Clean or Unclean? The Torah's Call to Set-Apart Living. My Sabbath Thoughts and Reflections on Torah Reading Tazria-Metzorah
Release Date: 04/18/2026
UFOs, UAPs, and the Unseen Realm: A Messianic Response to a World Looking Up
The Messianic Torah Observer
In this installment of the Messianic Torah Observer, we discuss one of the hottest topics and subjects of the day: UFO and UAP. In this discussion, we explore the UFO/UAP phenomenom from a Messianic/Hebrew/Biblical perspective and determine how we answer a questioning world on what these things and beings are and how we are God's chosen and elect must treat them. Be prepared to have your worldview challenged and even shaken. But more so, be equipped to be a light and salt to a world that is desperately in search of answers and direction.
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Re'eh: What Dos It Mean To Truly See?
The Messianic Torah Observer
In this installment of The Messianic Torah Observer, we turn our attention to Parashat Re’eh, contained in Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17, and to Moshe’s opening admonishment to Yah’s covenant people: “See.” Re’eh is not merely an invitation to notice something with our natural eyes. It is a divine call to perceive, discern, and rightly assess what Yehovah has placed before us: blessing and curse, covenant faithfulness and covenant compromise, life and destruction. Beloved, this teaching presses into the personal and communal nature of Moshe’s instruction. Re’eh begins in the...
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Hebrew Roots Versus Messianic Judaism: A Debate Every Torah-Keeper Needs to Understand
The Messianic Torah Observer
Beloved, this discussion is not about chasing titles, defending camps, or winning theological arguments for the sake of argument. It is about understanding where Hebrew Roots and Messianic Judaism agree, where they part company, and why that distinction matters to every Torah-honoring disciple of Yeshua Messiah. In this episode, Rod Thomas responds to the First Fruits of Zion article, “Hebrew Roots Is Not Messianic Judaism,” and carefully works through the questions of identity, Torah obligation, covenant membership, Jewish distinction, Gentile discipleship, and the body of Messiah. Along...
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The Commandments We Trample Underfoot Eikev the Wilderness Test and the Torah-Grace Question
The Messianic Torah Observer
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Tu B'Av: The Day Nobody Told You About
The Messianic Torah Observer
Saints, Tu B’Av is one of those days on the Jewish traditional calendar that most of us in the Messianic and Hebrew Roots community have simply walked past without ever realizing it was there. And although it is not one of the mandated Feasts or Moedim of Yehovah, this 15th day of the 5th biblical month bears within it a beautiful redemptive pattern that speaks directly to the redeemed of the Most High. Coming just six days after Tisha B’Av, Tu B’Av reminds us that Yah has a way of turning the darkest seasons of judgment, exile, mourning, and loss into seasons of restoration, joy,...
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Is the Hebrew Roots Movement a False Gospel? Answering the Critics
The Messianic Torah Observer
Beloved, accusations that Torah-honoring believers have embraced a false gospel, fallen from grace, or placed themselves back under the Law are serious and deserve a careful, Word-based response. In this installment of The Messianic Torah Observer, Rod Thomas addresses three common criticisms against the Hebrew Roots and Messianic Torah communities and shows why grace-motivated obedience is not legalism, why Acts 15 does not abolish Torah for Gentile believers, and why Yeshua remains the center and proper interpretive key of the Torah-observant walk.
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One Messianic’s Perspective on Tisha B’Av: What Matters and What Doesn’t Matter
The Messianic Torah Observer
Beloved, in this second installment of our brief Tisha B’Av series, we turn our attention to what should and should not matter to the modern-day Messianic, Hebrew, Netsari disciple of Yehoshua HaMashiyach. Tisha B’Av is not one of the mandated Feasts of Yehovah. We are not commanded to keep it. But that does not mean the day is spiritually irrelevant. If our Master wept over Yerushalayim and the coming destruction of the Temple, then we who belong to Him should at least understand the grief, history, prophetic weight, and covenant lessons attached to this solemn memorial day.
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From Mourning to Comfort: The Biblical Calendar Signal for the Week of July 20–26
The Messianic Torah Observer
Greetings Saints. This is the week that pivots. There is one week in the Jewish calendar that moves from mourning to comfort in the space of just 48 hours. It begins with Tisha B’Av, the fast and memorial connected to the destruction of both Temples and other tragedies in Jewish history. But beloved, mourning is not the final word. The very next Sabbath brings Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Comfort, where Yah declares through Isaiah: “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people.” In this teaching, we look at the Biblical calendar signal for the week of July 20–26, the Vaetchanan Torah...
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Shabbat Chazon: The Sabbath God Shows You the Temple You Lost | Parashat Devarim
The Messianic Torah Observer
Welcome, beloved, to this Shabbat Chazon teaching from The Messianic Torah Observer. Today, on the Sabbath of Vision, we slow our rhythm down and consider what Yah may be showing His set-apart people as we approach Tisha B’Av and sit inside Parashat Devarim — Moshe’s final words to the generation preparing to enter the Land. In this discussion, we look at Deuteronomy 1:1–3:22, Isaiah 1:1–27, and John 2:19–21, asking what it means for Yah to show His people the Temple they lost — not as punishment, but as an awakening unto longing, repentance, and restoration. And for those of us...
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Why Tisha B'Av Is the Day Yeshua Wept — And Why Every Believer Should Know It
The Messianic Torah Observer
In this solemn and timely teaching, we explore Tisha B’Av — the ninth of Av — and its connection to Yeshua’s tears over Yerushalayim. Drawing from Luke 19, Matthew 23, Lamentations, Jewish tradition, and the historic destruction of the Temples, this episode calls believers to recover lament as a necessary and righteous discipline of covenant faith. This is Part 1 of a two-part teaching leading into Tisha B’Av.
info_outlineIn this installment of the Messianic Torah Observer, I reflect on Torah Reading Tazria–Metzorah (Leviticus 12:1–15:33), exploring the Torah’s purity standards and how they point beyond the physical to enduring spiritual principles. Using the themes of childbirth, tzaraat (“leprosy”), and bodily flows, this teaching highlights how holiness is protected, how cleansing and restoration work, and how Yeshua refocuses defilement from external ritual concerns to the heart (Matthew 15:10–20). I close this episode with practical encouragement to pursue both physical stewardship and deeper spiritual cleanness as temples of Yehovah’s presence.
In this episode:
- Overview of Tazria–Metzorah and its three major sections (childbirth, tzaraat, bodily flows)
- Why purity standards matter: holiness, community, and access to Yehovah’s presence
- Hygienic and ritual purposes: not mutually exclusive
- The priesthood’s role: examining, diagnosing, declaring clean/unclean, mediating restoration
- Quarantine, “seventh day” separation, and “eighth day” restoration as a pattern of new beginnings
- Cleansing, atonement, and water immersion as recurring Torah themes
- How to apply “out-of-commission” Torah instructions today through spirit-and-truth principles
- Sin as the deeper parallel to impurity; protecting the set-apart community from “leaven”
- Yeshua’s teaching: defilement proceeds from the heart (Matthew 15:10–20)
- Practical encouragement: maintain the body as a temple and pursue spiritual, emotional, mental cleanness
Scripture references mentioned:
- Leviticus 12:1–8 (childbirth and purification)
- Leviticus 13:1–14:32 (tzaraat / “leprosy”)
- Leviticus 15:1–33 (bodily flows)
- Exodus 19:5–6 (treasured possession; priestly kingdom; holy nation)
- Leviticus 19:2; 1 Peter 1:16 (be holy as He is holy)
- Isaiah 55:8 (His ways/thoughts above ours)
- Matthew 5:18; Matthew 5:20 (Torah enduring; righteousness)
- Matthew 6:33 (seek first the Kingdom)
- John 4:23–24 (worship in spirit and truth)
- 1 Corinthians 6:19 (body as temple)
- Hebrews 9 (Messiah’s priestly work; atonement themes)
- 1 Corinthians 15:46 (natural first, then spiritual)
- 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (all Scripture profitable)
- Hebrews 12:1 (sin as weight; running the race)
- 1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9 (leaven principle)
- Matthew 15:10–20 (what defiles a person)
- John 8:12; 1 John 1:7–9 (walk in the light; confession and cleansing)
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 (righteousness in Messiah)
Reflection questions:
- Where do you most often treat “cleanness” as merely external rather than a heart issue?
- What patterns of separation and restoration ("seven" then "eight") do you see in your own walk?
- How can you pursue set-apartness in practical ways while keeping the focus on spiritual cleanness?
- Are there “leaven-like” compromises that need to be addressed for the health of your fellowship/community?
- What does it look like this week to walk in the light and practice confession and repentance?