This week's Torah portion is called Mishpatim, which means "judgments." This section contains over 10% of all the commands given by God in the entire Torah! Don't worry -- you won't run out of things to discuss this week!

Do be sure to take time to discuss as you read each day. Besides being commanded by God (in Deuteronomy 6:6-9), this is where the fun and memories of homeschooling happen.

However, some topics are trickier than others. For instance, if you have young children, you might want to focus more on why we don't steal (Exodus 22) and why we don't hit others (Exodus 21:12-14), rather than on seducing a virgin (Exodus 22:16-17). However, if you have teenagers, this might be a good time to discuss the responsibilities of marriage.

One topic that our own family was deeply convicted by was Exodus 22:18, "Do not allow a sorceress to live" (NIV). We stopped for just a moment after reading the verse, and we discussed whether sorceresses, witches, or magic should be allowed to live in the Elliott house if YHWH did not allow them to live in Israel. Dad then read from Acts 19:18-20, where the new believers in Yeshua at Ephesus brought their books of sorcery to a public place and burned them. One of our sons calculated that the cost of the books burned that day was close to $5.5 million in today's dollars! Dad and I were astonished as one by one, the kids listed books, games, and movies that we should get rid of. We thought our house was already pretty cleaned out, and it brought tears to our eyes to see the tender hearts of our children to the promptings of the Spirit.

Your family might be struck by an entirely different verse. But certainly, allow the Spirit to lead you in obedience this week. May we all be "Torah observant" in word and in deed!

Spelling Challenge: Can your family members spell "judgments" correctly? It would be a great week to learn to spell this difficult word properly. You can also learn to spell it in Hebrew at this website!

Let's quickly summarize what we've already studied about character.

Character can only be passed on to our children when we have it in our own hearts first.

When we say that we want to teach "good character" to our children, we mean that we want to teach them how to be holy.

What we worship defines the character that comes out of our lives. Why? Because our worship of God tells Him and others that we agree with Him. Our actions back up what we really believe.

When I worship God, I'm telling Him that I agree with Him. I'm also admitting that only God can define what holiness really is.

Holiness can be a sticky issue. Our culture doesn't have any standard of right and wrong. It often comes down to, "This is what our family does, so that's why you should do it."

So why does your family do it? When your child is grown, why should he continue to do it "your way"? Wouldn't it be okay for him to invent his own standards of right and wrong?

If he comes up with his own standard, then does he really have good character?