Author: Tiferet Yeshua

by Katy Sorsher Smith

For as long as I can remember, worship at Tiferet Yeshua Congregation has been a special experience. In fact, when I first walked into the “meeting hall” in the basement of congregation founders, Ari and Shira Sorko-Ram, in a Tel Aviv suburb in 1996, God met me as soon as the music started. With tears flowing down my face, I welcomed the Jewish Messiah Yeshua into my heart.

DEFINING GENERATIONS

Throughout history, but especially since the development of recording technology, music is one of the primary things that defines each generation. By listening to songs from each decade, one can feel the mood and even character of nations during that time.

Naturally, this is true for both secular and biblical music. Biblical music, what we call praise or worship today, is, I believe, the quintessential expression of music intended by the One who created it. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that when God created the heavens and the earth, not only did He SPEAK everything into existence, but that there was MUSIC accompanying every act of creation. The Words hints at this in Job 38 when God rebukes Job by pointing out that Job was not there when He was creating the heavens and the earth:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
…On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

(Job 38:4, 6-7)

In Judaism, the tradition of singing the Word which began in the Temple has been preserved throughout the generations. In every synagogue in the world, when the Torah scrolls are rolled open on the platform, each word is sung out with beautiful melodies, some of which have been passed down for  generations.

KING DAVID KNEW IT

One of the people who understood the preeminence of worship in God’s order was King David, an understanding he didn’t receive once he became king. It was there, an integral part of his heart for God, as he tended his father’s sheep in his youth. Even King Saul’s servants knew the power of music, advising him to call on a skillful musician whenever he was distressed by an evil spirit so that he could experience relief. The musician they called on, of course, was none other than David himself, “a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the Lord is with him.'” (I Samuel 16:18)

 

Once David became king, he dedicated his life to building a dwelling place for the Lord, even after realizing he would not see it in person. David, called a man after God’s own heart, was perhaps first and foremost a worshipper: he continued writing songs his whole life, taught them to others, invented new musical instruments, and prepared instructions for Temple worship.

Praise the Lord with the harp;
Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
(Psalm 33:2-3)

 

A DESPRATE NEED FOR A DEEPER RELATIONSHIP

Since October 7, there has been a noticeable shift in our praise and worship at Tiferet Yeshua as the Lord has been allowing us to enter deeper into His glorious presence. People who come each week are more hungry and thirsty for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit than ever before, and they are being filled just as the Yeshua promised:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”

(John 7:37)

The struggles brought on by the violence, uncertainty and confusion we experienced in the wake of the October 7^th attack are forcing us to fight daily spiritual battles to maintain our faith, courage, joy and peace. By the end of the week, as we gather on Friday afternoons, we often feel the heaviness of the battle that rages around us. Yet, once music begins to play, within moments the atmosphere changes. It is as if the entire sanctuary is transported into a different dimension, separated from this world, and filled with joy, comfort, love, peace and adoration for our Creator and Savior.

As the atmosphere changes, our hearts change, allowing the Spirit of God to move in power with words of wisdom and encouragement, with healing and deliverance… creating our little piece of the Garden of Eden where, if only for a little while, we can escape into God’s presence through worshipping Him in spirit and in truth.

Of course, this escape into worship (for what else can you do in God’s presence but remain in awe of His goodness, mercy, grace and beauty all-around) cannot be a once-a-week occurrence. For me, this is the “secret place” we are to continuously seek to dwell in, being in this world but not of this world – as if we are in a different, protected dimension under God’s wings and in His shadow.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the LORD, “You are my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

(Psalm 91:1)

 

***Katy has served for years on worship teams at Tiferet Yeshua, studied Worship and Technical Arts at Christ for the Nations in Dallas TX. Today Katy serves at Tiferet Yeshua with her many talents as a worship leader, songwriter, writer, and office manager.***

 

Lately, one of my favorite pastime amusements is “name that Bible verse”. I came up with this game myself: I hear a Bible verse in English and try to quote it in Hebrew from memory. The many amusing discoveries I have made through this game I can share some other time, like guessing what the Bible translator intended or my embarrassment at realizing how much I didn’t understand the original Hebrew. But there is a treasure I discovered: the word “presence” in the context of the presence of God:

“If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15 NKJ)

The truth is that the excavation of this treasure actually began in contemplating our translation of the well-known worship song “I Will Exalt” by Amanda Cook which we often sing and are blessed to worship God with in our congregation. In Hebrew, we call the song “Your Presence”. At the words “Your presence” in English, I could easily recall a number of Bible verses from memory, but with those words in modern Hebrew (nochechutcha), I wouldn’t be able to at all.

Of course, if Moses spoke English, he would have said:

“If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15 NKJ)

In Hebrew, however, it is written:

“If Your face does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”

With the biblical word “panecha” (Your face) in Hebrew you have its English rendering as “presence”. The Hebrew translation of the above-mentioned song did not return to the biblical Hebrew original in relation to the word “presence” but rather translated the word literally, using instead modern Hebrew.

If I’m not mistaken, the definition of “nochechut” (presence) in modern Hebrew is “residing or being in a certain place”. For me, this definition calls to mind being in boring work meetings in which I can’t actually claim being “present” just because I am in the conference room with my co-workers.

However, when we say “face” in spoken Hebrew, in most contexts the definition is “the front part of the human or animal head, from the forehead to the chin”. In said work meetings, more than once my “face” is actually turned toward the cell phone in my hand. So, am I actually present in the meeting?

It follows then that I can suggest that the word “face” adds to the word “presence” the meaning of attention and eyes intently focused.

Take a look at the word “face” in the biblical Hebrew which is translated as “presence” in the following verses:

Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob (Psalm 114:7 BSB)

מִלִּפְנֵי אָדוֹן חוּלִי אָרֶץ מִלִּפְנֵי אֱלוֹהַּ יַעֲקֹב (תהילים 114:7)

Let us enter His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him in song. (Psalms 95:2 BSB)

נְקַדְּמָה פָנָיו בְּתוֹדָה בִּזְמִרוֹת נָרִיעַ לוֹ (תהילים 95:2)

Jonah, however, got up to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1:3)

וַיָּקָם יוֹנָה לִבְרֹחַ תַּרְשִׁישָׁה, מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה (יונה 1:3)

Isn’t that a wonderful meaning of the word “presence”? God’s face, His eyes turned towards us, His focused attention which His face expresses.

The root of the modern Hebrew word for presence “נ.כ.ח” (N.K.H) comes from a word which appears in the Bible, mostly in context to location, as alternatives to the words “face”, “opposite of”, or “in front of”. For example:

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths. (Provers 5:21 BSB)

כִּי נֹכַח עֵינֵי ה’ דַּרְכֵי אִישׁ וְכָל מַעְגְּלֹתָיו מְפַלֵּס (משלי 5:21)

Let’s remember that the word “presence” in Hebrew is “face”, and therefore the presence of God is His face. To be in the presence of God is to be in the gaze of His face, His illuminating, holy face. When we are in front of His face, we cannot but be aware of the focus of His eyes upon us, and we cannot but look back at Him and worship Him.

 

The Gospels tell us that, immediately after Yeshua’s last breath, the veil in the Temple separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place was torn from top to bottom. Even though the Gospels do not explain the significance of this event, we view it as a declaration by God that every believer is now allowed into His holy presence, as beforehand only the High Priest was allowed in once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Apostle Paul describes it in this way:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body…let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith…” –(Heb. 10:19-20, 22)

Since I first became a believer, I saw the rending of the veil as an expression of God’s mercy towards us, a consequence of Yeshua’s last words, “It is finished.”

Just recently, however, God gave me a glimpse into His side of the story.

As I was pondering the outline of a teaching I would like to present to Tiferet Yeshua Congregation,  I came to the part of the torn veil, and God gave me a vision of a cemetery: I saw a family burying a loved one – something we are unfortunately used to these days due to over 600 soldiers who have lost their lives in the war— and one of the cemetery’s rabbis (serving as a priest) made a  cut on the clothes of the immediate family, from top to bottom, as a symbol of mourning.

Kriah, the Jewish tradition of tearing of one’s clothes from top to bottom as a sign of mourning, is mentioned numerous times in the Bible. When the Patriarch Jacob thought his son Joseph was dead, he tore his garments (Gen. 37:34). David and his men rent their clothing upon hearing about the deaths of King Saul and Jonathan (II Sam. 1:11). Job, grieving the death of his children, stood up and tore his clothing (Job 1:20).

The Lord opened my eyes, and I realized that the rending of the veil in the Temple which we see as a sign of God’s mercy towards us was, in fact, God Himself tearing His clothes as a sign of mourning for His Only Son.  In that moment, God lost a part of Himself, and, though He knew it would not be for long, it was His time to grieve. As the prophet Daniel prophesied, God the Father experienced having His own Son cut off from Him:

” …the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing.” (Dan. 9:26)

This Passover, as we remember Yeshua’s death as a Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world, let us also remember the unbelievable cost God Himself had to pay to give us that forgiveness and the access into His presence.

by Katy Sorsher

 

My story starts when I was very young. I was ten years old when the harsh reality of life hit me full force. My very best friend, someone who was closer to me than a brother, died from a malignant brain tumor. I had no way to deal with this great loss because I was what one could call the textbook definition of an abused child. I had a mother who would put cigarettes out on my body. I endured physical and emotional abuse in the worst way you can imagine throughout my entire childhood. That was the reality that I was born into. – by Yechiel Aviv

 

My Starting Point: Abuse, Violence, Loss

After losing my very best friend at age ten to cancer, it’s no surprise that I found myself in a boarding school for troubled teens just a few years later. My life at the boarding school, however, didn’t improve and continued to be defined by by violence and abuse—a reality that just became routine. Being torn down and humiliated, abused, witnessing difficult things was how I grew up.  It’s also no surprise where it eventually led me: by the age of nineteen, I was using hard-core drugs and hallucinogenic drugs like LSD. By the age of twenty-five, the sky collapsed on me.

After medicating my pain for years with powerful drugs, I suddenly lost all sense of who I was. One day I got up and didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I didn’t know my name. I didn’t know the people in my family I was living with. I experienced a complete blackout, a complete disconnect from reality. It was the most terrifying experience—there’s nothing darker than realizing that you are standing on the edge of insanity. At that moment, I was faced with two options: either commit suicide or fight for my life. And fighting for my life meant fighting for my sanity, which was the hardest part.

The Fight for Sanity

When I decided that I was going to fight for my life, I somehow knew that there was someone on the other side, someone who heard me. During this journey, the battle for my sanity, I asked this someone for help. I would cry out, “If you can hear me, I am begging for help, that someone will save me because I am in complete darkness!”

God sends me three emissaries

In response to my cry, God, of course, sent help. Over the years in my struggle back to life, three different people came to me with the Isaiah 53 prophecy about the Messiah. However, without even reading the prophecy, I rejected them. I told them, “Guys, this just isn’t the direction.” The one thing that I did know is that God speaks in the language of love and light. Everywhere I searched for what spoke of these concepts, love and light. My search led me in many differet directions: I went to an ultra-orthodox Yeshiva (religious school). I tried Buddhism. You name it, I tried it. But nothing was “it”.

The Fourth Emissary

One morning while I was waiting for a bus, I was approached by a woman who started sharing the gospel with me. The best way I can describe her is an “energy bomb for Yeshua”. She was excited and full of passion, and my reaction to her was, “Slow down for a moment because you’re coming on really strong here.” Needless to say, I rebuffed her, but, at the same time, I realized that something strange was going on: this was the fourth time that someone was bringing me this same Yeshua in the prophecy of Isaiah 53.

God ambushes me

God would not let me off the hook so easily. He heard me when I cried out to Him when I was twenty-five, and He continued pursuing me with the right answer to my plea. Not long after this “pushy” woman Adriana from the bus stop tried to share about Yeshua, I started a new job at a special education facility. On one of the first days at the job, I suddenly heard a loud, familiar voice saying, “Shalom, good morning everyone!” I turned around and whom do I see but Adriana from the bus stop.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her in surprise.

“What are you doing here?” she asked me.

When we realized that we both worked there, we started laughing.  “I think God is planning something here!” she told me with a twinkle in her eye. In our time working together, I discovered what an amazing, compassionate and passionate woman of God Adriana is. She told me that she was praying for me and that she would gladly connect me to a couple guys from her congregation if I ever wanted to learn about Yeshua.

The Encounter

Eventually, I decided that I needed to understand what this Isaiah 53 prophecy is all about. I finally opened the book of Isaiah and began reading this powerful prophecy about the Messiah for the first time. As I was reading, I prayed, “I don’t know who you are, who this Yeshua is, but I’m asking You, God, please, I need an answer. ” At that moment, I felt something that is hard to describe: I felt as if two hands were physically holding my own hands, and I began trembling all over. When I finally calmed down, I immediately called Adriana and asked her to put me in touch with the two men from her congregation. Moti and Kosta, two amazing men from Tiferet Yeshua, reached out to me and we began studying the New Testament together.

Coming Home to Yeshua

Reading the New Testament, I discovered the spiritual concepts that I always knew were the language of God: love and light. The more I read and learned, the more I realized that Yeshua was the love and the light I was always looking for.

I continued studying with Moti and Kosta and attending services at Tiferet Yeshua every week. One evening during worship at Tiferet Yeshua, I had a powerful encounter with Yeshua: we were singing “How good is your lovingkindness to me, O God of my salvation,” and suddenly I felt like I was standing in a waterfall of love. I began weeping like a baby, and from that moment I knew that I had come home and gave my life to Yeshua.

It is simply a miracle what Yeshua has done in my life. Today I understand in a deeper way that I didn’t go through that long, difficult journey in my life for nothing. I understand that I have a purpose to share my story and to help others who are in darkness. Yeshua is the only hope, He is the light, and even in the darkest times in your life, you can lift up your head because there is hope in Him.

Redeeming the Irredeemable

One of the greatest miracles in my life was how God redeemed my broken relationship with my family. In the darkest period of my life, I cut ties with my family because they weren’t there for me. The whole difficult story of my parents, how they had treated me over the years, the abuse, I just put it all aside and blamed them for everything. When I started walking with Yeshua, I began to learn what true forgiveness and love  are. He taught me to open up the darkest places in me to His love. After twelve years of not talking with my family, I got back in touch with them, and God began healing our relationship. The love and respect that exist between us now is something I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams. The love and the light of Yeshua have changed me miraculously!