Rebekah

Well now Mister Cohen, did you enjoy Japan? What did you learn?

<= = = Everything is incredibly expensive. And it was a long plane flight, I watched the move the Watchmen, mom would have never let me see it, but it was playing and I was bored and it was really intense. And keep some toilet paper with you in case you need it since it is not always available. And some of the hotels there are huge, we stayed at the Hotel Nikko. Tokyo. It is incredible, we ate dinner one night as the sun was setting and the city lights started getting brighter, it was really cool. And the Japanese were all very friendly and I was amazed how many people from all over the world were in Tokyo and the same was true of Kobe. We visited the Synagogue at Kitano-cho. It turns out most of the people there are not into fishing, it is actually pearls, but I guess it is similar. But I have a question sir. On Wednesday the Asahi Shimbun newspaper carried a story about the Euphrates. They said it is drying up and that is a sign of the end times and that was predicted in the book of Relevation. The Watchmen had sighs about the end times as well, what exactly are the end times, what does the Torah say about it?

Well, first of all, it is the book of Revelation, the vision of St. John when he was imprisoned on the island of Patmos. In verse 16:12, it says "The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East." However, what is going on in Iraq is not the work of an angel, Turkey and Syria have built dams to keep water from feeding the Euphrates. The Torah refers to "The end of days". The prophet Isaiah says: "And it will be in the end of days, the mountain of the House of YHWH will be established at the head of the mountains, and higher than the hills, and all the nations shall stream unto it. And many peoples shall go and say 'Let us go and ascend to the mountain of YHWH, to the House of the God of Jacob that he teach us from his ways and that we may go in his paths, for the Torah goes forth out of Zion and the word of YHWH from Jerusalem.' And he will judge between many nations and rebuke many peoples. And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nation shall not lift up sword against nation and they shall no longer learn war."

So it is a time of profound reverence to the LORD. If you look around, we are not in such a time. It will be a significant upheaval going from an earth in rebellion to the LORD to a world that reveres the LORD. And of course it will be the time when the LORD is able to bless the families of the world through the offspring of Abraham and so we return to our story, OK?

Then Eleazar the servant took ten of his master's camels and left, taking with him all kinds of good things from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim, (Aram of Two Rivers) and made his way to the town of Nahor, which is called Harran today in Southern Turkey. He had the camels kneel down near the well outside the town; it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water.

Then he prayed, "O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a girl, 'Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,' and she says, 'Drink, and I'll water your camels too'--let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master."


Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.

The servant hurried to meet her and said, "Please give me a little water from your jar." "Drink, my lord," she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. After she had given him a drink, she said, "I'll draw water for your camels too, until they have finished drinking."

So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels. Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels.

Then he asked, "Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night?" She answered him, "I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son that Milcah bore to Nahor." And she added, "We have plenty of straw and fodder, as well as room for you to spend the night."

Then the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord, saying, "Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master's relatives."