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The
Birthday
Most souls
realize that birthday parties do not have their origin
in the Household of Faith, therefore those who celebrate
birthdays have ultimately gone elsewhere to establish
their authority, and of course minhagim (traditions) is
how birthdays came about. One might think birthdays
being such a trivial matter, don't need to be judged by
the Authority of Scripture or the Beit Din, the fact of
the matter is, there is a right way and a wrong way to
do everything. The Disciples of Yeshua are
entrusted to yield to Yeshua's authority within each
Prophetic and Torah based directive given by the Word of
YHWH. We as a people do solely rely on His Authority to
establish our halacha and minhagim. YHWH is One
and His Name One, He is not divided in Himself and
neither are we who walk by the Spirit and not after the flesh. There
is no authority given in Torah or the Ketuvim Netzarim
to celebrate birthdays, but all who walk by Faith in
Yeshua must each year do battle against the rank
paganism of the Christmas birth of Jesus/Tammuz and also
witness the propping up of green trees commemorating the
festival of a pagan deity.
There is no
tradition in Judaism of celebrating birthdays, otherwise
we would have a list of birthdays from Noah, Abraham to
Moses, King David and many others, but no such thing
exists. There are of course Sages who have suggested
that certain individuals were born on Moedim or
important days of Israel's history, however there are no
"birthdays" within Judaism, Torah, the Ketuvim Netzarim
or the Household of Israel.
Spiritual Jews do not celebrate birthdays, counting our days is one thing, celebrating them is
yet another.
The fact is the Tanak only mentions a birthday once, that was
the birthday of Pharaoh. It was
Pharaoh whose whole life was set out for him in advance,
who never seemed to have the will to do the right thing.
He is the only one who celebrates a birthday in the
Tenach. Pharaoh shows a defiance for the things of
YHWH, he is the epitome of a pagan, an enemy of YHWH and
and enemy of the Israel of Elohim.
We must not
take up a lukewarm value system over the matter of
birthdays or anything else, because thou art lukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my
mouth. Because you say, I am rich, and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that
you art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked. The giving of gifts to children because
of the ritual of birthdays can breed covetousness,
greed, envy, rebellion, lack of appreciation etc, these
are not the values that are to be visible within the
Body of Mashiyach.
In Judaism souls are memorialized by their day of death,
their yahrzeit - their personal anniversary, not the day of
their birth. One who
follows Mashiyach must certainly be spiritually born again
to enter into Life. This spiritual re-birth looks
forward to the Olam
Haba and pales the physical birth by a quantum leap.
By elevating ones physical birthday the flesh is
magnified above the spiritual.
The Moedim of YHWH are set times that
provide opportunity to celebrate and be birthed in a
spiritual new beginning into the Kingdom of Elohim.
The Moedim are replete with infinite insights that take
values of time and space in this present world, and
reveal them inside an eternal dimension.
YHWH
instructs us to do what is pleasing to Him by His
appointments, "If you turn
away your foot from the Shabbat, from doing your pleasure
on MY Holy Day; and call the Shabbat a delight, the holy
of YHWH, honorable; and shall honour HIM, not doing
your OWN ways, nor finding your OWN pleasure, nor
speaking your OWN words..." Isaiah 58:13 We
are also instructed of the annual Moedim (set times)
that YHWH desires us to come before Him Leviticus 23,
these Celebrations or Feasts unto YHWH are not optional
for the people of Elohim, nowhere is there or can there
be a mention
of celebrating one's birthday, this is an invention
of the flesh that points the other direction.
Those who are adamant to celebrate
birthdays are at a loss to show how YHWH is part of
their celebration, the fact is they are only justifying
a man made value.
47
Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do
judgment upon the graven images of Babylon : and her
whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall
fall in the midst of her. 48 Then the heaven and the
earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for Babylon:
for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north,
says YHWH. 49 As Babylon has caused the slain of
Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain
of all the earth. Jeremiah 51
The matter
of birthdays causing division in the Body of Mashiyach is
a very serious matter, there is no humor here. Many
souls perish
because of stubborn and willful defiance to the Word of
YHWH on many levels. Something as insignificant as
a birthday party could become a stumbling block for
souls unwilling to stand down from un-sanctified
humanistic celebrations and be used by the flesh to cut
themselves off from the Body of Mashiyach.
Ezekiel 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing,
Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not
your eye spare, neither have ye pity: 6 Slay utterly
old and young, both maids, and little children,
and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the
mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at
the ancient men which were before the house. 7 And he
said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts
with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth,
and slew in the city. 8 And it came to pass, while
they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon
my face, and cried, and said, Ah Adonai YHWH! wilt
thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring
out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? 9 Then said he unto
me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is
exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the
city full of perverseness: for they say, YHWH has
forsaken the earth, and YHWH sees not. 10 And as for
me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have
pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.
11 And , behold, the man clothed with linen, which had
the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I
have done as thou hast commanded me.
This
prophecy tells of those who put a branch to their nose,
they worshipped to Tammuz, as a seemly fun and innocent
detour from YHWH they made
sun worship or humanism their authority for worship. The
entire umbrella of all authority, that is not of YHWH, comes
from hasatan, hence the perilous present reality of relativism
has become the most popular form of religion. The
Judgment of YHWH against false worship proves to be very severe, "Slay
utterly old and young, both maids, and
little children, and women", the little
children are also to be slain, the little children carry
the generational rebellion of their forefathers. Some
say for example they wouldn't do birthdays except that
"we do it for the children", they want to make
all children feel special and
honored. Some say God is Love and He would never
wipe out little children. Some say it's the "Old
Testament" thinking that YHWH would do such a
thing. Some say they are under a dispensation of
grace where God is Love and He forgives everyone,
in their sin. Some people make up their
own gods through the imagery of their minds, they've
been told a lie and they believe a lie. YHWH is LOVE,
He is Righteous and His Word protects us, but those who mock His Word and His Holiness
are His enemies and the enemies of His called out
people.
It is one
thing to observe a birthday party, it is yet another to
do it on Shabbat, and yet another to rebuke someone for
giving a clear warning that there is more to a birthday
party than eating some cake, and having a bit of "fun". If anyone judges a brother for
bringing this matter before the body, the entire body of
Mashiyach will also stand judged on this matter, these
issues are never just between a couple individuals only. YHWH
marks those who sigh and cry for the abominations in
the land, and who refuse to compromise with Hellenism.
Yet the Hellenists also number those as "legalists"
who walk in the FEAR of YHWH and are careful to Observe
all that He has Commanded us to do. The people of
YHWH are not in the least bit ashamed or concerned of
the criticisms outsiders have towards any
halachic decision given by the Ruach HaKodesh, in the Name of Yeshua.
Netzarim Yehudi do not celebrate birthdays, in 45
years walking as a Netzarim Jew I have NEVER heard of Netzarim
Jews celebrating birthdays, certainly not on Shabbat.
The age and birthdays of those in the community are
recognized by verbal mention, but not celebrated, those
who have a family get together with a few friends do not
do so on the actual birthday of their children and teach their
children the significance of a mikra kodesh vs a
family party.
Some
Talmidim of Yeshua grew up in homes where Christmas was
celebrated and in the course of time separated out of
their lives that which is pagan. The influences of
paganism within Judaism and Christianity are many and we
must all be vigilant to not become lukewarm. Grace is given to each
one in Mashiyach to make
distinctions and walk upright in Yeshua and Torah, while the world
accuses us before our Father for being
"legalistic" we aim to please our Father not
men. We are called to be a peculiar people unto YHWH,
but the love of many is growing cold because of their
anti-Torah values. The Word of YHWH judges
everyone equally,
His Grace gives us the strength to lay down the things
which do not profit.
This over-emphasized extra-biblical feast day is clearly
centered on the flesh, not the Creator. The
celebration of birthdays is usually accompanied by a
barrage of immunity-reducing, sugar-saturated cake and
ice cream, otherwise known as the foods of Babylon see
Daniel 1:9-16. "Forasmuch then as Mashiyach has
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise
with the same mind: for he that has suffered in the
flesh has ceased from sin; That he no longer should live
the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men,
but to the will of YHWH. 1 Peter 4:1,2.
The Ketuvim
Netzarim do not record the date of Yeshua’s birth, and
do not describe any celebrations, yet various Christian
groups set dates for a birthday party for "Jesus", based
on long established pagan dates. Roman Catholics and Protestants
use December 25, Eastern Orthodox use Jan. 6, the Greek
Orthodox celebrate on January 7th. In the "Holy
Land", the Orthodox churches use the old Julian calendar
introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1578,
which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, to
determine the date for
Christmas. Accordingly, the
Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 19th.
According to Roman
Catholic sources, their date for
Christmas was changed
from January 6th to December 25th in order to override a
pagan feast dedicated to the birth of the Sun, which was
celebrated on December 25th. The Greek founders of
"the church" encouraged Greek Christians to continue all
their pagan celebrations, but to use the name of Jesus
instead of Zeus, Ishtar etc. Clearly anyone who
celebrates the birthday of Jesus has fallen into
paganism, in more ways than one.
Groups such as the JW's and
Mohammedans reject the commemoration of one's birthday
because of its pagan origins.
The
celebration of birthdays has been historically embraced
by non-Jews:
1. "And it
came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's
birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants"
Genesis 40:20
2. "But when
Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias
danced before them, and pleased Herod." Matthew
14:6
3. In
2Maccabees 6:7, there is the reference to the monthly
genéthlia of Antiochus IV, during which the Jews
were forced to partake of the sacrifices.
Josephus (Wars of the Jews, vii. 3. 1) refers to
Titus’ celebration of his brother’s and father’s
birthdays (genéthlia) by slaughtering Jewish
captives.
There is
also the matter of Job's children's observance, "every one his day":
"And his
sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his
day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat
and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of
their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and
sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and
offered burnt offerings according to the number of them
all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned,
and cursed Elohim in their hearts. Thus did Job
continually." Job 1:4-5
There is an
affinity of such commemoration among the wicked as
recorded in The Satanic Bible (Anton Szandor LaVey,
(Air) Book of Lucifer – The Enlightenment, Avon
Books, 1969, Ch XI, Religious Holidays, p. 96)
regarding Birthdays: |
