Photo by Elijah O'Donell on Unsplash

Recently I was waiting at my departure gate at the airport, and a passenger walked by in full Carnivale regalia.  Except for lots of indecent exposure of her "breast, thigh, and fatty tail" to use the Torah's description, she was a walking explosion of multi-colored feathers and glitter from headdress to diamond-and-turquoise claws...er...sandals. She'd need a whole row to herself to be able to sit on a flight, and I wasn't convinced she actually could sit in that outfit.  She smiled as she walked by, and I smiled back.  Think the best.

I'd have loved to have followed her to see if she was allowed to board.  I'd seen a news article recently about a lady who tried to board with a pet peacock as an emotional support animal, but this lady was wearing the equivalent of four peacocks.  

And it's not Carnivale season.  

Not that it really mattered.  Sometimes we have thoughts about the bizarre that are just as bizarre as the bizarre thing.  Maybe she missed the circus train and was flying to the next city to catch up.  Think the best.

I hope she found her feathered friends before they went too far south for the winter.

The news is full of things bizarre, illogical, and outright insane.  The world has gone crazy: politicians, military personnel, religious leaders, universities, everyone down to the children committing suicide or shooting up schools.  Logic and reason don't matter anymore, for ill-logic is the new norm.  Emotions, personally-constructed ethics (no matter how twisted), and irrational fears rule millions...perhaps billions...of people.  That's not taking into account actors and Hollywood bigwigs. The Strong's definition of a hypocrite is an actor on a stage.  There you go.  

The Torah is way ahead of us, though.  Moses prophesies of an ill-logical Israel who will one day fall under the Deuteronomic curses, and the seed prophecy is there to help us understand that the correction of Israel will be followed by the correction of the world when John swallows the "Little Scroll," or Mishneh Torah, the nickname of the Book of Deuteronomy, which summarizes the Torah.

Just as Moses placed the Israelites on opposing sides of the two mountains to recite the blessings and curses, so Yeshua reminds his disciples that Israel will be divided into the obedient and disobedient.  In Revelation, John extends those prophecies of blessings and curses to " many peoples and nations and languages and kings" in the "days of the trumpet call." (Re 10:7, 11)  As Israel would go mad and become emotional wrecks if they persisted in idolatry, the worship of self-will, eventually, so would the world.

In Nitzavim, Moses warns that the curse of madness and a bewildered heart is self-selected :

There were people standing there who looked just like everyone else. Maybe they were wearing tzitziyot and following Moses' instructions to a T. 

Their root, however, was bitter, and though deep, it was still alive.  When those people crossed into the Land of Israel, the bitter root would spring to life, become fruitful, and and spread.  That bitter root would whisper, "Go ahead.  Sin a little.  You will not surely die.  You won't go nuts.  And even if you do sin a little, you can just repent when you're tired of it.  Say you're sorry to God, and no harm done.  Grace is the best!"

To "add drunk to thirsty" means that to one's "thirsty" intentional transgressions,  Adonai  will multiply "drunk" unintentional  ones.  Thirsty sins are when we refuse to drink in the Torah "like rain," as the Song of Moses exhorts.  When we are thirsty, we sin, but we don't have to, for Yeshua said we could come to him and drink, and he would send the Ruach HaKodesh to teach us "all things."  "All things" is kol devarim, or "all the Book of Deuteronomy," the Little Scroll.  No need to go thirsty.

Pharaoh first hardened his heart, refusing repeated pleas and warnings to let Israel go three days' journey into the wilderness to celebrate the feast. He did not want Moses to teach him a different way of living and thinking.  In the end, Adonai hardened Pharaoh's heart.  To Pharaoh's intentional sin, Heaven heaped up more sin.  He didn't even know what he was doing, like a drunk.  Drunk on sin.  

When we sin once, we learn to sin.  The next time we sin that sin, it's easier.  And easier.  And easier.  Like a drunk, we're sinning, sometimes grievously, and we don't even know it.  That's where self-will and self-worship lead.  We can't put the blessing on our own commandments that belong on Adonai's.

We become experts at sinning that sin, just as we become proficient in any other activity.  The more we practice, the more skilled we are at intentional blindness.   If our conscience still bothers us, then we twist the Word and re-invent our interpretation of the commandment so that it will not be sin.  This is where the world is today.  Religions of politics, social justice, economics, education, or any other system have replaced the simple commandments of the Word.  

The Word never changes.  The 'ics of politics, socio-economics, or any other 'ics change with the 'icky people who drive them each generation. When those people have become utterly mad with self-blessing, the blessing and "amein" that only belongs to the Holy One and His commandments, then their systems descend with the icks, for they have become icky, detestable idols of self-will, not God's will.  

They have become like a drunk or crazy person, doing sins without even being aware of it, for they are drunk, terrified, and mad with self-worship: " The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart." 

If it feels like the world has gone mad, beastlike, or "soft," then it is a sign of the Ill-Logical times predicted in the Torah and Revelation.  The social systems that should be only the vehicles of building a holy nation become the gods no different from carved images of wood, stone, silver, and gold.

And he called out with a mighty voice,

'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!

She has become a dwelling place for demons,

a haunt for every unclean spirit,

a haunt for every unclean bird,

a haunt for  every   unclean  and detestable beast.' (Re 18:2)

We can sing the Song of Moses, or we can sing the Ill-Logical Song.  Israel must "Nitzavim," or continue to stand on the Word of eternal truth, not fall with the dirty birds.  If people knew the Hebrew linguistic connection between unclean birds and idols, it would certainly take away the appetite for unclean animals and birds. Ick.  I mean, really.  

Interested in what the unclean birds, idolatry, gall, and wormwood have in common?  We explore topics like this in the online Torah classes each week.  If you're interested, email us for signup instructions.

Are You Reed-y for Sukkot? In an upcoming special Feast of Trumpets newsletter, we will discuss the parable of the fig tree in relation to the annual prophecy of the bikkurim and the olive tree.