TRUE STORY: Potty-mouthed teenager slips and falls on her rump right after loudly cussing, just yards away from where Bill and I were doing our weekly Torah study last weekend! Coincidence? You decide!
Yes, this really did happen last weekend when we went hiking near San Francisco. Rather than to hang out in our boring hotel room all day Saturday, we decided to do some hiking in YHWH’s Great Outdoors,
To keep from committing commerce or causing anyone to work on Shabbat (i.e, cooks and waiters), we decided to take along our Bible and our sack lunches. After about 45 minutes of following a grueling trail up the side of a mountain, we found a gorgeous, rocky outcropping near one of the waterfalls, where we sat down to eat and do our Weekly Torah study in the natural beauty surrounding us.
That particular study (Parasha 46) was PERFECT, because in it, we came across this passage that brought tears to our eyes, for it almost seemed as if YHWH was speaking to us!
Deuteronomy 8: 6 So obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God, living as he directs and fearing him. 7 For ADONAI your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs and water welling up from the depths in valleys and on hillsides. 8 It is a land of wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land where you will eat food in abundance and lack nothing in it; a land where the stones contain iron and the hills can be mined for copper. 10 So you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless ADONAI your God for the good land he has given you. (CJB)
As always, my husband read the Torah portion aloud to me. This one was fairly short; only about half an hour – and it was PERFECT! But, just as we neared the end of the readings, some hikers - an older woman with two very loud-mouthed teenaged kids decided to check out the same area, just yards away from where we were perched. They stared at us for a few seconds (and could obviously SEE that Bill (aka Liam) was reading the Bible to me), but they chose to ignore us and kept on with their loud bantering.
We figured our study had been brought to an abrupt end when, suddenly, the older teen (a girl of about 17) apparently seeing something up in the trees, shouted, “WHAT THE F----?”
As if on cue, she immediately lost her footing and fell hard onto the rocks - and I mean bone-jarring HARD, because she happened to be a big, heavy gal. At first, she attempted to laugh it off, but then she started crying a bit when she realized she had scraped the palms of her hands pretty badly.
But soon, they were all laughing, and when we realized the girl was okay, Bill resumed the readings because the incident had served to quiet the trio down enough to where I could hear him again.
Unfortunately, “the enemy” had yet another ace up his sleeve, because suddenly four more loud people appeared on the other side of us … AND, to make matters worse - they were all drenched in strong perfumes. (I can’t handle perfumes because they give me instant headaches, swollen sinuses, sore throats and can even kick off asthma).
Needless to say, I was FURIOUS!
Regardless, my hubby was determined to finish the Torah reading in spite of the growing noise around us, so I covered my nose with my jacket, and stuck it out for another couple of minutes … after which, we hurriedly got up and left.
The good news was that YHWH had seen fit to give us a glorious half hour of peace and tranquility in beautiful surroundings where we were able to honor Him without interruption!
What an awesome ELOHIM we serve!
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