Author: Tamar Afriat

This summer in Israel there was an overwhelming feeling of heaviness and dread. Everyone knew a war with Hezbollah was imminent, and, with one accord, Israel’s military and security experts were saying that in such a war would be incredibly difficult: we would most likely be spending weeks on end in our bomb shelters, potentially without electricity, because Hezbollah had the ability to rain down large quantities of precision ballistic missiles and attack drones on Israel, overwhelming our air defense systems.

Adding to that, experts were also warning that fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon would be more difficult than with Hamas in the Gaza Strip: Hezbollah is a more professional fighting force, has better and more armaments, and is literally entrenched in the higher ground.

The Prophetic Word

Then in August, Oren, a teacher from Tiferet Yeshua, shared a prophetic word with the congregation leadership. Last year, Oren gave an amazingly accurate word before the October 7^th massacre: it was a great help and comfort to us when we were reeling in fear and confusion after the attack. Tiferet Yeshua’s elders prayed about this new word Oren received and felt that it was from the Lord. While the second part of the word deals with warnings about challenges Israel will face in the more distant future, the first part was a clear and bold encouragement for right now:

“Do not fear war in the north.

A great miracle is at hand.

A miracle that will strike the world with amazement.

Remember Hezekiah.

Remember Jehoshaphat.

Remember what I did in their day, and that I will do in these days.

There is no enemy that can hurt my people unless my people turn from me, leave me, forget me and go after other gods:

You shall not forget the covenant I made with you and do not fear other gods, but the LORD your God you shall fear and He will save you from the hand of all your enemies.

(2 Kings 17:38-39)

Do not be impressed by the balance of military might. Cease counting cannons, rocket launchers and armed fighters…

My name will be on everyone’s lips when the overwhelming victory against all odds comes.”

The Miraculous Turnaround

The month of August continued with a sense of mounting tension that Hezbollah and even Iran might launch a massive attack against Israel. Then in mid September, a series of events occurred which brought about a dramatic turn. On September 17th, the pagers of thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded, killing 42 and wounding over 3,000. The next day, the walkie talkies of Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon and Syria exploded, killing 12 and wounding 2,750. (Hezbollah had stopped using cell phones to communicate for fear that Israel tracks their locations and communication.) In one fell swoop, the entire Hezbollah communication infrastructure was crippled. Across the Middle East, jaws dropped at this sophisticated attack against the strongest terrorist army in the Middle East. Following the attack, people across Lebanon and Syria unplugged their wireless routers and television sets fearing more widespread attacks.

The Decisive Blow

In the wake of the fear and confusion engulfing the Hezbollah organization, Israel started aggressively attacking their strategic weapons stores. But the surprises weren’t over: ten days after the pager attack, Israel struck and killed Hezbollah’s supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was meeting with his top commanders in a bunker in Beirut. To say the jaws of everyone in the Middle East dropped yet again at the death of this terror kingpin is an understatement.

The death of Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s powerful and charismatic leader, is a massive blow to the terrorist organization, Iran and the rest of Iran’s terrorist proxies. In a matter of days after Nasrallah’s assassination, Israel succeed in killing Nasrallah’s replacement. And then his replacement’s replacement. Not surprisingly, the next man in line announced his plan to take some time off and devote himself to religious studies in Iran.

The Dreaded Ground Invasion

In the weeks following the strategic attacks and the assassination of Hezbollah’s top leadership, Israel launched the ground invasion into southern Lebanon which we had been dreading: sending our forces into southern Lebanon where a hardened, disciplined, highly armed terrorist force was entrenched in the higher ground with an extensive network of terror tunnels at their disposal.

The reality that met Israel’s ground forces was quite different: they found many Hezbollah command centers, force outposts and villages used for staging operations completely abandoned, with vast quantities of high quality and advanced weaponry left behind. A Hezbollah terrorist the IDF captured told his interrogators that, after the assassination of Nasrallah, first the field commanders fled and then the majority of the terrorist force followed. IDF forces in southern Lebanon have been engaging in battles with remnants of Hezbollah terrorists in the area, and there is hard fighting and causalities. But, it is nothing compared to the scenario they were preparing for.

Adding another dimension to the amazing military accomplishments in this past month, last week, the Hamas terrorist leader and architect of the October 7th massacre, Yahyah Sinwar, was killed by young soldiers from an infantry command course operating in the southern Gaza Strip. His death is a major stepping stone in the dismantling of Hamas fighting power and control in Gaza. His death has also renewed hopes for a possible release of our over 100 hostages still held in Gaza.

God’s Name on Everyone’s Lips

On one of Israel’s most watched primetime news programs, a regular panelist who is a former head of the terrorism division in Israel Military Intelligence, said this about the developments in the war with Hezbollah:

“As an expert on Hezbollah and Lebanon, I say if you were to put all the heads of Israel’s security agencies – Military Intelligence (Aman), the Internal Security Agency (Shabak), and Foreign Intelligence (Mossad)—here in a line, and you would ask them, ‘Is there a chance that this might happen to Hezbollah in under a month, that we would see a flag of surrender?’ There would not be one who would honestly say that they would have imagined that even half of what has happened is possible. Within a month, Hezbollah has raised the white flag of surrender, and that is not the result of man’s actions but the hand of God.”

It is important to understand the enormity of the events unfolding before our eyes and to give glory to the only one who is responsible for them – not Israel’s amazing intelligence agencies or the IDF – to God alone. As believers in Israel, we have the burden and also the privilege to worship God with the ancient scriptures that speak of Him fighting our battles and defeating our enemies. It is a spiritual reality for all believers, but for us here in Israel, it is also a physical reality.

With modern media, God is performing these miracles before the eyes of the whole world, and as believers, we must give Him praise, glory and honor for them.

The War is Not Over!

God has given us amazing, encouraging victories, but the war is far from over. Even thought Hezbollah has been mortally wounded and is asking for a ceasefire, Israel is still engaged in a difficult and deadly war with the remnants of Hezbollah in Lebanon which are still launching daily missile and killer drone attacks against Israel. Israel’s war objective is to establish an non-militarized zone in southern Lebanon where our forces have found massive military buildup along our border that was poised for an October 7th-style attack against the Galilee. Israeli forces are still engaged in grueling and dangerous urban warfare against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip where the goal is to secure the release of our hostages, topple the Hamas infrastructure, and pave the way for a replacement civil authority to take over.

Hitting Iran – the head of the snake

Adding to the pressures of the multi-front war we have been engaged in for a year, Israel’s government is poised to deal a massive retaliatory strike against Iran. On the night of October 1st, Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles against Israel, an attack which was twice as large as Iran’s first direct attack against Israel back in April.

Since the October 1st attack, Israel has vowed a powerful response, one which has been delayed, apparently, due to intense pressure from the Biden administration to delay it until after the US elections. In the event that a regional war erupts in the wake of an Israeli attack against Iran, the Biden administration is worried that it will negatively affect their position in the upcoming US elections.

Please pray with us!

According to the word we received this summer from Oren, we believe that God will win this war for Israel in a miraculous way, but it is our part to stand in faith, to pray, and to give God alone the glory for the amazing victories He is accomplishing on Israel’s behalf right now. Our desire is to see spiritual revival in Israel and across the Middle East among Israel’s enemies. The Word of God tells us clearly that God’s heart and plan is to bring physical and spiritual redemption to the whole earth through dramatic events here in the Middle East. Our part in that story is to give Him glory, to stand in faith and pray like Yeshua taught us: “Let Your Kingdom come and Your will be done here on earth”.

Five months have passed since the horrific Hamas attack against Israel on October 7th. In that time, the world has moved on, and the majority of international public opinion has settled on the narrative that “Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza” while ignoring or being ignorant of the basic facts, context and history of this conflict.

Here are a few of those basic facts many in the world need an education on right now:

• Free Palestine? Israel was not occupying the Gaza Strip! In 2005, Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip after dramatically dismantling Jewish settlements there. A year later, Hamas was elected, and Gaza has effectively been a “Palestinian State” since then.

• Israeli Aggression? Rather: Israeli restraint! In response to the constant rocket attacks coming from the “Palestinian state” of Gaza, Israel invested in an advanced rocket defense system rather than launching a full-scale ground war, opting for surgical precision strikes against Hamas military targets to avoid civilian causalities.

• Israeli Genocide in Gaza? The world press and world leaders, including US President Biden, have been quoting the Hamas health ministry causality report numbers which are extremely high. Respected statistical studies of those reports reveal that Hamas numbers are, in all likelihood, highly exaggerated. Considering the number of Hamas combatants killed which Israel reported in the context of statistical data from other urban conflicts, Israel is actually doing a remarkable job limiting the number of civilian deaths while fighting a cruel enemy hiding behind its citizens.

In the years since 2006 when Hamas started launching rocket attacks against Israel’s southern communities from the “liberated” Gaza Strip, I remember Israeli politicians and political pundits wrangled back and forth over the Gaza conundrum: invading the Strip would include civilian causalities due to the nature of urban warfare in a densely populated area like the Gaza Strip and the reality of Hama’s evil nature to hide behind its own civilians. Analysts also knew that many Israeli soldiers would lose their lives in a Gaza ground-offensive invasion (which they have); during those years Israel became overly protective of its soldiers. All of that changed on October 7^th.

After the mind-blowing brutality against our innocent civilians, all of the fog surrounding the “Gaza Conundrum” became startlingly clear. It is our national and moral obligation to destroy Hamas.

HOW ARE WE DOING NOW?

For us in Israel, we are living a different reality than the rest of the world. In the immediate weeks and months following the Hamas attack, everyone, on one level or another, was still dealing with trauma (fear, anxiety, depression). What added insult to injury was witnessing the growing Jew hatred around the world and mind-boggling criticism and hatred of Israel.

God’s love and grace and the passing of time continue to heal, help and encourage us. As a nation, we are also experiencing a great level of solidarity. As a congregation, we are seeing a deeper level of spiritual maturity and togetherness. However, we are still living in a reality of:

• mourning for the loss of so much life, for the lives of many soldiers who are continuing to fall in the line of duty in Gaza, and for the 130 hostages still held by Hamas in abominable conditions

• fear, anxiety, pressure anticipating the very real possibility that an all-out war with Hezbollah may break out in the coming weeks\ months. Israeli authorities have been preparing and directing citizens in certain areas to prepare for a war in which a). the entire country will be covered in rocket\armed drone attacks b). we will possibly be spending days and weeks on end in safe rooms and bomb shelters c). there’s a high possibility that we will be without electricity and water

• sadness, depression over the entire situation, realizing and coming to terms with (or not) the fact that antisemitism is alive and growing in a way we never imagined.

It is hard to convey how Israelis feel when we see how willingly and vigorously so many in the world latch onto misleading or blatantly false statements and ideas about Israel and the situation we are in. When you are publicly lied about and defamed, it is painful, distressing, and even traumatic. All Israelis are feeling that right now.

We want to thank you for your love, care and concern for all of us during this time. We also thank you for committing to standing in the gap for Israel during this critical time.

A WAVE OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

Please also pray for the advancement of the gospel in Muslim nations. We are hearing amazing reports of the Body of Messiah growing by leaps and bounds in places like Iran and Afghanistan. A wave of spiritual awakening is sweeping the Middle East, and we believe it’s on its way to us!

“WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN HERE?”

Last year on Purim (March 7^th, 2023), an announcement was made that there would be a historic global prayer initiative for Israel which would take place in May. By all accounts, this global prayer initiative, called “The Isaiah 62 Fast\Global 21 Day of Prayer for Israel”, was unprecedented: over five million believers from around the world committed to stand in prayer for Israel during that time.

One of my fellow worshippers at Tiferet Yeshua who had also heard about this prayer movement for Israel said to me, “What is going to happen here that God is raising up so much prayer for us right now? It’s kind of scary. There is definitely a reason that we are going to need this prayer.” If we had known what was really in store for us exactly 7 months later…frankly, we would have been terrified.

That horrific tragedy would strike our people on October 7^th, the dimensions of which we are still living out today. However, as we gathered together as a congregation on zoom that day to seek the Lord, we recalled a prophetic word which was shared in our midst less than one month before and realized with awe that God had been lovingly preparing us for this moment.

GOD IS SPEAKING TO US AND TO YOU

The idea of suffering and enduring persecution is terrifying and naturally something one wants to avoid. This is perhaps one of the main reasons the theology of pre-tribulation rapture is so largely embraced and advanced (Tiferet Yeshua leadership does not hold to a pre-tribulation rapture of believers). The point here is not to argue the theology of those differing positions. What I want to convey is that, here in Israel, we are experiencing a tribulation: a condensed, microcosm of the worst of human horrors (sadistic rape, torture, murder, captivity in abominable conditions) which has then been followed by a growing chorus of hate, blame and offence from many in the world.

God, however, in His mercy, spoke to us before it happened. Even though we had no idea how quickly and how literally the prophetic word would come to pass, it continues to be an encouragement and guide to us as we navigate this difficult, frightening and often confusing situation. This prophetic word strengthened us in the knowledge that God is sovereign, that He is motivated by perfect love for us, and that He will clearly speak to us inorder to prepare us beforehand.

In this tribulation, we are discovering how incredibly present He is. We are also discovering how this tribulation is causing so many frivolous pleasures and worries of the world to simply evaporate. It is causing His Word and promises to burn within us. We do not see explicit promises in the Word of God to take us out of tribulation: on the contrary, Yeshua promises that we will have tribulation in the world (Jn. 16:33). However, the Word promises that God will be a very present help in tribulation (Ps. 46:1). Discovering that through experience is gold refined by fire!

A WORD FROM THE LORD

In September of 2023, Oren, a greatly gifted teacher at Tiferet Yeshua, submitted a word he had received from the Lord to Gil, our lead pastor. Oren, a truly humble and sincere man of God, explained to Gil that he had never heard a “word” from the Lord before and, furthermore, that nothing like this had ever happened to him. Oren described how on the evening of Rosh Ha Shanah he experienced an overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit and was moved to write words which he felt were barely His own.

After prayerfully considering the word and sharing it with our elders, Gil felt that Oren needed to share it with the whole congregation at the next service which was the service right before Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). The timing was perfect, of course, because it was God’s timing: that service was dedicated to standing before God in humble repentance and intercession for our people.

Humility and the Fear of the Lord

Tiferet Yeshua elder David Trubeck who led the service on the day that Oren shared this word asked everyone to listen to it in a spirit of the fear of the Lord. In the same way, may you all who read this word consider it in the same spirit. The original word was received and shared in Hebrew, and some portions of the word are specifically for the Jewish believers in the Land. However, I translate here the portions which I feel God wants shared and through which, I believe, He would speak to and encourage you.

DVAR HA RUACH – THE WORD OF THE SPIRIT

The Jews are my people, the apple of my eye, I will never forsake them because I am faithful.

I returned them to their Land to prove My faithfulness and to fulfil my plan of redemption for them. Right now, they are discovering that without Me there is nothing that connects them one to another. What connected them in past was the hope inside and difficulties from without.

Pray for them always.

Pray for your people in order that their ears may be unstopped and the eyes of their hearts may be opened

And they will see Me, the One whom they have pierced.

Their love for me is trapped in a shell of religion.

The day is near when that shell will crack, and they will understand that there is no more need for it:

“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

This shell will crack through great pain and suffering which this people has not known.

If there were a way to prevent this pain, it would be prevented.

I suffer My people’s affliction.

How I have longed to gather them under my wings, but they prevented it!

Pray for my people

…They have returned from the exile, but their hearts are still in exile from Me, the source of living water.

For the sake of My great Name, I will save them so that all will know, lest heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not one stroke of the pen will pass away from My Law until everything is accomplished. The enemy will attempt to destroy in order to prove that I am not sovereign. But all his plans will fail, even though they will cause no small amount on pain.

Pray for my people.

He who loves my people loves Me and is faithful to Me.

He who knows Me will keep My laws.

The Keeper of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep and will be to them a hope and a future

The day is not far off. The time is not far off.

I will not forsake them, I will not relent until they say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.”

“Then you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:28)

Then all the nations will know that the LORD has returned to His people.

Like the Egyptians who heard Joseph weeping when he revealed himself to his brothers, then all will be silent in fear and trembling.

And all will know that My people have returned to Me and will not forsake Me again.

We ask all of you, our friends in the nations, to continue standing together with us in prayer for Israel, that He will accomplish His perfect plan of redemption for them through this present pain and suffering.

We invite you to listen to our brother Oren’s amazing testimony here!

On September 21st, Tiferet Yeshua joined together with Fundacion HALEL ministry to erect an alter of worship and intercession on the Mount of Olives in preparation for the Day of Trumpeting (Rosh HaShanah). SInce 2017, Deborah Luquer, director of Fundacion Halel ministry, has been leading groups of worshippers and intercessors to erect alters of worship in strategic locations throughout the land of Israel to proclaim the Lord’s Kingdom before His return.

This year we joined Deborah’s international team, along with Israeli worshippers, to raise up an alter of praise and intercession on the Mount of Olives which the prophet Zechariah describes as the place where Yeshua will make His triumphant entry into Jerusalem after defeating the armies of the antichrist:

Then the LORD will go out to fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem…

-Zechariah 14:3-4

This is the third year that we have joined Deborah and Fundacion HALEL during the fall Feasts, and each year has been powerful and special. This year, however, was an extraordinarily powerful time. First of all and most importantly, there was a deep sense of love and unity among all of us, believers from different congregations in Israel and believers from the nations.

As the sun began setting over the Temple Mount behind us, we started praying and worshipping, proclaiming Yeshua as Lord, Savior and righteous Judge. Right below us, groups of ultra orthodox Jews were gathering to pray at the graves of important rabbis: because the prophets are clear that the dead will be resurrected when the Messiah arrives, starting at the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is basically a giant ancient cemetery, covered with graves down into the Kidron valley below and up the side of Moriah to the eastern gate of the Old City.

An outpouring of the Holy Spirit as we worshipped and blew the shofars (trumpets)

As we were worshipping and blowing the shofar, the Holy Spirit fell on us in a powerful way. One of the worship team members who was feeling sick and feverish when she arrived for the rehearsal was completely healed. Two young new believers from Tiferet Yeshua joined us and both experienced a dramatic baptism in the Holy Spirit. One of them even heard the audible voice of God speak to him about his future and calling: needless to say, he was on His face weeping for the rest of the evening. The moment we starting singing a song in Hebrew, the chorus of which says “Yeshua is light, Yeshua is the light of the world”, the setting sun broke through the clouds, flooding us in an intense golden light.

We sang, prayed and proclaimed Yeshua’s return for a spotless bride in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Russian. We wish that we could share with you all how powerful our encounter with the Lord was at the moment, standing on the ground Yeshua will stand upon when He returns and feeling how much He loves us and wants to purify and perfect us, His Body and Bride, to be ready to meet Him under the wedding canopy.

As we fast and seek the Lord’s face during this Yom Kippur fast here in Israel, we at Tiferet Yeshua are crying out to the Lord in repentance, asking Him to purify and prepare us, His Bride, in love and holiness. He is coming soon! Let’s get our hearts ready for Him.

When lining up the end-time events described in the New Testament with the description of end time events in the book of Joel, it becomes clear that the first two fall feasts, the Day of Trumpeting and the Day of Atonement, mirror the progression of the great and terrible day of the Lord just before His return, when the armies of the antichrist descend upon the land of Israel and surround Jerusalem:

Day of Trumpeting (Joel 2: 1-11)

 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is close at hand—
    a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness.

~Joel 2:1-2

In the above passage of Joel, the sounding of the trumpet is an alarm to assemble the people together because a horrible and fierce enemy has invaded the Land—it is essentially the “last” Day of Trumpeting. It is also the moment that Messiah Yeshua appears in the sky with the voice of the trumpet and the those who are in the Lord are raptured:

Rapture at the Last Trumpet (Matt. 24:30-31)

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

~Matt. 24:30-31

Day of Atonement (Joel 2:12-17 )

 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
declare a holy fast,
call a sacred assembly.
 Gather the people,
consecrate the assembly

~Joel 2:16-17

In this passage, the prophet Joel is calling all the people to declare a holy fast, to weep, mourn and cry out to the Lord to save them—a description which sounds like  the Day of Atonement. While this passage clearly speaks about the Day of Atonement, it also calls for a trumpet to be blown in Zion, which makes one think that it might be referring to the Day of Trumpeting since no trumpets blown on the Day of Atonement. Well, yes and no: there are no trumpets blown on the Day of Atonement except for once every fifty years during the Jubilee year:

Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.  Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you.’”

~Leviticus 25:9-11

If the last “Day of Atonement” at the Lord’s return takes place in the Jubilee Year (which we believe it will!), it adds another powerful dimension of prophetic meaning to this “last” Day of Atonement when a trumpet will sound declaring salvation, liberation and restoration.

All Israel Will Be Saved

Joel 2 describes a fierce and mighty army attacking the Land of Israel — the great and terrible day of the Lord. The prophet Zechariah describes the same day when all the nations of the earth are gathered against Judah and Jerusalem: at that critical moment when Israel is surrounded by enemies, God tells the prophet Zechariah:

I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as great as the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves…

~Zechariah 12:10-12

This passage in Zechariah sounds like it is describing the exact same end-time event that Yeshua is describing in Matt. 24:30 when “…the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn…”. Zechariah 12:10-10 specifically describes the national, collective response of Israel at that moment. This moment is also when Paul’s Romans 11:26 prophetic declaration that “…all Israel shall be saved” comes to pass. Israel will go through terrible tribulation and suffering, but she will also be the only nation in the earth that collectively accepts the Messiah and is saved. Joel 2 describes that final moment: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

So, if the last Day of Trumpeting marks the Lord’s appearing in the sky and the rapture, and the last Day of Atonement marks Israel’s calling a fast and solemn assembly to weep and mourn over “the one they have pierced”, then the Feast of Tabernacles that follows can be none other than Yeshua’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem where He will tabernacle with His people! As we prepare to observe and celebrate these deeply meaningful biblical fall feasts, let us focus our hearts with expectation and intercession on their future redemptive promise.

Originally published October 1st, 2020

Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh…

-Song of Songs 4:6

A spiritual challenge: when asking, seeking and knocking don’t seem to work

This last year, I found myself feeling far from the the Lord, and I began longing for His presence. When I prayed about it, God showed me that one of the reasons I was feeling so far from Him was because I had pulled away after going through a period of suffering which began in March of 2020 when Israel went into covid lockdown. At the time, my husband and I had been seriously seeking the Lord, (we had just finished participating in a 40-day global Jesus Fast), we were moving forward in our ministry, and things were good! When the lockdown hit, I thought it might be an opportunity to have some “time off” from our busy routine. God, however, had something completely different in store for me.

Pretty quickly after going into quarantine, I started suffering from a debilitating physical condition. In addition to the practical steps one should take in such a situation, I took every right spiritual step: I sought the Lord in prayer. I spent more time in the Word.  Instead of improvement, things got worse. So, I searched my heart. I repented. I prayed more. I declared the Word over my life.  But then attacks started. And they kept coming. For a long time. Eventually, over time, things started to improve, little by little. But even after things had improved significantly, I still felt somehow traumatized, like I had been in a violent shipwreck at sea and was washed up on the shore still alive…but barely. I had climbed the mountain of myrrh through the night that Song of Songs 4:6 speaks about: myrrh, an ancient biblical spice used in the sacred anointing oil and in Yeshua’s burial, often speaks of suffering and death.

The Garden of Gethsemane – An invitation to suffering

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane…He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

-Matthew 26:36-38

The scene of Yeshua alone in the Garden of Gethsemane came to me often during my difficult period. That night in the garden, Yeshua had asked the disciples who were closest to Him, Peter, John and James, to stay with Him as He wrestled with the great suffering He was about to endure. Instead of watching with Him, Yeshua’s nearest and dearest fell asleep.

When His persecution and suffering began, all His disciples (with the exception of John) would abandon Him. We often think of the great physical pain our Lord endured on the cross, but we do not often contemplate how it was coupled with the emotional pain of being abandoned by nearly all His friends and, ultimately, being cut off from the presence of the Father, as Daniel 9:26 foretold: the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. This is the Suffering Servant whom we are called to follow and emulate.

How popular culture has shaped our faith

Shallow secular culture has unfortunately influenced many in the church and trained us to think that God’s main desire for us is to be blessed, prosperous and happy. As a result, in the minds of many, any kind of suffering in the life of a believer must be the result of sin. A very mature woman of God at Tiferet Yeshua whose teenage son was killed fighting in one of Israel’s recent wars in Gaza shared with me the pain she experienced when fellow believers made her feel that her suffering and loss must be the result of sin.

Let me be clear: there is much needless suffering we experience which is a result of our bad choices, practicing sinful behavior and not investing time in our relationship with God. However, the New Testament makes clear, over and over, that there is indeed suffering which is according to God’s will (1 Peter 4:19) and that we are invited to participate in Messiah’s sufferings (1 Peter 4:12-17).

It’s all about love

I once thought participating in Yeshua’s suffering came only through direct persecution for the gospel. That is indeed part of it, but it is also more than that. When we understand that God’s main desire for us is to grow and mature in our love for Him and for others, we discover sooner or later that suffering is part of it.

Song of Songs 5 – The mature believer’s invitation to the Garden of Gethsemane

In Judaism, the Song of Songs is considered “The Holy of Holies”. In addition to its being a literal description of the love between King Solomon and his betrothed, the Shulamite maiden, on a spiritual level it is seen as a description of the sacred love journey between God and Israel. As followers of Messiah, we see it as the description of the bride of Messiah (Jew and gentile) growing in mature love for her Bridegroom King.

Chapter five of the Song of Songs describes the suffering and persecution of the mature bride. She is described as a garden, and others are blessed and strengthened by the fruit evident in her life (5:1). At that point, she must feel good, being right where she needs to be! But she is unaware that her Bridegroom is inviting her into a new and painful phase of growth, not unlike Yeshua in the Garden of Gethsemane asking us to keep watch with Him and to fellowship with some of His sufferings.

–She is asleep, but her heart is awake (5:2): when Yeshua finds the disciples asleep, He says, “the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt.26:41)

–The Bridegroom, outside, alone in the night, is seeking her companionship (5:2): “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matt. 26:38)

-She is confused at this unexpected turn of events, but ultimately responds in obedience (5:3-5) – despite being scattered and confused, the disciple John and a company of women stay with Yeshua through His suffering (Jn. 19:25-26, Mrk. 15:40-41)

-She opens the door to Him, but He is not there. She seeks Him but cannot find Him (5:6): Yeshua is abandoned by the vast majority (Matt. 26:56) and suffers the ultimate separation from the Father on the cross (Matt. 27:46, Dan. 9:26)

-She is beaten and bruised by authorities over her and they strip her of her cloak (5:7): the Lord Yeshua was beaten, bruised and stripped of His clothing by the Jewish and Roman authorities (Matt. 26:67, Jn 19:1)

What is the response of the mature bride after all this ordeal? She cries out that she is lovesick for her Beloved and launches into highest praise of Him to the daughters of Jerusalem. What a powerful witness! In the next chapter, she declares “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine” from a place of personal experience knowing there is nothing that can separate her from His love. That is why her Beloved calls her “as awesome as an army with banners” in the next chapter (6:4).

That is going through the refiner’s fire – an idea that used to frighten me. The longer we walk closely with our Beloved, the more we understand His heart for us and that sometimes He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death in order to bring us to a deeper level of maturity, love and knowing Him…which is the truest joy and pleasure we can ever know.

If you feel like you have never experienced a real relationship with God, I highly recommend to you my friend Monica’s testimony!

by Tamar Afriat

This is a story about Menny, a very special person who joined Tiferet Yeshua. Recently after one of our services, Menny walked up to Debby, Tiferet Yeshua secretary, and asked her, “Debby, how do you know Yeshua is alive? I know He is alive because He raised me from the dead. But how do you know He’s alive?”

Over the summer we shared the amazing story of how Menny first reached out to us. He was looking for a cerain English-speaking church in the area, but somehow God led him to us, a Hebrew-speaking congregation of Jewish believers instead. When Menny first showed up at Tiferet Yeshua, he told Kosta in Hebrew, “I am a Christian now because I believe in Yeshu the Christian”. The name “Yeshu” in Hebrew is a derogatory term given Him by the rabbis. Menny had never heard His real Hebrew name. He also did not know that there were other Jewish followers of Yeshua. Since he first reached out to us, we have had the privilege of getting to know Menny and to hear his amazing testimony. Menny often says, “What happened to me is not normal.” We agree, but we serve an amazing God who sometimes uses extraordinary circumstances and experiences to reveal Himself to us, like he did with Menny.

The day Menny died:
After his military service in the IDF, Menny took a trip to the US and ended up staying for good. In November 2014, Menny was a married father of five children, working in real estate and construction when he started renovations on an old Victorian building he had bought. The building had been damaged in a fire, but inspections had found the building structurally sound for renovation. While Menny was working over a high gable on the second floor, that section of the building collapsed, and Menny plummeted 30 feet and was then buried under the building debris. After being airlifted to a nearby hospital, his medical records show that he had no signs of life upon arrival. After they succeeded to resuscitate him, they began the fight for his life.

For over a year Menny was in a coma. The way Menny describes it: “My head was smashed apart. My whole right side is filled with titanium becuase my bones shattered from the fall.” Menny woke up from the coma after a year and a half and had to begin intensive physiotherapy to relearn how to do everything. At least, that is what they told him, because he barely remembers those first couple years after he woke up from the coma. During that time, Menny could not speak. He was relearning how to swallow, feed himself, to walk. Eventually, the doctors determined that Menny had significant brain damage and sent him to a nursing home. Somewhere along the line Menny started speaking again. It was then he started to share his experience, where he had gone and the person he had met—the reason why he was still alive.

“Your name is not in this book”
When Menny tells his story, he starts with a caveat: “Listen, I know I have problems.” What he means is that it not as easy for him to speak as it used to be, and sometimes he can’t find the right word. But one thing is for sure: his memory is crystal clear. We found  local newspaper accounts of the building collapse which mention Menny by name and his injury, and all the details he remembers are exact. While Menny was in the nursing home, a woman minister from a local church who volunteered there started taking walks with Menny as part of his physical therapy routine. She told him it was a miracle that he was still alive. He then told her the real story of his miracle:

“When I died, I went up into the universe, into the next world. It wasn’t a dream. I came to a man who had an open book on a stand in front of him. I approached him and told him, ‘My name is Menny Mor. Where do I go?’ The man just looked at me. I knew he was the one who was supposed to tell me where to go. So, I ask him again, ‘Where do I go? To the left or to the right?’ Then he said to me, ‘You are not written in this book. I am sending you back to where you came from.’”

Menny thought that the man he saw could not be God because no one can see God and live. But he also knew that the man he interacted with had authority and that he saved Menny’s earthly life by sending him back again. The minister who accompanied Menny on these walks told him the identity of the man he had met: Jesus, the Son of God. The Messiah. The way, the truth and the life. To Menny it made perfect sense: if anyone wants to go the Father, they must go through this man, Jesus, to whom was given all authority. As the minister continued to share about this Jesus with Menny, that He was a personal friend and savior, Menny gave his heart to Him and discovered that His presence was with him all the time.

A Miraculous Recovery and Call back to Israel
Despite the doctor’s assessment that Menny had serious brain damage, he kept improving and he was able to speak again. Before long, Menny’s son who had come to visit him said, “Abba, we have to get you out of here! You don’t belong here.” Menny left the nursing home and continued improving. He started driving again after passing a three-hour test of his mental fitness. His faith in the Jesus who had saved him continued strong too, and he told his family all about it. Needless to say, they told him to stop talking nonsense. They told him, “That’s your brain damage talking!” Menny stayed in touch with the Christian minister who volunteered at the nursing home, and she encouraged Menny to go back to Israel: “God gave the Land to your people. That is where you belong.” So, after forty years in America, Menny returned to Israel a very different man.

Learning the Hebrew Name of His Savior
After Menny returned to Israel, his minister friend continued to stay in touch and disciple him. After the covid restrictions in Israel were eased, she encouraged him to get connected with a local church. She sent him the name of an English-speaking Lutheran church in the area, but the number she sent him was our number instead. It seems that God wanted Menny to get to know the Jewish identity of His Savior and to learn His Hebrew name, Yeshua.

I talk to Yeshua all the time
For someone who has gone through so much suffering, you would never know from Menny’s attitude. He is happy, has a great sense of humor, is outgoing and is full of life. He also shines the light of Yeshua. “I talk to Yeshua all the time,” he says, “When I’m walking, at night when I can’t sleep. I talk to Him and ask Him to help me.” It is clear that Menny has a very special and deep connection with the Lord Yeshua through his experience after the accident, but Menny is also growing in the depth and understanding of His faith, getting to know the Jewish side of His Savior by reading the New Testament. Last week Menny decided that he wanted to make a declaration of his faith in water immersion, accompanied by pastors from Tiferet Yeshua leadership team and other friends. A week later, we asked him how he feels: “I feel new, like if I think about the future there is nothing that upsets me. Just peace.”

by Tamar Afriat