Parashat 13 Portion 47 Shemot/Ex 3:1-4:13 Yesh 40:11-19 Acts 10:9-28

Only the true shepherds of Messiah Yahshua will bring you back to the land of Israel for ever and ever

                                רק הרועים אמיתי של ישוע המשיח יביא לך לחזור לארץ ישראל לעולמי עולמים

Exo 3:1  And Mosheh was shepherding the flock of Yithro his father-in-law, the priest of Miḏyan. And he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to Ḥorĕḇ, the mountain of Elohim

Exodus Rabbah 2.2 (Shinan ed., pp. 105-106) explains that through shepherding the flock YHVH establishes whether a person is worthy to be chosen for a special task in the life of the people:

Moshe appealed to Yitro to stay with Yisrael in their wilderness journey because he was a good shepherd.

Num 10:31  Then he said, “Please do not leave us, because you know how we are to camp in the wilderness, and you shall be our eyes.

“and you shall be our eyes” is written in the future tense. Rashi translates this as “if anything should be hidden from our eyes, you will enlighten us”

This is a rather profound prophetic statement and is seen by some as a future prophecy of the significance of the “gerim” or the “grafted in branches” of Israel playing an extremely significant role in bringing light to the Torah of YHVH as it relates to end time issues and the returning of all exiles to the land of Israel.

The Sixth Hebrew Month (ELUL)

The Sixth month on the Scriptural calendar is the final month before the Fall Moadim start.  (The last 4 Appointed times (Moadim) are the Fall Appointments that we have with YHVH ~  'Fall' as in Yisrael's Fall season). This Sixth Month on the Scriptural calendar is also called Elul since Babylonian exile. The word "Elul" (aleph, lamed, vav, lamed), the after-captivity name of this month, forms the well- known acronym “Ani Ldodi Vdodi Li” which means "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine". (Song of Songs 6:3). Elul normally corresponds on the Gregorian calendar with August/September.

Fall Moadim (Appointed times):

Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets or Day of the Awakening blast),

Yom HaKippurim, (Day of the coverings also known as Day of Atonement)

Sukkot (the 7 day Festival of Booths or Tabernacles)

And Shemeni Atzereth (the Eighth Day assembly that falls on the eighth day at the end of  the seven days of Sukkot.) This Eighth Day Assembly (Shemeni Atzereth) is a one- day Appointment/Festival that speaks so beautifully of the "eighth day" (which at the same time is the First day of a new beginning) that will come after the Millennium (Millennium= the seventh thousandth year which gets portrayed beautifully by Sukkot) and will mark the new beginning of eternity.

Yom Teruah falls on the first day of the Seventh Scriptural month. (Normally it corresponds with somewhere during Sept or Oct on the Gregorian calendar) The Sixth Month (Elul) begins thus 29/30 days before Yom Teruah and 40 days before Yom Kippur. Jewish tradition treats this entire 40-day period as a time of spiritual preparation and renewal leading up to Yom Kippur.
Traditional services throughout the 29 or 30 days of this month of ELUL include blowing the shofar every day in the morning (the Jews don't blow it on Shabbat and also not on the last day of this Sixth Hebrew month, in anticipation for the start of Yom Teruah) as also readings from the Tehillim/Psalms. It is a good tradition and something that we can apply too to our personal prayer lives. (Not a commandment, so you don't have to do it.) It can be a blessing to read the entire Book of Tehillim/Psalms during this Sixth month though. If you read 4-5 average psalms a day, or 1-2 of the longer ones, you can make it through the entire book.

Some other interesting points
It was most likely (possibly) during the month of Elul that the ministry of Yochanan (John) the Immerser (Baptist) reached its peak. Possibly Yahshua was baptized on Elul 1 and he ended his 40 day fast on Yom HaKippurim. This is also the time that according to tradition, Moshe fasted 40 days the second time. It was on Yom HaKippurim (also known as Yom Kippur) that the Jubilee Year was announced every fifty years as stated in Vayiqra/Lev 25:8-10,

"Count off seven sabbaths of years — seven times seven years — so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan."