Crossing Over – A Hebrewism (1)

(“Back to Beit Lehem”    |    The Jordan Journey, part 1    |    May 10, 2018)

We were about to break bread together, when God impressed me with this picture, that shows a piece of His heart.

“A wound inside His heart?” I wondered. Yes, apparently. Inside His heart I saw the map of Israel and Jordan, with a deep wound in the middle. The Jordan valley, the Rift.

This happened at the end of a Jewish-Arab conference I attended. After listening to stories and testimonies for two full days, I realized how most of us deepen the wound. Not because we fight with one another. The conference was full of mutual respect and sincerity. But many times we think we sow healing, while in reality we scratch the wound, tearing more layers apart.

And it is not only Arabs and Jews who cause it. Most Christians who are involved with this region or live in Israel tend to take sides, thus making the wound bleed even more, not realizing this Rift is right in the heart of God.

I also saw that the wound will be healed with tears shed from the north, filling the water reservoirs along the rift, and eventually turning the Sea of Salt into a sweet resource.

Ruth and Naomi Journey Together

When I saw that picture, I was already planning to travel along this wounded rift a few days later. The idea to take that journey was birthed in a surprising encounter with a Jordanian “Ruth”, who popped into my life as if straight out of my book’s pages (see “His Faces” – new book now available), or rather, out of the Bible.

My plan was to cross the border with her into Jordan. I wanted to symbolically go into “exile” as a Naomi, in order to “collect” myself, my people, and cross back into Beth Lehem – into the house of bread.

My first meeting with my two Arab Ruths – Priscilla and Rania, in Jerusalem 

We first met a few weeks earlier, at the beginning season of the harvest of barley, right before Passover. So Pentecost sounded like the best timing for our journey. After all, the book of Ruth takes place between these two season (see Ruth 1: 22), so delighted about the perfect timing, we decided to relive the story of Ruth and Naomi.

I also had a personal agenda. I connected this journey to my personal healing process in the Tabernacle [see I Will Tabernacle Inside You], and was looking forward to touch my alienation from myself from a fresh angle. I figured that this journey is not only prophetic, but also a personal return from my emotional exile. No more standing on Mt. Nebo, looking at what is happening as if it takes place outside myself, and sharing it only after I process it.

I had no idea I was going to leave a part of my heart there and return home with deep insights concerning the wound, or that I will be carrying it inside my heart. I did not know it was going to affect my routine, my understanding, my passions. To the point I could not even write much about it until now. I couldn’t find the right words to describe this precious experience. No, this was not an experience; It was a journey, a passing over the wound back and forth.

A Hebrew 

In Hebrew, “crossing over” means exactly that – to be a Hebrew.  The words cross, pass and a true Hebrew are derived from the same root: ABR.

Abraham was a Hebrew because he crossed over from a culture of idol worshipers into monotheism, from Ur of the Chaldeans into a promised land. The children of Israel are called Hebrews (see for example Gen 43:32; Ex. 2:6, 13; and others). Back than we were not Jews yet. Jews are the descendants of the kingdom of Judah, and that comes into the picture much later. The first time an actual reference is made to the Hebrews as Jews (YEHUDIM) is in 2 Kings.

So I was ready to practice my Hebrewism, to cross over the rift, the wound, and see how God will lead us and use us.

Ruth and Naomi – Priscilla and myself in a wheat field in Jordan

Be on the lookout for my next post, in which I will start sharing about the richness of that journey.