February 2002

Shalom, Lovers of God,

These words are part of the chorus of a worship song sung by Messianic minstrel Paul Wilbur on his Lion of Judah album. They are also part of the last few moments of the new Jewish Jewels television program "Dance." As the program draws to a close, Jamie begins to pray that those watching will yield to the embrace of Yeshua the Messiah, the lover of their soul. We believe that many souls will be touched for eternity through this program. May hundreds of God’s precious Jewish people make a decision to dance the dance of life with Yeshua as they hear about His great salvation and passionate love for them! "Dance" is available on video cassette for those who can’t get the Jewish Jewels program in your area. You will be blessed by the teaching and anointing on this tape.

As the world celebrates "love" this month, we proclaim from the housetops that "God is Love" ( 1John4:8). His love is persistent. It pursues us, even to the depths of our sin. When we didn’t care about God, He still loved us and reached out to us at great expense. We had a graphic illustration of this during the month of December as a parable unfolded before our eyes in our Ft. Lauderdale home.

It was a Tuesday morning and Lesly, a sweet young mother from Peru, was helping Jamie clean the house. Lesly was dusting downstairs in the living room, the "set" of Jewish Jewels. Jamie was upstairs in our bedroom straightening up. Jamie realized that she had not given Lesly a gift for the holidays, so she found a present in her "present drawer". As Jamie began to wrap the gift, she heard a loud crash and then a scream. She arrived in the living room to see a distraught Lesly holding a broken plate. It was the mosaic Star of David plate seen either behind Neil or Jamie in almost every Jewish Jewels television program. As far as we know, it cannot be replaced. It was very precious to us, and a special part of Jewish Jewels. Jamie tried to comfort Lesly, then went back upstairs to pray.

When Jamie sought the Lord, He brought the following verse of Scripture to mind: "But God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us." (Romans 5:8) Then He reminded Jamie that while all of us were breaking the commandments of God and breaking His heart, His Son was dying for our sins and preparing the gift of eternal life for us. In a similar manner, while Lesly was breaking our precious plate, Jamie was preparing a gift for her. When Lesly finished cleaning, Jamie got out her Spanish Bible and read Romans 5:8 to her. Then Jamie explained, in Spanish, that Lesly’s soul was much more precious than the plate and that God had allowed the plate to break so that it might be an object lesson of a much more serious break and a much more precious gift! Moments later, Lesly prayed to receive Yeshua as her Lord and Savior. She rejoiced with Jamie at the goodness of God and the awesomeness of His ways.

There is no greater love than the Love of God! One soul is priceless to our Heavenly Father!!

God has called us to go to Israel in May. The trip will be a statement of solidarity with His cov- enant people (both Old and New) who are under attack. It will also be a mission of mercy to those who are hurting. Dr. Randy Smith who normally teaches our study seminars in Israel will be taking us directly to hurting people. We have room for a few more intercessors or "mercy gifted" people to join us. If you’re not called to join us, please consider sending a financial, "Yeshua loves you," gift with us.

In the Holy Scriptures, God exhorts His people time and time again to worship Him in the dance. He told them the following through King David in Psalm 149:2-3: "Let Israel rejoice before Him who made her, let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise His name in the dance." Again, in Psalm 150:4 we read: "Praise Him with the timbrel and dance." The ancient Israelites obeyed the Word of the Lord. They danced at every joyous occasion. There were ritual dances, harvest dances, wedding dances, dances for warfare, victory dances, even dances at the digging of wells (Numbers 21:17). In Judges 21:19-23 we are told that the maidens of ancient Israel went up to Shiloh each year for the Lord’s Feast to "dance in dances" (la-CHUL-bim-cho-LOT) before the Lord.

Whenever Israel won in battle, dance was a primary expression of gratitude to the Lord and a testimony to other nations that the God of Israel was the true God. I Samuel 18:6 shows us an example of this type of dancing: "and it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabret, with joy and with instruments of music."

In Judges Chapter 11, we see an example of a dance of hospitality or greeting as Jepthah’s daughter welcomed her father home. The procession, as a primary type of Hebrew dance, was a part of major festivals such as Passover. Pilgrims were led up to Jerusalem by flutes and pipes and timbrels played by the women. They danced as they made their way to Zion (Isaiah 30:25).

Some of the Old Testament prophets experienced ecstatic dance as part of the intimacy of their relationship with God. In I Samuel 10:5, for example, Samuel tells a newly anointed King Saul that he would meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place. They would be preceded by a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe, and a harp. In Hebrew, there is little doubt that the prophets were dancing in some sort of enraptured way.

There are at least thirteen Hebrew words which describe dance. These words are either translated directly as "dance" or as "rejoice," implying dance as the actual form of rejoicing. The principal word in the scriptures for dance is CHUL (gutteral "ch" before OOL as in school). From CHUL we get the Hebrew word ma-CHOL (ma as in English; gutteral "ch" before OLE as in hole) and me-cho-LOT (me as in may; gutteral "ch" before a long O; accent on LOT as in LOAT). These Hebrew words are found in Psalm30:11 and Jeremiah 31:13.

RA-KAD, a frequently used word in the Bible, is pronounced rah-COD (like the fish). It literally means to skip or leap, or spin around. When King David returned the ark of the covenant of the Lord to Jerusalem, he was literally spinning around with joy, dancing with abandon. (1Chronicles 15:29)

A second Hebrew word for dance is used in the same Biblical account. In 2 Samuel 6:14, we read that David "danced before the Lord with all His might..." KIR-KER in used here (KEAR-care), indicating a type of dance that includes spinning around with great emotion and pouring out of the soul.

The Hebrew word GIL also includes the idea of spinning around in joy or rejoicing. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that: "God will joy over us with singing." The Hebrew word used here is YAHGIL (yah-GEEL) which literally means that God dances in joy over us!

The Hebrew word PI-ZEZ (pea-ZEZ) is synonymous with KIR-KER and also means to leap for joy. We get our English word pazazz from this Hebrew word.

We have just produced a postcard called Dance that really has pazazz. It is a reproduction of a painting by Sandy Pond, a gifted artist and dear friend. Based on Psalm 97, it depicts Messiah’s dancing bride amidst the fire of His love. If you love the dance, you will love this card.

This was the title of a class that we taught at the MJAA T’Shuva Conference in Orlando, Florida in December. Arlene Klindworth, the leader of our congregation’s dance ministry, a staff member of Jewish Jewels, and featured guest on the Dance program, taught the class with us. We pointed out a fascinating discovery that we made while doing the research for "Dance." It has to do with the Hebrew word CHAG (gutteral ch, ahg as in hog). [Forgive the comparison.] Chag literally means feast or festival. The feasts outlined in Leviticus 23 are all cha-GIM (geem). When someone says: "Chag Sameach" at Passover, or Rosh HaShana or Sukkot, etc. they are saying: "Joyous Feast" or "Have a joyous Feast." The word CHAG comes from the Hebrew root cha-GAG (gog as in log). Chagag means to dance, and includes the idea of a circle or encircling. This has profound implications for all the feasts of the Lord. By their very definition, they include DANCING. You can’t separate God’s Holy Festivals from the dance. Dancing is not only Scriptural, it is God’s accepted norm!

Believers in the early church danced as part of their worship of God because dancing was an integral part of the Jewish root of the faith, and for a while, the Jewish root was in tact. Then Rome brought in a pagan, sensual influence and dance was banned as a form of praise. However, some of the early church fathers longed to see singing, rejoicing and dancing return as expressions of worship. For example, in 390 A.D. Ambrose wrote the following concerning dance: "Everything is right when it springs from the fear of the Lord. Let’s dance as David did. Let’s not be ashamed to show adoration of God. Dance lifts the body above the earth into the heavenlies. Dance bound up with faith is a testimony to the living grace of God. He who dances as David danced, dances in grace."

Dance went through the "Dark Ages." During the Renaissance, sacred dance began to appear in a limited fashion; ballet and folk dance began to flourish and dance processions and circle dances reappeared. The real restoration of dance in Messiah’s body began in the 20th century. Some would term this the "restoration of David’s Tabernacle," bringing Davidic praise and worship back into the Body of Believers. Messianic Judaism and Davidic dance have flourished since 1967, the year that Jerusalem came under Jewish control. We believe the restoration of dance as part of praise and worship is an end-time, prophetic phenomenon.

Over the centuries, a sign of Israel’s spiritual poverty has been the cessation of dance in the com-munity. When Israel was in exile, there was no dancing. In Lamentation 5:14-16, the Prophet Jeremiah said: "The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music, The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head; woe unto us, that we have sinned!"

However, even before the Babylonian exile, the same prophet foretold Israel’s restoration. With restoration, the release from spiritual poverty, would come dance: "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy..." (Jeremiah 31:13) Dancing has prophetic meaning in this chapter, and is connected with the Brit HaDasha or New Covenant that God would make with His people. This Covenant would bring spiritual richness to God’s people Israel. It would bring the joy of an intimate relationship with Him. This joy would then be expressed in the dance. That is what we are seeing today as Jewish people receive Yeshua as their Messiah and find it very natural to worship Him in the dance.

One of the books that we used in our research on dance is Dancing for Joy by Messianic Rabbi Murray Silberling of Beth Emunah Congregation in Canoga Park, CA. It is excellent and covers much more than we could in this newsletter. Also, our Dance video continues with what Yeshua Himself had to say about dance. Interesting! Order a copy for yourself, then pass it on.