Wishing everyone a very blessed Sabbath!

https://tube.ttn.place/watch/ysIp9TuIUx7Iae3

"Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire."

Lk 3

Shabbat Shalom, fellow humans! Praise Yahuah!

Thought for Today: Shabbat February 17

Following YHVH, is the pathway to joy and each step is blessed by the tenderness of His love.

Christi Banks
SHABBATH SHALOM!

Here is your question for today found in Malakym Aleph 5:6-13:

What did Shelomoh use to cover the walls, and what was used for the floors of the Temple?

Sabbath Keepers Fellowship & Prison Ministry
Christi Banks
Yochanan Ben Yisrael
19 T’rumah – Haftarah
Melakym Aleph (1 Kings) 5:26-6:13
And YHWH gave Shelomoh wisdom, as He promised him. And there was peace between Ḥiram and Shelomoh, and the two of them made a covenant.
And King Shelomoh raised up compulsory labor out of all Yisra’ĕl. And the compulsory labor was thirty thousand men.
And he sent them to Leḇanon, ten thousand per new moon by courses – they were one new moon in Leḇanon, two new moons at home. And Aḏoniram was over the compulsory labor.
And Shelomoh had seventy thousand bearing burdens, and eighty thousand hewing stone in the mountains, besides three thousand three hundred from the chiefs of Shelomoh’s deputies who were over the work, those ruling over the people who labored in the work.
And the king commanded, and they brought large stones, precious stones, to lay the foundation of the House with hewn stones.
And Shelomoh’s builders, and Ḥiram’s builders, and the men of Geḇal did hew, and prepared timber and stones to build the House.
And it came to be, in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Yisra’ĕl had come out of the land of Mitsrayim, in the fourth year of the kingdom of Shelomoh over Yisra’ĕl, in the new moon of Ziw, which is the second new moon, that he began to build the House of YHWH.
And the house which King Shelomoh built for YHWH was sixty cubits long, and twenty wide, and thirty cubits high.
And the porch at the front of the Hĕḵal of the House was twenty cubits long, according to the breadth of the House, and its width ten cubits, from the front of the House.
And he made for the House windows with narrowed frames.
And against the wall of the House he built rooms all around, against the walls of the House, all around the Hĕḵal and the Speaking Place. Thus he made side rooms all around.
The lowest side room was five cubits wide, and the middle one was six cubits wide, and the third one was seven cubits wide; for he made narrow ledges around the outside of the House, so as not to lay hold on the walls of the House.
And the House, when it was being built, was built with finished stone made ready beforehand, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the House while it was being built.
The doorway for the middle side room was on the right side of the House. And they went up by stairs to the middle side rooms, and from the middle to the third.
So he built the House and completed it, and he panelled the House with beams and boards of cedar.
And he built the side rooms of the structure against all the House, each five cubits high, and they were fastened to the House with cedar beams.
And the word of YHWH came to Shelomoh, saying, “This House which you are building – if you walk in My laws, and do My judgments, and shall guard all My commands and walk in them, then I shall confirm My word with you, which I spoke to your father Dawiḏ, and shall dwell in the midst of the children of Yisra’ĕl, and not forsake My people Yisra’ĕl.”
😘

Christi Banks
SHABBATH SHALOM!

Here is your question for today found in Shemoth 27:9-19:

What was the covering for the gate?

Sabbath Keepers Fellowship & Prison Ministry
Christi Banks
Yochanan Ben Yisrael
19 T’rumah – Day 7
Sh’moth 27:9-19
“And you shall make the courtyard of the Dwelling Place: for the south side screens for the courtyard made of fine woven linen, one hundred cubits long for one side, and its twenty columns and their twenty sockets of bronze, the hooks of the columns and their bands of silver, and so for the north side in length, screens one hundred cubits long, with its twenty columns and their twenty sockets of bronze, and the hooks of the columns and their bands of silver.
“And the width of the courtyard on the west side screens of fifty cubits, with their ten columns and their ten sockets.
“And the width of the courtyard on the east side fifty cubits.
“And the screens on one side of the gate fifteen cubits, with their three columns and their three sockets.
“And on the other side screens of fifteen cubits, with their three columns and their three sockets.
“And for the gate of the courtyard a covering twenty cubits long, of blue and purple and scarlet material, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver – four columns and four sockets.
“All the columns around the courtyard have bands of silver, their hooks silver and their sockets bronze.
“The length of the courtyard is one hundred cubits, and the width fifty by fifty, and the height five cubits, woven of fine linen thread, and its sockets of bronze.
“All the utensils of the Dwelling Place for all its service, all its pegs, and all the pegs of the courtyard, are bronze.

Sabbath Keepers Fellowship & Prison Ministry
Christi Banks
Yochanan Ben Yisrael
Tehillah 92 – Day 7 (ShabbatH)
It is excellent to give thanks to YHWH, And to sing praises to Your Name, O Most High; To declare Your mercy in the morning, And Your trustworthiness each night, On ten strings, and on the harp, To the sounding chords of the lyre.
For You have made me rejoice with Your work, O YHWH, I shout for joy at the works of Your hands.
O YHWH, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep!
A senseless man does not know, And a fool does not understand this.
When the wrong spring up like grass, And all the workers of wickedness blossom, It is for them to be destroyed forever.
But You, YHWH, are on high forever.
For look, Your enemies, O YHWH, For look, Your enemies do perish; All the workers of wickedness are scattered.
But You lift up my horn like a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.
And my eye looks upon my enemies; My ears hear the evil-doers Who rise up against me.
The righteous one flourishes like a palm tree, He grows like a cedar in Leḇanon.
Those who are planted in the House of YHWH Flourish in the courts of our Elohim.
They still bear fruit in old age; They are fresh and green, To declare that YHWH is straight, My rock, and in Him is no unrighteousness.

Sabbath Keepers Fellowship & Prison Ministry
Ovadyah Ben Yisrael
From This Week's Torah Portion:
Terumah
Adapted from an article by the Temple Institute
Even before "In the beginning..." Elohim's intention was for His presence to dwell within creation and to bless creation with His goodness. For this reason Elohim placed man - Adam - the crown of Elohim's creation within the Garden of Eden to dwell in intimate proximity to YHWH. And there the story would have ended, but for Adam's defiance of Elohim's single stipulation. So when Elohim asked Adam, "Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" and Adam refused to accept responsibility for his actions and cast the blame on Elohim, saying "The woman whom You gave to be with me she gave me of the tree; so I ate," and it became clear to YHWH that this arrangement could not endure, He cast Adam and Eve from the garden. And thus begins what we call history. Man carried on in a world of "thorns and thistles" and Elohim, His plan for creation confounded by the wild card called man, had to find a new approach to His beloved creation. So Elohim waited patiently for man, endowed with the freewill first exercised by Adam, to willingly turn his heart to YHWH. And this, of course, is the story of Avraham, who Elohim refers to as "Avraham, My beloved." But Avraham, as we know, was just the beginning of the story of man's return to YHWH and YHWH's endeavor to renew His presence in creation.
This is the backstory behind YHWH's forty-day private meeting with Moshe atop Mount Sinai. Having brought Israel out of Egypt and blessed her with Torah, opening with the Ten Commandments and continuing with the rules and regulations designed to enable the formation of a just and loving society, the time has come for Elohim to share with Moshe his chief desire: to dwell amongst His people. At last YHWH can unburden Himself to Moshe and relate to him all the details of His age-old dream of an earthly Sanctuary within which His presence can dwell. But YHWH's great take away from Adam's primordial rejection of Elohim's will, was that this time, the initiative, the desire, the longing and the hands-on effort to bring YHWH back into our lives must come from man. And so Elohim opens His discourse with Moshe, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take for Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My offering. And this is the offering that you shall take from them: gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson wool; linen and goat hair; ram skins dyed red, tachash skins, and acacia wood; oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the incense; shoham stones and filling stones for the ephod and for the choshen. And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst." YHWH knows that His long deferred dream can only be realized if man's heart desires it. It's no longer enough that YHWH wants to be with His children. His children must want to be with Him. The only way to let YHWH into our hearts is to open our hearts with generosity, to create a space for Elohim to fill. And just as individuals must possess a heart inspired to generosity to let Elohim in, so must a nation redeemed by YHWH, and told that it will be a "kingdom of kohanim and a holy nation," possess a heart and a place for YHWH to fill with His presence. YHWH is calling on us to be His partner in perfecting creation. YHWH wants a dwelling place within our midst, to be our neighbor, to be part of our lives, not just as individuals, but as a people, and, ultimately, as a family of nations. This is what Elohim is telling Moshe on top of Mount Sinai.
Building a Sanctuary for YHWH, a Tabernacle in the wilderness, and a Holy Temple in Jerusalem is nothing less than an act reclaiming responsibility for our own actions in Elohim's creation. It was Adam's refusal to accept the responsibility for eating from the tree of knowledge that first caused the rupture in man's relationship with YHWH and it is the positive response to Elohim's call for "every person whose heart inspires him to generosity" by which we reclaim our responsibility, not only to ourselves, but to Elohim.
Elohim is not commanding us to possess generous hearts, nor is he compelling us to build for Him a Sanctuary. Neither love nor generosity can be commanded. But only love and a spirit of generosity, of sharing our existence with Elohim, and of giving of ourselves to make it happen, can build a house for YHWH so that He may dwell amongst us. YHWH is appealing to man to lift ourselves up, (the root meaning of the Hebrew wore "terumah" (offering), to make our highest aspirations YHWH's highest aspirations, and He is telling us that He can't do it alone! Only we, frail mortals that we may be, can roll up our sleeves, wipe the sweat from our brow and build a physical house of wood and stone and silver and gold for YHWH to fill with His supernal presence.
This is the place that the world will stream to at the end of days, to bask as one in the presence of Elohim's love and blessing. This relationship, that Elohim first forged with Avraham, His beloved, is what Elohim desires for all mankind. We will soon discover that the children of Israel in the wilderness were up to task, and together with one heart swiftly and lovingly build the Tabernacle in perfect accord to YHWH's desires. Are we up to the task today? Can we set aside our petty differences and open our hearts to one another and to YHWH? Are we willing to give of ourselves and of the gifts that Elohim has blessed us with in order to create a place on earth where all Elohim's children can share our humanity and open our hearts to YHWH's blessings? It's truly all that Elohim is asking of us.