Much has happened in the last two years, since the last newsletters and especially this year with Covid19. 
Covid19 peaked just when we were celebration Passover at the beginning of this year. The pandemic/plague swept around the world making people self isolate in their homes just as the Israelites had to do in Egypt. This resulted in us having to celebrate the Passover by ourselves and sharing a virtual meal with others via Zoom.

We had arranged to lead a Passover meal with a congregation in Southport but at the last minute had to change to doing it over Zoom. Since then all our meetings have been via zoom. This allowed us to continue with the ministry of Beit Echad on the internet. We are now meeting together on Zoom every Kabbalat Shabbat Friday evenings and Shaharit on Shabbat mornings. This has led to some of the people who had been involved for some time deciding to depart, since we brought in more of what we were learning from Jewish liturgy and the understanding from our teaching from Yeshivat Shuvu.  We are fortunate to have Rose who is also part of Shuvu, as part of our fellowship. She is gifted with a beautiful voice and heart, and is being trained as a chazan so leads us in the liturgy and worship of our Messiah. Over the past number of years we have also been studying  Messianic Judaism through Yeshivat Shuvu, an online Yeshiva, a place of Torah study. So we are talmidim as covered in the Hebrew letter Lamed ~ל  given below. Yeshivat Shuvu is led by two Messianic Rabbis Itzhak Shapira and Steve Bernstein. We need to remeber that we all come under the Rabbi of rabbis, Yeshua HaMashiach who Moses points to in the Torah. Giborah has recently been ordained as a Morah, a teacher of Torah having completed four years of intensive study of Messianic Judaism with Yeshivat Shuvu .

We have just come through celebrating the high holy days of Festival of Trumpets (Yom Teruah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) and the Eight Day (Shemini Atretz). Just click on the festival of interest to refer to our article on these Appointed times (Moedim) on our website. Coincidentally Covid19 has started to peak again in many countries as it did around Passover. This led Messianic Rabbis Itzhak Shapira  to write s book called 'The Besorah according to Covid-19' that has just been released in America. A must read if one wants a Messianic insight into the significance of these days.

So the year 2020 or more exactly the Hebrew years 5780/1 has been unique in relationship to the Appointed times as given in Leviticus 23. During this period the Lord has allowed this shaking to take place so the world will not be the same as it was before. This was brought out powerfully to myself with the tradition of shaking of the Lulav during the seven days of Sukkot, Feast of Tabernacles. This involves taking the four species as shown below that are referred to in Leviticus 23:40 On the first day you are to take choice fruit of trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and rejoice before Adonai your God for seven days.

1. The palm branch (lulav) bears fruit but has no fragrance, whose central pillar is referred to as its “backbone” (shidrah) resembles the backbone of man.

2. The leaves of the myrtle branch (hadas) has fragrance but no fruit and resemble the eyes of man.

3. The leaves of the willow branch (aravah) has neither fruit nor fragrance resembles the lips of man.

4. The etrog is a citrus fruit that has fragrance and resembles the heart of man.

The three different branches, one palm, two willow and three myrtle branches are bound together as shown in the diagram. The etrog is brought together with these bound branches and waved/shaken in all six directions as part of rejoicing before the LORD. This carries significance at so many different levels of understanding. 

• At one level it can represent an individual made up of a backbone, eyes, lips and a heart releasing their self to the LORD in praise and joy.

• Then again it can represent all types of people in the world being bound together as one:

  • Those like the lulav who bear fruit (do good works, mitzvot) but have no fragrance as they have no faithfulness in the Messiah.

  • Those like the myrtle who bear no fruit or good works/mitzvot but have the fragrance of Messiah.

  • There are many who like the willow neither bear fruit nor do good works, nor have any of the fragrance of Messiah.

  • But when bound together they have both fruit and fragrance!

  • Finally there are those like the etrog who bear much fruit and have the fragrance of the Messiah who are the tzadik, the righteous ones.

• This then leads to a deeper level of understanding of prophetic insight into who and what the Messiah Yeshua is doing in our midst today as discussed below:

  • The Messiah Yeshua, the Tzadik is the etrog who joins with those who are bound together in love, is then shaken in all directions. There are many scripture that refer to the world been shaken by God (Psalms 46:6 82:5 Isaiah 24:18 24:19 Nah 3:12 Matt 24:29 Rev 6:13) but those who cling to Messiah will not be shaken. (Psalms 55:22 93:1 112:6-7 2 Cor 1:7 1 Thess 3:3 Heb 12:27-28)

With the USA elections taking place, further shaking is taking place. This is likely to increase and move into greater judgement. Especially if the Democrats gain power, as they are the ones who have largely through Hillary Clinton and Obama have defiled the sanctity of life through abortion and defiled the sanctity of marriage, two key pillars of a godly society that will bring God's judgement.

So as we go through this period of shaking may we take to heart that which Yeshua stated in John 15 about the vine and the branches. We need to be pruned so we will bear much fruit and build His Kingdom here on earth as well as bearing the aroma of the Messiah Yeshua in this world. So He may abides with us and we with Him as we enter this new season of 5781 and a year closer to His Return.