paul says we have been grafted into that same olive tree, not as replacements but as participants in the same calling. The story of Israel is not someone else’s history; it is the backbone of ours. To speak of Vayikra is therefore to speak of a shared vocation, Jew and gentile alike summoned to reflect the character of the King whose kingdom Yeshua described when He taught us to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The call has always been global, the aleph always small.

If you view history through the lens of Vayikar – “it just happened” – then Israel’s existence is a fluke, and your own faith a neurological accident. But if you read history through Vayikra, you begin to see a pattern of divine handwriting, patient and persistent. Leviticus itself begins with Vayikra and ends with the word keri קֶרִי, meaning “happenstance,” “accident,” or “indifference.” The word appears several times in Leviticus 26, describing a people who walk “with Me in keri,” that is, treating G-d’s providence as coincidence. It is the very opposite of covenantal awareness.

The book, therefore, is framed by the tension between Vayikra and keri, destiny and chance. So is your life. From one angle, the Cross looked like the ultimate accident – a failed messiah executed by empire. From another, it was the centre of redemption, the hinge on which eternity turned. The same event, two readings. What separates them is faith’s capacity to hear purpose in pain.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in Leviticus: The Book of Holiness (pp. 57–60), observed that Israel’s holiness had two faces: the priestly and the prophetic. The priest sanctifies time through rhythm and ritual; the prophet sanctifies history through justice and mercy. Leviticus, the priestly book, exists to remind us that sacred order matters. But it is framed by stories of history – Exodus before it, Numbers after it – as if Scripture were saying, “Worship must spill into the world.” Ritual without righteousness becomes theatre; activism without reverence becomes noise. Both have their purpose, and both are needed. The same holds for the followers of Yeshua. We live in sacred time through prayer and communion, yet we walk through sacred history in our boardrooms, classrooms, and bus stops – places where the kingdom can be embodied. When worship and witness embrace, we hear again the echo of Vayikra.

Now comes the uncomfortable part. If the aleph is small, then listening must be large. Our age is addicted to volume: the louder the opinion, the truer it must be. Silence, on the other hand, feels like failure. But G-d still prefers whispers. He meets Mary Magdalene in a garden with a single word, “Mary.” He walks unrecognised with two disciples until the breaking of bread. He breathes peace rather than delivering a sermon. Every scene of resurrection is quiet, as if the Creator were allergic to spectacle. Maybe holiness still enters the world that way: through unnoticed acts of obedience, through prayers nobody tweets, through faithfulness that never makes the news. The kingdom of heaven does not trend; it grows. To live Vayikra is to believe that no moment is meaningless, that washing dishes, writing essays, or comforting a friend can all become expressions of G-d if done in response to the call.

And so the question returns: are you called, or are you coincidental? If life is Vayikar (וַיִּקָּר), everything is chance. Morality dissolves into subjectivity, and the line between right and wrong becomes a matter of personal opinion. Suffering loses its meaning, becoming merely a detour in a universe without direction. The world turns into noise — disconnected sounds of human wills colliding, without melody or conductor. Existence becomes a fragmented narrative, written by no one and destined to be forgotten. But if life is Vayikra (וַיִּקְרָא), everything gains direction. Morality ceases to be a personal choice and begins to reflect the moral order of the Creator Himself. Suffering ceases to be punishment or absurdity and becomes a path toward purpose. Life ceases to be noise and becomes symphony — every note, even the dissonant ones, part of a greater harmony that only the Divine Maestro can fully comprehend. To live Vayikar is to drift with the tide of chance; to live Vayikra is to respond to the call. One lives by impulse, the other by purpose. One seeks momentary pleasure, the other eternal meaning.

Sacks concluded that the first word of Leviticus defines the destiny of Israel – “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” But the same sentence defines us all. To follow Yeshua is to hear that priestly call extended to the nations: not to replace Israel but to join the symphony of holiness that began with Abraham. To live by Vayikra is to stand where eternity meets Tuesday morning, to let heaven’s grammar shape your schedule. Every act of faith is a small aleph written into the world – humble, easily missed, yet indispensable to the sentence of redemption. History, then, is not accidental but a manuscript of divine patience. Each life is a line in that story, each prayer a syllable, each act of kindness a comma in the sentence of G-d’s mercy. So we return to the same question Moses faced, pen trembling above the parchment:

Will you write Vayikra וַיִּקְרָא or Vayikar וַיִּקָּר over your life?

Will you live as someone called, or as someone who merely happened? The small aleph waits, quiet, stubborn, holy, for your answer.

Adivalter Sfalsin

Footnotes

1. Leviticus 1:1 – “And He called (וַיִּקְרָא) to Moses, and the LORD spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying…”

2. Numbers 23:4, 16 – “And God happened upon (וַיִּקָּר) Balaam, and he said to Him, ‘I have prepared the seven altars…’”

3. Leviticus 26:21, 23–24, 27–28 – “If you walk with Me with keri (קֶרִי), I also will walk with you with keri,” meaning indifference or happenstance; G-d responds measure for measure to those who treat His providence as coincidence.

4. Exodus 19:6 – Israel’s vocation described as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

5. Romans 11:17–18 – Paul’s image of gentiles grafted into Israel’s olive tree.