Hashem’s One Word

We live in a Greek existence.  

Turn on the television and you’ll see all sorts of lewdness and violence. Go on the internet and you will hear every type of lashon hara.  

Did you know that the sin of lashon hara is really dozens of sins? It’s not like eating bacon. If you put a strip of bacon in your burger, it’s a single sin.  

If you tell a true story about your best friend that makes him look just a little bit less in the eyes of the people you are telling it to, not only have you transgressed the mitzvah don’t peddle in gossip, you have also transgressed love thy neighbor, don’t put a stumbling block in front of someone (by causing them to listen to lashon hara), and chillul Hashem.  
You are also causing others to sin because merely listening to lashon hara is a sin. Every article we read online that denigrates a Jew, even if it is true, is a sin.  

Tell that to some of the most popular websites and social media platforms.  

Why don’t they think about God? 

Because they think He’s gone fishing.  

This is the insanity we accept when we commit a sin without considering what we are doing. We think He is not around because we think He is not punishing us.  

This is the Greek concept of God: He created the world, flipped a switch, and went on holiday.  

This is the logic they use for deluding us into thinking we can do whatever we want: He is not watching.  

The Idolatry 

Then there’s the idolatry.  

By focusing so much on Hollywood stars, technology, and the government, we get convinced that God can take a break because they will solve all our problems.  

Health, hunger, justice are now matters for the people to address. The people, or the right people who have the resources and influence, are given popular consensus to take on God’s role in saving mankind.  

At least that’s the platform they run on, and that’s the platform on which we vote for them.  

This turns us all into idolaters.  

Instead of One God, there are several beings who can change as if they are god.  

Prayer has been reduced into oral statements.  

Instead of praying to the Source of our universe for moral vindication, we declare beliefs. Gone from today’s lexicon are the 10 Commandments. They have been replaced by a new testament of the supremacy of people of color, the righteousness of sodomy, and the divine truth behind climate change.  

This is world that blinds us to God. This reality straitjackets us from knowing Who is truly in control.  

As long as Edom is in command, we will be suffocated by the winds of cursing Donald Trump, judging others based on color, and worshiping Obama the Great and those who follow in his path.  

Not to worry.  

Hashem destroys this all in a single word.  
 

Overturning the World in a Single Word 

Every blessing that we recite destroys their world.  

Our blessings are acid to the Greek statues.  

Ata. 

That’s it.  

Hashem created the world in a single utterance, and He gives the Jewish People the chance to tear it down with a simple statement.  

What does Ata mean? 

It is the second word in every one of the 100 blessings we make each day.  
 
Baruch Ata. Blessed are You.  

If the Greeks were right and for the moment, God weren’t here, we would say Baruch Hu or Blessed is He 100 times a day. When you talk about someone in the next country or even in the next room, you refer to him in the third person.  

When you are talking directly Someone, you say “You.”  
 
“Honey, you made a great meal.” 
“Buddy, you really know how to cheer a friend up.” 
“Son, I love you.” 

We say “you” to people right next to us.  

When we declare our blessings, we are calling out to You. We are saying God is right here next to us. He is here, right now, listening to our words of praise. 

You might be in Arizona reciting this bracha. Someone else can be in Argentinia, or even Athens. I am reciting my brachot in Afula.  
 
That’s how we know He manages His world, every detail, at every moment.  

If He were in just one place, then we would say Baruch Ata in Jerusalem, and Blessed is He, in Jacksonville.  
 
The fact that we all call out to Hashem, from the wide distances of the earth, by saying You means He is everywhere. He is in all of these places.  
 

His Name is One 

If we were idolaters, Hashem forbid, we would be saying Baruch atem (Blessed are you – plural), or Baruch hem (Blessed are they).  

Baruch Hashem, we don’t.  

We say Baruch Ata. We use the singular. Every blessing declares Hashem is One because we say You.  

Changing the World 

When we recite the incantations about racial equality, global socialism, or climate change, it’s just words. In the past 15 years, we have experienced a man of color serve as the American president, massive money invested into green technology, and a drive to socialize.  

Nothing has changed.  

The social and financial position for the average person of color has gotten worse. Climate change has gotten worse. Socialism has led to shortages of everything.  

Reciting these mantras have done nothing to but make things worse.  

When you recite a bracha, you change the world.  

Take a piece of fruit, cut it up, then put it on a plate. Sit down and relax for a second. Concentrate on how Hashem takes a seed the size of the pupil in your eye, gives it sunlight, rain, and soil to make this seed a 10-meter (30 foot) tree that produces over 300 apples, all from that seed the size of the pupil of your eye.  

Close your eyes and concentrate on the meaning of the words: 

Baruch Ata Hashem, Elokeinu Melech Haolam, Borei Pri Ha’etz.  

Blessed are You, God, our God, King of the world, Who creates the fruit of the tree.  

Open your eyes.  

You will feel different. You might become a little lightheaded. You will feel a rush of spirituality all around you. You will feel a change in the entire room.  

Your words revealed Hashem’s presence to our world.  

That’s what prayer can do: Draw God’s presence from the hidden to the openly revealed.  

Your prayer added God’s light to the world. You made a difference by simply saying Baruch Ata.  

The forces trying to subdue His world are working 86,400 seconds, or in smartphone time, 86.4 billion nanoseconds to confuse you into thinking that God isn’t here, He isn’t One, and your words are don’t matter – especially next to theirs.  
They want you to ask yourself How can anything I say to them compete with their social media posts, cable news commentary, newspaper articles, and trillions in equity? 

Hashem gives you 100 gifts each day to see the truth through all their confusion.  

You have His word on it.